The Best of The Week [TBOTW]

Going through all the RSS feeds in my Google Reader was a bit hazardous as I had a huge number of articles ’starred’ from the last month but I think I’ve whittled it down to a good selection of things you should check out.

Let’s get started then, newest first;

• Lifehack.org published an article this morning on How Your iPod Can Make You More Productive - The iPod is an incredible organizing device! It takes many shelves worth of CDs and condenses them into one tiny gadget, thereby reducing clutter..read more..

• Newly launched Nettuts.com (the guys behind PSDTUTS) published a tutorial showing an easy start to Creating a PayPal Payment Form - Although it can have some issues, PayPal does provide a very simple way to take payments on a website. And with a little tweaking you can easily turn a PayPal..read more..

• Adii, of Premium News fame, gave us some insight on the online apps a rockstar freelancer would / could / should use in his article titled Online apps that’s worth using - I must admit that I never thought that online applications would ever replace desktop software solutions, but in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been using some applications that are doing just that…read more..

• My mate Joel, aka ju:femaiz, wrote a new ‘Schooner Rant‘ on some dramas he’s had with moving to a new home and getting ADSL2+ connected, I know the drama all too well so I sympathize fully. Here’s his blog titled Schooner Rant: ADSL2+ Connectivity Ridiculity

• On ProBlogger.net there was a guest post from Gala Darling of iCiNG fame which gives us some ideas on How To Deal with Negative Comments On Your Blog - Negative comments are a funny thing. I’ve noticed that on iCiNG, typically the rude comments come from someone who’s never commented before..read more..

Ok I think that about does it for this week, there were a huge amount more great articles that I’ve read over the last month however I’m going to end up with a post about 10 pages long if I post all the good content.

You should definitely check out all the articles and blogs I’ve listed here, there’s some fantastic content amongst them all and they’re all very regular publishers so definitely subscribe to their RSS feeds.

Till next week, that’s it from TBOTW..bad acronym I know..haha

Cheers

Matt

Peugeot 308 HDi, new car action!

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a little while will know the ongoing saga that was me trying to decide on a new car, here and here …

It’s been around 4-5 months of indecision, test driving and what not but finally it’s all over and I’ve just picked up my new car, a Peugeot 308 from John Patrick Prestige Cars in Port Macquarie.

We, my company, have bought a couple of cars from John Patrick before so usually when one of us is looking for a new car JP has some sixth sense and usually ends up on the phone to us minutes after we decide we’re actually going to start looking for a vehicle. This time was no different, though I dare say my boss / old man prompted the phone call this time as he’d test driven the 308 a week or so before.

If you’ve read my old blogs you’d know I was actually looking at the VW Golf Diesel. Well I was pretty keen on getting the Golf however we just couldn’t get a good enough trade price on the Golf, whereas John Patrick Prestige Cars gave us too good a price that there was no way that we could’ve gone anywhere else.

Anyway, the car performs brilliantly, goes like a rocket, consumes next to no fuel (700+ km per 60L tank, though admittedly I think it will actually go further once the engine is properly broken in), and is very comfortable and well appointed inside. And hey it looks pretty hot in black.

So if you’re in the market for a new car and haven’t made your mind up give the Peugeot 308 a look in, you wont be disappointed one bit.

I’m With The Band, TV Channel?

Like I mentioned the other day in the Lucky The Cat post I’m pretty well ready to reveal the project I’m working on. Without any further delays, I’m With The Band is launching a video news section…

Each fortnight on I’m With The Band we’re going to present a 5-10 minute news type segment reviewing all the bits and pieces from the previous fortnight along with a short review of a live show or something. If time permits we’ll also be doing a bit of live coverage and interviews from gigs around Newcastle and the Central Coast.

So how are we doing all this? Well for the video hosting we’re actually avoiding all the big guys like YouTube, Vimeo and Viddler and instead we’ve opted for Blip TV (you might notice the big blank spot on the front page here with My Blip TV on it, I’m using here for testing purposes as well). The main reason that I chose Blip TV is because of the channels setup that it has, also it’s really easy for people to subscribe to them with iTunes, another reason is that each time we add a new news segment it will automatically hit the front page on I’m With The Band.

Camera wise I’m using a JVC HD-7 (see below) that I bought around 8-9 months ago. It’s got a 60 Gb hard drive in it so it’ll have a ton of room for recording at live shows, I’ve got a higher capacity battery coming as well as a wide angle lens in the next week or so.

Audio wise I’ve got a directional mic that sits on top of the camera which should be adequate for face to face interviews, I’ve also started investigating lapel mics for the ‘news presenters’ once we get a little further down the track and the budget actually allows us.

The software I’ve been using so far has only been the combination of iMovie HD and iMovie 7.x. iMovie HD is what I’m using to download the video / audio from the camera to my Mac Pro, from there it’s currently being moved over into iMovie where it’s edited and exported. I’ve just picked up a copy of Final Cut Express 4 in the last couple of days so that workflow will change a little once I get used to using it.

The rest of the production bits and pieces are pretty simple, seamless white background, work lights from Bunnings, reflectors are mostly just bits of white foam from the local art suppliers, and everything else is just assorted bits and pieces picked up from around junk shops and what not.

So there you have it, all the background information on the Web TV channel we’re launching and how it will all kinda work, or fall into place. Hopefully it will come together without too much hassle, we’ve got a good crew of people keen to be involved, and we’ll have our first episode up and live in the next week or two, meanwhile I will actually have my own channel up and running some time tomorrow up on the front page here.

Anyway, that’s about it for now, any questions?

Oxley Highway

Here’s a short clip of a fairly windy section of the Oxley Highway between Tamworth and Wauchope in country New South Wales. This video is from the road trip that Cath and I did out to her Sister’s place in Bourke for her engagement party, I think I blogged about it here..

Weekend Photos

Here’s a couple of photos from the weekend just been, figured I might actually start posting a few more photos on here seeing as I am actually shooting a bit at the moment.

These were all shot yesterday afternoon just before the storms hit Newcastle. They’re just of Cath and I hanging out, I was filming the storm front coming through for another flickr video (coming later tonight)..

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