That’s why I play with new tools like Qik (live video streaming from a Nokia mobile phone) and seesmic (video conversations via your webcam).

I discovered another one today that I find so compelling that I’m just amazed the whole internet isn’t a-buzz about it (although there is indeed plenty of buzz).

This is Animoto, a web-based service that automatically creates a video from images and music.

That rather dry description does this service little justice. You have to see what it can do to fully appreciate its potential.

Take a look at this:

This video was automatically created by Animoto, using images from one of my sets on Flickr. I gave it permission to go into my Flickr account and grab those images.

The excellent music is a track I selected from the ample music library at Animoto. I can also upload my own audio (music or anything) if I want.

The whole thing took about ten minutes.

You have two sign-up options with Animoto - a free account, which lets you create videos of 30 seconds or less; and a paid account for videos longer than that and other benefits.

The video above runs about a minute and 14 seconds. That was the second video I did, after quickly signing up for a paid account (it was a no brainer at $30 a year, and a PayPal option makes it hard to resist just doing it).

My first effort was a video of less that 30 seconds to try the service out. I simply uploaded a handful of images from my pictures folder, chose some music from Animoto’s library, and that was it - one short video created in less than five minutes:

You’ll note that both these videos are on YouTube. That’s one of the benefits with the paid account - exporting your video to your YouTube account.

And coming soon, according to the website, is an option to create versions suitable for iPods (and iPhones too, I’d guess).

Imagine the uses for something like this service. For instance:

• Show off your product or service in a new and different way
• A montage of images of people at a conference set to music
• A music video catalogue of your art work / designs / fashions / etc
• A funky music video tour of your favourite neighbourhood
• Cars, cars, cars (as Dennis Howlett did)
• (your idea)

Who’s behind Animoto? According to the about page, they are “a bunch of techies and film/tv producers.” According to a TechCrunch write-up and company profile, Animoto is a New York-based startup which secured funding from Amazon this month.

There’s no limit to imagination.

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You can visit my Flickr account to see which camera made which images and you’ll see some other comparison photos and other images that I’ve made with the Nokia N82. Make sure you click on the “All Sizes” option to see the full resolution images to really compare.

Yes, if you look closely the images made with the pro SLR are nicer, but that isn’t the point. The point is that photos made with cell phones are getting to be darn good. The worst photo you’ll ever take is the one you don’t take because you didn’t have your camera with you.

I don’t know about you, but only photo geeks like Thomas Hawk take their pro cameras everywhere (he shoots with a Canon 5D). I know I carry my cell phone everywhere, but only have my 5D a small percentage of the time, so I’m far more likely to get a shot of something interesting with my cell phone.

Speaking of Thomas, he wrote two great posts yesterday. First is on the 10 things he learned from Ansel Adams. The second is about 12 ways to never miss a photo opportunity.

How does the N82 compare to the older N95? The camera is better and I like the phone overall better with one glaring problem: it doesn’t work with AT&T’s 3G network, so doing video on Qik on the N82 isn’t nearly as nice.

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He’s not the first to have that dream, but I think he’s thought through some of the problems better than other people I’ve talked to about this so far. He is in Silicon Valley today, visiting from London, UK, which is where he’s located.

But that’s not what was interesting about my breakfast with him this morning. What I found really interesting was his dilemma as an entrepreneur. What is it?

1. His product is too difficult to use, so it needs some more work. That takes capital, but he’s not able to land Silicon Valley capital (at least not yet).

2. Because he’s chosen a “boil the ocean” strategy (getting, say, Starbucks or Amazon to adopt his technology) he’s finding it hard to get adoption.

3. Because he doesn’t have adoption, investors aren’t interested.

4. Plus he’s going against big companies (PayPal, Visa, MC, American Express) which makes investors nervous, unless you have a clear differentiator that’ll be defendable for some time.

Compare his story to Omar Hamoui’s story, CEO of Admob, a mobile advertising network. He walked into Sequoia Capital and had a term sheet in his hands in about 24 hours. I interviewed him yesterday, and we’ll have his story of how he did that up on FastCompany.tv in a few weeks (we start our daily video show tomorrow, and have about three weeks of shows stored on our Seagate hard drives right now).

How did Admob land the capital it needed?

1. They had customers and rapid growth BEFORE they walked onto Sand Hill Road.

2. They didn’t try to boil the ocean, nor did they try to go up against entrenched competitors.

3. One thing common is both picked the rapidly-growing world of mobile.

Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see if Andrew gets any feedback based on the 18-minute conversation we had this morning on Qik. My feedback to him?

