Gathering Information on Technology, Software & Processes making life Easier & Better. Extensive Reviews & tutorials on MindManager from Mindjet & Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 from Nuance, a great voice recognition program enabling me to type at 150 wpm! One helps me think & communicate, the other helps me document & communicate!
I have several times gone on a trip over the years only to come down sick while traveling. Traveling while sick is nothing that I would wish on anyone. So there is a bit of an irony that I came down with a nasty virus this week and was too sick to travel to Austin for the SXSW Interactive Media conference.
I’m disappointed because I will not get to see a number of people and companies and attend some great learning sessions, but at the same time I am somewhat relieved that I did not become sick after departing for Austin. Plus, I am also somewhat relieved that I am not there to be ‘that guy’ that accidentally passes on a virus to everyone they meet through all the hand shaking and stuff.
So in general, I wish everyone that is going a great and healthy time. I do wish I could be there, and honestly I won’t miss lugging all that trade show material around from bouncing light up balls to bic pens with company logos to USB drives that I’ll never use, because I really only need one anyway.
Above is the Podcast for this article. Still dabbling with sound edits trying to learn mixing a little better, plus tonight I am battling a head cold.
This evening (well its actually 2 am) I’m working on putting together my schedule and travel plans for SXSW in Austin Texas next month. I have never been to SXSW nor to Austin, although I did live in San Angelo Texas for about a half year when I was going to intelligence analyst and cryptography school back in the early 90’s. That seems like aeons ago, and it is amazing how much I have changed since then so I can only imagine how much Austin must be different today. SXSW is a film, music and interactive media festival and conference.
No Stranger to Film and Music Festivals
These days I am more heavily involved in interactive media than I am in either music or film. Never the less, I did live in Savannah, Georgia for several years and I am no stranger to film and music festivals having run a bar on River Street in that music festival happy town. In fact, my wife’s alma mater, is the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and they will be an exhibitor at the show. They are renowned in part for their animation and graphic design programs and they are growing into one of the largest art schools in the world (I think they are like 2nd or 3rd now with schools in Savannah, Atlanta and France.)
Forest Gump (the bench scene) was filmed behind my apartment while I lived in Savannah, and my wife working for River Street Sweets helped make the actual box of chocolates. Chocolate covered rice crispy treats so that Tom Hanks wouldn’t get to sick if he had to eat them in multiple takes.
If you haven’t read the real Forest Gump book by Winston Groom, you are missing out on one crazy and very funny book. The movie is to the book what cool aid is to a pitcher of daiquiris.
Hunting Down an Entertainment Industry Evolution
I’m going for the People and the continuance of a Zeitgeist build that seems to be tracking through several forms of New Social Media that includes video, music, blogging, social media, networks, consumer electronics and coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show definitely includes virtual reality!
I was stunned and amazed at the progress that virtual reality technologies have made in the last 12 months. Attending CES in 2008, was like stepping into a Neil Stephenson novel and finding a functional world on a cusp of overtaking the real world.
I am keyed up to talk to many old friends from recent blog and podcast expo shows, and I am very eager to see how these areas cross paths in a setting like Austin with an extended community of music and film people and industries adding to the mix.
Fun Fact - the bench in that scene does not sit in that location in that particular square. They moved it to get a better view of the monument in the back and for lighting purposes.
Biking It!
I think I am going to try and rent a bike for the convention to get around Austin, as opposed to renting a car. It sounds a lot more fun. I walked most of CES in Las Vegas. I’ve done cabs, and I’ve done limousines(more limos than cabs) and I’ve done rental cars. You just don’t get the feel of a town when you are in a cab or limo or rental car. Walking and biking it sounds a lot more practical and fun and hopefully might be better for meeting people as well.
I’m not going to Austin to talk to the cab drivers. I’m going there to talk to the people at the show! In a situation like this, I think you have to live by the tenet of
What would Iggy Pop do?
No I don’t mean slicing your self up on stage in a half naked state of delirium, but just generally being there, being cool, and creating something expressive that connects with people. I’ll skip the broken glass and go for everything else. Note to self, load up my MP3 player with some Iggy Pop music for the ride.
If the travel plans come together, I will hopefully arrive Friday night on the 8th to attend the sessions Saturday through Tuesday on the 12th, flying out Tuesday night. So that will be 4 days and 4 nights in Austin.
Lugging the Studio Around
I took close to 30 pounds of gear to Las Vegas for CES. Heading to Austin it will probably be just over that as I will not only take my camera but probably the mobile components of my podcast studio as well.
