Apperceptions

FauxPress Stories from BlogHer

Cashier at IHOP: What's the FauxPress?
Markus: A vlog.
Cashier: Say no more.

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Susan Mernit asked about my FauxPress badge and so I gave her one.

Vlogger Lunch

Lunch with Ryanne, Jay, Michael, Alicia, Dave, Rachel, Eath, Erik and baby Jumpa (not sure about that last spelling).

Everyone is here for BlogHer, a meetup and two (count em, two) Meet The Vloggers presentations!  Too much fun for one weekend.

I'll be uploading vids from the events and video conferencing during the Apple store presentation.

Click the pic to view the vid.

Ojai Orange Pickers

The Digital Dojo is surrounded by orange and avocado groves.  The past few days, I have awoken to the songs, calls and laughter of the orange pickers.

Another hot summer day in the Ojai.  A roofer shoots nails into a new roof as the men climb and reach for the popular fruit.

Click the pic to view the vid.

Hilton Blackwell

Hilton iChatted me from Honolulu, Hawaii today.  What a hoot! This is the first call I got on my new powerbook.  Thanks Hilton! Looks like he had a good time chatting too.  Videobloggers are so cool.

Hilton has a great photo and video blog at islandease.blogspot.com

Videoblogging Video Conference

Summary of the Videoblogging Video Conference
Tuesday July 26 5pm PDT

Click here for the entire video conference archive.
Click here for future video conference schedules.

Another videoblogger virtual meetup was held online last night and there was a record number of participants (24 at one time).  The discussion started with a warm-up tour of the Digital Dojo, Ian on his recent interview for the NY Times, a discussion of site look and feel, compression and "1-click" videoblogging solutions.  Eric Rice offered to comp attendees if they wanted to try out related features at Audioblog.com.  Steve and Carol joined in from their new cleaned deck in Boston and a neighbor said hello to people from around the world including new member Carlton Sloan in San Francisco and Anders of the Random Show in Europe.

Here is a very cool feature of the FlashMeeting video conferencing software that generates an interactive map showing the location of each participant.  Here is a link to the minutes containing the list of participants, the shared urls and the chat log.

Following up on the discussion from Saturday, Clint and Eric Rice shared their low budget lighting solutions from Home Depot.  Also, Eric gave us all a peak at his new studio that he is setting up and displayed some of his podcasting rig.

We talked a bit about the various videoblogging events coming up and jumped into a discussion of various aspects of QuickTime 7.  In particular some tips on renaming tracks in QT7pro and using Flip4Mac for viewing WMV files inside the QT viewer.

Bre asked about jacking two mic's into his camcorder and this lead to some tips on inexpensive mixers, wireless mic's and more about lighting.

Chris Ritke translated a recent German article about videoblogging that was being discussed in the Yahoo Videoblogging Group yesterday.  This was a fantastic demonstration of the power of the virtual meeting and a group of people with diverse and complementary skills.

I will add the topic index shortly - markus

Videoblogging Video Conference

Summary of the Videoblogging Video Conference
Sat July 22 Noon PDT

Click here for the entire video conference archive.
Click here for future video conference schedules. 

Participants included Clint Sharp, Chris Nolan, Chris Weagel, David, Devlon, Duncan, Eric Rice, Green Tea, Jan of Sound, Josh Leo, Markus Sandy, Mariah, Max & Alex, Randy Mann, Ro, Schlomo, Michael Verdi plus appearances by Mel Sharp and the Sharp's dog Maggie and cat Dinah.

There was a short video and audio warm up period with greetings and small talk. Check here for tips on getting your camera to work in the video conference (you often have to use the FlashMeeting settings tabs when first using an iSight or camcorder).

Then Clint Sharp asked about "cheap lighting", prompting Michael Verdi and Jan to share some great low budget lighting tips, tricks and good books on lighting and editing.  This lead to a discussion about workshop ideas for the next Vloggercon.

Schlomo brought up the topics of fund raising, payment buttons and rel=payment and the ensuing discussion between Ro, Clint, Jan, Verdi and Eric Rice addressed this as well as shared vlogging costs and hosting, making money, the obsession with making money, sponsorships, what really matters, passion, vlog applications and vlog advertisement.

Ultimately, Michael Verdi questioned if the conversation about money was helping anyone make better videoblogs and proposed changing the topic to "Who do you want to collaborate with?".  Michael Verdi tells a story about collaboration and fun with ice.

This turned into a general discussion about collaboration plans, tools and stories.  Eric Rice indicated a desire to work with "unpopular" people and I described my interests in seeing local bands, artists and vloggers collaborate like Chuck Olsen has done.  Collaboration challenges, tips and issues were discussed by Verdi, Jan, Eric, Duncan, Markus and Ro.

Josh Leo stopped by and contributed to the conversation and asked everyone to hold up on all videoblogging activity for the month of August until he returns from his travel in Europe.

Eric Rice shared his involvement with Podcast Hotel videoblog festival (I am also involved with this event) and this evolved into a discussion of "categories" for vlogs.  The Wikipedia "vlog" entry was presented and discussed in this context. Jan provided a memorable moment when discussing categorization.

Jan also brought up the topic of press kits. She has defined some new del.icio.us tags for this, namely "vloggersinthenews" and "vlogpresskit".

Rachel's Summer Spin Vlog

My good friend Rachel Toole has created her first videoblog!

