Whilst researching for another project, I have come across a very nifty tool to aid in storyboarding and scoping out video projects. Now to many, I suspect this may garner a “what you have only found that now!” response, and if so, so be it, but as a very happy Microsoft OneNote user, this has not been on my radar particularly for this specific task.

It’s called Evernote; and yes I am actually aware of the product, but wasn’t aware of a single feature that sparked the idea. That feature is the ability to use Evernote in my Windows 7 phone to take photos and store them immediately and directly into Evernote.

This together with the although limited but useful list making tools using checkboxes and so on means that a storyboard can be quickly created or a stills combination of a shooting site can be assembled and used to arrange a shot list / script.
This combined with the sharing facilities of Evernote across the web makes it an ideal collaboration tool for filmmakers, production folk and actors who may not be easily able to meet up regularly face to face.

And better still, it’s free at http://evernote.com/download/

While there are dedicated tools for this sort of thing, and certainly other things such as OneNote can be adapted to do the same thing, what makes Evernote particularly attractive is its multi-OS availability for Windows, Mac iOS, Blackberry, Palm, Windows Phone, WEBOS and Android.

OK - time for a business travel rant.

I've spent most of the past two weeks in hotels and, I have to say, my willingness to pay for in-room internet access is over.

While a growing number of hotels are opting to treat broadband in the same way as other utilities (such as power and water), an annoying number don't. Hoteliers - it's time to reconsider.

For me, one of the most important features in a hotel room is access to reliable broadband. Sure, comfortable pillows and a well-stocked mini bar are great, but being able to connect to the outside world still ranks higher I'm afraid.

How much longer can hotels expect customers to fork out extra for the ability to get connected? Too many hotels still consider it reasonable to hit you with a daily access charge (sometimes more than $20) on top of their already sizable room cost.

It's time to wake up to the fact that the internet has become as indispensible as electricity and water for the average business hotel guest. You don't get charged extra for them, so why for broadband?

End of rant :)

If you are a former MobileMe subscriber that switched to iCloud, it's time to check how much storage space you're using.

The reason is that the bonus 20GB storage Apple provided MobileMe users to tide them over the transition period is about to expire, so you only have a few days to tidy up or pay for additional storage.

What that happens after Sunday 30 September is that you can't store anything new until your usage is below your free or paid entitlement. If that doesn't sound like a big deal, it seems that includes incoming emails.

While you should have heard from Apple by now if you are above the 5GB limit, it wouldn't hurt to check your situation. For OS X users, the easiest way is to open System Preferences, select iCloud, and then click the Manage... button. You'll then see how much storage you have available.

If it's less than 20GB, you'll need to pay $42 per year for a total of 25GB or $105 for 55GB (click the Change Storage Plan... button), or have a spring clean. Depending on how you've been using the account, the latter might be quite a task.

MobileMe accounts included 20GB of data, but files that made up personal web sites are now redundant. The real problem will be faced by people who have been using iCloud, MobileMe and .Mac as a main email account for many years and have amassed mailboxes in excess of 5GB.

Yes, they they can delete any unwanted messages and then make sure that all deleted items have been erased, but beyond that there's not really a practical option other than buying more space. Apple suggests storing messages on a computer by moving them to local folders, but that works against the whole idea of IMAP which is to allow access to the exact-same set of messages and folders from multiple devices.

Changing the subject, Lion and Mountain Lion weren't the only things to be updated last week. The new version of Flip4Mac (software that allows Windows Media files to be played on a Mac) also appeared, providing Mountain Lion compatibility among other changes. While Windows Media isn't as common on the web has it used to be, I still find Flip4Mac a handy addition to the toolbox.

The basic edition of Flip4Mac is still free, but the various paid editions provide more than just playback. Before you upgrade an existing Player Pro edition (which allows Windows Media files to be imported, not just played), be aware that you'll have to pay another $US9 for version 3.0.

