The Vagabond Geek

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The Vagabond Geek is building a new web site for the company he is starting. 

I’ve been happy with hostgator in the past, it’s cheap and you get to host unlimited domains, but it’s a little too cheap - the tech support isn’t great, and it’s slow. I’m looking to pay more for web hosting for a rock solid web site. I don’t need unlimited bandwidth or disk space, but i do need the site to be available when customers go to it. 

So I want a big, popular web host. Where to start? Well netcraft is a great place, since I can find out who the top web hosts are. 

First thing, 66% of web sites are hosted on Apache. I had planned on using apache (and Linux) anyway so this is an easy decision.  

New York Internet was the most reliable web host in Feb., Jan., 2009 and Dec. 2008. Interesting, never heard of them, will have to check that out. Just checked it out - waaay too expensive. $75 a month for what I want. 

Theplanet.com was big in the Dec survey. Checking them out. Looks good but too high end for me too.

Google Sites is a thought. I wonder how flexible it is? Nope. Easy but way too basic. 

Serverpronto - internetsting. They have inexpensive ($30 dedicated servers). Looks like some bad reviews though - basically cheap and you get what you pay for. 

There’s always the old standby, godaddy. Their grid hosting looks neat, and cheap, but it scares me that it’s ‘beta’. Their dedicated servers are about 100/mo so still out of my price range, plus I don’t want to have to manage security updates etc..  A virtual dedicated server is in my price range - $37/mo. 

Overall, I think I’m not ready to take the plunge yet. A $89 dedicated server from theplanet is probably my best bet. 

Some searching and I found JaguarPC, which has a semi-dedicated account for $30/mo that intrigues me. Searched for reviews (bad idea apparently) and it seems they have gone downhill recently. 

Liquidweb - a bit more expensive but it seems very good. Looks good enough to check the TOS and make sure there is no shady stuff.

Getting ready to head north. Way north. 3600 Miles in fact. With a pit stop in Las Vegas, of course!
The journey re-starts tomorrow morning.

An interesting map of the states I’ve been to in my lifetime…

create your own personalized map of the USA

Here is my proposed route back to taber. It will likely undergo many revisions between now and when I leave. It looks like it’s going to take 1.5 - 2 weeks for me to get home.

View Larger Map

Apple Store, SF. Producing High-Quality Web Video on a Low-Quality Budget
Alex Lindsay 1/08/09

Takes a long time for a podcast to become profitable
Make a show you would watch
Consider 20 - what would the content be for the first 20 podcasts? Plan ahead
Make it modular. 4 or 5 subjects for or 5 shows per.
Reduce complexity - find ways to make it simpler, focus on the bottlenecks.

Keys to quality
personality! how to do with tutorials?
Tight editing!
Big soft light to make people look better. Big as possible
Cuts/inserts/stills to cover up stops and starts, uh, re-takes. Shoot lots of b-roll (everything else)
their office right across from the street of the apple store
If you’re shooting 2 angles, make sure they are quite different, and ‘don’t cross the line’
Lots of green screen/digital sets so they don’t have to build sets. Modeled and rendered in cinema 4d
Audio cuts - record he samne audio over several times. slice dand dice between cuts. best if it’s all recorded on the same day.
Equipment - HV20/30, EX1 (best camera under 20,000), F-950/RED
when they shoot green screen, they use the hdmi out as it’s uncompressed - so pick a camera with hdmi out
aja io box - for laptop capture to apple pro rez
SM-58 great mic - Shure. lots of off axis rejection - doesnt pick up surrounding audio.
ATM-130b audiotechnica self powered, lav mic
beachtek box. connect professional mics to a 1/8 connector. screws onto tripod connector. they like the smallest one. fits under hv20 without sticking out. about 250
Left and Right mics - one set at 1/2 the volume of the other. One set to the proper volume. If someone yells, can switch to the 1/2 volume one.
Lighting - can get a flourescent fixture from wal-mart and replace the ballast with a higher quaolity one from a lighting store
or can rent lights
Content - it’s way easier to produce many if you have guests because they do most of the wok.
Capture - blackmagic intensity fcard to capture hdmi uncompressed.
AJAIO

Software -
conduit for on set green screen qualoity control. heavily gpu based and runs in real time
Zaxwerks Pro animator - the seceret tool for opening animations
SnapX pro, iShowU
Adobe illustrator the standard for vector graphics?
They use compressor for exporting video
sw tutorials
hard way record full resolution and zoom in on the part there working on
using motion - using a look at box. 
1024×768 or 800.600

skype recording audio - ecam call recorder. records 2 seperte tracks - caller and callee

good stores for equipment - weird gear, computer central 2 blocks past moscone west.
audio, stereo world.
everything - guitar center.
most audio equip from sweetwater, most computer stuff newegg. prof camera equip able cine. same price as b&h but smaller company. leo’s pro audio for high end stuff

Best talk at macworld, bar none, including the Keynote was Leo Laporte. I sat in the front row!

with accompaniement on the Ocarina

With Ocarina accompaniement