Electronica
Recording Life and Other Such Madness
Jan 16th
Two of my purchases during the Boxing Day madness this past holiday season was the Inspiron Mini 10v netbook and a Kodak Zx1 pocket camcorder. I figured that the netbook would suit my needs for a portable and practical computing device and the pocket camcorder would be an easier item to carry around to capture life than the DSLR I picked up a couple years back.
Since their arrival in late December, I’ve used both to varying degrees of success. I had a hoot recording video of my day with Liam (my 2 year old nephew) and have since transferred those files to my netbook. The problem I’ve since found is my ability to edit and share the vids after I’ve popped them on the netbook.
This video when uploaded to youtube was nearly 60MB in HD goodness, but it’s completely as-is. What I’d like to do is be able to add a watermark or something to tag it as mine and possibly compress it a touch. So can anyone suggest anything that not only runs in Windows 7 but has a fantastic price of free?
And then there’s the issue of where to share the videos.
With all the options that are out there, what do you recommend? So far I’ve checked out youtube and vimeo, but don’t really think either is what I’m looking for. What am I looking for you ask? I have no clue. What I do know is that viemo has the one upload limit (unless I completely misunderstood that) which hampers my ability to share, while youtube is just not where I’d like it to be if I’m going through all the trouble to film, edit, and then share (y’know?).
I’ve put some feelers out there on twitter (and even to my resident twitter video expert in Allie), but thought I’d also blog about it to see if my other three readers had anything to contribute.
So can you help me record life and other such madness? I sure hope so.
Review: HP A646 Photosmart Printer
Nov 17th
For the past three years, I’ve been using an HP A516 Photosmart printer to meet my photo printing needs. So when I saw that Raul was having a contest offering an HP A646 Photosmart Printer to those who left a comment, I figured I’d drop a line to let all those entering know how happy I was with mine. Now true I understood that by leaving a comment I was also entering the contest, but never in a million years did I figure I’d win.
HP Photosmart A646 Compact Photo Printer & Bag
Yet, that’s just what happened. So figuring that I now had this fancy dancy new printer in my hands, it made sense that I share my initial experience with all three of you that swing by.
Upon receiving the printer, the first thing that caught my eye was how eco-friendly it was compared to my “old skool” A516. Built from 32% recycled materials, the printer also includes a stylish carrying case which was made from recycled plastic bottles. It’s also important to note that it’s an Energy Star Qualified Product and uses less than a watt of energy while off. It also boasts a 3.45″ touchscreen to navigate through the many creative options and has ample means to acquire photos to print – whether plugging it direct into a computer, using a USB key, a number of memory cards, or via bluetooth from your phone.
Similar to the A516, the stylish A646 was a breeze to setup with my PC (I’m going to see about setting it up to my Macbook later tonight and figure the experience to be the same). I’m also happy to report that the pictures I printed using the included HP Advanced Photo Paper were phenomenal, but keep in mind that I’m no photophile – to a more technical saavy person the pictures may simply be acceptable.
Overall, I’m quite happy with the product. It’s done everything I’ve asked of it in the short time I’ve played with it and therefore I really don’t have anything to complain about. I do find it interesting that it comes with the tote, as it’s not necessarily something that’s all too portable considering it’s need of an electrical outlet to work (although a battery seems to be available, you still need to “plug” it in). It also prints slower than the 28 seconds as advertised, but I’ve got no need for speed so that doesn’t bother me too much. Lastly, it would have been nice if it was a WiFi enabled, but again not a large deal to me.
So if you’re in the market for a decent photo printer and the $189.99 pricepoint isn’t too scary (Best Buy – 17Nov), I’d recommend that you give the HP A646 Photosmart Printer a go.
I wrote this review after receiving the HP A646 Photosmart Printer via a contest (thanks again Raul of Hummingbird604.com & Linda of Hill and Knowlton). I was neither paid for this review nor asked to provide one and simply did of my own regard – so take what I say for what you figure it’s worth and read my disclosure statement. I’m always game to provide a review – feel free to contact me via this form so we can discuss the details.
Reading via RSS
Aug 10th
What do you use to follow the variety of different blogs you visit? Is it a particular RSS reader? Do you use one of the subscribe via email options that some have available? Or were you like me prior to my introduction to NewsFire and simply visited every site you liked? The reason I ask is that I’m in somewhat of a bind when it comes to keeping track of the different RSS feeds I used to follow.
As I’ve never made the switch from Tiger to Leopard, I’ve slowly found that support for an old timer like me has begun to dwindle. Many of the newer apps out there don’t bother to code for Tiger, while others have slowly converted newer versions to require that Leopard be the OS X of choice. So it was with much sadness that I didn’t read the change log for NewsFire carefully before an upgrade only to find that by running on Tiger, I was no longer able to keep track of life. What’s worse, is I had not backed up the list of feeds I had been following so I lost much of my favourite content.
After a quick search for an adequate replacement, I came across NetNewsWire and figured my problems were solved. Well, guess what I went and did today when the app promptly told me to upgrade? That’s right – another “Tiger Keep Out” sign appeared and Chris was again out of luck.
So here I sit, about two weeks out of date of from all my favourite feeds, and don’t know what to do. Can you help a poor kid out? Or should I simply bite the bullet and upgrade to Leopard?
Blogathon 2009
Jul 16th
If you haven’t already heard, 25Jul is the start of Vancouver Blogathon 2009. Spearheaded by Rebecca of Miss 604 fame and participated in by many others, it gives bloggers a chance to make a difference. The premise is committing to a 24 hour power session where you post every 30 minutes in an effort to raise money for a cause of your choice.
After enjoying the many people who participated last year, I had made a promise to myself that when the time were to come around again, I would throw my name into the hat and support a cause. But when I heard the date happened to be the same day I take possession of my new place, I figured I had to skip out (seriously – how would I explain to Marnie that I couldn’t help move?!). So instead, I plan to support those who do participate!
If you think you’re interested in joining the event but don’t have a blog, feel free to talk to me about guest posting here. Or better yet, visit @bluefur on twitter as he might be able to hook you up with your very own blog for the Blogathon. You also can head over to wordpress.com and setup one there too. Entirely up to you. Or be like me and support someone else like Rebecca, Aidan, or Duane.
It’s the least we all can do.
LCBD Review: Twikini
Jun 7th
As mentioned some time in the past, I am proud owner of an HTC Touch with an unlimited data plan. Not having much experience with a phone that could do so much, let alone one running Windows Mobile, I asked my fabulous group of twitter followers if they could recommend something and was pointed in the direction of Twikini.
Twikini in Action
Suffice to say, I have been pleased with my experience. Twikini is a slick app that gets the job done and I find has a far better user interface than other options I tried (Tiny Twitter and ceTwit being two). It allowed me to follow my personal timeline with ease, replying or DM’ing my followers without any trouble. Also, after using built-in support for Twitpic, I was publishing images off my Touch that would have likely never seen the light of day. Had it not been for the fact that the Beta version had moved into release and my 14 day trial ended, I’d likely still been using it. Really, the only drawback I found in it’s use was the auto-update feature not working like it should, but that could have simply been an I.D.10.T error on my part.
All in all, I would recommend anyone else looking for a Windows Mobile Twitter app to give Twikini a whirl.
Disclosure: This review was written for the “starving blogger” free license of Twikini.
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