Podcasting: Keeping It Legal

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/MTPgxJ4A9sA9MG/Podcasting-Keeping-It-Legal.xhtml

This article discusses legal issues surrounding podcasters and their content. Podcasts are a way to spread information, such as news, through audio and video content on the internet. They feature interviews and other such opinions expressed by the podcasters themselves and Third Parties. However, sometimes information that are stated as facts may later be found to be false through new developments and discoveries. If the podcasters keep older podcasts available in their archives, does this mean that they are responsible for this false information? Or more importantly, if they are aware of the new information or not?

If an interviewee states something as a fact, the interview is published, and then months down the road new research has discovered that what we believed to be true is now false, who is responsible? Is anyone? If the interviewee deliberately states false information, but the podcaster does not know and publishes the interview, are they at fault? Some argue that because the interview containing false information is published by the podcaster, the podcaster is held liable as if those words came right from their mouth. If the information is later proved to be false, it is the podcasters responsibility to keep up to date with researching all of the content that they publish, so if there are any changes in the subject matter they are to edit the content or get rid of the interview. However, what about news broadcasters such as CNN who cannot withdrawal a television broadcast a month later because of new developments? It's said and done and no turning back time. But they are not held responsible for those that they interview who provided false information.

This is a very important issue for designers as well because many times we are provided information by other companies whom we do advertising for. What if it's a public service announcement and the information we are giving are later found to be false, even a year later? Does this mean that just the company is held responsible? Or will we have to deal with the consequences even though the words didn't come from our mouths. We are just the messenger? I feel this is a very scary issue dealing with copywrite laws, fact and fiction, because as designers working in the advertising world, we may have to deal with this almost every job we work on.

Wikipedia co-founder to launch competing project

One of the original founders of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger, is creating his own online encyclopedia site. His reasoning for doing this is that he believes, as many others do, that Wikipedia’s current content is distorted and simply not as accurate as it should be. This is because Wikipedia allows anyone to edit and enter information to an entry.

Sanger would create a site that is invitation only and would only allow “experts” in a given field to enter articles for a certain subject. The invite only system would also cut back on the “edit wars” as he calls them. This is when people who can’t agree on what is fact and what isn’t edit each other’s posts to reflect their personal opinions. The site would be private at first, as it will take time for the expert authors to apply for posting ability. Then the content must be written, approved and published.

The site would also be created initially with some of the existing content currently on Wikipedia’s site. The new site would be permitted to do this under the GNU Free Documentation License. Eventually, this would be replaced with more and more of the expert’s content, thereby making the site more credible and accurate.



Link to Story

Flex!

Adobe's flex 2 is now trying to clean up browser clutter and make browsers more flash based. Its really there to create rich internet applications easier than most other programs for that. This one lets you integrate Flash into the internet application which other programs do not. What they are trying to do is take this program and use it to make flash viewable on more areas such as a mobile phone or a PDA.

Another thing that Flex 2 is greatly based around is the building of tables and anything that cause be done in a XML format. Through the XML code developers can put actionscript into that to run flash and other programs through it.This program mainly integrates Flash content into other programs easily. It is easy to change the Flash information that is put into these programs without changing the entire layout of that is shown. This program is still being tested by 70,000 beta testers.

Hacker claims to have cracked iPod restrictions

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/10/24/ipod.code.ap/index.html


A 22 year old Norwegian hacker known as "DVD Jon" claims to have unlocked playback restrictions on Apple iTunes and iPods and plans on licensing his code out.

This would allow owners of mp3 players other then iPods to use music downloaded from iTunes, or any other digital music store.

This may have a huge impact on Apple's control of the mp3 market if Jon is not sued back into the stone age. However I support this action and feel that it is legal. If we purchase a license agreement to a song for $.99 what should it matter which device plays it? Afterall it's not Apple who owns the music, it's the huge record companies who produce the music.

New Encoding Application for Flash

http://www.flashnewz.com/flashnewz-5-20060817NewEncodingApplicationReleasedForFlash.html

With the new encoding application available for licensing from On2flix Live 8, companies are able to change the way video is viewed on the web. Combined with On2VP6 there is now the ability to produce live streaming flash video at broadcast quality a major milestone in the way video is viewed on the web. The new application also recognizes user's connection speed and optimizes the video to the user's connection. Unfortunately all this functionality comes with a hefty price tag of $999 per year for commercial use. The company did state however that they will offer discounts to qualified businesses.

While this article doesn't relate to something I will be using anytime soon it still was an interesting article. With the popularity of You Tube and other flash based video sites I think we have only begun to scratch the surface of what is possible with flash video. I also feel that this program is yet another step in the right direction to unlocking the power of flash and its video capability.

Internet Explorer 7.0

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1776290,00.asp

Microsoft has released the brand new Internet Explorer 7.0 for Windows XP users. This update to Internet Explorer is a milestone in Microsoft history. After almost two and a half years of development, Microsoft has finally released this new version, which is full of changes, including many related to security.

At first glance, it doesn't really look that different if you use another alternative browser, such as Mozilla Firefox. However, loyal Internet Explorer 6.0 users will notice a different in the layout of the interface. You will now notice that IE7 features "tabbed browsing," which is the ability to have multiple Web pages open at once. This has been a long-time feature of many alternative Internet browsers. Now a built-in search box, which is just like what Mozilla's Firefox and Opera have. It automatically is set to use Microsoft's Live.com to search, but you can customize it to any search engine you want.

