RogiLife.Com

A couple of great photoblogs I have found recently:

The first is Minimodi from Gothenburg, Sweden. Varied subjects, consistently high quality. Click on each image to go to the following image.

The second is City Snaps from San Francisico. Mostly urban work, also of consistently high quality. A great example is this; Hanging Around, which is very nearly a perfect black and white shot, in my opinion.

There are far too many images between the two for me to possibly point out all of my personal favourites – so grab a coffee, sit back, and go see for yourself.

Everything here at RogiLife.Com runs on my own server, as do a bunch of other sites of mine, except for just one: micro.rogilife.com.

‘Micro’, one year old today, which is what prompts this post, is hosted and essentially made possible by the excellent people over at tumblr.com.

I could attempt to write a book about the multitude of things that anyone could use tumblr.com for, but the book would never finished being written – the possibilities are absolutely endless.

If you have never heard of, or have never properly tried, the tumblr.com service then you’re missing out, really.

Great service, great reliability, and great people. Oh, and unbelievably, it’s all free.

So a happy 1st to ‘micro’, and thanks a bunch to all the staff at tumblr.com.

Recently I have started using Skype again, as I now have several hours a week of foreign languages lessons and I do them directly with the languages teacher ‘live’ via Skype. (This is a great method for learning languages incidentally, and I have more to say about that in another post).

I was looking today for a way to record the hour-long Skype conversations, so I could replay them if I needed to remind myself about specific language techniques, or uses, and so on, that came up during any of the lessons. Having not used Skype for a while I was surprised to see that it still has no call recorder built-in, but, well, it doesn’t (at least not on my Mac version) so it was a case of searching for third party software.

I found this; Ecamm Network’s Call Recorder. It’s Mac-only, which is fine by me as I’m Mac-only too, and I used the trial version of this software today for the first time.

It works well. I set it to automatically record all calls longer then five seconds (the default time) at ‘low’ quality, and waited to see if it did it’s thing as it was supposed to.

It did. Perfectly.

I ended up, after a one hour Skype conversation – audio only, though it records video too, so it says, though I haven’t tried that – with a 115Mb .mov file [update: 22Mb after using the supplied 'Convert For Internet' software] containing a flawless recording. I’m not sure why that setting is called ‘low quality’ as it does not sound low quality, it’s extremely clear. Next time I’ll set it to high quality and see what the difference is (other than a presumably significantly bigger .mov file).

The free (fully functional) trial lasts for seven days and then the software is $14.95USD to buy. Assuming that it always works as well as it did today, that’s a bargain, and my 15 bucks will be heading Ecamm’s way in a few days.

If you want to record Skype (and video) calls, and are on a Mac, check it out. Ecamm Network Call Recorder.  FAQ.

Update: I hadn’t noticed this function when I wrote the above;

Call Recorder makes it easy convert your QuickTime movies into MP3 files. Simply drag a recorded QuickTime movie to the “Convert to MP3″ icon and it will create an instant MP3 file out of your movie, which can then be emailed or posted to a website.

So that functionality also now goes onto the ‘things to try’ list.

Logitech Premium Notebook Headset

A note, rather than a review.

I have been looking for a good headset for a while. I had several specific requirements; it had to have high quality sound (both input and output), it had to be small sized enough to be easily portable, I wanted at least two connection options, one of which had to be USB, and it had to be truly ‘plug and play’ rather than ‘plug and pray’.

I have now found one that fits the bill, and the ‘Logitech Premium Notebook Headset’ is it. It’s neither new out, nor inexpensive, but it does do exactly what it says on the box.

A few major details;

• Noise Cancelling.
• Rotating Mic.
• Folds Flat.
• Travel Case.
• Adjustable Behind-the-Head Design.
• Soft-Touch.
• Analog-to-USB Adapter.

A fuller review, along with some user comments, can be found over on Notebook Review.

Good headset. Recommended.

Another quick note (busy month for me this month); Ovi has been fully launched.

I have been using what was the Twango media storage and sharing service since the beginning of this year, just before it was acquired by Nokia. It was good back then, but now re-engineered and re-launched as Ovi By Nokia it really is something uber-useful indeed.

There is a new About Ovi introductory video that gives a few ideas of what the service is all about which is worth watching. Also take a look around the site in general.

Just a few of the things that the service offers; unlimited uploading of a huge list of file types, unlimited storage space, direct uploading from Nokia smartphones. Direct uploading via the site. Private, public and individual channel sharing. Fine grained access and sharing control. Tagging and ordering. Seamless and secure syncing of contacts, calenders, notes and to-do’s from Nokia phones.

The list really just goes on and on, and it is all free.

Definitely worth looking at. Just on basic media types alone it wipes the floor with both Flickr for images and YouTube and the rest for video sharing.

Maximum file size is also 100mb for each individual file, so there is almost endless usage flexibility.

Excellent service.