Mostly Lisa takes the Canon G9 for a spin from Lisa Bettany on Vimeo.

I just got my gadget geeky hands all over the Canon G9 (12.1 Megapixel, Canon DIGIC III Image Processor, Optical Image Stabilizer) a few days ago, and I must say, I am really impressed.

I really wanted a high quality point and shoot that I could use capturing the behind the scenes action on photo/video shoots and for grabbing quick video for my blog videos.

Although my media company owns 2 Canon HV20s, I almost always use a 2-year-old simple point and shoot, the Canon PowerShot A510, to capture most of my videos. Even though it’s from back in the days when it was cutting edge to sport a 3.2 Megapixel camera, it’s just lower maintenance, smaller, and less fragile than the HV20 and seems to scare and anger less people than the HV20 with the intimidating Rode Video Microphone. Plus, despite it’s age, the PS A510 has a great lens and can capture good 640×480 video. Also, it just quicker to just upload to upload and deal with the footage sans TB HDs.

(aside: I always bring my Gorillapod tripod (pictured above) with me wherever I go. It’s a really handy little tripod. It can bend around things and grip them. Much more flexible and lighter to carry than a standard tripod.)

And now I’m getting all gooey with the Canon G9. I may even have “love feelings” towards G9’s video quality. It shoots really sharp and clear 640 x 480px video at 30fps which is more than adequate for web content. It also shoots HD: 1024 x 768px at 15fps. The auto exposure works very quickly when moving from contrasting light conditions and it’s cool that you can zoom during video recording. It’s not optical and it does look fairly pixelated, but it’s still great that you are able to zoom.

This is getting super technical and nerdy. I promise my next post will be super fun for those who could care less about pixels, though you must admit, pixels are pretty neat. You are looking at some pretty neat ones right now. Respekt.

Does any one else love the Canon G9? What point and shoot camera are you using? And if you use your camera to capture video, give me your impressions or link me to one of your videos. Fanks!

PS. w00t! I just convinced my mum to buy the G9. First the iMac and now the G9… we are moving slowly, but surely in the right direction. Now, i just have to get her to ditch her 15 year old, very round screen TV!

Ok. So I went to Vidfest and was super inspired by Dooce, the sassiest female blogger ever and MightyGirl’s Maggie Mason.

Then, I went to the Vancouver Apple Store launch and waited in line for 2 hours and cried because i didn’t get a free t-shirt until they gave me one out of pity and embarrassment. And then upon returning home, I realized the t-shirt was sooo big I could fit my entire body inside it.

Then I accidentally URLed my blog on a few iMacs in the store. Oops. And I realized that there wasn’t anything in the store to see that I hadn’t seen when I went to the London Apple Store.

Of course, I took all sorts of video and photos at these awesome events, but I’ve had so little time to set up my MB Air and my MB slowed down to G4 stylez last night because I packed it so full of media goodness that it had no room to breathe. It was gasping and overheating and complaining a lot, so I’ve decided to take a good chunk of today and spend it on sorting my heaps of GBs, reformatting my MB, reinstalling Leopard on my MB, and digging into the MB air.

iJustine/eJustine reminded me about some software that I always forget about when my machine is acting up called Disk Inventory X. It’s super at showing you what stuff is taking up so much room on your computer and why it’s moving slower than a dehydrated donkey. I also used this opportunity to add more cartoony arrows and text in Skitch cuz it’s sooo fun!

Yikes! I take a lot of photos. almost 30GB in 4 months. I’m glad i found those old iMovie HD files though. Saved me a bunch of room!

Oh yeah! I got a Lomo last week! I’m ready to get so lomosexual.

This Holga Lomo has a hot shoe so I bought this awesome Colorsplash flash kit that came with a little rotating wheel that you can put coloured gels in to get extra snazzy tint in your shots.

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Photonic is an awesome flickr desktop client for Mac OSX. Just drag and drop photos, add titles, description, tags, add to albums and groups, and upload. I talked about it more in depth here. Works really well and it looks like it actually belongs on a Mac. Ahem twhirl.

Skitch is a desktop app that works hand-in-hand with Skitch.com to allow you grab screenshots or take photos from your iPhoto library, add sweet text or arrows, and with 1-click, upload and share them.