I usually hump most of that gear on my back. One thing that I learned in the Army years ago is that humping stuff in a back pack doesn’t really make you stronger, just makes your muscles more knotted up and dense. It builds stamina. I’m not excited about that part of things, but hey its nothing that a good soak in a hot tub and some drinks can’t fix.
Will You Be There?
If you are in the Austin area or planning on attending the conference between the 9th and 12th (its a 10 day event) let me know, drop me a comment or email or something. Love to connect up with any readers, friends, acquaintances or people pushing the envelope in different directions.
I arrived home yesterday from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. I flew the Red Eye home (upgraded ) I found a large number of technologies converging around the concept of an improved user interface to the computer. This for me was the most important aspect of the show and seemed to signal the direction of technology going into the next 2-4 years.
One of those interface improvements included a search engine that had a mind mapping interface capability (among several other views and tools). I’m going to be covering these technologies and the impact and usefulness of these interfaces over the next few weeks and want to set everyone up for the topic. After seeing what the show offered, I believe that this will be an extremely important transition in computing, possibly as important as the introduction of the mouse or even the color monitor. Regardless, I think that these new interfaces will be nothing less than extraordinary.
In the meantime, after traveling for a week (and all the pre-travel prep), I have several mundane things to take care of this weekend including transferring and renewing my license tags, and finding a new insurance broker for my home owners insurance.
Plus, if I have time, I am going to reboot this blog and with a new theme as this one is feeling a good bit stale these days.
typing test programs to attempt to measure just how fast Dragon NaturallySpeaking could capture my words. I had forgotten about it, however I had cranked up to speed on Dragon NaturallySpeaking and decreased the accuracy.
There is actually a slider tool within the options that enables you to do this. Over the last couple of months I seem to have noticed a slight degradation of my quality and had chalked it up to my laptop getting old or something. But I came across a tip to adjust the speed and accuracy settings with a slider bar and after making the correction I’m seeing a very big improvement in my accuracy.
When I’m composing words for things that are right, I don’t necessarily need to be able to speak at 160 words per minute, but I do need to be accurate and so I just slid down one notch and I’ve seen a huge improvement.
Here’s how you can do the same thing:
Go to your tools menu
then you’ll need to select the options item
next you’ll need to pick the miscellaneous tab
Halfway down the window you will see the option that offers up speed versus accuracy
choose the level that best suits your needs, if you need things to be a little more accurate I’d advise moving one notch at a time and trying it out, and the same goes for trying to get a faster response.
Once you’ve made your selection hit apply and then the okay button and you’re done!
Maven’s in Las Vegas
Next month I will be traveling to Las Vegas for BlogWorld, bloggers from all over the country will be turning out for this particular trade show, which is actually combined release three possibly for different trade shows in the one big trade show.This time around I won’t be staying at Paris Las Vegas, but instead I’ll be splitting my timeat two different hotels, tonight at the Stratosphere and two nights at the Hilton an even balance of economic savings and convenient location.
If you happen to be planning to make the trip to blog world, please feel free to drop me a line, I’d be happy to meet with you at the show.
This week when I attended the Consumer Electronics Show, myself and several people at the show had a group epiphany about High Definition television as we watched a HD TV at the Samsung booth.
The HD TV on display (one of several dozen) was playing The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (aka Narnia for those that haven’t read the book). I was standing next to a buyer from a retailer. As I watched the pivotal battle scene at the end, I noticed that the makeup on the characters looked ludicrously fake. Many of the characters looked like they had just walked in from trick-or-treating to cameo in the battle scene.
These were not extras or animated characters but supporting role type characters. The HD TV provided such clear definition that you could see that the makeup was very fake. The blurred line between fiction and reality had been removed and the reality pretending to be fiction was revealed.
I started speaking about it with the buyer and he and a couple other viewers commented as well that the Movie Industry would need to up their game to keep up with the technology. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the Movie and TV industry would have to get better, but TV manufacturers, distributors and retailers might experience some pain as well.
After all who wants to spend several thousand dollars on a TV only to have a film revealed as a cheap looking fake. There is no fun in watching a magic act if you can see the slight of hand in every move transmitted in vivid detail as it happens and the same goes for HD TV and the movies and shows they play. It is an incredible medium for watching reality from sports to nature shows, but staged events and movies are more closely being revealed for the fakes that they are.
The puppet masters are going to have to find a new method for guiding a puppet without any visible strings.
) I found a large number of technologies converging around the concept of an improved user interface to the computer. This for me was the most important aspect of the show and seemed to signal the direction of technology going into the next 2-4 years.
