The future SHOULD be now.

"The future is now. Soon every american home will integrate their television, phone, and computer. You’ll be able to visit the Louve on one channel and watch female mud wrestling on another. You can do your shopping at home or play Mortal Kombat with a friend in Vietnam. There’s no end to the possiblities."

Larry Tate or Chip Douglas or Ricky Ricardo... - The Cable Guy

I've always liked that quote. That was in 1996. Using the powers of math, we see that it's been over 10 years since he said that. I'm sure it wasn't an original thought, but as a kid with a Sega, I got really excited at the possibility of being able to play games with my friends and not actually have to hang out with them. What?! One of them ate dog biscuits as a snack, do you really blame me? 

All of these technologies have been realized; of course we have online shopping/gaming, DVR's, and streaming TV gaining popularity through sites like Hulu...but there's no cohesion. There's no way to get all the content we want in one place. Some of it's here and some it it's there, but content ownership stops the idea from being realized. The great thing about Hulu is that it's starting to show some cooperation between the big networks like NBC, Fox, and many others. We're headed in the right direction at the very least.

What I was proposing in class last week was the idea that this media integration could be integrated ( is that too many integrations?) By this I mean the combination of all these technologies could be transferrable from laptop to TV to handheld device, all with the same speed and usability. This way we keep what's appealing about the mediums while adding something more to them.

I believe gaming consoles are the closest right now to complete media integration. The PS3 for instance has pictures, music, movies, a built in browser (eh...) and of course games. I really enjoy using Nullriver's software to turn my mac into a media server for my PS3 and 360. It allows me to stream content right to it, so I don't have to go through the trouble of getting up, picking out a DVD from the shelf, and putting it into the console (Surprisingly, I'm not a fat shit yet either.) But even if I didn't do that, I could purchase or rent movies from my console. In fact, the entire Netflix library will be coming to the new Xbox Experience on Nov. 17, which I'm pretty excited about. The last point I'd like to make is that as technologies like IPTV and DOCSIS improve, we'll start seeing new attempts and hopefully successes at integration because the speed will be there to support it. 

Here I will explain screencasting by writing about it.

Sorry it's been awhile since my last post. The midterm wave just broke and I've somehow managed to come out alive. Portfolio has been progressing... still not satisfied with anything I've done. Tonight I'll be up late working on a final round of concepts for Rubbermaid Collapsible containers. We've basically narrowed it down to print ads for this campaign, maybe I'll post them and more of my work when it's all over. 

On to a topic of relevance for 491!

In the last 2 weeks we've covered a lot. We took a closer look at YouTube, specifically the collaborative social component of it. With things like playlists, tagging, annotations, etc. users are able to really nail down what they're looking for, even if you give the video a lame ass title. It's a very dynamic space for conversation. Of course people like to waste time on YouTube watching funny videos, but people have come to use the site for more practical reasons. Anyway, I had lots of fun in class building up a playlist and melting it together with others in my course.

Last week also marked my first Screencast. First I'm publishing podcasts and now screencasts? Wow, I'm really branding myself now. It was nothing special, just a quick video going over some basic features Nullriver's MediaLink and tools for video conversion. I used ScreenFlow for the screencast. It's a bit pricey at $99, but I recommend trying it as it's packed with great features. There are other great options like iShowU or Camtasia for those PC users out there. I had a lot of fun making it and hope to do more in the future. I used to feel like that if there was one video out there on YouTube that covered a certain topic, then I shouldn't bother making another one, fearing that mine would just be redundant and everyone on the whole internets would laugh at me. Well... fuck em.

Here's the video. Please forgive the "Ums" and general dumbassery.

Podcasting Verdict

Last week I created a podcast for the VCU iTunes store. The topic was on Media Molecule's new game, Little Big Planet and how the concept of the game ties into our digital media course. Aside from being just a fun 3rd person adventure game, you get to build objects and levels of your own and share them with members of the Playstation Network. Users can rate and comment on each others creations and incorporate them into their own. It's really the first time I've seen social gaming be constructive and really take advantage of the online component that these new consoles have. 

As far as the process of creating the podcast goes... I had a pretty good time making it. I was initially using Audacity (a great open source audio editing tool) but I was thinking about composing some original music for it, so I ended up using Garageband instead. For those of you without a mac– you're out of luck, but if you do, this is an awesome piece of software. Garage Band is packed with loops, effects, and editing tools while remaining very simple and intuitive. I've used it before to record basslines; simply plugging a 1/4 to headphone adapter into the line in and going to town. But back to podcasting... I used my Macbook Pro's internal mic to record my voice, the sound quality is great for an internal mic, but I wish I would have worked with the levels a little more, as my voice is pretty quiet compared to others. I grabbed the music from Archive.org in their open source section. The track I chose was a mashup of a Pendulum and Portishead song Still though, not bad for my first podcast, considering that I made the entire thing sitting in the driver seat of my GTI. Here's the link to my podcast. I'd also like to point our some of my classmates podcasts. Going to that last link will take you to the Masc491 page in iTunes where all of our podcasts are located. We're all much smarter than we sound.

Though I enjoyed making a podcast, I'd much rather just listen or watch them. I've been subscribing to a lot of G4's stuff as well as some Adobe tutorials and tech news podcasts. I think I'm more of a video guy, but I see the utility in audio podcasts, especially on the academic level. If I could just listen to a podcast rather than have to deal with all this fuggin' traffic, I'd be a much nicer person. We've really shifted into another gear, haven't we? We need things like podcasts to help us trim the fat from our day. So much is demanded from us, yet we still only have 24 hours to do it all. I'm ready to be plugged in. Uploading the shit straight to my brain is the only way that it's going to stay there (if the bourbon doesn't force it out)

Alright, that's enough for today. I'm going to convert all of my dvds to .avi format and toss them on my PS3. Since  Techspansion dropped VisualHub, I've been embracing Toast 9. When I first got it, I hated it. It kept crashing when I tried to convert Video_TS files, but that's all in the past now. It's doing a pretty nice job. Anything to keep me walking the 10 feet from my shelf to my PS3 and actually put it in. Work.

Drunken Rambling #1

Okay. So it's time to keep my promise to the readers out there and do a drunken rambling. In the spirit of tonight's debate I drank from my special bottle of Maker's Mark:

Right around Joe the Plumber I started drinking some Johnnie Walker...I know, I know, but the proof on the bottle was enough evidence for me to just keep drinking. What the hell is going on here? Are we really having a hard time deciding between these two? I used to think people were pretty dumb, but I've been giving them too much credit. Let me break it down for the people who are considering Palin because she happens to own a vagina.

I really looked at this job that Joe has. the plumber. I just talked about him a second ago. you'll hear a shit ton more about him this week. Anyways, his job description is the closest thing to the President that I can think of in my condition. You've got a guy who comes out to your homes and busts his ass, (while exposing it) fixing something that you're going to just shit on anyways. It sucks. They never stay clean. There's not just one person who makes that ring... I won't go into that. People just shit all over it is what I'm getting at.

 Now if the plumber is good enough, you won't be seeing him again. You may shit freely, or if you're smart you'll practice some portion control. But if you've got this crazy old plumber that is barely hanging on to his sketchy business, he's gonna want to be all up in your shit as often as he can. He'll say the problem is fixed, but after a few flushes, shits are coming out of your neighbors kitchen sink. It's the same mess and it's worse. So that shitty plumber dies one day and hands the business off to this crazy bitch from Alaska. She doesn't even know how to shut the water off and slow things down, but it's okay because she's a Maverick. You'd rather humor her and feel like less of a dumbass for calling her in the first place than call that other plumber who pals around with terrorists. I think I'm out of ammo for this story.

It's funny though. My family is going through some tough times; my mother is trying to sell houses to people while her employers put the pressure on her, insisting that it's something she's doing wrong. My stepfather is looking for a job now too, yet the two of them are probably going to call those stupid fucking plumbers instead of calling on someone who is genuinely concerned with their middle class toilet. 

Maybe Obama doesn't do all the things he sets out to do, but I'd much rather let him try. I don't know how much shittier things have to get before people start caring. It wasn't even like this in the 60's... our generation is dealing with a conglomeration of all the bullshit from the last century. It's really swell.

Back to the bottle. Maybe I'll feel better in the morning, but I doubt it. I forgot what they call that thing that unclogs toilets...

It's sad because I work at a hardware store.

O H Y E A H I T S A P L U N G E R.

