Moca's Blog

Classic: American Psycho: Business Card Scene

Adobe Photoshop Express

It has been a while since my last post but this one is hot!
Adobe has just launched Photoshop Express Beta:
https://www.photoshop.com/express

It is a free mini Photoshop for basic photo editing and you get to store up to 2GB of photos on their server or load images from facebook, Photobucket or Picassa. You can also create galleries to share your photos with your own url:

http://mocaloca.photoshop.com

I did not work on this product but heard all the noise around it and this is very exciting news. I think it is a great time for Adobe to enter the web applications world and this tool will be very useful for lots of people.

The team has been working so hard on it and they were able to put together a great product in record time. Congrats!

Tokyo in 1 1/2 day

On my way back home from SF to Oz I stopped in Tokyo for 2 nights. The place is everything I expected and more but the pregnancy stopped me from trying the great sushi I was craving for...

When I arrived I dropped 2 of the bags I did not need at a storage room right in front of the JAL check-in counters for around $3.00 - $5.00 per bag per day. Then there were 2 options to get to the city, by bus or by train. The bus service is called Airport Limousine and they stop in every major hotel for around $30.00 and it takes between 1 1/2 and 2 hours.

The train is about the same price but a bit more "rooting" around. If you have a heavy bag I would not recommend since I did not see a lot of escalators going down as much as I saw going up... of course you can always take a cab for about $300 bucks!

I stayed at a very economical place in a suburb called Ebisu for about $95.00. It was cabin like space but for a quick sleep and shower it was fine. They had a Tv and free broadband and cross the street from the train station. Major hotels charge at least $300 bucks for a small room with a bit more luxury... I  took the bus to the closest major hotel and a cab from there for $7.00.

My Saturday started taking the JR to Shabuya where I got my first glimpse of the big flashing buildings. There is so much to do is hard to focus so I got a cup of coffee at the starbucks and sucked it all in sitting from the top floor looking at the see of humans. Next door there was a hidden building 109 and every floor had really trendy clothes I could not buy but fun to watch.

Next I went to check out a temple Senso-ji. As soon as you get out of the station you have a  few blocks of great shops. I stayed away from the main street at first and instead took the back alleys where I found more interesting shops with less touristy souvenirs. The temple was nice and beautifully built. Right in front of it they sell these bean jam fritters that were amazing for 1 buck. After all the walking I found a massage place and got myself a foot bath and massage that recharged my poor feet for about $40.00 but really worth it.

From there I decided to head out to the famous Akihabara area know as Electric town where all the geeks go shopping. In a few hours I only got to check out about 3 buildings out of dozens since each building has floors and floors of eletronics, actions figures, toys etc... it was amazing.

By this time I was pretty dead and full of shopping bags and wish I could keep going... I was not very lucky with the food.. most places did not have an english menu and because of my state I could not be as adventurous as I wanted to be. I was hoping to have dinner at a place called New York Grill (I know... it would have been safe) but I was not going to drop 200 bucks on a 5 course meal on my own so I head back to the hotel.

Next to the hotel there were quite a few interesting restaurants in an alley. I went up the Irish pub where they had a nice live band playing. I tried ordering from pictures across the streets but it turned out the picture was not chicken :) and pork instead, no luck with food... went to bed.

Next day was rainy and cold but I went out to the area where I was looking for the crazy chicks dressed up but it was a bit early for that.. nonetheless I found some great shops and a place called Kiddyland took me hostage for a couple of hours where I bought some fun little monsters for baby Walsh. I really wanted to check out Shinjuku but all I had time for was a quick lunch in Roppongi before heading back to the hotel to catch the last bus to the airport at 4:30.

It wasn't enought time but it was something, I really hope to go back one day...

Brazil Trip Recap

It has been a few years but we finally had our Brazilian Holiday! We stopped in Miami for 2 days before heading to Rio. In total it probably took us about 37 hours to get to my home town but totally worth it. We had to fly Brisbane > Sydney > LA > Miami > Sao Paulo > Rio de Janeiro. Part of our tickets we booked with www.brol.com. They have pretty good deals and can also help with hotel reservations with a discount. Once we arrived in Rio we stayed a few nights at Hotel Praia Ipanema. All their rooms have the Ipanema Beach view for a good price compared to all other ocean hotels. Of course one of the first things I had to do was eat as many "pao de queijos" I could fit in my mouth to satisfy my baby cravings followed by an original açai... Here are a few other places we checked out:

