learning the ropes

MagnetoPots from SpectraSymbol

I’ve been trying to find a “workflow” that will make it easy for Wendy to post videos into her blog.  There are a couple of considerations:

• Wendy prefers to keep the videos private right now (avoiding video services such as Youtube, Viddler, Vimeo, Blip.tv).
• The posting process should be easy as adding an image to a post (or a youtube video) — hand-editing “embed code” snippets is probably not going to make the cut.

So far, these considerations mean that she will probably need to host the video files on her site.  In the past few days as I’ve been researching how to do this, I was focusing more on the WordPress side of the problem: finding an integrated workflow that makes the posting process easier.  This research has turned up a few WordPress plugins:

• Stream Video Player looks promising — and the interface for adding the video is typing a special tag that WordPress recognizes when the plugin is installed.  The backend of this process (encoding the videos) will be a bit complex, though.
• WordPress also has its own built-in video player, but again, it doesn’t handle the encoding portion of the process.

This morning, I took a slightly different approach to figuring out how to solve the video posting problem we’re having.  I searched for “host your own video”.  Michael Martine’s post on whether to host your own videos offers a concise summary of the considerations.  My inclination would be to go for a video hosting service (perhaps Flickr… which seems to allows the content owner a good degree of control over the reuse of uploaded content) to keep things simple.

I think that part of the “meta” conversation of this aspect of documenting our work is Wendy’s exploration of public/privacy.  We’re also putting out “private” conversation (or somewhat edited versions of private conversation here), but at the same time want to control how it’s used.

When we met last week, one of the things Wendy and I discussed was going shopping for inspiration: hardware stores, fabric stores, etc.

I mentioned that ITP has maintained various lists of good places to find materials:

• Materials at ITP
• Tom Igoe’s Resources

Here are some that I think will be interesting to visit in the NYC area:

• Build it Green – NYC (Astoria, Queens) – reclaimed building materials warehouse
• Fikret Fabrics (Manhattan) – “discount fabrics, bargains, and close-outs” (quote from ITP materials site)
• Frank Tracy (Greenpoint, Brooklyn) – bearings and mechanical parts (a transmission supplier)
• Home Depot (23rd St, Manhattan, but I prefer New Jersey locations for selection)
• Homefront 24 hour Hardware and Lumber (Murray Hill, Manhattan)
• Lowe’s (located in Brooklyn, but I’ve only visited the New Jersey location) – similar to a Home Depot
• Materials for the Arts (Long Island City)
• New York Central Art Supply (East Village, Manhattan)
• Space Surplus Metals (Canal Street, Manhattan) – various metals… review says that you should appear to be knowledgeable in order to get the best price and service.
• Spandex House (Manhattan)