Frank Ramblings

Team Fake Comic Con on Facebook

Those of you who know me personally might know that I believe the people who have been in charge of the Superman films from the very beginning lack a fundamental understanding of the character at his core. Kevin Smith, though, has that understanding and is outspoken about his views. Recently he said that based on the success and quality of Star Trek, he thinks J.J. Abrams should be in charge of Warner Bros./DC’s “reintroduction” of Superman. I’m a little nervous about that idea, but I think it has serious potential.

Movie Trailers – Movies Blog

Everyone has his or her operating system preference. I like Windows. I like the customization and technical aspects. I like to take things apart and see how they work. Windows just works for me. I understand it and I’m able to produce results with it. I think Macs are great for certain people, but they’re just not my thing. The Mac OS is counter intuitive to me. I can use it, but I work much better with Windows. I just wanted to get that out of the way before the Apple fanboys show up at my door burning torches, brandishing knives, and threatening to hang me. I don’t hate Apple; I love my iPod Touch. I just think everyone has something that works for them.

If you’ll remember, I reviewed Vista a few months back when I first partitioned my hard drive and installed it. Well, I’ve done it again, this time with Windows 7. I wanted to give it a spin ever since I heard the beta had leaked on to Bit Torrent, even before Microsoft made it publicly available. The only thing stopping me was getting rid of my Windows XP partition. I still wanted to keep that around for emergencies. At the suggestion of some Twitter followers, I installed a copy of Norton Ghost and backed up my XP installation to my external drive and installed Windows 7 Build 7068 x64 over it.

I was impressed right away. First, I noticed that it booted up noticeably faster than other freshly-installed OSs. Once it was booted up, the first order of business was to see what all the “new taskbar” buzz was about. I didn’t think I’d like having a bigger taskbar take up a larger portion of my 14-inch screen, but I actually don’t mind it. In fact, when I opted to use smaller icons, I found that I was less productive. The main attraction of the new taskbar is a slew of new mouse-over functions. It operates a bit more like the OS X Dock, but it still maintains a distinctly Windows character. A single icon not only opens an application, it also serves to minimize or maximize that window from the taskbar. Placing the mouse cursor over an icon for a minimized application brings up a thumbnail for each minimized window of that application. While this function existed to a certain extent in Vista, Windows 7 improves on it by allowing you to click a thumbnail to bring up the corresponding window. In addition to this is a new preview capability. If you place the mouse cursor over a thumbnail, a full-size preview of the appropriate window will pop up. Move the mouse away and the preview disappears. This is extremely useful when dealing with multiple instances of an application such as Word or Adobe Acrobat. In Internet Explorer 8 (I know, I hate IE too), each individual tab gets its own mouse-over preview. Other browsers don’t have this capability yet, but I imagine that when the final release of Windows 7 ships, Firefox and most others will probably add it.

The overall look of 7 is very crisp and clean. It’s very pleasing to the eyes. The notification area (you know, those annoying icons down there by the clock?) is much improved. For starters, all the Windows-native notification icons are white. It may not sound like a big change, but you’ll be surprised how much less distracting it is. Microsoft is finally listening to the outcries of Windows users everywhere. They’re giving us an operating system that is simpler to use and stays out of our way. It makes everyday computing a breeze.

Now one of the biggest grievances had with Vista was User Account Control (UAC). The constant pop-ups asking me if I was sure I wanted to go forward with every single action got old fast. The only way to be productive was to turn off UAC all together, obviously a less-than-desirable solution. But that was then and this is now. In 7, there are more degrees of UAC customization. You can decide exactly how much control UAC will have over your system. Personally, I prefer to have as few notifications as possible, so I set it to the lowest level possible without turning it off completely. I know what I’m doing. I don’t need to be asked if I’m sure I want to install iTunes or AIM or any other perfectly harmless application. Since I finished going through the initial phase of installing the programs I use most and setting things up to my liking, I haven’t seen a single warning message. And that’s exactly how it should be.

Basically, Windows 7 is everything I wanted in a new operating system and more. At first trial, 7 feels the same as any version of Windows. But after a few minutes, you start to realize that it’s just working the way you want it too. It doesn’t freeze. It doesn’t have driver issues. It doesn’t crash. I’ve yet to hear of a Blue Screen of Death in 7. The first release candidate (Build 7100 for those in the know) goes public today and I fully intend to install it as soon as I have a chance. The version I’m running now (Build 7068) is near perfect; I can’t imagine how much better 7100 could possibly be. If you’re interested at all, Build 7100 will be available for download directly from Microsoft from May 5 (today) through June and won’t expire until June 2010. That’s a whole year to test out Windows 7 legally and for free. How can you possibly beat that?

