CONVO TOPIC OF THE WEEK:: IT'S READY FOR DOWNLOAD, BUT WITH ISSUES :: GEEK MYSTIQUE

This week, we are discussing the application release process and the culture that drives it.

As a client,  I expect delivery dates to be met.

As an Engineer, I expect products to be fully operational out-of-the-box once released, even in Beta!  If you send me a packaged piece of software to install on my server, I expect it to just work.

Is that asking too much?

There is nothing more heart breaking for an Engineer than to have to tell a customer/Business partner why their product is yet another week or month delayed in delivery, because in preliminary testing one finds said product simply doesn’t work correctly.

Is it just a matter of day-to-day business in the competitive media space? We know vendors are in a constant state of flux to meet new requirements and keep their products fresh, but at what cost?

Executing comprehensive QA (Quality Assurance Testing)  is usually sacrificed to keep customers happy, “in theory”… while in practice the cost of the exposure when a new bug is discovered is usually more expensive – at the cost of trust in the vendor and the product.

What do you do when you want to keep a project on time, but during product testing there are flaws and vulnerabilites, do you keep pushing forward? There are exhaustive combinations of client side variables that will effect a web based products performance, how far do we need to go to QA a product before it is released?

Truth be told there are 100′s of “bugs” in every product, so much so that we call them “features” and just devise a ‘work-around’ to prevent the show from stopping.

Microsoft is a prime example, even the simple things have unexpected “features”.  Have you ever had issues trying to download a Trial product from Microsoft’s website?  For fun, go try and download the “Trial” version of MS Project and you may find so many issues with just trying to get to the trial download, that you just go buy it.

Perhaps that is by design? [* hmmm * finger to chin... tap, tap*]

I am asking YOU, what do you think?  Do we keep living with the big BUTT with issues or find a better way?  IMHO it is cultural and can be changed if an industry decides to change dates and put more emphasis on QA, but that’s just me… and I am just one packet in the stream of media life.

They are NOT your friends!

Hey, not much time here because I am so busy these days, just wanted to point out how insidious the scam artists of the webernet can be, take a look at this fake “Hallmark” invite?  First off, Hallmark.org is a dead giveaway, but as I showed you guys in previous posts – if you just “mouse over” the link you can see that it is actually asking you to “click here” to an evil I.P address that willkick off what we call an “executable file” (a.k.a. “*.exe”).  I am not going to be your guinea pig here, but I bet it does something pretty awful when you click on it!!

I highlighted the evil in red in the screenshot to the LEFT – Please children?  Warn your mothers?

Don’t click on anything… Make your parents watch “Mars Attacks” repeatedly until they get it… NO, MOM! They are NOT your friends!

Did you know:

About 40% of freelancers had trouble getting paid in 2009, according to a survey released in mid-April by the New York-based Freelancers Union, a 135,000-member organization for independent contractors across the country in fields such as media, technology, and advertising. It was the first year the group asked the question on its member survey. And more than three out of four freelancers said they’ve had trouble getting paid over the course of their careers, according to organization.

PAY ME DANG IT!

The problem could become more acute as independent contractors emerge as a more central piece of the work force. The financial crisis and the resulting high unemployment thrust many professionals into the ranks of freelance workers, which may continue to grow despite signs of an economic recovery.

Read the full article here

Resources:  Freelancers guide to getting paid, excerpts:

• Get over the embarrassment.
• Deal directly with payroll.
• Withhold work, if you can.
• Offer the company some flexibility.
• Consider adding late fees to your contract, or a prepayment clause.
• Consider working with freelance-liaison firms.
• Sue the company in small claims court.

Available from WSJ, read the full post here

Welcomed by Kevin Shively, TVWorldwide

Streaming Media East 2010 – the day after report:  What is it about technology conferences that makes them so exhausting?

The exhibit floor this year was smaller then last years and I heard from the exhibitors that real “customer” presence was light, but of course for my purposes… that doesn’t really matter.

