A few months back I decided that I would sign up as a Search Guide for ChaCha (http://www.chacha.com/) simply to look what they had to offer searchers and rep a bit of an inside witness at the inner workings of the application. The concept is that “experts” in certain topics will be guides to those of us that can’t seem to find the information on the web that they are looking for on their own. When you go to the site you have the option to chat with a Live Guide and have them do the search for you. These guides then build the directory for the search with out a guide function so the guides are basically filling the system with the internal software by doing searches for real users.
To make money, Chacha relies 100% on banner ads. These show up on the search listing and when chatting with a live guide which are supposed to be relevant to the search terms. They even use video in these chats that are so annoying that any infoseeker may just want to close the window and give up on it. Guides are subject to these videos every time they do a search as well, which is more annoying than you can imagine.
Nice concept, but it has very little use for most. The application itself on the guide side of it is somewhat user friendly, but the guides themselves are subject to extreme human error. Categorizing information that is easily searchable is a debatable function in the system and many guides don’t even bother with it. You could search with a guide about “DVDs” and the guide might just categorize it under parenting because they are in a hurry. This then shows a DVD ask in the parenting section when the actual search may have been about something totally unrelated.
Guides are treated as if they are sweatshop workers. They are paid $5 per SEARCH hour. This means that they are only paid when they are in an active search. Considering the system is extremely buggy and that the guides frequently get dropped from searches this $5 per hour is closer to $2 per hour if a guide sits there and takes searches the entire time. Guides can earn to a level stated as “Elite” and receive $10 per search hour, but the way the system is set up they only get paid that amount on a particular search term they have selected and trained on. Based on experience in the system your search terms are rarely searched, and it is set up only to pay guides that way if the term is exact. It is not by category.
When I started guides had unlimited time to do searches and consequently would milk the system for the most part. To get around that ChaCha site a max time limit of 20 minutes for a search, which really was a decent time if real searchers came in and needed some difficult to find information. After about a month it was dropped to 10 minutes, and now it is set at 6 minutes. So basically a guide has 6 minutes to confirm what the searcher really wants, because we know many searches are very broad, do the search, post the results, and confirm that the infoseeker is delighted. This may seem like a reasonable amount of time to perform the search, and it is in many circumstances, but guides are asked to work for free more times than not when a more detailed search is needed.
From my experience at least 90% of infoseekers are pranksters. It is a fun way for message board users to mess with guides while they post their conversations. So guides are spending more time reporting people than they are doing precise searches. Since all the searchers are pranksters, and guides are rated by infoseekers, many guides get awful ratings simply becasue the pranksters mediate it is droll. I welcomed pranksters during my limited time as a guide because if I didn’t I wouldn’t ever get anything to search for. They were the bright spot of the day and gave me some nice laughs.
Every once in a while I check in with ChaCha and try a search with a live guide just to see how it goes. I know what the guide application is like so I know how long it should take for searches I send in. I usually send in very simple searches that I could find in Google in seconds. Oh did I forget to mention that all the guides pretty much use Google to get your results for you? Yup. The application is position up where you use other search engines to find the information since the ChaCha index really isn’t that beneficial. It has built up a bit, but overall you can’t really give relevant links to an info seeker based on what is in the system. If another guide hasn’t searched it before it isn’t in the system so you have to spend an outside source.
Anyways, abet to the last couple times I did a search. I entered a very easy search. “How to make ice cream”. Easy enough and if you put that in Google you would have it in seconds. If I were doing the search from inside ChaCha it would probably lift me closer to a minute since you have to go through all kinds of unnecessary steps to get to actually posting links. The first guide used a standard reply that guides have in their fall down menu and really never acknowledged my existence. After 3 minutes the guide never listed a link for me, nor did they respond to anything I had said. So I clicked on “New Guide” because this is unacceptable. The next guide was almost exactly the same. 3 minutes, no info, no response. New guide again. This is where I got the big surprise. The guide got into the system and is just an inside prankster. They posted a link to Yahoo! in the chat widow and told me to search for it myself. On top of that the guide called me the “N” word. So basically after 10 minutes and 3 guides I had no relevant links, and have been called a racial slur. Sounds like a great experience eh?
