Jing is a concept that TechSmith is evaluating to see if it can improve everyday conversations. They are currently trying to determine if Jing will become a [not free] product by gathering feedback from people who sign up for “beta” accounts. They are hoping the people will use it to “improve daily conversations via email, IM chats and blog posts.”

Edublogs is currently using it to create their tutorials. It works well and seemed like a good idea to try, so I did. I must admit it does work well. It has a 5 minute capture limit and that works okay. Who really wants to watch more than 5 minutes of person’s online life at at time anyway? Plus, it actually keeps the file size down.

So, here’s some tests I did to see what I thought of it and to contemplate how useful it might be for this semester.

Test 2: DIY Projector Blog Post.

This one worked a little better and I actually found it a lot more interesting to watch and hear the typing of making a blog post than reading one online. This may go somewhere…

Test 3: Email Communications.

After reviewing this screen capture I decided that there was too much personal information contained in the .swf file and so I have decided not to post it. But the capture provided a good learning experience and I plan to continue this playing with this (taking care to exclude private information)

Test 4: Web Searching.

This was my test without the mute button pushed. It didn’t turn out to be too interesting…my exploration failed to yield the desired results. However, it did turn out to be worth repeating…

Test 5: Posting the files.

Oh man…this was a NIGHTMARE. As always, thank you Jerry for your help. Why? It involved finding and adding a new Wordpress plug-in so that an advanced editor could be activated (Advanced TinyMCE Editor’ for Wordpress)

Before and After the Advanced Editor

Figuring out that it had a bug…finding yet another wordpress plug-in to fix the bug (Viper’s Video Quick Tags)…

Attempting to convert the .swf files because they don’t really work (as you have seen above) …two hours later we finally had a post. Arg! My watch had stopped ticking, I was late for dinner and I missed my walk!

Will I do it again? Of course I will. My overall opinion of Jing? It has possibilities and I plan on using it while it is free.

I must admit that I still like SnapZPro and I may use that too. We will see.

Love@War: romance/war comic deals out the offensive yuks - Boing Boing
Love@War: romance/war comic deals out the offensive yuks
Posted by Cory Doctorow, March 11, 2008 9:14 AM | permalink

“Army@Love: The Hot Zone Club” is the first collection of Rick Veitch and Gary Erskine’s demented satirical war/romance comic book, concerning the pornographic adventures of the middle-managers drafted to serve in America’s endless war in “Afbaghistan,” where corporate sponsorship logos adorn the fuselages of jets, and combatants gossip with their loved-ones via cell-phone while taking heavy casualties defending the contractor-erected shopping malls in the middle of the wasteland.

The world of Army@Love starts from a simple and savage premise: the corporatization of war-fighting will lead, inevitably, to the ultimate stop-loss program, through which middle-managers from giant corporate marketing organizations will be inducted (at employers’ expense) to fight the war through novel ways. It is these marketers who conceive of the war as permanent peak experience, a high that can only be achieved through constant life-endangerment, massive, mid-combat orgies, and relentless slaughter.

This is a funny comic book, but it’s a deeply offensive — and extremely thought-provoking — kind of funny, the kind of funny we need a lot more of if we’re to keep from laughing ourselves into the grave. Link

I wonder what anagram comes up for huckleberry?

Sternest Meanings: webuser: huckleberry sternest: Blurry cheek

hmmm… Somehow I think it might be right.

So let us see how urban dictionary defines huckleberry…

• “I’m your huckleberry” means “I’m just the man you’re looking for!” “I’m your huckleberry…” Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday in Tombstone

…well that could be good and Val Kilmer is certainly handsome…

• Means a backwoods, six toed, inbred hillbilly from the American south. Look at those Huckleberry (s) at Wal-Mart.

…I am simply sitting here shaking my head …moving on…

Lets ask the magic 8 ball if we should get one…

…I will take the 8 balls advice under consideration…

So What is it?  It is like a periscope for your iSight.

An interesting device, the huckleberry turns your mac into a webcam. I thought it might have some interesting uses in the art as daily life video sequences (it does make me wonder about the ethical issues associated with sitting around a coffee house webcamming people and listening in on their random conversations…. hmmm… I must admit it’s not stealthy so anyone with a small amount of awareness might wonder why you had a giant mirror like object strapped to the top of your mac. Don’t mind us…Mac{key} never wanted to be left in the dark again so we went ahead and equipped him with his own Northern Industrial Headlamp…yep…that’ll stop all the questions…

Anywhoo it is not too expensive for investigating at a 28.95 + shipping and handling and truthfully it might be a very useful tool for one-on-one interviews. The Delicious Library application also looks interesting, kinda like iTunes for video. Perhaps worth additional investigation with a price tag of $40.00.

