Messages

"I need to get reference off a PS2 disk (Document of Metal Gear).
I'm hoping there's some way of hooking it up to my Mac so I can screen grab stuff.... "

Rufus ... at least one of either Elgato or Miglia's MAc TV tuners does exactly this. Can't remember which one, off the top of my head, though ...

Cheers

Jim

"You might be thinking of Marketplace, which is more reasonable but it isn't really made for publishers as you can't put books that aren't already in the system on it. "

That's clearly what I was doing! You may have just saved me from losing a fairly significant amount of money, Chris - many thanks!

Just out of curiosity, are you managing to shift these on a firm sale basis, or SOR? If it's the latter, will you actually get the unsolds returned, or will they just rip the covers off and expect you refund them anyway?

(Sorry if I seem to be intrusive ... this could all be very useful info. Just tell me to fuck off if you don't want to divulge any of this!)

Just a thought ... once you've got your product onto Amazon's system via the programme desscribed, is there anything to stop you listing it on the Marketplace and trying to drive your sales to that instead, where Amazon are only going to stiff you 17.25% + 86p per copy?

Cheers!

Jim

"Sorry about the expensive price but Amazon take 62%, Fleetway another 10%, then the printing costs. It's not a big enough company to shoulder these costs unfortunately or to reach new agreements."

Holy crap. Could you point me to the bit in Amazon's vendor T&Cs where this little bombshell is located?

I've been looking into the possibility of self-publishing a project and Amazon was looking very attractive, but I could only find mention of a relatively modest set of charges.

62% of the cover price would put them in the same bracket as high street retailers - financially unviable.

Thanks in advance!

Jim

"the only really different thing about this iphone is the price"

One potential killer feature I'm surprised no-one's speculated on yet (that I've seen) ...

What if it runs Apple Remote Desktop?

Think about that for a minute. Instead of having a smaller, crappier version of your computer inside your mobile, your mobile is a portable terminal for your home computer.

You don't need a separate e-mail account/address for your phone, because you can access your main e-mail, and everything else on your computer via your mobile.

Cheers!

Jim

"As somebody else pointed out, irrespective of any pro/anti Apple propaganda, the big stumbling block for it will be that very few people over here pay much for their handset."

The thing about the price is that people are looking at it from the wrong end. Everyone's saying "You expect me to pay how much for a phone!?" ... Turn that around: "You expect me to pay how much for a touchscreen video iPod ... that also runs OSX and is a phone as well?!"

There's also some fairly obvious disinformation floating about teh interweb already, the most obvious one being "it won't sync wirelessly".

I'm sorry? Perhaps the pre-production model that a handful of journos have had a play with may not sync wirelessly, but if my wife's Sony Ericsson syncs contacts and calendar both ways with our Mac Mini, you can be damn sure that a phone Apple actually makes is going to sync with their hardware.

Another one is "No 3G" ... which is currently doing the rounds as fact despite Jobs actually saying during the keynote that 3G was being developed. It's nowhere near as widespread in the US as Europe, so there's not much point in enabling it as a feature until the European launch.

Personally, I'm quite happy for the Merkins to have the iPhone for six months or so before the European launch ... that's six months of bug fixes and patches that we won't have to put up with.

The EU is potentially a much bigger market than the US, and Apple aren't idiots. I suspect that this is the reason why it's not going to the Far East until 2008 ...

Cheers!

Jim

I think what people are missing about what the iPhone (probably to re-branded the [Apple Logo]phone, in keeping with the [Apple]TV) proposes to bring that's new is the touch-screen.

Not that this is new in itself, but Apple has been busily patenting a whole bunch of technologies relating to "gesture sensitive" touch-screens, of which the iPhone's pinch-to-zoom feature is probably just the first manifestation.

Again, this isn't something Apple have invented, but they do seem to be the first to find a commercial implementation.

If they've got it right, then there's a good chance that it will change the way people think about interacting with their gadgets, in much the same way as the Wii has changed the way people are thinking about their gaming experience.

Pretty sure we'll see a phone-less touchscreen iPod before the year is out, too.

Cheers!

Jim

"Zippo is Mongrol."

I got that hint, too. I hope it's a bit of mis-direction, rather than a signal that Mills intends to entirely piss all over the origins of these characters.

Cheers!

Jim

"God, does anyone else get depressed by New Years?"

I despise New Year, and have done for as long as I've been old enough to be expected to 'celebrate' it.

I have no problem with Christmas - eat too much, drink too much, give gifts to loved ones and get a warm, fuzzy feeling if you've managed to get them something they really want.

New Year? Fuck it. It's just a free day off work, as far as I'm concerned.

Have people round? I don't think so. Go round to someone else's? And then spend three hours trying to get a taxi to take you home ... Go to the pub? Now even my local has taken to charging admission on New Year's Eve and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for the privilege of drinking in a pub I go to three or more times a week anyway.

