We’re about to head North to my home state of Maine for a couple of weeks, a place I haven’t lived for 20 years. Over the past two decades, I’ve moved from Colorado, to Boston, to Guam, to Germany, back to Boston, to Germany again, to Hawaii, and (most recently) to Washington, DC. For work and pleasure, I’ve had the privilege of traveling throughout Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and around the Pacific Rim. Yet I still consider myself to be from Maine.
What I’ve missed most about Maine over the years, aside from family, is the remoteness of the place. At points past Bangor, you can still get properly lost. There’s the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, a natural water park over 90 miles long best seen by canoe. There’s Baxter State Park, where you can hike to a distant pond, cast your fly rod all day, and not once hear or see another human.
And there’s a vast section of unnamed townships between Bangor and Eastport riddled with lakes, covered by trees, and connected by logging roads. It’s one of many places in Maine where moose and deer outnumber people. It’s here that we’ll be staying with my folks at their camp on the edge of a very large lake sparsely populated with a few camps, cabins, and campsites. It’s a quiet place. It’s far from other people, electricity, running water, or many of the other amenities we’re accustomed to in our urban environment. And we can’t wait to get there.
When I was a kid, I used to explore the world with the aid of a small shortwave radio and dream about leaving Maine. I would often spend hours at night, alone in my room, slowly churning through the channels. I could usually get Voice of America and the BBC. I would often pick up French language stations from Quebec. I once picked up an English language broadcast from Cuba. And, weather permitting, every so often I would pick up broadcasts in German, Chinese, or Russian. It was exhilarating.
These days, I experience much of the world through the glare of LCD screens. At work, I spend the bulk of my days in front of dual monitors, shuffling between applications and responding to e-mails. At home, I often find myself sitting in front of another set of dual monitors, shuffling between a similar bunch of applications. And wherever I go, I carry my trusty iPhone. When I’m not working on a project, I’m likely managing multiple e-mail accounts, or floating between different social media sites, or surfing the Web, or doing something online.
While I’m a big fan of technology and gadgetry, the amazing ease and convenience many of us have grown to expect comes at a cost. Today, I can casually read news, hear radio stations, or watch broadcasts from all over the world. I can chat with friends in Europe as if they were next door. I’m never disconnected from the Internet. Yet I rarely feel that sense of mystery and exploration that I experienced surfing for distant voices over the airwaves.
That’s why I still like to listen to shortwave from time to time. It takes work. You need to find the right bands, you need to dial slowly, and you need to rely on chance because reception is tied to atmospheric conditions. Sometimes you find interesting broadcasts, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you only pick up the background radiation of the universe. In all cases, you can only listen. I like that.
I’m looking forward to visiting Maine. It’ll be nice to get away from the city and unplug for a while. I’ll also be taking a shortwave radio. For an hour or so during the trip, I plan to canoe out into the lake at dark, put on some headphones and see what I can tune in.
As I mentioned in a previous post, part of my job is to produce a bi-weekly audio podcast (for the National Ocean Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). Recently, I was asked to put together a presentation about what it takes to produce it. To that end, I made the following video at home on my Mac using a product called ScreenFlow from Telestream.
This screencast provides an overview of the workflow involved in the podcast production process, with a few tips specifically relevant to those who work in the Federal government. However, it’s aimed at a general audience. If you’re interested in making a podcast with interviews, it’ll give you a good sense of the time and resources involved.
It’s also a demonstration of ScreenFlow, an outstanding screencasting application. I purchased ScreenFlow a few months ago, and intend to use it for some future projects on this site. It’s a bit pricey at $99, but well worth it if you have the need. It’s as easy to use as iMovie, and I think the results are stunning. Enjoy.
It seems that all I’ve been posting about as of late are notifications of Mac software discounts, but there’s a new bundle deal on the street that I want to highlight for two reasons: (1) the business model is notably different from the rest; and (2) the first grouping of applications are quite good.
You can find it at TheMacBundles.com. Fifty dollars will get you nine solid titles, including notables such as Default Folder X, Spell Catcher X, DragThing, GraphicConverter, and HoudahSpot.
The idea behind TheMacBundles.com is similar to what you may be familiar with from promotional bundlers MacHeist and MacUpdate. The difference is in the details, and it all comes down to weighing cost versus benefit for developers and consumers.
Let’s look at the criticisms of the ‘traditional’ model. The main complaint is that application developers see very little in terms of profits. The big controversy over the past few years has centered around the benefit of participating in such a deal: for the developer, does the exposure gained by selling en masse via a bundle outweigh the cost of receiving very small returns? The answer to that question is, well, still in question. What is clear is that, despite the apparent growing success of the bundle model, it will only continue to work if developers continue to think it’s worth it.
