I think Comcast could do their cusotmers and product offering a huge service by focusing on the technology and not the content. A Comcast application for my iPhone should allow me to schedule my DVR, while I’m away (like Tivo). It would allow me to manage parental controls so I can let the teen watch the semi-educational war movie while I’m still at the office. It would allow me to remote control my set top box. A Comcast app for my iPhone would let me stream media from my iPhone to my TV and from my TV to my iPhone.

Hey Comcast! Are you listening? You have the fattest pipe, internet in the home, and a set top box on every TV. You can do better than a TV guide. Just a thought.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and let me know.

This was tested and used on Mac running Leopard. I’m certain it will work fine on most flavors of unix, provided you adjust the path to PHP and it’s running to support the CLI.

Usage: urlcoder.php [-option]

This program takes input from STDIN or a file and encodes or decodes the data for use in URLs

Options:

-f  filename to de/encode if no file name is given input will be taken from STDIN.

-e  Encode the input.

-d  Decode the input.

-v  Show the version.

-h  Show this help.

Usage Note: running the command without a file or piping input will leave the application running, and entering data with a carriage return at the prompt will process based on your en/decode option.

This program uses the PHP urldecode and urlencode functions. From the PHP Manual:

urlencode – Returns a string in which all non-alphanumeric characters except -_. have been replaced with a percent (%) sign followed by two hex digits and spaces encoded as plus (+) signs. It is encoded the same way that the posted data from a WWW form is encoded, that is the same way as in application/x-www-form-urlencoded media type. This differs from the » RFC 1738 encoding (see rawurlencode()) in that for historical reasons, spaces are encoded as plus (+) signs.

Examples:

urlcoder -e -f filename.txt
grep -o search datasource | urlcoder -e
echo "mike strutton" | urlcoder -e
urlcoder -e
(input strings manually followed by enter)

If you don’t frequent the Terminal (or unix shell), you will need to extract the zip file, saving it somewhere in your path, and modify the file to  it to be executable (chmod +x urlcoder). If you don’t understand this, then I highly doubt you have any use for a urlcoder anyway.

Questions, comments, variations? Drop a comment.

As for a topic I have none. As for this post here’s a couple of interesting thoughts and links for today:

1. New iPods are out. Check out the Apple store for more details. The new shake to shuffle seems novel and I like the new Touches.
2. iPhone 2.1 is almost here. Check back on this topic around friday.
3. The above comes from a very skinny Steve-note announced today. Coverage available at TUAW.
4. I heard someone say that Steve’s weight and the prices of AAPL’s stock go hand in hand. (if you coined this please sound off in the comments). 
5. Is it the end of the world as we know it. (Financial Times article).  Thinking of the REM song…
6. I’m coding an app for work. More on that in future post. 

OK, that’s it for now, back to the daily grind. BTW, total editing time 6 min. Fail. Sound off in the comments below. Tell me whatcha thinking.

Let me know if this fixes the slow sync and neverending backup problems with iPhone 2.0. I’m also curious about Bluetooth compatibility in Visual Voicemail. My Plantronics headset quit working with VVM. 

As always I’ll post my own experience and notes here. Share yours with a comment below.

(thanks to Jon Lee for alerting me of this news just moments ago)

Update: The download is 242.3 MB

Update (again): the install took <10 min. I The iPhone seems a little more responsive especially in the contacts and keyboard. I updated WordPress, and played with a handful of app, before attempting a sync. The backup seemed to take <5 min, although I had already completed a 2+hour backup earlier today. I think the verdict is still out on this. As for my bluetooth, it’s a no go. My Plantronics 520 reamins unavailable in Visual Voicemail.

Update (again, again): I have since synced my iPhone 3 times, once after updating/installing 5 applications over the air (not through iTunes). Each sync has completed a backup in just a few minutes. For now, I’m thinking the iPhone 2.0.1 update has greatly improved the slow backup on sync issue.

Anyway, I was part of the project and as you can tell, I’m really thrilled with the outcome. My role included launching a CMS, creating/packaging the video content and a handful of HTML. I’m also a participant in the company blog. Feel free to drop by and participate in our social media marketing conversations. And, congratulations to the rest of the team who had their hands in this project. Great Job!

Dear Sister is an SNL parody of the final scene of The O.C.’s second-season finale. In the original O.C. scene Marissa shoots Trey to save Ryan. The scene is over the top drama with using a called Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap. In the SNL parody a series of violent act are repeated using the slow motion and the aforementioned song. The popularity of the parody inspired 1000s of double parodies to be posted. To get the full affect watch the following in order:

Original O.C. scene:

SNL Parody – Dear Sister:

Likewise I was inspired to create my own double parody. But I quickly found all the obvious parodies had been done. Yup there’s, Sopranos, Scarface, Matrix, and even the Lion King. The list is amazing. That left me with no choice but to seek fresh content. Thanks to an well timed ad on YouTube I found no one had used the Hancock movie trailer. My edits took < 10 min, far less than I spent thinking about what to parody.