According to the Huckleberry website:

“The Huckleberry 3 uses two mirrors to provide a full 180 degree change in camera direction.

Fun Uses For Huckleberry:

Film home movies in iMovie HD.
Create stop-motion video in iStopMotion.
Scan your media with Delicious Library.
Take pictures in Photo Booth.
Much more!”

I figure I’ll add it to the wish list and if I find it really does have a practical application for the semester maybe the Easter Bunny will leave it for me…or not…

What is becoming of us?

GUESS WHAT THEIR FAVORITE TOOL IS? PROCESSING!

Processing can be downloaded from the Processing website at: http://www.processing.org/.I am soon to download it and am working on getting books and resources to see if I can figure this out. The Processing website has a great list of books and articles at http://processing.org/learning/books/
I have also been asking around and have a few people who are much better programmers than me willing to provide assistance. Hot Dog!I am hoping I can handle this and that it isn’t an excursion in the wrong direction. We will see…

On another note, I also found this at http://mteww.com/

onKawaraUpdate (v2) - I don’t think it translated well, you don’t get the visceral effect of all the labor and intent…but it is something to think about.

This on just came over the wire at work…

I just spoke with Sgt. Walton (CofC Public Safety).

Larry says, “Yes,” they can in fact set up surveillance gear at JC Long (in response to the suspected theft of equipment).

Larry says the following will be needed

• Exact location (e.g. room number)
• The request must be approved by Bob Cape
• The request must also be approved by the Chief of Public Safety
• The timeframe of the proposed surveillance.

Let me know what you think, and I’ll initiate the request.

Well this has really made me wonder how I feel about camera’s everywhere! Last week I was researching surveillance and performance art for one of my maps…This week I get to ponder how it is going to feel to be “watched” at work.

some stuff of interest:

• CAMERA’S ALL OVER CHARLESTON (NO MAPS, RULES, OR CONTACT INFORMATION)

• EXPECTATIONS OF PRIVACY IN PUBLIC SPACES

• BIG BROTHER

• THE SURVEILLANCE CAMERA PLAYERS: completely distrustful of all government

PERHAPS WE SHOULD STAGE OUR VERY OWN SURVEILLANCE CAMERA THEATER?

Spielberg launching social network for UFO and paranormal buffs?

Posted by David Pescovitz, March 4, 2008 1:52 PM | permalink

TechCrunch reports a rumor that Steven Spielberg is readying a new social network for people who are interested in unusual and/or paranormal phenomena like UFOs and ghosts. According to the TechCrunch post, “the new social network may also have original video content investigating alleged ghosts and UFO stories.” This has the potential to be very interesting as Spielberg has had a lifelong interest in this topic. Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind is one of my all-time favorite films and in later years, I realized how in touch he was with UFO research at the time. This was brought home for me when I learned that esteemed UFO researcher Jacques Vallee, a past president of Institute for the Future where I work, was the inspiration for Claude Lacombe, the French scientist in the film played by François Truffaut. Apparently, Spielberg’s interest in strange phenomena wasn’t just tied to Close Encounters either. From TechCrunch:

Spielberg has apparently had at least one paranormal experience himself. There are stories of him staying in a hotel called Excelsior House and being so frightened by ghosts that he fled the room and moved 20 miles away. We’ve also heard anecdotes about Spielberg seeing the ghost of a dead relative repeatedly as a child. Whether based in reality or the product of an exceptional imagination, these experiences may have had an impact on his life’s work and this upcoming social network.

More pondering…more emails…more searching…is it possible to build your own projection unit? Of course it is! Full instructions are available at: http://lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8972

I am downloading them as we “speak”… Now to find the people (me and my geeky friends) with all the pieces and parts hanging out in their garage (a.k.a. studio).

Curious? Search for DIY projector on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=DIY+projector&search_type=

Until tomorrow. Now I have to finish my online video editing class for tomorrow.

Cheers.

Happiness and Butterflies! RFID looks doable! This week will be spent trying to figure out:

• How to program the chips
• The system for cataloging the information
• how to find the patterns

My guess is this is going to take more than a week.

Here’s how I think this is going to be accomplished:)

More updates later, tonight I am testing dimdim with Jerry and finishing my studio plan.
Cheers.

Description: Arduino is an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple i/o board and a development environment that implements the Processing/Wiring language. Arduino can be used to develop stand-alone interactive objects or can be connected to software on your computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP). The open-source IDE can be downloaded for free (currently for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux).

We now ship the new Arduino Diecimila. A great description of the new functionality can be found here (USB fuse protection, software reset, and much more!). Board comes fully assembled and tested with ATMega168 pre-loaded with bootloader. Please see the Arduino support forum for more information about this new board revision and bootloader.

Documents:

• Arduino Home Page
• Diecimila Features
• How To
• Programming Reference
• Arduino Forum