Rob LaGesse has posted a fantastic “simplified definition” of BitTorrent. BitTorrent is one of those protocols that is really hard to describe properly (much like RSS) but I think Rob has done a fantastic job with his definition.

I’ll be referring people to this page quite often!

Hey subscribers! First, thanks for subscribing, I’m glad to have you reading YouMakeMedia!

Second, due to an error on my part, some of you (specifically those who use the Live Bookmarks feature in Firefox, or RSS in Safari – possibly others) might not be reading the blog from the “preferred” feed.

The subscriber feed that comes installed with my blog software is being routed through another service called FeedBurner. I’ll likely go into some detail about how FeedBurner can help you in the future, but for now I’ll say that at its core, FeedBurner allows me to more easily determine some factors such as the number of readers I have.

Unfortunately, due to that error on my part some of you might not be subscribed to the FeedBurner feed, and instead subscribed to the one that I can’t track. This is frustrating because it gives me innaccurate readership numbers, and make figuring out things like advertising prices difficult.

I’d appreciate it if you could check you feed reader, just to check and make sure you have the right feed subscribed. You won’t need to check if you used the two icons on the sidebar of this page – however if your feed reader uses an “auto-discover” feature, it will likely be set to the wrong feed.

Below are the two correct URLs that you’ll want to subscribe to:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/youmakemedia – for entries only
http://feeds.feedburner.com/youmakemedialinks – for the link blog only

I’m sorry to cause this problem in the first place. It was an error on my part, and I apologize for any inconvenience caused. I’ve resolved the problem now though, and in the future feed readers with “auto-discover” enabled will get the proper feeds sent to them.

Thank you,
Chris

Quick update, the 4k resolution screenshot taken with the Mysterium sensor is online!

According to Dave Winer, the person who is pretty much the authority on this type of thing (he helped develop enclosures for RSS, as well as RSS itself), today is the third birthday of the podcast.

Dave goes into more detail on his blog, but in essence he notes that while three years ago the exact same tech and terms may not have been there, that series fulfills all the “podcast” requirements (such as MP3 audio via feed enclosure).

He continues to go into more on the Apple squabble over the “podcast” trademark that Apple has begun to defend on a larger scale, noting that podcasts don’t just work on Apple hardware, and perhaps it’d be in Apple’s interest to embrace the podcast term and its widespread use rather than trying to put the term’s users down.

A quick editor’s note: I tend to be a video guy but I’ll try to be fair and cover audio as much as possible. We wouldn’t to forget podcasts!

Via Scobleizer

The folks over at Red have put up the first picture from their revolutionary Mysterium sensor, and its available here, at 2k resolution – roughly half of what the camera will output when available.

“Red” is the name of the next generation camera being developed by Jim Jannard and co. Jim Jannard is the founder of Oakley (the sunglasses people) and a bona fide billionaire. The idea behind Red is to create film quality images without grain (all digital, start to finish, 4520 X 2540), for under $20,000 – and revolutionize the idea behind the camera along the way.

Traditionally, cameras are made, sold, used, then junked. After the process, you start over – make, sell, use, junk. It’s pretty easy to follow. Red is revolutionizing this by turning the camera into a computer. Essentially – the Red camera will be upgradable. It’s designed for extendability too, check out the design of the camera. There are screwholes all over the camera to add in cool extras. Awesomeness.

EDIT: Via Jim Jannard on DVXUser, 4k/full res footage tommorow!

Via HD For Indies

Editing is a powerful tool for tweaking emotions. A good editor can take terrible footage and make it into an amazing film, with a slate of tricks that the editing suite provides.

To do this of course, you need the proper editing tool. In the past, editing was done manually, directly with film. This has changed drastically however with the advent of (quick, guess….) the personal computer. Unfortunately, most of the professional level editing software is still out of reach to independents – however there are free alternatives.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be posting reviews of each of the programs on this list of freeware and/or open source editing software (if the program provides the necessary functionality to edit a clip).

I’ll get archival footage off of Archive.org and music from CChits. Using these, I’ll compare the software to see how similar each program is based on a number of factors such as ease of speed-up/slow-down of footage, splitting footage, repositioning footage, inserting audio seperate from video, removing pre-existing audio from a video clip, etc – all basic functions that editing software should have.

I’ll try to do at least one of these reviews a week, and hopefully after it’s all over we’ll have a better idea of the quality that’s out there in free editing software.