A lot of artists I follow are now streaming video of their artwork creation via Ustream. It’s a fascinating and educational vehicle for not only fans, but other artists looking to hone their craft. I’ve already learned so much from watching how others approach various challenges. There’s even the new Artcast Network site that serves to aggregate streaming artists under one roof.

I’ve started to do a few Ustream sessions myself, and have found them simultaneously a lot of fun and supremely terrifying. Maybe it’s just my built-in artist neurosis, but I’ve often “chickened out” of doing a streaming session. Usually it’s just the fear that others are watching what I still don’t believe to be anything great. But we’ll save my mental hangups for another post

One of the biggest hurdles to Ustreaming is the technical setup, as evidenced just last night with Legend of Bill artist David Reddick having to bail on an artcast due to technical difficulties. At some point I may post a really in-depth tutorial on getting started with Ustream, but for now, I’m going to focus on this one aspect.

As a Ustreamer and artist with not much of a following (yet), there are periods where I’m all alone with nobody watching or in the chatroom. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as it gives me some time to relax, but it does get a bit boring. I normally have to have music or something playing while I work. I’d tried several things to try to play music over my stream and still have my voice audible when I speak. Nothing seemed to work right. One night I tried to just play the music over my external speakers and created a weird echo loop that I was sure would rip a hole in the fabric of space-time. Luckily, it did not, but it was more than a little annoying to the viewers.

So the other night I decided to really dig in and try to figure this thing out. What follows is my solution that worked for me, but I’m sure there are many others. Feel free to pass any other good tips along.

First, I have to say, unfortunately for now, this is a Mac-only tip. I don’t use a PC and with Windows complexities, I would not even try to guess at a comparable solution.

Next, here are the tools you’ll need to have:

1. Ustream Producer: This is the new-ish desktop software that Ustream has released. At some point I’ll amend this tutorial to include Ustream’s Flash-based tool, in conjunction with Camtwist. Right now I just want to reduce the number of moving parts.
2. Audio Hijack Pro: This is the amazing software from Rogue Amoeba that lets you capture and record from ANY audio source on your computer. Unfortunately, this is a $32 app, but worth every penny. There’s a free trial, but it starts to add static after 10 minutes of “hijacking”. It’d still be good for determining if this setup will work for you.
3. Soundflower: This is a little piece of software that allows applications to send audio to other applications. This’ll make more sense further on.
4. Input source: This would typically be a USB microphone or headset
5. Music source: For purposes of this tutorial, we’ll use iTunes

First, get everything installed and running. It’s beyond the scope of this tutorial to explain how to do all that, but if you’re already Ustreaming, chances are you’ll figure it out.

Next, fire up Ustream Producer, Audio Hijack Pro, Soundflower and your music source (ie, iTunes). Tip: it may not be obvious that Soundflower is “running”, but you should see the little flower icon in your upper menu bar:

Make sure your microphone is set up correctly by going to System Preferences -> Sound and making sure the input device (2) is set to your microphone. In my case, it’s “unknown USB audio device” (stupid cheap headset). And test the levels of your input by tapping the mic and watching the meter (3).

Now open Audio Hijack Pro. In the lower left corner (1), click the plus sign to add a new audio source for hijacking. Name it Ustream. In its input tab, make the Input Device (3) your microphone, and for Output Device(4), select Soundflower (2ch). Note that Soundflower will only be a selectable option if Soundflower is already running.

Now click on the Effects tab. Right click within any of the blocks labelled ‘click here to insert effect’ and select: 4FX Effect -> Application Mixer. This will place the mixer controls in one of the open effects blocks.

Now, click the Editor button on the effect controller(1) and the Application Mixer will pop open. In this dialog, click ’select’ to pick the source of your music, in this case it’s iTunes. The Crossfade slider(3) controls the mix between your source (your microphone) and the Application (iTunes). In most cases you’ll want your mic to be louder so people can hear you. In the position in the diagram, the music volume is lowered in favor of the microphone volume. You’ll probably need to play with this to suit your own preferences. Your viewers will be able to give you feedback on what works best.