One other thing I wanted to mention about this was that when I first joined ChaCha had no message board for guides to discuss issues regarding anything. They had a message in their “Knowledge” base that stated there would be a forum within a week from when I signed up. They do have a forum now, but that took 3 moths to get rolling. 3 months to create a message board that even a remedial internet user could do within a couple hours. Since there was no place to talk with other guides I did a search on Google back then for ChaCha to find a message board that maybe a guide created. I ended up finding that most guides had gone to a forum created on WAHM.com so they could figure out what the heck was going on. This was because ChaCha simply didn’t provide guides with any information.
What is most interesting about all this is that guides posting on this forum caused ChaCha to implement a policy that I think shows exactly what ChaCha is all about. Even though they did not provide guides a private forum to speak about issues and the fact that the feedback e-mail box was always full, ChaCha decided to announce a Public Discussion Policy. This policy stated that any guide caught speaking negatively about ChaCha on a public forum would be terminated immediately. Can you maintain that? They provide no place to discuss things privately and then have the nerve to threaten the guides who have complaints that would go unanswered when contacting ChaCha directly. I’m not against a policy of this sort by any means, but if you aren’t going to provide a community or help for guides you can’t inquire them not to complain about it where they can. In this case it was a public forum since there was no other region to get information.
In my final opinion, ChaCha is not a useful service. It will never succeed because it really has no practical use and the people running it really don’t have a plan to treat either guides fairly, nor does the system really work in a contrivance that is inviting to an infoseeker. They jumped on the marketing advise early while the system was unstable and had promos on shows as big as Valid Morning America. The day that aired the system was down most of the day. They have always been way ahead of their programmers and just do not understand their absorb limitations. OK concept in theory, but ultimately it is only worth using if you have some time on your hands and want to be a troll.
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Filed under Knowledge Base Software by on May 5th, 2011. Comment. 
Crossword puzzles in and of themselves are wonderfully educational. Crossword puzzles improve spelling, thinking, vocabulary and reading skills. Crossword puzzles are mathmatical as well; Crossword puzzles prepare students for graphing and coordinate geometry. Best of all, crossword puzzles expand the base of knowledge. My mother for example, has worked hundreds of crossword puzzles; as a result, she can utter intelligently on just about any subject. Her acumen covers cultures, time periods, science terms and her vocabulary is impressive.
Crossword puzzles make excellent lesson plans, quizzes and test formats. And even better than a generic crossword puzzle is a subject or drawl specific crossword puzzle. I culled the internet for free printable crossword puzzles that are content specific. I’ve found hundreds of free printable crossword puzzles that cover biology, geology, physics, anatomy, life science, animals, matter, astronomy, ecology, culture, history, world religions, geography, political science, government, social studies, literature and a plethora of other subjects. I’ve weeded out those sites that require a software download. These free printable crossword puzzles are gracious, user-friendly and require no password or user ID. Just click to print. The only software you may need is the adobe acrobat reader, which most computers already have installed.
To print green, print on the abet one-sided copies that have been recycled. For new copies, print double-sided copies to cut paper usage in half. Remember to position your printer preferences to ‘fast, economical’; you will reduce the amount of ink former by 50% to 90%.
http://www.sciencecrossword.com/ This spot offers strictly science free printable crossword puzzles. My only complaint is that while the crossword puzzles exhaust good science vocabulary terms, the terms are mish-mashed and not subject specific.
http://education.jlab.org/sciencecrossword/index.html Agreeable site. Hundreds of content-specific free printable crossword puzzles. Many science unit crosswords to choose from.
http://www.tlsbooks.com/scienceworksheets.htm Many more free printable crossword puzzles to settle from; science, social studies and more.
http://www.classhelper.org/crossword_puzzles.shtml Very impressive and complete collection of free printable crossword puzzles. There are close to 1000 different subject areas to choose from: art, religions, history, biology, math, seasonal, countries, geography, anatomy, geology, astronomy, music and many many more. I recommend that you bookmark this website and visit often for all your free printable classroom crossword puzzles. A homeschool family best friend.
http://sciencespot.net/Pages/classpuzzle.html Nice collection of free printable science crossword puzzles.
