Manager Tools (MT) is a weekly podcast that provides free training on how to be a more effective manager and leader. The hosts have an extensive background in coaching managers and executives.

Management is a skill and it can be learned. Typically it is not taught well, if at all; MT teaches it effectively.

If you’re thinking, “but I’m not a manager, I won’t benefit”, then you’d be wrong. Even if you don’t manage other people, you manage your own time and interact into a larger organization. The skills taught by MT are beneficial to anyone who works for a corporation.

These guys have been podcasting since 2005. There is some benefit to going right back to the start, but if you want to catch up there is a subset of casts that are considered “core”.

I’ve found this podcast to be the best source of on-going knowledge about management, leadership, and communication. Each cast is designed to teach specific actions you can take today.

MT was originally recommended to me be a friend at CSIRO. Since then I’ve listened to most of the episodes. It is that good.

Rupert Murdoch opens up to Vanity Fair’s Michael Wolff as background for an upcoming biography. The article provides great insight to the man and, by proxy, the companies he runs.

But his odd lack of seductiveness or felicitousness—contributing to his aura of villainy—became after a while alluring in itself. There’s no spin, because he really can’t explain himself. Rather, what you see is what you get. He’s transparent. The nature of the beast is entirely evident.

…

There is at News Corp. never a discussion of Murdoch’s exit. It is referred to only as “in 30 or 40 years,” when he is gone—which may have started as an amusing locution, but is now a practiced and even official one. His existential predicament is, in other words, his own.

The Guardian also has a good piece on the Battle Royale that is brewing between the new WSJ and the New York Times, and why it may no longer matter.

Murdoch fell into conversation with Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of the Journal’s arch-rival, the New York Times. By buying the Journal, Murdoch had parked his tanks directly on the NYT’s lawn. What, people wondered, would the two make of each other?

The 5D Mark II is one heck of a camera and puts Canon back in the game at the semi-pro level.

I was all set to buy the original 5D after its price dropped with the release of the new one. I also considered selling all my Canon gear to get the D700. I’m glad I waited.

The new revision has some grand features:

• 21 megapixel, full-frame CMOS sensor
• ISO 100 - 6400 (extendable to ISO 50 - 25600)
• HD Movie recording and HDMI out
• 3.9 frames per second continuous shooting

The addition that would have been nice is an improved max sync speed. 1/200 is a bit slow. ISO 50 helps, but it would be even better if max sync could get to 1/250 or 1/320.

External links:

• Canon Press Release
• DPReview Hands-on Preview
• Sample Video Footage
• Not quite pro for video

The video samples are not exciting, but are beautiful quality. If only Chase Jarvis was shooting Canon gear. Not that it matters, the new 5D will sell by the truck load.

I wasn’t hugely interested in the Olympics from a sporting perspective. I’m more a Winter Olympics kinda guy. However, I’ve found myself enthralled by the lengths taken by photographers to capture the games.

The main entry point is Vincent Laforet’s blog. He’s an experienced photographer and is sharing his thought processes as he covers the games for Newsweek.

Newsweek have taken an interesting approach and sent three photographers to shot the games and to blog about it. Their combined blog is here. This article is a good example of the kinds of information being posted. The editor also selects a photo for the day.

Reuter’s photo blog is also featuring an Olympic photo of the day from their photographers.

I’m learning a lot about sport photography and photography in general by reading through these, especially Vincent’s musings. I now have enthusiasm for the Olympics.

On a PC, I want to be able to easily capture screencasts for the products we use at work. The ulterior motive is to be able to show a video rather than repeat the demo hundreds of times.

VMWare gives a tantalizing option: Capture Movie

It is under the VM menu in the menu bar. Prompts for a filename and you’re away.

Slight catch. Playing back the movie that is recorded leads to not much but trouble. Turns out that VMWare encodes the movie into a non-standard video format. Details of it are here. (It is using the VNC protocol to encode the video with some VM specific headers)

If you’ve installed Workstation, the decoder for the codec is included. Otherwise, you can download the codec here. I found you need to use Microsoft Media Player to actually play back.

That still leaves the problem of editing the video. With the video recorded and the codec installed, you can convert the video into a suitable format. I used Prism’s conversion program to produce an AVI that can be read by Final Cut Pro.

Final Cut Pro took a bit of effort, but produced a very slick result. You can use simpler options for the video editing piece.

The result is that I can now capture video of demonstrations that are run in a VMWare environment, and re-mix them into various screencasts.