DV for Teachers

Just found this via the QuickTime Streaming Server List. It’s the clear, step-by-step set of procedures that’s not as well written in Apple’s documentation.

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Digital Storytelling”
is an excellent way to describe what so many people want to do with
their video cameras. They’re happy to let others make serial killer
flicks; they want to tell the stories of their families, their own
histories, their own lives and experiences. This site and the workshops
they offer provide help to learn how to tell these stories.

[Updated to correct link structure after importing from Manila blogging system.]

Quote: “This page is intended to serve as a consolidated, comprehensive, and to-the-point list of instructions for closing all known URI-related vulnerabilities affecting Mac OS X.”

Comment: John Gruber puts together the succinct to-do we’ve needed to protect our Macs. Thanks.——-

Brad Choate posts links to the apps on his Mac. I need to do that once I get my new PowerBook set up. ;0)——-

“As with all lighting issues, lighting people with dark skin tones is a matter of controlling contrast, achieving correct exposure, and creating highlights and shadows that convey depth and texture to the viewer.”

Yet another on-the-mark article from DV.com. (registration required, but worth it.)——-

VideoHelp.com:


“What is this site about?

This site will help you to make your own VideoCDs, SVCDs or DVDs that can be played on your standalone DVD Player from video sources like DVD, Video, TV, DV, Cam or downloaded movie clips like DivX, MOV, RM, WMV and ASF. We also have extensive lists of Capture Cards, DVD Media, DVD Writers and desktop DVD Players with features, compatibility information, user comments and more. Use the menu to the left to navigate our site. Enjoy.”——-

“The America Prepared Campaign is looking for a compelling and engaging short film, running no longer than 2 minutes, convincing Americans that preparation for natural and man-made emergencies saves lives.”

Christofer Ricca of MediaLiquid sent me a notice about this contest. They say:

We are a fast, flexible, and efficient production company, focusing the nationís largest filmmaker network on your creative entertainment and advertising needs. By channeling the efforts of hundreds of talented and undiscovered filmmakers, MediaLiquid can match the quality and surpass the creativity of traditional methods for a fraction of the cost of standard production.

Their Case Study page has some good PSAs that look well-made and might even be effective. Take a look.——-

“I have found the following four methods will let me play most AVIs. While none of these methods are foolproof and some AVIs still refuse to play, one of these methods will usually work.”

I like the idea of playing any multimedia format on any machine, especially for educators and students. Apple’s move – basing their OS on Unix – now means more and more tools are coming over to the Mac.——-

Microsoft Word is a cranky beast, and it hates floppy disks. If you’re writing or editing an important document, like a final exam (as today’s latest victim was), don’t save and edit changes to the floppy as you write. You may get a corrupted file or even an unreadable disk. We see students in our labs all the time who have pulled their disk before the system finished saving, or in the worst case, done everything by the book, but Word manages to rewrite over some part of the file and corrupt it. Feh.

Another rant about Word. Not only is it bloatware, but it makes bloated files. Try this: open a new Word document and type “This is a sentence.” Save it as a .doc file. Its size? 24 KB (on Mac OS X; similar sizes on Win XP). Now save the same file as Rich Text Format – the .rtf extension. File size is only 4kb. What is the tremendous added value in that extra 20KB? There are lots of features in Word… but if you don’t need them, save space, time, hassle, and if at all possible, $money$, and use the word processor that came with your machine; WordPad on Windows, and TextEdit on Mac OS X.——-

I came across a stack of leftover handouts from a student presentation about brain development in a classroom here last week. It’s clear from the notes that five people worked on it, so there’s plenty of blame to go around. The title slide:

Brian Development——-