drag’n drop files into richtext boxes (so it’s actually useful)

There’s a ton of howto’s out there showing people how to do the drag and drop into a richtext box.  But recently I had a job that required me not to drag the contents from one part of the form to the other but to actually drag a file (or files) into a RichTextbox control – and process them.

Which… if you’ve never tried this before drops the file as an icon you can click on and open.  Not really useful if you’re trying to process files.  It’s kind of annoying that even after a bit of Googling you’ll get a lot of links that let you drag the text or images or all kinds of stuff from one part of the form – to another part of the form. 

Which is fine if that’s what you need.  But what I needed was to be able to grab several files – of either text or xml – and then process them and display the output. 

Since I can’t share my work code – here’s the training wheels version of the code for you. As you can see we process the XML and display it.  It also does text so … this is fairly close to the final version – which hopefully I’ll take some time and cleanse it from any confidential use info that may be in it and share.  In the mean time – here’s the actual guts of the code that makes it work.

 

Since I’m reallllly running behind – that’s all I can get out this week  - but hopefully it’ll be of use to someone out there.  As you can see – I’m calling the richtextbox dragenter event and customizing it.  The first thing I do is hunt for the dataformats.filedrop type off the event handleer – this allows me to grab the filename and – load it appropriately into the richtextbox.

Anyway… to all out there – here’s the code – have an AWESOME New Year… and I’ll be back on line to annoy all as soon as I can.

 

Imports System
Imports System.Drawing
Imports System.Data
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Collections
Imports System.Windows.Forms
Imports System.Xml
Public Class Form1
    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        'This call is required by the Windows Form Designer.
        RichTextBox1.AllowDrop = True
    End Sub

    Private Sub richTextBox1_DragEnter(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As DragEventArgs) Handles RichTextBox1.DragEnter

        Try
            If e.Data.GetDataPresent(DataFormats.FileDrop) Then
                ' Put all file names into a string array 
                'in case the user grabbed more than one file.
                Dim files As String() = CType(e.Data.GetData(DataFormats.FileDrop), String())
                Try
                    'Now we break it down - we only want text files, xml or xsd files
                    'so we trap for that if it's not one of those - we ignore it.
                    If files(0).Contains(".txt") Then
                        Dim f_stream As IO.StreamReader = FileIO.FileSystem.OpenTextFileReader(files(0))
                        RichTextBox1.Text = f_stream.ReadToEnd()
                        'Just for fun we show the name of the file and link it
                        llblFileName.Text = files(0).ToString

                        f_stream.Close()
                    ElseIf files(0).Contains(".xml") Then
                        Dim filename As String = files(0)
                        Dim reader As New XmlTextReader(files(0))
                        llblFileName.Text = files(0).ToString
                        reader.MoveToContent()
                        'Loop through the XML and display it in the richtextbox
                        Do While reader.Read
                            RichTextBox1.AppendText(reader.ReadContentAsString)
                        Loop
                        reader.Close()
                    End If
                Catch ex As Exception
                    MessageBox.Show(ex.Message)
                    Return
                End Try
            End If
        Catch ex As Exception
            MessageBox.Show(ex.Message)
        End Try
    End Sub

    Private Sub llblFileName_LinkClicked(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.LinkLabelLinkClickedEventArgs) Handles llblFileName.LinkClicked
        System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(llblFileName.Text)
    End Sub
End Class

Fighting Tigers in Burma…

is something I’ve never done.  Never really planned to do it either.  In fact, it’s not even on my long range to do list.  Like so many bizarre things you’re pretty sure are never going to happen – it is however – something that I am prepared to do if I am ever dropped accidentally into the back jungles of Burma with a 10 lb honey cured ham locked around my neck. 

Let’s face it no one plans for something like that.  Just like most people don’t plan on losing their jobs until it happens.  Money’s tight and we keep hearing that there are no jobs.  Read Mini-Microsoft’s latest rumors that Microsoft is going to lay off… Or you can read the same story in – frankly dozens, maybe even hundreds of web journals out there.  We’re all going to lose our jobs.  No one is hiring.  And we should all expect to have it take up to 3 years or more before we can find work where and how we once did.

In fact if you read the dishrags you’ll put your chances of financial survival right up there with fighting tigers naked in the jungles of Burma.  But that’s not reality.

I won’t say things aren’t serious – or that there aren’t going to be some serious “resource actions” at places like Microsoft – or IBM or a hundred other places out there.

But the Job Market isn’t as dead as people claim.  It’s not great like it was – but it’s also not the dead zone everyone is making out.  Don’t believe me?  Here…

Dice… 963 new jobs in the last 7 days.

Now, I know that in my area – Hotjobs has 81 new jobs.  And … Monsters got around 120 or more.  And I still get between 3-9 emails a week about jobs.  Many of which I can’t take due to NDAs or certain companies bizarre rules about not being able to work there for over 365 days in a row – that’s weird – but there are still jobs there for someone. 

Over the last 10 years I’ve never gone more than a month or so without being able to get a job.  Is it because I’m just … sooooo cool?  No.  It’s because I learned a long time ago that just because a job isn’t perfect it’s still a job. At the end of the day you don’t have to take it home with you, and even if it’s not “your dream job” like the ads say – it still pays bills.

So pay your bills and find something better.  The bottom line is that – it’s all about survival.  Just like fighting tigers.  You do what you need to do and you learn new skills if you need to so that you can survive.

No, you’re not going to find a dream job in this economy.  But you may – if you’re careful – find something that keeps you going until you do.  Survival isn’t about surviving better than others – it’s about surviving to better your own circumstances, so that your life it’s about survival.  So that it’s not waking up to a fear of your life – as you know it – suddenly vanishing. 

There are reasons to be afraid, but losing your job isn’t a reason to be afraid.  It’s a reason to hone your skills – sharpen your abilities.  It’s a reason to become better at what you’ve been doing that you’ve ever been.  It’s a reason to learn not to be afraid, not to let yourself become depressed, not to lose track of your goals. 

Your goals.  Not the company you work for.  But yours.  It’s a reason to learn about what your goals are.  But it’s not a reason to panic.  It’s not a reason to be afraid.  There are jobs.

The economy is bad – but it’s not some nightmare.  Bad economies and job cuts are cycles.  If you hone those skills, keep your outlook positive, and you never stop trying to better yourself – you will always be able to find work.

That’s not me saying that – it’s my father.  Because of him I’ve kept that attitude and I’ve always kept myself in work.  If I didn’t have it – I’d find it.  It was his gift to me.  One that I have kept and that’s kept my family well. 

If I can give one gift to people – to friends who are approaching this Christmas season with trepidation, with stress, with fear.  It’s that you don’t have to be afraid.  It really will be all right, and hang in there.  We have the skills, the knowledge, the drive and the ambition to not just survive but thrive.  Because we – are the people – who do not ever want to fight tigers.  We have too much work surviving what is real – to give our time to fighting things and preparing for things that are not. 

Just a few thoughts.

