There's a couple of conferences coming up which I wouldn't mind checking out.. don't think I'll have a chance in person as I'm still in Delhi for work, but I think they'll have video / audio recordings of them so I can check out later.

Vloggercon 2006 is being held in San Francisco this year. Here's the blurb from their site:
"VLOGGERCON 2006 is the intersection between media-makers and technology. A space for dialog and interaction. Of creation and collaboration. A media village born on the internet, and making camp for one weekend in San Francisco.

In the past year, videoblogging has grown into a myriad of forms with a worldwide voice. And your voice is needed at Vloggercon– after all, the media is being made by you so it’s your voice that we want to hear! Vloggercon is a two-day collection of roundtable discussions about the emergence and the future of this new medium; not a series of lec-tures. This conference is created for meeting and learning from each other, so be ready to share your thoughts!

Vloggercon 2006 will be held June 10 & 11 at the Swedish American Hall, 2174 Market Street, San Francisco CA 94114. "
http://www.vloggercon.com/ - tickets are available online.

Where 2.0
This one's about locative and GIS / Google Earth, Second Life / Electric Sheep & similar web apps. Would be good to see what's happening on this front at the moment. Here's the blurb from their site :

" Everything happens somewhere. With open source and free web mapping tools like Ka-Map and Google Maps, we finally have a way to display location information. At last year's Where 2.0, we put the spotlight on the grassroots developers building mash-ups on platforms from Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google. This year we'll look at the latest developments in those platforms as well as the latest startups, civic projects, and labs experiments built on them.

In addition you'll find source mapping tools, open standards for data and location web services, and sensors for obtaining location data. We'll learn how the established geo industry is reacting to the first businesses making money from their grassroots geospatial projects. There's no better place to meet the people behind the mash-ups, the people behind the platforms, and the people looking ahead to the future of geospatial. "
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/where2006/

here's a photo of my new purchase - finally went to a mac! now I just have to get used to using the apple key instead of the ctrl key in windows / on my old laptop.

have been reading about Boot camp - it's all over the mail lists and blogosphere at the moment - MACs running Windows XP. even macs with infamous BlueScreenOfDeath (BSOD). interesting times ahead.

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

here's another email sent to vlogtheory yahoogroups list on some thoughts and conversations I've been having today.

thanks for the replies guys.I find observing and loosely analysing communities really interesting. human behaviour in groups I guess. online behaviour is a particular interest.

(likely another non topic message, so delete now if not interested)

ok, it's a really hot sat afternoon here now (Auckland) and I've just returned from lunch and taking photos of street art & graf so have turned on the aircon and am emailing to cool down. at lunch I mentioned videoblogging to my friend, who hadn't really heard of it or realised it had a name. but one of the conversations was the difference between personal blogs and personal videoblogs. the main differentiation I see, is that written blogs (or even books), is really the little voice in your head speaking - letting it have a voice, whereas video diary entries are more real as you see the persons expressions and location not just descriptions of it. so you (the viewer) can connect differently to it. ie almost real vs imaginary, though not imaginary in the context of made up, but rather descriptive / virtual reality open to interpretation - the reality inside your mind compared to reality that you see. (prob not explaining this properly, perhaps I should have had the camera running at the time of the conversation as it was more coherent then).

I sent this email to the vlogtheory yahoogroups list, posting here to keep track of it.

Hi everyone, to change the topic slightly, and I'm not sure if it's really videoblogging theory or related per se, but one thing I like to notice is the changing moods and behaviours of when different technologies or interests are taken up. I've never done actual studies on it, so my thoughts are purely from observations, but I've seen it happen across many fields. do you know what academic studies there might be on these things?

reading more saria website articles. from what I can tell whilst reading the Ibarat 01 publication, life in the colony follows different rules than in the cities. local communities are tight-knit. lanes and streets become named after the locals, businesses who inhabit them or are even based on a purely descriptive nature. I suppose this is how early settlement streets in Australian cities were named also - that's why there are so many church streets with churches, railway parades next to the railways, bridge streets with bridges, hill lanes with hills etc. the Indian stories remind me of the City of God / City of Men movie/series where the kids go about creating a map of the favela they live in and the dramas and ego flattering they go through to offer naming rights to prominent community members.

it'd be interesting to see the work Sarai is doing whilst in country if I get the chance. they have a range of projects with visiting contributors as well as in-house fellows working in different areas.

