First off, happy holidays. I hope this time of the year, chilly for many of you, has given you time to enjoy family, friends, and loved ones and reflect on the year before and the year to come.

My last message to you this year is an important but unfortunate one: we’ve fixed a pretty critical vulnerability in WordPress’ core HTML sanitation library, and because this library is used lots of places it’s important that everyone update as soon as possible.

I realize an update during the holidays is no fun, but this one is worth putting down the eggnog for. In the spirit of the holidays, consider helping your friends as well.

You can update in your dashboard, on the “updates” tab, or download the latest WordPress here:

http://wordpress.org/download/

The official release announcement is here:

http://wp.me/pZhYe-qt

Merry WordPressing in 2011,
Matt Mullenweg

…When your partner is dying, the idea of a shiny new Lexus as a symbol of commitment — to anything other than monthly payments — becomes particularly odious; “diamonds are forever” takes on depressing new meaning (because life isn’t forever). No, love isn’t “a car in the driveway with a big bow on top.” It’s pushing a wheelchair. It’s cutting off all of your lover’s hair as it begins to fall out in large clumps during chemo, and massaging that patchy head to give her one of the few physical pleasures left to her. It’s laughing while browsing a wig shop where the only other customer is a transvestite prostitute. It’s relearning how to cook after three decades of marriage. It’s giving shots through a layer of belly fat. It’s sitting side-by-side in a hospital bed watching TV…

Read more at Salon

Like all good Apple devotees I try to upgrade often.  To keep up with the demands of software or in some cases just to be able to run certain software.  I needed something more powerful for freelancing so I purchased a Macbook Pro 13″ in October 2009.  Our home desktop was a MacPro Dual G5 and it served us well for years until CS5.  CS5 is an amazing upgrade to the entire Adobe suite but it requires an Intel processor.  I decided to purchase a new MacMini and could not be happier (stay tuned for a future post about that).  Then I decided to try to scan something.

State-of-the-art 2001

In 2001 I needed a scanner and decided to purchase the Canon N67OU.  A USB powered small scanner that did the job.  I didn’t know that much like my 10+ ink-jet that I use to print photos and my business cards, I would never have the need to upgrade.  It’s a decent scanner and since it’s not suffered the fate of some peripheral connections like Serial, SCSI or Parallel, I can still use it.  IF there are drivers for it. Enter the problem.

Read the snappy color brochure PDF.  Supports Mac OS 8.6 to 9.X and Mac OS X running in Classic mode only. A color  monitor with at least 256 colors and a CD-ROM.

Today, November 7, 2010

Rarely do I ever need to scan anything.  Occasionally the random sketch but then sometimes I might just use my iPhone’s camera.  This morning I needed to scan a few pages of a document, turn it into a PDF and email it.  From home.  Rather elementary you might say but this is where the adventure began.  You see, Photoshop no longer installs TWAIN plug-ins by default.  Even worse than that is Canon does not even support OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard).  Look at Canon’s driver download page.  Version 10.4 is the latest.  No doubt they have stopped supporting their older models.  But truthfully, how often do you upgrade your scanner?  So with no drivers officially from Canon I had to dig deeper.

You are never the only one in a scenario like this.  The SANE Project released SANE (Scanner Acces Now Easy).  A completely un-sexy and completely not consumer facing collection of software that standardizes access to (here is where we get nerdy) raster image scanner hardware such as  flatbed scanners, hand-held scanners, video- and still-cameras, frame-grabbers, etc.  It’s free, public domain and governed under a software license very similar to WordPress, the blogging software I use to publish this website that you are reading.  The conversations, distribution and evolution of the software is open to everyone with minor restrictions.  You can get more info about the license here.  I’m warning you though.  All of this is developed by engineers.  The information is there but it’s not sexy.  Just look at their attractive logo to the left.

Getting your scanner to work.

If you are not put off by the fact that Adobe does not make it easy for you, the company that made your scanner does not make it easy for you and that you might have to nerd out for a moment, then follow these steps.  I’ll assume that you are running Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6.x). I’m assuming wildly that you are on a Mac.  If not, that OK.  SANE has other platforms here.  You’re on your own though for instructions

1. Download the SANE software for your version of OS X here.  Download the libsub, backends, preference pane and the interface.  Gettext is not needed.
2. Install them in this order: #1 libsub, #2 backends, #3 preference pane, #4 interface
3. Reboot
4. Plugin your scanner and first test with Adobe Acrobat 9.  Go to Document > Scan to PDF… (The reason we do this first is coming. Slow down)
5. There will be a pause and your scanner should be an option to select.
6. Go to Geometry in the window and change your page size.  By default it scanned a small box for me.
7. Adjust the DPI to something useful for you.
8. Success!  You have scanned a page into Acrobat.

