I used Final Cut Pro X, Apple’s controversial new “professional” video editing program to cut the trip video during my latest Wetpixel expedition to Indonesia. These slideshows have become a tradition for guests and combine video, stills, and music into something people can take home to show their friends and family.

Using Final Cut Pro X was, for the most part, fantastic. It is really more like an “iMovie Pro” and includes one-click video stabilization, color balancing, and look filters, which were all features I used extensively. Aside from dealing with small bugs, I was able to produce a 30-minute video fairly easily, without being impeded by any critical issues. However, I am back home, and am now in the process of trying to migrate my slideshow project and event files to my main Mac Pro from my MacBook Pro. This is proving to be impossible. Two excellent threads provide work-arounds for reconnecting missing media, but upon following the instructions outlined within those threads, this is what happened:

1. After copying events and projects to the Mac Pro, they showed up and opened in FCPx, but all of the media showed up as missing (red thumbnails).
2. Per suggestions, I re-imported all of the media (annoying, since the files are spread out over many folders). The red missing media icons for videos and audio were all restored to color (no longer missing). This seemed like a good sign.
3. Many JPGs in the media list were not successfully re-connected; instead, they were duplicated. I have hundreds of JPGs in the slideshow, which are now all “missing” and therefore, would need to be re-cut into the timeline.
4. Soon after re-import, I noticed an import background task running. Upon closer inspection, I realized that FCPx was in the process of copying over all the newly imported media instead of honoring my request to leave the files in their original location (by leaving “Copy files to Final Cut Events folder” unchecked). The source media is hundreds of gigabytes. Duplicating them is not an option.
5. Closing FCPx and re-opening it immediately causes the import process to re-spawn. If I cancel the process, the media simply does not show up in my events.

Put quite simply, there is no way to move a complicated project and its associated event media from one machine to another. The fragility of the media storage system in FCPx is shameful—it’s like the product was never tested in the real world.

I will, in this case, essentially lose this project and never be able to edit it again. I suppose I’ll archive the events and projects in case FCPx improves its media handling capabilities. One significant side effect: if I upgrade my machine or need to reinstall, I’ll effectively lose all of my FCPx projects. Until there is serious improvement in media management, I can’t see myself using Final Cut Pro X again.

I’ve recently moved my local Dropbox folder to a folder that lives in an encrypted sparse bundle. I have nearly 50GB of data in Dropbox, and it was starting to take a toll on my startup volume, which is small—a 250GB SSD. I changed the folder from within the Dropbox preferences area, and it moved my files over successfully.

This setup only works if the encrypted volume is mounted before Dropbox loads (Dropbox complains, otherwise). In particular, this is an issue if Dropbox loads on startup (and the encrypted volume has not yet mounted). I solved the problem by using an AppleScript that mounts the sparse bundle, waits a few seconds, and launches Dropbox. I added the AppleScript to my Login Items, and it is all working perfectly. You must save the sparse bundle password to your keychain for this to work.

do shell script ("hdiutil mount \"/Location/of/sparse/bundle/volumename.sparsebundle\"")

set theAppList to {{name:"Dropbox", vis:false}}
set theDelay to 5

repeat with currentApp in theAppList
    tell application (name of currentApp) to launch
    delay theDelay
    tell application "System Events"
        try
            if background only of process (name of currentApp) is false then
                set visible of process (name of currentApp) to (vis of currentApp)
            end if
        end try
    end tell
end repeat

Note that one can use the same script (without the “hdiutil mount” part) to launch an arbitrary number of applications after a delay. Delayed launch script source: MacWorld Hints

WARNING: This setup can really screw up applications that sync using Dropbox. Your Dropbox will no longer always be available because it can be unmounted. Do this at your own risk.

I recently added a solid-state drive (SSD) to a 2011 MacBook Pro 15″ to use as a new boot / applications drive.¹ The MacBook Pro came with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion installed, and I installed the new SSD using the same method I’ve used with every other machine I’ve owned in the pas:t

1. I partitioned the SSD into a single volume with a GIUD partition table, choosing Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) as the file system.
2. I used SuperDuper! to clone my old drive to the SSD
3. I used Disk Utility.app and ran Repair Disk on the SSD (In the past, I have had problems booting from newly-cloned SSDs in the past without first repairing).