Now, start playing a track from iTunes and click the Hijack button(4). This effectively starts capturing the audio from iTunes. But wait, we just lost our music! Not to worry, just check the ‘Monitor Output’ box(5) and you’ll be able to hear the audio through your headset again. Feel free to close the ‘Application Mixer’ popup.

Now, click the main ‘Hijack’ button at the top of the Audio Hijack Pro window. You should see your audio meters start to move.

To summarize, what we’re doing here is using Audio Hijack Pro to capture BOTH your microphone audio and your music source in a way that you can mix them together. We’re outputting the merged Hijacked audio to the Soundflower virtual device, which we’ll be using as our audio source in Ustream Producer.

On to the next steps!

Open Ustream Producer. It’s beyond the scope of this tutorial to go too deep into setting up your video sources, etc. In my case, I have two video sources, my built-in camera and my desktop. To set up Ustream Producer to use your Hijacked audio stream, click Live Input(1) and choose Soundflower(2ch) as your audio source. Next, click on the Sound button(2) and select Live Input Microphone. At this point, your video sources should say Soundflower below them(3).

At this point, you should see your audio levels in Ustream Producer moving. Tap your microphone or clear your throat and you should see your microphone levels as well.

And that’s it! Hopefully these instructions all worked for you, but let me know if there are any problems with these steps. Also, for some reason I occasionally hear myself echo back to me a little bit, but my viewers don’t seem to notice. If anyone has any insight into why that might happen, shoot me a note or leave a comment.

Thanks, and let me know if this tutorial has been helpful to you.

So I’d written a couple blog posts about the iPad announcement and my reactions. Over a month later, I still have little to no interest in the iPad, despite my being a huge Apple fanboy otherwise.

But I saw something the other day that made me change my mind. No, not about the iPad, or even the Kindle. Something that made me want to buy something completely different.

And it’s from Microsoft.

Say hello to the “Courier”:

When I first glanced at this article, I rolled my eyes and thought here we go again. But then I looked at the screen shots and (more importantly) the videos. Before I was even halfway through the first video, I decided I MUST HAVE THIS.

It’s essentially a digital journal. It’s got two touch screens side-by-side like a book, and input is handled via a pen stylus. Text is written by hand and you can clip photos from the web or its built-in camera. It even has a basic paint feature, although it remains to be seen if it sports pressure-sensitive drawing. That would be the icing on the cake.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized, this is a highly evolved version of Evernote in physical form. Everything you enter syncs to a companion website. It also has a full web browser and, get this, is also an e-book reader! I have to tell you, if even half the functionality from the video makes it into a version 1.0 product, it’s going to be huge, and I think the iPad has serious cause for alarm.

Availability is vaguely announced as Q3/Q4 2010 and there’s still no price. To me, it doesn’t matter. That video is like digital sex. Maybe it just speaks to me as a “creative” type, but I’ve not shown this to anyone yet that didn’t think it was the most badass thing ever.

All I can say is, don’t disappoint me on this, Microsoft. I’ll be following this one for sure.

I didn’t notice this until about halfway through the Super Bowl when Gary Vaynerchuk pointed it out. It seemed despite the millions of dollars big brands spent on Super Bowl ads this year, not one (at least that I saw) specifically directed people to their Facebook pages. Maybe it’s because my “day job” is now mostly consumed by social media, but this strikes me as incredibly obtuse. And possibly downright irresponsible on the part of their agencies.

At some point someone should’ve mentioned to Dennys, “Hey, you know you could probably spike your fan count by a couple MILLION in one night. Sound good?” That they didn’t either means a) nobody brought it up, or b) it was shot down by someone with no appreciation of the impact of such things. Or maybe they just don’t care about Facebook. I think a big factor in this is that “traditional” agencies still haven’t the first clue how to advise their clients on social media. This even includes a lot of digital agencies that only want to sell a client a website.

