| May 13, 2013
2 comments

How to Backup Your Data…..and Never Lose Data Again

Everyone who has a computer, must  have a way to backup their data. Not only do they need to have copies of all their essential files up but, it needs to be regular and automatic in order to be effective.

What’s Not a Backup

A lot of people say oh, my files are backed up, but if it is not regular and automatic, there is a much higher risk of data loss. Some examples of bad backup strategies are:

  • “I copy my files to a flash drive/external hard drive every now and then”
  • “I burn my files to a CD/DVD when I remember”
  • “I email files to myself every now and then”

While these methods do create extra copies of files, they are not guaranteed to be the most recent, nor are they automatic relying on the person’s memory which may not be the most reliable when it comes to regularly backing up.

So if all those strategies are not good backups, what does it take to have a good backup? These are of course just my thoughts, but ensure that data is safe and I am proud to say, I have not lost data in very long time.

3-2-1 Backup

One of the most popular backup methodologies is the 3-2-1 backup. This method encourages using more than one backup and utilizing multiple types of media for backing up. So what does 3-2-1 mean?

3 copies of every file

Those files should be on at least 2 different mediums, whether online, external hard drives, flash drives, CD/DVDs, or any other storage mediums.

1 of those copies needs to be off-site in the event of fire, flood, theft or any other physical damage to your home or office, which could leave backups in that location just as vulnerable as your computer.

In my opinion, online backup is the best way to backup your data because it is off-site and very secure allowing users to encrypt their data so it can only be accessed by the user using an encryption key they create. But as the 3-2-1 strategy suggests, no single method is perfect and it is best to have more than one backup, using multiple types of media.

My Backup Strategy:

Personally, I use CrashPlan which is $50/year for unlimited data backup for my computer both the internal hard drive and external hard drives. In addition, I   have a secondary backup of all the data on my internal hard drive using Time Machine on my Macbook. All my documents are on Dropbox which offers 2 GBs of storage for free (and can be increased either by recruiting new users or by purchasing more space) so all those files are backed up on Crashplan, Dropbox and on my Time Machine Backup. I admit, I might be a a little extreme with my backups but, it is great to know that my data is safe in case the worst happens.

Backup Strategies: 

While my backup strategy may not work for everyone,  there are so many options for backing up and protecting your data.

External Hard Drive:

The most basic method of backing up data is setting up an external hard drive for automatic backups. Lifehacker has a great set of instructions on setting this up on both Windows computers and Macs using their respective built-in backup systems.

Online Backup:

My favorite method of backing up data is online backup. Online backup is great because the data is kept off-site, securely. So if there is a robbery, fire or other disaster, an external hard drive is just as vulnerable to damage as your computer. With online backup, you pay for the service either monthly or annually and data is automatically uploaded as files are created or change as long as the computer is connected to the internet. It also means that users don’t need to remember to connect your computer to an external hard drive in order to backup. The one disadvantage is those who have many large files, the initial backup may take weeks or months. However, the benefits of online backup when it comes to connivence and safety   There are many choices for online backup services, and I have used several different services over the years.

  • Backblaze: Backblaze is similar to Crashplan (see below) as far as features and price however,  it doesn’t have the option to external hard drives or friends’ computers.
  • Carbonite: Carbonite is probably the biggest name in online backup but, it has it’s limitations. The most basic plan is $60 per year, and it limits which file types it backs up and it only backs up data on the internal hard drive. For those who want to backup external hard drives,  will need to get the Plus account which is $100 per year and only is available to Windows users and to automatically backup video files, they will need a premium account which is $150 per year and once again only available to Windows users.
  • CrashPlan: CrashPlan is what I currently use to backup my data, it cost $60 per year for unlimited backup for a single computer including external hard drives. There is also a less expensive 10 GB backup plan and Family Plans that are better are a better price for 3 or more computers as well as multiple year options for extra savings. In addition to a strong online backup service, Crashplan can also backup to external hard drives and to computers of friends using Crashplan as well.
  • Mozy: Has a 50 GB backup plan and a 125 GB backup plan for $6 and $10 a month respectively, which for many users is more than enough storage space.  This works out to be slightly more than the Unlimited backup from Crashplan and does not offer all the advanced features Crashplan has. The other issue I had with Mozy was when I used it, granted this was several years ago, was the Mac version had a fair amount of bugs.

