I've posted a new tutorial on Adding & Managing Events, and you'll find it on the Tutorials page under the Help menu after you login.  Did you know that you can setup recurring events in our community calendar, so that you don't have to do a seperate entry for your regular user group or other meetings?  Check out this brief new tutorial for more information.

I've posted a new tutorial on Submitting & Managing Articles and Newsflashes, which registered members will find on the Tutorials page under the Help menu after they sign-in.  Additional tutorials are always being developed, so be sure to check back soon for more.  As always, if you have any suggestions or comments please feel free to post them to the member forums, shoot me a PM, or send them to me via our Contact Form.  Have a great weekend everybody!

Tomorrow's the official launch of Media-Geek.com and we've added another great feature to the new members area, a categorized events calendar.  The new calendar will be viewable by all visitors; however, only registered members will be able to add and manage events listed in the calendar.

The concept behind the calendar is simple - to provide a consolidated calendar listing the multitude of forensic related training events, conferences, and meetings.  The initial categories implemented include Photography Training, Image Processing & Analysis Training, Forensic Video Training, and Forensic Conferences & Meetings.

The new Media-Geek.commembers area is officially open!  If you've already resgistered, take a moment to check out the brief Getting Started tutorial.  Additional, in-depth tutorials and other documentation will be developed over the next few weeks.  In the meantime, if you have a question about any of the features provided in the members area you can post it to the Media-Geek.com "Help!  How do I..." forum, send me a PM, or submit your question via our contact form.

The concept is simple - a team effort, a community resource.  The more people who contribute, the more we all benefit.  If you're a forensic multi-media professional and haven't registered yet, sign-up today!

Wouldn't it be nice to see who else is logged in while you're online?  Well, now you can.  Check out the right-hand column on your profile homepage, and right under the "Status Center" you'll see a detailed listing of members currently logged in!

Wow, who'd a thunk it. We're officially 400 strong..."and groooowing"! That would've been hilarious if you could hear me sing it. Well, maybe not. Anywho, a big thank you to everyone for their support and participation in the Media-Geekcommunity so far!

A small investment of time and knowledge from a great many, typically far exceeds the value of a large investment of time and knowledge from a select few; some of you have already helped to prove that point here. On behalf of myself and all of the other members who have benefited from your contributions to our community, thank you! (I know, you would've preferred cash. No need to write in and tell me.)

One of our members notified me yesterday that a file which had been uploaded to our site contained a signature associated with a known Trojan.  As soon as possible, I verified using multiple tools and removed the file from our server (H264Player.zip).  Always scan ALL downloads and attachments for malicious code, regardless of perceived source.

An all new year brings an all new look and an entirely different platform for our forensic multimedia community.  Our new site has been redesigned from the ground up to simplify information sharing for our members.  Let's take a quick look at navigating the all new members area and point out a few important changes.

The Media-Geek.com Wiki is officially launched! Oh, Wiki you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind hey Wiki! Hey Wiki! Yep, I've officially lost my mind, but at least you didn't have to hear me actually sing that.

The Media-Geek Wiki is now available for our registered members, adding yet another way for members to share information, documentation, files, etc... One might think that a forensic community content management solution/system (CMS) with a multitude of additional content submission, categorization, and search abilities would be enough...but then, one would be wrong, wouldn't they?

Using a Wiki was one of the original concepts for this site discussed over three years ago while I was attending LEVA's Advanced Forensic Video Analysis & The Law course. Since then, there have been various tests and even a BETA launch in the summer of last year that was based on Microsoft's CMS product SharePoint. What it boiled down to was CMS or Wiki, knowing that both have advantages and disadvantages regardless of what product(s) or platforms you use. Then it hit me - why not both?

The Media-Geek community is now well over 600 members strong and growing!  Although I was literally operating in a state of emergency for the entire month of April and on the road most of May, this morning I managed to finish a significant system upgrade for our site.  This upgrade provides better integration of the video posting capability, improves efficiency for many features and addresses a few other minor bugs.

DMEpod, the new Digital Multimedia Evidence video podcast, will not be released this weekend as originally anticipated. Unfortunately, I just haven't had the time that I had previously planned to work on this project the last few weeks due to a number of variables. As it stands I'm hoping to pull off an early October launch.

Can you believe it's been nearly 6 years since Media-Geek's official launch? Over 1,500 verified members worldwide, and together we've helped to expedite thousands of investigations. A true testament to what can be accomplished through open information & resource sharing within our disciplines.

In With the New
Earlier this year I started my own DME & IT consulting business, and on November 1st I will be launching my new business portal DMEresources.com.

