How to Convert iTunes Song to a Ringtone
Great article over at Lifehacker on converting songs to a ringtone for the iPhone. You’ve got to be a Mac user as you have to use Garage Band as part of the iLife ‘08 suite. Doesn’t sound like there is an easy way to do it with Windows yet except using a bunch of open source stuff. Hence the reason you should get a Mac anyway.
What’s my ringtone? I chose a ringtone for Jenn using Justin Timberlake’s “LoveStoned”. Cheesy? Yeah. Do I care? Not really. We love having a good time with one another…
HD Format of the Future?
So as we are all aware by now there’s the whole Blu-Ray vs HDDVD debate on which HD movie/video format will win. While it seems to be clearer these days that Blu-Ray is going to be the winner with multiple studios announcing the allegiance to Sony’s Blu-Ray format, I’m not convinced that the future of HD content will even be on Blu-Ray. Why? Keep reading.
As I’ve stated before, I think that the wave of the future is going to be medialess - meaning that there will be no tangible media for movies and content. Look, it’s quite simply the trend that we see now. All your favorite movie rental places are coming out with a download or on-demand video service, such as Blockbuster & Netflix. Even Apple is starting to get in the game with their revamped Apple TV product, which lets you download some movies in HD format.
So how is this going to be accomplished? How are the big ISP’s going to manage that much bandwidth and streaming media over their networks? Well, I guess you could start by saying that they are commiting to better connectivity such as fiber-to-the-curb service by both AT&T and Verizon. But what about all that bandwidth moving through the internet and major backbones? It’s not! And I’ll tell you why. While I think that clearly the future for HD content is in fact medialess and will be streamed over major transit carriers, the way that it has to be done is via set-top boxes in a BitTorent model. About two years ago I wrote an article about ISP v2.0 and streaming media to a set-top box as a media center PC replacement. However, being that I work for an ISP (Speakasy) I don’t think that streaming media in it’s final state is going to go over the net. Rather, it’s got to be localized and supported by BitTorrent set-top boxes so that media can be delivered locally on last mile connections rather than upstream on the major carrier backbones. Here’s a great article over at Wired on Myka’s new BitTorrent set-top-box; it’s a pretty good read.
Watch folks, HD media v2.0, set-top-box v2.0, and ISP v2.0 will be born soon. All your content will go right into your living room without inserting or ejecting a tangible disc.
Terminix, Quit Trying So Hard…
So Jenn and I are watching the news and a Terminix commercial comes on. “The average Termite eats 24×7…” So what does the above average Termite eat? I don’t know, you figure it out.
I guess some products have a hard time coming up with creative copy for their advertising. It’s like selling ice cream. “Our ice cream is the best, it’s cold and gooood. Yummy!”
Jenn’s Surprise 30th B-Day Party
So - I haven’t been able to tell anyone this or blog a whole lot because I’ve been super slammed with work and Jenn’s recent surprise party for her 30th birthday. Long story short we got a bunch of her friends and family together last week (Feb 9th) and faked like we were going to this really nice tennis facility near our house. I told her that I wanted to look at a new workout facility because of its close proximity and to come with me to look at it. Welp, we pop in there and walk up stairs to this party room. All of the sudden… boom! Surprise! Thanks to all of our friends and family that came - it was awesome!
Below is the video that I played at Jenn’s party for her that I made on my Mac using iMovie 08. Just an incredible program, by the way.
Watch TV Online. No, Really - it’s Joost!
So as the internet continues to mature and grow in regards to content delivery and media, more and more companies are popping up on the radar for online videos. In comes Joost. This is a pretty cool service that allows one to use it’s client-side application to watch TV online. Tons of shows and there’s not any annoying commercials you have to push through. Check it out, it’s free!
