Will Twitter's Periscope Turn GoPro Around?

Do you really believe that a Twitter / Periscope and GoPro solution will bring the stock back up from it's 90% drop over the last year? This chart seems to think so.

GoPro has teamed up with Twitter, according to the Wall Street Journal, and announced that its Hero 4 cameras are able to connect to Periscope and live-stream whatever the user is recording.

The connection is designed to allow users to use both their smartphones and their GoPro cameras intermittently without interrupting the live broadcast.

I still don't own a GoPro but would like one if and only if I can actually start filming while on duty. =)

Friend's Take Time To Give Advice

When I asked a couple of friends through Facebook or Twitter on their opinions on a specific camera choice, I got an overwhelmingly response. They all gave great insights coupled with personal experiences and I just wanted to post my experience and my gratitude. First the twitter story.

Olympus OM-D 5E Conversion

After months of reading, waiting and asking around, I finally made my decision.

Storified by Elijah Nicolas · Fri, Jul 20 2012 23:10:50

I post the initial question out on twitter and facebook.  
Clock is ticking! I need a new setup for my little girl that's going to be crawling around the house! Olympus OM-D, Mark III or NEX? #cameraElijah Nicolas
@jaythreepio replies first
@eejay i'd say nex just because it's more portable/compact but still has the interchangeable lensesJames
@jaythreepio check out all the reviews on http://dpreview.com and then tell me what you think. // http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympusem5Elijah Nicolas
@eejay based on the reviews, i'd say Canon. I do like Nex cuz of its compact design, but I've had bad experiences w/Sony in the pastJames
@jaythreepio did you read the one on the OM-D? It’s still a third of the price of the Mark III and formidable.Elijah Nicolas
@eejay oh, i didn't look at the price. haha i only compared the features/ratings. between the olympus & the nex... tough.James
@eejay how much video/moving pics are you going to take? because the NEX wins out on that compared to the OM-DJames
@eejay man, both are very solid. a real toss-upJames
A great conversation with @b737officeview
@eejay bottomline? nothing will compare 2 a true DSLR & people photos w/indoor light is where the 5Dmk3 specializes. 4/3rd is a compromise.b737officeview
@eejay BUT college is expensive and a lower end DSLR is STILL better than 4/3rd. look at TS4i, 60D, 7D too.b737officeview
@eejay I use DSLR for the forever jaw dropping photos of my kids, and my iPhone for on the fly.b737officeview
@b737officeview I like the distinction between the two. What DSLR do you use? I like the 7D but it’s a little “old” now.Elijah Nicolas
@eejay a 50D w/17-55, 10-22, and 70-200 lens options. I would DREAM to get the 5Dmk3. Nothing produces bokeh and DOF in portraits like DSLR.b737officeview
@eejay the way u get amazing kid photos is natural light and firing away with a high speed shutter… again the domain of the DSLR.b737officeview
@eejay if u are new to DSLR glass always is more important than body. Don’t blow the cash on a 5D only to put a kit lens on.b737officeview
@eejay buy a lower end body, get a 50mm 1.4 prime and a 17-55 (or 25-70 full frame) and upgrade the body later.b737officeview
@b737officeview I definitely appreciate all the input! I’ll be reading a TON!Elijah Nicolas
All the while, I read @stevehuffphotos review of the OM-D 5E
The Olympus OM-D E-M5 Digital Camera Review. Micro 4/3 finally matures...for real. By Steve Huff | STEVE HUFF PHOTOSThe Olympus OM-D E-M5 Digital Camera Review by Steve Huff Micro 4/3 finally matures..for real. Well here we are in May of 2012 and Olympu...
@stevehuffphotos after reading all about the OM-D 5E, I’m about 80%. I need a cam before Aug 15th for my baby arriving & thinking Sony?Elijah Nicolas
he's busy so no reply.
of course, I read about the lenses he likes
The Panasonic - Leica 25 1.4 Summilux Lens Review for Micro 4/3 | STEVE HUFF PHOTOSThe Panasonic - Leica 25 1.4 Summilux Lens Review for Micro 4/3 Finally! The lens I waited months for finally arrived! The Panasonic/Leic...
IT'S IN STOCK!
Panasonic 25 1.4 for Micro 4/3 is IN STOCK now! | STEVE HUFF PHOTOSThe much sought after Panasonic 25 1.4 for Micro 4/3 is IN STOCK now at B&H Photo! Normal price, not the jacked up price some have sold i...
My dumb butt waits four hours until I wake up and it's gone. I use his link and buy it through Amazon through J&R.  I still haven't heard about when it's going to ship 4 days later. 
@stevehuffphotos sold out but five left on Amazon for only $538.88! Well, four now since I just bought one & don’t even have a cam yet!Elijah Nicolas
I've been interacting with Gage through DM for the last few days.  
@GageCaudell bought the Panasonic 25mm f/1.4 Leica DG Summilux Aspherical Micro 4/3 Lens for the OM-D! Haven’t bought the cam yet :PElijah Nicolas
@eejay I've had the Panasonic 25mm f1.4 for a week now and really like it. You will love the OM-D. Let me know when you get it.Gage Caudell
@GageCaudell so are you using your OM-D a lot?Elijah Nicolas
@eejay I use it a lot for work and use when wanting to catch my little girl in action. Still use my Leica lot more.Gage Caudell
Trying to find the iOS app that gives me the proper / ideal settings for each camera lens. Can anyone point me the direction? #camera #DSLRElijah Nicolas
@eejay did you buy one? #DSLRGage Caudell
@GageCaudell no, not yet. I’m set on the OM-D 5E but can’t find a place that can ship one now =( I’m just going w/ B&H //cc @stevehuffphotosElijah Nicolas
@GageCaudell Although, now that Canon has shown off their M, I’m wondering what to do. We’ll see next week w/ the official announcementElijah Nicolas
@eejay I have a feeling it will be worth passing up the canon for now but could be wrong. B&H or Amazon is best.Gage Caudell

