New Projectors Added!

The lab has added two new Infocus IN-104 Projectors to its inventory. You can go to our equipment page here to make a reservation.

Richard Stallman Coming to Penn

Richard Stallman will be coming to Penn next Wednesday to give a talk.

Richard Stallman (rms) is the father of the GNU operating system and the Free Software Foundation and a key member of the hacker culture. He is one of the most infamous figures in the computer science world and one of the premier thinkers on digital ethics. Come hear him speak about Digital Inclusion at 4:30PM on Wednesday (the 20th) in Wu & Chen Auditorium.

He has received the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award, the EFF Pioneer award, a MacArthur Fellowship genius grant, as well as numerous honorary doctorates. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman for more information about him personally.

Space is limited, so please go to http://git.to/rms to RSVP (or to find out more details) if you would like to come.

Preserving Your Family Photographs

We all have photographs that document our family stories. Join us to learn how to preserve these photographic materials – from 19th century daguerreotypes to contemporary digital images. Barbara Lemmen, Senior Photograph Conservator at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts (CCAHA) in Philadelphia, will present an illustrated lecture which will cover how to handle, store, and display photographs. There will be time to view samples of various photographic processes as well as to inspect currently available long-term
storage systems.

Tuesday, April 26 5:30pm
Class of '55 Conference Room
Van Pelt Library

This lecture is free, but due to space limitations RSVP to Abby Eron at 215-545-0613 or aeron@ccaha.org by April 25, 2011

Planning your Documentary

We're very lucky to have Ellen Reynolds presenting this workshop on how to organize a long-term documentary video project. Ellen is the lab supervisor at the School of Design, and has taught film and video at both the University of the Arts and UPenn. She is also a filmmaker herself, specializing in documentary film.

She will discuss the optimal field package for your project, equipment purchases, editing options, planning for travel/shooting in challenging environments, and learning to shoot for the edit. She will provide examples of organizational aids, release forms, and timelines. Designed for undergraduates considering multimedia as part of a research project.

When: Wednesday, Apr 6, 03:30 -5:00pm
Where: Class of '55 Conference Room, Van Pelt Library, 2nd floor West. Moved to WIC Seminar Room, Van Pelt Library, 1st floor West.

Sign up on our website.

New, Dynamic Blog views for Blogger

Blogger now offers five dynamic views for its public blogs. These views are only accessible if allowed for by the blog author, although they seem to be permitted by default.

• Flipcard: available at [blogURL]/view/flipcard
• Mosaic: available at [blogURL]/view/mosaic
• Sidebar: available at [blogURL]/view/sidebar
• Snapshot: available at [blogURL]/view/snapshot
• Timeslide: available at [blogURL]/view/timeslide

As an example, the URL for accessing the Mosaic view for our own blog would be http://vitaledigitalmedialab.blogspot.com/view/mosaic.

Full details at http://goo.gl/DuVOK.

Epub file creation

I recently created my first .epub file. This is a type of e-book file that can be read on Android devices, the Nook, Sony Reader, and portable Apple devices among others. The files are a little odd in the way they need to be formatted. Here are a few resources I found helpful when creating my first document.

http://calibre-ebook.com/
Calibre is a free and open source e-book library management application developed by users of e-books for users of e-books. This program allows you to convert between several different formats.

http://code.google.com/p/sigil/
Sigil is Google's free multi-platform WYSIWYG ebook editor.

Adobe TV ebook creation using InDesign
This is a link to a series of three videos on Adobe TV about ebook creation using InDesign. These are what I primarily used to get started, and they helped a lot, although you need a little bit of an InDesign background to get started. You also need to be using InDesign CS4 or CS5 to export the .epub file.

Stabilize with YouTube

Did you know that Youtube has a "stabilize" feature in it's video editing mode? I didn't. This is how it works.

It's pretty simple. I could imagine this being really helpful for videos shot with a phone that you don't want to have to import, edit, then export through an additional editing program.

iPad 2

Come try our brand new iPad 2! We already had an original iPad, so feel free to try them side-by-side to compare them. (The white one with the fancy lime green magnetic cover is the new one, and the black one is the original model.) We've already added the new GarageBand and iMovie, which are very cool to use. Let us know if there are specific apps you'd like to see and we'll do our best to install them for you to try. Enjoy!

showmypc.com

Do your parents ever call you up with mundane computer questions? Do you ever have a hard time walking them through something because they don't know what the "Desktop" is. Well your prayers for a simple solution have been answered. There have been many ways to remotely connect to a computer in the past, but showmypc.com is about the easiest one out there. This is a free service that allows you to connect to a pc, a mac, even devices running Android. Showmypc.com not only allows you to view other people's screen, but it allow you to control their computer remotely. It does have a slight delay, but it is completely functional for most needs.

Firefox 4 Released Today!

