Nerd alert! It is painful to watch some folks interact with their computers so inefficiently. I like this short video from Tom Merritt of CNET on the 15 best keyboard shortcuts. I use all of these on a daily basis and highly recommend them, although I know they’re old hat to power users.
Better Web Reading
I love to read long articles which I gather from websites. Here are some of the tools I use to make the experience more enjoyable:
Instapaper Link Saver/Reader
Instapaper is the best way I’ve found to save links to web articles and quickly pull them up for later leisure reading on my Kindle, iPhone, netbook, or desktop computer; here’s an explanatory video. I keep its “Read Later” bookmarklet on my computers and iPhone to quickly save articles for later reading.
The Instapaper iPhone app is splendid, and you can also send a digest of articles to your Kindle (Amazon charges a small fee for the conversion). But I prefer to access my RSS feed of Instapaper articles on my Kindle and pull each one up that way (establish an account and copy the RSS link from your main page into a Kindle Basic Web bookmark).
Readability Webpage Reformatter
Readability is a great bookmarklet for ridding a website of the clutter; here’s an explanatory video. It reformats a site into a single column of text and pictures in the font and format you select when you create the bookmarklet. I especially like using this tool on my netbook, which has limited screen space.
Of course you need some content on which to use those tools. Here are my most reliable sources of articles:
- Give Me Something to Read – From the maker of Instapaper, this provides several links each week to interesting long-form articles on the web
- longreads on Twitter – just follow or access this Twitter account for links to mostly long-form web articles
- Salon – good book and movie articles of medium length, plus much more on this liberal-slanted site
- The Atlantic – online version of a venerable American magazine with occasional long articles in its magazine section
- The New Yorker – online version of another notable magazine, featuring some of the most lengthy articles, including the fascinating but fallible Malcolm Gladwell
- Vanity Fair – more gossipy than the others, but far better than People and its ilk
- The New Republic – some long articles, with a liberal social, social democratic economic, and hawkish foreign policy slant
- Wired – very nerdy mixture of both short and long articles
- Ars Technica – for computer nerds
Happy reading!
Posted in technology, web design, web link
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Sita Sings the Blues
Sita Sings the Blues
Wow! I just saw one of the most delightful animated films ever, Sita Sings the Blues, which is the handiwork of artist Nina Paley. She uses creative two-dimensional animations, in a variety of styles, to tell the story of the Indian epic the Ramayana with the help of 1920s torch songs by Annette Hanshaw. Yes, it is in English, so don’t worry about a language barrier.
Roger Ebert named it one of the best films of 2009, and I can only agree. Read his initial review for some insight into the film, and then go to sitasingstheblues.com and download a free and legal copy of the film you can burn onto DVD, or just watch it online.
I know, the description makes this film sound weird and artsy. I heard about it a few months back, when distribution was blocked due to our ridiculous copyright law. And even after I found out it had been finally released for free viewing, I still took a few days to work up the nerve to sit down and try it out. But, oh my goodness, I loved every minute of it.
I’ve put the YouTube link below so you can sample it, but you really need to go to sitasingstheblues.com and burn yourself a DVD so you can see it in comfort and with superb picture and sound quality.
[3/31/2010 UPDATE: Good news! You can now rent Sita Sings the Blues from Netflix!]
Will the iSlate Become MySlate?
Anticipation is building for what will likely be the announcement on January 26 of Apple’s new iSlate tablet, which may be available in the second quarter of 2010. Described as a “Kindle Killer”, the iSlate may be the device to help magazines and books negotiate the digital switchover. The Kindle has very limited formatting capability, so it is great for reading a regular book yet far less appealing for the magazine-length and interactive-web articles which dominate modern reading.
Apple has a history of creating compelling mainstream products out of niche devices – the MP3 player took off with the iPod and iTunes while the iPhone and its later App Store revolutionized smartphones. Speculation runs wild about the type of interface they will debut with the iSlate.