Now a post from a great friend from High School.

I'm actually shooting with an Olympus Pen EP-3 (with misc panasonic/ oly/ third party Micro-Four Thirds lenses)

The NEX-7 is a nice camera, but Sony's native lens selection is kind of lacking. It's worthy of praise because you can use old manual lenses that benefit from Sony's focus peaking. Also, due to the large APS-C sensor size and flang mount in relation to a streamlined body, the NEX lenses are designed to be inherently big. It feels like handling a smart-phone with a soda-can attached. Kind of defeats the purpose of a smaller form factor when there's little to no native compact pancake lenses available. Plus, they try to bury every feature in the menu screen, requiring a proprietary learning curve... if only it worked like an apple product.

The OM-D EM-5 is pretty much an evolution of the EP-3. A compact Micro-four thirds camera with some "raise-the-bar" type features like the 5-axis stabilization, weatherproofing, fast rate viewfinder etc... The stabilization provided some extra stops for low-light hand-held shots. (Great for non-flash shots when your child is an infant, and better hand-held when the little one takes off running) In the flesh, this thing is pretty small. It's about the same size as my EP-3 sans the view-finder hump. I'd say MFT cameras had a lot of catching up to do in the last couple of years, but the current generation MFT cameras are the shit.

As for the full-frame 5D's: No one will argue against the Mark III as the current industry standard. (And some confess: most of the time it's just to appease the clients). As a matter of fact, I was introduced to the smaller MFT cameras from a bunch of guys who have to lug around 5D's for a living. From a practical standpoint, the Mark III is a big investment on just a body when most of us don't get paid to do this. Not to mention, once you get the essential full-frame lenses you'll be lugging around a lot of equipment, averaging the cost of a Hyundai under the baby stroller. Try to chase your toddler around with all that.

To conclude, you should base your decision on what you like to shoot and the overall system. The body is pretty much dated in a year or two since the consumer camera industry is as, if not more fickle than the computer industry.

^Being a gear-head, I'm sure you already know all this but I figured I'd share my thoughts anyway. Good luck with the camera shopping man, there's a lot great choices. Just make sure you do it soon so you'll have a handle on the hardware before the baby starts to grow up quick.

Let me know what you go with and if u have any questions on the MFT side of things. And read up...we're all biased in some way.

BTW- Congrats to you and Adelle.

Friends rock! Thanks everyone!

