I have had a bike for as long as I can remember.  I remember my first proper bike. A Raleigh Budgie with stabilisers.  After that it was onto a Raleigh Striker and then BMX’s before my Dad decided to take the family on a madcap european cycle ride and equipped me with a hand built tourer from Cresswell Cycles in Coventry. I loved that bike and did a fair few miles on it.

My first folding bike was the Sinclair A-Bike which is fun, but not at all practical where I live or for the miles I sometimes want to do on a bike. I bought it because I couldn’t really afford the £1180 I needed to buy the Brompton that really caught my eye.

Just as Will Self says in his article, I’d always seen Brompton’s around, just not really noticed them.  I remember suddenly wanting the British built Brompton after seeing a guy jump off the train and leap on the freshly unfolded jumble of spokes and steel a few years back.

Then recently I got to ride one courtesy of @IAmBrianJones who takes his Brompton everywhere.  I was amazed at how nippy, easy to ride and well built it was. A beautiful piece of engineering.  Quietly.. I wanted one even more. We then preceded to ride across London at night, nipping down towpaths and dark alleyways, I soon realised how much of the city I had missed commuting mainly underground.

So, earlier this week I decided to bight the bullet and started to trawl the interwebs finding the best price, the nicest looking dealer, the right bike.

My search finally stopped with Websters Cycles in Leicester.

Great service and a top guy. He really made the whole transaction very pleasant indeed and I’m now the proud and very happy owner of a British racing green Brompton S3L-X.  It’s not like any bike I have had before.

My first ride on it was an 8 mile late night trip to a Pub in Northampton to attend the Northampton Geek Meet. Then I took it to London and didn’t need to take the tube once. I now take it wherever I can and am planning trips around having the bike with me.

It’s amazing how liberating it is not having to worry about parking or locking up your vehicle outside. I could get used to this.. And what with the spring on our doorstep.. I may have to.

There will no doubt be more stories, photos and video popping up in my feeds over the next few months as I peddle, roll, fold and unfold my way around the British Isles and maybe even Europe. The side affect of which is that I may even get fit in the process.

Lots of reasons for you to join me cycling in the sun (when it gets here). And if you are wondering where the tech is going to go. Well there are plans.. But that’s a whole other blog post.

In stepped @Computid Über geek, and in a couple of days he had installed Mac OSX.

The background story is linked here… http://su.pr/1hsIfN

How how did it is listed and the downloadable PDF is linked below.

…………………………………………………………….

Introduction:
• We will first be installing OS X Snow Leopard onto the external drive using a Mac • We will then modify the installation to boot on the Booklet 3G • After we have booted OS X on the Booklet 3G we will proceed to add drivers/kexts for all the other hardware. • Once it is configured we will copy OSX to the internal HDD and from there finalise the installation Requirements for this hack:
•    Retail Snow Leopard Disc (10.6.0 or 10.6.1) or external HDD with the bootable installer on.
•    Apple Mac that can run/boot the SL DVD (Intel) •    External USB Flashdrive or HDD bigger then 15gb •    Nokia Booklet 3G
At this point, heres what is working correctly: •    Machine boots properly to Snow Leopard with simple push of power button. No manual keystrokes necessary during boot. •    Screen Resolution is auto-set to native 1280 x 720. For some reason, the display comes up at about 45% brightness each time, so you have to go into system preferences to bring it up to full (presuming you want too) •    WiFi comes on, quickly finds the network, but we still have the problem of having to type “sudo killall mDNSResponder” after each reboot. •    Bluetooth is defaulted to “ON”, but there is no option in the menubar to disable it. (Fn + F10 will toggle on/off all radios (GSM/BT/WiFi) •    Sound is NOT working, nor does the System Profiler show any internal sound device. I am working on this!
Creating the Snow Leopard Installation
1. Boot to the Snow Leopard Installer on the Mac
2. Plug in your external USB Disk
3. In OS X installer run Disk Utility from the tools menu
4. Reformat the External Drive as HFS+ (Mac OSX Journalled) (DO NOT FORMAT YOUR INTERNAL DRIVE!)
5. Continue with the Snow Leopard installation and customize the install to not install languages, at the same time you may want to install quicktime 7 and Rosetta, it will save you hassle later. (Removing the languages is optional, but it does cut down on space and install time)
6. Once the installer is finished reboot to the NEW Snow Leopard installation by holding down the “Option” key at boot, then select the USB Drive.
7. Download and install the 10.6.1 combo installer http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosx_updates/macosxv1061up date.html
8. Download and install SuperDuper http://www.shirtpocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
9. Download the following Files/Applications 1. Download KextHelper. This application helps install KEXT files correctly.
http://cheetha.net/
2. Download KEXT (Kernal Extensions) vaiop20091014us.tar.bz2 from http://rapidshare.com/files/349547875/vaiop20091014us.tar.bz2
3. Download Chameleon 2 RC3 (DO NOT USE RC4, ONLY RC3). This is used to boot the
system.http://rapidshare.com/files/349330606/Chameleon_2_RC3.zip
10. Run the Chameleon 2 RC3 installer. Choose to install it to the USB Snow Leopard installation.