Selfishly I have to say, I am only interested in technology innovations that are easy to integrate or deploy, that are affordable and of course, that actually work.  There was a lot of discussion around scalable technology, SD to HD workflow transitions, adaptive (bit rate) streaming… and of course, highest on the list is the promise of “unified systems” (as it is referred to in the Enterprise) or single [video] signal transmission to multiple devices, something along the lines of TVEverywhere type availability of broadcast content, but specifically one feed that can play back on any device (i.e. Mobile, Desktop, Set top box, etc.).

That’s a lot to think about, but I was able to pin-point my priorities and focus on putting together a package that would work for me and my budget… and here is that journey.

The conference took place at the New York Hilton, as it has for the last several years.  Upon arrival to the show floor, one flight up via escalator, one was greeted by Kevin Shively at the entry and his A/V crew set up & ready for live interviews (you can view the replays here).  I couldn’t help but notice that this year Kevin and his trusty A/V crew (Pete) were equipped with the NewTek Tricaster TCXD850, this is the model that supports HD workflow (and will easily plug & play SD so you can ease in as you upgrade equipment and peripherals).  The Tricaster still runs on XP OS and I was a bit concerned about Microsoft’s recent announcement that they would no longer support Windows 2000 and XP O.S.

TriCaster™ TCXD850

In light of this concern I made sure my first stop on my updated workflow mission was to hit the NewTek booth and ask a guru.  I interview Will Waters, a NewTek Systems Integrator who was doing live demos on the show floor, and he assured me (*party line*) that NewTek is working with Microsoft to ensure support, however the unit is released to market on Windows XP.   This does concern me for the long term, but if one needs a workflow solution now I believe the Tricaster is the “best” studio in a box for the buck.  Of course, I would recommend not using it as your live encoder while producing a live webcast nor would I recommend going on the road with just one (I would prefer to have a back-up unit or solution like having a UStream.tv account with their UStream ProducerPro which is switcher ready and is pretty inexpensive for what you get.

On a side note, the Tricaster comes configured with UStream presets, however when I asked Will about this he was quick to redirect and position the product as being more “ubiquitous” so I suspect that relationship may have changed somehow, at least “politically”.   Just an interesting note. (And I did not see anyone from UStream.tv present at the conference, so… do the math!)

NewTek TriCasts™ America: Varsity Tour. From May 11-June 9, 2010

NewTek was plugging away at the capabilities of the mobile unit and their up-coming “Varsity Tour” (vehicle seen in the picture to the right), of which they boast:  NewTek will visit multiple cities to host live events, inviting audiences to check out the benefits of a giant live HD TV truck that fits in a backpack.

The strategy is this, they know that the trick to keeping their products relevant is attracting talent and expert users of their products, so they are hitting the Education trail to get kids hooked on their products early!  Makes sense…

At this point I have myself a nice little plan, Tricaster with a UStream.tv backup/failover plan… now I needed to figure out what to do with my transmission and how to send it out to the world.

My eyes usually glaze over and mind fog sets in at these events, I was lucky enough to run into Lisa Larson-Kelley (follow @lisamarienyc on Twitter) who was on her merry way to the A105: HTML5 and Web Video Standards session, moderated by Tim Napoleon, Co-Founder, President, Alldigital with panelists:

Jennifer Taylor, Director, Flash Content Creation and Distribution, Adobe Systems, Inc.
Monty Montgomery, Director, Xiph.Org Foundation
Greg Harris, Chief Creative Officer, Daily Interactive
Justin Eckhouse, Senior Product Manager, Video and Mobile, CBS Interactive

A105: HTML5 and Web Video Standards

The session was packed, standing room only!  It turned into (or tired to turn into) an Open Source vs. The Man type of debate that didn’t really go anywhere.  Here is how I read the session:

CBS = We wait & see to drive innovation

Adobe =”Hello, my name is Adobe & Flash is a CPU hog” “Welcome Adobe” – The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem [and, scene!]

Daily Interactive = I don’t remember anything this guy said, and I wasn’t even drinking yet.

