Best Tool for the Job

Windows Movie Maker 2

Windows Movie Maker 2 (which comes in an update to Windows XP) is really not a bad movie making program. I have heard surprisingly little about it, so for a long time, I didn't even try clicking the icon to see what it did. Once I finally decided to give it a whirl, I was surprised at its usefulness.

The project I wanted to do was just to take a folder of still images and create a video slideshow with music in the background. It turns out there's a Wizard built in to do just that. Basically I just had to open the wizard, select the folder, select the song, select a style and click "create movie." That's it... it was done. Windows Movie Maker automatically creates the slideshow to the length of the song and throws in some nice default transitions.

Once it's done, you can either save it and have a decent movie done in about 15 minutes, or go in and add from the impressive selection of transitions and titling effects to customize the movie.

There are however, as with most Microsoft programs, some caveats. Windows Movie Maker won't even run on my Dell laptop. I tried some troubleshooting (updating my video card drivers etc) but it just keeps crashing. It runs perfectly on my MUCH older P II 450 Gateway desktop--even with such an antiquated processor, it is able to render the transitions in realtime.

Creating a similar movie in Premier or another, more advanced video editing application such as Final Cut would have taken much longer to get the desired effect. Between tweaking the length of transitions and the time pictures are shown on the stage, creating a simple slideshow (even using the storyboarding features) can become a much more involved process. I haven't compared it to iMovie yet, but I imagine it has similar features.

If you have Windows XP and want to make simple videos, I suggest checking out Windows Movie Maker. If it doesn't crash on your machine, you might just find you really like it.

For an example of the type and quality of slideshow it produces, check out this movie I created today (11.6mb wmv format).

Best Tool for Font Management

If you enjoy layout and design of any type, you're bound to have wished for a quick way to preview text in several different fonts. Most graphics programs allow you to view only one at a time. Changing fonts over and over can be very tedious and often by the time you've gone through the list you can't remember the ones you liked. Enter FontLister.

I've searched high and low and among both free and non-free software, FontLister is the best I've found. Even better is the fact that there's an older version for free and the new version is non-limited shareware with a $5 registration fee.

Features include viewing both installed and non-installed fonts, installing fonts, viewing custom text and best of all, you can view many fonts as you want at a time. The user interface is great and it runs very, very fast. I highly recommend it. (Windows only).

OS X: Don't hold down the Mouse

For some reason, when you hold the mouse button down in OS X Panther (and Jaguar), the processor usage goes up to 100%. It doesn't matter if you're clicking nothing on the desktop or the most complex of widgets, holding down the mouse takes up all your processor power.

So what? Well, here's one example of when it might affect you. If you're listening to online radio (or an mp3 in iTunes) and reading a website or document that requires scrolling and you decide to hold the mouse button down on your scroll bar, often your internet radio will cut out or your mp3 will skip. Especially using Safari for whatever reason. I'm sure there are other instances where this could be problematic, especially when rendering video or 3d.

I'm on a 1.6gh G5, so it's not that I'm using antiquated hardware. This is, as far as I can tell, a fault in OS X.

Fitzgerald

I had the chance to read a couple short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald -- "The Rich Boy" and "Head and Shoulders." Of the two, I enjoyed Head and Shoulders the most. It's a rather humorous story of a child raised to be a prodigy and how he's pulled out of prodigy-hood by a beautiful (but not-so-smart) blonde girl. Fitzgerald does a a really good job of developing real characters quickly and effectively.

"The Rich Boy" was also enjoyable, but it's look at a young man and the effect of being rich with 'old money' was slightly depressing; it was one of those stories where you really feel bad for the protagonist most of the time through. Again, however, the characters in the story are very well developed and easy to sympathize with. I recommend both of the stories.

Quick Links for Those Who Think

Today I added a quick links section on the left hand side of this site. It's a separate blog that I can post quick, interesting links to as I find them without creating a whole new entry in the main blog. Inspired by WhatDoIKnow.

I need to sleep more and play less...

