John 'Lofty' Wiseman & Me

Back in 1986 my paper round money went on a copy of John ‘Lofty’ Wiseman’s SAS Survival Handbook. I still have it.
I’d managed to get a copy just before it was banned. Shortly after it was revised without the mantraps and chemical concoctions. All the bits we would talk about at school.

I had spent a good chunk of my childhood living in and around woodland and to say this book changed me is an understatement. My dens soon became sturdy shelters with some still standing 15 years later. I had always had a knife, ever since I was five. My Granddad had taught me how to respect it and Lofty had taught me how to use it. His book not just gave me new skills, it gave me a new understanding of the wilderness and how to survive in it.

While others my age were doing their homework or playing football, I was trapping, whittling, building and foraging. As I explored the book I explored my surroundings and fell in love with nature and all the secrets it looked after.

On the 4th of June 2011, 25 years later, I finally got to meet Lofty Wiseman at the Bushcraft Show on the banks of Lake Windermere.

In a large tent surrounded by likeminded outdoors folk & Bushcrafters, we all sat and listened as he told us a little about his own journey and what he had learned while serving 26 years in the SAS.

I sat cross-legged at the front and without thinking clicked record on a small digital recorder. I am not sure there is another audio record of this talk.

Due to the number of mobile phones in close proximity, the recording was close to inaudible in places. I had @MCFontaine (Mark Cotton – audio wrangler) take a look at it and he has tweaked and restored it so that all three 30 minute parts can be comfortably listened too below. I’m amazed at how well he has cleaned it up. There’s still a little distortion in a couple of spots but hang in there, Lofty tells a great story and shares some unique insight.

Y-Cam Bullet IP camera

I got sent the Y-Cam Bullet last year and then when I moved home it found itself into a box, only to be re-discovered last week.

Cables, adapters, wall/ceiling mount, power lead, optional sun visor etc, all  come in the box.

What's in the box

I had already purchased a Y-cam S in black over 2 years ago (the older model without the micro sd card slot). I used it as a night vision baby monitor and at the time I remember it wasn’t the easiest device to set up as the Mac software from Y-Cam was pretty shoddy.

The new setup application for mac seems to have fixed this and I had the Bullet unpacked set up and operational in a little over 5 minutes.

Having used the smaller Y-cam S in the past I was expecting decent build quality but was a little surprised at the size. It was bigger than I expected and when unscrewing the front to insert the micro SD card I could see the size was not just a result of it’s sturdy IP66 weather proof external case, but this also had to house the chunky Infra Red diodes that give it is night vision capabilities.

So, what can it do..?
It does all the things you would expect from an IP camera. You can view and listen into what ever it is pointing at in real time, from anywhere in the world, through a computer on the web, or a smart phone. There is also a nifty little iPhone app that also works on the iPad.

It has motion detection that you can set up to trigger recording from movement in various regions of it’s sight. When motion is detected, the camera can email you a photo of what’s going on, or record the video to an internal micro sd card that you can view when logged on to the camera’s web page. You can also grab snapshots and record video whilst viewing through the browser.

Screengrab taken through the browser in total dark

It’s IR-cut filter enables true/day night operation so daytime colours are pretty good, it also has power over ethernet (PoE) and as yet un-explored by me (as it is still PC only), 2-way audio. I’d love to be able to talk through the camera from my Mac as this would open up all kinds of possible uses.

Snapshot taken with the iPhone app & reduced to 500px wide

I had a play with the app and whilst viewing you can grab snapshots with a click of the button (see image above). The snapshots drop into your iphone photos gallery. It’s a pretty simple app at the moment and I’d love an update that would enable remote recording and push notifications instead of email. I get a ton of emails a day and would not necessarily see an email notification that the camera had been triggered. I am thinking some kind of ftp push to app hack could be done but not needed if the guys at Y-Cam just update the app. I’m sure more sales would be generated as the great reviews for a fully functioning app rolled in.

(This test clip was recorded through the camera, downloaded remotly through the browser, looked fine on the computer, but seemed to have the audio scraped on upload to youtube.)

The Y-cam records video at a maximum frame rate of 30fps at 640 x 480 with the frame rate automatically adjusting with your internet connection. Stills are taken at the same resolution although I have reduced them to 500px to fit this blog column.

Although I have only used the ethernet connection during set up and then wifi from then on, the camera also has a Digital I/O and 2-way audio connector should you have a more complex monitoring system you want to plug it into.

I like the fact that adding an internal microSD card to the slot enables a local back up option should you not be continually recording the footage to an external hard drive. This also means you can use the camera on it’s own in a remote location and later view the footage via a mobile device with a MiFi, or plug the camera into a PC. This way it is effectively a self contained detection and recording device. As long as it’s powered of course.

