Colin Charles Agenda

Dear (mac) Lazyweb,

I have MP4 files. DivX encoded, I should presume, because after installing the DivX codecs, I can play them in Quicktime Pro.

I however, cannot import these .AVI MP4 files into iMovie.

Workaround? Use QuickTime Pro to export it to a QuickTime Movie (.MOV), then open it in iMovie, then re-export after “fiddling” with it.

Surely, there must be an easier way? Will Final Cut or something similar help?

What do video bloggers/video podcasters use, for quick and easy (and hopefully, cheap) video editing on Mac OS X?

Any help will be most appreciated. Thanks!

Finding out that Adobe is the latest to jump on the online office bandwagon, I decided I need to try their service out. Working together, anywhere, is their tag line.

First impressions? They provide a few fonts that look nice. There is document sharing built-in. You can also add comments on parts of documents – and this is a killer feature with the built-in sharing, I love how the way comments are displayed (they’re in your face).

Comments being displayed in a Buzzword document (click for larger image)

What am I disappointed with? File formats. Not supporting ODF out of the box, is really silly. Exporting to PDF is nice, RTF is standard, .txt (so you lose the fonts), a zipped up HTML document, and Word (.doc), Word 2003 XML (.xml), and Word 2007 (.docx), only? Open standards, FAIL!

Buzzword, not supporting a wide variety of common file format (click for larger image)

I’d try out the rest of the services, but I’m sent to Acrobat Health, as it seems like they’re just a little overloaded now…

This is an interesting way to motivate your employees: pay new employees to quit.

Zappos sells shoes online. Their new employee hiring process? Spend a month getting trained, and immersed on the company’s culture, strategy and its obsession with customers, and at the end of it all, ask if people want to quit, plus give them a $1,000 bonus to do so. Why?

• Shows one’s commitment level to the company
• This way you’ll keep the most motivated employees around
• Some people may have signed up for the job, and after a month’s training realise, that its not for them… Its an easy exit path
• Keep employees engaged

Zappos only loses about 10% of their new employees this way. And they’re all the better. The leaving bonus started at $100, moved up to $500, and now its $1,000 (they will increase this as the company expands). They are large – 1,600 employees and growing.

From what I gather, they have a very connected culture… Their CEO has a blog, most of their employees are on Twitter, and they really are obsessed with customers – read I Heart Zappos. This is Customer Relationship Management 2.0!

Definitely a thing or two to learn from the way Zappos operates. From a business perspective, it just goes to show that while it might have made sense to sell books online (Amazon), it also definitely makes sense to sell personal items like shoes (Zappos) and designer clothing (Net-a-porter) online too. Items that one might think are too personal to buy at the click of a button…

Not strictly read this month, but here are my quick reviews of these three books:

• The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything – a great book by Guy Kawasaki, you can only imagine how dog-eared my copy of the book is. There can be no summaries, as the whole contents of the book is worth reading. If you’re thinking of the start up world, or running your own company, this book is a must read. Guy has also linked to a talk he gave on this topic.

  Disappointed I was, when I found out guy was recently at a satellite event (NetBash @ WCIT), something I could have definitely attended had I known about it (I was at WCIT, the expo hall though) – Guy Kawasaki: 45 hours in KL.

• The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World – always interested in economics, this is the second book by Tim Harford, and its fabulous. He touches on game theory, talks about the teenage oral sex craze, crime, and lots of other illogical behaviours. Highly recommended, especially, if you’ve read his previous book, The Undercover Economist.
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking – yet another book by Malcolm Gladwell (if you’ve read The Tipping Point, this is a must read follow-up), its a very quick read (pretty thin book), and it covers the two seconds or so that we take to make snap judgements. Should we trust our snap judgements? Generally yes. I tend to agree with the book, especially when it comes to reading strangers (and sizing people down, for example). There are of course, caveats about jumping to conclusions when you’re in a business that focuses on dealing with people, and its covered too. Anyone can definitely learn a thing or two about trusting our subconscious from the book.

Ever since re-entering the world of the iPod’s by getting my iPod Touch, I’ve been listening to podcasts again. One of the ones I listen to regularly, is Adam Curry’s Daily Source Code (the DSC).

Of late, it seems like he’s been talking a lot about something he calls the “Prostate Cancer Prevention Quota”. He’s quoting old (from 2003) research, that says regular masturbation cuts the risk of prostate cancer. The study, conducted in Melbourne, Australia, has not seen anything new in the last five years. But thats digressing.

Question I have is: do podcasts start trends, just like regular commercial radio?

Commercial radio is subject to a code of conduct. There are topics that may be taboo. These obviously vary from region-to-region. Podcasters don’t have to follow through, naturally.

I’m impressed with the number of folk calling in, leaving voice messages for Adam, to tell him where they stand on their weekly quota. This almost reminds me of the previous “trend”, which helps “condition” you to think of Senseo, every time he burped.

With Senseo, it was great advertising. With the cancer prevention quota, I have no idea what the benefit is, besides maybe actually wanting to improve men’s health.

Did Adam start a masturbating trend? Watching an episode of House the other night, House ordered a prostitute to his apartment. Did this increase the number of outcall‘s that night, amongst television watchers?

It would be interesting to find out… statistics that seem interesting.

Fireangel doesn’t like her drinks watered down. Neither do I.

However, it seems to be common practice in Kuala Lumpur. Anywhere I go, it seems like beer is watered down. It doesn’t matter if its more “exotic” beers like Kilkenny or Hoegaarden; it also happens to the common local beers like Tiger. Its just a sad thing.

Take for example, the RM28 for a pint of Hoegaarden on tap (ok, its a few bucks more, but when you buy 18 beers, they seem to give you a discount). This at Deutsches Gasthaus 2, in Taman Tun Dr Ismail (TTDI). Its definitely watered down. The atmosphere is nice, the service is fabulous, the range of beers available are definitely impressive (lots of imported stuff, in bottles), but I don’t see myself returning by choice, if all I get is expensive, watered down beer.

The one place I found that serves good draught beer, is Decanter, located in Sri Hartamas. Its relatively cheap, non-watered down, but sadly they only serve Tiger beer (I’d prefer Carlsberg on tap, any day). Backyard in Sri Hartamas also seems to be true blue beer.

Where else in the Klang Valley does one get real beer?