Friday, September 29, 2006
Prevent Photoshop CS from Truncating Filenames When Export to Web
Photoshop CS and Photoshop CS 2 has a terrible default setting whereby it truncates image filenames to 31 characters for Mac OS 9 compatibility.
For those of us who are interested in SEO work this is unacceptable. Fortunately I found the solution at this site.
http://philip.greenspun.com/photography/photoshop-scripts/
Setting Up Photoshop Defaults
Photoshop out of the box will truncate filenames to 31 characters for compatibility with the feeble file system in Macintosh OS 9. This only happens on the “save for Web” thumbnail part of the script. A kind soul at Adobe sent me the following instructions for disabling this default:
Create or open a file, then bring up the Save For Web dialog. Pop open the little flyout menu (circle with arrow in it) to the right of the Preset menu and choose “Edit Output Settings...”. In the Output Settings dialog, choose “Saving Files” from the second popup, then uncheck the “Mac OS 9” checkbox under “Filename Compatibility”. OK the dialog and click Done in the main Save For Web dialog.
Photoshop also applies a lot of automatic adjustments to Camera RAW images by default, including as much as one f-stop of exposure adjustment. If you’re generally careful about exposure and other settings at the time of exposure you’ll probably want to turn off the automatic adjustments and “save new camera defaults” each time that you get a new camera (or maybe just a new RAW format extension). The procedure is explained on page 162 of the hardcopy manual that is included with Photoshop CS2.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Tile Browser Windows on Your Windows Desktop
You can display any two windows side by side on the desktop by first clicking a window’s button on the Taskbar. Next, press and hold the Ctrl key and right-click the second window that you want to open, then click Tile Vertically. This works great when you want to view two Word or Internet Explorer windows at the same time.
Here’s a quick Windows tip for bloggers who want to blog while doing other work. Display two windows side by side on the desktop by left clicking the first application on the taskbar, then press and hold the Control key and right click the second application on the taskbar, then click Tile Vertically.
Alternatively, if you want to have two equal sized browser windows open side by side for blogging while visiting your favorite sites, close all browser windows except two, then right click the browser in the taskbar then click Tile Vertically.
Full List of Online Web Video Hosting Sites
With the proliferation of web video sites I thought it may be useful to create a somewhat comprehensive list. I hope everyone will find it useful. Web video sites are typically divided into two types, video hosting like YouTube and Google Video or portals like Channelchooser. Occasionally sites are hybrids like Yahoo video.
http://www.video.yahoo.com
Yahoo video is a like a hybrid video portal and YouTube. Yahoo gets around some of the copyright issues by not hosting many of the copyrighted material on their site, just link pointers. The site is not as extensive as YouTube and of course the destination videos’ broadcast quality will not always be the best.
Yahoo tries to alleviate some of the broadcast quality by creating their own channels in conjuction with Current TV. Like YouTube Yahoo Video allows uploading of user generated videos. Many videos hosted are of better quality and less webcam vloggers. Shows can be added as part of your “My Favorites” selections for viewing at your convenience or when a new show is broadcast.
Also see the Yahoo Current TV collaboration below.
http://www.video.google.com
Google’s video offering is rather sparse compared Yahoo and YouTube. Major categories like comedy, movies, top 100 and sports etc. but no subscription channels. Uploading is offered of course and some videos are available for purchase but the overall experience seems rather barren and less inviting when compared its competitors.
Also see the Google Current TV collaboration below.
http://www.current.tv
Current TV brings a unique concept to cable and satellite television. Consisting of short user created docu clips and professional segments it claims to be about “...what’s going on: stories from the real world, told by you.”
Currently (ahem), about one third of the channel’s content is what it calls VC2 (viewer-created content). Many of the Current produced and user submitted videos are a step up in quality over the YouTube variety and the site is attractively designed with solid usability.
Online members can get a show on the TV channel by voting for their favorites. Current TV will pay for any Pods (Current’s nomenclature for the mini videos) broadcast on their terrestrial channel starting with $100 for the first broadcast with a rising scale upon further showings depending on the topic.
Current TV has made deals with both Google and Yahoo video sites to rebroadcast their content along with exclusive Current TV offerings. Google’s deal only offers “Google Current” a half hour show on the Current TV channel that provides a look at what everyone is searching for on Google.
The Yahoo deal is more extensive, encompassing exclusive multi channels on their site as Yahoo Current Network. Initial channels consist of:
Yahoo! Current Action - Clips of Xtreme sports variety, surfing, skating, snowboarding, BMX, FMX
Yahoo! Current Buzz - hard to figure this one out, sort of what’s hot on the web at the moment related to the other channels
Yahoo! Current Driver - show off your cars, car stunts, crashes and mods anything about… you know
Yahoo! Current Traveler - self explanatory, current categories feature Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Middle East & Africa. With Current TV’s ties to Al Gore it’s not too surprising to see a 3 part hanging out with Edge U2 video
http://video.yahoo.com/currenttv
http://www.current.tv/google
http://www.blinkx.com video search
Video search engine that actually searches content instead of tags or audio clips. Create your own personal channels using keywords or upload your own vids. A unique slider allows the user to refine results by date or relevance.
http://www.wwitv.com
This is not the European ITV television network. http://www.itv.com
This is a portal of links to TV station videos and web sites from around the world. Indication whether the links are direct links, site links and stream speed help with selection but of course actual speed and quality varies tremendously. Very basic organization, no previews, voting or management tools. Essentially a collection of links but still useful if you ever wonder what Croatian TV might be like. Listings are available in five languages.
http://www.streamick.com/
A portal of streaming TV shows that recalls Yahoo during it’s directory days. The front page breaks videos into categories such as News, Music, Business, Entertainment and others. Plenty of TV stations.
http://www.getdemocracy.com
A web video site that requires you to download an open source player to subscribe and manage it’s library of over 600 hundred channels. Anyone may download videos by creating your channel others can subscribe to. Excellent player quality and is especially good at larger sizes. Their site says the videos are good up to full screen but not on my 1600 x 1200 Dell LCD. However it does look better at smaller sizes.