Xiph = Stop talking & Just do it! [or something like that! You know, something really Open Sourcey and philosophical....]

Bottom line, I am looking at the HTML5 specification and it’s really no harder than HTML/XML but it has a fancy number – did you know the the number 5 is the most graphically desirable number since it contains both curve and straight line and it also represents my favorite Mambo?

The technology that really caught my eye this year is the ever affordable, pseudo non-political, ubiquitous, codec agnostic product engineered by team Wowza.  Their party line:  Wowza Media Server is the world’s first platform that lets you stream from one H.264 encode simultaneously to multiple players and devices. It unifies the multi-protocol, multi-player H.264 streaming into a single workflow, eliminating the need for multiple player-specific encoders and servers. And Wowza Media Server 2 delivers all that at an unbeatable price — 75% less than the single-protocol Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server (FMIS) or Microsoft Windows Server® with IIS.

Wowza Media Server demo - live streaming video to an iPad

I spent quite a bit of time with the fellas from Wowza trying to figure out what their party line is, we even broke bread… So, maybe I came close to drinking the cool-aid but the fact of the matter is simple:  I said it had to work.

FACT:  I was able to view their demo on the floor and they went in depth into how they used the VLC player as an encoder to get the video off of the server (running on an HP laptop) and over their “lab” network were able to just play back the url in the browser on the iPad.  I could “see” it working and accept the fact that this was just a demo.  They were honest about that.  Good.

FACT:  I really think the benefit of their product is in the price-point and ease of deployment, as Alex Dobrushin, Chief Marketing Officer, walked me through the set-up on say… An Amazon ECS account… the CMO described how all I have to do is take the Wowza pre-configured server image and load it up to my ECS instance.  Wowza offers a free demo that I plan to download from their site in order to build out my first Amazon Wowza media server.  This right here is the foundation of what a CDN is.  Of course I don’t want to be a CDN, I just like to stream the media to the people!

I did a round of interviews with A.M. Arno of Bandwidth Bastard fame and will be editing some clips of my exploits for your viewing pleasure shortly.

Last Word:  I got what I needed out of this conference and I hope that you got something out of this post, now go brush up on your motor skills and get some exercise!

Photo by Kelly Samardak: An Online Minute... Burgeoning Women's Networking Event Flings It For Spring At Armani/Ristorante

The most recent Digital Diva shin-dig inspired me, a little vino and a lot of chit-chat about social experiments and live streaming… all good stuff.

The ladies in the fabulous picture to the left, and I, were discussing live webcasting and what makes a live experience more compelling than just watching an on-demand web video?  Perhaps, we get a sense of intimacy that we share with the other viewers – when you know you are not alone in the “room” so to speak…  it is an intimate feeling, with the audience and the speaker, augmented by a sense of being there.  It makes the “viewer” more of a participant than a passive set of eyeballs.  Take that and top it off with some real-time interactivity and you have a fabulous recipe for attracting a real audience.

The best live webcast experience I ever had was at the launch of “Progressive Networks” first live

streaming media experiments (a.k.a. Real Networks).

I guess it was 1996 and I can remember the haunting feeling as I listened to the audio streaming live, it would slow down and warp as I watched the “counter” go up on the webpage as people tuned in and down as people were dropped, folks from all over the world tuned in and shared in this sense of wonder.  They could be anywhere….  I was somewhere.  Who was listening in with me?

That was the very moment when I felt it in my gut, that somehow I was going to be a part of this thing… this magical thing we call streaming media.

Of course now a days we expect and need a lot more to go with the live experience, warped audio ain’t enough to let us know we are not alone in the “room”.  Now, we need to share thoughts and reactions, have the speakers respond to our concerns in real time and to top it off, we want our snarky comments to twitter and retweet to the global cesspool.

That is all well and good, but the real challenge is finding all that is live broadcasting in one place.  I am considering creating a “what’s live now” Media Portal that only announces live webcasts (live online video broadcasts) from all over the world – I could suck in feeds from Ustream, Livestream and the FCC.. and even The YouTube and Hulu.

