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Description: NOT the home of <a href="http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/overhaulin/overhaulin.html">Overhaulin'</a>
Last Update: 03:24:19 03/03/2006
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First Fetched: 00:18:33 01/31/2004
Last Updated: 03:24:19 03/03/2006
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I recently received an offer for my noetech.com domain, one that was too large to refuse. So, starting in January my weblog will be located at a new domain. I went shopping for a new domain tonight and bought the following: bug-a-lot.com editschedule.com endofproduction.com postcable.com posthumor.com posttales.com tommikkelsen.com wow-post.com Plus one secret one. At this moment, I'm not sure which I'll actually promote as mine, but all will point to my weblog (along with greekok.com). While I'm switching domains, I'm also moving this blog over to my Typepad account. Even with all the recent trouble they've had, it will be nice to just have one thing going on. So, for those of you who have a blog on my server / domain, you'll need to move to another service. My apologies for the inconvenience, but like I said, the money was good. If you need help, let me know and I'll be glad to move you. Starting today, all my posts will be at my Typepad account. Get there now at greekok.com. ...
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Lately I've been downloading videos from iTunes, I'm sort of addicted. I don't have a video iPod yet (birthday hint!) but I like to watch them on my computer when there's nothing else to do. Anyway, I was just watching Rain by Madonna when I a shot of a computer monitor popped up. Thinking that I recognized it, I went back, and it was NeXTstep. Not that big of a deal, but thought it was interesting. And since I haven't posted in a while, I thought it was worth while to mention.
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After my post yesterday I received a message my SE manager and a conference call was setup with all the SEs assigned to us and Bill Hudson from Cupertino. The call lasted about a half hour where they continued to insist the problem is that we are hosting too many volumes, though no one can offer up any documentation from Apple saying that they don't support our config. Also, after explaining our exact problem (MDC becomes unresponsive but volumes don't fail-over) for the hundredth time, it seemed like they finally got it. It's not that the server crashes and the volumes fail-over, if it did that, I could live with it. So maybe some progress there. I've sent over cvgather tar balls for every volume and their engineers are supposed to be looking at them to see if there's something wrong beyond the number of volumes. Though I've heard that several times before. I was supposed to receive an update today, but haven't as of 6pm. To be honest I think that's the most frustration thing, the ...
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In the past I've written about the Xsan in a very positive way. While I still think it's a great product, Apple's support for it is less then stellar. A few months ago we started having a problem where the MDC would lockup and become completely unresponsive every 10 to 24 hours. What's strange is that all the volumes stay mounted and working on the clients, but you can't log into the MDC to administer it, and they only way to fix it is to force reboot the server, which puts all of our volumes at risk. The server can't be reached via SSH or telnet either, completely dead in the water. It's just really annoying, but we've managed to work around it without too much interference. We've been working with our Apple SEs for some time trying figure out what's happening, but we haven't had any luck figuring it out. We've added more RAM, tried other servers, lowered the amount of volumes, etc. What we're being told is that the system doesn't support the number volumes we have and the way ...
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I spent this weekend at two concerts. Fist up on Saturday night was Tony Bennett at the Hollywood Bowl with Devon. He was great and played for two hours. Not too bad for someone his age. He's a real entertainer, filling the night not only with great music, but with a lot of stories. The surprise hit of the night though was the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Jeff Tyzik. They played a great collection of Jazz from the 20s. On Sunday I went with a friend from work and Devon to see Tom Petty at the Verizon Amphitheater in Irvine. After the two hour drive (an hour of which was spent going less then a mile), we had to walk a half mile to our seats. Not the best venue. Our seats were very much nose bleed, but the show as awesome. I've never seen them perform before, so I was very excited. He played my two favorites, Refuge and Breakdown. Because the drive took so long, some kind of accident, we missed Jackson Browne opening. Too bad, the last song sounded great while we were ...
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Some one asked me what I though of FCP 5 in light of my articles (here and here) on Xsan and FCP 4.5. So here is a five minute answer. I think FCP 5 is a huge improvement. Specifically I'm a big fan of the multicam support (blows Avid away), improved realtime effect, and the button bars (finally). I like Soundtrack Pro too. But it still lacks a few major things needed to be used in a facility like ours. There's still no way to share bins and projects easily. Exporting sequences and bins to the FCP XML format is a pain, and takes too long. If you have two editors each working on an act, it's a real pain to get them strung-out for an output. Media management, while significantly improved, still needs work. There needs to be a way to set storage options per project so editors don't have to worry about changing settings and / or digitizing to the wrong drive. In our area, a different project could be in each bay each day. I may be wrong about this, but there still isn't an easy way to ...
