15 posts tagged “vox”
I upgraded a couple of songs from my iTunes library to the new DRM-less iTunes Plus to give it a test drive. The songs came with the promised boost in bit rate. Since these are DRM-less, I wanted to give them a test upload on Vox. My first upload attempt showed no artwork for the file. After inspecting the audio file, I noticed that Apple had doubled the number of art assets used for the cover art. So I deleted one of the art covers and uploaded again to file to Vox. Again, no artwork. I remember once hearing about a caching scheme on Vox regarding asset reuse, so I decided to upload a completely different iTunes Plus file. Again no artwork.
As much as I like snow angels, I like my cover art. Dear Keepers of Vox, please allow for iTunes Plus files to display their artwork.
The engineers at Google that work on Gmail cranked out this excellent video about why to use Gmail.
Just tried out the new Internet Channel on the Wii to see what I could do on Vox. I signed into Vox and while loading the Vox homepage, the Wii froze up. I could not turn off the Wii with the power switch. I could not turn off the Wiimote with the power button. It just sat there, hung.
I expected this since the Internet Channel is still in beta and it uses the Opera browser. I don't think Vox currently plays well with the Opera browser on the PC side anyway. It's unfortunate that the Wii completely locks up because I will be less apt to check out what sites do work on the Wii.
Image below is the last thing I saw before I pulled the plug on the Wii.
In case you haven't seen it yet, Wired News has an interview with Mena regarding Vox. [Wired New: Six Apart Leads With Vox]
After watching this week's episode of Lost, I checked on to see what my Vox neighbors were up to. I noticed that aa had posted an image from the Vox Launch party of Ben and Mena speaking (my guess is that Mena was doing the speaking). So I am guessing now that all the lads and ladies at Six Apart and those members responsible for Vox (with the exception of the propagators err looks like they actually got in or maybe just The King) are getting down and funky with some tasty alcoholic beverages (or non-alcoholic). I told Pants Party that I would have a drink in their honor tonight, so here I am, writing this and drinking my Newcastle.
In honor of Vox's launch tomorrow, what's your favorite feature or aspect of Vox?
Scott Kraft asked me this at the Boston Vox Event. So here we go with a brief history of raf and blogging.
Several years ago, I decided that I wanted to do a blog. I was interested in using Movable Type, so I downloaded a copy and installed it on the home network. It seemed to do the job but I ran into the issue of how was I to host it? I didn't want to buy a server, install Movable Type and deal with finding an ISP so I could put my server in collocation. After all that was done, I would have to worry about patching the server OS, patching Movable Type, and patching all the other dependencies (SQL, Perl, Apache). Bleh. Too much maintenance for a pet project. So I shelved the idea.
Couple of months passed and I revisited the SixApart website to find this new product called TypePad. Ooo, MovableType that SixApart hosts. This is what I was looking for. I snatched up the highest level of service because I wanted to completely customize my blog to what I wanted the user experience to be. TypePad became a sandbox for CSS coding and TypePad module design. I spent my first month on TypePad designing the site, nitpicking every pixel of space. When I launched my TypePad blog, I told my wife and a couple of friends about it. When it came to my blog, I wanted to be an island.
I wanted to be an island in the vast ocean that is the Internet. I didn't have any of my posts get automatically reported to Technorati or whatever, but I did allow Google to index it. If you were looking for something that I wrote about, then welcome to my blog. However, I wasn't about to promote myself. I also shut out various aspects of my life in my blog. My island had thick wall protecting the inner sanctum of my life. I met a couple of great people during my TypePad days. One of those was Nick, a young kid in NYC looking for direction in his life. I would chat with him occasionally on AIM during late night coding sessions (I was working on my Master's at the time). I stopped writing posts after a while because I felt a need to have to write something profound on my blog. Also, the wee one was due at any moment and life was getting a bit more complicated. Also being an island got pretty lonely, so maybe I didn't want to be an island.
Fast forward to several months ago when I get an email from SixApart inviting me to Vox. "The Hell is this?" was my first thought. I think I would have deleted the email but something made me press the link and sign up. The first thing that caught my eye was the Composer. I am a big advocate of good UI to promote a good user experience and the Composer was amazing. Not truly WYSIWYG, but it was close, very close. I had to show Kelev T. Cat's D (another user experience personality) the beauty of the composer so I invited him. Reading my first post makes me laugh because I think back then, I still had my island mentality.
