jeffhester.net

As regular readers know, one of my busiest websites is BigBlueBall.com, a news and support site for instant messaging, social networks and other online collaboration tools. I registered BigBlueBall back in 1998 because I thought it was about as perfect a name as you could think up. It’s easy to say, to remember and spell. It’s adaptable to a wide range of topics. And it symbolizes our increasingly global community, collaboration and a “one world” view.

Four years ago (man, this blog has been around for a while!) I posted an in-depth explanation of how I came up with the BigBlueBall name and an anecdote about how one of my favorite musicians, Peter Gabriel, had (at the time) registered the .net and .org versions. I was curious to find out what his Real World record company would be doing with those domains, and now it’s clear. After more than 15 years in production, they’ve released (today!) Big Blue Ball, the album.

It’s fascinating to learn that Peter Gabriel had the same idea — Big Blue Ball symbolizing the global community and collaboration — with a similar inspiration; the astronaut’s view of Earth from space.

You can listen to some samples or get DRM-free MP3s below:

Enjoy!

Nike Soccer hired Guy Ritchie to produce the following 2-minute film that does a terrific job of capturing the dream of millions of young footballers (soccer players, for my US friends) — becoming a pro football player. The film is shot from the first-person perspective, and condensed to show the ups and downs and progression of “your” football career.

Nike Soccer has made a couple of shorter commercials from this, currently airing during the Euro Championship. Brilliant, and worth sharing.

Now — what would a first-person film of your life look like?

Some of you already know the sad story of my first generation iPhone. Fortunately, there is a bright spot on the horizon — the newer, faster, cheaper iPhone 3G! Announced by Steve Jobs at Apple’s developer conference, this thing rocks. It supports AT&T’s 3G data network, which means faster wireless internet connectivity. It’s got true GPS. And best of all — it now officially supports third-party applications.

The intro at the conference took about 90 minutes, but the good folks over at Mahalo Daily have created a wonderful highlight reel that actually covers all of the salient facts in a mere 60 seconds.

Current iPhone owners such as myself can upgrade, but I’ll have to turn in my old (broken) iPhone and restart my two-year contract. It’s worth it.

When can you get the new iPhone? It hits Apple and AT&T stores on Friday, July 11th. Now you know where you can find me.

Yes, it’s true. My new baby is a Mac. 

Technically speaking, it’s the second Mac I’ve purchased (the first being for my daughter when she went to college). But this is my first Mac. It’s not the latest-and-greatest — just a slightly used PowerBook G4 Titanium picked up on Craigslist — but it’s faster than both my aging Sony VIAO desktop and my aging IBM Thinkpad T40 at work. 

Why a Mac? No, I didn’t buy into Apple’s entertaining I’m a PC and I’m a Mac campaign. It’s something I’ve been planning to do for some time now. I have no plans to abandon my Windows XP or Vista machines at all; I just wanted to add a Mac to the mix. This will let me test and report on Mac-only applications like Adium for my IM site, BigBlueBall. I can use some of the best podcasting tools available. I can test my web sites in the Mac environment. And I can learn what life is like in the world of OS X. 

I’ve been using Windows since the very first version, and making the switch to a Mac comes with a learning curve. What has become second nature on Windows XP and Vista, is different on a Mac. So I’m going to share my experience with others, creating a practical guide for other Windows users looking at making the jump to a Mac. One of my goals is to produce a must-have list of indispensable programs for the Mac.

It should be noted that the newer Macs with the Intel chip make it really, really easy for Windows users by providing BootCamp. With BootCamp, you can install Windows XP or Vista on your Mac, and choose what operating system you want to use. It’s the ultimate compatibility solution for those looking to replace their Windows-based PC. My G4-powered Mac doesn’t run BootCamp, but can run Windows emulation software. I don’t plan on going that route, since I still have my Windows PCs when I need those. 

First Steps

My laptop came with a fresh install of Leopard — the latest version of OS X. There’s a fair amount of functionality out-of-the-box. The built-in wifi made connecting to our home network a breeze. I was able to launch Safari and start browsing the Internet within minutes. 

Apple provides some great resources for PC users making the switch. Switch 101 provides advice on how to migrate files and explains how to perform common tasks like cut-and-paste on the Mac. Worth a bookmark.

One of the first thing I did was check out a few of my websites. I was dismayed to see that this very blog did not display correctly. I did a little investigation and discovered the problem was linked to the Lightbox plug-in. I’ve disabled it for now, and all is well again. The experience just validated the need to test sites on multiple platforms, and not just with multiple browsers.

As an IM expert, I checked out Apple’s iChat messaging program. iChat lets you connect with a .Mac, AOL or Jabber account (including Google Talk). I tested my @bigblueball.com Google Talk account and it connected smoothly. I haven’t tested the A/V capabilities yet, but I will soon. I was more interested in checking out what many people believe is the best IM program for the Mac, Adium. 