Read My News

Here's a link to the news sites I read... it's on bloglines, a very good online aggregator.

http://www.bloglines.com/public/zzzmarcus

Enjoy.

Plesk

Tonight I've spent several hours trying to back domains up in Plesk and restore them on another Plesk install on another server. Let me just say that it is not trivial. I'm not sure how good Ensim, cPanel or other similar web server software is at the process but if you're going to use Plesk and potentially could have to move domains, prepare yourself for an adventure. Note: this only applies to Plesk 6. Plesk 7 is out and I haven't tested it to see if the process is any easier in the new version.

Go Nader!

I really wish Bush had managed to keep his popularity level up to where it was before the war and in the beginning phases of the war; at least to a level where I could feel fairly confident he would win. Since he hasn't though, anything that will pull votes from John F. Kerry is welcome.

I don't think it's even worth the time it might take to formulate an opinion of Nader, other than knowing that he's much more likely to pull votes from Kerry than Bush (as he probably did from Gore) and from the looks of things now, Bush is going to need every vote he can get.

It's valid to point out that Bush really has not even started campaigning yet so his even match up with Kerry will probably change for the better once he begins. It's also to Bush's advantage that most, if not all, of the dirt that can be pulled out on him has already come to light in the last election (no, I don't think these deserter charges will ever amount to anything). Kerry, I believe has not seen the last skeleton to come out of his closet. Even if the intern scandal turns out to be nothing, I have a feeling we'll hear more from his past.... and not about how nice of a guy he is.

So, Ralph Nader, welcome to the race. I hope you get your 3 million votes and go back to wherever you're from again.

The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyville

I just finished the short story "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyville" by Mark Twain. It's about a man who is wronged in a small town known for it's honesty who decides to ruin the entire town by ruining their reputation. In typical Twain style, the story is straightforward, easy to read and comprehend and very engaging. I recommend if it you have some time.

I also read a short Sherlock Holmes mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle called "The Man with the Twisted Lip." It was pretty typical as well, interesting and a quick read. Sometimes it seems that when I'm reading I unwittingly find a common theme among a wide variety of authors. Last month it was France and everything French, especially the lack of morals there. This month it's opium dens... strange how these things play out.

Hot Wheels Appeal

If you're a guy in the US (possibly elsewhere, and maybe if you're a girl too, I can only speak for my own sex & country), and if you've ever had any tendency to collect anything at all, you've probably collected (or at least been tempted to collect) Hot Wheels. I'm not sure what it is about this toy, but it's the one toy I haven't been able to resist since I was 3 years old. Tonight at Target I bought one, and I have a secret stash in my closet (including some pretty old ones from when I was a kid).

I'm not positive why they're so addictive, but from what I can tell, it's a combination of these things (in no particular order):

1. Price - you can't beat $.80 for just about anything.
2. They feel solid. They're made of metal and they don't break if you drop them. I think most people are generally attracted to things that feel nice and solid, like Hot Wheels do.
3. They're universal. Everyone drives or rides in car or at least is around people who drive cars.
4. They're marketed by Ford, Toyota, Ferrari and about every other 'real' car maker in the country. Not directly, but all that marketing hype transfers pretty well over to the miniature versions of their products; which brings me to the next step.
5. They're small. Unlike model trains, transformers, guns or skateboards, you can keep a collection of Hot Wheels in a box under your bed and still have room for all the other stuff you have under your bed. Maybe that's why people still collect stamps too :).

Now I'm going to set about planning my next entry, thinking of a product that will be equally appealing to the young and old alike for years and years and that will eventually make me rich :).

New Design!

Finally, I'm no longer using the default Movable Type design for the front page! This one is probably not going to last a long time, but it's at least something a little more interesting.

The default Movable Type templates are all CSS and use only one table for the calendar. I'm not ready to spend the time to design the site without tables yet, but that definitely is in the future. I also have tons of ideas for future features... all in good time.

Flash ActionScript Editors

The Actionscript editor built into Flash is okay, but not great by any means. Today I went off in search of something better--much better.

