Improve your Memory

Well, we improved ours, anyway. In response to user requests, we've doubled the amount of memory in all of the Macs here in the lab. Each machine now has 4GB of RAM, and the performance improvement should be immediately apparent to anyone who has used the lab before. As I write this, we still have one machine left to upgrade, but we expect that to be done by the end of the week. Keep those suggestions coming!

Stay Up Late

So now, not only are we getting up early to make the donuts *yawn* but we're also staying open a little later each night. Starting today, we'll be open until 10pm every night of the week (update: except Friday and Saturday: til 9pm). Please thank all of the lab consultants, who clearly have nothing better to do at night than hang out here.

Newest Lab Consultants - Ariela and Ned

Please welcome the newest members of the Vitale Digital Media Lab family, Ariela Nurko and Ned Eisenberg (you'll have to figure out which one is which from the photos below). You'll be seeing plenty of them here in the lab during the coming months, so make sure you say hi to them when you see them.

Yawn... Time to make the Donuts...

9am. We're now opening at 9am. So we have to get here at 9am. Yeah, I know, it's a perfectly normal time for most people to start work, but we'd gotten so comfortable sleeping in, having enough time in the morning to enjoy a lazy cup of coffee at La Colombe, and opening the lab at 10am. But because we're so dedicated to you, and because the lab has doubled in popularity over the last 12 months, we're opening an hour earlier on weekdays.

iMovie and Photoshop Workshops, Spring 2008

We're offering more workshops on how to use iMovie and how to use Photoshop. The workshops are very introductory and assume no prior knowledge of the software. Be sure to sign up for a spot online, or see our other workshops HERE!

Creating and editing movies with iMovie

• Wednesday, January 23, 2008 , 2 PM to 4 PM
• Thursday, February 21, 2008 , 10 AM to 12 PM
• Tuesday, March 04, 2008 , 10 AM to 12 PM
  
• Thursday, April 24, 2008 , 10 AM to 12 PM

This class will provide an hands-on introduction to using Apple's iMovie software, which is available for Penn students, faculty, and staff in the Vitale Digital Media Lab. You will learn how to capture video from a DVD, VHS tape, or from your own video camera. You will learn to organize or delete video clips, add a new soundtrack, add subtitles, and create special effects. All sessions are identical and will be held in the Digital Media Lab.

PhotoShop I

• Wednesday, January 30, 2008 , 1:30 PM to 3:30 PM
• Wednesday, February 20, 2008 , 1:30 PM to 3:30 PM
• Wednesday, March 19, 2008 , 1:30 PM to 3:30 PM
  
• Wednesday, April 23, 2008 , 1:30 PM to 3:30 PM

A basic introduction to this powerful image editing software. Learn how to open image files, use the toolbox and palettes, convert formats and manage multiple layers. All sessions are identical. (note: Photoshop classes are now held in the Seminar room, just down the hall from the Digital Media Lab)

Farewell Alex!

Please wish a fond farewell to Alex Meyer. Alex has been helping things run smoothly here as a lab consultant here for quite a while, but he's decided to move on to bigger and better things (ie. a real job in the real world.) We'll miss him. *sniff* i promised myself i wouldn't cry! *sniff*

The End is Near!

The semester is just about over. Our last day is this Friday, and then we'll re-open on January 2, 2008.

Here's our schedule for this week:

Monday: 10am - 9pm
Tuesday: 10am - 9pm
Wednesday (last day of final exams): 10am - 9pm
Thursday: 10am - 5pm
Friday (our last day until 1/2/08): 10am - 5pm

Have a great holiday and we'll see you in the new year!

Trashing Posters

Just a quick FYI. Lots of people have printed posters here in the lab and then never picked them up. We'll be throwing out any and all posters left in the lab on December 21. If you have a poster here, please pick it up ASAP.

Staying Late

Please be sure to thank the lab consultants who have been voluntarily staying past closing time at 9pm so that everyone can work on their assignments.

Please keep in mind that this is a special, end-of-the-semester thing, where we do our best to stay open to give people as much lab time as possible, and our official closing time remains 9pm.

Also, please give yourself plenty of time to save your work (video, in particular, can take quite a while) before the announced time that the lab consultant on duty has said s/he's going to be closing the lab. Otherwise, you might have to take your chances and leave your project saving overnight.

iChat Videoconferencing Demo

Friday at noon, we will hold a Technically Speaking session in the Weigle Information Commons in the Van Pelt Dietrich Library Center on the new iChat videoconferencing software for Macs.

Connect anywhere using the built-in video camera and Internet-based videoconferencing. The new version of iChat includes video backdrops, Photo Booth effects, photo slideshows and sharing of Keynote presentations and movies. iChat builds on the capabilities of Apple’s new Leopard operating system. Presented by Mike Wolk, Apple Systems Engineer.

Friday, December 7, 2007 at 12:00 noon, in the WIC Seminar Room.
This is a free and open session. There's no need to register in advance!

Art Exhibit at the Rotunda this Thursday!

I thought I'd mention that there's an exhibition opening this Thursday at the Rotunda (Walnut Street, just west of 40th) featuring work by one of our lab consultants (Nick Salvatore) and two former lab consultants (Jesse Harding and Michael Highland) and a few frequent users of the lab, as well. (A chili cook-off is also mentioned, but I never know how seriously to take these things.) Here's the info. See you all there!

Join eleven artists for the opening reception of Extra-Personal Science, an exhibition of site-specific installations that activate the space of the historic Rotunda.