32-bit mode? Who knew?

The SANE interface is now available to applications to call in the same way Acrobat just did for you.  The only problem is if you run Photoshop 12 now it will run in 64-bit mode.  SANE does not run in 64-bit mode.  Sure you can download the optional plug-ins from Adobe that include TWAIN but I could not get anything to appear even though the plug-in was in the correct folder.

Drum roll…

You have to run Photoshop 12 in 32-bit mode!  WTF?!? I did not even know you could or would even want to.  It’s easy.  Go to the Photoshop application file, Get Info and check the box that says Open in 32-bit mode (see screenshot of the window).

When you start Photoshop now and for to File > Import, you will see SANE and the same interface that you recently saw when you did your test scan in Acrobat will appear.

It’s not easy but at least you don’t have to buy a new scanner.  Pass this knoweldge on.  If you decide that this is too much effort you can try a popular application call VueScan.  I’ve never used it but you will find people talking about this when you Google this problem.  They say with the Pro version you can scan directly into an application like Photoshop.  I prefer not to have to run too many more applications than necessary.

If you have any trouble please contact me.

Happy scanning.

¹ Most IT personnel tend to me males. In this country at least.

Tonight Nicole Miller and I went to see, The Social Network, (the story of Facebook) as part of a NY Tech Meetup special screening.  The NY Tech Meetup is comprised of 15,129 member of which I am one.  With monthly meetings that are always packed.  This evening at least 321 people were reported to have attended.  So packed that that we were watching the movie by looking up at about 60º.  It was great to be in a room packed with other nerds/technologists that understood when Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) said things such as “wget” or “Python“.

Writer Aaron Sorkin adapted his screenplay from Ben Mezrich‘s nonfiction novel The Accidental Billionaires (2009). No Facebook staff or employees, including founder Mark Zuckerberg, was involved with the project, although Eduardo Saverin (the original CFO/best-friend who then sued him) was a consultant for Mezrich’s story. The film is distributed by Columbia Pictures and was released on October 1, 2010, in the United States.

Aaron Sorkin was on Jimmy Fallon tonight.  He mentioned how the script page-length was longer than most production companies want but they kept the dialog fast.  An idea he had with the director David Fincher (think Fight Club, Seven and others).  The Fincher touch is really only evident in a stylized sequence during a regatta scene.  The score I might add is by none other than Trent Reznor.  Yes, the Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.  Don’t think it’s all pounding industrial, it’s not.  There is however some nice low-end frequency thumps that keeps the entire thing moving nicely.  The pace of the dialog is great but I can imagine that some others might find it too fast.

Facebook launched in February 2004 (then as thefacebook).  Originally only available to Ivy League schools then gradually to most universities in Canada and the US then to high schools and then to several companies including Apple and Microsoft.  It was not until September 26, 2006 that Facebook went public.  That’s only 4 years and 5 days.  Only four years for it to grow to what I like to refer to as “the second internet”.  According to the official Facebook stats, there are More than 500 million active users and we, our average 130 friends and everyone else spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.  There is a lot to watch for in the years to come.  The whole idea of the “Like” button is a game-changer for those of us in the marketing/advertising space.  Now Facebook users are become advocates of brands/products/place to their friends.  You might go a restaurant because someone you are “friends” with “Liked” it before you would Google it.

There has not been a computer movie like this for me since Wargames and The KGB, The Computer and Me. The former is the well-known film starring Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy about how Broderick’s character hacked the super-computer The Whopper and alost started WWIII by playing what he thought was a game called Global Thermal Nuclear War. The later is based on a book by the austronomer turned spy-hunter turned author Clifford Stoll.  The book The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage was then turned into a documentary staring the author by PBS/Nova in 1990.  You can watch it in 6-parts on YouTube.  The book and the documentary were favorites of mine as I had just started to get into computers, networking and dial-up BBS’ (bulletin boards) around that time.