• Barril 1800: very old pub on the beach of arpoador. Great to have a few appetizers with beers or caipirinhas.
• Zaza Bistro: this is a very cozy restaurant, ask to sit on the floor upstairs and have one of the crazy mixed drinks. The food is not Brazilian but a mix of all sorts of world stuff. I would not go there for the food itself but for the atmosphere and drinks.
• Galeto in Ipanema: After the beach, sit on the corner of Visconde de Piraja & Farme de Amoedo and order a traditional galeto with french fries. This is our version of a small rosted chicken to be eaten with your hands and no shame!
• CCC: Thanks to my buddy Jorge, he showed us a great night time at this venue. On Saturdays they have a band called Sururu na Roda that does not get any more brazilian than that. Great music and appetizers. Don't forget to drinks a few Skolls!
• Rio Sul Mall: Great location and shops to grab a nice pair of brazilian biquini or speedo :)
• Churrascaria Palace: There are tons of Churrascarias to choose from, you know the all you can eat meat Rodizio. This is not the best one but it was pretty good. For R$35.00 you can spend a few hours there "floggin" yourself on some dead beast. I hear the best one is Mario's but you'll be looking at R$100.00 per person. After that, walk off the food in Copacabana beach. There is a street market with some nice local art to take home.
• Feira Hippie: On Sundays only until 5pm, take a few hours to walk around this fair. It is located on Praca General Osorio in Ipanema. This is the place to buy all the souvenirs and some cool pieces to decorate your home. Bring cash!
• Sugarloaf: Must do, just grab a taxi and purchase your ticket at the door for R$35.00
• Corcovado: Must do, go look at the big Crist and amazing views of Rio. It is a bit tricky to get there without getting ripped off a bit. Cars and taxis can only park until a certain point of the hill, so there are a few options: a) If you have a friend driving, drive until this meeting point and take a van from there for about R$10. This is probably the cheapest way. b) If you need to take a cab, make sure to grab it way out of the skirts of this area and ask the driver to take you there using the meter. Most cab drivers will try to sell a package where they wait for you. No need for that... you will need to take the van anyway since outside cabs cannot drive all the way up. c) if you don't care to save a few bucks, under the hill there are plenty of cabs offering packages. For R$ 35.00 per person, they will drive you all the way up there, wait for you then take you to another look out called Mirante. This is not a bad deal but make sure to wear our seat belts, these guys drive like maniacs. d) You can take the cable car for R$35.00, this is not a bad option.
• Buzios: This is a small beach village about 2 hours from Rio. There are about 22 beaches there and the fun part is to rent a buggy for about R$50 a day and check out all of them. Accommodation is tricky because there are hundreds to choose from... at first we stayed at San Francisco Pousada on Praia da Ferradura. This was pricey R$230 per night but it had a gorgeous view. We did not realise until later this beach is considered the "high class turist" area so after a couple of nights we moved to a much more friendlier pousda called Casa Colina for R$140 per night and walking distance to Geriba beach which is considered a more local area. In both cases don't expect luxury accommodations :) Getting there: You can choose to drive a rental car from Rio, pay a cab driver R$300 bucks each way to drive you there or do what we did, jump on a mini tourist bus for R$50 a head. They do a few stops but it is a cheaper option and you don't need to stress. Their number: +21 2623 0021. There are so many things to do in Buzios I need to create a post just for that but make sure you go there with good weather because if it is raining there is absolutely NOTHING to do. My favorite time: Walk over to Geriba beach, in front of Pousada Pitu, there is a guy called Vava, he works for the restaurant up the road. He will setup a table, chairs and umbrella for you in exchange to order a few drinks and an appetizer. He brings it all to you. Order a caipirinha with some Frango a passarinho..life does not get any better than that.

Obsessed with Album Artwork

I forgot how great album covers are... nowadays you hardly get to look at them anymore. With my new family edition (AppleTV) this is no longer true. It is such a good feeling when you see a really good cover design or to put an artist face to the song!

For this reason, I took a couple of weekend hours and organized my playlists and found 99% of my covers. They play beautifully on the TV while the songs play and the wine bottle finishes.

At first I thought I could save time and support devs by purchasing a $10 bucks shareware that claimed to find it all for you. If you are a weirdo like me, you probably have some weird music in your library and no, the software did not find it all, neither did iTunes.

You can try to use iTunes to find a cover:
1. I usually have iTunes Store open because by selecting a sing I can see if the album is available on the store and if it has  an album cover associated to it. If thats true..
2. Right click a song  > Get Album Artwork
iTunes will grab and save it in the correct place for you.