For the consumer, criticisms center around what you get for your dollar. Often, packages include a few big names alongside many little-known ‘filler’ applications. Added to this, the licenses you receive from traditional bundles are sometimes limited, meaning that you must pay full price for an upgrade when new versions arrive—and those upgrades may be released sooner than later.
In my experience as a bundle consumer, I’ve generally found that benefits outweigh the cost. For developers, however, it must be a real conundrum: is the exposure worth the cost of practically giving an application away?
TheMacBundles.com is a fresh attempt to address these concerns. The new bundling site is self-billed as ‘the farmers market for software.’ While the analogy doesn’t fully hold, I think I get the point. In the U.S. at least, buying goods from a farmers market generally means supporting small-scale, locally-grown produce. Consumers generally pay higher prices, but do so willingly to support the hard work and dedication of the local farmers. They do so to keep those farmers in business and because the quality of the local produce is generally superior to the stuff you would get at a big box supermarket. I can get behind that.
At ‘the farmers market for software,’ you support the ‘local developer’ (read: more so than if you shopped around with those other bundlers). And this is the main point: the business model is centered around supporting the small-scale developers who are working hard to bring us outstanding third-party apps for the Mac. I often tell my Windows brethren that the third-party software one can get for the Mac has no parallel. If this model better supports the people behind this software and brings forth higher-quality, more frequent discount bundles…then I can certainly get behind that, too.
From TheMacBundles.com mission statement (yes, there’s a mission statement):
* All of the software titles in each Bundle are of outstanding quality and often are recognized as best-of-class programs-there are no “filler” titles in the Bundles.
* Only developers that have demonstrated a commitment to providing outstanding customer service and technical support are invited to participate in a Bundle.
* Except for very small order processing and administrative costs, all of the proceeds from sales of a Bundle go to the developers of the software-no middlemen are involved.
* The savings realized by the innovative business model used by TheMacBundles.com is shared with its customers-buyers of a Bundle on TheMacBundles.com get the best software at the best prices.
* All of the programs included in a Bundle are the latest versions of the software.
* All users who buy a Bundle are entitled to the same level of support and the same reduced price for upgrades that apply to users who paid the full retail price for the software.
The first bundle is a good one, and it’ll be offered for two weeks. After that, we’ll hopefully see another package. And that’s one other notable difference from other bundle marketing efforts: we can look forward to bundled app deals throughout the year.
1. MacUpdate Spring Bundle: Yet another bundle for $49. Standout included applications are TechTool Pro, Parallels, Circus Ponies Notebook, and NetBarrier.
2. Google Wave: What would E-mail look like if it were invented today? Check out this video preview from the Google I/O developer conference. Pretty interesting and ambitious (and it’s open source).
3. Adobe CS4: Dvorak and WebKit. I recently learned two interesting bits about Adobe CS4. First, CS4 drops Opera as a built-in rendering engine and replaces it with WebKit (the open-source browser engine used by Safari and Chrome, among others). That will fix the problem I encountered with Opera. And for Dvorak users out there, I received word from a reader that Adobe CS4 now correctly handles Dvorak and Dvorak-Qwerty. Finally.
4. QIDO: A company called KeyGhost in New Zealand is now offering a hardware device that plugs into a USB keyboard and allows one to convert from Qwerty to Dvorak instantly without relying on spotty operating system support (especially from Windows) and even spottier application support. They’re sending me one to test out and review. More to come.
5. History of the Earth in 60 seconds. I came across this several months ago. Watch 4.6 billion years of history compressed into one minute. Cool.
6. MIT Media Lab Center for Future Story Telling. I also came across this many months ago and have been meaning to post it. Here’s an excerpt:
Research will range from on-set motion capture to accurately and unobtrusively merge human performers and digital character models; to next-generation synthetic performer technologies, such as richly interactive, highly expressive robotic or animated characters; to cameras that will spawn entirely new visual art forms; to morphable movie studios, where one studio can be turned into many through advanced visual imaging techniques; to holographic TV. It will draw on technologies pioneered at the Media Lab, such as digital systems that understand people at an emotional level, or cameras capable of capturing the intent of the storyteller.
The MIT Media Lab does some very interesting work. The new Center is slated to open in 2010, but research is already underway. Sounds intriguing. Can I work there?
Just in case you haven’t heard, Panic software is offering all of their applications at a 50 percent discount through 11:59 Pacific, May 29th.
The folks at Panic make some of the best software out there for the Mac, so it’s worth checking out. I’m a huge fan of Transmit, their FTP client. I think of Transmit daily when, at work, I’m uploading files using the notably inelegant WS_FTP Pro.
What could be so exciting about an FTP tool? The answer to that gets at why Panic is so well-respected: Transmit—not unlike Panic’s other apps—is elegant, simple to use, and beautifully designed. It’s the kind of app I like to show people who wonder what I mean when I say ‘it’s very Mac-like.’ It’s a steal at the discounted price of $14.50.