Microsoft also overhauled IE7's printing abilities, which like Firefox, now shrinks the page contents to fit the paper size. This in general is a really nice feature as it saves paper, however, it can sometimes results in really small font to be used, so always make sure to use the Print Preview to make sure your Web page will be readable.
Like we said earlier, Internet Explorer 7 includes a lot of new security features in an attempt to make it as secure as other popular alternative browsers on the Web. Microsoft has now included complete ActiveX protection, new certificate authentication, an anti-phishing filter, and malware protection


Internet Explorer 7 may not be up to par with other alternative browsers, but Microsoft is certainly making an attempt. They still need to add many features that will be included in the upcoming Firefox 2.0. We would have thought with 1.5 years of development, Microsoft would have been able to produce a browser that would make it comparable to Firefox and Opera, but they have not done that with IE7. Current users of IE6 will want to upgrade for the many cosmetic changes.

My Damn iPod is Sick!

Well it looks like Apple although it can’t get viruses quote unquote, it can spread them like a cheap hooker. The cheap little hookers name is iPod. A lot of people were not even in favor, namely Mac heads, of pimping the iPod out to PC users. That didn’t stop Apple, and now PC users are claiming iPod gave them a virus, well boo hoo!
It is true that about 1% of the video iPods that came out were sent out with a little baby virus that did not effect the Mac OS. Yet for the PC planted a baby bug that opened the door for more viruses onto the computer. Their shouldn't be too many whiners about it though, you run of the mill virus scanner would remove the thing. It did cause a lot of finger pointing between Apple and Microsoft though seeing how the virus was created on a Microsoft computer Apple was using. Microsoft still says Apple should have protected Microsoft.
Well the bottom line is less then 1% of the video iPods that were sold after September 12th were shipped with the RavMonE virus. not a huge cause for alarm, but this could pose the question as to whether or not Apple's little hooker could infect the pimp in the future leaving Mac heads looking for a new response for the question "Why Apple and not PC"

this article was in response to an article writen on http://www.g4tv.com/attackoftheshow/blog/AOTB/post/656401/The_Feed_Some_iPods_Come_with_Viruses.html

"SEO: Flash is Evil. Five big reasons not to use Flash"

The article that I found for this week is titled “SEO: Flash is Evil. Five Big Reasons Not to Use Flash”. The article is basically a rant on why Flash is not a good program f choice to design web related materials. While some o the points made are rather true, the article is mostly ones own opinions on why they dislike the program. Seems to me that the person who wrote this article simply has a personal problem with the program. He starts off the article by simply saying, “Building Flash-powered websites is wrong. Storing your content in Flash Movies is wrong. Implementing site navigation in Flash is wrong.” While this person obviously dislikes flash, they do lend a few complements to the program in the first paragraph of the article.
After the complements that were few and far between, the author begins to elaborate on just why he dislikes Flash websites so much. The first problem is that Flash requires bandwidth. He states that despite DSL being available almost everywhere, there are still lots or people still using dial-up, or limited bandwidth. This holds particularly true being that I use dialup when at home. I know first hand how Flash animations and websites take forever to load hen I am using the dial-up. However, it is important to think in terms of the future considering the Internet is constantly improving. In a day when all people have a fast connection, Flash will most likely be extremely prevalent in web design. The reason there are so many more Flash websites being created, is because the trend shows that more and more people are using high speed Internet. It is simply not geared toward connection speeds of the past.
His next peeve is that some designers use meta refreshes or other tricks to disable the browser’s back button. This can be highly annoying and cause people to leave the site prematurely. This is the exact opposite of what a Flash animation is supposed to do. While I agree that this may be an annoying thing to happen, I do not think that it is a reason to bash the Flash program. This problem is caused by the designer, who I using the program, and not the program itself.
The next con is that Flash ignores users needs. The author basically is referring to the websites that have massive intros and splash screens that take forever to load, and apparently cannot be skipped. Also the sound effects that some animations may have can be highly annoying, and inappropriate at certain times. Once again, this is a designer’s flaw, and not a problem with Flash. Flash can be used in a highly effective manner without stupid sounds. With a little common sense and design knowledge, these small problems could be obsolete.
The last problem that the author speaks about is that search engines do not like Flash. In this section he talks about how search engines are unable to crawl and index the content of flash movies. This holds true especially for websites that are fully implemented in Flash. He goes on to say that Flash is decent for banners and ads, as well as games. His last point is probably the one that makes the most sense. Since you would probably want someone to find your website in a search engine, this could be a problem. However, with most of what was said in the article, it is simply a designer’s flaw. To me this article does not give any concrete evidence that would make me choose to not use Flash for web design.


Link:
http://www.seoresearcher.com/seo-flash-is-evil-five-big-reasons-not-to-use-flash.htm

Lucas, The Beatles, Porno, and the Video Revolution

For anyone whose life revolves around the latest installment of anything pertaining to the legacy of the Star Wars franchise, I’m sure you’re already heard that Lucas is calling it quits when it comes to movies.

George Lucas has revolutionized film in the same regards as the Beatles set the standards for music forty years ago. Like the Beatles, whenever the technology was inadequate to handle their visions, they simply designed and built it themselves. Nothing sound console could handle the massive overdubs the Beatles had in mind whenever they wrote Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, in the same regards to Lucas, at the time there was nothing that was able to handle what he wanted to do with the original Star Wars.

