There are a lot of guitar simulation plug-ins available for digital musicians these days. Included with Logic 9 is Amp Designer and Pedal Board – a welcome departure from the older Guitar Amp Pro plug-in. They stack up very well against the competition and are versatile in tone, emulation and layout. In my opinion, the clean amps achieve impressive results when compared to their hardware cousins.

Beyond the presets, there’s a lot more you can do with Amp Designer that is apparent. Toby Pitman goes much deeper in his excellent tutorial, ‘Logic 402 – Logic’s Guitar Recording Toolbox’. Packed with tips and tricks and practical step-by-step approaches to using both Amp Designer and Pedal Board.

In this Quick Tip I’m going to highlight 3 useful tips for guitar tone sculpting glory built-in to Amp Designer.

01 – Move the Mic

When recording a traditional guitar amp there are a two important considerations: what type of mic to use and where to position the mic. The resulting tone can be vastly different if the mic is placed dead-center or to the side of the speaker cone.

In Amp Designer you can choose between using a Condenser, Ribbon or Dynamic microphone emulation from the Mic pop-up menu.

Hover your mouse over the cabinet on the right of the interface (above the Mic pop-up menu) and the Speaker Adjustment graphic is displayed. Drag the white dot to adjust the placement of the mic. Generally, for Rock and brighter guitar tones place it to the side as shown below.

02 – More Equalizers

There are plenty of Amp types and presets. If you still can’t create quite the guitar sound you’re looking for you can mix and match the Model, Amp and Cabinet to build your own custom amp! This incredible… but one lesser known tip is you can choose different EQ types per amp.

Mouse over the word ‘EQ’ and click to display the EQ pop-up menu. From here you can choose between Bright British, Vintage, U.S. Classic, Modern and Boutique.

I find myself tending towards the Vintage and U.S. Classic more often than not.

03 – More Reverb

Rather than insert an instance of Space Designer (or other reverb plug-in) on your guitar channel strip to add space to your sound, you can set the reverb levels directly on the Amp Designer interface. Like the EQ, Amp Designer comes with more than one Reverb type.

Click on the Reverb label (top, middle of the amp) to display this Reverb type pop-up menu.

You can choose between Vintage Spring, Simple Spring, Mellow Spring, Bright Spring, Dark Spring, Resonant Spring, Boutique Spring, Sweet Reverb, Rich Reverb and Warm Reverb.

It’s well worth checking these types out on your guitar sounds. The change to your sound can be dramatic and save you from using a separate reverb plug-in!

Check out Toby Pitman’s Logic 402 – Logic’s Guitar Recording Toolbox to learn much, much more about how to get the best out of Amp Designer, Pedal Board and Logic’s other built-in tools for guitarists.

(Via Software Video Tutorials – macProVideo.com.)

Adobe has announced that the public beta of Adobe Audition, its professional audio editing suite, is now available for Mac OS X. Adobe Audition has been available for Windows since 2003 (when Adobe acquired the Windows program, Cool Edit Pro) but this beta marks its first appearance on the Mac.

Audition is a digital audio workstation, similar to Pro Tools or Logic Pro. Adobe Audition for Mac boasts a fast new audio playback engine, native multi-channel support for 5.1 surround sound, noise reduction capabilities and audio effects like de-hummers and volume leveling.

In a company announcement, Jim Guerard, vice president and general manager for Dynamic Media at Adobe, said Audition for Mac is part of an ongoing mission to provide ‘industry leading, cross-platform content creation tools for creative professionals.’

Mac users can download the beta version of Adobe Audition at labs.adobe.com/technologies/audition. The program requires an Intel Mac running Mac OS X 10.5.7 or Mac OS X 10.6. There is no serial number or activation for this download, but it will expire when the beta period ends.

Adobe also offers Adobe Soundbooth, its audio package for users that are not audio professionals. In other words, it’s more of a consumer-grade tool. On its FAQ page, Adobe says that one priority of bringing Audition to the Mac is to improve workflows by providing solid integration with Adobe Premiere Pro.

Adobe has put a lot of work into making Premiere Pro more competitive with Apple’s Final Cut Studio — especially in CS5. In my own experience (which isn’t in a professional capacity, but does include multi-track, multi-source editing), I’ve found Premiere Pro CS5 for Mac to be better and more efficient than Final Cut Studio in many arenas. However, while Final Cut Studio can easily integrate with Logic Pro and Avid’s Media Composer can integrate with Pro Tools, Premiere Pro for Mac lacks its own professional audio component. With Audition for Mac, that gap is now filled.

It’s exciting to see Adobe bring its professional audio toolset to Mac OS X. We look forward to bugging our audio professional friends to see how it stacks up against the competition, especially in Adobe-laden workflows.

(Via Mashable!.)

Capping off a busy week at Mashable HQ, we bring you a massive list of social media resources you may have missed. We’ve got 38 of the most interesting features and tools published over the last week or so in case you were, you know, outside during the summer.

