The morning started slowly, mainly because I was nursing a massive hangover and my stomach was doing weird things to me, but I realised that the silent disco I'd been to the night before would make a pretty decent news story and also we could make it into a photo gallery. The harvesting of user generated content began.

For those who aren't familiar with a silent disco it's where people meet up at a set place and dance around to their iPods/personal steroes and no one has any idea what you're listening to. It looks weird from a far, but it's really good fun.

So, I managed to do an article and a photo gallery made up of content I managed to get through facebook. It's a social networking website, mainly for students, and getting hold of people was easy. I sent messages asking for quotes from people who I'd been there, I had a photo gallery of the event of 100 photos to look through. I asked for permission from the two guys who'd posted them up and they were more than happy to help.

So I created 'Dancing to the tune in your head' (http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=95232007) and 'In pictures: Silent disco rocks Edinburgh' (http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=94902007) without having to leave my desk (well apart from the night before when I'd been strutting my stuff like everyone else). It was a strange experience, but it just shows how strong user generated content can be when it's collected professionally. I said my thanks to everyone who assisted me with the articles and posted the links to the stories up on the facebook event group.

Had a meeting with Stewart this afternoon and we planned how we're going to shoot this debate on the Act of Union (300 Years) that is happening at the top of The Scotsman building. It's a case of plan, plan and more planning. Don't have to start work until 4.30 PM which is pretty good, but what time we finish is in the lap of the technology Gods!

Such a wonderfully weird experience last night, I took part in a Silent Disco. Everyone takes along their iPod or discman or any kind of music playing device, puts what they want on and dances around to the tune in their head. You'd think that it would look a bit weird, and it does if you're just walking past but when you're inside the throng of people then it's a really liberating experience.

Me and Amie synched our discmans to Bloc Party, Banquet, and danced around like mad people. But realised we really weren't mad. It was really good fun.

It took place outside Edinburgh's Students' Union building and there must of been well over 100 people there despite it being freezing cold. Gunilla was taking photos and I haven't got them yet but they should look cool, there's some on the facebook group for the Silent Disco:

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We went to the Liquid Rooms after that for some indie clubbing, was sweaty and messy but a quality night out. Only £1 in and then £1.50 for a pint, well worth it.

Now suffering a hangover and wanting to be back in bed, had a nice walk to work this morning with Arthur's Seat covered in snow in Holyrood Park.

It seemed like a quiet day. I managed to cut down the video file size and get rid of all the random dead air at the end, has a running time of 2:47 which is much better. Was preparing to finish early when Stewart grabbed me and I had an important task to perform.

There was a daring rescue mission yesterday by British troops in Afghanistan, it really was daring, they went in to save Lance Corporal Ford and strapped themselves to the side of a helicopter. The Scotsman has video footage of the troops fighting in Afghanistan so I had the task of trying to pull stills off the video that could be used in the paper, and also converting the video into a usable format. The Ministry of Defence sent the video and it was in some crazy format that made the file size huge.

Managed to convert the video easily, but then I couldn't get AVID to take stills from the video. A quick call to Andy Dickinson soon solved the problem and I had stills ready for the paper.

It was an easy process once you knew how and it was frightening stuff for photographers, we can pull very good quality stills from video for use in both the paper and online. Will there be a need for photographers in the future? That's the debate I've been hearing across the otherside of the table, as the video editing equipment now occupies half the photographers table, which is causing some resentment.

The video wasn't very good quality, but it's worth watching just to hear the noise and chaos of the troops out there. It also shows how news organisations can use the footage, previously The Scotsman and Scotsman.com wouldn't have been able to use it but now that they have the technology to convert the file there are a lot more possibilities.

I also interviewed Will Springer yesterday, who is working at Scotsman.com - or mainly for Johnston Press, as Deputy Editor (Content). He is tasked with creating content for the whole JP group and it was really interesting to hear what he had to say about developments in the digital field, especially as he'd worked as Assistant Managing Editor for the Wall Street Journal and WSJ.com

Was listening to Jamie T last night presenting his guest slot on Radio 1 as Zane Lowe was away and it was an incredible mix of music, really enjoyed it. Was a bit weird hearing such a 'sarf London accent on the radio and I doubt the programme controllers were thrilled with his choice of tracks. Listen again here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio1_aod.shtml?radio1/zane_mon

Then watched 'The Trial of Tony Blair' on more4 which was a quality dramadocumentary. Set in 2010 it showed how Blair was put on trial for war crimes, Robert Lindsey (the dad from My Family) was fantastic as Blair, got the accent and mannerisms down to a T. There's some interesting comments on it here: http://www.channel4.com/more4/yoursay/article.jsp?id=71

And I found this online earlier during my lunch break, Thom Yorke's performed two new Radiohead tracks as part of the 'From the Basement' series. http://www.fromthebasement.co.uk/

I thought I had finished editing my video footage last night and that it was a good enough standard to go online - I couldn't of been further from the truth. Stewart, the editor, watched it through and immediately I was delving in to change audio and video around.

