Ben Balser wrote an excellent article describing why maintaining sufficient free space on your hard disk is so important. Read it here. And thanks Ben for sharing this.

Thinking of cool tips, David Scott sent me the following:

"Larry -- FYI, I picked up my Flanders Scientific BM210 monitor and Blackmagic Design UltraStudio Mini Monitor yesterday. Wow! After downloading the latest Blackmagic Design drivers and software, success was pretty much plug-and-play. The result is a gorgeous, fully calibrated version of my FCP X editing and I only wish I'd know about this solution sooner. I had been doing a more-or-less OK job of guessing my output, always keeping well within the settings that your training recommends for FCP X but I've really wanted accurate confirmation via a really good monitor. Now I have it.

I'll never understand why this specific recommendation hasn't been prominently posted by someone, somewhere. One-man shops like mine aren't necessarily informed about pro-level gear and I guess that's why we ask a lot of questions. The cost is not trivial but it's a far cry from five grand-plus. Shoot, I could have paid for a good chunk of it with the money I spent on a series of consumer-level HDTVs variously recommended by on-line posters like me who were searching for something good. Needless to say, none those were worth much because they weren't designed for that task. Thanks!"