One of the other advantages of these backup services is because the data is backed up to the internet, it is accessible anywhere there is an internet connection and all the services listed above have mobile applications, making forgetting a file a thing of the past. Now, any file backed up is accessible from any web connected computer or mobile device.

Other Strategies:

Some people may be apposed to paying for online backup despite the enormous benefit however, backing up data is still important. They can automatically backup to an external hard drive as described above but off-site backup is still essential. There are however, other ways of having an offsite backup without paying for an online backup service.

This can be done by having two or more backup drives and rotating them out to a safe location. For example, leaving a backup drive at a friend’s house or in a bank safe deposit box. By backing up data to a drive and then putting it somewhere safe, your data will be safer than just backing up to a local external hard drive.

Another more affordible method of off-site backup is using the free Crashplan application as described above and backup to a friend’s computer that also has Crashplan installed. This takes less effort than swapping hard drives out every now and then. The problem with both solutions however, is they are limited to the size of the external drive or the friend’s computer. Online backup is still the best solution but, the most important thing is that all your important data is backed up and in multiple places.

Final Backup Tips:

  • There is no such thing as too many backups
  • Data Recovery from failed drives costs over $1,000 on average.
  • Hard Drives have a 13% failure rate annually- See Crashplan’s graphic of various media’s life span.- Choose your media wisely!
  • Backup everything, even if you don’t think you need- especially if you have unlimited backup, USE IT!
  • Once your backup plan is in place, you don’t really have to do anything and you have the peace of mind knowing your data is safe
Category: Computers |
| May 10, 2013
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Internship Journal Week 15- May 6- May 10

Monday: 5/6

DAY OFF- JOB INTERVIEW

 

Daily Total Hours: 0.00 Hours

 

Tuesday:  5/7

First thing we did was go to Staples to purchase a new hard drive that our Cinematorgrapher needed to take with him to a meeting to test some footage with the client’s editing system. We then dropped two other hard drives with footage off to a client in the city for a project we had been working on. I also checked a lighting kit back in and replaced a burnt out bulb from the kit.

 

Daily Total Hours: 7.87 Hours

 

Wednesday: 5/8

It was a slower day again, I checked in two wireless mics kits back that were out for rentals and put them away. I then setup a lighting test in the garage to prepare for a shoot in a couple weeks. I then put away some of the other equipment we had setup in the garage for another set of tests done earlier this week.

 

Daily Total Hours: 6.43 Hours

 

Thursday: 5/9

We spent much of the day getting ready for the shoot tomorrow which I won’t be able to attend because the grounds crew doesn’t want too many people of the field. So I pulled a lot of the equipment and loaded the truck they will be taking. We also tested out the Kulabyte streaming system for the two streaming jobs we having coming up next week and ran a test stream to make sure it’s ready.

 

Daily Total Hours: 7.85 Hours

 

Friday: 5/10

It was my final day of my internship. I started by finding a website that collects broken batteries for recycling because I had noticed there was a large box of dead batteries sitting in the office. I then did some green screen footage working in FinalCut just for some practice. We then went out to lunch to celebrate my last day. When we got back, we checked some audio equipment before it went out and then did some cleaning-up around the office.

 

Daily Total Hours: 5.62 Hours

 

Reactions: 

 

This internship has been great, I have learned so much from everyone at Allied Pixel and got to go on some awesome shoots! I learned a lot about video production as well as the business aspects of it.

