Audio and Video

Podcasts

These are the two podcast that I cost to use for this assignment.

Gender Talk
The Planet

Since I tend to listen to podcasts on a regular basis, I decided to share my two favorite podcast which I listen to on a regular basis. I have been listening to Gender Talk since 2002. I started listening to it after it was recommended by one of my Women's Studies Profs. Since listening to it I have found that much of the information, mainly academic, has related to what I have been studying within my Women's Studies classes; every once in a while I'm actually able to you the information I have learnt from the podcast in one of my seminars. Unfortunately, I don't get to listen to my podcasts as often as I would like to since I find that I want to give more attention to it than I do to the music I play in the background. Because of this I find myself constantly having to catch up with episodes, although this is mainly because Gender Talk has been broadcast for quite a few years. Sometimes while listening to old episodes I fill ind interesting facts or stories.

The most interesting and exciting episode of Gender Talk (for me) was one that I was catching up on, It was an episode where Andrea Smith was a guest star. What was so amazing about this fact was that only a few months earlier I had met Mrs. Smith. My Indigenous Women's class had organized a Women's symposium at the end of the school year and had decided to invite Andrea Smith to be our KeyNote speaker. We had read her book earlier in the year and thought that she would be an excellent speaker. After she agreed, I was told that I, along with another girl in our class, would be responsible for accompanying Mrs. Smith from her Hotel to the symposium and back again throughout the weekend. Because of this I was able to have some one on one conversation time with Mrs. Smith, however missed much of her speech that evening since I was also in charge of the food being served. So when I was able to hear Andrea giving a very similar talk on Gender Talk, I was extremely excited to not only hear someone I had met discuss her work, but to also finally hear, in full, a very similar speech.

I also find that Gender Talk is an excellent source for finding new reading material on all sorts of academic issues ranging from Queer and Trans rights to environmental concerns, to current activist works and new studies in the Feminist/Women's Studies field. Many a time I have found myself using one of the texts discussed on Gender Talk as a reference for my papers. Many of which I know I would not have found any other way.

My other choice in podcast was The Planet. The Planet, unlike Gender Talk is much more of an entertainment show. It is based on the TV show The L Word, one of my favorite TV shows! It basically just discusses The L Word , what's been going on, what might happen, things that we may not have noticed, etc. Basically, its a little update and background knowledge about the characters and the creation of the show created for all those diehard fans. Basically I like it because its fun and its interesting to hear what others are thinking about the show. The only issue I have with it is sometime I have to remember that I have not yet seen the show they are talking about and am sometimes victim to a spoiler, simply because I randomly turn on a podcast without thinking. This is only a small downside though, and really its my own fault :) But on the upside its a great thing to have on in the background while I'm working because I learn something and its not anywhere as brain involved/academic as Gender Talk

So basically, I highly recommend podcasts and believe that everyone should have at least one that they listen to on a regular basis. It is a good way on gathering information and getting your thought process moving without the distraction of images (if its not a video podcast) or the necessity of reading. It may not always be the best information to learn but hey, its better than Fox news, and many other propagandist new sources.

Audio Books

The audio book I chose to listen to was

Alice in Wonderland from audiobooksforfree.com As always, I really enjoyed listening to an audio book, it brings me back to the days of long trips in the car with my family, listening to audio books always made the time go faster and was much easier to agree upon than a CD or what little radio you could get. I also really liked the fact that I was able to but it on my ipod and listen to it while I was a work or walking down the street. It gave me the time to 'read' that book that I had been wanting to for a while, without the need to make time in my schedule to sit down and read. I guess the only complaint I had was because it was free, the quality was not up to par, but not bad either, and that you really can't say that you've read such-and-such a book if you really just listened to it on tape/CD/MP3/etc. Also, I guess if you didn't have an MP3 player you would be forced to listen to the audio book on your computer, if you didn't have a laptop this could impend on how oftain and when you could listen to it, making it less convenient, unless you burn it to a disk and play it on a CD/portable CD player, but once again this could be difficult if you did not own one.

After listening to an audio book for free I proceeded to examine 2 different price plans for two different types of audio book listening/renting.

The first plan I examined was from audible.com, they have two pricing plans- Audible Listener Platinum and Audible Listener Gold

audible.com, is a site where you download the MP3's of the books you wish to listen to.

Audible Listener Platinum prices
-2 Books per month= $22.95 per month ($11.47 each)

Audible Listener Gold prices
-1 Book per month= $14.95 (First 3 months only $7.49 per month)
-12 Books all at once= $149.50 ($12.46 each)

The second plan I examined was from simplyaudiobooks.ca, they send you, in the mail [-insert #- many] audio books on CD at a time and when you return them they send you more. "Your monthly fee covers an unlimited number of audio books, with no shipping charges, no late fees and absolutely no hassles."

You can pay monthly or annually, pricing is as follows-

With an annual account you pay- 1 book at a time = $15/month
2 book at a time = $25/month
3 book at a time = $34/month
4 book at a time = $41/month

With a monthly account you pay- 1 book at a time = $17.98/month
2 book at a time = $29.97/month
3 book at a time = $37.98/month
4 book at a time = $44.78/month

24 Books all at once= $229.50 per year ($9.56 each)

Obviously audible.com is cheeper since they do not have to mail the CD's to your home.

There are a great number of differences between the positive and negatives of each company.

*Firstly, being able to download the MP3's is simple and means you can listen to your book virtually right away, however if you want to take it with you you are forced to burn it to a CD or put it on your MP3 player or PDA.
* Having the CD's mailed to you is also good because it means that for those who are not computer savvy, don't have the memory to store these files, or a CD burner to copy the disks, actual CD that are sent to you through the mail seem like a better option since you are not forced to attempt what may seem like difficult tasks.

It is because of these differences that I think both sites would be equally as successful since they are meeting the needs of different cliental/markets.

Video Podcasts

The video podcasts that I chose to watch were

The L Word VideoPodCast

Ellen in a Minute VideoPodCast

I chose The L Word video podcast since I enjoy the L Word and enjoy seeing how the actors themselves, as themselves appear on camera. And what there personal opinions surrounding the show are along with discussions of their real lives, outside of The L Word is like.

I chose Ellen in a Minute because I really enjoy Ellen, but find that her show is on at a bad time of the day for me or that I don't have time to watch it, etc. I really like Ellen in a Minute because it did a very excellent job at giving you a fairly accurate representation of the days show, without all the in-between, not very interesting parts, and commercials. It is a really good way to keep up with the show without having to dedicate a full hour to it or reading about the days events on another person's blog.

YouTube Video's

ipod- Mad TV

The Crack Spider

Under Obama- Mad TV

These were the three video's that I chose to imbed in my Blog but were only 3 of many that I watched before choosing which ones to imbed. Eventually I decided to imbed the video's that I felt were funny and catchy.

I really enjoy youtube since you are able to watch not only clips and video's from your favorite TV shows but you are also able to watch video's that are not made by 'professionals' in HollyWood. Many of these homemade video's range in quality, story, subject, and importance, but are all important and loveable to someone because of their uniqueness. And also because they give a global public voice to many who would otherwise not be able to reach such a large audience. It is this uniqueness and individual voice that has made youtube so successful because it is a way to watch what one chooses without feeling as though HollyWood or 'The Man' is telling you what to watch and what is to be popular, instead the public and individuals get to decide what they like and what they don't like and even leave a comment about the video for other people to read, discuss, and debate over.

Apple Trailers

The trailers that I watcher were-

*Four Minutes
*Then She Found Me
*Smart People
*My Brother Is an Only Child
*My Blueberry Nights
*Summer Palace

After watching these six, as well as a few other trailers, there is only one Four Minutes, that I am sure I want to go see or eventually watch. I think it's interesting that the only films that had any appeal to me were the three foreign films on the above list. Usually there are a few popular American Films that I really want to see, however I don't know if its just a bad year for movies, the War/depression in the States, or just coincidence that the film market doesn't seem to be as good this year.

As for High Definition vs. standard quality...
I must admit that if its not an action film or a darkly lit film I don't see very much of a difference in quality. In the other cases (action/darkly lit films) High Definition gives a sharper, crisper, clearer image than standard quality, but what I am also forced to remember is that if I were to rent these films, the only way I would be able to get this quality is if I watched the movie on my computer since I still have a ghetto TV. So where offering movie trailers in H.D. quality is great, especially if you have a nice monitor, it really doesn't help when it comes to renting or buying the film unless you have an equally nice TV to play it on. I'm sure many people would forget this point and find that watching HD Movie trailers on Apple added to the number of films they rented/watched, but I must admit that unless I'm watching Harry Potter, which tends to be a darkly lit action film, I am more than happy to watch films, which I didn't see advertise on apple trailers, on my ghetto tv with the occasional streaky line going through it, for retro sake that is.

Tagging, Mashups, & Generators

*Note- Below this post as well as to the right hand side of my blog you will find a variety of linked photos from Flickr as well as some of my on-line generator creations.

* Tag Clouds
-list of user-generated tags
-typically listed alphabetically
-the importance of a tag is shown with font size or color (bigger the tag the more favored it is)
- hyperlinks that lead to a collection of items that are associated with a tag

Tag Clouds make finding an image(s) associated with a particular word(s) or tag(s) easy
Ex.

(image taken from: http://jowra.com/journal/wp-content/uploads/2006/02/delicious-tags-plugin.png)

Flickr

I had fun exploring Flickr for a second time. I must admit that I have rarely used my account since the summer. Mainly due to the fact that I am stuck in the "I prefer what I learned with.... blah blah blah" although I must admit that I have been using Flickr to upload some of my vacation pics so that I can easily show them to friends and family.

The one place where I must admit that Flickr beats PhotoBucket hands down is with its tagging. Fickr (in my opinion) is the easiest photo sharing website to find photos listed under a particular tag/ tags. PhotoBucket is nowhere near as easy and tends to show the same image over and over, unlike Flickr.

Flickr Mash-ups

Reviewing some of these mashups for the second time was an interesting experience. I had forgotten how mesmerizing flickrvision.com is. Or how bizzar it is to see which images are chosen when you draw squiggles in the box at flickr labs . For an interesting experiment I attempted to draw everyday objects in the box, not once did I actually get anything that even resembled what I had attempted to draw. And once again, even after learning how to play Sudoku I could not figure out how in hell to play the Flickr version.

Google Map Mash-ups

These are a few interesting and disturbing google maps mash-ups which I am sure benefit the world in some way shape or form. (*Note:- I do realize some google map mash-ups are seen as extremely helpful, ex. the one which shows where all the US sex offenders live, however the politics behind that are extremely difficult to discuss in this small assignment and for that reason I have chosen to include a few mash-ups which are not so political... unless you are against StarBucks in which case being able to find the closest one to you may be more disturbing, due to its acknowledgment of our extremely corporate capitalistic obsessions which we use to fill the forever empty void within us all, but for the rest of us is exactly what we need to get us through are hectic days.

UFO Maps
The other side of the world
Sanata Map
Where are all the Ham Radio's?
Find a Concert

On-Line Generators

These are one of my favorite things to do on the web. Particularly around exam time on-line generators fill the pages of my bogs. Mainly for procrastination purposes but on occasion to add that extra little... something to my blog. For example I quite often use a doll generator on my info page to give others an image of me without giving them an actual photo. Other times I like to use some of the sign generators as "Friends Only" banners to let others know that if they want to read my blog they are going to have to be my friend. I also like to use on-line generators to really show the name of my blog cause sometimes the user name can overwhelm the actual name of your blog depending which one you use. And sometimes I like using on-line generators to make fun and personalized stationary. I use a generator to come up with a funny poem or image and then print it out on a few sheets of paper to give my hand written letters a little extra detail.

Basically on-line generators for the most part are just fun, quick and easy and can be used for a multitude of things. I must admit that I like using the poem generators to send my friends little poems to make their day a little happier.

Flickr: Interesting Photo's

Blurred Vision: Suicide, Tracey Leigh Grady, 12/13/03,
originally uploaded by MsAnthea "Anthéaïs".

Other interesting Photo's
Owl
Street Art
Puzzle
Girl

Online Generators: My Creations

I feel like I'm so angry! everybody has asked why I'm leaving the punk community but the answer is simple: Some of you know who you are and why I'm leaving FOREVAR.

This entry automatically generated by the LJ Drama Generator!