As far as I remember there was only PC support originally but now things seem to work much better on a Mac with the video viewed using Quicktime and the motion detection settings adjusted in the browser. This does have to be adjusted using a flash enabled device though so using the iPad for fine tuning the camera is not an option. Once again perhaps a future app update will open up this functionality.

Should you want to get imaginative and use the camera for video conferencing, the Bullet supports up to 16 simultaneous remote users with password protection.

At time of writing the Y-Cam YCBL03 Bullet IP Camera is £270 on Amazon and looking at other options with similar specs, this appears to be the best value for money.

Apart from all the fun to be had just playing with tech like this and of course the usual security uses, I have a couple of other uses in mind. One would be front door monitoring when I’m locked away in my garden office and expecting visitors or post. The other is for the camera to be a kind of digital babysitter for my semi-independent Grandmother who suffers from Alzheimer’s

I’d like to monitor the times when she uses the kitchen and taylor her care accordingly. The carers at the moment visit three times day but my Gran never seems to be hungry when they are there. They told me that if they knew exactly the time she wanted food and assistance (as She can’t remember) then they can adjust their visit times. With the camera setup temporarily in her kitchen, it can be programmed to record all motion and this would log what my Gran is doing and when. No need for an internet connection as the footage could be stored internally on the microSD card. The footage could be used to see exactly what my Grandmothers needs where and when.

Ideally if a long term solution was needed, via an internet connection my Gran could talk to me through the video camera and me back to her from anywhere in the world. This would need Y-cam to sort out the two way audio feature for the Mac user. If you have any questions on this or the latest developments, perhaps connect on twitter with @YcamSolutions who seem very pleased to answer any questions and who have helped me out immensely with any queries I’ve had.

In Conclusion:

It’s a serious camera worth the money with lots of browser based functionality capable of dealing with all kinds of projects.

I’d happily recommend any camera tech from Y-Cam but take a look at the whole range to ensure you are not buying something over spec’d for your needs. For some of my planned projects the £100 cheaper Y-Cam YCB003 would probably suffice. That said, the Y-Cam Bullet is a solidly built professional IP surveillance camera that works well both indoors and out, night and day, in all weather. It’s great value for money with more features than I’d personally use. I love access via the iPhone app, but it is simple and I’d like to see more app development to cater for the increasing number of Mac users and those working from mobile devices.

Y-Cam Bullet

Me and Audioboo on my iPhone with a 'spoffle' on.

Firstly I have to thank the soundsmith @MCFontaine for sending me this mashup created from a few of my audio recordings on  Audioboo. I love what he has done and am inspired to one day.. perhaps.. trawl through the (aprox) 83 hours of Audioboo’s I’ve done in the last two years.

Prior to finding the Audioboo iPhone app I would edit my podcasts long hand. Sometimes I could spend up to 8 hours trying to get an edit ‘perfect’ before it would finally make it online. In 2 years I uploaded about 45 podcasts. I have uploaded a thousand Audioboo’s in the 2 years since they started.

There is certainly something to say for always having your recording device in your back pocket. Not to mention the  app’s ease of use.

From personal thoughts, soundscapes, to interviews, I find myself prefering the ease and simplicity of audio over the sometimes longwinded and hard to upload (on my bandwidth) video. There have been many times when an interview on video was either not allowed or asking for one made the subject uncomfortable. This is when Audio once again comes into it’s own.

I could go on about how I have all but cancelled my subscriptions to the 1hr ‘pro’ podcasts in favour of the shorter more engaging and personal soundbites.. And the value I have gained from investing my time in recording on the fly. But I have said it all before.. and no doubt it was in audio.

You can hear my Audioboo’s on http://Audioboo.net

And if you want to subscribe in iTunes please click this embedded link.

Seriously, I have no idea what my digital footprint would look like it there wasn’t easy audio blogging like this. Thanks to @MarkRock and the Audioboo team for creating such a great platform/app and for putting up with all my suggestions over the years.. (Please can I have the tweet on/off button.. the random boo button.. a streaming audioboo radio channel.. and so on..)

And I also need to thank @Sizemore who a little over 2 years ago sent me a link saying something like..”Check this out, I think you will like this… http://Audioboo.fm”

I have also been told that Freemasonry is not a secret society, It is a society with secrets.

Never-the-less, it was the thought of being admitted to a secret society that attracted me to the idea of joining the Freemasons. I have an unhealthy fascination with the unknown.

Freemasonry has a mysterious history going back hundreds of years and it’s symbolism and iconography is embedded within our language, architecture and history.

