Month: August 2008

Video Conversion Round 2

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I finally put the order in to convert some VHS tapes I have over to DVD. I was so satisfied with the 8mm conversions that I am using the same place. I am also sending in about 400 photo's to be scanned as well. I am really upset at the condition my mom kept these photos. She is now finally keeping them in photo box's after years in baskets near the radiators and open windows in her apartment. Tons of photos have been ruined or damaged by getting wet or really hot. I hope the Home Movie Depot is able to scan everything I sent in. All I can say is thank goodness for Photoshop, or in my case Gimp since I am not paying for Photoshop.

I underestimated the number of photos that my parents actually have. I am at 400 photo's in the one box that I took from my mom. I didn't even get everything out of the box but I figured 400 was a nice round number to start with. There is about 4-5 other box's of photos to go, plus a box of slides. I think I might blow my budget on this project. In the end I think it will be worth it to have everything in digital format. I am also having trouble identifying what I might have already scanned over the past 10 years. I found a bunch of images that I already scanned a few years ago, and I bet a bunch more will be duplicated.

My annal attempt at cataloging everything is paying off to a certain degree. I was able to post a bunch of stuff to Facebook and it is hilarious to see the comments from friends.

On the video side of things I am doing only two VHS tapes in this run. That is because I want the original AVI's of these two tapes, and the HDD I am sending the processing place can only handle about two tapes. I am sending in my sisters sweet sixteen video and my Bar Mitzvah video. The next round of stuff I don't really want or need the original source material so I won't use a hard drive. I will wait until I get this first batch back before I send in the next one. That way I can also spread the expense into another month. This stuff isn't cheap, but this batch is about half the price of the 8mm batch.

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Memory Lane

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I gave up on trying to sleep tonight so I decided to post some recent and not so recent photos to my Facebook site. I got a bunch form the Redcats holiday party last December, a few from being out Friday night, and a bunch from HS. I have a ton more from HS I need to sort through and get up online. It is actually kind of fun to see the comments from everyone. I am most productive late at night when I can't sleep!

Thankfully A Lazy Sunday

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Thankfully this weekend has so far been uneventful. After the antics all week I wanted some nice time relaxing at home. I got a fresh direct delivery, watched some movies and did two loads of laundry today. It might sound boring, but being able to sit back for a while was nice.

I had so much time (well sort of) that I was able to organize all my DVD’s. I have been meaning to do that for months and I finally had some time, and my book shelf was getting really messy so I spent the hour sorting through everything. For the past several months I have been on a organization kick. I have new storage containers for my computer gear and nice cases for all my CD’s & DVD’s.

SugarSync

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I have been using .Mac on and off for a few years as a remote file storage location for my documents. The service was the only one that I found that had a workable system that kept a local cashed copy on my computer and synced the changes to a central server. The problem is that .Mac doesn't work that well. I stopped using it back in January when my annual renewal was coming up. I didn't want to keep paying it since I didn't think I was getting my money's worth. In June I changed my tune since the MobileMe functionality was coming out with the iPhone 3G. I thought those added functions were worth it the fee, and if I was already paying for the MobileMe syncing I might as well use the iDisk feature as well.

That decision hasn't worked out well for me. I constantly get sync errors when I have documents open that iDisk is trying to "automatically" sync. I have had iDisk totally corrupt two of my personal wiki's I have using VoodooPad.

I was happy to stumble upon an article that talked about among other things different file syncing and storage services. I had heard about Xdrive, and Box.net, but I looked up a new one called SugarSync. On paper it does everything I need:

  1. Price is reasonable
  2. Mac & WIndows clients
  3. Local (or multiple local) copies as well as the server copy
  4. Sync on when changes happen
  5. Plus it offered other features that I didn't think of but probibly could use.

Best of all the reviews were all really good, and from reputable people like Mossberg and Pouge (I hope I spelled their names right). With all this good "sounding" information I signed up for a 45 day trial with 10gigs of file space. I am slowly syncing my documents folder to their system now. According to their status meeter it will be about 7 more hours before the data is fully synced. I will then give it a true test drive at work tomorrow. I will also be able to install the Windows agent on my Vaio laptop at work and see if I can access everything. That was something I couldn't do with iDisk.

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Drinks & Karaoke

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After an agonizing second half of the week at work I was glad to meet up with some friends for an all you can drink 2 hours, followed by some Karaoke. I can't go into what went on at work, but I am amazed at the positive and negative capacity of some people. I will probably write more about the topic on my private work blog but whatever I have to say really isn't for public consumption as much as I would like to vent about it.