Have a look through our social media resources for the Origin of Twitter’s ‘Fail Whale,’ some great Twitter visualizations, or why WikiLeaks and the mainstream media still need each other.

Our Tech and Mobile resources include some amazing Konami code Easter eggs, great (free) WordPress themes to use, and a game plan for keeping BlackBerry relevant in the battle for mobile dominance.

For our entrepreneurs, we’ve got tips on how to self-publish anything, great Twitter lists for C-Suite execs, and a guide on how to structure your startup. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Looking for even more social media resources? You can find this guide every weekend, and check out all of the lists-gone-by.

Social Media

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• 5 Things the Internet Will Do for $5 [VIDEOS]
  Who would actually advertise to do anything for the cost of an overpriced coffee? We found out with this little social experiment on the website fiverr.com.
• The Origin of Twitter’s ‘Fail Whale’
  We spoke with Yiying Lu, the designer of Twitter’s iconic error message about her influences, the future, and why she hates the term ‘Fail Whale.’
• 11 Free Services for Scheduling Social Media Updates
  Here is a list of 11 free services for scheduling social media updates, either across multiple social platforms or just for Twitter.
• 5 Free Ways to Never Miss a Twitter @Reply
  We’ve found five free web-based Twitter services that will let you know via e-mail every time you are on the receiving end of an @mention or @reply.
• A Look Back at the Last 5 Years in Blogging
  How did the blogosphere grow from thousands of personal diaries into a network of media empires? The history of blogging is as interesting as it is complex.
• 7 Days on Craigslist’s Casual Encounters
  Many people use Craigslist to find roommates or jobs, but there’s another function: Sex. Check out this social experiment to see what the ‘Casual Encounters’ culture is really like.
• 10 Free and Fun Twitter Bird Icons for your Website
  Finding the right Twitter bird icon for your site can be a challenge, especially if your budget is bird seed. We’ve found 10 fabulous and fresh freebies for you.
• HOW TO: Follow Mashable Staff Online
  We try to meet our readers where they are at and create a place where conversation can take place. Now we want to give you glimpse behind-the-scenes of Mashable and its staff.
• 5 Fab Twitter Follower Visualization Tools
  If you’re interested in seeing what your Twitter followers look like as a keyword cloud, on parade, or even on a mug, check out these cool tools.
• 10 Great Geeky Tattoos [PICS]
  So, you love your tech and the web, but do you love it enough to permanently brand yourself with logos or related imagery? We’ve found ten people that do.
• Why WikiLeaks and the Mainstream Media Still Need Each Other
  The latest leak from WikiLeaks signals a seminal change for investigative journalism and next-gen whistle blowing – and mainstream media still plays a key role.
• Top 16 Unusual Foursquare Badges
  We talked to Foursquare’s Lead Designer, Mari Sheibley, about the stories behind 16 of the most unusual badges in their collection.
• 5 Social Fundraising Alternatives to Facebook Causes
  When it comes to social fundraising tools, Facebook Causes often comes to mind first. In reality, it’s just one of many tools available. Check out these alternatives.
• 8 YouTube Channels for Unique Music Performances
  We found some hidden gems in YouTube channels devoted to music. Look through to find sample channels and vids featuring the likes of Phoenix and Tom Jones.
• Why Online Education Needs to Get Social
  Social websites and real-time news channels are exploding in popularity, but online higher education has been slow to adapt. Here’s why college courses need to tap into the social web to stay relevant.
• A Brief History of 9 Popular Blogging Platforms
  The web is comprised of millions of blogs covering every topic imaginable. Here is short history of some of the most popular self-publishing platforms.
• Why Hulu’s New Dance Show is a Game-Changer
  Hulu’s new dance show, The LXD, is a game-changer in the way that web series and the arts are presented online. We spoke with the show’s creators about their concept and process.

For more social media news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s social media channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Tech & Mobile