DO NOT INSTALL THIS TO YOUR MACS HARDDISK, YOUR MAC WILL NOT BOOT IF YOU DO!
11.Go to the root level (Top Level) of the USB drive. There will now be a folder called “Extra”.
12.In the vaiop20091014us folder there should be a folder called “Extra”. Copy the contents of this folder to the “Extra” folder on the USB Snow Leopard install.
13.Open up a terminal window and type “sudo” then drag the file “extra.sh” in the “Extra” folder to the terminal window. You should have a command string that looks similar to this: sudo /Volumes/USBDRIVE/Extra/extra.sh
14.Hit return and type in your password
15.Next open up KextHelper
16.Drag the two kext files from vaiop20091014us/System/Library/Extensions into the application. Type in your password and hit Easy install.
17. Shut down your Mac 18.Congratulations, you should now be able to boot this drive on the Booklet!
Moving the Installation to the Booklet 3G:
1. Put the USB drive into the Booklet 3G
2. Power the booklet on and press F12 until the bios boot menu appears asking what device you want to boot from. You should see the internal hard drive and the USB drive. Select the USB drive.
3. At this point the chameleon bootloader should appear, Press any key to interrupt the count down. Use the arrow keys to highlight the USB drive then type “-v -f” and press return. This will boot the USB Snow Leopard volume in verbose mode and rebuild the kext cache’s
4. This may take a little while to boot depending on your USB drive. If everything went ok, you should now be sitting at a Snow Leopard desktop (in a bad Resolution, mind you.)
5. Fire up disk utility (Applications/Utilities)
6. This is when it become permanent, this will ERASE ALL DATA ON THE INTERNAL DISK.
7. Select the internal hard drive and go to the partitions tab. Select one partition from the pull down menu, name the partition whatever you like (I used Documentallys Hackbook), select MAC OS Extended Journaled. Go to options and select GUID.
8. Hit the apply button – This will erase all contents of the internal drive!
9. Close Disk Utility
10.Open SuperDuper. Set it up as follows: 1. Copy: (your external USB drive) to: Internal (the drive you just partitioned) 2. Using: Backup – all files 3. Options: select repair permissions on Booklet 4. During Copy: Erase <destination> then copy files from <source> 5. On successful – Restart from <Destination>
11.Hit OK and then press “Copy Now”
12.Wait unit it finishes, go make yourself a coffee, this will take a while.
13.Reboot with the external USB drive still connected to your Booklet.
14.Press F12 to select the USB drive again (last time!)
15.At the chameleon screen highlight the internal drive and type “-v -f” and hit return. You are now booting Snow Leopard from the internal drive.
16.It may take a while to boot, BE PATIENT.
17.You should now arrive at the desktop! Congratulations, you’ve installed OS X on your Booklet 3G!
18.Remove “Windows7 Starter” sticker from the lower left side of netbook palmrest if you haven’t already done so. (Optional)
19.Go take a break, Grab a drink or something, then continue.
Finishing up the installation:
1. Fire up terminal 1. Type: “sudo killall mDNSResponder”. This should ensure that your Wifi is
working properly. At present, you will need to re-enter this command each
time you reboot the booklet until I get around to writing a startup script. 2. Enter your password 3. Quit the Terminal.
2. Download the following files to your desktop: 1. Download the modified boot loader file which will, when installed, set your display to its correct native resolution of 1280 x 720 on your next reboot. 1. Download the file from here: http://rapidshare.com/files/349336710/boot.nokia-booklet-gma500-v2.gz 2. When the file appears on your desktop, double click on it and it will extract to “boot.nokia-booklet-gma500-v2″ 2. Download Aboutthismac.pkg: This will make the information in “About This Mac” Correct, This isn’t needed but it is nice.
http://rapidshare.com/files/349337197/AboutThisMac.pkg.zip
3. Re-install Chameleon 2 RC3 to the Internal Disk
4. Double check in the Extra’s folder that it still contains the Kexts
5. Install the modified boot loader file to correct the Resolution: 1. Back up your original boot loader file by firing up Terminal and typing the following command: “sudo mv /boot /boot.orig” 2. Hit enter, type your password and hit enter again. 3. On your desktop, rename the “boot.nokia-booklet-gma500-v2″ to simply
“boot” 4. Now copy over the modified bootloader to replace the old one by typing:
“sudo cp /users/YOURHOMEFILENAME/desktop/boot /boot” 5. Hit enter, type your password and hit enter again. 6. Quit Terminal
6. Eject the USB Disk.
7. Restart. You should get the Chameleon boot loader now when booted to the internal hard drive.
1. NOTE: if you have trouble booting you should interrupt the the bootloader by pressing any key and boot up using the -v -f flags.
8. Install the aboutthismac package to get the correct info in “about this mac”

