THIS QUOTATION by Goethe has sustained me for 20 years, but it’s proving truer in the run up to the shoot for my film, Judas Kiss, next month. I share it as a followup to  the incredibly successful conclusion on Friday of our online fundraising effort on Kickstarter.com, and  just in case karma wants to continue to smile in my direction:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.
— Goethe

The rest of the country has been broiling for weeks but here in the Pacific Northwest, summer didn’t arrive until July 6. Super-long days here provide a luxurious “golden hour” that lights up the path of my daily walk spectacularly. This walk is near Larsen Lake in Bellevue, Wash.

What to do when iCal and iPhone have irreconcilable differences?

What’s Wrong?

Yipes! My iPhone’s calendar and contacts have stopped syncing with my MobileMe calendar and contacts. I’ve tried deleting my MobileMe account on my iPhone, then re-creating it to force the iPhone to sync properly with MobileMe. My mail synced OK but my calendar events and contacts have disappeared. They’re safe on my computers and on MobileMe itself but they just won’t sync with the iPhone. Help!

What to Do

One of the best selling points of Apple’s cloud solution, MobileMe, is how easily and transparently it syncs your mail, calendar, contacts and Safari bookmarks among all your computers and iDevices. Occasionally, however, it succumbs to hiccups like this one, where it refuses to sync properly.

You’ve done the thing you ought to do — re-creating your MobileMe account on your iPhone — and still you have no joy. Short of the cumbersome fixes (re-installing iTunes, restoring your iPhone from a backup — assuming those tactics would even work), here’s what has worked for some people:

Re-setting your Push settings. The objective of this solution is to “force” your iPhone to sync manually with MobileMe in hopes that your data will be restored to your phone.

1. On your iPhone go to Settings » Mail, Contacts, Calendars » Fetch New Data. Turn Off Push.
2. Set Fetch to Manually.
3. Go back one screen to Accounts, select your MobileMe account and click the red Delete Account button.
4. Back on the Accounts screen, select Add Account… and re-create your MobileMe account. Make sure you set Mail, Contacts and Calendars to On (Bookmarks, Notes and Find My iPhone are up to you).
5. Go back to Fetch New Data and turn Push back on.
6. Open your Mail or Contacts app. If all goes well, you’ll see them re-appear.

It didn’t work! What do I do now?

Re-setting your sync data. Here’s your other option; this one is your best bet, though a tad more complicated.

1. Make sure your Mac has synced very recently with MobileMe, and that it has the most recent Mail, Contacts and Calendar events.
2. On your iPhone go to Settings » Mail, Contacts, Calendars » Fetch New Data. Turn Off Push.
3. On your Mac, open System Preferences » MobileMe » Sync » Advanced.
4. Unregister your Mac.
5. Enable Sync again for just Contacts, Calendar and Bookmarks.
6. Go back to Advanced.
7. Select Reset Sync Data and make sure you pick Computer Overwrites MobileMe. This makes sure you’re re-uploading fresh data to MobileMe.
8. Wait until your Mac completes its sync to MobileMe.
9. Go back to your iPhone and re-enable Push.
10. Plug your iPhone into your computer and let it sync with iTunes.
11. When the sync is complete, check your iPhone: Your Contacts, Calendar events and Bookmarks should have returned!

This solution should work for both iOS 3.1 and iOS4, and on all flavors of iPhones (though I used it on my iPhone 4). Apple has a tech note available for other combinations of hardware/software, which you can read here. It’s a cautionary tale.

IT SORT OF came out of nowhere, years later, in an interview with the U.K. magazine Radio Times. After a successful reinvention of the Doctor Who franchise in 2005, star Christopher Eccleston rather mysteriously bowed out at the end of the first season. The official announcement cited a grueling production schedule and Eccleston’s fear of being typecast. The BBC later retracted its statement and admitted it hadn’t spoken to Eccleston before it was issued.

