Seesmic Blog

My webcam is in another state right now. So I use my Canon PowerShot SD450 to record, and have been putting them up on youtube and transferring them over to Seesmic.

@bear said something I’ve been fighting since I started… so I’ll let him go first.

So indeed, what is ideal for Seesmic? Again, I’m on Linux, so my good image editing software can’t be used, but I recently overcame my problem with ffmpeg not converting the audio when going from AVI to FLV. This is my new string I use, “ffmpeg -y -i MVI_4590.AVI -acodec mp3 -ar 22050 MVI_4590.FLV”. I tried half the day to get a video converted this way to upload to Seesmic. It actually showed that it uploaded once, but then never showed up in my list of videos. So I ended up uploading it to youtube again and pulling it over from there.

Maybe I should call myself the chief betatester, ok, alphatester.

This could be a recurring theme for a post, although I don’t want to be negative. But the current menu on the left side of Seesmic is so, so frustrating. I get different results every time up refresh, and not because things are updating either. I get from 0 results, to days ago results. And if I change from one to another, like go from public to friends, oh man, hang on, frustration is on the way. I understand it is a fancy flippy visually fun menu, but the more videos that arrive, the more frustrating it becomes. Resulting is multiple logouts and logins per day. And don’t even get my started on when the menu button like Public grays out. Happens all the time.

Now full disclosure here. I am using Firefox on Linux. My sole operating system right now. Maybe the menu works flawlessly on Safari on the Mac and on whatever on Windows, but I find Firefox to be pretty similar an experience as it was on Windows.

Ok, so I say all that to say this. Perhaps it’s just a bit much Flex. Or needs to be tuned some more for the increased loads it is getting. Based on other large sites using Flex, I have to believe Seesmic is doable on this platform.

UPDATE: I posted something on Seesmic about this as well:

I came across this post from LoicLeMeur.com from October 24th, 2007. (And just for my own point of reference, I met Loic on October 30th, 6 days later, at Jeff Pulver’s party at the Roxy in Boston. Sadly that was my last night in town since I flew out the next morning)

Anyway, the post has the first two seesmix posted. Which if you are not aware what a seesmix is, it is a collection of seesmic posts in a 24 hour period, or the weekend. All edited masterfully by Giselle Kennedy btw. Always entertaining, it is is a fantastic idea, and a daily digest of videos I look forward to every day.

So if you are new to Seesmic, or an old pro, these are fun to watch, and these two are the first two. (and if you are new to Seesmic, or Seesmix anyway, they improved quickly, so skip ahead a few if you don’t particularly enjoy those two originals) More to be found on the under the user, Seesmix, on youtube.

Please read the about page for specifics. But basically, I am really enjoying seesmic.com. And in that enjoyment, I am wanting it to be the best it can possibly be. So, I’ll blog about it.

stay tuned…