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

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.

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)

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

In the dark shadowy corner I shot this very quick video in 720p as the SD card I had to hand was not high speed and couldn’t cope with the fat data rate of the 1080p setting. The camera feels good in the hand. Well made and similar in form to the Zi6.

Already I can see the low light ability is better than that of the previous two models but more importantly I am looking forward to plugging in an external mic and seeing what kind of audio quality is possible.

The specs are as follows:

• Full HD 1080p video
• Built-in image stabilization
• 2.5” color LCD
• Swing out the USB arm to upload, share, and charge
• 5 MP 16:9 widescreen HD still pictures
• Built-in software for editing and uploading
• Compatible with PC and Mac
• Record up to 10 hrs of HD video (20 min per 1 GB at 720p HD at 30 fps) with SD/SDHC card up to 32 GB
• Face tracking technology
• External stereo microphone
• HDMI cable included

I’m thinking that finally camera producers are beginning to understand the importance of decent audio.. more important than picture quality in my opinion. It’s too soon for me to express anything other than relief at the mic input with the Kodak Zi8, but I feel with devices like the Zoom Q3 on the horizon (which is effectively a high quality audio recorder with a camera on it), I feel the goal posts have been moved and video blogging devices are entering a whole new era.

If you suffered watching the video with all the beeps in.. Now you can watch the uncensored version.

There is more information on the Kodak Blog.

While I was over in New York at the 140 Characters Conference I got the chance to have a sneak peak at a new Kodak device that I can’t talk about. (They made me sign some seriously legal scary stuff). That said.. It doesn’t mean you can’t speculate as to what it might be in the comments below. Anyone that knows me, or has seen me speak about what I do will probably have a idea about the kind of Kodak device that excites me. But for now, like i said. I can’t talk about it.

The original Kodak blog post where this video and another from Steve Garfield is linked HERE

[DISCLAIMER: Kodak did not pay me any money to do this video.  I would not turn my nose up at a sneak peek preview of the new model though.. ]

It’s been ages since I was the proud owner of a decent HD camcorder. The last one I had was a 3ccd Panasonic that took DV tapes. At the time it was way too good for what I needed, so I sold it to upgrade my stills camera.

Ever since then I’ve been dabbling with pocket HD video recorders, in particular the Kodak Zi6. The Zi6 is a great little device for blogging and with it’s combination of AA batteries and additional SDHC memory, I always have one at the ready. Recently I was given a Kodak Zx1 to review but I’m thinking/hoping it is broken as there are some major issues when recording low frequency sound. Anyway.. the less said about that the better. The sooner manufacturers realise that decent audio is far more important than the video, the sooner we will have great devices we can really use.

With pocket HD cameras the market leader seems to be the Flip Mino HD.. I think this is because every blogger and his dog (apart from me) seemed to get one to try out and talk about. Not wanting internal memory or a weird battery, I opted for the Kodak Zi6..

The same seems to be with HD Camcorders.. Canon really seems to be on top of blogger advocacy and made sure a few decent video bloggers had access to their kit.. Once again, I missed out on these trials and although I know camcorders like the Canon Legria HF S10 are damn fine bits of kit.. when it came to go out and find one for myself I decided to enter the web with an open mind.

For me, any highly spec’d image capturing device has to have decent optics. This goes without saying. I know Canon have really proved themselves over the years but I have always been drawn to the fact Panasonic pride themselves in their electronics and partnered with perhaps one of the finest glass manufacturers in operation today. Leica make great lenses. Fact. I still have my Leica M6 and a selection of lenses even though i rarely shoot film.. I am yet to see optics as good as those that fit on my old M6.

So when i first saw Panasonic’s Leica lensed HDC-TM300 early this year.. I had a feeling this could be the camera for me. There is always lots of talk online around the HD format AVCHD, but I see it being used more and more to get as much data as possible into smaller memory space and to be honest.. I just can’t be bothered with any type of magnetic tape now, even if the quality is still better.

While saving up enough funds to purchase something decent I read more and more about different cameras and could see that the HDC-TM300 is a serious camcorder aimed at enthusiasts. It has more features that I will ever get round to using and with its twin flash-memory capability, it should be robust enough to rattle around in the bottom of my backpack with all my other gadgets.

