Tuesday, August 24, 2010 at 5:12PM I love when I fall into things like this video from the YouTube Nature PBS Channel. Not only is the technology and tenacity of the the documentary team in collecting the images that they did. The following embedded video is a short describing the making of the documentary
Friday, July 30, 2010 at 10:04AM Well, one of the big items floating though the blogosphere today was an posting in YouTube’s daily blog stating that you will now be able to produce up to 15 minute video that you will be able to post to YouTube. So for you guys that bumping up against the limit here is you go. Enjoy!
Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 9:22AM With so much video available from so many sources how do you choose what you are going to watch? I know it’s hard but I keep up with most the content that interests me by using iTunes to collect the Podcasts or going directly to the content provider’s site to access the information. Microsoft has created several “communities” that contain information about products, how to use them and discussions of projects and events surrounding the software giant. Channel 9 is one of those communities. One way of keeping up with new content coming from this site is to subscribe to its RSS feed. If you are new to RSS and the ability to have site postings sent to you automatically then you are in for a real treat.
Thursday, June 3, 2010 at 7:25AM You don’t have to be a geek to love it. I don’t know many people who haven’t had the urge to try the Mento and Coke combination. If you are a guy, well, you just love to blow things up. Don’t know why, it’s just genetics I guess. Here’s a YouTube video circulating on Google today produced by EepyBird showing a Coke + Mento powered jet vehicle. It’s just fun to watch!
Saturday, May 29, 2010 at 8:00AM In a continuation of some of the attributes of Windows 7’s utility Snipping Tool which gives you the ability to grab portions of your screen and save them as images and/or store them into your clipboard to be pasted in a document of your choice. In Word 2010 you now have this same capability of inserting a window or a portion of the screen as a function from within the Word application off of the Insert Ribbon.
Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 11:15AM This will make the word WOW! jump right out of your mouth. Very interesting product from Sony that using OLED display technology that allows for a super flexible screen. Jump to this listing to see a video presented by ZDNet showing this brand new technology.
Monday, April 19, 2010 at 6:04AM I have made some major changes in this website this weekend and this posting describes most of what I did and what to go and see. There have been some major changes and additions to make available the video productions that I have put together over the past two years. You will also notice a much cleaner look with the main blog page as well. Let me know how you like it by choosing through the contact page (another new addition) your favorite way of communicating.
Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 8:12AM I have been busy putting together several new additions to our Solutions pages this weekend.
Saturday, April 3, 2010 at 8:27AM Great interview on Tekzilla with Loyd Case discussing the Radeon HD 5000 series cards that provides a new multi-display technology known as Eyefinity. Create your own JumboTron in your home using this product from ATI. Available in 3 port or 6 port cards the Radeon HD 5000 series supports DirectX 11
Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 6:03PM Gary Flake discusses a new way of looking at data patterns gleaned from Web Content. The video shows a “new” innovative way of interacting with information. This appears to be the next step in the way we can interact with information, deciphering it’s content and coming up with new ideas based on the patterns and data connectivity that you might be able to find. Take it for what it is worth, if I had this available to me now, I would definitely be using it for many of my projects. A lot of the comments on this site discussed the problems in creating the data subsets that this type of program would need to use to produce the effects that you see in the video, and also the prior work done by others in the semantic web functions.
Other sources of information:
Blaise Aguera y Arcas leads a dazzling demo of Photosynth, software that could transform the way we look at digital images. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/blaise_aguera_y_arcas_demos_photosynth.html
This week we're posting three of the most-talked-about talks from TED2007 -- Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, John Doerr and Blaise Aguera y Arcas' remarkable demo of Seadragon/Microsoft Photosynth. http://blog.ted.com/2007/05/three_powerful.php
Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 9:10AM I love my Camtasia Studio. If you have visited my Blog before you will have noticed some of the videos that I have posted to support my How To Video submissions. This is a great application for creating support videos for your organization as well as educational materials for employee’s or if you are an Educational Organization this is a great teaching aid for that as well. The retail cost of this product is $299.00, educational and volume discounts are available as well. It is available for both Windows and Mac. If you want to try it out you can download a trial version here.
Here are the recommended set of system specifications to get the most out of the product. Any current computer that is essentially purchased to work with graphics should be adequate but you will want to have a system with at least these specs to work with your development projects, especially if you are planning this system to be a production machine.