Blogging has become very popular over the last few years as I'm sure most people are aware. here's one possibly for the record books - an Indian blog entry received a comment 4,827 words long! almost like writing a paper..

notes about studying methods:

http://e-courses.cqu.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=...

SQRRR METHOD OF READING

There is a method of reading that all of our students will benefit from; it is called the SQ3R. Let me describe how to use the SQRRR method (Believe me it is wonderfully efficient).

I have an external 120Gb firewire hard drive which has travelled with me from Sydney to UK to Auckland. It's worked really well. Well, until last week when it fell over and now makes horrible clunking noises when it's spinning up. Unfortunately this drive holds my ipod music files - copies of my cds and records that I couldn't bring with me from home. Luckily I'd done a full transfer to my ipod a couple of weeks ago, so the music is intact, but I can't export it back onto a hard drive (planning on buying another 2.5" drive instead of the firewire drive). I just found an article on endgaget about transferring files from your ipod back to hard drive using ephPOD. cool :) now I just have to buy the new drive and try it out.

week 2 photoshop files for mmst11001 uni subject

different 3d balls, saved at different qualities
(unfortunately I cropped the drop shadow)

I should have spent more time on getting the image to look more 3d, but I wanted to try out the different formats vs filesizes and quality so I spent more time on this aspect.

reading notes from Balsem's chapter on Semiotics

page 7-9
(pdf page 3-4)
[quote]
... signs are socially active forces, and so is interpretation. Therefore, the study of signs and the semiotic perspective on social communication is a relevant activity. But it can only be so if the factors so far encountered are taken into account. Signs are not things, but the result of acts carried out by individuals belonging to social groups. They do not emerge in isolation, but in relation to other signs, previously produced. They are based on grounds and result in effects that deserve to be studied as part of a larger endeavour whose goals stretch beyond purely academic understanding.

I received and email from the guys at www.radioheritage.net who are setting up a non-profit project involved in 'Sharing the stories of Pacific Radio'. The site has a wealth of information, but they are looking for assistance in putting audio on their site, so people can listen to some of the radio programs. Unfortunately I don't have a great deal of spare time to assist them in depth, but I can provide some advice if that's of use so I replied as such. Perhaps this will be useful to others as well. We were always getting asked for advice on how to do internet radio (it's rather easy once you do it - people think it's harder than it actually is!), and these days with podcasting being so popular and becoming more prominent, anyone can create, broadcast and distribute their own radio programs, whether they be music related, talk show/story format or a combination. anyway, here's a few ideas, I'll try to post more as I get a chance. perhaps some tutorials or help notes on how to setup these things. posting video shows/videoblogs is what I've been trying out lately too, though most of my videos are still offline as I practice editing and capturing the story element.

semester 3 uni timetable

[CSV]
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
day,week 1,week 2,week 3,week 4,week 5,week 6,vacation,week 7,week 8,week 9,week 10,week 11,week 12,review,exams
date,14-Nov,21-Nov,28-Nov,5-Dec,12-Dec,19-Dec,26-Dec,2-Jan,9-Jan,16-Jan,23-Jan,30-Jan,6-Feb,13-Feb,27-Feb
course 1,,,,,assignment 1,,,,assignment 2,,,,assignment 3,,
MMST11001,,,,,animated gif & essay,,,,cd cover & essay,,,,hypertext & html,,
,,,,,due Friday 16th,,,,due Friday 13th,,,,due Friday 10th,,
,,,,,final edit Wed 14th,,,,final edit Wed 11th,,,,final edit Wed 8th,,
,,,,,20%,,,,30%,,,,50%,,
,,,AS1,AS1,AS1,,,AS3,AS3,AS3,AS3,AS3,AS3,,
,,,,,,AS2,AS2,AS2,AS2,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
course 2,msg board,msg board,msg board,msg board,msg board,msg board,,msg board,msg board,msg board,msg board,msg board,msg board,,
,WK1,,WK3,,WK5,,,WK7,,WK9,,WK11,,,
GOAS,,WK2,,WK4,,WK6,,,WK8,,WK10,,WK12,,
,0%,0%,0%,0%,0%,0%,,0%,0%,0%,0%,0%,0%,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
[/CSV]

notes from the Media Education and the Marketplace video lectures

I woke up at about 4:30 this morning then couldn't sleep properly, thinking about this week's nightmare at work, but must have finally drifted back to sleep as I woke again at 11:09 and then drifted off for another sleep.