The DVR database will be moving into the new secure members area effective February 11th, in conjunction with our official launch of Media-Geek.com. Having the database available to the public has always been a security concern as well as a target for spam bots, among other things. There is no membership fee or advertising based revenue generated from this site, and I'm hopeful most will understand and take the few minutes to register. Look forward to seeing you "on the inside!"

It's finally done folks. The DVR database has been completely migrated to the Media-Geek Wiki, so it's time to say goodbye to our antiquated, non-integrated friend. Cheer up though, because during manual data migration I had to verify links and cross reference listings, and in doing so I added roughly ten additional current listings. Additionally, over the weekend I added exactly ten new proprietary viewers/players to our Downloads section.

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Over 20 proprietary DVR players were added to our downloads area this week, along with a few proprietary codecs and other resources.  The DVR file extension listing was updated to include nearly two dozen additional listings as well.

We hope you find these updated resources helpful.  Next time you come across a proprietary codec or player that's not listed on Media-Geek be sure to take a minute when time permits to share it with us.  Thanks for participating!  All the best - LC

As some of you may know, we've been upgrading the Media-Geek community over the last few weeks; thank you for your patience during this process.  Most of the heavy lifting is done, and what we're left with is a faster, more secure, and more accessible community resource.  It's even easier to view and contribute to our community, and now you can access it all securely via your favorite mobile browser!

Log-in today and check it out, then invite your colleagues to do the same.  Thanks for participating!

The new Media-Geek.com members area is officially open, and I'm really pleased with how the pieces have neatly snapped together so far.  There's still a lot to do, particularly in the way of tutorials and documentation, but all of the core functionality that was planned for the official launch (and even some that wasn't) is up and running.

The most recent additions to the new members area are the new Video Library and the Forensic Community Events Calendar.  These are two of my favorite features so far in the members area and, as geeky as this sounds, I'm really thrilled that they were ready in time for the official launch. Additionally, with Brad Doell's approval, I've added direct access to the FVA list through the members area.  Thanks again Brad!

If you're a registered member who wants to hit the ground running, check out the Getting Started tutorial.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be periodically performing some maintenance and upgrades to the Media-Geek platform.  As a result, the site may occasionally be unavailable for brief periods.  If you're unable to access the site for an extended period (e.g. several hours) or believe you've found a bug or error during this time, please notify me via PM (private messaging) or our contact form.  Be safe, and happy holidays to you and yours. - LC

Late nights, early mornings, and a couple of days with no sleep at all over the last few weeks makes Larry want to buy stock in Starbucks. The new site is progressing well, but I just can't let go of the IE6 issues as easily as I thought I could. They're really no big deal, just some minor cosmetic issues, but when you put all this effort into a project you want visitors to at least see it the way it was designed...even those who choose not to update their FREE browsers.

If you've been here recently, you'll notice I've already changed the new site's layout. The concept is to provide a clean, user-friendly interface; not a fancy, schmancy look. I think this new layout accomplishes that, so I'm sticking with it. Of course, I've had to re-do much of the layout work I'd done on the previous design, but I think it's worth it. Now I just need a MAC user willing to be a "guinea pig".

The Media-Geek site has finally been restored, and I just wanted to take a moment to apologize to everyone for the service interruption we've experienced over the last two days.

All is back to normal now and we have several things in the works for the near future. As always, if you have any suggestions or comments regarding our site and online community, please don't hesitate to post an article, through it in the forums or shoot me a private message to further discuss the issue.

Thanks for participating!

On Wednesday, March 9th at 10:00 AM PST (1:00 PM EST) I will be hosting a LIVE online tour of the members area.  This brief tour is to provide new and long-time members with a quick overview of navigating the members area and locating the multiple resources within.  The tour will last approximately 10-15 minutes and be followed by a short Q & A session, if necessary.  Seating is limited.  If you are an active member that is interested in participating, please register through our EVENTS calendar.

I've had a handful of inquiries this week about the frequency of our relatively new automated newsletter, so I thought I'd post a brief note for everyone on the topic.  The automated newsletter sends the five most recent articles and five most recent forum posts out to registered members once per week, once every two weeks or once per month.  Members can change these settings or completely unsubscribe from the newsletter by logging in selecting "Newsletter" from the "Community" menu options.

The automated newsletter was implemented to help keep members abreast of site activity.  Changing your preferences is easy and only needs to be done once.  I hope you find the service helpful. - LC

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Web 2.0 is a beautiful thing, as long as you don't let it consume you. Law enforcement and government organizations are slowly, but surely, beginning to adapt and take advantage of the many capabilities provided by social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Vimeo, and Twitter.

Even though we are one of those Web 2.0 resources, granted for a much smaller niché, I thought it'd be nice to invite those of you who do use them to keep abreast of Media-Geek and DMEpod developments with these tools.

