First what is it?

Wordpress MU is basically just a Wordpress install with one unique feature: you can host 1000’s of blogs within your site.  It is a different package though with it’s own set of rules and procedures.

Uses?

One example I found that makes it easiest to understand was a Home school group. There was an admin account which one fearless individual agreed to manage (and there is a lot to manage). Then after the site is set up and the template set for the additional users, each home-school family could set up their own site to posts about their unique situations.

Why would would you do this?

Using the home school group, the benefits include:

• Spreading the costs out to each family or user or even offering to provide a free website.
• Each user who sets up a blog doesn’t need to get a domain as each site is defined simply as a sub-domain or categorically (e.g. smithfamily.my_site.com or www.my_site.com/smithfamily)
• You can now also build a social networking feature into your site using a great plugin called Buddy Press and with Facebook Connect/Twitter Connect features you can quickly build your own niche network.

But it’s not for the newbie or faint of heart (i.e. have some cash and a lot of free time ready)

Even though Wordpress and the MU code are free here are things t consider:

• You cannot use cheap shared hosting.  Forget it.
• You will need at the least a VPS (Virtual Private Server) and possibly Dedicated server.
  • This solution suddenly takes you from the relatively undemanding role of web designer/blogger to server admin. In other words you are now drinking from the proverbial fire hose.  Think about it.All those neat features you have on your current shared server may still be available, but you will have to configure them. Again…think about it.
  • But there is some consolation: This can be managed or not managed.Managed solutions will give you a human being on the other end to help you and watch over the server to some degree.  Un-managed is for the true geek or person with unique skills in setting up a server environment.
• Costs:
  • A managed VPS costs vary widely: from $29.00  to $499 per month last I checked.  The point is it can get real expensive real fast.
  • You also need to think about bandwidth.  Even though most can and do provide copious amounts of bandwidth (e.g. 100gb -750gb/mo) a DNS attack could turn a sunny day with pink unicorns into a rainy day with wart nosed trolls real fast.
  • Your time costs.  Do you feel like a slave to your computer now?  Try managing 500 other people’s blogs, and support issues (“I typed in my password a hundred times and it still doesn’t work” or “How do I insert pictures into my blog” or “Can I install this or that plugin on my site”)  You get the idea.Also you may have dealt with spam on your traditional WP blog.  With Wordpress MU you now enter to new world of Sploggers or Spam Bloggers.  I have heard of sites having Spam Blog Bots setting up hundreds of blogs on their MU installs in one HOUR!

All this to say, I have weighed the issues and am going ahead for a new project I have been eyeing for quite a while.

For more information I recommend Andrea and Ron Rennicks site Wordpress MU Tutorials.

Good luck and if you do decide to go this route let me know….misery loves company:-)

Why be limited to 3.5" x 2" anymore? Click to enlarge.

It’s the hot App on Facebook these days, “What jet are you?”,”What song are you?”, “What drink are you?” and so on.

Seriously though, as a creative professional, “What business card are you?” .  With all our expertise in graphics and the availability of inexpensive laser printing options, we need to start thinking out of the box guys.

Last weekend, I was inspired by a website recommended via Twitter from @nsmithmorgan.  The website was a collection of 100 uniquely inspired business cards.

So, I was needing new cards and showed the site to my wife over breakfast last Saturday and she immediately said “You need a card that folds like your Mac”, and voile, this is what I got.

It’s not a photo, but several rectangles with various gradients of gray applied and a blue “screensaver” where  my main message is.  The nice thing is I had them printed at the local Office Max on their laser printer  and therefore had the option of only making about fifty to start with.  I already know what I want to change, so the next iteration will be different; grays lighter, font different and so on. At least there were no typos

I just thought in this age of Content Management, where I preach to clients the wonders of easily managed content in their website [a la WordPress, Joomla, et al], why should I get locked in to ordering 500 boring, 3.5 x 2 business cards.  Now I am inspired to develop several business card templates and change them up (using my standard logo consistently of course).

Enjoy your new found freedom and be yourself in your business card development.

The biggest difference is the recording time: 2 hours now. In addition they are still using 2 AA’s which is great.  The Slim had that awful on-board rechargeable battery issue.

