Frame-by-frame Analysis of the Famous Socialnomics Video

One of the most impressive promotional videos I have seen is Eric Qualman's "Socialnomics" 2009 video:

I believe there are newer versions of this video, but the key points of the following analysis hold for this and other such videos.

The target audience = business owners

This is, without a doubt, a 2:35 expostulation of advertising through social media.  It is filled with facts that are of most interest to business owners who meet the following descriptions:

• Aged 40+
• Owners / seniors in business
• Not computer experts
• Not avid users of social media

Viewers who are younger, do not have a controlling stake in the business, or are already comfortable with social networking and the prominent websites mentioned will either be unimpressed or will not need much convincing.

Let's have a look at the main argument:  (Click to see a full sized map)

It's not the most incisive analysis, but it gives a good overview.

As we can see, the argument is not cogent: it is an assemblage of unconnected facts that are cleverly worked appeals to fear.  Here is a great resource on fallacies of reasoning.

But it is nevertheless very compelling viewing.

Why?

Presentation.

Every statistic, every assertion, every description is presented in snappy, engaging animated text and images to well selected music.

Here is a frame-by-frame analysis of the holds (static text or image on screen) and transitions, performed using OpenShot Video Editor:

A few key points:

• Longest Transition = 100 frames = 3.3 seconds
• Longest Hold = 175 frames = 5.83 seconds
• Average Transition = 9 frames = just under 1/3 of a second
• Average Hold = 31.16 = just over one second
• Number of Cuts = 19 = a cut every eight seconds on average

Note the following distributions:



What this means is that for most of the video the text and images are moving almost continuously .  And when they're not in motion, they're only dead still for 1-3 seconds.
Likewise, transitions are almost too fast to follow -- over half of them occur in less than a third of a second!

However, it is also worth noting:

• The screen goes blank 15 times
• There are very few instances of more than one item moving on screen

What does this mean for your video?

1. Keep it brief, 
2. Keep it coming, 
3. Don't change more than one thing on screen at a time.

Oh, and have fun ;-)

I Didn't Think I Could Love OpenShot Any More Than I Do, But I Was Wrong

Over the last couple of years, I have supported the OpenShot project in every way I could, and have been inspired by its evolution under the guidance of Jonathan Thomas -- the guy deserves a medal.

One feature that I needed was a keyboard shortcut for adding a marker.  So with a little bit of grep I managed to find the information I needed in the MainGTK.py file.

Here is what my change looks like in code:

if self.is_edit_mode == False:
            if keyname == "c":
                # Cut all tracks at this point (whereever the playhead is)
                self.cut_at_playhead()
                return True
           
            if keyname == "m":
                # Experimental, trying to add a keyboard shortcut for adding a marker
                self.on_tlbAddMarker_clicked(widget)
                return True   


Here is what my change looks like on screen:

And here is what my change looks like on face:

Thank you, JT and the OpenShot community, for this magnificent software :D

Working Out My Desired Income in Haskell

1. desiredIncome x = x > $3000 per month after tax and superannuation contributions
2. Tax = $4650 + 30% of per-annum income between $37,000 and $80,000

Eventually I'd like something that takes all of my expenses into account and calculates the desired income as well, so it's for general use not just personal.  For now, this is a good start.

Floor Mats and Haskell

This is a problem that I'd like to solve in Haskell.

The other day I went to Clark's Rubber to purchase some carpet vinyl. I'm also interested in mats for doing rolls and handstands on a danceFloorArea.

There are two sizes:

smallMatLength = (600mm)
smallMatArea = smallMatLength^2
smallMatUnitPrice = $30

largeMatLength = (1000mm ^2)
largeMatArea = largeMatLength^2
largeMatUnitPrice = $50

I have a danceFloorArea in mind:

danceFloorWidth = 2200mm
danceFloorLength = 3200mm
danceFloorArea = danceFloorWidth * danceFloorLength

I want to cover as much danceFloorArea as possible for the lowest possible price, i.e. I want the highest possible possible danceFloorArea/[small/large]MatUnitPrice ratio:

Should I use smallMats, largeMats, or a combination of both?

1) How do I calculate (danceFloorArea / smallMatArea) without a remainder?
2) How I calculate (danceFloorArea / largeMatArea) without a remainder?
3) How do I calculate danceFloorCoverage = (a * smallMatArea) + (b * largeMatArea) without a remainder OR with the smallest possible remainder

Other questions, I guess...

