Drake Martinet

My Ultimate iPhone 4 (or 4S) Video Recording Rig

Drake — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 19:57:01 +0000

I’ve been getting a lot of requests for information surrounding the iPhone 4-based video rig I use to record my videos for AllThingsD.com and The Wall Street Journal.

Why iPhone instead of a Flip, etc.?

Well, first, it obeys the “Best Camera” principal, by which the best camera is always the one you have with you. Also, I’ve found that with these few modifications, the iPhone 4 can produce video with far better audio quality than Flip-style cameras, which is often the single biggest failing of the shoot-and-share camcorders.

Parts List:

iPhone 4
Vericorder Microphone
Wide Angle Lens Attachment
The Glif iPhone Tripod Attachment
Joby Gorillapod w/ magnetic feet

____________________________________________________
Total Cost w/o iPhone: $90.00

A few notes:

Audio with the Vericorder Mic:
The most important thing you MUST do is put your phone in airplane mode prior to recording video. This will keep the mic from picking up the transmissive noises (those pops and tones that you hear in stereos when a cell phone is nearby). They will ruin your video every time. This is a must.

While you can get the technical details for the Vericorder mic from them, I will add that it is technically an omnidirectional microphone, though the pickup pattern is not a sphere, becuase of the shape of the case it is built in. I’ve found the pickup pattern to be very good where the mic is pointed, and fairly good directly behind the mic (like a hyper-cardioid), with pickup falling off on the sides. This makes it pretty great for doing one on one interviews. Pickup falloff in front of the mic starts at about 4-5 feet.

I have found that the best thing to do is try to speak a little more quietly than the interview subject, which normalizes the audio between you and the interview subject when they are 3-6 feet away. Even doing this, I often selectively elevate the interviewee’s sections of audio in editing.

Wide Angle Lens:
The wide angle lens isn’t a necessity, but many have noticed that video on the iPhone 4 is actually just a cropped (zoomed) feed from the image sensor. That means that the field of view for video is less than that for pictures from the iPhone. The effect is that the video always looks “zoomed in” compared to an image taken from the same distance.

This has been a problem for me when doing a video with 2 or more subjects at a distance that the Vericorder mic works at (3-6 feet away).

Questions? Comments? Clarifications? Lets make this public- hit me up on Twitter @withdrake

Craigslist-splosion, SF Furniture Edition

Drake — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 20:40:31 +0000

Want to own some furniture that was once owned, sat upon, and leaned-to by a genuine tech journalist and social media editor?

“Yes!,” you pant with anticipation?

Well, then this is your chance: I’m selling off a heapin’ helping of awesome furniture at a steep discount, as I prep for a move to SOMA. Here’s some links.

Incredible SteelCase Executive desk
Beautiful dark-wood dining table and fancy chairs
Awesome Bar / Storage Hutch
Sweet sweet silver tree/candle holder (over 6 feet tall)
Adorable matched set of wood dinner chairs
Custom-built Bar-height desk (genuine franken-kea furniture)

Details for Antipreneurial Sunday

Drake — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 19:20:58 +0000

Sometimes 24/7 company builders need to take a break, let loose, and do soemthing wild… like… throw a ball around.

Mashable NextUP NYC: Emerging Skills of Tomorrow’s Journalist

Drake — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 23:36:17 +0000

Last week I was a guest on a panel at Mashable’s NextUP NYC event for social media week, New York. We talked about the skills required for modern journalists, and how outlets for journalism and other media continue to evolve.

It’s all in the videos.

Emerging Skills of Tomorrow’s Journalists- The 3 minute gist.

My pre-panel interview

Full Video

Hear me schill for Stanford’s J-program at 33:00.

What’s Next for Journalists? Hear Me Guess @ NextUp NYC

Drake — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 05:27:47 +0000

I’ll be on a panel Tuesday, Feb. 8th at 6:30pm (EST) talking about what journalists need to know today and tomorrow to remain useful, relevant and employed.

I’d bet we’ll also talk about media companies and people doing things right, and how to train for whats next.

I’ll be joining Jay Rosen of NYU, Vadim Lavrusik of Mashable, Jenna Wortham of the NYT tech section and Laurie Segall, a reporter at CNN. A pretty decent cast of characters for this subject, actually.

Why should you believe us? I’m not certain you should, but here are the perspectives you will get:

Jay Rosen is a professor of journalism at NYU. He recently started an experimental program there called Studio 20, where he is attempting to cross pollinate journalists with developers. Jury is still out on his strategy, but it is an incredible effort. He’s also one of twitter’s loudest pundits about journalism.