Anyway for now here are pix and the press release.  Until I get my hands on one to try here it is:

Flip Video™ Introduces All-New Flip Ultra™ and Flip UltraHD™

They look about the same as before. Click to enlarge

Best-Selling Camcorder Line Now Offers a New HD Model, Double the Memory and a Larger Screen

Pure Digital Technologies, Inc. – the maker of the acclaimed Flip Video family of camcorders – today announced the second generation of its Flip Ultra line, America’s number-one selling camcorder since its debut in 2007. Now available in both high-definition and standard-resolution models, the new line offers everyday consumers the easiest and most affordable way to capture and share high-quality video. The new Flip Ultra and Flip UltraHD feature two hours of recording time, a large high-resolution two-inch screen, and convenient battery recharging through the built-in USB arm.

“The original Flip Ultra changed the way the world captures and shares video by making it easy, accessible, and, most of all, fun,” said Jonathan Kaplan, chairperson and CEO of Pure Digital. “Our new Flip UltraHD takes this to the next level by making it incredibly simple and affordable for anyone to capture and share hours of video in stunning HD.”

The new Flip Ultra and UltraHD camcorders set a new standard for convenient and affordable video capture. Both new models offer a full two hours of recording capacity, a bright two-inch transflective screen for no-glare viewing even in direct sunlight, and an innovative AA rechargeable battery pack that can be conveniently recharged through the camera’s built-in USB arm. The Flip Ultra is priced at just $149.99, while the Flip UltraHD sells for $199.99.

Like all Flip Video camcorders, the new Ultra line is pre-loaded with FlipShare™, the on-board software that leads consumers seamlessly through the process of organizing, editing and sharing videos. Consumers simply plug the built-in USB arm directly into any Mac or PC to begin sharing their videos immediately.

The second generation Flip Ultra camcorder promises to build on the success of the Flip Video family, which has sold more than 2 million camcorders since first introduced less than two years ago. The Flip Ultra continues its reign as the number-one selling camcorder in the U.S., while the Flip MinoHD, launched last November, is currently the top-selling HD camcorder in the country, both according to first quarter 2009 rankings from leading market research firm The NPD Group.

Flip UltraHD Camcorder Features:

SRP: $199.99
Colors: Black, White (with chrome trim)
Video Resolution: High Definition, 1280 x 720
Records: 2 hours (8 GB built-in memory)
Screen: 2 inch – transflective (anti-glare)
Batteries: 2 x AA (rechargeable AA battery pack included)
TV Output: Widescreen with HDMI™ output
Zoom: 2 x Digital
Flip Ultra Camcorder Features:

SRP: $149
Colors: Black, White, Yellow and Pink
Video Resolution: 640 x 480
Records: 2 hours (4GB built-in memory)
Screen: 2 inch – transflective (anti-glare)
Batteries: 2 x AA (optional rechargeable AA battery pack sold separately)
TV Output: SD Composite Video
Zoom: 2 x Digital

I know people like this...really (Click to enlarge)

This is an ongoing post about Twitter as none of us knows the final answers.

I’ve been fiddling with Twitter for over a year now and have drawn my own conclusions that may help some of you not sure about what this “Twitter thing” is and if you should be on board.

First, it’s a social networking medium, kind of like Facebook or My Space, only smaller.  Much smaller.  140 characters to be exact (including spaces).  You can’t upload videos, have an MP3 play-list, show photos (at least directly) and so on.  Nope, all you can do is write/create a 140 character summation related to something you: just read, will read, have read, are doing, will do, have done, are thinking about doing, want to do, just heard, just saw, just ate, on and on, basically in one sentence.  Basically, for the most part, most posts are stream of consciousness notations.  If your long winded…forget it.

Second it’s an opt-in medium, meaning people have to want to hear what you ate, have to say, think, feel, etc.  In other words, it’s not like posting on a forum, or sending a mass email to a list of people you gathered in some duplicitous manner.  No, people have to in some way be convinced you have something worth reading.  If the do, they choose to “FOLLOW” you.

Of course you can do searches [once you have a Twitter account (free by the way)] and follow anyone on Twitter; President Obama, Ozzie Osbourne, a classmate on Twitter, or just some random person who has a similar interest or preoccupation, say for instance with dorodango.

That said, it really is on the surface can appear to be a pretty pointless medium.

Never-the-less, I have found it very useful in certain areas.  As a web developer/designer, coder, photographer, audio/video content producer and so on in my small corner of the universe, I have developed a Twitter-osophy that so far proven to be very practical in my professional life.

My Twitter-osophy

I have developed my own Twitter rules of engagement, my Twitter-osophy .