1) How many smallMats can I fit into the area?
2) How much would (1) cost?
3) How much of the area would I cover?
4) How many largeMats can I fit into the area?
5) How much would (4) cost?
6) How much of the area would I cover?

Haskell Notes 2011-07-23

This is a note about Haskell

Haskell Notes

I tried to write the Douglas Adams joke but got an error.

*Main> let "The Answer" = 42

:1:20:
    No instance for (Num [Char])
      arising from the literal `42'
    Possible fix: add an instance declaration for (Num [Char])
    In the expression: 42
    In a pattern binding: "The Answer" = 42

Starting Out In Haskell (Lists)

I'm going through a delightful introduction to the programming language Haskell called Learn You A Haskell For Greater Good.

So far I like it a lot.
I'm no expert programmer, but I have a few neat bits of Python in my pastebin, and have lost many hours of sleep tapping away in Python in a mildly addicted manner.

The great appeal for me is that I can read something in Haskell (at least basic stuff) without being confronted by a wall of punctuation and brackets.  It also differs from Python in that once you define a function:

doubleMe x = x +x

Then that function will never change.  You can rest assured a thousand lines later that "doubleMe 20" will return 40.

Haskell generates lists in a really neat way.

Let's say I want a list of all the integers between 1 and 1000:

Prelude> [1..100]
[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87,88,89,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100]

That's it.  Haskell's got it covered.

For my next trick, let's say I want a list of every second odd integer between 1 and 1000:

Prelude>[1,3..100]
[1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23,25,27,29,31,33,35,37,39,41,43,45,47,49,51,53,55,57,59,61,63,65,67,69,71,73,75,77,79,81,83,85,87,89,91,93,95,97,99]

Neat, eh?

I thought, "OK, let's get crazy with this.  I want the difference between each integer on the list to be one greater than the previous difference, i.e...

1,3,6,10,15

And so forth.

So I tried:

Prelude> [1,3,6..100]

And got this error message:
:1:7: parse error on input `..'

I wonder how I can convey this in Haskell?  Oh well, something to look forward to.  For now, it's a lot of fun, but it's time for me to get to bed.

Chapter 2A: Rank Tracker in Market Samurai

OK, before I apply SEO to clockworkpc.com.au, let's see what Rank Tracker tells us about my website....



As we can see, clockworkpc.com.au ranks pretty highly for the term "clockwork" in Australia, but it isn't even on the map for the other terms, which are pretty competitive, unsurprisingly.

But at least we know that the only way is up.

Am installing MeeGo 1.2 on my eeePC

Market Samurai : Chapter 1A : Understanding Keyword Research

What is the purpose of Clockwork PC?

• To provide educational and training resources to Ubuntu users
• To encourage and support Free Libre Open Source software (FLOSS) 

Whom is Clockwork PC aimed at?

• Ubuntu users
• Open source enthusiasts
• People looking for instructions on how to do things in Ubuntu 

So let's think of a few terms and acronyms that relate to Clockwork PC:

• clockwork
• clockworkpc 
• PC
• computer
• personal computer 
• laptop
• desktop
• ubuntu
• linux
• gnu
• GNU/Linux 
• open source
• opensource
• free
• free software
• libre
• libre software
• FOSS
• FLOSS
• ubuntu tutorial
• ubuntu video
• ubuntu videos
• ubuntu lesson
• ubuntu lessons
• operating system
• driver
• drivers 
• kernel
• kernels
• install
• installation
• debian
• deb
• package
• packages
• compile
• source code
• software
• software center
• software centre
• ubuntu software center
• ubuntu software centre
• PPA
• personal package archive
• LTS
• launchpad 
• long term support
• mark shuttleworth
• canonical
• update
• upgrade
• updates
• upgrades
• GNOME
• GNOME shell 
• unity
• KDE
• Kubuntu
• Lubuntu
• Xubuntu
• Edubuntu

Market Samurai : Chapter 0 : The Journey Begins

I have just purchased an amazing software application for keyword research with a view to search engine optimisation called Market Samurai.

Over the next few weeks I will work through the Market Samurai tutorials and try to apply them to Clockwork PC.  I'll report my thoughts and experiences on this blog.

Wish me luck!

A very important detail if you mount anything on /media

Categorized | Database, System, cli

Use locate across external devices in Linux

December 5th, 2010 by T4L

By default, updatedb indexes only your root partition when run. To be able to extend locate’s reach and get updatedb to index external devices such as USB harddisks and flash drives, edit the /etc/updatedb.conf file. Modify the following line:

PRUNEPATHS=”/tmp /var/spool /media”

so that it reads

PRUNEPATHS=”/tmp /var/spool”

This adds the devices mounted in the /media directory to the search path.

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← Make Tomboy run in the GNOME Notification Area

Theme your WINE applications in Linux →

via tips4linux.com

I keep my user folders on /media/ DATA which until now has meant that I haven't been using the 'locate' command properly. Little wonder then, that this has frustrated me no end.

An excellent article with some great Linux tricks

via apcmag.com

Every now and then I come across an article with a really handy tip. Today's link is full of them!

musicfetcher.py : A python script to fetch music from freemusicarchive.org

I've worked out how it would work, but I need to learn how to get Python to find the substrings in question.
Any advice would be appreciated:

#!/usr/bin/python
#findurl.py
#Released under a GPLv3 Licence by Clockwork PC

import os
H = os.getenv("HOME")

#Get the lines in the file that contain the URL substrings
for line in open("/home/clockworkpcasus/Music/freemusicarchive.org/index.html"):
    if "http://freemusicarchive.org/music/download" in line:
        print line
#Create a BASH script in ~/Documents/bin
os.system("cpcbash.sh")

#Move the newly created script into ~/Music/freemusicarchive.org
os.system("cd ~/Documents/bin && mv `ls -alt | grep sh | head -n 1 | awk '{print $8}'` ~/Music/freemusicarchive.org/musicfetcher.sh")

#Make musicfetcher.sh executable
os.system("chmod +x ~/Music/freemusicarchive.org/musicfetcher.sh")

#Copy the URL substrings into ~/Music/freemusicarchive.org/musicfetcher.sh

#Turn each URL substring into the following: gnome-terminal -x wget http://freemusicarchive.org/Download/Music... etc.

#Save ~/Music/freemusicarchive.org/musicfetcher.sh

#Execute the script
os.system("/bin/bash ~/Music/freemusicarchive.org/musicfetcher.sh"

The Clockwork PC BASH script generator

Here is a little BASH script I wrote to automate the process of writing a BASH script.

To use it, open a terminal and enter the following commands:

mkdir ~/Documents/bin

gedit ~/Documents/bin/cpcbash.sh

Then paste the following text into the text files.

#!/bin/bash

#cpcbash.sh

#Released under a GPLv3 Licence by Clockwork PC (2011)

#BASH script to generate BASH scripts

echo "What do you want to call your BASH script?"

read RESPONSE

echo "#!/bin/bash" | tee $RESPONSE.sh

echo "#Filename:$RESPONSE.sh" | tee -a $RESPONSE.sh

echo "#Released under a GPLv3 Licence by Clockwork PC" | tee -a $RESPONSE.sh

chmod +x $RESPONSE.sh

sudo ln -s ~/Documents/bin/$RESPONSE.sh /usr/local/bin/$RESPONSE.sh

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/$RESPONSE.sh

gedit $RESPONSE.sh


exit

Save the text file and return to the terminal:

chmod +x ~/Documents/bin/cpcbash.sh

Now, whenever you want to write a bash script, just enter the following command:

cpcbash.sh

And enter a name WITHOUT the .sh suffix.

Enjoy!

How to get the ultimate screenshot functionality in Ubuntu with Compiz, Pinta, and our old friend BASH

STEP ONE: Create a screenshot folder and sound effects folder.  Mine is /media/DATA/Screenshots but yours could be ~/Documents/Screenshots

Copy and paste into a terminal

mkdir ~/Documents/Screenshots

mkdir ~/Videos/Sound_effects

STEP TWO: Enable Compiz Screenshots and PNG

STEP THREE: Install Pinta and Mplayer if you have not done so already

Copy and paste into a terminal:

sudo apt-get install pinta mplayer

STEP FOUR: Create a bin folder in Documents

Copy and paste into a terminal:

mkdir ~/Documents/bin

STEP FIVE: Create a BASH script in the bin folder

Copy and paste into a terminal:

gedit ~/Documents/bin/compiz-screenshot.sh

And paste the following text in:

#!/bin/bash

#compiz-screenshot.sh

#Released under a GPLv3 Licence by Clockwork PC http://www.clockworkpc.com.au

# Change into the Screenshots folder

cd /media/DATA/Screenshots

# Renaming the most recent PNG file in the directory

mv `ls -alt | grep png | head -n 1 | awk '{print $8}'` Screenshot_on_$(date +%F_%A_at_%H:%M:%S).png &

# Playing a camera click sound

mplayer $HOME/Videos/Sound_effects/camera1.wav &&

pinta `ls -alt | grep png | head -n 1 | awk '{print $8}'`

STEP 6: Make the script executable

Copy and paste into a terminal:

chmod +x ~/Documents/bin/compiz-screenshot.sh

STEP 7: Make a symlink in /usr/local/binCopy and paste into a terminal:

sudo ln -s ~/Documents/bin/compiz-screenshot.sh /usr/local/bin/compiz-screenshot.sh

sudo chmod +x ~/Documents/bin/compiz-screenshot.sh

STEP 8: Change settings in Compiz Screenshot according to this image

STEP 9: Download you desired sound effect, and save it to ~/Videos/Sound_effects and rename it to camera1.wav

OR

Change line 13 in ~/Documents/bin/compiz-screenshot.sh to point to the correct file.

And when you hold down the Super/Windows key and select a portion of the screen you'll get a perfectly detailed file, a camera click, and Pinta will open with it ready for you to edit.

How to get a perfectly detailed and date-stamped screenshot in Shutter on Linux

Go to Edit ==> Preferences in Shutter and insert this line in the Filename field:

screenshot_on_%F_%A_at_%H:%M:%S_of_$name_%NNN

You should also have a Screenshots folder, otherwise it'll clutter you Documents folder or Desktop (like on Mac)

The result?

Why I still use Chromium's "Application Shortcut" instead of Prism with Firefox 4 on Ubuntu 10.10

Here's one very important thing that I can do in Chromium's stand-alone Gmail window that I can't do in Prism's SSB window:

Drag and drop my attachments.

I hope this can be fixed soon.

Otherwise, Firefox 4 is my new favourite browser and well done to the Mozilla team for their splendid work.

Finding a string in Python

I want to find the URLs contained within a number of strings, probably about twenty, in a text file, which is basically a dump of the source code of a webpage.

What do I know about the strings?

• They are all 132 characters long
• They all begin with  <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/download/
• They all end with class="icn-arrow" title="Download"></a>
• They all contain an alphanumeric sequence of 40 characters like this: ea1f8f96b14ef56f6eef47a3e1e74269c195f4c1
• So I'm looking for 20 twenty strings of 132 characters that resemble this one:
• <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/download/ea1f8f96b14ef56f6eef47a3e1e74269c195f4c1 class="icn-arrow" title="Download"></a>

What do I know about the URL string?

• Every URL within the string is 83 characters:
• http://freemusicarchive.org/music/download/ (43 characters)
• ea1f8f96b14ef56f6eef47a3e1e74269c195f4c1 (40 characters)

Why am I trying to do this?

Ultimately, I want to create a BASH script that is populated with lines like this

gnome-terminal -x wget http://freemusicarchive.org/music/download/ea1f8f96b14ef56f6eef47a3e1e74269c195f4c1

So I'm trying to work out how to extract the URL from within the string and append it to a BASH script or text file.

Why would I do such a thing?

I'd like to automate the fetching of music files from freemusicarchive.org and I'd like to further my understanding of Python.

What problems do I foresee?

How do prevent clobber?  I don't want to download the same couple of files every day.  My gnome-terminal -x wget trick will only take me so far.

In the next stage I'd like to incorporate some kind of log or database of the URLs so that the program will only generate these download lines if the URL in question is not found in the log or database. 

What other ideas do I have?

1. At the moment the files being downloaded just have alphanumeric strings as names.  However, opening them in a music player reveals that they are tagged MP3s, so it would be great to download the file and rename it according to its tags.
2. It would also be nice to have a GUI to ask the user which genre of new music he'd like.  For myself I want to download everything, but that won't suit other users.

Alexander Garber

Director
Clockwork PC Open Source IT Solutions

"Informed decisions, real solutions"

www.clockworkpc.com.au

T:  +61-3-8060-6651
M: +61-430-854-599
alex@clockworkpc.com.au

A promising open source alternative to Dropbox

via webupd8.org

I don't have time at the moment to testdrive Sparkleshare, but I'll keep my eye on this project. I have long felt a tad uncomfortable using a closed, albeit reliable, service in Dropbox for synchronising my devices. I'd love to hear how people find it even at this early stage of development.

Ideas for a script for batch downloading of MP3s from freemusicarchive.org

As you can see from this video, it's still a pretty manual process:

But there should be a way to automate it.

Here's the process that I imagine the script would follow.  Items in red I haven't worked out how to do yet in Python.  I believe Python is the best language to do it in (plus I *really* want to do it in Python), but BASH is what I've really used to date so that's more-or-less what I think in.

#!/usr/bin/python
#freemusicfetcher.py
#Released under a GPLv3 Licence by Clockwork PC

#Ask the user what genre and sorting is desired:

input("Which genre?")

#Provide a list of options: Blues, Electronic, Hip-Hop, Classical, etc.

input("Which sorting method?")

# Provide a list of options: Most Interesting or Date Added

#Generate the query URL, e.g. for Most Interesting Blues, http://freemusicarchive.org/genre/Blues/?sort=track_interest

# mkdir ~/Music/freemusicarchive/[Selected Genre]

# cd ~/Music/freemusicarchive/[Selected Genre]
# wget http://freemusicarchive.org/genre/Blues/?sort=track_interest [for example]

# Generate a BASH script in ~/Documents/bin/ called musicfetcher.sh and make it executable

# Use something like grep to find all of "http://freemusicarchive.org/music/download/*" but nothing else, not even the quotation marks in the text

# Copy all the http://freemusicarchive.org/music/download/* and paste them into musicfetcher.sh

# In musicfetcher.sh replace ALL "http" with "gnome-terminal -x http"

# cp ~/Documents/bin/musicfetcher.sh ~/Music/freemusicarchive/musicfetcher.sh
# chmod +x ~/Music/freemusicarchive/musicfetcher.sh [if necessary]
# /bin/bash ~/Music/freemusicarchive/freemusicarchive-fetcher_.sh

-- Alex

Android: Sued by Microsoft, not by Linux | ITworld

via itworld.com

Just when you thought that Microsoft was focusing on innovation and compliance with web standards, it's reassuring to know that some things never change.

Redirect your home folders to /media/DATA on Ubuntu

Is this better than simply having a separate /home partition? Here are a couple reasons:

• You can make /media/DATA an NTFS partition, so it can double up as a Windows "D" drive.
• You can still have different user accounts, by simply creating a user folder on /media/DATA.

Please comment if you have any thoughts on the matter.

Redirect your home folders to /media/DATA on Ubuntu

Is this better than simply having a separate /home partition? Here are a couple reasons:

• You can make /media/DATA an NTFS partition, so it can double up as a Windows "D" drive.
• You can still have different user accounts, by simply creating a user folder on /media/DATA.

Please comment if you have any thoughts on the matter.

Installing Ubuntu in under 3 Minutes!

OK, the installation itself won't take three minutes, but this video will show you how it's done:

Email to a friend

GNU Call: An open source Skype

Free software world announces ambitious plans to build an open source Skype
alternative.

Following link http://mybroadband.co.za/news/software/19177-GNU-Call-open-source-Skype.html was sent to you by alex@clockworkpc.com.au

With this message:

This is a very important project. Here's hoping it will be a success!

How to periodically change your desktop background in Gnome with your own images ((tag: linux, ubuntu, wallpaper)

I suggest uninstalling Webilder and using Desktop Drapes instead.  If you're not interested in downloading random images from Flickr, then Webilder probably doesn't suit your needs.

First step is to go to the Ubuntu Software Centre:

To uninstall Webilder:

1. Type in the search field the term webillder
2. Click on the item called webilder
3. Click on the "Remove" button
4. Provide your password if required

To install Desktop Drapes:

1. Go to the Ubuntu Software Centre
2. Type desktop drapes in the search field
3. Click on the menu entry
4. Click the "install" button
5. Provide your password if required

Partitioning your hard drive and installing Ubuntu

THE AIM OF THIS SECTION:

To set up an Ubuntu PC that 

1. is stable
2. is up to date
3. runs fast
4. works well with other operating systems
5. can be re-installed without loss of data
6. can be re-installed without loss of tweaks and personal preferences

PRE-INSTALLATION:

Once you have established that your computer will run Ubuntu, you need to decide how to partition your hard drive.