9. Set up your Atheros 9280 3G modem: 1. Go to: http://www.option.com/en/support/software-download/usb-modems/icon225/2. Download and install MAC Driver 2.17.0 3. Download and install the GlobeTrotter® Connect For Mac
4. In System Preferences>Network>GI40x, set up your carrier information for your 3G connection and it should begin working
5. (Optional) – Check the box at the bottom that says “Show modem status in menu bar”
10.Run the 3g modem to check the hardware initializes with the sim card installed.
Upgrading to 10.6.2:
1. Download the patched kernel from: http://rapidshare.com/files/349340631/mach_kernel_atom_with_pm_support.zip or here if you have an insanely mac account.
2. Before you update you need to backup your old kernel: 1. Open terminal and type: sudo cp -p /mach_kernel /mach_kernel.1061 2. Press return 3. enter your password 4. Press return 5. Quit terminal
3. Update your OS to 10.6.2: Apple Menu>Software Update>Update to 10.6.2
4. Upon completion of update to 10.6.2, your computer will reboot
5. During the reboot, MAKE SURE YOU INTERRUPT THE CHAMELEON BOOTLOADER by pressing any key.
6. Then, specify the kernel at chameleon’s screen by typing: mach_kernel.1061
7. Hit enter, and boot should continue until you’re in Snow Leopard.
8. Patch the kernel: 1. Expand the 106atom64.zip file you downloaded before updating. This will create a file called “patch” 2. Drag the two files (“binchg.rb” and “1062atom64.xml”) from “patch” into your root directory (Top level HDD Directory) 3. open Terminal once again and type: sudo /binchg.rb /mach_kernel /
1062atom64.xml 1. This will initiate a conversion process that takes about 20-30 minutes 2. During this time you should see:
0×000286c0 hit -> cpumodel is always 0×1e x86_64
0×005e6a83 hit-> cpumodel is always 0×0e i386 3. These messages are completely normal. Be patient, this takes a while.
When the process is completed, you will get a command prompt.
4. Now you need to replace the kernel: Run in terminal:
sudo mv /mach_kernel /mach_kernel.1062 sudo mv /mach_kernel.patched /mach_kernel sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions
9. This should complete the upgrade. Reboot the booklet and enjoy Snow Leopard 10.6.2 on your new Hackbook!

@Computid has hosted a PDF you can download from here:

http://www.atechplace.co.uk/downloads/Nokia_Booket_3G_OSX_Guide.pdf

“The show begins at the moment you first hear about it” @untheatre at Shift Happens June 29^th 2009

“It’s critical that artists are engaged with the digital world, not just for marketing, but to ask difficult, big questions of it” @wethink at Shift Happens June 30^th 2009

Audience Development

Why Social Media?

If you’re using social media properly your audience is your community, social media is about communication, and community building.

Community Building is developing your audience.

The moment you have a community, you have participants, not observers. People. Not Bums on Seats.

In the modern world of millions of people vying for your attention, it’s not your presentation; it’s your connection to your community that’s important. This is where social media comes in. Social media offers invaluable tools in accessing the hearts as well as the minds of your participants. To people bombarded every day with ‘brand’, it’s the human touch of organisations that gets your interest and loyalty. Put more simply, social media tools aren’t about you; they’re about the people you want to speak with.

Need more convincing? Here’s how social media can help you;

Complete the picture: By providing people with access to the personal and day-to-day side of your organisation, think of it as a backstage tour of your organisation.

Break down the barriers: Help to break down the perceived inaccessibility of the arts. Showing the process as well as the finished piece, means that your communities can get/feel involved in the whole artistic process. Social media allows an immediate and personal view into your company and it’s projects.

Collaborate: Social media can help you make connections to people and groups you might never have otherwise encountered, it can garner immediate responses to questions, act as an instant audience-survey, it helps you see into other people’s worlds in the same way they can access yours. It connects you to people all across the country.. all across the world.

It can help get your art ‘out there’: Social media is an active pastime, the people who get the most out of it listen as much as they speak – they participate. The personal nature of social media means that these people are more likely to actively support you and your work.

Types of social media:

So where to begin? A lot of social media can seem out of reach, confusing, or difficult at first glance. I will be offering you a basic toolkit here, of both physical kit, and social media tools, but much more important is to knock a couple of common misconceptions on the head:

1. There Are No Experts

There’s just us. All of us. Learning as we go. These tools are all so new, and there’s always something else on the horizon, because of this the only way to learn how to use them is to use them yourself, become your own expert, and connect to people who know what’s coming next. Know that everyone makes mistakes, just as everyone sometimes stumbles over their words. If you are not making mistakes you are not pushing hard enough.

1. This is Not a New Way of Communicating

This is just communication, through a different medium. It’s just talking. As you’d talk, laugh, and converse in real life, you do so online. Don’t try and view it as a different language, engage with it using your own. Be yourself.

There are three main types of content that you’re going to be producing in the online world:

• Front Facing
• Real-time
• Audio/video/images

Of course all of them will cross pollinate.

Front facing: Your website and your blog. Posterous, Wordpress, Blogger.

Your front-facing media is the main landing page when someone searches for you – this is where you will collate the best of your social media activities, and where you will publish the more traditional marketing, event and company information. It is essential that you keep this space active, and interactive, that’s where a blog comes in.

Wordpress and Blogger are popular and easy to edit blog hosts, allowing you to add widgets, post updates, allow people to subscribe to your RSS Feed and more.

Posterous is a super-simple blogging platform which allows you to post almost anything via email, meaning that they deal with all the media and other content that you want to attach.

Real-time Twitter, Facebook statuses, Twitvid, Twitpic, 12 seconds

Currently, almost all mainstream social media is geared to link up with twitter – the simple, short and easy way of sharing your real-time exploits online.

Twitter is your main tool with regards to immediacy, and behind the scenes access to your community. For an in depth guide to why you should be using twitter, along with a guide to the jargon, programs and different tones you can cultivate, have a look at Hannah Nicklin’s guide to Twitter for Arts Organisations, on the Get AmbITion website.

What can be a little more challenging as an organisation new to Twitter is cultivating your presence and community, before you have people to talk to you will be tweeting into what feels like the dark, and you need to make sure you don’t fall into the bad habit of only pushing front facing style communication. Keep talking to people, asking questions, and sharing other people’s information as much as possible.

Facebook statuses can be used in a similar way to twitter, although try not to replicate information, you want people to feel as though they’re discovering more about you as they explore your digital footprint, not digging up all of the same information.

TwitPic and Twitvid are very simple ways of uploading images and video and sharing them via twitter – you can access them online, or via mobile devices and twitter clients. Bringing a visual face to your real-time action is really important in how accessible you appear. It doesn’t always have to be about the art however, you can take pictures of the mountains of envelopes you have to seal, or a wonderful prop or piece of scenery that has showed up. Again, it’s all about the taste of your content, and the behind the scenes feel, to which these two tools can contribute (NB there are other platforms, but these are the most widely used)

12 Seconds will also auto-tweet, and in ways is a video version of Twitter, allowing you to send 12 second videos out to the world. This is great for snap shots into a working day or general process. You can post by email, online, or mobile applications.

Audio/video/images Flickr, Youtube, Audioboo.

Flickr and Youtube allow you to share images and videos; it lets you ‘tag’ media, meaning that it will be easily found in google searches, and offers the ability to embed elsewhere online.

Audioboo is an instant podcasting solution currently available to iPhones, iPod Touches and android devices. It will soon be browser based too. Posting to Audioboo you are able to add a location tag, picture, and immediately host a piece of audio. The audio will be auto-tweeted, and can be downloaded/subscribed to via iTunes from the Audioboo site. Audioboo is a brilliant way to keep people updates when you are short on time, and a less intrusive tool for interviewing people.

Other:

Eventbrite allows you to create ‘events’ and share them online – you can charge for tickets (thought you don’t have to), provide links, information and maps, as well as enabling people to instantly download the information to their chosen calendar (outlook or ical usually) This is a great way of disseminating event information far and wide. Also check out the more succinct Tweetvite which works in much the same way for smaller non-ticketed events.

BASIC KIT RECOMMENDATIONS:

There is much more on the market which will help you interact with your online community, but these are the basic physical tools which will enable you to do all of the above.

An iPod Touch, (plus mic) –roughly £140 this will open the door to true real-time interaction, allowing you access to Twitter clients, audioboo, mobile browsing, email-blog posting and more

A Canon Ixus 120 IS - roughly £180 this will do great HD video, and high quality images. The camera is compact, robust and easy to use.

A MiFi free on some contracts a personal wireless hotspot, utilising 3G networks, this allows you to turn the iPod Touch into an almost replicate of the iPhone, meaning you will be able to tweet, Audioboo, browse and email blog entries almost anywhere.

Case Study

This is a case study for a small company, with actions for an Artistic Director, and a General Manager/Administrator. The more people who are feeding content into your streams the better (though if more than 2 people tweet from an account, consider personal ones that are re-tweeted by a main one, or signing tweets with your initials)

SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS – how and when to use

Most of these tools link to and auto-update a twitter account, if they don’t, always, always tweet about it. That is the feed that people are most likely to stumble upon and should be the backbone for your media.

Everyday use

Tools: Twitter, Wordpress, Twitpic, Flickr, Facebook, 12seconds, Audioboo

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

TWITTER: 3 x 15 mins interaction, a few tweets a week – general observations an RTs to start, replying to any @ replies, listening and building up.

WORDPRESS: one blog entry a month, a short Artistic Director update

12 SECONDS – Download the app to your iPhone for free – record any video and it will take the first 12 seconds and tweet it to your chosen twitter account. Quick snapshots of scenery, theatres, comment, sets, offices, weather, anything.

AUDIOBOO – try audioboo reviews of shows you see. Very simple program.

GENERAL MANAGER

TWITTER: cultivate personal account, and tweet at least once a day from the 7 categories, try one before lunch break, and then reply to any responses when you’re back, simple and allows for conversation.

WORDPRESS: two blog entries a month – and/or co-ordinating at least two guest blogs

FACEBOOK: when you put out an opportunities, also put the link on the Facebook page, and link people to it via twitter.