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GTI Side Originally uploaded by Tom Wolf. Screw Gallery, I'm using Flickr.
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I've lived in LA now for almost two years. It seems crazy to me that it has been that long, but a lot as happened to me since I've moved here. I'm make more money then I did in Chicago, and not just by a little bit, well more then double. California salary ranges are ridiculous, but thank God for it. I have a new, absolutely awesome car. I'm finally getting my Bug out here next month. I'm still looking to pickup a Triumph TR-3 I've made my mark at World of Wonder and my name is on several films (including a successful theatrical documentary) and countless televisions shows. I some how turned my tech job into "Head of Post Production and Technology" which, if I do say so myself, sounds very impressive. I have a corner office (it's easy when you are the one who designs the new space). I get to work on exciting projects that go beyond traditional TV, including one now that I can't really talk about, but should be very cool. I'm dating a wonderful person. I'm finally divorced. My ...
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Apparently my Gallery installation has broken since I last used it a few months ago. I'm not looking so good in these pictures, really need to straighten out my back and lose a few pounds. Buying a new car sucks, I'm not very good at negotiations. Lots of "I'm walking out", "you're screwing me" and of course from them, "I'm not making a dime on this deal". Almost too much trouble, but I did end up getting a good price. Devon was kind enough to drive to the shop and sit with me for the three hours it took to sign the deal (more on her soon enough). Now I need to get the Bug to LA, and sell the Jetta. Technorati Tags: Cars, GTI, VW
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I bought a new car this weekend, a VW GTI 1.8T. It's red with black leather interior. After a year of trying what to do about a vehicle, I finally found one I liked. It's a small high-school flashback, when I drove a '87 GTI. After I decided what I wanted, it took a few calls to find a lot that had the exact model in stock. I ended up getting it in Santa Monica. I got it for 4k under sticker, and feel good about the price I payed. Anyway, in love. Now I just need to chip it, get new tires and stereo :-) Pictures to come soon. Technorati Tags: GTI, Cars, VW
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Finally after 7 months of paper work I'm divorced. It actually happened on the 13th of July, but it took the paperwork a while to get here. Now I just have to go through the huge, gigantic process of changing my name back on all my IDs, bank cards, etc. It will take me months, I know it. This should make dating easier now anyway.
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At the beginning of the year I wrote about how we were using Apple's Xsan with our Avid edit bays. I get an email a week or so about that post asking for more details etc, showing that there are other people who don't want to pay the huge costs for Avid's storage solutions. I not sure if anyone else has actually rolled it out or not, but after 6 months of using it in our facility I can safely say that it works very well. The Xsan is Apple's best bet for getting into post house where they were never considered before. And with FCP 5, they are virtually neck and neck with Avid Media Composer. Now the only really big thing missing is project and bin sharing. To bad it didn't make it this year.
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Every year for Christmas my maternal grandmother gets all her kids and grandkids a subscription to The New Yorker. I love the New York, and not just for the cartoons either, though they're great. The problem is that it's a weekly magazine and I just have a hard time keeping up with them. Currently I have a backlog of 5 weeks and I don't see myself catching up. What usually happens is that I fall so far behind, that I give up, and start over with the current issue. Then inevitably, I fall behind the next week. It's a shame, because I really do want to read them all. But of course, I could have bigger problems. Technorati Tags: Magazine
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Well I've been busy, off traveling around the world, or at least the midwest. And that was weeks ago actually. I went back to see an old friend get married and it was very nice. I got to see some friends I haven't seen in 10 years or more, so that was nice. But I only got one day in Wisconsin, the rest was spent in Chicago, sleeping. I couldn't believe how much I slept, but it was good to finally get some rest. I flew there, which was a tough one for me, but it ended up being much worse in my head then in reality. I think I may just get over this fear after all. We'll see. And a quick work plug, Sports Kids Moms & Dads starts airing on Bravo this Wednesday at 10/9c, you can see my name for a split second before they squeeze me out. And if you're in the UK, or get UK channels, you can see our doc Power Lesbians on Sunday at 10pm, it's on Sky. Camp Michael Jackson also premiers on Sky in early June, so that's something to watch out for. On CMJ, I actually get my own card, which is a ...
