Turning my iPod Touch into a mini AppleTV (sort of)

Sometimes, when I'm caught up on my TiVo viewing and there's nothing on TV*, I will watch TV shows that I have converted for my AppleTV just for these lulls. The problem is that most of these lulls occur when I am in the kitchen, cooking or washing what seems like a ridiculous amount of dishes (no dishwasher here) for 1.5 people.

Now, while I have rigged my TiVo and DVD player to broadcast concurrently to my main TV and kitchen TV, my AppleTV will only play on my main TV (partly due to the fact that my TiVo and DVD are both standard definition while my AppleTV is designed for HD and my poor kitchen TV is old school). I use my AppleTV to watch movies and TV series that are mostly stored on my Mac (since my AppleTV is too small to hold all the media).

My solution, it turns out, is my iPod Touch. Since I can't fit my whole video library on it and there's no predicting what my capricious TV mood might be, I found a way to stream my media via WiFi from my Mac to my iTouch. Even though my media has been converted for AppleTV in mind (640x480 or 720x480) it streams and plays perfectly.

(I found instructions for setting up web sharing and how to access movies on iPhone/iPod Touch here: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/stream-your-entire-itunes-library-to-your-iphone-over-the-internet-mac-only/)

Then it occurred to me that I could finally put the $50-iPod-to-composite-video cable I purchased for my iPod Nano to good use. (Purchased back when the economy was good and money was flowing like Kool Aid at a summer party).

It worked! I was streaming video from my Mac, to my iTouch to my retro-CRT TV. Some limitations:

• Doesn't remember where you are if you stop the movie and return later.
• Clunky interface.
• Movie stops when iPod goes to sleep/locks if that is turned on.

I wish Apple would put the AppleTV/Front Row app on the iPhone/iTouch so I wouldn't have to use this workaround, but for now, this will do.

I discovered two things that will help me get a better interface for this system.

• PHP Directory Lister—A php file that will format the directory a little nicer than the default, but this file needs to go into each directory. http://greg-j.com/phpdl/
• iWebKit—a set of templates to create a web site that looks like an iPhone app. I have set up a home page for my media, but more work needed on my end to getting it all set up. http://iwebkit.net

Here are some screen shots.

The default directory view:

The enhanced directory view using the php file:

And my custom home page created using the iWebKit template. This page is set up, but not quite completely functional or finished yet.

*And if I am caught up on all my podcasts my NPR listening.

Idea for Amazon Kindle's authors and overlords

Amazon recently surreptitiously removed the book 1984 from user's Kindles. (Or, as the thought police might say, it was never loaded on the said user's Kindles.) This revealed Amazon's ability to remove or update content on user's Kindles.

There are several ideas I thought of that authors might take advantage of this. I will admit that I don't have a Kindle, so some of these things might already be in place. I don't know.

1. Change the plot of a book over time, so a second reading will give a slightly different version of the book.

For example, there could be a Nancy Drew and the Case of the Missing iPod, where in the first version, Nancy would discover clues like a red shoe, a Diet Coke can, boot prints on a dusty staircase and the overheard conversation of a local spinster. These clues would lead her to a certain culprit.

However, a year later the book would be updated. While maintaining the main structure, action, dialog and plot, clues would change. There would still be the red shoe and the Diet Coke, but no footprints on the stairs, but rather a broken window with a torn piece of fabric. And the spinster's conversation will have changed. These altered clues would lead Nancy to a different culprit.

How cool would it be, as a kid, to re-read a book where things are the same, but oh so slightly different?

Perhaps not even a mystery, but maybe a teen romance novel that reveals how things would have ended if the protagonists had made different choices. Like those old "Choose Your Adventure" books, where the story changes based on the reader's choices, but this would be controlled by the author.

2. Release a book in serial form.

Remember the old days where books like Dicken's David Copperfield were first published in serial form in newspapers before being published as a complete novel? (Nah, neither do I. I am old, but not that old.)

Well, imagine if the next Harry Potter book were released one chapter at a time over many weeks? Kids would be talking about it, anticipating the next chapter. No one would have to rush to the end to beat a friend from leaking the ending. It would create such a buzz. (Not that Harry Potter needs any more buzz.)

Or, for a book group, where everyone is really reading at the same pace and no one knows what's coming up.

I suppose this would work best for a book/author that already has an established fan base.

Wonder if these ideas sound interesting to anyone, or just me.

-------------------------

I must admit, I don't have a Kindle; I have never read a Nancy Drew book, nor Harry Potter, nor a Choose Your Adventure book; and I have never participated in a book group. I have, however, read 1984.