And that’s where things remained until Eccleston’s Radio Times interview this week in the run-up to his role in the upcoming BBC biopic Lennon Naked. He tells the magazine he left the successful series because, “I was open-minded but I decided after my experience on the first series that I didn’t want to do any more. I didn’t enjoy the environment and the culture that we, the cast and crew, had to work in.”

Eccleston doesn’t explain what he found so objectionable about the environment and the culture, just that he “wasn’t comfortable.” He continues, “I thought ‘If I stay in this job, I’m going to have to blind myself to certain things that I thought were wrong.’ And I think it’s more important to be your own man than be successful, so I left.”

The Code That Dare Not Speak Its Name

The environment? Certain things? That were wrong? All these sound like code words for Something That Dare Not Speak Its Name. Especially when you consider that the “culture” was set by the show’s executive producer at the time, Russell T. Davies, notorious for his very gay Queer as Folk and for introducing the most overt gay references in the formerly staid Doctor Who franchise.

While it’s certainly troubling that Eccleston may have had some issues with appearing on a show that had him kissing another guy, it’s more troubling that this is topic is still Too Shameful to Discuss Openly. And not just by him. The narrative in the media is that Eccleston is “finally” revealing why he left the show.

Except he really hasn’t. All his vague terms are very “wink and a nod” in nature, and the media coverage is reciprocating by dutifully quoting him without really challenging what’s behind the quotes. Nobody — including the media — wants to simply say, Russell T. Davies made Doctor Who too gay for Christopher Eccleston.

If that’s not what you meant, Mr. Eccleston, perhaps you should clarify? That’s what Radio Times, the BBC and everyone else who’s covering the hell out of this story should be asking. But they haven’t. No one’s calling him to account for his comments and what lies behind them. And that’s a failure of the media, not just Christopher Eccleston.

Next: Up to the Fans to Discuss the Real Issue »

ON ITS “Conversations” area of its Web site, big mobile phone manufacturer Nokia is asking its community to help design the next smartphone:

This isn’t just about creating the next-gen smartphone; we want you to think beyond that. To avoid creating some kind of unweildy beast, we’ve created a six-step process where you get to vote for the features and functions you think are most important. Every week we’ll tally up the votes and display the defined spec.

Is Nokia crowdsourcing its next smartphone design? Or is it just creating the illusion of interaction with its customers?

This is not true crowdsourcing. This is a popularity contest, an echo chamber in which people relate what they think they want, not what would actually work for a design that sets out to break the mold and create something new. Think about it: Can you imagine a “crowd” coming up with the iPhone three or four years ago, based on what was available in smartphones then? I don’t think so.

True crowdsourcing would use the crowd to tell you how people actually use smartphones and how they want to use smartphones. Not by asking them, because real designers know that people notoriously say they want things they don’t truly want, or they confuse features with the underlying needs that could be better met by features they haven’t even thought of before.

My guess is that this design effort won’t net Nokia much more than they already think they know.

For example, how many people in the “crowd” know the difference between capacitative and resistive screens? I don’t off the top of my head. And does knowing the difference mean I automatically know what the pros and cons of each are. And if I have to Google it to fill out a simple poll, you’re diluting your “crowd” into a self-selected subset of engineering nerds (and we all know what design geniuses they are).

And screen size? Most people in the “crowd” wil likely think bigger is better without knowing what the ergonomic and weight tradeoffs of such a choice would be. These are considerations designers would take into account. A “crowd”? Not so much.

And can you imagine what the “crowd” would’ve told Apple four years ago about keypads? Apple struck out on its own here, convinced it could offer a different type of keypad that wouldn’t have won a popularity contest back then but would work, and would allow other design features that contributed to an overall, cohesive design masterpiece, rather than something created from a checklist generated by random polling. Same with secondary buttons. How are regular people expected to know enough to weigh these options?

I’m disturbed by the ways in which the term crowdsourcing is being bandied about these days. Crowds can process or give you data that can help you discover patterns you might not otherwise have seen. But to impute expertise for a very specific task (i.e., product design) stretches crowdsourcing’s promise beyond what it can deliver.

