The Village Blog…

The Virtualization industry for the Apple Macintosh has existed for almost as long as the Macintosh, with one of the first virtualization products (at least that I used) being hardware based on the Macintosh IIc back in 1987.   Warping forward to 2010 how times have changed for both software and hardware manufactures and “with Hell Freezing Over…” Apple made the move to the Intel Chipset.   In my humble opinion one of the best decisions Apple ever made!  In the Virtualization space today the players are Parallels Desktop 5, VMWare fusion 3, and Oracles’ Virtual Box, with the predominate lead going to Parallels.  What sets Parallels Desktop 5 apart from other Virtualization software really boils down to it’s mature and thorough feature set and just raw performance emulating Windows.  If your interested in a short comparison of Parallels and VMware I created a screencast here, late last year.

Parallels Desktop 5 is all about raw speed, performance and reliability.  Leveraging the release of Mac OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard, Parallels Desktop 5 now takes advantage of the 64bit OS, Intels VT-x2 Technologies,  and can utilize up to 8 CPU’s on the most powerful Mac the MacPro.   What does this mean?   In simple terms it means booting up in Windows XP in under one minute or even less with Windows 7.

Here is where you select a virtual machine to open.

I can now suspend a windows instance in less then 10 seconds, and when I need to go back into windows with just one click Windows is back and operational on my Mac in less then 10 seconds!  Truly amazing.

Performance is clearly carried through in both application performance as well as graphics including OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9 support.   What this has meant to me is that I can easily run applications like MS Word and Internet Explorer with performance that is better then most windows machines, and quickly test my website designs and video production for Windows compliance.   What has also much improved in Parallels Desktop 5 is the ability to play 3D games now in a virtualized environment, and get performance that makes casual gaming very acceptable.  For a more detailed look on gameplay within Parallels, I created a screencast late last year that you can find here.

What sets Parallels Desktop 5 apart is a well executed user interface and mature feature set for each Virtual Machine.   Parallels has created a very unobtrusive interface to launching a Virtual Machine instance, and accessing the hardware & settings of the environment.

Hardware and VM Settings Seamless Integrate with running Virtual Machine

The interface has been well thought out with the ability to configure every feature/function of the virtualization experience with a very comprehensive set of options.  While there are over 70 new features that are included in this release and certainly too many to cover here, the most important features to me are the performance improvements and the new Crystal Mode of operation.  To see Windows 7 literally melt away so that only you only see the Windows program running next to your mac programs is simply brilliant!

Notice that MS Word 2007 is running to the left of Apple Pages!

In summary Parallels Desktop 5 sets a very high bar and a new standard in Virtualization software.   The product offers an incredibly robust feature set, performance that is just amazing, and rock solid stability.   I personally use Parallels Desktop 5 on both a MacPro and MacBookPro daily, and my experience has just been stellar!   I for one will be interested to see how Parallels improves on this incredible release!

Skeeter All things Apple, Products of Interest (at least to me) All things Apple, Parallels Desktop, Skeeter Harris, Virtualization

The Worlds Most Advanced e-reader

Having ordered two nooks (one already received) and another due right before Christmas, I am now second guessing my decision to buy this product.  The feature list should have been a Kindle 2 killer – PDF Support, Lending Books, Color LCD, at the bottom of the display…..  However speaking from owning a Kindle 2 and selling it the day the nook was announced might have been a mistake.   Especially after several reviews  that mostly trashed the nook.  I decided to head over to a Barnes and Noble store to see one in person to see if what I was reading was true.  By far the worst review I read/watched was from NY Times’ David Progue, but I also read some fairly decent reviews from WSJ, Money, and several technology blogs including CNET.

So with all of these comments (mostly negative) in mind, I tried to approach the very helpful lady and nook staring at me behind the nook display with an open mind.  What I found to my surprise is that the nook actually faired better in my hands and opinion (a lot better) then what I had seen and read online.

