Snacktastic!

Test

2011-06-17T11:25:00.000-07:00

2010-10-08T13:55:00.000-07:00

Here's the latest video I produced for CEHD, discussing our partnership with a Minneapolis school called Sojourner Truth Academy.

another embed code test:

2009-08-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

Let's see how this looks:

Gee whiz!

A letter to President Bruininks regarding cuts to the Regents Scholarship at the U of MN:

2009-03-31T07:41:00.000-07:00

Dear President Bruininks:

Your argument regarding the Regents Scholarship cut is fallacious. The "$9 million and growing 10 p.c. per year" is fuzzy math. All those classes that employees are taking will still be offered; they will still be scheduled, take up space, have instructors, use classrooms, and use resources. The difference is that there will be fewer employees taking the classes (2 percent fewer people in the classes).

The "cost" you refer to is assumed from the amount of revenue that *would* be generated were the employees paying full price for the classes we are taking. But the reality is that allowing employees to take these classes really costs the University very little; as I said, the classes will still take place and the costs of offering those classes to students will still be in place.

This is a revenue generation tactic pure and simple, and you need to fess up and present it as such.

The Regents Scholarship is a part of our compensation package. I would get a higher salary if I worked the same job in the private sector, but the scholarship makes up for the difference. Now, if you expect staff to contribute to revenue generation by taking a cut in our compensation, I can understand that. HOWEVER: I think you should also ask P&A, Faculty, and administration to do the same. You must cut compensation across ALL employees of the University if you do it at all. Be fair; don't hide your tactics behind claims of "saving costs". Do the real math and ask that EVERYONE that works at the U make a sacrifice - not just the lowest paid workers.

I encourage you to set an example for our future leaders by doing this in an equitable and fair manner.

Sincerely, Pete McCauley

Testing a Flickr embed...

2009-02-16T14:39:00.000-08:00

Vimeo!

2009-02-06T14:24:00.000-08:00

I am testing the "Hubnut" widget video player from Vimeo to see how it looks in a blog. Here it is:

Baby video!

2008-11-12T12:11:00.001-08:00

I wanted to post this little video of our son Finn that was taken over September & October of 2008. There's a little bit of boob in here, so be warned...

Twenty Demons (podcast test)

2008-10-30T11:39:00.000-07:00

Testing to see if you can use Blogger as a podcast feed generator (they say that you can...)

Testing RSS feeds from MediaMill for class use

2008-07-18T10:12:00.000-07:00

So we're trying to determine how user friendly MediaMill is for creating podcasts that can be added to blogs and other web pages for people to access.

If you would like to test my latest podcast, which is hosted on MediaMill (a University of MN server), right-click (or control-click on MAC) on THIS LINK, then select "Copy Link Location". After you have done that, open iTunes, browse to the "Advanced" menu, then select "Subscribe to Podcast". When the dialog box opens, paste the link that you just copied into that box by pressing control-v (or command-v on Mac, or go Edit>paste) and hit OK.

The podcast should show up in your "Podcasts" list under the main heading of "LIBRARY" in your iTunes interface.

I'll try this with some other podcast aggregators as well and see how well it works.

-PRM

Testing the Panasonic AG-HSC1UP

2008-03-24T12:40:00.000-07:00

Okay - I've been playing with this camera and I have a few clips to post. These were recorded in full auto mode using the highest quality setting on the camera, then imported into iMovie '08 and exported in different codecs. Here are the results:

Panasonic AG-HSC1UP Test 1 - exported from iMovie with the H264 codec:

Panasonic AG-HSC1UP Test 2 - exported from iMovie with the Apple Intermediate Codec:

Panasonic AG-HSC1UP Test 3 - exported from iMovie with the Apple ProRes HQ Codec:

I found that I like the Quicktime finals better than Flash Video - for now. But these final movies were made using a template and I didn't have control over render settings. Just a few things to check out until I get a chance to mess around some more. But so far iMovie will import the media files - but it transcodes them to the Apple Intermediate Codec. I don't know if I can change that yet...

More to come soon. -Pete