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• 5 iPhone Apps to Help You Learn to Dance
  From ballet, to salsa, to tap dancing, with a little help from the iPhone and these five apps, your feet will be moving in no time.
• 10 Cool Konami Code Easter Eggs [PICS]
  Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start. If you like unicorns, rainbows and bacon these sites with Konami code Easter eggs will make your day.
• 5 Energy Efficient Office Gadgets
  Once you’re ready to get yourself on track to being energy efficient, check out these five energy efficient office gadgets to help you start saving on every level.
• 10 Cool Tech Toys for Kids [PICS]
  While you may have played Hungry Hungry Hippos, today’s toys are much more sophisticated and tech savvy, and even a little creepy. Here are 10 of the hottest.
• 5 Awesome Optical Illusion Videos
  Using nothing more than our eyes’ and brain’s perceptive weaknesses, these clever videos will trick your grey matter and leave you amazed.
• 10 Geekiest Apple-Flavored Cakes [PICS]
  To satisfy your sweet tooth (and geekiness), we’ve hunted down ten particularly fine examples of Apple-themed pastry. Enjoy!
• 4 Ways BlackBerry Can Stay Relevant
  To maintain market share in a world of increasing iPhones and Android devices, BlackBerry will have to get back to its roots and forge a new mobile direction.
• 10 Ridiculous iPhone Accessories [PICS]
  We take a light-hearted look at 10 totally unnecessary iPhone accessories that only the true gadget-addict would consider a good investment.
• 10 Beautiful and Free WordPress 3.0-Ready Themes
  If you’re looking for a theme that works great with WordPress 3.0 out of the box, check out our round-up of free themes with superb WordPress 3.0 support.
• 10 Pieces of Gorgeous Geek Jewelry [PICS]
  The geek collective is nothing if not creative, and some of that creativity can be seen in the treasure trove of geek-themed jewelry available. Here are 10 excellent examples.
• 10 Free Web UI Kits and Resources for Designers
  This post covers 10 of the best free web UI kits, resources and stencils to kick-start the early stages of your next web design project.
• 5 Innovative Tech Camps for Kids and Teens
  New tech camps offer some of the coolest and most innovative programs around. Take a look and see all the ways your kids could be engaged next summer.
• 10 Incredible iPhone Photographs
  We’ve collected 10 amazing landscape snaps by iPhotographers from around the world — both pro and amateur — to bring you a gallery of gorgeousness.

For more tech news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s tech channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Business

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• 10 Steps for Successful Social Media Monitoring
  Social media monitoring of your brand image can be a complex process. Here are 10 pointers to heed when investigating your options.
• How Small Businesses Will Use Social Media in the Future
  In order to peer into the future, we took a step back and tried to build cases based on the evolution of trends and some successful small business examples.
• HOW TO: Legally Structure your Startup
  Whether you’re the next big thing in social gaming or organic knitwear, each startup eventually faces the same gnawing question: How should I legally structure my business?
• How 12 CEOs & Founders are Leveraging Web Video
  With all of the talk about how CEOs are getting social, we were curious to see how many CEOs are also branching out into web video. Here are 12 that are making a real impact on their brand.
• 15 Twitter Lists for C-Suite Execs to Follow
  To get you started or to beef up your current inventory of Twitter Lists, here are 15 great ones for C-suite executives to follow.
• 3 Social Sites for Demonstrating Your Business Acumen
  Sites like Aardvark, Quora and LinkedIn cater to the business professional seeking out knowledge or educational resources, and they are great for demonstrating business expertise.
• HOW TO: Self-Publish Anything Online
  These sites and services can help you create and brand just about anything, from books to clothes to software, and even food.
• How Online Retailers Can Leverage Facebook’s Open Graph
  Facebook’s Open Graph presents retailers with unprecedented ways to drive sales through recommendations. Here are some things to consider when tapping this data.

(Via Mashable!.)

As a blogger and a researcher, I have to conduct a lot of interviews. Some months I’ve conducted two or three interviews a week, and many of those are recorded interviews, because many people don’t have time to answer questions via email. One of the nice things about recorded interviews is that they work well as an audio podcast either available for download from your own blog, or distributed as a podcast at any podcast directory.

Regardless what you intend to do with the interview, one thing that’s for certain is that you want to develop a reputation as a professional interviewer that produces high-quality, interesting conversations with fascinating people.

Only part of the recipe for this is developing interesting and thoughtful questions for your interviewee to answer, but the other significant part of the equation is how well you’ve edited the audio interview into a high-quality, professional show. Many avid audio enthusiasts may find some of the edits below somewhat simple, but for the blogger or podcaster with little audio editing experience, these tips are critical to know.

3 Tips To Enhance Your Interview Audio With Audacity

I use the Audacity audio recording software to record and edit all of my interviews. My recording setup is about as simple as it gets – an Olympic earpiece that doubles as both a microphone and an earphone, so that I can hear the person on the phone while the microphone feeds the conversation into the laptop and Audacity. This works well, and produces high quality conversations, but like anything, there are flaws in the setup that produce less than optimum conditions.

The beauty of Audacity is that you have the capability to ‘fix’ those flaws. The three most common problems that I’m going to touch on in this post are removing background noise, amplifying voices, and integrating quality introduction with music.

Before we start doctoring the audio file with the Audacity audio recording software, let me first introduce the patient. Above is a snippet of an hour-long audio interview that I conducted last month. The two most common flaws are background noise, shown in the center of this clip, and low voice volume (my voice) as shown on the right. You can see that the amplitude when I was talking is about half of that of the voice on the phone – which is to be expected when recording with such an earpiece.

How To Fix Quiet Voices

The first tweak for the common interview issue of quiet voices is also the easiest. The volume of the voice is equivalent to ‘amplitude,’ so all you have to do is use Audacity’s Amplify tool to increase the quiet voice just a little bit.

