ralovely

A few thoughts

How Sonos Changed My Life

Those of you who know me also know that I’m fond of music.
Really fond. Can’t-live-without-it fond.

This pretty much means that I need music everywhere all the time.
Walkman, then DiscMan, then MiniDisc, then iPod solved the problem when far from home.
But Home has always been a problem.

I need to easily have access to any one of my 25 000+ song, in any room, at all time.
Seems easy. It’s not.

The first attempt to distributed music was Apple AirPort Express.
An as short as inconclusive attempt.
Second attempt, until recently was with Roku’s Soundbridge.
Wifi connected devices, with or without speaker, reading your shared iTunes Library.
Design of the product is average, interface is passable, and reliability uneven.
But it did the job, until one of the devices died.
Then came THE QUESTION:

Do I stick with this solution, or do I migrate to a whole other one ?

The other solution, you’ll have guessed, is Sonos.

For several months I wondered.
Then I took the plunge. Sonos it would be.
Sonos has nearly the perfect solution for ubiquitous music around the house.

To begin with, those nice white & alu little boxes fit perfectly in any interior.
Not the main issue, but important for us, aesthete.
Configuration : a breeze.
They choose not to rely on your crappy wifi network to provide the service; they create their own, without you even knowing. It’s fast, and streams my 320k m4a across the apartment when my Mac has sometimes a hard time finding my Airpot Extreme. And the more you add zones, the better is your coverage.

Once you point it to your iTunes Music Library, you can have your playlists and everything, without further configuration. You don’t even rely on iTunes anymore. The Sonos create it’s own stream, thus not being limited to 5 clients.
You interact with the system via an app on your mac, via the Sonos Controller, rugged and water-resistant, or, icing on the cake (three coats please) via a full featured free app on your iPhone.

What’s more to say… it works. Period.

All that is left is to choose a nice pair of speakers. I chose Jamo’s A102.
Not necessarily audiophile’s first choice (hey! let’s be honest, my bathroom isn’t the Vienna Opera Hall…), but nice performance considering size and look.

And for those of you needing more things on the cake, let’s say, a cherry, comes in the Sonos Customer Service. Nice people, actively contributing to Twitter, and ready to go the extra mile to make a customer happy.

It’s been a long time since I didn’t feel that way for a consumer product, and that feels good.

Of course, you could argue that it isn’t cheap.
I agree, but honestly, have you ever been really satisfied with cheap solutions ?
I figured not.

Life Is Good.

Flip! Flip! Flip!

I could make a t-shirt with that :

A few months ago, I was raving for the soon-to-be-released Sony and Sanyo tiny/HD/pricy camcorders…
and all I got was a Flip…

It’s low res, it has no function at all but it changed my D-life.
Better than the One Ring: you don’t need 8 phrases to describe it :

On button to rule them all.

Gruber, among many others, started to talk about it a month or so earlier. I even tried to debate it with him on Twitter — pointless: you can’t beat the Flip (and you can’t beat Gruber).

I can’t tell you what it does : it does nothing but record video. And that’s the whole point.
640×480 - 30fps. Output a divx-wrapped mpeg of good quality, that you can access as if it was on a thumb key. Tiny screen, play, pause, delete. And one big red button.
It has a really good performance in low light conditions.

You can seize any moment; would it be only 10 seconds long, you’d still catch the last 7.

I think that even if my iPhone was recording video, I would keep carrying my Flip in my pocket.

So, now for the tech part of the post: Quality is fine, but Divx sucks.
I don’t want my whole life being stuck in this MS-non evolving-10yo. format.
I don’t want to spend my life converting video either.

So, here are a few applescripts to take care of that (mainly originating from this forum post).
Mainly, it takes one or several .AVI files, via Drag&Drop or File Selection, launch QT, convert the files according to two QT Settings, save the resulting export in a folder, and moves the original file in a Done folder.
There is a second little script, to export the QT Settings.
Paths are hardcoded: Convention over Configuration.

