To help us fans in the wake after Star Wars, Episode III "Revenge of the Sith", George Lucas is coming out with an 3-D animated TV series of "Clone Wars". It will then be followed by a Live-action series featuring six Star Wars film characters. I really hope that Harrison Ford gets in on this. Gabe & I agree that's the key ingredient in the first 3 films that is missing up till now. Sorry, but Jar-Jar doesn't fill Han Solo's boots. Read more: BBC news article
Adobe has been really busy this past month. The big news is that Adobe has bought Macromedia. For those of you who don't know, that means the company that makes Photoshop (and lots of other imaging apps) has bought the company that makes Flash. It will be very interesting to see what they will do with the products in the coming year. I'm a big fan of both Macromedia's software and Adobe's software, but these kind of changes are always a little scary to hear. The applications I know and love, and use every day for business, may not be around after a shake up like this. To read more check out Adobe's press release.
More big news from Adobe is the release of a new version of it's Creative Suite of Applications. This includes upgrades to Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, GoLive and Acrobat. There are some really cool features that have been added to this upgrade, especially to the Photoshop. And to see some of these new features in action with video, goto the NAPP's website.
They don't really have a cure for clumsiness. Just plenty of things to make you clumsy. I blame it on Earth Day. The earth was harmonizing WAY to much and threw me off balance. Well maybe I should back up. Last friday I went for a bachelor party for Tamara's cousin Jan Paul.
The guys had the bright idea of going to play paint-ball. Sure no problem. We were having fun at the paintball hall shooting each-other with paint, it does hurt yes. It was kind of artistic in a way seeing how the paint would explode on the clothes in a Pollock sort of way. In any case, everything was fine until I slipped. It was rather slippery at the hall, everyone slipped at least once. I just happened to land on my ankle and then I heard a Snap Crackle Pop! Ouch!
I was down. Mark (one of our friends) came over to help me and Jan Paul shot him in the next as he was seeing if I was alright. Bastard.
Anyways, off to the hospital to get checked. The guys said it was just a sprain, but I thought it was a little more serious. I've sprained before, and this hurt way more. Maybe I was just getting old, but I wanted to make sure. That and the fact that it looked like my foot had swallowed a tennis ball. They really aren't kidding when they say waiting rooms are they? Luckily it wasn't to busy. After a while the doctor comes and feels my foot (ok dirty minds switch to off please), and tells me to go have an x-ray. Huh? Oh no. X-ray means more waiting and possible longer wait for healing.
Why is it that whenever you have an x-ray done of a potential fracture or break they seem to want to put your limb in a position that normally would be uncomfortable, but with an injury is excruciating? And then I had the fortune of getting some intern who wanted to tell me all about all the various things that could have gone wrong in my foot while I have to hold my foot in this position as the pain is flowing through my body. Could I get the lesson afterwards?
X-ray done and the intern wants to show more of his knowledge to me by saying he thinks it's broken, but not to trust him because he is still studying. Great. Time for another wait.
Thankfully by this time Tamara came to relieve the guys from Gabe watch duty so they could continue with their evening. And I could be in pain shamelessly. So we waited for the doctor again.
Another doctor comes now and begins to ask me when the last time I ate or drank was. Well I did have half a beer after the accident, but I puked everything right back out moments later, along with some chicken nuggets and eggrolls we had for lunch. Graphic enough for ya? Wait, what does what I had to eat have to do with my foot? Then the doctor proceeds to tell me I need surgery, and he needs to know for the anesthesiologist when I last ate. Surgery?! What do mean surgery. Yeah, just a few screws in your foot and you'll have to stay overnight. Me not Happy. Tamara not happy either at the prospect of another 1.5 hour roundtrip home to get my stuff to spend the night at the hospital.
After a while the doctor comes back and apologizes for being a little overzealous. It turns out he mailed his supervisor for a second opinion, and he said a cast would do fine. Thank god for e-mail! So no surgery, just a cast. Thank goodness. Gabe more relaxed at that prospect.
