MyMoments

Piece of Me

2008-05-14T22:50:21Z

Now eager to learn as much as I can about PhotoShow, I’ve created another very cool show of my recent trip to Chicago. I learned a few interesting things along the way too… 1. I can import my own MP3 into my production! I chose an instrumental version of Britney Spears's “Piece of Me.” I still love Britney, I confess. 2. I can change the pace of the entire show or of just one photo within the show – customizing the look of it and giving some images with lengthier captions extra time. 3. I can output the show as a video file and then import it into Videowave for further editing (in my case, adding narration!). So, my pics from this trip were odd at best. My digi cam broke the moment we landed and we hastily purchased two throwaways (which took surprisingly decent photos!). Note: if this happens to you it’s not the end of the world because you can have your developer put the photos on disc and then get them on your computer just as you would from your digital camera or mobile device. Because I had a smattering of moments caught on camera (from first meeting our pet goldfish in our hotel room, on down to finding specific pieces of cool art at the Chicago art fair) I thought I could add narration to help guide viewers through the experience. I’m basically saving you from having to hear me say “oh, I guess you had to be there for that.” Now it’s like you WERE there! So take a look at what I’ve done here: You’ll notice that I’ve not only added text to bring clarity to certain situations, but captions (some even animated), graphics (like the fireworks around the puppet show and Garfield burping in the cab), and cool transitions so that each picture doesn’t enter and exit in the same dull way. Tip: people lose interest fast when they’re looking at anyone’s photos but their own. Do as much as you can to keep them engaged. Even if you feel you’re selling out by glamming it up, it’s worth it to retain viewership I always say! ;) Speaking of viewership, and I will digress for a sec, I have been totally uninspired to enter any contests as of late. I guess it’s a combo of not seeing anything particularly challenging out there, along with a mild funk I believe I may be in. But that’ll be another article altogether. Back to business. Take a pass at creating a PhotoShow and seriously don’t stress about the boring nature of the photos you want to upload. You can make them interesting in this application – I swear it. Conversely, if your photos rock and you take amazing pictures of unrivaled beauty then you don’t have to go and muck up your photos the way that you may think I have…you can instead create a gentle, flowing PhotoShow chock full of care and thoughtfulness that only the author of said photos can impart. Publish your show privately on the personal web page that you get when you buy the program, or post it publicly as I’ve done so the whole world can see just how non-linear your thinking can be! Most of all, just have fun. I did!

Taking the Blu-ray Recording Leap

2008-05-07T01:24:54Z

With Toast 9's groundbreaking support for AVCHD and Blu-ray video disc burning, I decided it was finally time to hop on the Blu-ray bandwagon and spring for a recorder, even if Apple isn't yet building them into new equipment. Like a lot of video buffs, I have a spanking new HDTV and an AVCHD camcorder, and want to be able to show off new family movies in all their high-def glory... So I started shopping around, and found several external Blu-ray recorder options (external drives will be required for all but Mac Pro owners, a complete list can be found on EmediaLive.com). But even the cheapest was $599, almost as much as my state-of-the-art camcorder. And media is expensive too, from $15 for a 25GB write-once disc, all the way up to $50 for a 50GB rewriteable. I started having second thoughts about how much I needed that Blu-ray recorder right this minute...maybe I should wait till prices come down more (which they will). Imagine my delight, then, when I found out that with Toast 9 and the HD/BD Plug-in, you don't even need a Blu-ray recorder to burn high-definition AVCHD discs that will play right in your set-top Blu-ray player or PS3! Toast can burn HD video onto regular DVD media, with the DVD recorder you already have. But just how much HD video can you fit on a DVD? After all, Blu-ray discs can hold up to 50GB, whereas dual-layer DVDs hold only 8.5GB. Fortunately, the AVCHD video compression format is pretty efficient, compared to the space-eating DV format used by standard-definition MiniDV tape camcorders. The highest quality AVCHD bit rates currently available in HD camcorders is about 17Mbps, or 8GB per hour. Most AVCHD camcorders record at lower bit rates. So you should be able to fit approximately an hour of home movies on a dual-layer DVD that will play in your Blu-ray player. That's plenty for your average home movie. Toast 9 makes importing video from your AVCHD camcorder "drag-and-drop" simple with its integrated Media Browser. You just drag and drop video from your camcorder to the Toast window and you’re done! You can also crop and trim your AVCHD clips, and arrange them in the order you'd like them viewed. You won't need to touch iMovie '08 unless you want transitions and special effects, so using Toast 9 greatly speeds up the time from camera to disc. I'm off to try it all out right now, using the dual-layer DVD recorder already in my MacBook Pro. In the meantime, what are your experiences with AVCHD and Blu-ray?