The Social Network is a fast 2 hours.  It did not feel like 2 hours at all.  I was shocked.  Thanks in part to the fast dialog and the driving music.  Everyone is well-cast.  Even Justin Timberlake who plays Sean Parker, the man behind Napster in 1999 who became a consultant then president of Facebook until a cocaine possession arrest forced him out.  Ironic that Timberlake, who has sold over 100 million albums would portray the man who some would say started the digital audio, download, MP3 movement that has crippled the music business.

Tonight, Iva Zugic opens her show Happily Ever Never at Ciao for Now at 523 E 12th St. Starts at 7 PM.

On Saturday, Christy Singleton is opening her show at Sugar, 449 Troutman St. #3-5, third fl., Brooklyn (Bushwick), NY. Starts at 6 PM and ends at 9 PM.  Also showing at Sugar are Eliza Swann, Luisa Kazanas and Wendaferd Gregory.

See Christy in the NY Post from August 27th about the show Wet in McCarren Park

Iva Zugic Happily Ever Never Flyer Front

Iva Zugic Happily Ever Never Flyer Back

This specimen is real. You simply can't write stuff like this. He needed his own feature in this article. He was on a main drag in Southampton. I'm going to interview him some day. This was taken outside of Brewster's Seafood Market on County Road 80. Assemble your own wildlife team and see if you too can spot this rare breed to the Hamptons. You are advised to proceed with caution.

Southampton is nothing like I expected.  Truthfully I thought it would be beach houses and Bentley’s.   I discovered that the real flash starts farther east in East Hampton and north in Sag Harbor.  The only word to describe Southampton is rustic.  Sure there are private beaches were you see the $90k+ but there are also public beaches that are very nice.  Wind swept dunes and the Atlantic.  The town appears to have some sort of ordinance in place were most of the residential roads are not fully paved.  Not sidewalks and gutters like a suburb and most driveways are loose stones.  The houses themselves are various shapes and sizes.  The place we stayed in is an old summer rental were the couple is renting it year round for a job actually in Southampton.  Like most in the area, it shows the signs of many summer rentals.  As if it was the scene for everything from Summer Rental all the way up to the Real Worlds.

Like most summer destinations there are those that live there year round.  These locals I’m sure want nothing more than the last long weekend of summer to be over with so that they may be able to return to their off-season lives.  To the degree that when I was in a Starbucks (rustic it may be but there was at least one) there was a local expressing to a barista “After this weekend the town will be ours again”.  Really?  Do you now want our money that bad?  I could go somewhere else.  I can’t speak for the government of Southampton but without tourism dollars flowing into the city the taxes would most likely go up.  This sets me up for the fine specimen you see in my photo treatment on this page, “What A Southampton Patriot Wears”.   A priceless moment that I will cherish forever.  Standing alongside County Road 80 and Canoe Place Rd, outside of Brewster’s Seafood Market was this all-American hero.  He thinks that deporting illegals is the right message to be showing to a bunch of tourists going to the beach in the Hamptons.  I don’t run in the street team circuit but this guy might consider changing venues.  Perhaps this American hero should go to a more legislative location.  Perhaps down town NYC or even Albany?  Shucks, even outside the town courthouse which I’m sure he’s been locked up in more than once.  But just get a look at his costume.  Classic.

The Schmidt Prodce truck. No finer use of blue insulation foam exists in the tri-state area. Funny yes but extremely well done.

There was a main drag center of town that had some staple haunts.  A jam packed coffee shop with the cliché baked goods across the street from the J Crew Beach store.  But there were also two jems that were really impressive.  Schmidts Produce, a small grocery store with a sandwich shop, meat counter and more; and Cor J Seafood.  While Schmidts was a welcome sign.  A familiar offering to places in Manhattan like Westside Market.  Cor J was a complete delight.  We had assumed that since we were on the Atlantic there would of course be some great seafood.  We didn’t want to sit down in some restaurant. We like to cook.  Mostly importantly in this instance–grill.

The 9lb. striped bass after it met the knife

Cor J is on the water flanked by boats.  Just before you cross over a long bridge that takes you out to the dune beaches.  The ring of beaches that stretches to from Montauk through Fire Island.  Upon entering you are literally in the kitchen of the market.  Fish are being filleted directly in front of you and it feels more like you are in an amusement park.  You are pressed up against the wall and people are filleting a fish once second then turning around and taking your order the next.  All the while yelling at people to close the door because like I said you are in the kitchen.  A kitchen kept as cold as a refrigerator.

