MindSuburbia

Last month I came across the crazy DreamHost API contest and decided to give a try with my Google Gadget for DH API.
Well, to be honest, at the moment of submitting (very close to the deadline), there were just a dozen API tools and a part from the buzzing iPhone & Co. apps, nothing really extraordinary (though very useful).

The day after the deadline, i was quite surprised to see a dozen more apps, with nice and rocking features, so I just stopped hoping of a reward for my gadget.

Now it turns out that the DH guys were so impressed with the efforts everybody put into this competition, that decided to give a $100 DreamHost credit to every participant!

Notice the Account Service Credits payment method, revealing the source of the $100

So, even if $100 credit is not a grand-prize, I have to admit I’m very impressed by this move: thank you to the DH guys!

This winter Kodak released a nice idea called Kodak SnowStories.
They wanted to celebrate snow, while promoting their brand (and products), asking for stories from all around the world.

Well, since i had already created my story on the snow, I decided to put it in a better form, select a couple of pictures and post everything in the SnowStories website, along with a link to my YouTube video (see my post).

Well, it turned out that I eventually won the 2nd prize for the March competition: a Kodak Zi6 pocket video camera!
I now have a better way to record my videos!

The Zi6 only arrived last friday, so no more snow stories for the moment.

This little device is everything but complicated:

• 2 buttons: record/playback mode and play on the right, stop or delete on the left
• a mini-joystick for changing mode (still, vga, HD, HD@60) and zooming or forward/rewind and vol up/down when in playback mode
• a macro vs landscape switch
• an SDHC card slot
• and of course the power switch

It starts in less than a couple of seconds and it comes with a soft pouch and a wrist lace: you can keep it in your pocket, ready for every situation.
You also get a couple of rechargeable AA 1200mAh batteries and a mini AA and AAA charger.
Fully featured for the TV set too: an HD component output and a composite+audio cables… no need to buy anything else, though a big SDHC is recommended

A nice trick is the retractable USB connector, so that you don’t need an SD card reader nor a cable to connect the Zi6 to the nearest computer: just push the front button (a reflecting button useful for self recording!).
Of course the full set of accessories will save you some battery charge vs some more pocket space used, but you can just buy one of those direct SD to USB readers for a couple of bucks (China-made of course! ).

The direct USB connection will show up in your computer with two removable disk partitions: one for the videos, another for the windows software (yes, only windows, but at least you won’t need drivers for copying the videos). And yes the 128MB internal space will become unavailable when the SD is inserted, though will be sufficient for a couple of minutes video at most.

The resolution is 720p (half-hd) and there is no focus nor zoom (it’s a fixed set of lenses), but a nice option is to capture 720p@60fps, which gives an extremely smooth video (H.264 format, .MOV files).

The setup is flash-fast. Only three options: date, sounds on/off (for poweron/off and recording start/stop), output mode (NTSC, PAL).

The only downside is that there is a lot of noise in dark conditions (and there’s no night light), so I guess it’s not good at all for professional use, but it will become very useful when nice smooth recording is needed for a smaller format (capture in HD and post-produce SD videos).

Another little note is that you can’t see the remaining space nor recording time left (only battery level), but you should be able to record almost two hours with HD definition on a 4GB card, plenty of clips for an HD gadget!

After all, not that bad for a snowman story

P.S. The SnowStories website has locked the contents right after the end of the competition (don’t know why), anyway I guess I’ll start writing some stories from time to time, just in case…