FLICKR: use for high quality, front-facing images.

When an event is upcoming

Tools: Posterous, Eventbrite, Facebook, Wordpress, Twitter, Youtube

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

WORDPRESS: More formal blog RE the artistic outlook of the event.

GENERAL MANAGER

POSTEROUS – Use for more immediate things in lead up, collections of photos, video, audio trails, push it to the Wordpress.

WORDPRESS: Get artists involved to guest blog about the process

YOUTUBE: Cut together a really simple video, just audio and photo stills if necc, post to Facebook, Posterous, Blog, Youtube. People are much more likely to watch something than read about it.

EVENTBRITE – Create an online event that you can link across all social media, tweet it.

TWITTER: Decide on a hashtag, the shorter the better. Offer discounts over Twitter. Link to every bit of buzz – this is your aggregator

FACEBOOK – Make an event, offer discounts, add videos and pictures.

When an event is happening

Tools: Twitpic, Twitvid, Audioboo, Twitter, Posterous, Flickr, 12Seconds, Wordpress

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR:

AUDIOBOO: Interview vox pops with participants and performers, record your own reactions, or take short clips of dialogue/monologue or sound/music.

TWITPIC/VID: Tweet pictures and videos of the event.

12SECONDS: 12 second snippets of the action, one word summing up of the event from people

GENERAL MANAGER:

POSTEROUS: Take all quick content and email it in as it comes- this is your substitute for twitpic/twitvid

FLICKR: Take as many photos as possible, the more you take the better the chance of some good ones. Be ruthless in the edit. Post the best.

TWITVID/YOUTUBE: Use a digital camera to take slightly longer interviews and post in the evening/day after. Keep it simple to avoid the need to edit.

WORDPRESS: Summing up blog with a choice picture and video/audio

TWITTER: Tweet everything!

And finally, a few last tips regarding social media:

• Be polite – say hello to new participants, or people you’re interested in, thank people for links and recommendations.
• Listen – Social media is all about being sociable. Listen to people, interact with them.
• Inform – link to useful and interesting information, be it software, articles or news items you come across.
• Credit, link and promote others - Never appropriate, always acknowledge people, it will make them more likely to disseminate your content too. Share the link-love.
• Don’t spam – By all means promote your art, but don’t spam – make it genuine, exciting and relevant and try not to repeat yourself.
• Be funny – Don’t try too hard but sometimes the best way to catch someone’s fleeting interest is to make them smile.
• Be human – Not always obvious but very important, being a “real” person, rather than a representative is important. Balance it. People talk to people..
• Have fun! It really is a wonderful world to be a part of, get involved.

Glossary:

Blog – originally known as a Web Log – it’s an online and public space for writing, thoughts and reflection, normally allowing comments from others.

Post / update – an entry on a blog, social media platform or website.

Micro-Blog/ging – micro-blogging describes the phenomenon of sites such as Twitter – blogging done on a micro, mobile scale. Originally based on the 160 characters allotted to a text message.

Twitter – a quick and easy way of sending ‘status updates’ – small pieces of text up to 140 characters long – about what you are thinking, doing, or a link to news and information.

Tweet – a single status update on twitter

HashTags (# + keyword ie #getambition) – are a community-driven method for adding metadata to tweets. When used, every hashtag (the hash symbol attached to the front of a keyword) becomes a click-able link enabling the user to create a real-time search of that keyword effectively creating groupings without changing the basic twitter service.

Re-Tweet/ed (RT) – when someone re-posts one of your tweets (linking to you in doing so) because they have appreciated what you’ve said enough to want to show their followers in their network.

Auto-Tweet – when an application or program automatically sends a tweet to your twitter account when you update said application or program. For example whenever you post to Posterous, you can set it to send a tweet with the title, and a link to the blog post.

RSS Feed – allow people to subscribe to the content posted on a social media platform or blog. (Really Simple Syndication (See Wikipedia))

Feed / Stream – colloquially (online) these both refer to a series of entries in an online space – i.e. a person’s twitter stream consists of their status updates, and a Flickr stream would consist of a person’s uploaded pictures.

Widget – a small add on to a web page or blog, most social media platforms provide you with widgets, showing your most recent updates.

Embed – to take a piece of media hosted elsewhere (youtube, flickr etc) and to share it on another web page or blog. Quite often a ‘share’ button will offer you embed code – this should be cut & pasted into the html edit section of a blog or website, or can be emailed directly in to Posterous.

Tag – Basic labels for your content (usually comma-separated)– you might shoot a video for youtube of a performance.. Tag it - ‘theatre, performance, YOUR THEATRE COMPANY, YOUR SHOW TITLE’

Podcast/ing – Subscribe-able audio broadcasts online.

My first hands on look at what Canon are are doing now with their Ixus range came from @ilicco at the Tuttle club when he showed me his Ixus 110is

I was really impressed with the build quality, the size and the video. I shot a burst of HD video, dragged it to my macbook and had to stop for a moment. Not only was the exposure spot on in a really difficult environment, the sound was great for an almost invisible mic.

