The Internet Age: 1969 Edition

Posted Saturday, July 11, 2009

This fantastic video from 1969 depicts a future where each of us has a "home post office."


It's amazing stuff.

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Improve the Readability of Any Web Page

Posted Thursday, May 21, 2009

Don't like to read long articles on the Web? You aren't alone.

Readability relief is at hand, thanks to an incredibly cool tool named, incredibly enough, Readability.

Using it couldn't be easier. Make some settings (the default settings worked fine for me), then drag its button up to your browser's bookmarks bar.

When you arrive at a Web page containing a lengthy article, click the Readability button on your bookmarks bar. You'll love the result.

Happy reading!

Speaking of reading. My iLife '09 book is at the printer! We shipped on Monday, and the presses are rolling even as I type. Look for it in stores within a couple of weeks. I'm wrapping up a couple of projects in advance of the US Memorial Day weekend, but next week I'll start posting some excerpts. Meantime, pre-order your copy on Amazon; see the sidebar at right.

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Muddy Waters at the Fillmore

Posted Tuesday, April 07, 2009

I love Wolfgang's Vault, an incredible collection of hundreds of live concert recordings from the legendary concert promoter Bill Graham.

Right now, I'm bobbing my head like the fool that I am while listening to a Muddy Waters Blues Band concert recorded at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium in 1966.

Here's one track for your listening pleasure. Check out the rest -- they're free to listen to, and ridiculously cheap to buy and download ($5.98 USD for 11 tracks encoded as 256kbps MP3s).

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Interview with Apple's Jonathan Ive

Posted Friday, April 03, 2009

This isn't new, but it's new to me: an interview with Jonathan Ive, senior vice president of industrial design at Apple.

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Multi Me-dia: An Interview and a Radio Show

Posted Monday, February 23, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, I sat down in San Francisco's Washington Square for a video interview to talk about iPhoto '09 and iMovie '09 with my friend Frederick Johnson, who used to work on the iLife team at Apple and is now a photographer, video blogger, and senior marketing manager at Data Robotics, makers of the way-cool Drobo.

You can watch the interview at Frederick's site.

If that isn't enough me: Last Wednesday, I hosted a call-in computer radio show whose subject was the growing number of Web sites that let you sell hand-made art objects or publish your own books. (Think iPhoto books, but with the ability to sell them on your own free storefront.)

The main subjects of the show were Etsy (for buying and selling hand-made artwork and the like); and Lulu, an amazing site that lets you self-publish everything from books to films to audio CDs. I talked with representatives from both companies.

If you make your own art and you'd like to sell it online -- or if you dream of self-publishing your own book -- you can download an archive of the show (11MB MP3 file).

And that's enough of me for today.

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Lego Tableaus Re-Create Classic Photos

Posted Saturday, August 23, 2008

From Wired's Culture blog: "Lego fanboy and amateur photographer Mike Stimpson found a way to combine his two loves: He recreates scenes from historic photographs using the plastic bricks, then snaps his own photos."

Enjoy.

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Lumisonic: Software for Seeing Sound

Posted Thursday, August 21, 2008

Here's a fascinating BBC News report on a research project aimed at enabling deaf students to assess the vocalizations they make.

Think iTunes visualizer, but with far more meaning.

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Where Vinyl Records Are Born

Posted Thursday, July 17, 2008

A cool photo-essay through one of only three record-pressing plants operating in the United States.

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