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Hosted by me (@pacificpelican) and Jessica (@JessicaMcKeown)

‘Charles Johnson’ (the swordfighting guy) on Kickstarter.

Olliclip on Kickstarter.

Neener band blog.

list of top iPhone app reviews on the djmcloud.com podcast
(Includes name of app and the number of the podcast in which it was discussed.)
5/9/2012

Photography

1. ProCamera from 4 and from 20
2. 645 Pro from 32
3. Adobe Ideas from 10
4. Grid Lens from 21
5. iPhoto for iOS

Gaming

1. Grand Theft Auto (GTA) 3 from 19
2. Snail Domino from 13
3. Minecraft PE from 28
4. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit from 5
5. Tap to Flap from 4 and Tiny Wings from 5

Reading

1. Pocket (formerly Read It Later) from 32
2. Reeder from 11
3. Kindle from 28
4. Flipboard from 18
5. Tweetbot from 10

Writing

1. Evernote from 10
2. Byword from 30
3. Nebulous Notes from 26
4. Pages
5. Drafts

Etc.

1. 8mm Vintage Camera from 4
2. gMusic (Google Music client)
3. iMovie for iOS and Videolicious
4. Flashlight from 14
5. Dolphin Browser from 13

Fukushima nuclear disaster continues as the Japanese government bails out plant operator.

“Belching dinosaurs may have helped keep their world warm.”

‘Henrietta’ on Kickstarter.

Hosted by me and Jessica.

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April 27, 2012

music:

My Screambird alternative trance music project now has a page on Google Play where all the tracks released so far (four of them) can be purchased (or listened to for free): http://goo.gl/tmYvd

iOS apps:

645 Pro: a camera app that has an option to create tiff files as well as jpg files, and offers some cool features like real-time ISO data, optional grid overlays, day and night modes, and aspect ratio dial.

Pocket: (formerly ReadItLater): an app that downloads the text from stories for reading later; competitor to Readability which was mentioned in episode #29.

Mac App:

Read Later: a free desktop client app for the Pocket (formerly ReadItLater) service.

web app:

ZooTool: a free social bookmarking service; works with Reeder. [Reeder was reviewed in episode #11].

PS Vita/PS3 games:

MLB The Show 2012 (PS3 and PS Vita versions)

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Hosted by me and Jessica.

show notes

Facebook buys Instagram. Jessica mentioned Instaport for backing up Instagram photos. Also Instarchive does the same thing.

What do people think about Facebook’s “frictionless sharing“?

Do different generations react to online sharing differently?

Alter-hyper-ironistic zombie-fication of hipsters.

Are the 1980s back or….what?

Living with war.

Why do so many share what so few create?

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Hunter S. Thompson

GrandFork theme is on GitHub, as is the pacificpelican.us/cms code

my book: Like Any Ganster–Selected Writings 2006-2011

collaborating with GarageBand for iOS

Audacity audio recording program (for Windows/Mac/Linux) reaches version 2.0

Arctic Keys synthesizer app for iOS

iOS text editor Byword

moving to iCloud

Victor Hugo

last.fm/user/danthedinosaur

clip: locker room speech to New Orleans Saints defense by Gregg Williams

DJ Rig iOS app

everythingisterrible.com live in Cleveland Heights

Neener - http://blogs.sf3am.com/neener/

Screambird - http://screambird.djmcloud.com/

djmcloud Soundcloud page: http://soundcloud.com/djmcloud

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Clips

NPR show This American Life was forced to retract claims by Mike Daisey about what he saw around the Foxconn factory in China that made Apple products.  What this story shows is the willingness of Apple haters to believe (and repeat) the worst about the company, even when it’s not true.  The clip that starts :40 into the show is of the faif.us oggcast in a recent episode in which Bradley Kuhn (even after This American Life had an episode called “Retraction“) claims “they didn’t retract it.”

The next clip is from the No Agenda podcast, in which Adam Curry tries to pretend he isn’t a Republican shill by claiming he has, yes, “no agenda.”  I clipped his podcasting partner on that show, John C. Dvorak, saying similar in djmcloud podcast episode #18.