With the success of Star Wars, the sky seemed like the limit with Lucas. He was able to take the good fortune he had made and began at work on the now legendary Skywalker ranch. He was able to build his production company Lucasfilms, and was able to produce some of the most successful blockbusters of the last twenty years.

One of the most significant moves that Lucas has done of the last decade was his decided use of digital video for the production of the last three installments of the Star Wars series. Digital video was something that was shunned amongst the top Hollywood filmmakers, not to mention the artistic sticklers that felt that video would be the downfall of modern cinema, in the same regards to the switch to video in the early eighties of porn production. They felt it would cheapen the experience of filmmakers who felt they were truly arts man of their craft. The only difference is that in the eighties, video quality had not progressed much beyond the quality of video that was used on seventies television programs like All in the Family or practically any game show. Lucas understood the significant quality that video had been developed, and felt that it was at a production standpoint that was successful enough to carry on the latest installment of his most beloved legacy. Even though to the surprise of many, Lucas only directed the first installment of the original trilogy. Other directors did both the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. An interesting point is that Lucas originally offered Twin Peaks creator David Lynch the opportunity to direct Return of the Jedi after viewing Lynch’s Dune, but David Lynch felt it would be more of Lucas’ vision that his own.

The reason this is significant for the future production of film and video is now not only are amateurs using video as a gateway into the industry, major players are giving thumbs up to video production. As it becomes more of a standard in the field technological advancements will be placed at the forefront for the progression of video media. One of the most recent discussions has been over the standardization of no-format digital media. The idea of carrying endless amounts of DV and videotapes around on location will become a thing of the past. A hard drive will be on board to log and capture all of the production. The only negative thing I can think of here is that it would be a travesty enough to lose sixty minutes worth of tape to shoot over, as opposed to losing an entire days worth of work only to have the hard drive crash. End of day captures would almost seem like a necessity.

Flash Lite goes mass market with Actimagine Article

Kevin Konrad
Jeff Stevens
Original Article: blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/index.php?p=140
by: Ryan Stewart


Flash developers will be happy to hear that they will soon be able to market their work to cell phone users. Actually, they have been able to for a while, it was just hard to find a phone that would hold Flash Lite due to phone requirements.
Adobe bought mobile technology from Actimagine that will allow Flash Lite to run on a variety of phones instead of just a couple high-end phones like in the past.
This will make it easier for people who may not have a few hundred dollars or more to spend on a cellular phone to download flash programs or videos, and make a wider area for the creators to get their work out to the population.
I believe that this will be a good thing because I wouldn't mind having a wider range of ways to deliver my work to the customers. Especially since cell phones are a big part of today's world.
In conclusion, Flash is getting bigger and bigger all the time, as is anything having to do with technology. It may take a little bit for people to start buying extra Flash software for their cell phones, but eventually it will take off.

Contribute 4

Adam Durst
Flash
Jeff Stevens
http://www.flashnewz.com/flashnewz-5-20061006AdobeIncludesDragandDropFlashSupportinNewContributeRelease.html

Article Critique #1

This article was talking about the new features in a new program called contribute 4. The updates to this program allow web developers to have more control over the author permissions while insuring that the site itself doesn’t lose continuity. This it allows multiple users to have access to the software’s content, which makes revisions much simpler than in previous versions. The overall point of this software is intended to allow webmasters without any knowledge of source code to make revisions to websites without having to make any alterations to the coding. It now also integrates dragging and dropping of flash movies and integration with Microsoft.

The significance of these updates to the software is big. They now offer many things to web developers that were previously unattainable, such as drag drop flash movies and Microsoft integration. The added support for bloggers has also made this program worth using. Another useful tool of this program is that with all the integrations into the program it now helps make layout easy that was not possible in the past. Also according to the article any blogger with contribute 4 and Rocketboom will be able to easily add video to their blogs. The most major revision to this program is that anyone with minimal web experience is now able to use this program.

In my opinion I thought this article was poorly written. The article was trying to promote the features of the new contribute 4, yet it went into very minimal detail as to why these features were significant. They also assumed that you knew what the program was and for an outsider like me who has never used the program it wasn’t very informational. Also the article was very choppy and jumped from topic to topic and then came back to another aspect later. The very ironic part of the whole article is that the author’s title is expert author.

My opinion of the features discussed is that it sounds like this program is rather revolutionary and user friendly. However without further research it is hard to make any solid conclusions about the article statements. I feel that while it seems like a program someone in my future profession could use the article did a very poor job of explaining why it is a must buy.

MicroBlinkx: The answer to YouTube

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The Hitman
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Coming to a theatre near you!



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A response to an article on http://www.pvrwire.com/2006/10/11/microsoft-s-answer-to-the-youtube-google-deal/
Original article By Chris Tew

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This deal might be just what the doctor ordered. Microsoft didn't buy out Blinkx but they did get the license to use Blinkx's search technology. Microsoft will use that technology on msn and live.com to broaden it's already existing search engine. The search engine is already used on Youtube, BBC news, Sky news, and Fox

Even though this may seem like a good idea, the fact that Youtube is dominating the video search community hasn't changed. If anything it will take quite some time for Microsoft to market this across to all end users. Most likely as a toolbar on future pc platforms as they did with aol. But for now this shouldn't change my own search query.

Blinkx has already offered a similar license to lycos so they can find themselves on top again. Besides lycos, it is reported that aol has the same technology but this isn't confirmed as of yet.

