Joe: July 2011 Archives

The video inclues footage of Genie officiating at our 2009 Renewing Our Commitment ceremony. I've been submitting it to festivals around the country, with an emphasis on the South, where Genie's story will resonate the strongest.

For Such A Time As This will be premiered tonight at QFest, Houston's LGBTQ film festival. I am especially pleased that it will be featured as a special presentation kicking off the Girl Shorts program.

The trailer is above. The full web version is here.

• Internet Explorer 9 utterly dominates malware-blocking stats
  Internet Explorer 9's dual-pronged approach to blocking access to malicious URLs—SmartScreen Filter to block bad URLs, and Application Reputation to detect untrustworthy executables—provides the best socially engineered malware blocking of any stable browser version, according to NSS Labs' latest report. Internet Explorer 9 blocked 92 percent of malware with its URL-based filtering, and 100 percent with Application-based filtering enabled. Internet Explorer 8, in second place, blocked 90 percent of malware. Tied for third place were Safari 5, Chrome 10, and Firefox 4, each blocking just 13 percent. Bringing up the rear was Opera 11, blocking just 5 percent of malware.
  (tags: microsoft security computing)

I need your help...

You might remember that last fall I did a presentation titled, "Is Book A Verb? The Social Future of the Book." The big idea in it is that we are in the midst of moving from a Literal Tradition of sharing and passing on culture to a Social Tradition.

This weekend I will be updating and expanding that presentation to deliver it again on Friday at The Future of the Book Conference sponsored by Florida State University and Florida's Panhandle Library Access Network (PLAN). The help I'd like from you all is feedback and criticism, links and suggestions, in comments or via email, to make the presentation stronger.

I used Prezi, the zooming online presentation program. When I presented it in the spring, the students really liked it; some of the adults complained of way too much zooooming. A 13 minute video version...

The full Prezi presentation...

• The Most Hipster Colleges
  UGA is #3; Portland has a "hipster librarian"
  (tags: academia georgia)
• Is the tablet computer a new PC or post-PC? | asymco
  If Windows remains marginal on tablets, the “PC market” will likely tip away from Microsoft in two years (depending on how quickly Apple can build iPads.) Microsoft is making the commitment to move Windows to a tablet form factor but they are doing it while retaining the user interaction model of a desktop... Whether Microsoft succeeds or not will depend on whether the new form factor is disruptive in more than user experience. In other words whether this is just a “new PC” or a “post-PC”... For example the new model comes with different cycle time of product development (deep, integrated, yearly changes), different ecosystem (apps), different cost structures (high R&D in hardware), vast scale (device economics, components, ramps), and potentially new distribution (operators in the channel mix.) Summed up, the real challenge for Microsoft is whether they can keep their business model (selling OS licenses to hardware vendors) as PCs become more device-like.
  (tags: microsoft ipad computing apple)
• The Tea Party and the debt ceiling - Ezra Klein - The Washington Post
  The marching orders were, first, you must not vote to extend the continuing resolution [that would keep the government open through 2011] unless it, in their words, “defunds Obamacare.” Number two, you must not, under any circumstances, vote for an increase in the debt ceiling. Period. No conditions. Number three, and they said this explicitly, we don’t trust John Boehner or Eric Cantor. And the state party chair from Virginia was from Cantor’s district. And, finally, the members themselves told me afterwards that what they thought they did wrong in 1995 and 1996 was they gave in too early to Clinton... it was clear to me that there was no way they could come up with a compromise or agree to a deal before the deadline. Even if it was a great deal, the presumption would be that they gave up too much by not waiting till the last second, just like with Clinton. So there’s no way they won’t blow through the 22nd of July, the date that got set up for an early deadline.
  (tags: economics politics congress teaparty)

