I was initially a little worried when I heard that a new Star Trek movie was in the works, and it was going to focus on the early years of the original cast of characters. Gene Roddenberry had a very clear vision of who the characters in his Trek universe were, and it would be oh-so-easy for Abrams to throw that all away. But he didn’t. Instead, he embraced what made each character unique and used that to breathe new life into Gene’s dream.

Just like the best of the original series episodes, the new Star Trek movie uses the characters to build the story. Kirk, Spock and McCoy all play off each other as they learn and grow. Uhura gets to be the strong woman that 1960′s TV didn’t let her be. Mr. Scott works miracles of technology, and Sulu and Chekov get to be more than space chauffeurs.

The movie gives us a fresh look at the characters we’ve known for years, but keeps them familiar, too. That’s important since there are plenty of long-time Trek fans that wouldn’t be happy if the U.S.S. Enterprise crew came across like caricatures of the original cast.

The story draws you in right away and keeps a firm grip on you all the way up until the end credits roll. The musical score plays wonderfully off of the scenes without detracting from the story, and the special effects (aside from an occasional lens flare effect that I found distracting) are wonderful eye candy without being gaudy. The story works well, too, for long time Trek fans and new comers alike.

I could’ve walked away from this movie feeling cheated, like Abrams gave us a commercialized bit of nostalgia, but he didn’t. What he did give us was a fresh new take on a pillar in the Sci-Fi world — a take that’s welcome and will give us great stories for years to come.

And just in case I wasn’t clear: If you haven’t seen Star Trek yet, go get in line right now. It’s OK. I’ll still be here when you get back.

I know what you’re thinking: “Jeff, this whole digital TV thing totally snuck up on everyone. It was so frakking sneaky that it could have slit our throats in our sleep! We’re lucky to still be alive!”

Indeed you are lucky, my little TV-loving friends, because it’s been next to impossible to get ready for the big digital transition with only about 12 years warning. Here’s how the timeline played out:

In 1996, Congress agreed that a switch from analog to digital over-the-air TV made sense because TV stations could offer higher quality images, run multiple programs at the same time on a single channel, and it would free up all kinds of radio frequencies for public safety. They set the target cut off date at December 31, 2006, but left it to a future Congress to actually mandate the switchover date. Eventually, Congress set the official cut off date at the end of the day on February 16, 2009.

For good measure, the government also decided that TVs manufactured after February 2007 had to support digital TV signals, and also set up a subsidy program to help people that didn’t have digital-compatible TVs and couldn’t afford the $60-ish price tag for a converter box buy what they need. They even set up a Web site with all of the gory details.

Now let’s fast forward to late January, 2009. TV stations have been hard at work preparing for the mandated switch over, and many have been simulcasting in analog and digital for some time. Congress, however, is all freaked out that no one is ready for the change that’s only a couple of weeks away, so they pass legislation that pushed the transition date out to June 12.

This is where it gets confusing for consumers because some full-power stations could still drop their analog broadcasts on February 17, and then other stations can do the same after March 14. That means people that procrastinated will still lose their favorite TV stations, but now they won’t know when. It also means that stations that weren’t included in the February switch over group have to budget in the substantial expense of maintaining their analog transmission system — and in the end, the same people that procrastinated for over 12 years will probably still be unprepared when June 12 rolls around.

Now that Congress has established that it’s capable of legislating for procrastination, I’m thinking this is a prime opportunity to fix some other problems we have. We’ll start with moving the beginning of the work week back to Wednesday so that students can finish their weekend homework, and business types can finish up their Monday presentations before heading in to work. Gift-giving holidays can be moved back a few days, too, so that there’s time to go out and buy presents.

So the DTV transition has been delayed, people won’t know when the stations they watch are cutting over to only digital signals, and TV stations get to shoulder unexpected expenses. Sweet.

And why blog about the digital TV several days after February 17 instead of right after Congress moved the date? I just wanted to see how this procrastination thing would work out for me, too.

Crap. There goes my Saturday afternoon.

Aside from the brain-scrubbing videos, YouTube rocks. It’s packed tight with entertainment, training, video blogs, promotional videos and more. You can’t ask for a better deal as a viewer: YouTube rocks.

For the people providing all that tasty content, YouTube’s ultra easy-ness means that you don’t need a rocket science degree to figure out how to get your message, entertainment, or drunk videos out to the world. So what’s not to love?

