If you do video work, you’re going to bump into times when you need everything transcribed into a text file. If you have somehow avoided this thus far, it’s only a matter of time before a client requests it, or you end up demanding it for yourself. Now that metadata has become the quiet king of the internet search, you’re going to have to write it all out if you want your work to be found.


To understand why, just consider how you would likely search for a video clip yourself. Imagine you and a friend are discussing a film reference, for instance.

You: “Hey, remember when Robert De Niro said ‘You talkin’ to me?’ What movie was that in?”
Your friend: “I am unsure, but luckily the internet has been invented. Let us discover the answer using technology!” Your friend is an odd fellow, it seems.
You race over to the computer, launch a browser and type furiously into the search field…What? What do you type? Probably “You talking to me?” and “De Niro”. Well, in order for the search engine to find what you’re looking for, it needs the metadata “You talkin’ to me” to be associated with the clip. If the person who posted it simply labeled it “De Niro, Taxi Driver”, you’ll never find it. So the transcript of what has been said in the clip needs to be associated with the clip as searchable metadata. Get it?


Of course, the instant it became clear that this was the way things were going, a bunch of companies got into the business of automating the process. For years and years there have been companies that you could send off a tape to, and they would respond with a transcribed document that an honest-to-goodness human being made. But then, like many forms of labor, it became clear that it would be a whole heck of a lot cheaper for companies if they could get robots to do the transcription for them instead of living, breathing folks.


Robots don’t complain, eat, take breaks or get paid. Life sucks for robots. However, if you’re of the entrepreneurial sort and want to get stuff done cheaply, you can’t beat ‘em. Ergo: robot transcribers!
There are pros and cons to using robot transcribers however, especially vs. using human transcription labor.


Pros:

• Robots are awesome.
• Robots, once they are acquired, are pretty much free to use and require no additional payment, vacation days or benefits. As previously mentioned, life sucks for robots.


Cons:

• They’re unable to decipher context, and as a result, occasionally get things completely wrong.
• They’re not fun at parties and know very few jokes.

There are quite a few on the market to choose from:
There’s a free app by Dragon for all you iPhone users out there.
Dragon also makes software for PCs that does the same thing.
There’s a mac program called “Dictate”, which is a very straightforward title, if not very creative.


Adobe’s started offering transcription services in both Premier, their editing software, and Soundbooth, their audio editor.
I’ve written about Soundbooth before in a previous Mightyblog post. Allow me to present you with a summation of that post:


I like Soundbooth. That’s the summary.


Okay, more specifically, Soundbooth is easy to use, intuitive, and has quite a few powerful tools available.
Stay tuned for a follow-up blog with my own experience with Soundbooth doing a step-by-step transcription for a video clip of “Zontar, the Thing from Venus.”


Anybody care to wager a guess at how well the transcription software will do?

We often times find ourselves at a loss for what to do when working with a program we know inside and out and love deeply, but have to blend it with another program that’s as confusing to us as the opposite sex. It’s at times like these, however, that working with people who specialize in various programs makes life (or at least the work part of life) so much easier. Such was the case when Travis, audio and video guru, and Joy, Illustrator-loving pixel princess, put their minds together to figure out a simple animation task. This series of posts is for all of you frustrated Flash-lovers who would like a bit of advice about transitioning from Illustrator to Flash.

This first post will walk you through taking a complex illustration from Illustrator that extends outside the artboard into Flash, where everything needs to fit within the frame of the animation. The reason this is more useful than simply breaking apart the vector images in Flash is because the vector image, when broken apart in Flash, becomes a bitmap and therefore greatly decreases its editability. Instead, this tutorial will show you how to break the shape apart first in Illustrator so that you can then bring it (still as a vector image) into Flash. See the before and after pictures of the shape in Flash below here.

First, start with a series of complex or overlapping shapes. These can include any vector shape with a fill or stroke or both. For the sake of making things simpler, I’ve made just one simple path that extends over the artboard in Illustrator. See image below.

You’ll see that I’ve got the Pathfinder window open as well. You can go to Window from the main menu bar and then down to Pathfinder to open that palette. Next, draw a simple rectangle (color doesn’t matter) and place it over the area of the shape that extends beyond the artboard (the part of the shape you want to “cut off). Refer to the blue rectangle below.

Next, select both paths by using the black arrow tool and dragging it over both shapes. Then, simply click the button shown being moused over in the image below. It’s the second button from the left under Shape Modes, and it’s referred to as Minus Front. This subtracts the shape on top including whatever part it’s covering of the shape below it.

The result is your perfectly-trimmed shape, ready for Flash. Voila!

