I think this is a great Friday afternoon video to enjoy.

Get ready Canada. There is a new big boy in town and the name is Behemoth. This is the new ride that will be appearing May 2008 at Canada’s Wonderland. Being dubbed Canada’s fastest rollercoaster it is sure to impress.  Check out the rest of the teaser material here.
[flv]http://media.cfpl4.cedarfair.com/canadaswonderland/behemoth/videos/behemothPOV_320_low_videofile.FLV[/flv]

Cheers

Scott

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Posted in Canada ~ 1 Comment
Written by Scott

I love the “Dove Campaign for Real Beauty“. This is the evolution ad that really shows what can be done if you spend enough time and effort with makeup hairstyling and photoshop.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hibyAJOSW8U[/youtube]

I am most impressed how they have built a real community around this and how active the community is. It is an interesting look at how to create community. I took a look at the forums and I was floored to see the activity. Here is a quick idea of the numbers of people that have become involved in the site.

* Body Image Forum Message Count: 13,726
* Older Women Message Count: 1,014
* Unconventional Looks Forum Message Count: 2,183
* Self Esteem Forum Message Count: 11,124
* Thinks She’s Fat Message Count: 3,400
* Share Your Self-Esteem Building Story Message Count: 958
* My views on the pro·age™ TV commercial Message Count: 3,814
* Why I’m getting better all the time Message Count: 386

I think it is interesting that Dove really understood this and built a great community and tackled some big issues and broke thru the BS and got to a very real issues that people (women for the most part) could grab a hold of. I think that this movement (can I call it that yet) has really started to grab momentum. I hope that we can see this continue and change some of the things that contribute to image issues.
Taking Community off-line

They have also empowered people to make a difference in their own communities. They have built a kit for people to host “Real Beauty workshops”. Wow …great idea! There is a lot to be learned from this …

Cheers

Scott

PS …. this makes me want to write my article on Barbi the Tramp VS Dora the Explorer

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Posted in Advertising ~ 4 Comments
Written by Scott

I have been getting into video more and more lately. I have a great little mini-dv cam that meets all of my needs at this moment. The problem that I have found has been the ability to keep my camera steady when I try to move with a shot or even pan slowly. This is typically why most camera users don’t want to move around while shooting. You will often see shoot …stop …move location …shoot. Cutting down on the need for those vomit inducing home videos that we are used to seeing.

So I started to look around for a solution for the problem and I ran across a DIY solution that is very effective and has made a definite difference in the quality of my video. Inventor and amateur video buff Johnny Chung Lee and his site “$14 Steady Cam - The poor mans steady cam” has the solution. He has a very detailed description of how to build this and some of the things you can do with them.

Here is my Steady Cam

Under the Camera View

And the bottom

I have found that this has made a hand addition to the shooting tools that I have now. This really allows for some great action shots and would be a must have for anyone creating their own movies … I hope that this is helpful.

Cheers,

Scott

FYI I managed to build the whole thing for around $20. Not including the cool paint job and old bike grip. I also used 12″ pipe sections versus the 10″ recommended. I did this on the basis that I am fairly tall and that there was no 10″ pipe available at the store.

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Posted in Video ~ 4 Comments
Written by Scott

This is a cool video. These guys have built a very cool tool. This is a very interesting video to check out if you have ever had to resize or crop an image to make it fit. This technology has made that a thing of the past.
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=rnb_GdBHuak[/youtube]

This is pretty amazing. Thanks bryce for the heads up on it!

cheers

Scott

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Posted in Design ~ 4 Comments
Written by Scott

Nokia …are you launching a music service on August 29th? Come on …let us in on the secret.

The rumor is:

Fortune has learned from sources involved in the project that Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo will launch the new worldwide service Aug. 29 at a London event that will include live music at the Ministry of Sound nightclub. The new Nokia Web site will let consumers download songs to their PCs and transfer them to mobile phones and other portable music players, similar to Apple’s iTunes. Nokia is expected to let users transfer songs to non-Nokia phones using digital-rights-management software. Fortune

They have launched a site that is meant to intrigue users into uncovering more. The site actually has 4 messages that users have to pause the video as it constructs the outline of the new phone. I couldn’t tell too much from the futuristic message that is reminiscent of something from the minority report.

Check this site out and see if you can discern what they are telling us …..

www.070829.com

Here is a banner that is linked to the site.

