Yesterday I asked, "Are obituaries obsolete?" My point was not that people don't want to read obituaries. My point was that in this era, we should be building life stories of major figures as online reference material, not waiting until they become death stories.

So today we have a perfect example: Sarah Palin gets picked as John McCain's running mate.

Sarah who? The Anchorage Daily News would seem to be a good place to look, but its coverage was slow out of the blocks. Finally it had a brief story heavily quoting the New York Times, but there's no life story. Why didn't they have a life story already online? She was heavily rumored as a candidate for weeks. Hey, it's Alaska. What if she were eaten by a bear? Would the ADN be prepared?

Wikipedia was ready, of course, with a profile that was edited many hundreds of times over the last few days.

Larger newspapers have for years prepared obituaries in advance on public figures. The shift we need is to recognize that these life stories have current value, and that news sites shouldn't be limited to episodic reporting and incremental detail. Build reference pages. Put them online now. Point to them -- and to other Web resources, whenever it makes sense.

One of the best features of iPhone is that it is the best iPod Apple has created. iPhone has a memory of 8GB, which is more than enough to store multiple movies. So a lot of iPhone users are looking for methods to put their DVD movies on iPhone. There are many DVD to iPhone converters on the market, most of which are for Windows users. And there are not very many choices for Mac OS users.
Part I. For Windows Users: How to Convert DVD to iPhone MP4,MP3 with Cucuosft DVD to iPhone Converter

(1) Download and install Cucusoft DVD to iPhone Converter

(2) Insert the DVD you'd like to convert to the DVD drive.

(3) Click 'File' menu and 'Open DVD', or directly hit 'Open DVD' button to load the DVD.

(4) Select Direct mode or Batch Mode
"Direct Mode" means that user can directly click the DVD Menu to select the movie they want to rip. This mode is very easy for ripping a movie DVD's.
"Batch Mode" means that user can select the DVD titles/chapters and audio track they want to rip via checkbox list. This mode is very easy for batch ripping Music DVD's, MTV DVD's and Episodic DVD's.


Tip:
In "Batch Mode", you not only can select the DVD titles/chapters and audio track, but also can adjust conversion time.So It is easy for you to convert any segment of DVD

(5) Select the output file formats.



Tip:
You can set output video and audio formats.

By using default setting, you can quickly accomplish many common tasks. Normally, please do not change the output setting.

Various types of Output settings are available in Cucusoft DVD to iPhone Converter. The following table provides an overview of the tasks you can complete using settings.

(6) Click the ”Convert ”button on the main interface to start the conversion.



Part II. For Mac Users: How to Convert DVD to iPhone MP4,MP3 with Wondershare DVD to iPhone Converter for Mac

Step 1: Download and install Wondershare DVD to iPhone Converter for Mac

Tip
First, you must make sure the cpu type of your Mac computer, because they have Intel CPU computer and Power PC computer
Download Intel CPU version of Wondershare DVD to iPhone Converter for mac
Download Power PC version of Wondershare DVD to iPhone Converter for mac
Step 2: Import DVD Movie


Click the Load DVD button, select the folder of your DVD movie, and click OK. If the movie is on your disc drive, you can just select the drive and click OK.

Or click the Load IFO button, open the folder of your DVD movie, and you will find two folders in it: AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS. Open the VIDEO_TS folder, select all the IFO files, and then click OK.

After the movie is imported, you can see all the chapters and titles in it, and then you can check the ones you want to convert. If you want to convert the whole movie, you can just keep all the titles or chapters checked.

Step 3: Output Settings


Before the conversion, there are a few settings you should make:

A. Select the iPhone Video format from the Format drop-down list (Besides iPhone video and iPhone audio, this software also supports outputting videos and audios for iPod and Apple TV).

B. Click the Settings button to set encoding settings including video resolution, frame rate, bit rate and video encoder, audio encoding settings including sample rate, channel, bit rate and audio encoder.

C. Name each title/chapter in the Output Filename field, and select the subtitle and audio track for the titles/chapters.

Note: You can check the ”Merger into one file” option to join all the selected DVD titles/chapters into one file instead of creating a separated file for each title/chapter.

Step 4: Click the Start button to start the conversion. And now you can just go talk a walk and wait till the conversion is completed. After that, you can just transfer the created files to your iPhone wth iTunes.

Tip 1. Trim Movie

If you just want to convert a clip from your DVD movie, you can click the Trim icon to capture a clip. In the Trim window, you can trim the length of the current title/chapter by either dragging the Start Time and End Time sliders or setting the time parameters in each corresponding field.

Tip 2: Crop Video


If you DVD video has black sides, you can use this Crop function to remove them. Click the Crop icon to open the Crop window, and set the crop area by dragging the crop frame or setting the four crop parameters (Top, Bottom, Left and Right).

Tip 3: Movie Effect


If you are not content with the original effect, you can click the Effect icon to set the video brightness, contrast, saturation, and audio volume. You can also choose to apply a special effect to your movie video from effects including Gray, Emboss and Negative.

Step 5: Click "Start" button to start the conversion

Bloomberg's accidental premature publication of Steve Jobs' obituary makes me wonder: Are obituaries obsolete?

Journalistic writing is basically episodic. We write about what happened, what is happening, what might happen, but always centered around the moment, and always structured as a disposable item.

In the print world, with rare exceptions a person's death was the only occasion that would justify the publication of that person's life story.

But the Internet has changed the way we deal with time, just as it has collapsed space. Everything is available now ... and that isn't limited to reports of recent events.

Journalists today need to learn to not only report and write episodically, but also in the encyclopedic form. Steve Jobs' life story should be an living document.

This isn't just an issue of obituaries, of course. Every local newspaper should become an evolving resource online. In addition to covering incremental stories, on the Internet we can and should build presentations that place the latest developments in the context of the longterm story arc.

I'll have more to say on that subject in a future episode.