Another important gadget for your presentations

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All the laptops I have owned have had some degree of noise on the audio out. Not annoying for regular listening, but when doing presentations the noise can be quite disturbing. It is due to the fact that the conversion from digital to analog audio is done inside the computer. Together with all kinds of electronics that produce noise. After posting an article about a very cheap external volume control and audio switch I had some comments about replacing that one with an external USB based audio card.

The theory is that when doing the conversion from digital to analog outside of the laptop itself you would get rid of some of the noise. So a while ago I received my Creative Xmod. Now I’ve had the possibility to test it at some venues. And it works very well. In some cases I went from horrible noises when connecting the internal audio to no noise and crisp audio when switching to the Creative Xmod.

The Xmod has lots of stupid so called enhancement effects as well. The X-fi crystalizer is supposed to clean up some compression artifacts in MP3 audio and might actually clean up the sound a bit, but the fake 3D effect that you also can add is not my favorite.

Regardless of the effects, my conclusion so far is that this gadget now is nicely placed in my box of essential presentation equipment.

Another important gadget for your presentations

Different seasons in one image

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If you have been following this blog for a long time you know that I did an experiment snapping images out of my window for a year. I made a video that was hugely popular and my images have been used in several interesting projects.

At that point I snapped the images with a Sony compact camera. After buying a digital SLR I decided to do the same thing. But this time in better quality and not shooting the images through my window.

I still have a couple of months before the next year of images are captured, but I have enough to do some experiments. Mainly because I want some feedback. This time I’m shooting three exposures each time. Giving me the possibility of putting them together using HDR software.

The following video is a horrible rough cut of the images so far. The black levels are completely off, the HDR effect too strong and the video is way too long for this kind of viewing.

The audio is actual audio captured at the same spot that the images are taken, but not at all synced with the images.

Still, it would be valuable to get some feedback and ideas. That will make it easier for me to make the final video perfect when I have all the images at some point late this summer.

Seasons – testvideo from Eirik Solheim on Vimeo.

Go ahead. Post your ideas and thoughts!

Different seasons in one image

Memory problem

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You’ve just returned home after a good day of work. You’re outside your house with two hungry kids and a horrible weather. When you’re about to unlock your door you don’t find your keys. And suddenly you remember where they are.

Safely placed at the back of a computer at work. Always remembering your USB key because it is placed on your key chain = a good idea. Forgetting your keys at work because they are securely fastened to your USB key = bad idea.

Memory problem

How to build an amazing lantern of ice

eirikso, , 12 Comments

Yes – completely off topic regarding the internet, media centers, marketing and new media. You know, the stuff I usually write about here on eirikso.com. But it has been easter holiday, cold and I’ve had several days off.

First, ensure you’ll have a couple of days with sub zero degrees. Preferably something below -5 degrees Celsius (23 F). Then fill a big bucket with water. Find a smaller bucket and place it in the water in the big one. Find something to put in the small bucket to make it submerge in the water in the big bucket. Don’t use water in the small bucket. Use small stones or something else. I found a part of wood.

The small bucket will float around in the big one, so you might want to tie it up to make it sit still in the middle of the big bucket. You need about 5 cm (2 inches) of water around and under the small bucket.

Now leave the bucket outside for a couple of hours. I needed about two days in -5 to -10 degrees Celsius (23 – 14 F).

When it is completely frozen remove the weight in the inner bucket and fill it with hot water. This will melt some of the ice to make it easy for you to remove the inner bucket.

Depending on the temperature you might need to pour some hot water outside on the big bucket as well. To be able to remove it.

When removed, make some holes along the end. When you place it on top of a candle you need some air to flow into it. When finished, light a small candle and place the block of ice on top of it.

Now wait for the evening to arrive and have fun watching these amazing lanterns.

But the heat from the candle will melt the top of the lantern! Yes, but it will keep looking cool. 🙂

While in holiday mode. More off topic:
The pepper matters
Living in Norway (cold… and hot…)
The video of the seasons in Norway

How to build an amazing lantern of ice

Officially tagging your business

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I just did a presentation for an organization that house a couple of truly fantastic hotels and restaurants in Norway. I was talking about new media, marketing opportunities and the future traveler. The fact that more people in general can reach out with their message can be a problem if you have a bad product or just a bad day. Before you know it horrible images and videos of your establishment is all over the internet.

But if you have a great product the amount of happy customers will outnumber the angry ones. I keep quoting Hugh MacLeod in my presentations and I still agree with this:

“The best way to control the conversation is by improving the conversation.”

And if you run remarkable hotels or restaurants like this group there is a great chance that a lot of people already want to help you improve the conversation. Here’s the result for a search on Flickr for one of the hotels in the organization. Pretty nice. A problem might be that most of the satisfied customers don’t publish their images and thoughts. The angry ones does.

That’s the reason you need to encourage people to give their opinions. Let them publish their images, their videos and thoughts. If you have a great product this shouldn’t be scary. If this sounds scary you need to improve your product.