It has now gone online, at Scotsman.com as part of the Union: 300 Years content, but it certainly taught me a lot about editing video to go online. The Scotsman is a quality newspaper, therefore Scotsman.com reflects the quality of the newspaper and the video that goes online has to be of a standard to reflect both the newspaper and the website.

I re-recorded my voiceover three times until Stewart okay'ed it, I edited clips down as far as they could go and then there was the right mess of trying to find a traditional Scottish song that wasn't anti-Union or a lament to the death of Scottish children.

Having said that the video came out well and as a short behind the scenes piece of footage it works well and at two and a half minutes then it's a good length.

Here's my tips for video editing:

• Always shoot more than you need
• Always use a tripod (I didn't for one bit and my editor nearly kicked me in the balls because the interviews were a little wobbly)
• Always check your levels are okay
• Find a quiet place to do voiceovers
• Be enthusiastic in your voicerovers
• Check the spellings of people's names for captions
• Research any music used and find out if it's suitable and won't get you sued
• Be prepared to spend a long time staring at a computer screen and cursing it

Other than the video editing I did an interview with Brendan Miles this morning for my Online Media in Context research project. He's the online business development manager and gave me some interesting insight into the advertising side of a news organisations website.

Spending this afternoon researching the two politicians who are coming in for a debate on Friday evening about the impact of the Union and whether it's worth it. I wiki'd them and it should make a good video package. Wendy Alexander and Nicola Sturgeon will be gracing Scotsman.com in the near future.

Today was a day for editing. Arrived at the office after a walk to work that did not involve much wind bufferting me across the streets and parks of Edinburgh - which was a strange experience. I've got so used to having the wind ripping through my hair and battering my face that I almost missed for a moment, and then realised it was a lot nicer without the damn wind.

The editor, Stewart, was off sick today and that presented a few problems - the main one being that all the equipment is kept in a locked cupboard and he is the only person with a key. I set about editing all the footage I had taken on Friday of the 200 children who came into The Scotsman office to have their faces painted and form up together to become a living embodiment of the Scottish flag.

The editing went well, the use of AVID - the editing software - came back to me as I worked on the 42 minutes of footage and attempted to get it down to around 3 minutes. I managed to find some music to run in the background of the package to spice it up a bit, 'Flowers in the Forest' as performed by an American bagpiper. Got his permission for it, a very important part of online journalism, or journalism of any kind, and the song is older than 80 years so we shouldn't have to pay any royalties.

Edited the package down to around 3 minutes and Ben, the deputy editor, seemed impressed with it. Ran into a few problems when trying to do my voiceover for the package as the only audio equipment I had was the solid state mp3 recorded which didn't have an external microphone. The biggest problem was where to record the voiceover, I couldn't record it straight onto the computer so I had to find a quiet place. I then discovered that air conditioning is the greatest enemy of audio recording and everywhere I tried there was a lovely humming sound in the background. Finally found an office that had no air conditioning and no one around, so sat there and talked to myself trying to make my voiceover sound interesting - not an easy task!

The whole package looked okay. I managed to add some fades which worked well and made it look a bit more professional. Will find out tomorrow if Stewart likes it and then it might go up on the website, as tomorrow it's 300 years since Scotland and England joined together in the Union.

The new equipment has been moved upstairs and is now located opposite the lifts and shared half the desk with the photographers - who looked a little disgruntled at having their space invaded by 'the new kids' and their gadgets.

The task for today was to film the 200 school children who were coming into The Scotsman's office and creating the Scottish flag - and a picture was being taken on high of them to be used in a wrap around cover for The Scotsman on January 16th, the 300 year anniversary of the Union of England and Scotland.

We were creating a behind the scenes style package on the photoshoot and I got the camera and set to work, shooting from different angles. It was a bit of a disaster to watch as the kids were face painted and then marched into the centre of the office and Neil, the photographer, was up in the top of the building on a movable gantry to take the photo. It was good fun to watch and I got some great footage with the camera.

Then we tried to get the footage off the tape and onto the editing computer. It took about two hours before it all finally worked and we were able to get the footage off - but the wonderful AVID system is in real-time and therefore my 42 minutes worth of footage took that exact amount of time to get onto the system. They always say shoot too much for television, but for online we might have to re-think and shoot as little as possible!

Stewart took me off for a pint while we waited for the footage to copy onto the system and I reflected on what had been a pretty good week of placement. For Monday there would be some editing to do, as the video had to be ready to go online for Tuesday.

I'll leave you with a picture of the view from my desk:

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