I forget the reason why, but I remember talking with 3 other people, though they were more like avatars, or characters out of lord of the rings. a wizard character carrying a long wooden staff, and two others. for some reason we decided that the only way to solve whatever we needed to solve was to walk across this huge expanse of water and land on the island we'd heard about (but not seen or been before) on the other side. we had special fittings on our shoes that allowed us to walk on the water - but as long as we didn't stop. if we stopped, we'd fall into the water and likely drown. so off we went, walking, walking, walking for what seemed like hours. the water was very calm, much like a lake, with hardly any waves to disturb our journey. after walking for a long time and seemingly only half way there, one of us said, "you know, it would be good if there was a pylon or wooden deck in the middle of this waterway so we could stop and rest for a short time. soon after, that's exactly what we saw. a wooden deck was floating in the water, though it was fixed to the bottom of the seabed. we walked to it and stepped onto it. from the water, it had looked as if it were empty, but as soon as we stepped onto it, we saw that there were many others there also. once on the wooden planks it looked like a platform, there was a barrier which most people were sitting behind. many of them seemed to be school children from a private school, aged about 12-15, all neatly dressed in school uniform of long dark coloured shorts and white button up shirts. there were also some others who seemed, from their clothes at least, to be waiting to go on their way to work. I looked out the otherside of the platform and could see boats moored against the side of the platform. we asked what they were doing there and received replies of 'oh nothing' , 'we're just having a rest'. we asked if they were waiting for a train to collect them and take them to the island on the otherside, and they said, 'no, there's no train out here, we're just resting'. soon we heard a loud irregular splashing noise, and turned to see a gigantic crocodile heading towards the platform. it had what seemed to be train carriages on it's back and was steaming through the water towards the platform. it was just like a train, though the carriages were irregularly shaped, much like enlarged pieces of the crocodile's skin blown up to a size that people and avatars could sit inside. the front carriage sat behind the crocodile's head and snout and had an opening so you could sit inside and outside on small benches if you wanted to see the view as you travelled. the crocodile made a wide circle in the water and turned around so it was facing the island. it seemed as though the crocodile train would not take us back the way we had walked, but it could take us to the island which was where we wanted to go. we walked to board the crocodile once it had berthed, then were lost in all the workers and school children as they rushed to board also. I was thinking, 'but they said they weren't waiting for the train, now see them rush to board so as not to miss it, strange'. we spoke to the crocodile as he was waiting for people to climb aboard and he said it was a good job and he enjoyed it and that crocdiles had changed alot since we had last heard of them. they no longer tried to eat people, but instead gave them rides to where they wanted to go, similar to what the dolphins had once done. he smiled, then we climbed aboard into the front compartment and off we went. the crocodile's legs seemed like they were spinning in the water, making loud whirring, splashing noises. the trip was quite comfortable.

I went to the Auckland Hip Hop Summit on Saturday afternoon and caught some of the b-boying / breakdancing DISRUPT THE FLOOR heats and semis. The finals were held that night but I didn't make along. The Hip Hop Summit website will have the results. I took some video and am trying to convert it so I can upload to archive.org. What a challenge this is proving to be! The camera records direct to DVD which is great for previewing directly on my pc (or dvd player - though I don't have one here in Auckland), but the software that it comes with doesn't provide much in the way of conversion utilities. :( I have some software called MGI VideoWave which I've had for a while - since buying my Belkin usb/rca converter I think. It works ok - it's like a mini- Premiere package with a basic interface. But it doesn't open mpeg2 files or DVD .vob files directly.. So, to use this method, I need to connect the video camera to the Belkin video input and capture the vide and audio. Now, the camera does AC3 audio inherantly which sounds great on the DVD, but pretty crap once it's been recaptured - especially since the input on the level meter is stuck at 100% so it's really high level. I can capture the video this way, save as .avi file, then open in Quicktime and convert to .mov but quicktime is dropping the audio altogether!

Join today's top creators and producers of digital content at the
Vancouver International Digital Festival (VIDFEST) June 25-26, 2004.

www.vidfest.com

Keynote Panels + Short Films + Master Classes+ Web Design + Animation + Video Game Championship = A Superlative Showcase of Digital Media

Don't Miss it! *Early Bird Tickets On Sale Now Until June 4th*

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