Author Archives: Dave Rubright

About Dave Rubright

I am a second generation Iowa City native. I live on a farm with my wife. We have grown children and grandchildren, many live in the area as well. I am still a ways until retirement but I hope to stay in Iowa City. Many of my ancestors lived on the east coast after arriving in America. Many of my relatives today live in the midwest and some out west. If you want to learn more about me send me an email. I run a consulting business at spidertails.com. I am an artist as well. I'm intrigued with the possibility of selling prints on the Internet. So more to come.

by Dave Rubright | September 24, 2013 · 8:08 pm

Notebook 1, the original scan of Page 1

I am starting to look at drawings and decide what to do with them. I have a few to work with and the temptation is to scan them and work with them using digital watercolor in Painter. But I started to scan them and just look at them as drawings. Here is a series of the same drawing examined through modifications in photoshop. I like the scale. These are from mini notebooks like Dunlap uses. Just little sketches. The original is about making marks and shapes. When I brought it into Painter I immediately was overwhelmed by all the tools.

Then I came up with this.

I am going to take this into Painter and zoom in and work on a detail level.

Comments Off on Notebook 1, the original scan of Page 1

Filed under Drawings

by Dave Rubright | · 2:52 pm

The irony of Apple

It is truly ironic that Apple, Inc. has fought back from the brink of extinction to what it is today–a highly successful company. There are several ironies. Micheal Dell’s comment about what he would do with Apple has come back to haunt him. Microsoft was once the 800 pound gorilla in the room that you dared not complain about because there were so many fanboys. Microsoft is having a difficult time without leadership that understands what the consumer wants or as they say where the puck WILL be. I get a little satisfaction with Apple’s success.

And this week Apple does it again with record sales of the new iphone 5s and 5c. They are working on selling in China’s huge market. And yet they aren’t making junk- according to Tim Cook. I read a good explanation of what people think when they think of the Apple brand. It is “luxury within reach”. Windows has always been, “cheap but if you’re patient it might work”. Apple’s line is “It just works.”

I stuck through the lean times with Apple. Through the time when Steve Jobs was running Next. I snarfed up a 20th Anniversary Mac that was available through educational channels in a heart beat. I had the Newton. But I sold them before they were obsolete and they held their value. I was sad about Apple Media Tool. I lost $500 on that title. It was a great tool. Jobs axed it right away on his return. The first iteration of products from Apple after Job’s return didn’t really catch my interest. Clamshell laptops were awful. And they axed the Newton. They could have at least spun off the Newton and Apple Media Tool like they did with Filemaker Pro. It really wasn’t until the first generation of iMac flat screens that I became interested. Though I think I bought all the Power Macs and G5 towers. I remember the 8500. I could take it apart, which was no easy task. I either sell my stuff on ebay or hand it down to family members.

The new Mac Pros that are due late 2013 aren’t all that interesting to me. They are small. They require external storage. I will wait until they are reasonably priced before I make the purchase. I am happy with the budget Mac Pro I just bought. If it lasts as long as the last one it will last me 6 years and have value to sell on ebay.

I am on the 5th year of owning a refurbished macbook air. I can’t afford to replace it. But I haven’t had any problems with it even though it is a refurbished item. I don’t think it has much value since I must honestly state it is refurbished. It has one quirk. After you hit the start button there is an 8 second delay until the chime.

Once you go to a SSD (solid state drive) you will never want to return to spinning drives. Take my word, they are that great! The Samsung 840 is the best of the best. The only challenge is fitting your boot drive on a smaller footprint. Prices on SSDs are falling. If you want to breath new life in an older machines just put an SSD in it.

Comments Off on The irony of Apple

Filed under Computers, History

by Dave Rubright | · 1:39 pm

My media bias

This is a wordle of my software expertise. Err. What software I use as a pro. So wouldn’t it be nice if everyone could identify their bias? I am partial to Apple and Adobe. Most professional media developers I would imagine are partial to these companies as they make great creative tools. The words “pro” and “studio” factor as well. I run two studios, I use professional tools like Dreamweaver, and Photoshop. Next is bias toward Microsoft and software in general. Microsoft makes tools that run the enterprise. Every other faculty person has a PowerPoint show by the dozen. I’ve used PowerPoint for so long and so often that nothing surprises me in terms of supporting that tool.

Apple is big because I use Apple at home. I know Apple well enough to consult with people and small business that run on that platform.

There is a third tier of bias and that is Camtasia. I like it. I know everything it can and can’t do. It is one of my top 5 applications. I think it is a prosumer tool. Not quite professional but not for beginners. It is easy to edit in it. It does great screen capture. I’ve lived through version 5 (it would crash now and then and you would loose everything) to the current version that rarely crashes though it will choke on large files.

So I am bias toward Apple, Adobe, Pro software, and software for the studio. I am biased toward Microsoft PowerPoint. I could argue this is a bias that is shared throughout the media development industry. But look between the big words and you find dozens of little players. I like them just as well. Each specializes and does something well. Maybe in 10 years they will be the big words in a wordle on expertise.

You might ask why I am bias for Apple. Well, they are the 800 pound gorilla in the room now. Apple doesn’t want to own the enterprise through the desktop. The desktop is dying. I have a desktop because I need storage for media assets and speed to process them. But the day is coming when the media decisions will be made on a tablet. Today a tablet is a powerful computer and something that moves with you.