To perform this task, just highlight the section of audio track with the quiet voice, and then select ‘Amplify’ from the Effect menu option.

In the amplify tool, you’ll need to select an amplification that is just enough to increase the voice volume to a level that’s equivalent to the other person speaking. It may take some trial and error the first time, so just undo the change and try a new value until you get it right.

In my case, I found that an increase of 5 dB did the trick. Once you know the right value, the only tedious part of this fix is that you’ll need to find every place in the track where the quiet voice shows up, and do the highlight/amplify routine to fix it.

How To Remove Background Noise With Audacity

The second most common flaw in an interview audio file is background noise. Maybe you left a fan on in the other room, or there are cars going by just outside the open window, and you realize once you listen to the audio that the sound is terribly annoying and distracting.

The first step in this technique is to identify an area in your file that features nothing but the background noise alone. When you find such an area, highlight that section of the audio track, and then go into the ‘Noise Removal’ tool in the Effects menu option.

Once you’re there, click on ‘Get Noise Profile‘. Doing this captures a snapshot of the background noise itself. The software uses this to ‘erase’ that sound profile from a section (or all) of the audio file. The next step is just to highlight the area where you want to remove the noise (most of the time you’ll just select the entire track), and then go back into this window and select ‘Remove Noise‘.

As you can see, Audacity does an amazing job at cleaning up the noise. There is one caveat, and it is this – carefully gauge the amount of noise that you want to remove. Removing too little won’t do much good, and removing too much will make the audio sound over-digitized or artificially quiet. One thing I noticed is that the middle to lower middle setting is usually ideal.

Integrating A Musical Or Voice Introduction

Have you ever heard those cool podcasts with a great musical introduction? Well, believe it or not, you can do the same exact thing in Audacity in just a few simple steps. The first step, obviously, is importing the music file that you would like to use (make sure you don’t infringe on any licensing issues).

The next step is just highlight the block of music you’d like to use as your introduction (select the correct number of seconds) and then do a simple Copy. Then place the cursor at the start of your audio file, and select Paste. The copied music clip will get inserted into your track, pushing the entire interview to the right.

While this is cool, it’ll sound weird because at the end of the clip, your music will just end abruptly. Instead, you want to taper off the music as you enter into the interview itself. You can do this by highlighting the very last part of your music clip and selecting Effect -> Fade Out from the Menu.

You’ll see the amplitude of the music clip taper off as it approaches the end of the clip, and in effect producing a very nice fade into the interview itself.

By using these three simple tips, you’ve just equalized voice volume, removed background noise, and embedded a professional music introduction into your audio interview. With just these few simple changes, you’ll transform amateur sounding interviews into well produced, professional sounding conversations.

(Via MakeUseOf.com.)

Sony’s latest range of UX series voice recorders are now capable of passing the magical 1,000 hour mark when it comes to keeping copies of lecture after boring lecture. The UX200 is the base model with 2GB of internal memory, while the UX300 and 300F both feature double the storage space, which translates to over 1,000 hours of recording. All models can record in stereo MP3 format with the added benefit of noise cancellation, while playback can be performed at 21 different speed steps. You get up to 15 hours of battery life when recording, or 80 hours plus of non-stop audio playback. Expect to see these hit Europe early next month in time for Christmas.

(Via Ubergizmo.)

Promoting a new blog can be quite daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. As you might expect, breaking down blog promotion into small, actionable tasks eliminates the mental road block you’ve probably experienced when trying to wrap you head around how to get people’s attention. You don’t have to do everything in this list, and some items will have a greater effect then others, but every tactic will at least drive some traffic, and any traffic is better than no traffic.

Content
1. Write a list of over 100+ resources or ideas.
2. Write the definitive guide to something. Spend time making this awesome.
3. Release a manifesto.
4. Release 2 manifestos.
5. Interview cool people. People like talking about cool people.
6. After your articles are indexed in search engines, break them up into smaller articles and submit them to ezinearticles.com (and other article directories).
7. Or just pay someone to submit the articles for you.
8. Write a list of all the cool blogs and people in your niche.
9. Check out the most popular content on high trafficked blogs. Create similar content but applied to your own niche.

Facebook

10. Start a page.
11. Make that page awesome.
12. Start a group.
13. Make that group awesome.
14. Create a Facebook app for your blog.

Fundamentals
15. Wait. After you’ve taken action it can take a short while for traffic to arrive.
16. Be patient. Some bloggers may seem like overnight successes, but if you look back in their archives, they’ve been creating content for a long time.
17. Motivate yourself.
18. Read The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.
19. Have an interesting story and overall purpose.
20. Embrace the Law of Reciprocity. Everything you give will come back exponentially.
21. Make blogging easier.
22. Take action every day. Just get one important thing done every day and eventually you’ll start getting traffic. The more you do each day the faster your blog gets traction.
23. Find people with blogs at a similar level to yours and help each other out.
24. Turn off your computer, do some cool stuff, turn on your computer again and blog about it.
25. Understand the importance of context.
26. Be consistent. You don’t need to blog every day but try to stick to at least some sort of schedule.
27. Make it a numbers game. Decide upon a definite plan of action (eg. 20 blog comments per day, 1 guest post per week etc) and stick with that.