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So again I find myself neglecting this site. There really hasn't been much going on lately except for the fact that I have reintroduced myself to a dentist. I hate dentists, they hurt you and take your money. I guess you get better looking teeth, but still not sure it's worth it. I had a nice little savings going all ready to be spent on a new car. Instead I have to spend 3k to fix a few teeth. I keep telling myself that it's worth it, but still not that sure. I really wanted a new car, and a new digital camera for that matter. I really wish I had dental insurance. On the plus side I'm going to NAB in Vegas in a few weeks. I'm only going to be there for one day of the conference, a half day at that, but I'll be at the Apple event. Here's hoping for a kick ass FCP 5, with a new media management system, shared projects, amazing realtime effects that use Core Image and possible some new hardware announcements that will compete with Avid's Adrenaline. I mean, they are so close with ...
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I couldn't stand this being empty anymore, but I have nothing to say. Josh and Serena were here over the weekend and I took a few days off to go to Vegas. Up a few hundred but lost my digital camera and my blackberry. So, as with everything, some good some bad. I would have had pictures, but, you know, lost the camera. Right now some stripper is looking at pictures of the three of us. I can't really afford a new one, so no new pictures for me for a while.
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Inside Deep Throat is now open in 9 cities. If it's in one of yours, go see it right now. Next week it opens in 14 more, then the world.
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Blackberry applications are expensive! $200 for a SSH client? The Sidekick has a free one. Apparently OS 4 has a free SSH client, but for some reason I can't upgrade my device yet.
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Ok, here's something I want: Right now I can use PocketMac to sync the Blackberry to my Mac, including Now Up to Date. But, it would be way better, if it had a the ability to sync off of our Now server. That way, no matter where you were, you would always have the latest calendar, without having to sync it to your computer. Of course that means a Blackberry Now application, which isn't going to happen, but it would be cool.
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RIM was giving away Blackberrys at the filmmakers lounge at Sundance this year. Seeing as I didn't make it there for the premiere of Inside Deep Throat, house sitting instead, I didn't get one, and since I'm not a filmmaker, I wouldn't have gotten one even if I had gone. Fenton and Randy did get the free swag though. Since I'm the Head of Technology, they dutifly handed their redemption cards over to me, and since I'm the Head of Technology, I dutifly handed them over to my assistant. When I did, I mentioned that he should try to get me one, not thinking that he actually could. Well, on Thursday a box came from RIM that included not two, but three brand new Blackberrys. I love to get free stuff, and this is actually useful, compared to most swag. I quickly ran off to Cingular to setup my service, oh, and Randy and Fenton's. In the excitement I almost forgot that this "free" gift was going to cost me $50 a month for the unlimited data plan. After two days I have to say it was well ...
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Avid's product line bothers me like nothing else. It's filled with artificial differences designed to force you to spend more. None bother me more than the Media Composer Adrenaline. It's a fine product that meets the needs of online editors very well. It's their step up from Express Pro w/ Mojo, and it's a huge step up. Besides being significantly more stable, it works with Unity Fibre storage, has much better title tools, and better grouping tools. All of those improvements are in software, which is what bothers me. It's a big financial jump between MC and AXP, about twice the cost. It seems that mostly this is for the Adrenaline, which you have to have connected to run MC. Now, I don't know many post facilities that need to have all the machines hooked up to an Adrenaline like box. You do not need, especially with shared storage, SDI out on every machine. It's easy enough to make your DigiBeta masters from one or two rooms out of 10 or 15. So why does Avid limit MC to just ...
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And Apple's biggest advantage is modes. Or, rather, the lack of them in Final Cut Pro. It goes back to that heritage thing I was talking about yesterday. Due to Avid's age, their software relies on modes, trim mode, etc. This was probably due to the limitations of the hardware at the time. Apple has the distinct advantage of being made much more recently, and not being strapped with this limitation. In Final Cut Pro you can cut, trim, slip and ripple anytime you want by just choosing the correct tool. If you want to grab a clip and move it to another track, just grab it and you're done. On an Avid, whether it be an Express Pro or Media Composer, you have to enter the "Red Arrow" mode. Then, when you want to go back to laying in subclips, you have to exit the mode. It may seem minimal, but it's a significant limitation. It's much like the switch from Mac OS 9 to X. It may have been painful at first, but once you got used to it, there's no going back. I doubt you could find and ...