Taking Stock of Your Life

2008-05-02T03:39:35Z

Don't worry, this article is not about justifying your existence! By "taking stock of your life," I quite literally mean making an inventory of your worldly goods, something I've been meaning to do for years for insurance purposes. Living just two blocks from the Hayward Fault in Berkeley, and being subjected to ever-more strident headlines about how we are due for the next "big one" any moment now, insurance and earthquake preparedness are hot topics among my neighbors. One has only to look at Hurricane Katrina, umpteen California brush fires (including the big Oakland Hills fire less than two miles from me), and various other floods, tornados and tsunamis to recognize the importance of a good home inventory and disaster plan. If a fire wiped out your home today, would you be able to remember everything in it and document ownership with receipts? Even if you have great insurance, it will be worthless without being able to prove your losses. So how to get started? Creating an inventory for an entire house is a daunting task, especially if you have been living in it for many years. That's the main reason it's been on my To-Do list for nearly 10 years now. Searching the Web for inspiration, I found a great site created by the Insurance Information Institute that not only tells you exactly what to do, but provides the free software to do it, for both PCs and Macs. Here's how it works: First, you set up the outline your home by naming all the rooms, including the basement, garage and attic. Then you go room by room adding items to the inventory. The software has spaces for importing pictures and receipts for each item, or you can store these separately. The Institute also recommends taking a video inventory. By simply going around each room opening drawers and cabinets and zooming in on each object, you can create an quick inventory without having to itemize a thing. While you'll still need to document purchase prices and values in the event of a loss, the video will at least remind you of what was there, and provide some proof that you owned it. I plan to do the video inventory first, and then tackle the digital photos and software-based inventory room by room. VideoWave and PhotoSuite are perfect for editing the video and organizing the photos for this task, and once completed, I will store the inventory, video and photos on a DVD in my safe deposit box. There, I feel better just having a plan! What's yours?

Pimp My Photos - Introducing PhotoShow!

2008-04-29T21:48:43Z

Acquiring a company whose primary application will provide me with hours of entertainment just spells trouble. That is, if I’m still supposed to be working around here. ;) All kidding aside, I have to say the PhotoShow platform is one of the coolest I’ve ever laid my hands on. I know Mac users get all kinds of cool stuff on the Mac, but for us PC folk, PhotoShow is our chance to create zany slideshows with animated graphics and music! I was able to create (or I should say recreate) my 36th birthday adventure out at Sea Ranch, using the nifty built-ins this app offers. I changed my appearance (often), added silly thoughts complete with bubbles over my head – even gave my bf a top-hat and revolving bow tie. Now that’s good clean fun! So I’m still learning a ton about the many things I can do with PhotoShow, and I’ll probably look back at this first foray (in a week) and think I was such a novice….but for now I just know that making animals talk and disco balls appear in place of ordinary light fixtures is my idea of fabulous. (Note: I am easily entertained). Check this out and you’ll see what I mean: So? What did you think? Cool, huh? The best part is that I used PhotoSuite (built into Creator 10) first to clean up the photos. PhotoShow has an autofix built in to its toolset, but I love the fact that PhotoSuite lets me adjust coloring, change the aspect ratio, layer, etc. All by way of saying, when I import into PhotoShow I’m ready to take on the fun stuff: pick my theme (and there are many), add fun transitions, adjust the speed at which I want the photos to come in, pick my background music (there are so many cool genres and options here). It’s a cornucopia of daring and provocative digital delights. I mean, why wouldn’t EVERYONE want to kick up their photo slideshows a notch? Don’t you know your family and friends are T-I-R-E-D of the same old compositions? It’s true! I’m channeling their feelings for them! Make your kid’s birthday slideshow different from the next guy’s and add a monkey swinging in the branches behind them. Or, have a bird poop right on their cake! Yes, it’s in there too! The best part is that unlike most free versions, this one actually feels robust. You don’t feel gypped or like you’re cheaping out with the freebie. Don’t get me wrong – the $39 app has far more content and music – but start with the free account on PhotoShow.com and just get your feet wet. Guaranteed you’ll be diving in stat.