 

Weekly Total Hours: 27.77 Hours

 

Grand Total Hours: 525.93 Hours

Category: Internship Journal |
| May 3, 2013
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Internship Journal Week 14:4/29-5/3

Monday: 4/29

I first Re-tubed 3 lighting kits that we are going to take its us on shoot Wednesday, that we’re set for Fluorescent and need to now be tungsten for us to use with a green screen. I then pulled a lot of the other equipment we would need for Wednesday’s shoot and got some things ready to go. We then installed Davinci Resolve on one of the edit machines that can handle the software and began test it on the shots we got Friday. After a while, I had the opportunity to work with it on my own and I looked up some tutorials online to better understand it. It is a really powerful color correction program, it takes some getting used to and a very powerful machine to run it on but it is clear why it is the top of the Lin color-grading program.

 

Daily Total Hours: 8.05 Hours

 

Tuesday: 4/30

I spent most of the day pulling equipment and loading the truck for the shoot the following day. I also took apart a tripod rig to save some space in our equipment room. I also spent some more time learning its DaVinci Resolve and trying different things. I am going to try and find some tutorials online to learn he software because right now I am just playing around and seeing what happens.

 

Daily Total Hours: 7.8 Hours

 

Wednesday: 5/1

We started first by troubleshooting some issues we were having with the air conditioner in the server room, which I noticed was making a loud noise when I came in. We finished loading the truck and left for Astra-Zenica for our shoot. We loaded in the equipment and I helped setup lights and other equipment for the shoot. Once we had all the equipment set, the shoot went very fast and we finished ahead of schedule. We then struck the set, and loaded the truck back up and went back to the office. Once back, we unloaded the truck and I checked all the cables as well as the grip kit and put them away.

 

Daily Total Hours: 7.77 Hours

 

Thursday: 5/2

OFF- IN KUTZTOWN

 

Daily Total Hours: 0.00 Hours

 

Friday: 5/3

OFF- IN KUTZTOWN

 

Daily Total Hours: 0.00 Hours

Reactions: 

The most valuable experience was being able to play with and learn how to use DaVinci Resolve, which is a very expensive, high-end color correction system I probably would have to the opportunity to use on my own.  It was also a great learning experience going on the shoot on Wednesday and seeing another professional shoot in action.

 

Weekly Total Hours: 23.62 Hours

 

Total Hours to Date: 498.17 Hours

Category: Internship Journal |
| April 27, 2013
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Internship Journal Week 13: 4/22-4/26

Monday: 4/22

It was a relatively slow day, I checked the audio equipment back in the that had been out most of the weekend and cleaned some equipment. We then spent much of the afternoon preparing for our shoot tomorrow and pulling gear and loading the truck.

 

Daily Total Hours: 7.55 Hours

 

Tuesday: 4/23

We met at the office and loaded a few final things and the electronics that we were charging overnight. We then headed over to Eastern University and brought equipment into the library where we were shooting the interview. I setup the lights and other equipment for the interview portion of the day. We shot the interview with a woman who is attending Masters classes at Eastern University and is planning on becoming a missionary and about her story of how she was called to her line of work. After the interview we got some shots of her around the library, putting away books and talking to other students. We struck all the equipment we didn’t needed for the exterior shots and then broke for lunch.  Then after lunch we shot exterior shots of her outside around campus. Then, we then struck the remaining equipment and loaded the truck up and left.

 

Daily Total Hours: 7.11 Hours

 

Wednesday: 4/24

We unloaded the equipment from the truck and then I checked lights, cable and other equipment that we had out it us and put it all away. After all that was taken care of, I disassembled our Black Magic Design camera rig and put the camera back in its box for storage. Finally, I researched where to find inexpensive external  hard drive online because we need to pick one up tomorrow for the client from yesterday to ship them the video files.

 

Daily Total Hours: 7.75 Hours

 

Thursday: 4/25

I spent much of the morning repairing broken BNC cables by cutting off the connectors and broken pieces of cables and then connecting new connectors. We then spent the afternoon going through and organizing some production stills they have collected over the years while looking for a picture of a operating teleprompter for a blog post that is going to be published on the company website.

 

Daily Total Hours: 7.85 Hours

 

Friday: 4/26

We started by reorganizing the garage a little and straightening out some of the gear. We then took the Black Magic Design camera out to Farmount Park and shot some footage of the Japanese house and some blossoming  flowers around it. We then brought it back and tried to look at the footage but realized our camera can’t handle 2.5k RAW footage. We also researched some new computer options  so we can view the raw footage and use DaVinci Resolve for color correction.

Daily Total Hours: 7.93 Hours

Reactions: 

The most exiting and valuable thing I did this week was the shoot at Eastern University, because it was a different production scenario than precious productions.

Weekly Total Hours: 38.23 Hours

Total Hours to Date: 474.55 Hours

Category: Internship Journal |
| April 23, 2013
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Software Subscriptions: Way of the Future or Money Making Tactic?

When Microsoft unveiled their new Office suite earlier this year, they made significant changes to their Microsoft Office offerings.They eliminated all multi-license packs and  unveiled their new Microsoft 365 subscription offering.  Microsoft also increased the price of the single license purchase a fair amount by about $30 and can only be installed on a single machine. Finally, Office is no longer available on DVD but instead only as product key requiring users to download the trial from the the internet to install and activate with their product code.

Although Microsoft Office 365 sounds much more expensive $100 per year, it has some added value over traditional versions of Office. First, 365 can be installed on up to 5 computer and/or tablets Macs, PCs, and tablets, right now only Microsoft Surface tablet, but there is talk of iOS and Android versions coming soon. This is exciting for those who may have both Mac and Windows machines in their household or business because that subscription will cover both operating systems which previously would require two separate purchases.  The Home and Student version of 365 also includes Outlook, Publisher and Access while, the single license  of Home and Student only has Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Onenote. Probably the biggest advantage to the subscription is that subscribers get the newest version of Office at no additional charge which usually would be $100 at least to upgrade. As an added bonuses, Office 365 Subscribers get 60 minutes of Skype credit and 20 GB of Skydrive storage space for the primary users.

Microsoft isn’t alone in their subscription efforts, Adobe offers their Creative Suite as a monthly subscription in their Creative Cloud. This is great for the brief projects where someone may need Photoshop or After Effects for a couple months only, so instead of paying for over $1,000 for the Creative suite, they could just pay for the few months they need and save hundreds of dollars.  It seems like many more expensive applications are now moving towards a subscription model instead of a one-time purchase. This is beneficial, in that all the updates are free which, in high-end professional applications like Adobe Creative Suite cost hundred if not thousands of dollars to upgrade normally. However, many consumers might be caught in the sticker-shock of having to pay every month or every year as long as they want to use that software, which of course in the case of Microsoft Office is forever. However for those who want to buy a piece of software and keep it as long as possible it will seem much more expensive than a one-time purchase leaving consumers skeptical.

Personally, I was very skeptical of the Microsoft 365 subscription model thinking it was a just a way for Microsoft to make more money off the users, taking advantage of their practical monopoly over the Office Suite market. I have now realized that there is a value in this subscription model, forget about all the additional applications you may or may not use, the Skype credit and the Skydrive storage space, upgrading Microsoft Office typically costs around $100 per computer, of course it cost less when they offered Family packs for 3 computers. But now, with 365 for that $100 per year, you are getting 5 licenses for Mac or Windows, although Mac users are still getting Office 2011, but that includes any updates as long as the subscription is active, so when they release the next version for Mac, the update is included. Microsoft no longer has discounted upgrade pricing, so getting the newest version of Office requires re-purchasing Office all over again.  Of course many users don’t upgrade Office every time there is an upgrade.

This subscription model is also known as software as a service (SaS) and while it is new in the desktop software world, it is the norm in cloud computing. Take Google apps for example, for businesses to use the Google Apps suite, it is $5 per user per month, there is no one time purchase, it’s a service that is paid for as long as it needs to be used. Dropbox and other cloud-storage services are another great example, while they offer a certain amount of storage for free, if users need more storage, it is a monthly or annual fee as long as they want the premium service.

Office 365 also includes a cloud service called “Office on Demand” which allows you to “stream” Microsoft Office on any Internet connected Windows PC, sadly this is not yet available on Macs. So for those who may travel and have to use computers other than their own that may or may not have Office installed, 365 subscribers can simply use Office in their web browser without having to install it. The cloud is definitely going to be a big part of future application development maybe even over taking native desktop applications one day, but how many services will people pay for before they decide they are spending too much money each year on subscriptions?

My other big question was what about the App Store ecosystem that began on mobile devices and has now spread to our desktop operating systems? App Stores are the easiest way to buy and maintain our software collections in my opinion. What happens if the software ecosystem moves into more subscription-based and less one-time purchases? Well the easy answer is nothing, in fact, despite my initial concerns, I realized subscriptions might be beneficial to App Store users. Here’s why: users could download the free, limited version of the software and then if they want to get the full version they can subscribe using an in-app purchase every year or whatever the term of the subscription is. App stores will probably need to add some features to make this easier for the consumer and developers but that would give the added convience of the App Store to subscription-based software.

While software subscriptions may make consumers concerned about paying for their software every year and while it may be costly, it does have many benefits. Microsoft has already said that they expect within 10 years, Office 365 will be the only way people will be purchasing Microsoft Office. This could easily be a self-fulfilling prophecy if Microsoft were to discontinue the single license, one-time purchase versions of Office. This prediction will also be aided by the growth of the cloud and software as a service which is on the rise in business and by home users. Office 365 may be easier for consumers to adopt as they get used to paying for software on a recurring basis and dismiss their initial sticker shock of the annual fee.

Category: Software |
| April 19, 2013
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Internship Journal Week 12- 4/14 – 4/18

Monday: 4/14

First, I checked cables and other equipment that had been out on a shoot this weekend and put it all away. I then worked with our Director of Photography to ingest some sample footage he had shot both in 4K Raw and in XAVC Codec and backed the information up to the XSAN. We then used Sony’s RAW Viewer to color correct the footage a little just for practice. We then got a call from a client who we shot footage for and ask if we could crop their footage to a very specific resolution, 486×486, for their website.  They sent us a video to match the shot framing on. I spent the whole  of afternoon working in Compressor to get the settings to match the example which I think I did. The challenge was for the video to not be stretched in the final product since it was 16:9 and is being cropped into a square.

 

Daily Total Hours: 7.7 Hours

 

Tuesday: 4/15

I started cleaning some cases and removing old shipping labels from them to get them ready to be send back out with our camera that is being picked up tomorrow. I then continued to work on the Compressor settings for the client project and wrote up a set of instructions in case someone needed to work on it when I wasn’t around.  It still stretches the image so I spent a lot of time trying to get it to work. We then packed the camera and other gear up that will be picked up tomorrow and then pulled gear for both shoots the following day. We then received the ok from the client to edit those clips which was basically fading in the beginning and holding for 1 second after they finished talking which I did and then continued trying to make the Compressor work and without stretching the image.

 

Daily Total Hours: 7.68 Hours

 

Wednesday: 4/16

We spent most of the morning figuring out how to resize those clips for our as needed by our clients using Final Cut Pro and then exported them out. We still spent a lot of time trying different things until we finally got it to export properly. We then put them in a zip file and uploaded them to the client’s FTP site. Then, I check equipment that was out this morning on a shoot and then we spent some time cleaning up one of the edit machines and ingesting the footage from this morning. I then spent the rest of the day playing with the Black Magic Design camera both outside and inside the office and learning how to use it.