Throughout the game, I was reminded of when I first got into this gig. Around 1998 I built a website for a prominent local real estate agency in my town of Marietta, Ohio. At the time, I wasn’t doing anything very advanced, and the realty listings were powered by a third-party Perl script. I think I got a couple grand from the whole shebang, but it was 10 times better than what I was replacing.

Once the site launched, I made a lot of recommendations to them about how to promote the site. I pitched the usual stuff, but what I really hammered on was that they were insane if they didn’t put their web address on every single “for sale” sign on every property they had listed. They’d nod and acknowledge it was a good idea, but they never ever did it. I left Ohio in 2006, but my gut says they probably still haven’t taken my advice.

And here we are in 2010, the future, for pete’s sake, and clients are still compartmentalizing their media. This is our website and this is our broadcast ad, and ne’er the twain shall meet. Stunning.

It should be pointed out (as was pointed out to me), a couple spots included Facebook and/or Twitter logos. That’s great, but they were small and in the last tenth of a second of the commercial. Notice all Sears ads now have social media logos? WTF? Do you expect people to touch their television screen and go to your Facebook page?

What Denny’s (and others) should have done was had a clear social media call to action. Yes, we’re doing free breakfasts, but you have to become a fan on Facebook to get it. Or, tack on something extra, like become a fan and get a free cappuccino to go with that free breakfast. As of this writing, the Denny’s Facebook fan page only has 25,000 fans. In my experience with Facebook-based promotions (where I and my firm helped take a brand from 900 fans to 100,000+), I’m sure they could’ve multiplied that by a factor of ten or more tonight, easy.

Not sure when these agencies (or brands) will get with the program. As much as Facebook makes me roll my eyes sometimes, I cannot deny it’s become a force to be reckoned with. And it won’t be long before no brand can afford to leave it out of their strategy.

That said, as long as there are agencies bungling through this, firms like the one I work for will continue to show them up.

So a couple days before the big iPad announcement, I posted a few thoughts on what this new device would have to bring to the table in order to separate me from my cash. Without regurgitating it all here, my hopes were for:

1. A 10-inch high-res display for video content
2. An e-book reader
3. Pressure-sensitive drawing
4. Support for an external keyboard
5. A price point of $599

I think I did pretty well, all things considered.

The iPad’s screen is just shy of 10 inches, 9.7 to be exact. Ironically, that’s the exact size of the Kindle DX screen. The resolution is 1024×768, which isn’t quite 720p HD (which is 1280×720). I’m sure it will still be a stunning display. And at least so far, the iTunes Store doesn’t have HD movies anyway, so who cares?

Steve also announced the e-book reader named, originally enough, iBooks. From what little I’ve seen so far, it seems to have the usual functionality of any of the hardware and software readers already available. And to go with this new reader, they will be opening a companion to the iTunes and Apps stores called…wait for it…the iBook Store.

While I think this was only natural, I have to wonder how many books will be available. As I mentioned in my previous post, one of my top reasons for considering a Kindle was to rebuild my programming library (php, javascript, css, etc) in electronic form. Just one beefy O’Reilly book can add a lot of weight to a backpack. But to be able to carry around my entire library on something the size and weight of a single paperback, now that’s compelling. So we’ll see how many of my target books will actually exist when the iBook Store launches. I wonder how many tech books there will even be.

As for drawing on the iPad, while I think it can be done, I don’t foresee me using it for anything “real”. It will not come with any native drawing app pre-installed. In the keynote, they showed an existing iPhone app, called Brushes, which sells for a reasonable $4.99.

Frankly, I’m surprised this kind of app is popular on the iPhone already. I mean, trying to draw anything with fat fingers on a small screen has to be an exercise in futility. The iPad would make it easier, but at the end of the day you’re still finger painting, and I doubt there’s any way to vary brush width based on pressure. Some folks have done some interesting pieces with it, though.

One thing that might make it useful, at least for quick sketching, is if it worked with something like the Pogo Stylus. Haven’t heard anything yet, but I can’t imagine it wouldn’t work. I just don’t think I’d want to draw a Status:THIS strip with it.