I showed a friend the the Nokia survey and his response was, “You want to know all this? Let me grab my iPhone and I’ll tell you.” ‘Nuff said.

LOS ANGELES — What if you woke up one day at summer camp to discover all the adults had disappeared? That’s how the kids’ adventure series, eScape, begins when it comes to the Web this summer, producers announced today.

Created by Mike Feurstein of New York-based MovieQuest Productions and co-produced by Runic Films, eScape tells the story of a group of campers seemingly abandoned by their counselors. They soon discover they are trapped in a video game that grants them amazing abilities. But in the real world, this game is the object of a power struggle between powerful corporations and mysterious military interests.

The first three seasons of eScape will premiere on the Web this summer on its Web site, www.eScapeTheSeries.com. A trailer and a preview of the show are available on the site now.

The show tells a great story in the same vein as Lost. Young and older viewers alike connect with its characters’ struggles to make the right life choices in the face of adventure, danger and unimaginable odds. — Series creator Mike Feurstein

eScape’s third season is currently in production in and around Albany, N.Y., starring local actors and school children. The students also worked behind the scenes to help produce the series.

“Wide release of eScape this summer will introduce viewers to the space- and time-bending world of the show,” said Runic Films producer Ben Alpi.  “It’s a world we plan to continue to explore.”

eScape is the latest project from Runic Films, which comprises the creative team behind the Web series Star Trek: Phase II, winner of TV Guide’s Online Video Award for Science Fiction, and nominee for the Hugo and Nebula awards — science fiction’s highest honors.

Alpi, who had contributed visual effects to the first two seasons of eScape, introduced series creator Feurstein to his Runic partners — writer-producer Carlos Pedraza, cinematographer David Berry, and visual effects artists Joël Bellucci and Matt Jolly — after their recent departure from the Trek series.

Watch the Trailer

Feurstein and his young filmmakers have produced movies that have won gold medals in New York state competitions and top prizes in regional film contests. Feurstein himself earned Best Local Filmmaker kudos in readers’ polls from the Albany, N.Y., Times Union, and the Metroland newsweekly. He has also produced an international educational DVD series on autism, contributed to the blockbuster award-winning Guitar Hero video game and owns Cucumber Alley, a film lighting rental company.

“Ben, Carlos and the rest of the Runic guys came aboard to help make the third season of eScape the best yet,” Feurstein said, “and its release on the Web is an exceptional showcase for the cast and crew.”

Runic Films is a production and entertainment company developing original properties for Web, film and television. Now located in Los Angeles, Runic was founded by two brothers in New York, and has grown to a staff of award-winning writers, directors, artists and technicians. Dedicated to upholding the rich traditions of storytelling, Runic Films harnesses cutting-edge technology and visual effects to create amazing worlds for dramatic tales grounded in humanity.

Based in historic Schenectady, N.Y., MovieQuest Productions is a motion picture production company dedicated to offering young people educational opportunities to create quality films.

###

Links

• eScape Web site http://www.eScapeTheSeries.com
• Runic Films http://www.runicfilms.com

Dragon*Con recently dispatched longtime TrekTrak director Eric Watts “with thanks” for his 17 years of service and promised attendees that “nothing has prepared you for what we have in store for this year’s ‘Trek Track.’”

Wang, best known for his role as Ensign Harry Kim in Star Trek: Voyager, accepted the position of Trek Track director. In his seven seasons on the popular series, Wang became a fan favorite as the clarinet-playing operations officer of the USS Voyager.

The Dragon*Con announcement called Wang “a science fiction fan as well as a Star Trek insider [who] will bring a fresh perspective to this year’s programming.”

I worked with him on the semi-pro production, Star Trek: Of Gods and Men, where he was very pleasant to work with. As the script supervisor, I spent a lot of time with him on set — a physically grueling experience where temperature went well over 100 degrees, even at night — and he was always professional and uncomplaining.

