TechTicker

As we speak Seesmic’s servers are getting absolutely hammered by traffic - but holding up - as news quickly circulates of a series of Q&A-based discussions that took place tonight involving Hollywood heavyweights Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, George Lucas and Karen Allen.  Based on emerging reports it appears that the series of posted videos relates to the upcoming release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Jemima Kiss at PDA (”Spielberg pops up on Seesmic“) was involved in the discussions and had the opportunity to send several question, later saying:

“I asked Spielberg if he had any plans for the small screen, if he’d thought of playing the narrative possibilities of geo-location on mobile or the interactivity of the web. He replied that he is working on a web project he can’t talk about (he might have been referring to the rumoured paranormal social network! He also worked with a games company recently.) but then went on to describe several new TV projects. The mini-series, he said, is where he gets creatively inspired, and he’s working on one about the Mayflower and one about the Pacific during the war.”

Kiss’ post at PDA features 5 embedded responses from the discussions and is worth a look - especially given her first hand participation in the event.  With the clips displaying post times of less than 4 hours ago (as of the time of this post) I suspect more information will emerge on the background of this as time progresses.

From what I’ve gathered so far there was a gap of nearly a day in some cases between when questions were submitted and when replies were posted.

For example in the case of a question for Harrison Ford regarding maturity, elmundoes submitted the question 22 hours ago and the reply from Harrison Ford was posted 3 to 4 hours ago.

For Seesmic this is huge press.  I hope they’re prepared for it.

In the wake of this news the web will undoubtedly be set alight with analysis about the event, what was said, or perhaps not said, and in particular what the implications may be for what appears to be the next wave in internet communication and online video.

I recently did a write up of Seesmic, covering the user experience, technical side, and initial observations ["Seesmic: Initial Impressions and Use Case Proposal", 12 May 2008] beginning:

“…My early impression: Seesmic does for video communication what Twitter does for text chat.

While not restricting users to 140 characters in the same way Twitter does (the video constraints are yet to be investigated), the goal of Seesmic seems to be much the same; and that is to facilitate rapid, large-scale, publicly visibly, asynchronous discussions.”

The realm of online video continues to explode, with online hosting and streaming sites like YouTube maturing into the largest trafficked sites on the web today.  However in addition to this we’ve also begun to see a new generation of activity in the form of web casting sites - like UStream, Yahoo! Live and Justin.TV - and now sites like Seesmic that are geared more towards rapid posting and heavy interaction between multiple users.

What we’ve seen tonight on Seesmic seems to point to a clear distinction between the more polished, one-direction flows of information we see on sites like YouTube, and the substantial levels of interactivity and rapid-fire multi-user communication that occurs on Seesmic.  YouTube does support similar reply functionality as well as text commenting (which Seesmic notably lacks), but having used both applications Seesmic is far faster in the response time in terms of post replies.

Certainly there is a place for both on the web, however for Q&A sessions Seesmic may start to become the application of choice for events that rely on community outreach.

As Jemima Kiss says:

“Beneath the froth, though, there’s a directness and energy about this that really works, though lord knows how much engineering (both technical and bureaucratic) must have gone into this.

The best thing about it is that it bypasses the Hollywooid/Cannes schmaltz and gets straight into a conversation.”

More on Seesmic @TechTicker:

• “Online Video Discussion and Social Context Cues“, Mike Bogle, TechTicker, 15 May 2008
• “Seesmic: Initial Impressions and Use Case Proposal“, Mike Bogle, TechTicker, 12 May 2008

References:

• “Fave Indiana Jones” Harrison Ford on Seesmic
• “@harrison Maturity” elmundoes, Seesmic
• “RE: @harrison maturity” Harrison Ford, Seesmic
• “Spielberg pops up on Seesmic” Jemima Kiss, PDA, 17 May 2008

Here’s a really interesting idea courtesy of Adrian Kingsley-Hughes at ZDNet (”How to … install Ubuntu 8.04 on a USB flash drive“).  In the post he outlines the process of how you would go about preparing a USB flash drive to run Ubuntu Hardy Heron.

