Chris Hambly - New Media Is Where I is @

How do I get my mom to watch internet tv

2007-06-15T06:48:00.000-07:00

This audio recording was captured at PodcampEU using an M-audio Microtrack.

The recording has had some degree of processing to even the varying levels which come from differing distances to the microphone of the sources. In addition the background noise level at the venue was very high, as you can hear, VERY not-good for audio recordings, and something to think about for venues such as this.

The session is run by Kfir Pravda and is called “how do I get my mom to watch internet tv”.

DownLoad the audio file here

10 things you must do in stockholm

2007-06-14T09:55:00.000-07:00

1. buy a hot dog and ram in right into your pocket and jump in a taxi, and get told off if you try to eat it!

2. buy a Swedish massage and record the grunts you make.

3. eat Sweetbread, "it is the name of a dish made of the pancreas (belly/stomach) or thymus gland (neck/throat/gullet/heart sweetbread) of an animal younger than one year old. These animals are usually lambs or calves."

4. eat raw smoked duck

5. spend an hour determining which is the best meatball restaurant in town, and then get the best table.

6. get lost in a taxi, with a fucktard of a driver who has no idea where he is going. none!

7. choose an airport which needs a connecting flight to the actual friggin city you wanted to go in the first place. RyanAir will do that for you.

8. have two lay-ins in a row due to it being the only time you'll get them in the near future due to family commitments.

9. get lost walking around the small islands at 3am in summer and watch the sun come up.

10. hang out in the kings square, and old city, and chat with as many freaky locals as possible, you might learn something about another culture.

Stockholm Visit

2007-06-14T08:18:00.000-07:00

So I visited Stockholm, the capital of Sweden these passed few days.

The visit to Stockholm for me, or should I say my aim, my goal, my intention, was a four pronged affair, which meant I had to be fairly efficient at achieving all four of these items over the two days, and essentially “blend” the activities. I think I did reasonably well too.

The items on my agenda were:

to invest a significant amount of time with a new client of Audana
to visit PodcampEU and hang-out with some of the creative people there
to see VON, and reach-out
to explore the city of Stockholm itself

I flew out of Stanstead airport on Monday evening, arriving in Stockholm Skavsta Airport, which proved to be a non-amusing start to the trip, being 90 minutes outside of the city itself. Typically these euro buses fly along, but no, this was a very steady Swedish 55MPH all the way, very tedious.

The following day of Tuesday was a good day, we got to discuss a big project for most of the day, and seeing as the location was a Euro destination, something very removed from our normal lives it seemed to aid the flow of creative juices between us.

Mid-way through Tuesday we took a taxi over to VON, touted as “The European IP Communications Industry Event”. The event was being held at the Stockholm International Fairs, an impressively large conference centre. There was a significant commercial presence at VON from most of “the players” in the communications industry and I managed to contact some interesting people, and get to hear their views on how the industry is changing.

Mixing it up with some of the representatives from these large corporations and hearing their views on what new-media is as a concept, was highly interesting. I managed to pin a few of these representatives down for an interview, if nothing else to plant a seed in their minds regarding such concepts as podcasting, and social-media networks. It’s quite interesting watching people “ramp-up” the gears once a microphone is revealed.

VON was the major sponsors of PodcampEU, which is the free un-conference, a concept having taken place in numerous destinations repeatedly in the USA. If you have read some of my earlier posts you’ll have realised I have been to another one of these events this year which took place in New York over the Easter weekend.

PodcampEU was a very small affair by comparison, which was probably a good thing as I imagine this meant lots of good friendships were struck very quickly. On the ground the PodcampEU area consisted of three small units within the VON exhibition itself and I managed to catch a few of the sessions I had down on my check-list, one of them was to meet and listen to Kfir Pravda who ran a session called How to make my mom watch Internet TV" – though more about a brain storm regarding how to market the concept of Internet TV, and what needs to be done.

Though this particular Podcamp was a small affair it was actually superb, and I think the founders of Podcamp, namely Chris Brogan and Christopher Penn were very happy with it, that’s the mood from the blogs and pics and my early reflections.

Personally, I think what was significant about this camp was having this un-conference, free to attend, Podcamp, in the same vicinity as the “big-boys” who were exhibiting at VON. New-media can be (and I whole-heartily agree) accused of being in the “fishbowl”, that is to say the practitioners might only mix, discuss, socialise, and attract similar people doing the same things as themselves, essentially a little intrinsic and possibly incestuous. However, by having these wonderfully creative new-media champions in this commercial VON space, next door to the big companies, was in my mind perfect, a perfect opportunity to embrace and poke someone who might be in the dark.

