October 2009 Archives

Photo taken by Ms. Jen on 10.31.09 with her Nokia N95.

Sat. 10.31.09 - My photos from Alex & Paige's Halloween Party are up at the Alex's Bar Blog.

NaBloPoMo is back!

November is the original and annual National Blog Posting Month and if you have been making excuses to yourself all year that you would like to get back in the swing of blog posting - here it is starting tomorrow only for 30 days - a good challenge.

For the last two years I have been on the 365 Blog Challenge to post every day, of which most of my posts end up being mobile photo blogged (mo-pho-blo), and on the months that I participate in NaBloPoMo I also attempt to post a text blog post every day.

Tomorrow I am going to start on the November NaBloPoMo and post a text/writing blog post every day for the month. Join me and all the others who are participating in NaBloPoMo and it doesn't matter if you post text every day or a photo or a video or a combo of your choice, it is good fun!

Thanks to Mrs. Kennedy for thinking NaBloPoMo up and organizing it.

The confluence of the rambunctious American ritual of Halloween with the somber and sobering feast days of All Saints and All Souls that follow on its heels has always been confusing to me -- never more so than when I was a child. Halloween ranked second to Christmas for the near-hysteria of our anticipation.

The thrill of dressing up to be something scary was delicious, especially so because, as the smallest and youngest member of my large Catholic family, I was much more experienced at being scared than being scary. Halloween allowed me to become the monster. This, no doubt, is at the heart of its hold over us. We're able to put on the clothing of that which frightens us: darkness and death itself.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95.

Fri 10.30.09 - Please note the black blur on Belle's head is a skull & crossbones Halloween dog hair bow. Belle no longer looks like a Polar Belle and Scruffy is no longer Grizzly McDoglet the unshorn mountain dog. Thanks to Blue Ribbon Grooming in Tustin!

'Sita Sings the Blues' is a very delightful feature indie animation film that combines 1920s jazz vocals with the ancient Indian story of Ram and Sita and the parallel story of the animator Nina Paley and her husband Dave.

Worth watching for the interplay of animation styles and narrative, of which is the interstitial bits of the three humorous arguing narrators. Even more worth watching for the gorgeous visuals.

Sita Sings the Blues

A few weeks ago when I was in London, Vikki Chowney invited me to the Adams Street Members club for the launch of a new blog that she was involved with called Reputation Online.

I went along to the party to support Vikki and to see what the new venture was, curiosity frequently titillates this cat, but ended up being more than pleasantly surprised by the idea, conception, and execution of Reputation Online.

On my last Sunday in London, Vikki interviewed me for my opinions on how reputation, promotion, and PR differed between Los Angeles and London. As someone who has deep roots in the Los Angeles music scene and a decade plus of online content publishing, I have opinions on such things.

I think that folks wanting to conduct a good online campaign or who want increase their online reputation should take more than a few hints from the many and varied ways that folks conduct DIY music PR and promotion campaigns as much of ideas and techniques are transferable. Some of best PR and Internet Marketing folk I know are the ones who have come out of Indie and DIY music worlds, not the folks with bachelor's degrees in Communication who have worked in corporate PR.

After spending time on the Reputation Online site, I applaud what Vikki and her team are up to and accomplishing. I love the dual OurViews (on the left) and YourViews (on the right), in which one can read the Reputation Online team's interviews and analyses and then you can click on the "Contribute" menu item and write you own analysis or post on reputation, new media, et al.

The best part is that Reputation Online is not just for public relations professionals but for anyone, be they individual or company, who is interested in managing or growing their online reputation and presence.

Ms. Chowney and the folks at New Age Media, Bravo!

Photo by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95.

Sat 10.24.09 - The best part of today was hearing the rumor from Terri Callis and Bird that a PIG has moved into the neighborhood and then walking over to meet him. Bubba is amazing. His family is also super cool and talked to us for about 20 minutes answering all of Terri and I's questions about Bubba living at the beach in an apartment with a small yard. Both Terri and I were completely smitten and I think her next pet is a micro-pig*.

Apparently, Bubba's family got him before then moved into their apartment, which is less than a block from the beach, and when they told their future landlord that they had a 120 lb Alastian Shepherd dog and a pig, the landlord was thrilled about a pig.

Bubba is cute, smart, charming, and well-trained. He was apparently very easy to train to a leash & harness, he takes regular baths, sleeps in bed with his family, and came potty trained (has his own spot in the yard). Bubba is a vegetarian and eats sparingly so that he does not get fat or slows down. He also no longer needs his leash and harness but follows his family around town as they walk the dog.

I am also smitten with Bubba.

