Thanks to Vodafone New Zealand, we have a Nokia 6121 Classic phone to give away on the g33k show this week!

We've been playing with our very own Nokia 6121 phone in the studio all week, snapping pics and shooting clips for a 'Making of  the g33k show' series. I've not had a new phone for years, in fact my trusty old Nokia is about (ahem) seven years old which is positively pre-historic in modern mobile terms. I didn't see the point of upgrading until the phones, cameras and plans got a lot better. I'm happy to say that our foray into the modern mobile internet has been really easy.  We've been very impressed with the user interface, the quality of the camera for both video & pictures as well as sound & screen quality. We can also see how great the g33k show will look when we start podcasting as mobisodes.

The Nokia 6121 is designed for accessing the mobile internet, making and sending multimedia messages. I put my old pre-pay SIM card in, had a fiddle and was amazed to see the g33k show website on the phone within a minute. Vodafone have worked on a technical backend to their mobile internet service, that reformats webpages for easy viewing on a mobile screen. Best of all you no longer have to sign up to a mobile internet plan, and can go online when you need to for a $1 a day.

Vodafone New Zealand say...

The new $1 a day casual rate gives customers up to 10MB of data – more than enough for most casual users on their mobile devices. No matter how many times you access the internet in that one day, the rate is $1 for the whole day up to 10MB. Customers will receive notification before they reach the 10MB limit. Once they go over the 10MB data limit, they will be charged at $1 per megabyte and users who regularly need more can take advantage of a suite of data plans.

For the competition question to win a Nokia 6121 phone, watch the g33k show on Friday 22nd August on Alt TV, at 8 p.m. on SKY TV 65, at the Alt TV site or podcast here next week. Entries to be emailed to theg33kshow@gmail.com and  we'll announce our Kiwi winner on next week's show*

*competition entries from New Zealand only. We'll have more competitions for our international viewers soon!

Here's our very first G33k Rawportage from behind the scenes of the making of the show. Watch the g33k show's new Qik stream, from the Mohawk Media HQ in West Auckland, New Zealand. Meet our Feline Overlords, and see the gear we use to make the g33k show from home.

Yes our TV studio & Animation station really is in our living room. This clip was shot using our Nokia 6121 using Vodafone's $1 a day mobile access on our ancient pre-paid SIM card.

Listen to New Animation tools with MsBehaviour & Wammo on Kiwi Fm >>

I have loved animation from a very early age. I was lucky to spend time at animation nights as a child, where we watched crazy old cartoons from Canada, Poland and Eastern Europea on a noisy old spool projector. I  also adored Road Runner with his Nemesis Wil E Coyote, Jungle Book, and the British kids classic Dangermouse. My list of favourite cartoons could go on for hours given enough nostalgia time. Then I lived in Bristol in the UK, which is the home of Aardman Animations and lots of hot young creative companies. You can't fail to be touched by the hand of claymation and animation if you live in Bristol long enough, and the Aardman Oscars turn up in the strangest of places. The last time I was at their riverside studios, I found one of the golden statues gracing the toilet cistern.

Luckily I married Chelfyn who is an animator, and now have a chance to make animation weekly on our g33k show. Being an Animatrix is probably one of the most creatively fulfilling things I have ever done, and the tools are getting easier to use all the time. Professional level animators should look to a great tool coming out of the free software movement called Blender. It was used to make Elephant's Dream & more recently Big Buck Bunny, who we were lucky to interview on the g33k show recently, and you can hear what he has to say about being a professional RADA trained thespian.

Blender is fine for animators who have been using other professional tools like 3d Studio Max or Maya for years, but if you are bubbling over with ideas, the new wave of web tools are a great place to start. I met the project team behind Christchurch animation company Zencub3d at the XMedia Lab in Wellington this year. Their  simple 3D animation tool which is a great place to start for young animators wanting to learn some of the techniques used by professional animators, such as like lighting, camera angles, and character planning.

Want to be an animator? Start with this flowgram of new animation tools. Inludes Blender, GoAnimate and Christchurch company Zencub3d, and we'll keep adding links as we find them.

PART 1/4: MsBehaviour brings you g33k news, from bananas to hackers, jetpacks to dome homes.

PART 3/4: Richard Stallman (RMS) on the four principles of free software.  Animation by Chelfyn.

Pods from nz.youtube.com/theg33kshow