 

Daily Total Hours: 7.62 Hours

 

Thursday: 4/17

We had a early crew call, to go into the city to shoot a video for the Marriott foundation. It was a “Day in the Life Video” for an organization created by the Marriott Foundation called Bridges that takes students who have learning disabilities and help place them in jobs with the Marriott and many other companies. This student, works for the Courtyard Marriott in Downtown Philadelphia originally as a Bell Hop and now as a security officer. We first shot some B-roll of his neighborhood and shot a introduction piece and an interview with his Bridges represenitive  who helped him get his job. We then went downtown and off-loaded our equipment at the hotel and then recorded him walking from the Subway stop to the hotel and then interviewed two of his supervisors and followed him around the hotel and shot in a verity of locations. Finally, we recorded an interview with the employee himself. We then copied all the footage to an external hard drive for the director and then packed up and loaded the truck. It was a long, busy day but it was a good shoot!

 

Daily Total Hours: 11 Hours

 

Friday: 4/18

My advisor came in this morning to visit and see what I have been doing as well as talk to my supervisor,  which went well. I then got some equipment ready for two rentals and checked a wireless mic kit before it went out. I then spent the afternoon learning how to make BNC cables, we took a long, broken cable and made it into several small cables that we need for viewfinders and other accessories. It really wasn’t to difficult once I learned how and now I really enjoy it! We also checked to rentals out and talked a while with the one Directory of Photography.

 

Here’s a picture of my cables: http://instagram.com/p/YTNNbPx7xp/

 

Daily Total Hours: 7.83 Hours

Reactions: 

The most valuable things from this week were definitly the shoot with Marriott because it was a different from the pharmaceutical corporate shoots we typically do and was more documentary-style which was a great learning experience. I also enjoyed learning how to make BNC cables and hope to learn more things like that in the future.

 

Weekly Total Hours: 41.83 Hours

 

Total Hours to Date: 436.32 Hours

Category: Internship Journal |
| April 12, 2013
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Internship Journal Week 11- 4/8-4/12

Monday: 4/8

 

DAY OFF- VISITING KUTZTOWN

 

Daily Total Hours: 0.00 Hours

 

Tuesday: 4/9

 

DAY OFF- VISITING KUTZTOWN

 

Daily Total Hours: 0.00 Hours

 

Wednesday: 4/10

I spent most of the day learning how to use the Wirecast streaming software which will be used on an upcoming webcast job.  We setup a camera in a edit suite and connected it to the computer with a capture card. I went through some tutorials I found on their website and then just starting trying things out on my own, and experimenting. It is a very powerful piece of software that makes webcasting a fairly easy to produce from a technical standpoint. I also discussed with the others some of the new product announcements from the NAB show in Las Vegas.

 

Daily Total Hours: 7.62 Hours

 

Thursday: 4/11

 

DAY OFF- JOB INTERVIEW

Daily Total Hours: 0.00 Hours

 

Friday: 4/12

It was a slow day again, with two people out, we spent a lot of time getting things ready for the shoot our Director of Photography is going on this weekend. I spent the rest of the day working on my video portfolio for senior seminar and cleaning some stuff up around the office.

Daily Total Hours: 7.58 Hours

Reactions: 

Although it was a very short week, working only two days, I learned a lot when I was working with the Wirecast system and thought it was very cool! I might continue to explore the software if I have a chance next because I’m sure there is a lot more. Also,  if I decide to do webcasting down the road, I will need to know the software extremely well so I can focus on the program quality.

 

Weekly Total Hours: 15.2 Hours

Total Hours to Date: 394.48

Category: Internship Journal |
| April 5, 2013
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Internship Journal Week 10- 4/1-4/5

 

Monday: 4/1

Today was a busy day between us finishing the new Black Magic Camera rig and troubleshooting some issues we had with the camera we shipped to Louisiana. They had me look for Solid State Hard drives that were compatible with the Black Magic Camera and then find a local store that had them for the best price. I also explained that by using an external SATA dock thats only $40 you don’t need the camera to copy video files off of the drive. We will probably go tomorrow to MicroCenter for the drive, the dock and some ink cartridges for the printers we have in the office. I then was tasked with researching casing options for the Black Magic Camera online. We then had a client from ESPN who wanted us to dub some footage from tape to digital file from the X-Games. I used a tape deck and a Ki-Pro Mini digital recorder to digitize the file to ProRes and then I copied it to a portable hard drive that we will sell to the client with his file on it. Finally, we added the serial numbers for our new equipment into our records.