Fatema Abdoolcarim
Lauren A. Every-Wortman
JiaJia Fei
Laura Goldberg
Jesse A. Harding
Michael Highland
Antonio McAfee
Nick Salvatore
Manya Scheps
Artie Vierkant
Liz Yohlin

Opening reception (and chili cookoff):
Thursday, December 6, 5-7 pm

Additional viewing hours:
Friday 12-5 pm
Saturday 5-7 pm
Sunday 12-5 pm

LIVE MUSIC TO FOLLOW!!
Massive III: starting at 7 pm
Video Hippos
Audio/Visual Performance
www.videohippos.com

Swamped

We're swamped!! (get it?? Creature from the black lagoon? Swamped?? I slay me.) When we opened the lab this morning at 10am, there were people who had already been waiting an hour to get in.

It's the end of the semester, so lots of assignments are all coming due at the same time, and of course, everyone waits until the last minute to do their work.

We'd just like to ask two things of lab users:

1) Please be patient. The lab is first-come, first-served, and right now the best way to get a machine is either to show up right at 10am when we open, or to grab a seat and wait for a workstation to free up.

2) Please try to limit your lab time to academic uses to give everyone a chance to finish their assignments on time.

Thanks!

UPenn Nude Art Auction

One of our most frequent lab users told us about an art auction on campus this Friday, November 30 from 6-9pm at Meyerson Hall. The art is "nude-themed" (ok, there's not THAT much "nude" art, but there are a few pieces, and all of the art is worth making the trip over to Meyerson to see). In addition to art by Penn faculty and MFA students, they will also be featuring works by: Terry Adkins, Gabriel Martinez, Sarah McEneaney, Joshua Mosley, John Moore, Eileen Neff, Demetrius Oliver, Robert Pruitt, Zoe Strauss, Jane Irish, and more.

The auction preview, for those of you who would like to see the art in advance of the actual auction, as already begun, and is being held from 9am-5pm today and tomorrow in Meyerson Hall.

Proceeds benefit the MFA class of 2008 Thesis Exhibition

Shirt and Shoes required (no, really.)

More info at http://www.design.upenn.edu/new/about/eventsdetail.php?eid=556

Greater Philadelphia Student Film Festival 2007

The Greater Philadelphia Student Film Festival has extended their deadline to November 30. Not much time, if you haven't already started, but maybe you've already created a video that's appropriate for submission.

More info at http://www.gpsff.com/index.html

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Be sure to ask the lab consultant for a piece of candy today!

The 2007 Insomnia Film Festival

The Insomnia Film Festival is back—and while the world sleeps, you could be making film history.

Calling all high school and college filmmakers.

On Saturday, October 13 at 9:00 a.m. (Eastern time), Apple will post a top-secret list of elements — special props, dialogue, settings — you get the idea. Choose any three to include in your movie. Then all you and your team have to do is write, cast, shoot, edit, score, and upload your 3-minute masterpiece within 24 hours. No problem, right?

Once the films are in, your friends, family, and adoring fans will be able to watch them online and rate their favorites. The 25 entries with the highest rating on November 9 at 12:00 a.m. EST will be screened by industry professionals, including Barry Sonnenfeld, James Mangold, and Nora Ephron.

If your film is the biggest hit with either the public or the pros, each member of your team will receive a MacBook Pro, Final Cut Studio 2, Logic Studio, and Shake so you can get started on that first sequel. How’s that for a Hollywood ending?

You must register in advance, so if you even THINK you MIGHT be interested, please register ASAP at http://www.apple.com/education/insomnia/

Adding YouTube videos to your iMovie project

[UPDATE, FEB 2010: THESE INSTRUCTIONS APPLY TO iMOVIE HD/06. FOR INSTRUCTIONS ON USING YOUTUBE CLIPS IN iMOVIE 09, see http://wic.library.upenn.edu/multimedia/tutorials/youtube_imovie09.pdf]


We've received many many questions about adding clips from YouTube to iMovie projects. And until now, we haven't been able to do that in the lab. But today we've started to add that functionality to the lab workstations thanks to a free, open-source plugin for QuickTime Pro called Perian. Basically, the steps are:

1. Download the YouTube FLV file to your workstation using a service like keepvid.com
2. Export the FLV file to a QuickTime file with QuickTime Pro and Perian
3. Import the resulting QuickTime file into iMovie.

Keep in mind that YouTube video is notoriously low quality, but when you don't have a source of high-quality video, this method will do in a pinch.

Right now, Perian is installed only on the lab consultant's machine, so if you need to use a YouTube clip in your iMovie project, just ask the lab consultant on duty for help. We'll be installing Perian on the remaining lab workstation in the coming days. We'll also post a step-by-step tutorial so you'll be able to do it all without the help of a lab consultant.

Workshops this week

The lab will be closed this week:

• Monday, October 1, Noon-1pm
• Tuesday, October 2, 1pm-3pm
• Wednesday, October 3, 3:30pm-5pm

For classes and workshops.

iWeb Workshop!!

This Friday, September 28, from noon - 1pm, we will be holding a free workshop on how to use Apple's iWeb software, which is available in the Digital Media Lab, and comes free with every Macintosh computer.

iWeb makes it easy to create a website that’s stunningly beautiful — and totally you. Start with an Apple-designed theme, then customize it with your own text, photos, movies, and podcasts until it’s exactly what you want. And switch themes with a click anytime.

Apple's own Mike Wolk will be teaching the workshop in the Seminar Room in the Weigle Information Commons. Walk-ins are welcome and no registration is necessary! See you this Friday!

The Acetate Connection

Scrrraaaaattttcchhhhhhh! That's the sound of car keys on the scanner. If you're scanning anything other than books, magazines, or other paper products, please be extra careful with the scanner. Ask the lab consultant on duty for a piece of clear acetate (ok, technically it's "Dura-lar, the acetate alternative") to put down under the items you're scanning--like car keys, candy, paper clips, your hands and face, pens and pencils, iPods, scissors, staplers, and so forth--so we can keep the scanner glass clean and scratch-free.