For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past week, Steve Jobs, co-founder and former CEO of Apple, Inc., died this past Wednesday. His work changed the way people use computers, changed the way we listen to and buy music, and changes the way we communicate. He truly was an innovator.
As the word of his passing spread (fittingly enough, many people heard the news using a device he created), many people went to Apple retail stores to pay their respects to the man who changed the world.
And I should note that this post, as well as the photos were written and taken using an iPhone, while listening to music on an iPod, and edited on a MacBook. It's only fitting.
07 October 2011
26 September 2011
The Scriptures in Audiobook Form, and How to Do It Yourself
also called "How Shell Scripts Saved the Day".
As I'm sure many of you know, I'm a Mormon, and as a Mormon, we are taught to read and study the scriptures. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has provided many ways to bring the scriptures to the people. In addition to the print edition of the scriptures, the Church provides them online, in mobile applications, and in audio form as a set of compact discs or a set of MP3 files which can be downloaded gratis and played on an audio player (e.g. an iPod).
The thing is, that they're provided as a set of MP3 files, with one MP3 file for each chapter of all the scriptures. This is fine if your MP3 player can only handle MP3 files, but if you have an iPod, iPhone, or iPad, your device supports audiobooks with the M4B extension, which are much nicer to manage, and they can remember your position as you listen to them. They can also be divided into chapters, but these chapters are in a single file, which is nice if you're listening through a book, so that the chapters play together in order as opposed to them playing in a random order. They also appear as audiobooks in iTunes, as opposed to music.
This is how I have it with my copy of the scriptures in audio form. I did this a few years ago, using a shareware app whose name I don't remember, on Macs in Queens College's computer labs (as I didn't have my own Mac at the time, and you could only make these audiobooks with chapters on a Mac). I was on these computers a few hours at a time, entering information by hand and the rather slow book-by-book process (and by "book" I mean the subdivisions found in the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Pearl of Great Price). After a couple of weeks of this, I had a complete set of the Standard Works in audiobook form, for my enjoyment.
Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago. My mom asks me if I can put a set of audio scriptures – in Spanish – on an iPod for someone. I figure, "Well, I might as well give it the same treatment."
As I'm sure many of you know, I'm a Mormon, and as a Mormon, we are taught to read and study the scriptures. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has provided many ways to bring the scriptures to the people. In addition to the print edition of the scriptures, the Church provides them online, in mobile applications, and in audio form as a set of compact discs or a set of MP3 files which can be downloaded gratis and played on an audio player (e.g. an iPod).
The thing is, that they're provided as a set of MP3 files, with one MP3 file for each chapter of all the scriptures. This is fine if your MP3 player can only handle MP3 files, but if you have an iPod, iPhone, or iPad, your device supports audiobooks with the M4B extension, which are much nicer to manage, and they can remember your position as you listen to them. They can also be divided into chapters, but these chapters are in a single file, which is nice if you're listening through a book, so that the chapters play together in order as opposed to them playing in a random order. They also appear as audiobooks in iTunes, as opposed to music.
This is how I have it with my copy of the scriptures in audio form. I did this a few years ago, using a shareware app whose name I don't remember, on Macs in Queens College's computer labs (as I didn't have my own Mac at the time, and you could only make these audiobooks with chapters on a Mac). I was on these computers a few hours at a time, entering information by hand and the rather slow book-by-book process (and by "book" I mean the subdivisions found in the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Pearl of Great Price). After a couple of weeks of this, I had a complete set of the Standard Works in audiobook form, for my enjoyment.
Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago. My mom asks me if I can put a set of audio scriptures – in Spanish – on an iPod for someone. I figure, "Well, I might as well give it the same treatment."
08 September 2011
Ten Years Ago...
With all this talk about "Ten years ago," ramping up to the tenth anniversary of this, I figure I'd share with you some pictures of what I did ten years ago today, September 8th.
07 September 2011
The A Train? I've Got It Covered!
Over my summer blog hiatus, I did manage to make a couple of time lapse videos featuring the A line.
For those of you who don't know, the A line is one of the longest lines in the New York City subway, and includes the longest one-seat ride in the system.
These two videos cover the whole thing, all three branches, and it will take just a few minutes to watch them. Enjoy!
For those of you who don't know, the A line is one of the longest lines in the New York City subway, and includes the longest one-seat ride in the system.
These two videos cover the whole thing, all three branches, and it will take just a few minutes to watch them. Enjoy!
03 May 2011
My Favorite Quotes from Portal 2
Two weeks ago, Valve released Portal 2, the sequel to their popular game Portal. I gotta hand it to the writers at Valve. They've come up with some great gameplay, and some awesome quotes. In this post, I will list some of my favorite quotes from the game. Before we start however, keep in mind that not everyone has completed the game, as I have. Therefore, I am throwing up a huge SPOILER ALERT warning. If you are interested in playing this game, and have not yet done so, or if you couldn't care less about Portal or Portal 2, or video games in general, stop reading this post, and go to some of my others and read those, as they're relatively spoiler-free. If you have completed the single-player Portal 2 campaign, feel free to read on, by clicking on the title of this post.