For the Mac, I found JEdit which also works on the PC. With some minimal customizing, it works great. The toolbar is at the top of the screen like every other Mac app, which is great but still very uncommon for Java apps on OS X. It allows you to collapse functions to better view code and the default install has syntax highlighting for Actionscript. In addition there are numerous plugins available and it has an active development and support community.

For the PC there's a dedicated Actionscript editor that has the Flash API and autocomplete for flash syntax built in, allows you to build and preview your file right from the interface, also lets you collapse functions and allows for retectangular selections. It's called SEPY or SE|PY. It looks like there's a Mac port on the way--there's even a screenshot of it working under OS X on their site.

Zempt - Still in Beta!

Maybe the title to my previous post ("Words of Warning") should be the title to this one.... Last night I installed Zempt, a desktop application to publish to your weblog. It's in beta status (0.3) but "Zempt is completely stable and should be suitable for most blog authors." Well, it's not suitable for me. It corrupted my database (unless it was just pure coincidence, in which case 2 other users on their forums suffered the same unfortunate coincidence). I spent the last hour recreating the entire weblog which is (hopefully) back to normal now. Fortunately I have saved versions and have not yet heavily customized the design.

The idea for the software is a great concept--it's not unique, but it's free which is nice. It allows you to spell check easily and publish quickly and easily without filling out a web form, but wait until they've ironed out some bugs before you try it on a live site.

Words of Warning

Being a web designer/developer is addictive! I'm not sure what it is that causes it, but once you're in, you're in and there's no way of getting out (even if you want to). It seems like if a couple months pass by and I haven't designed a new site, I'll find myself randomly thinking of ideas for sites to start. The difference between this type of pondering and other random thoughts is that with websites, they actually get created. It's weird. It's not so bad if it's just a site or two here or there, or a site for a paying client, but it seems like that's rarely how it happens. At least that's not how it's been for me.

Currently I find myself supporting several not-for-profit personal websites. This weblog is one, I posted a like to my cheesy personal site and then there's the mandatory family site and the very outdated business site not to mention a couple sites that are still waiting to be developed and of course the longboarding site-gone-wild that now has a forum with over 60,000 posts in it. Those are just some of the ones that I run for 'fun'... getting into clients is a whole different story.

So, a word of warning, if you're going to get into web design, just make sure that you know what you're doing. It's not a hobby, not a profession, it's an addiction.

Mel Gibson's The Passion

Tonight Diane Sawyer interviewed Mel Gibson about his movie "The Passion." I guess it's part of her job, but she makes herself look like she knows absolutely nothing about Christianity, even though over 80% of Americans identify themselves as Christians. Mel Gibson did a great job answering her questions.

Among the criticism of this movie is the assertion that it will spark violence against Jews. Gibson's answer was that if this movie will spark violence against Jews, then any movie that shows one group victimizing another person or group runs the risk of inciting violence against the ancestors of the victimizers and should, therefore, not be shown. This would include any movies about Nazi Germany in World War II, Catholics in the 'Holy' Wars, or any similar group who might have ancestors around today who could suffer the repercussions of depicting the violence committed by their ancestors in such a real way. Granted, there are differences with the Jews, notably some precedence with 'Passion' Plays and other violence against Jews, and the fact that they are a minority might increase the chances the movie causing violence against them. This notwithstanding, it seems to me that if there really was going to be violence against Jews, it's going to be from people who would probably do it anyways and if they cite this film as the reason, it will probably just be an excuse.

Personally, I will probably not see this movie, but only because from the R rating and the way Gibson describes it, it will be too violent for what I'd like to see. There's the argument that it's important to see how it really was, but for me, the written accounts of the Passion are enough for me to have some comprehension of how it was.

On a humorous note, Gibson said he may go where no one can find him... he'll pitch a tent right next to the weapons of mass destruction. Good luck Mel, when you find them, let us know where they are.

Were I a Dung Beetle

Today I read Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. It is a story of a boy who wakes up one morning to discover that he's changed from a traveling business man, providing for his entire family, to a large dung beetle. The change doesn't shock him too much at first--he's more concerned about being late for work, but later the full impact of it settles in as he discovers his family no longer views him as they previously did.