My sexual attraction code is:
GF-AA: GF-AF GF-AM GF-AA GM-AF GM-AA GTw-AF GTw-AM GTw-AA GTm-AF GTm-AM GTm-AA GH-AF GH-AM GH-AA

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Google Reader

I must admit that originally I was not too sure how I felt about Google reader. I could see the usefulness of having all the content you regularly look up/visit in one place, yet did not feel that I visited enough sites on the web to use google reader on a regular basis. I must also admit that I am as fond of visiting separate websites as I am of T.V. commercials, to me, visiting separate webpages is part of the whole internet experience. I felt sad giving up that part of surfing the web. Although, as unsure of google reader as I was I felt that I should give it a fair chance and use it for about two weeks. I must admit that I still visited other sites, mainly because I could not add them to google reader, or in the case of my blog, I decided that I enjoyed visiting my friends page too much to give it up to google reader.

In order to make google reader more relevant or useful, I decided to add not only the regular sites I visited (by copying the web address of the site and pasting it in google readers add subscription box or by finding the RSS option/link on the actual web site/page that I wanted to add to google reader) But to also add sites that I traditionally would not visit, yet felt passionate enough about that I would enjoy reading on a daily basis (for this I used the directory in google reader to search topics of interest to myself to find new blogs/webpages to add to my RSS feeder)

Throughout the two weeks where I used google reader on a regular basis I found myself adding more and more subscriptions to my RSS reader. I also found myself removing a few that I did not feel a connection to. Throughout the entire experience I found that I had somewhere between 300-500 items to read a day. I must admit that I enjoyed obtaining new facts and knowledge on a daily basis and felt that for this google reader was very helpful/useful. Also for my Media and Feminism classes I found google reader extremely helpful to keep track of all the newspapers and articles I had to read on a regular basis. The one downside that I found was on occasion I did not have the time to dedicate to reading all of my subscriptions. I also found it extremely overwhelming if I missed a day or two, very quickly I could have 1000+ items to read with no time to read them. There were also days where I felt that google reader supplied me with too much information to ingest after 6 hours of very intense (information overload) class.

All in all I found google reader useful and have decided that it is an easy way of keeping track of the sites I enjoy reading and what I have and have not read. I also really enjoyed the ability to star items which I found extremely useful or interesting. I really appreciated that ability to keep track of these items and have them all in one place. The ability to then share these items with friends, relatives, and others was extremely helpful and easier than attempting to direct people to particular parts of webpages.

Blogging: Blogger & Twitter

Blogs: uncovering personal opinion without the media

Interesting Blogs:

On my journey to find interesting blogs I came across the following blogs:

johnnyboysriot
art_riot
womens_studies
joanna-ritchie-portfolio
bitchmagazine
feministreview
culturecat
feminist toronto

Normally I would stick to LiveJournal and Blogger only since they are within my comfort zone but I decided to spread out and discover a few others as well. Well using google to search for blogs I came across {feministblogs} an interesting blog with links to a load of other blogs, all with interesting feminist commentary on a load of different subjects. Although I read many of them I did not post all of the links and decided instead to post the main link where all other links are available.

I'm really glad I used google to find some other blogs because I discovered many interesting blogs centered around feminism, without this assignment I may never had know that Bitch Magazine had its own blog. Or that there is a group of feminist blogs all grouped together with easy access. I also would not have found art_riot, a very interesting blog which various persons post their original artwork to.

What I like about these blogs is that as a Cultural Studies/ Women's Studies double major I am required to discuss my own as well as others opinions regarding Feminism, Women's issues, Mass Media, Popular Culture, etc. Reading others blogs which examine these topics at a very personal and individual level allows me to gain a less edited, less threatened critique of Feminism and Cultural topics, which I can later discuss within my papers, courses, etc. It also allows me to gain information on Women's groups across North America and the World, what their main issues are and what activities and groups they have organized within their community. It also gives me a place to discuss what I lean within my classes with other Feminists and Artists.

Blogger:

Since I had acquired a Blogger account before this class (Computer Science -101) I have already evaluated Blogger, however I have decided to re-evaluate and perhaps change my original critique of Blogger.