I can’t think of any subject that you might study about which you will not find a crossword puzzle on one of these websites.
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Filed under Knowledge Base Software by on Dec 17th, 2010. Comment.
If you’ve seen the works of Pixar, DreamWorks, Blue Sky or any of the countless others you’ve no doubt wondered how they do it. You may have even wanted to do it yourself. So how does one get into the 3D industry?
What do you want to do?
When people say they want to do what they see on television or in movies, they often don’t know exactly what it is they want. There are many different fields in the 3D industry and you have to know what you want to do before you can get in. You’ll demolish a lot of time going nowhere if you don’t have focus.
Do you want to be a character animator, modeler, effects animator, art director, background artist, compositor, layout artist, lighting, etc? The list can go on and on, but if you narrow it down it will be that much easier to drawl your path and make you better at you particular field. Don’t expect to master everything. Often time’s companies are looking for someone who can do a specific job really well.
Get the skills
So once you’ve decided on what you want to do but how do you get there. The first step is to learn the skills necessary. There are various ways to acquire these skills but they fall under two main categories, school and self-teaching.
School
If you decide you want to take the school route, you have to choose which school is right for you. You could go to a traditional university, where they offer a degree in computer graphics. At one of these schools they tend to have a broader focus. While you’ll be learning the field they may also require you to take core classes such as history, and science and other things not directly related to the industry. If you feel you want a well-rounded knowledge base this would be a superb choice. The pickle with these is that their main focus isn’t on this industry so they may not be as up to date as a specialty school.
Specialty schools are designed for those who want to focus specifically on their chosen field and nothing else. Specialty schools tend to be more new in the industry and keep their hardware and software up to date. They also tend to have contacts with the industry, which makes them able to bring in guest speakers or take tours of production studios. They also tend to have smaller class sizes, giving more one on one attention. In order to have smaller class sizes they have to limit the number of students that salvage admitted, making them much harder to get into.
If you decide to go to school for an education there are some things you want to study for.
Are they accredited? Do they have financial aid? What are the facilities like? Do they have up to date hardware and software? Do they help you put together a demo reel? Do they assist with job placement after graduation?
These are a few of the questions you want to ask when looking at potential schools. It may seem like a lot to ask but you need to be obvious a school is up to par before you put down your hard earned money.
Self Taught
If you don’t feel like paying school fees and commuting aid and forth to school, you may want to think about teaching yourself. There is pretty much one stipulation and if you don’t fit this criteria then you can forget about teaching yourself. Focus. If you aren’t focused and get distracted easily then you shouldn’t do it. You’ll waste a lot of time and you won’t get very far.
If you are able to study on your own, you learn well from reading books and don’t need a teacher to give you assignments and deadlines then self-teaching is for you.
Online
Learning online is like a combination between school and self-teaching. A school that offers online training will give you their curriculum but it allows you the flexibility to go at your own pace. You also get less of the general education and more core classes with an online education.
What do you need?
The plus side of teaching your self animation is that you’ll save a fortune. What you would have paid in tuition alone, you could potentially buy everything you need.
The basics for learning computer animation are hardware, software and training materials such as books or DVDs. For hardware what you’ll want is a computer with a fast processor and as much memory and storage space as possible. You may also want to accumulate a scanner and a drawing tablet. A scanner will allow you to scan model sheets or concept drawings and put them into your animation software for reference. Drawing tablets are perfect for the 2d artist. Rather than scanning in drawings you can draw directly into the computer.
Finding the proper hardware is a little more in depth then that but it mostly depends on the software you want to use. Most software will list their system requirements. So as long as you are at or above the minimum requirements you’ll be fine.
So how do you settle software? This is another hard ask. Anyone will tell you that there is no honest or wrong software. Software tends to be the same in that they all give the same results but they just have different features. You also don’t want to focus too much on the software anyway. Anyone can learn what buttons to push, but learning animation is a whole different story.
Most of the software out today have free trials, so try out a few and see which one you like best. It’s best to try them out before hand anyway to notice if you really like animation. One thing you don’t want to due is plunk down a bunch of money for tools and then find out animation isn’t the field you want to go into. For a completely free piece of software try Blender.
