processing

yesterday, @DustForEyes posted an "AR scratching" video by vanderlin to stealth board & twitter. it's tagged with tags such as AR, augmented reality, opencv, and openframeworks, so I googled some of these. the AR markers seem like the fiducial markers found in reactable - note there's going to be a performance / demo of one of these called dubtable at ripped next week which would be cool to check out.

Vade's blog also mentions a Processing workshop he went to - Daniel Shiffman's workshop pages has tutorials and examples for Processing. his website is http://shiffman.net/ - check the examples here also.

Shiffman teaches java programming :

beginners course info

advanced sessions

the class delicious links are @ http://del.icio.us/tag/natureofcode/

& class wiki is @ http://www.shiffman.net/coursewiki/

NYU colab site has some good info & links on multimedia, processing, max/msp, gps and more
http://colab.hunter.cuny.edu/colabcms/news.php

This is a reply to a post on Stealth board listing the software I'm using most often these days.

http://www.stealthmag.com/board/viewthread.php?tid=6461

yeah gimp is good. the interface isn't as nice as photoshop but it's free / open source and has many of the same features for image editing & conversion. if u were a graphic designer u'd probably go with photoshop cs or similar but for simple resizing/cropping and converting gimp does the same job.
http://www.gimp.org

here's a list of my fav s/w atm (at least what I'm using most these days). I've been playing with a bit of videoblogging so a lot of this is video related. (not in any order)

isadora : http://www.troikatronix.com/isadora.html
it's really cool for realtime video processing. so u could spend hours using it. even if u don't have a camera yourself, just download some quicktime movies from one of the videoblogging sites and do a cutup remix or something. the demo version (which I'm still using) only lets u save 5sec, so to make anything longer, u can just save 5sec at a time then past e them altogether in quicktime or another editing tool. some of the effects are similar to jitter (the video add on to max/msp) but they're all prebuilt so u don't have to write the code. just connect the patch cords.
http://www.troikatronix.com/isadora.html

max/msp http://www.cycling74.com
- it's great for writing realtime music. generally used in art / sound art installations or universities and experimental performances. jitter is the video processing as mentioned above. easy to spend hours using it. though the learning curve is a bit steep until u get the hang of it. I did a course which was helpful. has a 30 day demo. I bought the student price which is $59 for 9months licence so handy if you're doing a project.
http://www.cycling74.com

quicktime pro - www.apple.com/quicktime
if u pay the $30 to upgrade to quicktime pro u can then do video editing in quicktime. it does interactive video as well. and you can add text tracks, html links, link the whole video movie.
www.apple.com/quicktime

freemind mind mapping software
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
- this is great for writing all those ideas down and collecting your thoughts & brainstorming
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

drupal - www.drupal.org
- I use this every day. it's a CMS (content management system) and has features such as blog, rss, chat, forums, user access, stories, project management, images, videoblogging & podcasting support, + a heap more. basically it creates your website then you can start posting information up and sorting/catergorising it
www.drupal.org

if u don't have a website, setup a blogger.com account (free) and start posting info and your creations and let us know the links.

avid free DV - http://www.avid.com/freedv/index.asp
- it's a cutdown version of avid's non-linear editing software. perfect for home use. has the same interface as the versions used in professional video editing houses so good to learn if u hope to work in that field one day.
http://www.avid.com/freedv/index.asp

skype - www.skype.com
- for chatting to your friends for free. good for collaborative projects also.
www.skype.com

eZediaQTI - http://www.ezedia.com/products/eZediaQTI/
- for creating quicktime videos / videoblog movies. easy to do text and tracks and interactivity if you don't want to do it manually in quicktime. demo version limited to 5 objects but that's usually ok for small projects
http://www.ezedia.com/products/eZediaQTI/

itunes - www.apple.com/itunes
- for listening to music and podcasts. ipodder/lemon also good
www.apple.com/itunes

audacity - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
- for audio recording and basic processing. u could do a track for the stealth remix thread in this!
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

hiphopstarz - www.hiphopstarz.com
- free, basic sequencer for creating beats. it's a very simple interface. looks a bit dodgy but works ok for beginner level stuff. doesn't have all the features of cuebase etc, but it's free. if anyone has another good free /opensource replacement, let us know!
www.hiphopstarz.com

fireant - http://fireant.tv/download
- great videoblog aggregator / viewer. you can also use itunes or just view in the web pages, but this is a separate app which does it also. they usually recommend some good videos to watch / subscribe to.
http://fireant.tv/download

if I had a mac I'd be using quartz composer for video also. but I don't so I can't :(

ourmedia - ourmedia.org + Internet Archive - www.archive.org
- I use this to upload video and audio to IA. it's also a blogging site similar to blogger but looks different. if u need hosting space, this could be an option for original works ie don't upload your mp3 collection or u'll be banned. but if u make a track or a video they'd love u to upload it (free)
www.ourmedia.org

some of the producers here could possibly recommend better audio software. but have a play with video - it's fun. combines everything!

microsoft visual c# - www.microsoft.com
- if you want to try programming, c# is probably good to start with. it's a bit like c and java, but you can use the IDE and create windows/web apps pretty easily.
www.microsoft.com

flickr - www.flickr.com
- upload all your photos. it's social software, so you can add friends and tags, and see when your friends upload new pics, and they see when u do. also good for hosting your images. u can get a free account or upgrade to a paid account if u have lots of pics
www.flickr.com

I went to 2005 electrofringe a few weeks ago in Newcastle, Australia. I haven't finished going over my notes or posting some of the links to the artist's projects, but one of the workshops I went to was on Quartz Composer hosted by dpwolf. The software runs on a MAC, which unfortunately I don't have. :( perhaps if we get a project bonus this year I might be able to save up for one so I can try the software (and also max / msp }. anyway, I also came across the name dpwolf on the videoblogging mail list and low and behold it's the same person. he seems to do some work with Adrian Miles, who does some great projects with video and interactive quicktime and media in general. small world. I'd love to do the course Adrian teaches but can't afford to give up work to do it fulltime. due to excessive work commitments, I had to drop the Internet Communication course I was doing at CQU. now that I've finally upgraded my (this) site and moving most of my projects online (so as not to be so dependant on my laptop in case of travelling without it), I'd like to experiment more with blogging, videoblogging, podcasting and digital art and music projects (in addition to listing other people's projects on the site), hence, why the blog posts here have now become more personal. I've been reading about and been across these media for a while but haven't had much time to play myself, so that's the goal for the next year (& hopefully continuing onwards).