You can also pick up Coda (a slick all-in-one web development tool) for $50, CandyBar (a tool to easily customize your icons and dock) for $14.50, and Unison (a Usenet reader that’s so pretty it makes me wish I cared about the Usenet) for $12.
In my work life, one of my tasks is to produce an audio podcast. I use Soundtrack Pro and GarageBand to do the job. However, I recently tried out a few audio editing alternatives. I evaluated Adobe Soundbooth, Adobe Audition, and Audacity. I thought I’d share my conclusions:
- Adobe Soundbooth CS4 ($200). I found Soundbooth was a bit hard to use (read: non-intuitive) and had limited features. You can only split stereo tracks to mono by exporting them, which is silly. Even the free Audacity can split stereo tracks and convert to mono on the fly. You also can’t divide clips (at least, I couldn’t find how to do it after a reasonable period of time spent searching around). I was also unable to locate a scrubber, mixer, amplitude filter, and several other key features. They may be there somewhere, but I lost patience.
- Audacity (free). I found this to be an excellent open-source, free editor. Available filter and effect extensions (add-ons) give this editor most of the features available in pro-level applications. For a simple audio project, this would be sufficient. However, I discovered several limitations which render the current iteration of the app ineffective for large, complex multitrack projects: (1) for me at least, the app starts to crash periodically when I have more than 15 or so tracks, (2) When you split a file, it creates a new track (instead of leaving it in the same track as Soundtrack Pro and Audition do). This is a problem when you are editing an hour-long recording and need to pull out only about 10 minutes of clips. You soon end up with tons of separate tracks and it’s a pain to manage them; (3) You cannot drag and drop tracks around. You must manually select ‘move up’ or ‘move down’ from a drop-down list. This may not sound like a big deal, but it’s a huge deal when you have many tracks and need to order them. (4) While you can mute select tracks (so you can edit one or two clips at a time) and shrink the size of each track to save screen real-estate (necessary when you have many tracks), these settings aren’t saved. The next time you open up the app, all the tracks are ‘unmuted’ and expanded to the full size. The good news about Audacity is that the development community is active, there’s lots of online documentation and support, and the app continues to get better and better.
- Adobe Audition 3 ($350). Clearly, this is intended to be the main competitor for Soundtrack Pro. It does everything that Soundtrack Pro does, but several aspects of the design and layout of the application make it hard to use (at least from the perspective of someone very used to Soundtrack Pro). Overall, this is a very competent and powerful editor. However, I could do the same job in Soundtrack in about half the time. Again, I stress that this is coming from someone who knows Soundtrack Pro very well. I would recommend this to someone who has intensive audio editing needs, but does not wish to purchase or need the full Final Cut Studio.
My conclusion: I’m ready to head back to Soundtrack Pro. Maybe it’s because I’m most-familiar with it, but it’s the easiest tool I’ve found to put together podcasts. Another benefit of Soundtrack is that it seamlessly meshes with the other Final Cut tools for creating more complex multimedia and video projects (or for, say, pulling an audio track from a video interview to use in an audio podcast).
It’s not my preferred tool for creating enhanced podcasts or exporting AAC/MP3 files, though. I use GarageBand for this. GarageBand exports MP3s and AACs faster than Soundtrack Pro and produces smaller files. This shouldn’t be too surprising, considering it’s tailored to podcasting. Soundtrack Pro does podcasting as well, but I’ve found that the best way to use it is to export an uncompressed AIF file, and then work with that in GarageBand. It’s also the easiest tool to use for creating enhanced podcasts (adding chapters, pictures, and links to the audio podcast). And, it’s worth noting, it’s the only tool to use other than Soundtrack Pro that I’m aware of that allows one to create an enhanced file. GarageBand is, of course, also an all-in-one solution to create a podcast. You don’t need Soundtrack Pro. What you get with Soundtrack Pro is much greater control in terms of editing, filtering, and mixing. For many people, though, GarageBand will do the job nicely. And it’s cheap. Conversely, Soundtrack Pro only comes as part of the Final Cut Studio, which is quite expensive. I really wish Apple would offer the choice to by the apps in the Studio a la carte (an option they discontinued). If you’re on a Mac and wish to try your hand at podcasting, definitely start with GarageBand.
Audacity is a good general-purpose editor that does the job for simple podcasts (no interviews, or simple Q/A interviews that do not require a lot of nonlinear editing, and those podcasts that are 10 or less tracks). It is a good ’starter’ solution for those who wish to try their hand at creating a podcast, and it runs on PC, Mac, or Linux. Audacity projects created on one platform open on any platform, which is nice. For more complex audio editing on a PC, Adobe Audition is a solid next step up. And if you want to go the Adobe route, you can always try out Audition and Soundbooth first with Adobe’s free 30 day trial and see which works best for you.
In a few weeks, I’ll have a completed screencast demonstrating how I put together a podcast, which I’ll share in this space.