Ripping CDs Three at a Time

2008-04-24T17:00:00Z

I finally managed to back up my entire CD collection onto my hard disk. Hundreds of CDs, thousands of tracks, have now been converted. When I first started this project, it seemed rather daunting, but it turned out to be less painful than I expected. Easy Media Creator 10 has a wonderful tool called Multi-CD Ripper that helped me to automate the process. Basically, it is a software utility that allowed me to rip CDs from multiple drives at the same time (I have three disc drives), while automatically tagging the files with title, author and artist information. Conveniently, files were named and placed in a folder structure per my preference based on the tag information. The process is easy enough. I launch Easy Media Creator and select the Audio tab on the left, and then select Multi-ripper. I click the Settings button, check off the drives I want to rip from, and check the box to import from multiple drives simultaneously. Finally, I click the CDDB check box to ensure that my CDs are identified automatically by the online music identification service. The additional MusicID checkbox is for identifying tracks on compilation CDs that are not recognized by the online service – even if the CD is unrecognized, the individual tracks can still be identified. Under Settings/File Format, I select my preferred format (MP3, though I could just as well have selected from a variety of other audio file formats). Under Filename/Folder Structure, I choose how I want to name my files and where to locate them on my hard disk. Personally, I just like the name of the song to be the title, but I could have added the artist, track number, genre and even the year to the title to the filename. Likewise, I chose genre/artist/album as the directory structure, but there are many other options. Now I am ready to rip. I insert an audio CD in each drive, and click the Start button. As each CD is finished, the disc ejects (I can also disable this in the Settings dialog in case I don’t want the drive tray to open), I pop in the next disc and close the drive door, and away we go. When I am done ripping, my tracks are all listed in the right pane of Multi-ripper. In case I want to change some of the tags that were provided by the online service, I can manually change title, author and other information by selecting one or more tracks in the right pane, and then selecting the Edit Audio Tags button just above the track list. I can even send my ripped files directly to a portable device like an iPod or MP3 player if I want by clicking on the "Output to" button. So now the real problem begins – I ended up with approximately three weeks of continuous music on my hard drive, but when will I ever have time to listen to it all?

Look and smell your best on Mother's Day!

2008-04-21T19:38:14Z

Sometimes I take a break from my YouTube forays to create something that doesn’t end in swift defeat (MY swift defeat). I'm no hater, but HappyJoel wins every contest I enter so I’m feeling a bit bitter these days. I think my songs are as strong as his but he looks just like Borat and creates these incredibly silly videos that seem to have mass appeal. I wonder if he uses Creator? I should ask him. That said, I am considering entering the “raise the steaks” video contest (a video about beef and where you eat it) but I just have to finish the song and then really think hard about whether I feel like coming in second place again. ;) So I’ve been poking around doing other things with my media…and found a fun one! At Christmas I discovered that I could put my favorite photo on a bottle of my favorite perfume – “Happy” by Clinique. So, I uploaded a super cute pic of my kitty, Peanut. Now every morning when I open my medicine cabinet and reach for my perfume, I see her sweet fuzzy face staring back at me. CUTE! Well, I thought it was a one-time promo, but now I see that Clinique is running a Mother’s Day contest/opportunity to upload a picture of a fav mom moment! Yes, it was the contest that caught my eye...but I also liked the idea as a good Mother’s Day gift! I trolled around my THOUSANDS of pics and found one that I thought would work with a little “adjusting” (read: crop the Xmas tree from the background). And, because the photo had to be a certain size I knew I’d have to make the original waaaaaaay smaller. Sooo, I opened EMC10, went to PhotoSuite, and then imported the pic I wanted to use. I took what was a photo of my mom, sister in law and me with a Xmas tree behind us, and cropped my sis out (sorry Cindy!), minimized the tree exposure, and really made the focus of the composition me and my mom. I used “auto fix” to adjust the color (I always do this because I figure the system knows best how to adjust for poor lighting/over exposure), and voila! Perfect for a perfume bottle if I do say so myself. Take a look at the before and afters here: BEFORE: AFTER: I’ll let you know how the gift goes over….and, I’ll let you know if I win this photo contest! (I’m kinda doubting it because babies and puppies generally rule over washed up thirty-something-year-olds in front of fake trees. Sigh). Can a girl ever get a break around here?

