What is Preflight?

Preflight was designed to be a quick and easy way to take notes and make short lists of things needing to get done.

There are no shortage of task-management apps on the App Store. I don’t expect to redefine the category. But I’ve yet to find a to-do list app that really works for me, so I thought I’d do something about it. I felt like it would be a good first project to go after.

Preflight is currently US $0.99.

What’s Next?

I’m already working on version 1.1 which will include a few big updates and a few small ones. I’ll probably be looking at initial feedback too, trying to incorporate what I can into the next release.

If you have any feedback for me, I’d love to hear it. I can be reached (for app-related inquires) at jason [at] flightdivision.com. Thanks, I hope you enjoy Preflight.

I can’t imagine renting more than a couple a month, and the bump in quality probably isn’t worth it for a lot of films, but it’s nice that HD films are no longer limited to just Apple TV owners.

Now, if only they offered Mythbusters in HD too.

Last Thursday a short film I shot last year was featured on one of my favorite Internet-based serial shows, The Best Short Films in the World.

The always delightful and endlessly depressed Bobby Miller hosted the show as Dr. Manhattan in honor of their super hero-themed episode.

It’s good for a laugh if you have a few minutes, and I’d encourage you to subscribe and watch some of the other IndyMogul stuff. I don’t anticipate SOLMI updating anytime soon, or I’d suggest you subscribe there as well. But there are over 25 episodes just bursting with juicy funniness waiting to be consumed. It’s perfect if you’re just looking for something to kill the time between now and tomorrow’s iPhone announcement.

Great movies start with great footage. It’s the foundation editors need to be able to work their magic. Because as the saying goes, you can’t polish a turd (unless you’re the Mythbusters, of course).

It’s important to understand how your camera works, so you can capture the kind of footage editors typically only dream of. These screencasts focus on filming and lighting techniques that will enable you to get the most out of your camera. Whether you’re a beginner or somebody looking to brush up on your shooting skills, you’re sure to find something that will help you turn your home videos into quality productions.

The first screencast covers shutter speed, and how to use it effectively in different lighting situations. If there’s something I left out of the original video, or if there’s another area of filmmaking you’d like to see covered, please let me know.

That sucked.

She wasn’t happy. And I owe her, big time.

But now here we are. I’m on a new host as well, with many thanks to a very special Salem resident for that little bit of awesomeness. I don’t know how it’s going to work out if I end up needing to serve a bunch of video in a short amount of time, but we’ll see how it goes for now.

Something you should definitely check out is the new Screencasts section. From there you can learn how to improve your shooting skills through informative and (highly) entertaining videos. The first is on Shutter Speed, and how to use it effectively. I think you might like it.

Finally, if you have any topics you’d like to see covered in a future screencast, let me know. I’m always looking for new ideas.

There’s finally some news out about GridIron’s project-tracking application, Flow. It seems like it was only yesterday that I was signing up for the beta.

And, of course, by yesterday I mean last year. Like, summer.

If you’re unfamiliar, Flow aims to track all changes — every little thing you do in any application — within a project. So if you’ve got a Final Cut Pro project that has a Motion file that contains the third version of a Photoshop file, Flow will track all versions of every file, project, etc that you’ve included. Automatically. Sounds pretty amazing, right?

So what’s been going on since their last update? Well, it’s hard to say. They appear to have made a cartoon. Which sort of demonstrates what the app can do. And they’ve announced a release date — for the beta. So that’s something. But that’s not coming until February 18th.

There is an entry at GridIron’s new blog that details their own excitement for the application. I don’t doubt their dedication, or their resolve to make Flow as good as possible before release, if for no other reason than the many delays it has suffered. It’s just frustrating having to wait another month to try it out.

Then again, it’s only a month this time. And at least there’s a definitive date of release. It’s not like there’s anything else like it, either.

February 18th can’t come soon enough.

To make a long story short, they’re back now. But if you added anything in the past four days, you might want to login and see if your new tapes are still intact (probably not). If you created a user account in the last week, your account should be fine, but any tapes created will have been lost. Sorry about that.

If you have any questions or concerns, please email me or leave a comment here.

A huge, super special, wet and sloppy thanks to Jason Seifer of Rails Envy for all the help. I’d be sobbing in the corner rocking back and forth right now if it weren’t for him.

About a year ago I worked for a few months teaching myself Ruby on Rails. I’m not a programmer, but I really wanted a tape logger that I could use on my iPhone, and one hadn’t been introduced yet. So I made my own.

It’s not perfect. I did the best I could with the knowledge of programming that I had at the time, and the result was a single release of a web app I called Tapes. Since it’s debut in Apple’s web app section I’ve had 5,485 people sign up as users. I have no way of checking to see if they’re actually using the application, but if even a handful of them still find it useful I’d be thrilled.

But now we have the ability to write native apps for the iPhone and iPod touch. I would love nothing more than to be able to sell Tapes (don’t worry, I’m thinking $4.99) through the iTunes store and do my part to fill the gaping void of production-oriented apps. My biggest problem in reaching this goal is that I’m STILL NOT A PROGRAMMER. I’ve been studying up on C since February, but I don’t really feel like I’ve got a firm grasp on it yet. And after that I have to learn Objective-C. And then the Cocoa-touch framework. And make sure the UI is intuitive. And then get accepted into Apple’s dev program even though I’m not really a developer. All without having a formal education in computer science.

Basically, it’s hard.

But hard isn’t bad. Just challenging. So I promise you this, Internets: If it can be done, it shall be done. I will do my best to come out with a native tape or footage logging application at some point in the future. I have no idea when, or how. But I’m going to try.

And if you know anybody that knows anything about writing Objective-C apps, please send them my way.

Because I need some help.

Today I’m putting up the new site in place of the old one. I suppose that’s a bit of an understatement, since the “old one” was basically a one page link to my email address. Hopefully you find this new site a bit more useful. Or informative. Or entertaining. Or all of those things.

The Rails Envy guys are also premiering the new Get a Mac parody ads we put together recently. You can digg the ads, if you’d like, or just give us your feedback on YouTube. We really wanted to answer some of the criticism brought on by the first round of ads. Or maybe we just wanted to try and piss a few more people off. I guess that’s up for you to decide.

Anyway, have a poke around. Hopefully you find everything is in order. I’ll be updating this space with every video project I work on from here on in, so keep an eye out for all that goodness. Below you’ll find the first of the new Rails Envy Ads. It’s about the .NET framework, where we made the assumption that all .NET programmers are probably closet alcoholics. Enjoy.