I love the idea of a pig as a pet and not just a farm animal. I love the idea of nature in the city. I love the fact that we have raccoons, rabbits, and coyotes in our neighborhood, not a neighborhood on the verge of the hills or wild lands, but a neighborhood bounded by a big city to the north (Long Beach and then LA), a big ocean to the west (the Pacific), and a big Naval Station with wetlands and open space to the east and south (Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station). It reminds me of the band that named themselves, "I See Hawks in LA."

If you are also smitten and your landlord doesn't mind a cute, smart, clean small pet, the nice folk at Ham and Eggs Ranch in Norco can possibly help you out with one of Bubba's brothers or sisters.

* Micro pot bellied pigs are less than 35 lbs at full, adult growth.

Photo by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95.

Fri 10.23.09 - At Alex's for the Manic Hispanic.

Conservation with Al, Jeb, and Ms. Jen #3 - Mostly on Mobile Video
Video'd by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95 at Tuttle Club LA on Friday 10.23.09
Video(s) edited on Ms. Jen's Nokia N95.
blackphoebe.com
jebbrilliant.com
Twitter: @not_al @jebbrilliant @msjen

Wherein we discuss:
1. The new underground, via Howard Forums, Google Voice client for Symbian S60 v. 5
2. Al attempts to demonstrate the Google Voice widget for the Nokia N97, but the lack of connectivity at the Library in Long Beach, Calif, defeats him.
3. In the meantime, Jeb answers Ms. Jen's question on why he likes using Qik (http://www.qik.com) for live real time video feed to the web. Jeb uses heartwarming and heartbreaking stories to illustrate his point, Ms. Jen is still skeptical as most of the tweets about Qik streams are pixelated, bad sound, and rather dull.
4. Jeb also tells about the Santa Clara Social Web BarCamp that he and Ms. Jen will be road tripping to from SoCal on Mon. Nov. 2, 2009. Props are given to @torgo (http://www.twitter.com/torgo) for the invites to the Social Web BarCamp.
5. Al continues to try to get the Nokia N97's Google Voice widget to connect to the web and call Jeb's Google Voice. Al tells us about his upcoming trip to Thailand to fix his father's computer plus how he plans to visit the stores that sell fake phones.
6. Ms. Jen, Jeb, and Al discuss how all Nokia mobile phones that have video recording capacity should all have a native simple video editing app no matter what.
7. Due to the loudness of the room that the Tuttle Club LA is held in, Ms. Jen shows Jeb her cheap trick for creating directional sound when one is video recording with a mobile phone and has no external directional mic.
8. The Conversation returns to how all mobiles should be able to function completely on their own without having to do tasks on a computer or laptop. Ms. Jen's twitter exhcange with @alsiladka (http://www.oviapplications.com/) is discussed as he said that the Nokia N86 sold in India does have a video editor but Ms. Jen was unable to find one on the euro N86 that she had on loan from WOM World.
9. Wrap up. @Norcalbarney is mentioned as a minor deity of mobile video. Good times.

I am not much of a video recording person, I only remember to switch my camera phone or digital camera to the video mode when it occurs to me that the photo I want to take will only make contextual sense if there is sound and the image over time. I usually notice this after the person has started speaking or the action has began, thus my videos tend to be truncated.

Oops.

To top it all off, I really hate the post-production process. In other words, I hate editing video. In grad school, we had to do an intense 2 week course in video and editing, and I hated every moment of it, other than the editing instructor was a hot 40-something Irish gentleman. But not even Gerry could convince me that editing was worth my time, although I did enjoy watching him talk. Luckily for me, in my final project team we had a member in Shonagh Hurley who not only loved editing video and but could spend hours creatively editing.

Unfortunately, Shonagh is in Dublin and I am in SoCal, so when I need to trim or splice together video segments, I am a bit screwed. And why?

Photo by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95.

Sat 10.17.09 - To all who observe and celebrate, Happy Diwali!

Photo by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95.

Last week while standing in front of the mushrooms in the local Whole Foods produce section trying to determine if I should buy standard white button mushrooms or the brown crimini mushrooms for the pasta I was planning on making, a 60s something gentleman standing next to me said, "Where are the psilocybins?"

These photos were taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86 and her Nokia N95.

Tues 10.13.09 - This afternoon I decided to conduct a test with the trial Nokia N86 camera phone that is about to go back to the folks at WOM World and my trusty & slightly rusty Nokia N95 camera phone. Originally, I had hoped to conduct the experiment using the Nokia N86 versus itself, by conducting the experiment with the Nokia N86 with the version 11 firmware with the upcoming version 20 firmware, which is rumored to have camera improvements, but alas and alack, the new firmware has not been released yet. Thus, the N86 v. the N95 in close up mode.

I wanted to test the close up / macro mode of the camera as I have noticed that the N86 for all of its 8 megapixel wonder and Carl Zeiss wide angle lens does not get very close or very sharp close ups. It may be in part to the wide angle lens and it may be in part due to the image processing software/algorithms. One of the problems that I have experienced is due to the wide angle lens, if I want to fill the photo with the subject I have to get closer and then the image goes out of focus or you keep the image in focus and it does not fill the frame (see the difference between the non-wide angle lens N95 hibiscus flower photo above and the N86 flower photo).