I have also decided to not go back and read my original post where I critiqued Blogger until after I create this post for a few different reasons:

I don't want it to affect my current feelings towards Blogger

I haven't really paid attention to this blog since Computer Studies - 280 ended last summer AKA~ I really don't remember what I wrote

I changed many of the settings of this blog (from what they previously were for the summer course) for this class in specific so I had to become reacquainted with the system

I'm in my 4th and final year at University and really have no time to go back and examine what I wrote 8 months ago

The only thing I think I remember about my previous post regarding Blogger was that I was not fond of the maneuverability of Blogger. I have now decided that I do not mind Blogger as an entry level blogging system. For a first blog I think this would be a good system to learn on. The layouts not that difficult, its pretty self-explanatory, and you don't need a knowledge of HTML to make your blog look supper cool. As for a more advanced blog I find that Blogger lacks in comparison to other blogging systems, in particular LiveJournal, my preference of blogs. Although one thing that I really appreciate about Blogger is the fact that you can save posts without publishing them. Its really easy to start a post and return to it later to edit and then publish. Also the fact that Blogger saves your drafts automatically is amazing! I cannot explain the frustration I have felt when I have spent a good amount of time writing a blog entry only to lose it before I upload it.

Twitter:

For the first time I have been exposed to twitter. Alas, it is like blogging but in short form. It is still a personal responce to life, yet in fewer words than a blog. What I found bizzar about Twitter was it asks "What are you doing now?" Can anyone say stalker? Does the world really need to know what I am doing at every moment of the day? Also, not many people are telling the truth since the appropriate answer would be updating Twitter! Aka- typing on my computer or cell phone.
Personally, after discovering Twitter I almost wish that I hadn't. Perhaps it will become the next new thing, but as of now I feel that it is much to creepy and that people know way too much about others personal lives as it is. I think blogs are much better than Twitter due to the simple fact that Twitter is creepy like Facebook. And I can't help but wonder where people are actually updating from.

School is over the post-modernity is on!

I realize this was my class blog, however I could not let the blog or name go to waste so.... duhduhduhduh!!! I have decided to skip out on the digital culture critiques (for now) and move on to my post-modern feminist views.

postmodernriot

YouTube and Apple Trailers

YouTube vs. Google video
When comparing YouTube to Google video it seemed to be no competition. I found YouTube to be the clear winner. I found it to be laid out much better than Google video and a million times easier to navigate. I found that I quickly became frustrated with Google video because of their poor navigation system. I also found it very strange that Google video was also able to show YouTube videos. I believe that it is due to this easy navigation system that YouTube has become so successful. I also believe it has become so successful because it is easy to post videos to your blog as well as to upload videos to YouTube.

While searching 'how to download a YouTube video to my computer' I found a few variations which used different software. I chose this example because it seemed to be laid out well and easier to follow in compairison to other websites.
How to save a YouTube video to your computer from:
http://www.hiphopmusic.com/best_of_youtube/2006/02/how_to_download_and_save_youtu.html

1. Install the Greasemonkey Extension for Firefox.

2. Right-click this .js file and select "Install User Script" (if you don't see that option try step one again)

3. Now on every youtube video page there should be a red bar at the top, that says "Save As" to download Flash video. (see screenshots here)

4. Right click the text in the red bar, select "Save Link As," and save the file as a .flv file. Firefox will rty to save it as "get_video.php," you need to change the ".php" to ".flv," and change the first part to whatever you prefer.

Now you need to either download a media player that runs .flv files, or download a program that converts them to other file types. Here are links to both:
FLV PLayers
FLV Player
VLC player
FLV Converters
Riva FLV Encoder
Total Video Converter

Apple trailers~ High Definition vs. Standard Quality

When watching the new Harry Potter trailers in both qualities I must admit that it took a few minutes for me to notice a difference in video qualities. I later noticed that the picture quality and colour were much clearer in High Definition. I also found the picture to be much crisper in High Definition. I'm not too sure whether I would pay extra to watch High Definition television, however I think when the chose is given for movie trailers and other videos which I watch on my computer I would probably choose High Definition over standard quality.
After making the comparison between High Definition and Standard Quality in the Harry Potter trailer I browsed through the list of films and watched a few other ads in High Definition and Standard Quality. I must admit their were very few films which I had not heard, after watching their trailers I am not too sure that they really convinced me to go and see the movie. Perhaps I will watch a few of them when they come out on video but for the most part I probably would have watched these films whether I had seen the trailers or not.

WE NEED GIRLFRIENDS - EPISODE 1