One thing I got completely right, is the iPad does support an external keyboard. It can use a keyboard both via Bluetooth or a special iPad keyboard dock.

I was also pretty shocked at the iPad’s price tag. I really thought $599 would be a long shot, but was floored when Steve revealed the $499 starting price. I was also sort of disappointed that there would now be a total of SIX different sku’s for this thing. This was based on different storage sizes and models with and without 3G.

So where does this leave me? Honestly, I still kinda think I’ll buy a Kindle, and I’ll tell you why. First, as an e-book reader, I think it’s too big. This is exactly why I ruled out the bigger Kindle DX very early on. A book should feel like a book. Holding a digital reader that’s closer to the size of a magazine just seems kind of awkward.

Second, I think it’s highly unlikely the iBook Store will launch with many (if any) of the type of books I’m looking to fill a reader with. I’m doubtful they’d show up even within the first few months. And Amazon has the books I want available for Kindle right now.

As for it being an alternative drawing device, I don’t think so. I think it would be kind of clunky and a poor replacement, or even supplement, to my beloved Cintiq.

There is one more reason I’d be hesitant to buy an iPad that I hadn’t considered before. I’ve given it a lot of thought and, frankly, I don’t know how safe I’d feel using a gorgeous, full-color, 10-inch display on a MARTA rail train. I’ve seen a few Kindles on my commute and at least they give the illusion that you’re reading an actual book, especially if you have a nice case for it. I generally feel pretty safe on the train, but there are nights coming home late that I’d probably not even take an iPad out of my backpack. And that kind of defeats the purpose.

All this said, as an Apple fanboy, it’s entirely possible I’ll do a 180 the minute I hold one in my hands. And who knows, it might not be as awkward for reading books as I’d feared. But for now, Kindle is still my front runner.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock lately, you’ve heard about the impending announcement of the long-rumored tablet computer from Apple. This Wednesday, January 27th, Apple is holding a special event in San Francisco to announce its “latest creation”.

The invitation (above) itself has spawned a wave of speculation, as to what the paint splotches might mean. Clearly they’re about to announce a tablet of some kind, but could the invitation design mean the tablet has some “creative” focus? I guess we’ll see.

It’s no secret that I’m a total Apple fanboy. I ditched the PC around 2003 and never looked back (I’d have switched much earlier, had I been able to afford it). I’ve had about 8 or so Macs, including a blueberry iMac, G3 and G4 towers, Powerbook, Macbook and Macbook Pro. And I’ve got a couple Minis around here. I’ve also had a couple iPods, the first-gen iPhone and currently the iPhone 3GS.

All that said, I’m having a hard time coming up with scenarios in which I’d plunk down the money for this new mystery device. If all we’re talking about is a giant iPod Touch, then no thank you. Because if all it does is surf the web and play audio and video, then I’ve already got Apple products that do that just fine.

I feel like an Apple tablet has to find a clever way to naturally insert itself between the iPhone/iPod and an entry-level Macbook, both in function and pricepoint. Here are some things that could push me towards buying:

eBooks
I’ve been toying with the idea of buying an Amazon Kindle for quite some time now. I’m mostly interested in it for the ability to migrate my technical library (programming books, etc) to one device I can carry in my backpack. I’ve hesitated, both because of the price, and because it really only does that one thing. I only paid $50 more for my iPhone 3GS, but look at the vast difference in features between the two.

So far, the rumors are that Apple has been in talks with several book, magazine and newspaper publishers, presumably for inclusion into some sort of tablet-based e-reader. I think this would be a fantastic, and almost necessary, feature of the new tablet. Question is, can it compare to the Kindle or Nook? Absolutely. Functionally, it could do everything the aforementioned readers can do, and about a hundred more. Plus sound, color and full interactivity.

The major issue the Apple tablet will have (at least at first), is selection. To have bestsellers available is one thing. But if the Apple book store doesn’t have a good technical library, I’m still not sold. For example, almost every PHP, javascript or css book I’ve looked at has a Kindle version. To date, none of them have been available for the Nook, making the Kindle my clear front-runner. It’ll be interesting how many titles a new Apple book store will contain.