Mozilla Firefox 4 was released today. Check out the details and new features at http://www.tomsguide.com/us/mozilla-firefox-firefox-4,news-10563.html

Mozilla likely will start prompting Firefox 3.x users to update following the first major update, currently scheduled for some time in April.

Playstation Kinect Hacking

There has been a lot of enthusiasm in Techie/Hacker communities lately about Sony's Kinect device. The Kinect used a series of cameras to track figures in a room, turning people's bodies into video game controllers. So instead of pressing a button on a controller to kick a soccer ball in a game, you simply kick your foot and the game responds. Sony has had mixed feelings about people ripping open their hardware and using it for their own uses, but recently they have been more open to the idea. Most of the modified uses of the hardware use custom software, and are not reliant on the Playstation 3, as was the initial intent. Here is one of the more entertaining examples of this technology being put to use.



Check out http://kinecthacks.net/ for some more examples.

Capcom, Zynga, Sega Donate Game Profits to Japan Aid

Gaming companies Capcom, Sega, and Zynga have announced that they're donating the profits from games like Streetfighter IV, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 and Cityville to relief efforts for victims of the Japanese tsunami for the next week.

See details and links:
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/03/street-fighter-japan-donation/

Gadget Day this Friday

Come to our annual Gadget Day this Friday, March 18.

This year we'll be demonstrating a mixture of hardware (iPad 2.0, LiveScribe pens, Smart phones) and software (Evernote, Facetime).

For more information, including a detailed schedule, see:
http://wic.library.upenn.edu/wicshops/gadget03182011.html

Just Add Maggots

Come see Colette Copeland's new multimedia installation, "Just Add Maggot" at International House. The opening reception is tomorrow from 7-8pm. See you there!

Refreshing

We're in the process of refreshing all of the software on the lab workstations. This means we'll be wiping them clean and then reinstalling a fresh copy of everything. We'll be upgrading some software (Welcome to Microsoft Office 2011!), and we're also hoping that this will fix the occasional quirkiness we've experienced on certain machines in the lab.

If you want to get a head start on the new version of the machines, Ask the lab consultant to put you on workstation 4A or 5A, which have already gone through the process. Let us know of any questions you have or problems you encounter.

Dropbox Apps

If you follow this blog or have been to the media lab, then you probably know that we're fans of Dropbox. If that's a new term for you, Dropbox is a service that can seamlessly sync your files across multiple computers and also provides features like shared and public folders. This allows you to share/sync only the content you want to be synced with the other computer. Translation: Dropbox can act as a backup system for your files. You can also transfer larger media files using this service. You can sign up and immediately have 2GB worth of space for.....free. Zero dollars. Goodbye Yousendit, Zshare, and all those other annoying ad-heavy file sharing sites.

Here's a couple tips that can improve Dropbox's functionality. Well worth a gander.

iPad 2.0 details

Apple held their iPad 2 event yesterday, unveiling the new device. It has some spiffy new features:
-Front and Rear cameras for use with Facetime and recording HD video
-A slightly awkward looking, but impressively designed cover
-Integration of Photobooth, GargageBand, and iMovie (yeah... iMovie)
-A thinner, lighter frame
-More speed
-so on so forth

Check out Apple.com for all the details.

They have also reduced the price of the iPad 1.0 by a significant amount. You can check here at the Apple store to find the 16GB WiFi model starting at $350

Back up your Gmail

Over the weekend, several hundred thousand Gmail users saw their accounts reset, which is the technical term for “losing everything that was in your Gmail account prior to Feb. 27.” This follows on last week’s news of Google calender mysteriously deleting appointments and events. At the time of this writing, at least 150,000 Gmail users are still without data, an improvement over the 500,000 or so that were wiped out on Sunday, and Google promises the remainder will eventually get their data back.

Fortunately, there are several services out there that can help prevent you from losing that dissertation you e-mailed yourself.

One of these services, Backupify, is offering free backup service for a year. That's pretty great. Backupify for Gmail archives your complete Gmail history — all the messages, attachments, contacts, labels and communication history that makes your account indispensable. The next time Gmail goes down, your Backupify account has your data at the ready — and you can restore it with one click.

iPad 2.0

Thinking about buying an iPad? Do yourself a favor and wait a week. March 2nd looks to be the date that Apple will unveil their latest version of the iPad. That's when you'll get to choose whether the new updates are worth the money, or if you want to grab up one of the older models at a (most likely) discounted rate. Will it have a camera? Will it have new features we haven't even fathomed? Who's to say...

New MacBooks out! Old ones now cheaper!

The new Mac Books are out today, and they've got some impressive new specs! The Computer Connection should have the new models in stock later this afternoon, but more importantly, the old models are being discounted, so if you're in the market for a new Mac, this is the time to buy one. (I just bought one myself at a hefty $300 discount, and I convinced a co-worker to do the same) Head on over to the Computer Connection at the back of the Penn Bookstore and ask about the discounted MacBooks.