Category: Rants

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Mini Review: iMovie ’08 – First Impressions

I finally had the time to go to an Apple Retail Store to pick up iLife ’08 and iWork ’08 today. Well, it’s because all the Apple Retail Stores nearby, about 7 of them didn’t have iLife ’08 in stock on Tuesday.

iMovie '08

Anyway, after playing with iMovie ’08 for 30 minutes or so, I missed iMovie HD (iMovie 6.x) already. Apple is apparently aware of this.

First, iLife ’08 installer actually preserves iMovie HD application and moved it into “iMovie (previous version)” folder inside the Applications folder.

iMove in Applications Folder

Second, Apple has made iMovie HD 6.0.4 as a free download for any iLife ’08 owner.
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/imovieHD6.html

About iMovie HD 6
iMovie HD 6, previously distributed with iLife ’06, is available for download for those who have purchased and installed iLife ’08

System Requirements

  • Mac OS X 10.3.9
  • Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later
  • Mac OS X 10.4.4 recommended
  • iLife ’08

UPDATED (08.09.2007 09:50AM)
So far, I don’t like using iMovie ’08. Actually now I prefer using Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro (because there are a lot of things that I can’t do in iMovie HD). Don’t get me wrong, I still need to sit down and use iMovie ’08 for a while and figure out a way to get comfortable with it. Previous versions of iMovie HD are a lot more simplistic, and yet lacking many editing features. Apple has made such drastic changes to the interface, it takes time to get used to it.

iMovie ’08 runs fast on my MacBook Pro Core Duo (early 2006). I can easily scrub scrub movie clips without any slowdowns at all. One thing I really hate about iMovie HD is the titling options. Sometimes you want to have a subtitle to last 6 seconds, and iMovie HD only allows maximum of 5.

–

My colleague found the iMovie HD 6.0.4 link in Apple’s own Discussion Board.

I will use iMovie ’08 to see if it is a worthy upgrade, at least for myself.

UPDATE (08.14.2007)
Next: iMovie ’08 to iMovie HD ’06 Comparisons (coming soon)

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Dell Takes This Blog Seriously

First off, the blog post was from a while ago. Still it was amusing the fact that Dell PR machines actually left comments to “defend” their products.

Second, Vondiggity (the blogger) is a close friend of mine and we’ve been talking a lot about Dell PR comments. We’ve been having good laugh about it.

I do not know for sure if the comment is actually made by Dell PR people, I haven’t checked their IP addresses yet. Anyway, it is funny how one small rant about the new Dell line actually attracted their PR people to respond. They are pretty defensive about it, given that it’s their job.

Read it here, and don’t forget to read the comment too.

http://vondiggity.wordpress.com/2007/06/27/dell-has-really-hit-bottom/

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Day of Wrong Moves

January 19th, 2006

A Friday. So many things went wrong.

  1. I lost my tiny flashlight. It’s a tiny one, no wonder I lost it.
  2. I was going to replace cooling systems on a video card. Got the kit, but it’s missing tons of parts.
  3. A power supply with busted fan.
  4. Smokes came out of the same power supply.
  5. Power supply was replaced only to find out the onboard USB controller was shorted out and busted. It could no longer supply power to USB devices.
  6. Wasting a few hours trying to install Windows XP on busted machine; see 3, 4, and 5.
  7. Found out the battery of a 13″ MacBook no longer holding charges. Now I have to go to Apple Store and get it exchanged.

That’s a lot for one day.

Asides from that, I purchased:

  1. Fujitsu MH2120-BH-R 2.5″ 120GB SATA 5400 RPM Hard Drive
  2. Corsair DDR2 1GB PC5300 (667MHz) SO-DIMM (VS1GSDS667D2)
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Rants: Annoying Blog Entries

I use the “tag-surfer” feature on WordPress from time to time. It’s a great feature for finding out other blogs on WordPress.com based on keywords/tags. I surf a few tags and one of them is “tech”. In general I like reading other people’s opinions, and some other informations (links to interesting news, announcements, etc).

I easily get annoyed by three types of blog entries:

  1. SPAM BLOG
    No explanations needed.
  2. Flamebaits
    There are entries filled with FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubts), trolls, “controversial” contents, etc. They are just looking for attentions and page-hits Most of the time I’d get over it cause they are pointless and useless, just like the tabloid journalism.
  3. Unoriginal, Plagiaristic, Annoying, Stupid, Stolen blogs
    OK, OK! This is a rant, so nevermind the attempt to spell out Up Ass blogs.
    Anyway, there are entries which are basically a carbon copy of Digg.com, Slashdot.org, etc.
    Even better, a lot of time those entries aren’t even well thought out, because these so called “bloggers” just copied and paste the title and the entry without even reading the article. The best part is that they didn’t even read the articles or notice if they’re just fake news.
    Please cancel your WordPress blog and stop blogging forever! At least, learn how not to steal other people’s contents.

Anyway, this is a rant!

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Yahoo! Hostings and WordPress 2.0.6

I have been using Yahoo! for my personal web-hosting for almost a year now. I also manage a few other sites hosted by Yahoo! and they have been relatively problem-free (not including the database crash I had a few months back).

When I started a blog on my personal site, I chose WordPress based on recommendations, reviews, and personal experience. One thing that I thought was great was that Yahoo! offers automatic WordPress software upgrade, and I chose that option. Currently my blog is still running WordPress 2.0.2 while version 2.0.6 was just released. I had contacted Yahoo! customer and technical support regarding the WordPress version. Unfortunately Yahoo! deems that there is no need to upgrade WorPress automatically, nor offers an easy to upgrade it manually.

Honestly I am a little bit “miffed” with Yahoo! on this matter. I have been searching for some documentations on upgrading WordPress using Yahoo! web-hosting. So far, I have found none.

I am currently running a mirror of my blog hosted by the good folks at WordPress.com and it has been generally excellent. One thing that I recently found out is that a little rant that I had might cause a little inconvenience with WordPress.com administrators.

Anyway, I am still looking for some instructions, informations, and feedback on upgrading WordPress using Yahoo! web-hosting.

The answer might lie here:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/83231