What this means is you’d have the ability to carry a portable operating system with you wherever you went.  All you’d need to use it is a physical computer to plug in to that would recognise the USB Flash drive and whose BIOS supported booting by USB devices.  Effectively you could then use any computer and yet still have immediate access to all your favourites, settings, and programs.

Furthermore, the increasing utility of suites of web applications like those provided by Zoho and Google (not to mention blogs and wikis) enable you to greatly reduce the storage demands of your system.  If most of your images, documents, spreadsheets, and other files were stored online there would be far less of a burden on your HDD.  So barring any unique file formats that required specialised software to run them you could theoretically house most of your information online and rely on the USB flash drive to provide you with access to your favourite programs.

In Adrian’s example the hardware requirements are a copy of the Hardy Heron ISO file (for installation) and a Flash Drive with minimimum of 4 GB space.

Unfortunately the drive I just got is 2 GB’s, so I can’t test this process.  If any of you feel curious and can get it working I’d love to hear your thoughts on things.

References:

• “How to … install Ubuntu 8.04 on a USB flash drive“, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, ZDNet, 16 May 2008
  
• Download Ubuntu Hardy Heron

Seesmic seems to be gaining more and more ground in the realm of online video discussion these days, and as I mentioned previously I’ve begun to look into these developments with interest. Significantly Seesmic’s entrance to the market is occurring not only on the main site, but through the introduction of video commenting as well.

Through the use of a WordPress plugin, bloggers and web masters can now avail their readers to video commenting functionality in addition to that of text.  The tool is unobtrusively located beneath the text comment field.  When clicked, the tool spawns, replacing the text field and enabling the commenter to use their web camera to record their comment. When this process is complete their message appears in ascending chronological order along side the text comments.

To my knowledge, TechCrunch was the very first site to capitalise on this innovation, however there seems to be some disagreement on its value, with many people viewing the introduction as at best a flashy ploy for attention, or at worst an addition to the ever-growing sources of information overload.

Initially I fell into the camp of individuals who really didn’t see much value in the development, however over the last few days I’ve begun to question this stance.  Just this morning in fact, during my ongoing reading of  “Opensource: Technology and Policy” I had an epiphany:

Perhaps video commenting can facilitate far more civilised discussions than text commenting - particularly in terms of tempering disagreements.  Let me elaborate on that.

As Deek and McHugh discuss in Open Source (pg. 176 - 177):

“It has long been contended that computer-mediated groups tend to exhibit “more uninhibited behaviour - using strong and inflammatory expressions in interpersonal interaction” (Siegel et al., 1986, p. 157). Sproul and Kiesler (1986) attributed the tendency toward “more extreme, more impulsive, and less socially differentiated” (p. 1496) behaviour than in a face to-face context, as due to the lack of adequate social context cues in information-poor media.”

This could be interpreted to suggest that the greater the absence of a human presence, the greater the possibility of uncivilised behaviour.  It would seem logical to suggest then that the introduction of a greater human presence might have the opposite effect - more civilised behaviour and a greater adherence to social norms.

For example, two years ago I facilitated a web conference between local Australian students and their counterparts in Japan.  In the session that followed the social norms and graces inherent to Japanese culture were clearly present.  Students bowed to one another at the beginning of the session and then again at the end.  Throughout the event they appeared to be quite in-tune to one another’s non-verbal communication signals, pausing when someone else wanted to speak, and acknowledging their contributions to the discussion.

In the context of Seesmic, and indeed online video discussion in general, despite its asynchronous nature my theory is that the visual human element would go a long way to introducing “social context cues” to a traditionally text-oriented sphere of activity.

These social cues might also help minimise the confusion that arises from the misinterpretation of meaning that can occur with text in the form of spelling or grammatical errors, or lack of clarity.

Furthermore, unlike text commenting, in which it is all too easy to quickly fire off an ill considered uninhibited remark, the incorporation of video requires a bit of preparation - both technical and mental - and as such might serve to further temper the delivery of the message, particularly during heated exchanges.