I’d seen Skitch on people’s twitter feeds for a while but I thought it was just another flickr wannabe, but oh was I wrong! This app combines three of my favourite things: Capturing screenshots of silly skype chats, drawing funny things on said screenshot, and sharing with my iFriends.

Before I would do everything in Illustrator or PS, and it would be laborious and very un-fun. But Skitch is heaps of fun, basically like having a revamped 2.0 MacPaint Now all I need is the Moose.

If you are a PC User you should check out Jing. It’s like Skitch, only it doesn’t look as good. I guess they didn’t want to scare PCers with cool design stuff. On the flip side, it does let you screen capture video, as well as photos which is pretty sweet. Mac users can use it too. I’ll give it a go and tell you what I think.

VLC is a cross-platform media player. This awesome app plays everything - every video format you throw at it VLC (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, avi, mov, mp3) it plays. Never download another obscure Codec or QT plug-in again! It also seems to play videos with video errors or audio issues that other players will completely reject and allow you to correct audio sync problems in preferences.

Visual Hub is a universal video converter for Mac made by Techspansion. It offers wikkid fast conversion from nearly every video format to iPod, PSP, DV, DVD, AVI, MP4, WMV, MPEG and Flash. If you work with video, that previous sentence probably make your eyes enlarge a bit and maybe bust out a little nerdy grin. VisualHub solves the most frustrating part of video production: Converting. Especially if you are working with clients who have no idea about compression, frame rate, or video in general:

Yeah, can you make it big.
Big?
Yeah, big enough for my screen.
But don’t you want to put this up on your website? I’m pretty sure you don’t want to go bigger than 640×480.
Yeah. Can you make it that big? And make it look HD.
But we didn’t shoot it in HD.
Well can you make it look like HD with some kind of ‘bells and whistles’?
*stabs stylus in left eye.

I use VisualHub on a daily basis. I’ll even use it to burn simple DVDs over Popcorn when I’m in a rush because the presets are so quick and easy to use. Also, if audio is more your game, you should check out Techspansion’s new audio converter, AudialHub.

iShowU is an awesome screen capture app that allows you to grab video and audio with great presets i.e., . I recently used it to create a short demo of a new firefox plug-in, PriceAdvance.

PodWorks is an app that allows you to move songs from your iPod back to your Mac. Don’t you hate the unidirectionality of the iPod? I sure do. This app solves that screaming face you make when you can’t do something you want to do something on your Mac and can’t. Take back your iPod!

What are you opinions on these apps? Is there a multimedia application that you love? Let me know if I’ve missed anything.

Vancouver found itself in a lovely and welcomed heat wave of 30C degreez this weekend. It felt especially sweet after the crazy hail and snow storms we had during the coldest spring in 35 years.

I headed down to Kits beach with a camera bag full of goofy animals which I released into the Canadian wilds.

Oh! Who are these fine fellows in my camera bag? Let’s see how they go.

Looks like this giraffe found a great view of downtown Vancouver and some foliage to snack on. He’s fitting in quite nicely.

Looks like somebear got a makeover! Faboo!

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What’s Vidfest and why do we wanna go? Well, it’s only the Vancouver International Digital Festival, basically:

the event for the top creative minds working in digital media attracting visionaries from games, web 2,0, interactive dsign, animation and mobile apps.

Vidfest runs from May 21-24th. For a full schedule and program info hit up the Vidfest 2008 site. This will be an amazing networking opportunity if you’re in the new media scene or you like watching others network whilst you judge and ridicule them. Both entertain depending on your “priorities”.

Hope to see all my geeky Vancouver peeps there and some new peeps that are super awesome. If you don’t recognize me, I’ll be the socially inept loser in the corner video chatting on my MacBook Air. Dude, It’s like a window to my soul.

Here are some photos I grabbed with my trusty Canon Xti/400D (with the 50mm f/1.4 lens) of the 604 Records Showcase last Friday at the Red Room for New Music West. It was great to see Jessie Farrell et al. as they rarely play their hometown of Vancouver. In fact, I heard them play more in Jamaica than in Vancouver! But, as always Miss Jessie and her rock star band looked and sounded smokin’ hot!

