Time to move on… « Mastering Multimedia - Among the many ringers to the head brought by the recent S-R layoffs, the effect on Colin's video-expansion efforts was a painful punch to the kidneys. I know he'll master his photo/video juggling act yet.
Teaching Online Journalism » Reassessing newspaper video - What's up with newspapers and video these days? "What is still frigging hard about all this — a news Web site today is not the buffet table that a printed newspaper used to be. I am not browsing around randomly on your Web site, happening upon your loveliest desserts or videos as I peruse the latest miserable financial news."
Damn, that's a good point.
Blogs are so over, Wired magazine says — mathewingram.com/work - In answer to Paul Boutin. "Is everyone going to have a blog? No — and they never were. Facebook and Twitter are probably enough for many people. Not writing at all is enough for many people. But why does it have to be all or nothing?"
Video Journal: Green Bluff grape harvest - This one goes out to Thuy. "Stephanie and Davide Trezzi have been growing wine grapes for three years. This year, they're passing a total of five tons of barbera and dolcetto to winemaker Don Townshend, making it the first time a Green Bluff wine will be made exclusively from Green Bluff grapes."
Same song, second verse. Yesterday I posted about looking to other sources to embed a slideshow of my Flickr photos (proud pro account holder for one month!).
Here’s the same photos I posted yesterday but in a Flickr skin:
I like the look, the share features, and the full-screen toggle.
This tool is a digital SLR to Slide.com’s Polaroid camera: the latter still has campy appeal and a distinctive effect, but the former is a lot more practical and professional. Of course, that metaphor breaks down at the cash register. Both Flickr and Slide provide free accounts.
Problem: I went to the Spokane County Interstate Fair on Sunday and took my camera. As usual, I uploaded my photos (mostly of rabbits — I don’t know why either) to Flickr. Great service, love the interface and community. But what it lacks is an embeddable slideshow player.
Quick fix:Slide fills that void — sort of. This free service lets you select photos from your accounts on Flickr, MySpace, Facebook and more. You can also upload directly. Here’s my customized show, with comments and two great sets of online tools following it.
Mixed verdict: It’s great that Slide easily interfaces with social networking tools so you don’t need to upload again. But the presentation options are pretty cheesy. (However much I enjoy feeding my Viewmaster nostalgia, I’m not sure I’d want to present a professional project with this or similarly campy presets.) I also wish there were built-in controls. And I had to hack the generated code a bit to get rid of some redundant, annoying buttons, including one that said “rock out” and linked to MySpace. (Why?) Still, I give Slide big credit for being fun, free and embeddable.
But wait, there’s more: I found Slide through a toolkit Ryan Sholin put together. Also included: data visualization, maps, audio, polls and live streaming video. Most of these are embeddable and blogger friendly.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t also recommend Mindy McAdams’Journalist’s Toolkit (”a training site for multimedia and online journalists”). The resources here are vast, go beyond embeddable tools and fall under the categories of:
Audio
Blogs and Blogging
Design
Flash
HTML and CSS
Photojournalism
Random Tools (FTP; Soundslides troubleshooting)
Video
Data
I haven’t begun to take full advantage of these links, but I’m glad to see that my colleague Colin Mulvany’s video journalism blog is included. I’m especially eager to cruise through the 10-minute Flash crash course and the photojournalism tips.
These two toolkits reinforce that you can find online almost all the instruction you need to make leaps in digital training. All you need is some time, discipline and curiosity.
Ever wonder what goes on below the hood when you generate a Google Map?
White Rock Solutions wants to give you a clue and teach you to do it within your text editor.
I first noted White Rock’s tutorials last month. The early tutorials I reviewed were ideal for people just starting out. In the meantime, White Rock has uploaded several advanced Google API how-tos that will teach you to:
Sign up for a Google Maps API
Create a custom template
Add map controls
Add placemarks to a map
Add standard info windows
Add tabbed info windows
By the fourth volume, you’ll have started from scratch and written code to create this:
If you’re interested simply in creating a custom map on the fly with a WYSIWYG interface, go to Google Maps and dive in or follow the basic tutorials at White Rock or any of the resources Mark Luckie notes at this useful 10,000 Words post.
But if you want to know what all those JavaScript commands in the source code mean, then White Rock’s tutorials will spell it out in plain English. Unless you’d rather dissect the code yourself.