Vadim Lavrusik is Mashable’scommunity manager, and also has excellent journalism chops. He and I represent the “recently exited j-school and entered the workforce” crowd. This is Mashable’s party, so he’ll be moderating.

Jenna Wortham is one of the New York-based technology reporters at the NYT. She focuses a lot on consumer tech and apps, as well as start ups. She’s in her twenties, sassy, and something of a taste-maker, with a great deal of social-media relevance. I’m hoping she focuses on what skills and tech she brings to covering her beat, and how the demands of her current gig differ from her past life at Wired.

Laurie Segall is an unknown for me. She seems to be young, and her coverage of “Money and Technology” tells me she is dispatched to cover things that call for a young/female/techish voice. I’ll be listening closely to what she has to say, as I don’t know her well.

Me. I’ll be winging it, as usual. I recently graduated from Stanford’s journalism masters program, and did a stint at The New York Times before taking a permenant position at D: all things Digital. My title is Associate Editor, but that means I have developed and am implementing out social media and metrics strategy, as well as working on new multimedia products. I also cover early stage start-ups and emerging technologies in the weekly “Early Adopter” column.

I also consult and teach at Stanford in their journalism program. I focus mostly on digital journalism, practical techniques and tools, and distribution platforms. I also consult heavily on the Stanford’s flagship media program, Digital Media Entrepreneurship, which is 50% class, 50% incubator, with a side of VC, Angel and media execs. Its full of students and professionals from the journalism program, the graduate school of business, the CS department and some Silicon Valley orgs that lend a specific hand when needed.

As for topics to be covered, the materials are vague, but I’d imagine thats because Vadim and co are figuring out what we are going to be talking about. I’ll update this post if I hear more on that. If you have thoughts, feel free to tweet at me (@withdrake).

I’ve posted the official promo language below, along with where you can go to get tickets.

Oh yeah, and the whole thing benefits the Y, so buy two. And rumor has it there may be an open bar.

200 Hudson Street | www.92YTribeca.org | 212.601.1000
MASHABLE’S NEXTUP NYC
Tue, Feb 8, 6:30 pm, $15

Mashable’s fifth NextUp NYC focuses on the skills that news organizations will demand and the tools journalists will need to be successful as they redefine the way they report, produce and distribute their content. The night will consist of networking and a conversation and Q & A with Vadim Lavrusik, Community Manager & Social Media Strategist at Mashable; Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University and blogger at PressThink.org; Jenna Wortham, Technology Reporter for The New York Times; Drake Martinet, Associate Editor of D: All Things Digital/The Wall Street Journal Digital; and Laurie Segall, Money & Technology Reporter at CNN. Part of Social Media Week New York.

About 92YTribeca
92YTribeca is 92nd Street Y’s downtown arts and culture venue in New York City. Opened in October 2008, 92YTribeca presents music, comedy, film, theater, talks, classes, family events, and Jewish community and holiday programs in a versatile, street-level, modern space at 200 Hudson Street. In addition to the mainstage and screening room, the venue houses an art gallery, lounge, bar, café, seminar and meeting rooms, and free Wi-Fi around the space. With programs developed by a professional curatorial team in partnership with staff, local artists and arts organizations, new-media companies, fellow presenters, and community and cause-based organizations, 92YTribeca aims to engage a diverse community of young people from around the New York area with smart, relevant programming that encourages participation and conversation. For more information, visit www.92YTribeca.org.

Playing With Live Ammo-I Just Added a Feature to Wikipedia

Drake — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 23:07:45 +0000

At a recent meeting of the Product Design Guild, a shadowy organization of designers and developers in Silicon Valley (for which I’m the journalist-in-residence), I made a change to Wikipedia, but not as an Editor.

I was talking about making Wikipedia more accessible, and spreading the act of editing the web’s biggest knowledge repository to the larger web. It is a problem that contributes to the falloff of editors that Wikipedia is experiencing. \

I asked a simple question.

Can I currently share a fed of my edits to Wikipedia, and autopublish them to another source, via RSS or via an API call.

The answer I got was, no… not right now.

But, I was just congratulated on having made a real change to the way wikipedia works across the entire world. Now, or, rather, a week from now, all wikipedia editors will be able to use an RSS feed of their edits, to share them with the world.

Did you change spelling? Do you frequently author articles on Latin American History? Now you can share them automatically. I’m gonna plug mine into Tumblr or Posterous.

If I Were Buying a Computer Today…

Drake — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 03:19:35 +0000

Yesterday my cousin Jordan asked for a little advice about computer purchase. Laptop vs. desktop, Mac vs. PC, and what are all these netbook things?

