Headaches with video editing!

2008-09-09 15:30 by Nailbar
I'm working on this nice little project, where I'm supposed to create screen capture videos with audio commentary. These videos feature instructions on how to use the computer at a specific work place. It's all about e-mailing, calendar, and file handling.

Now I'm working against a deadline, which is coming at a much faster speed than I anticipated, and the programs I try to use are somewhat buggy or doesn't do what I want them to do.

There's no plugin for VirtualDub for reducing noise in the audio stream. Just so you know. Damn crappy microphone socket!

Also, all the open source, or free tools for converting avi files to flash videos have failed in one or another way. I don't have the time for troubleshooting, or the money for commercial software... I probably brought this upon myself, with my Open source fandom and such.

Mondays - zzz

2008-09-08 18:15 by Nailbar
Catbert is a cat. Dogbert is a dog. What is Dilbert? Okay, so that was just bad. But don't blame it on me. Blame it on Mondays!

[Dilbert]

Aah, mondays. I can't think on mondays. Everything seems to go wrong on mondays. It's raining. *Sigh!*

Also, added two more images to the [Gallery of Nature]. Found the hornets nest funny since it's partly made of colored paper. Guess what color the house is!

Engine upgraded

2008-09-04 18:28 by Nailbar
Updated the blog engine again. Changelog for this update:

• Clicking the title, "the Nailbox", now takes you to the index page
• Added a method for viewing text files in utf-8
  
• Added better security to file management
  
• Added a [view] link for text files in the file browser
  
• Moved the stylesheet stuff to its own file

It's actually not that much, but it works. I'm still thinking on making the blog multi user. We shall see.

It's in the code

2008-09-04 09:50 by Nailbar
And now for some JavaScript magic. Sometimes I browse the Interwebs only to come across a directory index filled with random images I would like to look at, like a screen shot database, or a gallery of some kind. In some cases these lists have 100 or more entries and it's a really tedious task to click on each image to view it. This is my solution; a copy-and-pase script for viewing all images linked from a page through the <a> tag.

Just copy this code to the browsers address bar and press Return. If it complains about pop-ups, just select allow and run the script again. You will get the twenty first images as pop-up windows, or in Firefox' case, new tabs.

javascript:if(list){ for(var i=pops;i<pops+20;i++) if(list[i]) var temp=window.open(list[i]); var temp=pops+=20; }else{ var list=new Array(); var pops=0; var traceit=function(elmnt){ if(elmnt.tagName=="A"){ var temp=elmnt.href; var type=temp.substr(temp.length-4); for(var i=0;i<list.length;i++) if(list[i]==temp) temp=""; if(temp && (type==".jpg" || type==".png" || type==".gif" || type==".JPG" || type==".PNG" || type==".GIF")) list[list.length]=temp; } for(var i=0;i<elmnt.childNodes.length;i++) traceit(elmnt.childNodes[i]); }; traceit(document.body); for(var i=pops;i<pops+20;i++) if(list[i]) var temp=window.open(list[i]); var temp=pops+=20; }

Run the code once more to get the next 20 images.

In fact, you can try this right now on this web page. I usually have a few images linked from here. Also works well in the galleries in [Images].

Tigers can be tricky

2008-09-02 09:13 by Nailbar
Zzz. I had a dream last night where I had a bit of a misunderstanding with a tiger, and it started chewing on my arm. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep after that. I got all philosophical on the concept.

Think about it. If you're close to a tiger and it gets angry with you, what could you possibly do to save yourself? Running would be no good; tigers are fast and will probably instinctively chase you if you try to run. Climbing wouldn't help; Tigers climb better than you and me. I guess you can't scare a hungry tiger away, and you probably can't beat it in a fight. It would take too long to start a fire.

I was basing it all on my experience with our cat.

Are you seeing this?

2008-09-01 20:37 by Nailbar
Right. So now I'm going to do something I wouldn't usually do. I actually have this thing with only using stuff I've created myself. All images are mine, all graphics, all text, etc. Anyhow, this time I'll post an image I found on the web.

So the funny thing was that I found this optical illusion on the Interwebs. Don't remember where, or by whom. I think it's a classic and has been rehosted several times already. It asked me to identify as many faces as possible, hidden in the picture. If I were to find 8 of them, I'd have an "extraordinary sense of observation", and if I'd find 11 of them, which was the highest number and highest score for that image, i'd be "extremely observer".

I found 12, not counting the peep on the horse.

I'm not going to post the image where I've marked all the faces with a red marker. That would be wrong.