4 in 1 - the MEGA post!

Update - this page is no longer a place holder - it's been filled with content:

1. Photo Essay - A blast from the past, a reflection on what was going on with me exactly 3 years ago in the form of a MySpace post that started "bloggy" and turned into a Photo Essay explaining what I'd been up to. If I was producing a new one I imagine I'd have gone in a slightly more poetic/less literal direction.
   
2. Podcast:
   
3. Short Film:
   
   and oh yeah:
   
4. The "Podcast" segment is also my long-overdue reading response of Andrew Feenberg's Critical Theory of Technology

So really, while I have an example of each, I only produced the podcast specifically for NMS 501, the photo essay and video were things I'd already done quite some time ago. Blogging about what went into pod casting can go in this post as well, I suppose so here it goes - it took a ton of repetition - then there was the quest for a "quiet" zone, ultimately leading me to the garage where my improvised recording studio was inside this:

Things I'd do better the next time I go on a pod casting spree:

1. I'd buy a dedicated mic
2. I'd maybe build me a soundproof mini-room somewhere inside the house
3. I'd segment the podcast more and last but not least...
4. I'd make sure to take advantage of the multi-take feature of my pod casting software that I wish I would've known about during the making of this podcast.

It was fun and I kept my distance from creating an "enhanced" podcast since adding pictures to the audio would really just push me into opening my video editing program of choice and doing something I've done a ton more of over the years. Be sure to let me know what you think of any of this stuff in the comments section, I'm always curious to find out what people think!

Victim #439,302,224,175 of bad design!

Generally it's assumed that gadget-addicted/technology-obsessed people, such as myself, can figure out how to work with the latest toy they get their hands on in mere milliseconds but let me assure you, people of "my type" are NOT IMMUNE to bad design - we've just had that much more *ahem* practice *ahem* so we know how to find a way around bad design quicker.

Having said that, the title of my blog is just a number I'm estimating - a few hundred times the world population because I'm taking in account the people who lived and died dealing with bad design and then chances are anybody who's encountered bad design has encountered it more than once in their life. The image above displays one device that had me puzzled for longer than I'd ever want to publicly admit.

Meet the Samson Zoom H2 <- the name links you to their website too, where you can see they proudly open things up by claiming that:

Simplicity is a beautiful thing.

I agree with that statement, and let me make another one - the Samson Zoom H2 FAILS horribly at maintaining simplicity. Let me explain - this is by far the WORST device I've used recently, in terms of the feedback it provides (or doesn't). Aside from a tiny screen with a back light that seems to go out every .2 seconds to save the battery there is only 1 light on the device provided for feedback. I will help you find it:
YUP, that's it! The Samson design engineers sure were not kidding around when they decided to simplify things, they put a single light on the unit! How is that a bad thing, after all the light can even do 2 colors, green and red, what else do I want?

Well, let me tell you what happened when I tried to help my sister who was struggling to get the thing to record anything at all.

1. I made sure that the unit is on
2. I put the headphones on expecting to hear what the microphone is picking up
3. I hit record (the big red button in the middle, props on the design as far as that goes)
4. I started hearing what the microphone was picking up, recited my Hamlet monologue and stopped the thing.
5. I tried to play what I had JUST recorded ... and I got NOTHING!!!

Did I READ the manual? Of course NOT! Good design should be self-explanatory. After repeating many variations of the 5-step process described above (all resulting in failure to record anything meaningful) I gave up and hooked up the stupid thing to the computer to see if I could find my files - maybe it had been recording my stuff and the unit was simply refusing to play it.

I found myself in a wasteland of 1 second audio files. Many users must have suffered great pains from the little box of pure evil named the Zoom H2 "Handy Recorder" both during the day and at night (I was looking at the time files were created... only to be abandoned).

Another attempt made me realize what was happening - when I'd try to stop the recording it was a bit tricky - as I found out, that is when the recording would barely begin - the little box of evil would start blinking at its user, giving them that false sense of accomplishment (that they have started recording) and then when people would try stopping the recording the little light would go solid red for a second (and THAT would be the time when it'd actually record something) only to go out right after.