Are you are one of the many who proverbially turned the page by switching to a Kindle for reading this past year? Well, by opening up the Kindle platform to third-party app developers, Amazon has made some significant efforts to remain competitive with Apple, its line of iPhones, and the much-rumored tablet that is supposedly just around the corner.

Amazon just announced its Kindle Development Kit, giving developers the tools they need to build apps for the handheld e-reader. But is this too little too late? It is no doubt an effort to ramp up the Kindle before the Apple Tablet launches, making it more competitive and removing the potential stigma of being solely an e-reading device.

What does this mean for Kindle users? They will have more to choose from for starters, including games, puzzles, a Zagat guide and a bunch of others available for purchase later this year. What does this mean for those of us hesitant to purchase a Kindle because we are dedicated Apple product evangelists? Well for this Apple devotee, the Tablet is on its way and I’m happy to wait.

And for old-school book readers—those of you waiting for a flight in the airport not wanting to lug around a four-pound book but just wanting to swim in a lovely, long, luxurious bath of prose, undisturbed and not tempted by other gadgets, apps, bells and whistles—you can always carry a thinner book around with you. I recommend Mrs. Dalloway.

Read more at Fast Company.
Are you using the Kindle? What do you think?

Imagine if you could hold your iPhone up to a building and it would tell you not only what is inside the building such as stores, restaurants, and so on, but also who is in the building and what they are saying. What if it also gave you information on items inside the building that were on sale or what reservation times were free at your favorite restaurant? An architecture firm in Tokyo has created a building in Tokyo that comes with its own iPhone app that puts all this information and more at your fingertips.

Instead of scanning your retina a la Minority Report N Building puts control of the retail experience in the hands of the user. The building’s facade is covered in Quick Response (QR) codes, each of which is associated with a specific section of the building. Use your mobile device to read the QR codes and you can get up-to-date information on the shops inside. The iPhone app takes the concept even further. Not only can you find out all sorts of information on the shops inside as well as tweets and comments from people inside the building (a function that incorporates Twitter geotagging), but you can also download coupons, make dinner reservations, find out what’s on sale and more.

Qosmo worked with Tokyo-based architectural firm Terada Design to create N Building, a retail low-rise near Tachikawa station in Tokyo that sits amidst a shopping district. The building is detected in real-time by its shape and location of your iPhone with information superimposed over the live image (hence the augmented reality angle).

Here’s a video of N Building in action:

N Building from Alexander Reeder on Vimeo.

Cliff Kuang noted in his article on the Fast Company site, “Can you imagine if you could look out over a cityscape, scan the skyline for QR codes, and find out information about where you want to go, what you should be doing, and who’s doing it? The mind boggles when you consider where this could go, once the capabilities of social networks is looped into the mix—Loopt is just the tip of the iceberg.”

This does indeed have huge implications not only for marketing but also for education, cultural institutions, transportation, entertainment, healthcare and a slew of other industries. On the Vimeo page for N Building Alexander Reeder said “we envision a cityscape unhindered by ubiquitous signage and also and improvement to the quality and accuracy of the information itself.” But does that mean that all the buildings of the future will be covered with QR and bar codes rather than billboards and LCD displays?

Facebook Community Council: Citizen’s Patrol
Using users to monitor the facebooksphere for ‘ethically offensive material.’

I, for one, love Facebook. Yes, it has its glitches here and there and can quickly become like a DVR inbox of “to-friends” or “to communicate” lists, but all in all, it has eliminated the need for me to spend 30 minutes on the phone catching up with each friend every once in a while.

On-going privacy setting tweaks aren’t so bad, though it helps to stay on top of managing them for personal and business pages. Otherwise, all your posts and information could potentially go über-viral. At moments I do wonder if all my personal photos (and those taken of me in public venues) are tagged with deliciously insightful personal information and stored away on some server that could be purchased by the government one day (thank goodness I am pure and innocent).

Earlier this year, Facebook took some flack for not removing pages posted by the Holocaust Denial Movement. So when the social monolith announced its Facebook Community Council—whose goal according to a recent Fast Company blog post is to “harness the power and intelligence of Facebook users to support us in keeping Facebook a trusted and vibrant community”—I figured hey, sign me up. I want to be involved in managing my community, of course. I have an opinion on what is considered profane, violent, offensive.

Then: click, click, denied.

I get this message:
Sorry, use of Facebook Community Council requires an invitation at this time.
Facebook Community Council is currently being tested with a small number of users.

Wait, what? Denied by Facebook? My own, personal, free global community won’t let me in? Well who are you letting in? Anyone on my Friends list? So you are going to shut me out, corporately unfriend me (to use the New Oxford American Dictionary Word of the Year) if I cause a ruckus? Why I have half a mind to . . .