I enjoyed it. Kafka does a great job of making the absurd seem completely normal-- reading the story, you feel as if turning into a beetle were something that could possibly happen to you tomorrow morning. The descriptions are vivid--he makes it easy to feel what it would be like to be a dung beetle--everything from the physical aspects of learning to walk as a beetle to the alienation one might feel upon suddenly metamorphosing into a large insect. It's also very interesting how he describes the process of losing touch with humanity and gradually starting to think like an insect.

Around the World in 80 Days - Movie

I finished Around the World in Eighty Days today and also discovered there's a movie coming out about the book. To be honest, I can't imagine that the movie will be all that good. The story was interesting, but not amazing.

In the movie, Passepartout (the main character's servant) will be played by Jackie Chan, which seems strange to me since in the book he's a young Frenchman, and Fogg (the main character) will be played by Steve Coogan and there will be appearances by Rob Schneider, John Cleese, Johnny Knoxville, Kathy Bates, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Wim Wenders, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson and Richard Branson... there's a trailer here if you're interested.

It doesn't look like they're taking much from the book other than the character names. In the book Fogg is not an inventor, there are no airplanes, air balloons or other strange contraptions (with the exception of a sail powered sled). Fogg in the book plays a character that does not ever show emotion rather than a passionate man set on making history as he's portrayed in the movie. There's also no sight of Fix in the trailer, the detective who, in the book, chases them around the world, but I can't imagine they'd leave him out.

It does, however look like they'll remain true to the Jules Verne's completely inaccurate and error-filled portrayal of Mormons (if not in good taste, at least in good humor), and who better to play the part than Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It will be interesting to see how it turns out.

Flash for Interactivity

Things are changing online. I have been known to say that all-Flash websites are all bad unless they are for movie trailers or cartoons, but I'm starting to change my opinion. At work, I have the opportunity to browse Flash sites quite a bit. I find a lot of inspiration and ideas on the Internet Tiny Awards and Favourite Website Awards sites which have links to the cream of the crop of Flash sites.

I think that within another year or two, 75% of all business-related sites will have at least some Flash on them (I'd be curious to see what the statistics are now.) The reason Flash is growing is because it has gone from being a tool for creating cool animations to a tool for creating fluid interfaces that are much more interactive and intuitive and less linear. The internet is becoming an interactive experience, and as of now, Flash is the only tool to make it that.

Bill O'Reilly - Spineless

The only talk show on the radio on my way home from work is the Bill O'Reilly factor. I've been listening to it for a couple months now and I've come to some conclusions:

1. Bill O'Reilly is self-obsessed and insecure. Every time there is even the most minor mention of his name, he reads the article on the air. It's like he has to prove to everyone that he's famous. He's constantly saying that "you can't get away from me," and "I'm everywhere" and playing clips of people mentioning his name. I'm sorry Bill, but if it really were the case that you were everywhere, you wouldn't have to tell us.

Read more... there's a lot of it.

2. Every time there is any criticism of him, he goes ballistic--he can't take it. He is unable to let anything pass under the table without refuting it, no matter how absurd or how blatant of a lie (or truth for that matter) it may be. Anytime someone mentions Hillary Clinton and the fact that her book sold more than his, he goes nuts--he starts making excuses, accusing her of selling her book by the thousand to rich democrats (which may well be true) but he can't let it go.... even when according to statistics I've seen, his book isn't even second behind hers-- Al Franken's book (who he hates with a passion) is ahead of his! Don't even get him started on the issue of where he lived and when and some reporter lying about it. WHO CARES Bill... yet he mentions it almost every other day... get over it.

3. Bill is "looking out for you." Could you be any more condescending? Do you really believe anyone wants you looking out for them? Give me a break! Bill--how do you find time to look after all of us when you're so busy looking out for (and at) yourself?

