The Blog of Brad
Archive for October 23, 2008
Twitter Updates for 2008-10-23
Oct 23rd
- The canadian dollar is down to $0.79 usd! #
- Even after the $125k fashion budget I’d still vote for Palin… why isn’t she running for President? #
- has The Hulk and Indiana Jones (thank-you iTunes) #
- The iPhone may be the dream phone… But I love the LG Keybo… The prob is that it’s Telus only
# - has a forbidden love for the T-Mobile G1… but until it’s sold in Canada it just can’t be… #
- After weeks… Spore still doesn’t work on my Vista…. so disappointed with you EA… #
Powered by Twitter Tools.
Ustream.tv vs. Stickam
Oct 23rd
In the past two years it’s become increasingly easier to stream live video across the internet. Two of the major services are Ustream.tv and Stickam. Previously both offered about equal quality, about equal bandwidth per user, and about the same functional features (including online recording). Earlier this year Leo Laporte began a streaming operation using a Tricaster, a T1, and a Stickam account. This is a live show-almost 8 hours five days a week (with reruns overnight) streaming of the behind the scenes of the creation of his netcasts for TWiT.tv. After a contract with Stickam, Leo was able to make the video 16:9 output, higher quality, and can stream video right into their servers. The product he uses is “Flash Media Encoder” which is an optimized version of the encoder you would use for any of the flash streaming services. Until now this was available to only exclusive partners of these services-but now, UStream.tv allows all of their useres access to this technology. You download/instal FME (Flash Media Encoder) onto your system (Windows only, Macs can use it only via BootCamp), download the XML configuration from UStream.tv, and go live. This option gives you FAR better quality. Again, this is only going to provide higher quality if you have a higher-end live system including a dedicated machine for encoding, a DV, camcorder (no USB webcams (period)), good lighting, good microphone, content worth watching.
You can read more at UStream.tv’s page about this here. As per the Stickam vs UStream.tv debate-UStream.tv is currently ahead, way ahead (for now).
Links:
Leo Laporte
How-to Fill A Fountain Pen
Oct 23rd
If you haven’t read it already in my twitter updates, I purchased a Hero 329–a replica of the infamous Parker 51. And however this pen doesn’t fill in the same way as some of the Parker 51′s, this is a very commmon filling mechanism. This is for use with fountain pens with ink bladders.
It’s of note that during the video I tap on the bladder just after disassembling the pen-and this is where you have to press the compress the bladder and release the ink.
- After releasing the ink back into the ink well (or elsewhere for disposal)
- Dip the nib into the inkwell, release the bladder. This will draw fresh ink into the bladder.
- Repeat the last two steps to ensure there is no dried up ink or contaminants in the pen (optional).
Note that this process is very messy. I recommend you do as I did and place a piece of paper over your table incase of spillage.
