Weekend Projects - Lightweight Photo Service May 5, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Web Sites, mashups, interface, open source, Web Services, Programming , add a commentThis is a project I’ve been thinking about for a while, and I’d love to do a hack weekend to get this working sometime.
One thing that’s been a problem with us at Petentials (and many other sites running Drupal) is Photo uploading, sharing, embedding, etc. Aaron Winborn created a great tool called Embedded Media Field that abstracts the hosting of photos, videos and audio files for a Drupal installation - what I’m thinking of doing is writing a custom interface for that module that allows a user to upload the files without leaving the page, and then talks to Drupal to tell it to make a new node for the photo, add it to a gallery, or the same for a batch of images - Aaron’s module does quite a bit of this already.
I was wondering if Menalto Gallery (G2) could help us out here, but that’s really meant to be used as its own system - I really just want to create a REST/CRUD interface we can throw on a subdomain to serve up images and thumbnails, while also generating new thumbnails as needed. G2 has lots of these features, but then we’d have to keep the user tables in synch and I’m not sure we need everything they have to offer.
This is not meant to be a flickr or a photobucket, but the replacement for hosting images in-house. It should be insanely transparent to the users - they should not need to register, have any plugins or enter any extra screens.
My thoughts are the following:
- Use lighttpd or a stripped-down version of Apache with PHP. No database (unless to store API keys and permissions for when you want to update/delete a file).
- All files get served statically - if we hit a 404, redirect to a PHP script which generates the image. Then all future requests are static.
- Once the image is generated, we could host it on S3, Akamai or another CDN? I remember seeing something like this with Gigavox’s podcast hosting solution - I’m going to go check out their screencasts/documentation again to see if they explain it or I can figure it out.
- Make it open source and let other folks use it and hack on it.
- Ability to link to images over the web, or upload .zip .gz files via FTP, or email in images, eventually allow for mobile uploads, etc.
- We’d also want to have support for checking referrers so we can deny certain folks and perhaps serve watermarked images to non-approved sites? I think some of this can be done at the Apache/lighttpd level, and I’d prefer configuration over code in as many places as possible.
The application by itself won’t do anything - you’d need a CMS to integrate it with. My choice is Drupal, of course.
Certainly on the wish list for embedded media field is the ability to integrate this content transparently in the background (see Vox’s media features). Using something like PingVision’s Drupal Markup Engine and a WYSIWIG editor might get us most of the way there. It’s an API that lets you specify custom tags - mostly these can be used to add images, video or blocks inside a node, but there are dozens of uses that have not been invented yet, I’m sure. If the editor can have plugins written (Kupu is the editor of choice for Acquia’s Carbon). I don’t think it should insert raw HTML, but a custom tag so we can abstract the method of storage - just something like [image:13456] or [video:13456] or [audio:13456] or [gallery:13456] at least until HTML5 gives us a standard for implementing this.
One reason why the Embedded Media Field is so great is because if YouTube changes the player, or if they introduce the option to turn off the related videos at the end, or even if you come up with your own .FLV wrapper, like a deep-tagging service, all your calls to videos are made through this tag - it’s an API for HTML code.
If we get an editor that supports this sort of stuff and a module/plugin for major CMSes and platforms, those can all live in one place. Wordpress has support for TinyMCE or the plain-text editor, but it must support others, yes? Another editor that would be high on my list is the YUI Rich Text Editor.
I could probably go on all day, but I think I’ve gotten a decent explanation for this cluster of projects out there.
BarCampOrlando Downtown April 5th and 6th, 10AM - 6PM April 1, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Podcasts, Orlando, SEO, Music, Links, Events, Video, Coworking, Trends, Standards, floridacreatives, mashups, Graphics, OrlandoScene, Teaching, open source, BarCamp, PodCamp, Storytelling, phone, Web Services, Social Media Events, Social Networking, Programming , add a comment
BarCamp Orlando is a weekend for all types of creative folks to come together and share with each other. The event is dubbed an “unconference”, a format which derives power from the people instead of the event organizers or the presenters. Everyone has an equal opportunity to get on stage and speak, teach or lead a discussion, playing off of the idea that at any given conference, the people in the audience have more knowledge collectively than the presenter(s) on stage.
This second installment of BarCamp will be held over 2 days, Saturday and Sunday, April 5th and 6th, in downtown Orlando at the Wall Street complex, from 10AM - 6PM each day. Registration is free, and a registration promises a shirt and lunch on the sponsors of BarCamp, businesses who are passionate about the technology and media communities of Central Florida.