There guys were watching us

We visited Cor J twice.  One night we picked up red snappers, oysters and clams.  The next night a amazing 9 lb. striped bass and shrimp.  Everything was under $200.00.  The quality of everything was amazing.  I could  not imagine eating anything there besides seafood.  It’s worth the trip out just for that alone.  With prices as low as they are I can stand a little local attitude and patriotism.

Unrelated trivia:  Did you know that there is this huge castle in Brooklyn?  The 23rd Regiment Armory.  On Atlantic and Bedford.  Built from 1891-1895 and was used during the Civil War.  More information at Forgotten-NY.  We passed it on the way home.

.

I was skeptical to say the least when I posted my review of my reservation process for the new iPhone.  After reading this Macworld article and remembering my 3G launch experience, I thought I would try to show up as early as possible.  I left home before 5 AM and walked the empty streets.  It’s amazing that in an area as populated as NYC, there can ever be a time when it appears to be a ghost-town.  If you ever want to feel alone, go out between 4-5 AM on a weekday.

I was geared up for a morning of Apple Store tailgating.  Folding chair in a bag, shorts and food.  Got to the Apple Store and ended up standing in a line that stretched down almost 1 avenue in length.  By the time we made it into the store, roughly 8 AM, we heard that the line stretched all the way around the corner and up.  @nicole_w_miller joined me about 7 AM and we spent the morning with some new line-friends.

Never under estimate the marketplace of eBay.  I just sold my 3GS in 2 minutes.  I had sold my 3G in 4 minutes.  It’s futile to try to figure out why someone would buy it.  If there is a marketplace on eBay for your product, the impulsive shopper will grab it if you put a Buy Now price slightly lower than what you want with a reserve slightly lower than that. Both of my previous iPhones were bought outright without bidding with immediate payment through Paypal.

When you turn the phone on it’s side while shooting video, the video stays still.

Codec: H.264, 568 x 320, Millions
Audio: AAC, Mono, 44.100 kHz
FPS: 30
Data Rate: 769.78 kbit/s

Unlike the notorious 3G launch where I was outside the very same store for nearly 5 hours, this was as smooth as could be. After being well sated with Starbucks, donuts, Honest Tea and Smart Water served up by Apple Store staff, we made it inside the building and into a quick moving queue. First, a business manager found our name in a custom web-based app he was running on a Macbook Pro then directed us to a counter where our two reserved phones met us. The sales rep (Meg – who also sold me my Macbook Pro at the same store) grabbed us our bumper cases. Shockingly, the only cases available. Not even Incase, generally quick to market with cases, is missing. Incase issued a press release today.

On the way out I grabbed my first video using the new iPhone. Unfortunately, I realized only after the fact that if you rotate the phone while recording the aspect ratio does not change.  The experience was great and frankly I was shocked.  It took a couple years for them to figure it out. I think it was better than being at the SoHo store according to this Gizmodo post.

Empty buses before dawn

Ready to go

Apple Store staff working hard

What I was Tweeting during the adventure:

1. iPhone 4. Mission completed. Shocked how smooth the operation was at the 14th at store. No probs with AT&T either. #iphone4 about 8 hours ago via TweetDeck
2. So they won’t transfer everything for you between phones. They upsell you MobileMe. Offer one time contacts only sync. #iphone4 about 8 hours ago via TweetDeck
3. Made it into the store with @nicole_w_miller. http://twitpic.com/1zi7oy We are in the final stretch! #iphone4 about 9 hours ago via TweetDeck
4. Not inside yet. Don’t know if reserving is going to work or not. #iphone4 about 9 hours ago via TweetDeck
5. App pushers are working the line at the Apple Store 14th St. #iphone4 about 10 hours ago via TweetDeck
6. Apple Store worker is moving the herd. Reservations are guaranteed for now. They just brought down Starbucks from up the street. #iphone4 about 10 hours ago via TweetDeck
7. A lot of “experts” in line here. I like just listening to their knowledge. #iphone4 about 10 hours ago via TweetDeck
8. At the Apple Store 14th St. We have reservations so let’s see how this plays out. #iphone4 http://tiny12.tv/M3TAP about 10 hours ago via TweetDeck
9. The city streets at dawn. Few are awake. The pushers and their prey. The nightbreed. And me. I’m off to get a phone. #iphone4 about 11 hours ago via TweetDeck

This morning at 5:30am Apple opened the flood gates for pre-ordering the new iPhone4.  Unlike in previous releases of this game-changing product line you could reserve this one for pickup.  The reserving scheme started with the iPad release.  Also at 5:30am.

