Category Archives: Culture

Geek culture

Movie Maker’s downfall

I put together a 15 minute compilation video in Windows Movie Maker. Now, WMM is okay… it’s free with XP and does the job of a basic movie editor quite well. Well, as long as you’re happy with it only spitting out WMV. Which I’m not overjoyed about.

WMM’s big problem is it doesn’t like MPEGs. Oh sure, it’ll work with them, but it doesn’t like them. I can’t find any other explanation for how slow it gets when dealing with them. Once you have a few MPEGs in your project, you’ll find it takes an agonisingly long time to re-open the project. Seriously, by the time I got finished I had 15 minute long project with a couple of dozen MPEG-1 clips, and it literally took two hours of “checking project files” before I could do anything.

I thought it was some kind of hideous mistake the first time it happened, and cancelled and rebooted the machine. But it wasn’t. I ended up doing some research (on another PC, since that one was busy burning up CPU and disk cycles) and the word on the forums is that it just doesn’t like MPEGs. Throw a bunch of AVI or WMV videos at it, and it’s fine.

Well, I say fine, but in fact WMM regularly freezes up. My kids describe it as “going out to lunch” and it’s a source of constant frustration.

As it happens I’ve just bought Pinnacle Studio Plus version 10 ($189 via Harris Technology, and widely available elsewhere), something of an upgrade from both WMM and the Pinnacle Studio Quickstart 9 I got with the TV tuner card I just bought. Australian purchases of Studio Plus (and a couple of other Pinnacle products) will get a bonus USB TV tuner if they buy before the end of the year. (Yes, this is a bummer for me. Maybe I’ll put one of them on eBay.) So hopefully the next video project won’t be subject to WMM’s vagaries.

Other lessons: Google Video suggests 640 x 480 is the ideal resolution for uploads. But this resulted in a file close to 100Mb long, which not only took ages to upload, but was also sluggish on playback. Eventually I downsized it to 320×240, and it’s much faster in both cases, though quite pixellated. The default Google player (embedded in a web page) is actually 400×300, though I’m not sure this is actually supported in an AVI or WMV file, since Tmpgenc refused to resize to that, saying that 300 isn’t divisible by 16.

More on Studio Plus when I actually get around to installing and using it.

Crocodile Hunter news hits the web (and what Scott Adams said about it)

The Age/SMH reports than the death of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin caused a mass of web traffic onto news sites, causing some such as CNN to switch off bandwidth-heavy elements, and the ABC Online site to crash. The BBC and others reported spikes in demand.

Irwin’s own Australia Zoo and Crocodile Hunter web sites certainly weren’t responding, obviously snowed-under at the news. Technorati, Newsgator, Digg and other aggregators highlighted the story. News Corp’s Australian sites, which only recently started accepting them, received unprecedented numbers of reader comments.

And one other interesting snippet: Scott Adams of Dilbert fame wrote a post on his blog about Irwin’s death. Within about 24 hours it had been pulled offline, without a trace. Did Irwin’s fans get angry with him for his wisecracks? Was it simply in poor taste? Some people saw it, and commented here.

You decide. Here it is, in full: Continue reading →

Pinnacle 310i TV tuner first impressions

I picked up a Pinnacle 310i digital/analogue TV tuner card last week. APC had listed it in its top products section, which from what I’ve seen, is usually a reasonable bet. The kids were keen to try out the video editing software (Studio QuickStart), because even though it’s a cut-down version of Pinnacle’s Studio product, they wanted a change from Windows Movie Maker.

Me? I wanted a video capture card that would work in XP. My old FlyVideo card was okay-ish under Win95 (but even then the built-in apps were a bit dodgy; the TV viewing never seemed to work properly), just about bearable under Win2K (I could do captures using the Windows Media Capture utility, but it was pretty ugly setting it up). But it doesn’t work at all under XP.

TV tuning was a bonus, since it would allow recording direct off telly without going via the VCR. The 310i appeared to fit the bill. Retail is A$199, but I found it for A$169 at Landmark Computers in Melbourne, and it’s probably a similar price elsewhere.

Installing the card appeared to be pretty straightforward. Find a spare PCI slot, bung it in, and connect the lead from the card’s Audio Out to something approximating the PC’s internal Audio In. (Okay I admit I couldn’t find anything marked Audio In, and settled for CD in instead. Given that was unoccupied, it’s got me wondering if I can normally play CDs on the box… I’m not sure I’ve ever tried.)

Grabbed the first of the two CDs: MediaManager, and ran the install. The first hurdle was that despite the software claiming the CD key was on the sleeve, it wasn’t, it was on the CD itself.

Now, I don’t splurge a lot on new IT products. Part of being a geek luddite, I suppose. But this is the first mass-market consumer product I’ve come across that is built on the Dot Net Framework (version 1.1) and… wait for it… SQL Server Express Edition. That’s a hefty overhead for any end-user PC, and I’m glad mine has enough headroom that it doesn’t take a disk space (70Mb or so) or seemingly a performance hit, though I’ll be checking if it’s now running by default the service is set to start automatically. Personally I’d stick to an Access/Jet backend for any consumer-level products I was writing. It may be outdated, but it’s super-efficient in comparison.

Fired up the software and after a couple of false starts tuning the channels (one involving cancelling radio tuning, which took ages; one at the end where it appeared to hang, and I ended up rebooting the machine) it seemed to be playing nicely. The digital (and especially the HD) signals are brilliantly clear. Adhoc recording worked okay, too. In due course I’ll try the “burn live programmes” and timed recording functionality.

Mind you, I do wish software manufacturers would stop re-inventing how Windows should look. Dealing with iTunes and its permanently grey title bar is bad enough. Pinnacle’s software goes for all sorts of wacky icons for such basic tasks as minimising and maximising the window — all breaking the user’s colour and size preferences, and probably using way more PC resources than is necessary.