Having said that, all this is purely speculative at this stage.  This is all the more reason to pursue adequate exploration of online video discussion within a group context.  You cannot replicate the complexities of social-context cues as an individual. If you’re interested in participating in this research please let me know.

In the meantime I’ll continue to explore the main Seesmic site as well as monitor the interaction that is taking place on blogs like TechCrunch and The Inquisitr, which have introduced the Seesmic video commenting plugin.

References:

• “Opensource: Technology and Policy”; Fadi P. Deek, James, A. McHugh; Cambridge University Press, 2007; (pg. 176 - 177)
• “Seesmic: Initial Impressions and Use Case Proposal“, Mike Bogle, TechTicker.net, 12 May 2008
• “New: Video Comments On All TechCrunch Blogs“, TechCrunch, 23 April 2008

Late last week I sent Duncan Riley a series of questions in what I thought was a vain attempt to gain his thoughts on some questions I’d been pondering.  In typical accommodating Duncan style, he’s just responded to one of them; and his response has got me to thinking.

The Question: Advertising on Blogs - When to embrace and when to avoid

The first subject I covered in my email dealt with the inclusion of advertisements on blogs, asking him:

One of the contentious issues in blogging seems to be the inclusion of advertisements.  Some people consider this to be selling out; others consider it a logical business practice.

For example TechCrunch has devoted 3 posts this year to the fact Robert Scoble has begun to include ads on his blog and Twitter account.

Can you discuss this subject and underlying issues, particularly with regards to

• What are the advantages and disadvantages?
• Do you think inclusion of advertising on a blog/website can affect reader perceptions?  If so, how?
• Are there instances when sites should NOT include ads - and if so what are they?
• Can you discuss methods of implementing ads in terms of what to do and what not to do?

TechCrunch References:

• “Scoble Sells Out“, 25 January 2008
• “Robert Scoble Sell Out Complete“, 30 April 2008
• “Scoble Sellout Part Three? - Twitter Adverts” 6 May 2008

Duncan’s Response on YouTube (”Blog Advertising“)

Can academic objectivity exist in a for-profit model?

Historically my inclination has always been to keep ads off of my blogs.  There were several points of logic in my mind about this, but perhaps the biggest one was a concern that the prospect of financial gain - whether real or merely perceived - could somehow jeopardise the core mission or objectivity of the work, or how it is perceived by readers.

The fact I work in higher education is certainly an influencing factor here, because in many ways the culture of academia is out of sync to that of the private sector.  The coveted currencies in this realm are reputation and influence, not money and power.  Success is measured by one’s status as a subject-matter expert and trustworthy and reliable source of information, not the depth of their fiscal portfolio.

Furthermore, in academia, as epitomised most clearly by the scientific method, objectivity and clarity of thought is the lynch pin of all philosophical and investigative endeavour.  Therefore the question in my mind has always been whether these notions of purity of objectivity and clarity of thought and motive can coexist in a for-profit models.

Parting Thoughts

My reason for asking Duncan these questions, as opposed to someone else, is that I value his opinions and trust his judgement - both as a reader of his work and as a friend.  The fact he includes advertisements on his blogs has never detracted from this.

In a general sense I agree with his point that most people are accepting of advertisements because they realise they’re getting a free service; but I think the caveat would be that certain sectors - especially education and non-profit - would not be so understanding.  Indeed there may even be regulations that outlaw ads in these contexts.

All that being said though it hasn’t helped me come to any conclusions about my own blogs.  I remain as on the fence about it as I ever was.

What do you think?

References:

• “Blog Advertising“, Duncan Riley, YouTube, 14 May 2008
• “Scoble Sells Out“, TechCrunch, 25 January 2008
• “Robert Scoble Sell Out Complete“, TechCrunch, 30 April 2008
• “Scoble Sellout Part Three? - Twitter Adverts“, TechCrunch, 6 May 2008

Duncan Riley at the Inquistr has written a very significant post recently on “Giving Attribution” [11 May 2008] citing the importance of citing your sources and giving credit where credit is due.

The entire piece is worth reading as it outlines an informal, yet long-standing citation convention - much of which I use here. I strongly recommend you visit the site to participate in the discussion or at least avail yourself to the information. Personally, I’m bookmarking it and converting it to PDF as a reference for best practice.

