2008 March

Save Your Digital Memories….Now

March 10, 2008 By Steve Borsch 1 Comment

How many of us have thousands of digital photos, hours of digital video, all sitting in drawers or on a computer hard drive? If you’re like me, I’ve backed it all up but it’s not fully organized, photo filenames all start with "DSC" or some other camera-generated filename so all of them are similar, and I’ve begun to think about my kids and future generations and their access and understanding of these artifacts.

One of my favorite blogs is Shorpy’s, the "100 Year Old Photo Blog". I often delight in the images captured and think often about today’s photos (and video) and whether there will be much for a Shorpy’s to showcase 100 years from now (and images that have analogous resolution to the beautiful "HD" ones they showcase).

After threatening to do this for five years or so, I’ve just begun a project to copy and store about 75 hours of digital video and record it to archive quality DVD discs. Since magnetic tape deteriorates over time (and VHS color fades in about 10 years) and even digital tape experiences dropouts, it’s imperative that I get this stuff in other forms before it’s lost.

I’ve had the best of intentions for several years but these projects are daunting in their scope, time and attention required to drive them to completion. Besides all of my digital video, I have about 10GB’s (thousands and thousands of photos) with only about 50% of them properly organized into folders and they certainly do NOT have enough metadata in them since that’s even MORE work!

Why metadata? So we know who-is-who and what-is-what in these photos. I’ve started (twice) to scan boxes of family photos, many of them one of a kind. Most have names written on the back (my maternal grandmother annotated many of them) but ~40% have nothing and know one is alive that knows what they represent or who is in them. I have Apple’s iPhoto (which has a "description" field for annotating a photo) and Adobe’s Lightroom (with rich metadata capability) but any good photo management software has this capability and it’s gnawing at me every time I glance at yet another huge folder full of images that only I know what’s in it.

My intention is to copy and archive all my video; organize all my digital photos; scan all the family photos; and back them all up. Once bandwidth is sufficient to upload gigabytes-upon-gigabytes of digital memories, I’ll ensure that everything is off-site as well (and hope that a service appears that I can pay "X" to for, say, 50-100 years of guaranteed storage.

Just know that everything you’re capturing on physical media needs your attention…even if its digital. Maybe more so….and now.

Filed Under: Technology

Will we only have virtual souvenirs, artifacts and collectibles?

March 6, 2008 By Steve Borsch 2 Comments

The more I’m involved with online, virtual technologies and those sorts of almost ethereal experiences, the sweeter and more profound it is to hold an artifact in my hands that evokes periods and events in history and sparks memories of these times past.

In 1965, my hometown Minnesota Twins went to the world series after winning their first pennant since they were the Washington Senators in 1933. This was a big deal for a little kid and my grandparents went to the series games and bought (for $1.75) a team-signed baseball actually used in game play.

A couple of weeks ago my dad handed it to me as I offered to investigate its worth and seek an appraisal. It appears to be worth ~$1,000 though it might be "machine signed" and its worth possibly lower.

The money isn’t what matters. When I hold this baseball, memories of being in the old Metropolitan Stadium flood back (and of freezing my butt off watching the Vikings in it during winter in the 1970′s). I went to games, concerts, watched midget race cars fly around the road track surrounding the stadium and more. Listening to games on WCCO Radio (the huge wattage CBS station here) was a ritual…

…and I wasn’t then, nor am I now, much of a baseball fan!

It’s the artifact and its partial representation of an era gone by that means so much to me. The players I looked up to that signed this ball — some of whom I met as a kid like Harmon Killebrew — conjures up memories and puts into perspective how things change and what’s important. In fact, the site where you see the stadium is now the current location of the gignormous Mall of America.

Which brings me to the point of today’s post. I’ve been thinking a lot about virtual, digital and online artifacts (or the lack thereof). Thankfully Brewster Kahle’s Internet Archive (and specifically the Wayback Machine) is at least attempting to store representations of our digital and online life…but it’s incomplete (mostly since database driven sites break with the archive methods used) and certainly doesn’t archive virtual worlds like Second Life.

So how will our children and grandchildren be able to smell, hold and delight in old artifacts, souvenirs and collectibles of our current digital age and the one they’re growing up in? 30-40 years from now, what will they be able to hold from Facebook? Twitter? YouTube? Or whatever is the must-use online offering when they’re in their teens and young adulthood? There are few (or zero) physical artifacts in existence from these and almost all other online offerings and this I find disturbing.