We circle back to This American Life host Ira Glass and his pompous ass-covering over having broadcast a false story for one more clip.  NPR isn’t the high quality outfit he claims it is: read this blog post about their coverage of Greece.

WordPress theme

GrandFork: My free and open source theme, now with left, right and below-content-area widget sections.  Uses Futura font [or sans serif if that font or Helvetica are unavailable].  No support for internal WordPress comment system, though I think alternatives like Disqus or the Facebook blog comments system might work with it.  The GrandFork theme is currently in use at the Neener band blog.

The GrandFork theme is now available on GitHub.

iOS apps

-Angry Birds Space: new title from popular series adds some gravity to the game’s physics as birds are shot in and out of orbit.

-Cloudscrob: tracks what you’ve listened to on your native iOS Music (formerly iPod) app and sends ["scrobbles"] the song to your last.fm account.

-Readability: one of the numerous “read later” systems which allow users to save web pages and blog posts using a desktop browser plugin (or on iOS a specialized browser inside this app) so they can be collected together for subsequent perusal.

Mac apps – raster image editors

-Adobe Photoshop CS6 beta: a new version of the CS6 suite of applications is coming out soon and the beta version is free to try for a limited period.

-Pixelmator: originally discussed in episode #12.

music by Screambird

download the mp3: Salt Water (single mix)

A new version (0.2) of the GrandFork theme for WordPress is now available for free:

download: GrandFork 0.2 0.2.1 2.2.0

Some of the changes that I managed to make include:

• updated screenshot to reflect Futura font instead of Helvetica
• added third widget area fixed on left
• made sidebar naming more descriptive
• h1 tag used for post titles instead of h2 in single post template
• header.php template had redundant branding div was removed
• removed unnecessary index-broken.php and category-features.php
• comment clutter previously removed from other pages also removed from tags template
• text within li tags is now styled the same way as the rest of the content

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Hosted by me (@pacificpelican) and Jessica (@JessicaMcKeown)

I took this photo of a Lakewood police cruiser with my Nikon dSLR.

This iPhone photo that I posted to Instagr.am was taken after the cop pulled me over on my bike a few minutes later. He called in my license but there was nothing to hold me on. I have a right to take photos, so he unsuccessfully tried to harass me about other stuff.

From the GrandFork (free WordPress theme) blog:

Well that was fast.  I have an updated version of the GrandFork theme for WordPress.

download: GrandFork 0.1.beta.8 Get the latest version

Some of the changes include

• static pages no longer have unnecessary “Posted in”
• comment stuff has been eliminated–if you want comments, maybe try using Disqus in the widget area that sits below the content
• bug fixed in font CSS
• top navigation menu now has the same font as the rest of the site

From the new GrandFork blog:

I have a new theme I’ve been working on for WordPress called GrandFork.  This is a very early version of the theme, 0.1.beta.7, so please keep in mind that this is beta software.

download: GrandFork 0.1.beta.7 Get the latest version

This work is released under GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2 or later.

Check out previous free themes I’ve made at pacificpelican.us/themes.

Like Any Gangster: Selected Writings 2006-2011 PDF version

Like Any Gangster: Selected Writings 2006-2011 iPad/iBooks version

I have a book that compiles 56 pages of writings and photos from the last several years. Most of the content has been previously published on web sites of mine and those items mostly include links next to them to the original page. Also includes an introduction and an appendix.

The opening is excerpted here:

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Hosted by me (@pacificpelican)

Listen: download the mp3

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Hosted by me (@pacificpelican)

show notes

-Intro song: “Pacific Shores” by Neener from the forthcoming Neener 2 LP

-Apple announces upcoming desktop OS release: OS X Mountain Lion (10.8); Jim joins in on this segment to help me discuss what that means

-iTunes Match

[I talked preliminarily about iTunes Match and Google Music in podcast 12.]

-Intermission song: “Salt Water” by Neener from the forthcoming Neener 2 LP; Jessica joins me to talk about our music and more

-e-Commerce and social networking: Gamestop, Nordstrom, and Gap have all opened and shut down storefronts on Facebook already.

