Jamie Thingelstad

I have been searching for a good video hosting service for a while. Something that solves my online video problems like Flickr solves my online photo problems. At first blush you probably think this is silly, YouTube is the obvious answer. Well, not really.

After a while searching I found Vimeo and have been delighted. My first test for video hosting services was to upload the 13 minute fishing video from Canada. YouTube denies this video because it is over 10 minutes long. Google Video couldn’t transcode it to Flash after several attempts. Sadly even the .Mac video hosting couldn’t reliably receive the upload from iMovie (sad). Vimeo on the other hand took it with ease and got it transcoded on the first try.

I’m very happy with the quality of video from Vimeo. You get privacy controls if you want them. Embedding it in your blog is simple and easy. Plus you aren’t surrounded by trashy videos like on YouTube. I’m happy to finally find a place to plant video.

Over the course of the next few weeks I’m going to migrate anything from YouTube to Vimeo. While doing it I’ll likely recut some of the video that looks a bit rough.

I’m still having a blast on Guitar Hero III. I played for a while yesterday trying to clear some levels before the big Christmas Day extravaganza with my brother-in-laws where I expect much GH3 action. While playing I saw the notice for a 200 note streak pop up and freaked out. I knew I was hitting the song, but when it was all over…

497 note streak! That is on the medium difficulty in the 4th “level”. Unfortunately the Guitar Hero site doesn’t rank streaks so I have no idea how big of a number that is, but I thought it was pretty impressive! Check out my profile page if you want to prove this isn’t rigged. 🙂

I thought about naming this post “I have a dream” but I figured the SEO impacts would be all wrong. The idea though would be spot on. I decided to go with this title and its gambling reference because I’m quite positive that I am gambling a little. I just bought my third Apple TV and set it up last week.

Yes, I read a bunch of different blogs and I do not have my head in the sand. You don’t have to go very far to read an article about how the Apple TV has already failed and is doomed to sit next to the Newton on the shelf of shame at Apple HQ. In fact, simply buying an Apple TV doesn’t give you a lot of assurance the product is doing well. The unit I just bought and installed still had the 1.0 software on it. The 1.1 release was made a long time ago so you know this unit was sitting on the shelf for a while.

However, I find the allure of these little boxes to be too strong. The promise is great. Integration with the iTunes ecosystem. Great user experience. By far the best “ten foot” user experience I’ve ever seen. The integration is great. You can watch part of a movie on a plane, come home and sync your iPhone and then sit down on the couch and the Apple TV will offer to resume where you left off. For music, it’s a great device with nearly no issues (please add rating from the Apple TV!). It falls down in video, and that is really where the entire iTunes world falls down.

I’ve decided to continue betting all the way to three of these units for a few reasons. First, as part of the iTunes world it is not easy for Apple to just shove it aside. I don’t expect that there will be a breaking change that will cause them to stop working for a long time, if ever. Additionally, I really like the form factor and it’s complete lack of noise (although it’s hotter than nearly any device I’ve ever owned). If it really got ugly, I also feel comfortable that I can hack the thing wide open and do some of the stuff that Apple should be doing for me already on it.

Now, I’m just hoping these rumors of significant Apple TV enhancements at WWDC in January come true!

I was out in New York last week and couldn’t pass up an opportunity to check out the brand new Apple Store on 14th Street. It’s worth a visit if you are in town. It’s far more spacious than the Fifth Avenue store and the glass spiral staircase is impressive. It has three floors which are nice to segment the store up.

It seems that delivering Wii’s to stores isn’t the only supply problem Nintendo has. Every time they release new versions of the software for the Wii, and even some of the pay titles available in the Wii Store, their servers get overloaded for days.

I tried updating my system a dozen times and it finally just worked today, a few days after the update went out. I still can’t get some of the titles in the Wii Store to successfully download. I’m trying to get Check Mii Out now and that fails on every attempt. It spits out these errors about your network setup, but it’s really just that their servers are totally overloaded.

Somebody at Nintendo needs to wake up and sign a deal with a content distribution network.

I’m totally obsessed with my Wii all over again and it’s because of Guitar Hero III - Legends of Rock. In between attempts to update my Wii software, I’ve been rocking out with Guitar Hero III. I can’t remember the last time I played a single game for over an hour – until now.

This is a seriously fun game. Think of Dance Dance Revolution, but without a silly dance pad and way better music. Oh, and I can actually play Guitar Hero, unlike DDR. It comes with a plastic “guitar controller” that you mount the Wiimote in and you start playing away. I was hooked pretty much instantly. It’s a must have Wii game, particularly for the air guitar sort.

If you are playing Guitar Hero already connect with my profile and let’s shred!