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Technology and the Arts Episodes 75 and 76: Choosing tools to make a song

TechArts is going to make a song, and share how they did it.

Technology and the Arts, my longest running podcast with the multi-talented Brian Kelley, is trying something different. We are making a song together, and sharing the process as we go. We are not sure what kind of song it will be, or what it will sound like. But we just recently locked down the tempo, agreeing on 80 BPM. We have also decided on Audiotool, the amazing cloud based EDM workstation. Some other details are revealed in the first two episodes of this season. all about making a song, collaboratively, remotely, and electronically.

Please watch below and subscribe on YouTube (links in the descriptions)!

“Streamed live on Sep 14, 2015 John LeMasney and Brian Kelley return for another season of Technology and the Arts – this time, they’ll take you behind the scenes of the creative process as they plan to collaborate on a music project.” found in Technology and the Arts – Ep. 75 (9.14.2015) – YouTube at https://goo.gl/92IdeF

“Streamed live on Sep 23, 2015 John LeMasney and Brian Kelley return for another episode of Technology and the Arts, as they continue to take you behind the scenes of the creative process of a collaborative music project.” found in Technology and the Arts – Ep. 76 (9.23.2015) – YouTube at https://goo.gl/v16Fwn

Of particular interest in episode 76 is a very brief overview of Audiotool, Audacity, and Drumbit, the tools we will be using to make our song.

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What’s going on in early September 2015 at LeMasney Consulting

Jedediah Higgins house, Kingston, NJ, Trees, cc-by lemasney
Jedediah Higgins house, Kingston, NJ, Trees, cc-by lemasney

Here’s what’s going on the first half of September at LeMasney Consulting:

  • Infusing Technology into Music Education with Vineland Schools (9/1)
  • Inkscape at Cherry Hill Public Library (9/9)
  • Internet of Things at Cherry Hill Public Library (9/10)
  • 10 ways to enhance your digital Photography with Open Source Software at Camden County Libraries (9/12)
  • WordPress site development, graphic design, and branding work for various clients.
  • Collaboration meetings with colleagues.
  • Evernote at Princeton Public Library at 7pm (9/14)
  • Podcast: Technology and the Arts
  • Podcast: The Customer and the Service
  • Podcast: Pods and Sods presents: Where I end and You Begin, A conversation about Radiohead
  • Teaching Technology and media in organizational leadership classes at Rider University
  • Raspberry Pi at Princeton Public Library at 7 pm (9/17)
  • Classes with Mercer Institute
  • Content Camp and Podcamp Philly (9/19)
  • Naturalist tour at Herrontown Woods, Princeton. NJ
  • The historical Higgins House in Kingston, NJ Photo Essay
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Pressly: The DIY Almighty Smartphone Button

Pressly: The DIY Almighty Smartphone Button
Pressly: The DIY Almighty Smartphone Button

“Most physical keys have been chased off phones, thanks to the rampant rise of touch-screen technology, but here’s a DIY project that wants to bring a smarter kind of physical key to your smartphone. Pressly is a hardware button connected to a 3.5mm male audio jack that plugs into the headphone jack of your Smartphone or Tablet. It is compatible with both Android and iOS(Jailbreak required) platforms. So, for instance, if you always wanted a shortcut to snap a photo and upload it straight to a social network you could create that function in the app which link to Pressly. Of course there are apps that can do this sort of thing, but the point about Pressly is that it’s a chunk of hardware that sits within easy reach of your fingers — thereby cutting down on the number of actions required to perform the function you’re after. Pressly is compatible with a number of apps listed further in the Instructable.” – Pressly: The DIY Almighty Smartphone Button, http://goo.gl/dt1i5L

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MintySynth

“While I encourage you to experiment with your own sketches, the preloaded MintySynth software can provide many hours of fun with no need for programming or a music background. It’s a 4-voice, 16-step wavetable sequencer (8 bit, 20 Khz) based on the “Illutron” Synth library by DZl of Evil Genius Lair. You can set the voice for four different instruments and program 16-note loops (“songs”) using all four instruments. There’s control of tempo and “swing”, and you can select any key and choose from several different scales (modes). Once you’ve created a song you can enter “Live Mode”, where you can change the pitch and voice of one of the instruments in real time so you can “jam” along with the other three instruments. You can save up to four 16-note songs and then reload them individually or loop them consecutively, creating songs of up to 64 notes.” – MintySynth.com, http://goo.gl/GYKMqr

Source: http://goo.gl/GYKMqr

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Open Source Primer: John LeMasney interviewed by Rich Kazimir on WDVR

LeMasney Consulting Logo
LeMasney Consulting Logo

A Primer: 11 Questions about Open Source (answered)

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Rich Kazimir on Technology Today on WDVR on the topic of open source. He asked me variations on the following questions.

  1. What exactly is ‘open source’?  What criteria applies ?
  2. Let’s focus first on software.  What is open source software?  What are some examples?
  3. What are some pros and cons of the philosophy?
  4. What is Mozilla?
  5. How did the movement get started?
  6. Who contributes to open source products?  How do they continue to exist if they resulting products are free?
  7. What are some other open source products?
  8. Do you have any idea how many open source software products are out there?
  9. Is ‘shareware’ the same as ‘open source’?  Is ‘freemium’ the same as ‘open source’?
  10. What other industry areas have embraced an ‘open source’ approach, or at least started to?
  11. What is the future of ‘open source’ as you see it?