I am never bored. I have the Internet 24/7. Waiting for the doctor, pull out the iphone. Waiting for someone at the supermarket, pull out the iphone. Check a score or a price…you get the drift. I have over 200 apps on my iphone. And these are just the valuable apps that I have found. I can do slow motion photography…you name it. I just heard that the iphone will be able to be used for medical self-diagnosis. This includes, monitoring blood pressure, glucose levels and more.

UPDATE: I guess it would be inaccurate to say all media developers share a bias for Apple and Adobe. Many of the Final Cut Pro 7 users didn’t migrate to FCPX. I read they moved to Avid or Premiere. Not sure if that is true. I know that FCP was a standard that studios followed, but not by choice. These are two different shops. The broadcast shop or the web media shop. Broadcast shops have very high standards. I am part of a web media shop. Tools include Camtasia, Premiere, Premiere Elements. At home I use iMovie, FCP7. At either place I don’t work with broadcast quality material, RAID and high end cameras. At work we use prosumer cameras, webcams, and screen capture. At home I use an AVHD camera and iMovie and publish on DVD or YouTube. Web media requires software that compresses the hell out of the movie without loss. H.264 is the standard.

Comments Off on My media bias

Filed under Computers, Media

by Dave Rubright | · 1:08 pm

Wordle results

So this wordle is of my blog at this point. The word “Group” sticks out so I must be using that term frequently. The words “distance, rain, drought, feeders, one, and faculty” are next. So I will talk about being part of groups.

I belong to several groups. The work group is about 4 people in the same room with one another and 10 or so people that frequently visit the room. There is a group dynamic. Each of us are good at one or more different tasks. It all centers around distance education. One person specializes on technology hardware, another specializes on media development, another on trouble shooting courses, and finally another specializes in course development. But we can also do each others speciality.

Another group is quite different. A bunch of clowns that I play golf with each year. About 20 people that play weekly, or in tournaments, or in the annual Sasso Memorial. Actually you have to be able to play a fairly decent round of golf to be a part of the group. Nobody is a beginner. But handicaps vary from 3 to 25. And there is always a game to play for a quarter a point. Sometimes I win 5 dollars, sometimes I loose 5 dollars.

Another group is the satsang group. There are a few people that get together to talk about spirituality, though the discussion invariably turns to our love of animals. Occasionally there are trips to regional or national meetings and seminars. Many people in the group I’ve known for 20 years. It is somewhat akin to group therapy I guess.

So the next tier in the wordle includes the word “distance”. And I am very familiar with that term. Distance is what I do. As media developer for continuing education at the University of Iowa I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen highly successful classes and those that don’t even have the numbers of students to go online. I don’t think enrollment is a complete metric of success. A required course that goes online is going to be successful. Sometimes going online is the only alternative to having your program cancelled. Distance means tapping into the region and students that can’t travel to Iowa City to take a course. But ironically distance also means taking a course online even if you live in Iowa City. Distance gives students options for enrollment. But I was surprised how many distance students are actually in Iowa City.

Is distance a threat to F2F (face-to-face)? I don’t know. It doesn’t have to be. Distance really means staying current with technology and student expectations. Our aim is to make “distance” at least as good as F2F. There are two goals of distance. One is to provide students more options to graduate on time. The other is to provide students with a diversity of courses to chose from. The question is where is the money and where is the beef? The money is in compensation to faculty that run the distance courses. The beef is in the technology and strategies faculty use in the distance course.

Comments Off on Wordle results

Filed under Classroom, Computers, Distance, Golf

by Dave Rubright | September 22, 2013 · 7:11 pm

Rain after the drought

The rain came. The dirt was turning to dust and everything was drying up. The rain was late for the mono crops. Such a weird weather pattern. A very wet Spring followed by a flash drought. There are no bugs this summer and the hummingbirds are hungry. They mob the feeders. One soaking rain with just enough water to get the grass to grow again. Global climate change is about weather extremes. Who cares if it is man made. Working on climate change is a win-win situation.

So there is no rain in the forecast. Does the drought continue?

Comments Off on Rain after the drought

Filed under Politics

by Dave Rubright | September 10, 2013 · 10:19 pm

Ecommerce

I looked into Ecommerce at Dreamhost. It is complicated. I installed the software but need to buy the book on it to make any sense of it. The book is $40/US. So the experience of setting up ecommerce is another continuing education activity in my area of expertise. I already have one friend that I moved to goDaddy. Now I wish I had used Dreamhost. But they recognized goDaddy. So it is possible to setup your own shopping cart without a dedicated service and a large monthly fee. But the question is do I have the time and patience to learn about setting up an online shopping cart? I have a stack of Art prints and photos I would love to sell on the Internet. I can see spending a week of evenings just getting the hang of it. The big question is how do you handle credit cards? and Paypal? and shipping around the world?

Comments Off on Ecommerce

Filed under Computers, Ecommerce

by Dave Rubright | · 9:52 pm

Hummingbirds

There are a group of hummingbirds that are using our feeders. We are in a drought so there aren’t insects to eat and very few flowers. They are going through several cups of fluids every day. I’ve never seen so many nor so many flying so quickly near the feeders. I count at least 6 hummers or more. Normally we see maybe one or two. They are very active chasing one another off the feeders. They are probably stressed due to the drought. I know we get hummers migrating south about this time. They are so incredible to watch. They can hover in one place.

Comments Off on Hummingbirds

Filed under Little things at home

by Dave Rubright | September 4, 2013 · 10:13 pm