Rachel is working with us at Outhink this summer helping us with our communications and particpation around the BlogHer event.

She also has a cool mash-up video that I mentioned a few posts back - I'm still palying that one and getting all fired up to meet our friends at BlogHer.

She's got her feed up and everything.

Digital Dojo Oranges

The first of many vids about the wonders of the Digital Dojo.

I hope my friend Jay Dedman comes here one day. 

I think he will appreciate this aspect of the dojo as much as I do.

Until that day, I guess I can mail him a box load just about any time he wants.

All the juice you can squeeze man!

Click the pic to view the vid.

Dave Toole's Weekly Reports

My good friend Dave Toole is really getting down with video on his blog these days.  I love it.  He's a great guy and he's always trying to bring together great people around great ideas. 

Dave meets with lots of creative people and he's always going interesting places to talk with them.  I've been after him for a while to start sharing some of that on video and now he is. 

Dave is breaking new ground in business and personal blogging by sharing his week with us all in video.  Way to go Dave!

Click the pic to view Dave's vid.

BlueHost Email Blues

BlueHost mail is not sending again.  This seems to be more and more common.  Usually the problem goes away after a few moments, but this time it's been at least 30 minutes.  I filed a ticket with their support but they have not responded yet. 

Another 30 minutes has passed and I have determined that their email server is down completely and so I am not getting emails there either.  I filed another support ticket to let them know and to give them a alternate email address to contact me, but so far no response.

I guess they are out to lunch again...

Chris Ritke - 49 Media Passion

I had the pleasure of meeting Chris Ritke by phone and online when he contacted me about a podcast interview for 49media.com.  I got a chance to meetup with Chris in San Francisco just prior to the SF Vlogger Meetup on June 20th, 2005. 

The interview takes place in the lobby of the Stanyan Park Hotel where I was staying on this great trip to the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco.

We all had a great time and I was very inspired by the experience, as was my good friend Dave Toole.

Chris came down the next week to join our VloggerCueWest in Ojai, California on July 9th.

I asked Chris about his passion around 49media.com and he shares some powerful feelings and insights.  One site that both Chris and I have discovered through 49media is Vit and Madge by vitriolica at unkemptwomen

Rachel's Summer Spin - BlogHer

My friend and associate Rachel Toole has created a fun and interesting mash-up video post around the BlogHer event that "we" are all going to on July 30th.

Who are "we"? Outhink and Apperceive are helping and sponsoring several people coming to BlogHer and the SpinFlow meetup dinner afterward for vloggers and "like minded people" as my good friend Dave Toole puts it.

He's doing a lot to help people like Ryanne Hodson, Jay Dedman, Michael Verdi, Rene Amini, Alicia Shay, Rachel Toole and myself to come and participate in these two great events.

Click the pic to view Rachel's video.

As part of our work together for Outhink, I suggested that Rachel post to her vlog about the upcoming BlogHer event.  I also suggested that she make a video without a camera this time and to make use of images from Flickr that had an appropriate Creative Commons license.  I suggested images of women working, sharing or collaborating.

One of the things I find most interesting about this video is the choice of music.  We did not have time during my short visit to Outhink last week to discuss this and so she made her own choice.  Personally, I love it  This was a song from my youth and I had no idea she even knew about it, much less liked it.  I love that a woman has taken this message as a symbol of her own empowerment.

Women of the world are uniting and collaborating around this great event and it has stirred the passions of Rachel Toole and others.  We need more women to blog and vlog.  We need more people to support their efforts.

Vloggercue Ojai

Lot's of great people came to ojai

TypePad Still FUBAR

TypePad performace is just awful since the recent upgrade - if you are thinking of using it - don't.

My readers are complaining about slow comments and I have experienced the same.  This simple post takes minutes to complete.

That may not seem like a big deal, but in fact it just destroys any sense of creative rythem and makes TypePad virtually unusable. 

I tried to spell check it, but the spell checker never finished coming up.

I'm too busy to move this blog yet, but definately intend to soon.

I now have three unresolved tickets with TypePad - they have not responed in days (almost a week now).

I've started some new blogs on Blogger and things are definately better over there these days (and free).

SpinFlow - The Fine Art of Moving Digital Media: Michael Bearden

Too cool!  My friend Dave Toole is now posting video at SpinFlow.org.  Here's an interview that Rachel Toole helped produce that describes how musician and producer Michael Bearden uses a file sharing product like SpinXpress to remove barriers to creativity.

Link: SpinFlow - The Fine Art of Moving Digital Media: Michael Bearden.

ojai blog - news and events in the Ojai community

The OjaiBlog has a great post and video (AVI) of a local concert.  A great view into Ojai's summer night life.  Way to go Tyler!  So many people love these views of Ojai.  Check out OjaiBlog.com for great posts about what's happening in Ojai, California.

Link: ojai blog - news and events in the Ojai community.

SF Vlogger Meetup

I can't begin to describe the joy I felt (and still do) at meeting rene, josh, dan, eddie, gavin, carlton, uta, chris, dave and, of course, schlomo. I'm sure I'm missing someone, so please forgive.

Schlomo and I sang a cole porter classic for Jan. I think renegade caught it on video and I think dave captured it on my camera, which iis not the best in low light, but I'm sure the sound is good (well, as good as it can be).

I'm on the road with my PDA, so I'll just post this note for now and upload pics & vids manana.

Big smile.