For background, she was looking for something for her husband, who is in his late twenties or early thirties, active and business-minded, though not “techie.”

Below is the email I sent to her. I figured it might be useful for someone besides her, so here it is.

Editor’s Note: I’m employed as a technology journalist, but this post is an answer to a family member’s question, and is full of opinion and advice about the situation and the people in it. If you think it represents an endorsement of any particular product, then you either aren’t reading very carefully, or should go soak your head.

________________________________________________________

Jordan,

There’s pretty much no incentive, these days, to get a desktop (unless you need a computer at very low cost, or you need a SUPER high performance machine, like something they edited the Avatar movie on). Other then that, laptops are just as capable, can be used just like desktops, and have the added bonus of being portable when needed. Thats my take.

There are many great PCs out there, and I used them up until about 2 years ago when I bought my first mac. I have bought another mac since then. The switch was easier than expected becasue I spend so much of my computer time inside a web browser.

I’d say this. He should avoid things labeled “netbooks.” They are great as a secondary, ultra-portable computer, but lack certain features that he will miss, and most cant support being connected to a nice external screen.

He should look for a laptop with at least 4GB of RAM and over 250GB Hard Drive. The processor isn’t as important, but all the modern laptops will have a processor that will do the job. Just dont get one with an “Atom” processor from Intel. Its not a bad processor, but it is designed to work on small computers and netbooks, not an everyday machine, so it will seem slow.

Think of it this way… If the computer is a brain, the processor is how fast it thinks, the RAM is how many things it can think about at once, and the hard drive is how much it can remember, long term.

The other issue is size (always is). How big a laptop is he comfortable carrying. I use a 15inch Macbook Pro. I dont like carrying anything bigger than that, but thats just me.

Also, as for the screen, If I were in the market, even if I got a mac, I wouldn’t buy a mac screen unless I was really wooed by how pretty they are (which I nearly am). Reason being, there are TONS of awesome screens out there (as good as the mac) for half the money. I use a pretty gigantic widescreen from HP as a second screen (I use them with my laptop open so I can put stuff on both screens). Its a beautiful, glossy screen and with the money I saved I bought an iPad, an apple mouse and some speakers. Literally, thats how much I saved.

So, if I were making recommendations, I’d suggest one of the less expensive MacBookPro models, or a nice, similarly capable (and less expensive) laptop from a company like Lenovo, HP or Sony. All make good products.

As a bonus. I’ve attached a photo of my workspace, to give you a sense of how I set it all up and work every day with the laptop and external screen. Feet in the picture are an added bonus.

Installing WordPress.org in 10 slides and 8 minutes

Drake — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 11:28:12 +0000

The following tutorial was designed for and presented as part of the curriculum for Stanford University’s Comm 217: Digital Journalism class.

It only covers installing WordPress.org (the self-hosted, single user WordPress variant) on a Cpanel-based hosting platform. In this case, we are using Hostmonster.com.

In later tutorials, we will be covering basic web-development tools and WordPress administration, such as theme, widget and plug-in selection. This is just about installing and getting things running. It has been pared down to only the necessary steps.

Click here to download a PDF of this tutorial.

Also, for even more Stanfordy fun, you can download the PDF of the “Cosmology of the modern Word Press Web” preso I gave in class, without all my pesky chatter.

Now, installing Word Press in 10 slides.

Twitter 201 for Journalists- Twitter Etiquette, or Joining the Cocktail Party

Drake — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 21:52:16 +0000

Now that you’ve posted your first messages to twitter, and made use of best practices from the Twitter 101 Cheat Sheet, take your tweeting to the next level by learning some twitter specific language, adding multimedia to your tweets and beginning to engage with twitter, rather than publish to it.

To take this next step, I’ll share a metaphor that I often used while teaching New York Times journalists about the dynamics of twitter. When you hear twitter, think instead of a cocktail party within your beat or interest area. You populate it mostly with interesting people, some impresarios who just need to be there, a few outsiders and some wild cards. Following more people means more conversations at your party, but also makes it harder to hear everyone.

To torture the metaphor further, posting to twitter is like being at the party too. You are trying to be the best version of yourself. You endeavor to be good natured, clever, and topical, all in 120ish characters.

Twitter Etiquette

How to share links to your own work with out sounding like a self-promoting dirtbag.

Twitter is great for sharing links. Links to articles, links to images, and links to funny pictures. Sometimes we want to share links to our own work but want to be gracious and helpful- here are some ways.

Give a shout out to the people on twitter who were quoted in your article, or who contributed to the reporting. Something like,

“Just posted this piece on the new thai restaurant in Green Point. http://bit.ly/rbslla Big thanks to @thaifoodnut for the great background info.”

