Jonathan Davies

Since the advent of the blog there has been a new kind of journalism, that in which the words of a nobody can reach thousands of people. Even personal blogs where all they talk about is what they had for lunch seem to have an attraction. Be it family members or random strangers who just want to know that there is still innocent things happening in the world. (FYI: I don’t do this!).

It is for this exact reason that podcasting is such a revolution - you don’t need much, you can even get away with paying nothing for your blog - you can just write. Journalism in the last few years has evolved on the internet, the gap between the old media journalist and new media journalist is closing. But there are still some things that have yet to change, and for the public to realize how similar these two forms of journalism are.

It seems that though internet journalism is encroaching on print journalism, old media are continuing to ignore that fact that soon, they will have a problem on their hands. People won’t go to the newspaper to get their news, or watch TV. Instead they will watch on-demand videos and read the news that interests them in their feed reader. All that currently needs to happen for this to take effect is for RSS to reach a wider audience.

Is this a good thing though? Is choosing the stories that you read limiting the wider stretch of the news that is given to you by having random stories you are at least aware of the current state of affairs - you could become shortsighted. Not something you want to do in a world like this.

Sure, baby steps have been made, they have a website where all the articles are published, but they still lack two things: community and personality.

I don’t think that bloggers get the respect that they should either, do you see Apple giving people who are solely bloggers iPhones early? No, instead the big newspapers. I find this interesting when certain blogs probably get more “readers” than some newspapers.

Will this change? I think it should; the facts are showing us that less and less people are buying newspapers and the only real thing that can be associated with it is the rise of the internet.

Do you think bloggers are given enough respect?

A big teen blogger in the blogosphere has made a massive change to the way his online life operates. Glenn Wolsey has decided to alienate his name from his original blog, GlennWolsey.com and move to a new, impersonal blog DesktopVibes.com. I think it’s a pretty interesting, yet risky move to make - though if pulled off well could have major benefits for both him and his readers.

Why did he do this? In his own words:

…the ability to bring in guest writers into the fold, an easier and more structured path to building a brand, and the ability to write abut things I wouldn’t have normally done with the site attached to the GlennWolsey.com domain name.

It’s true, and these are all valid points, but this may come at a price. A “possible” loss of readers. Lets face it, a lot of Glenn’s readers are going to be more casual. Even lazy and will probably never switch to the new feed. The thing is though, starting a blog for a second time is obviously a lot easier. you do have a following - even if you do have a few losses. And of course, you’ve learnt a lot, less mistakes will be made, I sure know this; there are many changes that I would have otherwise done. You’ve got to way up the pros and cons and see if you feel it will be for the better.

And what will happen to GlennWolsey.com?

Moving to Desktop Vibes for technological content and leaving this weblog for personal based entries

I just hope GlennWolsey.com doesn’t become stagnant, even if it does not remain necessarily technology related it would be nice to see an insight into what Glenn is up to. Would I do this myself? Maybe. If I felt that my blog was getting to the point where to add a new angle I would have to separate my personal branding.

What do you think of Glenn’s choice, and would you do it yourself?

They say content is king, but what if you don’t have anything to write about? Since starting this blog I have developed a few select sources that I use for information that I thought I would share with you. Just remember, the point of these sources is mainly to inspire you, to help you along - most of the heavy lifting should be done by you.

Twitter

If something big is happening, it’s bound to be on Twitter. People are continually posting links to cool stuff. A lot of the time people link to interesting or “outrageous” in some cases articles that you might want to add your opinion to that of the blogosphere. Be warned, if does become very popular, then the chances are the “big blogs” will be covering it and might have a head start over you.

The Archives

Sometimes I read through other blogs’ archives and come across what is now old and not so relevant. There is nothing wrong with taking that basis and rewriting it to suit the changes that have been made since and adding your own opinions to the mix. If it’s good quality and isn’t a total rip-off then you shouldn’t have any trouble.

Life

No matter what you blog about, the topic is very likely to be intertwined with your daily lifestyle. Take your daily experiences and talk about them. What went wrong, what went right. If it happened to you it can happen to others - there may be that one Googler looking for your post. In my case I have done this a few times here, here and here.

Where do you find inspiration for your blog’s content?

With creating Wanted, I have been making some rather large steps up. SD to HD, hosted website to self hosted website and finally from using iMovie to Final Cut Express.

All in all I have really enjoyed learning the ins and outs of the app; I think that to really learn an app you need to sit down with a project - a target of what you want to do and get to work. Messing about with it and clicking on buttons is all very well, but you never really learn a workflow.

By having a project you can work out the best way of doing things, and over time find out better ways of doing so.

I was very surprised. when I realized that I actually preferred editing in Final Cut Express over iMovie. Just the sheer control you have over your footage is far superior to that of iMovie. Simple things: like cropping video, having layers - being able to move and resize video and images manually. These are all things that I now take for granted.

Sure, the interface may not be the best in the world - but it works very well and once you get over it you realize how intuitive it really is. The amount of “things” you can do is also impressive, there are enough to probably, at this stage, to do whatever I want. By the sound of things, Final Cut is simply a few more things added to the menu.

