TW Blog :: Archives for October 2008
There is absolutely nothing that is seen by two minds simultaneouslyBertrand Russell
Top 50 Albums Part 3
Relates to Music
The list continues…
My passion for Progressive and Art Rock is probably starting to shine through in this collection of 20 albums. While a few classic Indie albums and a bit of American country and folk make an appearance. Quite a few of these albums can be snatched up on Amazon for next to nothing so if you haven't heard them before, take my word for it and take the plunge!
- Master of Puppets - Metallica
- Meat is Murder - The Smiths
- No Other - Gene Clark
- A Nod Is As Good As A Wink… To A Blind Horse - The Faces
- The Notorious Byrd Brothers - The Byrds
- Odyssey and Oracle - The Zombies
- OK Computer - Radiohead
- On The Beach - Neil Young
- Over - Peter Hammill
- Red - King Crimson
- Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars - David Bowie
- Scott 4 - Scott Walker
- Script of The Bridge - The Chameleons
- Selling England By The Pound - Genesis
- Slanted & Enchanted - Pavement
- The Snow Goose - Camel
- Solar Music Live - Grobschnitt
- Songs of Leonard Cohen - Leonard Cohen
- Still Life - Van der Graf Generator
- The Stone Roses - Stone Roses
Posted on Oct 11, 2008 at 13:04:44.
Internet Explorer 8 and Google Chrome on OS X
Relates to Accessibility and Browsers
Back in July I was getting quite excited about the endless possibilities that VMWare provides. Aside from spending endless hours dabbling with different Linux flavours I have also tried to make some productive use of VMWare Fusion on Mac for cross-browser testing. The Unity mode really simplifies functionality testing across a range of browsers all at once.
In the grab below I am test-driving a TinyMCE implementation on Safari 3, Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 8 and Google Chrome. The latter two of course being Windows specific yet they are running quite happily on my OS X desktop.
Of course, a key ingredient for virtualisation is reams of memory (RAM) and screen real-estate. These four browsers are running well side by side without too much of a performance hit and my productivity rate for cross-browser testing has just increased with the minutes I save switching platforms.
Posted on Oct 11, 2008 at 12:05:54.
Top 50 Albums Part 2
Relates to Music
Here is the next instalment from my list of iPod essential albums. I am kind of plucking these straight of my iPod list as I go in alphabetical order, but there may be a few omissions I will throw back in at the end if I don't reach 50 by the time I reach Z…
- Getz/Gilbreto - Stan Getz and Joao Gilbreto
- In The Wee Small Hours - Frank Sinatra
- Jazz as Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club - Nina Simone
- Kind of Blue - Miles Davis
- Karma - Pharoah Sanders
- The Village Green Preservation Society - The Kinks
- Laughing Stock - Talk Talk
- Let It Bleed - Rolling Stones
- London Calling - The Clash
- Marquee Moon - Television
Posted on Oct 10, 2008 at 10:20:12.
Perhaps My All Time Top 50 Albums? (Part 1)
Relates to Music
I am not normally one for charts since my musical tastes change daily and as new music is discovered other albums are replaced. For this very reason I like to keep my iPod collection fresh always looking for something new to listen to. Recently I did another fresh install of albums following the tweaks to my audio files to enable Genius to work on the lower bit rate versions. I couldn't help but notice there were a select few albums I just couldn't tear myself to remove from the playlist. So perhaps these should be classed as my top albums of all time? A bold statement perhaps, but certainly they are some of my favourites and well worth a listen.
Here are the first 10 in no particular order…
- Abbey Road - The Beatles
- Aladdin Sane - David Bowie
- American Beauty - Grateful Dead
- Argus - Wishbone Ash
- The Band - The Band
- Blood on the Tracks - Bob Dylan
- Doolittle - The Pixies
- The Doors - The Doors
- Five Leaves Left - Nick Drake
- Forever Changes - Love
Lots more to follow…
Posted on Oct 10, 2008 at 05:44:46.
Capturing Frames to JPEG in Final Cut Express
Relates to Software and Movies
This is a quick tip which took me a while to figure out. I wanted to grab some stills of some filming I did of surfers on the golden sunny swell the weekend before last on the North Cornish Coast. The solution is actually quite simple in Final Cut Express:
- Scrub through the clip to one of the frames that is to be captured
- From the menu choose File -> Export -> Using QuickTime Conversion…
- At the bottom of the dialog choose Still Image as the format
- Select Options to choose the format to save as
At this stage the file can be saved as JPG and the job is done. However I found with the action shots a little bit of tweaking was required to remove the digital lines across the image so I saved as Photoshop files with the best colour depth. Then opening the images in Photoshop the De-Interlace… option can be chosen under Filter -> Video menu to remove the lines.
I found the stills to be a bit of a mixed bag from my Sony HDR-SR10 with the light in the actual image being a major factor in the quality of the images. All the same a quick and easy way to capture some action stills until I finally decide on a DSLR.
Posted on Oct 10, 2008 at 05:22:43.
