Flip Video Codec Now Works With iMovie

Thanks to Daring Fireball, news comes that the Flip video codec can now be used with iMovie using last month's iMovie update and the new version of the Flip video codec downloaded from the site.

Free Audio Books

LibriVox

Convert Youtube and Myspace Video to MP3! Only at VidtoMP3.com

VidtoMP3.com

Like KeepVid, this Site will take a URL but it instead just converts the sound to mp3. Handy dandy if you want that piece of sound from a video on YouTube or MySpace.

Science, The Eyes, and Better Pictures

I liked this short article on how scientific research on the way we look at the world can improve our photography. Short depth of field, good contrast, lines, faces and shiny things, just to name a few. I like the reasoning behind though.

The Photographer's Guide to the Eye

"SURPRISE
In principle: Surprise is the strongest known attractor of human attention. The Bayesian Theory of Surprise provides a mathematical framework for quantifying the degree of incompatible data in an image. The scientific definition of surprise? A relationship between objects that changes your beliefs about the world.
In practice: Depict the unexpected, whether you stumble across it
(a good reason always to have a camera with you) or set it up."

The Video Game Name Generator Independent Game Design Contest

A while back CCmade a post on this blog about a video game name generator that would randomly generate hilarious titles for you. Well, the Independent Gaming Source recently ran a game design competition based on names created by the generator. 48 playable games are available for download.

http://www.tigsource.com/features/vgng/index.html

Torque for iPhone

This showed up on TUAW today - the Torque game engine has been ported to the iPhone. Since Torque is available for Mac, PC, Wii, and Xbox as well, this might be a good choice for our next-generation game development platform.

Ex-Google Employees Launch 'Cuil' Search Engine

AP News story
Cuil web site
Listen Now (NPR story)

StupidFilter

omfg! if U P05t N 733T H4XX0RZ, StupidFilter PWNS U!!!1!!1!! o noes!

Translation: If you post comments that use idiotic hacker "leet" speak, or otherwise make comments that you can tell are stupid just from the structure and presentation, rather than from content, StupidFilter is gunning for you. It's a project to allow computers to detect stupid comments so they can be filtered.

My favorite bit from the FAQ: "Isn't filtering stupidity elitist?" "Yes. Yes, it is. That's sort of the whole point."

Usability testing with Silverback

A new app called Silverback might be just the thing for doing educational game testing. It runs on a Mac, and does simultaneous screen capture AND capture of the video camera, along with visual click tracking, to produce a video file that captures peoples' reactions and behavior while testing an application. You can even use a Mac remote to add bookmarking and pause and resume sessions.

As a bonus, 10% of the $50 cost is donated to save the gorillas.

Fixing The Education Digital Disconnect One Video Game At A Time

FAS Launches Immune Attack:
Interesting article on the Immune Attack game. The developer's Site has a wicked cool funkadelic video about the game. It looks like lots of fun but is Windows only. I'll put the EXE on the PC down in the game lab if you want to play it.

"FAS's interest in games emerged from research that shows advanced learning technologies, such as video games and computer simulations, can help address one of the nation's most pressing needs -- strengthening education and preparing workers for 21st century jobs."

Top iPhone Apps

Some of these look pretty good! Time picked 11 great iPhone Apps...

What Family Gamers Want

Another gamasutra article

Time for Some Campaignin'

JibJab

Great new animation on the upcoming election. Take a look at their production blog! Wonderful to peek behind the scenes.

Me.com Mail System Fully Working Now

Apple:

For all w/ .mac accounts

Versioning Smackdown

Cornerstone passes Versions on the way to yesterday's finish line

We were just recently speaking of versioning software. Just came across this here post.

Make a Book of your Blog (or anything else!)

I LOVE it when people make great software that is easy to use and Mac-ish. I've also wanted to make a hard bound book of Alex' blog.

Booksmart from Blurb is the answer. It is a free software download, and a great program at that, to create all sorts of books-- cook book, journal, photo, text, etc. My favorite feature allows you to log into a blog program, and BookSmart gets all the blog entries and can autopopulate it into a hard or softbound book. They also have some great video tutorials.

In addition to pulling all the text and photos from your blog, it fully integrates with iPhoto, making drag and drop a breeze.

Supercool!

Selecting colors by emotional tone

Particletree just posted a review of a book called Color Image Scale.

A Japanese "color psychologist" wrote this book which provides sample color palettes organized together to look good, but takes it one step further by indexing these palettes by their emotional tone, such as "romantic," "cool casual," or "modern."

This is a brilliant idea, because you can browse for color palette ideas based on the feel you want your colors to bring to your project.

VLC

Master Your Digital Media with VLC

Anyone using VLC? I downloaded it so I could view multiple media formats but I did not know it could do some of this! I had not opened it in a while. Time for another look.

What is this Django Business?

Get Started With Django

WebMonkey has a good intro and tutorial on how to get started building Web apps w/ the Python based Django. It is not a CMS but it looks as if it could build one.

I am not a Web programmer but if I were asked to learn... this is the kind of thing I would explore.