Significantly Duncan argues that certain aspects of the convention are no longer followed, saying:

“The rough rules decided on then (by many) are what I’ve followed since; in part some of these may be overkill and sadly some are not followed today, but I’ve always considered this to be the fair way of doing things.”

To add my 2 cents to this, personally I’d like to see bloggers and amateur journalists return to the academic sensibilities and creative ethic that we learned in school when writing essays. That you can’t just state a fact or quote a statistic without showing where the information came from; or that personal opinions must be expressed as such and thus clearly delineate opinion and theory from cited proven fact.

This is particularly important from the standpoint of legitimacy and supporting our statements or arguments. A fact without a reference just isn’t a fact; and if we as bloggers ever hope to be taken seriously by the general public we must hold ourselves accountable to a code of ethics and conduct - whether formally stated or merely implied by the quality of our actions.

Equally important are the notions of idealism and personal responsibility that are at stake. The web we see today emerged as a means of bringing people together - hence the term social software. It’s about community-based efforts, providing for the common good and building a collective pool of knowledge and experience from which we all benefit. This can only be done if we respect the contributions of others and give credit where credit is due.

References:

• “Giving Attribution“, Duncan Riley, The Inquisitr, 11 May 2008

Via David Oster at the Official Google Mac Blog (“Vidnik” 8 May 2008):

“Vidnik is our newest application in the Google Mac playground. It’s a simple program for using the built-in camera on your Mac to create movies and upload them to YouTube.”

With Macs historically being the poorer cousin in development considerations for the web (with Linux even less considered), this news is welcome indeed.

Currently the program is an early Alpha (version 0.13) and is only available through the Google Code website. Nonetheless, installation is easy; just download the ZIP file and extract it to wherever you’d like to store the program. In keeping with the Mac convention I opted to include it in the Applications folder, but you could just as easily put it on your desktop or videos folder.

The interface is relatively simple, with the only functionality relating to recording, describing and uploading video clips.

As Oster continues:

“Vidnik works with the built-in video cameras on recent Macs, with Firewire video cameras, and with many USB video cameras.”

NB: The README file indicates: “This version works with OS X 10.4 and up.”

In my case I found my hardware was immediately detected and ready for use, which drastically reduced the set-up time and enabled me to immediately proceed to recording my first clip. The application’s minimalistic sensibilities keep Vidnik uncluttered and as such make the program very user-friendly.

Additionally, after a bit of investigation it becomes clear that there are more uses to Vidnik than recording talking-head pieces to camera.

As the the README file explains:

“You can drag movies created in other programs into the playlist pane of the Vidnik window, using Vidnik just as a bulk uploader.”

I’ve yet to test this, but theoretically the fact you’re not limited to natively recorded videos opens the door to uploading more polished video pieces that have been created in other programs such as iMovie or Final Cut Pro. And the ability to bulk upload means prolific video producers can save themselves a great deal of time.

Reports of Audio/Video Sync Issues

A “warning” note on Vidnik’s page at the Google Code site indicates:

“I’ve gotten early reports, for some people, that the movies Vidnik makes work fine on the Macintosh, but when encoded by YouTube, the sound is out of synchronization with the picture. I’m looking in to this, and will report back here when I know more.”

After a bit of investigation it appears that Vidnik works by creating a QuickTime movie, which is stored locally (in Movies/Vidnik) and then uploaded to YouTube. In light of my troubleshooting efforts late last week it’s conceivable that the issue lay with QuickTime rather than Vidnik, however this remains to be seen.

Initial Impressions

Vidnik makes recording and uploading videos to YouTube incredibly easy and was a joy to use. The audio/video syn issues do present a problem however, and therefore make the program an unlikely candidate for primary usage in the short run. Nonetheless I do recommend checking it out and taking it for a spin.

With Vidnik only at version 0.13 currently, I see a strong future for it that can only improve over time.