So.. when passing Micro Anvika on the Tottenham Court Road I saw the Ixus 120is.. I had to have a play.

The friendly staff let me pop my SD card in and shoot a test video. Once again I was blown away. This is a 12.1 megapixel ultra-compact camera the size of a pebble. It feels rock hard and it has a 28mm wide angle lens in it. Really very easy to ensure you are in the frame when video blogging.

It was just too tempting I had to have it. I didn’t want to pay the street price though. I always feel the sign of a decent store is that they are flexible and willing to bend a little if you choose to haggle. There is very little movement on new camera prices and you will almost certainly get better luck when asking for a discount on memory cards etc.. Nevertheless 5 minutes later I had a new twitter friend and a camera in a bag for a price I could afford.

The best camera you own is the camera you have with you when you need it. For most it is the camera on their phone and I see no reason why you cannot manage with the one in your mobile.

This is (at early impressions) an interesting bit of kit. Enough flexibility in the controls. A great wide-angle.. digital zoom (which i normally never touch) when filming and great ergonomics. Optical zoom whilst filming would have been way better but there are not many cameras on the market that will do that.

I will know more in the long run.

Compared to my favorite pocket HD camera the Kodak Zi6, the Canon Ixus 120is is clearly the more compact. This has meant these last few days it has been my EDC (Every Day Carry). I have shot loads of H.264 video and transfering the .mov files to my mac via the sd card slot is no less convenient than a flip out USB.

This is not only a serious contender to the HD pocket cams we all love to use. This may well knock them for six. It’s not a pocket video camera you can shoot naff photos on, It’s a quality 12 megapixel ultra-compact that shoots decent HD video.

Ask me when you see me or on twitter or pop into my Vimeo channel to see how I am getting on with it.. I may be having too much fun to blog a follow up.

Rainclouds over Damascus by Phil Sands

For months now he has wanted to get a photo agency together. It’s a collaborative effort between himself, his brother Chris Sands and Emma LeBlanc.

They wanted to start a small independent photo agency (called Makoto) specialising in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria – the places they live and work.

The idea grew out of a certain frustration over the photography of which we see more and more, particularly on the internet – Images divorced from context, divorced from the world and, in fact, divorced from any real meaning they might otherwise have had.

Too often photos are not even captioned, and those that are don’t always seem to offer enough explanation. They reduce everything to the 125th-of-a-second that the photo was taken in, without offering any of the before or any of the after.

Without this, the images become very disposable. With the glut of photos out there, it just becomes a morass. Click, click, click your way thoughtlessly through to the next link, the next meaningless photo. Everyone seems preoccupied with the image that punctuates the ‘breaking news’ too concerned to be first to really care about the story.

It’s the opposite of what journalism, or photo journalism, or documentary photography – whatever you want to call it – ought to be.

Calligraphy in Syria by Phil Sands

Phil talked to me of how the conception of ‘Makoto‘ gleaned inspiration from the book ‘Vietnam Inc‘ by the late Philip Jones Griffiths. A man I was fortunate enough to meet at The Frontline Club a few years ago. He says.. “What makes it so important is that his photos were accompanied by these incredible, searing, passionate, insightful explanations. He gave the context. That’s one of the reason it was all so powerful.  In that book Philip Jones Griffiths sets out the marker that we should all aspire to, the standard to aim at.”

I have to agree. The internet should not become a medium for shoving out more photos, at a faster rate, skimming ever more over the surface. It should be a way of accessibly going into more detail, of accessibly providing deeper insight. Micro/rapid blogging still has a place to disseminate but micro blogging should not mean micro context.

Makoto is also something of a reaction against parachute journalism, which has been really rammed home with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. A decent number of photographers who were in Iraq for the war (the war that hasn’t actually finished) have now packed up and gone to Afghanistan, as if somehow one war is interchangeable with the next, as if the Afghans are the same as the Iraqis.

There’s surprisingly little commitment to sticking with a story. It’s as if everyone has Attention Deficit Disorder. Either that or photographers are generally on a mission to collect as many visa stamps as possible in their passports.

Makoto wants to make a point of not being like that; Chris Sands has lived in Afghanistan for coming up on five years. Back in 2005 it wasn’t remotely trendy but he was there, doggedly chipping away at his work. Learning about the people and the place. It’s now grabbing all the headlines but presumably it won’t be in a year/two/three/four from now. But he plans to stick with it. Similarly Phil Sands his brother arrived in Iraq in 2003. He has stuck with it since.

I feel that by concentrating on a place, by trying to specialise, it’ll pay dividends in the breadth and depth of their work, in the details. In a simple way that might show through in a photo essay that has images in it spanning two or three years, not one week or one month.

Return of resistance fighter bodies Yarmouk Camp Syria By Phil Sands

There’s also a matter of respect. If you are reporting on a place properly, you come to care about the issues, about the people. It’s hard to walk away from that and, if you’re doing your job properly, perhaps you can’t or shouldn’t walk away. That’s also an old fashioned journalistic axiom that is being abandoned – live on your patch. Try to live as close to the story as you can. How many times are Syria stories reported from Lebanon? One British newspaper used to report Afghanistan from Pakistan, for God’s sake, even though the British Army was (and is) at war there. Why not just report everything from London and have done with it?