To set up your environment:

1. Create the directory hierarchy that suits you. Mine is a video folder, containing a _to_be_converted folder,  a _tools folder (containing the scripts and QT Settings, and the converted videos at the first level.
2. Export your desired QT Settings: Convert a video with the settings, then launch the QTSetsExport script.
   Place your settings in your folder _tools.
3. Modify the ConvertMyVideos script to reflect your hierarchy.
   Be careful, applescript expects HFS formatted paths and not posix.
4. Start Converting !

Here is a .zip with my hierarchy, scripts, settings etc…

You just have to expand and copy it on your HD, edit the script with the location of the folder and you’re done. Settings export in H264, 5kb-640×480-AAC128k and 1k-480×360-AAC96k.

[Disclaimer: This is a really old post (july 08) kept as a draft until now. I still wanted to publish it, in the hope to help a lost soul with the scripts...]

Fighting moral crisis

Speaking of starting 2009 the good way,
here is a really good post from my friend @quidamned.
Here for the French Version,
and here for the google translated version.
Now, back to work !

PHP to XML to inDesign. How my two hemispheres ran into each other.

Next month is the first bday of my son.
A year ago, for the occasion, I set up some kind of blog so our closest friends and family could share some thoughts before the delivery, and we always said we’d publish a book for his 1st bday, with the content of the site.

Comes in the timing issue: less than 30 days until the dead line and everything left to do: designing, editing, printing, posting… Approximatively 500 hundreds posts, 100 pictures, 150 pages, and 50 copies to make.
Designing, took only a few hours, printing via Lulu will take a small week, the problem was editing.

Well, guess what: it only took a few hours.
I exported the content of the site in XML and imported it in inDesign, thus creating the whole layout.
(OK, it’s a little easier said than done, but it pretty much sums up the thing).
I still have to deal with a few bugs, mainly due to my experimenting while producing, but instead of the 30+ hours it would have taken manually, I think it will be finished in less than 5 hours, including research and development of the PHP/XML part.

This means particularly much to me. I have been in the designing/publishing business for more than 15 years,  and have been toying with Web technologies for a few years. And tonight, both of my worlds ran into each other and produced something quite satisfying.

This is a good day and a really nice way to start 2009.

This is not a HowTo post, and I don’t plan to do one. If you want more info, contact me.

Why I like Twitter (among other things)

A Matter Of Taste

A few weeks ago, I went to Fat Freddy’s Drop show, in Paris Le Zenith.

I just looove this band. My favorites artists right now. (And those who know me, know what it means…)
They have a few albums produced, and are preparing the next one.
They do great live performances too, 10 or more people on the stage, 2 hours performance, and really interesting mixes of their songs.

But…

this last show, I was a little disapointed.
It was a very dub interpretation of their songs, without the usuals syncop and breaks that make their music so enjoying.

I guess it’s a risk you have to take when you follow really talented artists. They search, research and evolve all the time. Sometimes you might not like it as much as the previous. Painters have their periods, why not musicians.

Anyway, as usual, here is a tatse for you to judge. FFD, Cay’s Crays, Paris Le Zenith, Nov, 12 2008.

 And don’t be fooled: I’ll be at their next 10 shows no matter what.

Culinairement Vôtre Goes Live

This one is more for Paris based readers.

A friend of mine launched his web site, and doing that, his company also : culinairement-votre.fr.
Being a cook, he offer his services to cook for you, or to teach you how to cook.
He’s not the first, nor the last, but he might be one of the best…

Regarding the site, I built it and I have to say, I like how it feels.
The übber connected among you might see an influence
(which I won’t divulge ; as Einstein said : “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”…)

Gmail Dresses Up

A small buzz is running along the web.
Google introduced themes to its already wonderful Gmail.
Just go under the Themes tab, in the settings panel, and choose.
As usual, they worked well. 31 themes, you’ll probably find your.
They are pretty neat, and cover the whole app. 
The geeky Terminal Theme, if not really easy to the eyes, will surely make a few users smile…

This is one of these little things that can make my day.

