Lego remote loader

As Gardner’s getting older he’s starting to really get into Legos. I’m stoked because, next to GI Joe, this was my favorite of all activities as a young fella. The difference with today’s creative model builders is that they’re much, much more advanced than what we used to build. But somehow I think G can handle it. Here’s an example of a recent creation someone built that’s just downright impressive.

Roland TB-303 Style Synth

Here’s a nice free Roland TB-303 Style Synth plugin. Sorry, this is only for you Windows users out there. (too bad for me).

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iPhone alarm clock app

I know the iPhone already includes a very robost alarm feature… I’m reminded of that every morning… but this alarm clock app by DreamSurface is a tempting thing of beauty. It’s clean, integrated, pulls in web radio and the weather, and is just beautiful.

Now, I’ll say with my stock alarm plugins, but it does provide a tempting alternative.

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Air Board Personal Hovercraft

I’m going to have to pass on the Segway and go for something a little more, well, practical. Like this Air Board Personal Hovercraft. Think about it, Segways would just sink to the bottom of a pool. Not this guy.

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Eee PC cabinet mod

Something like this has always been the dream, a computer IN the kitchen cabinet. Think of it, Hulu, Google calendar, recipe databases; it would be amazing.

iPhone front screen

Joshua twittered this the other day and I thought it would make a good blog post / discussion. What’s on your iPhone’s front screen? If you don’t have/like the iPhone I’ll take any snarky comment as a sign of jealousy.

Me? What you see here comprises 90% of my digital activity minus content creation. (and the occasional game).

Official Gmail Blog: More on today’s Gmail issue

Some answers on Tuesday’s Gmail outage straight from the Gmail blog.

Typography sequencing

I see what they’re doing over at Meek.FM and I dig it.

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Tone matrix

So, wondering what a tone matrix is? No, never heard of one? Well take a look at this.

Square Pixel

I was asked the question the other day about square pixel format and my motion graphics workflow. Here’s the 4-1-1 on my file format workflow, and why I’ve chosen it. There may be other opinions, but over the past few years (at least in the world of SD), this is my preferred method.

Square Pixel widescreen. When creating a comp in After Effects, I choose the “Square Pixel Widescreen” preset. It gives you a frame size of 864 pixels wide by 486 pixels tall.

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Every computer monitor I use is a square pixel monitor. Video output, however, is not square. For wide screen (16:9), the pixels are actually wider than they are tall. The aspect ratio is 1.2. A computer monitor cannot resolve the non square ratios. When the final image is rendered it looks fine, but when you’re crafting the piece you have to deal with what is referred to as aliasing.

Example of aliasing

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See those jagged edges, especially along the angles of the A? That is aliasing. When rendered and shown on a TV monitor the edges will go away. But when you’re working on it, you have to contend with that visual nastiness.

After Effects does include this little switch (let the arrow direct you) that corrects for the working pixel aspect ratio by squashing everything. See, the aliasing is gone. However our text (in this case) is squished. Now this isn’t a permanent effect, it just makes the aliasing go away while you’re working on the piece. But again the image is distorted, and I just don’t work that way.

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By beginning the project in square pixel you get the best of both worlds. The lines are not aliased in your working space and you don’t have to work with distorted images.

The second step to my workflow is to render out my video from After Effects. Typically I’ll render either a high quality H.264 or a lossless uncompressed clip. Then I run it through Final Cut Pro. Even if the clip is “as-is” from After Effects I pass it through this step so that every piece I prepare has seen the same workflow.

Upon export from Final Cut I force the square pixel video (864 pixels wide by 486 pixels tall) into a non-square pixel format, which is the preferred format for video systems.

I choose the File > Export As Quicktime option:
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Make sure to use the following settings:
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Most importantly changing this option to force my square pixel composition into a non-square, video friendly format:
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That’s it. Render, and done. If you want to read further, this wiki article explains it well.

Rollip, online polaroid generator

Enjoy a brief whim of easy nostalgia with Rollip, and online converter of digital images into a Polaroid version of itself. I pulled my images from the 2009 Production Pig Roast. I think the Polaroid effect adds to the Southern charm of roasting a 200 lb. pig.

Before:
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After, version 1:
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After, version 2:
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There are a handful of different looks to try.

Digital Bible Journal

I frequently rave about Evernote. Amidst the plethora of computer based applications out there it’s one of my favorite services that exists. It’s billed as an “anti social application,” or something like that. In a world of Google Docs and Twitter where everything is meant to be public Evernote is structured to be internal. It’s a place for all of your information, easily accessible, easily searchable.

Here’s how I use it for my quiet time journal. I use this from my iPhone, a paper Bible, from my laptop, or from another computer.

Benefits of this workflow:
- Access to your journal (both input and output) everywhere
- Search. Ever think “what was that verse I read on anger?” Now you can find it.
- Backup. Because it’s stored at Evernote, you won’t misplace your journal.

Typically I use YouVersion.com as my Bible. I occasionally use a hard copy Bible (especially if I’m journaling from my iPhone).

In Evernote, I create a notebook called “Journal.” Each month, I create a new note called “July 2009 notes,” changing according to the date. This way I have a grouping of notes by month.

For each day, I create the entry like this:
“date” – “scripture for the day” (ie. 7/17 – Psalm 73). This way I have the date referenced, and regardless which Bible I pick up I have my place marked. This gives me flexibility in my routine.

How you notate is up to you. I keep all my notes in plain text (no Bold, italics, etc.). I do this primarily because the iPhone only lets you append info to the end of a note with that has formatting (you can’t edit into the middle of the note). I typically quote scriptures, and include verses referenced like (3) or (v4-10) so I can figure out what I was referring to later on, then add the thoughts that God shows me in and around the scripture clippings.