Self-Help for TiVo Addicts

2008-04-10T17:00:00Z

If you own a TiVo, you probably belong to the ranks of TiVo addicts (like me) who constantly struggle to watch their favorite shows before the hard drive fills up. That 80-hour box sounds like a lot until you start cluttering it up with movies and old episodes of “Ask This Old House” that show you how to build the deck you’ve been meaning to install for three years now... Ironically, since I bought the TiVo mainly because I travel a lot, I always end up madly cleaning it out just before going on a trip, to make sure that there is enough free space to record “Mystery” and “House” while I'm gone. It's become another item on my travel To Do list, along with packing and calling the petsitter. But there's not always time to zip through everything before I leave, and it's really painful to have to delete unwatched shows, or get rid of a favorite old movie. So what's the solution for TiVo addiction and full hard drives? Assuming you have a networked Series 2, 3 or HD model, you can shell out big bucks for one of the new add-on hard disks that just came out, or you can buy a few blank DVDs, and use TiVoToGo and Roxio software to burn shows to disc or export them to your portable media player. Both Easy Media Creator 10 and Toast 9 have official TiVoToGo support. Now, instead of having to watch 10 shows before I leave on a trip, I can take them with me to view on my laptop, which is great for airplanes. And all those movies and shows I want to keep for posterity I can burn to DVD, instead of letting them use up hard drive space. You can even use the editing tools in Toast and Creator to remove unwanted segments from your recordings. Usually I only want to keep one 10-minute portion of a "This Old House" episode, for example. With Creator or Toast, I can cherry-pick the good parts from lots of episodes and put them all on one DVD with a nice menu for navigation. My dream house may not be built yet, but I'll know exactly how to do it! I just need to upgrade to an HD TiVo and I'll be in DVR heaven. So what is your experience using TiVoToGo? Any tips? Let us know in the comments.

My favorite place is....first!

2008-04-07T18:50:34Z

Ok, ya’ll…the long-awaited Florida anti-smoking campaign video coming ‘atcha! There are so many cool things I discovered while making this production. My whole filming-against-a-black-sheet thing worked! I was able to hang it over the door to my kitchen and then effectively use that as my backdrop so that I could add the overlay images without a prob! (My cat was probably the only obstacle in getting this filmed easily – she had to get as close as possible to the sheet and ruined my first few takes.) With the black backdrop I could place my overlay images (popsicles, lollipop, cool car, altoids and more!) exactly where I wanted them (you can literally go into the piece of video footage and find the precise place within the segment that you want to drop the graphic; better yet, you can have it spin into the scene, tumble, creep, blink, fade in, fade out – you name it!). The whole smoke-filled room thing totally worked – I used the footage of the smoke and dropped it in over my head so that it looked like I was in a "lounge" of sorts – I was quite pleased with the results! So far I’ve had quite a bit of positive feedback….I’ve had a couple of thumbs down but that surely had to come from the "addicted" living in said state. Poor, poor delusional smokers. All by way of saying, every time I use Creator I learn something new. And, I recently entered some of my music videos into the Alice 3-minute film festival (the SF-based radio station for those not familiar). I thought the best way to submit would be to use MyDVD to burn the disc - but I couldn’t figure out how to create a file that could be easily downloaded. One of my co-workers showed me that if I go into Creator and pick the “Data and Backup” tab I can create a data disc that way. Then, when someone launches the disc they aren’t automatically launching a player, but instead a list of files that they can “open”, “play”, "download", etc. So I think I’m officially getting to the “Creator Pro” status. I’m feeling that way anyway. ;) Then, just for kicks, I entered my bf into the GillettePhenom contest – a contest restricted to males only (what the heck???) and they have to be doing something “phenomenal” with a ball. Oh man…the paths I could go down here….anyhoo, I used some golf footage that we’d taken back in January and married it with the Gillette theme music. It looks/sounds pretty good – though I have had one comment so far that said something to the effect of “can’t anyone do this??”. Well, Mr. Bummer Bird, I suppose anyone could – but anyone (read: you) hasn’t! I’m so naughty. Anyway, that’s all I've got at the moment….Oh, and I didn't win the Nature Valley contest - Joel can go live in Maine and eat blueberries till he bursts for all I care. Buh. I hate losing.

