Many workplaces lock down what people can and can’t do from their computer – understandably so in most cases. However, when people aren’t at work they’re free to choose what browser they use. My personal favorite, Chrome, reached a milestone and surpassed IE as the most used browser in the world on Sunday, March 18, 2012. For several hours, Chrome was the most used browser, taking 32.7% share. IE, the leader for the last decade, fell to second at 32.5%.

Overall, IE is still in the lead for the worlds most used browser, averaging around 35% of the market share. Thankfully IE9 has built-in support for a lot of features in CSS3 and HTML5. The release date for IE10 is sometime in 2012, and it’s supposed to have support for even more CSS3 features. Anyone still using IE8 or lower please upgrade!

First Things First

I think the Hipstamatic UI needs some improvement. While quaint, the rear-of-camera view needs to go - at least give me another option. I think this is one area where Hipsta can learn from Insta. I'd like to see an option for a UI with a more traditional camera app live preview. I think one appeal in favor of Instagram is being able to apply filters AFTER taking your photo. Hipstamatic's approach of quirky, unpredictable results by having you select lenses, film, flashes, etc BEFORE snapping your pic, can feel a bit clumsy. With a little thought I feel like they can get closer to the ease of use of Instagram and still keep some of the unpredictable appeal of their current model.

But Wait…

Hipsta needs an actual social network if it hopes to rake in those who are likely do jump ship once Facebook sinks its teeth into Instagram. For an app that already is packed with a well thought out store for buying more camera "accessories" (read: filters), contests and print ordering - one might safely assume that they have a network plan already conceived. I hope this is the case.

What will the coming months bear for Hipstamatic in the wake of FB's takeover of Instagram? Time will tell….

All smartphone users have seen them – the annoying ads that clutter the apps we use. But with most smartphone ads being ignored by users, the ROI for advertisers isn’t great. When apps aren’t as interesting as they once were to the user, they stop using it altogether, then the ads are not being seen at all. ROI goes from not great to none existent.

In an effort to solve this predicament and tap into unclaimed advertising territory, a company called sellAring® has developed a solution to those often ignored smartphone app ads.

How it works:

The user downloads an app the Agency developed – the Agency lists the app as “free”, but only if the user agrees to sellAring terms and conditions. These terms and conditions:  listening to an occasional ad, placed by sellAiring, in the short time between the moment a call is placed and the person on the other end answers. Instead of the traditional ringback tone, a targeted ad is delivered. Users are paying attention to the call -- Is it going through?  Is it going to be busy? ‘Gosh, it’s taking awhile for Jane to answer my call’ -- thus paying attention to the ad.

Those short seconds we wait for a call to be answered don’t seem very important individually, but think about how much time we waste waiting on calls to be answered when you put it all together. According to calculations done by sellAring’s inventor, Zohar Halachmi, it’s about 30 hours a year! Those wasted, unclaimed hours become precious moments for advertisers to reach their target audience.

The best part for advertisers? Even if the smartphone user stops using the free app they downloaded, sellAiring continues to deliver ads when calls are made.  And for the developers, the app is launched as it was originally designed -- no banner ads to clutter the hard work that has been put into it.

After a couple of years of working with footage shot on a Canon 5D Mark II, we here at CurrentMarketing have nailed down a workflow using Final Cut Pro (v.7, the REAL FCP, not the iMovie Pro being developed as we speak) and a toolset that has proven to be quite useful.

One of the drawbacks to shooting with the 5D is the inability to control the audio levels, which necessitates recording audio on an external recorder. We use the Zoom H4N recorder, with a Rode NTG-2 boom mic that gives us nice clean sound, but in an interview situation, with multiple cameras going, syncing up the audio with the video can be tricky. So to work around the tedium of matching audio to video frame by frame, we use Pluraleyes. Pluraleyes is a standalone application that examines open FCP sequences and syncs the audio and video for you, which comes in handy when you have multiple cameras across several interviews.

