Zoom-in Online

What a great year here on Zoom In Online! Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard on the backend rebuild, the beautiful redesign, the launching of the Logic Studio microsite, and just a month or so ago now, ZIO Pro. It's really been an amazing year. As I was thinking that, I realized I started writing on this weblog on January 5, 2007, so it's really been a full year of ZIO for me, as of tomorrow. When I think back to the major components of my year, ZIO is one of the big ones.

I had already done a couple of DVD training titles for Magnet (Inside Mac OS X: 10.4 Tiger and Inside iLife '06), and this year I put together a Dreamweaver Jumpstart training, Mac OS X: 10.4 Leopard Jumpstart training, and a video podcast series with Adobe called "Assets In Motion" about bringing together the functionality of many of the applications in the Adobe CS3 suite to take your static art assets and animate them with Flash, and bring them to the web and mobile with Dreamweaver and Device Central.

This past year, my working relationship with Magnet and Zoom In expanded, when I was invited to go to Macworld in San Francisco last January, to help cover the new announcements and new releases for Zoom In. We had a first-look video up of the brand new Apple TV, where I got to do an on screen walk through of the new product before anyone had even seen it outside of the conference. We also did a sort of pre technology-today podcast roundtable discussion of the Keynote, with myself, Andy Beach, Peter Kirn, Matt Cohen, and Jem Schofield.

The year continued with a lot of blogging, which contained a good dose of positive thinking, gaming, good TV, many many cores, and at NAB in Las Vegas, I got to do a whole bunch of interviews with some really amazing industry leaders, and got my first real taste of live, interview-style journalism - destined for new media podcasts on ZIO.

A little later in the year, I traveled to Boston to the FlashForward Conference and Film Fest, and did another three podcast interviews with three excellent Flash developers, leading this burgeoning industry ahead at light speed, and really can't wait to do it again next year. It's so amazing to be around the people that are creating the technologies that I use in my own creative life. It's inspirational, but also, quite simply, hugely informative. I never learn so much about these tools as when I look over the shoulder of a guru, and watch what they're doing and how they do it, and try to sponge up as much as possible frantically scribbling down notes about keyboard shortcuts and workflow ideas in the hopes of incorporating them into my own work.

Blogging continued in 2007 with Adobe CS3, identity questions, more good viewing, good listening, and good reading. 2007 included childhood revisited, living proof of thirty years of geekdom, DRM-free music, kick-ass bass playing, great new WoW expansion details and ding-ing level seventy, and of course, the bloomin' Apple iPhone, and Apple's early adopter base demanding a bloomin' refund.

The software in my studio has been fully updated and upgraded this year with the release of Adobe CS3, Final Cut Studio 2, Logic Studio, MarsEdit, iLife '08, iWork '08, Skitch, and Mac OS X Leopard. These applications are where I spend roughly 95% of my time when working AND playing. I even got some new hardware this year. A new iMac and a new acoustic bass. These tools change everything. I can't even see 2006 from here, you know? Like ancient history.

Had the fullest schedule of live performances of my life this year as well. Shows with Last Fair Deal and Spaghetti Cake were plentiful and a lot of fun. This year saw me singing lead on 3 new tunes in Last Fair Deal, whereas least year and before there was only one song that I sang lead on. The guys seem to want me singing more, and I love it so, hey, gotta do what your peeps want outta ya. As I sit here and think about it, I only wrote one song last year. Hmm. I think I just found my new year's resolution. Get back to songwriting in 2008.

Even big changes in the family this past year. My niece Chloe was born in September, and a short while after that, my wife's grandmother passed away—giving us all a really vast perspective check about this whole thing we're doing called living, you know? How we spend our time is so important, and you just have to spend your time doing what you love to do. There's no reason to do anything but.

This year also saw the writer's strike begin, some truly great shows getting cancelled (like John from Cincinnati, Deadwood and Veronica Mars), Ken Burns' The War on HBO, Amazon's Kindle, the Mac Break Tech podcast, Julie's epic cover tune, Battlestar Razor, the amazing merger, and finally the release of The Box Set.

2008 looks to be the best year yet. On deck immediately here next week will be the 2008 Macworld Keynote and conference coverage, and then on to the Sundance Film Festival with the ZIO team. Very much looking forward to this trip. I expect to still be here next year at this time on ZIO writing about all the craziness of 2008. I also see the other parts of my creative freelance media production business expanding as well. I am very involved in website development, audio, video and DVD production, as well as finishing up a Power! book on GarageBand '08 for Thompson Publishing. I created and launched a few new websites this year, Mass MoCA, Isabella's Restaurant (for which I also did all the photography, another first for me in 2007!), Pacific Comedy and Excelsior Printing, and have been working on a really big one for the past 7 months that is still hush-hush, and the beta site will be up in just the next couple weeks. I have expanded my own team very recently, and started working with a couple of talented freelance web developers who will be helping me to be able to take on more new business, while spending a little less time with my hands in the code, freeing me up to do more event coverage, trainings, and music than ever before. I'm looking forward to this year with positivity and excitement. I'd really like to thank everyone at ZIO, and especially our faithful readers who keep coming back for more! If you're reading this far into this post - I mean you!! Let 2008 be "the year of the comments, eh?" How's that for a resolution! Seriously though, we do always love to hear from you, and anytime you want to toss up a comment on a blog post, we'll be sure to read them and respond. I really like the idea of an ongoing dialog about a lot of these topics.

I hope everyone has a great year, and I hope to see you around! Thanks for reading.