I truly hope everyone made a significant point of talking about what it is they do to these people, the people who know little about web2.0 and podcasting, the power of blogging etc. I know I went to great lengths to “reach-out” to many of these types outside of the fishbowl and grabbed a heap of business cards.

A great shame we missed the VON party on Tuesday evening, as I heard it was rocking, we had moved on and focused back on our project and were deep in dialogue and felt it was in our own best interests to continue. I would imagine many people mixed it up at the party though and cemented some great friendships.

Much of Wednesday was spent with my client, brain-storming away which proved to be very effective, we also managed to explore the city somewhat.

I’ve realised this blog could turn into an essay so rather than continue, I think I’ll break it down into four blogs, or four podcast themes rather than mash-it-up into one long stream of consciousness.

There were many hilarious antics (as well as the serious stuff) on the trip and so, yes, I think breaking the blog into those highlights will be more fitting.

Wait till you hear about the Hot-Dog incident in Stockholm

Contact Me

2007-06-11T05:51:00.000-07:00

OK I'm off to Podcamp EU now, and I thought I would post a pic of me along with my phone number.

If I need to chat with you make sure you connect with me at some point.

Phone number is:+447796217929 (sms text message is easiest, that way I'll get back to you)

Power Questions

2007-06-09T07:59:00.000-07:00

Try these power questions for nurturing response in your communication channels.

What do you look for ...?
What have you found ...?
How do you propose ...?
What has been your experience ... ?
How have you successfully used ... ?
How do you determind ...?
Why is that a deciding factor ...?
What makes you choose ...?
What do you like about ...?
What is one thing you would improve about ...?
What would you change about ...?
Are there other factors ...?
What does your competitor do about ...?
How do your customers react to ...?

For more significant power tips and tricks grab yourself a copy of this:

The Sales Bible

The Machine is Us/ing Us

2007-06-08T13:58:00.000-07:00

Delightful representation of how "we" are the web and how we are shaping it. A great video for the web2.0 skeptics.

read more | digg story

Thinking is So Over: Why the Web is Turning Us All into Dullards

2007-06-08T05:07:00.000-07:00

Will Web 2.0 create a new, more "democratic" Internet, or will it destroy the 'Net itself? Do users with no knowledge or expertise in the fields they're writing in deserve more webspace and voice than experts? Has the day of the infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters writing Shakespeare finally arrived?

read more | digg story

Why do I find this so funny?

2007-06-08T02:56:00.000-07:00

This is a great shot sent by a friend of mine Chris Brogan which just had to go up on the blog. I like this shot more than just the pixels it is composed of as there is a very funny story behind it. Thanks Chris lol.

read more | digg story

Technical and Professional Network

2007-06-05T10:50:00.000-07:00

OK people, need some help here.

There are a number of universities that run music and audio technology courses and as the number of students with these interests grow there appears to be an increasing need at the IET to suggest the need for a new Technical and Professional Network(TPN) catering for this ever growing community.

So could you please indicate what kind of thing would be wanted in terms of news, events, interviews, technical articles, surveys. Would be helpful if you would be so kind as to ask your students for any thoughts they have on this, or just answer yourself if you are a student or have an opinion.

Examples of what appears on the existing 40 TPNs can be overviewed here:
http://www.iee.org/oncomms/sector/

The Institution of Engineering and Technology

www.theiet.org/circuit

Thanks

Abbey Road Vintage Sounds

2007-06-05T09:24:00.000-07:00

Might have to try these Abbey Road Vintage sounds!

read more | digg story

Do You Twitter

2007-06-05T08:18:00.000-07:00

Twitter is great service, simply put it asks you the question “what are you doing?”.

Essentially the service, (which is free) is a micro/macro-blogging service which gives you the user 140 characters in which to convey whatever it is you wish to convey to your audience, at the precise moment, albeit slightly asynchronously due to server lags, and phone networking processing etc. But kind of very immediate!

So if another user has chosen to “follow” your micro communications, which are usually macro in nature, containing a link, or a thought to something larger, they will receive an update in their own feed, from you, and anyone else they care to follow.

Say what?

Well you create a profile, with some basic bio information about yourself, or your business, or whatever you choose the profile to represent. You then fire in messages about what you are up to, from a webpage, or an instant messenger, or even more cool, from your cell phone!

So how do I use the service?

Well I have set up a few accounts, some of which are automated, and one, my personal, which is not.

My personal one, is usually very transparent thoughts, and does what it says on the can “what are you doing”? – so here I usually state exactly that.

