Quickly find out what media an optical drive can burn

A few times I've been someplace editing and have no idea what kind of burner is in the Mac there. Being pro-Terminal mostly, I tend to fire up the terminal and type in "drutil info" and hit Return. You'll see something like this:



You can also use System Profiler (Hold Option when selecting the Apple menu and you'll see About this Mac turn into System Profiler...) or use something like Toast but launching the Terminal and tying a simple command is reliable and fast.

Smoothcam Bug in FCP7?

Some people are finding that smoothcam when exported from FCP 7 doesn't export as seen in the viewer or canvas.

A friend just ran into this issue and is now reverting back to FCP 6 and then Leopard (10.5.x) to see which causes the problem if either.

Wintertime & Coulomb's Law

In the winter the air is dryer and that means electrons like to jump around causing static electricity which while fun for siblings and spouses isn't for cats and computers.

If you're switching a lot of cables around, plugging in cameras, etc...try and reduce your static potential with a humidifier. I leave mine running pretty much 24/7 near my editing stations in the winter. Here are some more tips on reducing static electricity.

Remember, the lower the relative humidity the higher potential the static is...potentially 21,000+ volts which hard drives really don't appreciate.