MS Photosynth, very cool indeed !

Most of my 2 readers know that: I’m a Mac Fan Boy…
We could put it another way: I’m usually not impressed with what comes out of Microsoft.
But once in a while, let’s face it, they have some pretty cool stuff.
Surface is cool, for instance.
But this time it’s more than cool. This time, it’s mega-cool.
This time it’s Photosynth.

I discovered it like 2 years ago, via there Live Lab website.
Photosynth takes a collection of photos of the same place, and merge them in a huge 3D/360° panoramic.
It’s completly amazing.
At first, it was a University of Washington project called Photo Tourism, and they didn’t screw it when they brought it back in Redmond.

The videos of the prototype are down, now that the product is live. One is available on Youtube though (even if it’s less appealing in low res…). They also presented a demo at TED last year.

You can’t access it from a Mac. I especially like the phrasing of the error page:

Unfortunately, we’re not cool enough to run on your OS yet.

BootCamped Mac will do; parallel or VMware won’t.
Try it, it’s really amazing. 

Hello World

Writng my first post from WordPress iPhone app.
The internet has evolved once more.

20 years doing something doesn’t make you an expert…

A few days ago, Macworld posted an article about the User Interface Design of a forthcoming third party iPhone App. Mighty Gruber posted it on Flickr, and the comments went wild.

Let’s say it, I think the design is pretty bad. Let’s say something else : some comments on the Flickr thread are plain wrong (a few are pretty funny though).

Steve Patt, the designer, posted a well deserved response (several actually).

Then, Ryan Singer from 37signals posted an article, seizing the opportunity to give a design course. He also links to Patt’s response, and as Ryan seems to be a well educated and nice person, he doesn’t judge Patt too hardly.

Comments on svn.37signals were more serious than the ones on Flickr, even if some, I think, misunderstood Ryan’s intention: He’s not defending the UI; he’s just forgiving the designer.

In the comments, I began posting a response to Patt’s.
(Responding to a comment on another’s site comments… Ain’t that Web 3.0 !?)

While I was doing it, I got more and more angry. I really think the UI is crap, and having someone defending and justifying it like that… makes me angry.
So, as nobody took the time to do it (at that time — a few did the same just after in SVN comments), I decided to do a mock up of something just a little less ugly.

Here is my take to it.
As I said in my comment, I’m not a UI designer, I never used the Apple SDK until then, it took me 1 hour, including the 1.25 Go of SDK download. I only tried to mimic Patt’s screen.

As a user, I still think it’s a crappy UI, the whole app should be rethought to really make it better; but it’s still way better than the original and it’s more compliant with Apple HIG.

 

So, to wrap up, Patt’s UI is really ugly and not easy to the eyes, an probably not to the finger.
He shouldn’t defend it too hard, especially arguing 20 years of designing apps. Designing Palm UI for 10 years doesn’t make you an expert at designing iPhone app.

This is just the first example of many to come, and the reason Apple is locking the App Store and filtering the content.
[update: App Store is up, and apparently, Apple is not filtering that much...]

PS: this earned me a link on Gruber’s Daring Fireball. Yay!

I lost… Fair & Square

A FAILing industry

There are many kinds of FAIL. Some might even be quite funny (when you’re not the one failing, of course).
But there is one fail that bothers me right now, a whole industry failing: the Home Entertainment Industry.

I’m fond of US fictions, TV or movies. But I live in France. So from Day 1, I bought most of my DVDs in the US. There was DVDExpress.com, and then Amazon. It gave me the 3-6 months my early adopter ego required.
I remember the 1st season of 24. I had the DVD box set 6 months before it was even aired in France. Nobody even knew the show, I was already addicted. How cooler can you be ?

