Cole W. Camplese

Vision and Strategy

via www.youtube.com

Via a footnote at Daring Fireball, here is Steve Jobs introducing the notion of the Mac as the hub to your digital life back in 2001. What is striking to me is how true they've stayed to this vision for much of the decade. The other thing is how they've systematically added pieces in the digital lifestyle space -- iPod and iPhone come immediately to mind. I think it was also in 2001 when the iPod gets introduced. Interesting to look back as we move into the second decade of this century.

Damn It!

I got my new MacBook Pro yesterday morning. I was thrilled ... it combined the keyboard I've loved from the Air with the speed and screen size of the 15" MacBook Pro. I couldn't have been happier. And then I felt the crushing blow that was the WWDC Keynote. I fully expected a speed bump -- I went and pushed the speed of my new laptop to a custom level because of it. I did not expect such an aggresive update so soon after the announcement of the uni-body machines not too long ago. The battery life is the thing, I travel and sit in meetings without a power outlet -- a lot. The extra few hours is a real difference. I also really like the SD slot ... one less cable to carry. All in all it is a shame.

The other thing this means is that my love affair with my Air is waning. I still love the form factor, but it has gotten to the point where my expectations of performance has outpaced the affordances of a very small machine. I thought long and hard about a 13" MacBook, but that was before it became part of the Pro lineup and at the time it didn't seem to add up. It doesn't mean however that my "year in the cloud" hasn't fundamentally changed my computing habits ... I am still working really hard to keep my machine lean and mean. I did break down and install Word although I doubt I'll use it much given how much I rely on Google Docs.

I spent at least half of this past year living mostly on a MacBook Air and I have been very happy with my transition to a mostly cloud based portable experience. I don’t have Office, Adobe PhotoShop, or many other large apps running on it — and I don’t miss them one bit. I have adopted Google Docs, learned how to use Apple’s built in Preview App and iPhoto to do image editing, taken lots of notes in Evernote, listened to my music online at La La, and have used this space and my PSU blog as an outboard brain with much success. I’ve found relying on local storage as being a limiting factor — and I am betting that more and more students will move in this direction this year.

So while I am moving back into the land of a bigger laptop, I am still committed to using less client based software and to keep things floating out there. I just wish that I would have waited another couple of hours to open the damn box for my old MacBook Pro.

Revisiting iPhoto

For all of my heavy duty photography needs I use Apple's Aperture. I don't necessarily use it to adjust photos, I use it as a giant digital shoebox. I made the switch earlier this year when my photo count went up over 30,000 digital pictures ... iPhoto just seemed to slow to a crawl. I've been happy, but have missed the ease and simplicity of iPhoto.

Then about a month or so ago I started to tinker with my pictures, looking to get more out of them. Honestly inspired by some of the things I was seeing Brad Kozlek doing on the post-production side has gotten me really interested in trying (and I stress trying) to make my pictures a bit more visually interesting. With this in mind I have been tweaking things in Aperture and then working to achieve some Lomo like effects using Photoshop. Its been fun and I've learned a little bit about the tools.

Last weekend I was in Chautauqua, NY and found myself without Photoshop or Aperture and only had iPhoto. I took a little down time to experiment with a couple of my shots and really was impressed with what could be done without even touching a slider and instead just layering the built in effects. I had no idea I could apply multiple levels of the effects to make pictures more interesting ... I sort of figured all I could do was change a picture to black and white and move on. Not that the simple effects will do it for seasoned professionals, but I think they do a fair job for the newbies out there.

I thought I'd share this given how simple it is and that iPhoto is a very nice free alternative to much more expensive (and complex) tools available for the Mac. Below you can take a look at the iPhoto version with the simple settings in the screen cap above. Granted I don't like it as much as the fake lomo version I did in Photoshop, but with some practice I am guessing I could get close right out of iPhoto ... Also, I bet if I went back through my 10 year digital photo collection and actually paid attention to what I kept I could still be living in iPhoto. I doubt I'll go back, but I also know I won't need to install Aperture on my new laptop ... iPhoto should be a solid mobile solution.

25 Years of the Mac

It is hard to believe for me, but I've been a Mac user since 1984. Yesterday the Mac turned 25 ... that means I've been a Mac user for the same amount of time. I was lucky enough to get a Mac 128K for my birthday back in March of 1984. I recall that earlier that year I had gone to the local Apple dealer, like I was prone to do, and saw the Mac for the first time. I was simply amazed by the graphics, WYSIWYG capabilities, the finder, desktop, trash, and especially the mouse. I recall on that particular day I had talked my Dad into letting me run in for a few minutes while he waited in the car. I came out so excited by what I had seen ... I made him take me back over and over after that. Of course I wanted one, but never thought my parents would actually purchase one. Even though they were both University professors, they didn't seem to get the whole thing.

