If that wasn’t the corniest description for an event, I might’ve actually used it to describe The DC Freeze. All we did was

1. gather a large group of people (on facebook in our case)
2. waltz off to a place to stun (the Natural History Museum)
3. freeze in place for five minutes straight.

We didn’t invent the freezy flashmob, but we know we had fun. Video embedded after the break.

The DC Freeze from Bryant Zadegan on Vimeo.

I used two computers. Specs:

Laptop: Dell Inspiron E1705 from May 2006

• CPU: Core Duo 1.66ghz
• RAM: 2GB
• GPU: GeForce Go 7900GS
• HDD: 80GB hard drive
• Screen: WUXGA 17″ screen (perfect for those 1080p videos)

Rendering Workstation: AMD-supplied machine.

• CPU: Phenom 9700 B2 stepping
• RAM: Corsair 2GB
• GPU: ATI Radeon HD3850
• HDD1: 150GB WD Raptor
• HDD2: 500GB

My recording equipment is as follows:

Microphone:

• Make: Sony
• Model: PCM-D50
• Accessories:
  
  • Tripod
  • Windscreen

Camcorder:

• Make: Canon
• Model: HV20
• Accessories:
  
  • Lots of batteries and a battery charger.
  • Tripod (another one!
  • Case Logic bag
  • Two firewire cables (6/4 and 4/4)
    

Finally, my software setup:

Adobe AfterEffects CS3 (my video encoding medium)

Adobe Photoshop CS3 (used for a few of the effects, such as the squares)

HDVSplit for dumping the footage to the workstation

DivX Pro codec 6.8. This codec was what made the magic happen!

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition

A few notes: I recorded my footage in 24p because AfterEffects had a far easier time removing the pulldown from the 60i output of the camcorder than what I’ve faced from other software trying to deinterlace 60i with no pulldown (30F). Some people don’t like my overuse of 24p, though the vast majority seem to enjoy it, so I’ll be doing it for my next event as well.

I chose Windows Server 2008 for one reason. I was taking the rendering box in a suitcase to Las Vegas. I did not have room for a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, so the only viable option was to equip the machine in such a way that it would operate flawlessly over a remote connection. I had problems with automatically generating an ad-hoc wifi connection on Server 2008, so I instead installed the RRAS, DHCP, and DNS server roles. The RRAS role allowed for me to connect to the box without me needing a crossover cable as well as giving me and anyone else who demanded it a router to the internet connection in our hotel room (when used in conjunction with DNS and DHCP). Unfortunately, this box only served as a remote workstation since the wireless connection within the Venetian was utter crap.

Overall, this was a good setup, though it could be vastly improved (Powerful laptop for the next event?). My thanks goes out to AMD and their extremely helpful machine. The Phenom processors and Spider architecture aren’t that bad, people!

Want to know how? Simple:

1. Donate to the YWCA and remember to save proof! A screenshot should work.
   
2. Email Asli’s alias (in the video for the sake of antispam) with said proof.
3. Receive your shirt in the mail!

YouTube vid after the break, but if you count on reading anything in the video, you might be better off downloading one of the HD clips below. They both weigh in at under 80 megs a piece.

• Jensen Harris, Group Program Manager for the Office User Experience team at Microsoft.
  Jensen and his team work on the user experience behind Microsoft Office. They came up with the Ribbon UI, which many see as one of the best things to come to Office 2007 since spell check.
  

The biggest lesson you can learn from this video is to opt into the Customer Experience Improvement Program. Do it, seriously. It makes later versions of Office, Windows, etc. better for everyone. They don’t collect anything that can be traced back to you. They just collect things like which buttons or UI elements get accessed + how often, which functions are performed + how often, and other non-traceable things. No file names are collected. No file contents are collected. It’s all perfectly clean.

Corrections have been made to the previous two interviews. Feel free to update your copy (sound fixes on both interviews as well as a minor correction to the content of the Tim Harris interview). Sadly, I can’t upload those two to YouTube due to time constraints. The Jensen Harris video can be watched after the jump.

Update: I uploaded the 720p version for those who are interested.

Update 2: I switched to Vimeo as the video host since they allow for much higher embedded video quality. You can skip downloading the video if you want to watch it in 720p. The video enclosed after the jump isn’t in HD, but it is in HD over at Vimeo.

View the interview with Jensen Harris on Vimeo.

Steve, I owe you two quarters. How do I pay you?

(update: removed youtube link because youtube repeatedly killed the audio. I’ll upload it as an flv when I land in DC.)

• Tim Harris, Program Manager for the Platform Strategy Team at Microsoft.
  Tim plays a huge role in event logistics. Just about every major Microsoft event (think MIX, PDC, WinHEC, etc.) is an event which he and his team play a huge role in planning and coordinating.
  
• Chris Wilson, Platform Architect for Internet Explorer.
  Chris is deep within the nuts and bolts of Internet Explorer, as is likely implied by his title at Microsoft. He has a heavy hand in the design and development process behind Microsoft’s web browser..
  

The codec used for the videos is the DivX codec simply because of how fast the codec encodes the footage on my rendering box. Want the codec? Click here to download it from the DivX home page (avoid installing the crapware) or simply grab it as a part of many of the freely available codec packs (be careful with these).

Update: The Chris Wilson and Tim Harris interviews have been fixed. Feel free to re-download either

The first video I’ll post will focus on the hardware I’ll be using as well as other miscellany. As a reminder, all of my coverage from MIX and subsequent conferences will be licensed under a Creative Commons license. Look at the bottom of the page for information as to which license I’ll be using.

The first event which will grace the (currently dull) pages of this site will be Microsoft’s MIX08 conference in Las Vegas. I am attending on behalf of AeroXperience. My thanks goes to everyone who helped me get this project off the ground.