Here are my Twitter accounts:

• Audio – this one is my personal account, you’ll get all sorts of random things from me here, this is very much about what it says on the can. “what I am doing”.
• MB – this one is automated and sends the followers (basically me) a tweet (nickname for the communication) each time a new press release has been published on malebits.com. I find this really useful to ensure releases are getting submitted, as it is not always me submitting them.
• AC – this one is automated once an hour, and this sends a tweet on whatever the latest content in that rss feed is. I happen to have an rss mash-up here, in that I have combined 3 rss feeds into one, so the feed is called “The Full Monty”. This could be an AC blog post, a forum post or the latest press release. This is very useful for me as I get auto notifications on any new content on audiocourses.com
• TPC – this one is also hourly automated, with a CRON job, and here again I get a tweet on any new content, such as a new pic or comment from The Phone Cam.

Porting it

I then take the rss feed of those accounts, and publish them in other places too, such as secondlife, or a myspace plugin, or facebook, so I can visualise that content in other places too, as can others.

So how could you use the service?

• Well what about if you were an educator and you wanted a neat, modern, student friendly way to keep your students in the loop? Why of course create a “group” account, in which you can pass out important (or non-important) information. The students could get instant updates, to their phone, or myspace plugin.
• Run a large popular forum? - set up your updates to get sent to a twitter account, giving your users another way of getting notifications.
• Work within a small team and need a quick way to get macro content to ALL the members quickly? You could send out a brief message with a url.

Can you think of any more ways to use the service, how do you currently use the service if you do so? Do you use it push ads, clever thoughts, self-publish, or just plain open off the top of your head thoughts?

With Reasonable Diligence

2007-05-31T09:25:00.000-07:00

For those of you in the UK you may find, like I, that the whole traffic offence situation is getting more then slightly tedious. It's not that I do not appreciate exquisite driving and safety on the roads, I do unquestionably. However, I find the current "nannying" culture of UK traffic policing a Royal pain the ass.

I'm not even speaking from naivety, I've travelled, I've lived in other countries for very extended periods of time, I've experienced first hand how other cultures adopt a more humanist approach to "slowing down" the traffic.

In the UK June 2007, we have an estimated 12,209 speed cameras, yes I know, that's plain dumb. 12,209 cameras on differing points ready to "snap" your licence plate as you hurtle passed the thing doing more miles-per-hour (MPH) than you are legally allowed.

So what's the outcome? - well a big juicy fine and points deducted from your driving licence, you typically get 3 deducted for each offence, 12 points later, no licence. The trouble is you see, it is the penalising nature of this system which aggravates me, you are punished unquestionably for doing a few MPH over the limit, and penalised in a most aggressive and fascist manner.

In reality the great speed camera of the UK has become an income generating revenue stream, where hundreds of thousands of pounds are taken daily. This is common knowledge, councils will actively seek out potential "black-spots" for income generation. I do know a guy, working in this field who informed me this is part of the sales pitch for new cameras!

The humanist approach (as is apparent in Italy as example) would be to have speed detecting equipment which throws up a warning sign saying slow down, and for particularly vulnerable areas, like busy towns or school entrances have speed activated traffic lights, and then if the lights are jumped THEN fine.

Speed cameras in their current state do not make people drive slower, they make people drive slower passed those cameras only. A whole database industry exists which creates daily updates of all known cameras and once dumped into your PDA gives you a warning of an oncoming speed camera.

If you do get caught (rather than politely warned, oh no that's too intelligent) bear in mind you DO NOT have to pay up immediately, they have to prove it was YOU driving the vehicle, and with reasonable diligence.

In this first instance ask for photographic evidence of the crime scene, which must be provided.

Secondly, ask for proof that the camera equipment had a recent calibration, again this must be provided. Thirdly, if that comes, and you cant not be identified, you can enter into a "without reasonable diligence" plea as it could be anyone driving the car.

Here is a handy letter you could use in your dialogue with the traffic police.

Dear Sir

I refer to your letter dated xxth month 2007, in relation to an alleged traffic offence.

I thank you for forwarding photographic evidence of the said offence, which does indeed show the car registration mark xxxxxx as being present, of which I am the registered owner.

However, the evidence does not identify who the driver was, and as stated in your letter “the purpose of the image is to place the vehicle at the location at the time and date specified and it is not intended to identify the driver of the vehicle”.

In light of this evidence it is proving to be extremely difficult in identifying the driver of the vehicle for this date and time and I cannot, with reasonable diligence, ascertain who this was.

Yours faithfully

Here is a link to Road Traffic Offences in UK

What do you think, is it just me, do you like speed camera, why, couldn't there be a better system?