Online Video
28. Create videos and distribute them through tubemogul.com
29. Or for wider video distribution trafficgeyser.com may work for you (expensive though).
30. Respond to YouTube videos with your content.
31. Include your full blog address at the TOP of your video descriptions.
32. Take your time with devising video titles and tags.
33. Convert your video to multiple formats, with slight editing changes, and upload it to video sites multiple times, targeting different keywords. The content remains the same but you can test what videos and titles work the best.
34. Buy the accounts of popular YouTubers and then add your blog address to the descriptions of their videos.
35. Start the first live show in your niche (Ustream, Justin.tv and LiveStream are popular choices). Make sure you record the shows too so they can be distributed as a podcast later on.

Other Blogs
36. Be the first commenter on the posts of popular blogs. But still provide value.
37. If you can’t be the first then comment anyway. But try to be the first.
38. Stumble and Digg cool blog posts you find and let the blogger know via a comment. If you have something worthy on your blog, they’ll probably reciprocate.
39. Use google.com/blogsearch to find fresh blog posts and then leave intelligent comments.
40. Link to blogs of a similar size. They’ll notice and then good stuff may happen.
41. Write a guest post for a large blog. You may not always get published, but when you do the traffic spike will be significant.
42. Write a guest post for a small blog. You’re more likely to get published and build relationships with the next wave of A-List bloggers.
43. Write some more guest posts. Can’t hurt, that’s for sure.
44. Join a blog network.

Paid
45. Start a StumbleUpon Ads campaign.
46. Get reviewed.
47. Buy some ad space.
48. Send out a press release.

People
49. Attend relevant meetups.
50. Tell your friends and family about your blog. Have them tell everyone they know.

Podcasting

51. Start a podcast and submit it to the iTunes directory.
52. Convert audio files to video files (just use Windows Movie Maker or iMovie) and send them out via tubemogul.com
53. Submit it to some other podcast directories.

Search engine optimization
54. Write linkbait.
55. Have any video or audio content transcribed and posted to your blog.
56. Register your domain name for 10 years.
57. Take advantage of sites scraping your blog’s feed by interlinking posts. Simple way to get deep inbound links.
58. Use Thesis.

Social networks
59. Join every social network you can.
60. Or, just join a couple and be really active.
61. Become active in relevant ning.com communities.
62. Convert blog posts to PDF files and submit them to Scribd – include your blog url in the description and document itself.
63. Add your Scribd documents to relevant groups.
64. Submit your best posts to blog carnivals.
65. Join relevant forums, add your blog address to your signature and start posting intelligently.
66. Sign up at ping.fm and use twitterfeed.com to auto post your latest blog content to a bunch of social networks.
67. Create lists on Amazon.com
68. Write reviews on Amazon.com
69. Better yet, create video reviews for Amazon.com
70. Answer relevant questions on Yahoo Answers, leaving your website as the source.
71. Or on Mahalo Answers.
72. Or even through LinkedIn Answers.
73. Start your own Slinkset, and feed your RSS feed into it automatically.
74. Submit your site to alltop.com
75. Write an article aimed at Digg (okay, that article won’t help much).
76. Also, befriend one of the many Digg powerusers.
77. Create a new thread on a forum and write up a really great guide with no self promotion. Simple way to be seen as an authority figure and to elicit comments on your writing (don’t forget that signature link though!).
78. Submit your content to dofollow social bookmarking sites.
79. Or have Bookmarking Demon do it for you (certainly a bend in ethics though).

StumbleUpon
80. Become an active stumbler to understand what stumblers like.
81. Friend people who stumble your content (they may just want to stumble more in the future)..
82. Have other people initially submit content (or “Discover” it as it’s known).
83. Place a Stumble button in your post template.

Su.pr
84. Sign up at su.pr and use it for all your short url needs.
85. Post content to your Facebook and Twitter stream.
86. Install the WordPress plugin to automate the process.
87. Identify the times that result in the most clicks and schedule tweets for them.
88. Setup your blog as a promoted website.

Twitter
89. Include hash tags (#tagname) in your tweets.
90. Search for your niche and answer any questions people have.
91. Place a Retweet button in your post template.
92. Follow relevant, popular, and interesting people.
93. Send @replies to relevant, popular and interesting people.
94. Tweet links to your content at multiple times during the day.
95. Love a product from a company that’s on Twitter? Review it and they may just notice and tweet about the review. It’s happened to me.
96. Sponsor some tweets.
97. Find cool people in your niche who live nearby and organize a tweet up (a meet up where you invite anyone on Twitter).