Nook Display

I found the display to be easier on the eyes with the darker ink then my Kindle 2 was, and the form factor and the color LCD looks brilliant together and its extra weight actually felt like quality high-end product then “made in China” junk.  The color LCD provided a beautiful way to navigate the OS and to me gave the nook more of a premium “iPhone” device feel to it instead of a plastic toy feel with pre-school buttons like the Kindle 2 keyboard.    The menu options made sense to me and I was able to browse books, look at the store, buy a  book, and open up sample PDF’s.

The so called “formatting issue” is definitely there but it was not as bad as I had read it to be and when I asked the nook lady about it, she explained that since each book has it’s own set of font’s embedded in the file the nook has to truly format the book for the device.   So when I think about it that way, it actually is a step forward and brilliant because each book can choose it’s own font and control it’s appearance.   That (to the best of my knowledge) is not something the Kindle 2 did so there was never any formatting that needed to be done.  Additionally this only happened the first time you loaded the book, and then on subsquently going to the book it just jumped right in like Kindle does.  I suspect that with this capability of rending when the document is opened actually provides for a better reading experience and more accurate representation of a book or diagram (thinking PDF).   While a little slow it was not something that would make me walk away from this device.

With regard to horrible “page turning experiences” it was slightly slower from what I remembered with the Kindle 2 but again nothing as bad as I had read.   The ability to browse the store worked well and buying a book or magazine (in my base PC Mag) worked well, putting them into a queue and automatically notified me when they were done downloading.  Overall right on par with the Kindle 2.

Concerning battery life – “David Progue – Please stand up so I can slap you” – His statement 7 days Kindle 2 verse 2 days nook, is a complete mis-representation.   The nook will last 10 days with just the book and 3G Wireless turned on, if you leave WIFI on it drops to 2 days.  There really is no reason to leave WIFI on unless your hanging out at a Barnes and Noble store and if so it is very easy to go into the color LCD and turn the WIFI on as needed.    Additionally the fact that the nook does not have a browser – well get over it.  The Kindle 2 had one – it was a joke and besides.  I have an iPhone a MacBookPro if I really want to surf the web, i’m certainly not going to do it on an e-reader!

After spending almost an hour playing with the nook at the Barnes and Noble store I feel I could easily lose the nook in my hands, the page turning experience and the buttons to turn pages felt natural and unobtrusive to me.    The color LCD quickly disappears out of site and the backlight goes out quickly so it just melts away from being distracting to your eyes.    Being a Kindle user since the original Kindle came out what 2 years ago – well the user interface experience is completely different on the nook and I kept trying to approach this device like a kindle.     Once I got around that I found the UI to be very easy to use and self explanatory.    Barnes and Noble – if your reading this – Do yourself a favor – Create a “Getting to know your nook video” that walks the user through the most common functions or using the nook coming form the Kindle.  Just a thought.

The device does show it’s 1.0 heritage in the software and I do agree that you can “build up a series of commands” so that you watch while your nook is off doing anything but what you intended.    While I can see this could become very annoying, being aware of this is half the battle.   I would like to think that between Android 2.0 and nook software updates this issue will pass.

I did ask about the “Book Lending Issue” and the helpful B&N lady was right there to explain that the company plans had really fallen victim of the publishers and they were still working on this.  So let’s just hope that with time these restrictions get relaxed because it’s really is a great idea and was a selling point to me.

So now with this information and some time to play with a nook in my hands – did I make the wrong decision?   – Absolutely not!     I have to say that this device is getting a lot of unfair press and poor reviews, which is really too bad and unfair.   I would encourage anyone who like me was second guessing themselves to find a Barnes and Noble store and check it out.   I also have to give wonderful kudos to my new friend the “nook lady” at the store.  She was super friendly, knew her product in and out, and was completely up to speed on what was being said about this new device, and was able to talk openly about the reviews and provide me solid explanations.  With this new information in hand, Christmas is now feeling just that much further away and I once again feel like that 10 year old boy,  I once was.

