shattergrey

I do what lj-ing I do at work, but that time may be over. The feds have decided that our computers are not secure enough to run their software. They're now sweeping through the place, replacing computers.

They hit this building in the morning. Dozens of boxes are already sitting in the next room. By this time tomorrow, I expect they'll be recording everything we read and type. As if the cameras, hand scans, and card readers everywhere aren't enough.

Only the election results are keeping me from depression. My girl Nancy's going to be the speaker of the house. I used to fix her copier when I worked for Xerox. Not that she remembers, I'm sure.

My company sent me to Las Vegas from the 15th to the 20th for training, and it has taken me this long to catch up with my lj reading. So, sorry Meg that I didn't comment on your essays and good luck with the job. Janet, thanks for posting those photographs. You've really made the place your own.

The training was from 8 to 5. Not being a morning person, I got through it on about 10 cups of coffee. Around 5, my normal waking up time, the caffeine merged with my natural energy. So I was bouncing of the various walls of Las Vegas for the rest of the night. It was my first trip there. I gotta say, it's one weird town.

Las Vegas is actually a permanent mirage in the middle of the desert. There's nothing, but nothing around it for miles but desert. It's a mirage of places that exist in other places, other times, but not exactly in this form. Not only are you seeing a mirage, but you're tripping as well. People go there to gamble and to eat at the buffets. I don't gamble, or eat after work, so I did a lot of walking around and drinking. It was good. Beautiful weather this time of year. It seemed to be in the 70s 24 hours a day.

The second best part was the Bodies Exhibition. These are Chinese cadavers that have been skinned, dipped in plastic, and posed. They have pieces cut out so that you can see what's further in. They had separate displays of organs, babies with birth defects, and metal implants. I had a great time.

The very best part was this. I eat an apple every day, between breakfast and lunch. I didn't take any apples with me though, because I figured I could get them in Las Vegas. When I arrived on Sunday night, I went to the shopping center across the street from the hotel, and couldn't find any. On Monday morning, I hoped to get one at the breakfast buffet in the hotel, but there were none. So I went to the minimart/liquor store across the other street. They had had an apple, but had sold it at some point. The nearest supermarket was over a mile away. I had no car, and class started in 15 minutes. There was a lot of construction going on at that intersection, and a woman was directing traffic around the mess. I went up to her, and asked her where I could find an apple. She reached into her bag, and gave me one! That was Sandy, and we talked a few more times. The next day, I took her a bottle of cold water when I went to lunch. I won't forget her.

On October 2, Danny and I went to see Neil Gaiman in Berkeley. I got a copy of Fragile Things. I read a lot of it on the trip. I especially like "Study in Emerald," a crossover between the Sherlock Holmes stories and H. P. Lovecraft. But if you can only sneak into a bookstore and read one story, make it "Other People." Damn.

I really don't understand how parents think. A friend was telling me that his daughter enlarged the hole on the top of her piggy bank to get the money out. He was really bent out of shape over it. And I said: "Well, I can't say anything. I did the same thing when I was a kid." And he said: "Yeah, me too."

OK. So you *know* that the only way to keep your child from breaking into her piggy bank is to give her one made of stainless steel, lock up your acetylene torch, and swallow the key. Why didn't you? Or, if you're going to give your child a ceramic piggy bank, why are you surprised when she does exactly what every other kid before her has done?

Isn't this just like putting a tree in the middle of a garden, and expecting nobody to eat the fruit? Or putting all the evils of the world in a box, and expecting nobody to open it? Or keeping one room in your house locked up, and expecting no flak from your significant other?

Why do parents think that human nature doesn't apply to their kids? I don't get that.

On a totally different subject-

In my last post I was going to include the picture in question, but I'm still kind of new to this and didn't get it right. So, here it is: me channeling Ray Toro.

My birthday was on the 13th, and I am back at work now after the festivities. I had to get a new access badge at work, since the old one expired on my birthday. I like the new picture, apart from the holograms in the corners. I look like Ray Toro wearing that school uniform in the "I'm Not OK" video. My supervisor says I look evil. Well, she would.

Since I'm now doing video at work, I wanted to practice at home. My boyfriend found me a video card and some video editing software on Craigslist for $20. This is his best Craigslist find since he got us a free dryer after the last one died. Craigslist is a great thing.