Voices In Business

2007-05-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

So the summer is basically upon us, certainly here in UK we are having daylight up to around 10pm, which I so love. Naturally my thoughts go out to those of you who work in reverse such as the Australians, but then again you beat the Brits at Cricket so you can’t have it all.

So as summer is here, now is the time to start relaxing and making the most of your friends and acquaintances, spending time outside, on the beaches, fields, lakes, wherever. We have almost finished another cohort of students and examinations are pending, so I wish to send my best wishes out to those of you that relates to, and also want you to remember there is light at the end of the tunnel!

I’m a fan of keeping in contact with all ex-students no matter from where they come or go, the world is a fairly small place really and you never know when paths may cross again, so I do ask you to stay I touch with me personally. I can be found on many social networks, where a quick email or IM, or poke, nudge, wink, will get to me somehow.

I met one of my ex-students who studied at Audiocourses.com this passed week, Mike O’Hara, Mike has gone on to launch his own business known as Voices in Business which is a Podcast service for business experts, he really is on the way up to great things. It was so good to catch up with Mike and hear about how things are progressing for him and his business since being a student with us.

These types of relationships should be welcomed and fed, in the business of entertainment and music, it really is about having really good friends, in fact I think in almost all the media related niche subjects this is true, do you?

So if you have not yet found me on a social network pop along here and choose one, I’ll be waiting for you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Chrishambly

MediaCamp BUCKS Wiki

2007-05-04T01:32:00.000-07:00

I mentioned yesterday that I am initiating the organisation of a MediaCamp in Buckinghamshire University, UK, taking place around October.

I have set up a wiki page for this here. (http://achubbucks.pbwiki.com/)

If you are interesting in taking part in this I welcome you to get involved and edit any related entries onto the wiki yourself. Wiki editing is one of those open and sharing concepts, which is what MediaCamp is all about.

I’m aware wikis are an alien concept to some of you, particularly those of you who are used to receiving your information in a “drip-feed” manner. If YOU are not used to that form of participation now is your chance to learn, it’s actually very simple.

“A wiki (pronounced , or ; see Pronunciation below) is a web application that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content. Wiki also refers to the collaborative software used to create such a website (see Wiki software).”
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIKI)

It is the collective nature of the wiki concept which can yield such a wonderful pool of resources, it is a very empowering medium because you the participant feel you have, and you do, and equal hand in the organisation of the information or event, this is a fundamental principle of MediaCamping.

Though I am initiating the MediaCamp at Bucks, and I’ve listed myself as an organiser, I am in no way, nor wish to be seen, as “the” authority on it. However, I am more than happy to be associated as some kind of “anchor”, or “contact” or “community developer” (love that title) for the camp, but the organising, promoting, sponsor chasing, engagement of it all is done by all of us, and we are all equal in this.

MediaCampBucks

[I've edited this post to change the term Podcamp to MediaCamp, along with the url for the wiki] - 10/05/07

Moving Forward With The ACHUB

2007-05-09T09:04:00.000-07:00

Audiocourses.com has been operational for around 7 years now, since being started way back in 2000 as a Post Graduate research project. Since then the school has graduated people all over the globe and has a member base of over 12 thousand and become a Private Limited Company.

The main activities of the school are:

• Providing distance learning solutions in the field of music technology
• Providing daily pro-audio news press releases
• Continual research into educational methodologies, particularly immersive environments for the enhancement of our virtual community.

I’m really proud of the way the audiocourses.com community has grown so well, there are some wonderful people involved with it, and students regularly come back and stay in touch. The “virtual community” is the essential link in the chain, the glue, the driving force of what makes it all work.

Over the last 12 months the school started exploring additional concepts for bolstering the virtual community including regular podcasts, (though we did “audioblog” back in 2005) and began researching SecondLife as an educational platform, to add value to our students. I’m actually working on a PhD proposal in educational technology, so it ties in beautifully.

It soon became apparent that we needed a group within the 3D world, so the ACHUB was founded in 06. The ACHUB has always been a not-for-profit venture which has an abundance of volunteers getting involved with promoting some wonderful events, mainly with an educational/research slant. One particular highlight was our Spring Festival back in March which saw (among others) Oxford University present a paper on using SecondLife for medical research and simulation.

So I see the ACHUB as a potential “gem” for our virtual community to move forward and share, what we do at the school, and also with others working in education, new-media, podcasting, blogging, machinima etc. by way of extending events into real-life meet-ups. I also want the ACHUB concept to grow in an organic fashion and encourage anyone to run events themselves relating to anything it is that the ACHUB is concerned with, we have a Charity event coming up for example in June.

