By Mindy McAdams

A piconet is an ad-hoc computer network, using free amon amarth ringtones technology protocols to allow one master device to interconnect with up to seven active devices.The passive attack allows a suitably equipped fre ringtones and wallpapers to eavesdrop on communications and spoof, if the attacker was present at the time of initial pairing.An example of the way mobile phones and mobile networks have aris ringtones been perceived as a threat is the widely reported and later discredited claim that mobile phone masts are associated with the "Colony Collapse Disorder" (CCD) which has reduced bee hive numbers by up to 75% in many areas, especially near cities in the US.Older (pre-2003) Bluetooth adapters, however, have limited talking ringtone download, offering only the Bluetooth Enumerator and a less-powerful Bluetooth Radio incarnation.salt shaker ringtone

Teaching Online Journalism

You will see something cool here if you upgrade your Flash player.

Notes from the classroom and observations about today’s practice of journalism online

« What I learned from the online photojournalists
A rallying cry to photojournalists »

Comparing photo slideshows online

I’ve been talking with a lot of people lately who are saying there’s no point in designing a new slideshow player. We should still make slideshows online, of course. They’re a great way to show off photography, and the added dimension of audio really completes the story.

We have several inexpensive options for creating a slideshow with audio: Joe Weiss’ Soundslides, SWF ‘n Slide (thanks, Alan!), Dominey’s SlideShowPro (requires you to own Flash; the first two do not).

I was also comparing some of the custom slideshow templates in use at some of the larger journalism Web sites. These give you an idea of how someone who has mastered Flash can create a reusable interface for a slideshow that doesn’t look like everyone else’s. For example, if you look at two slideshows-with-sound from Time magazine (Nachtwey’s Congo and Kozyrev’s Afghanistan), you’ll quickly recognize the common elements in the template:

  1. Preloading: All the photos and the single audio file load from outside the SWF file — you wait and watch a loading bar.
  2. Title, credits and intro text: Information up front, before any photos come on.
  3. Press Play to start the slideshow: This is nicer than an auto-start, in my opinion.
  4. Captions are visible by default, but can be hidden with an easy-to-find Close button.
  5. The Time magazine logo is built in (upper left corner).
  6. Controls at the bottom of the screen; some users may need to scroll to find them. This controller bar is quite sophisticated, and I like it a lot. One of the coolest things about it is that if you click the numbers, to randomly access the pictures, the audio goes immediately to the audio that goes with that picture. Sweet!
  7. An e-mail link is built in (upper right corner) — also sweet!
  8. Thumbnails of the full set of photos are available at any time from the controller bar.
  9. At the end of the slideshow, related links come onscreen. You can also get these beforehand from a button on the controller — and if you do, it holds your place in the slideshow and lets you go straight back to the photo you were on. Very nice.
  10. Audio can be turned on and off at will.
  11. Photo dimensions remain exactly the same: There are no verticals. The photos are 725 x 475 pixels. The SWF is 750 x 554.
  12. They are using SWFObject (under its former incarnation as FlashObject) to handle the JavaScript version detection and display. Smart! No reason to reinvent THAT wheel!

Just about the only thing you CAN’T do in this slideshow is drag the slider, but you really do not need that capability here.

Technorati tags: | | | |

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 27, 2006, at 12:56 pm and is filed under Flash, examples, multimedia, photojournalism, slideshows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply