Doing more than Dumb Video

Dumb Video is hard. You spend all your time editing, fixing audio, encoding and uploading.

Smart Video is going to be easy with this Microsoft Silverlight stuff. URLs, chapters, and deeper sub-tagging. All these ideas are flowing through my mind from this conversation from Uncle Dave, the Life Kludger.

Imagine a canvas of videos and podcasts. Zoom into one, and see the “sub-tags” or links to other videos, or general searches. Sort of a doing what HTML does for text for other, non-textual content.

Time to learn some new stuff.

Another Monday, Too Much Software

silverlight

Well, it’s not quite a normal Monday. Today is the first day of NAB2007, Las Vegas in the US.

Apple has new software toys. Shame I don’t do production on a Mac.

Adobe has pre-release Premiere Pro and AfterEffects CS3 to help you use up spare bandwidth.

And Microsoft has announced something new called Silverlight! Well, actually it’s that strangely named WPF/e with a name that actually works.

Additional (6:30pm)

Experiment with Software Robots

Would you like to experiment with robots?

Microsoft has released a tool called the Microsoft Robotics Studio where you can visually program.

Rather than typing commands, you draw boxes and lines to represent your robot. One day it would be cool to create a robot and send it into a virtual 3D world. It could be like an explorer, and return with a list of sights that it saw.

 How else could simulated robots be used?

Be your own TV

Video camera, stream up, people watch your life. Obviously, this mechanism of publishing is old as the internet itself – but with bandwidth increasing and alpha-geeks / rock-stars emerging in recent years – we are seeing the new world being born.

The initial years of large company sponsored video-on-the web (think soapflakes sponsors in the 1950s) was followed by soap operas on YouTube (think LonelyGirl15) to reality TV of Justin.tv (think Survivor, without the dramatic editing)

Insert 3D worlds of WoW, SecondLife and the like – we are seeing Snow Crash and True Names appear before our eyes.

How long before thegeekstories.com is a live-to-web experience?

A Gift to the Nation

On the eve of Anzac Day, 2007, the National Archives of Australia have released a mountain of scanned documents detailing the service records of World War I soldiers, sailors, airmen and nurses.

As an exercise, I am tracing the history of an Corporal Albert Ernest Lock. I think he is the person who gave name to the town of Lock, South Australia. (Service number 29888).

He died of wounds in late 1917, and was buried in Belgium in 1917.

albert-edward-lock-29888

Further Notes from archives:

6th April 1917 – Assigned 102 Howitzer Battery, a part of 2nd Field Artillery Brigade, 1st Division Artillery, Australian 1st Divison. He manned one of the 4 x 4.5 inch howitzers in this Battery. He was one of 71 other ranks; a part of one section, 116th Howitzer Battery, also consisting of Major Harris and 2nd Lt C Groves.

16th May 1916 – Promoted to Corporal from Gunner

20th August 1917 – Promoted to Temp. Sgt from Corporal

22th August 1917 – Wounded in Action, remained on duty (Belgium) The War Diary for the 1st Division Artillery has no enemy action on this date.

9th October 1917 – Died of Wounds / Killed in Action; during the Battle of Poelcappelle. (a part of Passchendaele). The 102 Howitzer Battery was firing on China Wood in a Search and Sweep at 11:27am. He was one of 9 ‘other ranks’ that died that week.

Buried at Huts Cemetery, Dickebusch (Dikkebus), Belgium. (Divisional Diary of that Month)

Father was Albert Lock, stationmaster at Bridgewater, South Australia.  Mother Mary Jessie Ann Lock. Sister, Sister Majorie Ellen Lock.

In will assigned Hundred of Roby County of Bacclaugh numbered 9, Purchase 6784 Register Book volume 573 Folio 9 to his father. Was he a clerk in the railways on Eyre Peninsula?

Internal Culture Clash

Big mergers are the way of the IT industry. Small guys get bigger, and yet are swallowed by the larger fish. People make lots of money, and drive their Ferraris around the twin coasts of the US. Then it goes around again.

Mergers of two companies, such as Macromedia and Adobe, from the outside seem a “joining of likes”. A marriage made in heaven. The perception that the companies were very alike is external only.  I doubt since the acquisition that Adobe executives sleep better at night.

We are seeing the internal cultural difference exposed externally: the smart auntie Adobe of Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator’s fame and friendly attitude being smashed by the boys-club, leather booted Macromedia cowboys.

This is probably one major reason why I am no longer at Adobe. Forgetting who your customers are has to be the first big strategy of big companies aiming to be smaller. As a customer of Adobe, and with many friends who still work there – I would be saddened to see this strategy working. [edit: I would be, not am]

I am at Microsoft as they recognise that forgetting your customer is a sin that must never be committed.

So, as an Adobe user (daily), shareholder: tone it down, talk to customers and don’t forget customer base.

Nick standing outside Adobe Systems, San Jose.  April 2002