I remember that they were going to take me out to dinner for my Birthday and before we went out they called me downstairs to open gifts. There were two big boxes and I honestly had no idea what could be inside them. When I ripped them open I found the original Mac and an Imagewriter I. I was stunned ... from that day forward I have been hooked. In the early days I was always wanting to do things with my Mac and I struggled a bit with the seemingly closed architecture. While me friends all had Apple II machines and could write basic and logo I remember having to get a copy of MacBasic to write simple apps. I did all sorts of stuff with MacPaint and MacWrite -- and I remember playing Millionaire in my room for hours with my Dad.

My love of technology comes from that moment in March of 1984 and that one gift opened me up to opportunities to work to change things through the application of technology and innovative thought. I think the people who envisioned and built the Mac back in the day hoped that would happen to people. Sort of amazing for me to even think about how one gift could change and chart a course for someone. So I want to thank my parents for finding a way to give me such and amazing gift and to Apple for having the vision to create something that spoke right to me.

I wonder if other people remember their first Macs and if it was as significant to them?

My Macs through the years ... Mac 128K, Mac SE, Performa 600 (for about a week), LC III, Mac Portable, PowerMac 7200, PowerCenter 180, G3 All in One, Blue and White G3, PowerBook G3, Dual G4 PowerMac, PowerBook G4, 12" PowerBook, G3 iMac, PowerMac G5, MacBooks, MacBook Pros, Intel iMac, and MacBook Air -- somewhere in the middle I've lost track as work and personal life overlap, but suffice to say I'm hooked.

My Head in the Clouds

For the past two weeks I have been using a MacBook Air almost exclusively as my mobile platform. I was very skeptical of the Air as a primary machine for me -- I thought is was way too underpowered and had way too many compromises for my high intensity needs. I have to say I have been wrong, but with a few exceptions. The biggest drawback is the Air's inability to drive my 30" display on my desk. I can't give that up -- no way, no how. But other than that, the Air is a joy to use.

You can read about performance and that kind of stuff all over the web, so I won't go into that beyond the fact that this ting is plenty fast. Now with that said, I have to admit I have given all sorts of stuff up -- stuff I am actually enjoying not having on my machine. I am attempting to live in the cloud as much as possible and only use Apple applications (with few minor exceptions) on the machine itself. So far I have used this thing for nearly two weeks without the following two big suites:

• Microsoft Office: I am loving not having to wait for that thing to do its work. I obviously get a ton of attachments as Word documents that I have to review ... probably a dozen or more a day. What to do? Well, as long as it is a .doc I can simply upload it into Google Docs and edit away. I'm sure I will bump my head on this eventually, but I haven't missed a beat with it yet.
• Adobe CS3: I miss PhotoShop, but really only for easy resizing of images. Clearly I am not a graphic designer so this approach wouldn't work for everyone. I am almost embarrassed to say I use PS mostly for resizing images for blog posts and for other online publishing tasks. I am taking advantage of Preview's ability to scale images at the moment, but will probably find a better way to do it online or via another light weight application like ImageWell.

I have had wiki fever lately, so I haven't run into any real issues with my multiple machine life ... I have an iMac at home, a Mac Mini at work, and I still have my MBP hooked up to my 30" on my desk. People have been asking me how I keep it all in sync. The answer lies in the cloud. Bookmarks? Del.icio.us keeps that working. Documents? Google Docs keeps that working. Writing? My various blogs and wikis keep that working. Email? I have IMAP for my PSU mail and GMail keeps the personal stuff working perfectly.

I have given up keeping multiple music collections going, but I have an iPhone to keep me happy when I need a music fix. As a matter of fact I haven't found myself reaching for anything that I don't have. An amazing thing is going on ... I haven't put any documents (of any kind) on the Air to date. I download them only to move them into the cloud to access them later. Kinda amazing. I'm sure I'll run into other issues (not sure how I'll connect my Express Card cell modem, but that is a worry for travel), but at the moment I am very happy. It is amazing how having this small of a machine has altered my use of the Internet. I like it. More to come as it evolves.