I was intending to host/plan/organise an event at BCUC this coming October, under the brand of Podcamp, I was directly asked to get involved. I love the Podcamp concept, (and it is awesome), I enjoyed the experience PodcampNYC immensely and I think what those guys do and will do with that is outstanding for all concerned. But by including that brand into my very early-seed event planning in the UK I have been presented with difficulties which are more than tedious, and selfishly, and from a business perspective, see no reason why I should follow the idea through any further. I see no reason to be a champion for the brand here when there are enough apparent champions currently, it's just banging a head against a wall to get people to see it.

So I am now completely withdrawing the planned event from the Podcamp brand, (sorry guys) and I will be hosting an event under the brand ACHUB which amounts to the same thing in almost every way, it will be a MediaCamp of sorts, but of course has zero history or baggage, zero relatedness and void of politics from any existing community. It’s new, fresh, dynamic, and will rock, no matter the size, everyone will be welcome, anyone can run with it, anywhere anytime.

I’ll still attend Podcamps, I’ve met some awesome people, but I’ll selfishly not fight to organise something which has too many traffic cops involved currently, everyone seems to be an expert. I guess you can’t please all of the people all of the time, just some of the people some of the time.

So moving forward, do check out the ACHUB activities that have taken place in the past and what is planned for the future. The ACBASH in Amsterdam in July is one I’m excited about, as a school we have been mentioning a real-life meet-up for what seems years, students I've only met virtually and staff too, will be there!! Feel free to come meet us in Amsterdam or any of the other events that take shape, and hey set one going yourself!

Pizza And Mayo Is Tasty

2007-05-06T19:41:00.000-07:00

I'm cross posting this one from Audana.com, as though it rightfully sits in the portfolio it's also one of my thought processes so belongs here too.

Pizza and Mayo is a cute little portal which asks one question per page, typically a question where there is one, usually obvious, answer. Do you prefer coffee or tea? - For example.

The idea for this wordpress driven site is really about presenting slightly thought-provoking text, where the text presented asks one question, one subject, with the sole purpose of drawing a user response. The minimalist design is definitely purposeful in this matter for focussing the mind on just that one thought, that one question.

The conceptualisation came together on the back-end of an interesting story concerning a friend of mine CC Chapman.

CC was in NYC on some business and letting his twitter followers know that he was thinking of grabbing a pizza, when I replied “try some mayo on your pizza”, you may say the same as CC, (WHAT!!!) but trust me it does work, of course not if you dislike mayo, but if you like mayo, it works good.

So the sight was born, a teaser for presenting slightly off the wall comparisons, questions, subjects.

There is currently an rss feed available along with the ability to have any new questions e-mailed to subscribers.

The data-set collected may be re-used in some way in the future; I’m not sure yet, not even sure how or why, but possibly it could build up a profile of the posters.

Do penguins have knees?

What Do I Hope To Achieve From A Podcamp?

2007-05-03T02:01:00.000-07:00

So firstly what exactly is a Podcamp? I know for some of the UK readers of this blog this is probably an unknown concept, the majority of the UK population hasn’t really engaged in this type of activity previously, I say majority.

A Podcamp then is a form of un-conference, taken from the concept of a Barcamp.

“BarCamp is an international network of unconferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies and social protocols.” - - (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BarCamp).

I like this a lot, in fact that wikipedia link is worth taking some time exploring to get to grips with the foundations of what a Barcamp is, and it is important to understand this conceptually. A Podcamp being a Barcamp with the focuss on Podcasting, Blogging and New-Media, essentially a Barcamp with a tighter focuss.

The other concept to understand is that a Podcamp is an un-conference.

“An unconference is a conference where the content of the sessions is driven and created by the participants, generally day-by-day during the course of the event, rather than by a single organizer, or small group of organizers, in advance.”

This concept being very different to a typical “sage-on-the-stage” led conference.

- (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference)

This is a beautiful concept, a totally open and sharing environment where like-mined people come together and exchange information in a free-flowing manner. The fact that everyone in attendance is equally important really is beautiful, it is empowering and motivating and very much inclusive.

I am in a position to host a Podcamp Un-conference at BCUC, a University going through modernisation in the county of Buckinghamshire, UK.

BCUC is located in High-Wycombe which is off Junction 4 of the M40, intersecting on the 404 with the M4, Heathrow airport is around 20 minutes by car, the train line runs from Birmingham to Marylebone London, reaching London in 30 mins.

BCUC had 9,000 students on part-time and full-time courses in 2005/6 – including 4,246 who are studying for undergraduate degrees. A potentially rich hot-bed of new future rockstars eager to embrace new-media.

So what are my intentions then?