Hi, My Name is Michael and I’ve Been ‘Windows’ Free for 1 Day
.. ok so it’s not that dramatic, but I’ve finally made the transition from Microsoft’s Windows to Apple’s Mac OSX. After years and years of bondage, I have finally been set free! Now instead of troubleshooting, right-clicking, googling solutions, uninstalling, blue-screening, things just work. It’s true what they say; on a Mac, it just works.
I’ve even got my wife set-up on the Mac now. Hello new hottness!
You Know You’re From Texas When…
“If they are looking for weight lifters to come out of Texas, that’s not what we’re producing. There are a lot of guys who can bench press 300 pounds in the NBA who couldn’t play dead in a cowboy movie.”
Taken from ESPN’s article regarding Kevin Durant’s NBA pre-draft workout.
It’s Mike: 1-Year Anniversary
Well, exactly 1 year ago today I started writing and blogging on my own server! I’ve written 167 articles during that time frame and can say that I’ve really enjoyed keeping up with my blog. It initially started out to simply write about life, technology, and work, but grew to so much more. It ended up being more about articles on items that I’m passionate about (excluding work for obvious reasons) such as Technology, Internet, Athletics, as well as a lot about my family, pictures, and videos. So I guess I would classify my blog as more of a multimedia type experience given the videos, content, and pictures that I have published. I even had fun with some photoshop to spice things up a bit (sorry Ella, I love you though!)
I’m also amazed at all the folks that visit my site as well. While I obviously don’t get many comments (55 to date), I am often told by friends, family members, and colleagues that they visit my blog frequently. So many thanks to all of you that read it and have a glimpse of the different aspects of my life and family. We are truly blessed by it all and love sharing in our experiences.
To my Ella - You are truly a blessing in my life. Watching you grow over the past 14 months has been amazing. Words cannot express the joy that I have when I am around you and when you smile, talk, garble, yack, clap, hug, kiss, slap, and gaze at me. You are an inspiration to your Mother and I and we will always love you, teach you, care for you, be an example of God’s word to you, pray for you, and provide you the best life we are physically able to provide. You love it when I sing to you, play with you, walk and talk with you, kiss and hug on you, and read to you. Your smile, your cute little curls, and your big-blue eyes will always be forever burned in my mind.
To my Wife, Jennifer - Since the day that I met you I have loved you. You constantly amaze me with your patience, gratitude, warmth, desire for Christ, and being the best Mommy in the world. I truly could not succeed at life without you and know with out a doubt that you are in fact my soul mate. Your encouragement and voice are always on my mind, bringing peace to me daily. It’s been a joy and blessing to be married to you for 5 years, 6 months! You are my best friend, my companion, my love, by sweetheart, inspiration, and motivation in Christ. Words can’t begin to express my thanks and all I know to say is “Thank you for loving me”.
Apple’s iTV & iPhone
With Macworld happening this week (not to mention CES), I was actually impressed with Apple’s latest offerings coming about. As most of you are aware, I’ve been looking to build a media center PC or Home Theater PC (HTPC) within the past couple of months. I was actually fixing to pull the trigger on either the VoodooPC Aria or Niveus Rainier Media PC. However, lately I’ve run into a couple of set-top box solutions, such as an amazing Helios X3000 product, that stream your media from a storage server (which I already have) and play it in high-definition over your TV. Considering that I want to mainly stream music, photos, and movies from the file server - this is looking more like the traditional path I should take. However, I decided to wait until Apple came out with their stuff as there was a rumor about the iTV coming out.
One of the Best Home Theater Builds
Go through all the galleries, pretty impressive.
More Terry Tate - the Office Linebacker
Haha! Back by popular demand, it’s v2 of Terry Tate. Let’s see what he’s up to now:
Ok CNN, I Officially Have an Issue Now
So those of you that know me understand that I lean more on the conservative side with the Republican party. I’m also aware that as a member of this party my opinions may be naturally biased. Further, I’m also aware of how biased CNN is as a news organization against the Bush administration towards his policies and initiatives. I’ve tolerated some of their ignorant news casts here in the past, but recently have become tired of their recent antics.
