Merlin Mann over at 43 Folders posted a 3-part series relating to being intentional with our time and our focus. He talks about the hard work of a creative life, and how no one but you can carve out whatever blocks of time are needed to make the creativity and work happen.

I was in the process of re-blocking my time anyway when I read this article. It really helped spur me on to making more effective use of what I considered personal time, but which is also the only time I have available for moving life goals ahead (as well as family, rest, recreation, etc.).

I have been using a program called Things as my Getting Things Done (GTD) tool of choice. It is still in the beta/development cycle, but is a good tool. Wanting a little more automation and control, I have been testing a program called OmniFocus. Not sure yet if I will switch.

Have Fun!

-Ed

Hi.

Instead of Ed Ramsey Online I probably should be calling this the Ed-Moves-from-Vista-to-Mac-and-What-He-Discovers blog. In reality, I am more of a technology-oriented person anyway. I enjoy the spiritual/heartfelt side of life, and try to tie the technology and spiritual sides of me together, but when push comes to shove, the love-of-technology side tends to be more dominant.

I started blogging last Thanksgiving when my life was changing in a significant way. I have been opening up to loved-ones more, and I have been getting more in touch with myself in a way that has brought peace and simplicity into my life and feelings. I am more connected with others, more connected with myself, and more able to handle stress and pressure without reacting in any kind of a negative way.

But, when I blog, it tends to be about the technology milestones I encounter along the way. Ok. Well, here?s another one .

I have fully entered the digital video world ! And, it is amazing what can be done with simple equipment and simple software. This is my third camcorder. The first was given to me, and used VHS technology. It was big, didn?t take great video, and the battery lasted ten minutes (figuratively speaking). I stopped taking it to family events because the expectations never equaled the reality.

My second camcorder used 8mm and was better in every way. The only problem was that there wasn?t anything I could do with the film other than copy segments to a large vhs tape to send out to family. Very time consuming, and the quality wasn?t great. The pain factor became greater than the reward, so I stopped using that one also.

My team at work (Business Integration Web Services Technology) is teaching a 50-week series of courses on IT Architecture, SOA, Database Design, Modern Web Technologies, etc… and I wanted to tape the classes for those who couldn?t attend or for new hires. The company has a GL1 DV camera and we used that for the first class. I purchased a shotgun mic for better sound, and Final Cut Express to process the footage. The tape turned out ok, and after using the Flip4Mac pro codec from inside Compressor 3 which came with Logic Studio, I obtained a pretty good Windows Media file for playing over the web. And, I also got the bug .

I had some trouble playing the tape back on the company?s camera, and decided to get my own. I found a pretty good price ($100 less than anywhere else) on Amazon, and had my camera in time for the next class. I used HDV this time and had excellent picture quality. The only trouble with HDV as opposed to DV is the compression times are multiplied from 3+ hours to 15+ hours for a 90-minute video (with sound and titles). Wow! I also had to work through projector interlacing issues (found that setting the projector to 60 Hz or 120 Hz helped).

After a few classes at HD I went back to SD .

Family stuff, on the other hand, works great in HDV, as the lengths are much shorter.

And, I can?t imagine doing any of this on a PC. Other than the long render times for video compression, I have found my macbook pro to be more capable than any desktop I have ever had (including the fastest vista box available early last year, which I still have). Until I got to video, I have never ?dogged-down? the laptop (even with multi-track logic sessions). And, even with video, I can still fully edit and render full-motion HD video on the laptop in realtime without any problems. The only lag comes when I compress for the web; then it takes forever. I see a dual-quad Mac Pro in my future ?. My vista box can barely keep up with MPEG2 recording from a TV card, and pro tools used to kick its rear on a regular basis. Not so, on the mac.

Oops. Not trying to make this a mac vs pc blog. Just pointing out my experiences. Remember, I have been using pc?s since CP/M, and beta tested windows .9x (creating my own PIFs) for Microsoft a large number of years ago, and I have used and supported every version since. I still remember a few of the 8080 opcodes (and still have my programmers guide), up through 80286 (when I stopped coding in assembler). So I can complain about family without being mean .

One of the really cool things about Final Cut is that it has been used for major work. Cold Mountain was done in Final Cut Pro start to finish. There is a great book about how Walter Murch, the editor for Cold Mountain, pulled it off titled “Behind the Seen”. It is a very cool read, and makes me feel a part of something special when I use the software.

I am just amazed at how much Apple has gotten right recently. There a few problems here and there (I can?t seem to export clip lists from Final Cut Express to keep a tape database), and they only recently fixed some firewire problems that have hurt musicians (and there still might be some noise in the drivers), etc…

But, for the most part, it is the most creative environment my wife and I have ever been on.

You know the old saying, in for a penny, in for a pound. It looks like I am in…

Have Fun!