4. Bill O'Reilly is a social liberal. I don't care what you say, but if you feel that pornography, strip clubs, gay marriage and illicit sex are not issues that have a negative effect on society, you're blind! All of these things are major factors in the deterioration of the family in America, and the family is the last thing holding the country together! Wake up Bill. Today when the Kerry intern scandal broke today he said he doesn't think it will affect Kerry's campaign and that he actually feels sorry for the guy. What?! Are you that out of touch with Americans to think that they will let a presidential candidate get away with infidelity? Sure, you can point to Bill Clinton as the exception but is he really an exception? Bill Clinton was, after all, impeached! Maybe it's Kerry's wife you should feel sorry for. Maybe it's yourself for losing your conscious.

5. He's spineless. You won't endorse a political candidate but you sure will attack them. Your personal vendetta against Howard Dean is ridiculous... what is it for? Did he insult you personally at some point? It's sure not politics. You constantly make excuses for asserting there were WMD's in Iraq saying you "weren't skeptical enough" or that it's Tenants fault or Bush's fault or whoever's fault... come on, stand up and take the blame yourself. The whole time you're apologizing, you've got excuses coming out the other side of your mouth. Whether or not there are/were WMD's in Iraq is another story... I personally believe there are or were at some point, but again, that's a whole different issue.

So I started off talking about Bill O'Reilley and ended talking to him--well Bill, you need it. Stand up and take a look at yourself. Just because you're not perfect doesn't mean you should lower your moral expectations for society in general to justify your own shortcomings. You're in the public eye, expect to be criticized, but don't get your proverbial panties in a wad over it. Deal with it. Face the facts, you're not everywhere, Rush is bigger than you and so is Hannity. Your book sold less than Hillary's and Franken's and it's because while those people are as out of touch as anyone else in this world, at least people know where they stand. And no Bill, you're not "looking out for me," that's the biggest load of spin I've heard all year.

Apple Exposé Clones, Copycats and Wannabe's

By far, my favorite feature of Apple's OS X 10.3 Panther operating system is Exposé. If you're not familiar with it, it's a feature that allows you to see all the windows of a your current application, all the windows you have open or your desktop by using a simple keyboard combination or a hot-corner on your desktop. It achieves this by quickly and smoothly making shrinking and rearranging your windows or sliding them off the screen to expose the desktop.

The main problem with Exposé isn't so much a problem with Exposé as much as it is a problem with every other operating system--they don't include this or any similar feature. When I leave OS X and move to Windows XP or Linux, using the taskbar or alt+tab to find a window seems slow and awkward now. In my profession as a multimedia specialist, I usually have at least 5 apps running and often more than double that number of windows open on my desktop.

So. in order to fill this gap, I've started searching for software (preferably free) that will achieve the same thing for Windows and/or Linux. So far, my search has not been all that fruitful.

For Windows, there's an Expose wannabe called WinPLOSION, previously known a WinExpose (no wonder they had to change their name) which is commercial, costs $10 and from everything I've read, is less than impressive--and since there's no demo, I'll probably never try it.

There's also a freeware product that is a pain to find and download on Aqua-soft (registration required, no download area etc. etc.). It requires some external dll's and the first time I tried it, it caused my Dell Inspiron 8100 to immediately give me a blue screen of death--one of the very few crashes I've had under Windows XP. After I tried a later version, it showed some improvements (at least it doesn't crash) but it is 100% unusable in it's current condition. It's on version 0.3 now and I think I'll hold out until the 1.0 release. Currently, I don't recommend trying it unless you are willing to risk a crash (I'm writing this for the second time because of it).

For Linux there is a working Exposé clone called Exposity, made for the Metacity window manager. From everything I can tell (there's not much available online) it works fairly well. I, however, have not had a chance to install it because I don't have Metacity installed (I have a hard time being motivated to install a desktop manager that is "halfway usable" [gnome.org]).

Another strange phenomenon is that in certain places, I've seen any attempt to copy Expose on other operating systems harshly criticized by Macintosh users. Isn't imitation the sincerest form of flattery? Doesn't pretty much every OS and piece of software copy (at least to some extent) some other piece of software? I believe that the more others copy Apple, the more they (both Apple and the copycats) are inspired to innovate and that by this, software in general improves.