Then I took a moment to rethink my irascible intentions. I don’t actually have any of my friends’ phone numbers anymore because I just contact them all through Facebook. Deleting my Facebook account could potentially remove me from a vast circle of close, trusted, and sometimes virtually unknown friends. However would I get back in touch? MySpace? Too 2006. Classmates.com? Too expensive. Friendster? That’s soooo last decade. Guess I better stay well-behaved before I get kicked off the island and lose my address book.

What do YOU think about Facebook’s Community Council approach?

Web design pundits Smashing Magazine’s foray into print publishing offers a great set of best practices and general design concepts invaluable to those on the interface side of creating websites. These folks have consistently offered content of exceptional quality since launching in September 2006 and this book stays true to the high standards for which they have become known. After waiting nearly two months for our copy of the book due, apparently, to some glitches in the overseas printing process, I can honestly say the wait was worth it.

The book’s preface states that “We consider the topics covered here fundamental and so the content is, we hope, highly practical.” That said, the book is more conceptual in nature, preferring to focus on best practices rather than step-by-step tutorials (you can find plenty of those on the website). However, though the content is considered fundamental, I found it a great reminder of just how much thought, effort and creative thinking are required to design truly effective interfaces that increase conversions and maintain consistency across cultures, communities and browsers.

The book offers a great set of practical articles covering essential skills of modern web design and includes the following chapters:

• User Interface Design in Modern Web Applications
• The Art and Science of CSS-Layouts
• Typography: Rules, Guidelines and Common Mistakes
• Usability Principles for Modern Websites
• The Ultimate Guide to Fantastic Color Usage
• Optimization for Websites
• Design to Sell—Increasing Conversion Rates
• How to Turn a Site into a Remarkable Brand
• Learning from Experts—Interviews and Insights
• Behind the Curtains: The Smashing Magazine Story

Each chapter is thorough, well-written and comprehensive. Newbie web designers will find countless tips and overviews of basic design concepts while seasoned professionals will enjoy the insights of other industry experts and timely approaches to common design and communication challenges. We regularly share links from the Smashing site around the office, so when we discovered they were producing a book we ordered it immediately, and I’m happy to report they have not disappointed. If you like Smashing Magazine, you will no doubt enjoy this book.

In a roundabout way, Adobe has finally figured out how to get Flash content on the iPhone. No, it’s not an iPhone-specific version of the Flash Player like we’ve all been expecting for years now. Instead, the company recently announced that Creative Suite 5 will support exporting iPhone apps from Flash. Okay, it was over a month ago now, but I just found out about it thanks to a post on on Josh Sager’s blog. (Thanks Josh.)

According to their site, “Adobe® Flash® Professional CS5 will include a Packager for iPhone that will let you publish ActionScript 3 projects to run as native applications for iPhone. These applications can be delivered to iPhone users through the Apple App Store.*” (The little asterisk at the end of that quote notes that your apps are subject to approval by Apple via the iPhone Developer Program). The exporter uses a low-level compiler and is truly a native iPhone app with no interpreted code and no Flash runtime in the exported application. Adobe notes that “we did this in a way that is aligned with Apple’s legal terms.” Very considerate of them.

This is great news for Flash developers, as it opens up a whole new avenue for distributing (and monetizing) their content. I will be very curious to see how this plays out when CS5 actually does arrive (Adobe has not announced a release date).

A complete list of FAQs can be found on Adobe Labs.

Adobe has also posted a demo that features example applications on Labs as well.

In the spirit of giving, Mightybytes donated to World Wildlife Fund in honor of our clients, friends and family this year for the holidays. This gift is already hard at work protecting endangered species, preserving threatened spaces, protecting habitats, and addressing global threats such as deforestation. Contributions help WWF build the resources necessary to carry out conservation programs, which focus on establishing and managing parks, training and equipping park rangers, guards and anti-poaching teams and helping to meet the needs of local people without destroying natural resources.

Recent World Wildlife Fund Efforts and Accomplishments:

• WWF helps to protect penguins, the flightless seabirds facing a number of threats, including destruction of nesting habitats, competition with fishermen for fish and shrimp, and introduced predators such as rats, dogs and foxes which eat penguin eggs and young. However, the greatest potential threat to penguins is global warming, as they are extremely sensitive to climate change.
• WWF Act for Our Future site on Climate Change: One of the greatest threats to wildlife and nature.
• House passes bill to raise funds for endangered species through new postage stamp. WWF Praises Bipartisan Effort to Help Save Rhinos, Tigers and Other Endangered Species.
• World Wildlife Fund’s Northern Great Plains Restoration Project recognized in 2009 Global Vision Awards.