Besides 3d software you may want to look into 2d software, a paint program like Photoshop, compositing software for effects, and editing software. Once again there really is no definite choice. For compositing you may try a free program like Jahshaka, until you’re ready to go to the more advanced like Adobe After Effects. Windows and Apple have their own editing software that comes with their operating systems. Windows Movie Maker, and Imovie. For the more advanced users you may want something like Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro.
Once you have all the tools you need it’s only a matter of learning the programs. Read the manual that comes with your software and that will give you the basics you need. You may also purchase 3rd party training manuals as well. Some develops have even designed training DVD’s that will relieve you in learning the animation process.
Demo Reel
So you have all the tools you need, you got your education and your ready to test your skills. Well you can’t fair walk into any studio and seek information from to be given a job. Just like any other job you have to interview and prove them you are qualified for the job.
In the computer animation industry we have what is called a demo reel. A demo reel is a short video showing off your talents and skills. Consider of it as a resume. To give an employer an idea whether or not you are qualified for the job, they need to know what your skills are and if you fit what they’re looking for.
Rather than reading your qualifications and you telling them what you are capable of, they get to see exactly what it is you can do.
If you went to a good school, they more than likely helped you with your demo reel. But for those of you who didn’t make one here are a few things you want to be aware of.
Length
You don’t want to put everything you’ve ever done on your demo reel. Keep it short and to the point. You also don’t want to make it too short either. A two to three minute reel will do fine.
Good Work
This goes without saying but only put your best work on your reel. Your first animation tests that you were so proud of won’t cut it. Unless you nailed it right off the bat, which is highly unlikely, you don’t want to put the first thing you ever bewitching on your reel. You’ll be known for the worst piece on your reel. The worst thing on there will stand out and they will judge your entire reel based on it. So do not put anything that you don’t think is top notch on there, period.
Repeats
If they want to see something again, they can simply rewind the tape. Don’t put the same thing on your reel twice because you thought it was great. This will also show that you don’t have enough material if you have to put the same things multiple times. If you don’t have enough valid material, don’t make a demo reel until you do.
Creativity
People are tired of looking at spaceships and worship robots. Too many people put this stuff on their reels and after looking at it a thousand times it gets old. Putting something on your reel that hasn’t been seen before will go along was towards making you stand out from the rest.
Music
It’s really simple don’t put any on there. They want to examine your animation skills not whether or not you can score the soundtrack. Many will listen to you demo muted anyway so you don’t need to put any on there. If your piece absolutely needs music, make obvious it fits and check the levels so you don’t destroy anyone’s eardrums
Specify
You want to tell exactly what you did on the reel. For the most fraction if you’re just starting out you most likely did everything on the reel but after you have been working and you simply want to disappear to another job you may have work that you collaborated on. You don’t want to claim work that you didn’t do. Simply put modeling, or animation only over the piece if that’s what you did.
Label everything
Obviously you want them to know that you are the one who submitted the reel. Put your contact information on the tape and at the beginning and end or the reel as well.
You also want to specify what position you’re applying for so it gets to the right department
Tailor your reel to fit the position you want as well. You may want to be a character animator but if you have nice lighting or textures they may notice that instead and choose you for that job.
Minor tidbits
You want to make sure that every tape you send works. This may be tedious but you have to ogle your finished reels. If it’s a bad tape with a bunch of static or it’s poorly edited you don’t want to send it to anyone. If you go through the entire reel and there are not errors, make definite you rewind it to the beginning. You don’t want your potential employer to have to rewind your reel, because they most likely won’t bother, they’ll just chuck it out.
Get a new tape. They’re not that expensive. You don’t want your home movies in the middle of your demo reel. Also recording over other footage will lessen the quality.
Getting the job
With your demo reel all ready to go you’ll want to actually open applying to jobs. You’ll want to go about this like any other job. Take your resume and reel and apply. Do an interview and pray for the best.
You may already have places you’re interested in working at, if not you’ll want to do a search. Find a plot that will fit your interests. Don’t limit yourself to applying to the big name studios. You may find a smaller studio will fit you better. 3D animation isn’t limited to films either you may want to work in the video game industry or commercials too. Take a look at their other work and eye if it’s something you want to do.