WordPress
98. Install All In One SEO Pack.
99. Automatically ping lots of ping services.
100. Create a theme, include a link to your blog in the footer, and then release it for free.
101. Create a plugin and release it for free. Add a link to your blog within the admin area. If it’s a good plugin people will love you for it.

(via Daily Blog Tips)

I don’t want to bore you guys or suck up to him, but I am amazed that no one points this out.

1. He invented RSS.

2. He, along with Adam Curry, pioneered podcasting.

3. He knew people would love Twitter in 2001.

4. He was one of the first bloggers around.

5. He is a visionary in journalism.

6. He pioneered the concept of editing pages without messing up with the code.

Yet, he sucks at webdesign. Don’t have to link to anything here, just look at the websites above. I think he does this on purpose to emphasize the technology behind his sites.

I also laugh at the people who criticize him and say that RSS is dead. If it is dead, stop using it! It is the backend of thousands of web applications and it enables cool new innovative products. Twitter is cool and all of that, but it is completely limited and controlled by a single company. Plus, RSSCloud and PubSubHubBub is coming.

Anyway, what do you guys think about him?

(Via Dvorak Uncensored.)

Teleprompters are one of those systems that’s seeded in old, expensive video traditions, mandating superfluous equipment to achieve something absurdly simple to do in 2009. The ProPrompter agrees with this philosophy.

Using the aluminum ProPrompter Wing, an iPhone or iPod touch can be mounted to any tripod to work alongside small to midsized camcorders for a teleprompter system that’s readable from 15 feet away. The $99 (introductory price) system is coupled a free software available in the App Store.

Of course, as the company is catering to the pro video crowd, there’s also a ProPrompter ProMag rig that features a more studio-traditional setup including an anti-reflection hood and beam splitting glass. That’ll run you $695 (introductory). Well, not you. I mean somebody with too much money to spend on gimmicky teleprompter equipment. [gizmag]

(Via Gizmodo.)

Boxee is a free and easy-to-use cross-platform media center that puts all your videos—and most of the web’s—in one place. Loaded on a small, cheap, and sleek computer, it might just change your living room forever.

Photo by philcampbell.

If you vaguely recall hearing similarly over-the-top pronouncements before, you’re almost certainly right. For more than a decade, pundits have been saying that your internet connection would, any day now, be the primary pipeline for television shows, on-demand movies, YouTube videos, music videos, video podcast feeds, online radio, personalized audio streams, online and offline pictures and music—anything you could fit on your screen, really.

Enter Boxee

Boxee‘s media center gives you that, and all from one application. It’s free, it’s open source, it’s built from the guts of the killer Xbox Media Center (which is still a quite active project itself), and it simply works. Loaded onto an Apple TV, or any TV-connected computer, Boxee also gives you free license to drop your cable or satellite dependency with hardly any regret, especially once you realize your year-to-year savings. First, let’s take a closer look at what makes Boxee so great; then I’ll walk you through installing Boxee on your Apple TV.

Here’s a clip of Boxee in action, narrated by one of its project heads:

With over-the-air television going all-digital in the near future, the era of antenna-pointing voodoo and suffering through fuzzy signals is over—you’ll either get a channel, often in HD quality, or you won’t. And Boxee, at least on Macs and Apple TV units, can stream all of the offerings put up by the four major networks on the net, stepping in whenever you didn’t catch the live broadcast. [Note: We say 'at least on Macs and Apple TV' because ABC.com streaming through Boxee is supported only on Mac platforms—for now]

An Apple TV is the cheapest, easiest way to put the Boxee experience onto your television, unless you happen to have a spare Mac Mini, or another computer with great A/V hook-ups. Out of the box, an Apple TV can connect to your TV through component or HDMI cables, supporting resolutions up to 1080p (though Boxee can sometimes only handle 720p, with marginally noticeable difference), and offers optical or RCA audio out. It hooks into your home network wirelessly or through an ethernet port, and comes with its own remote. For a starting price of $200, you get a slim, sleek, scarily quiet and cool system with a 40GB drive (easily upgraded by tinkerers). It looks nice in any entertainment center and, even with Boxee installed, you’ll get to use all its regular features, including movie rentals, iTunes streaming, and—even while Boxee’s running—serving as a pair of remote AirTunes speakers.

The one true disadvantage to Boxee on Apple TV versus a computer hook-up is a lack of Netflix support, due entirely to the Apple TV’s slower processor. If Apple upgrades the line someday, or an optimizing breakthrough is reached, it could happen, but it doesn’t appear likely for the near future. If that’s a deal-breaker, look into a PC or Mac to hook into your screen.