References:

• “Vidnik“, David Phillip Oster, Official Google Mac Blog, 8 May 2008
• “Vidnik“, Google Code, accessed 13 May 2008
• “ReadMe.txt”, Vidnik installation documentation
• “Vidnik Demonstration“, Mike Bogle, YouTube

Just this afternoon I’ve begun to experiment with an application known as Seesmic (still in Alpha). My early impression: Seesmic does for video communication what Twitter does for text chat.

While not restricting users to 140 characters in the same way Twitter does (the video constraints are yet to be investigated), the goal of Seesmic seems to be much the same; and that is to facilitate rapid, large-scale, publicly visibly, asynchronous discussions.

The user experience

To participate, users only need to create an account and post a video clip. This can either be a brand new post, or a response to an existing conversation; and the clip can be recorded directly to the site or pre-recorded and then uploaded. In the case of the latter option, uploaded videos are immediately available with absolutely no processing time.

By comparison, YouTube - despite the technical infrastructure Google has to offer - takes several minutes for similar recordings to become available, and even longer for uploaded video (processing times for videos uploaded to Seesmic has not yet been tested).

That said though it’s important to bear in mind the differences in scale between Seesmic and YouTube. YouTube’s user load and network traffic are astronomically high, whereas Seesmic’s is conceivably far, far less.

Nonetheless, seeing a video you just recorded seconds before already available is very impressive to the end user.

New video clips are continuously appearing in a menu on the left side of the page, with brand new clips displayed at the top of the menu along with a reference to the number of responses the clip has received. Users are not required to refresh the page to view new content; updates are loaded automatically as new material becomes available. This serves to substantially increase the interactivity of the user experience to the point where it borders on synchronous discussion in both look and feel.

In my case, the clip I posted in which I asked  “How is Seesmic different from YouTube?“, received a response in less than 5 minutes.

The technical side

On the technical side of things, Seesmic appears to be Flash-based, which has opened the door to a seriously impressive Graphical User Interface (GUI) that capitalises on the hyper-dynamic nature of Flash applications.

On the video front, the visual quality of clips recorded directly to site is incredible. While video noise is present in both the clips I recorded, the overall quality was crystal clear and among the best I’ve seen in the realm of large-scale user-generated online video - this includes YouTube, Ustream, and Yahoo Live.

Compared to similar clips I’ve recorded directly to YouTube using the exact same equipment for example (laptop, lighting, location, and network), the results I experienced with Seesmic were substantially better.

Observations

Text commenting does not seem to exist: Curiously I don’t recall seeing any functionality for leaving text comments. The implication, as supported by Seesmic’s “Join the discussion” tagline, seems to be that comments are expected to be video-based, not text base. Whether this omission is a detriment, an advantage, or neither is unclear; however it is definitely an unusual move on the part of the Seesmic developers.

Unclear whether private messaging exists: Equally unclear is the question of whether private messaging exists in Seesmic. To continue the comparison, in the case of Twitter users have the ability to send one another direct messages that are not visible to other users. Seesmic does offer a degree of interoperability with Twitter, with the ability to send “@user” messages to Twitter users with a link to the video, however it’s unknown whether this extends to private messaging as well - either between Seesmic and Twitter, or locally between Seesmic users only. I’ll be looking into this further

Channels or groups would be useful: I’m still in the early phases of my Seesmic evaluation, however one aspect is immediately clear: the ability to create topic-specific channels or groups would be incredibly valuable. Especially from the standpoint of learning, like Twitter, there is a tremendous amount of activity and information-flow that occurs in Seesmic - to the point where it could easily become overwhelming. Therefore it would be a fantastic thing to be able to drill own into topical areas where the video clips that you see are related to a specific subject matter.

This functionality may already exist in Seesmic. I hope it does. If not, I would hope that the driving forces behind the application are open to the suggestion.

Developing a Use Case

Realistically, you can’t properly evaluate the potential of an application that is based on group participation as an individual, so I’d like to suggest the formulation of a group of educators, educational technologists, and IT people that would seek to take Seesmic for a spin.