Video
Obviously, iPhones, iPods and Macbooks all can do video. However, I can’t watch The Big Lebowski on Netflix streaming at the same time I’m trying to draw a comic strip in Photoshop. My CPU would tank before The Dude’s rug is peed on. I can watch video on my iPhone, but I’ve got no good way to prop it up, and it would still have to be six inches in front of my face. Plus, I’d be limited to what I could get via the iTunes store, or ripped myself.  

However, if a 10-inch Apple tablet could play HD-quality video and had some sort of kickstand on the back, now we’re getting somewhere. I’d love to have a little TV next to my main monitor to watch whatever I want while I’m working, with no adverse effects on my main machine. I’m doubtful it would still support Netflix, as this would cannibalize Apple’s own video sales and rentals. Still, it would be a good start. And maybe allow it to be controlled by both the little white Apple remote or an iPhone.

Drawing
A few months ago, I bought a 12-inch Wacom Cintiq tablet. It’s essentially a drawing pad with a monitor built right in. You literally draw right on the screen. I absolutely love that thing, but it also cost a cool grand. And that’s all it does. It’s just a drawing tablet, not a full computer.

While I would never consider parting with my Cintiq, if the Apple tablet could be used for drawing with a pressure-sensitive pen, it would be a huge draw (no pun intended) to digital artists of all kinds. I’d still use my main tablet, but it’d be great to be able to sketch on something much more portable (the Cintiq has this whole breakout box and lots of cords).

The real issue with this functionality is the software. As with the iPhone, the tablet will likely run a stripped-down version of the OSX operating system. In other words, it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to use Photoshop on it. That said, who’s to say Apple won’t introduce it’s own drawing/sketching app specially made for the tablet. That would actually be pretty sweet.

Text Input
This is another stumbling block for the tablet, how to write with it? It seems most pundits expect there to be the usual virtual keyboard, likely some modified version of what the iPhone uses. But at a much larger size, it’s not like you could one-thumb-type with this thing. And pecking with one finger on a larger keyboard would feel kinda weird (and slow). It also wouldn’t be wide enough to place two hands on it, even if you could get used to not actually feeling keys beneath your fingers.

Steve Jobs has gone on-record several times saying he doesn’t like buttons and despises the idea of a stylus. They’ve also yet to allow for bluetooth keyboards for the iPhone, which I’m sure they could sell. I think if this device sits in the lineup between the iPhone and the Macbook, it has to accommodate some type of hardware input device, on top of the ubiquitous multi-touch we’re all used to. It doesn’t even have to come with one, but there should be support for it. And obviously, if they pair the tablet with some type of drawing application, it would have to come with a stylus.

Price
So let’s face it, a ton of people will want this, and for many the only reason not to buy one the day it’s announced is price. Rumors are all over the board as to a price point; everything from $599 to $999. But here’s what I’m thinking. The most expensive iPhone is currently $299. An entry-level Macbook is $999. If we split the difference, something in the middle would be around $650. I think if Apple rounded down to $599 they could have the best possible price. If they go up to $699, I think that’s pushing the limit of what people are willing to pay for a larger version of the iPhone/Touch. And according to a recent survey, most consumers would not be willing to pony up $700 for a new device.

The Other Stuff
Beyond all that, let’s assume this magic tablet will also do all the normal stuff like surfing the web, checking email, playing music and even games. There will likely also be an SDK for support of third-party apps, just like the iPhone.

So again, a big-ass iPhone for $599 still doesn’t sound all that appealing to me. But a 10-inch HD television I can read books and draw on, that lets me (optionally) connect a keyboard and is under six hundred bucks? Count me in.

Way back in October (I think), I entered a contest sponsored by Chuck Jones Galleries. You know, Chuck Jones, the creator of Bugs Bunny and genius behind Looney Tunes cartoons, the animated Grinch special and more.