Here is the audio from that broadcast.

Some background on WDVR

“WDVR FM hit the air waves on February 19, 1990 as a newly established, Non-Commercial Station. It is licensed to Penn-Jersey Educational Radio, a New Jersey, 501 (c) (3), Non-Profit Corporation. Its mission is to provide high quality, Non-Commercial Educational Radio service to the Delaware and Lehigh Valley area of Western New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania. WDVR provides a uniquely diversified format of music and talk, utilizing a staff of over 50 unpaid volunteers, each with his or her own specialized expertise in music and/or talk–“50 colorful gems creating a beautiful audio mosaic”. WDVR is a full-service FM station operating 24 hours a day at 89.7 Mhz from Delaware Township, NJ and at 90.5 WPNJ in Easton, PA. It also utilizes a translator on 96.9 Mhz in Trenton, NJ, serving the Lawrenceville, Princeton, Trenton area and points south. On the internet WDVR can be heard streaming live on www.wdvrfm.org . WDVR is a listener supported community oriented station, offering radio programming which is always suitable for the entire family.” – WDVR FM 89.7 91.9,

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My first keynote presentation: Lib2.0 at Stockton

Lib20: Media Specialist Symposium at Stockton University
Lib20: Media Specialist Symposium at Stockton University

I am very excited to have been asked to present the keynote and other presentations at Lib2.0 2015: A Media Specialist Symposium, in October 2015 at Stockton University (http://www.ettc.net/lib20/). At the event, I have been asked to talk about the following topics. Details for each session are below. If you are interested in having these topics delivered at your staff day training, conference, ot other speaking opportunity, please contact me at 609 553 9498 or john@lemasney.com

Keynote Presentation: Organizational Branding for Libraries
SESSION I: Social Media for Librarians and Media Specialists
SESSION II: Creating Sharable Content for Libraries
SESSION III: Google Cloud-Based Services for Libraries
SESSION IV: Top Ten Transliteracies for School Libraries (15 Minutes TED Style Talk)

Organizational Branding for Libraries

The aim of organizational branding efforts is to make these three ideas merge:

  1. We are presenting a brand of some kind now (active or passive, intended or unintended) that we hope creates a positive, accurate perception by our stakeholders.
  2. We have stakeholders that perceive our brand in some way, and we must discover what that perception is, even if it is not positive or correct.
  3. We can do actions, enforce policies, and check stakeholder perceptions to align our brand with our intended perceptions, the very intent of branding. We are doing these things to underline and reinforce what we are, and our patrons and other stakeholders understand and agree.

Come and learn about your library’s brand, and what can be done to improve or maintain it.

Social Media For Librarians and Media Specialists

We’re in what is referred to as the third wave of Social Media: The first wave was one in which people got Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google Plus, Hoot suite, and other social media accounts to connect with others socially and casually. The second wave was one in which organizations discovered that everyone was on these services and that they should probably be there too to take part  in the conversation, without necessarily knowing what that might look like, what their intent was, or what to expect about outcomes. Now, organizations are starting to make sense of how those social media accounts can help them to engage stakeholders differently than they do in person, track and make sense of visits, interactions, and connections and how that affects the rest of their work, and develop plans for success in social media in similar ways to the way that they developed their strategic plans. Come and learn how to make the most out of your social media efforts, how to decide if what you are doing is what you should be doing, and to discover what success looks like in social media outcomes.

Infographics and Visual Literacy for School Libraries

There is a trend in social media towards the visual. Images, videos and graphics get the most attention and lead more people to your other content. Social media platforms like Pinterest have grown powerful in a short period and reflect and strengthen the trend. The issue: while many of us are visual learners, not everyone considers themselves a visual creator, and so participation in the trend often is limited to simply sharing others’ images. In this session, we discover new tools that will help you to develop a beautiful visual representation of your ideas without having to become a certified graphic designer, photographer or visual communicator (even though you are likely doing those things already without much help or guidance). Learn how to create and find great images that support your ideas.

Creating Sharable Content for Libraries

In this session, John LeMasney will share 10 key ideas to consider when creating sharable content. What makes an article, image, idea, quote or other media particularly sharable? What technologies and methods can help you to give an interesting idea the best chance of being shared? How can copyright be honored and original sources be found? Why is there such emphasis now about sharing visual media over other forms? Join us for this session to help us find the answers!

Google Cloud-Based Services for Libraries

Learn how libraries can use Google’s free suite of office, productivity, organization, and life tools to improve communications and increase visibility in your community. We’ll discuss what can happen when library staff, administrators, and patrons use Google Drive, Hangouts, Maps, Calendar, Gmail, and Google Plus to advertise, communicate, and share information more effectively.

Top Ten Transliteracies for School Libraries

Transliteracy is the ability for a communicator to flexibly use a variety of methods to communicate their ideas more fully. This skill is an increasingly important one. Communicators who embrace photography, audio editing, coding, graphic design, video editing, can speak to a broader audience more easily. Let’s look at ways in which libraries can embrace, learn and take advantage of these literacies to communicate more effectively with their communities of service and practice.