Democracy video software supports Windows, Mac, and various Linux distributions.
http://www.grouper.com
Grouper’s differentiator from any other web video site is it’s specialization for different distribution platforms like PC, iPod, and PSP along with social networks like MySpace and Friendster. Like Youtube you can set private groups for video sharing to keep that drunken party video to only guilty parties. Grouper offers a free application for managing and downloading it’s videos along with sharing and editing. Windows only. Recently sold to Sony for $65 million. Kaching!
http://www.ifilm.com
One of the first video sharing sites for indie shorts and oddness, ifilm was quickly eclipsed when Youtube came on the scene because of it’s many problems. Buggy popup player, unreliably slow streaming and commercials, commercials, commercials. It was like watching a stuttering 15 year old grainy VHS tape on a tiny tv with crappy sound. Toss in the constant nags encouraging pay subscriptions for larger videos and faster downloading, whoop de doo. It got itself bought out by Viacom in 2005 and now is part of MTV Networks and got rid of the paid subscription model. Now it is following YouTube’s lead but with an emphasis on viral videos and still a lot more ads than any of it’s competitors. Oh ifilm, what might have been.
http://www.veoh.com/
Veoh doesn’t have much to differentiate itself from Youtube except higher quality videos and downloading onto PC, PSP or iPod only when you use it’s proprietary software. Unfortunately, like Getdemocracy, the extra benefits of high res full screen clips and video management are only available if you install the application. As in most other video hosting sites, subscription channels and voting is part of the Veoh experience. Gripes include clunky video player and limited selection compared to other sites.
Download full-length, high quality videos with Veoh software
· Share your comments with the Veoh community
· Rate videos as you watch them
· Share videos with friends and other Veoh members
http://www.revver.com
Google’s Adsense made pay per click a viable income stream for some publishers and bloggers. Taking it to the video format is Revver, the company attaches an ad to the end of every uploaded video. Revver shares the revenue with the author similar to the way Adsense shares revenue anytime someone clicks on a Google ad. While this is great for original content authors it means the site is missing all the copyrighted videos like commercials, tv clips and movie snippets which probably makes up a sizable portion of the downloads on a site like Youtube.
http://television.aol.com/in2tv
Free episodes of classic TV shows like Chico and the Man, Gilligan’s Island, Max Headroom to the People’s Court. Curiously the shows are only available to US users.
WEB VIDEO PORTALS
http://www.channelchooser.com
Another online TV portal with links to mostly American streaming channels. Comedy Channel, E! Entertainment, Food Network, ESPN, misc old movies; hundreds to choose from, all streaming. Screen sizes are typically larger than most. Overall quality is solid with and a better alternative to http://www.chooseandwatch.com, especially when some of the streams appear to be the same. Plus, the porn is um… better.
http://www.chooseandwatch.com
A portal of free streaming TV channels of dubious quality in terms of both content and broadcast quality. Contains news, music, business, comedy, old movies and porn. Those of course are pay per minute. Awkward to use because there is no schedule listing.
http://www.live-online-tv.com/
Portal of hundreds of channels sorted by categories and countries. Ranked by live-tv, pre recorded video segments, videos on demand and new added channels.
http://www.channelking.com/
A more European centric portal with entertainment, news and sports similar to Channelchooser. Streaming quality varies but the layout is useful with all available channels displayed in columns on the left and right.
http://www.singingfish.com
An audio and video search engine. Easily filter via formats, categories, family content and results per page. Searches can be saved and emailed without requiring sign up. Search results are quite accurate.
http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/005282.html
Probably the most comprehensive list of web sites of web only video shows and vlogs available on the net.
OTHER WEB VIDEO SITES WORTH MENTIONING
News and Public Service
cbc
http://www.cbc.ca/video/
Canada’s state broadcasting network. The evening news “The National” available online along with video clips of common interest stories, comedy, fashion and shorts.
pbs
Excellent rebroadcasts of Frontline episodes online. Episodes are broken into chapters with further discussions and interviews on the web site, extending the dialogue started with the initial television broadcasts. Quality transfer speeds and video quality as well. Excellent.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/
bbc
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
BBC: You can watch the BBC nightly news online every day of the week. Search the BBC site for more videos and audio components.
http://www.shozu.com
Are you a hipster with the latest mp3 cameraphone? Shozu lets you download photos to Flickr and videos to sites like Youtube. They also plan to have a service (currently in beta) where a user can sign up for video channels similar to web based sites and have those channels plus photos and music sent to your cell phone. Shozu does not charge for the service but you will need to pay for the airtime. Difficult to see how they plan to make money with this.
http://www.stickam.com
Add and post your own live videocam onto MySpace, Friendster, blog or html pages. A hybrid of YouTube and video social networking ideas. Like MySpace users can add non live videos, photos and music to their Stickam home page plus you can see which members are online and chat. Libraries of user videos are there for your perusal but has limited categories and organization. No audio controls on their player. Great site if watching people staring and typing is your thing otherwise if you are just looking for videos there are better options out there.
http://www.peekvid.com
Tv shows and movies organized by type but is basically a organized list of embedded YouTube hosted videos. Many shows like House and Ali G are listed numerous episodes been removed. No surprise since peekvid simply they are simply piggybacking off YouTube where media companies constantly get them removed. Forget about this site. They are simply trying to make some Adsense money off embedded links. Go straight to YouTube instead and search there.