So I got a cast as seen here. And Tamara took me home,
Where I know have to sit on the couch for a week until I get a new cast. But this time I get to choose a pretty color! Thanks to everyone who has called and e-mailed me to get better. The funniest is this MMS I got from Murque.
Thanks. So if I didn't show up to an appointment, it's because I am here, on the couch, with my laptop. Thank god for Skype & Wifi!
I just received an e-mail that one of my vlogging students, Gijs just had a very bad accident. He's apparently broken a lot of bones in his body, but luckily there seems to be no brain damage or damage to his nervous system. I'm asking all the gabe.nl viewers to go over to his vlog and post a comment to wish him well. I'll have an update as soon as I know more about his situation.
Get better Gijs,
-Gabe
Those of you who are rockers from the early 90's will appreciate this. Nine Inch Nails' front man Trent Reznor has done something really cool. Forget the U2 iPod, Trent has uploaded an entire Garageband project of his latest single.
If you have the program Garageband from Apple you can download the 70mb file and mix and play with the entire song! This gets me thinking about the whole idea of exchanging music mixes and mash-ups. It's so cool what Trent has done this, and I'm looking forward to what other artists will do. I can't wait until filmmakers start posting their Final Cut Pro projects to be re-edited. Video is the next step.
Click here to go download the Garageband project.
This is so cool! Gabe & Gabe has been premiered as the internet video magazines top video website of the week. The article also highlights the work Gabe Mac did with his students at the HKU at hkutv.blogspot.com. It is so cool to actually be picked the top of something. Video Blogging Oscars, here we come!
After 8 weeks of hard work, my students have produced the first version of HKU TV. I am so proud!
I have been teaching my students at the Utrecht College of Arts (HKU), how to vlog. There are some very impressive videos that have been posted. Please drop by and leave a comment for them so that they are inspired to add more. Stay tuned for more information on HKU TV as next year I hope I'll be expanding this to other faculties in the HKU.
Well, with today's technology Playback in your own home is a piece of cake. Sure it always was with a record player you say. But sharing these embarrassing moments with the entire world? No I'm sorry that's thanks to the internet.
What am I talking about? Check here
Scary... Just scary...
I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I love my gmail account. I mean it's great! 1 gig of free mail space! Come one! That's a no brainer. The thing I love about it is the fact that I don't have to save the 1 gig of mail on my laptop. I just forward all my relevant mail right to it for a good backup.
And Gmail combined with gcount is awesome. What is gCount? Well the website says :
gCount is a menu bar and/or Dock item that displays the unread status of the inbox of a recently popular email service. It is provided free of charge, and the source might be released eventually. It requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later.
Now up until a few days ago, I would get this great little beep and a little red mail symbol in my menubar when I had new Gmail. But now, apparently Gmail has changed their configurations, and gCount no longer works. However Nathan Spindel says that a new version is on the way. Keep up the good work Nathan, and let's get that gCount running! Drop by Nathan's site in a few weeks, and get th latest update to this great little app for Anyone using OS X.
Today I'm at STETZ working on a dvd project. First video needs to be edited in Final Cut Pro, then authored to DVD. And it's taking forever! For some reason FCP just keeps needing to think about stuff before it will play the video. I'm sure it has something todo with the video being digitized uncompressed and then being set to photo-jpeg in the sequence settings. Or it could be the black magic card that is having trouble. No none of those technical things. I think it's the material. Yup that's it!
It must be because this I'm working on a sales training DVD for Microsoft. I know, I know. "You've sold your soul Gabe!" is what you are saying. Well unless someone will hand me 5 million to retire, and just make the films I want to make, I have to sell my skills as a mediamaker to the highest bidder. So here I am. Waiting for FCP to respond to me.
I had no idea Apple had these software hacks installed to prevent people from producing projects for their competitors. Rather an interesting marketing move if you ask me.
Oh and by the way, if you believe that Apple can do this, then I'd like to sell you a ritual that will make your iPod pshycic to your feelings, to play the song you need whilst on shuffle. Only €1 million per iPod. ;)