Podcasting

Our MASC 491 class is about to dive into podcasting this week. I don't think too much of it as of yet, but I'm hoping I change my mind. It's not that I don't see the utility in it, I just don't subscribe to any. I guess I feel that I get enough out of my RSS feeds and that podcasts would just take up too much of my music listening time. There are very few moments in my life where I'm not listening to music. It's on all day, even at work, and when I get home, I throw Pandora on or shuffle up the iTunes library. Now that I think about it, I could sacrifice some of my time for a podcast here or there. I'll have to go hunting. 

I've seen several universities embrace the podcasting culture, either by creating podcasts of lectures, supplementary info... any number of things. A friend of mine was able to convince a university to provide his department with brand new iPods so that they could properly "test" podcasts. Nice. I wonder what we can squeeze out of NewsCred if they decide to work with us. I think it's time to get with the iPhone crowd, enough is enough.

I've found a lot of useful sites lately through stumbling and looking around Delicious. My username is colicchio so if you're into stuff from stock art and textures to trading roots reggae, check out my bookmarks. I'm all over the place.

One last thing, in the time that it's taken to write this blog, I've already subscribed to about 10 podcasts, from music and gaming, to photoshop tips and tech news. I'm already a changed man. These podcasts would look nicer on an iPhone though, huh?

Twitter.

I started using Twitter at the beginning of the semester and I wasn't sure what to think about it. I had always made trivial updates to my Facebook status, "I'm mega drunk" or "Washing my privates" to name a few, and that's all I thought I would use Twitter for; digital brain farts. But after some regular posting, finding and following, I started to see how quickly information could be shared and how different it was from text messaging or using a messenger client.

 

It's simple, but it takes the best qualities of texting, email, instant messenger, and the social networking sites and rolls it into one. Sure you can send out texts quickly, but you wouldn't constantly send out messages to everyone in your phonebook unless you had some amazing phone plan. Even then, people may not care to receive them from you all the time. You can't share links in texts either. This is where email would come in, but how would you deal with you inbox filling up with all these little messages? Let you messenger client do the work? Still messy, and most people don't stay signed in for long periods of time. Facebook and Myspace have made connecting and sharing content with your friends easier than ever, but event that gets cluttered with those stupid apps and messages from whores who don't really exist. Sigh.

 

So it would make sense for there to be something that allows for all these great things without the hiccups, coated in a clean design. I've been finding things out on Twitter faster than RSS or email. Yesterday, for example, my internet connection had been coming in and out all day. Usually I'd get an email from Tech Services, but alas, nothing in the inbox. There was a tweet however. Nothing special, I know, but it's nice to have some idea of what's going on. No joke, the guy next to me just said, "The internet is fucking up and I don't know why." I DO!!! I DO!!!

 

My favorite thing about Twitter is that it though these little blips of information, you get to know people in a different way – and you don't even have to hang out with them!

Time for a beer and some Xbox, I'm mourning the loss of money in my bank account.

RSS and Me

Wow. That's a pretty icon.

This week in 491 we talked about the utility of RSS feeds and aggregators as an alternative to traditional news media. There are those who will still argue that nothing can replace sitting down to a nice cup of coffee and your favorite paper; while I don't disagree with that, let me just tell you that I woke up and had 2 projects to finish, so while I was frantically working on those, I opened my newspaper:

 

Yea... I still use Yahoo! I just like the colors, I think that's the only thing keeping me there. Anyways, my point is that I use RSS to quickly find out what I'm interested in. Sure, Engadget is at the top so I usually find out about a rumored update to Apple's Macbook Pro line before I find out that we're in a recession, but... ob la di, ob la da.

There is the trouble with people picking very narrow, limited sources; say I just look at what Fox news has to say to me and the NRA wants me to believe and I might miss out on having a brain or something like that. The real utility comes from adding lots of feeds to an aggregator and surveying opinions from around the world, all sorts of things that you just can't find in a single newspaper– or 50 for that matter.

But if you do choose to embrace RSS, which aggregator should you use? Sites like Google News, NewsCred, Digg, and Alltop all use different way in which to present RSS choices to you. Just take a look, some let you start fresh and pick your own feeds, others rely on the reviews of the readers and rank feeds accordingly. Whichever you choose, it's important to know how they pick the content. The opinions of readers are often a valuable resource for finding quality content, however, this method is by its very nature incredibly subjective. Just do your research is all I'm saying. 

I'll come back to this later... for now check out this video explaining RSS using half-assed visuals, feminine hand gestures, and a debilitating lisp: