My New Toy

Just bought me a new toy. Well, it's a toy with a real purpose(ish). Picked up a Lenovo Ideapad S10 subnotebook or "netbook" as they're now called. Feli and I plan on using it for our travels and when just messing around town. It has a 160Gb HDD (or more than enough for our movies and pictures) and is about 2.2 pounds, a perfect companion for our cameras.

It's a bit small for touch typing (you're not going to write a novel on it), but for just a quick check of e-mail or to download and save our pictures, it's great.

Tour our new house ....

A quick tour or our new house (or at least soon to be new house).



Of course, I would be remiss without a Quicktime H.264 version of the video.

Summer in Review Video

A video review of our summer.



Of course, I would be remiss without a Quicktime H.264 version of the video.

Oktoberfest Video

A short video review of our trip to Munich, Nuremberg and Berlin.



And for the Mac or Apple people in the crowd, I have a Quicktime H.264 version of the video.

Heads Up on CD Labels

Just wanted to give everyone a quick heads up on using CD sticky labels. I created a series of DVDs about 3 years ago with some converted video. I then took the time to create labels for these DVDs using the aformentioned CD labels.

Now, 3 years later, I'm trying to make backup copies of the DVDs, but so far, no DVD drive I have will completely read the discs. Of the 8 I have to copy, so far I've only been able to back up 2 completely.

Just to be sure, though, I have may other DVDs burned from the same batch of DVD media and on the same burner and they work just fine. I've also read the same warning online (hence the frantic backup I'm doing now).

So a word to the wise, go with printable DVDs or a good CD/DVD marker and eschew the neat looking CD/DVD sticker labels -- unless your data doesn't matter to you.

Dumb ideas a'plenty

With gas prices now averaging over $4 per gallon for the first time, people are starting to look at ways to handle this. CNN recently listed 6 ideas on how to reduce the price of gas. The ways included the following:

• Suspend the gas tax
• Tax the oil companies and give the money back to consumers
• Limit oil speculation

Unfortunately, each of these attack the wrong end of the equation. By not attacking the demand side, these "solutions" only postpone the inevitable: higher prices and higher pain. People need to drive less and when the drive, drive more efficiently. Until that happens, the pain of the price at the pump will only continue to get worse. As Americans we should demand better alternatives than just the usual bring down the price, to hell with the consequences non-solutions proposed. We should start demanding better options, including higher milage cars, electric vehicles and better non-car options like subways and light rail. The choice is ours to make. Will we repeat the failures of the past or will we learn from it and create a better tomorrow for ourselves and future generations?

Cue the Whining

Well, it's finally here. According to CNN, gas prices finally hit the $4/gal average. I can't wait to hear all the SUV drivers whining as I drive by in my 40-45mpg Golf (or even better walk my them or ride by on the bus)

Netflix Player by Roku

So, I got a new toy delivered by FedEx today: the Netflix Player by Roku. For those that haven't heard of it, it's a device that delivers Netflix streaming content directly to your TV. Finally, there's a good way to see the Play it Now content from Netflix in the living room.

From the short time I've used it already, it seems to be a nice device. The unit itself is a bit lighter than I would have expected, but with no hard disk or storage, there's not much to weigh it down. The array of connections are quite sufficient for my needs: composite, component, analog audio, optical digital audio and HDMI (which I'm using).

The quality on my 6Mbit Speakeasy connection is quite good. In fact, it appears to rival DVD and the AppleTV/iTunes content I usually watch. It scales quite nicely on my Philips 42" LCD TV.

My only complaints to this point is that the device doesn't let you browse all the choices, but is instead tied into your queue. Also, I seem to be hearing a bit of popping in the audio. Right now I can't tell if it's the unit, my TV or something else. I'll have to investigate more.

Michigan and Florida and the Democrats

Quick whine for the day:

I'm sick and tired of hearing about Michigan and Florida and the DNC delegates. To me, this whole thing is emblematic of the Democrats. The rules were set, Florida and Michigan broke the rules and now they're whining to not be punished as they were promised. I believe that in the end, the DNC will back away from their promise because it's politically expedient for them too. In the end it appears the Democrats do not belive in consequences.

I Couldn't Agree More

Just found this article on BusinessWeek that points out a good way to decrease our pollution from automobile traffic is to make them not necessary. The best way to do this is increase the development of infill housing and mixed-use construction.

See: Cities: A Smart Alternative to Cars Via: the Greater Greater Washington blog

Darn You Nikon!

I tend to be loyal to companies that have treated me well in the past. One of those companies is Nikon. Over the years I've collected a decent amount of Nikon products. A couple of weeks ago Feli and I purchased a new D300 (which is a great camera, BTW). Today I decided to place all my Nikon equipment together just to see what it looks like. And when I did that, I figured I'd take a picture.

Of course, the hard part is taking a picture of all your camera equipment. You want to take a good picture, but the good cameras are the subject of the picture. Sigh.

So here's a picture from my video camera (the only non Nikon camera I have).

So why did I title this post "Darn You Nikon!"? That wasn't me, that was my wallet.

Netflix Player by Roku

Ok, so I've found yet another new toy to pick up (when will it end?). Netflix currently offers a streaming service for subscribers. It offers access to a growing number of movies and TV shows. The biggest limitation with the service to date has been its reliance on a computer for viewing. Or more specifically, it requires a Windows computer to view the content.