I tend to agree with Chris's view of Blinkx's site in terms of it's user friendliness and ease of navigation. They definetely need some work there. Blinkx is not yet a community and therefore will showcase videos outside the mainstream, but that may just be what sends users to their site over time once they've gotten their fill of Youtube.However, Soapbox, ( Microsoft's Youtube ) could with this technology gain some new fans.

One positive thing to note about it's search engine would be the limited ability of original copyright owners of videos to sue blinkx, whereas youtube and google are extremely vulnerable since they host the video. Although those lawsuits would only be filed if youtube or other violators of copyright don't remove the copyrighted material.

Back to the subject at hand, as long as youtube continues to allow all types of video and keeps expanding it's server space then noone will be able to compete with them for the time being at least.

Conversely, Blinkx.tv is a new site design for users to view tv clips with channels, video walls and a personable customizable playlist. The Video wall is basicly a set of around 25 preview clips. The video wall can then be embedded into personal websites such as myspace. The channel lineup includes espn, fox news, the discovery channel and much more. The user is sent portions of their video clip search or to a link if the content requires a subscription.

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Original article can be viewed on: http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3636801

xSP
October 9, 2006
Microsoft Signs Blinkx to Video Search
By Ed Sutherland

UPDATED: A pact between video search company Blinkx and Microsoft (Quote) brings into sharp focus the growing importance of managing the mountain of online content.

The agreement comes as Internet giant Google (Quote) considers whether to buy popular video site YouTube for a reported $1.6 billion and as portals look to video as the next wave of Internet content.

Blinkx and Microsoft plan to announce Tuesday that Blinx video search technology, already adopted by Lycos and others, will form the backbone for users searching for video on portions of MSN and Live.com, according to those familiar with the signed, but not yet announced, deal.

While Blinkx was not immediately available for comment, a Microsoft spokesperson downplayed the agreement.

The agreement allows Microsoft's multimedia and online products to "have the option to integrate Blinkx services if their customers request such a service," a spokesperson told internetnews.com.

For the moment, however, "there are no firm plans to integrate," according to the Microsoft spokesperson.

The technology used by Blinkx differs from that used to search much of the Internet. Rather than scanning text, the San Francisco company employs voice recognition to search the audio portion of videos.

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About Blinkx

Blinkx is the world's largest and most advanced video search engine. Fed by automatic spiders that crawl the web for audio video content and content partnerships with over 60 leading content and media companies, blinkx uses visual analysis and speech recognition to better understand rich media content. Users can search for content, create personal TV channels that automatically splice relevant content together and even use our download feature to automatically download content to mobile devices. blinkx is a privately-held firm, based in San Francisco and London and was founded in early 2004 by Suranga Chandratillake.

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The hitman (c) 2006 All rights reserved

Fileworker Pro is the thing to know!

Fileworker pro is now getting web savvy. Which was once just a database application is now a web-based database application.
not only is it just being used for MACs which was its original setup it is now also for PC. It was first used to database information for presentations and things of the sort, to send information in a formal matter. But they have now added a great feature called the Web Veiwer which lets you pull information off the web to make it more accesable. Lets say that you want to make a database of directions to places that you will be visiting on a trip. You can look those directions up on the internet and pull the parts off and put them into the database, this way you can type different places in and not need an interent connection to get the information you need.

The way that this will connect with web design is companies will possibly start to make the ability to pull information off of there site easy so that the consumer can implement this tool much more efficently. I can see some site even adding in a button of some sort to automatically pull the information off into a format the fists Fileworker pro better.

I can see how this tool will be good and bad. It can be good because life could inturn be easier and you can pull information into one database making your searching through information you may look at often easy and less distracting. But I can also see where it would be bad, if a company wants to make there information more accesable then they may lack on the more plesent look of the site that we designers enjoy creating.

Macworld November 2006

iPod gets its game on

Original Article http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/fun.games/10/09/ipod.games/index.htm

With the recent introduction of Apple's newest series of iPods, owners of the new series to play games on their iPods for a small fee.

A few games Apple is allowing for download are, "Tetris," "Zuma," "Texas Hold'em," "Mahjong," "Mini Golf," "Pac-Man," "Cubis 2," "Bejeweled" and "Vortex." Each game will be a one time download for $4.99, which is comparable to the price of games for a cell phone.

To download a game the newest version of iTunes for PC or Mac is required as well as the newest generation of iPod.

The problem with this new feature is it destroys any resale value of prior iPod models and leaves customers feeling left out. Apple is notorious for leaving consumers in the dark with specifications of items to be released in the future which doesn't allow for consumers to wait for the next big thing. This might be a double edged sword for Apple, by keeping a constant flow of income not interrupted or slowed by a products release date, but it may leave customers a little sour after shelling out a few hundred dollars to have old technology. However this being said, their current strategy has not stopped them from having a 75% market share on portable media devices.

As important as it is to advance technology as fast as possible it is also important to inform a buyer of what will be released in the near future.

Solid State Announces Streaming Media Delivery Breathrough

First Commercial Implementation of On-Demand Streaming Media Delivery Solution Based on the BitTorrent(TM) Protocol Shown at DEMOfall '06

To view this article, go to:
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=165984

With the popularity rising of sites such as YouTube(TM), so is interest in on-demand streaming media. However, this is accompanied with an overload of demands that are difficult for traditional content distribution systems to keep up with on their own. The Solid State Distributed Delivery Network (DDN) responded with flexibility as its solution. This network is designed to work with the content provider to handle the growing load while being cost-effective for peer-to-peer distribution.