Back in August I announced we'd be launching DMEpod, and I later stated that I hoped to have the first episode out in October.  Well, that ain't happening so get over it...'cause we've got LIVE streaming coming your way baby!!!

Media-Geek TV will be streaming forensic multimedia news and training content 24/7, and DMEpodepisodes will be cut from the channel and distributed via podcast monthly (or so).  All of the behind the scenes stuff is going to take some time to get worked out, so I'm personally setting January as our official launch date, but we're already loading and broadcasting content, and periodically running LIVE test events.

I've got to tell you, the testing is just plain fun, and I'm really excited to get others on board and contributing.   While the channel will predominantly feature pre-recorded content (and a growing on-demand library), the possibilities related to the LIVE event streaming are endless!  Think association, working group, or committee meetings...round table discussions...LIVE training with multiple instructors...LIVE interviews with industry vendors, engineers, and analysts...and so on. Geek or not, that is just plain cool.

 Maybe I'm a bit naive, but I'm sticking to the all volunteer concept, and hope you'll consider participating.

Time flies when you're having fun helping your peers and colleagues solve technical problems. Thank you to all who have shared their knowledge & expertise to-date!

I know I don't post to our LinkedIn group much, but I do post regularly to our site, Facebook page & my related Twitter account (@audiovideogeek). I plan to try to sharing on our LinkedIn group more often as well.

We've been expediting digital & multimedia investigations together as a community for over 5 years now. I'm really proud to be a part of that process, and you should be too. On behalf of our entire community, thanks for your valuable time and participation! All the best! - LC

This past weekend I added a direct link to the FVA FTPserver via the members menu.  The FVA FTP server is hosted by Jimmy Schroering, developer of the free demultiplexing software program Camsort and member of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation.  This extremely valuable FVA community resource was originally provided by Brad Doell, administrator of the FVA List-serv.  Speaking of which, I moved the link to the FVA list-servfrom the Quick Menu to the main Member Menu this weekend as well.  Many thanks to both Jimmy and Brad for providing these services over the years, as well as permitting me to include them in the Media-Geek.commembers area.

Additionally, I made some changes to a few script calls that should resolve most of the IE6 issues with accessing the Media-Geek.com Video Library.  There are a few other minor IE6 related issues to address, most related to the use of transparent PNG files, which I hope to get to next weekend.  As always, should you come across any issues or have any recommendations for the members area, please don't hesitate to post them to the Media-Geek.com Forumsor shoot me a PM.  Thanks for participating!

It's pretty amazing to me that in just under a year we've reached over 475 active members, and that number is steadily growing.

Now you can proudly display your official member badge to show your affiliation with our professional community, and we've developed a more efficient way for members to invite their peers and colleagues to participate as well.

In the last few weeks, we've added several new features and content areas to Media-Geek, and more are on the way. Some of these updates are specific to our members only area, while others are available to both the public and private sections of the site; such as our new customizable home page.

By default, the new home page displays recent articles from a few of our content areas, such as Member Articles, Media-Geek News, Larry C.'s Blog, and Newsflashes. Both members and visitors can change the number of articles that are displayed on the home page for each of these areas, and they can also re-order the way in which they are displayed using the drag-n-drop icon in the upper-right corder of the display for each area.

Do You Have a Blog or Podcast?

For the last few weeks, I have been absolutely inundated and just haven't been able to spend as much time as I'd like to further developing Media-Geek.com features and services.  The great thing about this community concept, however, is that its success does not rely on any one individual...and many others have stepped up to the plate.  At some point today I suspect we will exceed 200 active professional forensic media related members!

Recently one of our members pointed out that the Member Forum RSS Feed wasn't working, so just in case you experienced this issue I wanted to let you know it was resolved moments ago.  RSS aggregators provide a great way to stay abreast of our site content, with seperate feeds available for various content areas throughout the site. 

Thanks everybody for keeping things moving forward lately, and don't forget to tell your peers and colleagues to Sign-up, Sign-in, and Contribute!

Still tweaking this one, but I think it simplifies adding and managing articles/posts for members and provides a place for each to have their own blog...how cool is that? Each member's posts are displayed in the "community blog" and listed on their profile's "My Blog" tab. Posts can be displayed by author, category, tag or (obviously) searched through our site search engine.

Additionally, visitors can subscribe to the Media-Geek blog RSS feed OR an RSS feed based on author, category, tag, etc... Sweet. Don't have your own blog? Now you do! Posts can be a single sentence to several pages. Images and videos are easily uploaded and embedded, and we're providing all the functionality you'd expect from a blogging tool. Trackbacks, stats, comments, feeds, tags, and more!

Easy to use and free for members, so what are you waiting for...share your thoughts already!