But you want to find the stuff they’re publishing, so why don’t do like most technology conferences these days? Define a tag for your business? The next time I enter a hotel room I want to read on the TV: “Welcome Mr. Solheim, the official tag for this hotel is…”

Like “FOWA07” was announced one of the the official tags for Future of Web apps 07. Like “DLD08” was the tag for this years DLD conference in Münich. Those keywords make it easy for me to find images from DLD08 on Flickr and videos from DLD08 on youtube.

Put it in the information in the room or on the menu in your restaurant. On your web page. On your business cards. That’s utterly cheap and potentially very powerful marketing.

And by the way. That beautiful image at the top of this post is from one of the hotels in the organization. You find the rest of the images I snapped while staying at Kviknes in Balestrand last autumn over here.

Officially tagging your business

Thoughts on BitTorrent distribution for a public broadcaster

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A while after we did our successful experiment with BitTorrent distribution for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation I was interviewed by the German news web site www.tagesschau.de

The article is in German, but my original conversation with Mr. Wulf Rohwedder is in english. Because it reveals some of my thoughts about this project I decided to share it here:

– Peer to peer networks have a bit of an ambigious reputation, especially due to the use for pirated footage and othe rillegal content. Has there been any reservations or resistance against the project?

– Less resistance than the project initially feared. But we thought through the issues and planned the responses because we feared that other media would start screaming “the NRK use illegal pirate technology to distribute content”. So we made it very clear in the initial blog post announcing the project that BitTorrent is not by any means illegal. It is a very robust and powerful way to distribute content. So robust and powerful that it unfortunately has been the preferred distribution method for pirates.

After the announcement we can conclude that the problem of BitTorrent being the pirate’s preferred distribution method was highly overrated. No real questions about this have been raised. Seems like most journalists understand that the technology is by no means illegal.

– Will you expand the experiment to other productions?
– The experience and reactions after one week are extremely positive. It is likely that we’ll try to clear the rights for this kind of distribution of more content. But first we want to evaluate our current experiment in more detail.

– Do you fear any setbacks for the classical ways of distribution like broadcast and DVD sales?
– At this point our experience with multi platform distribution has been that success on one platform leads to success on other platforms. But BitTorrent distribution is one of our experiments trying to focus on future possibilities. In the long run traditional broadcast and DVD sales of content like this will decline anyway. It is important for us to start experimenting with new distribution methods. We don’t want to do like the music industry. Running around thinking that people will keep driving down to a record store when they can have the content delivered with the push of a button at home.

And if that wasn’t enough. BitTorrent distribution is environmentally friendly. Driving trucks full of DVDs around the country is not.

– By offering DRM-free versions of your products in a non proprietary standard you are pretty much giving up control over it – do you fear any misuse?
– If you want control of your content you need to lock it down in a vault and never show it to anyone. We gave up control of our content the day we started broadcasting. For years our most popular content have been available on BitTorrent and on sites like YouTube anyway. DRM doesn’t work. The only way to control your content is to be the best provider of it. If people want it on YouTube then you should publish it on YouTube or in a system that give the same experience. If people want it on BitTorrent then you should provide that. If you do it right people will come to your official publish point and you’ll end up with more control.

In other words, the possibility of misuse has always been there. By publishing our content the way people want it we gain control of the quality and the presentation.

– How do you settle the question of third party rights?
– That is the most difficult part and the main reason for not publishing all our productions like this. Music rights, actors, artists, format owners etc. Fortunately the managers of this particular series was very forward thinking when they started working on it two years ago. They did a very detailed contract with Lars Monsen (the hiker, main character and photographer) and avoided third party sponsors. They had all the music composed and bought completely free.

To solve this in the future we need to be better at negotiating rights when starting new projects. And we need to keep working on renegotiation of our existing content to be able to publish more from our archives.

If you have any additional information about the project we would be interested to get them, too.
– We’re a license funded public broadcaster. We need to reach the broadest possible audience with our content. Because of that we can do experiments like these without having to worry about advertising revenues. And the reactions so far have been extremely positive. Currently there are 321 comments on the blog post announcing the project. All of them positive. Comments like “Now I’m paying my license fee with joy”, “Finally a TV channel that gets it!”, “Note to BBC: This is how it should be done” and so on.

So far we’re closing in on 90 000 downloads of the torrent files. The peer-to-peer ratio on the downloads have been close to 95%. Yes, meaning that using BitTorrent saves the license fee payers 95% of the distribution cost. And giving them download times of 3-5 minutes on a 30 minute TV show in full quality.

Link to the English article about the project.

The discussion on digg.com.

And the original Norwegian blog post announcing the project.

Thoughts on BitTorrent distribution for a public broadcaster

I’m still here

eirikso4 Comments

Regular readers have noticed that this blog hasn’t been updated since the 11th of February. Usually I update eirikso.com a couple of times a week. I’ve had busy days lately. And have been working on some technical changes to this blog as well. And as you can see – I’m experimenting with a new theme. Hope you like it. Thanks, Kim.

And why are you so freakin’ busy?
– My day-job… Lots of exciting things happening over at the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK). The people that master the strange language of Norwegian can follow some of the stuff we’re working on over at NRKbeta.

But as you can see, I’ve finished some cleaning of this place and will be able to start posting more often again. Feel free to comment on the new theme, the fact that you don’t speak Norwegian and would like me to post more about the NRK in English and whatever…

I’m still here