We’re not dead yet…

Been a week or two since I updated so this is going to be quick before I lumber off to work.  The recession isn’t as bad as it might appear.  It’s bad – almost every IT company out there decided to put the breaks on a lot of hiring and dropped the expected wages they’re paying.  But the jobs are still there.  Nationally I just got a ping for over 35 IT Jobs that opened since December 10th – most are east coast related (NY, NH, NJ, FL) although there’s a surprising number from TX and IL that I really didn’t see coming.  Most of these are Dev and Engineering – but there’s a smattering of UI designer and PM type roles.

In the NW USA we’re still seeing a remarkable amount of stuff going on – although most is at MS still around 36 jobs posted through Dice and Careerbuilder since Dec 5th.  Once again – MS leads with Test positions and Dev positions, but has a nice nearly equal compliment of PM jobs.

Had someone ask me how to tell if companies are gearing up for work or completing projects based on job postings… here’s the tip:  If they need more PMs than they do Developers – they’re gearing up and there’s more work coming.  If they’ve got more Developer positions than PM and Test it generally means they aren’t planning they’re completing what they have on their plates.  This is often cyclical so don’t read a whole lot into it.

If you want a good idea of how to predict work in an economy – check comic books.  They’re a luxury item but they’re one that kids save up for – so if the kiddies have money for comics then mom & dad we can guesstimate if times are really tight.  If kids buy a lot of comics – then the allowance is healthy if they buy fewer – then the allowance is down.  As a result the comics industry has always been a good way to tell how hard hit families are in a financial crunch.  They’re one of those trail indicators you don’t think about but watching their wake tells you the size of the destructive forces applied to children.  Hate to be so cold blooded – but economics suck.

Warren Ellis sent off a ping saying the comics industry’s finally feeling the pinch – and his info seems to match up with mine.  It’s not that financially the industry’s gone south yet – tons of work being done and things are being bought – but the fear of the slow down is causing less work.  His recipe for digging out of holes in the comics industry is the same as mine – raise your game up a level or two. 

What every business from Film & Entertainment (Web especially) to  GM & FORD to Marvel Comics and Microsoft has had for the last decade has been an assumed captive market.  Raise your game and create better products or you’re going to get your corporate clocks cleaned by people willing to raise their game and give customers what they want. 

This isn’t the time to get conservative – this is the time to get creative.  To dig deep take some risks (not financially but creatively) and come up with great product.  Warren’s DOKTOR SLEEPLESS is a good example of a comic built and crafted for fans that’s selling in a market where others are slipping back.

Dr. Horrible (from Joss Whedon) is another example – built for fans it was what fans wanted.  It sold beyond well (waaay past expectations)  for no advertising, no budget, and not a lot of time.  But the quality was there and they created a product they knew their target audience would want.

These are the kinds of products that save companies and that’s the strategy needed to pull it out and win. 

That’s all for this week… back to slaving away…

Oh… and for those who haven’t seen it yet – did a new experiment with Vanishing Point in Photoshop and After Effects… it’s up on the web.  A 20 minute wonder here… but always fun to play.   The original here was a still photo of an alley – near canal street as I recall – a bit of adjustment, and wallah… 3D from flat using Vanishing Point in Photoshop to extract the planes for AE.

To belabor the theme of this week’s blog here … if you haven’t picked up a new skill this week you’re not raising your personal game up a notch.  Find something you haven’t done before – and go do it!  If you don’t someone else will.  If you do – you get to choose what it is you want to learn – what it is you want to do – and you’re a lot closer to doing what you want to do in life.  Remember … you can be a passenger or the guy driving the bus in your life.  Do you want to be the guy who gets to tell everyone where they’re going and when they can get off or do you want to be told?  The choice is up to you.

Whats wrong with Google? How the “special sauce” leaves a bad after taste.

I did a search on Google yesterday off my cell phone and got back a handful of weeks, and in some cases months old results.  Nothing surprising there.  So I fired up my web browser – did the same search and got back a dozen fairly good results.  Then I did the same thing with Live Search on both my cell and my browser.

Believe it or not – I find myself using live search more and more.  Google, the old standby for so many things, has to me become a very commercialized and highly productized set of listings that don’t show me what I want when I want them.  Ironically, Live (which I fully think is going to do the same thing eventually for reasons I’ll explain later) seems to be better for not giving me “canned” results.

Anyone remember the “old” internet?  Back in the days when Google was that scrappy up and coming search engine that could find you anything you wanted?  Back when you’d type in “Madonna and Child” and not get listings for the last 3 bad albums or porn sites and instead you’d get a link to a useful story?  Back when instead of getting some Wikipedia entry that may or may not be accurate you’d get links to papers submitted and reviewed at Universities and works out there that actually had some merit?  Yeah, me too.

What we get now is something that’s been shoved through Google’s “special sauce” which gave us the decent search results.  This is good but the problem is that what the Goog’s been cooking up is only as good as it’s ingredients.  The ingredients are being tainted like bad chili by SEO specialists.  These are people that know how to get a page ranked higher – specifically on Google.  Part two of this is also that once the chili is “cooked” it is also vetted by Google’s multi-billion dollar a year advertising program.  So that whatever we search for is sorted in preference based on whatever advertiser has had the SEO juice to flood Googles special sauce with whatever spices are needed to make their results come higher in the list, and again by the usual “paid results get higher rankings” thing.

Don’t get me wrong – I have no issue with Google trying to make money.  I have no issue with anyone trying to make money.  Making money is a good thing.  But you can’t make money if you’re not providing a service which people will use.  Currently many people are moving away from Goog to Live and other search competitors.  This is due in large part because they aren’t getting what they need from Google.

What’s the Goog doing to try to fix this problem?  A lot.  They’ve got people working on the Special Sauce every day to remove these SEO artificially injected ingredients.  But the fact is once you go commercial you can’t go home again.  Just as Microsoft’s #1 real security problem is they own 95% of the desktop market – who wants to code exploits for only 5% of the market or less?  Googles search woes are owed to the fact that they’re the big dog of search.  Google will be faced with these cooking marauders as long as their the top dog in search.  Each time they “fix” the problem – someone will change the ingredients on it again and again.

Live being down on the list isn’t faced with this problem quite so much.  They also have a different approach to the way to they deal with the problem.  They have the advantage of seeing where Google’s method isn’t working so they don’t have to rework an existing model.  They have created completely different models of search technology that take into account SEO modifiers that outsiders use to adjust things.  It’s by no means perfect, but of late I’ve found it’s as good or better than the Goog. 

Time will tell if this pays off for them, but for now, I and many others are taking advantage of their approaches to get us the information we need without the bad after taste of excessively adjusted SEO results.

Reuse and recycling work

I just did a short bit on color correction in video in the previous blog, I demo’d a couple of different things you can do with the same clip to get different color corrections and other basic work with some filters that you can do quickly to get some cool effects with one very badly shot grainy clip.

Probably what I should have mentioned is … never delete your clips when you’re done.  Catalog them and save them.  Even the bad stuff can be often reused on other projects.