For example, as a preliminary use case we could compile a list of interesting basic topics or agenda items for discussion and then use Seesmic as the mechanism through which the conversation takes place. Then having done this we could reflect on what aspects of the experience were positive, negative or completely unexpected.

If you’re interested in participating please leave a comment and we can get started.

In the meantime I’ll continue to pursue my personal evaluation of Seesmic and will post updates as they become available.

References:

• “How is Seesmic different from YouTube?“, Mike Bogle
• “RE: How is Seesmic different from YouTube?“, freidawolden
• Seesmic website - http://www.seesmic.com/
• Seesmic Blog - http://seesmic.typepad.com/en/

The 2nd Ubuntu Live Conference was announced recently.  It’s slated to take place on July 21st and 22nd in Portland, Oregon at the Oregon Convention Center.

According to ubuntulive.com the event is geared towards a variety of different facets of the Ubuntu community including “IT professionals, government and business leaders, educators, community leaders, enterprise and business users”.

The site continues:

“The two day event will allow participants to share their Ubuntu experiences, learn from each other, and catch up with the latest developments from Ubuntu, our partners, and the free software and open source ecosystem. Ubuntu Live is the meeting place for enterprise users and community developers to come together to exchange ideas and discuss projects face to face.”

A number of speakers have been lined up to present at the event including Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth, Wired Magazine’s Chris Anderson, Canonical’s Jono Bacon, and Bradley Kuhn from the Software Freedom Conservancy.

New speakers are apparently being confirmed daily, with the updated list available here: http://en.oreilly.com/ubuntu2008/public/schedule/speakers

The site has a great deal of other information available, including the schedule of events/topics, Registration Information, and so-called Birds of a Feather Sessions which:

“…provide face to face exposure to those interested in the same projects and concepts. BoFs can be organized for individual projects or broader topics (best practices, open data, standards). BoFs are entirely up to you. We post your topic online and onsite and provide the space and time. You provide the engaging topic.”

I’ve not been to a conference of this kind before, so I’m not quite sure what to expect.  However based on the information and topics outlined on the site, Ubuntu Live 2008 looks to be an inspiring and interesting event.

That said, I’m not going to be able to attend; so if anyone does go I’d be very interested in hearing a recap of what took place - pictures would be great too if possible.

References:

• Ubuntu Live 2008 website - http://ubuntulive.com
• “UbuntuLive 2007 - a set on Flickr“

Over the last two days Ubuntu has announced the release of a series of security updates.  In my case I was notified through the appearance of an icon prompting me to run the Update Manager.

As opposed to the standard update icon, which is identified by a white arrow in an orange starburst, these security updates are differentiated by the appearance of a white exclamation point within a red arrow.

The security updates in question are as follows.  In each case further information on the nature of the announcement is available on the Ubuntu site.  Just click on the link below.

• USN-606-1: CUPS vulnerability [5 May 2008] - Affects Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, Ubuntu 7.04, Ubuntu 7.10
• USN-610-1: LTSP vulnerability [6 May 2008] - Affects Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, Ubuntu 7.04, Ubuntu 7.10
• USN-609-1: OpenOffice.org vulnerabilities [6 May 2008] - Affects Ubuntu 6.06, LTS Ubuntu 7.04, Ubuntu 7.10
• USN-605-1: Thunderbird vulnerabilities [6 May 2008] - Affects Ubuntu 6.06, LTS Ubuntu 7.04, Ubuntu 7.10, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS
• USN-608-1: KDE vulnerability [6 May 2008] - Affects Ubuntu 7.04, Ubuntu 7.10, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS
• USN-607-1: Emacs vulnerabilities [6 May 2008] - Affects Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, Ubuntu 7.04, Ubuntu 7.10, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS

The Ubuntu Security Notices (USN) page outlines:

“…security notices that affect the current supported releases of Ubuntu. These notices are also posted to the ubuntu-security-announce mailing list (list archive). To report a security vulnerability in an Ubuntu package, please contact security@ubuntu.com.”

I’m currently reading through the information on the USN site to locate more information on the nature of these security releases.  In the meantime I encourage you to do the same and then run the Update Manager to acquire the most recent security patches.