I’ve been using this technique since fall of last year and have really stuck to it. For me I’ve always struggled with paper based journaling. Doing it this way allows me to stay with a workflow I’m already using with everything elsee. Sidenote: I also use this “Journal” notebook for any sermon notes or conference notes I take. That way this information is all in the same location and easily retrievable.

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Oven Microwave

Here’s a thought. What if we do discover time travel, but instead of applying it to sending people through time (which is nearly always the case in the movies) we direct this power towards the kitchen.

Imagine if you had a conventional oven with a time travel ability. You propel your uncooked meal into the past by about 45 minutes. As soon as you put it in the oven it will catch up with you in time and be ready to eat.

Hmm, there’s something there. If it doesn’t become a reality, maybe Alton Brown will at least pick it up for a segment of Good Eats.

iPhone video

Here’s a little sampling of what the iPhone 3GS can do for video. I recorded this during the morning rehearsal last week at NewSpring.

Google street view anomolies

Meg and I were browsing Google street view on my iPhone the other night… me because I knew it was there… her to look at places she used to live. We can across two little anomolies that caught our attention.

The first, obviously, is a car traveling through some sort of space-time portal.
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The second from what I can tell is a horrible construction error by which they built a drive through window in the direct path of traffic.
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Portland Rescue Mission needs producer

A faithful avclub.us reader Nathan Smith (Portland Rescue Mission) is looking for a video producer. If you’re a video producer interested in a full time position, here is their official posting.

Portland Rescue Mission (Portland, Oregon) is seeking an experienced video / audio producer to shoot and edit video stories of life change for our website and other venues.

We are a Christian non-profit organization bringing hope to men, women and children affected by homelessness, addiction and abuse. Our emergency services provide food, shelter, showers, restrooms, clothing and other care. Our long-term recovery programs provide counseling, spiritual guidance, emotional healing, education, job training and case management.

Learn more about us at www.portlandrescuemission.org. Job description available here (PDF).

To apply, send resume and cover letter to:

Alissa Goble, Staff Ministry
Portland Rescue Mission

700 NE Multnomah, Suite 400
Portland, OR 97232
alissag@pdxmission.org

Evernote for color grading ideas

Yesterday we talked about using Evernote to catalog inspiration and images. Here’s another use I’ve found much along the same lines. As our department grows I find it is useful for me to have visual examples at my fingertips for various things. If I’m looking for a particular look and feel (ie. color grading) in a video piece rather than say “oh, you know, I like the dark tones with a hint of purple and some glows in the red channel and some grain but not too much,” I would rather have a visible example to work from.

Enter Evernote.

Step one, use yesterday’s technique and create an note called “Grading” in your “Ideas” notebook.

Every time you come across an image in your web browsing that catches your attention drag it into that notebook. Done, saved, references are always available. You could get advanced and starting creating various notebooks for different moods, “Grading – cool,” “Grading – warm,” “Grading – sepias,” you get the idea.

And just for fun, here’s a cool way to implement this color grading technique into Photoshop. There’s no easy way to do this in After Effects, but you could render a JPEG sequence and create an automated action to process each frame. Or you could just learn to master color grading in AE to get a similar look.

The Match Color tool can be used to treat one image to look like the colors from another image. This tutorial explains how it works. Where we add to the technique is that you can literally drag a photo out of Evernote and directly into Photoshop making it available for the Match Color tool to use.

iPhone links

Here are a few loosely related articles of interest to iPhone fans.

First, if you’re considering upgrading to the new iPhone 3GS consider using Nextworth to sell off your old iPhone. My 8 GB 1st Gen iPhone goes for $106 and that includes me keeping all of the dock connectors (it’d be nice to have two).

Second, you are probably getting numb hearing me rant and rave about Evernote. But if you’re traveling this summer here’s an article on how to Evernote to keep it light.

Evernote for creative filing

It’s no secret that I love Evernote. Here’s a new use I’ve found for it. If you’re a designer or involved in the visual brainstorm process you will likely find this useful.

The problem I’ve faced is that though I’m good at looking at a lot of inspiration over the course of a month I struggle with a way to catalog the things that inspire me. I regularly use Bloglines to read material. It provides a way to “keep post as new” or clip an article but I rarely make it back to those files, and it’s cumbersome to browse them.

I also find myself on different computers when I have the free time to browse. I use a desktop to edit on at work (where I rarely have spare time), I carry a laptop, I use my home computer on occasion, and I use my iPhone for blog reading about 50% of the time. I needed a system for filing and amassing digital images (primarily JPEGs) from all of these sources. The images also need to be viewable from anywhere.

Enter Evernote.

I created a notebook called “Ideas.” About every week or two I create a new post within that note called “Inspire #,” incrementally increasing that number just to keep track of things.

With the Evernote Desktop client I can literally drag a JPEG directly from the web browser directly into that Inspire note. Drag. Drop. Evernote automatically syncs everything.

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A few alternative variations are required to make this solution fully ubiquitous. First, on the iPhone there isn’t a drag and drop.

1. Click and hold your finger on an image for about 2 seconds, you’ll be asked to Save the image.
2. Launch Evernote. You from the title screen choose Saved Photo Note.
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3. Save it to your “Ideas” notebook.
4. When back in the Evernote desktop application select your Inspire note and the newly uploaded image note. Do this by selecting the first note and either Command-clicking (Mac)or Control-clicking (PC) the image. Right click either of the selected notes and choose the last option, “Merge Notes.”

If you are on a computer that does not have the Evernote desktop application on it (like my poor OS X 10.4 machine at the house) just save the image to your desktop. Then using the online version of Evernote attach the images to the Inspire note.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about another use for this image archiving technique.

Quick and Dirty camera car mount

I really like this… a home made car camera mount. I will be trying the next time I drive through a city with actual traffic. (view it in action here)