Needless to say, since it’s now 6:12am, I was up and reserved mine for pickup at my favorite out of the four on the island of Manhattan.  Which by the way is only 23 square miles in size.  And we need four Apple stores.  Well maybe not need in the Merriam-Webster dictionary sense.  But the stores are always packed.

Even hours before, none of the major Mac rumor sites knew any of the details of the pre-order.  What was needed to qualify or what models woud be available. Or that you would need an Apple ID to reserve. Yes, an Apple ID is required to make the reservation.  No money, just an Apple ID, your phone number and the last four digits of your Social Security Number.

Play-by-Play

Started hitting the site at 5:30am and the server was having some response issues.  Process was smooth. There has been some learning over the last three years. Also, I qualify for the $199.00 offer and my plan does not expire in 2010.  A worry I had after Steve Jobs’ Keynote when he mentioned the AT&T plan.

As you can see , the process is well defined.  They could have taken better care of the error page.  Something slight more attractive than Oops!.

In image Three and again in image Six that only the black version is available today. In image Eleven, you can only reserve one iPhone 4 per Apple ID.

Eligibility

I thought I was not going to be eligible because I had just upped my plan to get the 3GS last year and I was not due to expire until 2011.  This past June 8th, Chris Ziegler from Engadet posted:

AT&T’s made it pretty clear how this upgrade sitch is going to go down for existing customers moving to an iPhone 4 on the 24th of the month, but if you want to double-check and make sure you’re good to go (we can’t blame you), there’s an easy way that was briefly mentioned yesterday: dial *639# on your current phone. You’ll be returned a text message from AT&T detailing your situation — either you’ll be told you can get a full upgrade price (meaning $199 / $299 for the 16GB and 32GB, respectively) or you’ll be eligible at some particular date in the future. Not all’s lost in the latter case — you can still pay $200 more for the phone as an “early upgrade,” which is less than the no-commitment price of $599 / $699.

The Catch

Even after my adrenaline rush this morning, there is still no real guarantee that I will have the phone.  If you look at the fine print in image Twelve of the “confirmation” email I received it says, “Pre-authorization does not guarantee iPhone availability at an Apple Retail Store. iPhone is sold on a first-come, first-served basis”.  So in the end, is it really a reservation?

My menagerie at home

Metal Voltron

I wanted to quickly respond to a recent post and 140 characters were not enough.

Ben Malbon at BBH just posted a great article on T-shaped people and the new creative production paradigm and used Voltron as a visual reference.  There have been a few other giant robot mashups since Voltron such as Transformers Constructicons that form Devastator but Voltron is the leader as far as I’m concerned.  And Lion Voltron, not Vehicle Voltron or any other spin-off.

It struck a personal chord with me not only because I personally identify with the T-shape model but also that I’ve been a fan of many of the great robot properties from the 80′s since their original run and long into sydication.  (We’ll keep this with animation only and not get into live-action because this would get long)

When I was a kid I was not able to have the Voltron toy because it was made of metal parts and had spring loaded projectiles.  Remember, this was the era of Kenner’s Boba Fett mail-away action figure that had a spring loaded projectile backpack.  Forcing Kenner to re-tool the line with the projectile attached.  (One of the originals sold at auction for $16,000 in 2003).  I’ve been collecting for as long as I’ve been able to buy my own things.  When I had my collectibles company and was working the circuit my appreciation grew for both products and licensing.  There was a plastic Voltron that was released years later but it lacked the character of the original heavy metal lions.  I finally bought my own metal Voltron off eBay seven years ago.

Voltron is a great reference for the nature of the business right now. The work that’s going on at places like BBH is helping change a business long mired in out-dated practices.  One day the word will spread up to the C-suite and we might see global change in how agencies are structured.  And I don’t think this idea is necessarily restrained to the advertising community but could be adopted across the board to all varieties of client-service companies.

There was a panel at SXSWi 2010, Jack of all Trades or Masters of One? that I covered in my writeup that could serve as a great primer for Ben’s article today.  I’ve included the presentation from SXSWi below and you can read Ben’s article at BBH Labs.