For at least the last six years, me and the missus have stopped in, got pleasantly pissed and otherwise allowed the event to pass unmarked.

Nonetheless, I hope that 2007 brings you all at least some of what you're hoping for.

Me, I'm still waiting for all that stuff Tomorrow's World promised me thirty years ago. It's the future, goddamit! Where the fuck are my flying cars, eh?

Cheers!

Jim

"...but would it have been any better?"

I suspect not!

Cheers

Jim

"I'd say the 40 minutes that was cut were a few action scenes that were overly violent for a "kids" movie and were probably part of a initial director's cut which is always flabby"

Err ... not really. I got what I said from Kev Walker, who worked on the film, and to whom I was speaking regularly at that time.

I spoke to him the day after he'd been to an advance press screening and seen the theatrical cut for the first time. Obviously, I was pretty keen to find out what the movie was like.

His words (as exactly as I can recall them after this many years) were pretty much: "It reminded me of theme park ride. They've left in all the action and chase sequences, and cut out all the character and conspiracy stuff that was supposed to make the plot work."

ISTR that even without the 'Clone' sequence, which he knew in advance had been cut, he had been expecting the film to be 20-30 minutes longer.

Cheers!

Jim

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but is it now not accepted that some 45 minutes of footage that had always been intended for inclusion suddenly found itself on the cutting room floor?"

Dunno about 45 minutes, but I do know that a substantial amount of material in the shooting script never actually made it to the final cut, specifically most of the conspiracy plot that linked together the action set pieces so that they actually made some kind of sense.

And, of course, the now infamous "Send in the Clones!" sequence, which was cut because it looked shite.

The infuriating thing, as other people have commented, is that there is so much that is nearly right, particularly in much of the look of the film, that it's almost criminal that the end result is so bad.

Case in point: the Dredd/Hershey kiss. In the shooting script, this ended with Dredd cautioning Hershey that she was lucky not to get arrested for inappropriate physical contact.

But ... somebody, somewhere in the Hollywood cookie-cutter process loses their nerve ("It's Diane Lane - we don't want the audience to think this Dredd guy is gay or something!") and the line gets excised.

Bah. Bag of old crap.

Cheers!

Jim

""YOU MUST OBEY AND ONLY USE iTUNES!" Bull cr*p you get with any mac relatied music stuff"

Eh? iTunes is designed to integrate with the iTunes music store, yes, but you can download tracks from just about anywhere and, as long they're in a commonly used format, iTunes will play 'em.

If they're correctly named and you drop 'em into the 'iTunes Music' folder, they'll automatically appear in your library the next time you start up iTunes.

I've been running iTunes since Version 1.0 and I've never bought a single track from the iTMS, so it's hardly like you're locked in.

Even if you do buy songs from Apple, converting them into unprotected MP3s is the easiest workaround in the world.

If you don't want to use iTunes to put songs on your iPod, just use the 'Enable Disk Use' option I've described above, and drop the music files onto your iPod manually.

Cheers!

Jim

"... Yes, very easily."

Err ... actually, I've just realized that this is pretty much exactly what PJ said above.

Sorry!

Jim

"Is there an EASY way for them to share iTunes without having to share songs?"

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but ...

... Yes, very easily.

My wife and I do this so she can avoid my sad old goth shite, and I can ignore her 'orrible 80s hair metal, whilst giving us both access to, say, the punk stuff we both like.

When you 'Get Info' on a track in iTunes, there's rather a handy little field called 'Grouping'.

All my songs say "Jim's Tunes" in this field, all hers say "Leigh's Tunes" and tracks that we both like say "Jim & Leigh's Tunes" ...

Type "Jim" into the search field top right of the main iTunes window, and all the "Leigh" only tracks disappear, and vice versa.

Obviously, this goes somewhat out of the window if you have artists, tracks or albums that also contain the keyword, but if you're a bit canny about your choice of keywords, this option works a treat.

You can edit tags for multiple tracks simultaneously by shift clicking, or [CMD] on the Mac, or [CTRL] on the PC, clicking individual tracks and then hitting [CMD] / [CTRL] I with the tracks selected.

You can then apply the Grouping tag to all your tracks at once, if you already have a shedload in your iTunes library.

Hope that helps ...

Cheers!

Jim

"It is actually possible to use an iPod like a regular MP3 player (i.e. drag and drop anything you like into or out of it), you just need some special software."

I wasn't actually aware that you needed any special software to do this.

If you turn off all the syncing options in iTunes and check the 'Enable Disk Use' option in preferences, you can stick any kind of file you want on there. In iTunes 7, you may also need to enable the 'Manage Music Manually' option before it'll let you drop files from iTunes playlists or libraries on, but you shouldn't need any additional software.

The only thing you need to be aware of is that once you turn on the 'Disk Use' option, iTunes will no longer automatically unmount the iPod as an attached device, so the iPod will continue to display the 'Do Not Disconnect' message until you click on the little 'Eject' icon in iTunes.

Cheers!

Jim