Exposure & the Point

All I wanted for my "2012 iPad Story" was exposure.  It wasn't about self fulfillment, or advertising or anything of a self-centered nature.  I guess, all I wanted was for something good to come out of what happened to my wife and I.  (Is that self-centered) It still really hasn't hit me; that I'll be iPad-less for 2012 & ~$1700 more in debt with nothing to show.  I've had various responses ranging from a "ha-ha" to condolences.  Kind of a weird day all in all.  I mean, did I want sympathy?  Maybe just a touch, but more or less, it has made me really bitter and has gotten me to feel more negative about Miami and the world as a whole. I thought that I would get a lot of responses from blasting people on twitter, and I did get some good retweets, but nothing of fruition has come up.  Am I looking for a hand from the Apple God to replace what I purchased?!  Of course!  That might be a little self-centered, but it is just a drop in the bucket from their marketing department right?  Reading all the news about the new iPad and people's' experiences really just gets me more down and the commercials on television just really hit home that I don't have one.  I can't stand to watch one anymore nor am I excited to see it.  I haven't stepped foot in an Apple store since.

Things I have learned though: insurance companies depend on only other insurance companies pointing the finger to each other on who covers what.  Visa Signature doesn't cover theft from vehicle who then told me to call my car insurance.  Geico doesn't cover personal items who then told me to call my home owners, renters insurance and they are still "working" on it.

I guess people don't click on links on twitter either.  I got more hits from Facebook than anything else.  With URL shortening, I guess my link just looked like spam.  Thanks for the hits, the messages and comments.

Training since Last Week

If you haven't followed me in the last week or so on foursquare or twitter or on my Garmin Connect Profile, you can see that I've been busy traveling (working) everywhere and working out very lightly, if anything. It's hard to recover from a 55 mile bike ride then hop on the red eye back to work. Last Sunday, I was mostly mush and tried to run a little on Monday (.87 miles back and forth to the Crystal City Mall in Washington DC) but found out I was still sore so that was a no go. My true intentions were to pick up some daily vitamins from the GNC shop since I left everything back at home. <-- #FAIL

Here is Garmin profile of my ~55 mile ride that I did last Saturday with Trek San Diego. I rode with group B2 but then fell back to B3 then fell somewhere between the groups and ended up finishing on my own. It was a little rainy and I like to think that I performed well during some parts, but once again, near the end, I was faltering a bit and ended up resting too many times.

My First Not so Nite Moves (@NiteMovesSD) #FAIL

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been attending a weekly 5K in San Diego called Nites Moves SD which takes place on every Wednesday night at Liberty Station Park in Pt. Loma. I've been improving constantly (by seconds almost a minute one week ago), finding my rhythm & stride and what I initially thought was good headway. That is, up until last night's performance. I finished a miserable 28:45 which makes it my worse time in four tries! I've been running treadmills a lot lately on a incline of 1.0 at a steady speed of 6.5 / 7.0 so that might have made this run a little slower but I thought that I could best my 27 minute wall. Granted the last few days looked like this:

Monday/Tuesday Morning: I worked all day and was delayed on the flight back to San Diego for 2 hours arriving at 2:00AM not going to bed till shortly after.

Tuesday: Woke up around 8:00am motivating myself for the move to the new apartment in Downtown San Diego. Excited but somewhat exhausted

Tuesday Night: Definitely had a hard time falling asleep being anxious, excited and just new

Wednesday Day: Breakfast was a quick bar, daily mass, meeting w/ our priest to tie up loose ends before the wedding, coffee, head home to pack up more stuff, spill the full venti caramel macchiato in fiance's car, meet up w/ the caterer for finalization and payment, show mom the new apartment, grab lunch at JWok which is conveniently around the corner from our new apartment, head to Vons in PQ, drop off mom, go the bank on the way back to the apartment, get ready for the 5K.

If you notice, my nutrition and liquid intake prior to the 5K wasn't all that great. I didn't get to stretch that well nor was I feeling the tip top shape that I've been use to the previous weeks. It's crunch time and August is a big month . Good times! I'm just glad that it's somewhat smooth sailing from here. *crossing fingers*

Also, if you haven't already had the chance to see my tweet or facebook profile update, make sure to check out @DCRainMakerBlog on twitter, follow him and also navigate your way to his webpage for a chance to enter into his contest for a free Garmin 310xt! Check out his website here! http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2010/08/garmin-forerunner-310xt-giveaway.html

Web 2.0 and the Posterous New Blog

Intro:

I recently signed up for a posterous site, http://adellelijah.posterous.com, to host both Adelle and I together in one cloud space and in doing so, I actually ended up creating two more different posterous sites, http://adellelisa.posterous.com and http://elijahnicolas.posterous.com so that we can post on an individual basis.  Adelle actually didn't like me posting my stuff to "our" site so I decided that we each needed a separate one for self preservation.  I'll just admit it already: I am a posting whore.