Otherwise this is a workflow I found to add covers manually:
1. Open iTunes and select any song of the artist, album or playlist from the right panel
2. View > Show Artwork.
3. Make sure the Artwork window is set to show the selection and not the "Now Playing" cover. You can do this by clicking on the small arrow next to the window title.
4. If the cover is not available already, the window should have a "drop" area that reads "Drag Album Artwork Here"
5. Open a browser window and search for the name of the artist or album name. Amazon seems to have almost everything. Make sure you find an image that is large enough, the amazon zoom view works well. Drag that image from the browser into the iTunes drop area.

Now if you find out how to change the artwork of movies added to itunes (not pruchased) so it does not display the first frame always, please let me know!

My AppleTV Experience

I have been trying to manage my music collection where I can store my music on my win desktop in the office but listen to it from the tv in the living room and sync my ipod from the same source. We plugged an older laptop toshiba to the TV and shared my iTunes playlist which worked just fine, not great. It takes a little bit to get to listen to your music..and if you are impatient like me every second counts.

The AppleTV seemed to have resolved my music issues.. I am able to sync my win itunes with the device in the living room. I can quickly access my music while cooking and still manage and listen to my songs while working downstairs.

Video Content:
Lots of bitching still and no HD content available from the itunes store yet. You can watch some trailers in HD but who knows which ones they are..You can buy movies for about 9.99 and they are decent quality but don't expect a quick download. If you want to watch it after dinner, start your download in the afternoon. If you are in Australia, you cannot buy any movies or tv shows unless you have an American itunes account, meaning you have a credit card in the US.

YouTube  + AppleTV
Upgrading to the latest software version, you get the YouTube add-on and yes the video quality is nasty. I am not a YT junky but when it is easy to access from the couch then yes I did take a look at it (for a couple of hours mind you) and found this guy which I became quite a fan. I was surprised to see the same search performed on the browser and AppleTV, gives you different results and the AppleTV version seems to limit some videos, not sure what the deal is and BTW , typing your search keywords using the remote is no fun at all...

Overall I am pretty happy with it ... sometimes I get the buyer's remorse feeling when I think I should have bought a mac mini instead, replace the toshiba with it, store the music  upstairs and share it to the office. John was not happy about switching to mac just yet so I think we made a good decision. Maybe next year I get to convince him to dump win and embrace the mac.

San Francisco Recap

I'm back home in Brisbane and while looking at my expenses, I made a list of places I've been in the past month and highly recommend:

Scomas $$$: If you don't care to mingle between tourists, check out this place at Pier 47. Great seafood but the best is the view.
Incanto $$$$: Very cozy, great wine and food.
Cioppino's $$: Another touristy place but nice to sit out and have a few beers and people watch.
Asia SF $$$: Where the boys dress like girls and the more you drink the better they look. Daily shows.
Mars Bar $: This is the local bar for Adobians...
Tommy's Mexican Restaurant $: At frist I did not know why we went so far out of town for mexican food and tequila until I finished my Carne Assada and had a few clean shots of very good tequila. Apparently this is one of the best tequila bars in the US.
Sugar Cafe $$: This is a great internet cafe / bar. Very cozy and great music. You can sit there for hours and geek away while having drinks and people watch.
XYZ $$$: This is the trendy bar of the W hotel.
Okoze Sushi $$$: Wow the sushi was fantastic but I would have never found this place on my own.
Kim Thanh $$: This place is in a shady neighborhood and nothing fancy about it besides the fresh authentic Vietnamese and Chinese food.
Lobster Shack $$: For 30 bucks you can eat a very fresh 1.5 lbs steamed lobster + beer. I loved it.
Pier 41 $: If you dont mind to eat standing,  just order a big dungeness crab and ask the bloke to break it up for you. The best crab legs deal I found in town.
The District $$: I like this bar, they have some tapas and wine. Very cozy.
Oola $$$: This place have great ribs!! and the main courses were also fantastic.
KohSamui $$$: Great Thai food but don't expect great service.
SF Cable Car $: Locals don't usually take the cable car but it is such a nice ride... they have  a ride that takes 2 hours and goes over the bridge and around the most famous spots. I quite enjoyed..

The CrabMan @ Pier 41 - The Wharf

I wish we walked towards Pier 41 instead of 39 before... I was looking for plain crab legs standing on the side walk for a while! They were so fresh and a lot cheaper than the sit down restaurant and don't mind the mess, it is totally worth it!

Remix Nelly!

Same deal as Kelly but this past week we launched the Remixer for Nelly Furtado. The winner for Kelly's contest will be announced soon and showed on MTV US. Go on, give Nelly a try!

Back in San Francisco

My mom meet me here from LA to spend the next week and I need to try to get some work done in the office. There will be no way out.. I must show her all the tourists points so tonight we hopped on a cable car and went up to Fisherman's Wharf for some seafood. There is a nice place called Scomas (or something like that) with a fantastic view of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.