 

Daily Total Hours: 7.93 Hours

 

Tuesday: 4/2

I spent the morning putting the finishing touches on my video profile project and cleaning up the edits.  I showed it to the people at Allied Pixel and they liked it and gave a few suggestions that I fixed and finalized the video. We then went to the MicroCenter and picked up the solid state hard drive for the Black Magic Camera, an external SATA dock to read the drive and ink for our printers. When we got back to the office, I formatted the drive to be used on the camera and replaced the ink on the printer. We shot some test footage with the camera and then I installed the software on one of the edit machines. We found out that we need to use DaVinci Resolve color correction software to view the raw footage which none of our computers can handle.

 

Daily Total Hours: 7.88 Hours

 

Wednesday: 4/3

I began searching for cases to put the solid state drive, that  we bought yesterday, in when it is not in the Camera. I then searched for solutions to an issue we were having with the camera not being able to be charged using a certain charger rig we had setup despite it having the correct voltage. The website didn’t have any documentation about this issue so I contacted their customer support to see if they you’ll have a solution to our issue and they had yet to get back to me at the end of the day. The battery went down to 50% after we were using it for only about half an hour or so and since the battery is built-into the camera, we can’t simply swap it out when we are in the field.  We also spent a lot of  time today working on making our rig better for the Black Magic Camera and more comfortable for the operator.

Daily Total Hours: 7.66 Hours

 

Thursday: 4/4

Today, we continued to test out the Black Magic Camera and try to find a solution for charging it in the field. I also spent a lot of the day learning how to setup and run the TelePrompters they we use on shoots. This is good, because they said teleprompting is a good way to get started in the business. We also had a freelance camera guy come in and check out the Black magic Camera.

Daily Total Hours: 7.97 Hours

 

Friday: 4/5

DAY OFF- VISITING KUTZTOWN

Daily Total Hours: 0.00 Hours

Reactions: 

The most valuable things this week were testing the Black Magic Design Cinema camera and picking out the hard drive and accessories for it at Microcenter because I basically took lead in selecting what we needed. It was also great learning how to tele prompt which gives me more skills I can use in the field.

Weekly Total Hours: 31.44 Hours

Total Hours to Date: 379.28

Category: Internship Journal |
| April 3, 2013
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RIP Google Reader; Now What?

Google announced last week, much to the dismay of many people, that Google Reader will be shut down on July 1st. Google Reader has been one of the most popular RSS Readers since it launched in 2005. This is a shame because Google had one of the strongest RSS readers out there and many applications that are built on Google Reader that will either need be be built around another service or shut down.

My Solution:

Personally, I used Google Reader for many years as my primary source of news but have recently moved away from Google Reader in favor of using Twitter as my source of news. This occurred a few weeks prior to the announcement of Google Reader shutting down. My reason for this was because while subscribing to RSS feeds was a good method of reading news, combining my news feeds into my Twitter feed has become a better solution for me. Don’t get me wrong, Google Reader was good, but there was something about the interface that made me dread reading the news that I don’t get with using Twitter as my news feeds.  I subscribed to most of the same sources (blogs, news sites, etc) I had in my Google Reader in fact, I probably follow more sources now than I did with Google Reader. Many call this model”A River of News” where the news flows into one place for the reader to see.  I have a  to  Tweetbot on all my devices to read my Twitter feeds, which syncs across the devices using iCloud so I can pickup where I left off across all my devices. Tweetbot also allows links to be saved later using Instapaper, as I do, or a variety of other services which is useful when going through the news to save articles to read later.