My original thoughts were no pictures of me, the family, and one around me. I would post up some photographs that I found worthy as having high photographic merit but nothing else. I also told myself to just write something every night. It doesn't have to be "worthy", just write. So that's what I started to do and the Vox QotD helped me when I had nothing to write. I remember one of my earliest neighbors, MainMor, helped me realize that it doesn't matter what you write about, just write since his posts just run the gamut of topics. So when the QotD came out asking for baby pictures, I was at a bit of a crossroad. By answering that question, I would be showing images of myself. I finally told myself to get over it and I made the created the post with embarrassing images included. Interestingly enough, prior to that post, I posted an image of the wee one for the Vox Coloring contest. I felt that it was safe for public consumption since it hid her many of her distinguishing features but still sold the fact that I am the proud owner of a toddler.
That seems like a good enough lead in to the next feature: privacy. I had accumulate a nice size neighborhood at this time. I built up my neighborhood full of Voxxers whose photography I enjoyed, creative artists, gamers, interesting parents with children (like myself), and anyone else I found on my adventures that caught my eye. The beauty of the neighborhood is that it acts like an RSS/Atom feed aggregator. It wasn't that I liked you personally and that we were friends for life, it was more like I find you interesting and I like reading what you have to say. This is why I don't get offended when I add someone to my neighborhood and that someone doesn't do the same. We all don't have the same likes and dislikes. However, there came a time when I wanted to show more of my photography off. Many of pictures I am proud of are of the wee one (and not just the back of her head). So I set up a group of neighbors to classify as friends. Though they are not all friends in real life, they are the ones that I can trust with images of my loved ones. I occasionally post images of the wee one and the wife and it's nice to know that the privacy measures are in place so that not just anyone can see these images/posts.
What sealed the deal with me is the team behind Vox. Getting a chance to meet them and talk to them was a great experience. I learned from this small group of the team the philosophy of Vox, their dedication to the product, and their interest in the community around it. I have also met several other members of the team through various other mechanisms. Each member I have met has the same dedication to Vox as the ones I met in Boston. Every release since I have been on Vox, I go through a little QA session with the release to find stuff that is broken or doesn't make sense. With each thing I find, I post feedback and the feedback gets addressed in some fashion or another. It's nice to see feedback get addressed in later versions. Not all feedback gets responded to, but the bugs that I have found, get squashed in a timely fashion.
So to finish this marathon post off, my last point would be the sense of community around Vox. Being an island was lonely and I still am an island in some ways. However, Vox provides many mechanisms to us Voxxers to make ourselves get discovered. Explore page, Reader, Vox Hunts, Vox QotD, [this is good] area, as well as commenting on others' posts make each of our islands "blip" on each others' radar screen. The community on Vox is the community I make it to be: my neighborhood. Yes, the flood gates will be opening tomorrow. Yes, the trolls, the drama queens, and the beautiful ones that want to plaster their visages all over their blog will be arriving very soon (if some are not already here). However, I don't have to interact with them, I don't have to see them. They are somewhere in that vast sea, a blip that goes unnoticed by me.
Thanks for making it this far down on this rambling post. It has been a pleasure sharing my experiences with you so far, and the reverse as well: reading about your experiences as well. Even though we may never meet in "real" life, reading your Vox posts makes this vast world much smaller.
Just found this in the mailbox. Thanks for the defective t-shirt Six Apart and Team Vox. Next time, please send one that isn't written in reverse. Ooo, wait, maybe it's a collector's item since it's defective. I took it out of its original packaging. Nooo!
Patiently waiting...perhaps this video will inspire you guys and gals working on Vox.
Now, I am really feeling under the weather. I just got done color correcting and uploading the pictures I took at the Boston Vox Event. I will try and write something up tomorrow. Unfortunately, all the pictures I took had a yellow tinge to them (maybe the ceiling was yellow) so hopefully I didn't massacre these images up too much.
To sum up the events in brief:
- I met the following Six Aparters: miz_ginevra, Scott Kraft, aa, Mena Trott, and Krissy (in order of introduction) and talked to each one at length. They are really great people and really dig the community built around the product.
- Team Vox reads our posts. Mena remembered faving an image of the wee one and aa discussed either mine or reesie's recent Vox bug post.
- There are going to be some really cool features in the coming release. Sorry, but I am not spilling the beans on that.
- We got to see what Mena's posts away from the public. You aren't missing too much unless you are into Voldemort eating bread.
- Ran into John and Kelev T. Cat's D and we pretty much hung out the rest of the night chatting with miz_ginevra and Krissy.
- I learned that Kelev T. Cat is quite the celebrity with Mena.
- Got offered a Vox t-shirt but it was all a tease; only size available was small. Still thanks for the offer.
Thanks Vox and Six Apart for being such gracious hosts. Come again any time.
Back home. Time to get the photos off the camera and do some post processing.
After post processing I will upload the images. After the upload, I will write something up. Hopefully all steps will be done before I get to bed.
I am feeling a little sick but it was so worth it.