Retweet someone who tweets a link to your piece, and thank them. For this, first retweet their tweet, then tweet your own post with something like,

“thanks @journalismlover, hope the piece on artificial sweeteners was useful. http://bit.ly/lbfobaf”

How to take a conversation out of Twitter to another medium.

Many Journalists use Twitter to find sources. Once you’ve found someone, its great to take the conversation into e-mail land. Here’s how.

@withdrake: people of earth- I’m looking for anyone who has noticed that their iPad has been getting way too warm. Tweet me back.

@ipatty: Hey @withdrake, mine got so hot it left a mark on my plastic outdoor table.

@withdrake: @ipatty, Interesting. Would you shoot me an email at withdrake [at] withdrake [dot] com? would love to hear more.

See what happened there? At the end I put my email in that funny human-only format because there are computers out there that scour twitter for email addresses to do nasty things to them. Another way to accoplish the same task would be to use the Direct Message.

A Direct Message is like a private “mini-email” between two people on twitter. The trick there is that you have to follow the person you wish to message, and they have to follow you as well. Once that reciprocal relationship is established, the “DM” feature can be used. That exchange would look something like,

@withdrake: Greetings tweeps, I’m looking for anyone who has noticed that their iPad has been getting way too warm. Tweet me back.

@ipatty: Hey @withdrake, mine got so hot it left a mark on my plastic outdoor table.

@withdrake: @ipatty, Interesting. I just followed you, would you mind following me back so we can DM about it?

DMs are used for short info exchanges, and often are frustrating if you are trying to get rea info. They can be great for trading phone numbers when you’d prefer them not to be public, but dont want to get email involved. Also they enable periodic private communication between you and the other party- occasionally useful.

Final Thought.

Twitter is immediate and asynchronous. Make your tweets stand alone when you can. In journalism speak, the best tweets are often a lede+nutgraph+action(link) all in 120 characters, so that others may retweet. It’s an exercise in brevity and word economy, and occasionally, its fun.

The Truths We Find Self Evident- A Thanksgiving Day Message for Those I Love

Drake — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 20:09:43 +0000

Several years ago, I was a foreigner in a strange land on Thanksgiving day. Every Thanksgiving since, I’ve thought back to how my wonderful friends there were. They welcomed me and my traditions into their lives. I’ve written a the short tale below to try and share the feelings about this day that I was blessed with thanks to the generosity of my foreign hosts.

Four hundered nintey years, several months and one very long, hungry winter ago, the locals of a harsh land walked out of their homes and into what was surely little more than a shanty town of makeshift dwellings at what would become known as Plymouth colony.

The locals shared the fruits of expertise in a bounty only available to those who’d lived there long enough to build up the surplus of food, resrouces and communal connections.

The immigrants were a foreign color, mostly refused to adopt the local clothing and cultural practices, and kept an insular community where they only knew each other and spoke their native language— ignoring the language of thier new home.

But on a day not unlike today, all those years ago, a group of locals looked far enough past the differences to share a common experience, at a common table and a common meal.

On this, our national day of Thanksgiving, we retell these stories of hardship too often as ones of triumph of our early immigrant forebearers, and not often enough as ones of generous locals looking past the differences that devide parts of our nation today.

In giving thanks, I encourage you to remember what really came to pass on the day we have elevated to a status shared with the births of our founders and commemeration of our veterans sacrifices.

Those natives, so long ago, looked past the devisions that tear at our socity’s seams today. They reached out the most sincere hand of welcome- one full of food. The locals, often portrayed as savages, provided the warmth of a universal human experience- a bountiful meal.

Now, it’s unlikley that the story hapened as it is retold to us each generation, but, as I am fond of saying, there is a difference between the facts and the truths.

The truths therein, which we’ve found self-evident enough to decalre this day a holiday, are that all people are created equal and endowed by their creator with equality and human dignity that the natives recognized in their shabby visitors.

For one day, allow every one to feel welcome in your homeland, and attempt a shared experience that can create, if not a love, at least an understanding, among men.

We will all, native and immigrant alike, lead enriched lives for having honored one of our great founding truths- one we like to think Thoimas Jefferson penned, borrowed from French enlightenment thinkers

It’s a truth the Pilgrim’s native benefactors understood and acted on.

So, on this and every Thanksgiving, I ask those of us who have enjoyed a life built on generations of prosperity and comradeship to remember the truth of shared humanity with all people- even the most recently arrived and unadapted immigrants.

In Love and Thanks,
Drake