@Maarlooz and the twitter Love at 140conf

June 17, 2009

My roommate Marlooz gave a presentation today at the 140 conf by Jeff Pulver. Back in Kinnernet, Pulver and I where in a group talking about twitter and I shared my TwitterDate experience with Marlooz. Now Marlooz and I are roommates. He said he wanted that story at the 140conf. So Marlooz was able to go becuase it was with her vacation with her family. She is such a wholesome girl. I was helping her out with the presenation till late last night. Then this morning I see a brief twitter about her laptop being stolen.

@marlooz

"#140conf My MacBook Pro looks like this: http://mobypicture.com/?ea0wih Please keep an eye out for it. It got stolen at Touch."

Then I started to see donations flowing in after that. Briefly I was able to skype chat with marlooz, all of 3 sentences before she had to go. I had no idea how the laptop was, the presenation would go, nothing. Presentation comes and I start to see a slew of comments about it come up in my search. As the presenation was about twitter love, when people heard that Marlooz had raised some €700 for a new laptop, people started understanding love in another way.

Let me tell you something about Marlooz. She is the best roommate. We don't have much money at the place, both struggling, but she knows how to shop cheap and make money stretch. And even though I have other clients, having worked for Marlooz and get paid from her, she was fast with payment. Something I don't see often in the freelance business. And that laptop of hers was her life. Once already she had spilled water on it, and borrowed my old laptop while it dried for a week. Then just before she had to goto London to film a project, her laptop died. Luckily I still had mine, but the battery is completely shot on it, and no new batteries help. Then she was able to fix her old laptop herself, (all kinds of screws on the kitchen table and stuff). Just before leaving for the States. THEN IT GETS STOLEN!!! I can't wait to see her when she gets back and I hope that there was enough money donated so that she could buy a really great laptop while she is in New York.

An Awesome Geek Chick like Marlooz, needs a laptop!

---Update---

She has raised enough money now to get her laptop.... I see here. I guess I should start to love twitter again as well. This story has brought me over from my twitter hate.

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Happy Birthday Sabine!

June 16, 2009

A picture for an awesome girl for her birthday. Happy Birthday Sabine! I hope this year is the best one yet!

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EVOM My new Fav Video App on Mac

June 16, 2009

So, I come across a video that I would like to save on the internet. I may wanna use it for a class, to create a mash-up, keep a copy of friends videos, use it to VJ, etc. I need to download a lot because of either copyright, or loss of account or some other issue, it is hard to find those AMZING vids again on the net. Yes the internet has an expiration date on video. more than it has on text. I guess because video files are larger than text, they don't seem to be archived and saved and distributed as much. Text is easier to find when the source is gone. Video, a lot harder.

My method was use some Video Download plug-in in FireFox which would download the flash file from sites like Youtube, Dailymotion, etc. However these don't always play so well on the Mac. I usually watch all my flash videos in Miro, which seems to be the best for me, and also FREE. However flash files don't work at ALL in editing programs such as iMovie or Final Cut Pro. Good bye mash-ups then. I am constantly fu*#ing with converters to get flash turned into quicktime to be able to edit them. That has all changed for me today with Evom.

Evom is a FREE app for the mac that allows you to drag and drop, and easily encode videos for the web. Wheter it be to convert for iPods, AppleTV, or even post directly to Youtube. However for me there are a number of other programs that do this better. But that's not why I like it.

A small (only seen in the small print) feature is that by adding a bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar, Evom will download, automatically convert, and even place a video from a website into your iTunes. YES!!! Thank you! I beleive my Msic Video collection as a VJ is about to grow a lot more. Damn I need to run and get another 1TB hardrive for all these great vids. Free for a Mac, go get a copy if you are into Video on the web and a Mac person.

Create Passwords EZ with L33T

June 15, 2009

The other day I was helping my friend Isabelle out with her blog. Of course setting up a blog with your own hosting etc. you need some good passwords, for example many sites insist that you create an extra strong password. Isabelle was having trouble with good passwords that were easy to remember. I told her about my L33T technique and she thought it was brilliant. Here is what I told her.

A good password has a number of letters and text at least 8 characters long. Many sites require this. However most people just use thier phone number, or name or a word which are all easily hacked using a dictionary or number crack. As I talked about before, having a few passwords for different sites is a good idea. I usually say 3 max so that if one doesn't work, you can try one of the other 2 before getting locked out. This is because most sites allow for password retry for 3 times. Ready to make one of your own?