Skeeter Products of Interest (at least to me) Barnes and Noble, eReaders, nook, Skeeter Harris

I am a member of a networking group called BNI – International which is a networking and referral group that I attend weekly to give referrals to my fellow group members and if I am lucky get a referral or two as well.   Every meeting two of the members get to present a topic of choice to help educate and let their fellow members better understand what the presenters business does.

Last week it was my turn so I thought I would discuss something I am spending a lot of time on with my customers which is Social Media, and in particular facebook and twitter.   So with that plan in mind and only 8 minutes to present something, I narrowed the discussion down to just facebook fan pages.   So in preparation of this presentation I decided I would do some research on facebook by industry segment to understand  just how many fan pages existed and collect a rough “idea” of just how many fans these pages industry segments had.

With searching facebook by segment and just looking at fan page counts and approximating numbers of fans it was easy “at a very broad stroke” to see what other companies were doing on facebook.   I did not spend really anytime trying to find local Rochester companies but just get a sense of what was out there.

Here is a brief example of what I observed:

• Investing – 2 pages, 2500 fans
• Lawn Care – 500 pages, 100’s fans
• Electrician – 77 pages, 100’s fans
• Mortgages – 350 pages, 100’s fans
• Heating and Cooling – 486 pages, 100’s fans
• Banking – 247 pages, 1000’s fans
• Insurance – 500 pages, 100’s fans
• Attorneys – 1300 pages, 1000’s
• Home Renovation – 916 pages, 100’s fans

With this information in hand I asked the group of 22 professionals if they had a facebook fan pages (I already knew that answer)  and only two members had a fan page!    When I reviewed this information and handed out examples of fan pages in these industry segments, you could see the rooms reaction change as I discussed what other businesses were doing on their fan pages and pointing out just how out of touch most people were in the room with their customers.   It also didn’t hurt my presentation when the heating and cooling guy chimed in (who had a fan page) and said “Yeah – Skeeter’s right I put a fan page up not too long ago and have already gotten several new customers because of this!”

So my question to you the reader is this?   Do you have a fan page to represent your business?  If the answer is no, then why not?   We are at a very unique and wonderful time  with regard to Social Media.   As a business you can take advantage of the fact that the conversation with your customer  can now be one to one, instead of the old days of a monologue discussion (You shouting out your message).    From my perspective, I would rather my company/brand be included in the conversation (good or bad) verse not being talked about at all…

What are your thoughts?

Skeeter Internet Marketing, Social Networking Add new tag, facebook, Skeeter Harris, Social Media, Social Networks Work

Introduction
First off, let me congratulate you by saying Welcome, Bravo, and Thank You for wanting to actively engage your customers! There are over 300 million subscribers in facebook, with approximately 3 million members becoming fans of pages like yours daily!   There isn’t a better time to start two way conversations with your customers, and let them talk to you and about your business.

So what can I expect?
Well depending on how you use your new fan page will ultimately determine how many and how frequently your customers or potential customers think of you and your business. A fan page is all about giving, it’s about opening up and sharing information about your business, providing insights into the people behind the name, and providing compelling content that makes people want to come back and see what’s happening in your business. By providing some or all of the above to your fans through social networking sites such as facebook or twitter you open the doors for a more intimate customer experience, and an enriched relationship which will generate increased business exposure and ultimately revenue.

How do I get started?
Here content is king – Think about your business and all the aspects of it, now with that in mind, content is: photographs, video, press releases, new products, events, and discussions. With continual and fresh content you elicit conversation, interest, and will engage your customer.

Where do I Update facebook?
There are several areas that you can update your fan page, however the most common are:

• Wall – What’s on your mind?
• Photos – Either new albums or new photos
• Events – Activities you want for fans to know about or participate in
• Discussions – Questions and Subject Matter Expert Content
• Video – Product reviews, How-to,  Commercials

Challenges
Often when I complete a facebook deployment for my clients a common challenge that I run into is Now What? While companies excel at both sales and marketing strategies bridging the gap between these common practices and how to use the facebook Fan Page seems daunting.    Because of this uncertainty I guide clients by developing both tactical and strategic plans to update facebook, and will create new content and manage the fan pages for them.   Listed below are only 5 of over 20 guidelines and thought provokers that I use with my clients.

Update Guidelines and Thought Provokers

• Update your Fan Page at least once a week, preferably 2 – 3 times a week
• Showcase new products by posting pictures on your wall with descriptions
• Create Events to add excitement about your business and send out updates to fan
• Create “facebook only” promotions to drive fan membership
• Add company announcements, press releases, articles to your wall.

The Start of a Series
So it is with this facebook Fan page article in mind, I will be releasing a series of screen casts that will talk through these guidelines and show you how to apply these techniques to your own facebook fan pages.   Each screen cast will be approximately 3 – 7 minutes in length, and be designed as something you the reader can review and apply these technique to your own fan page.    I welcome your feedback, suggestions, and ideas and look forward to getting to know you and learn from you my reader.

Skeeter

Skeeter Social Networking facebook, Mac Village Productions, Skeeter Harris, Social Networking, Social Networking Education, Social Networks Work

With the release of both VMWare Fusion 3 and Parallels Desktop 5 over the past 2 weeks I was interested and motivated to create several blog posts and screencasts showing off the differences and features I liked the best. With performance being such a huge improvement both touting Directx 9.0x and OpenGL 2.1 support the only logical thing left to look at was how well the virtual environments played games that would push the VM’s and attempt to use the video cards GPU’s.

So below you will find my screencast noting my experience with several games both good and bad. What this test did do for me was remind me of some of the frustrations I have always had with game playing on PC’s. While I understand the need for copy protection it takes a lot of the fun out of playing PC games, and the configuration issue of games can just be daunting to the novice.

For example after an hour of troubleshooting and research I determined among others on support forums that BioShock will just not run on Windows 7. After 30 minutes into Fall 3 troubleshooting a stumbled upon a forum post that gave me three Fallout.ini settings I had to make to allow the game to play!

The games I looked at were: Sims 3, BioShock, Crysis, Lego Indiana Jones, Fall Out 3, Halo 2

Well I hope you enjoy this last screencast on Virtualization focused on game play.

Skeeter

Skeeter All things Apple

In honor of Rochester’s 175th Anniversary, the City of Rochester and the Veterans Outreach Center will present a special Veterans Day Concert featuring the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and special guests under the direction of Principal Pops Conductor Jeff Tyzik.

I was fortunate enough to be asked to shoot the GigaPans for this historic event in Rochester, and want to offer a special thank you to Gary Walker from the City to take the time to explain what a GigaPan is and introduce me to the audience. The picture below represent the GigaPans I was able to capture for during the event and if you want to create your own snapshots you can click on them.

Click to go to RPO Veterans GigaPan1
Click to go to RPO Veterans GigaPan2

If you want to take your own snapshots, the screencast below will provide you an overview of what to do and how to share them with friends and family.

If you attended this event, I hope you enjoyed it and this two photographs will provide a special memory for you and your loved ones.

Best Wishes,

Skeeter

Skeeter 360 VIrtual Tours, All things Apple, Internet Marketing City of Rochester, GigaPan, Jeff Tyzik, Mayor Duffy, RPO, Skeeter Harris, Veterans Day

Today is RochesterWork’s first ever Career Conference: Surviving Job Loss In a Changing Economy. The conference is a day event and covers a whole host of different topics to help the job seeker find new opportunities. Mac Village Productions was asked to be one of the speakers and the topic we choose was Introduction to Twitter for Job Seekers.

The link here will provide attendees with both the presentation materials and useful list of facebook and twitter accounts focused on the job seeker. We hope everyone that attended gleaned some useful information from the presentation, and thank you for attending the session.