Solid State Networks is the developer of high-performance distribution of high-resolution video, music and software programs. By introducing more possibilities for high quality to be distributed to a larger range of devices, Solid State Networks' multiplatform on-demand streaming media solution provides reliable service guarantees, "while others are still focused on just downloading files," said Chris Shipley, executive producer of DEMOfall '06. Another important aspect of this delivery system is that it features performance and economic advantages through the BitTorrent(TM) protocol.

This major breakthrough has a large impact on digital designers, for today's industry is in high-demand of quick and easy accesses that maintain low-cost distributions. We live in a fast-paced world, and whether you are a client receiving files from a business affiliate, a student conducting research, or just simply surfing the web for fun videos to watch . . . you want it NOW! You don't want to wait a long time to view the content, or worse, waiting only to experience horrible quality. So as designers, we want to create the most effective user friendly designs and output methods that keep viewers/customers coming back for more. Solid States delivery solution is greatly beneficial for the digital community, because it "provides content publishers with the unique proposition of significantly reducing per unit costs of delivery for high demand content along with the added benefits of increased scalability and improved performance of higher quality video and other digital media over the internet to personal, laptop and media PCs and other connected devices such as wireless PDAs, portable game players and even mobile phones."

Available as a stand alone application or as an internet plug-in for such browsers as Safari(TM) and Internet Explorer(TM), this on-demand streaming client provides higher data rate video and higher fidelity audio. This creates a more enjoyable experience for consumers viewing content using media players like Flash(TM), Windows Media Player(TM), QuickTime(TM), and RealPlayer(TM). An added bonus feature is this can even be used to stream Adobe(R) PDF files or any other non-traditional content.

Currently, Solid State's DDN is only available to select costumers, but by 2007 it will be accessible to the general public.

I feel this was a very informative article that features a breakthrough which is vital to the success of the digital arts industry. With such technology, we can design higher quality interactive media that are more easily accessible and take up less of the viewers time. That media can then be sent to other persons/companies with little difficulty, which in turn, helps spread the message or point we are trying to convey. Thus proving an effective design has been created and we have successfully done our job.

YouTube

http://www.pvrwire.com/2006/10/10/google-youtube/

You Tube, the popular video-sharing Web site has been bought out from the biggest Internet search web site Google. Founded in February by three PayPal employees, the San Mateo based service utilizes Adobe Flash technology to display video. The wide variety of site content includes moive and TV clips.

The terms came as something of a surprise, however, with Google using $1.65 billion worth of stock to make the buy, rather than dipping into its $10 billion of cash on hand. You Tube investors, which include several, venture capital firms. Also You Tube says consumers view videos over 100 million times daily through its service and upload more than 65,000 videos each day.

You Tube, it will continue to run under its own brand, maintain its own headquarters and be overseen by co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen for the time being. Google will also continue to operate Google Video. Google's decision to keep You Tube independent may help avoid upsetting loyal users of the brand.

I think It will be interesting to see what happens next and what happens in the copyright world. I still think Google Lawyers will be a busy, busy bunch. I dont think you can sue Google into oblivion, but as others have mentioned, if Google gets nailed one single time for copyright violation, there are going to be more shareholder go with the pile on copyright suits that follow.

I think it was interesting how Google and YT both rushed to get deals done with the music labels. That tells me that they arent comfortable hiding behind the safe harbor laws. If they were, they would just be telling people to send take down notices rather than doing deals that require software to detect copyrights.

A View on the Internet and Copyright Infringement

The internet is a vast wasteland of seemingly endless information, resources and data. You can procure just about anyting your heart desires. In turn, you can also post just about anything you like on a web page or blog. This simple act of using a search engine or publishing certain content on a website can however lead to illegal activity, or the release of privileged information... though I would hardly consider this the norm. These sites are usually found and taken down or removed eventually. Serious offenders can and have even received heavy fines or incarceration.
One of the largest cases of this was the Napster scandal a few years back. In short, Napster's file sharing service infringed on the copyrights of musicians by allowing their works to be transferred without the benefit of artist royalties, totally free of charge. The recording industy retaliated by filing lawsuits against Napster and eventually Napster was forced to end its days of allowing copyrighted music to be traded freely amongst it members. It was a victory for the artists and the recording industry.
The recording industry has gone too far this time. They are now attempting to shut down websites that publish guitar tabs for songs. If you don’t know what guitar tabs are, they are basically a notation that tells players where to place fingers on fret board of the guitar to play the notes in a song.
Tabs have six horizontal lines (representing the six strings of the guitar) and numbers on those lines that show where each string is fretted on the neck. Its an easy way to learn how to play a song without having to read music notes.
Anyway, music publishers in the US say the guitar tab sites illegally infringe songwriters’ copyright, and have issued “take down” orders to some of the biggest. What... the... CRAP?!?!?
I mean, I can understand shutting down P2P sites and torrents that allow illegal traffic of copyrighted songs. That is just plain piracy. But learning how to play a song for yourself? How is that illegal?
Sure the sites are publishing tablature that is a representation of how a song sounds, but its not the actual score or sheet music. I have seen these sites and I find that some of them are quite inaccurate, even if they do sound close to the original work. Either way, the actual music is not being handed out. It is merely a person’s interpretation or suggestion as to how a song is played.
So if I hear a song, and I figure out how to play it (which, after playing guitar for almost 20 years, I can do rather easily), create a tab for how I play it and then publish that tab online…. I am infringing on copyright?
What’s next? Is the NMPA/RIAA going to send jack-booted thugs to gouge out my eardrums so I can’t hear a song by an artist because I didn’t pay for it first?