So my main intentions for a Podcamp at Bucks are to raise the awareness of Podcasting, Blogging and New-Media to those people who are NOT currently in the “circle of trust” (to use a very bad Meet The Fockers analogy). I wish to break out of the tight-knit community which can exist with any new cult-like activity and genuinely reach out to new-comers to the field, the people who are clueless to this. I want students and staff at BCUC to take an active part, I want local business to take an active part and learn something about social-networking, I want old-style broadcasters to pop along and “get it”. I want people to take an interest who have never before been in this environment. I want operators in the “circle of trust” (Christ I hate that) to give and share without agenda, I want them to come from a far and show off what they do and how they do it, I want them to be open, giving and passionate.

The date for this Podcamp is yet undecided, quite possibly it will be around October 07 when the students return to study, thus getting mass numbers involved when the buzz on campus is high.

I can’t stress how important I personally feel it is to reach out beyond our circle, so tell the taxi driver what it is you do, explain to the local politician what it is you do. It is vital we all get out of the box, vital we communicate to one person who has no concept of a podcast, a blog, or what new media is.

Anyone can start the ball rolling for a Podcamp, anyone at all, YOU can. If you blog or podcast why don’t you get one going in your town or city or village. The thing is a Pocamp doesn’t have to be a huge grand mighty affair, it doesn’t have to be massively covered by the press, it could be a small meet-up in a village pub on a bank holiday between 5 of you. If you bring one person in who was previously unaware of these tools you have achieved something great.

There is no central policy organisation, some basic points to adhere too only, nor should there ever be regulations, there is no "hand-of-god" to usher you into something you are uncomfortable with, if you want to do one, just do it!

So what are you thoughts? Do you appreciate my intentions? Would you like to get involved? Would you like to run a Podcamp?

PODCAMPBUCKS [edited with updated link]

Comments encouraged.

Text To Speech

2007-04-28T04:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was so cool, I got a great amount achieved.

About 2 months ago I was flippantly commenting on Twitter that wouldn’t it be so cool if my Twitter rss feed was converted into speech. When I say “cool” I actually mean a total hoot! I’d not have a great need for hearing my twitter friends, I can read them fine, but as it happens, it does turn out to be hilarious. Read on.

A friend suggested (please remind me who that was) that I approach Xfruits and propose the concept to them, so sure enough I did.

After some chats back and forth with Gilles Le Cocguen, and a few beta runs, Gilles has now gone and publicly launched the service and called it Vocalfruits.

The service is awesome, once you have created an account it’s simply a matter of pasting your rss feed into the system, you get options for what type of voice you’d like associated with your feed.

You can hear my twitter feed here (http://vocalfruits.com/Audio/wa3bfd/) Yes depending on when you check and who has posted, you might find it pretty bloody hilarious.

Now of course I probably won’t use this service for my twitter feed, but this did initiate the idea that this is an awesome service for well constructed text, and that’s important, which could be converted into, actually amazingly good, speech.

So I went forth and installed this on http://SLEDucating.com, a Blog concerned with SecondLife academics and other forward thinkers (let me know if you want to join), and of course immediately obtained a podcast by default, albeit a computerised voice. Remember a podcast is simply content pushed down an rss feed.

The way it works on SLEDucating is:

1. SLEDucating rss feed fed into Vocalfruits – new rss feed created
2. VocalFruits rss fed into Feedburner (I like stats). – new feed created
3. Feedburner rss feed added to SLEDucating Blog and a player added from Bigcontact (means people can listen on site)
4. Added Feedburner rss to iTunes (or any aggregator you choose)

This, at least for me, is very useful. I’m one of those people that learn and digest a great deal more if the content is in an audio format. Reading through long Blog posts of text is not my gig, so with this service I can simply grab the podcast from iTunes and listen to the latest content while on the move in the car, train, plane, and other dead time.

There are some glitches which will get fixed I’m sure, I’m also sure Gilles would appreciate the feedback if you get into this.

I love it.

Would YOU use this service, would YOU have a use for this in YOUR life?

Audana Marketing

2007-04-26T04:08:00.000-07:00

Today I’ve launched Audana Marketing a new site, and more importantly a brand, an identity, for the various marketing/branding and online community development I continually get involved with.

Having my fingers in multiple pies means that projects can often be undocumented or rather not “shown-off” in a way that many people, certainly potential clients are not used to, sure I blog some bits and pieces here, but so many people often want a brand to associate their project with, I also feel that this is very important.

So Audana Marketing was born, the name “Audana” is a mash-up between two avatar names from the 3D world of SecondLife, where a great deal of development work has taken place which I have led or been a part of.

