Blue Snowball
July 26, 2008
I wrote in my more proper blog today about my recent obsession with, and subsequent decision to create a radio drama, and I didn’t want to go anywhere until I did a short review of the new microphone I’m using.
I’ve been using the same microphone (a cheap logitech headset with a microphone) for over a year now to do all of my various projects, and while it’s worked okay for me, its constant hum and ability to pick up the one sound in the room that I don’t want it to pick up has just recently started to get on my nerves.
And, when I decided that I wanted to produce a radio drama, I knew that I had to replace it.
So, I started looking for a USB microphone that could do everything I needed it to do. Eventually I found one model that I liked a lot: The Blue Snowball Microphone.
It’s a USB condenser microphone that works wonderfully for me. I might be a bit easier to please because of the low-end mic that I’ve been using for so long, but I think the Snowball is an excellent addition to my computer sound studio.
It worked wonderfully straight out of the box and it is dead simple to use. There are three settings: omni-directional, cartioid (one direction), and cartioid with a -10db.
The sound is crisp and clear, it looks sexy on the desk, and with its relatively low price tag ($99 US for the mic and desk stand) I can’t give it higher marks.
Video Commenting on the Flowercast
May 14, 2008
I’ve just discovered that the service I use for my commenting system, Disqus now has video commenting. And, I just couldn’t stop myself from giving it a shot.
Disqus is a third party commenting system. It’s downside is that your comments are stored on a third party server - but the upside is that anyone that is registered with disqus is registered on your blog. It also allows you to respond to comments from your email, and to follow your comment history, as well as others’, across disqus supported blogs.
The video commenting service that Disqus has teamed up with is Seesmic. Seesmic is a stand alone video service for video conversations that just recently went completely public. All you need is an account and a webcam.
I think video commenting is a tough sell, but I like the idea of it.
You can still leave text comments, and I certainly don’t mind those, but if you feel like showing me your mug and telling me what you think in person go ahead and click on that “Record Video Comment” button.
Twine
May 9, 2008
I feel like I’m coming in way too early with a review of Twine, but I wanted to give a beginner’s perspective on the service. And since I’ve been using it for three weeks, it’s high time I gave my “beginner’s perspective.”
A lot of the reason I’ve waited so long has to do with the fact that Twine is a service that is rooted in experience: therefore, the longer you use it the better it gets. And, I wanted to be fair with my review.
Twine trumpets itself as one of the first “semantic” web applications. Semantic, when you’re talking about web software, has a lot behind it right now. It’s being heralded as the underlying technology of web 3.0.
“Web 3.0? What the heck is that? Who cares what version of the web application world we’re in?”
I completely agree; but, you should know that Web Semantics is the newest internet software philosophy.
Semantic software is all about making the software understand the language. In other words, if you tell a search engine to look for hillary clinton, instead of searching for the two words “hillary” and “clinton,” a semantic search engine would search for references to the person Hillary Clinton.
The idea is to make the software smarter and, therefore, easier to use.
Twine sits on top of web semantics, and although it isn’t perfect the whispers of a better internet can be heard when using it.
Here’s what Twine does:
- Provides a javascript bookmark for collecting links - The bookmark can be hit on any page and a link is created in your personal twine.
- Auto fills titles, tags, and descriptions - This is the real power of Twine, it takes all the manual labor out of the user’s hands and does the grunt work itself.
- Provides a repository for collecting links and notes - A trip to Twine gives you access to all of your content.
- Allows sharing of links and notes with other users - You can join other “twines” in order to share content with other users. The twines divide content into categories. So, for example, I joined a “zombie” twine where I can search existing content and add to the content with my own links and information directly related to zombies.
- Makes all of your content searchable - This is one of the big promises of the semantic web: having searches that give you only the information you’re looking for. After a few hiccups (see the problems below) the search seems to work as advertised.
Throw in the fact that it also analyzes your content and cross compares it to others in order to provide you with more content that is relevant to your interests, and it sounds like a pretty great service.
And, it is. I’ve begun using it more and more. Usually, when I have to install a bookmark in order to use a service, I quickly forget about it - but, twine is different. The reason I can bring myself to use the twine “bookmarklet” is that it is so easy to use. It fills in all of the content for me! It’s a lazy web-surfers paradise.