It’s the vision I have for 2011 and I’d like your feedback on this effort and of course any developers interested in this project are welcome to join in the conversation.

I will be in and out of the Streaming Media East 2010 conference, I will have my Zoom recorder and may take some interviews to post to my new blog, by the way…

Do you like it?  Getting better, isn’t it?

I created my profile and eased into the whole process of pushing out itty-bits of chars to define the otherwise frenetic moments of a working day.  Trends, projects and articles whiz by in twitter time and suddenly one is propelled into a world of conversations that, as it turns out, the entire world is listening in on.

Recently the library of congress announced they would “archive” every tweet that passed through the twitter gates, an archive of our global manic need to be heard (or read as it were) – which makes being a part of Twitter feel like impending immortality!

Big Brother Is Reading!

On a more sinister note, I recently felt the true power of  ”The Twitter” as I innocently complained about my Time Warner Cable service and it’s shoddy delivery.  Instantly a “Tweet” came my way from Time Warner Cable:

@nicomclane Both of these issues may be related to signal interference. Would you like me to take a look at your equipment? ^BP

Not for nothing, I was impressed that they are in fact “tuning in” to what end users are saying about their service/products… and then it happened again!  I had started playing the ole’ FourSquare game and “Checked In” to a PCRichards on a working shop trip and next thing I know, I get a Tweet from PCRichards:

@NicoMcLane Thanks for checking in! Were you able to find what you were looking for?

In and of itself, if Twitter does nothing more than act as an agent of  Global eavesdropping, one can only hope it leads to better service, instant solutions and a brighter future!  Of course this means one must be much more careful about what we “Tweet”, in a strange way it is reassuring to know someone is always listening… and again, it tells us Big Brother is Reading!

Spring Cleaning = PAIN!!!

Spring cleaning (according to our friends @wikipedia) is the period in spring time set aside for cleaning a house, normally applied in climates with a cold winter.
The most common usage of spring cleaning refers to the yearly act of cleaning a house from top to bottom which would take place in the first warm days of the year typically in spring, hence the name. However it has also come to be synonymous with any kind of heavy duty cleaning or organizing enterprise. A person who gets their affairs in order before an audit or inspection could be said to be doing some spring cleaning.  (Or a Politician)

As a true ” Geek” of course,  Spring Cleaning takes on a new meaning to include, not just the traditional dusting about the house and recycling all my old clothing to the Salvation Army, it means clean up/back up of critical systems for life & business!  Inspired by a recent post at Lifehacker.com I thought some of you might appreciate what they say is The Good, the bad and the useless when it comes to doing “stuff” to your PC!

As for me, time to get to that pile of old clothes and start labeling boxes for A/V cables!

Happy Spring Cleaning Geeks!

Here is the last picture of her taken before her last day as a cat… I hope they finally let you come back as a true lady-diva.

I will always miss your “Meh”

babybops last pic

This week the House of Representatives passed a new bill, an amendment to the 1934 Communications Act to prohibit manipulation of caller identification information, this will outlaw [fingers crossed] the use of *67 , spoof cards and all that other crap I hate.  The proposed bill is only 8 pages long, but every word reassures me of the impact it will have on all of us into the future.

DSLreports writes:

Argh!

Congress has passed a law that bans all spoofing of caller ID identification, be it via traditional phone service or VoIP. The Truth in Caller ID Act of 2010 (pdf copy here) was passed in the House of Representatives this week, and was primarily aimed at scammers who use spoofed phone numbers when pitching bogus wares (you’re probably familiar with the extended auto warranty scams by now.) The language of the bill:

It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States, in connection with any real time voice communications service, regard- less of the technology or network utilized, to cause any caller ID service to transmit misleading or inaccurate caller ID information, with the intent to defraud or deceive.

The bill of course contains an exemption for police or federal agencies should they be using the tactic in law enforcement.

I breath a sigh of relief today.  Thank you HOR, now on to Congress!!