Feel

The camera looks and feels like many other in the range. Smooth lines and solid in the hand. It has an EVF (electronic viewfinder) as well as a large flip out LCD touchscreen, an attachable accessory shoe and a great little manual focusing ring round it’s Leica lens.

It’s sister, the HDC-HS300 comes with a 120GB HDD (hard disc drive) and an SD/SDHC slot but I really wanted to put the moving parts aside and go for 32GB internal solid state and a removeable SD/SDHC memory card slot. It will take a Class 6 card up to 32GB but at the moment I am using a Class 6 16GB card bought for about £25.

Features

So what’s it got..? Like  said.. more than i’m ever likely to use. To be honest i had to read up on what it’s three MOS image sensors (“3MOS”) were capable of. Each sensor is dedicated to one of the red, green and blue primary colours. The total number of pixels available on each MOS image sensor is 2.07 million pixels (Full HD) for both video and stills. The sensor itself is a little bigger than normal at 1/4″. There is always a worry that camera upgrades include more pixels but less light gathering capability as these pixels are squeezed into smaller and smaller spaces. Not so here.

Amongst some of the many features these are a few that interest me:

~ Image Stabilisation
~ 3 second Pre-REC
~ 2.07 million pixels per video shot and 10.6 mega pixels when shooting stills
~ Leica Dicomer 12x optical zoom lens, with  surrounding manual focus ring
~ Interval Recording – time lapse recording from 1 second through to 120 seconds
~ External Microphone input  with manual level control (a must for any serious camera)
~ Face Detection – (scary but works really well. Even on the dog!)
~ 12x optical zoom (30x and 700x digital but i never turn this on for obvious reasons)
~ Touch Screen LCD (inc ‘Target Frame’ – Set a target ie face, focal point or object to lock on to even when it moves)
~ Headphone (as well as an AV output port)
~ iA Intelligent Auto – (kind of an idiotmode for when you have been drinking and don’t want to miss a shot)
~ Relay Recording – record seamlessly from the internal memory to the SDHC memory card

These are just a few that jumped out at me.. There are loads more that I could list.. (if i understood them

Reading from the manual I can tell you the camera uses MPEG-4/AVC H.264 high definition video compression, saving 1920×1080 movies to either the internal solid state memory or the SDHC memory at the following sizes:

~ HA: 17 Mbps (1920 x 1080 VBR)
~ HG: 13 Mbps (1920 x 1080 VBR)
~ HX: 9 Mbps (1920 x 1080 VBR)
~ HE: 6 Mbps (1440 x 1080 VBR)

I know that the Canon cameras can capture data at 24Mbps but I like to be able to edit while mobile from a laptop using iMovie. I think files larger than the ones I already have to deal with may well crash my brain, not only my hardware/software. Besides I would happily offset the data rate and take the 2 extra MOS sensors that Panasonic has over the Canon’s one large one. I may change my mind when I get an 8 core laptop.

My 16GB SDHC Class 6 memory card records just over 2 hours at the highest quality (AVCHD at the HA setting). It is possible to copy the clips from internal memory to external and visa versa. There is even limited editing available should you want to chop stuff up while traveling to save space.

Conclusion

In my opinion this is the perfect all round consumer level camcorder. It ticks all of the boxes I had in mind when I was looking for a camera for shooting video for web at the best quality costing under a grand. Saying that, playing it through my HDTV via HDMI, blew me away. The quality of picture and richness of colour was way beyond what I have previously experienced. I may need a little more practice exporting video for web (and a bigger home bandwidth) to get close to the quality I know this camera is capable of, but it is compact and feature packed. It has some really innovative use of it’s touchscreen and has all the inputs/outputs I could possibly need. With the options of manual control and of course it’s funky time lapse feature, I feel it is a camera I can grow into and learn from.

Just to force a gripe and pick on something.. Although I love it’s 5.1 built-in mic, it’s positioning on the top makes it prone to my heavy breathing and wind noise. Still I plan to upgrade the sound with a more directional mic for interview purposes.

Also at £800-£1000 It’s probably a little expensive for the average consumer but this is still a new camera and I imagine the price will come down soon enough.. When it does.. buy it. Or if you can afford it now.. buy it now.. I’m certainly glad I did.

UPDATE: Here are a few of the accessories I have found useful.