The Mysterious Kernel

Understanding the kernel has never been one of my strong points when it comes to Linux. I've seen articles on the new 2.6 kernel and how great it is, but for me, it's never been clear exactly what is so great about it or if I should bother using it. Tonight I found a link to an article on OSnews that does a great job of explaining what's new in the 2.6 kernel and gives some very clear data as to why it's better than the 2.4. The article is on IBM's site-- read it here.

Best Browser, hands down - Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla has released Firefox (previously Firebird) for OS X, Windows and Linux. If you haven't used it, you're missing out. Among the reasons it's better than Microsoft Internet Explorer (or any other browser) are:

. Automatic popup blocking
. Right click and "block images from this server--great for quickly removing banner ad servers
. Tabbed browsing
. Consistent over 3 different operating systems
. It's fast--very fast
. Built in Google searching
. Better standards support, especially for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
. Open Source
. Extendable
. Less prone to viruses (at least so far)
. Bettter built in download manager

I really can't think of a single reason to keep using Internet Explorer, and in fact, for quite some time now, I haven't. Apple's Safari browser is a little more of a competitor and has most of the same features as Firefox, but in my experience, Firefox renders pages better, and with the GUI enhancements that came with this release, I don't think I'll be using Safari much anymore either (not that I really ever did).

The DaVinci Code

Finally got around to reading the The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. It was a pretty intriguing novel. The history, facts and figures in the book are very interesting and were almost all things I had never heard of. The Priory of Sion, Opus Dei, the concept of Sacred Feminine, some interesting observations on the The Last Supper by Leonardo DaVinci to name a few.

While the history and facts in the book are interesting, and it's a page-turner , I found it a little lacking in the areas of character development, plot and dialog. Despite these things, I'd recommend The DaVinci Code to anyone who has a little time to devote to reading because of the aforementioned well researched facts and information.

Read on to see what else I'm reading at the moment.

I just started Around the World in Eighty Days. It's been in the back of my mind for quite awhile as a to-read book. I've also recently started Catch 22--another one I probably should have read in college but didn't. I recently finished The Scarlet Pimpernel--a great read and... what else, I've read several short stories, most of which I barely even remember at the moment and as soon as I save this others will probably come to mind, but that's it for now.

XML Part II

Success! After reading the Macromedia article linked to in the previous entry, I was able to successfully create a VERY basic weblog viewer in Flash reading an XML file generated by Movable Type with a slightly customized template. It wasn't too bad at all.

See the results here.

XML

The time has come. I'm being pulled from more than one direction to learn to integrate Flash MX 2004 and XML... The journey begins tonight and it begins right here.

Color Scheming Online

Today I found a decent online tool for creating color schemes. It's different from others available in that it almost forces you to use a "good" color scheme. Many color scheme programs will let you do just about anything. While the flexibility has it's advantages, if you're color scheme challeneged, it almost defeats the purpose of the software.

Anyway, I installed it here... http://marcusvorwaller.com/colormatch/ . Check it out.

Also... while I was configuring the database, I found a site I did awhile back that started out as a portfolio site. It's here: http://marcus.vorwaller.cc. I figure it's not linked anywhere else, why not put one to it here :)

The Money Pit

Before we bought this home, one of the home insurance reps we talked to on the phone mentioned the movie "Money Pit" and said "why did you buy an old house?" Well... there are a lot of reasons we bought an old house, the charm, the neighborhood that actually has TREES in it (imagine that), not every house on the block is the same as ours, we could afford more buying old--there are dozens of reasons. I've also discovered right away (and I knew this to an extent in the beginning) that we will definitely be putting money into the home.

At this point, I'm still excited to learn about home improvement and I feel that any amount of money that goes into this house will likely come out--it's an investment. If the housing market continues on its current trend around here, it should be a very good investment. In any case, I feel the home is a great investment, and being a homeowner feels great.