I heart t-shirts. I’ve been designing them since I was in high school; it’s accessible design for the masses. I love their quirky humor, and they are so much easier to remove than bumper stickers. I’m too cheap to actually buy many tees (my drawer is full of PUMP Summer Program tees I’ve made over the years), but I just love the craft and humor in them. Here’s a few that make me laugh every time:
What’s your fave t-shirt? What slogan would you put on a shirt?
]]>If you’re in the business of communication, author and CEO coach Mike Myatt’s N2Growth blog should be on your short list. His latest article, “Social Media Demystified”, brings clarity to organizations wrestling with the apparent complexity of social media:
The simple reality is that social media has way more to do with common sense than it does with rocket science. Let me make this as simple as I can…social media simply provides you with tools and channels that allow you to extend your reach and better engage those with whom you wish to communicate.
Some great stuff, and I highly recommend it. A while back I attempted to boil down social media with some internal presentations (handout) at my office.
One of the comments got me thinking:
A person can’t be best friends with 2,000 people. It’s just not possible to read & respond to the tweets of 2,000 followers.
While this may be a true statement on the face of it, in practice it’s not necessary to directly interact with each and every one to be engaging in the SM space.
The key is knowing when - and how deeply - to interact. Having advanced keyword search tools (knowing when someone’s talking about you or your product), identifying key influencers (say, on a Twitter list), and really looking at social media through a CRM lens (vv. using a dashboard tool like CoTweet or Hootsuite) can all address the “scale” challenges.
This is where much of the true complexity lies. The principles the Mike describes in this article are excellent and common-sense; these are good principles to apply to the overall philosophy and strategy of the organizations social media interactions.
The real SM experts, I predict, are going to be the ones that understand these fundamentals, and can also help businesses with the “plumbing” of tying these myriad channels together and welding them into a usable business tool.
If done right, the “users” (the people in your company who use SM channels to interact with customers) just have simple, elegant ways to get their jobs done; the complexity is hidden.
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This entry is so I can test the Blip.tv player on an iPhone or iPad. Does it work for you? Let me know.
Update: if you’re seeing this page via an RSS reader, the link I’m trying to test is: http://allanwhite.net/blog/comments/video_player_test/
I’ve also added a 3GP mobile version - if you’re using a non-iPhone mobile handset, let me know if that works. It will look awful, that’s the mobile game we’re in.
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Here’s another really cool iPhone instrument app that actually sounds great - ThumbJam. Impressive natural sounds, and innovative interface. You shake or tilt the iPhone to get good vibrato effects; I think I’d feel a little cheesy making a Van Halen-like wailing guitar solo on a phone, though. This could be the new air guitar! But still, very interesting. Click through to watch.
]]>Check out this sweet 4-track audio editing app demo:
Monle trailer from Ochen K. on Vimeo.
It had me at hello! More precisely, the first screenshot showed the “essence” of the app - the 4 tracks of audio on the timeline. As I waited for the video to load [slowly, at my in-laws’ house - the agony!], the first quick animation showed everything else I needed to know: the playhead sweeping across the tracks, showing envelope adjustments and generally smooth playback (low latency is critical for any time-based media editing).
I’m sure most of you reading this are like, “why do I care about an audio editing app?” - a valid comment! Here’s the point: when it comes to visual or online communication, getting the essence of your message across in the first two seconds is incredibly effective. It’s hard to distill down your message into the first flash of an image. However, if you can do that effectively – you’ve got ‘em hooked. They’ll watch the rest.
This app looks very cool, and perfectly illustrates why I’ve been so excited about multitouch interfaces: getting real work done will be more fun and more direct than ever. The iPad is going to take that to a whole new level.
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My friends asked, here you go! A simple process for making a quick seamless looping video. This example uses Motion.app from Apple’s Final Cut Studio, but the principle is the same in any video or animation application. Click through to watch the video.
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I was looking through a notebook I was scribbling in, and found a great little poem I wrote for Kristi when she was headed to Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami.
Don’t panic.
Tell them I’m fabulously wealthy -
I’ll think of something.
If they’re Muslim, don’t say you’re a “crusader”.
Don’t forget - martyrdom is cool.
Drink lots of water.
Make friends with the bugs;
try giving them names to pass the time.
Remember ”Last of the Mohecans”:
“I will find you! I will!”
“Cooooooorrrrrrraaaaahhhhhh!!!”
Which books, leaders or other individuals? What events shaped how you think about policy issues?
What media types (books, conversations, blogs, radio/podcasts, tv shows) are you drawn to for political information?
I don’t care what your politics are, I just want to know how you got the way you are! Chime in.
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Readers of this blog will recall my fascination with Robert Hodgin’s Magnetosphere visualizer. He’s a true genius when it comes to tastefully visualizing music (so few visualizers actually look good). The story of its purchase by Apple for iTunes was broken right here on this blog last year.
As part of my role at the Palau Association, we needed to find some ways to webcast content generated on a Mac. I found the excellent, free and deep CamTwist to excel at taking the output from one region of the screen or application and routing it into “fake webcam” (essentially a QuickTime component that acts like a DV/Firewire source). Heyyy… ProPresenter will take a Firewire DV input! Let’s make some music, then…
Here’s this concept put into practical use by the geniuses at WorshipVJ. If this stuff excites you, then consider joining the WorshipVJ Facebook group.
I still haven’t found the Holy Grail of being able visualize live audio with iTunes in a music setting. In a future post, I’d like to look at some of the practical problems that this approach creates (namely doing all that crazyness on one machine) and explore some alternatives. Got any other ideas?
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I post this more as a photographic or cinematographic study than anything. One of the things on my shot list at a festival is to film the pre-event construction. I was drawn to the geometric lines, the huge cumulus in the background, the dark silhouettes deftly working at a steady pace. And then, enjoying the sunset!
