Posted Friday, June 24, 2005

Because You'd Rather Surf than Work: Friday Link Fun

It's Friday! Or, as we work-at-home types call it, "the day before two days of fewer phone calls."

It's dank and foggy in Mendocino today, one of those days where the ocean and the land tussle over where one ends and the other begins. Temperatures in inland areas will probably hit the mid to upper 90s, but we'll be lucky to see 55. Must be summer.

So here to take you into your weekend is a collection of links, pointers, and trends.

Analog's Death
Trend watch: Kodak has announced that it will stop manufacturing black-and-white photographic paper. Time to buy that Epson R2400. A few weeks ago, Kodak angered all 17 members of the Super8 filmmaking community by announcing the impending death of Kodachrome film in the Super8 format. And the BBC reports that sales of the venerable audio cassette have plummeted.

iFill Your iPod
Bits, on the other hand, are alive and well. And easy to steal—er, download.

Griffin Technology's iFill looks like a great tool for grabbing fully tagged MP3s from streaming Internet radio sites. Check out the write-up by my colleague Chris Breen, then download iFill before the RIAA gets wind of it.

Another Tiny Tripod
Last week I wrote about a tiny portable tripod that my friend Bob Laughton brought me from Europe. I lamented that the Bilora Digi Pod Micro didn't seem to be available here in the US.

A reader kindly emailed to say he'd found the very similar tripod pictured here. It does indeed look like my Bilora tripod, though it's bigger: the Bilora tripod stands just 3.5 inches high, while the Mini Travel Tripod is five inches high. Still, it's pretty tiny, as is the price—less than $5US.

eBay Live's Alive
Toby Malina, with whom I coauthored Sell It on eBay, spent yesterday at the opening day of the eBay Live convention in San Jose. She's already written up some of her experiences on our book's companion blog, with more to come. We're working on a second edition of our eBay seller's guide now; look for it later this year.

Hello, Cleveland!
I'll be appearing (via iChat AV) at the Northeast Ohio Apple Corps user group meeting tomorrow at 9 am Eastern time. See the link at right for details.

And with that, it's time to walk the dog through the fog. Have a good weekend, and remember: the world's best-selling iLife book–and the only one to include a companion instructional DVD—is only $23.09 on Amazon—34 percent off the cover price. Order The Macintosh iLife '05 today.