A good example is that grainy bad clip.   Since I had the time this morning while waiting on a phone call – I came up with a couple new effects for that same clip.  I saved them because I thought they might be useful.  Each time I do that I save myself some time.  I may not necessarilly use the clip again, but by adding tags to it in my catalog – the next time some one asks me if I can do a cosmic face effect – I can pull that up. 

Here’s the clip….

Making it look like it should…

I’ve had a few emails about getting video to look right.  Shelly and a few others out there know I don’t have the best of cameras – I do almost everything on a old Sony DCR TRV280, which is just barely considered a digital camera.  So – why do my quickies look different than the stuff that Shelly’s getting with her brand spankin new HD camera?  Which isn’t to say her stuff isn’t good – she’s got a great eye, and chooses her shots wisely.  But it does bug you when your visuals aren’t 10 times better than a 8 year old $500 camcorder. 

I also generally don’t take more than 10 minutes to shoot a quickie clip and I also don’t use a lighting kit.  It’s a worst case scenario – but when Shelly and I compared footage recently – mine looked better.  So how did I do it?  Simple.  I retouch my video.  It’s something I’ve always had do to – and just assumed everyone did it these days.   It’s believe it or not the most common and best money maker for anyone who has a budding small video business like our friend Shelly.

With video blogs, video resumes and even local tv commercials for anyone who does video work it’s probably going to be your most common work even though it’s something that most people never think to charge for when they bid a video project.  Cleaning up bad camera skills will take up most of your time.

Whether it’s removing camera shake, or getting the colors back in a face, or removing an over exposure, or just (believe it or not) removing acne - - if people know you can do that, they’ll want it and you can charge for it.

Lets face it – people prefer to have colors that don’t make them look like they’re in a zombie movie… unless they’re in… a zombie movie.  In some cases, you may have people ask you to do that as well, but they’ll never ask if they don’t know that you can do it.  So you’ll need a good demo of color correction and adjustment techniques that you can do.  The practice of this kind of work on a variety of clips will help you get a good idea how how long it takes to do this work, and what you should be charging for it.  I’m not going to go into details on how to do color correction because it will depend on the software and the hardware you have. 

If you’ve got Ulead or some lower end semi-pro software the techniques will be completely different than say Adobe or Pinnacle or others.  So – do a bit of searching on the web for color correction for your software.  Keep in mind you’ll need to know that the colors you’re producing may be different so – practice, view the footage on different monitors, practice, practice.  The steps may seem similar but there’s nothing worse than a blog that tells you to use a $5,000 piece of software that you don’t have so I won’t do that to you.  But a bit of research and you’ll get what you need.  I’ve seen great tutorials on everything from Movie Maker to AE, and even some very high end stuff like Lyric and others.  All free – all very good.

A good example of this is that I did two versions of the demo for this blog – one in an un-named very expensive program I’m currently demoing to see if I want to buy it (I probably will) and another in the freebie Microsoft Movie Maker.  I know MM inside and out – took me 10 minutes and I had a clip ready to publish that the end result is the one you see in the link below.  The $5,000 program… spent 20 minutes, and the results were… less than satisfying because I really don’t know it well yet.  It decided to do a number of things for me I didn’t ask it to – and the footage quality from it is … well blurry, soft, and worse than the Movie Maker stuff or if I’d just rendered it directly from another program.  So – practice.  Learn, practice.  When you’re ready to use the big boy toys … use’em.  But never show off your stuff unless it’s of a quality you want people to see.

In some cases – it’s nothing more than just loading up the footage and adjusting some color curves to get the values right for the shot.  In others you’ll need to do some masking.  For example the color corrected shot above – the face is color corrected with one set of curves, the background received another.  Similarly in the day-for-night shot shown here I had to pull out the face and go with an almost pitch black.  (I might also want to add some shadows from a 3D layer … it depends on how far you want to take it.) You get the idea.

Each of these requires a different level of color correction and adjustment.  So – make sure who you’re doing this for knows that there is a big difference in price between the kind of work needed for a wedding and the kind of work needed for a network TV commercial shot.  That price is how hard you have to work to make it look good.  Never show someone a “miracle” shot that took you 40 hours of work, and allow them to think this is nothing more than clicking a few buttons… Miracles=expensive, basic band aids = cheap.

And if you’re looking a highly advanced techniques for color correction – you may be looking as spending as much time as you would to animate something in a full video composite. It’s a big part of your cost, and even if it is just your time when you’re running a business it’s something you have to be willing to cost out for – which we tend to forget when we’ve taken a hobby or something we enjoy and turn it into a business.

I recommend that you learn all you can about color correction, often the most subtle color corrections on a clip are the most difficult to pull off. There are a whole slew of things you need to consider – the main character of the shot will require a different lighting than anyone else (masking and overlay), the background may need to be softened or sharpened and color corrected as well (another set of masks and overlays as well as curves), will you be needed to track the masks in the shot using motion tracking – and do they need to have some shots that will be rotoscoped? 

Sure – you can make it look like a million bucks, and for a good customer, client or friend – it may well be worth it.  But most will not expect you to create a miracle shot.  Just a good simple clean image that looks nice, gives a good flesh tone and definition. 

And… It also helps if the person you’re shooting… doesn’t look like they haven’t slept since they got off a flight from Chicago two days ago because they’ve been doing all nighters writing a video camera application on the side for kids… but that’s another project, and will require I shave, eat, and maybe get some sleep.  :-)  Over all – your cheapest solution is of course to consider your lighting, take a white balance and shoot it so it doesn’t require correction if possible.

Consulting Tips – more notes from the field…

In keeping with posts for those who want to start a consultancy – I asked consultants on several forums what they considered were “Must Haves” to be consultants.

Mind you, most of these people travel (a lot) so there’s a section here for just travel needs. 

On the professional side of the house – your professional needs – you had the more common items.  Business Licenses – which many states have not just a requirement that Consultants be licensed, but also they have additional State and in some cases local taxes for that profession.  Some also require that you have Professional Liability Insurance as well – so check your state to make sure you have that covered.

They also reminded me of the need to actually have contracts on hand – something that when a client is ready to sign on the dotted line, you can have them sign on the dotted line.  Some pointed out they need not be physical contracts – you can always print one up a at a Kinko’s.  But talk to an attorney about getting a good basic contract for services that you can fill in the blanks for (generic standard form) and if you offer a specific service which requires additional language often enough, have them draft up one of those as well.  No one specifically mentioned an attorney but you get the impassion it’s not a bad idea to swing by one and get their take on your business as well.

One thing they all do seem to agree on and I second – is that you find yourself an accountant, or at the very least really good accounting software and learn how to use it so you can hand that over to an accountant for taxes.

Next came another lesson I found interesting – get several bank accounts and use them for their purposes.  A Business account for day-to-day business activities.  A Savings fund for “rainy day” and “misc” unexpected expenses that come up.  A second savings fund for taxes (you may as well earn interest on it if you have to pay it to IRS).  A personal account for you – and place 10% from every check in there.  That’s yours, once its in there – pretend like it doesn’t exist.  Don’t touch it – don’t think about touching it – once every so often, you should take that and roll it into a 401k or other plan for your retirement.

