Greg In The Desert

• YouTube – Leo Laporte Blows up at Mike Arrington on the Gillmor Gang – June 6, 2009 – Leo Laporte calls out Mike Arrington of TechCrunch after Leo got mad at him for implying that his opinion of the Pre was effected by the fact he had a free review unit.
• Bachelorette Contestant Has Rio Rancho Roots – Albuquerque News Story – KOAT Albuquerque – The season premiere of ABC's hit show 'The Bachelorette' aired Monday night.
  One of the contestants on the show is a New Mexico native looking for love on this season's bachelorette.
  Greg Bilbro, 31, grew up in Rio Rancho, where his mom Haz Brown still lives.
• Police: Handgun handed off at airport, gets on plane | Philadelphia Inquirer | 06/04/2009 – A U.S. Airways employee was being questioned by authorities this morning after a bag containing an unloaded gun apparently circumvented security and made it onto a plane at Philadelphia International Airport, police said.

  A passenger waiting to board Flight 1195, destined for Phoenix, noticed another passenger handing a carry-on bag directly to the airline employee, said Officer Christine O'Brien, a Philadelphia police spokeswoman.

• ABQJOURNAL NEWS/METRO: El Nino Might Drench Your Plans in New Mexico – A rapid warming in the Pacific Ocean during the past few weeks led climate watchers Thursday to issue their first forecast in three years for an El Niño, a climate pattern that favors wet weather for the Southwestern United States.
• Ex-State Dept. employee arrested for spying for Cuba – Washington Times – A former State Department official and his wife have been arrested on charges of serving as illegal agents of the Cuban government and conspiring to provide classified U.S. information to the Cuban government.
• Family wins $6.5 million settlement from city – Six-year-old Adrian Trevino was asleep in bed next to his 3-year-old sister, Aletse, when he was jarred awake by loud noises outside his window: a helicopter flying overhead, yelling, then rapid gunfire.

  Just as Adrian sat up in bed, a stray bullet pierced his Maryvale home and struck him in the back, permanently paralyzing him from the belly button down.

• MacGourmet organizes and helps find new recipes Review | Software | Mac Gems | Macworld – If you’re a recipe geek and need a place to store, organize, and categorize your current and potential meals, look no further than MacGourmet. From the program’s recipe box metaphor to its flexible visuals, plug-in architecture, auto import functions, and smart searching, this is one of the most versatile and extensible programs available for any cook.
• Fatty foods — not empty stomach — fire up hunger hormone | Science Blog – New research led by the University of Cincinnati (UC) suggests that the hunger hormone ghrelin is activated by fats from the foods we eat — not those made in the body — in order to optimize nutrient metabolism and promote the storage of body fat.
• TidBITS Media Creation: iMovie ‘09 8.0.3 Adds New Hidden Features – Apple released iMovie '09 8.0.3 this week, a seemingly minor update that "addresses general compatibility issues, improved overall stability and fixes a number of other minor issues." However, I've discovered that this small iteration turns out to have two new features, along with some other undocumented changes.
• Don’t expect DEA raids on N.M. medical marijuana dispensaries – The nation’s top cop said Friday that marijuana dispensaries participating in New Mexico’s fledgling medical marijuana program shouldn’t fear Drug Enforcement Agency raids, a staple of the Bush administration.

  U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, speaking in Albuquerque during a meeting focused on border issues, including drug trafficking, said his department is focused “on large traffickers,” not on growers who have a state’s imprimatur to dispense marijuana for medical reasons.

I’m continuing to practice with movie editing in iMovie ‘09 and I’m starting to become much more skilled with the interface. iMovie ‘09 8.0.1 came out yesterday and made some significant improvements, not only to stablility which are noticeable, it also added some features. TidBits more information on all the new features but one welcome improvement is the addition of HD uploads in the YouTube uploader.

I’ve uploaded my first HD video using iMovie ‘09. The video is of the City of Rio Rancho’s 2008 4th of July fireworks as seen from my roof. It was taken from my Canon G9 and although not true HD looks pretty good. Be sure to view the HD version by clicking the HD button in the video controller.