Now, it’s a whole different story. The cool guys are the ones downloading the show, 20 mn after it was aired, for free, making me “the dumb ass paying his DVDs, only to get them 6 months after every one”.

So, I, who has been buying hundreds of DVD for years, who could afford to buy new ones, will now start to download illegally.

I call that a massive FAIL.

There are several reasons to this failure. Mainly due to the Studios.
In a nutshell, they still don’t know they have to adapt much faster.

First, they think they can pull the buy your video collection one more time with the Blu Ray, as they did with the DVD. So they throw little bones (iTMS, Amazon unbox…) to keep the tech-saavy guys calm, while they sell over priced Blu Rays to the others (not to mention those poor bastards who bet on the HD-DVD).

Then there is the “world problem”.
Yes people, you have consumers outside the US borders. Please, explain how comes it takes 6 month for a movie to cross an ocean ?! You might want to start to think global.

Last, there lack the technology. Studios (still them) don’t want to entrust a Microsoft, nor an Apple, with there movies.
They fear they will loose the control. So they try their own method, and fail. Not everybody is a Steve Jobs,  not every body can come up with a decennial plan to rule the world of medias and succeed.

So, here is a shot:

 

• Make movie premieres worldwide.
• Thus, making DVD/Blu Ray simultaneous (while you’re at it, drop DVD/Blu Ray zoning).
• Make downloadable versions of movies, over an ITunes/Unbox/Whatever-non-microsoft, platform independant,
  with the ability to store, organize our own collection. 
• Stop winning with your copyrights and everything: no one will ever pity you.

 

New Wordpress Is Great

The previous post was the first since Wordpress 2.5 upgrade.

It’s really cool. The work on the admin part is huge.
I particularly love the shift-return to make a new <p />, the embedded tag management, and all the DHTML nifty effects.

Cool !

We Want PHP!

Google App Engine will be big.
Lots of people are talking about it. There was this thing about HuddleChat, the rip-off of 37’s CampFire…
But beyond all that, it doesn’t take much foresight to guess it’s gonna be big.

They said it at launch, it will be language independant, but for now it’s Python only.

Here is a petition to make it PHP wise : I Want PHP.

Yes, we love PHP, and we say it loud !

Getting apache2 to serve eRuby files on MacOSX 10.5

Like many web developer, I heard of Ruby via Rails.
Rails make wonders. That’s true.
But it fits a really particular type of development. Application-oriented developments.
So Rails is not really for me (yet), but what of Ruby ?
Digging a little, reading about a lot, using prototype (rubyesque JS library), Ruby seems a really good choice for web dev.
So I decided to give it a try.
Being on MacOSX 10.5, I needed an install.
Browsing google helps a lot, but resources are a little sparse.
One more won’t hurt !

Source is mainly maymay.net
(if you’re interested in Rails, hivelogic.com is the place)

I will try to be a little less verbose than maymay, though.

You’ll need:

• MacOSX 10.5
• XCode 3.0 (you can find it on your MacOSX install CD, or online at developer.apple.com)
• root user enabled (with Directory Utility)

Steps are :

1. Install eruby
2. Alter Apache Conf

Where maymay advise to install MacPort to get eruby, I got it directly at the source: modruby.

Create a working dir where you please, download, expand, configure, make, make install, clean your mess :


ralovely$ mkdir ~/Desktop/wrkdir/
ralovely$ cd ~/Desktop/wrkdir/
ralovely$ curl -O http://www.modruby.org/archive/eruby-1.0.5.tar.gz
ralovely$ tar -xzf eruby-1.0.5.tar.gz
ralovely$ cd eruby-1.0.5/
ralovely$ ./configure.rb
ralovely$ make
ralovely$ sudo make install
ralovely$ sudo ln -s /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/eruby /usr/local/bin/eruby


That’s it you have a working eruby. You can check with:
ralovely$ eruby –version

or:

ralovely$ echo 'Hello world! The time is now <%= Time.now %>.' > test.rhtml
ralovely$ eruby test.html