Jessie Farrell and Jesse Tucker rockin’ it.

Miss Jessie is lookin’ super fancy.

Ryland Haggis knows which ace is bass.

There were also other bands who were totally indie stylez like:

16mm

& Lotus Child, who were awesome

& Aaron Pritchett, who has some huge guns.

PS. Chad didn’t show. I know. He totally blew me off.

Vectorama is a monthly design/illustration competition on MostlyLisa.com. Last month, the penguin themed illustration competition was so chill, it was ace! Ninja vs Penguin pwnd the other competitors with her uber stealth penguins.

This month’s theme is Canadian Things! Things like: Hockey, maple syrup, Mounties, mountains, moose, beavers, snow plows, ice, and famous Canadian people, like Avril Lavigne. Feel free to exploit any Canadian stereotype you like. I welcome your ridicule.

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Whilst in England in February this year, I got very attached with a MacBook Air. It wasn’t mine but I wished and wished with all of my might for it to be so…

AND SOMEONE ACTUALLY SENT ME ONE!! A MB AIR!!! (CAPS LOCKS ATTACK!) How insane is that? I’m still waiting for a Darlick or a Darma dude or a cylon or Ashton or Jonah Takalua to appear…

PS. If anyone else would like to send me stuff, i still need an iPhone, more M&S Biscuits, and a dinosaur Pez dispenser to match my awesome dino PJs. Rarrrr.

Illustration by Pasquale, darkmotion.com.

I spent a lot of time in university. A good 6 years to be exact. I took classes in almost every subject, partly because I was interested in so many things, but mostly because I was distracted by figure skating and continually moving all over Canada in search of a ice dance partner who didn’t require serious emotional counseling.

In those 6 years I took 52 classes. 52 classes in linguistics, journalism, writing, philosophy, psychology, neuropsych, physiology, anatomy, acoustics, English lit & grammar, Spanish, Russian, history, art history, music, film studies, and drama. I know! That’s a whole lotta knowledge I’ve crammed into my short term memory. How much actually made it into my long term memory remains to be seen.

Now, obviously I think learning stuff is cool and fun or I wouldn’t have spent so many years doing just that… or maybe I just stayed so long because of the free medical/dental plans, scholarship money, and lack of adult responsibilities…

Every now and again when I hear students whine about super hard final exams, endless assignments, and less than adequate beer at Pub night, I think to myself, “What did I actually learn in university?” Here, I explore this topic in moderate detail.

Things I learnt in university:

1. The formant values of the Swedish vowel “ö”, the Russian vowel “ы”, and the Canadian vowel “aboot”;
2. The inner turmoil of Ivan the terrible
3. 20th Century European History (in general) AKA war sucks;
4. How to review a really long & boring English Lit book by skimming, plagiarizing & half watching the movie whilst watching a super cool action flick in your peripheral vision;
5. Philosophy & the Matrix (in general);
6. The twisted and shady side of chiaroscuro;
7. Modern poetry doesn’t NEED to rhyme;
8. MS Word & Excel is the devil’s handywork;
9. Psychology (in general);
10. Why Tolstoy was such a giant stick in the mud;
11. Nazis and Soviets were all over that propaganda shizz;
12. It’s best to stay far away from the snacks on the Battleship Potemkin;
13. The anatomy and phisiology of the ear & mouth/throat area (in ridicuolus detail);
14. Infant screams/cries are less than soothing to acoustically analyze than say, Enya;
15. Don’t sit next to the guy that sucks on pens causing them to explode over everything within a 5m radius;
16. You really have to commit yourself to produce a good Patronus charm;
17. It’s inevitable that you will get your worst mark in the class you took because you thought it would be super easy;
18. Tutoring ESL is a great way to meet cute foreign exchange students;
19. There are better ways to spend your time than failing to teach a monkey/chimp/gorilla language
20. Pavlov was a jerk to his dog

Things I didn’t learn in University:

1. How long it takes to boil an egg;
2. How to earn money (in general);
3. Anything about taxes;
4. Tener una conversación inteligente en español es más complicado que ordenar tacos en un restaurante mexicano;
5. How to fix a broken toilet or plumbing (in general);
6. How to navigate around Home Depot;
7. “Food-in-cupboard” maintenance;
8. How to negotiate with cell phone carriers;
9. Stuff about fixing cars or fallen off mufflers;
10. The complexity of screwdriver heads;
11. Where the missing socks go and who steals them;
12. Cooking food that tastes good (in general);
13. How to deal with over demanding, ambiguous, & clueless clients
14. Exactly where the maple syrup comes from. Trees? The ocean? Bee hives? Mounties? Beavers?
15. Anything about grout;
16. How to fix broken electronics;
17. Getting out stains produced by dark beverages, spaghetti sauce, and ink/jiffies/markers, on more often than not, white clothing;
18. Where all the money goes and who steals it;
19. Credit card debt. I swear, no one told me!!
20. Computers, using software, coding, photography, video production, editing, design… basically everything I need to know. Oops.

What did you learn or not learn in university? Also, if you know the practical solution to any of the above please leave a comment. Teach me and I’ll listen… mostly.

PS. Why am I sat in front of an uber kit? Kind of random isn’t it? More sweet photos and a special DIY photo blog from my latest shoot with uber Vancouver drummer, Jesse Godin this week!

Pownce tee provided by Startups Schwag.

As you already know, I’m a big fan of the 2.0 social nets. I was an early adopter of the big three 2.0s: Facebook, Twitter, and Pownce. (We shall not mention myspace. I like to pretend that it doesn’t exist). So far I’ve maintained active accounts in all three, but lately I find my ability to keep up witty repartee a la hotdogladies on all three almost impossible.

After a while, I find my tweets turning more into “What are you putting on your toast this morning?” than intelligent commentary of the technerdy things I’m doing. Plus, with the audience of these three nets differing so dramatically it’s not really appropriate to copy and paste or feed your status from one soc net to the others.

Twitter’s audience is uber geeky, from the tech, design, and blogging elite, to the politically active, to the dot com moguls. Anyone who is anyone on the www is on Twitter. Pownce seems to draw in a mixed bunch of users. For me, Pownce’s audience seems quite diverse, somewhere in between Twitter and Facebook with a huge teenage population who love youtube clips. Wowie! And the behemoth Facebook seems to attract everyone, including grandparents, ex-flings, your 9th grade English teacher, your arch nemisis, your 12 year-old Turkish penpal, and that annoying kid that ate Beefaroni out of old camping thermos everyday for lunch… Seriously, who isn’t on Facebook? I can only think of one person I know who isn’t on Facebook.

So if you are to keep the peace between your geeky Twitter iFriends and your tech-illiterate Facebook friends and your uber trendy Pownce friends you probably shouldn’t feed your daily WP plug-in tweets to your other nets. I find that it confuses people and then I have to explain things to people who think that Google is the internet and then I get annoyed and then bored and then I fall asleep in mid-sentence. And people seem to not like it when you fall asleep during dinner time discussions. Oops. Plus, with so many people on multiple nets, you don’t want to be double, or triple posting stuff to the same people.

What’s the solution then you lazy smart arse? Well, I think if you want to maximize your networking and community building opportunities you really need all three. I feel the same way with IM programs. You really need Adium, iChat, and Skype to communicate to all your iPeeps. But, in order to minimize the amount of time and effort you need pick one 2.0 net as your home base. This is where the majority of your updates and networking happens.

For me it’s Twitter. I have the most contacts on twitter and find it to be the best resource for tech updates, random geekiness, and general good times, including drunk tweets (:p) But, I must say there are a lot of fun times on Pownce. The ability to share photos, vids, and muxtapes is pretty awesome. I do think that Pownce is underrated, and I think in the next year it we will see it really catch on. But for some reason I don’t think that the Twitterati will ever abandon the little bird, no matter how many times they see him upside down or robotized or 404ed.

What’s your 2.0 home base? What do you find good or bad about this trifecta of 2.0? Do you use Twitter, Pownce, and Facebook? Opinions? Thoughts? Or comments on my drumming skills?

PS. Why am I sat in front of an uber kit? Kind of random isn’t it? More sweet photos and a special DIY photo blog from my latest shoot with uber Vancouver drummer, Jesse Godin this week!