-danmckeown.info update

-new version (2.0) of popular free “play anything” VLC media player for Mac, Linux and Windows

-iOS apps:

–Nebulous Notes: take notes in a simple text entry interface, and then send them to your Dropbox. [I talked about Dropbox in podcast 11 and about note-taking alternative Evernote in podcast 10.]

–Melodies Pro: play your Google Music collection on your iPhone

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Hosted by me (@pacificpelican) and Jessica (@JessicaMcKeown).

show notes

I talk with Jessica about Canon (point-and-shoot sales are weak while dSLR sales are strong) and Nikon (new D800).
Then I go on a long rant about how now Twitter is like Myspace used to be, driven by crass popularity statistics and thus incentivizing pandering behavior by users as they obsess over how their tweets are received. People allow reactions from a few users to shape their sharing choices. This is not exactly self-expression. Favstar seems to offer Twitter users a place to obsess over their online image, and show off to other users how often they have been re-tweeted and favorited.

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Hosted by me (@pacificpelican)

show notes

Moving up the results: Okay but not stellar progress in making danmckeown.info the definitive site about people who use that name.

Congratulations to Jessica for winning an award from her employer for her excellent work.

Fallout continues in the file sharing world of the Megaupload.com shutdown and arrests.  Some people report losing their files.  I’ve always thought that (legitimate) file sharing should be managed at as micro a level as possible–I wrote pacificpelican.us/cms to help make it easy for anyone with web space that can run PHP can easily upload and share files on their site.

I have an ebook that you can download: Like Any Gangster: Selected Writings 2006-2011 [54 pages, PDF and iPad versions both available for free].  This first edition was made with Apple’s iBooks Author.

A discussion of the file auto-save and versioning system in Mac OS X Lion: I illustrate the change in Lion from Snow Leopard by considering the difference between iMovie 11 and GarageBand 11 (the former auto-saves, the latter uses manual saving).  In addition, I consider the different implications of the new system for text files compared to image files.

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Hosted by me (@pacificpelican) and Jessica (@JessicaMcKeown)

show notes

Apple textbooks: Andy Ihnatko talks about the new software for making iPad iBooks.

Sol Republic earphones

NFL playoffs

When this podcast first mentioned Hipstamatic (an iOS camera app) in episode 3, I repeated a now-discredited marketing story they were telling at the time–namely, that there had been a small-production camera (“100″) in the 1980s that gave the name and inspiration for the app.  I personally don’t care about the myth but must admit I was dumb to be so uncritical and repeat it to listeners.  I bring this up unprompted because it took me a year before I randomly thought: Hey that story must be nonsense.

Megaupload.com faces mega international prosecution.

SOPA and PIPA protest

Paul Graham: “Kill Hollywood.”

How far will government and law enforcement go in allowing itself to be used as a tool for smashing competition and innovation for the movie and record industries?

Politico: ”Indeed, the fiery fight over how to preserve [sic] copyright on the Internet is far from over.”

Obey The Goose.

‘Smile’, the long-lost follow-up to the iconic 1960s classic ’Pet Sounds’ by The Beach Boys was finally released in a 5-disc set called ‘The Smile Sessions‘ in 2011.

A Vancouver newspaper is forced to turn photos over to police of the Stanley Cup riot last year; so they are releasing the images of people lighting fires, attacking police cars and smashing storefronts.

DJMcloud Music is now on SoundCloud.

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Hosted by me (@pacificpelican) with help from the parakeets.
(http://djmcloud.danieljmckeown.com/updates)

News Topics and Links

US Marines urinating on corpses of Afghans perfectly symbolizes the intent and reality of the American war effort.  Barack Obama was unable to cover up these images like he did previous ones.

Mitt Romney is such a scumbag talking about “saving the soul of America” and even Newt Gingrich is attacking him for his shady business dealings.

New York Times public editor, Arthur Brisbane, asking whether lies should be allowed, shows how worthless mainstream journalists still are.

Tonight I saw Apple Genius Bar employees advising my wife to go through and kill applications manually.  So despite the debate over the utility of the practice (of routinely going through and shutting down a bunch of apps rather than using the shutdown occasionally when an app is acting up) they are telling people to do that at Apple stores still apparently.