Audana Marketing draws, and will draw, on talent from an incredibly diverse pool and often from completely unconnected people depending on each new project requirement.

The current Wordpress theme on Audana was ported beautifully by a new young talented coder/programmer who goes by the name of MagicBug on Twitter.

Comments are encouraged on this, and maybe you will be in on our next project in some way, we all draw on each other and motivate and inspire, share your thoughts and experience it helps.

Frutte Di Mare

2007-04-03T07:34:00.000-07:00

OK so Charles said he needs some new recipe, so this inspired me to blog one. I had blogged this particular one on The Phone Cam sometime ago, but some people need step by step instructions so I thought I would create those here.

This dish is a great great taste IF and only IF you get it right. Frutte Di Mare means Sea Fruits so get your seafood taste buds wrapped around this.

Also bear in mind, like all great cooking, the ingredients change, just like Chinese whispers can change the meaning of text, so feel free to adapt this to your own needs, that's what I did and do each time. And remember I'm one of those people who use a bit of

OK so you are going to need.

Red Onion
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Seafood
Spaghetti
Moscatel de Valencia (a very sweet wine)
Salt
Capers
Green Chili
Tomato Passata (tinned toms are fine)

So first take half the red onion and chop it really fine like so:

The next step is to plenty of the olive oil in a frying pan over a moderate heat and "sweat off" the opinions. The secret here is not too hot, do not burn them but get ALL the water out of them, as in ALL the water, "sweat" them off...

While that is doing you should prepare some water for the pasta which should be as salty as the Mediterranean, so get plenty of salt in there. I usually add a lot of salt, some of you may prefer less than me, but hey I'm a salt nut.

Next job is to "sweat off" the tomatoes, and add a tiny amount of green chili and some capers.

You hear me say "sweat off" a lot in this post, this is vital in lots of dishes like this. Italian food is oil based not water based (this is one of the key areas some people get wrong), you really need to get all that water out.

Have patience take a bit of time (sip some wine while it's doing).

As you can see in this next pic the water really has ALL gone. Only the ingredient remains with the oil. Looks delicious already, and the tomatoe at this point would have become sweet, if you do not sweat correctly they do not become sweet, they have that sharp taste still.

So now that you have the basic sauce prepared (easy eh), you can get on with washing the seafood.

As you can see I have crab sticks, mussels and squid as my seafood, that's a good taste and not too strong in flavour, also the texture is good, firm. Most stores sell this in packs, but you can mix this up from a good fish shop.

So next up is that "special touch", adding some of that deliciously sweet white wine. I like to use dessert wine, very sweet and thick in texture.

Throw plenty in with the seafood and sauce. Again you must "sweat" this down a little, not too much as the seafood will become hard, so don't add too much.

Pasta should be prepared Al Dente, you know, firm to the bite, do not get it all soft and bloated, it is best with texture. This is another key area some people get wrong. Pasta should be textured, firmish.

Lastly you drain the pasta (DRAIN ALL WATER) and mix together, you should have a dish looking something like mine here.

Note the colours will vary a lot from dish to dish, so don't worry about that but do take note of the textures and amounts.

And lastly get that wine, and enjoy the delightful taste of Chris Hambly's version of Frutte di Mare.

I'd love to hear about it if you do try this version, send a comment in.

Have fun and, always take your time, never rush food, cooking and eating is to be made special.

If Top Lists are the Currency of Academic Quality I Quit

2007-03-27T09:11:00.000-07:00

So I’m angry, I was reading a post from one of my Twitter friends, CC Chapman, about his dislike of Top Lists. This motivated me into responding back along the lines of “I despise Top Lists” in the context of how people continually request information along the lines of “what is the top school for audio engineering”, “what is the best school for production”.

I’ve seen these questions asked time and time and time again on one of my forums for studio recording engineers. The board has a category (99) (http://www.studiorecordingengineer.com/forum-99.html) entitled Becoming an Engineer, and I’m always amazed at how many people ask this, frankly dumb, question, I’ll now indicate why this is dumb.

Firstly, before we look at how Top Lists work in USA (thanks to another of my Twitter friends Christopher Penn) we need to ask this question: Why are you going to college? Or put in a more academic way – what are the main motivational reasons for a student attending college.

The main motivational reasons an individuals choice for attending a college for studying are numerous and considerable academic research exists which indicates this very clearly such as this (http://www.nwrel.org/planning/reports/self-direct/) to name thousands.