Instead of trying to get in front of the CEO of Visa, Starbucks, Facebook, or getting a VC like Sequoia, or even an investor like Jeff Clavier to pay attention to him, I’d do some new work. I’d hang out at Stanford with Dave McClure, who teaches a Facebook class there. If Andrew gets a couple of Facebook app developers to build his payment techology into their apps, then he’d have something to show investors. Plus, he’d probably have millions of people trying his technology and he’d be able to learn from their usage model.

Translation: don’t try to boil the ocean, just pick off a small bucket of water, boil that first, then work on the ocean later.

What do you think?

Either way, it’s pretty rare that entrepreneurs let you look into an early-stage company and some of the challenges that it faces trying to get a new idea and a new company started.

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Amy Quinn over at the Online Education Database has come up with 100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better categorized in 8 main sections. You can check out Amy’s full post here, but here are a few of the top iPod tips and resources.

Study Guides

• Spark Notes: Long considered a busy high school or college student’s best friend, the online study guide database now offers users an iPod-friendly version. Get summaries and analyses of books like A Tale of Two Cities, Beowulf, Hamlet and more.
• iPREPpress: This website provides study guides, travel guides and foreign language training, all compatible with iPods.

Podcasts and More

• GoogleGet: Get your Google News and iPod in sync by installing this software program. You’ll stay current on all the top news stories, making you better prepared for class or work.
• Soundwalk: This site currently only sells CDs and MP3s, but you can use an MP3-iPod converter to check out unique self-guided audio tours like “The Bronx Graffiti Walk” or “The Paris St. Germain Walk.”
• Pod CityGuides: This site has hundreds of city guides that are compatible with iPods, so no one has to know you’re really a tourist.

Tutorials

• Learning Podcasting: If you want to create your own podcast to share your skills or expertise on a particular subject, read this in-depth introduction to podcasting from Wise-Women.org.
• Podtender 3.0: This software program will teach you how to make all kinds of tasty cocktails for your next party.
• PodGourmet 2.0: Teach yourself to become a master chef when you get recipes

Applications

• iGadget: Make your class notes, presentations, study guides and other materials iPod-friendly by using iGadget. You’ll be able to move documents and files back and forth between your iPod and your computer easily and securely.
• Plato Video to iPod Converter: Use this app to transform all kinds of video formats into MP4 formats so that you can upload video clips and footage onto your iPod.

More Downloads

• iJourneys: Take walking tours in cities like Salzburg, Vienna, Amsterdam, Paris and Ancient Rome by downloading iPod-compatible guides from this site.
• Audio Bibles for iPod: AllBibles.com offers iPod-compatible Bibles for theology and seminary students, or for those who just want a more portable version to take along with them.

iPod Learning Support

• iPod in the Classroom: Take a look at Apple’s collection of lesson plans for teachers who want to use their iPod for classroom work.
• iLounge: Get together with other iPod users to find out about new things you can do with your iPod.

Tools and Sites

• ShowFootage: Browse through this site’s library of video clips to make your presentations and projects more attractive.
• Audible.com: Find a large variety of books, newspapers and magazines ready to download to your iPod on this site. Categories include Romance, Classics, Business, History and more.

iTunes U

• Stanford on iTunes: Take a class from Stanford by downloading one onto your iPod. Or, you can find interviews with faculty and lectures to help you better understand the course material at your own school.
• University of California — Berkeley: Classes from this well-respected school are available in chemistry, the social sciences, journalism and much more.

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The paper, entitled “How Google Android Stimulates the Mass Market for Mobile Email and how Funambol Mobile Open Source Monetizes It”, discusses how Google Android will spur adoption of mobile email by large numbers of people and how Google Android and Funambol can transform the market. Funambol is the leading provider of Mobile 2.0 messaging software powered by open source.

Also in the paper, Funambol poses-and answers questions for the mobile industry like:

- How will mass market mobile email be enabled by Android and Funambol?
- What do the new market dynamics mean to prices and control within the industry?
- How do mobile service providers make money in this new environment?
- Who are the new telecom winners and losers?

The introduction of the paper talks about the future of mobile email:

If you could view how mobile email will be used in the future, what would you see? Will everyone use mobile email or will it remain the province of a few? What mobile industry companies will be stronger or weaker than they are today? And what impact will Google Android and Funambol mobile open source make on mobile email? To answer these questions, let’s take a look at the future users of mobile email, what they want in a solution and the mobile email value chain.