Vacation, College Football, TV Shows
Hey friends, been busy again with traveling and family vacations lately, so I haven’t been able to update the site as of late. We took a trip to Colorado with some family for a week and spent some time in the mountains. Needless to say it was a well needed break from the daily grind, more specifically the internet.
We’ve also been busy with catching up on the College football scene here recently. As I’ve mentioned before Jennifer and I are avid football fan watchers, so Saturday mornings are often spent watching the latest and greatest and then discussing potential outcomes for the day. I guess it’s kind of like watching Saturday morning cartoons… but it’s College football. hrm.
Also, Grey’s Anatomy starts back up this Thursday with a new season. Fun stuff! What you may not know is that they are playing the season ending episode of last season tomorrow night! ABC is also doing a free download via iTunes of the series final as well. Go nab it, hurry!
I’ll post some pictures here shortly of some of our trip.
/me out.
Monday Night Howdy
Here’s some recent news that’s exciting to me:
Verizon introduces multi-room DVR. Nice product made by motorola, but doesn’t allow for play-back of digital media such as movies. However, I’m sure that’s soon to change.
Good video talking about WiMax for you new.b’s. Sprint also announced a $4 MM investment into WiMax. A few weeks back we spoke about how that I believe WiMax will power the next generation ISP, which could very well be a media based firm like News Corp.
HP Comes out with Streaming media TV. Uses WiFi or ethernet from your media center PC. Not bad.
Team USA is romping again. Two words: Coach K.
She crawls, sits-up, stands, and cuts a tooth - All In One Week!
So Ella has really been growing lately. And by lately I mean within the past 7 days. She’s learned to crawl, sit-up, pull herself up into a standing position, and cut a tooth all in the same week. We took a video of her last Saturday night as evidence and man was it funny. We often forget that she tends to spit-up as well, so those of you with a faint heart consider yourself warned! Na, it’s really funny though. Check it out!
AT&T Changes the Game… ISP v2.0 Isn’t an ISP?
Hi friends. It’s been a while, but recall that we have been talking about the way the net is changing and how users are interacting more and more with media based services. We’ve talked about how the net is changing the way consumers experience broadband applications and media (Fiber vs WiMax), how in the near future that the net may be the next gen OS, and how ISP v2.0 is what will rule the online world by offering everything media. Well, AT&T is getting closer and closer with some of its new services that they are launching - but I’m not convinced that it’s the next gen ISP.
Paving the Road to a Virtual OS? Webtop, Maybe
A while back we were talking about Web 2.0, ISP v2, etc and how media would be changing as we know it. So I’ve been messing around with a program called Goowy. If you recall in several previous articles, we were talking about how digital media would be delivered directly from content delivery servers from your favorite ISP. We also talked about how the transformation of ISP 2.0 would be that of media and content delivery, only it wouldn’t be done by your traditional media center PC’s running some operating system. Goowy is a program that they call a Webtop. Similar to the concept of a desktop, such as with the OSX or Windows, only its Flash driven and runs from the web browser. See how VC’s are going back to investing in the desktop again.
Within the Webtop you have your traditional daily tools that you might use, such as calendars, email, contacts, and even gadgets or widgets. It’s also unique in that it appears much like a hybrid of the Apple OSX and Microsoft Windows, so it’s easy to navigate. While I’m not necessarily an individual that will use this service exclusively for my daily use, I can see how this is paving the road for the next generation of internet and media based usage. Recall, by using a “virtual operating system” or Webtop in this case, there’s no use for physical media such as DVD’s, CD’s, etc. Everything will be delivered over the net. Also remember that we spoke about how the speed of the net is changing for consumers. From FiOS to WiMax, users can get to where they need to go quicker while downloading and sharing digital content with ease (and not having to wait for it!). I like Goowy’s concept, which is a Mark Cuban investment, and will be watching them closely at what they launch and do next.
iTunes to Host Movies
Apple today anounced that they are going to start hosting downloads for movies and want all movies to be $9.95 each. I’m all for it as I’m an iTunes & iPod man, however, I don’t want to watch movies just on iTunes or with Quicktime. I also don’t want to have to run it on Apple hardware either. Let’s face it, Apple has some really cool software and hardware, but their machines or Macs aren’t very desirable. What about the folks with media center PC’s?
