Gophers and Masquerades

When I'm not working, I'm still thinking. When I'm not thinking, I'm asleep.

Holidays have always been a challenge to me. Turning my head off isn't easy. As a case in point look at a recent 'long weekend'... I went to an anime convention (anime is Japanese animation, pronounced 'annie-may', and is arguably the best animation on the planet, as well as the worst, and definitely the broadest range of topics, styles and rating.) called MinamiCon in Southampton (in the UK). I've been going to this annual convention for 14 years now, which makes me somewhat of a regular.

Having done stage lighting, PA sound, and been a roadie in the past, then I've slotted into the role of 'gopher' at conventions. 'Gophers' (aka 'gofers') are those 'almost invisible' volunteers who check badges, move chairs, enforce security, guard things, and do a zillion other essential tasks that make a convention possible. In recent years, I've been asked to look after the wrangling of the cosplayers who enter the Masquerade: the high point of the convention weekend.

Cosplayers? Derived from the Japanese 'cosplay' = 'costume player', this term refers to people who dress up as characters from anime - often a character from their favourite series.

Masquerade? This is a combination of spectacle, musical entertainment, sketch show and competition all rolled up into one. Cosplayers dress, act, sing or mime to music and compete against each other for best costume and a number of other variable prize categories that are definitely not made up on the spot by the judges.

At the Masquerade, I'm behind the scenes, making sure that the cosplayers are in the right order, which sounds deceptively easy. You can see both the cosplayers and the Masquerade from this year's MinamiCon by visiting Flickr and searching for the tag 'minamicon15'.

Apart from the Masquerade, there was Origami, Taiko drumming, panel sessions, and much, much more. A full weekend! Special mention should also go to the Novotel Hotel, Southampton, who were wonderful hosts - even putting on Japanese food!

One notable event at this year's MinamiCon was the Gopher Party at the end, where civilisation and decorum were present in much greater quantities than is usual. The gophers were also unable to consume all of the pizza, something which is unheard of!

Geek food

Even someone who lives and breathes technology has to eat sometimes!

Well, that's my excuse, and maybe I use it slightly too often. But sometimes food can be so good that you have to tell other people about it! And last night, that happened to me.

I've been an occassional frequenter of The Galley restaurant in Woodbridge for many years, and I've always been impressed by the variety, innovation and overall high standard of the food. The 'Turkish Lamb Stew' is, and I use the cliche without any hesitation, 'simply divine' - a perfect blend of richness and depth of taste with just the right amount of spiciness.

Lst night, however, I was unexpectedly struck by the '[insert local place-name here] Duck Breast with green peppercorn sauce...'. The duck was nice, but the sauce was wonderful. One of those times when you really do try to remove every last atom of it from the plate. Creamy and tasty, it certainly hit the spot for me and my daughter.

Now, given the ability to do so, I'd quite happily eat those two dishes in rotation for the forseeable future, although there is a rival for my affections - the 'Chocolate Crunch' at work remains my favourite desert, just ahead of The Galley's 'Creme Brulee'.

This has been a minor distraction from your normal reading regime in this blog. Normal vaguely tech-related musings and postings will resume soon.

Don't repeat: Automate

There is almost always a way to do something on a computer, but it often requires a bit of experimentation. Once you do find a solution, then it often involves quite a lot of clicking around. Menu shortcut keys can help a bit, but for tasks that you are going to do a lot, then you need to automate.

I've been a long-term fan of automation. I know that the animated diagrams in my first CD-ROM for my 'Sound Synthesis and Sampling' book definitely could not have been done without AppleScript and KeyQuencer [Dead link inside. For historical record only. Sorry]. It is a great shame that Alessandro Levi Montalcini's KeyQuencer did not make it to OSX, and that the binarysoft web-site domain has now been taken over by a generic software company that could not be more different to the one that produced KeyQuencer. I'm not including a link to the new binarysoft domain because it really isn't relevant at all...

So when Cali Lewis's engagingly wonderful Geekbrief podcast featured Apple's laconic Sal Soghoian talking about AppleScript and Automator recently, it reminded me that I hadn't found an alternative to KeyQuencer. So I did some more research...

And I found Keyboard Maestro!

Why do I need another piece of automation software for Mac OSX when I've already got the bundled AppleScript and Automator? Because long experience has taught me that there's always something you can't do easily in just about any automation software, and that you need more than one to be able to solve all problems.

For example, I wanted to be able to sort out folders full of various versions of files, all with similar filenames, but with various different endings. The kind of loose fragments that tend to accumulate when I'm writing a book. Because these aren't organised formally, then most automation won't work, but what I wanted was something that would let me select the first part of the filename, and turn it into a folder with that name, so that I could then move the fragments into that folder and hence, organise all my jottings.

I tried Automator, and couldn't figure out how to move the contents of the clipboard into a folder name. If Automator doesn't provide the fields to do something, then there's not very much you can do about it. In AppleScript, there's a different problem. But Keyboard Maestro made it very easy, and in just a few minutes of experimentation, I had an F7 key that now creates folders using selected text from a filename.

This general principle: 'if you can't do it one way, try another', is one of those engineering solutions that has been with me from a very early age. This might be why I fill hard drives with software Tools and Utilities...

I'm also very aware that it may well be possible to do this example (and many other tasks) in AppleScript and Automator and... But this often requires time and knowledge, and if I find a quick solution in an alternative then that is fine by me. If anyone wants to share alternative solutions then that will be warmly welcomed and publicised here in this blog!

Personalized video blog musings

Real Time Content is my day-job (this blog is my night-job), and so I'm happy to be able to introduce the new blog that I've been working on recently.

Now a blog that writes about personalized video might seem unusual, but the main web-site has plenty of video examples on it, and so the blog is actually like an accompanying newsletter or newspaper - which is what a blog should be!

So, if you want to get an insider's view of personalized video from the experts, you now know the blog to visit...

Eagle-eyed readers might notice that whilst this blog is done in Google's Blogger, the Real Time Content blog is done in Word Press. So a quick comparative review is probably in order, since I've now spent quite a bit of time using both environments. Here's my informed opinion:

• Blogger is quick to throw a site together (with a shallow learning curve), simple to use, and just works. Some scope for customisation, but not very much - which keeps things manageable, avoids over-perfectionism, and delivers finished sites. Adding posts is easy.

• Word Press takes longer to create (and a steeper learning curve) a site, requires a bit more knowledge to use, and requires quite a bit of knowledge to go beyond the basics. There is enormous scope for customisation, in fact, you can customise just about anything to a very fine degree. Perfectionists will love tweaking the look and never quite finishing a site. Adding posts is fairly easy, but you need a some knowledge to exploit all of the power that is provided.

In other words, the two are ideally suited to two very different approaches. Blogger is great for a quick blog, whilst Word Press is perfect for people who like to tweak, improve, adjust, alter...