• iMovie '08 Was Originally Called 'First Cut', Ubillos on Final Cut Pro X - Mac Rumors
  Apple's Chief Architect of Video Applications Randy Ubillos had originally created an application called "First Cut" which later evolved into iMovie '08. iMovie '08 was met with similarly mixed reactions due to the complete overhaul over iMovie 6.  According to Mellicker, Ubillos returned from vacation and found that Final Cut wasn't ideal for organizing raw footage. From that experience, First Cut was born which would let you import your raw footage and quickly skip through, organizing and building a rough edit. The intention originally was to then export to Final Cut Pro. At some point, Apple officially latched onto the project and turned it into the new iMovie '08.  Ubillos was the creator of the first three versions of Adobe Premiere and later developed KeyGrip which was sold to Apple and released as Final Cut Pro. Ubillos continues to be the Chief Architect of Video Applications at Apple. 
  (tags: software apple editing)
• Apple Takes a Step Back With iMovie '08 - NYTimes.com
  Apple has done this before: "I can’t remember any software company pulling a stunt like this before: throwing away a fully developed, mature, popular program and substituting a bare-bones, differently focused program under the same name."
  (tags: software editing apple)
• Final Cut Pro X FAQ eases fears of some, confirms those of others
  Apple has already communicated to some video editors that this is not the "final state of FCPX," as noted by Gary Adcock, with some features apparently coming as part of the release of Mac OS X Lion. Still, as evidenced by Apple's new FAQ page, there are some things that just plain won't change.
  (tags: video software apple editing)
• lonelysandwich - “Final Cut Pro: The New Class”
  Final Cut Pro is like a soap opera and Apple is the network. You’ve had a character, let’s say Luke and Laura, who’ve been around, developing their storyline and their romance for a decade. The show’s viewers are heavily invested in Luke and Laura. But the network decides that Luke and Laura represent an old, outmoded character type, and that the new way is young, hip, lean…
  (tags: video apple software editing)
• Why Apple built Final Cut Pro X - Sachin's Posterous
  I worked on Final Cut Pro from 2002 to 2008. It was an amazing experience. The Final Cut Pro X project was just getting started when I left Apple. It was an ambitious and controversial move, but it made sense for Apple. Here's why:
  (tags: apple video software)

• ACLU Warns Gwinnett Schools: Stop Blocking LGBT Websites | American Libraries Magazine
  Graduating senior Nowmee Shehab, who headed the Gay-Straight Alliance at Brookwood High, discovered the filtering when she was unable to access the group’s own website, reported WSB-TV in Atlanta. Other blocked sites included those of the Georgia Safe Schools Coalition and the It Gets Better Project. “They are not sites that are pornographic or in any way provide adult content,” said Chara Fisher Jackson, legal director for the ACLU of Georgia. The group sent the school district a letter demanding that it lift the filters or face a possible lawsuit. Shehab said it was crucial for students to be able to reach the sites at school. “They may not feel safe at home or don’t have a computer at home so it’s very important they be able to access these sites from school,” she said. She told CBS Atlanta that students can reach reparative-therapy websites like Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Exodus International, both of which claim that homosexuals can change their sexual orientation.
  (tags: GLBT georgia internet censorship teens)

• Blogs - Fayobserver.com - American Greed: U.S. Income Gap Worse Than Egypt
  The income inequality gap in the United States now exceeds that of Egypt, which you’ll recall, just had a revolution. We’re a long way (I think) from violence between the rich and poor, but even a cursory glance through history shows that when the gap gets ever greater, societies usually come to no good end. The income gap here also exceeds that of Ivory Coast and Cameroon, two countries with long histories of instability. The income game between the top-earners and the rest of us has been this great only once, just before the Great Depression.
  (tags: politics economics income)
• Samuel Johnson: "Why Do We Hear the Loudest Yelps for Liberty from the Masters Drivers of Negroes?" Department
  Edmund S. Morgan's American Slavery, American Freedom is all about the paradox that the most aggressive and strident political advocates of the small-government personal-liberty tradition in America were the highly-racist plantation slaveowners of the Virginia Dynasty. There is something about holding hundreds of your fellow humans in inhuman bondage that makes you very averse to even a moderately-strong and powerful central government--especially one that you and your class do not control.
  (tags: south race slavery history)

• Daring Fireball: On Attribution and Credit
  MacStories deserved a link to their original post on the story, and they got that. AllThingsD’s readers deserved to know who discovered it. Yes, they could find that out by following the link to “an Apple enthusiast site”, but how many of the people who read Fried’s story actually clicked that link? My guess is not many. Fried’s piece was itself a complete version of the story. That’s how much of the for-profit weblog world works — building up your own site’s page views.
  (tags: journalism credit links attribution blogging)