Next I ran the Studio Quickstart install. That took ages — it seemed to take an awfully long time to unpack the sample sounds in particular. When it eventually finished I had a little play with it. Pretty basic stuff. Plenty of transition and sound effects. Maybe the kids will be happy with it, but I couldn’t see any huge advantages over Windows MovieMaker (though outputting something other than WMV is definitely a plus).

All the best stuff (like chroma key/bluescreen, which they’d love to be able to do) seems to be locked away and requires separate payment. I might eventually do the upgrade to the full version, but I really wanted the recording functionality first and foremost.

I’ll keep playing and if I find anything worth mentioning will update later.

2007-07-12: Followup: Pinnacle TV viewing software

Nostalgia++

Could this prune iPod’s market share with the power of Nostalgia? Commodore (yes, that Commodore) announces a portable media player. Gawd knows why it’s called “Gravel In Pocket” though. They’re also readying a home media product.

Oh, there’s speculation new iPods aren’t far away.

Meanwhile this guy has built a USB keyboard out of an old Commodore 64.

This is a fun read: Halcyon Days: Interviews with classic games programmers.

Are you my mummy? (Hugo award winners)

Awarded a few hours ago: 2006 Hugo Award winners.

Very pleased to see one of the greatest 90 minutes of television I watched last year, the Doctor Who story “The Empty Child” / “The Doctor Dances” got a geurnsey for best dramatic presentation: short form.

PS. Monday morning. Paul Cornell on the shock of Doctor Who beating Battlestar Gallactica for a Hugo.

PPS. Thursday. Video of the award ceremony:

A free STB for all (again)

Alex Encel is having another go at getting everybody in Australia a government-subsidised set top box. (See last time).

I like the idea, but I’m still not clear on who would pay for those who need antenna upgrades (or indeed how many/how much dosh is involved for this).

As he points out, so far they haven’t picked up the idea apparently due to ideological grounds rather than sound economic argument. But that’s typical of the current government — otherwise why would we have massive subsidies for private health insurance?

By the way, just to be pedantic for a moment, in Australian English, the word analogue has a ue on the end.

Emulation saves the day

This is cool: Emulating a BBC Micro, Amstrad, Spectrum or Dick Smith VZ300 in a Java applet. Maybe I’ve been wrong in dissing Java.

Speaking of Beebs, apparently a version of cross-platform emulator BeebEm has been used to try to ressurect the 1980s BBC Domesday project. It makes interesting reading, particular with regards to the problems of digital preservation… not to mention the value of the resource in being a record of life in Britain from the time it was compiled.

Wrath of the geeks

Joel Spolsky is outraged over an IT security advert with the slogan “To catch a geek, you have to think like a geek”, featuring a picture of a man in illfitting trousers, red socks and plain black shoes:

What is this, high school? With the bullies who fail all their classes have such an inferiority complex they have to make fun of the geeks?

You know, I’m a professional geek. And I’ve worked with a lot of other professional geeks. Dozens. Maybe even hundreds.

Most of them are smart, and many of them brilliant. The vast majority are well-dressed. Only a tiny minority have fitted into the geek stereotype of unfashionable nerdy incomprehensible uncommunicative brainiacs.

Most of them a very well dressed, friendly, outgoing people. Some (gasp) are even women.

Okay, so it’s only advertising. But it’s obviously got a few noses out-of-joint. And from Joel’s reaction, some of those noses are decision-maker noses.

Clueless agency undermines customer’s advertisement

Compare this agency ad, which turns up in a “linux C++” search, to this homegrown ad, which turns up in a “linux C++” search.

I encourage everyone to apply for the first job. They clearly want everyone to do so. I certainly did. You’d think that agencies, with their unabashed love of keyword searching would know better… perhaps they’re fully aware of what they’re doing. I love their fourteen key areas of specialization. The second job, well, read the instructions. It’s a nice place, with a good coffee machine. And people too. And management that’s able to pull itself back from the brink of cluelessness without being yelled at. Mind you, the last few paragraphs used to read:

Now, we won’t chuck your application away if you don’t hit all these points. But if you clearly don’t match the job at all you will get an abusive email. We will be drawing our conclusions from the application you send (hint, hint). Comparisons will be drawn between yourself and a small rodent.

We’re located on St Kilda Rd near the Domain Interchange. Public transport is pretty good here. Oh, we’ve got a darn good coffee machine, if that floats your boat.

Note: Do not send us an application if you are clueless. You’re wasting our precious time, and you will get an abusive email in response.

How do you name your computers?

These days just about every computer is networked, and that means they have to have a hostname. So how do you name yours? Assuming there’s no particular corporate standard you have to follow, do you make up a theme, or just give them random names?

At home we have lano and woodley.

At my girlfriend’s place, they’ve called them crunchie and munchie.

The company I use for web hosting names their servers after towns and cities around Australia.

At one job I had, we went Red Dwarf, and ended up with holly (main server), kryten (test server) and hudzen (temporary server).

At another job, we started on The Simpsons, with maggie, marge, homer… then moved onto Asterix, with getafix (very appropriate for a machine that needed patching) and obelix.

Girls, music, and virtual PCs

Hmm, a calendar of Australian IT women, in the name of encouraging more women into the industry. Available online at itgoddess.info.

If you’re more at home with mucking about on Virtual Machines, then you might be interested to know that Virtual PC is now free.

Billy Bragg has applauded MySpace for backing down on their T+Cs imposed on artists who used the site to distribute music. “I am very pleased to see that MySpace have changed their terms of agreement from a declaration of their rights into a declaration of our rights as artists, making it clear that, as creators, we retain ownership of our material.”