I rebooted the MacBook Pro, and everything seemed to work perfectly—the Mac booted quickly and was immediately an order of magnitude more responsive (as is normal when using a machine with SSD storage). However, when I went into the Security & Privacy preference pane to enable FileVault (FileVault 2), it gave me an error message:

FileVault can’t be turned on for the disk XXX. Some disk formats don’t support the recovery partition required for encryption.

It turns out that FileVault cannot be enabled on drives that do not have the Recovery HD partition that is created when Mac OS X Lion is installed. Because I had cloned the bootable volume to the new hard disk without actually installing Lion first, no Recovery HD partition was every created. To solve this problem, I had to first install Lion onto the destination hard disk (the SSD). The installation process creates the necessary Recovery HD partition. After installing Lion, I again cloned my old volume onto the new volume (on the SSD) using SuperDuper!.²

I have just completed this process, and FileVault is now encrypting my SSD.

Useful links/information:

• To download the Mac OS X Lion installer without installing it, run App Store and hold the Option key down while you click on the Purchases tab, and when you click on “Install Mac OS X Lion”. The Install Mac OS X Lion app will be downloaded into your Applications folder. When you run the installer, it will self-destruct, so be sure to back it up somewhere. [more info]
• To burn your own Mac OS X Lion install DVD or USB drive, follow the instructions here.

On Monday afternoon, I decided to use Google+ to post the slides of a talk I had just given at the Monterey Shootout 2011. I really like how pictures and videos are handled by Google+, and using it to present one of my talks (which are typically picture-heavy) seemed to be perfect.

On Tuesday, at 3:38PM, an underwater photographer named Elena Kalis shared my talk with her circles on Google+. At around 7pm, I uploaded 33 underwater pictures to my Scrapbook. At 9:47pm, Vic Gundotra shared a link to the album. At 10:04pm, Brian Rose did, as well. Sergey Brin left a few comments shortly after 11pm (Mr. Brin dabbles in underwater photography, himself). Robert Scoble picked up and shared the album at 12:32am.

At 12:56am, just 6 hours after I updated my scrapbook and 9 hours after Elena shared out the link to my talk, 1,430 people have me in their circles. 1,430 happens to be the exact number of Twitter followers I have. That’s right: it took me 2 days on Google+ to arrive at the same number of followers I attracted on Twitter in 1644 days.¹ Granted, I use Twitter as a broadcast service and tweet about all sorts of random things, but the reception to my photography over on Google+ has been nothing short of incredible. After spending a couple hours on the site tonight, it is obvious that the reception to ALL FORMS of photography at Google+ is fantastic, and that engagement levels are extremely high.

Methinks I will be spending some time over there. Want [https://plus.google.com/i/e8Qj9ye8oEM:H3n9d7n4n-M](an invite)? +Eric Cheng

Side note: What’s amusing is that this post will get picked up automatically by Facebook and Twitter, but not by Google+. I’m really looking forward to a time when Google+ gets integration with HootSuite and other social media aggregators.

Two years ago, I wrote a post in which I quoted some Craigslist / Paypal phishing scam emails. Since then, it has received over 42,000 page views and 35 related comments. I am compelled to post about things that I think will help people (and, frankly, about things that annoy me); I rely on web search for much of my online research, and it feels good participate in the community.

After upgrading to Mac OS X Lion, I booted into Windows 7 / Boot Camp and experienced constant Blue Screens of Death (BSODs). Windows would boot, but I’d only have a minute or two before getting a BSOD citing “cache_manager” as the culprit.

The fix was to rename the Apple HFS driver, which can be found at:

Windows/system32/drivers/AppleHFS.sys

After renaming that file and restarting (BSOD helped me to restart quickly!), Windows 7 became usable again. Note that this will prevent Windows from being able to see your Mac OS X file system (not a big deal, for me).