Makes me realize that virtual companies need to create and deliver artifacts: t-shirts, pens, mugs or any other swag that people can — if they so choose — buy and archive for future generations. Otherwise, most of what we’re doing and experiencing will be mostly lost.

Filed Under: Metaverse, Virtual Worlds

242 Gbps: An Internet Broadcast to 500,000 People

March 4, 2008 By Steve Borsch 2 Comments

Something happened last night that I’m amazed has seen remarkably little coverage in the blogosphere or tech press. Thankfully the folks at Skype Journal covered it before and after: a HUGE online event — Oprah Book Club classes with nine more to come — with author Eckhard Tolle. This mass, Internet delivered production was put on by Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions and sponsored by Chevrolet, 3M’s PostIt and Skype (audience questions were delivered via Skype’s new high quality video capability).

It didn’t go so well.

"Monday night’s webcast was one of the largest single online events in the history of the Internet. More than 500,000 people simultaneously logged on to watch Oprah Winfrey and Eckhart Tolle live, resulting in 242 Gbps of information moving through the Internet. Unfortunately, some of our users experienced delays in viewing the webcast. We are working to identify the specific causes for the problems experienced and will work diligently to rectify them.

Harpo Productions, Inc., Move Networks and Limelight Networks recognize that interactive Internet broadcasting to a mass audience is still an emerging medium, and we’re proud to have been pioneers in pushing the industry forward. We deeply regret that some of our audience did not have an optimal viewing experience and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. The first session of the webinar will be available in its entirety for viewing on Oprah.com or for downloading as a podcast on Oprah.com or iTunes on Tuesday, March 4."

My heart sings for so many reasons though:

Oprah continuing to take the high road and bringing thought leaders, big ideas and consciousness raising spirit to the masses continues to delight and amaze me. The emphasis is always on the positive, the connectedness of us all and I believe that the world needs more in the way of optimism, hope and creative solutions to problems

As a strategic technologist, the risk taken by Harpo Productions and partners Move Networks and Limelight Networks was unprecedented and a remarkable learning opportunity for us all. I know of few organizations or leaders who’d take the risk of potentially alienating a half million people with a bad experience! Wow.

As you can see in the statement (taken from here), they were authentically transparent and have provided the file for on-demand viewing in several ways.

I’m not an internet architect and my understanding of multicast is slim as is the true nature of congestion on the ‘net…or as Senator Ted Stevens so humorously stated "The internet is not something you dump things on like a big truck, it’s a series of tubes". What’s clear is that major, visible organizations like this one is a way commercial pressure will be placed on the backbone providers (and Washington) to ensure that the internet will stand up to mass events just like last night’s "class".

Bravo Oprah.

Filed Under: Innovation, Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness

Apple iPad: Would you buy a tablet-sized iPhone?

March 3, 2008 By Steve Borsch 8 Comments

When Apple introduced the iPhone, it hit my personal sweet spot of a device so perfectly that I knew I’d have it with me all the time. As my lifestyle has increasingly become an always-on, always-connected one, having the ability to communicate in a variety of ways (voice, SMS, Twitter, moblogging), instantly look up a phone number, address or some obscure fact (the latter which always receives that “not again!” look from my wife), use the new Google Maps features (which I now prefer to my in-car navigation) means that this device has woven its way into my psyche and you’ll now have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

In my eight months of iPhone ownership, I’ve discovered that anything besides casual use (even when connected to Wifi) is less than optimal and heavy Wifi use sucks the juice from the battery at an alarming rate. Sometimes when waiting or bored, I’ll break it out and surf sites, but pinching-n-zooming gets old real fast. The tradeoff for having the internet-in-my-pocket with my phone (and always available) is gazing at it through a tiny screen and for now, I’m more than willing to make that compromise with this delightful device.

When Apple introduced the Macbook Air, I thought that finally, here was the perfect computing device for both my bride and I to augment our main computing boxes (she a 24″ iMac, me a Mac Pro with Apple 23″ display). Especially her, someone who travels globally and where every ounce she packs matters, is someone I thought would leap at this device. For me, someone who strongly desires a “more portable, portable” that is a step-up from the iPhone, chances were good I’d be buying one.

Not gonna happen for either of us.

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Filed Under: Technology