Over the last few months, I've been using the Thesis Wordpress Theme in order to help with Search Engine Optimization on elijahnicolas.com.  I love the simplistic layout of the Thesis Theme so much that I even ended up buying the commercial license to use on Peak Interest (www.whatspyi.com) as well as my fiance's blog (www.adellelisa.com) which she is very hesitant to update but at least it's there.  Over the years, I have graduated from the Blogger platform hosting a multitude of different sites, to trying out joomla for a hot second to finally settling down on wordpress as my choice for a content management system.  Of course, twitter came around along with friendfeed and now posterous all within the last year or so and I indulged.  All the while, I was only looking for that singular reasonable mean to have all my personalities talk to each other and reflect each other's status'.  With posterous, I think I may have found the perfect solution!

Body 1:

The basic idea of Web 2.0 was to forge a design template that allowed for an easy GUI interface for those that weren't code savvy.  It was to provide a simpler means to update ones' online mediums / personality sites and in doing so, collaborate with others in the virtual arena.  That's my personal spin in layman's terms.  If you want the "real deal," here's Wikipedia's here.

Posterous has done just that.  They simplified the entire process.  They have taken out the horrific means of uploading to an FTP site or Content Management System and instead substituted it with the easy medium we use everyday: e-mailing.  You can "attach photos, videos, MP3s and files" to your e-mails, send it off to space and boom...it's that simple!  You could always do that on Blogger.com with text and photos and use a not so great plug-in with WordPress, but with one touch, I can upload a picture with a small post to my posterous account directly from my email address, it detects where I want it to go and publishes instantly without a hitch not only to posterous, but to anywhere else that I'm connected to be it my facebook, blogger, wordpress or even twitter account.

I was thinking of having it update my actual wordpress blog, but that's when things started to come together in my head.  I finally drew somewhat distinct lines.  I have come to the definite conclusion that my posterous and mobile blog are one in the same.  That's almost a no brainer, with a slight difference that the blogger site has a black background and posterous has a white one.  Posterous and my trelijah mobile blog are just quick snippets of my life.  Twitpic and twitter are just even quicker moments that I deem "3rd class" per say.  Of course the hierarchy of it all would be a long post, such as this one, on elijahnicolas.com, a picture accompanied by a posterous moment then a tweet.

Conclusion:

It is however convenient to have one place to update every personality, but duplication starts to become rampant and I don't want that to happen.  For now, I guess I'll keep trelijah going along with elijahnicolas.posterous.com and maybe with time, just end trelijah.  But as I always keep on saying, you can always count on me for some type of update.  That's enough.

p.s.  I had to edit the template of trelijah to fit the new format of pictures.  I like them in the full form.  Nice stuff!

Passport Renewal / Red Eye / Moving

All of the above (Passport Renewal / Red Eye / Moving) followed by a two day trip (not that bad) and a 4 day trip is going to make for a long, laborious next 7 days. I'm "caffeinating" while waiting for my passport to be ready at 1300.  It's great that I get a 1 day turn around but that consisted, so far, waking up at 3:30AM, driving to the LA Federal Buidling at 4:00 arriving at 6AM & hanging out till a little past noon then driving back to San Diego.  Def. not looking forward to the drive back.  This Starbucks, btw, has a TON of traffic.  Not just any regular traffic, but you see all kind of peeps from LA trendy, UCLA students both undergrad and med, scrubbie (litterally dressed in hospital scrubs) to peeps like me burning time.  It's a good place to people watch. *drinking venti caramel mach w/ soy and extra caramel*