Another drawback to shooting with the 5D is the codec that the camera records to. H.264 is a flavor of the MPEG-4 standard and is not really a useful editing codec, due to its compression. Final Cut chokes on H.264 files (the new version of FCP allegedly edits the files natively, but really it transcodes the footage to another codec behind the scenes). Granted, Premiere Pro will edit the H.264 files natively, but Premiere is still like a brand new shoe - it's useful and a lot like Final Cut 7, but it chafes all the same. So to edit the footage in Final Cut, we use two different programs to transcode the footage. MPEG Streamclip, which is a free, totally handy utility for processing videos, allows us to batch process the footage files. It is extremely fast and an excellent program. If we have the luxury of time, we also use 5DtoRGB, a really amazing transcoder that preserves the pristine quality of the original files. The only downside to 5DtoRGB is that since it doesn't use Quicktime for the transcoding, it allows for a higher quality but takes a lot longer time to do so. So, mostly we transcode with MPEG Streamclip.

Still another drawback to the 5D is an inability to set timecode, which makes using script notes difficult, as each clip starts on 00:00:00;00. Our way around this is to use time of day for timecode. Once we transcode the footage, we then use a program called QTChange, that provides a pretty large toolbox to manipulate the files, such as changing the playback speed, changing the Reelname, resizing the file and deleting tracks. The most useful feature, however, is the ability to take the time of day of the original file and make a timecode track in the transcoded video. So, if your camera and the person taking script notes' clocks are all set to the correct time, it's much easier to find quotes in the script notes.

I’ve heard horror stories of co-workers iPhones falling into the toilet... I didn’t ask. Or dropping out of a shirt pocket and into the sink while washing their hands. It’s enough to give an iPhone user the cold willies.

Internet remedies abound like placing a soggy iPhone into boxes of uncooked rice or in a baggy full of silica packets (assuming you have a baggy of silica packets laying around the house), in hopes of pulling out all of the moisture and saving the phone.

Read enough message boards and you’ll learn that some are successful, others not so much.

Electronics and water have been mortal enemies since the dawn of modern man. Paranoid, I’ve been known to carry a ziplock back with me to football games if there is even a hint of rain in the forecast. I pack a minimum of 2 ziplocks with me  when my son & I ride the log flume at Holiday World. Laugh, but it works and my iPhone is alive and kicking.

All of that looks to be a thing of the past. A small start-up called Liquipel has developed a formula that will waterproof your devices down to the molecular level. After placing the fragile electronic into a vacuum chamber, some sort of chemical mist is pumped inside. A few minutes later the chamber is opened and your once hydrophobic smart phone is as waterproof as Aquaman.

Rumors have surfaced that the next iPhones ship with the coatings on them and AT&T recently debuted a new waterproof tablet called the Element the should be on store shelves any day now.

The thought is pretty spectacular. Not having to worry about my toddler dropping my phone into the bath tub almost makes me want to let her play games on it. Shooting video or taking pictures as my son & I ride water slides this summer sounds even better. Who knows I might even write my next blog in the shower, just because I can.

Google says speed matters – 4 out of 5 users will click away if a video stalls while loading. Google also notes that users have different expectations for, say video load times (are willing to wait longer) than for search results. As well as the fact that visually rich content is usually a trade off for ultra fast response times.

I find this interesting because of the new “retina display” technology Apple is developing. Higher quality screens means larger images, which means slower load times. Are microscopic pixels really worth the wait? Google also says that if your competitors website is 250 milliseconds faster than yours that you can kiss that visitor goodbye.

Brooke and I are deep in the PHP trenches these days, parsing our way through the ifs, elses and thens of C-based protocol. Being relative newbies to this particular domain, we’re learning that programming can be an unforgiving beast, and you confuse its symbology at your own peril. Here’s a guide to some of the biggest repeat offenders:

The Semicolon - Previously known as the prefix of impish “winky” emoticons and grammatical structures whose rules exist only on the quantum level, this tough customer will make or break you. It will, in fact, probably do both of things, multiple times, within a single function. Don’t leave home without it.

Brackets - Infuriating little things which create tesseracts of nested logic that eventually become impenetrable to mere human analysis. Did you open one of these? Well, it better have a corresponding close-out waiting, else the complex architecture you’ve been slowly piecing together will come crashing down while you scream fruitlessly at the uncaring sky.

Double Quotes - Due to PHP’s overlap with HTML, quotes become a sticky situation. Sometimes, you have to “escape” them, because you want quotes to happen within quotes, which is an intention that a computer cannot parse, because computers are just so mean, dangit. Don’t even ask about putting quotes within quotes within quotes. Just don’t.