Enjoy: 

So here’s my technology list for the family vacation at the beach:

• Nikon Digital SLR, extra battery, charger, case and lenses.
• Wife’s Casio Exilim EX-S10 point and shoot, w/charger
• 2 old point and shoot cameras – good for beach and kid’s usage
• Sony Digital DV camcorder, charger, DV tapes and bag (probably don’t need since point and shoots will do good enough)
• Bagful of rechargeable AA and AAA batteries with chargers
• iPhone wall chargers
• 2 MacBook Pros, with chargers
• Portable backup of home/business data (WD MyBook Studio) – just for safety not likely to use 
• Firewire cable (hard drive, or linking the MacBooks for fast data transfers)
• Spare D-Link Wireless router (condo has ethernet we can blast wifi to the pool from our balcony)
• Extra ethernet cable to config router
• Work’s external hard drive (I’m certain I will be working through vacation need to edit some videos)
• Video iPods and (can use iPhone charging cables)
• Video cable for iPods
• Re-encode 25+ kid’s movies from media server for iPod (thanks VisualHub)
• Charge & replace batteries for wireless headphones (we use the iPod as a mobile media server for the in-car LCD panel)
• Get portable iHome (water resistant, beach ready version)
• Sync old iPod Nanos with current music for use with portable iHome (better to lose/damage old nano then Video iPod or iPhone while on the beach)
• Remind kid’s to pack chargers, headphones and games for their Nintendo DSs
• Grab the latest Netflix DVDs (hope it’s something good)
• Find s-video cable/adapter for MacBook Pro (can always serve a makeshift DVD player)
• Find audio cable (headphone to RCA) to use with MacBook Pro and/or iPods
• USB SDHC card reader (for all the cameras – no need to bring 3 different USB cables)

What I’m I forgetting? Let me know with a comment…

Oh, and I apologize for anyone coming to my blog in the last 24 hours and getting redirected to login at my companies Google Apps account… Whoops ;-) 

When I caught wind that Dan would be stopping by to interview Reggie, I grabbed my video camera in hopes to archive the event for Vitrue. More on that later… Dan covers many topics with Reggie including his background, Vitrue’s platform and the importance of brand safety.

Dan also recently interviewed Paul Stamatiou whom I worked with at Skribit.com, the creation of Atlanta’s first Startup Weekend.

Nice work. Keep it up Dan!

Brightkite is location based social networking tool. It allows you to “check in” to a location/address, post a comment or photo (tied to that location), and connect with others nearby. If you enable Twitter integration each event is automatically posted to Twitter. Example:

Brightkite: check in @ work
Twitter: I’m at 101 Marietta St NW, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA (101 Marietta St Nw, Atlanta, GA, 30303, US) – http://bkite.com/001vF

Ok, I gotta admit the Google maps is kinda cool. But what’s with listing the address twice? Honestly is the address relevant to anyone who may be reading my Twitter? In my example above I used a “Placemark” (bookmark) called “work”. My Twitter post should simply be “I’m at work <map link>.” If I check in to another address without a placemark, it should just show “I’m at city/state + map link.” I’ve heard a few grumbles from my twittpeeps about the uselessness of the check in data in Twitter, and formated the way it is, I tend to agree. 

In addition to improving the check in details, Brightkite should allow you to combine a message with a location. Such as “@work looking for lunch.” This can help cut down on the Twittlitter.

For the record you can achieve an abbreviated post (city/state) if you raise your privacy preferences. But then you lose the ability to show everyone your specific location and this doesn’t address the lack of placemark integration with Twitter.  

OK, enough of the shortcomings, let’s talk about a useful Brightkite/Twitter feature, Photo uploads.  With my registration came a private email address to send photos. Emailed pictures are placed in my Brightkite profile, as well as post to my Twitter stream. The subject line of the email becomes the Twitter message. The message text and link are separated with a hyphen. The other day I attempted to photo stream my commute home and subsequent trip to the store. You can see the log in my Brightkite profile. In addition this made for mildly entertaining Twitter story that looked like this:

• Driving home – CNN – - Photo: http://bkite.com/001nO
• I’m at Douglasville, GA 30134, USA (Douglasville, GA, 30134, US) – http://bkite.com/001oa
• Driving – Mall – Photo: http://bkite.com/001on
• Truck almost ran me off rd. – Photo: http://bkite.com/001ou
• I’m at Villa Rica, GA 30180, USA (Villa Rica, GA, 30180, US) – http://bkite.com/001ox
• Getting off highway. Sunset. – Photo: http://bkite.com/001oB
• My ‘hood – Photo: http://bkite.com/001oD
• Home now. Hope u enjoyed my ride. – Photo: http://bkite.com/001oH
• Back on the rd. again need dinner & groceries.
• Guess what took this pic? – Photo: http://bkite.com/001oU
• Here now – Photo: http://bkite.com/001oY
• My sub under construction – Photo: http://bkite.com/001p5
• Publix makes the best subs in my town – Photo: http://bkite.com/001pa
• My BP is a little high. Stress. – Photo: http://bkite.com/001pr

I also love the Find Your Friends feature. Simply input your Twitter account and it searches the account for friends. 

