Tomorrow Apple is holding a press conference for the iPhone 4. What for? Is Apple going to finally address the antenna issues without some bullshit comment like you’re holding it wrong.

Everyone is really excited that Apple might recall the iPhone 4. No way in Hell – I also don’t think that apple will be providing bumpers. The Reason why? That would be admitting that there is something wrong with the device.

With all the talk of class action lawsuits it’s the last thing Apple would want to do.

So What do I think will happen tomorrow? Maybe some talk about how great the iPhone is selling and iTunes blah blah blah. Then maybe some of the same bullshit we heard before “you’re holding it wrong or every phone has signal issues” (maybe some other smartphone examples)

Be nice to see Steve go up their ask someone for their iPhone and hold it like a normal person.. But I don’t think so.

I’d love to see them recall the phones and say that the white iPhone 4 will be fixed before shipping. Again very unlikely.

Whatever happens Lets hope that they don’t keep thinking us apple fanboys are stupid and try to push some bullshit spin on the issue. It’s going to be hard for me to keep supporting Apple if they feed us more crap.

My Two Cents.

Introduction:
I spent the better part of this past week playing with codecs and formats to get the optimal performance video play back out of my HTC EVO.

I was planning my trip over to Europe for business and figured it might be wise to get some videos onto the EVO and take the HDMI cable along with me in case TV sucked over in France.  After 15 mins of google searching, I was not able to find much info on supported formats for the EVO.  So I started to tinker.

Encoding:
I’m not going to get very technical here but it helps if you understand some of the issues I had with encoding.  First off the EVO supports MP4 files or so they say – I had a hell of a time finding the right configuration of MP4 Before even figuring out the rest of the details.  Another big issue as the post title says we are working with HD video so you can assume we are going to have some fairly large file sizes, well the EVO will not play videos over 2 gigs in size – yea…. what the fuck !

This file size issue pissed me off, I wanted to rip my bluray and have it compressed but still large enough to play via HDMI output to enjoy on a TV in my hotel room. I figured at least 3 gigs for a 720P video file any less and video would look like shit.

Skipping ahead a few days I found the right mixture of file size, frame rate, and compression. I created a preset for handbreak that will help you get your videos onto your EVO with out any of the fuss.

My preset will work for standard and HD videos. just load up your video choose the preset and hit start. Handbreak and the preset will take care of the rest regardless of size and resolution.

Conclusion:
So how will it look on your HD TV only being 2gigs in size, It looks damn good on the EVO and the TV.

I tested both HD videos and SD videos.  Of course the SD formatted videos are smaller in file size and reflects respectively on the video output but the HD is somewhat amazing to watch and show off on the EVO.

If you have any questions or need any help getting things working on your EVO let me know, also here is a link to a sample video I encoding that will work on your EVO if your curious about quality or want a file for reference.

~MN

From the moment you walk in the front door and see the iMac with chrome on it you know you’re in for an amazing stay. I’ve consulted for Hotels that wanted more of a techie presence but the Waldorf caught me off guard with some of the goodies inside the hotel rooms.

The first thing I noticed when walking in to the suite was the clean and open living room. But then I walked by the massive LG LCD TV(popular with 90% of the resorts in the disney/orlando area) and took note of the Blu-ray player. Nice touch if you ask me. But then under the TV the Waldorf is packing some heat with a Yamaha Sound Projector. The bedroom has an equally nice LG TV but no Sound Projector or DVD player.

Walking around the suite a little more I discovered a nespresso machine with six nespresso coffee cups, iHome ipod/phone friendly radio, and telephone in the bathroom – you know for those important I have to tell someone about this before I forget moments.

Now it gets better. For an extra $200 a day you can rent out a poolside cabana with a Fridge stacked with drinks, TV, WiFi, Fruit and great staff who take care of anything you need. All the pool staff are great but Jason took care of keeping me buzzed with all these Kiwi type drinks as well as my family well fed.

The Waldorf is paradise for any Internet Entrepreneur and thats going to be my excuse for staying here over and over again.

Not all is perfect. Like any Hotel the Waldorf had a few let downs. First our room was dusty as all hell, we kept asking for more coffee creamer and they only gave us one or two(remember six cups of coffee) and now the internet a little better then most by bandwidth caping at 2MB rather then 1MB or Less BUT and this is a big but according to our bill and guest services they charge you per computer/device. So we did the 3 day internet for $19.95 but got billed for every computer or iPad or iPhone we used. Next time I’ll just fire up our mobile wifi and push out a connection to all our devices.

With all that said, once again I don’t review Hotels, just felt like putting my two cents in. Check out the Flickr photoset for more pics.