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Here is what I want to see from Final Cut Pro 5.0. They need project sharing desperately. Avid has a great solution with Unity. It may be over priced, but it allows seamless collaboration between editors. But it can be improved. I would like Apple to approach project sharing a little differently. I would like them to create a FCP server that hosts projects. I imagine it working like this: The editor would open Final Cut and select Open Remote from the file menu. They would sign in with a username and password. A list of projects would appear listing all the ones that the user has access to. When they picked the project, all the Xsan volumes that were needed for the project would be mounted automatically. An administrator could set up different permission sets for each user, limiting different settings and items the user could change. For example, you could set it so only admin users could changed the digitize directory and sequence settings, etc. Multiple editors could work off ...
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We have an Xsan system setup at work. It's feeding 12 machines. So far we have been really happy with it. We also have an Avid Unity Lanshare, which we've had for almost two years now, acquired before I worked there. The two products aim to server the same market, though Apple's target is a little less specific. They approach the problem they aim to solve in two different ways. Apple's approach, which is more typical of SAN systems, is to assign storage pools to volumes. While Avid's is to assign Volumes to pools of storage. This means that on the Xsan you can have multiple pools per volume, and on Avids, multiple volumes per pool. If you work with Avid and FCP systems, you'll understand why they have these different approaches. Avid software is old school. It originated from a time where an Avid system was used solely as a cutting station. Where it required so much custom hardware, and huge costs, that it didn't make sense to use it for anything else. Apple's FCP is new school, ...
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My hosting company, Lunar Pages, has cut off my comments. Actually they did it a month or so ago, but I've been busy. Anyway, because I was being hit by a particularly bad spam attack and there was a bug with MT, there was a lot of extra load put onto the server. Too much for Lunar Pages. Until recently they have been the best host I've ever worked with, and I've worked with a lot. But recently, over the last year or so, they have become more hard lined, running PHP as a cgi, annoying, turning on PHP safe mode, even more annoying, etc. At this point, I'm not sure it's worth hosting MT myself anymore. I'm thinking of using my Typepad account to host it all. Of course, the couple other weblogs hosted with my install would have to find a new place to live as well. The only issue with moving to TP is loosing my Gallery install. I like it, and I'm not sure Typepad's photo galleries really replaces it. To be fair I haven't used it much, so maybe it's improved recently. Then there's ...
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I knew I was missing out when I skipped Sundance. Never again .
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Tonight I'm watching the O.C. on a 50 inch television while sitting on a very comfortable sofa. You can imagine the improvement from my studio apartment with my 21 inch set and not much furniture to speak of. The home sits in the hills of Hollywood, overlooking the Magic Castle*. It's multi-level. I have to walk up stairs to get to the kitchen. Did you hear that? Multiple levels! I don't even have multiple rooms. I'm enjoying myself immensely. So why am I living in such lavish quarters? I'm house sitting for one of my bosses while they are at Sundance for the Inside Deep Throat premier. To tell you the truth, I was tempted to make my way up to Park City as well, but I'm glad I didn't, this is just too much fun. I do fear that I may get a little spoiled though. So you know, it's not all fun and games, I have two little critters to watch while I'm hear. I was a little afraid that they wouldn't take to me, but so far they seem to love me. All cuddled up by my feet. Not so much my ...
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I got myself a dart board last week and have been playing whenever I'm home, which has been more than usual the last week or so. So tonight I'm throwing around a couple darts, trying to get my form down, when I threw the darts you see pictured. I'm pretty impressed myself. Right on top of each other, just like Robin Hood, or something.
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/5/18744/21880
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Christmas is just a week away. Lovely. I bought myself an iPod Photo as a little christmas present to myself. I'm on to my third one now. My last iPod was getting a little old. Only 20 gigs (not enough to hold all my music) and, most importantly, it didn't have the click wheel. I also picked up the iPod socks, which are just too cute. I mean really, socks. How much cuter can you get? Speaking of iPods, you can still win an iPod Mini from World of Wonder by sending in your Hot Christmas Story. I know it says by the 15th, but we extended it till Monday. Don't be fooled, Apple really is filled with geniuses. Well, except for their enterprise system engineers who take 8 hours to setup a demo of... well unreleased products and all that. You get my point. They really could use a guy like me :-) I kid you not, at one point when they couldn't get it running, I stepped in and plugged it in... Ok, I'm getting away from xmas, the whole point here. I received a bunch of stuff at work on ...
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