So, the iPhone 5 launched last week. Yeah, I know, nobody wrote about it and you didn't know, right? Here's a quick refresher that I shot in just about as long as it'll take you to watch it.

(yes, I know -- it shows. Work in progress and all that.)

Anyway, that aside, people have had their hands on them for a little while now, and the most singular common complaint that's been levelled at the new phone are the appalling maps that Apple's opted to throw in with the latest version of iOS. Make no mistake -- they're pretty awful in some places, and merely adequate in others, no matter how many pretty three dimensional fly-bys they might offer. In pure replacement terms, they're a terrible alternative -- but then again, they are largely an alternative.

There's the germ of a product that could be good in there in some time with a lot of data manipulation, but why Apple didn't just slap the "beta" tag on Maps the way it did with Siri last year eludes me -- it would have neatly deflected a lot of the criticism.

Maps is part of the iPhone 5 package, but it arguably says something about the maturity of the platform that this seems to be the key issue that's being disputed; it's not as though an iPhone 3GS/4/4S updated to iOS 6 has different maps. They're still bad, but it's a software function, not a hardware one. So far, the hardware's pretty good, but that seems to be a begrudging admittance on the part of some, rather than a potential selling point. Lest I be accused (for roughly the billionth time) of being on Apple's payroll, it's by no means the only phone you should assess; the Galaxy S III is pretty sweet (as long as it doesn't get remotely wiped on you), as is the HTC One XL, and I hear nice things about Nokia's new Windows Phone 8 handsets… but then, they won't give me any hands-on time to actually assess them!

I suspect Maps being bad is a meme that will fade relatively quickly; it certainly didn't stop Apple from (by their own release) flogging off 5 million phones over the weekend. That's potentially five million more Maps users (on top of anyone who upgraded to iOS 6 on older devices) delivering corrections and updates, along with whatever business relationships and update data Apple can source itself.

It's also a really odd instance where the usual standpoint of "Apple's forcing users to" doesn't quite apply; it's not like you can't create a quick weblink to Google Maps and use those, or pick up any of the numerous GPS apps available. Yes, you've got to pay for them upfront, but then you've got them offline, meaning they don't cost you data and, rather unlike Apple's current maps solution, they do indeed just work.

Bear with me here. It may seem I have gone a little bit loopy on the ‘produce’ subject, but there is a point to this I promise.

Top Gear’s James May has produced a series of books and a TV show called ‘Man Lab’. With these, he aims to rekindle skills in the male of the species he claims have been lost in the annals of time. The last 10 years to be precise. You know, how to change a tyre, replace a door handle, saw a piece of wood or bang in a nail, that sort of thing.

I have seen this myself in the last 12 months, with men I know not able to even begin contemplating how to replace a flywire door closer, and one didn’t know how to wash a car – I kid you not! Another had no idea where to start to replace the seat on a bicycle, so asked his 16 year old son, who also had no idea.

In other words, they were not able to break a task down to its basic components and then retrace those steps.

Here’s another. How many men can cook anything beyond a hard boiled egg?

This is my point; basic skills are being lost in all aspects of life, and so it appears to me that a major loss is in the basic three ‘R’s. Reading, writing and arithmetic if you are under 30.

Without these basic skills, our whole art form of filmmaking I fear will deteriorate and we’ll rely on CGI and other computerised tricks to make our entertainment. I see even those in their mid 20s who cannot form a sentence, whose writing is unreadable (and full of grammatical and spelling errors) and mathematics (that they call ‘math’ – how can that be right as we don’t say ‘mathematic’) is appalling. Just the other day a late teen needed to use a calculator to work out the change for $2.60 from a $2 and $1 coin.

A teacher once told me that you can only teach to the ‘level of the cattle’ given to you. I don’t believe that for a moment. Therefore any attempt to throttle our education system at a government level must be thwarted. It is the education system that will bring out our future Kubricks, Spielbergs, Welles’ and so on. And of course the Einsteins, Edisons, Stephensons and von Brauns