While I haven't really been paying attention (not sure how I missed this), apparently Netflix has been working with hardware manufacturers (such as TiVo or DVD player manufacturers) to build streaming clients into their hardware. The first of these is the Netflix Player by Roku.

Long time nerds may recognize Roku as the makers of the SoundBridge network music player (of which I have 2 already). Needless to say I'm a big fan of the SoundBridge and I'm a Netflix subscriber, so picking up a Netflix Player seemed like a no brainer. After it arrives and I get a chance to play with it, I'll post a review.

Coverage by other sites

• Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080520-awin-for-digital-distribution-as-netflix-set-top-box-debuts.html
• Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/20/roku-reveals-first-netflix-set-top-box-gets-reviewed/

Pretty cool music video

Pretty cool music video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=6kxDxLAjkO8

Zoundry Raven

Quick link for the day. I've started using Zoundry Raven as my blogging tool of choice. It's free (or a zero Alex pick if you will) and seems to work rather well at least with Blogger. Let me know if you're using it and what you think.

Communication and Organization

So a while back I had a yearly review with my boss. You know those meetings, the sometimes useful, sometimes not meetings where you discuss your future with your immediate supervisor. In my case, it was a very useful meeting (as have most of mine because of the succession of really good bosses I've had over the years). The primary takeaway from the meeting was that I need to work on my communication of ideas and better organizing my business relationships. I was told I have a number of good ideas, but no real, official framework for how to present them.

For work, I've been trying to implement some procedures and frameworks to help organize things, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought it might be a good thing to do the same thing in my personal life. Hence this blog and my presence on Twitter, etc.

With that in mind, I hope to be a bit more prolific on this blog in just streaming my ideas for all to read (for better or worse). We'll see how it goes.

How Far We've Come

Just thinking back to when I was first learning to edit video. A simple 3 minute video could take a couple of days (especially if the footage was spread over a number of tapes). I remember spending a whole weekend working on editing a simple video for the youth group I was a part of. Today, by comparison, I was able to edit a 3:30 video in about 40 minutes. In HD no less. With titles. And transitions. And .. well .. you get the picture. We've definitely come a long way from a tape-to-tape editing system.

Gas Tax Moritorium

Sorry all. Gotta whine for just a second. There's currently a debate here about dropping the gasoline tax for the summer. McCain and Clinton both support it and Obama is against.

Let me put in my 2 cents worth. The only long term solution we have for solving the energy problem in this country is to drive less and when we drive be more efficient about it. Dropping the tax won't help this and in fact would work as a disincentive to driving less. So this is a brilliant idea.

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/05/01/dumb-on-all-counts-the-experts-chime-in-on-the-gas-tax-holid/

Sigh.

DC vs the Suburbs

An interesting article in the Washington Post describing readers experiences in the city and the suburbs. The interesting thing it found is that despite living near the suburban ammenities, the residents were too busy stuck in traffic and dealing with life to enjoy them.

On the other hand, the DC'ites didn't have quite the libraries or schools of our suburban bretheren, but we have time to enjoy what we have.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2008/04/city_vs_suburbs_a_gap_where_th.html

Random video tips

I was thinking earlier about some of the random things I've leared about editing down video from trips that people seem to enjoy. So, I figured I'd try and distill them down to something that may be helpful:

1. Good videos start when shooting

This may sound a bit obvious, but if you get bad video to start with, you end up with bad video to finish. When you start recording something, be sure to think about how you're going to use it. For me, I tend to think in specific edits, so when I'm recording something, I already have a decent idea of what I'm planning on using it for.

2. 3-4 second clips are just interesting enough

My English teacher in high school always said that a paper should be like a skirt: long enough to conver the subject, but short enough to be interesting. I've found that a 3-4 second clip is just about right on average. Apparently, I'm not the only one as iMove 08 uses a 4 second clip size when selecting an edit in the timeline. Now, there are always good places where that "rule" can be broken, but it's always a good place to start.

3. Edit on action

I've found that for me, if I cut the clip on some sort of movement (like a person walking into our out of the frame) it seems a bit more interesting. If you have a video of your significat other walking along the street, look for that moment when (s)he turns into the cute little store, move back 4 seconds from there and you have your edit point.

4. Montage

There's nothing more boring than 30 minutes of badly focused or repetitive video. And your friends really don't want to see your whole trip. All they want are the highlights. I've found that the best way to approach this is to take a song you like and edit a montage. Take items 1-3 above and use those to create a 4-6 minute series of clips set to music. For the one's I've done, it seems that even people who don't know me very well find 4 minutes of decent video set to a good song interesting.

A couple of examples that I've done:

• Feli's Birtday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSqUYmFhKyQ
• Our trip to Amsterdam: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ATUPaK8jBJM

Try it and let me know.

Windows Whine of the Day

Oh, here's my real quick whine for the day. I really can't stand how random Windows programs can just jump up and take control of your desktop withou ... wait, excuse me Windows wants my attention ... as I was saying, grab control from the current application.

For example, I was trying to open a number of connections to multiple systems using Remote Desktop. However, each time something happened (initial connection or initial screen draw), for some reason the app felt it necessary to let me know my stealing focus from the new window I had opened. I ended up having to make the connections one at a time to get done.

While this may not sound like much, it took what could have been a 3 minute procedure and turned it into a 10 minute procedure (the connections were slower than ususal). To me that's unacceptable. Only the OS itself should ever jump up and take control of your focus and that had better be a damned good reason to do so (security, fault, etc)