But we’re here to get you started with Boxee, which opens up your media and network far, far wider than Apple would dare to. So get yourself a USB drive with at least 512MB of free space, a Windows or Mac computer, and un-box your Apple TV. It’s time to install Boxee:

Making the USB installer

Note: Some USB drives, unfortunately, just won’t be accepted by an Apple TV for booting, and it has nothing to do with size. From what I’ve read, the standard brands, the kind you can buy on the racks at, say, Target, tend to do better than that freebie drive you got from a conference. I know for sure my Lexar JD Secure II + 4GB drive will work, but that’s all I can say for certain—Google your USB drive and ‘Apple TV’ or ‘atv-usb’ to check for potential show-stoppers.

Windows users: Head to the atvusb-creator site and grab the ‘interim solution’ ZIP package for XP/Vista. Windows’ built-in ZIP handler won’t be able to handle the file, though, so grab a copy of the free 7-zip. Use it to extract the contents of that atv-win archive (you can usually right-click, then choose 7-Zip, Extract Here).

Inside that atv-win folder you extracted (ignore the _MACOSX item) you’ll see two ‘batch’ files, mk-atv-xbmc and mk-atv-xbmc-ssh. Unless you’ve already installed Xbox Media Center or an older Boxee on your Apple TV, you’re going to run the full mk-atv-xbmc-ssh. You can usually launch it by double-clicking the file, and assuming you’re connected to the net, everything should run fine. You’ll see a whole lot of command line text scroll by, and a few downloads happening. What it’s doing is grabbing the latest release of the ATV-bootloader, the boot-up tool that makes your Apple TV ready for Boxee, turning into into a Mac-formatted image file that the Apple TV can read, and grabbing a USB Image Tool from HP that can install that Mac image on a USB drive.

Once the command line utility is done, you should see a ‘Disc Image File’ in your atv-win folder–atv-xbmc-ssh—and a new USB Image Tool application. If you haven’t plugged in your USB drive, do so now. XP users need to get into an administrator’s account to launch the USB Image Tool, and Vista/Windows 7 beta users should right-click on the app’s icon and choose ‘Run as Administrator.’ Click in the Image Tool’s upper-left corner and switch it from ‘Volume Mode’ to ‘Device Mode,’ and—for real, here—be sure your portable USB drive is selected, not your backup drive, your iPod, or anything else connected. Even if you don’t have anything you need on the drive, go ahead and hit ‘Backup’ and create an image file, because it makes restoring it after the Apple TV session much easier. Once that’s done, hit ‘Restore,’ navigate to the atv-xbmc-ssh image in the atv-win folder, and hit ‘Open.’ You might get a prompt or two asking if you really want to apply the image, or about other matters, but you’re safe to move forward. When it finishes, you’ve got a drive that’s ready to introduce Apple TV to the wonders of open source.

Mac users: You’ve got it a lot easier. Head over to the ATV USB Creator site, download the latest copy of the Mac creator tool, plug in a portable USB drive, and launch it. You’ll get something that looks a bit like this:

The screenshot may be out of date, but the basic selectors and tools are the same. Select ‘ATV-Patchstic’ for the installation type, and at the bottom, select your USB device. Don’t know its BSD/mounting address? Head to the System Profiler, and look under the USB section. If you haven’t unpacked your Apple TV yet, it’s safe to assume it’s running the newest firmware, so make sure to select it under ‘AppleTV version 2.x.’ If everything looks right, hit ‘Create Using->’, and after a few minutes’ time, you’ve got your stick.

Installing Boxee (and XBMC)

This part’s pretty easy, but if you’d like a more detailed walkthrough in video, check out Boxee’s own patchstick installation guide. Physically unplug your Apple TV, stick the USB drive you just formatted into the slot near the power cord, then plug the Apple TV back in. You’ll know it picked up the drive if you see everyone’s favorite open source penguin, Tux, sitting on an Apple TV. You’ll also see a whole host of text scroll by (squeezy-pictured at right). If it freezes at any point and you see words like ‘failed’ in the text, double-check that you created your USB stick in ‘Device mode’ (for Windows users), and check out the known issues. You’ll see a final line of text informing you it’s okay to restart when it’s done installing, so pull out your USB stick, unplug the Apple TV, then plug it back in.

Boxee isn’t actually installed yet, but the tools to grab it and keep it updated are now installed on your Apple TV’s home menu. Select Launcher from there, head to Downloads, then grab new copies of everything—the Launcher itself, XBMC (which Boxee relies on in part) and Boxee. Don’t hit every button and choose the ‘Downgrade’ option for the launcher, however. Now you’ve really got Boxee installed, so if you haven’t already done so, head to Boxee.net and sign up for an account.

Expanding your Boxee’s mighty powers

Net video: Out of the box, with none of your media loaded in, Boxee on an Apple TV can do a lot of cool stuff. Most everything you need is accessed by using the remote to click over to a sliding left-hand menu. Head there now, choose Video and then Internet, and you’ve got access to clips and full shows from Hulu.com, CBS, CNN, Comedy Central, the WB, and Joost, music videos from MTV, clips from YouTube (which, actually, you’ve got in the Apple TV anyways, but Boxee’s interface is easier), and access to free, public feeds. But there’s also ‘My Torrents’ section, which is pretty great indeed.

