Cell phones, tablets & related accessories are very personal items. I am increasingly of a mind that items of technology are too personal to be a gift. However, there are a few some cases where that’s not true. For example,…
I’ve been toying with standing while working in my home office. I say “toying” with it because I really haven’t made a substantial commitment to the idea. At least not until recently.
Back in December 2013 I purchased an adjustable laptop stand that’s capable of putting my laptop at the correct height for working while standing. It’s not great. It’s just not rigid enough to accommodate my typing. It’s adequate for reading but not good for writing. It renders my laptop about the same level of utility as my Nexus 7 tablet.
I also found that my laptop stand
Conference Room Systems (CRS) is an aspect of Haverford Systems, a Philadelphia area A/V sales & integration company. I’ve been watching this company for some time as they seem to have a better than average grasp on USB attached webcams for applications beyond the desktop. Not too long ago one of their team posted an article on Using Multiple Cameras with GotoMeeting, Skype, Webex or Zoom.US.
This article, based upon a SlideShare document with a few additions, is a bit on the thin side. The author starts with the ultra-simple idea that a user with a laptop can select an internal or external webcam as the video source. This is a great point, and well worth noting since an internal webcam tends to be quite lame. A good quality, external webcam can provide much better quality video. My current favorite is the Logitech C920.
He then makes a great leap to using an external video switcher to allow live switching between multiple video sources. While both are valid options, what he describes represents a rather dramatic leap from $0 to thousands-of-dollars.
There is in fact a middle option, which is the approach that we’ve be using for the VoIP Users Conference. You can use a software-based production tool to handle a variety of video sources right within your computer. There are a few different programs that fit this role. Some are inexpensive, or even free. More professional tools of this sort may cost a few hundred dollars.
Last week’s VUC515 with Tsahi Levent-Levi was a great call and a fine example of why the VUC continues to garner audience. Kudos to Randy, Tsahi, Tim, Emil at the cast of several who brought it about.
The production of the call was a bit unusual. Further, it’s post-call existence is continuing that trend line. In the moments just before the call YouTube decided to ignore the video stream that I was sending from Wirecast. When this has happened in the past stopping & restarting the stream once or twice has resolved the matter.
On this occasion, nothing that I tried could make YouTube acknowledge the stream, so we resorted to abandoning the YouTube Live event, making a local recording instead. That local recording was later uploaded to YouTube.
On a shelf in the garage that adjoins my home office there is a set of shelves with a number of boxes of cables. There are cables of various sorts; BNC type video, RCA audio leads, XLR audio cables, IEC…
Earlier this week Gigaset extended their Gigaset Pro line by adding a new 10” Android tablet they call Maxwell. I must say that at first glance the device looks VERY nice.
As just an Android tablet Maxwell is a little unremarkable. The display is 1280 x 800 pixels. It runs Android 4.2.2, aka Jelly Bean, which is a little old on the eve of widespread Lollipop rollout.
What makes Maxwell stand out from the crowded tablet marketplace are the customizations intended to make it a communication centerpiece. These include;
Color me curious about this tablet. I’d simply love to lay hands on one. I suspect that won’t happen since their Gigaset Pro line has not been offered in North America. The only thing that made it to these shores was the Gigaset DX800A