1. Don’t use services that promise lots of followers quickly
   • These are wasteful of your time and everyone else’s.  Yes I tried some, and got outa Dodge ASAP. The only people who get mileage from those are….well read rule #2.
2. If anyone starts following me with promises of wealth, or uses words/phrases like “Life Coach”, “SEO Wizard”, “Let me show you how..”, “Make money fast”,  etc.,  I not only do not follow them….I block them.  They’re usually multi-level marketers, scammers, spammers or all three.
3. I only follow people who list a website.  If they don’t fit Rule #2,  then I may visit it.  If anything looks suspicious…BLOCK.  If not then go to Rule #4.
4. I follow fewer people than follow me.  If someone wants to follow one of my Twitter accounts and doesn’t seem to be a Rule #2 or #3 candidate, I leave them on as a follower.  But unless they have something I want to read regularly or information I can use, I don’t follow.  I really don’t care to know you ate a banana for breakfast.

Who should you follow?

I look for people who have similar interests in relation to the topic of the Twitter account.  I have one account for my coffee shop, hence I like to follow and have followers locally (customers) and people in the coffee business.  For my web design company, I am interested in people who I have professional respect for their knowledge and contacts for information in the industry (e.g links to tutorials, placing posts about my own tutorials and so  on).  You get the idea.

MORE LATER AS I THINK OF IT….

_____________________________

First, why I needed to know this.

I have clients from time to time who have self produced videos on a DVD they would like to add to their websites, either progressively streaming off of their hosting server or through one of the myriad of video sharing sites (ala YouTube, Blip.TV, Vimeo etc.)

In the past, when we were a PC only web shop it frankly was easy.  Rip the VOB file you need as an AVI (with something as simple as Pinnacle), convert to FLV and that was it basically.

However on the MAC (Specifically MacBook Pro with Mac OS X 10.5.6) I found it a bit more of a challenge without investing in more apps for a purpose that doesn’t come up all that often.  Let’s face it, I’m cheap.  It shouldn’t be that hard.

Let me be clear, I’m not talking about commercial, copyrighted material. These are in-house production quality videos that my client,  XYZ company, shot of someone using their auger system, of making a cappuccino, or whatever.

That said, I found this solution in bits and pieces on a various forums  and was able to create my own work-flow that I will now share.

The Problem

Basically with DVD video you have files called VOB (video object files).  You may have several VOB files on the same disc if you have chapters of several smaller videos on the same disc.  OK, that said,  the problem is getting iMovie, let’s say, to recognize a VOB.  It won’t.  Hence you cannot import it. The image to the right show these files.  Notice the dark color of the files.  When you look at them in iMovie they will be grayed out, meaning they are not a valid file type for iMovie as such.

The Solution

The key then is simply getting the VOB file in a format iMovie will import.  It’s actually very simple.  You just need to make a disk image (.dmg).  Here’s how.

1. Insert your DVD
2. Open the Disk Utility (Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility)
3. Your DVD should show up in the upper left hand corner under yo other drives (HDD, any external, etc.)
4. Highlight it and choose New Image from the toolbar.
5. I used the default settings in the drop down and save it to the desktop (or wherever you choose)
6. Click SAVE.

Let Disk Utility chew on that a few minutes and presto-chango you have a disk image (.dmg) of your DVD.

Now, with iMovie open, you have to “mount” the disk image by double-clicking on the .dmg file (the disk image file) you created.

Next  iMovie’s IMPORT window will pop-up and you will notice that the disk image is recognized as ….a camera!  How about that.

Now choose IMPORT ALL and get to editing once it is in iMovie.  That’s it!

Assuming you know how to export, you’ll end up with a .M4V file that can be uploaded and let  YouTube, Vimeo, et al, do the rest.

One note: Occasionally  you may get errors when importing and from my experience this is most often because the disk I am working from is a bad/damaged copy.

Hope this is helpful in getting you going the right direction.

______________________________

DISCLAIMER: Note that this is relating my own experience using iMovie 08 and this process.  This may or may not work with other versions of iMovie.  Be sure and check the comments as several others have tried other solutions with other versions of iMovie and found work-arounds.  The idea for this was a collaborative place to share ideas.

This is really a very simple thing.  Ready?

(NOTE: Before you start tweaking your CSS file, make a copy you can revert to or look at in case something goes awry.  You should know that and probably do, but just over communicating that concept)

Let’s make sure we are on the same page.  Visit this site by clicking the image (right) and scroll over the blue nav bar (actually referred to in the CSS stylesheet as “subnav”).  What you will see is that the nav background in the drop-down menu is semi-transparent.  In other words you can see some of the page behind the nav menu as if the nav drop down was a colored gel sheet. First a medium blue then a dark gray on the roll-over.  This website also uses the same idea.