Some of the main reasons I’ve listed here:

Intrinsic reasons

• Loves the subject for the subject sake
• Wants to prove they can achieve something for themselves
• Loves the city the college is based at
• Knows other students or staff at campus

Extrinsic reasons

• Wants a qualification as a ticket
• Want to prove to family and peers their capability and worth

I do not want to dwell on these reasons in a blog post, but needless to say the reasons are complex, which make questions of the form “What is the Top School for Audio Engineering” absolutely of zero value, if there is no correlation to the individual students' motivational reasons or indeed a definition of what “Top” is.

Indeed if Top List are not clearly defined as to why they are Top Lists they are nothing more than disinformation. Financially backed lists are even worse, where they are self-perpetuating and creating a very wrong perception of quality in the minds of the youth, I mean people really do seem to believe these lists as a measure of some kind of academic quality, it is frankly shocking.

Check this post out as an example of this activity:

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/03/19/usnews

If a Top List is in existence we have to pull it apart, rip it to bits and ask what are the qualifications for getting in the Top-List, what makes the school top, who decides that and why do they decide it, and could I put my school in the Top List if I could afford it! This goes back to Christopher Penn’s transparency concept, I’d go even further and simply do away with Top Lists altogether!

For example "goals such as increasing the diversity of freshmen, improving freshman retention, adding to research expenditures, improving faculty salaries, etc" are very noble targets for any Uni Director/President to aim for, but when these magazine Top-Lists are based on subjectivity we are in extremely dangerous ground, especially when a Uni President is being paid to reach the top of the Top List, outrageous!

Sometimes the best academic experience can come from the most unknown of sources and, it is the connections the individual makes with the material, the people, the environment which yield rich education, as well as a variety of other issues which have absolutely nothing to do with a subjective Top-List published in popular magazines.

Screw the friggin Top Lists!

I Love New Media

2007-03-22T12:25:00.000-07:00

I love new media, I love the people working within new media, and I love the tools we have in new media for sharing the love.

One very interesting blog post which inspired me this week was made by one of my Twitter friends Christopher Pen called Transparency is the currency of a trust relationship. This is a great post which I have been actively pushing all week which has led to some great things.

In all my meetings and activities this week I have been experimenting with the concept of "opening-up" more and more and sharing more and more information with more and more people. I consider myself fairly open already, but maybe I'm not as open as I think, so I have been exaggerating this as much as possible. I have been mixing real life face-to-face encounters with online-worlds, social networking tools and expanding all of those as far as possible.

I have shared my Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, blog, Podcast details with students, staff and anyone I come into contact with. I have had numerous requests for to be added for all of those channels and I'm loving.

I love new media.

RSS to Twitter Script

2007-03-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

Found a great script which takes an RSS feed and spits that up to your Twitter account.

I immediately installed this script for TPC and also ACF+, with a server CRON setting to once an hour.

This means that those two RSS feeds will be posted to their respective twitter acounts once every hour, thus displaying the most recent entry.

Check the RSS to Twitter Script here

ahhh, lovely.

Second Life Educating Blog

2007-03-13T14:41:00.000-07:00

Just launched SLEDucating as a shared portal for educators working in SecondLife wishing to blog. There is an abundance of academic research and development taking place "in-world" and though many many personal blogs exist for this, there was not one central shared space. Now we have one.

I encourage any of you dipping your toes into SL as an academic or a closely related field of development (new-media experts etc) to jump in. Just ask me for a category and I'll set that up for you.

Future Of Web Apps

2007-03-09T02:27:00.000-08:00

I was recently checking out The Future Of Web Apps lectures which can be found at this site: http://www.futureofwebapps.com/. This was just what I needed this morning in order to get tuned into some site design and conceptualisation I need to get going today and over the weekend.

I'm wanting to re-vamp some of the services available on The Phone Cam, which will allow far more user interaction. Since we launched that site I've been really gagging to get more user interaction, everyone loves getting gossip and becoming part of a multi-user community providing it is busy and very transparent. The transparency in technology is totally essential. One of the ways TPC currently has interaction is through posting comments to a blogged picture, this then sends and e-mail to the poster that a user has commented on their content. Whilst this is awesome and cool, it's not yet immediate enough for me. The thing is we are encouragring a user to use their phone to send content, that part works great, the user takes a pic and hits send, it's blogged, sweet. A user can even use their wap connection and log-in to the site through their phone and comment, but this is the crunch, that is not transparent, it's not "girl-proof" (no offense girls), I mean this in a positive sense, it is not easy, not easy enough.

So the developmental plan is to get TPC to be phone-text enabled, through either sms and/or e-mail.

I feel we need to change the way this will operate slightly from a user perspective, to not so much have the focus on pic discussion but to enable general discussion based on the users group, or network, or chosen pool of buddies/friends, much in the way twitter.com works.