Adium is a multi-network IM program. It can connect to AIM, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo, and over a dozen other IM networks. It even connected to the IM system we use at work — IBM Lotus Sametime. I’ve used it for a couple of days, and so far, I’m very impressed. The user interface is clean and well-thought out. I’ve tested connectivity to AIM, Google Talk, MSN/WLM, Yahoo and Sametime, and it’s all gone very smoothly. If you need multi-network instant messaging on the Mac, Adium clearly is a great choice. 

In addition Adium, I’ve also installed Skitch — a terrific screen capture utility from Plasq. In particular, I like how Skitch allows you to automatically upload screen caps to Flickr (much like Techsmith Jing on the PC). Skitch works beautifully as you can see here.

What’s next?

I’ve got about 30 GB of music on my PC. I’ve been using iTunes on my PC as my main media player, but I need to sort out where to store my music library, and how to access it from my Mac. 

I also need to sort out where I’m going to dock my iPhone. For now, I’m still syncing it with my XP PC, but would I get additional benefits from switching and syncing with the Mac? We’ll see.

I’m also going to be looking at which “serious” applications to install. I’m pretty sure I’ll be using this for graphics work, so I’ll likely be installing Photoshop and Illustrator. But do I need Microsoft Office? Maybe not. And what other “must-have” programs should I get? 

Finally, I need to get some form of backup working. OS X Leopard comes with Time Machine. I connected an external backup drive that I use with Windows OneCare on my PCs, but to use it with Time Machine, it wanted me to reformat the drive. Not an option. Is it possible to use the same device to backup both Macs and PCs? Needs further investigation. If you’ve got advice, please leave a comment. 

Wrapping up

So far, so good. I like the performance and I love the interface (even though I’m still stumbling around a bit). I had fun writing this — my first post composed on a Mac. I think I’m going to enjoy the Mac world. 

I’ve always loved maps, even since I was young. Google Maps is my current fave. I can access it via my iPhone. I can get a streetview of my apartment building. And I can get real-time traffic updates.

But what if I want to know what the traffic will probably be like a few hours from now? I was just checking the live traffic for my trek to the airport, when I saw that you now have the option of seeing what traffic is generally like at any time of day and any day of the week. Sweet!

Of course, it’s just a guestimate based on historical data, but hey, it’s better than nothing! Thanks again, Google!

This has been a long time coming. Flickr now allows video uploads. They show up in your photostream alongside regular photos. They can even be played right in thumbnail mode and embedded on your own website, like this:

 Nicely done!

Yes, to day is my 46th birthday. My friend Steve sent this along, and I was compelled to share.

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes and greetings!

The good folks at Wordpress have officially released WordPress 2.5. It comes with a long list of nice enhancements, including a completely redesigned administration console that looks and feels great. I upgraded this blog in exactly five minutes, including the time required to upload the new files and upgrade the database. It worked like a charm.

One of the things I like best so far is the ability to auto-update plug-ins via FTP. It worked perfectly, and simplifies the process tremendously.

So far, the only plug-in that I’m not able to get running with 2.5 is also unfortunately one of my favorites: Ankur Kathari’s Gregarious social bookmarking plug-in. Everything else has worked like a charm!

Already running an older version of WordPress? Here are the famous three-step upgrade instructions.

Adobe Photoshop has long been recognized as the premier tool for image and graphics editing, but the cost was prohibitive for many people. Adobe first offered a slimmed-down version of Photoshop at a lower cost, but now you can use Photoshop for free! Zero. Zip. Nada. Nothing.

Adobe has introduced Photoshop Express, a free, web-based version of Photoshop. Photoshop Express is available now in beta form, and apart from the required Flash 9 plug-in (also free), you don’t need to install any software on your PC. This means Photoshop Express will run happily on your Mac, your Windows PC or even your Linux computer.

On top of that, Adobe is providing 2 GB of storage for your work, also free. So now you can edit images from pretty much anywhere with a PC and an Internet connection.

While graphic designers and image pros will still need the full desktop client, most people will find Photoshop Express more than meets their needs. Even pros will find it useful for those occasions when their own PC is not nearby.

And it’ll probably make law-abiding citizens out of a lot of would-be pirates.

Animoto is a terrific service that creates video presentations combining photos and music with some great visual effects and very little effort on your part. The beauty of Animoto is that it works with the photos you probably have already uploaded. Animoto can retrieve your photos from Flickr, facebook, smugmug, Picasa or photobucket. You select the photos you want to use, including any special photos you would like to highlight in the video.

For music, you can upload your own or choose from a very nice selection in a variety of genres. For the video above, I chose one of the Indie Rock selections.

That’s about it! Animoto then creates your video automatically. When it’s done, you’ll have a code you can use to embed it on your own blog, or Animoto will automatically embed your video on facebook, myspace, blogger and several other sites. You can even automatically upload the video to YouTube, or download a Quicktime version to your computer.

All of this is free… as long as you’re happy to limit your videos to 30 seconds in length. Longer videos can be created at a cost of $3 each, or you can pay $30 for an annual subscription that let’s you create an unlimited number of “full-length” videos.

The results speak for themself. I was pleased, given the amount of effort that went into it (almost zero).  Check out Animoto.