Okay, so, I kid. Sort of. Like any other skill which involves the encoded creation of a thing - a thing that works, in a way recognizable to other humans! - from nothing, it’s joyful when you get something right, and to have that moment of pride turn into a platform for even more advanced creations. At the same time, that process of getting it right? Mount a pillow to your desk, else you’ll wear a permanent indentation there from where forehead met wood at alarmingly high speed.

Song for the Day: Boards of Canada - Mansel

We all know the alerts of social media use our eyes and ears, but soon you could add your nose to that list! A British research team is introducing "Olly," a small white device that will puff your favorite scent in line with tweets, comments, and pings!

Although I wasn't around for the unsuccessful "Smell - o - vision" era, the idea of Olly seems like it could be really awesome, or really stinky! The good news is you choose the smell! Just fill the box with whatever scent you like. Want your media to smell like donuts? Done! Once filled, the Olly screens the specific actions on the internet, then releases the aroma!

Some even suggest you buy an Olly for each wave of social media, one for Twitter, Facebook, email, and the list goes on! As many alerts as avid internet junkies get these days, this could mean one smelly office!

One of the greatest regrets I have from growing up is giving up guitar lessons when I was in fourth grade. I began taking them in the third grade and continued for over a year until practicing began to feel like homework and I ultimately gave it up.

It wasn’t until later in grade school when bands like Nirvana came out, that I decided to pick it back up and teach myself. The main problem was the lack fun in learning the instrument. That was back in the days of the first Nintendo and Sega.  Games were purely entertainment then.

Now that the gaming industry has progressed to the point of nearly lifelike graphics, online gaming, and 3D technology, people are spending more and more time in front of the monitor and less time being productive. It’s a constant argument that video games are consuming kids' valuable learning and exercise time, but some gaming companies are making an effort to change that by creating games that bring a little fun into learning. Following in the footsteps of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, Ubisoft has developed Rocksmith, a interactive game to learn playing the guitar.

Unlike Guitar Hero or Garage Band, Rocksmith is developed to actually help you learn the instrument. Instead of a plastic guitar with four buttons, you can plug in any real guitar. The game also offers a wide selection of amplifiers and effects pedals to choose from.

In the game, a difficulty system was developed to figure out the player’s skills and adjust the difficulty level accordingly as the player progresses.  If a player is able to strum a chorus easily, but is struggling with a solo, the game will up the difficulty level of the chorus while making the solo easier. There are also exercises/games at the beginning that teach chords and strumming. In one, a player would hit notes in order to shoot ducks fleeing down the fret board. In another, players strum in various sequences to put a series of falling tiles in the right order - "Tetris" with a guitar.

The system seems to be great for the beginner, but some argue that not being able to choose difficulty levels will alienate moderate to experienced guitar players. You can’t just play along with the songs the first time. You have to move your way up the difficulty level, which for an experienced guitar player can be incredibly boring. But I guess if you are already to that level, you might as well just plug in an amp and play along with the real song. There are also complaints that if the console is not connected correctly, you will experience lag on the audio playback, so be sure to read the instructions.

I’m sure there are plenty of pros and cons with this system and the game experience, but I think most importantly, this could be a great alternate teaching method to leaning guitar, especially for young kids. I don’t think it will ever replace the benefits of a traditional instructor, but it could help keep the student engaged in the learning process by making it a little more fun.

We see the use of QR codes more and more in advertising. They’re popping up in magazines, on public signs and on products. I even saw one on the door of the post office today. But are people really using them? A recent study says yes, especially as people are learning more about the new technology. In 2011 almost 4,500 of these black interactive symbols appeared in ads and on editorial pages. If you look across the year, January began with 3.6% of ads containing codes and December ended with 8%.

Despite this growth, however, research shows there is still room to improve. First, it seems consumers are not so quick to scan. Perhaps because it takes a little extra effort, users don’t know what’s in it for them, or they just don’t know what a QR code is. Well advertisers found when they describe the benefit the user will receive (free content, coupons, etc.) they have more success.

Second, not enough advertisers are using them.The study found that the more QR codes there are in one publication, the more likely they are to be used. The theory being once your phone is out, you’ll continue to use it as you read and scanning becomes a pattern as you flip pages.

It will be interesting to see this technology continue to grow as more people catch up to it. Whether it’s a deal, a link to a product page or something new to learn, next time you see a QR code, scan it!