The CSS out of the box (common WordPress menu style with drop down) was a solid color and the code for the drop down menu looked like this (key is the “li ” called the selector):

For the subnav bar drop down:

#subnav li a:hover, #subnav li a:active {
background: #000066;
color: #FFFFFF;
display: block;
text-decoration: none;
margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px;
padding: 6px 13px 6px 13px;
}

#subnav li li a, #subnav li li a:link, #subnav li li a:visited {
background: #000066;
width: 150px;
float: none;
margin: 0px;
padding: 6px 10px 6px 10px;
border-bottom: 1px solid #FFFFFF;
border-left: 1px solid #FFFFFF;
border-right: 1px solid #FFFFFF;
}

#subnav li li a:hover, #subnav li li a:active {
background: #006699;
margin: 0px;
padding: 6px 10px 6px 10px;
}

Note the property, “background”.  The two colors shown are a darker and lighter hue of blue.  But I wanted them to be semi-transparent just for the effect.  Kinda trendy these days.

By looking at the code just previous to this I discovered that the height of the subnav was coded to be 24 pixels.  Simple.  See below:

#subnavbar {
background: #003366;
width: 960px;
height: 24px;
color: #FFFFFF;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}

OK, so the detective work is done.  Now to make this semi-transparent.

So, next step is to create a transparent .PNG file in Fireworks, Photoshop, Illustrator, whatever you’re comfortable with. Make it, of course, 24 x 150 pixels?  No.  Well, yeah you could, but why?  Just make it the correct height (24px) and wide enough you can see it.  I made mine 10px wide.

For now,  just make your simple 10px X 24px rectangle.  I made mine blue (#006699) and changed the transparency to 80%. Save it with a unique name you can remember.  Then make a second one that is a darker (or lighter depending on your font colors).  I made the second one black (#000000) with 80% transparency so it actually looks kind of gray.  Again save.

Now go back to the same code as above and change it like so:

#subnav li a:hover, #subnav li a:active {
background-image:url(images/sunav_bkd_trans_rec.png);
color: #FFFFFF;
display: block;
text-decoration: none;
margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px;
padding: 6pEditx 13px 6px 13px;
}

#subnav li li a, #subnav li li a:link, #subnav li li a:visited {
background-image:url(images/sunav_bkd_trans_rec.png);
width: 150px;
float: none;
margin: 0px;
padding: 6px 10px 6px 10px;
border-bottom: 1px solid #FFFFFF;
border-left: 1px solid #FFFFFF;
border-right: 1px solid #FFFFFF;
}

#subnav li li a:hover, #subnav li li a:active {
background-image:url(images/sunav_bkd_trans_gray.png);
margin: 0px;
padding: 6px 10px 6px 10px;
}

(NOTE: Depending on the menu style you may need to simply call the image via “background: url(images/yourimage.png);” On this website I had to use that.  So try that if “background-image :” doesn’t work)

You’re done!

Now upload the new CSS and two new .PNG image files and check out your fancy transparent menu in CSS.

Now that wasn’t hard, was it?

Of course your CSS file may be slightly different but not much.  That is the great thing about CSS: it is a standard and most items like drop downs are fairly consistent site to site.  Just gotta know what to look for and be willing to try this then try that.  Eventually it will be second nature.

Enjoy!

_____________________

(PS: Checked it in IE7, FF & Safari)

Also known as IAMA, they will be featured participants in the EAA AirVenture 2009 airshow in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, July 27th through August 2nd.  Nearly one million people visit AirVenture each year.

The EAA site will point to this site and they wanted to make a great first impression with a  site rich in aviation video.  In addition Mango Design is producing a podcast series of interviews with association members for iTunes distribution.

To hear an example of their podcast series we are producing visit our Media Vault page.

Mango Design has also been hired to manage the site through 2009.

Visit their new site live>>

Click to enlarge

About a week ago I was recording a Skype phone-interview using Call Recorder on my MacBook Pro for a client podcast episode. I was using an excellent Plantronics analog, noise-canceling microphone/headset.

After I finished, I listened to the playback and overall it was fine, except for the occasional sound of my papers shuffling on top of the computer keyboard. It was as if the on-board mic was recording and not the headset. So I began investigating and discovered my Plantronics was not registering a signal on the Mac’s VU meter.  Probably should have checked that first.  Right?  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.

