Michael Sautter's Blog

I pre-ordered a Nook.

Yesterday, while I was out running some errands, I stopped by a nearby Barnes & Noble store to see if they had a demonstration model of the soon to be released Nook. They didn't but I did pre-order one any way.

Pre-ordering was simple enough. I just filled out a sheet with my name, email address, phone number and the number of Nooks I want (one please). Then when it arrives in the store I have 48 hours to pick it up. Payment is at the time of pick-up. No money required as a deposit. The new Nooks are scheduled to be in store on Friday June 10.

Update (Friday, June 3, 2011): New Nooks started shipping online a few days ago, they should be in stores sooner than June 10.

 

 

Gulliver's Travels (2010) is not worth watching.

Jack Black has set Gulliver's Travels in contemporary times but he brings little else to the classic children's fantasy tale.

Gulliver (Black) works in a mail-room of a publishing company in New York. He's magically transported to a land where he's a giant amongst tiny, little people. Gulliver is drawn into royal court intrigue, beautiful princesses and warring kingdoms.

Despite the good special effects and familiar enchanting fairy tale, Jack Black basically ruins the movie. He's not funny and never really connects with the audience. This is not the likable Jack Black from School of Rock, here he just wise-cracks his way through the movie.

Finally there are a few crude 'jokes' in the beginning that involve a body part and a bodily function. They are probably not appropriate for young kids though this film is rated PG.

The best part of Gulliver's Travels is that it's only 85 minutes long (though it feels longer), so it's not like a full 2 hours of your life will be wasted.

 

Second Opinion
Rotten Tomatoes: 32% of the Audience Liked It (link). IMDb: 4.8/10 (link).

 

 

Rabbit Hole fails to live up to its early potential.

The acting in Rabbit Hole is fine, it's the storyline that I have a problem with.

Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart are great as Becca and Howie, parents who have recently lost a child in an accident. As the movie begins we find them several months later and in therapy. Early on in a group session Becca goes off on another couple.

The couple were in tears over the loss of their child but were consoled by the idea that God just wanted another angel with Him in Heaven. Becca asks quite bluntly that if God wanted another angel then why didn't he just make one? He is all powerful, isn't He? Why did He have to take the life of a young child?

At this point the movie had several options. It could be a standard, boring story about a woman reluctant to accept religion but eventually does. Or perhaps she turns out to be recovering and adjusting fine on her own and the others are helped by her. This is the direction that I hoped the film would go but it ended up being something entirely different.

So OK, different than what's expected can be good but what happens here is just that these people all seem just to wallow in their grief, fade to black - end of story. Oh there are some dramatic scenes filled with grief and anger, yelling and crying, but the characters do not change much substantially from the start of the movie.

Yes the acting is very good, you feel bad for what they are going through but they don't change much at all. So that's why I don't care much for Rabbit Hole

 

Second Opinion
Rotten Tomatoes: 87% Liked it (link). IMDb: 7.3/10 (link).

 

 

Vimeo has a sense of humor.

 

I often surf the web with the Flash add-on for Firefox disabled for security reasons. Normally when I come across Flash content I get a boring message but not so with Vimeo. Also I tell you how to disable and enable Flash in Firefox.

Vimeo is a video sharing site, yes like YouTube. It uses Flash for its videos and when Flash is disabled instead of a boring error message like "Flash required to view this content" like many web sites Vimeo shows something like the screen cap above. I have also seen "Oh Dear!" in addition to "D'Oh!"

 

Why turn off Flash?

It's like an application in your web browser that bad guys can use to do bad things. Also there are Flash cookies that web sites can use to track you. Ever notice you get pop-ups and pop-unders even though you told your browser to block them? Yep, that's Flash again in a lot of instances.

 

How to turn Flash on and off in Firefox

Tools > Add-ons > Shockwave Flash > Disable .

 

How to turn Flash back on

Tools > Add-ons > Shockwave Flash > Disable . Then Reload the browser.

 

Happy and safe web surfing!

 

 

Network: Still mad as hell - and relevent.

Released in 1976 Network deals with issues that are still important today. Things like big media and an apathetic citizenry. Furthermore Network is not preachy it entertains as it makes you think.

Even if you have never seen Network then you most likely encountered the scene in the movie where Peter Finch as Howard Beale exhorts his viewing audience to go to the widow, open it up and scream "I'm mad as hell and I'm not taking it anymore!" It's an iconic scene and a role that won Finch an Oscar.

In the movie that outburst sparked ratings at Beale's last place TV network. Executives turned his outrage into a television show. All was going well for Beale until he targeted something the network didn't care for then there was a different kind of trouble.

