Neal Gillis

These days, business cards are more important than ever. Sure, when I meet someone, I can give them my contact info and they can punch it into their phone right there, or they can Google me or find me on Facebook or Twitter later on, but these methods lack the tactile interaction you can have with a colleague or potential client by handing them a business card (something which is greatly underrated). When they pull it out of their pocket later, they’re reminded of your meeting earlier, even if they just toss it in the trash.

So, with that in mind, I ordered business cards from Moo.com a couple of weeks ago. Today, they showed up.

Moo is an online stationary company that prints custom business cards, greeting cards, and postcards. I’ve not seen any of their other products, but I can say that the business cards that I received are some of the highest quality business cards I’ve ever felt (because, let’s face it, we all know that how a card looks and feels is as important as the information on it).

One of the great things about Moo is that they let you print multiple designs on the back of your cards. This is great for (and popular with) photographers, designers, artisans, etc., who can use their cards as mini portfolios. For mine, I photographed greetings written with Scrabble letters, and then Photoshopped them to make them a little more colourful and fun.

Moo also does MiniCards, which are a little less than half the size of a standard business card. I pondered ordering these instead, but thought I’d maybe try these full sized ones on for size first. I may the MiniCards a whirl next time.

My cards were printed on 16pt card stock (which is heavier than your standard business card), and shipped with a (fairly sturdy) paper box. They’re $21.99 USD for a pack of 50. After exchange, shipping, etc., my order came to $30.52 CDN, or about $0.61 per card. Not really cheap, but to be honest, I don’t plan to toss them out all willy-nilly, so for a heavy double-sided full colour business card, they’ll be worth it.

Now, if anyone is looking to hold a meeting where I could possibly have the opportunity to subtly show them off, let me know.

Last weekend I made the trek to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, for the second annual Podcamp Halifax.

I had heard about last year’s podcamp at the last minute, and was unable to go at that point. When I heard another one was in the works for this year, I figured I should probably check it out.

Podcamp Halifax was also my first experience with an unconference, and the sessions I made it to were all very well done. I had hoped that more of the sessions would be on digital media creation/distribution/etc., but really, it seemed that media producers were few and far between.

I know it’s nothing new, but the open and free feeling of the unconference is very refreshing. I could get used to it.

McLean Greaves was the keynote speaker, and gave the roughly the same presentation he did at the ITAP session in Charlottetown at the first of December. His presentation, Web 5.0 (”5.0,” he said, was “a random number for random times”), was a detailed overview of today’s digital landscape, and made for some great discussion.

Other than McLean, I’m pretty sure I was the only cat from out of province. I know there was buzz from other Islanders about going, but I seemed to be the only one to survive the trip over.

There’s already of Podcamp Halifax 2011. Will I go? I’m not sure. While I certainly enjoyed 2010’s, I probably wouldn’t go next year unless I was inspired to present. We shall see.

It was great to meet and chat with those I did. Lots of interesting folks we have here in the region. Big thanks to everyone who organized and sponsored the event! It was greatly appreciated.

While at work yesterday, friend and co-worker Yuxing (Felix) Huang notified me that the Ustream Live Broadcaster iPhone app had been approved and was available for download. Naturally, we jumped on our phones and downloaded it straight away.

Once downloaded, I started it up, entered my Ustream deets, and started broadcasting, live to the world, from my phone.

This video is pretty long and boring. It was shot as a test. You’ve been warned.

It worked. Beautifully.

I know the app has been available for a while know for Jailbroken iPhones, but being a straight and narrow guy, my phone isn’t Jailbroken and thus I’ve never tried it. The app allows you to broadcast to your Ustream channel (at a resolution of 320×240), notify people that you’re broadcasting via Twitter and Facebook, and upload to Ustream, Facebook, and YouTube after you’re done shooting.

Also, Felix was able to shoot video with the app on his iPhone 3G, which we both found pretty interesting, seeing as though there are no other apps with Apple’s blessing that do so for the 3G. It was choppy (maybe 10 fps) but it worked.

The app also allows you to see the chatbox and poll the audience while streaming. I have no idea if all of this functionality was available in the version for Jailbroken phones or not, but it seems to be pretty feature-packed, all things considered.

The Ustream Live Broadcaster app is available (for free) on the iTunes App Store.

A couple of weeks ago, I got a call from Michael Ignatieff’s office wondering if I would be available to shoot a short video of the Leader of the Opposition’s visit to Charlottetown.

I knew it would be an interesting shoot and a great potential client, however, I was hesitant to get into producing for political parties. While I consider myself a politically-interested person, I don’t affiliate myself with any one party. I can’t say I agree completely with any of them, and I didn’t know (and still don’t know) if producing for politics is something I was (or am) interested in.

Original video on Vimeo.

Overall, it ended up being an interesting day, and I’m glad I did it. Mr. Ignatieff handled himself very well around the Farmer’s Market, and Islanders were certainly happy to talk to him.

My good friend Jason MacLean recently purchased a Canon 7D, and, with all the fuss I’ve been seeing about it online, I knew I had to try it out. Lucky for me, Jason’s a nice guy and lent me his new camera on Halloween night. I managed to shoot a couple of short videos with it.

First, while we were out at Rachel’s sister’s place that night, I shot a quick one of the kids (Wyatt still rocking the duck costume). It was fun, and the subjects were certainly cute, but I had to jack the ISO to an uncomfortably high 6400.

Original video on Vimeo.

After we got home that night, I needed to try the 7D outside, since it’s known for its low-light capabilities. So I fitted my Tamron 28-75mm F/2.8 to the 7D and hit the streets of Charlottetown. I walked about, dodging dodgy characters, getting whatever I thought might look cool. Then I made this:

Original video on Vimeo.

While the 7D is built for photographers first and can be a pain to shoot video on, it is a fantastic camera. The ability to swap lenses and the fact that it shoots full 1080p at 30 and 24 fps, (and can do up to 60fps at 720p) rivals some professional videos cameras that cost five times as much.

I’m looking forward to trying it out during the day so I can shoot as a more reasonable ISO and really see what this bad boy is capable of.