MacBook Air

Its been several days since Steve Jobs introduced the new Apple MacBook Air ... during that time I have been thinking a lot abut what it is and what it isn't. To tell you the truth, I am a bit conflicted over this. On one hand it is an amazingly thin and sexy piece of technology, but on the other hand it doesn't have the same overall lure as did the 12" PowerBook -- to me. As I am sure my tech support group knows, I have been thinking of reasons why it would be important for me to have one ... I can easily come up with the obvious -- travel. But beyond that it is a difficult sell ... trust me, once I see it I may be able to understand the overall value a little better

The thing that worries me a little is that it reminds me a little too much of the G4 Cube ... I was in attendance at Macworld New York the year Steve introduced it and I can tell you I had a bad feeling about how it was positioned. It, like the Air, is a beautiful machine that seems to hit a nice spot but is delivered at a price point that puts it outside of reality. I always wanted a Cube (and I have one on display in my office now), but could never justify the price versus performance it offered. I worry the Air may fall into the same category. When Jobs reveled the price I felt my hopes of owning one drop ... if it would have been in the $1000-1200 range it would be a no brainer. It sounds like lots of people have already pre-ordered, but I wonder about it long term.

Clearly the Air is designed to be a second machine ... My MacBook Pro is really my primary machine and it powerful and versatile enough that I could eliminate all my other computers. The Air looks and feels like it is a companion to something else -- maybe Apple is waiting to do the next big thing with syncing technology so an Air could really feel like an invisible extension to a user's everyday machine. I doubt Apple will release a docking station like the Duo Dock ... I also doubt the patent documents reveling an Apple dock will become a reality. The other thing I realize is that this thing is only a first generation machine -- Apple will get better at this over time. The Cube was gorgeous, but didn't work until it evolved into the Mini. I wonder if the Air will help Apple move to a true sub-notebook ... only time will tell. There could be a new eco-system brewing here like the iTunes Store, iPod, and Apple TV but it will take time for it to come into focus. I have to remind myself that actually sat in a Cupertino conference room and told people from Apple that the iPod would fail without an SDK ... I think I may have missed the mark on that one, so take these thoughts with a huge grain of salt. I just wonder if there is a market for this, or will the market grow up around the concept? Steve seems to know what he is doing ... we shall see.

More Apple Integration?

Ok, so less than 10 minutes after posting about how nicely QuickTime plays with a Podcast Producer Server I decided to take a look at some of Apple's other content creation tools and see if there is really a concerted effort across the board to encourage instant publishing. What I was curious about is if the suite of iLife applications enable a user to create and instantly, with a single click, share that content to the emerging campus infrastructure Apple is promoting -- I am talking specifically about iTunes U, Podcast Producer, and Blogs. In all cases, it easy to share to .Mac and iWeb -- two tools that do not play in most of higher education's plans. What I found was interesting, if only to me.

Keynote

Keynote is the best presentation tool on the Mac (or any platform) and it would only seem appropriate that I could instantly publish to Podcast PRoducer just like in QT. So I explored the "Send to" menu item and I get the option to share it with the other iLife apps and strangely enough, YouTube. Nothing for Podcast Producer.

I then figured it had to be under the Export option, but again nothing for Podcast Producer directly. I am guessing I could use the QuickTime export and then open in the QT Player and use its share to Podcast Producer feature ... one step too many.

GarageBand

I figured since GB is the best Podcasting tool on the Mac it must play nicely with Podcast Producer. Again, nothing that sends it directly to Podcast Producer. I am also quite surprised given Apple's push with iTunes U that it doesn't allow you to go directly there as well. When you attempt to use the Share menu in GB you do get a few options that are of real value -- again, letting you go right to a couple of the other iLife apps.

iMovie

iMovie is a powerful content creation toolset that actually gets quite a bit of use on campus. Mostly used by students, it only seems obvious that you should be able to publish quickly and easily into spaces like iTunes U via Podcast Producer. Checking the Share menu there doesn't offer anything too surprising, except for the YouTube option again. There is a really nice matrix for sharing that Apple provides, but nothing to go straight to PodCast Producer. Again, it looks like you have to send it to QT to get it to Podcast Producer quickly and easily.

iTunes

Since the previous apps let me go directly to iTunes, I figured I should check to see how easy it is to publish out of that environment. I was really actually fairly amazed that I can't do anything out of iTunes ... but, upon further reflection, iTunes is built for managing and acquiring new content -- not sharing it in the other direction. In this scenario, it is more like a platform much like iTunes U, a blog, or any other place content is stored, managed, played, etc.

Final Thoughts

So there it is ... Apple has done an amazing job of giving us an end-to-end set of tools to create and share digital media -- especially in education. I am not bashing on any of it, but what I am saying is that the consumer focus of Apple's iLife suite keeps it from fully realizing its potential when it is used in a connected education setting where digital media creation and sharing is being promted. Asking students and faculty to understand how to use more than one application for creating and sharing content isn't too hard, but it lacks to overall elegance that the solution could rely lean on.

Podcast Producer Integration

We are looking very closely at Apple's Podcast Producer for use in and around campus. I wrote a little about it the other day while sitting in a meeting ... this morning I opened the QuickTime player on my MBP to record a very quick piece of audio. When I went to the export it I saw a "Share ..." option in the File menu. Not remembering that from the QT Player in 10.4 I decided to check it out. What I saw really surprised me ... an option to share the file to a Podcast Producer server.