[flv]http://www.bannerblog.com.au/banners/PID_285278_300×250_v2.swf[/flv]

link

My only question …can Nokia compete with itunes ? They had limited success with the ngage which was designed to be the entry for nokia into the handheld game arena. I guess we have to wait and see what they have come up with on the 29th.

cheers

Scott

UPDATE : when you look at all four of the orientations you get to subscribe to this rss feed : http://feeds.feedburner.com/070829

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Posted in Business, Technology ~ 1 Comment
Written by Scott

So I don’t really spend that much time in front of my TV. You would think that a large screen would be able to drag me away from my laptop …but most times it doesn’t. I have my usual shows that I like to watch …however these don’t include the latest hits like house or Lost ….I will have to buy the DVD’s of those and watch ….. I find myself watching alot of Discovery, A&E National Geographic …..and my new favorite show …..Ad Persuasion.

Ad Persuasion is an interesting look at some of the Ad’s that make up Pop culture. In a society that is ruled by the Tivo revolution ads have to be better then ever before. This program brings together some of the finest creative minds from around the globe and gets their commentary on them.

I find it interesting to listen to the discussion around the Ad’s and the psychology that is used to get the big idea across. If you are in the ad business this is a must watch for you.

cheers

scott

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Posted in Advertising ~ 3 Comments
Written by Scott

Ross Lovegrove is one of those designers that is truly free with his design ability. He has an eye for the organics of nature and translates them into incredible designs that are ultimately functional with what he terms as fat free design.His talk from is truly a inspiring look at the design mind. He gives a great 20 minute talk and discusses some of his ideas that are still in the future. Enjoy the talk it is a great inspirational design talk and it is open and free for you to watch and share. [flv]http://static.videoegg.com/ted/movies/ROSSLOVEGROVE_high.flv[/flv]He has been responsible for some beautiful designs. Some of my personal favorites are.

The Go Chair

The DNA Stair Case

Gather the design team together and watch the talk. His ideas might give you an idea that you need to solve a design problem you have been struggling with. Watch the video and talk about it.

CheersScott

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Posted in Design ~ No Comments
Written by Scott

So I signed up for TokBox. A really cool product that allows you to stream live video to anyone. It is fully embeddable in any application. I had it in here but there seems to be something quirky happening when I put it in Wordpress …..going to update the wordpress and see if that helps.

If you had stopped by last night or earlier this morning you would have seen this as a live feed. I am going to see how I can get this to work. Check out the company site and the TokBox blog.

So until I get this up and running you will have to visit me on my site at TokBox. This really removes the barrier for someone to add video chat to an application. This has been designed to be dropped into any application, webpage or profile ……very interesting.

I had to create this new page on the blog to house my tokbox feed. To check this out click HERE … this will have to do until we look at things on the wordpress side a bit harder …. and maybe change things up a bit on how the blog is displayed.

I see a lot of interesting applications for this. I think that they have the right idea by putting service out there and making it very easy for people yo use this where ever they are. should be interesting to see how we can play with this and do

Ping me.

Cheers

Scott

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Posted in ConceptShare, Video ~ No Comments
Written by Scott

Ok so this happens to be one of the funniest videos that I have seen in the last 86.5 hours. For those of you who know Loren know that he is quite the funny man and that he often rolls out really funny videos. Here he compares Jeremy Wright to Conrad Black …I love his description of the pads that these guys live in. Here is the actual page on 1938 media visit it ….[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFAOnR42gr0[/youtube]Keep making me laugh Loren.CheersScottOn a seperate note ….I noticed that Loren’s video is on YouTube and not on Podtech …..now that must be a story. What gives dude?UPDATE:Jeremy Wright responds with and hilarious video. Jeremy you are a funny man ….A note on this video: Jeremy bathes in Cristal not water.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfQm5kIUA54[/youtube]

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Posted in Humor ~ No Comments
Written by Scott

I think that the power of the blog is pretty big. It allows you to communicate and keep people interested in what you are doing. Now in my line of business it is very hard to stand out as it seems that everyone has a blog that is somewhat related to technology.

I find it very refreshing when I stumble upon a non traditional localized business that has a blog and has really put some time and effort into it.

So go figure …. a pastry business located in New Jersey has a kick ass blog and delicious looking deserts. This is certainly an interesting combination and really not one that I had expected.

This is a useful case-study for all of you who aren’t sure if you should have a blog or if it would matter. This is a great example of why you should consider blogging. According to Jesse Heap, husband and web manager “We’ve found it to be very beneficial - it’s driving more business then we can handle at this point. In fact my wife has jokingly asked me to take the blog down just to give her a chance to catch up on prospective customers. “

Sounds like a great problem to have and one that really doesn’t cost them anything. So should you be blogging ? Could it hurt your business or help? It is a great place to toot your horn and have people check out your business and learn more about what you are doing.
Be sure to check out the site
Cheers

Scott

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Posted in Ideas ~ No Comments
Written by Scott