Click through to see the video.
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Why has this space been so quiet lately? Well, I’ve had a season of intense travel, event production and incredible networking with amazing people all over the world. I’m now back in Portland, Oregon trying to draw breath (ow! the air is on fire!). I had really hoped to write about my experiences - I have this incredible backlog of writing in my head now - but realistically, there’s very little time to write in my days. For the time being, at work I’m focused on organizing the 15+ hours of footage I shot, and the stack of 1500 photos I made over the course of three weeks in Africa; I’ve also got a few internet-related projects on the plate.
More importantly, I’m focused on reconnecting with my wife, kids, friends and family. My folks come into town this August from San Angelo, Texas and hopefully my brother Tim will come up from Colorado. I’ve gotta unplug and re-engage with, y’know, real people and all.
There has been lots happening - as you can see from my Twitter and Facebook status updates. More and more of my online thoughts are going there (technically, to both places) - I hope to redesign this blog to reflect that. Twittering from rural Africa was so cool! It was great to share my experiences with you all as they were happening. Check back soon, and say “Baraho!” (Kinyarwanda for ‘hello’) on Twitter or Facebook!
]]>Since you've properly set up the Mac you're using before this point, you're ready to connect to the projector on-site at your presentation. You did read Part One, right?
Here's what's covered here, and what's not. We're assuming that you are connecting to a small, business projector or display (like an HDTV or large LCD display). If it's a larger event in a room with AV services, you should be working with an AV tech to connect to their system. Ask your meeting facility for this persons' info early on!
For smaller events, or ones where the venue has AV infrastructure, you just need to know where to plug the VGA cable. You've already done this once, back at the farm, when you were setting up the Mac, so this should be familiar by now.
The steps should go thusly:
Our team just finished this last week, and I wanted to post here to share with you. If you’re involved with evangelism or are a missionary, join Luis Palau, Miles McPherson, Dinesh D’Souza and Matt Redman (special Worship evangelism seminar!) this Nov. 10-13. Click through to watch.
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After measurable success using Keynote as our primary platform for our most important presentations, the rest of the team here at the Luis Palau Association is starting to get Macs for their presentations to get all that buttery Keynote goodness for their presentations. I wrote this up to help the non-techies get their Macs set up for solid, reliable presentations every time. I’m sharing it with you here, in case you’d like to learn more about making Keynote sing.
In part one here, we’ll configure the Mac for presentations. You should only have to do this part once for a given machine or user on that machine. It must be done [again, only once] before the trip or presentation – not when it’s time for the show. Plan smartly!
Download the Presentation setup files (info below). Zip, 2mb.
We need to do a little setup in general before doing presentations. A few quick setting adjustments will make future presentations go smoothly. Run through these steps at least once before doing anything. In fact, since we’re gettin’ all tweaky here, consider creating a “Presentation” user in Preferences > Accounts and just using that user for presentations. Putting the presentations (Keynote files, etc.) in the /Users/Shared directory makes sense for that use.
First, open up the System Preferences Pane. It’s under Apple > System Preferences. Select “Display Preferences”.
Check “Show displays in Menu Bar”.
This makes it easy to switch resolutions:
Here you can see my two displays connected, which is like having the Mac and a projector
Go to System Prefs > Keyboard & Mouse > Trackpad. Select the two Trackpad Options at bottom:
Important: If you use a remote “clicker” like our presenter remote, you must plug in a USB mouse in order to use the Mac while the remote is plugged in. The remote acts like a 4-button keyboard, and with no trackpad you can’t do much without a mouse. Run with both during a presentation.
In the menu bar, where the power indicator is, select “Better Performance”. This will keep the lazy Mac from sleeping on the job during your fabulous presentation.
Okay – you’re ready to hook up that projector!
If you’re at a facility, they may just have the VGA cable to plug into, but it’s the same. You need your VGA adapter:
If it’s one of our projectors, you can use a DVI cable (no dongle needed), but it’s more common to use the VGA.
When you plug in, the screen will flash to blue and back. Go check your resolution with the Display Menu you set up earlier:
The Mac “knows” where the other screen is. In Displays > Arrangement you can select the second display and move it to the side you want. I like mine on the right; just be consistent. If you have to use the mouse on the second display, you’ll know where to head.
See that “mirror displays” item? Don’t do it, it’s evil. Don’t be evil. If your display is all “huge” and the same image appears on both, this is why.
Note: if you like the Dock on the sides (like me) you’ll need to set it to the opposite side, or else it will appear on the second screen, which you don’t want.
This is sort of a setup step, but you have to have a second display connected to do it. We need to set a black background (or logo) to the second desktop screen, so when switching programs, setting up, or if a crash happens (to the best of us!), it’s not disruptive to the show.
First, download a black swatch. These are a part of the Setup Files zip if you haven’t downloaded them yet.
I prefer setting the screen to black. It’s simplest, and least disruptive if there’s a problem. For some reason, it’s not default with the Mac. You’d think, with Apple’s Presenter-in-chief and all.
Put the black image in /Library/Desktop Pictures/Solid Colors (’/’ is the hard drive root).
Since the second display is now connected, the Desktop Picture pane appears on each screen. On the second screen, go Solid Colors > the black one.
Before we get further, we need to set up Keynote properly. The default settings may work fine, but check against the following screens. Application preferences are in the Keynote menu > Preferences.
Slideshow:
Presenter Display (what shows on your screen when the show is running. Great for solo presentations):
The Mac is now ready for the next step: the actual presentation! Look for part two soon.
]]>Here’s what Trinity did today! Click the “tv” icon to view full-screen.
Note: all footage © 2008 Luis Palau Association. This was done for educational purposes.
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