Other notes about Brightkite:

Obvioulsy the Google maps integration is key for location based social networking. See: My past locations on Google Maps, My friends on Google Maps, they should do the same for the photos.

For you iPhone users and anyone who may prefer email over SMS… It’s not obviously documented but you can update Brightkite via email. Just use the same private address assigned for photo uploads. Put your SMS commands into the subject line. This is handy for me, as I do not have unlimited SMS but do have unlimited internet/email.

I think the future looks bright for Brightkite, and I’m looking forward to seeing integration with triangulation and GPS.  I also understand they are developing a native iPhone application too. 

Right now Brightkite is an invitation only Beta. If you would like an invite, leave a comment on this page. I have a few available. 

This week I have to do a video shoot at the office. During our test shots, I decided I didn’t like the audio quality I was getting from the camera and the wireless mic. So, I decided to incorporate my home studio gear and run some additional tests.

The gear: 
Canon VIXIA HV30 (HDV to tape with microphone input)
MOTU Traveler (multi track mixer/firewire interface)
Numerous Microphones (condensers, bullets and wireless lavalier)
Audio-Technica ATR288W (wireless tx/rx kit)
MacBook Pro

My intentions were to mix the audio from multiple microphones using the MOTO as a mixer and piping a cable back into the camera’s microphone input. I know you recording pros are probably asking why I didn’t take each mic to a digital track via firewire? After all that’s what the MOTU does best. Well, I don’t have the software tools necessary (limited to iLife ’08) to capture video and multi audio tracks at the same time. I guess I could attempt to simultanously record in GarageBand and capture video in iMovieHD (or ’08), but syncing would then be an issue. You get the point.

For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why the audio sounded great via the Headphone on the MOTU, but crap from the Headphone on the HV30. After hours of fiddling with knobs and levels, I had just about given up, when I decided to take the mixed audio and run it into the wireless trasmitter/receiver then into the HV30. Bingo! Everything sounds great, but why?

As it turns out Line Level is not the same as Mic Level. Line level (technically +4dBu) is a standard level used by many pieces of audio equipment like DVDs, Tape Decks, and in my case a Mixer. Mic Level on the other hand assumes the signal is much weaker and boosts/amplifies it. This explains why my line level audio was so distorted. Apparently the wireless kit accepts both Mic and Line Levels, and then outputs the correct Mic Level.

If you are in need of piping mixed audio into your camera’s Mic Input, you will likely need to convert the signal. There are sources for this like BeachTek (no affiliation and never used them) or a wireless kit like the one I used.

BTW, I don’t claim to be an expert at this I’m just a mass consumer of technology. If you see an error, leave a comment. If you have something to add, leave a comment. If you have read this far, leave a comment. If you are alive, leave a comment. 

I’m not a new comer to the blogosphere or social media. My past includes authoring to the now vanished EarthLink Protection blog (2005), and I recently helped cofound Skribit, Inc., a community engagement tool for blogger. In recent months, I helped setup my Wife’s company blog. Actually 10+ years ago (1998 to be exact) I started my first “web log”. Yeah, I’m no Dave Winer, but I did maintain a webpage that logged the pregnancy and arrival of my first child Cameron.

Today I work for a video-centric social media company called Vitrue, (for the record: the views and opinions on this site are my own and not those of my employer). I have 12+ years working with software, web, and internet technologies and there’s bound to be some overlap between my blog and career. But if you are interested in Vitrue’s position check our their blog.

What to expect from me? Well that’s going to evolve over time. My passions include technology, gadgets, anything Apple, UGC video (YouTube & .Mac Gallery), and music (guitar). I’m not an avid gamer, but own the major consoles, RockBand is hot right now. I wired my home with gigabit ether to stream video to 5+ set-top boxes, audio too. I setup a homegrown NAS with 3+TB of storage. I use Macs, and love my iPhone. Given my recent employment, I imagine I will be spending more time in the social side of the net, videos in particular. In the end, I hope this blog will engage a readership, promote healthy conversations and impress some friends and family.

In addition to the personal interest above… I have two boys Cameron and Ryan, a beautiful wife Michelle, and her two kids Nick and Kara. We’re a modern day Brady Bunch minus Alice, although Michelle really wants to hire Alice. This summer we will celebrate our 2nd anniversary. My wife created this family web site with iWeb and a .Mac account (I think it’s a little outdated).

So if you made it this far, drop me a comment and say so. If nothing else say hello. Until next time…