With all of that said, there are a couple of down sides to Twine.
- It’s hard to understand - This is, by far, Twine’s biggest problem. Even having a good idea about what the semantic web dream is, I had trouble discerning the purpose and usefulness of Twine. It took a week and a half of me forcing myself to use it before I started to derive benefit from it.
- Problems with search - The first week I used Twine, the search didn’t work for me at all. I don’t know what changed, but when search finally started working for me it made up for the problems. It’s now nearly flawless.
Twine is in extremely-private-beta right now, it’s what they’re calling a “true beta,” so it takes a little time to get an invitation, but if you get the opportunity to try it out in its early stages you should.
All in all, I’m very excited about the final product. If it works this well in beta I can’t wait to see what it’ll be capable of in final release.
Related Posts:
Why I Migrated over to Twine
I Dig Digsby
March 24, 2008
I haven’t written anything about Digsby because… well, because it doesn’t really seem to need much help. It’s one of the best IM client’s I’ve ever used, and it just gets better every day.
Before I go any further, you should go over to Digsby’s Website, download the installer and fire it up. You should definitely follow along while you read this review.
So, why is it so great?
Because of it’s multiple integration. Digsby manages to pull off the IM/Email/Social Network integration that I’ve always wanted to see - and, it’s damn classy to boot.
Digsby pulls information from your email accounts, all of your IM accounts, as well as your Facebook, Myspace and Twitter accounts.
Which means you’re constantly connected to all of your online media.
In fact, that’s also it’s biggest problem: It connects you too well. If you’re not careful, you’ll be receiving Pop Updates in the corner of your monitor every few seconds.
But, like every thing else, Digsby handles your attention deficit disorder as well. You have control over the updates.
The only other problem is that it’s a Windows-only application. Which is fine during the day, while I’m at work, but a royal pain in the neck when I’m at home.
One more thing about Digsby is how involved its developers are. While it was in closed beta, I was receiving an update or bug fix, with a friendly message from the developers, almost every day.
So, for a great Windows IM client/Email notifier/Social Networking tool - give Digsby a try, I don’t think you’ll find it wanting.
Evernote - Yet another DB for organization
March 18, 2008
I was excited to get an invitation to the evernote service. Who wouldn’t be? I mean it’s new, it’s beta, and it’s semantic web, right? Well, it is to a certain extent.
Evernote invites you to import all of your information into your profile. It also invites you to start sending all of your notes, images, thoughts, web sites and blocks of text to your account to be indexed. The promise is that the information will then be searchable.
One of it’s strongest features is its image text recognition. In other words, you can send a photo with text in it to your evernote account, the text will be recognized, interpreted and indexed for future searches. It sounds brilliant and if you’re like me you immediately start thinking of ways to take advantage of it. For example, if you were to take a photograph of every business card you get, with your camera phone, and send the images to your evernote account, you would quickly and easily create a searchable database of business cards.
It sounds fantastic.
So, what are the problems?
- It’s a new service I’d have to integrate I’m already using dozens of web applications for all of my organization needs and, frankly, I’ll soon need an organization app to keep track of all my organization apps. I need services that are seamlessly integrated. I don’t care about novelty or unique features if I have to go out of my way to use it.
Show me an application that integrates with the database tag I already use to organize my information in gmail.
- The image text recognition needs some work Don’t get me wrong, it’s the best one I’ve seen, but the problem is insurmountable if I upload a business card, then do a search for the name on the card, and evernote turns up zero results.
I realize that if I were to use tags in conjunction with the image recognition, I wouldn’t have this problem, but that adds yet another step to my “simple” database creation process - and maybe it’s just enough to run me off.
- It’s not quite Semantic Why isn’t it? Well, because the app doesn’t recognize the relationships between similar items without being explicitly told through tagging.
Final Word: All in all, I’m very impressed with the technology that makes this app possible, but, like most new closed systems it fails to work with what I’m already using, and therefore makes it nearly impossible for me to seriously consider using it.
You can register for a beta invitation at Evernote’s website, and I strongly urge you to give it a try. And, as always, please let me know how you feel about my review.
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About
Justin Flowers
Mad Scientist
Zombie Expert
Fort Worth, TX -
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