Shaun, who has been told by doctors he does not have long left to live after his body rejected a second heart transplant, was only trying to post his tragic goodbye speech to his friends on Facebook but due to a mistake put it on YouTube and woke up to find it had more than 10,000 views. As I post this it has 1.3 million.

The Video, in which he shows no signs of self pity – encourages watchers to seize the day and make the most of their lives.

“Live life to the fullest because you never know what’s going to happen.”

Related articles

• Dying Aussie teen gets to fulfill his dreams(news.com.au)

  ---

• Dying teen appears on Neighbours(news.ninemsn.com.au)

  ---

• Dying lad’s goodbye video touches the world (thesun.co.uk)
• Aussie teenager Shaun Wilson-Miller’s dying wish is to make the most of life (mervsheppard.blogspot.com)

This is from a wedding I helped with last year:

The Earth seen from Apollo 17.

Suomi NPP, NASA’s newest Earth-watching satellite, has taken an amazing 8000×8000 pixel resolution image of the Earth and I’d say it’s one of the most beautiful such images ever created.

The satellite, named after the “father of satellite meteorology,” Verner E. Suomi, is designed to create images of Earth, monitor for natural disasters and improve weather forecasts as well as monitoring long-term climate changes.

The image is a composite, created using a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on Jan. 4, 2012. It’s simialr to the very popular “Blue Marble” photograph taken by the crew of Apollo 17 on Dec, 7, 1972.

Planet Earth’s Northern Hemisphere

Related articles

• This 121-Megapixel Photo of Earth Will Make Your Jaw Drop (mashable.com)
• Blue Marble 2012 (theonlinephotographer.typepad.com)
• NASA’s Blue Marble: 50 Years Of Earth Images (informationweek.com)
• This Is the Definitive Photograph of Planet Earth [Video] (gizmodo.com)
• How NASA Creates Those Beautiful Blue Marble Photos of Earth (petapixel.com)

The Z7U is getting up there in age with a release date in 2008 but it produces stunning footage and is a pleasure to use. As with any Sony once you use one you get a feel for them and in this category they have very similar user functions. That’s always a bonus when you don’t have all day to figure it out before you hit the record button..

An extensive review of the Sony HVR-Z7U is available here.

Related articles

• The 5 new camcorders that matter out of Sony’s 13(ces.cnet.com)

  ---

“Joel taught me an important message about life in the 2 weeks I spent with him. It does not matter how small your apartment is or how little money you have. What matters most is the company you keep and the attitude you have.”

The future is now in my house! An early birthday gift to me was a 3rd generation Apple TV and so far I have been loving it.

As is usual for almost every Apple product the set up was easy and it works like a charm. Found the wireless network, let me log in without any hassles, and, in about ten minutes, I was set up with my iTunes account, YouTube channel, Vimeo page, Flickr account, and Netflix. I can’t help but compare how easy that was to the fifteen minutes I spent last night trying to get an optical mouse to work on my daughters Windows based netbook only to have the installer say the certificate expired and that device cannot be installed. Seriously!?!

Apple TV can be controlled with the included remote or through an iPhone or iPad via WiFi. The same devices can also stream content and slideshows via the AirPlay feature. A couple simple swipes and I can look at my iPhone’s photo galleris on our 42″ screen.

Surfing through the iTunes library of music and movies is simple and believe me there is a lot there. We wanted to watch the 1962 classic To Kill A Mockingbird and after a quick search we sat back and enjoyed the movie.

Apple TV also connects with my home computer so my movie and music library can play on the TV in our living room. I can also show off my video and photo galleries.

Sounds all good I know and not everyone is an Apple fan but trust me on this one – get rid of your over priced cable subscription and all the garbage programs they peddle and buy an Apple TV. Buy a season pass and watch Mad Men commercial free! The latest releases in 1080p HD! Netflix, YouTube, Vimeo, the NHL, MBL, Wall Street Journal (ok maybe not that one), or watch the latest movie trailers.

Our last venture into life without cable was X-Box Live for $8.99/month so we could watch Netflix. Apple TV is leaps ahead of X-Box Live so far as movies and content goes and you don’t have to subscribe to anything or keep buying points.

This is one of the best birthday gifts ever! It’s hard to not keep using it and get to work on other things.

Enjoy your day.

Related articles

• New 2012 Apple TV: Review, Thoughts, Pictures & More (epicagear.com)
• Apple in talks with EPIX movie service for Apple TV and ‘upcoming devices,’ says Reuters (theverge.com)
• Apple iTV to snatch exclusive film streaming deals from Netflix? (techradar.com)
• Rogers Video no more, time to get an Apple TV device (thegtapatriot.wordpress.com)
• Everyone should own an Apple TV (cdevroe.com)
• Netflix inks deal with Apple to offer sign-up and billing via Apple TV and iTunes (zdnet.com)

The Hawk 101.5

Arrived in Port Hawkesbury early Tuesday morning and drove on to record a quick interview in Mabou. Mabou is a beautiful spot and it might be on the books for a B&B stay this summer.

It takes about three and a half hours to get to Port Hawkesbury from Halifax. I left at 04:30 and arrived a little before 08:00. Mabou is 56 kms further. I’m staying at the Harbourview B&B and it’s a really nice spot. Sometimes it’s hard to get a place that has decent wi-fi. Got a great deal too; $150 plus tax for three nights!

The shoot is for two projects. One is an award presentation and the other is to cover an energy event. So far I shot three separate interviews involving nine people and have collected about 30 minutes of b-roll. Today I’ll be gathering some more footage of the local area and the Canso Causeway.

This is one of those shoots I learn to appreciate the dual record feature on my Sony HXR-NX5U. I can dump full SDHC cards into my laptop and format them to use again knowing the hard drive has a backup copy. That’s a big bonus for work you have to do on the road.

Enjoy your day!

The Aurora Borealis

Nasa has released a compilation of the best of its time-lapse photography from space in a four-minute video that zooms over the earth’s surface from the International Space Station, shot by the Expedition 30 crew who boarded in November.

The breathtaking footage captured enchanting light displays and vivid weather systems across the globe in the last five months. The pictures that we see from space are likely to improve in quality in the future after one astronaut invented a specialised camera that solved the problem of taking pictures on board the craft which moves at more than four miles a second.

Andre Kuipers recently installed ‘Nightpod’ – a motorised camera that compensates for the hurtling speeds of the ISS, by tracking points on Earth’s surface. The results are some of the most spectacular pictures ever taken from space.

More images are available here.

Related articles

• Video: Aurora Australis from the Space Station (boingboing.net)
• Earth as you’ve never seen it before (livasperiklis.com)
• Photo: Astronaut captures nightly glow of Istanbul (mnn.com)
• Watch: International Space Station flies over aurora australis (mnn.com)
• Great View of Nothern Lights from Space: Aurora Borealis (1080P Hd) (milkandcookies.com)

The competition is now over, but you can visit montblanc-onesecond.com to watch the winning second, the winning playlist, the shortlists and all the beautiful seconds captured from around the globe.

The Beauty of a Second is a contest curated by Wim Wenders which asks users to demonstrate beauty in a second of film. An exploration of precision and art – a homage to capturing the smallest fragments of time.

Related articles

• With Stunning Pina, Wim Wenders Makes Case for 3-D Documentaries (wired.com)