EPISODE #19 (October 24th, 2005)

WATCH/DOWNLOAD IT BELOW
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headLINES
Aperture
Digital Life
Unfreeze Your iPod
Amber Mac
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Mozilla's Firefox

inSITE
GoDaddy $5 Off  PROMO CODE: AMBER
Free Usability Advice
World Usability Day

hotSTUFF
Creative Zen Vision

webPICKS
InCase (Amber)
VersionTracker (Jeff)

THANKS!
Bent Perspectives on Design - Yoshi did an awesome job creating our new graphics package
J!NX - big thanks to everyone who is buying and wearing a commandN tee
Brian - he's back from California, so needless to say we're happy to have the whole team together again
Big thanks to Ringer for shooting for us!

 

Comments

[Darren]

Great episode, love the new graphics! We all appreciate all the work you put into the show.

--Darren
Hak.5

[josh]

was the creative zen vision segment a paid advertisement? if the review was supposed to be genuine, i don't buy it. i just looked at the device a couple days ago, not bad, but not great.

[Duke]

OK two shows in a row with a lack of lighting. Any darker and you're going to need night vision on that lens to see anything.

Also, it would have been nice in Mikey's section if he would have let us know the price. The lack of lighting in his segment, and the lack of a close up made it damn near imposible to see it.

[Amber]

Nope, we won't do paid segments (those are Mikey's genuine thoughts ;). As for the lighting, we were "forced" indoors because of heavy rain.

Hope you enjoyed the rest of the show!
-Amber

[brojo]

How come in every picture Mikey looks like he's being forced to stand there against his will?

[Elisa]

Well, since we know that Mikey owns an iBook and iPod nano, I think we can safely say that he's not exactly Creative's promo monkey. Sounded to me like he just found the gadget to be cool.

I totally would have bought the Zen Vision already if it wasn't for my iTMS DRM'd songs ;) but I supposed there's nothing stopping me from just keeping it as a portable video player, I've got most of my vids in xvid anyway and the 640x480 screen totally kicks iPod's behind.. still... the controls on that thing look kind of iffy and no H.264 is kind of a bummer.

Great new graphics, so props for Yoshi!

And Jeff, so great to hear him in a non echo-y environment and dude, relax, it's just a camera :P

Granted the lighting could have been better but it wasn't all that bad and I still like the everchanging locations so keep it up!

[Leo]

is there ever going to be an iPod compatible feed? (sorry if this has been discussed before)
+

[Michael]

Great show, commandN crew!

I've been a fan for a while, so I think it'd be okay if I offered a little criticism.

Please, please, please get rid of the Uh's and Um's. They detract from every segment Mikey and Jeff put together (Amber, you've obviously practiced a lot, and have had a lot more experience on air).

Understand that I mean this in the most supportive way possible, not as a flame. As a music teacher, I've had to practice for years in front of a mirror to stop my self from um-ing and uh-ing through lessons.

[Amber]

The MPEG-4 version is compatible with the new iPod.

Enjoy!

[Jay]

I would have to agree with Darren about the Zen Vision. It has its good features, but ease of use and user friendliness are not one of them. The iPod (video) is getting a bad rap, we need to keep in mind that this is an audio player that can play video. I am sure that Apple has plans to release a device that's primary use would be video.

On the other hand the PSP would be the better video device if it only had a hard drive. Maybe something to look for in the future.

We haven't seen the last from these companies, but at this point the iPod has my vote for the best universal media device.

[Jay]

I would have to agree with Darren about the Zen Vision. It has its good features, but ease of use and user friendliness are not one of them. The iPod (video) is getting a bad rap, we need to keep in mind that this is an audio player that can play video. I am sure that Apple has plans to release a device that's primary use would be video.

On the other hand the PSP would be the better video device if it only had a hard drive. Maybe something to look for in the future.

We haven't seen the last from these companies, but at this point the iPod has my vote for the best universal media device.

[Jay]

I would have to agree with Darren about the Zen Vision. It has its good features, but ease of use and user friendliness are not one of them. The iPod (video) is getting a bad rap, we need to keep in mind that this is an audio player that can play video. I am sure that Apple has plans to release a device that's primary use would be video.

On the other hand the PSP would be the better video device if it only had a hard drive. Maybe something to look for in the future.

We haven't seen the last from these companies, but at this point the iPod has my vote for the best universal media device.

[Jim]

Great show.

[chris]

Fantastic Designs yoshi!

Another great show - Amber you're just fantastic, very polished presentation ;) Fast becoming a fan!

Jeff and Mike - Keep at it, I don't think I'd perform as well as you guys do if someone pointed a camera at me!

Though I don't agree with the Zen Vision review - viewing angle is so limited, I didn't bother playing with the UI - PSP for it's highly reflective screen is still one of the best out there. iPod, don't have the pleasure of seeing one in real life yet, so no comments there.
Already looking forward to the next show!

[Kevin]

Jeff: GYM before episode?

[ljun]

Will the iPod compatible feed be available separately in the future? Or should we subscribe to the mpeg-4 feed and use that?

will there be an h.264 iPod version?

thanks amber, mikey, brian, jeff! keep up the great work! VERY cool to watch the show getting better produced!!!!

[PeiZuan]

Great new graphics! It's fun to see you guys in a recording studio doing this indie project, with all the screens showing the new commandN graphic behind.

I kind of think that the um's and uh's especially from Mikey, and also Amber's random gestures make the show resemble what's like when listening to a bunch of average people rather than big hosts from big fat TV companies talking about what's cool in tech. But that's not to say that the hesitation at speech is a good thing. Obviously Amber has tons of experiences doing TV shows so she has no such problems. But if this vidcast and podcast thing is indeed the future, then we've got to see some improvements.

Putting video like this together on the web isn't easy. You guys have been doing better and better over the weeks. Keep it up!

[Amber]

This feedback is great! So glad you guys are enjoying the show, and working with us to make it better ;).

-Amber

[Jeff MacArthur]

Thanks for the comments everyone - oh, and we realize the lighting issue and are trying to correct it ASAP (professional lighting is VERY expensive, though).

Just to reinforce what Amber said: we will NEVER do a sponsored segment without telling you so very explicitely (like we do with the GoDaddy one), but do remember that our review segments "are the opinion of the presenter, not necessarily those of commandN", so you might have to account for the techno-lust of us getting our paws on a super cool new gadget from time to time ;-) .

Especially glad that you liked Yosh's graphics so much - he's got a great style (check it out: http://www.bentperspectives.com ).

And finally, no, Chris, I hadn't gone to the gym in a couple days at least - but I'll take that as a compliment and hope you're actually a Christine ;-) .

Thanks for watching!

[Darren]

Jay, the comment about the Zen was by Josh, not myself. Comment authors are at the bottoms of the posts (weird?).

Amber, Jeff, your right about pro lighting being VERY expensive. I'll get flamed by the pros for this but diffused 100watt clip ons are better than nothing. Still the lighting in the control center gave the last episode a really great mood. I doubt the lighting would have been an issue had you all been wearing bright colors, but I'm guilty of blending into backgrounds as well.

And Jeff, keep trusting that technolust! :)

--Darren, Hak.5