Earbuds, Schmearbuds

2008-03-25T17:39:17Z

I'm betraying my age by saying that during my college days, the coolness of your stereo was judged by the wattage of your power amp and the size of your (stereo) speakers. But headphones were what we used for studying in the dorm at night, and there Koss reigned supreme with its PRO4AAs -- originally introduced in 1970, and amazingly still made and much in demand today. We also spent hours debating the merits of turntable cartridges, adjusting our tone arms for the best pickup, and carefully making mix tapes for the car using the then-revolutionary Dolby noise reduction system. We knew all about dynamic range and "clipping," and normalized our tapes manually by watching the signal meters and cueing and recueing each song to get the perfect gaps on tape. Making a cassette mix tape was easily a weekend job, and making the even higher-quality reel-to-reel tapes we used for parties was a group effort of the entire floor. We rearranged song lists ad nauseam, and delivered the requisite vinyl to the guy with the best system, who then spent a week making the tape under the watchful eyes of the rest of us constantly dropping by his room to listen and critique. Our never-ending quest for sonic superiority seems light-years removed from today's "good-enough" culture of $20 earbuds and highly compressed music formats. Price and convenience seem to have dulled our sense of music appreciation. You rarely see a portable music player actually evaluated for its sonic fidelity, rather than its capacity and user interface. But I'm here to tell you that your musical experience can and will be greatly enhanced by paying attention to reproduction quality. Really, there's nothing more mind-blowing that listening to great music through an equally great sound system. Fortunately, you don't have to compromise or spend a lot of money to enjoy both convenience and brilliant sonics. You can rip music from CDs in lossless quality in several formats: Apple lossless, FLAC and Monkey's Audio and Windows Media Audio lossless are some of the most common. The best one to choose depends on what is supported by your ripping tool and player of choice. (Easy Media Creator and Toast support most of these.) The basic point is that they preserve CD quality (hence the term "lossless") while reducing the space needed by about half. Thanks to freefalling hard disk prices, you can store a 3000-disc CD collection in lossless format on a single $250 terabyte hard drive. Once you've ripped in lossless format (and note that I'm not buying a digital download until they come in lossless -- the local used CD shop is cheaper anyway), all you need to do is listen through a top pair of headphones, like those from Koss, Sennheiser, Grado, Shure, Bose and others. (Head-Fi.org has recommendations.) You'll hear a big difference even on a portable player, but for true audiophile action, run the optical audio output from your computer to a good receiver, and thence to your headphones. The quality of the digital-to-analog conversion circuitry matters a lot, and it will be much better in the receiver. Have some other tips for getting the best sound out of your music player? Or think your MP3s sound just fine the way they are? Tell us in the Comments!

The Myth of the 100-year CD

2008-03-20T17:05:00Z

I've written previously about the damage the wrong pen or marker can do to your CDs and DVDs. But really, the biggest danger to the long-term health of your discs is the media itself -- some discs are just more reliable than others, made with better materials, equipment and quality control processes. A couple years ago, the UK Independent published an illuminating article on CD longevity, citing studies where media became unreadable after just two years in a dark cupboard -- even without exposure to sunlight or humidity, the usual culprits in CD degradation. While some disc formats are better than others (RW discs tend to have lower rated lifespans, for example), the bottom line is that no CD or DVD lasts forever, and the professional archivists responsible for major CD and DVD collections use only top-quality media, make multiple copies, check them every few years, and recopy as needed. So what are the best strategies for home users looking to preserve family photos or financial information? I asked Verbatim spokesperson Andy Marken for advice. He recommends looking for special "archival-grade" discs, and burning, handling and storing them with care. Archival discs are available from most of the major CD and DVD manufacturers, and may include special hardened outer coatings, more stable dye layers, and oxidation-resistant reflective metal layers. All of these things add to the cost of the disc, but are worth it when it comes to storing your most valuable data. Interestingly, when I asked Andy whether he'd recommend DVD-R or +R media, and single or dual-layer, he said that while there isn't much difference between R and +R, "Conventional wisdom recommends that you use single-layer as opposed to double-layer media just because you are multiplying the chances for issues." The Sony Studios library, for example, divides up its video files and spans them across multiple single-layer DVDs. (Both Easy Media Creator and Toast can perform disc spanning automatically.) Andy also wrote a great article for Audioholics about the longevity issue that ends with some dos and don'ts for CD and DVD handling: DO: * Handle discs by the outer edge or the center hole * Use a non solvent-based felt-tip permanent marker to mark the label side of the disc * Keep dirt or other foreign matter from the disc * Store discs upright (book style) in original jewel cases that are specified for CDs and DVDs * Return discs to their jewel cases immediately after use * Leave discs in their spindle or jewel case to minimize the effects of environmental changes * Remove the shrink wrap only when you are ready to record data on the disc * Store in a cool, dry, dark environment in which the air is clean -- relative humidity should be in the range of 20% - 50% and temperature in the range of 4°C - 20°C * Remove dirt, foreign material, fingerprints, smudges, and liquids by wiping with a clean cotton fabric in a straight line from the center of the disc toward the outer edge * Use deionized (best), distilled or soft tap water to clean your discs. For tough problems use diluted dish detergent or rubbing alcohol. Rinse and dry thoroughly with a lint-free cloth or photo lens tissue * Check the disc surface before recording. DON'T: * Touch the surface of the disc * Bend the disc * Store discs horizontally for a long time (years) * Open a recordable optical disc package if you are not ready to record * Expose discs to extreme heat or high humidity or rapid changes in temperature or humidity * Expose recordable discs to prolonged sunlight or other sources of UV light * Write or mark in the data area of the disc (area where the laser "reads") * Clean in a circular direction around the disc.