I travel a lot and I use an iPhone so I like to load up on videos to watch when I am stuck on a plane. While you can buy videos from iTunes store I own a bunch of DVDs that I had originally ripped to AVI format and there is a ton of other free content out their like video podcasts that I would be happy to use. There are two tools I consistently use to make my video playable on the iPhone. Both tools are free but available only for the Mac.

iSquint

A lot of my videos in my collection are saved in AVI format and at a higher resolution than my IPhone can display. iSquint can convert virtually any video format to a smaller format that is playable by iPhone an by reducing the resolution it reduces the size making the video more portable.. The iSquint converter is a nice easy drag and drop utility that will convert videos to a format and resolution appropriate for the iPhone or video iPod.

TubeTV

As I mentioned there is plenty of free content on the web at YouTube and other video sharing sites, and while you can surf you tube when you have a connection you are out of luck when you are off line. flash and convert them to mp4 format that you can play on your iPhone. TubeTV also lets you search for videos. I like TubeTV because it will find the video, save it, and then convert it. Though most of the time I past URLs from NetNewsWire to TubeTV and then process the download.

Technorati Tags: iPhone, iSquint, Mac, NetNewsWire, TubeTV, video

According to a Net Applications Survey Mac adoption rose with an increase to 7.1% of the total market share for web browsers (as in clients not in actual web browsing programs, that’s how MarketShare collects OS stats). Looking at the stats there is also a rise in Linux desktop users who have risen to .63% of the total market a rise of 10% versus the Net Applications reported .57% share Linux held in November.

One interesting side note is that their is no way to account for those users running Windows via Bootcamp or virtual machines (Parallels, VMware). It would be interesting to see what the actual native OS numbers look like. Interestingly both Windows Vista and XP saw rises too, so I have to wonder what is the statistical significance and accuracy of the data or if the multiple OSes on a single machine might have an effect on this. 

Technorati Tags: Desktop, Linux, Mac, market share, Net Applications

So a couple of months back I was frustrated with Dell so I started toinvestigate Apple as an alternative to my longtime preferred laptopvendor. Then out of the blue Dell comes through for me via my blogcontact form.  They noted that my blog mentioned problems I was havingwith Dell and they asked if they could help solve my problem.

They did a quick check of my records saw my problems and a nice fellowby the name of Rick South apologized for the inconvenience. Afterrelaying my six months of hell to them, they replaced my Inspirion 9100 with a new Inspirion E1505. It looks like earlier this year they started focusing on how they were being discussed in the blogosphere and taken some action. 

Big ships turn slowly and Dell may be guilty of poor customer service,but it looks like they are realizing that having the lowest price isnot on a winning strategy. It’s hard to figure the ROI on good customerservice when you run a company. Experience tells me that referrals andfuture purchase decisions are seldom quantified enough for beancounters to understand how important that has been. Take me forexample, I have been responsible for many millions of dollars in Dellpurchases in the past. Based on my recent experience I will likely beresponsible for many more. Two months ago I wouldn’t have spent a dimeof my money or the company I work for’s money on a Dell product. 

So now I am at a crossroads, I did end up getting an Apple Mac Book Proat my office but I am growing fond of my new Dell laptop as well.  TheDell isn’t perfect,  battery life was okay but not great so I bought anew longer-life battery, I also "pimped" my case with a carbon fiber QuickSnap.The folks at Dell also supplied me with a new express EVDO card becausemy former laptop had a PMCIA slot and my new laptop has an ExpressCard slot. 

The decision I have made is that no matter what laptop I use on a dailybasis will end up using some kind of virtualization software. I like towork in a Linux desktop but I find that getting my EVDO card to work onLinux natively has not worked out very well. However, if I use anotheroperating system with vendor support for my EVDO then I can then workin a Linux desktop hosted in a virtual machine but leave myconnectivity to be managed on a supported operating system. So whatdoes that mean for my desktop environment? I will either run Windowswith a VMware image of Ubuntu or a Mac OS laptop with Parellelsrunning Ubuntu. Some day I hope that a vendor will support EVDO onLinux but untilt hat day comes I am going to temporarily abandon mynative Linux laptop (though I will still have a wild assortment ofLinux running on various desktop PCs).

I do love my new MacBook Pro it’s an awesome machine but I am going tobe suffering from a learning curve. I would probably qualify as anexpert on both Linux and Windows desktops but when it comes to Mac it’sbeen many years since I used one on a regular basis. Back in the 1990sI was a technical support representative for Apple connectivity to theInternet and I could troubleshoot 7.5.x and 9.x operating systems.However when it comes to OS X I am not quite up to speed. I am currently looking at the red Mac OS X TigerUnleashed book as a way to help me understand the operating system wellenough to use it on a daily basis. Now the question is the temporarydrop in productivity worth it?

Technorati Tags: Dell, Linux, Mac