Author Archive for Ryan Northcott

LIFE Pictures on Google Images

I’m sure you’ve all seen them at Chapters, Barnes & Noble or any other bix box bookstore.  The LIFE picture books which contain some of the greatest photographs ever taken, and something to do while you sip a coffee on a random Thursday night.  I once bought one of these books and lost it somewhere along the way, which is a shame because one of my favorite photos was in it that I’ve never been able to find.

The picture was simple.  A young girl with her arms crossed across her brother’s chest, two refugees escaping the upcoming terror of World War II.  They were parentless and the look on her face was heartwrenching.  I may be able to find it now…

Now LIFE has teamed up with Google to make all of these pictures available to the world.  Google will host 10,000,000 images most in high-res and 97% of them have never been seen before.

Continue reading ‘LIFE Pictures on Google Images’

Remember…

A Farewell to Phoenix

Awww. A farewell to you Phoenix Mars Lander.

The Phoenix Mars Lander was sent up to Mars by NASA in the hopes of gathering important scientific information about the red planet. It did. But then it went dead, and this was it’s final transmission…

Click to read Phoenix’s last transmission blog post from Mars.

Send Eva!

Anathallo’s Floating World Album

It’s a little sad, but a lot of the music I find comes from TV ads. Yet when you think about, maybe this isn’t such a bad thing. The people who choose music for movies, TV, commercials are all very in tune to what’s happening in the music scene. I often picture them, plugging away on a Mac, with black framed glasses, a button up shirt with a sweater over it and out of control hair. Not sure why I picture these people this way, but I just do.

I watched a Vicks Vaporub commercial and was taken aback by the little piano ditty. It was sad, yet happy and most certainly thought provoking. Keeping with my previous actions, I immediately Googled it and found the song was called “Yuki! Yuki! Yuki!” by Anathallo (which is greek for renew or refresh).

Here’s the video:

…and the song:



The album is fantastic, with a great mix of different styles and a story…

You can buy it from iTunes right here.

FuddyTV Projects Barack Obama as President

While we remain excessively partisan and unbiased (we did not endorse either candidate), we would like to project the next President of the United States as Barack Obama.





I believe this is the feeling among Obama voters:

Brightcove Ending Free Service

We just received an email from the people at Brightcove that the free service they were offering is now ending.



Dear FuddyTV,

We’re sending you this email because you created or used at least one free Brightcove Network account during the last two years.

Regretfully, we’ve decided to discontinue the Brightcove Network (the free version of our service). The discontinuation of the free Brightcove Network accounts will not affect Brightcove platform accounts that customers have paid to use.

Please see the FAQ for complete details about this transition.

On December 17, 2008, we will be shutting down Brightcove Network accounts that have not been upgraded to paid Brightcove platform accounts. At the same time, we will be shutting down the Brightcove.TV website (which is separate from the corporate Brightcove website).

Until December 17, 2008, your Brightcove Network account will remain fully functional; the players that you have published will continue to operate; and you can keep using the Brightcove Console as you have been using it to date. At the same time, we are giving you a free trial of Brightcove 3.

Brightcove 3 is the newest version of the Brightcove online video platform. The new release has a completely re-designed user interface and a wide variety of powerful new features. You can learn more about Brightcove 3 on our site.

We’ve automatically upgraded your account to include a free trial of Brightcove 3 Basic. You can begin using the new features in Brightcove 3 today by logging in at studio3.brightcove.com. (Note: Your content will automatically appear in Brightcove 3, but you will need to make new Brightcove 3 players to take advantage of the full functionality.)

We specifically designed Brightcove 3 Basic to meet the needs of Network publishers. It’s affordably priced and provides access to a wide range of third-party ad networks. If you are looking for more than what we offer with Brightcove Basic, we also have Pro and Enterprise editions…

With so many free content hosts, such as BlipTV and YouTube, I think we will move away from Brightcove. In terms of a business move, I think it’s safe to assume that many people will jump ship from Brightcove. In their FAQ section, they do not list prices for this new Brightcove 3 edition, but under the “How much does it cost” question one line will most likely turn away hundreds of producers…

For reference, Brightcove Basic is very affordably priced at several hundred dollars a month.

So now the search begins for a new video content host. It’s certainly understandable that Brightcove would want to charge for its service, however “several hundred dollars a month” doesn’t quite make business sense when there free or cheaper options out there.

Goodbye Brightcove…we hardly knew ya.

It Kinda Makes You Want To Break Into Song…

I love the Discovery Channel, I watch it religiously, but they have perhaps created one of the best television commercials known to man. Based on an old camp tune “I love the Mountains”, it features the stars of Discovery Channel’s hit songs.

Good luck getting this out of your head…Boom Dee Ada!

EDIT: You can download the video and mp3!