Net News 54

28 January 2009 • 10:28 pm 1

When does what “you” say interfere with who “YOU” are in PR?

Recently I (and quite a few other people) wrote about the recent Twitter-gate post of Ketchum VP James Andrews. As I’ve explained already, I thought it was a mistake, and if he had a problem with where he was, he should have given constructive criticism. However, he was there to share his knowledge of social media with FedEx employees and his Twitter post got turned upside down before the end of the day. It sucks, and he got a bit of the raw end of the media dished at him.

As usual there is more than one side to a story, and Mr. Andrews gives his side of it here. This is a learning exercise for all of us on the importance of counting to ten before speaking when angry (to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson), but as my fiancee says when I screw up, “No one died, move on.”

So we are moving on to a question that’s been bouncing around my mind for a while. When you’re working in public relations, where is the line between the “public YOU”, that is connected to your business or clients, and the “private you,” where you’re allowed to have personal opinions and viewpoints that might not always be sweet and nice but shouldn’t cost you your livelihood?

When I was working at a former gig, a memo floated down from on high, stating that we were not allowed to write anything for any electronic outlets, or we’d be fired. I was told this included blogs (hence the reason I blogged under a pseudonym for many years). Since I wasn’t a writer, I didn’t know if that applied to me, but as an employee, anything I wrote, even on my own time, appeared to be held to this standard. (in fact a friend of mine got suspended a couple of weeks without pay for writing something for an online-only outlet).

Regardless of where you work, when you are off of the company time and dime, should you be forced to take Ari Fleisher’s advice to Bill Maher and “Watch what you say?” This is especially prevalent in public relations, the field that thousands of us toil in daily. We are seen not only as employees, but due to our profession, representatives of our respective companies. (or as in the case of Mr. Andrews’ Twitter-gate, representative of not only his firm, but also the companies we represent)

As people in PR talk about “Brand You,” the idea that what you write/podcast/etc. is connected to the “you” brand, discussion is moving closer towards the idea that the “you” brand, and the “YOU” brand are interconnected – allowing your employer to connect to and impose upon your online/social media persona. If these two brands are interconnected, then everyone must be careful about what they post, whether privately or for their employer, as the perception is these actions somehow reflect their employer.

On the other side of the equation, corporate America needs to change enough to realize that people are people. They are going to react to things that happen to them. If you watch CNN’s iReport or FoxNews’ YouReport pages, people have taken on the mantle of citizen journalists in a big way, and are reporting news in a pixel instant, because seconds have become too long now. Social media (previously called “new media”) now allow anyone to write anything anytime.

By recognizing the importance and influence of communicating through social media outlets like Twitter, employers will go a long way in providing their companies with the key element it needs to succeed in the social media-sphere: a personality.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? In this new media world of 24-hour iReporting and the all-day media cycle, should PR people be forced to represent their organizations 24-7?

Edit: Peter Himler has a great post, and an interview with Edelman’s Social Media maven Steve Rubel here.

Filed under: internet, public relations , public relations, James Andrews, Twitter

17 January 2009 • 8:41 pm 3

Anything You Say Can be Used Against You in the Court of PR

So what is it with PR professionals and Twitter? Sometimes we feel like a nut, and sometimes we don’t?

James Andrews, a vice president for Ketchum PR, one of the top PR agencies in the country, posted a quick tweet to his peeps about his first impression of Memphis, where he was visiting a little company they were doing some PR for, you might have heard of it, it’s called FedEx. It turns out, Andrews was less than impressed.

An employee for FedEx (the client in question) read the tweet, and this led to a memo to Mr. Andrews, his bosses at Ketchum, and some higher-ups at FedEx, essentially stating what he thought of Mr. Andrews’ opinion of his fair town. Peter Shankman posted the memo at his blog, which is well worth checking out. (if you don’t have his blog on speed dial already) Then the story was picked up by Gawker, who immediately took the whoopin’ stick to PR with Gawker-esque style. The title says it all: “Flackery: PR Person Excoriated for Telling Truth.”

My first thought after reading this at Peter’s blog was “Wow, how far down his virtual mouth did he end up shoving that boot?” It was very reminiscent of Steve Rubel’s Foot in Mouth disease back in 2007 when he upset the editorial staff at PC Magazine with a bit of his own brilliant insight.

Ouch.

I started wondering at these two statements and the reaction they created, pro and con. Each one was less than 140 characters, but had the ability to impact a company’s relationship (or in Rubel’s case many companies with one media outlet) with the PR firm they have entrusted with creating their image, online and offline. As usual with cases like this, there is more than meets the eye. That’s one of the strengths of the conversations on Twitter (you can quickly get the gist of what the writer is saying in 140 characters) but also one of its biggest weaknesses (if you’re not following the conversation for several tweets, you are going to end up taking things out of context). That’s what happened here. With Rubel, the tweet was not intended as a slam on PC Magazine, but more a matter of what he reads online vs. reading in print. But you won’t know that if you weren’t following the conversation.

Mr. Andrews (I feel like I should have on some black shades and a black suit when I say that, and be a computer created program in a virtual life but that’s for another time) was probably just sharing his thoughts with a group of people he considers his “friends,” but he forgot one of the most important rules on Twitter, all of your statements are archived and Google searchable. What’s worse is he was going to FedEx to speak about Social Media, which means he was directing the same people whose town he was smacking to check out what he said about their town. But again, he probably thought he was just talking with his “friends” and as the old rugby saying goes, “no blood, no foul.” Twitter can get your like that, you’re involved in the conversation, and the next thing you know, “oh my gosh, I didn’t really mean to blurt that out, did I?” It’s too easy to slip into that mode of “chilling with my peeps.”

Since 2007, Rubel’s tweet has proven useful in my handful of presentations about what to be aware of when using social media for PR. In that one statement, and the response it received from PC Magazine’s editor, damage was done not only to Rubel and Edelman, but to all of the clients that Edelman might want to pitch to PC Magazine. In Andrews’ case, the damage was done directly to the client-agency relationship between Ketchum and FedEx. I’m sure it was, as many things on Twitter tend to be, a momentary thought and nothing more. But to the people at FedEx and Memphis, it meant a lot more. Memphis, like most town (even Albuquerque) have their social media savvy defenders who will bite back if they feel their home has been maligned. (One of the things I’ve seen in Social Media is a growth, or reemergence, of community pride, whether that pride is in a town, organization, or hobbyists).

There have been detractors of the person who emailed Andrews, his bosses and the higher-ups at FedEx, saying he should not be so thin-skinned, he should act like an adult, blah blah blah. While this might be true, Andrews, a PR professional, should have known that whatever he says online will probably be connected back to his firm and onto his clients.

This also led me to another question, one that I will address shortly. When you work in PR, does it automatically mean that you have to surrender your opinions at the door? Are you, and anything you ever blog, tweet or video record, linked to your employer?

Update: Chris Brogan has an interesting discussion going on at his place.

(H/T: Peter Shankman)

Technorati Tags: public relations,Ketchum,FedEx,Twitter,James Andrews,Steve Rubel

Filed under: Business, public relations

23 December 2008 • 11:52 am 0

Leave it to the Democrats

Why does this not surprise me?

After spending the 2008 Election pointing out how unqualified Caribou Barbie was to become the second most powerful person in the United States, they’ve since decided that whatever Republicans can do they can do better. So they went out and found someone who makes Palin look like a god-damned electoral expert to replace Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Senate.

Way to go Caroline Kennedy, who needs a primary or an election? After all, it must be so much easier to just be anointed to a position in the U.S. Senate, none of that pesky running for office thing for you, you’re royalty after all. Royalty who doesn’t need to do things like, answer questions from the press, or disclose anything to the little people. Those little people will do what they’re told, damn it!

I thought that whole 1776 thing was to stop the influence of royalty in American government. Somehow I get the idea that Thomas Jefferson is spinning in his grave this holiday season.

Again, thanks to the Democratic Party for finding someone who makes Sarah Palin look over-qualified.

Filed under: Politics , Caroline Kennedy, Sarah Palin, U.S. Senate

• 2:03 am 1

Albuquerque’s Trolley Folly

The City of Albuquerque has put together part of its request for federal money from the new Obama Administration in 2009. One part of that request is $90 million for a magic trolley car running down Central Avenue (colloquially, and wrongly, called Albuquerque’s Main Street). Discussion about this project made it onto the local city blog, Duke City Fix. There was a strong and passionate debate given on both sides of the issue. So strong in fact that the admin decided to close the forum (which was a good idea.)

I was talking about this with my fiancee. We’re both against the idea of $90 million being spent on a trolley car that will not move a lot of people around town. We really like mass transit, but what this city really needs are more buses, not a trolley. There are a lot of poor people here in Albuquerque, and parts of town that would benefit from an increase in mass transit to the area. $90 million could buy over 1100 buses (someone on Duke City Fix figured out), and even if all of this money was not spent on buses, there could be transit hubs and bus transfer areas located throughout the city to make bus transit easier.

My fiancee emailed me the following and wanted me to post it to give her two cents about what she called “the trolley folly.” So here she is, in her own words:

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Mass Transit, albuquerque , albuquerque, Mass Transit, Streetcar, Trolley

• 1:42 am 0

TechCrunch and Embargoes. What’s the problem?

I’ve been reading about Michael Arrington (the guru behind TechCrunch) and his decision to no longer honor embargoes asked for (demanded?) by PR professionals when certain stories are sent to TechCrunch. This has apparently caused quite an uproar in certain quarters of the PR community, with comments flying back and forth on the post at TechCrunch and throughout the Blogo/Twito/Globo-Sphere, with people picking sides.

The first thing that hit me was how this sounded like Gina Trapani’s wiki where she whipped out the ban-hammer and listed the PR companies that she got tired of spamming her personal email address and gave people a quick and easy way to include these companies (5WPR, Ogilvy, Edelman, etc) in your spam filter. There were a lot of big PR companies being called out, and a few New Media PR companies that appear to have been caught in the wake of e-blasting out stories that people don’t want to read.

The following thought was, PR people still use embargoes? Seriously? I mentioned this to a co-worker last week and she asked the same thing.

Embargoes were usually used to give news companies (alleged) “exclusives” or dictate to a media outlet when they could run with a story. Big surprise, they only succeed at pissing off journalists/media outlets while getting ignored part of the time anyway. Then you get pissed, and they get more pissed, and it spirals down from there. And unless you’re a company crucial to a media outlet’s coverage, or large enough to have an impact if you decide to stop sending info their way (like Microsoft, Apple, Ford, Google, etc), then the media outlet doesn’t need to change the way it does business. You do.

Reporters and editors, especially of New Media outlets, wouldn’t care if most of the companies out there stopped sending them press releases. In fact, all of them would probably start popping open the bubbly in celebration. When I was still working at the local newspaper, I was in charge of manning the fax machine (yeah I’m dating myself a little bit here) in addition to my regular duties. In my time at the paper, less than a dozen releases ever made it past the trash can. Most of the people the sports department (where I worked) reporters spoke with already had personal relationships with the writers (coaches, players, sports info officers) and knew to contact them personally and didn’t need the fax waste.

Contrast that to when I was working at my first PR firm, on the other side of the “send” key. We’d invested in some “media relations” Web site, with a database of thousands of reporters and (allegedly) how to get in touch with them, forms set up to enter your own press releases and the potential to blast them to thousands of reporters, whether they wanted your information or not. I watched as one pitch went out to over 2,300 business reporters all over the U.S. (Somehow I don’t think the farm business reporter from the “Peoria Pittance Proper” really cared about the NYC client’s pitch)

When you use these pitch-fest programs, you don’t have to know any of the media outlets you are e-blasting. You don’t have any personal relation with the reporter you want to get interested in your stuff.

That’s what a lot of PR now a days is missing. Public relations is kind of a misnomer for what needs to be done. It needs to be called “Personal relations”.” Too many PR professionals, especially when pitching nationally, are still depending so much on these databases or yellow books of media contacts.

Please, my fellow PR peeps, if you are going to use one of these databases to pitch a story nationally, at least make sure the person you are calling a) covers the area you think they do, and b) wants to receive your email. Chances are they don’t. And then you’re making the rest of us look bad.

Push vs. Pull

A lot of PR needs to start shifting from the idea of pushing press releases to some kind of “narrowcasting,” creating meaningful content for your specific target audiences that they can then pull to their desktop/email/browser. It’s the difference between forcing your message onto someone or getting to know them and letting them be genuinely interested in your information. Your audience probably won’t be as big as you’d like – but the media landscape has been shifting from large distribution channels to many more, but smaller, means of communicating to your target demographic. (think about the difference between network TV and cable – while network TV has a larger audience, you can better target a narrow audience by selecting a cable channel that matches your audience needs (food network, SciFi, etc) and tailoring your messages to match not only your audience, but that specific channel.

And finally, for those PR people complaining about Mr. Arrington or Ms. Trapani’s actions. Remember, TechCrunch and LifeHacker are their media outlets, they get to decide how they want to run them.

Filed under: blogging, media, public relations , blogging, media, public relations, TechCrunch

2 December 2008 • 11:55 pm 0

It’s called “You”Tube for a reason

I was thinking about this post while giving a presentation in class this evening. We had an open ended assignment where each person presented on a topic related to the mass media. Being interested in online communications, I focused on Web communications by mass media outlets. That got me thinking about bloggers (which I wrapped up the presentation with) and how people in my profession should look at content creation vs. pitching to bloggers.

A lot of PR peeps are looking at how to pitch bloggers and other A-list social media mavens instead of working towards creating their own content.This is fine, but it’s as if the mindset of PR people around the globe continues to be:

“I’m in PR. I’m used to pitching people, sending stuff out. I must pitch the “media.” I’m not going to create my own content. I don’t shoot video, and sound like I gargled with rusty razor blades.”

Trust me I know where you’re coming from. I don’t have that creamy radio voice either and am more “Body by Buddha” than “Body by Jake.” Ya know what, that doesn’t matter. It’s all about authenticity. It’s about your company becoming the media outlet, instead of waiting for reporting from the media which may never come. It’s about PR person as civic journalist (or corporate journalist) than traditional “pitch man.”

(This also matters to you and your personal brand. You are your own Hollywood director. But wunder-dude Chris Brogan has a lot of great articles on this. I may give my own humble take later (but read Chris first))

Your company should become part of the conversation, not just treat bloggers/podcasters/et al as one more media outlet to just pitch to. Remember, it’s called “YOU”Tube for a reason. Use it to create your online brand, then your company will piggyback on the “you” brand (if you identify yourself as working for that company). Then other bloggers might get interested in your product/organization.

And your first efforts don’t have to be Hollywood-esque. Just get some practice time in with your camera and some software. Here’s a little footage of me practicing around with my Flip Video Camera and the Sony Imagination Studio software. There’s also more relevant footage (PR wise) that I shot for work located here.

Filed under: Technology, internet, media, public relations , blogging, chris brogan, public relations, YouTube

26 November 2008 • 11:27 am 0

Good on Ya, Apple, Inc.

Just to reinforce my love of technology, and that i’m not averse to Apple, Inc. I bumped into this story while on Twitter. A high school kid had emailed Steve Jobs (and just how in the heck did he get THAT email address, I’ve gotta ask) and asked if he could get the college educational discount for the latest copy of Final Cut Studio. MInd you, not a free copy, just for the $600 or so discount (still willing to pay $700 for it).

Well, this email got forwarded to Richard Townhill, the director of Pro Video Product Marketing for Apple, who emailed the kid back and asked for his address to send him a free copy of the software. How cool is that! Apple, Inc gave this kid an early Christmas, and created another evangelist to boot. Not too bad!

HT: aGEEKspot

Filed under: Technology, apple , apple, Final Cut Pro, Mac, Steve Jobs

24 November 2008 • 10:11 pm 2

iLife for PC Review: Sony Imagination Studio

The Christmas season is quickly closing in on us. While the current economic conditions might be forcing you to take a second look at what you might include on your present list, if you or someone who’s been nice this year are interested in creating your own podcasts or video pieces then you might want to check out something softer on the pocketbook – the Sony Imagination Studio.

A little while back I talked about Sony’s new Imagination Studio Suite, offered exclusively through Dell’s Web site. Dell seems to be moving to the fore on providing PC consumers with a version of Apple’s iLife. First they offered something from Adobe that could be installed on certain XPS systems. Now they are offering Sony’s answer to Apple’s popular suite.

Since writing that post, it has become the most viewed piece on this site, once again hinting to me that there are a lot of people out there interested in finding an answer to Mac fans love of iLife. Also, a lot of people have clicked through to check out the software on Dell’s site. I don’t know if anyone purchased it, maybe Dell would have that info (probably not).

So I decided to give this suite of programs a brief run through.

I had my first run in with the program suite at the 2008 New Media Expo, while hanging out around the Sony Creative Software booth. Voxana and DJ Papi Love from the AcidPlanet Web site were handing out demo copies of the the Imagination Studio Suite to the attendees.

(Me with Voxana and DJ Papi Love from AcidPlanet at the 2008 New Media Expo)

I brought some of the CDs back to ABQ and handed them out to my co-workers and family members. While I don’t think any of my co-workers have picked up the programs yet, I’ve been able to give them a bit of a shakedown, as part of my ongoing search for a PC equivalent to Apple’s iLife package. Sony’s Imagination Studio Suite offers many of the same PC programs as iLife, except for iWeb – but as I’ll point out here, between free blogging sites (such as WordPress or Blogger) and Facebook/MySpace, there is no need for iWeb.

And away we goooooooo…..

Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum

Vegas Movie Studio is the video editing software included in the Imagination Studio Suite. The layout of the editing suite is different from Apple’s iMovie – Vegas Movie Studio has a more traditional, linear video editing layout than iMovie does. Vegas Movie Studio has also proven to be a more powerful video editing program than the built in Windows Movie Maker.

In Vegas Movie Studio, the user has separate tracks for multiple video and audio tracks. You can have individual tracks dedicated to dialogue, background music, special effects in addition to multiple video files.

Importing the audio and video elements to a project were easier to import into Vegas than iMovie. With iMovie I found that if I didn’t import just the right file, in just the right way, while hopping on one foot under a waxing moon and preparing a chicken blood sacrifice, the video file wouldn’t import correctly. While with Vegas, a simple click on Project > Import Media opens up a menu showing the importable files. For digital video capture, a quick click on the Capture Video button calls up Vegas’ capture menu.

I found Vegas to be very easy to edit with, I used it to trim and edit video footage of both Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s visit to campus. After editing the video, I was able to export the final video directly to either YouTube, or Sony’s own AcidPlanet.com podcast/video cast/music site. A pop-up screen asked for all of the necessary information to log into either service and input all of the necessary information for the video submission (login and PW, name, description, tags, etc.)

One of the things I had a problem with in Sony Vegas was locating the trimmer, so I could slice video files as necessary without bringing in multiple copies of the same file when adding cuts to the project. This could be user error in part, but I notice in Premiere Pro it’s part of the lower right hand menu, which makes it very easy and quick to make the necessary slices.