What that means to me is that I can open QT Player anywhere, record audio/video, and instantly publish it to our Podcast Producer Server. I haven't looked at it beyond that, but it certainly makes me realize there is big power coming together here. With a chain like iTunes U, Podcast Producer, simple creation tools, and facilities on campus to help people make digital content, sharing just got a whole heck of a lot easier. I will be interested to see how/if workflow can be invoked from a simple "Share ..." command in QuickTime. If it can, the possibilities for quick and easy content creation and distribution is only limited to what one could dream up. I wonder in the Windows version of QT Player can do this?

I'll share more as we get further down the path. I am also curious to see what happens when I click the login button ... will it give me a new set of options to invoke custom workflows? If that is the case we can build workflows to put things in all sorts of places ... want to publish to an iTunes U course space? Done. Want to publish via your Blog? Done. Want to push it to our streaming server? Done. I am hoping the integration I see lets me take the final step and really create once and publish to many environments.

Time Machine and Backup

I upgraded to Leopard -- unfortunately for me I purchased it from the Campus Computer Store one freaking day before my Apple Distinguished Educator (not for resale) came in the mail -- crap! Oh well. I didn't really have much to say about it here on the blog, but it is a very nice upgrade. My MBP upgraded perfectly, but my iMac at home was not as lucky. It required two days of trouble shooting and four (yes, four) installs before I got it working properly. I got what I thought was a Windows only feature -- a blank blue screen. Then after it finally installed, it locked me out of my account, insisting that I was not the administrator of the machine ... Apple Support forums said installing the Keychain update would fix it. There is a slight problem there, you can't install stuff if you aren't an admin. Took me a while, but using the root account I was able to reset the password and all has been fine since.

There was one other little problem ... for some reason (coincidence I am guessing) one of my three external hard drives I use decided to die. It makes a horrible clicking noise and never mounts. Not a big deal, storage is cheap but that is the one drive I used to store all of my documents -- not music and movies, but (in some cases) decades old files. Scared the shit out of me. Good thing I am a backup freak show ... I was able to use my Apple Backup software and recover everything in about an hour. Worked perfectly. This is the third time I have had to do a full on restore of parts of my digital life. If you don't backup, do yourself a favor and go to the store, buy a hard drive, and backup your stuff.

It looks cool, but is it a real disaster recovery tool?

The whole scenario has me thinking and wondering if Apple's fancy new Time Machine is a safe and viable backup strategy? It seems very slick for going back in time and grabbing a deleted file or two, but is it a true disaster recovery system? If it isn't should I have yet another hard drive to do real backups on? I have had terrific success with Apple's Backup software I get with my .Mac account ... what will Time Machine do when my primary hard drive goes down -- you know, the one with Mac OS running on it -- and I have to reinstall the OS to try and restore? Will it work that way?

Some Thoughts for Apple and Keynote

I am an avid Keynote user and have been since it first hit the market. I love how clean and elegant not only the design tools are, but also the resulting presentation files. Let me also say that I use it a ton. A big part of my job is sharing progress, giving updates, giving presentations, and all sorts of other show and tell style events. This means I have lots of Keynote files -- I tend to have four or five that I use constantly for a year or so at a time. I tweak them with each talk slightly for the audience, but for the most part 90% of the slides stay the same. When I do this I do a "Save As" and create a new instance of the slides. This results in lots of very similar, yet slightly different versions of my slides ... This drives me crazy!

What I am really after is something that is just like Keynote, but with the cross-over functionality of iPhoto. iPhoto's new "Events" feature is killer. Why not allow us to store stacks of like slides (not presentations) as Events (or something) in a completely different view of the application -- a content management view. Let me organize each slide as an asset unto itself. I could then use an "photo album" metaphor to drag individual slides onto the presentation stack (or timeline, or whatever) to create new slideshows. Giving me the ability to manage all my slides as assets, just like Apple does for iPhoto, iTunes, and now iMovie, would give me unprecedented control over my content.

So to review, what I want is Keynote as it stands today, but with a new content management view that lets me store all my keynote slides and slideshows in one place. I don't care how the individual slides are stored, but the whole way you can scrub through the events in iPhoto to see the contents of that grouping would be ideal for slides that have very similar information, but might have been changed slightly with context sensitive information. I would then be able to click into that slide event grouping, select the right one for the presentation I was preparing and drop it into a Presentation Stack that I could enter to edit my preso just like I do now. And give me some real ability to store some meta data about each slide so I can search this massive database of content I am constantly creating and tweaking.

Does that make sense? It does to me and I need it!