Saturday is the designated “Dev Day”, playing host to everything from web programming to robot building and video game development and everything in between. iPhone hackers, guys with soldering irons, the latest technologies, and plenty that haven’t been realized yet. Every 30 minutes, both venues will have a different talk going on, so if you’re feeling lost in the jargon, apply the “rule of 2 feet” and check out what’s happening in the other room!
Sunday is dubbed “Media Day”, and is the place for storytellers, journalists, writers, designers, filmmakers, musicians, 2D and 3D artists, podcasters, bloggers and social networkers to show off their work, share their tricks or talk about the state of the industry. From 12 to 1 we will be talking about the “Past, Present and Future of Media in Central Florida”, hoping to give our community a sense of our story, and where we’re headed.
Registration is free, and the event runs from 10AM - 6PM both days with a lunch break at 1PM. The event will be housed in Slingapour’s and One-Eyed-Jack’s, with Wall St Cantina acting as our “hallway”. There will be projectors and microphones, chairs and a space to speak. All you have to do is write your name on the whiteboard and you get 20-25 minutes to share your passions with a group of energetic, engaged geeks and creatives. I would not use the words “captive audience” to describe the BarCamp crowd, because they all want to get involved.
Visit www.barcamporlando.org today and register for Dev Day, Media Day or both days. Wall Street Plaza is at 18 Wall Street Plaza, Orlando, FL 32801 - barcamporlando.org/where has a map to the venue and information about parking.
How to add subtitles to video podcasts March 2, 2008
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Podcasts, HowTo, Video, mashups, interface, flash, Web Services , 2 commentsAt BarCampMiami, one of the folks in my podcast session had a question about creating a multi-lingual podcast. I instantly suggested that photocasting with something like SlideFlickr and including an audio file would be simplest and very shareable. Visuals certainly have the power to transcend the barriers of language (if not culture). Still, she was hoping for a more flexible answer, like subtitling videos.
I had certainly seen Rocketboom and other vlogs include subtitles and have mutli-language support, but I was skeptical about finding a cross-platform tool that could get the job done.
I did some searching and found out Google Video supports subtitles if you’ve already made the file - OK, but how do I make one? Linux has lots of tools available, but I don’t think that will help my friend in this case. 
Then I started finding the web-based subtitle solutions via del.icio.us, and at the bottom of page 3 hit paydirt. There was a compelling cross-platform downloadable tool in Java (cross-platform), but I had trouble getting video playback to work on my mac. I could see the video frames alright, but for moving pictures Jubler was no help. It required MPlayer to work, which I have, but something wasn’t right, so I gave up and went to the web.
Next on my past-tense journey was subtitle.in, the best subtitler of the bunch (I also tried a tool that required use of Google Video and wouldn’t allow YouTubage). I have two complaints about subtitle.in:
- Poor support for scrubbing (I assume this is the fault of the video compressing party, YouTube in this case)
- Inability to edit the starting time of a subtitle, just duration and text (but they have a workaround)
After some playing around, I noticed you could move the start time of the subtitle by half-a-second, but the controls for this were unintuitive at best. Try to see if you understand from this image. Me either. They’re under the list of titles and say “< Prev 0.5 sec" and "Forward 0.5 sec >“. Since I figured out that the “Delete” key removed the currently selected title, this was a logical next step, but I don’t know why we couldn’t just type in the time. My anal self needs that level of granularity.
Time appears to be broken into 100-frames per second? Not sure how that works, but the titles seemed to play back fine.
Tip: Type out all of your titles before you get them in this tool or any other subtitling utility, and make notes about when each phrase starts, with a minute:second attached; this will go much more quickly for you. If you’re like my friend and you want to translate the video into 4 languages (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese), keeping your notes and times straight will be a huge boost in throughput.
Check out a sample video at subtitle.in - as of this writing, I only did 3 screens of subtitles, so don’t go looking for anything past the first blackout.
New Media ‘Think and Drink’ at Red Light, Red Light Saturday Jan 5th at 5:30pm December 31, 2007
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Podcasts, Orlando, Links, Events, Video, Beer, TV, Trends, Radio, floridacreatives, mashups, OrlandoScene, PodCamp, Storytelling , add a commentMore than a year ago, I hatched an idea about uniting the creative communities around Florida under a common banner at a Creative Summit. We are much closer to such an event now, but still so far away. After doing a dance in several directions, we came up with a Think and Drink.
This Saturday at 5:30, local media producers will gather at Red Light Red Light in Winter Park (map) for perhaps the first event of its kind in Central Forida. 2008 will see the coming of age of many types of new media. Blogging will become a pre-teen; podcasting is no longer a toddler; YouTube even turns 3 this year. As we start to see the hardening and refactoring of several popular and useful services and standards, it becomes more important for the enthusiasts and early adopters to come together to get on common footing and think about the future of media.