Learning to do video has been taking up a lot of my time, and I am nowhere near ready to undertake a fan video, something the voices in my head started suggesting immediately. I am totally gaining a greater appreciation for the massive amount of work involved in making the fan videos I have enjoyed so much.

It only took me a week to find the time to set up my new computer. Then it took me about an hour to give up on it, wipe the drive, and pack it up to return tomorrow. My first computer was a hand-me-down Commodore 64. It was way obsolete when I got it. It was also faster than the Mac Mini. Now I'm back to my Mac G4 and my eMachine. Both of which are also faster. I can't say all the Intel Macs are useless, though. My boyfriend got the 20" iMac a few weeks ago, and it's working out well for him.

Uhg. Woke up of the wrong side of the floor this morning. I worked until 10:30 last night, Saturday, then went to a party. Now I have to be up to go buy a computer, and create a presentation that I have to deliver at work tomorrow, Monday, at 7 in the morning. Plus, I'm working 10 hour days the next 3 days. I have Thursday off, though. Yay!

No real spoilers follow.

The only comic book I followed before Smallville first aired, besides Hellblazer, was Sandman. So I was mega excited when I heard that Neil Gaiman was going to be involved in a super hero story. I now have the first issue, of six.

This is the story for you if you like your superheroes on the surreal side. The story presents an alternate universe. It's nothing if not alternate. And yet I can see that by the time the story is done, I'll accept it as credible. Like the Matrix, for instance.

The art is not like Sandman, but more mainstream. Like nothing strange is going on here, everything is perfectly normal. Uh-huh.

The first issue mostly introduces the characters and sets up the premise. I'll write some spoilers once the plot gets going.

For anyone who has done video editing, Camtasia has a much more familiar looking interface than Visual Communicator. It has a timeline onto which you can drop your external video, graphic, and audio files. It has tools for cleaning up the audio. You can zoom and pan, add callouts, and mark your project to make a table of contents. If you save your project as Flash, you can add hotspots, and very rudimentary quizzes.

Camtasia’s special virtue is that it records what goes on in your monitor, as well as your spoken commentary. You can highlight the cursor, and show a mouse click with concentric circles around the cursor. It’s perfect for anyone who wants to create a tutorial for Windows users. You can also record yourself as you record your actions on the screen, and show yourself as a picture in picture, which you can move, resize, and make translucent.

Camtasia will output to .wmv, QuickTime, .avi, and even .exe. If you burn a Windows CD, you can make a menu for your CD with the graphic of your choice.

It really frosts me that this is a Windows only product. And that's it for software reviews for a while.

http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp

Say you need to create a 5 minute video announcement, and you have 15 minutes in which to deliver a .wmv file. Visual Communicator is the program for you. Tell the wizard what style you want (corporate, industrial, juvenile, etc.), paste your script into the program’s teleprompter, import your external sound, video, and graphic files and cue them to words in the teleprompter, turn on the camera and start reading.

The program will run your external files at the appropriate time, as well as create title pages in the style of your choice, and run an appropriate sound file under them. You can output to .avi, or back to tape, as well as to wmv. An empty suit can run this program adequately, and anyone capable of creating original external files can do some very nice work. I don’t record myself at all, but rely entirely on external files.

The thing I hate about this program is that it has no timeline. Everything is cued by the teleprompter, and you can change the speed at which you read. So, in order to watch a transition between two video files, you have to watch the whole project from the beginning. I am currently editing a one hour class that I taped at work. After 6 hours, it’s only two thirds done. A music video would take forever to make.

http://seriousmagic.com/products/vc/index.cfm

Next time: Camtasia

Hi, and welcome.

My lj is now live, thanks to Janet F. Caires-Lesgold, my guide to all things lj. Thanks, Janet. I will be getting back to you with more questions.

Somehow, I have acquired responsibility for the company video production. (Raise? You’re obviously thinking of some other company.) Now I’ve had a chance to use two business-centric Windows video programs. I am hereby reviewing them in the hopes that some of the people who do the fan music videos I so love will find these programs useful for showcasing their skills at work. (Note: I like Macs. I’m on my fourth one, and drooling over the Intel Core Duo laptops. But people who buy Macs for the artistic programs frequently have to deal with Windows at work. My point here is that all is not lost. There are Windows programs you can use to achieve artistic domination at work. Bwahaha)

Next time: Visual Communicator