Have you ever watched one of those fancy “webinars” or live video podcasts, and wondered how they broadcast “picture in picture” with different camera angles, or clever switching between cameras, desktop demonstrations and pre-recorded video?

I always thought fancy video switching hardware was required, not to mention some big, big bucks.

But… not so!

I was perusing the Ustream.tv help centre today, and saw a topic which immediately grabbed my eye: “…quickly and easily add scrolling text, logos, RSS feeds, special guests windows, picture in picture, pre-recorded video…”

Woooa, are they serious?  It can’t be that easy, can it?

Yep, it sure is.  Straight away I clicked the link to download WebcamMax for the PC.  This is a nifty utility which gives you significantly more control over your webcam and imaging devices than the default Ustream “broadcast applet”.  My mission was to set-up a “picture in picture” video stream, and it only took a matter of minutes to get this working with WebcamMax.

Setup and installation

Download the 8 MB installer.  Setup is fairly painless and after clicking the “Try” button (you get a 30 day free trial) you’re asked to nominate which applications you want WebcamMax to control video.  I unticked all except UStream.  Then you’re presented with an intuitive GUI which displays any video source that’s currently connected to your PC.  In my case, this was video from a traditional camera, piped through an external USB device like this one.

Next, click on the ‘Sources’ button.  The ‘Main Source’ is your primary video input, and ‘Webcam’ is selected by default.  Look to the right and you’ll see that you can select any other video source simply by clicking the combo box.  Now I’ve also got an in-built webcam in the netbook, which appears as ‘USB video device’.  I switched to that and suddenly I’m looking through the eye of a different camera.  WebcamMax makes it easy to switch between cameras or video sources in this way.

Click the combo to select your main source video device.

You can also click other items in the list, such as:

• ‘Screen’ – live-streams the desktop, by following your mouse pointer or sending the entire screen;
• ‘Movie’ – streams a movie of choice;
• ‘Picture’ – sends a JPG or other image (defaulting to your ‘My Pictures’ folder); and
• ‘Color’ – which lets you set a background colour of any desired shade.

Picture in Picture

But how good is this? Click the button at the bottom of the list control labelled ‘PinP Source 1′.  The same controls appear, duplicated, for a different video source.  Wow!  In no time at all I can display my netbook webcam as a picture inside the main picture.  No expensive video amplifiers or professional switching equipment required!

Picture-in-picture, just like that!

You can get much, much cleverer than this.  Play around with the advanced options and you can move the position of your “picture in picture”, maintain proportions or re-scale, and even have images display as a slide-show.

But wait, there’s more!

I only needed WebcamMax to do “picture in picture”, but it does heaps more than that.  By opening the ‘Effects’ dialogue you can simulate a chroma-key function with different backgrounds.  You can add lighting and shadow effects, grid lines, digital snow, scrolling text… the list goes on.  Select from local or online effects libraries.  There’s even a record feature which lets you write an AVI file to a local disk.

But how does it work with Ustream.tv?

WebcamMax emulates a video device in software.  This means that when you start the Ustream.tv broadcast applet, the WebcamMax “device” will appear in your Video Source drop-down, like this:

The Ustream.tv broadcast applet.  Note the 'Video Source' combo -
just select WebcamMax Capture and you're done.

Simply select WebcamMax as your video device and start broadcasting!

Road test

We’ll put WebcamMax through the hoops over the next few weeks at Tech Talk.  We’ll let you know how it performs, and we’ll listen to your feedback too.  One thing we’re mindful of is not becoming too distracted by the studio webcam; it is, after all, designed to supplement a radio programme, and 99% of our listeners don’t watch the webcam.  We’re hoping to change that, and we hope that using cool utilities like WebcamMax will help us along the way.

Visit the website: http://webcammax.com/

Tech Talk Radio · webcam · WebcamMax

Today is the hottest on record in Melbourne, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.  And the hottest of any capital city in Australia.

That’s my Ubuntu desktop about 15 minutes ago.  46 degrees is about 115 Fahrenheit.

Avalon in Melbourne’s west hit 47.9 degrees this afternoon.

The ABC News website says that, “Six major fire fronts are raging across Victoria and residents have described smoke so thick it blotted out the sun and huge walls of fire ripping through forests.”

The sky is certainly very orange here in town.

Melbourne’s weather is in the top-5 Twitter topics worldwide… have a look at TwitterFall and select the ‘Melbourne’ filter.

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I was cleaning up the orifice over Christmas and found an old MP3 player.  It’s a 4-year-old JNC “SSF-710″-model with a mind-blowing 256MB of RAM.  It was much-loved and much-used as my primary source of mobile audio entertainment before I got my Sony Ericsson W850i, and before I sold my soul to Sony’s Disc2Phone malware.

The battery was, of course, flat, having not been used for … well, when was it last used?  I charged it up, plugged-in some earphones and pressed ‘play’.

At that point I had the opportunity of looking back 18 months, and revisiting some podcasts which I had been listening to in June 2007.

Being the techno-IT boffin that I am, all the podcasts were contemporary science and technology programmes like the BBC’s Digital Planet, Australia’s own BRAN, Leo LaPorte’s TWiT and other home-spun favourites.

So what was making news in June 2007?

• Dr Karl was very excited about the commissioning of the new Hadron Collider, and people were worried that the Earth was going to be swallowed by a man-made black hole.

• The guys on BRAN were having a good laugh about Paris Hilton being slotted for 45 days, before she found God and was released.  Paris then went on to say that she had learned a lot from her ordeal and was going to take more interest in future decisions she made for herself that would affect her personally.  Or something.

• The Federal Government was excited about the upcoming Next-Generation Broadband Network and how a private-public partnership was going to revolutionize internet access for all Australians by facilitating equity in the…  blah blah, wot’eva,… blah.

• There was unrest amongst Apple zealots as no-one was sure when, or even if, the iPhone would ever arrive in Australia.  (And let’s not even begin to speculate about a possible 3G version at this point.)  People were hopping on planes and flying to the US, just to camp-out at Apple stores to get their hands on one of the gadgets.  Also, somewhere, a new iPhone fell into a Blendtec blender.  (Will it blend? That is the question.)

• And of course, early adopters of Windows Vista were warding people off with big, big sticks.

Ahhhh… reminiscing… it’s just not what it used to be.

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Here ’tis… the audio kicks-in after a few minutes:

We’ll advertise this properly next week, for our last show of 2008.

Don’t forget to tune in!

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One month ago today I was bemoaning the adoption of micro-blogging service Twitter by Australian telco Telstra.  Here’s a link to the original rant which appears down below somewhere.

I’m pleased to say that in one month, the service has not only become useful, its usefulness has completely leap-frogged all other ways of communicating with Telstra: including the amorphous website, the your call is valuable to us 13 2200 service, the real-time chat facility and especially the webform.

I mentioned this briefly at the start of this week’s Tech Talk Radio.  I’m currently in the miserable position of managing a deceased estate, and one of the many jobs I needed to attend to last week was telephone service cancellation.  I made several attempts to speak to someone at the your call is valuable to us call centre, but after waiting on hold and being transferred around the world over the course of an entire lunch break one day, then ringing back at 6:00 P.M. and being told (after answering 4 or 5 questions) that the call centre was unavailable at that time, I gave up.  I thought I’d try the interwebs instead.

So I clicked through the 18 pages of FAQs, and managed to fire-off an email through the telstra.com web form.  An automated response told me that:

This is an automated response to let you know that we are handling your Telstra email
enquiry.

Your message has been allocated Enquiry Number 3861xxxx. Please keep a record of this number
so that our consultants can reference your email should you need to contact us.

One of our Consultants will endeavour to respond to you within two business days with an
answer to your enquiry. Occasionally we experience delays in responding to emails, therefore
this expected response time may be subject to change.

Two business days?! That’s worse than the 13 2200 number!  Crikey.  But I did get a response, within 24 hours from Seth d336650 (possibly not his real name) who advised me to go to a Telstra Shop to fill out a form, or ring 13 2200 for Telstra’s unparalleled customer service.

I replied back, advising that 13 2200 was currently closed, and asked if the form could please be emailed?

Again, I was advised that my enquiry had been received; that Telstra valued my continued custom; and that someone would be in touch in the next few days.  24 hours later I received this, from Astrud d332986 (possibly not his/her real name):

Thank you for your email dated 14/10/08 regarding cancellation of account. 

Please be advised that the Deceased Customer Form is only available at a Telstra Shop.  We
kindly advise that you visit the nearest Telstra Shop to you to attain a copy.

Okay then. Telstra obviously doesn’t have an internal Content Management System like Oracle’s OCS or Captaris’ RightFAX, to name two products that simply let call centre consultants distribute electronic forms to customers.  (Hey, it’s not rocket science.)

I replied back to Mr/Ms d332986, telling him/her my suburb and asking for the location of my nearest Telstra shop.

Another robot reply; another 24 hours elapsed.  Then Astrud d332986 thanked me again for my enquiry and suggested that I visit telstra.com for all my Telstra-related enquiries, including how to find my nearest Telstra shop.

ArrggghhhhhhhhHH!!!!

Now here’s where the story takes a turn for the better.

“Why don’t I try Twitter?” I thought to myself.  Nothing to lose, right?  I admit that I was somewhat skeptical about Telstra’s ability to help me via Twitter, especially since Telstra’s presence on Twitter represents the BigPond TV/internet side of the business, and my enquiry was concerned with landline and mobile services.

I’m pleased to say that the responses I received from Ben Birbeck at the BigPond Team were not only helpful, they were timely and personable.  I’m sure that Ben didn’t break into a sweat by servicing my enquiry – it was, after all, a mundane request for a form – but he was able to fulfill my simple needs using private, direct messaging on Twitter and then emailing me the relevant paperwork as requested.  This basic customer service function is something the 13 2200 call centre and the web-form people (Mr & Mrs d336650 and d332986) completely and utterly failed to achieve, after three days.

My thoughts on the matter are now this:

1. The service which Telstra BigPond is offering on Twitter has grown significantly in one month and it would appear that Peter Habib and other Telstra management have been listening, and are responding, to the concerns of the blogosphere; and

2. If Telstra maintains, and even improves, this level of customer service through social networking systems like Twitter, they will do a lot to win back the confidence of tech-savvy customers.

More reading:

• Lidija Davis’s thread on the launch of Telstra BigPond on Twitter
• Telstra Twitter discussion on Crikey
• IT News article: Telstra faces backlash on Twitter

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In arguably the biggest money-wasting venture since Telstra launched a presence in Second Life, Australia’s incumbent telco is now active on the social networking site and micro-blogging service Twitter.

I can’t think of a better way to get tech-savvy customers off-side than to spam a Twitter channel with automated replies, like this:

Got a BigPond® query?! Ask about BigPond® via this link http://tinyurl.com/5ufhvf & a BigPond consultant will email you back.

…or like this…

BigPond® would like to chat about the concerns u have. Click http://tinyurl.com/5ufhvf & a BigPond consultant will email u back.

Telstra, you are not hip, cool, trendy, or in any way appealing to the masses, by using hipster l33t-sp34k SMS language like “u” instead of “you”, ampersands instead of “and” or adding ® after your registered trademark.

Don’t get me wrong, this could be an extremely useful service if it was staffed by competent CSRs that gave personal, real-time replies to customer enquiries.  People would follow Twitter BigPond and might even learn a thing or two from useful replies.  By way of comparison, the Telstra Online Assistance service is useful because you are chatting to real live CSRs. In my experience they usually point you in the right direction in a timely fashion.

But automated twits that point every enquiry towards a web form or email address?  In the immortal words of John McEnroe, “You cannot be serious?!”

Also, can someone explain to me why there are 50 people following this channel?!?!  Ye Gods!!  Get a life!!

Actually, get a First Life first.  Avoid this one at all costs.

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I’ve started jotting down some notes about SEO’ing The Surgery.

Have a look at the bottom of the “Great WordPress Installation” page. I’ll let you know how it pans out. My aim is to be the Number 1 result when someone Googles the word “technology”. (Who said I wasn’t an optimist?)

BTW Lidija Davis has got some great SEO tips and tricks on BlogWell.

What is Search Engine Optimisation? SEO is the manipulation of a webpage or blog, to increase its favourable exposure to search engines such as Google. The aim is to drive traffic to your site through organic search results, i.e., to have a good search result ranking when someone searches for keywords contained in your site.

While it’s not an exact science, there are many things which can be done to increase exposure to search engines, and just as many “bad” things which will cause search engines to switch off and look elsewhere.

Here’s a wiki on SEO. Notice I put the link under some meaningful words, not the word “here”. There’s a free tip for you!

Warning: SEO is highly addictive and will chew-up hours of web browsing, coding and time spent fiddling around in Google Webmaster Tools. Enjoy!

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At last, at last, my WordPress blog is running on a real computer; not something held together by pieces of twine, electrical tape and garden stakes.

I have updated the page on My WordPress Installation, for those interested.

Do you notice the speed improvements with pages loading in your browser? It was definitely worth the hard work… and not too much hard work involved actually.

Many thanks to Graeme Callaghan for all his assistance.

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Okay okay … I’m revisiting Twitter, under some duress.

Follow me, if you’re into that sort of thing:

• Go here;
• Search for rk5075 ; and
  
• Click the Follow button.

Interesting, intellectual and entertaining “twits” are not guaranteed.

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I recently created a website, for a customer who wanted a shiny new blog on a WordPress server.  I took the opportunity to use WordPress.com to do the hosting.

I set up the blog, registered the domain name, and then used a new feature (new for me, anyway) which lets WordPress.com use your domain name.

What this means, is that instead of “my_wordpress_account_name.wordpress.com” as your web address, you can have WordPress.com host “my_domain_name.com.au” which appears in the title bar of people’s web browsers when they’re viewing the blog.  This costs US$10/year per domain, which I think is pretty good value.

How to do this

• If you have an existing domain, log on to the domain’s registrar.  Change the delegation to WordPress.com DNS servers: “ns1.wordpress.com” through “ns3.wordpress.com”;

• From your blog’s dashboard in WordPress.com, go to “Upgrades / Domains”;

• Enter the domain you would like to appear as the address for your blog. This can be pre-existing or WordPress.com will register it for you (if the domain is available) for $5/year;

• Click “Add domain to blog”;

• If you don’t have any “WordPress.com credits”, you will be prompted to login to PayPal and purchase 10 credits (this will cost about AU$11.00);

• Return to the “Dashboard / Upgrades / Domains” screen.  In the domain table you will still see the original “wordpress.com” address for your blog, with the function set as “your blog URL”. You will also see a new entry, which is the domain name you just paid WordPress.com to host. Click on the link that says “Put blog here”. Otherwise if you type the new domain name, it will just redirect to the WordPress.com address.

That’s it! Now if you type your new domain name, or your old “wordpress.com” address, you will see your shiny new blog. Most importantly, the address in the title bar will be your new domain name.

Happy blogging!

More reading; WordPress.com Support Forum on Domain Hosting.

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