E3 was a blast.. Loads of meetings, loads of gameplay, some Audioboo action and no doubt this will all keep trickeling into my feeds over the coming weeks..

On the last day at E3 we were ushered into a room within the Xbox Live stand and sat with Aaron Greenberg (Director of product management at Xbox). We were allowed to ask him anything, so i started the ball rolling with a question from avid Xbox fan and gamer Nik Butler (@Loudmouthman) Nik wanted to know why you couldn’t cross dress Xbox Live avatars..

(I must apologise for the crappy sound but the expo was really noisy and i have found out the hard way that the Kodak Zx1 is nothing like it’s predicesor the Zi6 in handling noisy environments.  As a result the audio crackled on all the footage it shot. (No low cut filter me thinks.) I am going to try shooting video with a more highly spec’d camera for a bit.. Mainly because i have dropped my trusty Zi6 )

I am traveling in a group of thirteen after being asked by Digital Outlook, in association with Xbox, to blog the E3 Gaming Expo. Not only blog in the normal text based sense but to use some of the tools I normally use that feed into twitter.. AudioBoo, flickr, 12 seconds etc.

I guess they are after a non serious gamer with a different perspective to give their take on the event. And i shall. There’s loads of new tech and game releases for me to get my teeth into so there should me more than enough content to get me excited..

Well thanks to @Loudmouthman and @Delboydare I’m feeling a little re-enthused with my blog.

I chose Wordpress as a basis for my blog a while back and have been happy with it ever since. Me being me though means I have to try and be a little bit different.. a little css adjusted here an over sized graphic here.. As a result I have had to ask Derek (@Delboydare) to assist me in upgrading my wordpress version and he has done a great job. Tapping away behind the scenes, he has ensured my transition to the latest version of wordpress has happened without a hitch.

Then there’s Nik, @loudmouthman. It seems he has been hosting/managing a couple of well known blogs recently and as I’ve been wanting to make the switch from my former hosting company NXS.nl, I thought I’d take him up on his offer. I know that with Nik being on the other end of the tweet almost 24/7 i could not wish for better hosting support.

The changeover itself happened almost too fast for me to notice.. All I had to do my end was insert the new name servers and it was done. I had to check three or four times because I did not think it could really be that easy. But no.. it was done and i was up and running on my new server with no visible downtime.

The conversation with Nik that followed informed me that my security had increased substantially and some extra plug-ins had been installed into my wordpress blog that would on the whole make my life more easier when it came to posting anything on my blog.

I spend a good portion of my working life recommending tools sites and apps that i think worth using.. Derek has shown me how valuable our networks are when it comes to sourcing the skill sets outside of our own and Nik has shown me that I can love a platform without knowing it’s full potential and that there are some people out there that don’t just talk the talk and really know their game.

I should be in the hotel about 8 hours from this sentence. There are about 12 people in the team that headed out from the UK.. Many had come in from other cities in other countries.. Spain, France, Italy and Germany to name a few. Some host gaming forums/sites like www.XboxWay.com and www.Xboxdynasty.com Some are PR.. One guy Sean Geer calls him self ‘old media’ but i think he is much more than that.. Anyone that packs A Nikon D90, Lumix LX3 and an Eye-Fi card is ok in my book.. Especially as I have the same in my bag.

I also am packing two laptops.. two Kodak HD recorders, solar chargers with extra lithium-ion cels.. and so on.. My back is already having a go at me. I really need to make a point of using everything that I have brought just so as this pain isn’t in vain.

All going well and I can jump through the security hoops stateside, I’ll be tagging all of my content with the hashtag #E3. you can listen to my Audioboos on www.audioboo.net or through Buddhamagnet’s BooBase.

If you want to see everything on one Page then Documentally.Rezpondr.com is the place to be (thanks to @Philcampbell for creating/setting that up) and no doubt everything will go through my Twitter account as normal… Documentally

If you start watching/engaging now you will hopefully see the transition from bumbling ignorance to slightly clued up. I will be filling in all the spaces in my gaming knowledge through regular contact with Nik Butler but please feel free to drop a comment on this blog if you would like me to cover anything in particular in the world of XBox..

Thanks for all the tips on what i should go to see out in LA but i feel i may be too busy channeling all of my Expo observations into www.xbox.com/e309

Still, i hope there will be a few hours off here and there so if you get the chance.. ping me on twitter and maybe we can grab a beer.

