Link list: October 2009

Here are a few selected links from my trawl through the blogosphere and information super highway, aka The Internet for October 2009.

The links here cover subjects including 10GbE, Storage, Sun, Oracle, “The Cloud”, Solaris, Linux, iLife, iMovie, Aperture, Final Cut, video editing, mind mapping tools, photography.

Enjoy!

10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE)

The 10 Gigabit Ethernet or 10GE or 10GbE or 10 GigE standard was first published in 2002 as IEEE Std 802.3ae-2002 and is the fastest of the Ethernet standards. It defines a version of Ethernet with a nominal data rate of 10 Gbit/s, ten times faster than Gigabit Ethernet.

10GbE – High Performance Ethernet

This site was launched in February 2008 as 10GbE was maturing into a viable market.

Larry Ellison & Ed Zander at the Churchill Club 9.21.09
Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle talks about the road ahead after the Sun acquisition, and the plans he has for combining their products to make a formidable opponent for IBM. And he shows how excited he gets about the buzzword ‘Cloud’ 🙂

MacCreate.com: Great resource for Mac creatives
Hints, tips and tutorials for many Mac applications including Aperture, iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb, Final Cut, Creative Suite, Keynote, Pages, Numbers etc.

The Mac Create Network is an organization dedicated to bringing the Mac user the best information possible to help improve their creativity, through our website, videos and classes.

iMovie site at MacCreate.com
Hints, tips and tutorials for iMovie users.

Aperture site at MacCreate.com
Hints, tips and tutorials for Aperture users. This Aperture site content has been migrated from the original ‘Aperture Users Network’ site at www.apertureprofessional.com.

Final Cut site at MacCreate.com
Hints, tips and tutorials for Final Cut users.

iMovie ’09, by Ken Stone
Ken Stone describes the iMovie ’09 application from the iLife suite of applications. Warning: this page is a monster and will take a while to load!
Videomaker

A large part of our mission is to provide you with the information you need to improve your skills in video production. And after 20 years of publishing, we have a lot to offer. This is the place to start for videography training. Here you will find hundreds of articles about audio/video software, video editing hardware, and help with video lighting techniques. Let the learning begin!

MindManager: great mind mapping application
Probably the best mind mapping application available. I tried lots!
The Mac version: MindManager 7 for Mac.
The Windows version: MindManager 8 for Windows.
Ken Rockwell Photography
I blame this man for getting me into photography, and helping me improve many aspects of photography where I was failing. His enthusiasm is infectious. Take what he says with a pinch of salt though, especially when he tells you to crank up the colour saturation to the max! Overall though, he gives sound advice, lots of photography tips and tricks, and he has some great reviews of cameras, lenses and other photographic equipment.

My tips from all the info I gleaned from his site:
1. If you’re thinking about getting a new dSLR camera, get yourself a Nikon, as it is considered by many to have better ergonomics than Canon dSLRs.
2. If possible, get yourself an FX-sensor dSLR, as it has a larger sensor that will capture light signals better than a smaller DX-sensor dSLR. Also, generally, a lower priced FX lens will give higher quality images than a more expensive DX lens.

Digital Photography Review

Here you will find all the latest digital photography and imaging news, reviews of the latest digital cameras and accessories, the most active discussion forums, a large selection of sample galleries, a digital camera database and buyers guide and the most comprehensive database of digital camera features and specifications.

Nikon D700 Review
If Santa Claus is listening, this is what I’d like for Christmas. Probably one of the best cameras available today. Unfortunately it’s not cheap 🙁
Herd mentality

Herd mentality describes how people are influenced by their peers to adopt certain behaviors, follow trends, and/or purchase items. Examples of the herd mentality include the early adopters of high technology products such as cell phones and iPods, as well as stock market trends, fashions in apparel, cars, home décor, etc. Social psychologists study the related topics of group intelligence, crowd wisdom, and decentralized decision making.

People in these herds are broken up into two groups, explains Friedrich Nietzsche, a philosopher who coined the phrase. One lended itself to the religious points of views- their beliefs and how those dictated their actions- while the other lended itself to influence by the media- based upon what others perceive as ‘right’ (following trends, social norms, etc.). Nietzsche perceived these two forms of subservience to be a weakness among the common man, and that the “Superman” as Nietzsche terms is the one who overcomes the values of the fallible herd.

Freethought

Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that beliefs should be formed on the basis of science and logic and should not be influenced by emotion, authority, tradition, or any dogma.

ASRock ION 330 + Linux + XBMC = A nice reasonably priced HTPC
This small, quiet HTPC based on a low-power Intel Atom 330 dual core processor, running XBMC on Linux looks like it should be a nice little Home Theatre PC. It uses the NVidia ION graphics platform and seems to have sufficient power for displaying most types of video. Price around £250 / €280 / $350 as of October 2009. Includes 2 GB RAM and a 320 GB internal hard drive, but as it has built in wired GbE, this gizmo will hook up to your NAS and act as a video client. Looks good. Add a USB infra-red receiver dongle and remote control and you’re set!

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