See WWF Conservation Network actions in progress today and how you can take part by simply communicating.

There are many charity organizations that need help and the holiday season is a great time to lend a hand. Here are some resource sites that utilize social media and digital marketing in ways that make it easy to find charities of interest to you, keep in touch with news, needs, and progress of the endeavors of help and assistance around the globe:

Charity Navigator
Change.org

Thanks for a great 2009 and we wish you all the best for a healthy and prosperous 2010. Happy Holidays from the entire Mightybytes Crew!

Are you helping any charities out this season? Let us know which ones. We’d love to help spread the word.

Part Psychology textbook, part business manual, part to do list, part philosophical manifesto, and mostly just an overall good read, Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s Trust Agents guides you (in six easy steps, no less) toward a better and more enlightened approach to making the social web work for you.

Though there are actionable items throughout, the book really works best as a loose philosophical framework for incorporating etiquette, human understanding and yes, trust into your online endeavors, the result of which (the authors say) will naturally be more opportunities for business, collaboration, and word-of-mouth referrals. Their careers are proof-in-the-pudding that this approach can work. Brogan’s blog is listed as one of the top 100 on Technorati and, among other things, Smith’s early adoption of podcasting has led to countless speaking engagements and appearances on CNN, CBC, CTV, and—as he puts it—“a bunch of others that don’t start with the letter C.”

By focusing less on how to use specific tools for engagement and more on general approaches that have worked for them, Brogan and Smith have effectively created the Miss Manners of online social networking. (That may sound like a trite comparison, but it’s not, considering Judith Martin’s column is carried in over 200 newspapers worldwide and she has over a dozen books to her credit.) Indeed, with chapter after chapter of endless tips on how to build better interpersonal business relationships online, this is the closest thing we have to a roadmap for good behavior in the world of Web 2.0.

Will the book cover every potential situation—business or otherwise—that you may come across when navigating the social web? Probably not. And the authors state as much on several occasions throughout the text. Rather, the book focuses on broad stroke tactics, such as earning your place in communities and the importance of making your own game, hoping readers will fill in the blanks regarding what is specific to them and what isn’t.

Most of the content (for me at least) fell under the ‘common sense’ category of business, but it was refreshing to read it couched in terms of social media and online networking. The rules are still being written for what is and isn’t appropriate on the social web. The fact that unfriend is Oxford’s 2009 Word of the Year shows just how mainstream this stuff has become, so the time for guidelines on etiquette and human understanding (which the authors extol as “the cornerstones for any meaningful life”) is ripe. Plus, their writing is smart and as engaging as the approaches they tout, which makes it a fast and enjoyable read.

Honestly, the book really doesn’t need any more reviews. It’s been a New York Times bestseller, Wall Street Journal bestseller, Amazon Top 100 list, and on the Amazon Best Books of 2009 list in the business and investment category, so it certainly doesn’t need my help. But there’s a reason for all that praise: it’s a good book full of smart ideas and, if you aspire to be a model social media citizen, you should have it on your shelf.

Joy Burke has created her very first font, entitled “Spooners.” To help showcase her creation, she designed a sample poster for the upcoming Big Holiday Show featuring The Flaming Lips. The poster will be presented at the gallery opening this Friday for the “Punchcutters: Re-Inventing the Alphabet, Font Design Competition and Exhibition” presented by the STA (Society of Typographic Arts), and Spooners will later be available for purchase online, so stay tuned!

Q: Tell us about the font.
Joy: “Spooners is a display font created to make each character fit together in absolute harmony. I came up with name because of the way that the positive and negative spaces of the two font variations make one complete solid rectangular form, similar to the way two spoons fit perfectly together when stacked one on top of the other. Spooner creates poster-perfect letters that allow the viewer to unveil the message told.

Joy’s goal with the poster was “creating a piece that gave the viewer something to look at a bit longer in order to figure out its meaning, as opposed to the message being apparent immediately.” She used variations on transparency to affect the way the concentric circles create a psychedelic vibe she feels pairs well with the music of The Flaming Lips, while the clean, geometric, grid-based typography give the poster a very modern touch.

The participating students and alumni were organized by Professor Kozuch of The Illinois Institute of Art - Chicago, who also serves as STA Faculty Advisor.

Exhibition Info:
• Friday, November 20th, 2009
• Opening Reception: 7-10pm
• 4Art Inc. Gallery at Zhou B Art Center
• 1029 W. 35th Street
• Chicago, IL

Designers, what are your preferred sites for font resources?