1. think of a phrase that you like or can easily remember. A good idea is to have some letters like O and I in it. for instance: "I Love Gummy Vodka"

2. Writedown your phrase on a piece of paper and start replacing letters for numbers. Also add a couple letters as Capitals. 1LuvGummEV0dkA

3. There is your new password. however if you are still having trouble with it, just take your phrase and place it into a LEET translator, and remove the spaces to get this: 1l0V39ummyV0Dk4

4. No this is not a password I use, but I am waiting for my gummy bear vodka to be ready. Another week or so now I think.

Leet is a style of writing that popped up on the message boards when certain words were being censored or filtered and has found it's way into our culture. Much of the LOLSPEAK and SMS or TEXT message techniques we use today are derived from LEET speak. Thank you L33T for helping me remember my passwords.

ComputerTan Viral

June 15, 2009

How many people spend hours behind the computer screen. I do, but I also face a window so I get some sun during the day as well. (Speaking of which I really need to clean my window. Very dirty.) In any case REVOLUTIONARY TECHNOLOGY has now allowed computertan.com to give people tans by a computer monitor! Actually it is a viral for Skin Cancer in the UK, but funny none the less. Go see how many friends download the iPhone app or try it out. I'm going to the park down the street to get some vitamin B, but I will put on some lotion first.

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PowerPoint Karaoke

June 15, 2009

Have you played PowerPoint Karaoke yet? Ok this is one for the real nerds and geeks. The rules are simple. 1. Have a powerpoint or slideshow that no one knows yet. 2. A presentor tries to present the Powerpoint or Slideshow and make a coherent (and often humoruos) presentation. 3. (Optional) Presentor must take a shot after every second slide or other interval for drinking game varioation.

I first saw this played at Kinnernet09. I realised this is an excellent game to use in my presentation techniques course at the HKU. Unfortunately there is a lack of powerpoints created for Powerpoint Karaoke. so I had my students make a bunch of them. Here is a whole slew of free Karaoke presenations that you can use with your friends or co-workers that they made. Just click on one of the links and start playing.

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GAMES GAMES GAMES!!!

June 9, 2009

Next week I am attending the HKU Design for Virtual Theater and Games EXPO in Utrecht at the Huis aan de Werf. It will be a great show on June 18 and 19. Don't miss it!

For an example there are a couple free games to try out that some of my students made. Felisberto de Brito has made eggCademy and Ziggy Naumann has made Hotel Luma. Both are in the running for the Festival of Games 2009 award from the NLGD. Go and check them out if you can't handle the humpday this week. Enjoy!

UPDATE:

Felis just emailed me that he has an english version of his game online to enjoy. http://eggcademy.com

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Dream Amsterdam - Peter Funch Event

June 5, 2009

Who: Peter Funch is a Danish artist in New York that is working with the Dream Amsterdam project.

What: The artist will be making a photograpgh where he is asking for people to particiapte in. this is part of the IWONDER project of Dream Amsterdam. People are asked to bring an opbject that is dear to them from home. Peter will then make one of his famous compositions. These photographs are truly transcendent representations of the moments and the beauty in the stories that happen in cities everyday on the corner of the street.

When / Where: At Central Station in Amsterdam on Saturday June, 6 2009 @ 16:00 (4 pm). To be specific - the mid tunnel, downstairs at platform 4/5. Google Map

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Toy Story 3 Teaser Pixar History

June 4, 2009

Image via CrunchBase — Image via CrunchBase

I admit I was excited to see the Toy Story Teaser from Pixar. I'm just a huge animation fan, and Pixar is one of the most amazing stories in animation. It started out as a research group with George Lucasinside ILM. Because Lucas was getting divorced he had to sell some stuff from his empire, and the research group (which was looking into computer generated animation techniques) was one to go. Steve Jobs stepped up then and bought the company. Actually Ross Perot almost bought it first. When Pixar was finishing on Toy Story, Jobs, who had a lot of free time on his hands and was going through a bit of a crisis after Apple and Next, became slightly obsessed with the project. To his name, he struck a 3 picture deal with Disney, but more importantly made sure that the Pixar Leader came in the opening credits . This created Pixar as the name in 3D animation when Toy Story was released in the early 90's. So much so that other movies following that used 3D animation, such as Dream Works, were in the public's eye attributed to Pixar. Good branding. If you would like to read more about that part of Pixar's history, you should check out the book The Second Coming of Steve Jobs. But he was a real tyrant as well. He almost moved the Pixar animation Studio acros the state so that his commute for the meetings would be shorter. This in the final months of production with a huge deadline, and the first time a 3D Full Length Feature was ever created by Pixar. Luckily this didn't happen.

Seeing as today John Lasseter is now running Disney Animation (Principal Creative Advisor), it will be very interesting to see how this movie comes out.

Toy Story 3 - Teaser by victorvharo