One thing I didn’t quite understand when visiting a Masonic Lodge during a recruitment meeting was the rule asking you not talk about work, politics or religion.

Now, arguments often accompany political and religious discussion, so i could understand why those topics may be frowned upon. But I thought this would be just the place for movers and shakers, the people in positions of power to ‘Get Things Done’.. Where deals were made and projects started. How can this happen if all you have is small talk?

Now I think I get it.

Perhaps In one way Freemasonry is one of the Wests first social networks. Albeit a little more exclusive than the ones we have today. The small talk like the kind we see in our online social media networks was and is vital to build trust.

I imagine the Lodge meetings to be formal in some ways. Packed with ceremony and learning and the bar/social time afterward, the place where I’ve been invited to sample the subsidised beer, is where you shoot the breeze and get a feel for those you are connecting with.

Some of us do the same online. Twitter is a good example of people getting involved in small talk before contacts and connections are formally cemented. It may be at a conference or a social media get together where things move on to the next level. A quiet corner is found and business is done.

Here is the five minute chat with A Knights Templar Priest that started me thinking about how we ultimately use small talk to feel around for those we feel we can trust. In business, in play, in life..

We all may appear to be ‘open and transparent’ but I’ll wager many of us keep the finer details of our business transactions behind closed doors.

It’s been around for longer than that (read my blog for more info) but I just took a look at my AudioBoo iTunes Feed and i have done what appears to be 30 mini podcasts in 3 days!

My ‘normal’ podcast is only in the 40′s!.. OK.. some will argue that they are a little more honed and probably better quality than some of my mini rants and rambles but who cares? Think of how easy it is now to podcast, albeit limited to 5 minutes. Think of all the people without the technical know how to hand code an XML file. It takes me literally hours to do my normal podcast so i can see the finished item on iTunes.. I can now do it in seconds.

Yes you need an iPhone but this will not be so in the future. And besides, look at the kit you used to need. Even on the cheap you are looking at some kind of audio recorder and a computer. Some people use mixers. Now all you need is a free app AudioBoo and an iPhone.

I guess the reason why I go on and on about how i am impressed with all of this is that I have a feeling we are going to see so many newly inspired multimedia producers not only equipped with the tech but using it in new and innovative ways. These new producers won’t be fault finding for 8 hours at a time after 5 hours of making a podcast wondering why their show hasn’t appeared in iTunes. I am not going to miss any of that.

It doesn’t make the final work any less valuable. The world online is moving pretty fast now. I listen to fewer and fewer 40 minute podcasts and more and more shorter ones. I am chosing the Haiku over the ‘Long Poem‘.

This doesn’t mean i am going to stop doing my longer podcast editied in garageband.. not yet.

But it does mean you have something else to subscribe to.. If you want. Something shorter, quicker, rawer, off the cuff, unedited, not a programme, not an edited broadcast.. A little slice of life. A moment in time. An audio tweet. A Boo.

Subscribe to my AudioBoo’s i iTunes

And to my older longer podcast here.

Maybe because I felt like I was no longer just a photographer. My ability to take photos and document things was now just one shade on a growing multimedia palette of skills that had community in mind.

I felt this would be an incredibly important use for video conversation platforms. Today they seem to concentrate on conversations with celebrity and have not yet been adopted by areas of the worlds community in real need of talking about their plight. Hopefully myself and Mike Sizemore will be able to push the use of video conversational platforms in the political sphere. We have already had great success using Qik during talks with political party leaders with Thompson Reuters, thanks to people like @ilicco.

Shortly after Jordan was a meetup in Paris, then SXSW in Austin, Texas. This was made possible by more sponsorship. Jeff Pulver bought the tickets and myself and Phil Campbell’s socializing was more than covered by Seesmic. It was here that many online friendships were cemented and connections made. People who’s lives I still follow daily and think of as good friends. Some of these friendships were fortified more with my trip to New York for Podcamp NYC 2.0. Also made possible with sponsorship from Seesmic.

There are too many people to name with whom friendships were made and are still maintained. If you look at my Twitter friends and scroll back to the first 30 or so pages.. these are the people from this time. These are the people I would do most anything for. The web weaving warriors who have made sense of this digital wasteland.

After SXSW I was bridging out from mobile media making and into Consulting. Geert Van Kesteren commissioned me to fly out to Amsterdam and help him with his media mountain. Towers of hard drives containing incredible photo stories waiting to be reformatted into online portfolios, podcasts, films anything that gave them new life.

