BigPixture Window

I just completed a large video editing project and was busying myself with clean up and maintenance when my network started acting up. I get a repeated alert that my “network settings have been changed by another application”. I am very familiar with this alert. I expect to see it when I perform specific network adjustments using apps like Internet Connect and the like. This time, it is popping up over and over when I view the System Preferences Networking Pane. It is baffling. It doesn’t seem (to me) to be in response to anything I’ve done.

Wery Veird. Wery Veird indeed.

During the course of this just past editing project I made headway into making my network far more usable than it has ever been before. I added an Apple Airport Extreme N network hub. I joined this new network (successfully) with my existing Belkin N network. I was able to extend the range of my network with the Airport Express I have owned for several years. Along with this, I added a networked 500GB hard drive for file sharing and backup, as well as making my iTunes and iPhoto libraries accessible to every computer on the network. Not bad for a guy who thinks computer networks operate via magic.

Some of my friends tell me I should stay away from the Apple stuff and use Windows software… but they don’t seem to understand that if I did that, I would still trying to make the edit software work correctly, my video project would not be finished, and the client would be screaming at me. There’s a good reason I use Macs. I have trouble making things actually work in the Windows world. Not to mention, the last time I successfully networked a Windows PC, I had to hire a guy to do it for me.

It’s an Apple… I’m sure I’ll solve it. It may be annoying. But alas, how else would I spend my downtime?

This just in from the Apple Printer Browser / Mac Help window… And I quote: “The Printer Browser displays the printers that your computer can use, whether they’re on the local network or directly connected to yur computer.”

YUR COMPUTER? YUR? My spell checker doesn’t recognize yur as a word…. Perhaps YUR is an acronym in the programmer’s world that someone (unwisely) added to the computer dictionary. Perhaps not. Spell checking is fraught with problems, not the least of which is the dreaded homophone. These typos inevitably leap out at me. Even when I don’t catch my own initially, I usually see them shortly after I publish, which is probably what happened here.

Ohhh noooo…. I’m gonna get a memo from Mr. Jobs.

emoticon_dwight.png (PNG Image, 1224×1584 pixels) - Scaled (44%)

I am saddened to write that we have had a few more deaths in the CFL family here at the home/office complex.  First off, one out of four CFL fixtures in the guest bath inexplicably died last week.  A few days later, another lamp died in the living area.  These follow my blogged report in July about one of our very first CFLs dying unexpectedly.  It is officially a trend now, but I really hope this is not typical of the CFL lifespan.  At this rate, the long term money savings of using CFLs is going into the garbage pail. 

Regarding CFL fixtures, I do appreciate the lower wattage and heat advantage, but I’m just not sure that I’m willing to continue at this rate of failure. They are too expensive to tolerate this short of a lifespan. It seems that things always even out this way, don’t they? For every advantage, there’s a cost. For example: “Let’s make auto fuel out of corn, right?”

This kinda reminds me of the old jokes about perpetual motion and cold fusion! Forget the planet… I want my money back plus interest!

Maybe I’ll should start using 5 watt Edison’s to split the watt/heat issues down the middle.  Those bulbs are really cheap and bright enough for a cave troll like me.  Of course, when and if Edison bulbs are made illegal, we’ll have to find them on the black market… and the price will be five bucks a bulb! 

Like many families, ours has been progressively migrating a few rooms and/or individual fixtures to CFL lamps over the past few years.  They burn cooler, therefore we use less electricity cooling the house.  I am now looking forward to the promise of a lower energy bill that will result from less power consumption overall.   This promise as well as the recent drop in the initial purchase price has led me to buy into the whole CFL revolution [cue the music].  I have even gotten used to the bluer (perhaps greenish) color temperature.

All good, eh?  However, I am saddened to report that we recently had a death in the family.  The deceased is one of our first CFL lamps, barely over a year old.  A major brand, used in a lamp on an occasional table upstairs.  If you’re like me you generally expected a one year life span from a traditional Edison incandescent bulb.  Those old bulbs were cheap, lasted about a year, and then you bought another.  No problem… right?  Yet at four to five times the price per bulb, these CFL fixtures are no longer “cheap”.  Additionally, if the CFL lasts no longer than a year, the assumed cost saving figures that my “smart and green” purchase were based upon must be recalculated.  Now that I have committed virtually every lamp in the entire house to CFL, I am a little concerned.

I hope that this is a fluke.  I hope that our other CFLs last up to eight years.  I hope to buy a power generating windmill ($600) for my backyard to run my lights, I hope for a solar powered car to drive to the grocery [again, cue the music].  I hope that I can electrify my home through the energy generated by an American flag waving in the breeze on my front porch!  But now, due to this unexpected CFL death, all my hopes are fading…

I don’t know, maybe one of the kids knocked it over.