Peter Finch's performance is excellent but his supporting cast is good too. Faye Dunaway, William Holden and Robert Duvall are all big stars in their own right. So watch Network not only for the plot and social commentary but also for the fine performances by the entire cast.

 

 

Netvibes Reduces Its Power Consumption

 

Last week I heard that in the U.S. the internet uses more electricity than the auto industry. Shortly after I read about that Netvibes, my web browser's start-up page, notified me that it is now using less energy.

Netvibes is saving electricity by not refreshing the page and widgets while users aren't paying attention to the page. That's fine with me, things with Netvibes are working fine despite this change. I'm glad they're saving energy.

 

Web Links

Here's a link to a CNN story on the internet's power use: The Internet: One big power suck (dated May 9, 2011) and here's the link to Netvibes. I've used Netvibes for several years now, it's a great homepage for the web.

 

 

Mad Men Season 4 DVD Extras Add Context to the Show

Occasionally milestone events from the 1960s are referenced in Mad Men but what really impacts the plot lines and characters are the general cultural shifts that happened during that turbulent decade. The Special Features in the Season 4 DVD boxed set of Mad Men provides some of of this background and cultural context.

 

Marketing the Ford Mustang

The Ford Mustang was first sold in 1964. This featurette uses automobile industry experts, Mustang car enthusiasts and archival video to explain how the car was developed, marketed and advertised. Its cultural impact is also discussed.

 

Divorce American Style

Experts discuss how marriage and divorce have changed over the decades in the United States focusing on the 1960s. Clips from Mad Men are shown to illustrate their ideas.

 

The 1964 Presidential Election

No experts were used in the making of this extra, just archival video. President Lyndon B. Johnson and Republican candidate Barry Goldwater are shown giving campaign speeches followed by a series of their campaign ads. Finally LBJ's inaugural speech is shown (in color!).

 

All together these extras run about an hour or so in length. They are not worth paying for just to see them but if you purchased the Mad Men season 4 DVD boxed set or checked them out of the library (as I did) then they are certainly worth watching.

 

 

The Other Guys Starts Out Strong But Finishes Weak

There are several funny moments at the beginning of The Other Guys but then goes down hill from there.

Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson (formerly known as The Rock) are funny spoofing cop buddy action movies but then Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg take over and the laughs start to come and longer and longer intervals until the movie just seems to drag on and on.

There is one good thing about this movie. Will Ferrell at no point strips down to his underwear and runs around like an idiot, something he seems to prone to do in many of his films. A fully clothed Ferrell aside, I can't really recommend you watch this movie though you could do a lot worse.

Second Opinions: IMDb 6.7/10 and Rotten Tomatoes 78%.

Salt (2010) is a good - not great - action movie

 

Angelina Jolie is a spy in this fun and entertaining movie with a Manchurian Candidate-type plot.

Over the years the Russians have been raising and training children to infiltrate America as adults. Is Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) one of them?

In the beginning of the movie there are some action and chase scenes that run a bit long but later it settles down. The plot had me guessing through to the end.

Second Opinions: 6.5/10 at IMDb, 62% at Rotten Tomatoes.

Scribus: A Few Installation Tips

Yesterday I downloaded and installed Scribus, a free open source desktop publishing application. While there were no major problems there were a few issues that I had to deal with.

Which version to use?

The choice is between version 1.3.3.14 (older, more stable) and version 1.40rc1 (new, release candidate).

I chose 1.40RC, here's why? I have a relatively new Windows 7 (32 bit) PC that I built myself and it's very stable. I have had very few blue screen's of death with it so I expect that I won't have much of a problem with Scribus. According to Wikipedia v1.40rc1 has been in development for almost a year and I'm sure they've been testing it with Windows 7 all along.

Another reason I chose v1.40rc1 is that it can open Scribus files from older versions but the older version will not be able to open files created with v1.40. I fugure if I like Scribus then I may want to use templates that were created in v1.40 and if I'm using the older version then I will not be able to access them.

Here's the download page for Scribus.

 

Instal Ghostscript beore Scribus.

Ghostscript lets Scribus create PDF (Portable Document Format) files, which is a big part of desktop publishing.

I did not instal Ghostscript first and I got a message about it after I started Scribus for the first time. The help file linked to an unhelpful download page that had dozens of Ghostscript files. So I just went to the SourceForge page for Ghostscript and downloaded it from there. Everything seems to be in order now as this screen capture shows.

To check if Ghostscript is set-up, in Scribus go File > Preferences > External Tools (scroll down on left).

Good luck with Scribus, I hope this helps you get it installed.