Las Vegas was another big event of the year made possible with the help of Steve Purkiss, @Kosso’s Phreadz and The Open University. In fact Phreadz and The OU have gone on to play a massive part in many more of this years adventures. Berlin Web 2.0 was made infinitely more interesting and Geeknbury really came together with the online participation from those that could not make it.

Work for me this year has been a pleasure. Which is just as well, if i’m not doing something for an assignment, I am doing more of the same for the love of it. It was great working with Carl (@FellowCreative) and the University of Creative Arts online projects. Speaking at places like the UCA and the MDDA really punctuate the year nicely and allow me to learn through talking more about what it is we do.

I finished this year by running video blogging courses. A full day of looking at kit, learning how to use it, filming editing uploading and dissemination.

If you had asked me at the beginning of 2008 what i would be doing throughout the year, I would have had no idea how fast and how far this social media wave would travel. Surf’s up and it’s 10 foot and tubing.

If you ask me now I’ll say I just want to stay on the surfboard, anything else is a bonus.

I look forward to doing more with these people in 2009. More projects with the likes of Dave @BuddhaMagnet. More experimental stuff with the OU, more teaching with the MDDA.. More with, Nick Butler, @sleepydog, Phil Campbell, Mike Sizemore.. Just more.

Of course I have the little matter of a baby arriving between March and April so my focus may alter somewhat in the first quarter of this year. If I thought 2008 was epic, 2009 it is bound to be more so.

This blog post accompanies a podcast I have rushed out in the last couple of hours of 2008. Not really a concise summery. Just a ramble whilst walking the dog on a cold December night. Trying to get my head around the year and at the same time trying not to freeze to death in the dark Northamptonshire countryside.

You can subscribe to my ever so neglected podcast in the iTunes store.

If you feel you can add to this please comment. It’s great to get feedback, thoughts and ideas.

Don’t forget you can support this blog here and a review on my podcast in Itunes may do more good than bad.

I won’t ask any more from you other than to stay in touch. Communication got us here.. Staying connected will carry us through. A journey with friends.

This year we were accompanied by Phil Campbell and Brian Jones and as we picnicked in honour of Eric Arthur Blair, we also discussed our ever diminishing civil liberties, asking what is public and wondering If George Orwell could ever have known that it would not be the tyranny of socialism but the triumph of capitalism which is making us kiss our privacy goodbye?

If you have not subscribed to the podcast (free) in Itunes already, you can listen to the mp3 here

And if you would like a visual referance to the day, check out these great little films of the day made by  Phil Campbell .. This one in HD and this one shot on the Flip Ultra

Thanks for stopping by.

The second half was recorded on the flight back to London.

We talk about hacking, podcamp uk, Seesmic, Qik, Blip TV, Pulver TV, social media and how to make Sloe Gin.

I edited it one month later in April, on another flight to Newark this time on my own and heading to PodcampNYC 2.0.

The song entitled HTML in the middle was emailed to me by Erin of the band ‘The Hot Toddies‘. I highly reccommend checking them out HERE.

If you have not subscribed to the podcast (free) in Itunes already, you can listen to the mp3 here

I am guessing many of you have already seen this. To you guys I say once again, thank you for your support and also for passing this on to others..

To those that haven’t, and I know there are many who download the podcast that never visit any of my sites, here is a brief outline..

The fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War has just passed, and there is speculation that the engagement may continue yet another five years, if not more. To date, approximately 4,000 American soldiers have been killed in combat.

While the loss of combat troops is certainly tragic, even more stunning is a recent World Health Organization report based on Iraqi Health Ministry figures which estimates that 151,000 Iraqi civilians were killed between March 2003, the start of the invasion, and June 2006.

Many of the reports of civilian deaths are disputed. What cannot be argued, however, is another grave consequence of the Iraq War: the displacement crisis as a mass exodus of Iraqis flee the instabilities and ever-increasing sectarian violence at home, tearing their families apart.

In mid-January 2008, with the support of the United Nations High Commission For Refugees (UNHCR), I traveled to Amman, Jordan to photograph and record a few of these families trapped in a no-man’s land; asylum seekers looking for refuge, too afraid to return to their blood-soaked country.

Here are a few of their stories:

The film can also be viewed as a .wmv file here.. http://www.unhcr.org/video/iraqi-refugees-in-jordan.wmv
…and downloaded as a real media file here.. http://www.unhcr.org/video/iraqi-refugees-in-jordan.rm
For more information please check out.. The UNHCR Multimedia pages

To download this film to your ipod or mobile device please subscribe to the podcast at The Documentally Podcast Feed

It’s not my normal fare.. but it is what it is.

If you have not subscribed to the podcast (free) in Itunes already, you can listen to the mp3 here