Video feeds: Remember Gina’s guide to using Miro as your TiVo for net video? Boxee can be the same kind of one-stop shop for everything on the web. They’ve even got a great directory, Miro Guide, that lists the most popular and best-rated stuff out there, like the TED conference talks, Make TV, Adult Swim, and much more. Luckily, you don’t have to type in 80-character URLs with your Apple TV remote; just log into your Boxee account and head to the My RSS section. Paste your feeds in there, and Boxee picks them up the next time you log in. While you’re over there, search and see if any of your friends are Boxee users—their recommendations and recent picks can show up on your home screen, Netflix-style.

Your own stuff, any format: What about your own videos, the stuff you’ve ripped from DVDs, shot yourself on a camcorder, and randomly found lying in the spare closets of the net? You can either share them over your home network and let Boxee grab and stream them, or drop them directly into your Apple TV’s hard drive. For sharing, choose Settings from the left-hand menu, then Media Sources, and Boxee will scan the network for anything that’s easy to pick up. If Boxee instills you with start-fresh spirit, Gizmodo has a great guide to setting up network storage for Macs and PCs.

If you’d rather manually feed your media into Boxee, get your Apple TV’s local IP address from your router’s setup page or the General/Network settings in the standard ATV menu. Using an FTP client that’s capable of SFTP mode (Cyberduck for Macs and Filezilla for PCs are both free and handy), access your Apple TV address with frontrow as both username and password. The directory you land in, /Users/frontrow, has four folders worth noting: Movies, Music, Pictures, and Downloads. Drop the appropriate media in each of the first three, and Boxee should be able to find it there. If not, head to the Media Sources options in Settings and set up /Users/frontrow/Movies and the like as sources. As for Downloads, that’s where the files you tell Boxee to download off your feeds go, so you can pull them off Boxee for use elsewhere.

If Boxee doesn’t recognize your media, choose ‘Browse’ from whatever category (Video, Music, Pictures), pick the file, and you’ll usually get options to Play or Recognize. Hit ‘Recognize,’ and Boxee will search web databases to try and figure out what it is and pull down thumbnails and info. If it doesn’t catch it, you can type in a name and other comma-separated info, and Boxee will refine its search and, 95 percent of the time, hit the nail on the head. What’s truly awesome is that doing that with one video in a series of similarly-named files catalogs them all, and you’ll get a nicely organized shelf-like menu next time you go to play it.

And don’t worry what format—other than DRM-protected files, Boxee can play just about anything, since it uses a similar backend as the Linux-rooted Mplayer (and Linux coders really don’t like not having access, don’t you know).

Torrents, fresh off the net: If you’ve got a pretty good broadband connection and find yourself leaving Boxee on more than off, why not free up your desktop and have the Apple TV do your BitTorrent bidding? Using the same kind of SFTP access described above, jump in and head to Users/frontrow/Library/Application Support/BOXEE/UserData/Torrents. Drop your .torrent files there, and Boxee will start downloading the next time you start it up. You can pause, resume, and throttle each download’s bandwidth from the Download section of the pull-out menu.

More Boxee resources

My fingers would fall off before I get to all the great features Boxee offers on every platform—did I mention Flickr, Picasa Web Albums, podcast support, Last.fm and Shoutcast streaming? I’ll leave the exploring to eager installers, but here’s a few resources I found truly helpful in my own journey into the ATV/Boxee realm:

• iPhone/iPod touch remote control: Especially for Apple TV users, because the on-screen keyboard can get tiresome. This one’s for jailbroken units, but a Boxee rep tells me an official App Store version is on the way.
• Five things you should know if you’re new to Boxee: Covers video size issues, how to name your files for better Boxee recognition, and privacy when watching your media.
• Gizmodo’s own Apple TV/Boxee guide: Because John Mahoney has a nicer TV for screenshots than I do, and for the guide to uninstalling Boxee, should you ever need to.

All that hopefully gets you started on streaming any type of media whenever you want in your living room, and paying a lot less per month for the privilege. Got a Boxee tip or hack not mentioned above? Have your own cable-cutting story to share? Tell us all about it in the comments.

(Via Lifehacker.)

YouTube a few minutes ago announced that they’re officially changing the size and aspect ratio of the standard video player on the site.

We’re expanding the width of the page to 960 pixels to better reflect the quality of the videos you create and the screens that you use to watch them. This new, wider player is in a widescreen aspect ratio which we hope will provide you with a cleaner, more powerful viewing experience. And don’t worry, your 4:3 aspect ratio videos will play just fine in this new player.

For all videos uploaded in the standard 4:3 aspect ratio, they’ll appear inset, but the increasingly more common 16:9 videos will fill all available space.

What do you think… will this increase your YouTube enjoyment factor?  Last time we asked, you weren’t overly enthusiastic.  Has your opinion changed?

(Via Mashable!.)