I realize very well my post so far seems like nothing but some whining so let me change that by providing a very simple solution that would take their design from horrible to great just like that:

What if they had that design in place of the 1 tiny light?

People already know the rather universal signals for play, pause and record from a whole bunch of other devices that use them.

Would that have cost the company that much more to implement?

Does it even matter all that much for "play"?

Probably not but I think it makes a heck of a difference in the next 2 pictures:


Perhaps the colors are not the best choices since with traffic lights RED doesn't typically mean "Go" but even if the symbols all emitted the same kind of light, imagine one day the screen's back light broke and so did the screen itself - then it'd probably look like this:


Perhaps I should send Samson my solution and see if they'd consider it for the next revision of their device. Looking back on this blog now that I'm wrapping it up - my gosh, what an effect the Usability Engineering (and reading from Pro seminar in New Media Studies) have had on me, now I'm anxious to go fixing problems in the world (one tiny voice recorder interface at a time)...

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Did you know that today is Blog Action Day?

Yeah, neither did I... but it's important to be keeping that in mind - not simply because they have a great goal [addressing Poverty in the world] (it was The Environment in 2007), but also because that is an attempt for new media to make traditional media pay attention to what the people out there (blogger folk across the world) have to say.

One Issue, Thousands of Voices



I know spreading the word about doing something is not the same as actually doing something but rather than give a long list of things I may do or that you could do, I will admit my creativity at 6am is limited and simply link you to some amazing lists of things that can be done, posted on their website:

http://site.blogactionday.org/

So to end this post, in short, Blog Action Day has a double significance to me - once for its cause and twice for its means of making things happen. I really hope it works - I think it will, what do you think?

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Things on my TODO list between now and the full-time post-academic career-focused 1st "job"

WHY do I have "job" in quotes like that?

Because I've been narrowing things down, eliminating jobs I don't consider interesting - jobs I'd get bored doing or jobs that simply don't match my personality. What I am left with, if I've done the proper amount of job elimination over the years, is no longer a job (to me) - it's more of a paid hobby, something I do for fun already! It just so happens to call for a valuable mix of skills and perspective that could lead to a beautiful symbiotic relationship between me and some company out there looking for the kind of person who knows what the best ways to act in this New Media World are.

I say this at the risk of coming off as a cocky/arrogant but I prefer to think of it as me being an  optimistic person who's done their research and all the research supports the optimism exhibited. I'm pretty excited about my future. Next question!

WHAT's with the graphic at the beginning of your post? (and can you make a blog post without a graphic for a change?)

The graphic is a bunch of the most popular Lifestream icons, compiled by one of my favorite blogs out there - Read Write Web. (and no, I can't make a graphic-less post!)

It's from Sarah Perez's latest post on there - Hey Businesses! Social Media Users Want Your Attention - a very encouraging article for me, since I've already been keeping track of all the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to social media. Here's the intro:

For any company that thought social media was a passing fad not worthy of their time, the numbers coming out of a recent study published by Opinion Research Corporation for Cone should come as a wake-up call.

According to that study, 85% of Americans using social media think companies should have an active presence in the social media environment. What's even more interesting is that those users actually want the companies to interact with them while there.

What does that mean?

NO, it doesn't mean I'm Neo (but that'd be nice...) - it means my dedication to latest gadgets and web-services will pay off, if not in any other way, then as me becoming a Social Media Expert and best of all I already have some great ideas on how to be able to show my level of awareness both online and in an interview with a potential employer. Then I have my Communications background and my computer knowledge - bonus points!!