[slideshare id=3448651&doc=sxsw-specialistgeneralist-100316152054-phpapp01&w=600]

It’s the morning of the 21st of December and I’m coming down off an all night DVD burning bender.  16 of them.  Two sets of 8.  Roughly 128 gb. Over 20 hours of family videos transferred from 27 Betamax tapes by my girlfriend, Nicole Miller.  The project is her’s. She conceived and designed. With full menus with animated chapter previews, disc and jewel case artwork. All in a nice red Stockholm CD Box.  I’m handling the digital video technical production and I’ve been sleeping next to my laptop with a timer going off every 20 minutes to feed the burner.

The final product. Scanned labels from the Betamax tapes used for the artwork. Designed by Nicole Miller

I’ve been using Apple’s DVD Studio Pro for about seven years.  Most of my work has been small projects.  Maybe an hour at the most.  After learning last minute about breakpoints and the best fact of all–that a 4.7 gigabyte is not in fact the true size.  While we were all learning about kilobytes (kb) and megabyte (mb) the DVD came along and someone slipped in the gigabyte (gb) reference.  DVD disc sizes are expressed in GB but in fact are measured in decimal billions of bytes (see chart).  Meaning that the DVD you bought that says GB really only holds 4.37 GB (not 4.7).  Really fun when you have already calculated the amount of clips per DVD.  A great 11th hour change.  But I work during the day in a business of 11th hour changes so it’s common practice for me but you might not like it.  Another fun factoid are breakpoints.  The area in the DVD where the player stops playing layer 1 and goes to layer 2.  DVD Studio Pro did not want to build without a breakpoint when I was trying to build so I decided to build all of the DVDs to a hard drive then burn the VIDEO_TS folder.  DVD Studio Pro did not like formatting the DVDs with VIDEO_TS with no breakpoint (breakpoints are not carried over to the hard drive written folder).  Fortunately I had recently picked up Toast 10 Titanium and I not yet used it.  Turned out to be the project saver app.  An amazing user interface and it burned the VIDEO_TS folder with no problem.  What about those pesky breakpoints?  Turns out that they are placed automatically in the data when it is burned by Toast.  DVD Studio Pro gives you the option of automatically and the also placing it in the video.  The idea is so you do not get skips in the video when you jump to the next layer.  I don’t see the need.  Every movie I’ve watched on a DL disc (most of them you have too) may have a slight skip depending on the player.  More like a freeze.  It’s not life changing and often is completely not noticed.  Bad news in this phase of the project is that DVD Studio Pro failed me when it came to the breakpoint issue.  It was not informative or user friendly.

Your Mac's DVD player may not like these.

I was not out of the woods yet as I quickly learned.  Turns out the media I purchased did not like my *NEW* Macbook Pro (MacBookPro5,5 or A1278). All sorts of nasty mean messages with scary words like critical and fault associated with hardware and then a bunch of x’s and zeroes.  Very friendly.

These might be a higher quality.

The media I purchased first was by Memorex.  After wasting ten of them I had another last minute life saving forum moment.  I learned that Verbatim made a better quality product so I left my hungry burner as soon as the closest Best Buy opened.  Fortunately, living in NYC there are a few Best Buys.  Two within a 15 minute walk of each other.  I grabbed the Verbatim’s and also an external drive. The LG GE20.  I was amazed at how cheap DVD burners are now. They even had one Blu-ray burner.  With Toast’s support for Blu-ray it may be a great option for later this year.  The costs per disk is outrageous still.  Verbatim sells a 3-pack for $27.99.

I then split my burn job up between my Macbook and my other machine, a Dual PowerPC G5. Make the minor investment in an external burner.  The joke was that the Memorex’s worked more often in the LG external.

LG External Burner. Faster than the one in the new Macbooks and you can get it for less than $100.00.

My recommendation is that dual-layer DVDs are worth it and that you should consider making the minor investment in an external drive to burn them.  The ones Apple is shipping with their units may be rotten.  Always check the forums related to the projects you are working on.  If it’s digital video (or burning it) or anything new media related the odds are someone in the last five years has experience it and has provided a solution.  When you up against a deadline, Google.  And be fueled on the flight deck in case you have to run to the store.  Good luck!

Tech Used For This Project:

1. Macbook Pro 13″ (MacBookPro5,5 or A1278)
   Intel Core Duo, 2.26 4GB RAM
   Internal Disc Drive: HL-DT-ST DVDRW GS23N
   Media That Worked: Verbatim
2. Power Mac (PowerMac7,3)
   Dual 2 Ghz PowerPC G5 3.5GB RAM
   External Disc Drive: LG GE20, HL-DT-ST DVDRWGE20LU11