Orlando’s technology, media and other creative communities have been growing along side each other for the past few years in a collection of several small fast and focused movements. What better way to start a new year than with a gathering with the purpose of setting goals and recording the words of the trend-setters of our community.
We’ve been setting aside January 5th on our calendars for some time now as a day to share our thoughts and experiences with new media. In December, a few of us got together to discuss what we’d like to get out of a PodCamp or a New Media day. Everyone agreed we should plan to have a much larger and more ambitious event later in the year, perhaps this summer, but a small event would help us get a solid idea about what sorts of topics to discuss and how we sell the event to the community.
BarCamp was a great event that really brought a lot of the community out in force, but the focus on programming made the video people, the podcasters, the storytellers and the writers believe that we could have our own Unconference. Enter this PodCamp Party.
Be sure and hop on the Facebook Group and to add some of your favorite sites and links to the Ma.gnolia Bookmarks Group. We’ll make it worth writing home about.
P.S. I’m also trying to plan a “Photowalk” at 3PM for all the photographers and people who might like to take a walk around Winter Park and grab some food before the Happy Hour. Reply via Facebook if you’d like to go.
Flock and Facebook Screencast November 21, 2007
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Podcasts, Music, HowTo, Video, Browsers, Trends, Web Sites, mashups, Facebook, interface, Teaching, Friends , add a comment
The new Flock is out and better than ever, so I’m inspired yet again to screencast about it and show you more about this browser. In this edition we talk about how Flock has integrated your Facebook friends (and Flickr, MySpace, YouTube) right into the sidebar. You can keep the People bar open while you surf the web and make updates to your status, write messages, subscribe to media and share with your friends with just a simple drag-and-drop. This is the version of Flock you’ve been waiting for, trust me.
Download the Screencast (iPhone friendly!)
If you want to see anything else demonstrated, like if you want to teach your boss how to upload YouTube videos, I would be happy to create something custom for you. We do dedications!
Beer Bomb Bus Tour Twitterstream via 30boxes Twapper September 17, 2007
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Blogging, Orlando, Events, Beer, Reviews, Trends, Web Sites, mashups, Contributors, interface , 1 comment so farLive Tweets from today’s awesome tour.
Hosted by Mike of Shipyard
Twitters courtesy hailtheale johnrife liberatr
Over at m.30boxes.com they’ve got a neat little service called Twapper - “Twitter Mobile for WAP”. I didn’t think much of it until just now when I realized that I only twittered a few times today, but John and Chris wrote several texts. I was even quoted in one of them!
Twapper is so easy you can use it from your cell phone, but it makes a great deal of sense as a web service as well. Think, I wanted to see tweets from just a few users, not all my friends, not just me. No special #tagging or @addressing needed, just a good service. If you want to see more than one stream, just type +bloggingfringe or +johnrife+hailtheale to the end of your URL. I think it has a limit on the number of streams you can combine, but it is ad-hoc groups! Ad-hoc! Buzzword compliant!
Another very useful thing that was omitted from this screenshot (for archival purposes) is a little text box just below the stream that bears the legend “Direct twitter this group only!” That’s a very useful feature, so easy you can operate it from your crappy cellphone browser.
Also, John was inspired to try out some live YouTube as per my suggestion at Friday’s lunch, so check out that link too.
Coworking Video June 29, 2007
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Orlando, Video, Coworking, Trends, Web Sites, floridacreatives, Entrepreneurship, mashups , add a commentOriginal Post: Accelerating serendipity with coworking « Coworking Community Blog
Coworking Orlando
Coworking Orlando Discussion List
SlideFlickr.com, My New Friend June 11, 2007
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Blogging, Links, Trends, MySpace, Web Sites, photos, mashups , add a commentSlideFlickr.com is, well, they give you embed-friendly Flickr slideshows that work on MySpace - all the Flickr stuff requires JavaScript, so you never see the official Flickr stuff on flash only sites. If Yahoo is smart, they’ll get ‘em summa this!
I am a fan of the “blog this” button, but again, no MySpace support, but that’s not their fault. Honestly, I hate MySpace, but it is too useful right now.
Heat Fozzy (I love Galacticast) May 17, 2007
Posted by Ryan in : Tech, Podcasts, Video, Puppets, MySpace, Web Sites, mashups, IPTV , 1 comment so farGalacticast: Heat Fozzy
Subscribe to Galacticast in iTunes
A mashup of Jim Henson’s Muppets with action movies like Scarface and Hannibal, and apparently Kill Bill as well. Fozzie never makes an appearance, but they do turn Miss Piggy into bacon… 
This video was on the front page of MySpace today… yesterday is was Tom Green “ghost riding the whip” in the middle of a corn field. Today’s video is at least funny.