I was sat at the front of an almost exciting talk from the FSA with laptop, iPhone, N95, Kodak Zi6 and a pocket camera. Back in my bag was a pro Nikon SLR, an audio recorder and yet another laptop.

I joked about buying Shiva Media. I thought a multi-armed kit wielding blogger would make a great logo. Apart from the fact this may be insulting the top Hindu God of Gods.. the name has already been taken anyway.

Then I saw @ilicco link to a blog post from Adam Westbrook

Here’s a guy who looks like he has found a happy medium. Adam is a radio journalist dabbling in video. Using a compact camera, a HD video camera and an audio recorder he may have to juggle a little but by not choosing to live update through twitter, ping gps, and live stream he still has time to script his interviews and get the job done.

Maybe Multi Media does not have to be Multi-multi-media..

In an ideal world, if I were going back into a warzone, or tackling something I only had one shot at, I’d want to work in a team. Much as I prefer traveling alone, I do find a more superior batch of content comes from using a team, who like super heroes, all have their own individual strengths.

Along with Stills, HD video and audio, I also like to (where possible) live stream, micro blog (Twitter, Audioboo) and gps tag as i go. I find so much more value in logging the live progress as ‘news’ which preempts the final edit. This not only raises awareness of the project as it is happening but opens up all sorts of real time resources & conversations, as connections are made as you document.

At the moment to do a multimedia job well you’d need a snapper and a videographer, perhaps an audio guy too but you may be able to manage this between two at a stretch. Both people must also be able to live blog, capture, edit, archive and back up their own content and on top of this, write and do stuff to camera.

When I mean ‘do it well’, I mean suck up and absorb as much of the surrounding content/story/information in high quality for the later edit and lo-fi for live blogging.

As I have never been embedded, a team also offers a certain amount of safety and security. Depending on where you are, sometimes it can just draw attention. Although mainly traveling alone for ease, I’ve often worked with a friend. Someone I would trust with my life.

In Iraq I didn’t really know what I was going to do. There was little planning. I just went to see for myself and apart from moving fast and laying low, I was just taking photos and logging my GPS position, either pinging it back via sat phone or texting when there was GSM. The photos I took went to accompany a couple of news stories my friend was writing and finally to make my first real video podcast.

Not long after my good friend was kidnapped and later released.

On assignment in Jordan for the UNHCR I had more experience but limited time. I decided against video and just worked with stills and audio. Much of what I was going to do was arranged in advance by a friend who knew the area well and acted as a fixer. With a simple hand held Zoom H2 on the floor i could record the stories of the refugees and use my Nikon D300 to take pictures in the pauses, editing out the shutter sound later. During the live video blogging of the project I was contacted by Bill Cammack who ended up editing the final stills and interviews into a film.
I guess when there is less at stake.. Back in the UK, either covering a geek conference or on a job for a corporate client, you can experiment and test new methods of data capture and transmission. This is when we can get silly with our tech. Finding out what works and what is a waste of time and resources. What medium has the greatest reach for the least amount of effort.

If I had a tech lab at my disposal, something similar to what Ironman or Batman had in their gargantuan basements.. I would not hesitate to create the ultimate journalists tool. Some single device that once and for all did everything a blogger/journalist needed.

It only exists in my head right now but would have the video capture qualities of RED.. A 15-200mm f1.4 lens with an integral Binaural auto zooming microphone. High definition stills could be extracted from the film and edited in camera. All the GPS and audio to text tagged footage could be separated into audio, video and stills onto solid state cards or streamed via wifi, wimax, or compressed for GSM, or satellite enabling it to be sent all over the world but also to a sister pod situated within the same city retrieving the footage and archiving live.

Oh.. and it tweets.

Failing that.. I’d be happy for the iPhone to have a decent battery, shoot 5 mega pixel photos even in low light and shoot reasonable video from two decent front and back cameras.

This I feel would be far easier to achieve and may even be with us next year. In the meantime I, along with many bloggers and tech lovers will be carting around small to medium backpacks clanking with lensed gadgets. Always on the look out for an unused plug socket so we can recharge and ultimately.. reconnect.

You can add me as a friend on twitter here.. Twitter.com/Documentally