So, context and commitment. These are their goals. Time will tell if they succeed in coming anywhere near hitting them.

I remember getting Phil an old Nikon 301 and giving him a five minute lesson on ISO’s before he flew to Iraq for the first time. He has worked wonders with that camera and every camera he has had since.. A wordsmith using pictures the right way.

But that’s the other thing about their photo agency. The key idea is that the narrative behind the photos is as important as the photos themselves. In journalism, what’s the point in a technically perfect photo if it’s just hanging in isolation; at that point it’s just an art object.

We need to know the back story. The subtext. We need the ‘why’ answered. The nasty, irritating, all-important why; that thing that no one much bothers themselves with these days because it just to much like hard work to understand. Again, if the photographer doesn’t understand that, how can the photographs hope to portray it?

This is the reason each photo essay on the site is an essay. They start with a written explanation that anyone looking at the stuff should read. The words say the things the photos cannot. And each photo is captioned. Not in some narrow sense of saying what the picture shows, but by putting it into a context – putting it into a place within the wider narrative whole.

The site is at www.makotophotographic.com Please spread the word.

If we are to protect ‘quality’ journalism when we need it most, we need more sites like this.

Vodafone 360 may well change the way we look at mobile forever. (Or at least the foreseeable future). If you ever dabbled in ZYB you will have a rough idea of what’s in store.

I guess cloud mobile hints towards it too but this is way more than what you get with your dot mac account.

This is not just syncing this is a suite of internet services morphing your contacts, status updates and messaging all in ‘the cloud’. This will integrate all your social networks with your address book and provide a two way editable pipeline between you and your contacts.

The flexibility and configuration options are mind boggling and I haven’t even gone into the realtime location integration.

Of course there will be some people (normally me) screaming “What about our privacy?!” From what I could see this has been taken way more seriously than any other platform developer has bothered in the past. After a few wines were had this conversation on audioboo ended up on Kathryn Corrick’s blog and Terence Eden’s comment on the bottom explains things better than I could.

Vodafone is a massive faceless behemoth yes, but I’m thinking with this move so much is going to decide on the community making it happen. From macro to microcosm. From the coding community building the apps to the cross platform communities meeting in their hand held device.

360 is meant to work on all devices with all carriers. Obviously Vodafone are going to make sure they have the most suitable devices on offer and having got my hands on the Samsung H1 running the LiMo Platform, It’s feels like really decent handset.

Sturdy, well styled and feature packed. The camera really impressed me as did the fact that this wasn’t another phone trying to win the megapixel stakes. It’s not the number of pixels in a camera it’s how they are used and on a WVGA AMLED display it’s easy to see the quality of your image.

The touch screen interface felt a little sluggish compared to the iPhone but I was assured this is still really early days and the interface with be honed and refined as the weeks go by.

With the €1,000,000 prize fund in place for coders to collect should they create new and innovative apps I feel we may see an app store that begins with quality over quantity and I really have to get my hands on the phone just to experiment with new apps as and when they begin appear.

The universal contact list called ‘Vodafone People’ clearly puts contacts and content at the forefront of the 360.com ethos a suite of services that apears to be dripping with social media potential.

If a beast like Vodafone has bitten the bullet and finally embraced social media this may be the confirmation all the early adopters have been waiting for. Why is it we have been hanging around this social media fad thing for so long.. Well maybe this is really it. With so much potential to expand and innovate with the mobile communication tools at our finger tips starting to do what we want them to do.. This is what we have been waiting for.

Of course in the not too distant future we will no doubt be excited about hardware breakthroughs as battery life, bandwidth and memory capacity going through the roof.. That doesn’t change what Vodafone may have done here right now for mobile communication. I would not have imagined them opening up elements of it’s network to third parties.. This is a different and hopefully leading a mindset. Once you let social networks and open source operating systems enhance your devices, you are placing an awful lot of power into the hands of the community. I am sure the control will stay with Vodafone. The lack of Google maps at this stage hints towards this and they seem to have invested a hell of a lot into this move to take too many risks.

Still, I am excited to see where this goes. And with this new level of connectivity bridging previously unconnected networks, I imagine it will be a magical mystery tour where everyone is on the bus.

For more interviews with the people in the know click on this atom feed

..Or here are some AudioBoo’s

Also you may want to listen to Nik Butler and Andy White’s thoughts on Vodafone 360 in the podcast Social Media White Noise (7 minutes into the podcast)

A single composition playing for 1000 years. It started in 1999 and on the 12th of September I was invited by Artangel to blog about it live.
It was a great day. It was a long day. 1000 minutes of 1000 years.

You can find some Audioboo’s by myself and others tagged with Longplayer here and some of my Flickr images here.

Here is the Longplayer Posterous blog.

The Longplayer trust has been set up to keep it going. Click HERE if you feel you can help.

