#blog12daysxmas 2013 challenges

So 2012 is done and dusted. What technology challenges am I giving myself for 2013?  I have blogged elsewhere about my reading challenge targets - they might be p-books or they will often be e-books.  But what else?  Well, those of you who know me know that Flickr challenges are a constant in my life.

This year I have signed up for three specific Flickr challenges. The Flickr Friday Photo Challenge managed by my friends @ sarahgb in Wales and @csmramsden in Melbourne is a follow on from the 2012 challenge.  This is a themed photo challenge with three photos taken per week. I have enjoyed doing it in 2012 and it has been great to meet people all over who are doing this. Last year I undertook this challenge for the City of Boroondara Library Service and for Collingwood Historical Society in addition to my own personal commitment. This was quite a commitment but I loved it. Unfortunately the City of Boroondara Library Service has not continued this commitment but I will continue doing it for the Collingwood Historical Society along with colleagues in that group. If any of you are interested, please join us in the group.

My second group, Flickr 2013 PAD, is also a follow on from 2012 and from 2011 when we did Photo A Day. This is a group that @sarahgb managed but she has handed on the mantle to me manage this year! I hope I can meet the challenge! I have done a photo a day since 2011 and I must say it has become rather a way of life!  We have lots doing it this year so have a look and join us if you like.  This group started out amongst librarians in the UK with a couple of us from the antipodes but has broadened out a bit as time had gone by and now we are quite international.

My final Flickr challenge is a new one.  The Happy365 group established by @sirexkat asks us to post a photo a day about something that makes us feel happy.  There are a number of us doing both the 2013PAD and the Happy365 so there is some overlap.  But the Happy365 is an interesting one as it challenges us to take a happy photo. So far (in week one) it has been fascinating to see the scope of people's possibilities and to realize how many of those things make me happy too! Great kudos to Kathryn for coming up with this one!

#blog12daysxmas Day 9 videos from Flickr

 

I was very pleased to have finished my 366 photographs for the Flickr Photo a Day 2012 Challenge.  But as I stated a couple of posts ago I am very keen to create a video of the 366 photos like I did in 2012 with the late lamented Pummelvision.  So, rather than moaning about it any longer, yesterday I decided that I would explore possibilities.

After a bit of research I ended up with what seemed to be three contenders.The first was Animoto which I have used in the past in its free version which was going to be far too short for 366 images. Animoto in its free form was actually Thing Number 39 years ago and that is how I came across it.

There are also Plus and Pro paid versions and so I thought that that maybe the Plus version for $5 a month or $30 a year would be the goer.  I pottered around in the site for a while checking the functionality and made another freebie of my Loupe.com collages which I successfully uploaded to Youtube.  You can see it here.


Of course, then I looked into the fine print of the technical detail and discovered that the maximum number of images was 300!  Boo! That was not going to be very good for a year of 366 days (or even 365).

The second was Windows Live Movie Maker. I didn't get very far with this one, though I think fiddling with it seemed to change my Firefox settings and resulted in no video access. That is a whole other story.  The reason I didn't pursue it was that it only accesses photos on your PC or camera and not from other sites such as Flickr as I wanted. This may be a great tool but it is not what I want.

The third one was another paid site, Stupeflix. It also looked hopeful so I started making a video by loading up photos from Flickr. Although I could find no information anywhere on the site about the maximum number of images, my initial load stopped at 50 and although I was able to load more incrementally it could not deal with 366.

So does anyone have any other bright ideas?  Am I missing the obvious?  It seems to me that the solution is to do divide the year into two and do two videos using the Animoto Plus account.  At least my Flickr Friday Photos 2012 will only be a maximum of 159 photos!

#blog12daysxmas Day 8 2013 Photo a Day Challenge

2013 Photo a Day Challenge, a group on Flickr.

Just a reminder that the@Flickr 2013 Photo a Day Challenge starts
tomorrow 1 Jan! 

Follow link to join up and start posting!

#blog12daysxmas Day 5 Flickr Photo A Day Challenge

One of the things that I blogged about last year in the #blog12daysxmas challenge was the Flickr challenges that I was setting myself for the coming year, i.e. 2012. So how have I gone with them?  I signed myself up to contribute to two different challenges and in some cases was participating for more than one Flickr user.

The first challenge that I was part of was the 2012 Photo a Day Challenge that is administered by @sarahgb in the UK.  I participated in her 2011 PAD Challenge and was keen to do this one.  Of course, being a leap year it meant that I needed to do 366 photos this year.  Today I posted my 365th photo so I am nearly there! I have really loved doing this every day.  I have found that it really made to look at things around me quite differently and has also provided a good summary of the year 2012 for me to look back on.  Last year on @pollyalida's  suggestion, I made my 2011PAD photos into a Pummelvision video which I loaded on Youtube.  Here is it:



I would love to do the same for 2012 but unfortunately Pummelvision is no more so I will be looking for other options in the New Year.  So if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

I certainly loved doing the Flickr PAD in 2011 and 2012.  So I am planning on doing it again in 2013.  Maybe some of my #blog12daysxmas colleagues would like to join up?  It is a great exercise.  My friend Sarah is bowing out this year after three years worth of PAD and has handed the mantle over to me to continue.  I have set up a Flickr 2013 Photo a Day Challenge at www.flickr.com/groups/2013pad/ so just head over there and join up for the fun.  I was amazed when I did a search how many photo a day groups there are on Flickr!  But this is my one:) It has my Loupe dove (again inspired by @pollyalida) as the avatar.