Welcome to the 19th ApertureExpert Live Training session — and the first of the new G+ format!
Now that we’ve moved on to getting your images out of Aperture, it’s time to discuss one of the most treasured ways to do that, with those lovely, tactile things called books. We’ll look at these start to finish, and we may have to split this into two sessions. We’ll see as we go!
A new way to watch
This is kind of a big deal, and the first one may be a little rough, but we ran a live test and it worked out really well. What we’re now doing is running the whole show through Google+ as a Live Hangout, On Air. What this means is there’s no limit to how many can watch live (it used to be 100 people max), up to nine guests can actually join me on video live, and for those simply watching, instead of posting your questions to an invisible room, you’ll all be able to see each-others comments, and even respond to them in text if you like.
To watch, you’ll have to visit the front page of ApertureExpert at the appointed time for a link to see the live stream, or go to the ApertureExpert Google+ page directly. I will also announce on twitter. You may even be able to watch it directly on this site, which would be very cool. That’s one thing we didn’t test in advance. And if you want to be live on air with us, keep reading.
The next Live Training, Session 019: Books, will be held at…
TIP: You can subscribe to the ICAL feed and have reminders built into iCal, Google Calendar, or whatever calendar app you use. (Enable auto-refresh when you subscribe or you won’t see the updates)
The format & agenda
Being the first real show like this, expect this one to be a little loose and chaotic — but we’ll settle in. Here’s the plan:
- 5-10 minutes — Introductions and banter among the live guests
- 30 minutes — Live Training Lesson
- 15-20 minutes — Q&A. Since we’ll have a live video audience, they will get to pose their questions first. They will also be responsible for reading the chat feed and picking valid questions from there.
- ?? minutes — More banter, podcast style. Since we’ll have live interaction, we can chat about whatever strikes our fancy. Aperture and photo related, of course. Well, one would hope…
Special guest
I’d love to always have at least one other Aperture guru, special guest photographer, or otherwise awesome person on the show with me, and this weekend it’ll be my friend and fellow photographer Stu Harris www.stuharris.com. Stu will be joining us from the land of Oz, where he runs a very successful photography business in Tasmania.
Want to be on the air live with us?
So how do you get to be one of the other eight on the show live? That’s easy enough… be one of the first to put your name on the list. Don’t bother putting your name in the comments below; it has to be done on this link on Google+ so I can easily add you to a circle.
I have eight slots, but I will put the first 16 people to request it into the circle, in the event of no-shows or drop-outs. So that means when I open the doors, you gotta be ready to jump in. If you fall out for any reason, odds are your spot will be taken by the time you try to get back on. Please don’t be upset if you can’t get in, and if I get complaints about the format I’ll just limit it to 8 and risk empty seats in the show.
Part of your responsiblity as a live guest will be to read the live conversation in Google and craft some good questions for me based off of those. And of course you get to ask your own questions directly, too!
TIP: Try to get a decent microphone and headphones for this, so everyone can hear you clearly and you can eliminate echo. As a minimum, all newer Macs will let you plug in an iPhone headset with mic, so you can use that. If you’re in a noisy environment, please don’t try to participate. It’s too tedious to have to hear other guests talking over the background noise of vacuum cleaners, leaf blowers, barking dogs and screaming children.
Questions (Q&A)
Feel free to submit your ON-TOPIC question(s) any time during the session in the new Google+ hangout chat, however they will not be addressed until the Q&A. If you’re thinking of submitting a question, take your time to craft it into a logical, coherent question that I can read live and answer without needing further info. IT’S LIKELY NOT ALL QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED—we simply won’t have time.
Keep in mind that now, everyone can see what you write. So your question might get answered by another participant!
If you don’t get your question answered live, feel free to post it in the forum.
Download and free viewing
One of the features of the Google+ “On Air” broadcast is that Google automatically records then posts this video to YouTube. Here’s what we’ve learned so far… the quality of the video on the YouTube broadcast isn’t really enough to see exactly what’s happening on screen. It’s saved at a pretty low resolution. So, instead of killing the free broadcast, I am going to try leaving it online for the world to see — for free. My hope is that this will act as enough of a teaser to encourage viewers to part with $2 for the high quality recording, which will be sold just like they always have been, in the Live Training Catalog.
It’s a test that I’ll run for two or three trainings. If sales go up, great! If they drop, then I’ll kill the free feed.
Did I forget anything?
If I forgot to list anything necessary, let me know in the comments and I’ll update this post. This is new to me, too!
Saturday, February 9, 2013 at 12:19 PM 
ApertureExpert Live Training sessions are FREE online training classes for Aperture. Unlimited guests can wath the ive broadcast. The schedule is not fixed, and will be roughly every two weeks—at non-regular times, giving guests from all corners of the globe an opportunity to attend.