North of the Stupid Line

NotSL now has a new home. I decided to get rid of the robwilks.com minisite and replace it with NotSL. There wasn’t really anything interesting at robwilks.com, and I never updated it, so easier just to have NotSL.

Bear with us while we modify the template, which is called “unsleepable”. You never would have guessed, would you? (!). Actually, bear with me while I experiment with different themes till I find one I like.  I’ve settled on Hemmed, which you can see in front of your very eyes.  I like it because it is neat and clean.  It’ll do for now.

Fancy a change, so bear with me while I play around with some templates and modify them to my taste.

I came across this article, with JJG and SCM alerting me to its existence. There is some discussion going on webwide with regard to who was the first Deaf Video Blogger. It could be me, so they say.

For the sake of clarification, my first videoblogging post is here, which no longer exists because I changed blogging platform from Moveable Type to WordPress. I’ve had a quick look through the archives (as I did import all the posts from MT to WP),and found the same post here, minus the comments unfortunately.

All the vblogs I did around the time that vblogging started it’s first tentative steps within the Deaf community are listed below, together with the date of publication:

• 10 August 2004
• 25 August 2004
• 29 August 2004
• 25 September 2004
• 22 October 2004

Unfortunately, all the videos themselves are not available. I’ll see if I can find them and upload them.

I agree with most of the posts and comments that videoblogging in ASL/BSL should be documented so that future generations know exactly when it all started, and by whom. I agree with what Alison says in her post here. I don’t recall anything different.

With regard to vblogging, I would vblog more often, but the main problems for me are:

1. Lack of high-quality camera/camcorder – I only have a cheapo webcam that I can use to record vlogs. I really need to get a digital camcorder. Mind you, I suppose I could use my Canon PowerShot S2 IS. (Note to self: try vblogging with the Canon.)
2. Lack of good video-editing software – I use Windows Movie Maker. Not exactly the best editing software around.
3. Time – creating a vblog can be rather time-consuming, if you don’t have a standard template / process of doing it.
4. Lighting – my house is really dark, so I’ve been unable to record video clips. Mind you, this may be different with the Canon. I could also record outside for better light.

This was an interesting list; seeing as I’ve offered solutions to the so-called “problems”!

It seems to me, after the initial excitement within the Deaf community in the UK, vblogging hasn’t quite taken off over here as it has in the USA. Why do you think that is? Perhaps you disagree with this point?

You may or may not have noticed that for a few days, robwilks.com was down. This was simply because I’ve now transferred all the websites that were hosted on my server with flexihostings.eu to a new server at dreamhost.com. Here’s a comparison chart:

Having looked at that, which server do you reckon I’m better off with? Oh by the way, dreamhost was US$119.40 for 1 year. flexihostings offered me a package for €444, which is US$577.53. If I stuck with my original plan, it would have cost me US$208.38.