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Fans of Kevin J. Anderson will be ecstatic to learn that the master is at it again. After the much-acclaimed Last Days of Krypton, which told the story of Superman’s home planet of Krypton in the days before the Baby of Steel was rocketed off to Earth. This time around, he’s telling the story of Batman & Superman meeting for the first time. It takes place at the height of the Cold War. I can’t wait to pick it up, and now I don’t have to wait quite so long. A 57-page preview has been made available through Harper Collins Publishers. Check it out and enjoy the first eight chapters!

If you watch Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, you know where this is going. If you don’t watch, then (A) shame on you and (B) prepare for a serious (possibly fatal) dose of awesome.

For the last couple of months I’ve been working on improving my Geek Cred by catching up on the many TV shows & films I missed out on when I was busy trying to pretend I had a life. When last we spoke, I was working my way through Joss Whedon’s Firefly. It continues to roll along smoothly:

• Terminator — DONE
• Terminator 2 — DONE
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles – DONE
• Firefly — DONE
• Serenity — DONE
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer — IN PROGRESS
• Angel
• Supernatural

I took a bit of a break after Firefly/Serenity and meant to start working on Supernatural, but as Dollhouse‘s premiere drew closer and Echo Alert was conceived, I decided it was essential that I complete my Whedon training before moving on to other shows. At the moment I’m finishing Buffy Season 5 Episode 15 “I Was Made To Love You.” This is really a great show and I can see why so many fans consider it a yardstick by which all other Joss media should be measured. I’ll talk more about when I’ve finished the series and have the proper perspective. I’m especially looking forward to the musical episode “Once More with Feeling”, the crossover episodes with Angel, and the Buffy Season 8 comics. But for now, the catchup continues.

Yes, it is possible. Not easy by any means, but possible. I’ve tested it myself and it works. Enhanced AAC is becoming increasingly popular among podcasters because it allows for a more interactive audio/visual experience. AAC allows for chapter divisions and changing artwork throughout the course of the podcast. This is especially useful for podcasts about TV and film because the host can include screen shots to accompany their commentary.

AAC has always been an option for Mac users only. Until now, the only way to create Enhanced AAC podcasts was by using Apple’s GarageBand, which has no Windows equivalent. After lots of Googling, I ran across a little command line application called SlideShow Assembler. SSA makes it possible, if a bit confusing, to create Enhanced AAC podcasts in Windows. The principle is this: there is a text file (with the file extension .pod) that you edit in Notepad or another plain text editor. You type in the location of the audio you wish to use for your podcast, the desired name of the output file, the timestamps where you would like chapter breaks, and the locations of the images you would like to accompany those chapters. Once the .pod file is edited to your satisfaction, you simply drag and drop it onto the SSA.exe file (or a shortcut to it), and your Enhanced AAC file (it’ll have a file extension of .m4a) will be generated automatically.

It sounds easy enough, but the hardest part is editing that .pod file. Not fun. It takes forever. Granted, it gets easier as you get used to it, but it’s still very time consuming. There is a GUI Beta release available, but it doesn’t allow for chapters or changing artwork. It pretty much defeats the purpose. It just lets you apply static cover art to an AAC file, a function that iTunes already has covered. So the only option is to do it manually. When you download SSA, there is an included PDF file with instructions, but it is written in a horribly confusing way that assumes you already know how the program works. I had to figure it out for myself, using the PDF manual for occasional assistance to verify that I was on the right track. Once I had it figured out, the pieces fell into place and the ouctome was great. The two gripes I have with the results are relatively minor ones. First, you have to create a separate chapter for each individual image. I regularly listen to podcasts that have multiple changing images within a single chapter. This might not be a big concern for some, but it could prove to be a pretty big inconvenience for others. If, for example, you want to discuss an episode of TV and include changing screen captures, each screen cap would need to be its own chapter. This means a lot of post-production work for the podcaster. My other minor concern is about links. You can embed a hyperlink in each image, but the problem SSA poses is that once you move on to the next chapter, the link from the previous chapter lingers. There might be a solution that I’m missing, but it seems like once you insert a link, it stays there for the rest of the podcast. The easy solution is to avoid links all together and just include the address to which you want to refer your listeners in the images you use.

So that’s it. AAC in Windows is possible, but tricky. I recommend you give it a shot. If enough people use it, maybe they’ll improve it or come out with a better GUI. I really want someone, be it Apple or some random college student, to come out with Windows software that functions similarly to GarageBand. A Windows version of GarageBand would be great, but that seems almost impossible at this point. If someone could build a small, simple piece of software for the sole purpose of drag-and-drop Enhanced AAC podcast creation, I’d be more than happy, and I’d even pay for it if the price was right. But for now, SSA is pretty darn good!