It’s the branding. Every time someone views a video you upload, they see the YouTube logo — great branding for YouTube, but not so much for you because your content is branded as YouTube and not just you. That’s not a big deal to everyone, but if controlling your brand, even if it’s a video podcast, is important to you, then it’s time to pay attention to your branding. Viewers should remember your logo, and not YouTube’s logo.

If I’m going to steer the brand conscious away from YouTube, the least I can do is offer some alternatives. How about Vimeo or Viddler. I especially like Viddler because they make it easy to embed your own logo in your videos, but both offer simple ways to add video content to your own site.

Here’s a great example of controlling your brand: Don McAllister’s ScreenCastsOnline. I don’t know who hosts his videos, and it doesn’t matter. Everything carries the ScreenCastsOnline brand, and there’s never any doubt who is in charge of the content.

Of course, there’s always a trade off because life sucks that way. In this case, the trade off is that while you have more control over your own branding, you’ll probably have to work harder to get people to find your work. YouTube is pretty much ubiquitous, so that’s where everyone goes first when they want to find a video. Yeah, I do it, too.

Think about who gets the branding benefit from your hard work. It might be YouTube, but it could be you.

And now I’m heading over to YouTube for some 2 Hot Girls in the Shower time. No, it’s not what you’re thinking. Get your mind out of the gutter.

It’s true: The Big Bang Theory totally rocks and I should have started watching it sooner. But that’s not the point. The point is that those guys at Apple are frakking smart and anyone that’s worried the little Cupertino-company-that-could will lose relevance now that Steve Jobs is on a medical leave of absence needs to take a big step back and look at the bigger picture.

Let me illustrate. I’m given season one as a gift. All I have to do is click a link in an email to open iTunes and start downloading all of the episodes. When I’m ready to start watching, I plug my MacBook Pro into my TV and even though everything works easily and just as it should I immediately get why people that have an Apple TV love it. The Apple guys already have me contemplating a new Mac hardware purchase.

I don’t start the episode by pressing keys on my Mac. Instead, I whip out my iPhone and start tapping away with Apple’s own Remote application. Now I’m starting to feel like I’m an Apple commercial, but it gets even better.

Between episodes I realize that I really like the show’s theme song — not a big surprise since the Barenaked Ladies have always put a smile on my face. I fire up the iTunes Store app on my iPhone, do a quick search for the theme song, download it and start listening to it in under a minute.

The point is that Apple gets how to fit all the pieces together and make it easy to get and use music and video, and they know how to design the devices and software that tie all the parts together in a way that makes you want to use this stuff. They pulled all this off in a compelling way that no other company has been able to match so far, and they did it in a way that makes people feel OK about spending money — well, relatively OK. There’s only so much one company can do when the recording industry and the RIAA are involved.

OK, one little rant: Music and video download prices are still higher than they should be. Someone really needs to turn the oxygen flow back on for these guys and help them see that their 100 year old ideas on recordings needs to go. It’s a new world, people. Welcome to the 21st century.

Now to head outside and see if Apple TVs grow on trees.

OK, I’m sorry. That roll-over-showing-the-belly analogy was kind of creepy. How about “give up the ghost,” or “took its ball and went home,” or maybe “threw in the towel” — which is what I settled on for my article at iPodObserver.com.

This whole Blu-ray versus HD DVD battle has been going on far too long, and I’m really glad it’s over. Now we can finally get down to business, buy a player, and start watching super-high resolution movies on our nifty HDTVs. Imagine: Images so crisp and clear that you can see individual hairs on someone’s head. Simply amazing.

Here’s the irony for me: I really don’t like how movies look in HD — at least the ones I’ve seen so far. They certainly are clear and show tons of detail, but the problem for me is that they look like video tape and not film. I like the richness you see in film even though I know that comes with an overall loss of image quality and detail. And since I just can’t be consistent, I prefer digital photos to film because they tend to be clearer and show more detail. I also like that you don’t see any “grain” in the images like you do with traditional film-based pictures.

HD movies also have a kind of flat look to me, like the depth is gone in the shots. That said, watching individual water drops fly as the Flying Dutchman surfaces in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is stunningly cool.

I know… I’m just going to have to adjust to the new look, and I bet that over time film makers will find ways to make HD really work for them in a way that turns movies into something more than we have today. Yes, I will eventually buy a Blu-ray player, and it will make a great upscaling player for my current DVD collection, too.

That can’t be bad, right?