Southern California's first good rainstorm of the year* has arrived. Normally, even in a good rain year, we don't get our first rain until mid-November. On the exceptional year we will get the first real rain at the end of October, but at the start of the month?

Crossing fingers that this means we will have a good rain year, as after several years of drought, we need it.

----
* SoCal receives rain from Oct to April (usually Nov - April) and our weather year is usually counted from July 1 to June 30th.

Mirabilis.ca linked to an article at the BBC entitled, The 'youngest headmaster in the world' , in which they feature the heroic efforts of a 16 year old young man to educate the rural poor in his village in West Bengal.

A mainstay of any democratic country is education for all. The idea of a free public education is a recent one, started by reformers in the US and UK in the late 1700s and enacted on a large scale in the mid-1800s to early 1900s. Many would argue that the success of Western industrial democracies in the last 150 years is built on the availability of free public education that a large majority of folks receive up to the 12th grade (6th form in the UK) who are then empowered regardless of class to participate in the economy and growth of their societies.

Fri. 10.09.09 - Here is the second in what appears to be an ongoing series of conversations with Al Pavangkanan and Jeb Brilliant, while we are at the Tuttle Club LA (really Long Beach) because I get curious and feel the need to ask Al and Jeb lots of questions with the video capture running. Lucky for me they are gracious, opinionated, and funny.

Wherein we discuss:
1. The Nokia N86
2. Why white mobile devices are Sexy.
3. The Nokia N900 and the Nokia Booklet
4. Laughter
5. Software licenses: should they be attached to one phone IMEI, one sim chip, or one email?
6. Joikuspot & Mifi
7. Back to the Nokia N900: mobile devices that are stand alone and don't need a PC, particularly a PC, to sync. Plus rant from Jeb and Ms. Jen about PCs. Then a rant by Ms. Jen about bad marketing & copywriting.

Tues 10.06.09 - Ta-Nehisi Coates and Andrew Sullivan conducted an interview to talk about Ideas | Life | The World | Etc a week and a half ago, and since both have released video snippets on their blogs that have been very intriguing. I hope that the Atlantic will post the whole of the interview on their website - Look! They have, in pieces.

Today's snippet, above, deals with war, innocence, gay rights, sacrifice/transcendence , Jesus, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Good stuff.

Here are a few of the other video snippets:
Touching The Void
Obama, The Tory
Almost Grateful

On another note, Sullivan does some great Dog Blogging this past week.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

Mon 10.05.09 - Glad for beauty even at airports. Glad that my fabulous sister Allison picked me up at the airport, heard me coughcoughcoughcough and gave me some of her Real Cough Syrup (it works!). Glad to pick up Scruffy McDoglet from my brother Joe's.

Photos by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

Sun 10.04.09 - Today Jeremy and Jessica took me to brunch at i gigi's cafe on Western Rd on Hove, Josh Russell and Nik F met us there for a truly delightful brunch.

The food was a fresh riff off the usual breakfast and brunch foods. Each dish was well considered and beautiful as well as tasty. The best part is that each of the servers prepared the dishes on the sideboard right next to us. Fresh. Tasty. Moderately DIY.

Now when is i gigi going to open a Long Beach, Calif. cafe? ;o)

Photos by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

Sat 10.03.09 - Today I went down to Brighton to visit with Jessica Splengler and Jeremy Keith. It was a good gray and blustery autumn day in Brighton. We went for a little walk and then returned to their flat, where Jessica made the most delicious pork roast. Tasty.

Big thanks to Jeremy and Jessica for hosting me in Brighton.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

Fri 10.02.09 - Just because you go to tapas at a place named after a pirate and eat nearly a whole plate of very tasty roasted peppers that were ever so slightly really hot doesn't mean those peppers in your tummy will let you sleep. Danged tasty little evil peppers.

I went to the Google I/O conference back in late May and by early June I was on the Google Wave Dev Preview Sandbox thingy. By and large, unless one of my tech friends was gushing about wanting to see Google Wave, I haven't logged in in the last four months unless I was giving a demo.

Sorry folks, I am not and have not been participating in the rather fascinating, from an anthropological point of view, hysteria that has surrounded Google Wave the last few months. And that hysteria reached a crescendo in the last 24 hours.

Google Wave is interesting for its potential, not the beta form it is in now. The potential is a great interconnected collaboration tool, the current reality is IM on speed. And since I am not a fan of IM chat, I don't log in much.

The other key thing is that unless your friends or colleagues are on the system, most of the power of what Wave can do is stripped away. It was great to be on it with thousands of other developers, but most of the conversations were around tech details.