Each year, about this time, I compile my recommendations for digital media gadgets and gifts. This year is no exception but after a slew of news articles and e-mails to my inbox I think it best to preface this post with a not so subtle warning.

Beware e-mails bearing gifts!

The holiday season is perhaps the busiest for cyber-scammers. Everything from bank and credit union scams to fake offers from would-be authentic retailers capture hard-earned denaro. It pays to be extra vigilant this time of year to those too-good-to-be-true offers via e-mail...because they are. Scrutinize e-mails from retailers and never click links within the e-mail. Visit the retailers website to verify the deal. Remember that authentic retailers have toll free sales numbers. Give them a call when in doubt.

Now on to the recommendations!

There have been reviews a plenty dedicated to Amazon's new tablet slash e-reader the Kindle Fire. Comparisons abound to the iPad2. While the iPad2 is more powerful on paper it is also more expensive. While I can not, in good conscience, not recommend the iPad2 I have to say the Kindle Fire shows real promise to the budget conscious. Don't expect iPad flair but do expect solid functionality and that it does what Amazon says it does. In my opinion a good option for e-reading, video and mobile web browsing.

The next item up for bid! Streaming Video Boxes! Roku, Apple TV and Boxee. All excellent tools for streaming Netflix, Vudu (in some cases), Hulu and more to your TV without the fuss. True, many Blu-ray players and game consoles have this feature built in and are worth the dime. Dedicated streaming boxes are a great way to add streaming media services to remote TVs (think bedroom and kitchen) without the bulk of a Blu-ray player. I'm a fan of Roku- they've been a favorite of Netflix for some time now. I'll take tried and true over new and shiny. Apple TV is a solid offering and on my Amazon list (wink wink). The key feature is wireless. This keeps the cabling to a minimum. High speed Internet is a must. Cable or top end DSL or Verizon's FiOS if you're served.

Some great deals are to be had on net books (like last season) but to get the most bang for the buck a dual-core processor is recommended. Unlikely you'll find more than 1 gig of RAM in these lightweight contenders but the more the merrier!

LED Christmas lights, now a staple in super stores, are available in warmer colors instead of the institutional bright white. Look for the words 'WARM' on the packaging instead of 'COOL' which translates to "I have LED lights!!!".

Lastly I'll attack the newest audio device for the living-room. The sound bar. These devices are meant to be a replacement for surround sound systems. While they lack the true depth of surround sound they do work. To get the most from these devices position and room configuration are everything. If your new to the concept, a sound bar is about a three foot speaker bar, usually four to six inches in height racked with speakers, nominally black in color. They sit below your TV and emulate surround sound systems by placing speakers strategically within the bar. They are generally less expensive than high end surround sound multi-speaker systems but don't expect the same depth that you would get from speakers mounted physically behind you.

Have a great holiday season, check the ads, visit the sites and don't forget the batteries!

Digital content is, almost without exception, a computer file. If you think about the flexibility of a computer file, reaching back perhaps to your interactions with DOS and file based computing, the commands COPY, RENAME, DELETE, MOVE, and SAVE may come to mind. These basic file commands represent the fundamental ease at which digital content can be stored, transferred and manipulated. The act of digitizing analog content provides us with this flexibility and, with care, sustains the content in a more durable form. Photos, documents, video, audio and artifacts can all be captured in one manner or another to preserve a digital copy.

Digital imaging (scanning, photography) has come a long way in the past ten years with capture results nearly imperceptible from the analog original. One facet of digital imaging that is unique is the idea of non-destructive editing. We can make a copy of a digital photo for example - make changes or edits, crop, rotate, re-color and re-size all without affecting the original. In short there is no control-z (command-z for Mac users) in the analog world. That's the 'undo' command for the uninitiated!

Digitizing analog content provides additional flexibility when sharing or presenting content. Sending via e-mail, uploading to a drop-box service, inserting into presentation software (PowerPoint, Keynote, Prezi) and building complex multimedia are just a few uses for digitized content as components. Of course saving, deleting, compressing and other file based actions also underline the flexibility and mobility of digital content.

For best results, the resolution of the digitizing process must be carefully considered. How large should the object be when printed or displayed? What are the file storage requirements? What are the file format requirements? And finally, should the content be archived and how?

For assistance with these and other digital content questions, contact Digital Media Services. E-mail us at dms@ithaca.edu

I recently fielded an excellent question from one of our faculty regarding exporting PowerPoint slides as images. In his case, he needed to export a specific slide to a JPEG image to use for print. This operation is a two part process. I've copied my response below in hopes that others might find it useful.

You can export slides from PowerPoint and specify the type as JPEG (and several other formats).

First, navigate in the presentation to the slide you would like to convert to a JPEG. On a PC, depending on the version of PowerPoint you have, go to either 'File' or the ball in the upper left hand corner and choose 'Save As' then choose 'Other Formats'.

A file dialog box will open. In the file type pull down menu, scroll down (it's a long list but doesn't look it at first) until you see 'JPEG File Interchange Format'. This will export the slide or slides as a JPEG or series of JPEGs. If you have more than one slide it will ask you if you want to export the current slide or all of them.

PowerPoint's native resolution is 96 dpi, which won't normally suffice for print. Because the slide is relatively large, you can open it in Photoshop and change the resolution to 300 dpi.  This will take a 7.5" X 10" PPT slide to approximately 3.2" X 2.4" but will retain the quality of the slide for print.
 

Open the JPEG in Photoshop^®

In Photoshop^® choose 'Image' then 'Image Size...'

Under 'Document Size' enter 300 in place of 96 in the 'Resolution' field.  Be sure to deselect or uncheck 'Resample Image'.

Click OK then choose File >> Save.

Adobe Connect Pro, for the uninitiated, is a  suite of web conferencing tools. Web conferencing connects two or more parties remotely from a browser-based interface. The Adobe Connect Pro tool-set consists of video, audio, chat, screen sharing, file sharing and a few added features such as poll creation and link sharing. The big news is the latest update by which Adobe has completely re-vamped the application interface (UI) and has spent some time improving the connection quality.

One of my chief concerns regarding Adobe Connect Pro has been visual and aural quality. I've always expected more from the company that brings us the likes of Photoshop, Illustrator and In Design - excellent and reliable design tools. With this latest update it appears major changes are happening behind the scenes to improve both video and audio transmission quality. Latency has been reduced and the slick new interface provides a user-friendly environment with positive ergonomics in mind. For more information or to try it out, send an e-mail to dms@ithaca.edu.

From Sample Album

Apart from the interface

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