• Professional Needs
• Business and Professional Licensees 
• Contracts (Standard form and Specific Clause)
• Personal Insurance
• Health
• Life
• Professional (Consultant) Liability Insurance
• Accountant (or Good Accounting Software)
• Way of calculating and handling taxes
• Bank Accounts:
• Business Account
• Business Savings Fund 1 (Misc)
• Business Savings Fund 2 (Taxes)
• Personal Account Savings (Bonus/Benefits

Next, we ran into suggestions for Business Needs – specifically equipment.  A good laptop and a desktop – and make sure you set aside a small budget to buy yourself a new one every 18 months was a really great tip. 

Cell Phones were next.  Some said Blackberries others iPhones, Win Mobile… bottom line – any good cell phone that can keep you in touch with your mail.  But a very very wise consultant also tossed this one out as a great tip.  For about $30 you can also get a pre-paid phone and for about $5 a month he keeps just enough minutes on it to keep it always ready.  Get one – keep it and it’s charger in your luggage.  If you lose or damage your regular cell – you’re never without one.

Home offices everyone had suggestions – but the most common is to have at least a quiet room you can work from and take calls.

Presence was another area people had opinions on, some said a blog was all they needed, others said they had a fully professional website.  Still others just a page, a blog, and so on. 

Here’s my take.  For $15-45 a month you can get yourself a nice website and have your own domain and your own email address to that domain.  (Office Live can even get you started for free – and move everything over to a paid site. The free site comes along with project and document repositories you can share with customers and coworkers and clients even).  I personally pay about $39 a month for mine and I never use half of it’s features. 

One feature I do use – and I use a lot is the Online Shared Folders.  I often back up my most recent work there.  Anyone who’s ever lost a laptop – had something crash and burn – knows that losing what you’re working on is harsh.  Do that 1,000 miles from your back ups and at a customer site is devastating. 

Skydrive is free and you get 5 gb.  There are dozens of other locations out there.  Windows Live Mesh is a personal savior to me.  Between that and Skydrive and my Office Live folders I’ve got a good 30 gb stored in the cloud that can never be destroyed and I can access from anywhere – even an Airport Kiosk. 

Your presence is who you are as a company.  Put the money out and do this right. 

Next… here’s a blast from the past.  Business cards.  Put your name, put your email, your phone and your web address on it.  Nothing else.  No titles.  Keep it professional and simple.  People do keep them – and people DO remember you when you hand them out.  Simple cards like I mention here you can get from Overnight Prints or other Web printers for 250 for $10-12. 

Next part of your presence is your online identity.  Google yourself.  If you don’t like what you see – then get rid of it.  If you have a myspace page that you wouldn’t share with a customer – get rid of it.  I don’t care if it is your “personal” space.  Clients and customers may see it and they won’t care if the reason you were stripped to your underwear singing LaVida Loco was at a college party 10 years ago. 

Scrub your own google records.  Or accept that someone else will.  Some people have the opposite problem you google them and there’s nothing.  SO – get that website up.  And while you’re at it hit the rest of the social network sites and build up a presence that speaks well of you.

We’re talking LinkedIn, Facebook, and some other professional sites.  I would avoid MySpace and similar sites like the plague as in my experience they’re hard to maintain.  By “maintain” – I mean this – if you go out to blogger or wordpress and create a blog (seperate from your web site) you can then use the RSS feed from that blog to actually feed your blog postings to many social websites at once.

This particular blog entry will feed Facebook, LinkedIn and 3 other sites I’m on.  I post once… and I’m updating 3+ web presences.  Kind of like being your own personal syndication system. 

And since we’re mentinoning LinkedIn, there are now an abundance of “professional” boards out there.  Xing, Ning, Ling, Ting, Ping, Pong, you name it the list goes on and on.   Pick the ones you actually want to participate in and do so.  Spreading yourself too thin is a mistake. 

One thing you may want to do – is open a PayPal account to do on line transactions. 

Many online freelancer sites work with PayPal so if you’re going to doing any work from them – I’d suggest you have one.  You may want to look into some of these as they’re not bad places I’m told to get bits of side work. 

I found LimeExchange, TechRepublic and Guru.com to be fairly good places.  Nothing I’d survive off of – but there is work there. GetAFreelancer.com seems to be over run with competition that is questionable at best … and always willing to bid at minimum wage or lower.  Just my experience – your actual mileage may vary.

• Business Needs
• Equipment & Supplies
• Computer
• Cell Phone
• Cards
• Office (at least a quiet room)
• Presence
• Website
• Email
• Blog(s)
• Shared Folders
• Cards
• PayPal
• Accounts with OnLine Providers
• LimeExchange
• TechRepublic
• Guru
• Others (GetAFreeLancer)
• Social Networks
• LinkedIn
• FaceBook
• (Xing,Ling,Ning,TheLadders…)

Lastly we come to Travel needs for a consultant.  Every good consultant needs a passport. It’s an official 2nd form of ID, it’s needed for travel and in general it’s handy to have and kinda cool.

You may not be traveling to Brussels – but instead to the suburbs so make sure that you have a travel budget.  Set aside enough cash as you build your business so that you at least have enough cash to pay for regular car maintenance for your vehicle and 1 tickets air fare to somewhere.  (Use it for a vacation at the end of the year was a great tip someone mentioned.)

Get an emergency credit card – basically a card that has a very very low balance on it (paypal was suggested by one person).  If you don’t like that – it was suggested that you always keep $300 cash in your suitcase.  Basically the idea is always have that ready in case of an emergency.

The same goes with a spare change of professional clothes (most said they just kept them in the wrapping believe it or not).  And with the rest of the back ups they also said to make sure you have spare chargers for any devices you depend on a lot.

• Travel Needs
• Passport
• Travel Budget account (1 trips worth)
• Car Service (Regular Maintenance)
• Decent Luggage
• Emergency Credit Card(s) ($300 limit)
• 1 Set of Spare Clothes (Unopened)
• Backup Power / Cables for any equipment (Laptop, Cell, etc.)
• Throw Away Cell Phone

Accurate Photo Retouching

Everyone out there who has kids knows the pain of dealing with Senior Portraits.  

Here’s a few tips from a buddy of mine over at Zone13 Photographics. 

First things first… get your exposures right.  Separate the main focus of the picture from the background (Photoshop is my preferred tool – but these tips apply to most tools). 

Next – reduce the saturation levels in the back – and boost them in the front.  We don’t want to wash out the picture – we just want it to have a nice over all tone to it. 

You’ll note my daughters a bit dark in the pic, and as with everyone (including most name actresses) her skin has some blemishes.  A touch of blur here, a bit of dodging tool there… now we can actually see her face, and the hives from holding an animal in the picture they took earlier are now… gone. 

 

When retouching it’s important to remember that you’re not there to make them perfect.  As much work as this may seem it’s mostly a bit of lighting.  Where I did over do it – I cut out the section as a layer, and then used Opacity to let her natural skin to actually show through the blurs.  And this is the difference between a retouched photo and an “accurate” retouched photo.  Yes, my daughter no longer has the eyes of a raccoon, and her skin is clearer.  Even though this does give her a very different appearance – it’s actually what she looks like when she’s not standing under a tree that casts shadows and uneven lighting.