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For the past nine years, I have worked on an annual event during which major Hollywood studio marketing departments make presentations to a national distribution company’s sales department.   The team I work with manages the entire production side of the event, and we watch lots of movie previews for four or five days.  Naturally, one of the perks of the job is the S.W.A.G. (aka - stuff we all get).  Usually this amounts to several DVDs, a few t-shirts and other promotional items.

This year, I was given a promotional 8GB ZUNE player and have been very impressed with little device.  It is lightweight, and holds a fair amount of music and videos on board.  I just completed a flight to and from San Francisco and the ZUNE made it through both legs of the four-hour-plus flight successfully with a good charging before each flight.  I’m not sure that my ipod has ever made it that long!

I have been an ipod user for several years and generally have a positive opinion about the Apple player.  I probably would not have ever purchased a ZUNE on my own - but would consider it now.  The ZUNE software is different from iTunes, but not unacceptable.  I think the thing that stands out the most is the weight (or lack thereof).  Every ipod I have purchased has been the top-of-the-line with the largest capacity for storage.  My reasoning has  been that I will never have to leave any music at home.  Every album… it is all there in my pocket, or at least inside my carry on bag.  The downside is that the largest ipods are always the heaviest, and that alone makes them less desireable to carry on your person.  Perhaps the answer is in self-control.  Perhaps I don’t need every track I own in my pocket - I can only listen to one at a time.  Additionally, I have never let the ipod run for 16 days straight anyway, and probably never will. 

The other side of the ZUNE revelation is back to the Mac product line.  As I mentioned above, I have always bought the full-sized ipod in the past and have never even considered the tiny Nano a realistic alternative…  the ZUNE changed that for me. 

Maybe smaller is better. 

Report: Complaints trigger rewrite of Photoshop Express terms | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

This is a blog I started in mid-April, but abandoned due to work-load… Here it is.

I briefly checked out the Photoshop Express site when it was announced a month or so ago. I was curious why Adobe would make such a bold move without getting something in return. For this reason, I intended to read the full license agreement, but due to a very full work-load, I didn’t have time to read it completely. I was not surprised at all when the article (linked above) raised the issue regarding Adobe’s intended use of uploaded imagery. What a great deal that could’ve been for them, I guess. Except….

I picture an up-and-coming production type who decides to upload imagery for a project she’s working on to the Adobe site for image editing (because she thinks he can’t afford the full version) and then checks the “Yes, I own this material” box, without considering the consequences… I am certain that it WOULD happen daily, and I am equally certain that it would eventually come back to haunt Adobe. Imagine a project in which a client owns a catalog of images, or the original photographer stumbling across footage they own or shot as part of a custom campaign. I don’t think things would work out well for Adobe or our young producer if the case went to court.

I didn’t proceed with a Adobe Express account because I have an issue with “free” access to a slow web-based version of Photoshop in exchange for perpetual use of my personal and professional photographs.

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Whew! No recent posts… Way too busy… I have been involved in editing six short form videos as well as additional bumpers and two introductory segments for a large event taking place in Nashville in April, 2008. Work for the project started in mid-January, and premieres at the event in early April.

My average schedule has consisted of waking at around 6AMish… wandering to my office to edit until sometime in the mid-afternoon… grabbing a bite to eat, and then editing, compositing, emailing, and phoning until the wee hours of the morning. Sleep is really over-rated! I actually do like the work, and hope that there are more projects like it coming down the pike! More later….

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Jerry Buxbaum is a production acquaintance from the Pacific Northwest. He was coordinator of stunts and special effects on an independent feature a year or so. The feature was titled The Human Trace, directed by Jason Satterlund.  My company produced the visual effects, and I was the digital effects artist for the production.

I saw this clip on Jerry’s myspace page page and was amazed. It is from a public safety spot for the citizens of Idaho…  The link is here:

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=30089312

Ouch…. great stunt - great spot! Keep up the good work….

Best,
Greg

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Hmmmm…. It seems to me, that on windy days, my WiFi network is less steady than it normally is. This may make me sound like a fool, or as far as I know, this may be a known issue. Either way, it appears to me that my WiFi signal fluctuates drastically on windy days.

Of course, I must add that this opinion is based on four years of undocumented, anecdotal research.

I started out with a 802.11B network, moved on through a G, B, combo, and now am running a Wireless N system…. and it still seems that my signal is affected by wind.

I wonder…

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