The Nitty Gritty
Camtasia has three major functions that allow you to produce a video. Included is programming to capture image that is on your screen as well as PIP function to include a web camera recording as well. If you only need audio capture you also have that function as well. You can also do an onscreen capture of a PowerPoint presentation so that you can distribute a slide presentation as a video.
Camtasia Studio includes a simple video editing application that allows you to edit the recorded images, add additional video or still images, add new audio overlays and music, you can pan and zoom into areas of your screen capture to ensure that your audience is focusing on the information that is important.
Once you have your edited video production completed you are ready to produce it in a format that you can deliver to your audience. You have a wide choice of formats as well as some quick post functions to Internet like TechSmith’s Screencast, or YouTube. Then it is easy to incorporate the video once it is on the web into your web pages.
My Impressions
What I like is using this program for all of my video productions, whether it is something I capture with Jing (another TechSmith product) or video that I take with my new Flip Camera, I can create and edit and produce video for almost any kind of venue, quickly and easily. So if you have been thinking about putting together a library of videos showing the proper procedures for different company functions, needing to put together video promotional material for your customers or wanting to get your most current family outing edited a posted to YouTube for the family to see, this could very well be the product for you.
Sunday, January 10, 2010 at 5:57PM Skype has been around for a long time now and I find that it still is an essential tool in my arsenal daily used applications. It works into our environment at the office even more because our main service ticketing system utilizes will make use of it to dial out from the customer contact pages. It gained even more of my appreciation this past Friday when I spent most of the afternoon in video conference with our public relations person. We have been working on prepping for this weeks video projects about CES and were able to work online, with full video and sound and sharing files back and forth between our computer systems while in our separate offices. Not that this is something recently available, it was just that it was geeky neat! We were able to easily bring different people into our office and review captured video and each of were able to process the work that we each needed to complete and share with each other.
Items needed: Skype Account, Computer, Web Camera, an Internet connection and someone with the same basic setup. If you are connecting computer to computer your Skype account is free. If you want some of the other basic features that are available from Skype like calling to a non-Skype user or a land line, or having a Skype Phone Number then these services make Skype that much more useable.
Friday, January 8, 2010 at 10:47AM
Lenovo seems to be causing the most interest at CES with its wealth of new product announcements. The one that really catches my attention is the new IdeaPad U1 hybrid notebook that will be released in the June 2010 timeframe and will be priced around $999. What makes this product so special is that it is a combination slate and notebook. The screen detaches from the notebook shell and it becomes a Linux multi-touch slate that is enhanced for digital media consumption. You can use it to watch video, listen to music, watch a movie or read a book. It has full wireless so it can also be used to browse the internet as well while detached. When you bring it back to the notebook shell it snaps into place and it instantly (or relatively quickly) switches back to a Windows 7 based notebook.
Now let’s look at its basic features: The screen is an 11.6 inch HD Led backlit multitouch screen that is detachable and weighs 1.5 pounds. When attached to the shell it weighs 3.8 pounds, is cherry red, has two operating systems each having its own processor running independently or sharing info between them. We don’t know the specific Intel dual-core processor that is in it yet that is used on the Windows 7 side. The Screen runs the SnapDragon Processor. It also sports a 1.3-megapixel webcam, ethernet 10/100 ports, 802.11 a/b/g, Bluetooth, (2) USB ports and an eSATA/USB combo port to attach more storage if you care to. This is the first notebook/slate computer that combines the versatility of a notebook with the entertainment value of a slate style computer. Jim Louderback does a nice video review of this product that I have included below.
Tekzilla announces this Lenovo convertible Netbook a iTablet Killer. Lenovo’s Ideapad S10-3t will be released this month and will be priced starting at $499. With a 10.1 inch capacitive touchscreen that can be swiveled and laid back against the keyboard to turn this netbook into a Tablet PC. It will be available with either an Intel Atom 1.66GHz N450 processor or a 1.83GHz N470 processor, up to 2GB of DDR2 RAM, and a 320GB 6400rpm 2,5 inch SATA hard drive. Network connection is important and this unit comes with a built in 80802.11b/g/n2.11b/g/n wireless radio, Bluetooth 2.1 and Ethernet port. 3G and WiMax will be available as options as well. It has two USB 2.0 ports, a 6 in 1 card reader, VGA external port, headphone and microphone jacks, and a 1.3 megapixel webcam. A 4-cell or 8-cell battery will also be available providing up to 10 hours of battery life on the 8-cell battery. Again, Jim Louderback did a very nice video review of this system.