Like any job you want to be well dressed and on time for your interview. Be prepared. You’ll want to know exactly what you are pleasurable of and be able to explain it to your potential employer. Know what’s on your demo reel. They may ask you how something was done and if you can’t tell them anything about it you’ll peruse unpleasant.
Remain calm. Relax and answer any questions to the best of your ability. When the interviewer is done, they’ll most likely want to know if you have any questions you would like to ask them. Make sure you have something to say; it helps to learn about the company.
A shadowy truth in this industry, who you know can often land you a job, but it can also hurt you. The animation industry is relatively small. You’d be surprised who knows each other. This goes with any job but don’t talk unpleasant about a previous employer. Your previous employer could be a relative of the one you’re interviewing with. On the opposite coin if you’re in good standing with a previous employer that can be a foot in the door of a future job.
A obedient way to make contacts is to attend events. Conventions or festivals will put you in direct contact with people in the industry. You can also leave your demo reel with companies at these events.
This industry is highly competitive and if you aren’t the best you can possibly be then you won’t make it. Execute sure you go to the right school or if you learn on your own that you stay focused. Try to get the best education you can. Put together a strong demo reel. This is often the deciding factor when getting a job. Be sure to attend events and get involved in the industry. Siggraph is the premiere event for all things computer graphic related. You will get to see what the industry is all about and you will build strong relationships for the future.
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Filed under Knowledge Base Software by on Oct 28th, 2010. Comment.
The Quick Books Pro 2007 Accounting Software for MAC has a lot of outstanding features. These features are what make the Lickety-split Books Pro software really stand out from among the rest. Following is a detailed list of some of the most outstanding features of the Quick Books Pro for Mac 2007.
When it comes to check writing and keeping track of your expenses the Speedy Books Pro for Mac 2007 definitely gets the job done. You can even estimate how great a particular job will cost you and get your payroll done. Sharing date with Microsoft Office, Excel, Word, and Excel are yet another feature of this program that really will save you time when it comes to getting your business records in the proper order. Some additional features are, quickly access to contact information, and balances or transactions, and ability to organize information in one general location. There are also numerous reports that you can print out such as Profit & Loss Standard, Profit & Loss Budget Performance, A/P Aging Detail, Statement of Cash Flows, Income Tax Detail, Inventory Stock Status, and more.
In order to run the Quick Books Pro for Mac 2007 you system requirements are Windows 2000, XP/Vista. This program also have customer designed invoices so your company can have a more original and professional look. If you are going to lift the Quick Books Pro for Mac 2007, make definite that you take the time to go the Interactive Tutorial Center, and the New Company Setup Assistant. Most of the time when people have problems with an accounting program it is simply because they did not take the time to read through or follow the directions. With the purchase of this program you also get free call back support but only for 30 days after registration. There is also a Lickety-split Books Online Community. You can get in touch with other business people like yourself and find out answers to any questions you may have about the software. The website for the Quick Books online community is www.quickbooksgroup.com. You also have the option of searching the online wait on knowledge base in order to get the relieve and aid that you need. This help is available twenty four hours a day seven days a week.Quick Books Pro 2007 for Mac will also run on Mac OS 10.5, as long as you have the software patch that is compatible with the program. If you happen to have an old Quick Book for Mac than you can composed upgrade it to the Pro 2007 version. If you have memorized reports that are saved in the older version, when you install the Pro 2007 version Quick Books will automatically convert them into the new version. This is great since you don’t have to worry about a huge amount of additional work.
The best part is that you can try QuickBooks for about 60 days with the guarantee that if you are not completely satisfied you can get a 100% refund. You just have to call the customer service number, which is 1800-446-8845 and request a refund. Just make sure that you have the product license number which is on your CD available when you call. By now you are probably wondering about the price. Well fill it or not you can purchase the Snappy Books Pro 2007 for Mac for only $199.95. This is definitely one of the best time saving investments that your company could acquire. For additional information on the Quick Books Pro 2007 for Mac, and for purchase information you can visit the following websites quickbooks.intuit.com, www.amazon.com, www.macworld.com.
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Filed under Knowledge Base Software by on Aug 17th, 2010. Comment.