For the next few weeks I’m going to be living according to the FIBA schedule of games and it may be hard. there are going to be a few early mornings which end around 1300 CET so that’s not going to be too bad.If I had a passion for basketball this would be perfect. It’s going to be a new experience for me.
When mentioning smokescreen I always have the impression that it’s there to hide something but that’s the name of the student tv channel at uni. We’ve already been working on a number of things. We’ve been finding volunteers, preparing the logo and such.
Last night I was working on the content management system which would be used to get the website online. For the moment it’s devoid of content but that should change within the next few days and weeks.
To get a taste Smokescreen
Is your internet connection slow, do pages take a long time to load, do you visit certain sites more than others? If your answer to any of these is yes then I suggest that you download Netsonic, a program I have tested which works well, since I’ve installed it my browsing is much faster.
At first it’s normal for the netsonic program to seem a little slower but once you’ve started using it and it some files are cached the surfing speed will be far greater since pages which are constantly visited load faster. There is also another function on it which allows you to pre-fetch pages which are kept in a cache file
When you visit a webpage there is sometimes a lot of text meaning that you will spend some time reading this text, as you spend time reading the page the modem and the line aren’t been used which is when netsonic comes in. This program is designed to follow the links on different pages and download the pages without you feeling that the connection is slower because it does it when you’re not using the modem, for instance when reading a long text.
If you have had a hotmail account such as I used to use before you visit this page and you begin to be frustrated at spending quite some time online. What netsonic does is cache pages such that the login page for example loads immediatley as well as certain frames load as soon as you get into the account.
Another way it’s worth is shown is when you’re looking through the school’s online magasine, for example coming to read new articles, if there is a page which you like then as the structure of this magazine will remain the same you can get to the page you want in thirty seconds on a 26,000 modem. This means you have more time to enjoy the page and ultimatly a lower phone bill.
The next two weeks or so shall see me resting but not from media work. There’s a good chance I’ll be working on a project about a Prison in the Lebanon. It was shot a few weeks ago and the person in charge of the project needs help with the editing.
It looks as though it’s going to be an interesting project. I’ve already viewed quite a bit of footage, read the voice over text and discussed the idea. I’ve started to form some ideas of how to create the story and tomorrow this should progress further with me going in to work.
In around two weeks I’ll have an interesting work shift, from 5am to 1300 hours, in other words my work day will be finished when other people get their work day started. We’ll see how that goes anyway.
Ciao for now
Here are some images from the party.
I’m still in the process of uploading the images but the pages can be found at
Directing a Multicam is easy, after being a cameraman at many conferences. it’s a matter of knowing which shots you would like to have had with just one camera but couldn’t get. It’s easy, switching from one source to another and making sure the pacing is right and that there are not too many screw-ups.
Overall it went well and I enjoyed it. It was different today as I was a simple camera operator. I had to concentrate on getting the right shot and fight away the desire to sit down or do something else.
On both days the last speaker was the more entertaining of the day.
Portable Apps is an interesting option for those of us who use work computers rather than our own. It is also a good solution for those of us who change desktop all the time but can’t play with our phones whilst at work.
A few days ago I wrote about Chrome as a PAF file and things have become more interesting as a result.
What I particularly enjoy are the extensions that you can install within the browser. Anyone who works in an office always faces the challenge of getting authorisation to install the simplest of applications. With google chrome and extensions you regain some of that freedom.
The browser allows you to install the extensions of your liking and use them. Some of these applications are the mobile phone version implemented in the desktop format. The best example of this is the yahoo messenger app. Very similar builds are running on the desktop and mobile phone.
The other features are google calendar, facebook and feedly extensions. There is choice. I have feedly running to let me know how many RSS items are left to read. With the google calendar application I can see how much time is left before my next meeting/time commitment. With facebook I can see how many pending messages are waiting for my action.
The advantage of this way of doing things is that you can cut down on the number of open tabs. It is an on demand interaction. It is only open for as long as you are doing something. That’s like mobile applications.
What we see here is a shift away from the traditional web browser where information is displayed according to a cascading style sheet and towards an application based system. The application is installed locally and the only information that you gather from the server is raw data. As a result even with slower connections you can participate, whether from a mobile phone or whilst travelling where roaming charges apply.
It’s an interesting space to keep an eye on. I like having the ability to customise my web surfing environment whatever the environment and platform. I wish that the app syncing would work for extensions, rather than for bookmarks and certain settings.