Speed writing for Twitter?

Back in my high school days, I had a class which consisted mainly of the entire class copying pages and pages and pages of notes from the originals which were projected on an overhead projector.

Around this time, I came across an article in a magazine about speed writing (or something like that) as a type of shorthand for the rest of us.

It was not a mysterious code, like shorthand, but was just an abbreviated writing system. The main points (as I remembered them from my brief reading of the magazine article) were: dropping all short vowels (hat=ht, hate=hat), spelling phonetically, representing common endings like "-tion", "-sh-" and "-th-" using abbreviations like "Sn", "S" and "T", and abbreviating common words like "the" of "of" with abbreviations like "T" and "v". I also abbreviated the suffix "ing" with a letter that looked like a combined "n" and "g". Abbreviated, the opening of Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride" would be written: Lsn my Cldrn & u Sl her v T midnit rid v Pl Rver.

This system wasn't too difficult to decipher. One classmate would even take my notebook home and copy what she had missed during class.

What reminded me of this was Twitter. Trying to get a complex idea into 140 characters leads to abbreviations that have been common for a long time in instant messages: u, 2, l8r. But I wonder if people would understand things like: vacaSn, domstc prtnrSp, dmcrt, cnglmrts, britn s seTng t prlmnts abus v gvrnment fnds. Hw dd Ts cm abt?

InDesign: Zoom to actual size script

In Adobe InDesign, when you zoom to actual size (100%, Command/Control-1) it really doesn't zoom to actual size. That means, if you zoom a 3.5x2-inch business card to 100% (what the InDesign View menu calls "Actual Size") and hold a ruler up to your screen, the image onscreen won't measure 3.5x2-inches. This is due to the differences in screen resolutions on different computers.

So what can you do to easily zoom to "Actual Size"? Well, you can create a script for InDesign and then set the keyboard shortcut for that script to Command/Control-1, so that when you press Control-1 to zoom to actual size. you actually get actual size.

First you need to figure out what zoom percentage is actual size on your computer. I took out a business card and drew a 3.5 x 2 box in InDesign, then zoomed in until the on-screen image was the same size as the actual business card. For me, this was 140%.

Then you have to create the script. This is a simple, one line script.

Open any text editor that can create plain text files (Notepad on Windows, TextEdit* on Mac).

Create a new file and paste the following text into it (replacing the 140 with whatever the zoom percentage works for your computer):

try {app.layoutWindows[0].zoomPercentage = 140 } catch (e) {};

Save this file, using the file extension jsx. I saved mine as "Zoom 140 Percent.jsx".

Put this file into your InDesign scripts folder:

Mac OS: Users/[username]/Library/Preferences/Adobe InDesign/[version]/Scripts

Windows XP: Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Adobe\InDesign\[version]\Scripts

Windows Vista: Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\InDesign\[Version]\Scripts

To run this script, open your scripts panel (Windows->Automation->Scripts) and double-click the scripts.

To create a keyboard shortcut for this script, edit your keyboard shortcuts by choosing menu item: Edit->Keyboard Shortcuts.

This works in InDesign CS3--Mac & Windows. Haven't tried it in other versions.

You can also download the script file here (it's set to 130%): http://tinyurl.com/IDZoom130

*TextEdit normally saves files in Rich Text Format by default. You must save this script as plain text. To save a TextEdit file as a plain text file, choose menu item Format->Make Plain Text. You will then be able to save this as a plain text file. Make sure you use the file extension ".jsx" when you save the file.

Comparing Helvetica Neue to Helvetica

I've wondered what the difference is between Helvetica and Helvetica Neue. (or, more correctly, what the differences are).

According to Wikipedia, Helvetica Neue (or more correctly, Neue Helvetica) is "a reworking of the typeface with a more structurally unified set of heights and widths…. Other changes include improved legibility, heavier punctuation marks, and increased spacing in the numbers."

As you can see from the example at the top, the letter shapes are visually very similar.

Below is a comparison of the full alphabets.

How to spot Arial v. Helvetica (and Myriad)

Here is a visual guide to the major differences between Helvetica Neue and Arial. And, for comparison, Myriad (Illustrator's default) and Helvetica.

The easiest way to spot Arial is to check the cuts on specific letters. Helvetica's strokes are typically cut either horizontally or vertically, while Arial employs slanted stroke cuts. This is especially visible in the t, r, and C. Helvetica has a tail on the G (Arial doesn't) and a rounded stroke on the R (Arial has a straight stroke).