Webcams have come along way in the past decade. They’ve gone from a geek-inspiring novelty, producing puny pictures to, in some cases, inexpensive sources of real HD video. Moreover, as their capabilities have improved they have gained acceptance as serious…
There was a time just over a year ago when a pair of Asus VE247 LCD monitors graced my desk. I liked them a lot, but eventually decided that two 24” monitors was not exactly what I needed. I appreciated the screen real-estate, but didn’t enjoy how they completely consumed my desktop. So for the past while I’ve had just one monitor on my desk, the other being gifted to my wife.
Very recently I thought I might give a dual-monitor setup another try. This time I might be more creative about positioning one of the monitors in portrait mode. The dual-arm monitor mount that I use would easily accommodate this.
This isn’t a high-priority task, but I’ve been keeping watch for a good deal on a nice monitor for Stella. That would allow me to reclaim the other Asus monitor and return to a matched pair on my desktop.
Does your phone system implement some interactive voice response, aka IVR? Do you know how bad IVR can drive your customers nuts? It can actually drive them away. Here are a couple of examples from my personal life.
Here in Houston there’s a very successful Greek restaurant called Niko Niko’s. Stella likes this place a lot. I like their food but I don’t like to go there. It’s always busy. It’s simply too noisy a place to have a relaxing meal.
Next week the IETF will be holding a conference in Berlin. Part of that conference is a Technical Plenary Session about the Opus audio codec scheduled for Monday, July 29th 5:40-7:40pm CET. The IETF usually streams much of their conferences…
Last week there was some exciting news on the AG Projects mailing list; Blink support for the Opus codec was being released for the Mac version of Blink. A similarly capable release of the Windows version was expected shortly. Earlier this week Adrian Georgescu, the A. G. of AG Projects, passed me a Blink for Windows release candidate for experimental use.
This beta release installed readily, right along side the production release. I quickly registered it with my account at SIP2SIP.INFO so that we could have a couple of brief test calls.
Since most telephony oriented audio hardware doesn’t do justice to full-bandwidth audio I connected my Blue Microphones Yeti USB Microphone
I have seen the light…and you can, too! As I described previously, I’ve been making use of a lot more video calling in my working life. Even beyond that fact, some have said that I’m occasionally in the dark.
After some attempts to use locally existing lighting, both natural and artificial, I determined that I need some lighting that’s specifically for my use of video. My first instinct was to ask a question of my followers on Twitter, since some of those are active in the realm of video conferencing and calling.
I also reached out to some people in the broadcast space, including photographers and lighting directors. I took the answers provided and added a little of my own online research.
There has a risen a question of why my workspace is as dark as it happens to be at times? Early in my career I was an online editor. At that point I spent most of my working life in dimly lit rooms working on the final assembly of commercials and longer video programs. The forest green color on my office walls is in fact borrowed from the design one of my favorite editing suites.