I prefer using Twitter and I think it works better to have it all in one feed that I know I will check frequenly. Twitter also allows interaction with the news with Retweets, Hash Tags and replies and many media organizations interact with their audiences which builds value. This is something that can’t be done as well with most traditional news readers. For those who find a single river of news too daunting, Twitter’s listing feature can be used for those who want to sort the feeds into categories, like: “Tech news” or “International News”. I don’t use this method myself, mostly because I prefer to just have one big stream of tweets I need to check.

Replacements for Google Reader:

While Google Reader isn’t gone yet, it may be time to start looking for alternatives so you are prepared for Google Reader’s inevitable end. Here are some alternatives I have found for Google Reader besides my Twitter-based solution, especially for those desiring an experience similar to Google Reader.

  1. Feedly- Web, iOS and Android
  2. Fever- Web, iOS and Mac
  3. Flipboard- iOS and Android
  4. Google Currents- iOS and Android
  5. NetNewsWire- Mac
  6. Netvibes- Web
  7. Newsblur- Web iOS and Android
  8. Pulse- Web, iOS and Android
  9. Taptu- Web, iOS, Blackberry, Android, Nook
  10. The Old Reader- Web
Category: Internet |
| March 29, 2013
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Internship Journal Week 9- 3/25-3/29

Monday: 

Much of today was spent cleaning up from the open house and putting everything away. I went through all the pictures from the timelapse GoPro and picked out some of the best pictures for promotional use on social media. Since the shots were all super wide shots of the garage. I had to crop all the pictures a little to make them more focused. Besides cleaning, the other thing I did was enter all the contact information of the people who entered business cards for the raffles into the contact database. We also began to get the equipment together that we have to ship out tomorrow including the F55 to an 18 day rental in Lousiana.

 

Daily Total Hours: 7.72 Hours

 

Tuesday:

We spent a lot of today finishing getting the equipment ready to be FedExed out to Louisiana for the film project. We also had to load the truck for a job our sound guy is doing this evening and get some gear together to go to a internship fair at Temple tomorrow. I also began discussing plans for the video profile I have to shoot with the Director of Photography as I plan to shoot it later this week.

 

Daily Total Hours: 6.78 Hours

 

Wednesday:

Today was a slower day, so I spent most of it working on my demo reel for Senior Seminar, as well as improving and timing the script for my internship video profile. I plan on shooting the profile tomorrow using the Canon 5D and the TelePrompter rig that we had out at the open house. We also had a visit by a former employee who now works at NFL Networks. They are very interested in getting a F55, and interestingly enough they are now shooting primarily using P2 cameras.

 

Daily Total Hours: 7.72 Hours

 

Thursday:

Today was another slower day, we checked back some equipment that was out on a rental and did some minor repairs. I also took the DSLR and shot some b-roll for my video profile project which I am going to shoot with our Director of Photography first thing tomorrow. We decided where we are going to shoot and planned it out more.

Daily Total Hours: 7.87 Hours

 

Friday:

First thing we did, was shoot my video profile, I had our cinematographer running the camera and our sound man doing sound and running the iPad TelePrompter so it was like we were doing a real shoot for a client! I still took a lot of takes to get I right, but it turned out pretty well!  We shotin ourcamera room using mostly availible lighting but it still looked like a full production. After we finished shooting, I ingested the footage and began to edit it together with the B-roll I shot yesterday and some still pictures I have taken throughout my internship. We also received our Black Magic Camera at last and began to assemble that rig. We closed early at 2:00, because of the holiday weekend, so we didn’t get it all together yet, plus some of the parts are currently out.

 

Daily Total Hours: 4.92 Hours

 

Reactions: 

The most valuable part of my internship this week was producing my profile video and getting input from professionals on how to make it the best possible. Having people with so much experience is very useful and they are all very willing to help!

 

Weekly Total Hours: 35.01 Hours

 

Total Hours to Date: 347.82 Hours

Category: Internship Journal |
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