Here’s an interesting tablet magazine concept video from Sports Illustrated:
Is this a preview of how magazines and newspapers might migrate paid value-added content to the iSlate and similar devices? I love my iPhone and my Kindle, but the iPhone’s tiny screen is difficult for me, especially with my worsening presbyopia. And while I like how the Kindle’s E Ink screen causes less eyestrain, I do miss having a color touchscreen with video capability. I’ve caught myself swiping my fingers across the screens of the Kindle and my netbook, to no avail. And increasingly I find myself debating whether to rely on the iPhone or the Kindle for reading articles while out and about.
So I’ll definitely be watching and analyzing Steve Jobs’ presentation next month with avid interest, and saving my dimes for the next must-have technology gadget. I was amazed by the iPod when I bought my first one back in 2004. Having all of my music at my fingertips was liberating, although I would later switch to lower-capacity but solid-state iPod Nanos for music, podcasts, and audiobooks. The Apple TV brought all of that, plus rented movies and television shows, into the living room and also continues to improve.
The iPhone was another revolution, making the internet portable and greatly improving my travel experience. And the iSlate certainly won’t replace the iPhone for car travel, while my iPhone will replace my dedicated GPS unit. I first used a Garmin Quest and later the V7 NAV740 GPS units, and they were wonders. But the other day I bought TomTom’s iPhone GPS navigation application while it was on sale for $50. Its maps aren’t as good as those on my dedicated V7 unit, but the iPhone app’s lane guidance feature is a boon and its interface is far easier to navigate. Since I already have my iPhone sitting in an air vent mount when I’m driving, I’m reluctant to also muck about with the suction-cup holder and cord for the V7 unit.
Here’s hoping the iSlate is another game changer!
Posted in technology, video
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My Epic Films, Digitally Remastered
The 1961 wind-up silent camera we used for our splendid junior high films
When I was growing up our family used a 1961 wind-up Kodak 8 mm silent movie camera for home movies. It pre-dated the better known and highly improved Super 8 cartridge film that came out in 1965. Our camera used standard 16 mm film which you threaded through the camera, exposed half of the film, then reversed and rethreaded to expose the other half. In processing they would cut the film in half and you’d end up with a small spliced reel of 8 mm film. My dad would later splice together several of the small reels of film into longer movies we would watch.
My parents still have a collection of these films from 1961-1974, with indoor shots made possible by a blindingly bright four-lamp light bar that flooded the room with light to compensate for the movie film’s limitations. We’d watch them on a silent movie projector at 18 frames per second – a far cry from modern videos!
About thirty years ago, when I was in junior high, three different friends joined me in using that old camera to create short film clips. We were never quite sure what we were capturing, since one had to shoot the film through a tiny viewfinder and then send it out for processing. A week or two later we’d find out if we had made anything worth watching. And, of course, I must admit that we never did.
But that won’t deter me from offering you the chance to view our incredible junior high film achievements. Over Winter Break I used my parents’ original Bolex projector to run the old reels on the home movie screen, capturing those fine cinematic creations with my latest digital camera and then adding some music. So here are the stupendous digital remasters of our epic films:
Lego Animations
Some stop-motion animations with Legos which I made with my friends Kyle and Jeff:
The Death of a Starship
This is a tragic film, in more ways than one, which my friend Dale and I shot in my backyard. We loaded up an old table top with some milk jugs, flares, vulcanizing tire patches, and an outdoor faucet cover. Lowering it on highly visible strings from the swingset, we set it ablaze in a disaster of a film. If you look carefully, you might spot a little plane taking off from the mother ship after the faucet cover, er, main dome ignites. And you’ll easily spot the squirt bottle and fire extinguisher in the background that my mother insisted we have on hand.
UPDATE: Dale was running his own Super 8 camera for the above shoot and also converted his film to digital format. It features even more footage of the burning ship, a camera zoom, and squirt bottle action! Plus he had some film left over which we used to create, you guessed it, another Lego animation:
Meador Manor 
