A blog about David Chartier

Another artist I now love, thanks to Apple's ads

2008-01-21T17:42:40Z

I love Apple's marketing, but aside from the clever and simply way it portrays its products, the marketing team often users great songs from little-known artists. I've fallen in love with a lot of these artists, and Yael Naïm is yet another; I'm downloading her entire album in DRM-free goodness from the iTunes Store as I write this. Naïm's "New Soul" was used in Apple's latest ad for its new MacBook Air notebook. The song is great, but Naïm's video for it is even better, and Naïm herself is adorable. Check out the video here, and check the rest of her album from my affiliate link below:

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The greatest new family and friend support tool for Mac nerds like me

2008-01-06T22:41:04Z

For my friends and readers who don't often watch all this tech and nerd stuff, Apple released a new operating system back in October called Mac OS X Leopard (version 10.5, to be exact). While it does tons of fancy new things many people might not notice (at least consciously) or care about, one bit advancement is the ability to control another Leopard user's screen with just the click of a mouse (and their permission of course) in iChat, Apple's chat program that works over AOL's AIM service.

I've had family members and friends pick up new Macs or upgrade to Leopard since October and the holidays, and this feature has already become a god-send to me for helping people fix problems or learn how to use something. A nice touch is the fact that audio chat gets turned on as well, so we can speak with each other while I'm poking around or explaining how to do something.

I know there are plenty of other programs and services out there that have offered this for a while, but many of them cost money in one way or another, and none are as simple for both parties as iChat's single click to start the Screen Sharing feature (well, technically, it's two clicks: the first is on my part to ask permission, the second is on the recipient's part to grant it).

So to my friends, especially the long distance ones, who are considering picking up your first Mac or just upgrading, I'm always happy to help. With this new Screen Sharing feature though, I can hopefully be more useful.

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Apple tumbler

2007-09-25T13:47:45Z

Stylish and less obnoxious than some coffee mug phrase like "Somebody has a case of the Mondays."

I somehow lost my last tumbler which was actually a bit smaller. I much appreciate this new one via Nik Fletcher on his vacation to California and the Apple Corporate Store.

photo.jpg

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$10 says the iPhone is opened to 3rd parties on June 11th

2007-05-12T20:34:00Z

While I can't afford Wil Shipley-sized bets just yet, I can say this: I got $10 that says the iPhone is opened to 3rd party development on June 11th, the day of Steve Jobs' keynote at WWDC 2007. Now it might be some sort of a managed development process, where apps need to be submitted to and cleared by Apple in order to get listed on some closed iPhone Downloads page, but I'm still throwing down that the iPhone opens up in at least some basic fashion straight out the gate.

All this talk about 3rd party apps 'bringing down the network' is for the birds - developers, start your engines!

Originally published at 1FPS | David Chartier. You can comment here or there.

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Apple is "naive" and "irresponsible" - no, wait!

2007-04-08T03:13:05Z

Microsoft changes tune on selling DRM-free songs

In February, Apple CEO and founder Steve Jobs stirred up controversy when he called for an end to DRM in an open letter to the industry published on Apple's Web site. At the time, Microsoft responded harshly to Jobs' statement -- a Zune spokesman called it naive and irresponsible -- but now the company seems to have literally changed its tune.

And this is precisely why no one is paying attention to Microsoft anymore. They'll do and say anything to disparage the competition - except make a quality product that can stand on its own uniqueness and ingenuity.

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Apple adds Xvid to QT Components site

2007-04-05T18:34:19Z

Apple adds Xvid to QT Components site - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

"Apple has added Xvid to its online QuickTime Components list. The Xvid-for-QuickTime component, which you can download here, allows you to play and encode Xvid video."

Hooray! Now we all can play the codec of choice for pirates everywhere in QuickTime and any other apps that require it. Possibly even iTunes (I haven't downloaded to test yet). Why $30 is too much for pirates to pay (or pirate, har har) for the ability to encode in true H264, the codec chosen for both new competing high definition DVD formats, escapes me to this day.

Originally published at 1FPS | David Chartier. You can comment here or there.

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It's the little things

2007-03-23T13:14:07Z

...that matter

Apple TV FedEx widget

The Delivery Status widget accepts the Apple logo keyboard shortcut (opt-shift-k), which is just cool. Interestingly, this is also how Apple displays the Apple TV's product name on their site as well. To my knowledge, they've never done that before, though I've only been interested in Apple for the last 5 years or so.

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Thank you for ordering a MacBook Pro

2007-02-01T02:07:45Z

No Apple, thank you. I promise to put the upgraded 200GB and 2GB of RAM to good use. Hell, thanks to you for doing nothing to stifle my music and video habits, my iTunes library alone is up to 47GB! To make up for the media addiction you inflicted upon my psyche, I think the least you could do is hurry up!

Originally published at 1FPS | David Chartier. You can comment here or there.

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TUAW rocked Macworld Expo 2007

2007-01-14T17:57:08Z

I finally have my first Macworld Expo under my belt, and what a trial-by-fire it was. We more or less had five bloggers and one HD-slinging cameraman for our TUAW coverage, and I'm pretty happy with the results. We shot quite a bit of video, but we had a few technical difficulties getting some of it up right away. No biggie though; that's why we're calling this 'the beta year'. Our public numbers put a huge smile on our faces as well. According to SiteMeter, we had over 1.1m page views on Tuesday, which to my knowledge is our best.day.evar. This was the day we live-blogged Steve Jobs' keynote, during which I was furiously typing away in the hall and Erica (you rock!) was translating and cleaning it all up for prime time.

Personally, I learned a lot. This was my first time covering a major event of any kind (including live-blogging a major keynote), and boy was it an experience. I met some great people, interviewed some awesome people (footage and podcasts pending) and was offered some exciting freelance opportunities. Three cheers for networking! We already have a ton of ideas for doing things differently and better, and I'm already excited for WWDC, even though it's a completely different beast and not quite as consumer friendly.

Still, Macworld Expo 2007 rocked, and I am incredibly thankful I had the opportunity.

Originally published at 1FPS : David Chartier. You can comment here or there.

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Covering Macworld Expo 2007

2007-01-10T09:48:23Z

We're covering the hell out of Macworld Expo 2007 at TUAW and I'm loving it. Two podcasts, tons of live keynote blogging and a boatload of showroom floor coverage throughout the entire week - and more - are all on the menu. We're rocking Macworld pretty hard so far, and having a blast doing it. I also had the fortunate opportunity of putting together a few short intro bumps for all the video we're shooting here, which will go well on my pending portfolio page.

All in all it's been a great - though draining - experience so far, complete with meeting some of my co-bloggers in person for the first time. Stay tuned!

Originally published at 1FPS : David Chartier. You can comment here or there.

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