A Reason for my Absence…

I didn’t spend all these months working on the logo…

Hello blog. I’m back. But I didn’t forget you. No far from it. I’ve been away, busy.

True, abandoned WordPress blogs must hear that all the time from delinquent bloggers, and I guess I’m one of them. But I have been quite busy, and I’d like to share it with you:

My new Web Series, Dollar Cinema goes into production this July.

It’s a comedy about a young Indo-Canadian woman named Amita who inherits an old dilapidated movie house and has to choose between selling it to a real-estate developer intent on creating the next great shopping centre, or running it herself and facing almost certain financial ruin.

Amita will need to team up with her opportunistic half-Indian, half-Italian cousin Mario and the people who work at the cinema, misfits so out of it that the only place they can get work is at a movie house that charges a buck for entry.

The Indiegogo campaign is here, and if you’re in the Vancouver area this July and want to help out, drop me a line. Particularly if you want to cater! And can make gluten-free meals!

 

Mac Pro Update

Computer tear-down on my desk.

Just wanted to post a quick update on what I’ve done to my Mac Pro. To recap: I acquired a 2006 first-generation Mac Pro and am in the process of building it up. Why? Because I can. Also, I have a big video project this summer and I need something fairly powerful to cut on.

The first upgrade was a modest memory boost, from 1GB to 5GB. It’s a definite improvement, though still not enough for a proper edit suite. I’ll be adding another 8GB by the summer, at least.

Next, a little bit of brain surgery that saw me swap the antiquated 2Ghz dual-core Xeons with slightly less antiquated 2.66Ghz quad-core Xeons. What does that mean in non-geek speak? Each “core” is a processor. So having two dual-core Xeons would be like having four processors or “brains” and the quad-cores would make it eight. The speed doesn’t scale linearly, so doubling the cores won’t double the power. But for certain tasks, there is a definite improvement.

I don’t know if the Mac Pro will ever be this powerful, but one can always hope…

The other day, I finally installed an SSD drive. I happened to have one lying around, since my Mac Mini didn’t like it, and would hang at random times. But it works fine in the Mac Pro. It boots up in less than 25 seconds, and that’s from the moment you push the power button. Once you hear the chime, the desktop appears in a couple of seconds and you’re all set to go. It is stupid-fast.

I’m currently working on a “how-to” video on how to install an SSD, and will do one for the processor upgrade too. After that, the next upgrade will be a newer video card.

Ryan.

Behold: The Mac Pro

At least it’s new to me. A first generation Mac Pro.

One of my pet peeves is our increasingly disposable culture. Perfectly good products are simply thrown away because of planned obsolescence. I hold onto things. Like the PowerBook, or my Blue and White G3, or the 486 before that (my dad’s IBM PS2 is still running). I use an iPhone 3G that was given to me. Sure it’s a little slow, but it works fine.

One of my wife’s pet peeves is the amount of junked electronics gear in the house.

A Year With the PlayBook

I admit it. I own a BlackBerry PlayBook. A huge fire sale and a collection of Sears reward cards that were about to expire finally pushed me to grab a 16GB base model. Having missed out on the HP Touchpad, I wasn’t going to be denied a cheap, possibly useless tablet computer.

The onscreen keyboard works well, and has a nice predictive feature for completing words since the OS upgrade.

Always Root for the Underdog

This is how I felt pumping a flat…

Growing up, I always preferred Donald over Mickey.  I always felt sorry for Donald and wanted him to come out on top.  Where Mickey was a stuck-up little rodent with a high-pitched voice, Donald struggled with inner demons, like a raging temper.

Rebuilding an iPod Touch

My wife’s iPod AFTER I fixed it…

Shattered. Completely shattered.

I stood over the pieces of my wife’s iPod Touch, my face distorted into a mocking glare in its reflective back. What I had assumed to be a relatively straightforward affair – Remove broken display / replace with new one – turned into nearly four hours of agonizing futility and ended in complete failure.

Use Screenwriter? Want a Retina Macbook? About that…

Movie Magic Screenwriter

Anyone who uses Write Brothers‘ Movie Magic Screenwriter and looking to upgrade to a new MacBook Pro with Retina Display, I’ve got some bad news.