I had to reserve a uHaul truck [deets: 10ft / in-town for $19.99 plus $0.99/mile] which stinks because all I'm really moving is a couch and television and a few boxes.  Maybe more than just a few (13 or so) but I'm going to have to pack, load, unload once I get in from the red eye at 6:00AM, pick up the truck at 8AM and try to complete the cleaning up process by noon on Saturday.  That's not to mention the fact that I have to setup shop in the crashpad forcing a trip to IKEA to buy a twin bed set.  This business is all going to be accomplished w/ little sleep due to a red eye schedule (DL 1048 SAN-ATL) Glorious day without a doubt. Going to have to run on some Red Bull and 5-hour energy.  Where's a retail FRS shop when you need one? <-- not that I've taken FRS yet, but it seems like it's a great product?!

this week's haps

  • Up at 0700AM for 2 roundtrips and a 3 hr gap in between. ATL-ABE-ATL-IND-ATL it's snowing in both places too! Can't hardly wait (^_^) #
  • It's always a pleasure to get off of work early but it kills to have your car's battery go dead in the parking lot due to prolonged parking #
  • Trying out Starbucks' new Espresso Truffle in a venti to hold me over the rest of the day. #
  • Up at 0500AM for a 5 leg day [ABY-ATL-AEX-ATL-SHV-ATL] then to the crashpad for a quick overnight. Day line tomorrow ^_^ #
  • Staying at the Merry Acres in Albany, GA! What a way to celebrate Black Friday. #
  • It's 418AM and I'm up and about getting ready for a four leg day. EVV-ATL-BTR-ABY #
  • One more leg to Evansville, Indiana then overnighting at the Jameson Inn. Any families up that way want to adopt a pilot crew for T-day? #
  • After 40 mins of Jepp updates, let the madness begin. ATL-MDT-ATL-EVV. #
  • I'm baaaaack.....in the ATL. A two hour nap then 3 legs to go with a deadhead in between. #
  • Finished Quantum of Solace -liked it but not as good as the first Craig. Now onto see 4 Christmases the catch on Heroes tonight b4 work. #
  • Nine hours left in SAN until I have to go back to work on a red eye and spend Thanksgiving in a hotel in Evansville, Indiana! Yea for me! #
  • sleep, wake up early for some word, hang out till the CoD5 tournament! be there at 1530! #
  • Toyota for servicing the Prius, walking to Hileary Park for some geocaching with mom, mailing stuff out for amazon sales, then...hanging out #

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August Schedule / Apps

twinkleMy new updated schedule for the month of August is up and over to the right -->

I've been twittering a lot lately with the Twinkle by Tapulous application and have found it to be quite fun.  It shows you who is nearby as well as the people that you follow on twitter.  The program is just a tad buggy as it ends up resetting my device once a day or so, but either than that and some other random programs, I'm on it the most.  Riding the bus to an from the parking lot is quite boring and this keeps me occupied. 

 

It's about 25 minutes till my birthday and I think I'll call it a night.  I had a great weekend which included a little birthday gathering at the house with some of my friends friends and I'm off again for another 4 day trip followed by a quick trip to San Diego (<36 hours) then by a nap then a 4 day trip.  Check it out on my August Schedule

***Update*** as always, because of the awesomeness that ASA lets up swap around our trips and schedules with an open time pot, I was able to trade my nap this weekend for something else a lot later in the month.  Looks like I'll be in San Diego for most of the upcoming weekend.  Check out the updated schedule.  See you on the beach!

Flight of the Conchords - Two Free Songs / 1400 Wake-Up to Shaved Head =(

Two of the funniest songs from New Zealand's underground indie/rock band, Flight of the Conchords, are being made available for FREE. Made famous by their HBO show, get it today while you can off of CNET's Free Music MP3 Downloads website. There are actually two songs available: Ladies of the World and Business Time. Both are hilarious tunes to listen to while just relaxing and hanging out. Oh yeah, I also went to bed early last night and with little interruption didn't get out of bed till 1400. I have no idea what I was on (water and some awesome Indian food) but I passed out! I'm finally up and about, but now I'm all behind on my chores and errands. Maybe it's because of my new haircut and my subconscious thought that by getting more sleep that it would grow faster? I don't know, but just maybe huh? Of course I barely had time to write this up, so, just follow up on the top with updates from Twitter or to the side link to trelijah for instant pictorial gratification. Here is an awesome music video too to accompany the Ladies of the World MP3.

Direct Link for Flight of the Conchords