Monthly Archives: March 2007

WiiTransfer.com

After I “blogged last month”:http://www.manton.org/2007/01/i_hate_domains.html about the very small number of domain names I own, I got some good feedback from people I respect. They basically said: “You’re an idiot. Domain names are cheap.”

And the more I thought about it, the more they were right. So last week I made an offer to buy the wiitransfer.com domain from its current owner, and after just about 48 hours I had the domain and was updating Wii Transfer to use it. Now all registered users can use the simpler bookmark URL wiitransfer.com/username to point to their shared music.

I’m also finally rolling out a bug fix update tonight (version 2.2.1, “available here”:http://www.riverfold.com/software/wiitransfer/). The most important change is that some MP3s that would not play will now work. Some customers never saw this, but for some people a large percentage of their music library was unusable. It turned out to be that certain kinds of embedded cover album artwork in the MP3 would break the Flash player on the Wii. The work-around I used is to load the MP3 into memory and clear all its ID3 tags before sending it over the wire.

It feels good to be working on Wii Transfer again. The next version is already underway and should make a lot of people happy.

TwitterConf 2007

It’s been over a week since SXSW Interactive wrapped up, and I can’t bring myself to post anything interesting about it. Don’t get me wrong, I had a great time. But I missed more sessions than usual this year (I’m trying to ship software here!), skipped half the parties (Traci was sick all weekend), and I didn’t notice any big themes that unified the conference.

Except Twitter. Which just underscores that it is about the people, and what they are doing, and being inspired.

I had a great time meeting new folks and catching up with old acquaintances: talking independent Mac development with Buzz Andersen and Justin Miller; software pricing with John Gruber; Rails and cities with Jamie Stephens and Sergio Rabiela; bumping into old school Mac web guys Carl de Cordova, Raines Cohen, Bill Christensen, and Wes Felter; co-workers and former co-workers Damon Clinkscales and Ryan Irelan respectively; lunch in a pub as a storm came down with Austinites Ben and Sara Brumfield; seeing my old friend John Brauer from high school who needs to email me (hint!); and finally meeting Shaun Inman and a bunch of other people whose names I can’t recall at the moment and whose business cards are buried somewhere, but no one is quite sure where.

My only regret is that there were a few people I wanted to say hi to that I literally saw from a distance on the first day of the conference and then never saw again. Maybe they took the wrong escalator and are still trapped in the void of that 3rd floor.

Of all the kajillion SXSW posts that have come through my fresh not-even-a-beta copy of NetNewsWire, I liked “Peter Merholtz’s write-up”:http://www.peterme.com/?p=533 the best:

“What I realized, and what I need to do if I return to SXSW, is that in order to enjoy what SXSW Interactive has become (and boy, has it changed since 1999) I have to take a more Zen-like approach, ignoring all the Things I Could Be Doing, and focus on simply getting the most out of whatever I Am Doing.”

Seeya next year.

Weblog 5th Year

Ten minutes until midnight as I type this. I started this blog 5 years ago. There have been just 329 posts in those 5 years, but there are some good ones in there. One thing I’ve noticed is that over the years I’ve switched from collecting links and providing short commentary, to more thoughtful longer posts. I’m hoping in this next year to go back to more of the earlier style.

My weblog anniversary also means that “SXSW”:http://www.sxsw.com/ is starting. I don’t plan to blog this weekend, but will instead be updating through “my Twitter account”:http://twitter.com/manton. To be honest I’m not sure what to expect from this year’s conference. I’m looking forward to a few sessions, but with RailsConf and WWDC and another work trip all lined up for the coming few months, I’m feeling a little conferenced-out before I’ve even begun.

Here are the previous anniversary posts: “2006”:http://www.manton.org/2006/03/mediocrity_is_the.html, “2005”:http://www.manton.org/2005/03/year_three.html, “2004”:http://www.manton.org/2004/03/two_years.html, “2003”:http://www.manton.org/2003/03/at_sxsw.html, and “2002”:http://www.manton.org/2002/03/sxsw.html.

Also checked out the new Apple Store at The Domain today, which is a couple miles from my house. Was 250th in line without really trying, and the weather was nice enough to work under the oak trees outside Starbucks. Took pictures with my camera phone which I don’t have the energy to post right now. Tonight I headed back downtown for the opening of “Jason Chalker’s”:http://manlyart.blogspot.com/ art show.

STAPLE! 2007 weekend wrap-up

“STAPLE! The Independent Media Expo”:http://www.staple-austin.org/ was last Saturday and it turned out great. The “animation panel I wrote about last week”:http://www.manton.org/2007/02/animation_panel.html was a lot of fun and didn’t seem to suffer too much from my amateur moderating abilities. The projector worked, the films were great, and we filled an hour and a half with questions from the audience. Special thanks to “Damon”:http://www.damonclinkscales.com/ for working the lights and providing feedback afterwards.

My only regret is that I didn’t take a few minutes to snap photos or set up a video camera in the back to capture it. I left my camera in the car the whole day. Luckily other attendees took pictures of the rest of the show. Here are Flickr sets from “Freddie Avalos”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/freddieavalos/sets/72157594570835464/, “Toby Craig”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/ithinkican/sets/72157594574373510/, and “Marianne Ways”:http://flickr.com/photos/mways/sets/72157594569262131/. Update: Damon “snapped a picture”:http://flickr.com/photos/digitalnomad/413875252/in/photostream/ after all!

Sunday night was the “Animation Show”:http://www.animationshow.com/ at the Paramount and Don Hertzfeldt answered questions afterwards. His latest film may be my favorite of his yet. I worked with Robert at the Animation Show on cross-promotion between their show and STAPLE!, and they were so great to work with I hope we can join forces again next time.

I came away from the whole weekend inspired. Monday a new idea for an animated short film hit me. I think it’s time to dust off the animation table again.