Then we went through and did contrast and saturation adjustments on the fore image and the back image.  Play around – and make sure you work on a copy of the original image.  It’s easy to make a mistake and not all software will let you go back and fix things.

Now, if you’re time strapped – there are if you have Photoshop (and some other tools which also accept these plug-ins) some very nice plug-ins from a great company called Topaz.  These can do a lot of the work for you, and my personal favorite is one called “Topaz Vivacity”.   I’m a huge fan of these for the cost.  I’ve probably spent enough on plug-ins for AE, Photoshop, etc., over the years to buy a small car – and hands down I go to the stuff from Topaz over and over for almost everything. 

If you’re tight on time – and tight on cash they really make you look like a rock star.  So – if you have Photoshop, and you have Senior Portraits coming – ask for a copy of the pics in raw format if possible from the photographer.  I understand a lot of photographers now just include them as they did back in the days of “negatives”, so they shouldn’t look at you too funny if you ask. 

It’s a lot cheaper for you – if you have a little artist in you – to do photo retouchings than having them do it.  But try to remember these simple rules when you do photo retouching for people:

1) It’s not about cool.  It’s about making someone look good. 
2) Never make it too obvious it’s been retouched.  Always leave a little imperfection to it. 
3) Color, Contrast, details are important.  Try to keep these at all costs on the main subject.
4) Remember it’s for them – not you.  If they want something you really don’t like… tell them why you don’t like it nicely, but always yield to the person who has to live with the end product.

When you’re done… you may want to try several looks – each only slightly different to see what plays well with people.  Each of the images below is slightly different – I’m going to let my daughter choose which one we go with.  That is always the telling sign for any Accurate Retouching – if the person you’re doing the retouching for likes it. 

 

Consultant vs. Contractor what’s the difference?

Ever wonder why a Consultant charges double what a Contractor does and doesn’t even hint at looking guilty for it?

A friend of mine asked me why I had different rates for one and why they were so … out of whack.  Here’s a tid bit most people do not know.  If you have a family and you’re a “Consultant” you actually have to double your rate if you want to make the same as a Contractor, and it’s – believe it or not – almost 2 1/2 times to get the same benefits as a Full Time Employee. 

The short answer is a Consultant has to pay for everything themselves.  This includes a 19% (or higher) Federal Income Tax, a 6.5% Social Security Tax, and another 1.54% tax for Medicare.  If you live in some states (like I do) there’s actually a tax you have to pay for doing business as a consultant (.0754 on every dollar), and other local taxes and business fees (add another 1.5%).  So … right off the bat – your costs are waaay higher than a contractor. 

The next cost you’re hit with is health care (you can verify these numbers on the links provided if you’d like).  For a married man, with 2 kids you can expect to pay anywhere from $975 to $265 a month for insurance … depending on if you actually want to be covered or just like paying $275 a month for a policy that you probably can’t use. (www.ehealthinsurance.com)  This by the way … does not include dental – or vision coverage under any of the plans (nope – not even the $975 a month plan).   So there’s another huge of your check there.

Most consultants have to provide their own phones, and equipment too.  And there’s no “auto upgrade every 3 years” as when you’re working for a corporation.  So you need to set aside at budget to replace your stuff every year or so.  You should – if you’re smart, put aside 10% of every check to cover equipment, phones, and misc. expenses like unexpected travel. 

All of these – you get when you work for someone, and they add up quickly.  A consultant who’s expected to travel needs to be able to travel on short notice, so you have to have that ability.  The job won’t wait for a re-imbursement check.  Which, btw, you’ll probably want to have a lawyer look over your contracts if they’re long term.  A lot of times you will find that a Consultant signs away rights to a lot of things and locks himself into very expensive situations because they’re not a lawyer.  (Case in point – know of one guy who signed a consulting agreement that said he’d be paid $40 a day for travel… fine when he was in the Bay area.  Then they stated sending him to London twice a month…. and yes… they expected him to pay the air fare and room in England.)  

So … read the fine print or get someone to do it for you – you no longer have a legal team or group travel planner to help you.  And in order to keep track of all this with the IRS – you need to (if you have half a brain) hire an accountant… so 10% from every check… goes to all of that goodness.

So – here’s some fun math… a Consultant who expects to make $100,000 a year vs. a Contractor who makes $100,000 a year.  Below is a an actual table of how I’d have to calculate my rate – and this is a very basic table.  It doesn’t include quite a few expenses you’d usually have to do business.

Salary	$100,000
Taxes
FICA Match	$19,990
Social Security	$6,540
Medicare	$1,540
WA Business	$308
Hard Expenses
Cable/Internet	$1,800
Insurance
Business Insurance	$600
Health Insurance	$7,200
Misc. Work Expenses
Certifications, Legal, Etc.	$3,000
Books / Educational	$1,200
Computer Equipment	$2,500
Office Equipment	$500
Total	$145,178
Recommended Rate ($145,178/1440 Billable Hours)	$101

This of course brings up a couple more points for the lowly consultant to consider… “Billable Hours”.

Consultants start out with about 2080 hours in the year they can bill.  From that you subtract Holidays (which though they can work, most of their clients don’t – so no billing there.).  Next subtract any Sick Days you’re going to have.  What you don’t think Consultants don’t get sick?  Try flying on a plane packed with 150 potential flu carriers twice a week and NOT get sick. 

It’ll happen – trust me, and no client wants you infecting their staff and bringing down an entire team’s worth of work for 3 days.  Sick means you don’t work – it has nothing to do with “you could work” – it has to do with the client doesn’t want you there.   

Next – are what I like to call “soft hours”.  This is where you, have to do what every business does – determine how much time is lost to locating new clients, going to training, conferences, and the like – which are where you find the lions share of your work often. Better plan for that. 

Finally – you need to consider how long it will be between assignments – and if you’re first starting out that might be a while.  Every business has this as a cost.  As a Consultant you’re no different than anyone else – you have to figure this as an expense of doing business.  You can’t bill a client for soft time – but it’s still an expense to you.  So you need to calculate that into your rate.

Here’s a rough idea of what “Billable Hours” for a year would look like for you:

Billable Hours	2080
Holidays	80
Sick Time	40
Conferences	40
Available Hours to Bill	1920
Downtime %	25%
Downtime Loss	480
Total Billable Hours	1440

Now if I was still young and single and wasn’t picky about health care, and I didn’t need a house with enough room for 3 more people … well you get the idea, I could eat many of these costs – work more hours, etc., and so on.  Single people have a real advantage in being able to be consultants.  Which is why you see that more than married people.

But enough soap boxing… you asked for what the difference in rate fees was between a Consultant and a Contractor?  That’s it pretty much.  It’s a question of working for yourself vs. working for someone else.

By and large – I prefer to work for someone else.  Consulting pays well – and as you can see, if you want to be very successful at it you have to charge a pretty penny.  Most businesses will pay that pretty penny because they have no attachment to you, to the job you’re doing.  Once it’s completed – it’s done you go away and they would have had to pay those costs anyway if they’d hired someone.  But if they hired someone for it – they’d have had to go through the headache of finding you more work. 