What to consider:

• Will I want to dual boot?
• Ubuntu LTS or six-monthly release?
• Where to store DATA?
• How big should my /home partition be?
• Do I want space for other Linux distributions?

SHOULD I DUAL BOOT WITH WINDOWS OR MAC OSX?

In the interest of simplicity, here is my advice, which we'll follow today.

• If you are new to Linux and you DO NOT have a Production machine with your current OS installed and configured, then you should dual boot with Windoze or Mac OSX.
• Create a separate partition for your data, label it DATA, and mount it at /media/DATA
• Your home folder should be at least 15GB big, especially if you intend to use Virtualbox.  You can get away with 10GB, but unless you have a very small hard drive (80GB or less), don't restrict yourself.
• Give yourself an empty partition for another Linux distribution.

UBUNTU LONG-TERM SUPPORT (LTS) VS. 6-MONTHLY RELEASES

A defining feature of Ubuntu is that a new version of it is released every 6 months, which includes a new LTS version every two years.  This distinguishes Ubuntu from rolling-release distributions and also until recently from its parent Debian, which used to have no set release cycle.

	Rolling Release	Version Release	Release When Ready
Examples	Gentoo, Arch	Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE	Debian Stable
System updates	Very quick	Moderate	Slow
New software	Very quick	After a few months*	Can be a long wait
Security	Rapid exposure to flaws, rapid access to fixes	Minimal exposure to flaws, generally rapid access to fixes	Minimal exposure to flaws, variable access to fixes
Stability	Unstable	Usually stable	Rock solid

WHY DOES UBUNTU RELEASE A NEW VERSION EVERY SIX MONTHS?

Every operating system has to balance two considerations: to stay updated and to be stable.  Every update introduces potential instability, and not updating would mean security holes would remain exposed and software would remain old.  In the world of FOSS, where the tendency for software to be even more of a work in progress than in proprietary software, this can be particularly frustrating.

Canonical determined for a number of reasons that releasing every six months allows Ubuntu to strike a balance between these opposing considerations.  So you can think of it like this:

If Ubuntu were a rolling distribution and kept on updating everything all the time, it would be unusable for most people.

If Ubuntu were a release-when-ready distribution, it would get outdated very quickly for many home users.

1. Software updates -- new versions of software, new software packages, new programs
2. Security updates -- patches to address security flaws
3. System updates -- usually behind-the-scenes updates
4. User interface updates -- most notable in Ubuntu, which is undergoing some dramatic changes in its look and feel

SHOULD I USE THE LONG-TERM SUPPORT RELEASE OR SHOULD I UPDATE EVERY SIX MONTHS?

Long-term Support 6-monthly Release Stability More stable Less stable Cool, new packages Mostly backported Included Support for new hardware Mostly backported Included Support for older hardware Included Mostly included Pretty UI changes Sometimes backported Included PPAs Included Included

As the idea is to get you started with a machine that runs reliably, and no prior knowledge of how to fix things is assumed, I recommend Ubuntu LTS until you become advanced enough to feel that you want to upgrade to a new release.  One thing to bear in mind about Ubuntu is its Personal Package Archive system (PPA), which allows you to subscribe to all the updates of a package or set of packages.

WHAT THE PPA MEANS FOR YOU:

If you want to stay up-to-date with a particular program, e.g. Firefox Beta, you can add the PPA to your sources list and get the newest version of Firefox and otherwise have the rest of your system as it is.  This to me is the best of both worlds.

WHERE TO STORE MY DATA?

By default, your data is stored in the user folder of your home partition, for example:

/home/clockworkpc/Documents

However, should you decide to re-install Ubuntu into the same partition, you will have to ensure that all of your data is backed up to another drive or partition, otherwise it will be lost.  This will give you a rough idea -- ignore the percentages:

USING GPARTED:

You can partition your hard drive during the installation of Ubuntu, but I strongly recommend doing this beforehand.  Every live CD comes with GParted installed.

Here is what my HDD looks like:

Partition Scheme: MS-DOS

No.	Size	Type	File System	Label	Mount Point
1	80GB	Primary	NTFS	Windows	/media/Windows
2	MAX	Primary	NTFS / EXT4	DATA	/media/DATA