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A short while ago, the world was introduced to the ant-catching bearded dragon... and it was pretty entertaining.

But today, a new creature (this time more amphibian than reptilian) has conquered the art of phone gaming, with a better ending:

I recorded the video below using my iPhone 4, and set it to some ambient music. The views from the Willis Tower's SkyDeck (103 floors up) are truly majestic, and I hope to go again someday (next time, I'll remember my tripod!).

I will gladly do without the crazy Chicago traffic, though :)

I recorded the following video of the last portion of the aquatic show at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, IL. My wife and I visited the aquarium to see this interesting show of dolphins (the highlight), a couple red-tailed hawks, and sometimes other animals as well.

I highly recommend the show if you're in Chicago!

A very generous tip 'o the hat to The Crescat:

Also, @ppadley found another great example of these ninja nuns in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ydfdvp1HE&feature=youtu.be

One of the final projects I was working on, but did not get to see grow into completion, while I was working with the Archdiocese of St. Louis was the Archdiocese's 2011 Eucharistic Congress. I actually did very little of the work involved in getting the website and video ready for the congress, but was privileged to work with some extraordinarily talented Catholics on both projects.

First, take in this great video (which will likely be passed around a bit in the days ahead!):

Now, check out the Congress' website. A friend and former co-worker from the Archdiocese, Ben G., did a ton of work to get the jQuery on that page working just-so, and he deserves many kudos for his work—it looks and flows great... and even works great on the iPad and iPhone! (Yay to no Flash!).

I hope the Archdiocese of St. Louis and other dioceses can continue to produce beautiful, professional, and inspiring content like this. (Hopefully the Congress itself goes well, too!).

P.S. Also, check out my more technical writeup over at Open Source Catholic.

Apple's announcement of the iPad 2 today left me speechless in many ways, but maybe the most promising and awesome announcement was not the iPad itself, but rather iMovie and GarageBand for the iPad.

One thing that I've constantly had to do for video production is lug around my Mac, a camera, cables, etc., just because there was nothing that was as easy as iMovie to quickly hash out a video, with voiceover, etc. The iPhone's iMovie app is just not good enough for me, though it's great for a quick YouTube edit.

Luckily for me, all the work I've done in testing microphones and audio input adapters for the iPhone 4 applies directly to the iPad 2's audio input. You'll still need an adapter to get the audio into the TRRS input jack on the iPad, but being able to record to 8 tracks using GarageBand is completely amazing.

Check out my guide of external microphones and audio input for the iPhone 4, iPad 2 and iPod Touch for more info (more updates coming in the next couple of weeks!).