Mister OZ’s Copious Notes

People are using Microsoft Songsmith to remake music videos.

What is Microsoft Songsmith? Here is a commercial for it.

I wanted to trim down a video tonight, so I could post it to the web. The video was over an hour long, and I only need about 10 minutes of it. I am still using my Windows 7 Laptop, and it already had the beta version of Movie Maker. It is probably time for me find another basic editing program.

The trim function only works clicking on a slider and moving it. The control is very imprecise. I think I could get no closer than 14 seconds to any clip point. Back in college we used editing decks that would sometimes slip a few frames when making an edit. That would be less than a second, and that could ruin your project. 14 seconds is ridiculous.

I really want to make my own Photosynth, but I probably need a better camera. My 6 year old Sony is really slow.

This video comes from TED.com. Blaise Aguera y Arcas gives an impressive demo of Photosynth.

Check out the Photosynth site to make one.

You should now see my awesome Favicon next to my url.

It was created using this site. http://antifavicon.com/

It is just a first attempt, to see it would work. I am trying to come up with a better idea for the next attempt.

I just created a Qik.com account, to see how it works. I was surprised to find out it works great. It had no problems on my home network, or over the Tmobile network. Now I just need to find a reason to use it.

I will probably win some awards for my awesome cinematography.

I am not making a joke about any Windows 7 shutdown issues, I just don’t want the beta to expire. August 1st is a long time away, but I am not excited about going back to Vista. Hopefully they will have another beta, or just release it.

When Windows 7 expires, I will be going back to XP not Vista.

I found out that windows 7 does not come with all of the programs you would expect. I wanted to post a video to my Facebook account, but it needed a little editing. It just needed to be trimmed a little, should not be a problem for Movie Maker. I look in the start menu, and it is not there. After a short web search, I find that it is only available as a download from live.com.

So I install the Movie Maker beta, anticipating an improved program. I am actually shocked when I first open MM, it does not look like an editing program. It takes a bit, but I figure out how to trim/crop my video . The controls are so imprecise, that I could not get the trim points right. They were about 20 seconds from the spot I needed.  I was able to get my video posted, but this is the last time using MM.

I have been using my windows 7 laptop only for the last 6 days.

Win 7 pros -

• very stable
• Fast booting, shutting down.
• seems to run better than vista on the same laptop

Win7 Cons -

• some graphics issues, with screen redraws. It could just be an issue with this laptop(dell D630, Nvidia quadro NVS 135M)
• Issues with apps that minimize to the system tray. It takes an extra step to get to them.

Just installed a new plugin for the website today,  Add to Any.

Once the plugin is activated, there is not really much to setup. The only default setting I changed, was the button size. Now on every post this is a button that will let you share the post with over 100 different sites. The app seems ok, but it may be more than I really need.

I set up Windows 7 on a newer high end Dell laptop(latitude D630) today. The plan is to use it for my everyday laptop. I want to see how long I can use the laptop without have to go back to my old one. Day one has been all about installing everything I need. This included firefox, flash, acrobat, filezilla, tweetdeck, and office. The only issue I had was with tweetdeck. I am not sure why, but the adobe air was having trouble installing. It looked like the computer was trying to install adobe air, even though it was already installed.

Day 1 has been almost all positive. I would say it is a huge improvement over vista. over the next few days, I want to make sure to try all of the new features.