This post was supposed to be about what I need to do between now and the time I get my Master's and not about me in dream-world even if, looking at the time perhaps I am stuck in a dream bubble of some sort. Things I need to ABSOLUTELY do before walking out of DePaul:

• Seek out an internship or a co-op that involves trade-show experience - I'd love to be on stage and while I've had my tiny chances every now and then I keep visiting a million websites learning all kinds of cool stuff and I really want to share some of the coolest things out there with an audience. One way to accomplish such a thing is to become a Marketing/Communication Specialist.
• WORK ON MY WRITING SKILLS (if you look at the stuff above you can probably easily see what I mean) ... Suuuure, I'm all excited about the future, I'm semi-casual since it's a blog post and not a formal paper, etc etc, but my gosh, I'm all over the place with my thoughts so some of the skills I need to make more solid are exactly in written English - my enthusiasm may be able to entertain a live crowd but I wonder how well it's expressed in this post - perhaps you readers can let me know (hint hint: please comment if you've gotten this far into reading this random post-midnight ramble)
• Work on my graphics skills - Yep, I can edit a great video for anyone but I can't brag nearly as much when it comes to making things from scratch in Photoshop. I only know how to manipulate stuff, I'd love to be able to create stunning visuals as the situation calls for such.
• Make sure that any web-design focused class I take is directly applied in the building of my portfolio website - I have full intent to never send another .DOC or .PDF resume. EVER. I'd like people to see something I've created and then download the .DOC or .PDF as they've already seen a product of mine - if they can't be bothered to check the website or don't understand its significance chances are I wouldn't wish to be working for such an employer anyway so I'm technically filtering them just as much as they're filtering me.

So in short, I've got quite a bit on my TODO list but I'm pretty thrilled about it all - Grad school's made Undergrad feel like high school felt when I became an Undergrad. Some hard work to come but SO worth it!

Now listening to:

This is probably a part of the reason for "bad" English out there...

So there I was, wasting time ... Let me start over - there I was, being very productive on Digg and as I looked at the comments I couldn't help but to recall the class discussion about the effects technology's had on the English language worldwide - Digg is a website with users from all over the world and if you look at how they communicate it should become pretty clear where some of the "new forms" of English are springing up from. Multiply that by a few hundred huge websites that get at least as many visitors as well and imagine similar comments on each and there you have it - the answer on why/how English has morphed due to the Internet. Also worth noticing is the fact that the ONE person who tried to "correct" the mistake got voted down for his foolish attempt.

And just in case you're curious what the actual "story" being discussed was - below is the picture that was in the link:

There may still be some hope left for CNN...

As far as the competition for global television goes, anyway - a friend of mine posted a link to the CNN video I'm embedding below in his Facebook status update, while asking "Why do we not see more of this kind of reporting in our media?"


That is a very good question! I'm not sure if I even have a proper answer for it but I could instantly relate the video to a book I had just finished reading sections of - English Next. It's a great read if you're wondering what the heck Global English may mean or where the world is headed (seriously!) The book is FREE and well worth checking out:

Official website/Link to free PDF version of the book

There is a segment on the role of News Media and it specifies that:

Two trends are apparent in international news: more global channels in English and new rival channels in other world languages.

Well, I'd say the video's a fine example of the first trend.

That aside, I've apparently been a guinea pig/test subject for all 5 different "models" of learning English, they'd just change with every teacher I've ever had in my life - from the "English as a foreign language" model (designed to produce failure, according to the book's author... There's some great news!) to the much more dynamic CLIL model (Content and language integrated learning) it seems like I've had every model in-between applied on me at some stage in my life or another (including trying to learn English back when I was still going to kindergarten).

And now for your entertainment:

The path I've chosen to my Master's degree

As soon as I found out I had been accepted into the New Media Studies program @ DePaul I rushed to figure out what classes I'd likely take as a part of my path towards a Master's degree... and to think, years ago the only excitement around classes distribution consisted of finding out if my high school buddy and I shared any... Back then I don't think I'd possibly be excited about the classes I am taking ... how I've changed since then!

Well, this is the draft version of what I'll be taking, very much in line with some of the job skills I was exploring in my previous "job-exploration" post - things may change a bit but I can't wait to get going with some of these... then again, once I remember all the projects I'm currently involved with, I suppose I could wait a little bit before taking on anything else ...