Monday, December 21, 2009 at 11:18AM
What I really wanted was a Canon 5D but the Camera Fairy isn't coming through for me. So... I picked up a Flip Ultra to tide me over until she decides if I have been naughty or nice. Oh, I guess I’m mixing up my holidays. Whoops!
The Flip is a cute little thing, and it is hard to believe that the Flip, smaller than a cigarette case, can take such beautiful pictures and store up to two hours of video.
The controls are simple and straightforward. So to it will be very simple to learn how to use and operate. It has a 2X zoom lens and the image you get is very good. I'm not real wild about the sound but it's not too bad when you get close up to the individual you are taking a photo of.
The video we are shooting is done with two small HD cameras, one of them an Aptek the other is a Flip similar to the one I just got.
The biggest problem that I am observing with what we have done so far is with the sound quality. We'll have to see what we can do about that. We are looking at at a sound kit that has a mixer and a desk mic in it, and I have a wireless lavalier mic that we can try as well. If that works we'll need a second wireless set later as we keep going.
We are all very excited about how many options and uses we will be able to use these videos for. So be sure to come back often and see how we grow our video library with different product reviews, how to's and news from our industry.
Friday, December 18, 2009 at 6:18PM Here’s our first try at the webcast. First problem we see is that the sound is a bit tinny. We need to setup and use a microphone and mixer I think to get this to get a bit more base.
Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 7:11AM We have been putting the final touches on the first edition of our video studio. We are so excited about what we are doing and how well it is coming together. Paul Koslow who is our webmaster, is starting a new project that includes producing online videos and quick commercial video as well. We feel that with the technology and software available today that we can put together a first class production house, in our house, pun intended, that will allow us to not only provide us with a video content production facility for our website but also for short spots on cable TV like the ones we have done in the past for FYI. This gives us more control, faster to finished product processing, and will help us learn more about what we need to make this all work well for us. Be sure to tune in for more information as all this great stuff begins to mature. Below is a screen test of what will be coming to you soon…
Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 6:38AM We have been getting much closer to putting the final touches on our first “produced” web video which is going to become a weekly feature of our website. These videos will contain content from a varied subject matter but will all pertain to our Solutions Oriented focus. So, you will see videos on new products, news items, how to’s and interviews with individuals in our industry. We are really looking forward to this new venture and really hope to be able to grow it into a valued support tool for you our clients. Stay Tuned and I will bring you more news about this new feature from www.localsupport.com.
Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 7:00PM You have heard me talk about Jing in the past and now there's one more reason for downloading it. Jing is a free software package that lets you capture and add visuals to everyday online conversations. The new release has added the ability your screen captures to Twitter.
Use Jing to:
It is available for either Windows or Mac OS X
And the best part is, It's free! So if Twitter is one of your main stays, there is a no other way to take your Twitter stand out from your peers.
Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 8:49AM We received a new Logitech® Webcam C905 and put it into use right away. We connected it on Jude’s desktop and setup Skype so he could make internet video call using this program.
The unit plugged right into Jude’s Windows 7 machine and instantly saw it and offered to download the device drivers off of the web. A minute later he was running.
This Webcam has a crystal clear image and really good sound quality. I am going to see how well it will pick up and recognize his speech patterns for use with voice to text recognition and will report back on that in a few days. I liked it so much that I am picking one up for myself as well.
I think that its quality is very similar to Logitech’s 9000 pro’s version and would not hesitate picking this unit up.
A few highlights: HiDef, Autofocus, Closeup, Universal Clip, Work with most IM applications, Built-in mic with Right Sound™, Carl Zeiss® Optics, 2 megapixel sensor and Right Light™ 2 Technology. There is also a fun feature available using Logitech® Video Effects™. It’s easy to spice things up with neon splashes, fish-eye distortions, and more.
To see more detail about these features go to this products Features Page.
Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 8:33AM We are putting together a video studio that we will be using to put together a simple weekly support video for our customers. We are looking forward to this new addition to our support portfolio and will be posting these videos for your use in several different places. I will continue blogging on this site of course, and will be creating content both in the studio as well as from my desktop. We are looking forward to sharing with you tips, tricks and new product reviews of the many technology related items that we have found. We hope you will find this new venture helpful and enjoyable as well. Welcome to our world of Tech Talk with Bob and Jude!