An RSS feed for the notifications is available at http://www.ubuntu.com/taxonomy/term/2/0/feed

References:

• Ubuntu Security Notices (USN): http://www.ubuntu.com/usn
  
• Ubuntu Security Notices (USN) RSS feed: http://www.ubuntu.com/taxonomy/term/2/0/feed
• Ubuntu Security Announce mailing list: http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-security-announce
• Ubuntu Security Announce mailing list archives: http://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-security-announce/

If you’ve watched any of my recent YouTube videos (which most of you haven’t), you will have noticed a recurring problem with audio/video sync problems in which the video precedes the audio by nearly half a second. As a result the clips - despite the video quality - come across as severely disjointed and not very professional.

I haven’t been very happy about that and set out to locate the root cause of the problem. After a series of tests, each of which I’ve included below, I discovered it was all due to the codec I was using when making the recordings.

As a page in the YouTube support site entitled “The sound is out of sync on my video. How do I fix it?” indicates:

“Out-of-sync sound is usually the result of using an audio codec that our system doesn’t support. We’re always adding new ones, but if this happens to your video, you can try re-encoding it with a different audio compression. We recommend MP3 audio for best results.”

In the previous tests I had recorded the clips using the default QuickTime setting - Best (H.264). In the fourth test however I opted for the “Good (MPEG-4)” option to see if it improved things any. Lo and behold it did.

As a result I will now be able to start taking advantage of the better video quality I get from pre-recording clips prior to upload (rather than recording them directly to YouTube), while ensuring the audio and video are properly syncronised.

Changing the Settings:

To change the settings, go to QuickTime Player –> Preferences, select the recording tab and then choose Quality: Good (MPEG-4). You should then find the recordings created using this setting will play properly in YouTube.

Test Clips

In the interests of proper documentation, each of my 4 tests is included below:

Audio-Video Sync Issues Part 1 - Direct to YouTube

Audio-Video Sync Issues Part 2 - MOV file upload

Audio-Video Sync Issues Part 3 - Preliminary Findings

Audio-Video Sync Issues Part 4 - MOV upload (MPEG-4)

References:

• “The sound is out of sync on my video. How do I fix it?” YouTube Help Center, accessed 7 May 2008

I’m continuing to read “Opensource: Technology and Policy” and have been surprised at the repeated references to the term “hacker”.

Noteably the term has not been used to portray a negative activity or undertone but as a more generalised descriptor of someone who is passionate about coding. And it’s struck me as interesting how narrowed the meaning of the term has become over time.

As Wikipedia’s article on the subject shows (”Hacker (computing)“), in reality the connotations of the term “hacker” are far more broad and subject to disagreement:

“The terms hacker and hack are marked by contrasting positive and negative connotations. Computer programmers often use the words hacking and hacker to express admiration for the work of a skilled software developer (but may also use them in a negative sense to describe the production of inelegant kludges). Some frown upon using hacking as a synonym for security cracking — in distinct contrast to the larger world, in which the word hacker is typically used to describe someone who “hacks into” a system by evading or disabling security measures.”

Disagreements on the history of the term seem to continue to this day, with a quick search for the word “hacker” on the web yielding a variety of thoughts on the subject. Some argue the negative connotation came first; some the benign connotation. Regardless, the negative connotation seems to be the most widely associated with the term - especially amongst non-techies and in particular, the media.

Certainly this sort of activity still exists, however hacking as an activity does not refer solely to the more disreputable spheres of computational endeavors.

Indeed as Chris Pirillo argues in his discussion “What are Hackers?“, hackers are needed to combat other hackers. Designing secure systems and robust software is as much about recognising threats and weaknesses as it is possessing solid coding skills. You need to know how to exploit a hole in order to plug it.

Even more than that though, hacking is about pushing the technological envelope and trying things that may not have been done before. In that sense “hacker” could just as easily mean “innovator” as “ne’er do well.”

Chris Pirillo’s discussion on “What are Hackers?” is included below:

References:

• “Hacker (computing)“, Wikipedia, accessed 6 May 2008
• “What are Hackers?“, Chris Pirillo, YouTube