MN

Standing in line with people who share the same excitement as you might be the second best part of being crazy enough to camp out for a gadget. You end up talking about the device for hours and what you want to do with it. The excitement just keeps building.

For this Apple release I decided to take my chances and not camp out for two/three days like I intended. This was not normal procedure for me but since this time I now have a son and wife at home I had to take the more grown up approach. I woke everyone up at 4am to head to the mall.

7:00am As the sun started to rise. mall security let us inside to line up in front of the Apple store. You can hear the employees hard at work as they had been through the night. One of the Store managers even got a hotel for the night since he lived over an hour away. He wanted to be clean and refreshed.

The Apple Staff came out to greet us early adaptors and looked refreshed and excited. They passed out Smart Water to people in line and set up a table with refreshments.

8:59am “Michael your going to be the first person to own an iPad, Let me introduce you to your specialist” I think I peed a little.

9:00am Did a handshake with my specialist for the cameras and we both ran into the store jumping up and down(no really we both jumped up and down) I also believe my wife was behind me but I did not check.

We zipped around the store grabbing the iPads and a hand full of accessories my specialist was up all night and wired off energy drinks you can tell because he dropped everything he picked up(not the iPads)

9:04am Approved “Everyone listen up, Mike Niles just bought the first iPad” everyone stopped what they were doing and clapped and cheered us on, My specialist posed with us(my wife was still behind me) and we took a few snap shots. He then walked us out of the store as again everyone clapped and cheered as I held the first two purchased iPads.

9:06am We did a little talking to reports and I un-boxed one of my units for them to take their first peek at an iPad. Onlookers peeking over each other to see the iPad for the first time up close.

9:15am The walk to the parking lot was a long one, the ride home was even longer. I could hardly contain myself on the drive home, Singing and yelling and bouncing up and down. I don’t think anyone was ever this excited over a PC product ever!

9:30am Made it home with out crashing the car into a tree and ran to my MacBook Pro to plug in the iPad. It’s been magic ever since.

Sometimes it’s not just the product but the excitement and adventure that comes along with it. I have never been dissappointed by an Apple release and this time around was one for the books.

If you have any questions feel free to contact me, I won’t be doing a formal review of the iPad since the internet will be saturated with 14 and 15 year olds doing them for me.

Thanks to Apple for the fun, and WPTV, PalmBeach Post, & Pete Martson for the Videos and Pictures.

For the past three years I have been hired to produce and direct an Oscar party, well the media related aspects of the party. The location of the reception is kept private to protect the privacy of all the attendees.

Myself along with my team set up Multiple screens to broadcast a live feed from the oscars into the reception hall, We handle the photographers and video as well. For people who can’t or choose not to be at the Theater where the oscars are held they will attend the party and have dinner with their friends. During the commercial break we cut to an Internal video feed and interview them, capture them acting silly or even just display picture slideshows of the attendees – this always seems to be the highlight of the event.

I got involved with this event by being hired as a technical consultant the first year, we ended up contributing a lot more input then requested and the result was above and beyond anyones expectations so they decided to scrap the event planner the next year and just hire myself along with my crew and the caterers.

This year my roll is a little more intense. For the first half of the event I will be on the red carpet with my video gear streaming the live feed to the reception hall. For the later part of the evening I will then take back control of the video board and run command of the entire event from behind closed doors(for many reasons)

We spent a lot more time this year planning then any previous year. It may not seem like a lot of work but we are using two audio receivers at 900 watts each, over 16 speakers, multiple video screens, three to four video feeds at any given time, video switchers up the rear, over 9000 feet of cable. It’s extreme.

Due to confidentiality agreements and of course professionalism I won’t be tweeting or posting pictures of myself with anyone or providing detailed information about who I see or talk to at the event. It’s nothing personal it’s just playing by the rules.

If you have any other questions just hit me up, I hope this helps some of you understand a little bit more info on what I do every year involving the oscars.

~MN

Today I got my hands on Cyber Clean. A Product designed to safely clean all of your electronic devices. I was excited at first but once I opened the package and got the scent of Cyber Clean that very closely resembles the slimy shit you got out of the vending machine as a child I was worried that this product was going to be crap.

Well I was right. Cyber Clean is the biggest piece of shit product I have ever used for cleaning any of my electronics. It seems to not have any cleaning effects at all but rather uses the stickiness to pick up dust and any other artifacts that might get in the tiny areas of your devices.

Cyber Clean was useless at getting dust and crumbs out from between my keys on my MacBook. A business card is more effective.

At just under $5.00 I would stay way from Cyber Clean and go back to the old school methods of cleaning your devices, If the price point was maybe $1.00 per pack I might reconsider keeping a few on hand for hard to reach spaces.