Anyway, I’m definitely a fan of $9.95 movies for distribution; especially if they are in HD. However, you can go and nab TheaterTek DVD and run the native HD version of a move via its respective file. It’s just that obtaining the files may or may not be ‘consumer friendly’ if you know what I mean.
TiVo’ing Content for Mass Distribution
Ok folks, here we are again back in the digital distribution conversation. I promise, this one’s going to be a good read.
So most of us know of TiVo; it allows you to record your movies from your favorite satellite/cable provider and store them on its hard drive using it’s proprietary software. How proprietary is it? Well just ask DishNetwork - whom is getting sued over it. Well, they just anounced that they are doing downloadable digital content to their units that reside in the consumer’s home. Good stuff, but honestly it’s something that we’ve predicted and quite frankly we all expected. However, what’s neat is that they are taking streams from a video blog at Rocketboom. Now I’m not that interested in Rocketboom, but it can be entertaining none the less. Ahh, but this does lead into another thought of mine.
Web v2.0 - Not so fast
Howdy. Last week I wrote an article about how the next generation of digital distribution will be handled. In that article we discussed, amongst other things, about how ISP’s will transfer into a newer, faster version. The conclusion was wireless, not fiber, would create the next gen of broadband service providers. More specifically, it was WiMax.
Also recall that a few weeks ago I wrote an article on how digital distribution would birth a new form of broadband company. Now while I stated that costs would not be as high because of bandwidth requirements for distributing media over a provider’s own network, I failed to mention that there are capacity limitations. Thus, WiMax. In combination with the above statements of next gen distribution, I would suggest that ISP’s migrate this direction. So what’s the point here? Sit tight, it’s coming.
My iPod = Dead
I think my trusty iPod mini just died. It’s not broken or anything, it’s just the battery has finally kicked the can. That’s the only gripe that I have about the iPod - the darn battery life cycle. It’s too short. How do I know it’s dead? Well, every time I unplug it, it dies. It’s also been ‘charging’ for several days now.
So I was thinking about ordering an iPod Nano until I found a blog about replacing your own battery for about $20 bucks. Alternatively, you can take it down to the store and have Apple replace it for you for $60. I’m not sure that I’ll take on the expedition of a DIY project for my iPod, so we’ll probably shell over the cash and get it fixed. Yeah, I still want the iPod Nano, but my boss (read ‘wife’) says I can’t. Is it possible to slip $300 under the radar? Not if she’s a CPA 
Shoving a Camel Through the Pin-head of a Needle
As we all know, that’s virtually impossible. However, it may happen soon; just not in real-life. Confused? Yeah, read on.
So a couple of weeks ago I blogged about how ISP v2.0 would run the digital world. Not a crew like Microsoft, but the actual ISP. Turns out we are getting closer. I picked up the 22 May issue of Forbes just after I made that post and read an interesting article about digital distribution and video on demand. Turns out that the cable companies are having issues with streaming videos over the net because of analog signals utilizing so much bandwidth and massive video files, which is causing a huge bottleneck. Welp, out comes this company called RGB Networks. What they are doing is compressing the video files and saving as much as 40% in bandwidth utilization for these specific broadband operators. So, we aren’t seeing the transformation of ISP v2.0 quite yet, but RGB networks allows them to get more digital entertainment to the consumer much more efficiently.
Munich
I’m a Steven Spielberg fan, which means I usually buy all his movies. Munich comes out tomorrow and I plan on buying me a copy. Why not rent first? Dunno. Why not buy first? Yeah that’s right, I’m a ‘buy first ask questions later’ type of guy. 