The idea behind the contest was to “show your memories with your favorite Chuck Jones characters”. Meaning, post a photo and say something about Chuck and your favorite character, whether it be Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, etc. Grand prize was $1,000 cash, $5,000 to spend on Chuck Jones art and a trip to a VIP event at the gallery in San Diego.

Brickfish, the site managing the contest, provided a bunch of stock backgrounds and character art for people to mix and match and make their own creations. I saw this as an opportunity to create something original. Thinking about Looney Tunes takes me back to days of getting up on a Saturday morning and sitting in front of cartoons with a bowl of cereal. At least until the crap cartoons came on around noon, anyway.

I created a scene of me and a long-eared friend sitting in front of the tube, watching “What’s Opera, Doc?” as the sun comes up. I have to say I was pretty proud of it. I’d never drawn Bugs before (that I can remember), even if it was from behind.

I posted the art, along with a blurb about what Chuck’s work has meant to me. To my delight, Craig Kausen (Chuck’s grandson, who also runs the gallery) liked my entry and actually retweeted it several times over the length of the contest. He said I was the only one, as far as he knew, that had created a 100% original piece of artwork.

The contest actually ran quite a long time, so the suspense was a killer. It finally ended in early December, and the judging seemed to drag on equally long. Then on December 18th, I got an email from Brickfish that I’d been selected as Runner Up! Of course, I’d have preferred grand prize, but to be second out of over 1,300 entries is nothing to sneeze at either. I still get $250 cash and $2,500 to spend on artwork. I’m hoping I can get at least one good piece worthy of passing down to my daughter.

Not sure when I’ll actually receive the prize, but I’m thinking of using the money to get an Amazon Kindle. Then again, part of me feels I owe it to Chuck to buy something art-related with it. Still debating.

At any rate, big thanks to the gallery and Craig for the opportunity and for helping keep Chuck’s legacy alive. Hopefully someday I can repay the favor.

Thanks, Chuck.

So I actually found some time to check in on the blog and maybe post a couple things, when I realize the site isn’t loading. Not entirely surprising, as this site is on my cheapie Dreamhost server, which isn’t known for its speed. But it wasn’t coming up at all.

Further inspection of my files looked suspiciously like my Wordpress install had been compromised. I got a couple files cleaned up and sure enough, the site was redirecting to some “virus alert” scam site. The kind of thing that does a fake system scan, says you have viruses, and tries to get you to give you money for a “solution”. I know from first-hand experience that people do, in fact fall for this.

So instead of going to bed at 11:00 as I’d hoped, I’m now going to bed at 1am after fixing it. Took this opportunity to get set up with a clean copy straight from the subversion repo at Wordpress. Been setting WP up that way lately to make upgrades as simple as running ’svn update’.

So anyways, no post tonight, thanks to some hacker ass-hats. But I’ve got some things going on that will result in more blog posts. More soon.

As you can probably tell, I’ve neglected this blog for some time. It’s all due to the usual excuse, lack of time. Having just bought a house and a baby on the way in September, I’m not sure how to rectify the situation any time soon.

However, I did just learn about a new service called AudioBoo that makes an audio recorder for the iPhone. It also lets you post directly to the web, and updates Twitter, blogs, Facebook, etc. And a few people I follow on Twitter have already started posting short audio blogs, so I thought it might be something to try.

I’ve got a total of 50 minutes or so in the car every work day, so it might be a good opportunity to get some thoughts posted to a blog without actually having the time to write a blog post.

So here’s the first one. Not sure if this will be a regular thing, but I’m game for trying:

Okay, so after only three days, posting on here, Flickr and DeviantArt has gotten pretty old. So at least for now, I’ll be posting these ONLY on my DeviantArt page. So go check it out!

So Day Two of my experiment could possibly be considered a “cheat”, as I just inked and colored yesterday’s sketch. But it took probably 3-4 times as long as the original drawing, so I think that counts.

I almost quit on this early on, as I just can’t seem to draw a smooth line on my Wacom tablet to save my life. In fact, some of the lines on his coat were actually done with the pen tool. I just had to give in.

All said and done, I think I’m pretty happy with this, being my first real artwork since I did our Christmas Card.