If they hire a contracting firm – well the firm essentially has to pay all of those expenses and most businesses assume they do.  What the reality is – is that most Contracting firms offer pretty much useless health care and other benefits.  Often times you have to work 6 months just to get sick days or holiday pay.  (In fact my last contract I was hired in late October, and so had to deal with 3 weeks of vacations for which everyone else got paid … and I didn’t right during the Xmas season.)

In essence – as a Contractor your life pretty much sucks.  But there is the fact that most companies only hire a Consultant if they absolutely need that specific skill or expertise, so it’s hard to get a consistent Consulting gig.  So – Contracting is more popular with companies and provides more work.  Consulting provides better income and benefits – but less work.  Full Time Employees of course – have the benefits of both – but that’s even harder in many cases to find work of equivalent pay. 

That’s my take on it… hope that helps explain a few things.

Ina Fried, Larry Dignan, what a way to go…

CNet did a few bits on Windows on the OLPC.  Which is great for those of us who worked on making that happen.  So… without any further adieu… here’s where you can find these gems.

I think Ina’s comments were pretty fair and right on track.  Obviously – Sugar’s something that is very cute.  There are criticisms that its more of a suped leap frog under Sugar – which is also unfair.  Sugar, for what it’s designed for is very good.  But keep in mind Sugar is not meant for taking a child much past a very early learning level.  Constructionist learning is a good starting point.  But to me, it’s really not a long term education solution.  Apparently this concern is matched by a lot of educators and governments. 

For that – you need the ability to have a unit that can allow someone to compete, match the capabilities of other students – not just in the same school but in schools all over the world, and also to provide a growth story.  Okay, so the Windows interface isn’t cute – but as has been shown over and over – it is easy enough for even small kids to work with. 

Larry Dignan, gives us his take on this issue here… in his blog entitled “OLPC meets XP: Does charm matter?”. 

But to be honest I think they need to re-evaluate the statement “The kid-friendly programming tool Scratch is one of the few software pieces that exists in the same form on both Windows and Linux versions of the XO laptop.”.  

There are actually a lot – in fact, almost every software piece you can run on one … you can run on the other.  Any limitations would largely be on the hardware itself.  But… you can check that out for yourself. 

There’s even a full Sugar virtual machine on the OLPC Wiki site that you can download and run on Windows XP.   But check out the stuff on Cnet – and find out more about this for yourself. 

As for me – my last day on the project was yesterday.  So I’m moving on to other things.  It’s been a great project to work on and extremely rewarding.  I look forward to seeing more great things about Windows on this little green box. 

---

Some points of clarification and updates to this blog:

* I mentioned that there’s an emulator for a virtual machine of the OLPC.  This is for the SUGAR based OLPC – not the Windows version. And the intent was to allow people who wanted to experience the Sugar interface to check it out for themselves. You can find out more about this here:  http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Emulating_the_XO/Quick_Start/Windows 

You can also download the CNET Podcast for this at:
http://podcast-files.cnet.com/podcast/cnet_podcast102408.mp3

Presentation Quality Levels

I had a request to give people some ideas on how to demo to clients video stuff on a shoe string.  Now, that’s kind of been a theme for the last few blogs so I’m guessing that “shoe string” means that a lot of people out there are looking to start small businesses on the side to help pay some bills.  :-)  A wise choice in this economy, and it’s always a good one.

Years ago I had my own business and I’ll never forget how hard it was to get clients to sit down and listen to your pitch.  What I found is that you keep it short and sweet.  Bullet points.  And when it comes to looking like a professional outfit and the use of Bullet Points … PowerPoint is your buddy. 

So first – understand that it doesn’t matter how good your presentation is – if there’s no facts.  The one I’m showing here – has no real facts.  Just flashy looks that I pulled together in about an hour or so, using existing work.  So – first know what makes your product a good buy.  You need to be able to show your customers how it’s going to benefit them. 

Since the request was for a video business – let’s look at what you can do for them.  Video isn’t just about making movies – it’s about making a business look good.  Start with their brand – and understand it.  As a video company you have the ability to bring a brand to the next level.  Make a nice quality demo reel – and make sure it includes their logo.  Keep it short – 15 to 60 seconds – no more.  You’re going to give them a taste – not a meal. 

Begin with your presentation slide – which just has their name on it, and the ad campaign or purpose of the presentation.

Next – open with that 15 Second clip.  Let them see it – make it big.  Since you can put the Video right into the PowerPoint – yes, it allows you to put the video on a slide.  Do that with whatever logo, text or other info you want.

You’ll probably want to go back to this slide from time to time after the presentation so they can see it for themselves.  And don’t be afraid to say – this is what you came up with on your own,  you’d really want to tailor this to their ideas and expectations.  In fact – ask for those suggestions directly, and make sure you take notes when they speak but keep the conversation going.  You need them to become involved in the production, even though they aren’t yet. 

Initial impressions from a client often give you a lot of valuable information.   Even if they hate it.  In some cases negative feedback is better than positive feedback.  With negative feedback you can put together a list of what they want.  With positive feedback it’s harder to get that list.   This isn’t the time to let them bog you down though – show them how you came to those conclusions that this was a direction.  Show them why they need your product.  If you have numbers showing cost effectiveness, or increased views – or anything like that to support you – now is when you bring them up. 

 So get those numbers or facts – and distill them down to the top 3-5 reasons.  Memorize these.  Include them in your verbal pitch.  Show them you have some idea how their business currently can benefit and that you actually looked into their business?

How?  How do you get this info… Well, by doing a bit of research on the internet.  Almost every business has a web site – and if they don’t their competitors do.  Find out all you can about their business, and find out what it is they make money off of – cars, houses, coffee houses, hotels – know their business enough to list 3-5 ways they can benefit from what you’re offering them.

This also helps by knowing that most small businesses do not have… a brand.  Branding is something big businesses talk about and small to medium businesses have but don’t know they have usually.  So put up a slide that shows that you understand their brand.  But make sure that you do.  Are they a very small homey business?  Well – then probably going with a very big uber clean steel and chrome look won’t work.  But there is always something about a business that makes it that business.  That’s their identity.  Sometimes the problem is – they have no identity.  So you need to provide them with one.  Show them you understand where they’re coming from – and if possible where they want to go. 

Next… do a little footwork.  Go out and ask people what they think – or get some statistics that prove your point.  Show your customer that what you provide or how you provide what they currently have can work for them. 

By doing that footwork and research - you show that you actually did do the home work of trying to understand their business.  Whatever you can get is helpful – just not too much.  So use statistics, can use man-on-the-street interviews or surveys, you can do this many ways. 

But don’t just say, “Hey I think your business needs…” – back it up.  Show them you’re not alone in your thinking – and that you have a valid reason for it.  Now – some business will tell you straight up that’s not the look, the feel, the way they want to do things. 