The only thing that I have found lacking in the Final Cut Express bundle is a app similar to Motion. I don’t think LiveType does any of the stuff I want it to be able to do, like, create different and exciting lower thirds and enticing introductions. I tried, but could not get anything near what I was looking for.

Luckily for me I have enlisted my friend, Stu Helm, who is whipping me up a couple of things for Wanted!

So far I am loving exploring Final Cut Express, it has made me want to venture out from just video podcast and to maybe making a few short films. Should be a great experience!

Which do you prefer? iMovie or Final Cut Express?

Yesterday I was having a conversation about feed readers. I was discussing the way in which people use them, and I have come to an interesting conclusion. Using an RSS Reader could actually limit the exposure to what you get on the internet. Though it is nice having the internet come to you, being able to explore when you go to the internet is amazing as well.

Think about it; all you get is the content through the reader. You miss the design, the comments, the experience that the blog’s author intended to give you. When I am browsing the web I might come across an interesting story, look at the comments and see a great one, click on his website and be exposed to a whole archive of fresh, content.

I think this can be a common symptom of your average feed reader. One way I have tried to tackle this is by using my RSS Reader as simply a way of telling me when someone has published some new content. Sometimes I’ll read it within NetNewsWire, but quite often I’ll click through to read the article - I think it offers a better experience.

That said, I don’t over subscribe - I keep to a few select feeds that I feel allow me to cover a large variation of topics. If something catches my eye, or I’d be interested in seeing other people’s opinions I’ll jump through to the site.

My fear with RSS is that it will alienate the readers of the blog.

Thoughts?

Technology is such a large realm. There are so many different paths you can take that can be so different and yet all be under the same title - technology. It is very easy to get caught up in these, especially when you have so many opportunities.

This has been a rather large problem for me, since purchasing my Mac I have delved into audio, video, graphic design, web design and much more. I think I am stretching myself too thin. Not concentrating on the precious few that I enjoy the most; or in some cases just have enough patience for. So now I think it is time to find a focus. Set a few things aside that I can put all my effort into. These are a the sort of topics that you can expect me to base most of my blog conversations around.

Video

I think I’m financially invested enough in the video space to continue. Let alone my interest in it. Video is a great medium to present through, and I think gaining a lot more knowledge in the field will allow me, not only to use my video skills but also slide into other slightly more niche topics. Like motion graphics and also work on sound.

Software

Having software around to enable our computers to do so many things beyond perhaps what they were created to do. I am continually buying and replacing new software as it evolves and I want to document my findings, for better or for worse. To steer you to, or clear of certain software.

You may have noticed that “software picks” have been pretty elusive as late, don’t worry, you’ll be seeing them a lot more in the future; in many different forms.

Wordpress

This is something that I have started to cover only recently, as you probably know this blog runs on Wordpress and lately I have been optimizing the site. I am always on the look out for good themes and awesome plug-ins which I would like to document on the blog.

Internet

Yes, this does cover a large area but you’ll tend to find me talking about web services, websites and just cool stuff that is around there.

One thing you probably won’t find me talking about to much is Apple. I think that there are already to many blogs covering the antics of Apple - I don’t think that I genuinely have to much to ad the the fray. However, never say never - obviously I use a Mac and buy Apple’s hardware all the time; just don’t expect me to talk about the company and itself.

I just want to make it very clear that, these four topics aren’t going to be the only thing I talk about, I just think I need to make it clearer to visitors what they should expect from this blog as lately I don’t think that the blog has had a clear path as to where it is going.

Is there anything you would like to see from the blog?

On Friday I returned back home from being away at my grandfather’s. He has no internet connection (yes, I have tried to persuade him to get one!). Being away from the internet for a long time can be troublesome. Though I did not miss it while I was away, the amount of “stuff to catch up on” was out of control - especially in my RSS reader.

Even though, I am happy to say, I try to keep my feed subscriptions down. I still had nearly five-hundred unread items. So I tried something new, I scanned through all the items looking for interesting titles and flagged any that caught my eye. Once I’d been through a folder I marked all as read and moved on.

I’m thinking of doing something similar on a day to day basis. By doing this I can tighten up on the content that I look at and stay ore focused.

Similarly, though for a far longer period of time, Shawn Blanc has also been away. He has posted a few items that caught his eye while he has been away - I think it’s a good idea; so I thought I would do something similar.

• Flickr now does video: Only for 90 seconds and for pro members. It seems the Flickr community is up in arms about this. The best description of Flickr video I can find is by Michael Mistretta.
  

  It will not become a place for video shows or music videos. Instead, it will become a place that, much like twitter, where you are free to express yourself and what you are doing visually. Before, you could only do this through photos. Now, you have photos and video.

• Engadget has had a redesign: There is now a lot more space for the actual content which I like - it was a long time coming.
• Leo Laporte is still having a great time in Tasmania: he has done a great video of the kit he used and some of his photos are breathtaking.
• Final Cut Sever was released: they are only what? Only over half a year late.
• Office Stress Get a Mac ad: I’m kind of getting board of these, I think Apple can do better.