Link to story on BBC site

Simplifying RSS Feeds

There is such an abundance of information on the web covering as many topics as you can think of. The sky'’s the limit as far as content. Traditionally, users would have to search and find the information they wanted on their own. While surfing the web is still popular and a much-needed method for obtaining information, an easier approach to obtaining this information lies within RSS.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a method for delivering content to interested audiences on an automatic basis. Users can subscribe to RSS feeds by using an aggregator (also called channel reader or RSS reader), which may or may not be built into a web browser. Internet Explorer 7 and Safari are two web browsers that have RSS capability built right in. There are also other freeware or shareware programs that have easy to use interfaces and features to customize subscribed feeds.

Digital content producers write RSS using XML computer language. RSS can either be created using programs such as Reinvented Software Feeder (Mac) or Notepage FeedforAll (PC), or by hand-coding. XML is similar to HTML but much simpler. HTML has a lot of variants where as XML has the basics such as title, links to images and e-mail, description, publication date, and author. An explosion in RSS technology came with the rise of podcasts. Other content for RSS feeds are blogs and news text.

What'’s so great about RSS is that any web enterprise can create its own code and tags. This is how iTunes works for Podcasting. Apple created new descriptions and keywords that are recognized when feeds are added to iTunes. Users can search for both regular keywords and iTunes keywords. RSS is flexible enough in the way it'’s written to support additional code like this. When subscribing to a podcast through iTunes, you may see a link to the iTunes store. This is an example of the additional code from Apple.

The goal of digital content producers is to get as much content into the hands of as many viewers as possible. I believe RSS handles this task efficiently and effectively. Producers of RSS feeds know that the information they are publishing will be read. It isn't like publishing a website and wondering how many people will actually find it to receive the information. From an audience perspective, it’s like a digital version of magazine subscriptions. All you have to do is subscribe and sit back and wait for the information to come to you.

“Simplifying RSS Feeds.” Franklin McMahon. Digital Content Producer. August 2006: Vol. 32, No. 8.

"Pros and Cons of Using Flash for Banners"

The article that I found is titled “Pros and Cons of Using flash for Banners”. This title is very appropriately named considering that it deals entirely with the positive and negatives of using the Flash program for banners when creating WebPages. The author, Artjom Sharafejev, begins the article by explaining the ever-growing trend of using flash banners in websites. These style banners are commonly used in Internet promotion. While these banners can be an effective tool for promoting a wise range of things, the author states a few drawbacks hat these banners can encounter.
The first negative that the author states is that leading browsers do not initially support Flash files, and that plug-ins are usually going to be required. This means that in order to see the animation, the user will have to download a plug-in to view the newer version of flash. He also states that statistically 75% of people use Microsoft Internet Explorer, and most of them are users with basic skills that may be less likely t download any of the required upgrades. In this instance, the snazzy flash animation is useless.
The next negative regarding the Flash animation banners is the delay that is set in between he frames. In a case where the user viewing the material is using an older, less-capable machine, it would be likely that while loading the page the banner itself would be loading as well. This means that the user will probably not be willing to wait to see the rest of the animation before continuing on his/ her way. Once again the flash animation would be considered useless since the user would not have gotten the desired message.
The author offers one more con in his opinion to using Flash banners on websites. He states that the right click option on these banners is non-existent, and it does not offer an option to view the animation in a new window or in the same window. He said that this is rather annoying due to the fact that sometimes 15 windows will already be opened and another window will increase CPU usage. After all of the cons that were listed by the author, he did offer a few of the advantages of using Flash for the banner animations. One of these advantages is that the file size of a banner created with Flash will remain the same no matter what size the banner is itself. This is because Flash uses vector images. His second advantage is the vast amount of colors that can be used in Flash, as opposed to the 256 that a .gif animation is limited to.
I believe that most of the quirks that this author has listed are easily fixed in today’s world. The integration of Flash into websites has been growing incredibly in the last years, and soon enough the small quirks that are left will be obsolete. As for the complaint that most browsers don’t support the new versions of Flash, I find this to be a minimal problem. I think that the plug-ins are exceptionally easy for any user to download and use. I believe that Flash will be a momentous part of web design, and despite its few weaknesses will someday be used on all web pages.


http://www.flashnewz.com/flashnewz-5-20060331ProsandConsofUsingFlashforBanners.html

Macromedia releases Flex2

UPDATE: Flex 2.0 announced with more affordable pricing

In an article posted on http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/category/flash/

by Kevin Yank

"Macromedia today announced Flex 2, a major new release of its framework for building Web applications with rich, client-side Flash interfaces. Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to speak with Macromedia about the details of this upcoming release.

Flex 2 will include Flash Player 8.5, Flex Framework 2, Flex Builder 2, and Flex Enterprise Services 2. Although the updated software will not be ready for release until the first half of 2006, Macromedia plans to release alpha versions later this month, in conjunction with the MAX conference on October 16th.

