I Make Things

This weekend, take some time to escape from the business and stress of your daily grind and make a hammock and lay around in it.

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Watch the video and print out this snazzy PDF.  Now get to it!  You’re going to need a few other materials to create this project:

1. 3 1/2 Yards of durable fabric. (less if you’re shorter than me - I’m 6′1")
2. Rope that is rated to hold humans.  Climbing rope or that kind of strapping that’s used to tie down stuff on the back of pickup trucks. Use better judgment than I did.  Clothesline is not an option! (My butt still hurts!)
3. Sewing machine and thread.

Make a double folded hem for the sides and a tube at the top and the bottom.  Go ahead and customize it if you like.  On one of the hammocks I made for a friend, I added pockets!

Make sure to take photos and upload them to flickr and put them in the Etsy in Action flickr pool. 

Safety: As you can see in the video, you do this project at your own risk. In retrospect, I wish I had used better rope rated for holding up humans and also had my hammock closer to the ground so I wouldn’t have fallen so far! I’m going to go get some climbing rope or strapping to avoid hurting myself again. (I bruised my butt!)

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This is the last video in my “Getting Started in Video” series that I’ve been doing at Etsy.

The easiest way to edit video is to shoot it in one take.  Here on the Etsy Video Awesomeness Team, we call those videos "One-Take-Wonders." 

But you can’t always get it in one take, or maybe your take is too long.  That’s when you need to learn how to edit.

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In this video you’ll learn five things.

1. Cut — Get rid of that awkward moment when you spaced out on camera.
2. Titles — Add text to your videos.
3. Music — Add Creative Commons music to your video.
4. Exporting — The setting you should use before uploading to the internet.

I’m showing you how to edit in iMovie.  It’s an editing platform that I love.  They changed iMovie a lot in version 8 and they made it a lot less awesome.  Luckily, if you’ve got iMovie8, you can actually download iMovie HD for free.  I recommend doing this if you’re on a Mac.

If you’re on a PC, Windows Media Maker is already on your computer and it’s a completely functional platform.  Combine that with Quicktime Pro for compressing the avi formatted videos that it outputs and you’ve got a decent system for editing videos.  All the stuff I show in iMovie will work in a similar fashion in Windows Media Maker too.

When adding music to your videos, don’t use music without permission.  It’s copyrighted, and having copyrighted music in your video means that you won’t be able to screen it at a film festival (and in a worst case scenario, the music industry could sue you). 

A strategy for adding music to your videos is to have musician friends hook you up.  We use music from our friends Barry London, Jukeboxer, Alice Cohen, and Lineland with their permission and we also have Matt and Eric, as in-house musicians.  No matter what music you use, make sure to credit it in your video credits and link to them in your blog posts.

Another way to get music for your videos is make it yourself.  I’ve made a lot of music with Garageband and it’s fun! I put out my own album of music that you are welcome to use in your videos.  I released it under a Creative Commons license so all you have to do is credit me in your video and you’re good to go.

You can also add music to your videos with Creative Commons music.  I’ve used music from this album that Wired put out, and if you search for Creative Commons music, there is a lot out there. Even if it’s Creative Commons, it’s always a good idea to ask permission for music, if for no other reason than to let your favorite musicians know how awesome they are.

I’ve also had good luck with the internet archive’s open source audio collection.  I particularly like old 78 recordings.

Once your video is all done, you’re going to want to compress it so that the file is small enough to upload to video sharing sites.  Here are the settings I use in Quicktime Pro for export. 

I’m always experimenting and trying new settings, so if you’ve got a different way of doing this, take a screenshot of your settings and post them to the handmade video flickr pool. 

If you’re making videos and you make things, join the handmade video google group (which we wrote about here) where creative media-makers chit chat about how we do things. You can always shoot me an email with a question, but the handmade video google group is a great place to tap into a community of video folks to ask questions if you get stuck or need help.

Looking for more video tips? Check out the rest of the Getting Started in Video series! And let us know if you’re making videos! 

When I was in my 20’s, I daydreamed about getting a job making musical instruments and I came this close to getting a job at Dusty Strings, a musical instrument making shop in Seattle.

This video that Tara made here at Etsy pulls on my heart strings. Part of me wonders what my life would be like now if instead of teaching and making videos, I had become a musical instrument maker.

If you ever dreamed of making your own guitar or just would like to see behind the scenes into the workshop of a Luthier, then this video is for you. It’s all about James Peters, his family, and his business, armor guitars, making custom guitars. - MP4 Link

While there, Tara shot a bunch of footage and put together a bunch of little videos and we decided to put them all out in one blogpost. I love this format. It’s like having a bunch of windows to look through to see a story.

James’ whole family makes a living on Etsy. Which is awesome. I love the idea that you can live wherever you want in the country and still make a living selling things on the internet. He’s not only a musical instrument builder, but he’s also a musician.

Check out these two videos of him playing and singing. Great stuff. - Link

Last year, some friends and I launched and lost a balloon with a bunch of cameras on it and multiple ways of tracking it. You can see the videos that I made about that here and here.

Recently I’ve been wanting to play around with gps/ham/aprs trackers and there isn’t really a great place to read up on aprs in one place, if yoiu’ve got good links, drop them in the comments please. I want to learn more!

The easiest way to get into it, is to get the Byonics Microtrak300. Keep in mind you’re going to need a null modem adapter and a female to female gender switcher and a decent usb to serial adapter. You’re also going to need a windows PC although you might be able to do it with parallels on the mac.

I didn’t have a null modem adapter so I checked out this diagram and wired it up on a breadboard to program it. It only uses 4 of these pins so it’s just a matter of switching pins 2 and 3 and connecting pin 5.I’ll take a picture next time I set it up to program it. It took me a while to figure this out because I was using an old laptop that had a serial out and either it didn’t have enough power to make the serial out work, or the serial out just didn’t work. We had a windows 2000 box laying around the hacker space and with some help from a friend, we broke into it and set it up. Having a regular serial out is really nice. USB to serial adapters can be fussy. You’ll also want to look at the device manager to see which COM port your hooked up to. I was hooked up to COM1.

Once I got it set up, I loaded up the software. Basically, you just slap in your call sign, pick the type of image you want to show up on maps, a little message, and how often you want it to beacon. Then you write it to the chip and you’re all set. I cut the gps serial cord and hooked it straight up to the device so it’s hard wired now.

Despite the fact that I’ve mounted it on the top of the 9 story building at the hacker space, I haven’t had much luck in getting it to hit a repeater station yet. I’ve been looking for it on findu.com, ariss.net, aprsworld.net, and openaprs.net and so far, no luck. I’m going to attempt to see if I can get it to hit the space station later tonight, but as it is, there may not be a local aprs internet gateway or I’m doing something wrong or I need more power. I’ll keep you posted!