The Los Angeles Latebirds – Flock Yeah II from Brian Sowell on Vimeo.

Good lord this is just rad as shit, my friends.

While I don’t mind watching the film on DVD, I do like to watch movies while using my iPhone, and therefore the movies need to be seriously compressed.

I usually use VisualHub (now defunct, unfortunately), but sometimes dip into Compressor for the final encoding.

Today, I started to use Evom and I’m quite happy with the results.
While Evom did take much longer to re-compress my 1.6GB file (about 2 hours, compared to about 60-70 minutes with VisualHub), the resulting file size is a shocking 250MB less than what VisualHub gave me.

Here are the two compressed files, side-by-side. Can you tell which is VisualHub’s reduction and which is Evom’s?

Final note: if you CAN tell which is more compressed, do you really think it matters on the iPhone screen? I don’t.

I was surprised to see some Seattle landmarks (most notably the Guild Theater), and it turned out to be a pretty good film.

True, the son is a total douchebag (as quoted from Robin Williams who plays the father), but that’s on purpose to the level of ridiculousness.

From time to time I get to watch movies at work while I’m coding away, and I’ve found that my productivity doesn’t get interrupted with a movie on my second screen – if anything, it helps me keep “in the moment” of my programming.

I’ve got to say, Bobcat did a dynamite job directing (great soundtrack, too), even getting a cameo in, but the “ghost” scene wasn’t my favorite. Can’t win ‘em all, right?

Square has been on my radar for a few months – mostly for tinkering project ideas. Here’s some things I’ve been thinking:

1. Human ATM (swipe card, give cash) for places like Dick’s in Seattle
2. Buy tickets even easier from scalpers (ha!)
3. Sell your merchandise easier at live events (hello, OSNAP.net!)
4. Be the coolest lemonade stand on the block

I need assistance with my life. Obviously the choices I’ve made over the years have not had positive results.

Yes, I’m married, but things could be better. Yes I have a fantastic job, but my work/life balance is non-existent.

Are you in your mid-thirties? Have you had success with you romance, employment, finances – enough so that you feel comfortable guiding me through my headaches?

Come join me as a personal puppetmaster; make my decisions for me, in love, finances, employment, time, hobbies.

Coordinate with my darling wife as to what’s best for me, using your experience as a base.

Salary to be discussed based on my ability to put my life in your hands, and how responsible you perform.

This is an ongoing project, hopefully self-terminating (meaning: I’d love to get to a point where I can manage my life on my own, without your help).

Doing so has really made my brain hurt as I’m not too familiar with Obj-C or CocoaTouch.

It’s been a fun ride, and learning in the method I usually do I’ve purchased books to help me along.

Thankfully I’m a member of both Barnes and Noble and Borders, so the discounts on these books was substantial. That and I bought a couple over the holidays at a really steep discount from Amazon and SitePoint.

Game on!

I’ve made some interface improvements and have nearly eliminated the JavaScript necessary to run this project.
Now, the JS is only used as a RegExp task, instead of having to use it for the modal dialogs as well.

Next steps: hook up the history (Core Data) and the E-mail function.

searchy: a one-day iPhone app from chadedge on Vimeo.

Yeah, there’s LOT’s that should be done to an app like this (#1 being “hire a professional”), but this was a one-day project, completed in an afternoon, folks!

I have a successful PDF repository browsing/ftp/download system at work that checks for updated PDF files, inserts the filename and some basic file data into a MySQL database (using a Watched Folder/Perl action), and allows [internal] Web users to browse the repository and FTP a batch of files to a destination or ZIP the files for local download.

What I’m working on now is an addition that will allow a regular schedule (using CRON) to run that will grab the latest days files, create an XML manifest (with basic information about the ‘Company’ as well as individual file blocks) and FTP the bundle to a destination.

Most of the new addition is just a CRON addition to what already works: grab a group of PDF’s based on the date, change the filename to the desired naming schema (the schema’s are stored in my local database) based on the chosen destination, and send them on their way.

The problem I’m having is I need to add an XML manifest file along with the PDF’s, and while I could code the whole mess in PHP, I’d like to keep as much abstraction to the process as possible – that way I don’t have to go into the PHP code much (if ever) once the update has been implemented.

My brain doesn’t handle abstractions very well (as seen by most of my Web work being very “blocky,” and the fact that I’m using a third-party template on my own blog – and I call myself a developer!). I need some serious help with how to generate the manifest without coding the whole thing into the PHP itself.

I’m using CodeIgniter as my PHP framework (LOVE it!), and I’d like to allow for a DTD or XSLT to be setup that will define the XML’s “parts,” then in the future a manager (with XSLT/DTD knowledge) could adjust the template as needed from a Web interface.

I guess the tough parts for me are to assign some kind of CRON kickoff to run the custom search, rename, manifest-generation, and FTP.

Sigh, I’m just not smart enough some days.

Just finished a rough mix of Billy Hollman singing “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Queen) in the voice of Peter Griffin (Family Guy).

As funny as the song sound, you should have been at the party where he recorded this with Tom – drop-down hilarious!

Good:

1. For cheese
2. Holding a door open
3. Breaking up logs for firewood
4. Improving your golf score
5. Visually describing data in a chart
6. Bedroom antics (yes, there’s a product for that)
7. Stopping jets from falling off of aircraft carriers
8. Securing an arch (keystone)

Bad:

1. Splitting up a marriage

As you can see, wedge’s have a multitude of good uses. Let’s keep it that way, ok? Let’s stay away from the bad, please.