End-user perspective on small office tools & technology

Considering Opus Implementations

Opus-over-skypeOpus promises to be a great tool for online audio. In technology, as in music, not all opus are implemented equally. Allow me to explain.

Earlier this week I happened into a Twitter exchange with Mike Phillips. Mike is a podcaster. VUC founder Randy Resnick has introduced us once before. Mike is seeking a replacement for the role that Skype plays in his online toolbox.

It came to light that Mike has tried to leverage various soft phones, even giving some focus to finding one that implements the Opus codec. Opus is after all, open source, the current state-of-the-art in audio codecs, and a new IETF standard. However, in Mike’s attempts to tap its potential he has to date come up short relative to Skype.

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My Nexus 4 Is Broken

Google-Nexus-4 & Dog LeashTuesday was a sad day indeed, for that was the day that my Nexus 4 was broken. I was out walking the dogs with the phone in  my pocket. I don’t think that there was anything else in my pocket. When I returned home I noticed that the back of the phone was literally shattered.

The phone was in a bumper but not otherwise protected. I suppose it’s possible that something struck my pocket, possibly the one of the dogs leashes. We use the fairly common retractable leashes that have a hard plastic handle.

The damage is only the glass back of the phone. Initially it was limited to the area just around the the slot where the speaker is located. Over time the cracks spread across most of the back of the phone.

I did a little Googling around to see if this was commonplace, and scope out possible solutions. I know that Karl Fife had to perform a repair on his Nexus 4.

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Free Stuff: Polycom RealPresence Mobile

Polycom Real Presence Mobile in Mocet CommunicatorAs you are no doubt aware, I’ve long been a fan of Polycom hardware. From the entry-level SoundPoint IP335 to the new VVX Series Business Media Phones, Polycom makes great hardware. That said, I’ve also come to expect that great quality often comes at a price.

I was not at all surprised to see that Polycom offers a video conference soft client called RealPresence Mobile as part of their RealPresence solution suite. RealPresence Mobile has been around for over a year but was not something that’s crossed my path until recently. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it’s distributed without cost.

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A Digital Video Compression Primer

Canon XA10 Video CameraIn the post-roll of last week’s VUC call I got into a thread about webcams and various aspects digital video encoding.  While many in the VUC audience already have some understanding of the related principles, it occurred to me that there may be some folks that visit this site who would be interested a primer on the basics of video compression.

Then by some serendipitous twist I found this video on the subject by Drew Tyler, Instructor of Digital Media at Weber State University in Utah. He covers the basics in a pretty good live presentation, even if he is a bit of an Apple fan-boy.

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