Thanks to @Encosion for letting me use the audio he captured on the day and for Artangel for helping the whole thing happen.

For the last five years there have been a handful of dedicated listening posts around the world – but on 12 September 2009 they’re attempting something completely new: a 1000 minute section performed live by a relay team of musicians in the aptly circular setting of the Roundhouse in North London. It will run from 8.20am that morning until 1am the next.

At the same time, elsewhere in the building a historic relay conversation will be taking place between 24 leading writers, filmmakers, scientists, academics and technology activists, inspired by the philosophical implications of long time. Participants include Jeanette Winterson, Cory Doctrow, Rachel Armstrong and Andrew Kotting.

Artangel, who initially commissioned Longplayer almost ten years ago, have asked me to  use social media to document the day live. This to me is an amazing concept in itself. How will the 1000 minutes of the 1000 years be remembered. Assuming the data survives who will be around to review any captured content? What will they think of the technology involved? How could i say no?

Fancy coming along?  Artangel have also kindly allowed me to give 20 tickets away to others willing to tweet, blog or just share the moment so please drop me a comment/email/tweet or call if you’d like to come along as well.

See www.longplayer.org for the official project website, and if you miss out on the free tickets you can still book discounted tickets direct from this link http://bit.ly/2EJDzJ (use the promo code ‘144′ to get a third off the face value).

Here is a full list of the speakers attending the Longplayer live event.

Hope to see you there.

Although not that compact, it has been an affordable solution as regards to getting a 3G internet connection shared across all my devices, no matter where I may be. With an ever increasing bag of gadgets to lug about though, I’m always looking for ways to minimize my tech burden.

The moment the Novatel MiFi 2352 personal wireless hotspot came through the door I knew things had just got simpler, easier and much more compact.

The Website lists these features:
• Connects up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices simultaneously
• Computers, PDA’s, cameras, music players, personal and game players and more
• Rechargeable Lithium Ion Battery
• GPS- enabled
• Advanced internal antenna system
• NovaSpeed® capable
• Auto-install and auto-connectivity
• 10M (30 ft) range of network coverage

So far I love it. Whether I’m using it with my iPhone, laptop, camera enabled with an Eye-Fi card or all of them together! It takes up little to no space, weighs next to nothing and makes it really easy to give the gift of a wifi connection to those around you, no matter where you may be.

I look forward to the possibility of a future device that can take multiple sims and auto select the carrier with the fastest connection or perhaps even allow streaming across more than one network.

For more information on the MiFi 2352 and other Personal WiFi Hotspot devices by Novatel Wireless, check out their website at http://www.NovatelWireless.com

Three years ago online video was something I mostly only viewed. I’d played around with recording and uploading video but this was a long winded haphazard affair involving hand coded xml files every time I wanted to add a video to my podcast. Then if I wanted to share it further afield I’d upload it to YouTube giving me the option to embed on a website or link to it in an email or forum.

Now it’s just as easy as sending an email. Many of the sites I visit today are either video conversational platforms or at the very least places where video is being shared and commented on. Video is now a medium of conversation.

Recently I have been asked more and more by companies “Do we really need to get involved in video?”

The short answer is “Yes.”

For me, engaging with online video is a no brainer.

The easiest way for me to explain why this shift from old analogue methods of communication to online ones is so important is to compare online video with TV. The buzzword for a while now has been Social Media, Social Media does exactly what it says on the tin, it allows people to have conversations on a new level of engagement, be it from an entertainment or marketing perspective.  TV could not be further away from this world. The most interactive thing TV can offer us is the red button. Nowadays people expect a conversation with their content.

TV advertising is also fleeting and expensive. After the cost of creating your media, you pay for your slot and when it’s gone it’s gone. Online video on the other hand, can be made at a fraction of the cost, and if you spread it intelligently it’s viewable forever. Not only that but the viewer can comment on, respond to, and share it for you. This conversation around your content keeps it alive, relevant, and in the public eye way beyond other forms of old analogue media.

Online video is also instantly global, searchable, on demand and with viewing stats that are easily measured.

It really is a no brainer.

Whether you want content for your website, to launch a brand or product, produce video news releases, or just show the human side of your organisation, you need to have a presence in the digital world, you need to be using online video. I can show you how to do produce content cheaply and effectively. I cover the kit, how-to shooting tips, file compression, uploading and aggregation, how to make your video visible, and loads more.  Whether you wish to use some of the free solutions out there like Twitvid, Tokbox or Qik, or shoot HD on a hand held device, I can be there to guide you through selecting suitable equipment to shoot, edit and distribute your video effectively.

For a little while now I’ve offered one to one consultation and informal training sessions on all aspects of social media and video making for the web. Now, for the first time, in conjunction with Econsultancy, I’m going to be able to offer a formal workshop (snappily titled) ‘Video For The Web‘.

4.7 billion videos are watched online in the UK every year. Make one of them yours.

http://econsultancy.com/training/courses/video-for-the-web

(Please check out the other home for this blogpost and it’s comments here.. Econsultancy.com)