WRITING: Digital Video magazine, where to subscribe

With the closure of 'Computer Video' magazine back in 2005 and Cam User converting to Digital Video, the latter magazine is perhaps the best source of info on DV shooting, editing and output. In the past twelve months I have submitted a tutorial a month (6 on basic Final Cut Pro use and 6 on Basic Compressor and DVD Studio Pro use) for Digital Video and hope to provide more content in the coming months. To save a hefty amount on the stand price, subscribe here.

WRITING: Making video footage more like film

Somebody has kindly pointed out that an article I wrote for Digital Video (then Cam User) back in 2003 is still up on the web as a pdf download. It covers the major aesthetic differences between DV and film and ways to combat that 'video' look. For those interested head over to the Digital Video site

POLITICS: BBC racist? Do they deserve our licence fee?

Is it purely coincidence that in BBC news items the ethnicity of characters are specifically omitted? The cynical can quite easily argue that the BBC has its own agenda and is attempting social engineering.

In the following story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/6253449.stm the BBC fails to mention that the assailants were all asian. Yet, when the shoe is on the other foot and an asian is attacked by non-asians (more specifically 'whites') the BBC clearly labels the ethnicity of those involved and states these attacks as racist.

Example: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/6032025.stm

This appears to directly oppose the BBC's remit to remain impartial. Can anybody explain to me why this consistently occurs in both the BBC website and televised news?


This is part of the reason a growing number of people in the UK are growing tired of the yearly licence fee. The BBC has become so institutionally obsessed with political correctness it has lost any semblance of objectivity. As part of my growing dissatisfaction with the BBC I have been looking at various ways of negating the fee. Apparently the fee only applies if you watch 'live' TV. Therefore, products like BT Vision would enable you to quite lawfully opt out of the licence fee. Perhaps the time has come for people to vote with their feet?

TECH: OSX - 'Minimise all' or rather 'where's my desktop'?

As a user of OSX on the mac since day one, a problem that a lot of newcomers to the system come across is the absence of a 'minimise all' feature. Windows actually solves this problem perfectly with the 'show desktop' button in the taskbar section. As far as I am aware there is no similar graphical way of performing this action in 10.4 but there is certainly a keyboard shortcut...

Option-Command-M

You could also set a Expose hotspot to do the same thing but personally, I have always found Expose a bit 'gimmicky'. If anyone knows of a way to add a button into the doc to do this, be sure to let me know! Readers may also wish to take a list of other useful keyboard shortcuts for OSX, you can find them in the following Apple article... http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75459

POLITICS: EU trying to ban 'violent' computer games

Is there no area of our daily lives the EU doesn't want to poke its nose? I came across this story on the Macworld UK site and was horrified. Banning violent computer games - do they really think that is the solution to the world's ills? Do they not recognise sick people are sick people? Do they seriously expect us to believe that if it weren't for these games we wouldn't get people committing violent crime and the like? It's just todays media. It used to the 'Penny Dreadful' or far later still comics like 'Commando' (which incidentally I noticed it Waterstones you can now get a hardback volume of - good news for me) and the like. Of all the pointless ministerial roles the EU has appointed why doesn't it go one further and appoint a 'Minister for Common Sense'?

Hello and welcome

Here is the notebook for 2007. With some luck I hope to add content from not just myself but also others...