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hosted by Dan (@pacificpelican)
(http://djmcloud.danieljmckeown.com/updates)

iPhone apps
-White Noise (TMSOFT)
-Grid Lens (Bucket Labs)
-Minecraft Pocket Edition (Mojang)
-Eden (Kingly Software Inc.)

pacificpelican.us/cms

download the free PHP app for uploading files, creating text documents and creating shortlinks for your web site

Tech Media News

Samsung is badly misplaying its marketing hand with the “Dude you’re a barista” commercials.

John Gruber talks about Bill Clinton on the “Back to Work” podcast: What is it with Gen X and Bill Clinton??

Music

Bush: “The Sound of Winter” from ‘The Sea of Memories’ (2011)

Teagan and Sara: “Alligator (live)” from ‘Get Along’ (2011)

Neener: “Pacific Shores” from Neener 2 (forthcoming in 2012)–exclusive preview of the track at the end of the podcast

listen: download the aac

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hosted by Dan (@pacificpelican)

(http://djmcloud.danieljmckeown.com/updates)

and Jessica (@JessicaMcKeown)

(http://jessica.sf3am.com)

(This podcast was recorded live on video via Ustream. See the recorded video here.)

show notes (Dec. 17, 2011)

follow-up on the previous podcast (#19):

I mentioned GTA 5 when I clearly meant GTA 4 at one point, and I also called Star Wars Battlefront 2 “Star Wars Battlefield the original one” which makes sense as far as that being the first Star Wars Battlefront title on PSP but obviously not on all platforms. For example PS2 had the true “original” Battlefront.

Christmas videos we’ve done:

pacificpelican.us/podcast 17: Santa Claus makes a brief appearance in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park

The Christmas rainbow: When Jessica and I spent our first Christmas together in 2009, it was the kind of Christmas Day in Ohio that you could ride bikes–so we did and then we saw a rainbow.

Christmas in Chicago: In 2010 Jessica and I went to Chicago to spend the holidays with my family out there, and this video collects some clips from that season.

[the Santa photo]

Gordon Square: This year we made a video about rock music, Christmas–and not snitching.

My Notes on Hipstamatic [incomplete as 12/17/2011]

Currrent Hipstamatic version: 225 231

Films:

Black keys super grain: nice sharp black and white with small black frame, no noise

Alfred Infrared: Cool take on infrared film; can create very cool reddish images; leaky white frame; no noise

Ina’s 1969: Creates mild “60s” colors effect; has retro yellow dot border; no noise

Blanko: Offers a relatively neutral platform for the lens, with solid white border

Pistil: Creates reddish colors, uses distracting verbose alphanumeric-character-having border that says something like hpstm 269 or something

Cafe Cafenol: brownish sepia like tones with a shattered partial dark frame

Blanko noir: neutral film with black border

Float: Japanese style film yellows the image somewhat while placing a dark border with random seeming tentacles reaching into the image in some areas

AO DLX: a free Nike-sponsored film, creates slightly grainy black-and-white images within a somewhat uneven black frame which includes alphanumeric noise including “Nike”

AO BW: another free Nike-sponsored film, creates high contrast black-and-white images with a nearly even white border without alphanumeric noise

Lenses:

Hornbecker: from the Nike free pack, emphasizes realism and accuracy

Lucas AB2: creates muted, retro colors

Chunky: creates sharply focused images with light leak effects

Labatique 73: mild grainy effect: from the Cowboys and Aliens free pack

Matty ALN: causes notable light ray effects; from the Cowboys and Aliens free pack

iOS apps

[repeat app recommendation/The djmcloud.com app of the year] ProCamera: the best iOS photo app abides–does the best job with meta-data, combing photo and video, and with overall shooting.

Snappr: another entrant in the fish-eye lens effect photo app category: offers a custom shooting interface and multiple fish-eye effects but currently has the limitation that it renders photos at 1200×1200 for iPhone 4S, smaller for older phones; also of course has the limitations that any app will have compared to an optical fish-eye lens

Google Currents: another entrant in the customized news and content reading experience; sort of like Flipboard and the various Twitter apps but with its own spin: allows reader to focus on a handful of feeds more so than the firehose of content on apps like Reeder (which actually is much more of a Google Reader client than Currents, but that’s not the point I guess).