You should see a Hello World with current date and time.

now you can clean a little:


ralovely$ cd ../../
ralovely$ rm -R ./wrkdir/


Now to step 2: mod apache2 conf file.
maymay’s mod is based on a Tiger Mac. Leopard comes with apache2, and the mod is a little different.
First, we link our freshly installed eruby to the web server CGI directory

ralovely$ ln -s /usr/local/bin/eruby /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables/eruby

Last, edit your httpd.conf file with your favorite editor (mine is pico)
but not without a little backup before:

ralovely$ cd /etc/apache2/
ralovely$ sudo cp httpd.conf httpd.conf.BAK
ralovely$ sudo pico httpd.conf


In there:
First, we allow symlink for CGI :
change:


<Directory “/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables”>
AllowOverride None
Options None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

To:

<Directory “/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables”>
AllowOverride None
Options FollowSymLinks
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>


then, look for the <IfModule mime_module> block and add

AddHandler rubypage .erb .rhtml
Action rubypage /cgi-bin/eruby

Save and exit. (ctrl-X then Y on Pico).

Reload your apache:

ralovely$ sudo apachectl graceful

You should now be able to serve .rhtml or .erb files on your MacOSX 10.5

MacOSX Server version should not be very different. I’ll test later.

Obviously bigger

I like how the new proto theme for Firefox Mac makes the back button much bigger than the Forward one.
Obvioulsy the Back button is used so many times more…
Certainly nothing new here.
But the point is this :
There are so many things we don’t question any more…
Always challenge established concepts !

- Why did you do it like this ?
- Eh… We always did it like this ?…

Dot Fruux

I’ve always been a little frustrated with .Mac.
I already have most of the services they provide, and paying for the ones I miss make it really expensive.
Like many, I didn’t wait for apple to get an email adress,
I have my own dedicated server, with a (this) blog, a self-cooked photo gallery for friends and family,
I carry an 8GB usb thumb in my pocket all the time,
and I have a VPN network between.
So, there goes the needs for Imap Email, Web Hosting, Web Gallery and iDisk.
Groups seems like a nice feature, but (a) I don’t have that many friends; (b) seems like a good one to develop myself if I needed it.
That leaves me with : Sync.
I have a few macs, and keeping in sync has always required some organization skills I miss.
Of course, there is the notMac Challenge but let’s face it, it doesn’t have a great momentum.

HERE COMES fruux !
A German initiative to solve this problem… and others.

One of the creators defines it as social and sync.
You can sync your Mac Adress Book (OK, but what else ?), and it will be able to keep your contacts up to date, provided your contacts also use it.
More info on that feature here.

It’s still in Beta (beta like in not ready to ship, not like in google’s beta) so it lacks most of the features, but it surely is promising.
I’m curently beta testing. It does one thing for now : syncing. But it does it well, nicely via a prefPane, and that’s all I’m asking - for now.

That’s a good news !

Simple ? Make it simpler.

I love my new microwave oven.
You just can’t make any simpler.
2 rotating knobs. That’s all !
One for power setting, the other for timing.
Nothing else, not even a start button.
And that’s the beauty. Once you set the timer, it goes off by itself, 1 second later.

The same goes for every thnig designed.
Be it a graphic design, a web design, an industrial design…
You made a simple product, almost an archetype.
Find that extra button you can get rid of.

That’s a lot of NO

NO external drive,
NO FireWire,
NO Ethernet,
NO PC Card.

That’s the price of AIR.
(That and $1799…)

That’s a lot of NOs comapred to what we’re used to, compared to what we expect (plenty of yes and more).
BUT (that’s one big but !) as any Apple product : wait to hold one in your hands before you judge,
AND try to let go old dying concept once in a while. You might even enjoy it.

To sum up: NO, NO, NO, NO, BUT, AND !

(Note: still, it lacks a 3G modem to fully embrace mobility. It will come soon)

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