If that’s not the direction the business wants – then dig in and find out what direction they DO want to go into.  What do they think the challenges are?  Where are their customers?  Let them know you’d like to put something together to reflect that – that you’re really sincere about making sure you’re giving them the best you can – and making them look the best they can.

 Words are great.  But back it up.  A lot of times people have no idea how to use a product.  So show them how.  Give them an idea of how you see this being used.  Web Videos, TV Commercials, Word of mouth – however you see the product being used… put together a game plan because a lot of small businesses don’t have an idea how, who, what or why.  They just know they need something.  You’re the professional – so give them the info they need.  You’re not saying', “go do this…”, you’re just suggesting these as uses.  The final decision is always up to the customer. 

It’s not a bad idea – to even have a demo set up.  Maybe a web based player like this showing the demo you previewed….

If you have an alternate – or more – include a couple (no more than 3 if possible) to show other ways you can play it out and that you have the flexibility to really shine for them. 

Like I say, keep it short – 15-60 second blips and only a few of them.  I can almost 100% guarantee they will assume that your showing them the final product.  Make sure they understand you’ve gone in a direction – and you want them to really help and direct you to the right direction for their business. 

Sometimes they’ll suggest stuff that just… isn’t good. Find out out strongly they feel about this –  see if you can compromise, but as a rule even if it’s not good… do it.

Because – and this is very hard for creative type people to understand sometimes… the customer is always right. Even when they’re wrong – the customer is always right. 

 

Last but not least… always close with a way for them to ask for more information and give them a copy of the presentation. 

I like to put all of this on a CD or a USB stick – with an Autorun file so it runs whenever it’s plugged in.  To do this copy your completed PowerPoint  and compile it using the PowerPoint viewer so in case they don’t have a copy of PowerPoint it will work.  (Make sure you include all the videos you need on the USB.)  Test it a few times on different machines to make sure it works… and you’re ready. 

 

Now… one final point.  If you’re like my friend Shelly (who asked for this) you may not have a big portfolio yet – and that is hard to over come.  A good way I learned in my business when I was starting out, to get business was to offer to do it for free.  Explain to them you’re starting out – you need a portfolio built, and you’re willing to do the job for free (or cost) so that you can include it in your portfolio of professional work.

Almost no business ever turns down free.  So use them to build up your profile.  You’d be surprised how many times I’d done work pro-bono that later they came back and asked for updates – or completely new work.   Often they would show it off to other businesses – and generate work for you.

Hey … it’s worth a shot, and for a business like Shelly’s, her own effort is the biggest cost.  Once you have done a “pro-bono” – a freebie.  Never do them again unless it’s a charity.  Remember, regardless of how it may seem somedays – you are a business.

---

You can download the PowerPoint Presentation above (although I’m not sure why you’d want to…) at:
PowerPoint Presentation for CoffeeCup

---

Streaming Media on a Budget

Okay … so the last time I blogged… it was to show the differences between Silverlight and Flash for video made a difference even for someone who say … didn’t have the resources of MSNBC or a big name video production. 

I did a high def video – posted it to “free” website and just let the video load into the silverlight player directly from the web.  Very high quality – very low cost – very little time.

David Sayed, from the Microsoft Expression Encoder sent me a very nice ping pointing out that Microsoft actually offers Silverlight developers (and actually anyone) the ability to steam your video also – and it is also free. 

So in the spirit of free (since we all like free) let’s say you’ve created a really cool video, and you want to put this out there for everyone.  Go to silverlight.live.com – and sign up for an account if you don’t have one.  It’ll probably take all of 5 minutes of your life.

Next – click on the handy links – upload your file… (or if you have MS Expression Encoder 2 – use the cool plug in for uploading right to the silverlight.live.com site) and you’re ready to go. 

 

And… as you can see the results are shown above.    Or you can provide a link to other applications or tools:  http://silverlight.services.live.com/18150/Silverlight%20Downtown%20Demo/video.wmv

Does Silverlight make a difference?

 

A lot is being said about Silverlight.  Is it as good as Adobe Flash, is it all hype, what's the difference, and all those great questions.  Now one of the things that's been hyped (a lot) is that Silverlight really allows sites like NBC or CBS to stream very high levels of quality.  It's generally assumed by many critics that the standard user can't make use of this level of quality. 

 

This side project is actually to put that theory to the test.  Below is a demo reel I created in Adobe After Effects, Photoshop, and Particle Illusion.  I used a photo of a street Occidental Park, Seattle - a crater from, and did a small explosion type blast.  Okay - it's just below the quality of an episode of Dr. Who and I'm not going to win an Academy award - but the point is - it was also done, cradle to grave, one man, two hours effort.

 

The reason I went with particle generators - which btw - in I intentionally made overly large, so you can see the polygons of the particles.  Under high definition conditions they'll be visible clearly.  (In real footage - you'd want to tweak that down so it looks more realistic and do a better job on the blending with the actual footage.)  The idea here is to compare how well it plays, and if the quality levels are noticeable.

You’ll see right away – they are. Partially because of these massive particles actually having a nice polygon shape in the SIlverlight – and just being annoying blurs in the Flash Player.  

 

The footage was then compressed using Expression Encoder 2 - which generated a nice HD wmv file of the clip you see below.  I located a very off the side "free webhosting" company and set up an account there.  I didn't go with a GoDaddy or a iPowerweb (which is my preference) because I wanted to see what you get... for free.

 

Here's a demo reel of a HD 720p video in Sliverlight - run from HTML off a free web hosting site:

 

 

Now if you're playing this the first time you'll see the percentages of footage downloaded running it.  This allows slow connections - and btw, this is actually hosted on a standard HTML free website I've set up.  There's no media server involved - it's just a plain 15 mb wmv file downloaded through the web, and as you can see the quality doesn't suffer.  Click on the full screen link - and compare this with the same clip that's running through a flash based player below.  It becomes pretty obvious which offers the better quality.

 

Now there are those that are saying, "Yeah but the flash player re-encodes..." - which is precisely a big part of the problem.  When it's re-encoded it loses a lot of the quality.  Now, mind you - I don't have to use a HD 720 file - I could just as easily have settled for the same screen size in a high quality format that would have generated a file 1/2 or even 1/4 of the size for the Silverlight.  Even when I did this - it wasn't a competition on visual quality.

 

 

If you're a geek - you will also note that I've intentionally put together a video clip that's got massive particle animations in it.  Something that ordinarilly would cause a lot of artifacting and you'd lose the clarity of the flames and smoke.  We could add in debris and camera shake and all the usual goodies.  To really see the quality level - scroll over the image and switch to full screen mode.  This is why you're hearing the hype over Silverlight. 

 

Because with a bit of effort the average person can with very minimal resources and not even a streaming media server, bring a high quality (network tv level) experience to their web site, and do it very quickly.  Start to finish - this project took about two hours of my time, and most of it was on getting the flames and smoke right. 

 

Now the question is - "Do you really need that kind of quality?".  Thats up to you.  I suspect that those businesses that want the professional look and feel are going to ask for it.  I also suspect that Flash is going to have to up it's quality levels to match - and they should be able to do so. 