The track directors at Dragon*Con appear to be from the Atlanta area, where Dragon*Con is held every Labor Day weekend, so I’m guessing a lot of the grunt work (those directors work really hard, trust me) will be delegated.

The traditional Miss Klingon Empire beauty pageant is being replaced by the Miss Star Trek Universe competition. In addition, Dragon*Con has secured the following Trek guests for this year:

From Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Avery Brooks (Captain Benjamin Sisko), Rene Auberjonois (Odo) and Armin Shimerman (Quark) will be in attendance.

Jonathan Frakes (Commander Will Riker), Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi), and John DeLancie (the enigmatic Q) will represent Star Trek: The Next Generation. More Star Trek guests will be announced on the Dragon*Con website as appearances are confirmed.

Ticketing and other convention information can be found at www.dragoncon.org.

(Full disclosure: I’ve been a Dragon*Con and TrekTrak guest since 2005, and former director Eric Watts is a good friend of mine. I have been invited to return as a guest for 2010, as well.)

It will be interesting to see how Dragon*Con navigates this big change in their Trek Track’s management.

The widescreen monitor on sale at Staples wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

My second monitor for my iMac at home is only 19.5 inches, so I thought it would be good replacement. I bought the monitor the next day then drove back home over the mountains. Once home, I unpacked the box to discover:

1. No DVI port
2. No audio port
3. No DVI or audio cables
4. No speakers

Mind you, I’d checked the specs of the advertised model on Staples’ Web site, and it confirmed that this model was supposed to feature all those things. So, filled with Righteous Indignation™, I went to my local Staples to complain, and hopefully to obtain the right monitor.

The very nice store manager claimed it was a misprint (even though I showed him the monitor’s User Guide, which noted that this model had a version that came with the precise specs that were noted on Staples’ Web site). He checked all the models he had in stock and all of them were just like mine — digitally castrated.

So he nicely offered me 20 percent off any monitor I wanted in the store. So I looked around the kinda meager offerings, looking for the same or bigger size (21.5″), and DVI input (I really wasn’t that interested in audio, that was just part of my Righteous Indignation™) and the 1920 x 1080 resolution (HD). That’s when I found this –

The Dell ST22210 LCD Monitor

THE SPECS — 21.5-inch widescreen (16:9 aspect rati0); DVI, VGA and HDMI inputs (!); audio in/out, and HD resolution. List price: $229; Staples’ regular price, $199; on sale this week $159. At 20 percent off, the price came down to $128, only $8 more than I paid for the inferior eMachines monitor.

The cons: Only the VGA cord was included, and I can testify that DVI cables are one way Staples makes up for its low prices elsewhere: they wanted $50 for a cable. Jebus! Luckily, Fry’s has the same cable for $30. Even more luckily, I’d bought a DVI-to-HDMI cable months ago for hooking up my laptop to my HDTV but had never used it. So I hooked the iMac to the Dell’s HDMI port (and because it’s a Mac, no driver installation necessary, thank you very much). The Mac auto-detects the HDMI connection and auto-selects the HD resolution for the monitor —

WHAT I LOVE about Macs: You can ignore the CD that comes with the monitor: no additional drivers necessary. My Mac just “knows” which monitor I hooked up to it.

Thank you, Staples.

What made me curious, though, was how many other people are taking Staples to task for advertising the wrong monitor. Since a lot of PCs still favor VGA over DVI would people even notice they bought an inferior model? Mac people would clearly know since we expect DVI out of the box.

So if you’re in the market for a new monitor, hold Staples accountable and get yourself a better one than they advertised. Only one day left!

Thanks to the leverage of their iPad distribution agreements with Apple, the big book publishing houses won their recent price skirmish against Amazon.com, but will the victory be a Pyrrhic one?