Source of fix: Apple Support Communities

I had a kernel panic today (quad-core iMac running Mac OS X 10.6.8), and when my Mac started up again, the Command and Option keys on my keyboard (a Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard 4000) were reversed. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal—one just goes to the Keyboard Preference Pane and changes the modifier key settings to swap the two keys. But in this case, no amount of changing the modifier key settings had any effect. This is incredibly frustrating for someone who is nearly 100% keyboard shortcut dependent.

After over half an hour of trying various things like rebooting, resetting PRAM, trashing assorted .plist and preference files, I finally unplugged the Logitech wireless transmitter that talks to my Logitech Performance MX mouse and set modifier key behavior using an Apple Magic Mouse. It worked, and the settings stuck even after I plugged in the Logitech Unifying Device (the USB transceiver). Strangely, if I go to the modifiers preference now, it shows that it has reverted to default, even though my keyboard suggests otherwise.

If you’ve discovered this site because you have same problem, unplug your Logitech mouse and make the changes again using an Apple mouse. I hope it works for you!

Sterling Zumbrunn and I are excited to launch Noodletron, a new technology website dedicated to discussions about technology, digital workflow, social media, and photography.

Our first big article is a review of Apple’s iPad 2, a device that still has people lining up at Apple stores nearly three weeks after its release date. Sterling has tried more iOS apps than anyone else I know, and his thoughts about iPad and iOS are always worth reading.

We could use some help spreading the word about Noodletron and the iPad 2 review! If you like the review, please share it with your friends. :)

I was happy to receive this email today from Sonic.net (my ADSL provider). I love their service: I’m getting 30Mbps down and 2Mbps up, and their current plan (which I’m going to switch to) offers 40Mbps down for less than $70/month. I don’t abuse my bandwidth, but it’s good to know that I have no caps.

With news about AT&T’s announcement last week that they will be imposing usage caps on their ADSL and U-Verse VDSL customers, we have received a lot of inquiries about whether or not this will affect Sonic.net customers, and whether we plan to follow the lead of Comcast and AT&T. We are also being asked why AT&T is imposing caps, and about their $10 per 50GB overage charges.

Here’s the bottom line: Sonic.net has no plans to impose usage caps on our customers. For more details and discussion of this topic, please click to read the article on our site, Drilling Through the Caps.

Thank you for very much your ongoing patronage, and for spreading the word about Sonic.net — uncapped, unlimited, and the best customer service around!

Sincerely,
Dane Jasper
CEO & Co-Founder
[full story]

I have become dependent on DropBox as my cloud solution for working files (with versioned backups!), and for cloud syncing support in many of the apps I use. I’m also an Eye-Fi user, and really like the idea of having a camera that automatically dumps images into a folder in DropBox. I asked Eye-Fi for this feature, but they told me that it’s up to DropBox to integrate with Eye-Fi—not the other way around.

Eye-Fi did, however, recommend that I give Pixelpipe a try. I successfully configured Pixelpipe so that I could automatically transfer all JPG images on my Eye-Fi card to a folder in DropBox, but I want everything to be transfered, including RAW files and videos.

My current solution is to use Eye-Fi Center on a Mac Mini that is (already) running all the time in a closet at home. That Mac Mini has a temporary DropBox account running on it, and Eye-Fi dumps images into a shared DropBox folder there. Once it arrives on my Mac Mini, DropBox pushes it into the cloud, and images and videos are then accessible on all of my machines and mobile devices.

This method is totally wasteful, but it works! I hope someone comes up with a better solution in the long run.

I’m also looking for an iOS camera replacement that shoots directly to DropBox. At the moment, I use the DropBox app to push individual images, which is inconvenient.

I don’t know why Apple doesn’t just retire Numbers. It is so clunky!

There is a 24-hour sale right now on TextExpander, which is one of the Mac OS X utilities that I rely on and use on a daily basis. TextExpander lives in the background and listens for abbreviations, which can be expanded out into frequently-used strings and images. For example, if I type “addresssf”, it auto-expands into my mailing address.