What else did I miss?

Well, it has taken a bit of time but I have finally persuaded my grandparents to switch to the Mac platform!

They’ve been using a Windows Sony Vaio for a while and to tell you the truth it hasn’t been a bad machine at all. But they’ve had a couple too many problems with Windows itself - especially Norton.

I was wondering if you have any advice that I can give to my grandparents, and maybe just new switchers in general when moving from Windows to Mac. They’re pretty much your average users. They browse the web and check email and use skype to contact friends.

As people add comments and ideas, I’ll add them to the blog post.

Now all I need is for my dad to switch…

It may have taken a bit longer than expected to get out But hopefully it was worth the wait.

I’ve had the Canon HV30 for a couple of weeks now and I think I’m ready to finalize my thoughts on it. I’ve decided to go with a reviewing style that I like a lot, similar to Paul Stamatiou by dividing it up into different portions. Just as a disclaimer: this is the first camcorder I have ever owned, so don’t be surprised if a couple of things I find very useful are commodities on most video cameras.

Build

The HV30 on the whole has a very strong build quality, it doesn’t feel flimsy and feels solid in your hand. Of course it should considering it is a $1000 camcorder. However the tape housing does feel a bit loose and you can feel it jiggle around quite a lot. One other slight annoyance is that the cover for the hot-shoe is attached to the body and kinda’ gets in the way of my Rode Video Mic. I would prefer it to be totally removable but I understand why it is there.

The controls are nicely situated so that they are easily accessible with one hand. They have also improved the zoom control, making it larger. If you weren’t aware the HV30 features a large 2.7″ screen that even in the sunlight isn’t blemished. Instead of having a silver finish, in is now black; which in my opinion looks a lot better and makes it seem a lot more professional.

All in all I thing that the HV30 is a very well built camcorder, though it has a couple of design flaws that might annoy some.

Specifications and Quality

The HV30 records up to 1080i high definition onto standard DV tapes. It has a standard HD shooting mode, but also has a 30P mode and a 24P mode (which I have yet to delve into). You can of course shoot good old regular standard definition. And as I learnt. If you want to use it to stream live on Ustream.tv it needs to be on that mode.

You can, as with most video cameras you can take stills, but if your looking for anything with quality then you probably want to look at a point and shoot which will be leaps and bounds over what this camera can produce. If you want to take still photos then you will need to get a micro SD card to put in the camera.

As for quality. It looks good, very good. There is something about it that makes it look clean, just how clear the footage is makes it look good. The following link goes to a piece of test footage that I shot outside. It’s at 720p so it looks pretty good. I think that any camera at this price is going to reach a limit where the video really can’t get that much better until you have a much larger budget.

Usage

Filming with the HV30 is very easy and controlling it is even more so. The interface is very easy to use and to understand so the use of the instruction book was not needed at all. Though you did have to dig quite deep to change some of the settings and when trying to change the quality of the video it didn’t have a clear guide to what I was actually changing.

One nice feature that I liked was the ability to change the time it takes to zoom in and out by just slightly pushing it or pushing it all the way.

One thing that I was very surprised about was the I didn’t really need any extra lighting when filming indoors, I thought I would. The HV30 has above average from the sound of things, low light performance that I was impressed by. Some said that I would be limited while using DV Tapes which the HV30 records onto. Personally, I have found them very easy to use and to work with. My only slight annoyance has been finding thing the right spot to set Final Cut Express to capture the footage. Though it’s very comforting to know that you have all your footage stored away on DV Tape.

Conclusions

I am very happy with the HV30, it really is the sweet stop for consumer cameras. It offers good performance for a good price.

However, I’m not sure if the HV30 is necessarily that much better than the HV20. But looking at Amazon, currently the prices of both are pretty comparable so the choice is up to you. If you want to produce video for the web then this really is your best option. You get very high quality video that can be noticed and frankly you’re not going to see much difference between this and a few thousand dollar camera on the web.

Any thoughts?

I’ve been using Flickr for a few months now and really enjoy it. But, I’ve noticed that there are a couple of trends on how people use it.

Some use Flickr as a way to store ALL of their photos in the cloud - like a backup. Or perhaps as you use it to share pictures with family, perhaps the way it was intended to, where the quality of the image does not matter at all - but the contents of it does. If you have relatives that live across the world, how are you going to show them pictures of your new child, I think we are beyond snail mail at this point.

But lately I have seen Flickr used as a portfolio to showcase people’s best photos - not all of them but the ones that they feel are the best of what they have taken.

Personally I use Flickr to display pretty much any image that I think others, not necessarily friends, would be interested in. I don’t do a lot of editing once taken; I just put them up mostly to show whoever wants to see them. As I previously mentioned, I think that Flickr is primarily geared towards sharing your photographic memories with people you know. Lets face it, most of the tools are designed for that.

While when used as a portfolio it is mainly for critique. Where quite often comments left are about the pictures themselves and not the content.

I think that Flickr remains a healthy community with both types of users, and to tell you the truth I always enjoy looking at the “portfolio” Flickr streams - some of the stuff these guys are capable of is amazing.

How do use Flickr and why?