To be sure, Amazon’s Kindle book pricing had stiffed the publishers, giving the e-tailer most of the proceeds, while keeping eBook prices low enough to attract buyers of the Kindle hardware, from which Amazon makes all the money (though, infamously, Amazon continues to refuse to disclose how many Kindles it’s sold). Wit the advent of the iPad as a competing (and IMHO, superior) eBook reader, Amazon lost its leverage for dictating terms. Trouble is, the publishers’ win is likely a loss for us consumers — it means eBook prices will rise substantially (Amazon had bestsellers aggressively priced at $9.99 — loss leaders for other books and the Kindle itself), to at least $14.99.

Peter Kafka, in the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital blog, noted the other day that publishers should heed the lessons of the music industry’s experience with the iTunes Music Store:

After years of complaints, last year the music labels finally got what they wanted from Apple–the ability to raise prices on their songs. Last April, iTunes introduced a “variable pricing” scheme, which gave the labels the ability to move prices from 99 cents a song to $1.29 (and for some tracks, down to 69 cents). The result? Music sales are slowing.

Kafka goes on to quote the head of Warner Music Group as saying in hindsight that raising prices 30 percent during a recession wasn’t perhaps the wisest thing. But what lesson should publishers take from the iTunes experience? Kafka says he thinks the lesson publishers are taking is that they should push for higher prices early in the adoption cycle. But he cautions:

The counter here is the one that seems obvious to everyone else: Lower prices and you can sell more stuff. Looks like we’ll be getting another real-world test of this economics lesson soon.

My take is that the publishers and the music industry continue to define the terms of this debate in old world, brick and mortar terms. Back in the days when they could dictate their taste to the public, they were supremely important. But in a digital world, they’re reduced to intermediaries. Granted, their role as gatekeepers, filters and — most importantly — marketers of creative products remains important. But this is no longer a world of scarcity, of limited space on booksellers’ shelves.

Books aren’t commodities; one is not like the other. The function of publishers isn’t merely to vet. It’s also to edit, refine and — most importantly — to market. That’s where it costs them. And with eBooks, the fact there’s theoretically limitless shelf space doesn’t change the fact readers don’t have limitless attention. We rely on publishers and bookstores — intermediaries — to help us sort the signal from the noise, especially given the reality that one reader’s signal is another’s noise. Hence the “crappy” books you see out there; if they’re out there someone made an educated guess there’s a market for them.

However, I don’t think publishers see readers as their customers: booksellers are. If any one thing has changed because of the digital revolution it’s that consumers — end users — must be satisfied with your product and must be an important target of your marketing. Microsoft is a similar culprit, prizing its institutional customers over the needs of people who use its products every day. It creates and market its core products (i.e., Office) for the people high up in the corporate structure who pay the bills; it doesn’t rank usability for end users very highly, hence the clunkiness of so many Microsoft products. The result? Microsoft is losing its competitive edge, a reality that’s obscured by the fact it remains quite profitable — for now (“Microsoft’s Creative Destruction,” New York Times).

Industry analyst Mark Anderson went even further recently (“Microsoft Is Losing Fight for Consumers,” New York Times):

“Microsoft doesn’t have consumer DNA,” he said. “Walk the halls at Microsoft and you can see it is not a place that gets consumers.”

Book publishers need to navigate the changes wrought by the digital economy better than Microsoft or the music industry has. They need to “get” consumers, they need to bend over backwards to make their products fit the lifestyle of their customers, not the mere act of providing an electronic book. Publishers need to make their products match the way we live, and will be living, consuming our entertainment and culture on multiple devices at home, at work and on the road. Apple gets that, and that’s why the iPad will flourish.

Nikki Graziano is a photographer who’s also into math. Courtesy of Wired.com, we learn how the graphs of mathematical functions are mirrored in nature. Graziano, a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology, “overlays graphs and their corresponding equations onto her carefully composed photos,” Wired says. To her, it’s simply a demonstration of “how awesome math is.”

Who could argue with that? You can see more of her “Found Functions” photos at the Wired.com article and at her own site, nikkigraziano.com.