• Just got in cell range. Was on a 4 day ski to yurt trip near chama. #
• I’m at over 3000 unread feeds. May declare feed bankruptcy. #
• I am down to 2600 feeds. #
• Just watched the last stargate atlantis. Learned there will be a new series this summer called Stargate Universe. YAY! #
• Moonlight Over Spruce Hole http://tinyurl.com/spruce2009 #
• If my eyelid doesn’t stop twitching, I’m going to cut the fucker off! #
• getting familiar with imovie 2008 in preparation for imovie 2009. #
• Using a broken link checker plugin with WP and started with over 2000 broken links. #
• I was in a good mood when I came into work today. Now I’m pissy. Can anyone guess what time of year it is? #
• The day just gets crappier. The family dog died. RIP Annie. #
• Pic of annie. I will miss her. http://snipurl.com/9zvcc #
• Any other INTC people hear rumors about a 10% pay cut? #
• Thank you, every-website-on-the-internet for telling me about Steve Jobs. #
• Is there anyway to geotag movies on a Mac? #
• Why do I bother leaving Safari open with multiple tabs when I know it will just lock up on me. #
• It’s too bad about Circuit City. I had better luck with them than Best Buy. #
• Congratulations! You picked the right day to give up cocaine http://tinyurl.com/a93936 #
• The only way for websites to stop talking about Jobs is for Apple to come out with a new product. #
• I’m thinking of hiring a contractor to finish this master bath/bedroom remodel I can’t seem to finish. #
• Just watched BSG. I don’t get what’s going on. #
• I love watching COPS. #

In an effort to get familiar with iMovie, pending the iLife ‘09 release at the end of January, I started looking at some of the video I have taken with my Cannon G9. The camera takes really good video, I just wish it would zoom and focus while recording.

As part of this experiment I have uploaded my first video to YouTube. The video is of the Chili and Taco race at the Albuquerque Isotopes game on 5 May 2008. There’s quite a few of these races posted on YouTube but I think I’m the only one in widescreen. There is a high quality version available but it’s not quite as good as what I get in iMovie.

• @bsailer Where at? Nothing near sothern and Unser. in reply to bsailer #
• @bsailer Nevermind. One just needs to wait 20 seconds. in reply to bsailer #
• Wow, I really didn’t think we would get snow like this #
• @bsailer same here in reply to bsailer #
• and here’s the sun #
• @jcsheng505 i know you have nothing better to do. in reply to jcsheng505 #
• @fivezerofive Ive tried it, I hate to admit that I can only do one. I plan to remedy that. in reply to fivezerofive #
• As John Stewart pointed out, Czars failed. Lets stop calling everyone in charge of something a Czar. #
• @jabancroft the car sliding bit is crazy! in reply to jabancroft #
• RE: Rail Runner hitting cow. 2009 is year of the cow according to Chinese calendar. #
• I should be in bed. Instead I’m eating peanut butter. #
• @bsailer Buy it! in reply to bsailer #
• looks like facial recognition in iPhoto. Now they need to put it in Aperture. #
• macrumorslive: STEVE JOBS JUST DIED. I say BS. #
• Think MacRumorslive was hacked #
• What other live feeds are people watching? #
• I could do without the snarky comments on engadget #
• I paid for image stabilization plugins on the previous iMovie. They worked well. #
• Box set is totally cool idea. #
• was hoping for a 32GB iPhone. #
• I upgraded some of my DRMed music. Now I have a whole bunch of duplicates. Thanks iTunes! #
• Apple did a terrible job of repacing my song. Gave me “clean” version of songs I had bought as “Explicit” and didn’t give me the same album. #
• More bad news from INTC today. Not looking forward to Jan 15th. http://tinyurl.com/7mp2db #
• stupid applescript. Why does something that works 2 days ago not longer work. #
• A reboot fixed applescript issues. Hope Snow Leopard makes this kind of thing less problematic. #

Pretty much sums it up.

Many of the applications included with Windows Vista look similar to OS X applications. The gadgets are basically the same thing as dashboard widgets, Windows Calendar is very similar to iCal, the photo gallery application is just like iPhoto and Windows Movie Maker is just like iMovie and iDVD.