Anyway automatically I assumed it was a faulty sound port or card.  But a few clicks on Google later I discovered via several forums that the problem was that the input is a “Line-in” audio.  Not the same as a more common “Mic-in” (that’ll have the little microphone icon)

Here’s the issue though: In reality, all microphones capture analog signals. Analog signals are basically sound waves and in speech recognition these sound waves are our voice.  But, computers cannot recognize analog sound waves.  Therefore the signal has to converted to digital.

Bottom line, here are our options:

Griffin Technologies iMic (click to enlarge)

1. Get an ADC or analog to digital converter.  There are several, but the Griffin iMic ($49) is one you’ll see pop up a lot on podcasting blogs. iMic allows you to connect many microphones and sound input devices to your iBook, PowerBook, PowerMac or other Mac or PC systems with a USB port.

2.Get a USB mic or USB Headset.  Popular headsets are made by Plantronics (about $70).  Good enough USB mics are made by Snowball, Samson and others.  Another option in this category I have gone to is the Zoom H2.  I chose it because it is a multi-tasking digital workhorse offering a lot of options:

a. The H2 can be used via USB cable as a stand-alone mic

The H2 Zoom is an .mp3, .wav recorder that can also double as a very good USB mic on a Mac. Win Win!

b. It can record 2 or 4 channel stereo onto an SD card or

c. You can use an analog mic via it’s mic-in port to record onto an SD card or to digitally pass-through your signal to your computer.

All for about the same price ($150) as a good quality, stand alone USB mic.

In any event,  if you’ve had this problem hope this post helps ease your anxiety.  Your computer is probably fine.  You just need the right equipment!

As with 99% of what I know about technology, here is a great tutorial from my own learning experience on how to convert  .MOV audio to an .MP3 file.

First why did I need to do this?

I’m using a program for recording Skype phone calls called Call Recorder by Ecamm. The options for saving calls is either Uncompressed, 2:1 Compression or AAC Compression. The default is AAC which produces a file with the extension .mov. The initial tests using AAC Compression produced very clean recordings of my phone interviews and I was pleased. But there was one issue.  To include them into a podcast series I am developing along with another new web project (IAMA), I needed the Call Recorder files in MP3 format.

So I began looking at how to get the MOV converted to MP3.

Option one: purchase QT Pro or other conversion programs for $29.00+.  That may be where you want to go.  But I also found another way.

Option two: using an available AppleScript and the built in QuickTime AppleScript tools I could convert the .mov to .mp3 for free and get the same results, albeit one or two extra steps.   Plus I learned something new.  So here goes. It’s very simple, really.

1. Get the AppleScript

Here it is:

set saveRef to (choose file name with prompt “Save audio track as AIFF” default name “untitled.aiff”)
tell application “QuickTime Player”
export movie 1 to saveRef as AIFF
end tell

Copy the script.

2. Open your .MOV file in QuickTime

Click to enlarge

3. Choose QuickTime Player/Services/Script Editor/Make New AppleScript

Click to enlarge

4. Paste the AppleScript into the window like so:

Click to enlarge

5. Choose RUN then follow the prompts to name the file and pick a location then SAVE.  Next choose RUN in the top window.

Pick a place you can find it easily like Desktop.  You’ll be importing it into iTunes.

Click to enlarge

6. Now it will export the .mov  file as an .aiff file to the location you chose.

Click to enlarge

7. Now open iTunes, import the file to your music library and then choose Advanced/Create MP3 Version like you might normally.

Click to enlarge

Now you have two versions in your iTunes library, one .aiff and one .mp3 and you saved $29.00!

Hope this helps you along the way!

Last year when I switched to the Mac platform however the options were slim to none in this arena. I tried several apps that were supposed to work but again, I got wonky results.

But, finally I have found a recording app that really does what it says it will, and it is called simply Call Recorder from a company called Ecamm.

Wow.  It is SIMPLE to use.  When you log onto your Skype account it starts up in a little side window.  When you are ready to start recording just click on the record button and that’s it.  When you’re finished, press stop.  The result is a very nice, crisp, natural sounding .mov audio file.  I’ve only tested it a few times but one conversation was 20 minutes and there was absolutely no out-of-sync issues.  FWIW,  I chose Medium Quality setting and the quality was superb!

However what makes this even better is the ability to also record video chats via Skype with PIP option as well.  Haven’t tried that yet, though.

They give you a fully functional 7 day trial which is also great (for those like me that’ve been burnt a few times with these type apps).

How much?  That’s even better: $14.95.  Wow again!

Thank you Ecamm for this great product!