512 Pixels

Apple has posted an in-depth page outlining the transition to iCloud.

This part resolves a concern raised by many, including me:

You cannot merge two accounts into one. However, you will be able to move your MobileMe account ([email protected]) to iCloud and, if you choose, you can continue to use a different iTunes account for store purchases and iTunes in the Cloud.

Additionally, family account members can migrate their accounts separately — good news for those of us with multiple AppleIDs in the household.

Oh, and mail, contacts, calendars and “Find my iPhone” will continue to exist as web apps.

Jim Dalrymple’s advice for tech writers:

Don’t be afraid to take a stand on a topic; Be honest with yourself and your readers; if you are wrong, admit the mistake and move on; Don’t write link bait; write about things you enjoy; and put some personality in your writing.

When it comes right down to it, I write for my readers and so should you. Those people may enjoy my style of writing, the topics I choose to write about or the honesty and humor that comes through in my stories.

David Pogue, at the end of a long piece addressing numerous complaints about Final Cut Pro X:

Apple has followed the typical Apple sequence: (1) throw out something that’s popular and comfortable but increasingly ancient, (2) replace it with something that’s slick and modern and forward-looking and incomplete, (3) spend another year finishing it up, restoring missing pieces.

Professional editors should (1) learn to tell what’s really missing from what’s just been moved around, (2) recognize that there’s no obligation to switch from the old program yet, (3) monitor the progress of FCP X and its ecosystem, and especially (4) be willing to consider that a radical new design may be unfamiliar, but may, in the long term, actually be better.

Remember when everyone thought OS X was a giant turd that was going to be the end of Macs being used by professionals?

Terry Lucy:

I’ve been thinking about that little guy all day. Video game characters have changed so much these days — we admire them from a distance in the same way we admire celebrities. It was different with Sonic, he was as close as you wanted him to be. He was alive, part of your life on and off screen — and to some degree, he still is.

Sonic may be 20 years old, but he’ll never be old in my eyes. That is exactly why I still play the same port from 1991, and enjoy it just as much now as I did when I was a child.

Happy birthday, Sonic.

Hello, Forecast mode.

KBase article HT4733:

Final Cut Pro X, Motion 5, and Compressor 4 are available from the Mac App Store.

That’s the whole support article. Super helpful stuff.

Marco Arment:

So the FBI now has illegal possession of nearly all of Instapaper’s data and a moderate portion of its codebase, and as far as I know, this is completely out of my control.

Due to the police culture in the United States, especially at the federal level, I don’t expect to ever get an explanation for this, have the server or its data returned, or be reimbursed for the damage they have illegally caused.

The FBI went into the server farm for a single customer’s servers, but took numerous servers that were physically close to the ones in question.

I’m just glad to know the feds have a great understanding of show data centers work. Oh, wait…

My brother’s non-profit helped raise funds for this excellent project.

Steve Martin:

I also believe many editors will be willing to give FCP X a shot for the price point alone. If not for that reason, they will buy it for the curiosity and novelty factor. If the features I mentioned above are eventually addressed, then yes, they will be invested in future versions. However, my Spidey-sense tells me they will keep using FCP 7 on a “wait and see” basis while watching how the market reacts to it over time. On the other extreme, they might, based on their initial experiences with this product, decide to abandon it altogether because it’s just too foreign to them and it lacks the aforementioned “pro” features. Finally, only a company as big and successful as Apple would have resources and temerity to try to reinvent the wheel. From my perspective, FCP X is not so much revolutionary, but rather, evolutionary - because at the end of the day, your reasons for using Final Cut Pro have not changed - you’re still using it to make movies. A re-invented wheel is still a wheel.

The few video professionals I’ve talked to feel the same way. That while yes, Final Cut Pro X lacks many, many critical features and feels like a prosumer product, it could be the start of something great.

[via Daring Fireball]

David Weinberger:

So, the answer to the overall question is that physics requires an apportioning of bandwidth between up and down, but economics can here route around physics: If a provider were committed to providing symmetry without lowering download speeds, it could have (for example) put in a second line when it put in the first. The trade-offs were made by the access providers, largely based on business concerns. For example, one reason we have asymmetric fiber may be that the providers have been charging such high premiums for symmetric access that they don’t want to lose that extra money, even as the technology makes symmetry more plausible.

The AP:

Newspaper publisher Gannett Co. is laying off 700 workers, or 2 percent of its work force, in the latest cutback triggered by a relentless advertising slump.

[…]

Gannett has reduced its work force by 20,000 employees during the past five years through layoffs, attrition and other actions, such as the sale of a Hawaii newspaper. Before the latest cuts, it had 32,600 employees.

Belt tightening helped Gannett boost its earnings by 66 percent last year. The performance resulted in a $1.75 million bonus for Gannett CEO Craig Dubow, a 21 percent increase from $1.45 million in 2009.

Dubow seems like a stand up guy.

At some point, everyone in the creative to technical fields have been asked to give advice about a designer, vendor or product. It’s a common thing, especially in fields where no single person can know everything.

Personally, I have a network of IT guys and designers around town I know I can ask questions of, knowing I will receive an answer based on their experience and knowledge.

In turn, I serve as a point of reference for numerous people as well, and try to make sure that my answers are thought-out and helpful.

But not everyone has such a network. There are times where I’m asked by someone I don’t know for a referral, or I am referred by someone I don’t know.

And that can dangerous.

The power of the referral is a very real thing. When someone asks me for my advice on picking out something — be it a phone or a web developer — they are putting weight in my opinion. If I get it wrong, that person may not take my advice so seriously next time around.

On the flip side, I — like many others — have been described with expectations that I can’t meet. When that happens, it looks bad for everyone.

Bad referrals break trust.

Moving forward, I am going to take time before I give a referral to someone. I’m also going to make sure that if someone receives one about me, I find out as much as possible about what was said, to make sure everyone is on the same playing field. A lot less should people get caught in the crossfire that way.