TextExpander works in most Mac OS applications.

The sale is via MacUpdate Promo, and expires in 22 hours (which would be 9PM PST, Feb 23, 2011).

If you take advantage of the discount, please check to make sure that the app you are buying is TextExpander. One of my friends bought the wrong app last time because he forgot to check to see what he was actually buying!

I’ve been struggling with email workflow since selling my MacBook Pro. My notebook computer used to be communication central — the (somewhat) mobile device that held my master email archives and the most current version of projects in process. My more powerful Mac Pro was used for heavier projects (media-related), and occasionally received a sync of working files from the MacBook Pro.

I’m more “local” now, but strangely, it has also made me more mobile. At the same time, I’ve lost access to my main email archive when I’m away from my Mac Pro (which has become the new central repository). (read more »)

I went to MacWorld last week to check out products and to meet Sterling Zumbrunn and Daniel Brown. The show was tiny this year; it is shrinking year after year because Apple pulled out in 2009.

MacWorld 2011 might as well have been named “iStuff 2011.” The vast majority of booths seemed to be dedicated to iPhone and iPad accessories and software. Still, the show was interesting. The Mac has a great shareware culture, and some of the more successful shareware companies were on site in micro-booths — a great opportunity to meet some of the folks who write the software I use every day.

If you’re reading this and are not already browsing Facebook using HTTPS (secure HTTP), you need to go to Facebook RIGHT NOW and enable the option (lest you fall victim to Firesheep). In in your Account Settings under Account Security -> Secure Browsing (https). If you need more help, Gizmodo has a great tutorial about how to do it.

Little Snitch, a Mac utility that monitors and control network access from a computer, is on sale for 50% off for 47 (more) hours. I find Little Snitch to be absolutely indispensable, and feel naked using a computer without it. I rely on Little Snitch to tell me which apps are requesting connections to the internet, and approve/deny access appropriately (you can set permissions for the session, or for all time).

It’s useful as a monitoring app, but I’ve actually found it to be the most useful when I’m traveling and using low-bandwidth internet connections. In these cases, I tell Little Snitch to block ALL internet access and open specific pipes for whatever I am using at the moment (usually, email, twitter, and web). This prevents your computer from going online and, for example, downloading OS and application updates.

Little Snitch is on sale via MacUpdatePromo no longer on sale.

3 displays attached to a mid-2010 Mac Pro / ATI Radeon 5870

Last week, I sold my MacBook Pro, which means that I am finally back to running on a single machine (plus a MacBook Air for work)[^1]. I used to run the MBP on a 30″ monitor, using teleport to share a mouse and keyboard across machines, but when I sold the notebook, I decided that I’d like to connect all 3 of my monitors to my Mac Pro. This has proven to be more difficult than I thought it would be. (read more »)

A post I wrote in April 2010 called How to properly set up Gmail on your iPad has gotten nearly 50,000 page views since it went live. Users of Gmail are used to its archive-instead-of-delete model, but by default, Apple devices prior to iOS 4 were deleting trashed messages when integrated with Gmail. iPads running the original OS and iPhones running iPhone OS 1.1.2 -> 3.x needed special instructions to set up Gmail accounts properly, which is detailed in the post I linked to above. (read more »)

As I was running out of the house on Thursday for CES in Las Vegas, I opened up my small messenger bag, removed my MacBook Air, and replaced it with my iPad. My reasoning was simple — I’d be running around the show floor at CES, and using a notebook computer would be impractical compared to whipping out a tablet and showing pictures or looking something up on the web (I use my iPad with a Verizon MiFi, so I still had network access — AT&T users were out of luck). I was also originally scheduled only to be away for the day.

When I arrived at the airport, a series of events led to a decision to stay in Las Vegas for 3 days. Suddenly, I was worried. I didn’t have a charger with me and had never tried to be productive on the iPad for such a long period of time. (read more »)

I’m trying to update CS5 using Adobe Application Manager, and I’m getting the following errors… (read more »)