Twitter Presentation and handouts

Best Wishes,

Skeeter

Skeeter All things Apple

It was just last week that VMWare release Fusion 3, and this week Parallels responds with the release of Desktop 5 for Mac. Like Fusion 3 Parallels made claims to several interesting claims along with many new and unique features such as:

• 300% Increase in performance of Parallels 4
• OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0E Support
• Multi-Touch Gesture Support on Trackpads
• New Utilities like Parallels Compressor
• New Mode of Operation – Crystal
• Support for up to 8 Virtual CPU’s

WIth such an impressive list of features I owed it to myself to look yet again at the new version and it ultimately lead me down the path of doing a feature comparison and some informal benchmarking. t It was thru these tests and comparing operation on both a MacBookPro and MacPro that has made me determine which Virtualization Software I will stick with.

The Screencast below will give you a brief comparison of VMWare Fusion 3 and Parallels 5, along with showing the different operating modes of Parallels. By the end of this screencast I discuss my experience and the performance I was able to achieve comparing Fusion 3 to Parallels 5. I think you may be surprised by the results.

Skeeter All things Apple All things Apple, Parallels, Virtualization, VMW, VmWare

Whenever I go out to shoot a Virtual 360 Tour, the elements when shooting that I pay close attention to are accuracy of focus, proper exposure, and placement of the equipment. This is critical so that when the 12 photos are stitched together the software produces a flawless panoramic photograph that can be viewed giving the user a “of feeling of being there”.

Some examples of my more recent 360 Virtual Tours can be seen here:

• Vernon Downs Casino
• WNY Jellystone Campground

Shooting a GigaPan has some of the same challenges as a 360 Virtual Tour along with a few others.  First and foremost instead of 12 pictures a GigaPan ends up being several hundred photos.  As a result of the large number of photographs that must be taken,  a motorized computer controlled rotator must be used to both position the camera and actually shoot each photograph.  However unlike a Virtual Tour both the exposure (amount of light the camera sees) and the focus point of each picture ends up being set manually and fixed to the same settings for every one of those hundreds of photographs!   This is done to help the stitching software create the GigaPan.   Finally the lens is set to maximum focal length (Zoomed In) so that each picture is taken as close up as possible, which allows the “Snapshot” effect to work when you view the GigaPan on GigaPan.org.

In preparation of this critical photo shoot on Veterans Day for the City of Rochester, I spent the afternoon today at the Blue Cross Arena determining how best to configure the camera.   Also key here was to determine where the best vantage point would be to take this GigaPan, knowing the critical element of this picture really is YOU the audience!  So below is a video of my adventures today at the Blue Cross Area, and below that is what I produced as a result of my testing.

Todays Experience

GigaPan from Todays Efforts

I hope you enjoyed this blog post and I look forward to seeing you and hopefully “catching YOU in a little bit of history”, so that your families will be able to enjoy and share the experience too!

Skeeter

Skeeter 360 VIrtual Tours City of Rochester, GigaPan, Skeeter Harris, Virtual Tour

A GigaPan is a special type of Panoramic photograph that is actually comprised of 100’s of individual photos that are all stitched together creating a huge high definition photograph. They can range anywhere from several hundred megabytes in size to the largest one yet produced which weighs in at 32GB’s!

Here is an example of one I recently took of Rochester, NY High Falls.

Click here to see the full GigaPan!

I am fortunate to be asked by the City of Rochester to create a GigaPan of the upcoming Veterans Day’s event with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra at the Blue Cross Arena on November 11th, 2009. The press release from the City of Rochester can be seen here.

One of the really cool capabilities of a GigaPan photo is the ability to take Snapshots and then share those snapshots with friends and family. This is of particular interest since the Blue Cross Arena will be full of family members and loved ones and you will be able to find yourself in the panoramic and then share that snapshot with loved ones.

Below is a brief Screencast that will introduce you to a GigaPan and how they work!

I hope you enjoy and I look forward to seeing you at this historic event!

Skeeter

Skeeter Photography, Press Releases City of Rochester, GigaPan, Mac Village Productions, Screencast, Skeeter Harris