-Ed

Hi.

I have been in the process of moving over to a Mac. And, actually, it has been as much a philosophical move as a physical and practical move. I find that, other than the learning curve, my world is simplifying. What took several programs and interfaces on my Vista machines, now just takes one or two. And, yesterday, I made the biggest switch. I moved from Pro Tools (which I was starting to get good at) to Logic Studio and a Duet Apogee for use on my MacBook Pro.

Yes, there is a learning curve, and yes, it is going to take some time, but already I am more relaxed and comfortable with the audio interface. And, I can also play my iTunes through my Mackie monitors, where with the Pro Tools interface I couldn’t. (Yes, this is a simple, trivial thing, but it is really quite illustrative of the whole Vista/Mac process. Things in the Mac just seem to be wired to work the way I want to work, where in Vista/XP/Windows it sometimes required clunkiness or brute force).

I do believe, if I had listened to my heart a little more closely last year, or several years ago, I would have already made the switch. When people say that audio and video work better on a Mac, they are not kidding. I knew that from my experience on a Mac II CX a dozen years ago for powerpoint graphics presentations. But I wasn’t paying attention.

I think the lure of inexpensive hardware, and the accumulated knowledge base of years of windows use mentally locked me in to a groove that I couldn’t see, and couldn’t move out of. A lot like the “Matrix” and having the world pulled over my eyes, or “Not Being Present” as Eckhart Tolle talks about in “A New Earth”, I was just unconscious to the alternatives.

My wife is excited that she gets to sell my Pro Tools books and Mbox2 ☺.

BTW, Dave Lebolt, the general manager of Digidesign, posted a very good article on their user community board regarding the problems with the new version of Pro Tools for Leopard. It is well written, accounts for all the issues I was concerned about, and shows their commitment to their user base. Anyone using Pro Tools on a Mac should give it a read. Here is the link: http://duc.digidesign.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=1259137&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=186&fpart=1#1259137

Have Fun!

-Ed

Hello and Happy Easter!

I am now on a Mac.

It might seem an obvious progression to those around me, but since I have used CP/M and MS/DOS and Windows (since versions 0.9), I am pretty knowledgeable about Digital Research and Microsoft products. Then one day, I had just had it with Vista. I have had to reload my two workhorse machines four times in the year since I started using Vista (these are big, powerful machines built for Vista). Driver problems, update problems, after two or three months things would start to slow down, then slow way down. Just being used.

More later…

-Ed

Well, in addition to being a proud Pro Tools MBox 2 owner (and learning to become a user as well , I now have an M-Audio MicroTrack II for field recording.

I put a 4-GB compact flash card in it and get 21/2 hours of 44.1/16-bit stereo recording on internal battery.  If I need more than that, I have a small APC Mobile Power Pack  that easily brings my record time up to 61/2 hours (the limit of my 4-GB compact flash) and beyond.

I’m going to be using this setup for the Tangerine Festival this weekend, and will be using it for all of my podcast interviews in the future.

More later.

Have Fun!

-Ed

I am now a Pro Tools owner J!

Cool.

Before I gave all my recording studio equipment away to my sons, I used Samplitude as my primary recording software.  For those of you not familiar with Samplitude, it is a very high-quality recording package, used a lot in Europe.  I had Samplitude because someone had pity on me early on and gave me a legal copy they were reviewing for a vendor.

Well, for my upcoming podcasts I needed a way to get from my small Mackie mixer (1202) into my computer.  Guitar Center had a great sale yesterday (Black Friday) and Rick Chapman at the Nashville Guitar Center spent a little time with me and went through the pros and cons of the various USB interfaces (Thanks, Rick).  I ended up purchasing a Digidesign MBOX 2, with Pro Tools and their bonus software packs.  This is a very cool interface, and is all I need for the little bit of recording I will be doing now.  I spend some of last night downloading Pro Tools 7.4 which supports Vista, and I will get everything installed next week after I return home from Nashville.

The cool thing, and the point I am trying to make, is that for years I have used software that was not well known, and couldn’t exchange files easily with other musicians or studios.  Today, I will be able to easily work with most studios because Pro Tools is the standard.  I made some really good music with Samplitude, but today I will make really good music with Pro Tools, and not have to spend the calories and effort trying to learn and use something that no one else knows, or can’t interface with.

Its a lot like the suggestions folks make about modeling the behavior of someone who has mastered something you want to learn.  If you understand their core beliefs, underlying principles, etc. and can adopt those as  your own, then you stand a very good chance of being able to adopt their behavior in a certain area.  This is a huge savings in time, and effort, and sometimes make the difference in being successful or not.

For me, adopting Pro Tools will, in the long run, save me much time and effort in working with others.  Enough said.

Have fun.

-Ed