 

Personal videos, corporate films and the like - have a whole new level of play than they have had to date.  You'll see amazing things over the next year or two coming, and I will openly predict that we'll be seeing more and more original Web TV shows coming our way.  (Shameless plug here for Gemini Division, Dr. Horrible, and others I've written about recently.)

 

I'm guessing I'll probably have to put up a nice video entry here soon to really show off what I'm talkign about by "personal" video moving up to this level of play - but that's another project.  Yes there will probably be a "Silverlight vs. Flash" argument on the web for sometime and we, as developers and designers we will need to deal with the issue. 

 

For me - the choice is going to be clear.  I'll provide the user the option to do both.  I'll set up my web pages to detect if they have the plug-in installed and offer the option to the user to download the plugin if they want - or use flash if they don't. 

 

You can view the full clip in it's original size at:
http://jakobson.site90.net/silverlight/downtown.html 

Silverlight, Advertainment, What am I talking about?

 

Was talking to my daughter today who mentioned she knew several people that didn't have TVs and watched most of their video entertainment on the computer.  I actually know two people I work with who similarly have replaced their TV with the Internet.   Where I don't see this being the trend right away, over the next few years I have no doubt more and more we'll see this. 

Which ties in with some comments I've gotten from people and feedback asking what the heck I'm talking about with Silverlight and Advertainment and new media and Web 3.0.

How does it tie in?  Well - let's for arguments sake remove the concept that Web 3.0 is some tetonic change in how we use the web.  Let's instead go with the idea that Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 are not dramatic shifts as we've seen in the media but actually a series of steps taken over a long period that culminated in something the news organizations could hang their hat on and say, "We dub thee 2.0" or whatever.

If that's the case then 2.0 was old news when Facebook and MySpace and blogging were "born" in the eyes of the masses -- and in fact - they were.  Just as Google had been around for years before it was a phenomenon. 

That being the case I decided to look at what people are doing and what people have been doing - and where it's all heading in my view.  Here's what we're seeing...

People are using YouTube and MySpace and FaceBook and online gaming so much - that yes, TV that bastion of brain sucking numbness now has to move on to the Web to compete. 

How many people are devoting their time to the internet's new media?  The YouTubes and on line video content?  Here's something that will make you chuckle - recent studies show there is a drop in on line pornography because users want to watch Youtube.

For the first time ever - Pornography's numbers are dropping - why? Well we're not entirely sure but it does look for all the world that the culprit is simply - we're giving people something more to do that surf the web and locate porn.  In a word - content. 

The higher the quality of the content - the more people are drawn away from TVs, the more are drawn away from Porn sites and the more advertisers are looking at new ways to make this all work before they lose those billions they're spending ineffectively.

Advertainment - is something we've actually seen for decades.  You'd think the video game industry came up with the idea from hearing them tell the story but there's virtually no product you see in a TV or Movie that wasn't placed there. 

Advertainment is just a refined version of the same concept - you place products into things without people knowing so they become a culturally significant icon and you buy them without thinking. 

When we combine the Internet - and Advertainment we get completely new and very interesting ways of merging the two.

I mentioned in my last post that with the right masking - you can put anything you want on a background or a billboard or even a tv set on a live action video. 

Now - here's where you bring in Silverlight - and I probably should issue a patent on this process but probably someone else already has.  (If not - it's MINE!  MINE I SAY!! <laughs in best Gollum voice ... then chokes>).

For a popular video distributed on line free for fans to watch the process is actually pretty simple if you have silverlight (yes - it can be done with Flash but Flash is not as good with swapping out timelines and video - IMHO).  Silverlight - for me, makes it easier so it makes more sense to do it with Silverlight.

You'd first begin by designing your advertainment process.  Here's how I'd do mine - I'd set it up so first and foremost we have a good video script.

If the content itself is no good - then people won't come.  If they don't come - you can't get the ad dollars.  So first thing is to have good content that stands on it's own.  So let's assume that you have good content and people will enjoy it on it's own merit. 

This is actually the mistake of Gemini Division IHMO - it's really cool, it's technically well done but the plot makes no sense and there's all the depth of a mud puddle in this show.  Okay - that's not fair at all.

The mistake with Gemini is not that the content isn't good.  The content is great, Rosario Dawson's always a joy and she's joined by a solid supporting cast. 

The lack of support here isn't coming from the show. I went back and watched it from start to finish this evening to locate how I got the feeling that it lacked depth. 

It's the abbreviated format that seems to be necessitated by the Internet.  Each episodes around 5-10 minutes which is very little time for even the best writers and actors to develop a good empathy each episode. 

Since we're looking at taking it all in short bursts of 5 minutes or so - there's a lot of plot that you can miss out on if you view them out of order or worse skip an episode or two.  To  really enjoy it you need to watch them in bursts chained, which is how they're doing the show on the www.geminidivision.com website.  Go check it out and you can see how this all comes together nicely. 

Fans of SciFi will go there - some will become addicted.  (I just received an email while editing this from someone pointing me to a fan forum that's already speculating spoilers for the show.  I love it!  You know you've arrived as a TV series if you have a spoiler site with fan fiction.)   The addiction, the fun of the show, will cause it to become the phenomenon they're looking for.  This in turn will give the advertisers the guts to push the limits of entertainment on line I'm hoping that we'll see episodes that allow them to be longer - let the characters have more room to work per episode - that sort of thing.

Anyway - as the advertisers and the "network" get more faith in the media - we'll probably see longer episodes and the "depth" won't be a problem.  In fact - the more they support the show the better the content will be, and the more people they'll grab.  So this will become a self-fulfilling (and self profiting) series. 

So as I said the core of any success with advertainment will be that the shows have to be GOOD. 

And my snyde and childish remarks aside - Gemini Division - is  very good. Definitely as good as many of the Sci-Fi offerings on network TV this season.

So you have a good show - but the way you shoot it will of course be how some of our magic - the magic I'm talking about anyway - how it happens. 

You want to go through your shooting script and define your advertising areas in advance.  These are the "ad-elements" - and whenever we're shooting a scene with these we want to shoot it 3 or more times over and above the usual shooting retakes. 

Why?  Because we'll need to shoot it once with our live action going on... probably putting a traveling green screen behind the actors (not expensive to buy - and even less expensive to make).   And we want to of course shoot the "master shot". Then finally - our "ad-element"  background shooting - which will allow us to matte in whatever advertising magic we need in post production.  

You would then make several "ad element" shots for - well, every advertiser that you have.  These shots would then be placed into a "queue" of video elements. 

In a showing - it would look at the users cookie or some other preference gathering mechanism, and it would then play which ever background ad-element fits that preference mechanism while it runs the movie.

To the user - all they would see is a normal video.  But to us - we're actually sandwiching video footage together and playing it in real time. 

And that's really what I'm talking about doing - and what I think others will soon be trying to do.  (If you should happen to make money off this process please send checks to ... :-))

Anyway... that's what I've been going on about.  I think you can see the benefit of this - and how you could effectively have 1 video episode and use multiple advertisers for the same ad space.  It's a highly effective cost model so thats really why I see it happening sooner than later.