The Funambol paper talks about the following:
- Mass market mobile email trends and user requirements
- The mobile email value chain and the end game for mobile email
- What is Google Android - and what is it not?
- What are Google’s aspirations for mobile and for mobile email in particular?
- How can mobile operators and service providers benefit from S.O.S. - standards, open source and synchronization

Funambol is working with its community to build an open source client for Android to enable it to work with the Funambol server. Once Android-enabled phones come to market, Funambol will enable people to use their phone for push email, contacts and calendars, as well as for syncing all types of content. This provides other companies in the mobile industry with a way to embrace rather than compete with Android.

To download the Funambol position paper, go here. Registration is required.

Funambol provides mobile 2.0 messaging software that is powered by open source. The company is the leading provider of open source push email and PIM synchronization solutions for mass market consumers. Funambol’s open source software has been downloaded more than 1,500,000 times by a global network of 10,000 developers in 200 countries. The commercial version of Funambol’s software has been deployed at service providers, mobile operators, portals, device manufacturers and ISVs including customers such as 1&1, Earthlink and Computer Associates. Funambol is headquartered in Redwood City, California with an R&D center in Italy.

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Manufacturers advertise battery life spans of 3, 4, and 5 hours or more. However what they don’t tell you is these times have very very little to do with real use conditions. Now I imagine there are people who use their computers without wifi or a Verizon card constantly on. They also don’t run multiple applications like iTunes, Firefox, and Photoshop all day kicking the CPU utilization up fairly high. I don’t know any of these people but I’m sure they exist.

I have a Toshiba Tecra M7 tablet PC, according to reviews I should be getting 3 hours of laptop battery life. In reality I usually get about 90 to 120 minutes. If I dim the brightness down and turn off both cards I can eek out almost to 180 minutes. The design of my laptop doesn’t give me the flexibility of a high capacity battery. So while I’m not tied to desk, I am tied to a power outlet.

A few weeks ago while reading a Web Worker Daily blog post I came across the Electrovaya Power Pad which in reality is an external laptop battery. They have several different models the Power Pad 95, Power Pad 130, Power Pad 160 and Power Pad 300. The real difference is the estimated battery life of the units. This effects the size and color and case. I went with the Power Pad 95 which comes in a ridiculous silly looking baby boy powder blue casing. When you order this unit you will need to specify your laptop model so you get the proper connections, but more about that later.

Checking out the directions, which were a little rough on the translation, the correct way to use the unit is to chain it in between the laptop power cord and laptop. So your laptop power cord connects to the Electrovaya power cord. The Electrovaya power cord splits with one end connecting to the power pad and one end connecting into your laptop. I mentioned above that you needed to specify your laptop model when ordering, the Electrovaya power cord has interchangeable tips so it’s compatible with a wide variety of laptops. When you are in “charging” mode the display will give you a charging message with a % of charge. When you are in “discharge” mode they recommend you use the Electrovaya first draining it completely before switching to your laptop battery, instead of waiting for your laptop battery to run out before connecting power pad. When the unit gets down to under 10% the LED display starts flashing, giving you some warning it’s going to run out.

Enough theory let’s talk about actual usage. Before leaving for Pubcon I had some presentations to finish, some proposals to get out the door, and some client deliverables. I was running Firefox, iTunes, PowerPoint and Photoshop, on wifi. Using a stopwatch I timed my battery life and got 1:22 before the critical battery warning message came up. After a full overnight recharge I tried the Electrovaya unit with the laptop battery and got 4:55 before the critical battery warning came on. So subtracting my original 1:22 of laptop battery the Electrovaya gave me an additional 3:35 of life top use.

So what did I like even though I got the basic unit and it had a retail price of $200 I got almost 5 hours of non tethered power, which for me is totally worth it. The power meter was reasonably accurate, and you can fully charge the unit in about 4 hours.

What didn’t I like, for one the color the baby blue color, I’m going to end up snickering it up like a web 2.0 silicon valley start up veteran. The display gives a digital readout of charge. Once you get over 90% it seems a bit hit or miss getting it up to 100% no matter how long you leave it plugged in.

More of an annoyance than a fault was my experience with customer service. When my initial unit arrived they tips were not the right size. I sent off an email to customer service. The new tips arrived 3 days later but there was no email letting me know it was coming or they got it. So A+ for doing me the right thing D- for not letting me know what they were doing. On the consumer end there’s no difference from an email languishing unanswered in an unchecked email inbox or and email that was taken care of just not responded to.