Cinescore Studio Plug-In

Vegas Movie Studio, in the Platinum Pack, Platinum Pro Pack and Imagination Studio Suite, comes loaded with the Cinescore Studio plug-in. Cinescore is Sony Creative Software’s soundtrack creation software, and Cinescore Studio is a stripped down version of the program. It’s not an actual program in Imagination Studio, it’s a plug in with Vegas Movie Studio. All you need to do is right click on one of the audio tracks and click “Insert Generated Music” to activate the plug in.

From this menu you can select the type of music you wish and a number of variations of the music you want to include in your project. In the next screen you can select the length of your music file, the composition style and more. Cinescore Studio will then insert it into your movie project. This is a great way to get some quick background music for a podcast or movie scene.

When you are working with the audio section of your project, you can right click on any of these tracks and the “Edit Selection in Sound Forge Studio” appears. Clicking on this allows you to edit the dialogue in Sony’s Sound Forge Studio.

DVD Architect Studio

Sony’s DVD Architect Studio is the company’s DVD Menu creation software. Since most people will be uploading videos to Web sites such as your blog, YouTube or AcidPlanet, unless you are creating DVDs for a film project, DVD present, etc. there is a minimal need to use this software.

Should you need DVDs for any reason (family gatherings, etc), DVD Architect Studio is a good choice to create your DVDs. There are many different DVD menu themes for you to pick from, and more are available from the Sony Creative Software Web site.

Sony Sound Forge Audio Studio

One of the programs in iLife that I find to be very beneficial is Garageband, Apple’s audio editing, looping and podcast creation program. Trying to put so many things together in one program can lead to a bit of clutter on the screen, and trying to edit interviews in Garageband leaves these weird bubbles of text in the file that you have to remember to pull back together for a coherent podcast or audio file.

However, Garageband does have a specific setting when you want to record a podcast, with tracks set up for voices, jingles, additional recording, and a window for you to drop and drag artwork for your podcast. And the Garageband browsers are great when it comes to locating files not only by name, but type of file as well. This probably comes from providing so many loops for your specific software package (such as Apple does).

Sony’s got two programs that fill this need for PC users. The first of these programs is Sony’s Sound Forge Audio Studio.

I’ve primarily been using Sound Forge Audio Studio to edit podcasts at the university, and clean up audio in some of the video pieces I’ve been working on. Editing files in this program are as easy as highlighting a bit of text and deleting it, or cutting and pasting the file, or adding various effects to your heart’s content. The best way to figure out which effects you want to use with this powerful program would be to play around with a test audio file and the included effects.

As with Vegas Movie Studio, you can publish your files to the Web, using Sony’s AcidPlanet Web site.

The other half of this tandem of programs is…

Sony ACID Music Studio

ACID Music Studio is the stripped down version of Sony ACID, Sony’s industry-standard music looping software. Loops are just short music files that sound like one continuous piece of music if they are repeated. When you start combining multiple loops, such as a drum beat, a couple of guitar loops, you can create your own music.

Some of these loops are available on CDs or download from various locations, from many musician stores to Amazon.com (where you will find some pretty good deals) to Apple (if you have Garageband) and Sony Creative Software (which, as expected, work well with ACID). ACID Music Studio comes with a large library of loops at your fingertips after you install it. If you are interested in music loops, a Google search for “Music Loops” will give you many more answers than I can give you right now.

I haven’t spent as much time working with ACID as I have been with Vegas and Sound Forge studios. But I like what I have tried so far with the program. Adding loops is as simple as drag and drop and then using a “brush”-like tool to repeat the loops in each track. I’ll add another update once I have more practice with ACID, and possibly a couple of completed songs on the site.

Photo Go

Photo Go is a cool little program that allows you to keep track of your digital images and do some basic editing to them.

(Awwwww, I always told her she’d be in pictures)

You can color correct images, crop, rotate, remove red-eye, and correct brightness and contrast among the editing features. You can’t sharpen your images, but this is something that can be taken care of using Windows Live Photo Gallery or Picasa 3.

One thing that would be nice would be a way to export your pictures to Flickr or Google’s Picasa. There are simple ways to work around this. Flickr Uploadr allows you to drag and drop pictures to upload to your Flickr account. Or, should you prefer using Windows Live Photo Gallery, you can upload your pictures to Flickr as well.

And then there’s iWeb

I’ve checked out iWeb on the Mac. It’s a cute program that gives you quite a few pre-built templates for various needs for beginners or those not interested in Web site creation. Honestly, it’s easier if you go to WordPress.com (where this blog is hosted) or Blogger.com and create a blog for your basic web needs. You can use your blog as your web page, kind of a “Grand Central You” for your content creation and social media needs.

From your blog page you can link to your Flickr account, YouTube account, upload your podcasts, etc. This serves as a better replacement for your probable web content needs than iWeb. And should you need a Web page presence, you can always check out the templates at Open Source Web Design.

What about help?

One of the things I like about Sony’s content creation software is that at startup you can allow the “Show Me How” menu of tutorials to pop up, in case you have any questions or want to learn more about what you can do with the software.

These tutorials will take you step-by-step through how to do each of the tasks, with a window going from one part of the screen to the next, highlighting each task and showing you exactly where to click and what to do next. The lessons are quick to follow, not taking more than a few minutes each. I’ve found them invaluable when working with the software.

All in All?

For the price, anywhere from $150-$200 depending on the current discount available at Dell.com, the Imagination Studio Suite fares very favorably when compared to Apple’s iLife suite. Having used both (I have a Mac laptop at work) I find that I actually prefer using Sony’s software. That might be because I’m more used to a Windows set up. This suite of programs give you all but one of the options of iLife, and as I’ve pointed out here, you don’t really need iWeb.

For years PC users have heard Mac users talk about iLife and how there’s nothing on the PC side that can compare with it and how beautifully integrated the programs are, and how iLife is one major reason for people to switch to Mac from PC. There’s a little bit of arrogance behind those statements, but for a while it was hard to locate a simple suite of programs that worked together in an integrated fashion for the PC side. These programs were available separately from Sony Creative Software, but individually they would have cost more than the suite.

If you’re a fledgling podcaster, or YouTuber, or movie maker – or even not so fledgling – you’ll find these programs useful to your endeavors, for the price. It’s the first step before you move on to either the Adobe Production Premium Creative Suite (another set of programs I really recommend when you want to take the next step to more professional tools) or Sony’s professional level tools – Vegas, Sound Forge and ACID Pro (which I haven’t tried).

Rating: 5 bullets out of 5.

Technorati Tags: iLife,iLife for PC,Sony Imagination Studio,Sony,Acidplanet

Filed under: Sony, Sony Creative software, Technology, computers, iLife, iLife for PC

20 November 2008 • 7:30 pm 0

You think you’ve got me figured out?

Well, now it’s time for something completely different.

The active and play-ful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.

The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.

Feh. Take that Slayn.

HT: Andrew Sullivan

Filed under: Technology , Personality Test

5 November 2008 • 1:00 am 0

More to come later

including a post mortem of a lot of the Republican screw ups out here (especially in the Congressional races – are you seriously telling me that Darren White was the best the Reps could come up with out here?) including some media tips for these clowns, since I guess they don’t have anyone to advise them on media relations, and a look at the 2010 election scene.

Thanks again, Club for Growth. You’re idiocy enabled Big Blue to sweep your asses out of New Mexico. And the best you clowns can do is to claim that Obama’s election is the equivalent of Senator Palpatine’s in the Star Wars movies? Nice. Stay classy, Hair Club for Growth.

Heading to bed, g’night John Boy…

Filed under: NM-01, Politics, election , Club for Growth, Election 2008, Republicans

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