Flash Player 8.5 will add a new ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM2), supporting ActionScript 3.0 (AS3)—an updated version of the scripting language that will be compliant with the latest ECMAScript standard, including ECMAScript for XML (E4X). AVM2 will run a great deal faster than the existing AVM, and will support many advanced language features, most notably improved debugging and error reporting.

AVM2 will run alongside the existing AVM, and only Flash movies compiled for AS3 will run on this new VM. The downside of this architecture is that movies and components that use AS3 will not be interoperable with those that use AS2 (e.g. an AS3 movie that loads and displays.

Flex Framework 2 will be the upgraded library of classes and user interface components for this new release. It will be updated to take advantage of AS3, with cleaner APIs, and taking full advantage of the new effects introduced in Flash Player 8.

Flex Builder 2, previously code-named Zorn, will be the new IDE for Flex, rewritten from scratch to run on the Eclipse platform. As with the current version of Flex Builder, it will provide a split graphical view (with drag and drop GUI building) and code view (with full code hinting and debugging support). New in this release will be developer productivity features for managing “view states”, discrete modes of operation for Flex components.

While the current version of Flex costs some US$12,000, Flex 2 will cost less than US$1,000 for the basic components described above. Although you’re constrained to communicating with the server via XML data transfer and SOAP Web Services, you can certainly implement anything you can do with AJAX and DHTML, only with a richer GUI. What’s missing from the package is the server-side component of the Flex framework, which has been split into a separate product for Flex 2: Flex Enterprise Services 2.

Flex Enterprise Services 2 will come with the big per-CPU price tag, but will be significantly upgraded from the server-side facilities provided by Flex 1. The main focus of the enhanced package is the transparent availability of server-side resources (such as database records and enterprise services) within Flex applications.

Although the greatly reduced price tag for developers who don’t need the Enterprise Services package is welcome news, Macromedia does not plan to continue offering free non-commercial/non-institutional licenses as they now do with Flex 1. With students and hobbyist users having obtained free licenses and developed applications with Flex 1, they’ll either have to front up for a license to Flex 2, or be left out in the cold. This seems like a very unfortunate move to me, and I hope Macromedia will reconsider."

___________________________

"With the popularity of Ajax, this cross interface program should be highly popular despite it's pricetag for current consumers. Hopefully soon education programs can get their hands on it as they did with Flex1

According to one respondant, Flex2 is highly regarded over Laszlo. here's the whole response he made to the original news article.

_______

Hmm… I had a brief look at OpenLaszlo when it was first released for free, but the user interfaces it generated didn’t impress me as much as Flex. In particular, every Laszlo demo I’ve seen has had fixed pixel dimensions, while Flex can take full advantage of the vector nature of Flash to stretch and fill your browser window.

With Flex 2 set to include powerful widgets like a WYSIWYG rich text editor, it’s still looking like the technology leader to me. That said, the price tag of OpenLaszlo is hard to argue with."

___________________________

Some more info about Flex2 can be found here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/productinfo/overview/

For a free trial of Flex2 go here:
https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=flex

Contribute 4 and Flash 8 Make Love

The article on Flashnewz.com entitled “Adobe Includes Drag and Drop Support in New Contribute Release”, written by Jim Lerza. (http://www.flashnewz.com/flashnewz-5- 20061006AdobeIncludesDragandDropFlashSupportinNewContributeRelease.html) The author tells us the use ability of blogging in the future will be greatly improved as will the ability to update sites instantly due to the release of Contribute 4.

I would have to say that this article actually would get some one like me, someone learning Flash and Dreamweaver, to add the Contribute software to my repertoire. The article boasts the ability of Contribute to being capable for multiple users to update a site at the same time with no problems. And support of flash video and my favorite part “code-challenged people”.

He actually explains a lot in this little article, like the ability for instant publishing with Microsoft products. This can be invaluable according to him due to the capabilities of Excel to handle large charts of information. He also goes on to say with a powerful new WSYIWYG editor that supports dragging and dropping many file formats including now the Flash video to the server, people like me should be able to pick it up and use it, as easily as it was for me to switch to a Mac.

And last but not least he states “Support for even more popular blog services has been added, plus support for in-house blogs as well. In addition, Contribute 4 also supports publishing content to multiple servers simultaneously. Contribute is capable of determining and preserving original document formatting.” Which for me is enough to want to shell out the $149 for the added convenience.

All and all the article was very helpful to me and the site is a great reference for any Flash user of Webpublisher.

The Hitman's favorite multimedia links

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


THE HITMAN
=========

Coming soon to a theatre near you!
_______________________________________________________________

VIDEO
-----

http://www.blip.tv

A new site that is competing directly with youtube. As you might have heard, Youtube is expected to sell for 1.6 billion to google. So it's time to look around for other options now. Here's one option.

I also suggest people you join their blog:
http://blog.blip.tv/blog/category/video-sites/

Here's their mission statement.

"blip.tv is a video sharing site. We believe that the world is fundamentally changing as it becomes easier and easier for individuals and small groups of people to create their own excellent video shows. Our mission is to make this even easier by taking care of all the problems a budding videoblogger, podcaster or TV producer would run into. You should have to worry about creativity. We'll take care of the servers, the software, the workflow, the advertising and the distribution."

http://www.ifilm.com

Another video/flash upload site.

This site is particularly useful for those who are looking for movies or tvshows that were just released. For you World of Warcraft fans, do a search and choose from thousand's of videos.