If you are the kind of person who is looking for longer laptop usage without being tethered to an outlet it’s a product I can recommend. While it’s not cheap if you get a more productivity or billable hours out of those extra hours it should definitely pay for itself in short order.

For more details check http://www.epowerpad.com/

Disclaimer:

The previous review was not compensated or paid for in any way. To be clear I paid the full price on my own credit card.

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After putting together what sounds like an expensive “over the top” Creston System, he now has a set up with three separate entertainment systems with lots of goodies with Mac Minis as the centerpiece to the strategy.

From Fred: “The thing I didn’t realize when I set up this system is how much a difference the mac minis would make. We use them to play DVDs, we use them to play video we buy or download from the web, we use them to power screen savers on the displays when we are listening to music, and we use them increasingly to listen to music from the web.”

Scoble also says that he just bought a Mac Mini for his living room as well.

At present I’m sort of at a crossroad with my own home entertainment system and will be significantly revamping it in the weeks ahead.

What my set up looks like today is this. In my attic I have a PC which is connected to 3 drobos and a few more external USB hard drives (the drobos and external hard drives basically hold my very extensive media library). This attic PC is connected to a gigabit ethernet network that is deployed through the house.

In the living room I have a Media Center PC, an XBox 360 and a HDTV DirecTV 4 tuner TiVo.

In the kitchen I have a small LCD HDTV connected to a second DirecTV non HD box and then my MacBook Pro floats around with me in other rooms where I’m constantly connected both with a wi-fi network in the house as well as ethernet connections in every room.

So today I use the Media Center PC to grab my music and photos from the attic drobos over the network. I use the XBox 360 to play games (and also to watch DVDs since the DVD player on my HP Media Center PC is simply horrible and only works about 5% of the time). And I use the DirecTV TiVo to record television and watch things when I want.

I also recently signed up for Netflix (which I love) and use this to get new DVDs for viewing and for the “watch now” feature on the Media Center PC.

One of my biggest problems today is in the living room. I’m using a two year old 43″ Pioneer plasma HDTV. The two biggest problems with the Pioneer plasma are that it is horrible with the inputs (no HDMI and only one component HDTV — a big hassle to have to physically switch cables when going from the TiVo to the XBox 360) and that it is only 720p HDTV.

So step one in upgrading my entertainment system was to replace this plasma. So last week I ordered a new Panasonic TH-58PZ700U 58 inch 1080p Plasma HDTV The set has had really good reviews, is 1080p, and has hdmi inputs as well as multiple other inputs. This new HDTV will sit in my living room and I’ll be moving the old 43″ Pioneer to the bedroom.

I also over the weekend bought an XBox 360 Elite. This will be connected to the new plasma and I’ll move my old first generation XBox 360 up into the bedroom with the Pioneer where I can use it to watch Netflix DVDs and get MCE content from my MCE machine in the living room using the XBox 360 as an extender.

So this is where I am at today.

And this is my dilema. With this new system do I push forward with a 100% Media Center strategy including a new CableCARD Media Center PC as the hub of the system and XBox 360s as extenders? Or do I move forward with a dual Apple/MCE strategy and follow Fred and Robert’s lead and buy Mac Mini’s or Apple TV for the various plasmas in the house and use these?

On the one hand the MCE strategy really appeals to me. Primarily because having everything enclosed in one system would seem at first blush to be simplier. Simply buy a CableCARD PC to replace my attic PC. Dump DirecTV and TiVo. Use this machine to stream all of my photos, music and HDTV to the various XBox 360s in the home. Each HDTV would have a built in DVD player on the XBox 360, could play games, and could get all my media. I also wouldn’t have to pay for extra cable or satellite boxes to connect up to the various displays in the house.

My hesitancy in pursuing this strategy though is two fold. One, CableCARD PCs are still in their infancy and I’m not sure that set up will be as rock solid as my current HDTV TiVo set up. Two, my current Media Center PC cannot handle my large digital library (about 100,000 high bit rate mp3s and 60,000 or so high res JPG image files). iTunes (by the way) handles my large media library brilliantly. Unlike MCE (powered by Windows Media Player) my music experience with iTunes on my MCE machine is flawless. Never a delay when I want to hear music vs. up to 5 minute delays to load music on my Media Center software.

So the negative to going with an Apple based system is that Apple doesn’t incorporate premium HDTV DVR functionality into their system. So I’d have to stick with my HDTV TiVo having a three prong system (Apple Mac Mini or Apple TV, HDTV TiVo, XBox 360 MCE setup).

Anyone have any suggestions or advice?

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