_______________________________________________

WEBBYAWARD SITES :
------------------

print magazine ( will find url soon)
http://www.comcastic.com
http://www.pdl.warnerbros.com (charlie + choc fact)
http://www.webbyawards.com
http://www.tenbyten.org
http://www.zombo.com
http://www.overture.com
http://www.adwords.com
http://www.digitalmediaminute.com
type color and motion in google
http://www.w3schools.com

TECHNOLOGY NEWS :
-----------------

http://www.digg.com
http://www.slashdot.com ( old digg )
http://www.wired.com
http://www.newsvine.com
http://engadget.com/

FUNNIES :
-------

http://www.jibjab.com
http://www.ebaumsworld.com

--------------------

TYPOGRAPHY :
-----------

http://www.flamingtext.com/fonts/
http://www.myfonts.com/browse/foundry/larabie/

FLASH FORUMS :
-------------
http://www.webwasp.co.uk/forum/index.php
http://www.sephiroth.it/file_detail.php?id=120
http://www.were-here.com/homepage/default.asp
http://www.webforumz.com/flash-forum/
http://www.bestflashanimationsite.com/resources/forums/
http://www.actionscript.org/forums/

PROFESSIONAL VIDEO EQUIPMENT :
-----------------------------

http://bhphotovideo.com/

USEFUL SITES FOR FORUMS :
-----------------------

http://www.userbars.com/
http://www.imageshack.us
http://www.photobucket.com

UPLOADING SITES :
----------------

http://www.putfile.com
http://fileshack.com

REFERENCE SITES :
---------------

http://www.wikipedia.com
http://www.dictionary.com


The Above list will continue to be revised.

Last Update - 10/12/2006

Next Update - 10/14/2006

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

TheHitman 2006 (c) All rights reserved

"Evolution, Criticisms, and Debate"

It seems like everyone’s a critic these days. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. In the past the only opinion we were able to hear about products were from journalists that we never met. With the technologies of today we are able to access thousands of opinions of any product with the Internet (with a strong emphasis on blogs). Granted, you have no idea who the people are who are writing these opinions, but the key here is the consumer aspect. Who better to hear the pros and cons than straight from the person who is using these products for hours upon hours, day in and day out? We need to have more opinions to construct greater debate into what will and what will not be suitable for the market of tomorrow. There is no reason to cling onto a specific method if there is a better way of doing it. There is no reason to look at it any other way. Then again, that’s just my opinion.

A current debate is over the future of HTML, and the possible threat of Flash becoming the industry standard. One of the key elements to this argument is over the complications that can arrive with HTML coding. For instance, it is almost impossible to determine what the final product on your screen is going to look like on another. A webpage that fully operates on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer may look completely different on Apple’s Safari, or Netscape. Many would side with Flash due to the aspect of vector imaging. Whenever something is based from a mathematical equation, it is virtually impossible to have inaccuracy. Another argument is over the actual speed of an HTML page compared with a Flash based webpage. If a webpage is properly constructed with Flash, it can run just as smoothly as a page that was designed with HTML. Some factors that need to be considered of course, is the size of the elements that goes into the design, and naturally Internet connection speed. But, with dial-up connections basically becoming non-existent, there is almost no dispute on this issue.

Critics of Flash claim that if their technology was everything it is cracked up to be, why doesn’t someone like Amazon utilize their technology instead of embracing the simple layout of their current website. There is a simple solution to this: it takes time. Everyone is paranoid in the beginning of starting something new. Just look at television. None of us today can even imagine a world without the tube. And pretty much everyone born these days will be able to say the same thing about the Internet. In the early days of both of these standard household features it was a slow start like anything else. Just because Amazon hasn’t jumped on the wagon in the early stages doesn’t mean that it won’t become the standard. Take a look at a website like www.comcastic.com. It’s a bit ironic that Comcast is namely know for it’s accelerated cable television and it’s high speed internet, but it is nowhere near being the only one who has a website that is completely structured from Flash.

Currently we find a lot of HTML websites that contain pieces of Flash related constructions. One of the key elements to a website is to make people want to actually enjoy being there, giving reasons to come back just like you would at a restaurant. If you go into a fancy restaurant and have an obnoxious waiter or waitress, chances are you’re never going to visit there again. Whereas a trip to your local McDonald’s you’re going to expect to sit next to a family with a few screaming children, but it’s not going to affect you from visiting within the near future. The same thing can be said about a website. If you’re looking at your bank records you are certainly not going to enjoy an audio/video clip randomly coming on and tearing your face straight off. But if you’re going to look at a website for Nickelodeon you’re going to expect animations to pretty much greet you at the door. It’s all about time and place.

It seems from the research I’ve gathered the only people that are really arguing in favor of HTML based applications are the same people that have been using the program for years and are a group of those people that just do not want to accept change. That’s not necessarily a bad thing either. If a certain group of people didn’t refuse to put their books down whenever T.V. became the norm, books would be non-existent. I happen to love books and reading myself, so I wouldn’t want to imagine a world like that. So for technology to successfully push forward, there has to be at least a few pulling it back. Can anyone debate that?

For any further reading on this debate, be sure to check out http://www.uservision.co.uk/usability_articles/usability_flash.asp

Welcome to FutureSplash

Welcome to FutureSplash, the online blog of Bradley Academy for the Visual Art's Beginning Flash class.

We will be posting responses to online articles every other week, sharing our thoughts about the World Wide Web, New Media, and Technology. So enjoy and come back often...

Jeff Stevens, Instructor