I meet up with Luke and a bunch of his work friends at a bar relatively near Grand Central around 6PM, aka right before it poured. We had a two hours all you can drink for $15 special going on. I admit i am a light weight when it comes to drinking but I attempted to get my moneys worth. I can't recall if I did, so I might have! From there we went over to Japas for some Karaoke. We meet up with Vanessa, Ben & Mike. I hung out for a while until I went home to crash after my horrible week. Before I left I do recall taking part in some musical antics, but don't remember what songs they were. Oh well.

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Mobile Phone Savings

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Back around March / April time frame I upgraded my mobile phone plan to the new unlimited minutes option from AT&T. I was using my mobile for just about all calls and my usage on the phone shot up. Then in June I was able to make outbound calls via Skype but have my caller ID come up as my mobile #. That change allowed me to use my computer to make most of my outbound calls. In July my mobile usage peaked, but towards the end of the month I began to seriously use Skype over my mobile. I mean why use my mobile when I am sitting at my desk at work or at home where I spend most of my time on the phone anyway? Because of this huge decrease in the usage of my mobile I am switching to a cheaper plan when my billing cycle changes next week. I will save $40 a month by going to a 900 minute plan with rollover. That might even be over kill at the usage rate I am going but I don't want to chance it. The cost of Skype in and out for one year is around $61. I make that back in under two months. Now all I need to do is wait for more friends of mine to use video chat and I won't need to make any calls at all!

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Vista

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I am once again dabbling with Microsoft Vista. I installed Vista using bootcamp on my Mac Mini the other day. Now that I am using the iMac more and more, I can give the Mini a dual role of normal Mac and Vista. The iMac is much more powerful so using it for video processing and other functions I used to do on the Mini makes sense. WIth the Mini freed up I can play with it and do Vista on it. So far I haven't put any software on it. I am just tweaking the install and patching it. I don't know why I am really spending any time with Vista if I am so happy with my Mac. I guess my need to tinker outweighs common sense sometimes. Not to worry I am not abandoning my Mac any time soon. On the contrary, I am waiting for the new Macbook's or Macbook Pro's to get released so I can upgrade.

Meeting Old Friends

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Last night I meet up with my friend Karen. She was in from Baton Rouge and was having a little get together with her friends. We meet at a bar near Cooper Square. I had fun, even though I only knew Karen and barely knew one or two other of her friends. All our other mutual friends punked out and didn't want to come into the city. Who would have though I was the adventurous outgoing one of the group?

Like I said I had fun, but I guess I didn't realize how much I had to drink. I felt like crap all night long and barely slept. I didn't think I drank that much, but I guess after 4 hours I might have. Dam Jack Daniels, you taste too good in Coke.

I hope to get down to Baton Rouge sometime when I finally get some vacation time and hang with Joe & Karen. It has been 2 years since I last saw Joe. I don't like loosing touch with old friends.

The rest of the day was taken up by me trying to sleep and relax after a horrible sleepless night. I should have taken a photo of all the blown capillaries under my eyes. It was nasty. I am now trying to wind down so I can get ready for the work week ahead.

The Wedding

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Yesterday was my cousin’s wedding. Family get togethers are always interesting. This one was fun, but thankfully on the less interesting side. I ended up not drinking since I was taking migraine medicine. I was stupid and didn’t eat lunch since I was waiting for my dad to come pick me up from home. He got tied up in traffic for over an hour and a half and then it took us another hour plus to get from my house to his. That meant it was around 3:30PM by the time I ate anything all day. That is a big no no for me. I took two different migraine medications I have before I started feeling better. Thankfully by the time I was at the wedding I was feeling ok.

My sister didn’t go to the wedding since my nephew was sick all week, and my niece was sick earlier in the week. That meant I thought i was sitting alone at a table with my grandmother. I love her, but she is not always the most fun conversation. I was surprised to find my cousin’s Synde & Wayne sitting with me. Their kids also ended up with us so I was not alone. I had a good time. The food was decent. I looked fantastic in my suit, but I always say I clean up nicely.

I stayed over at my parents house since it was really late by the time we got out of the wedding. As family get togethers go, this was a good one!

This morning my dad took me home, but not before I snagged his old computer that he had in his closet and a bunch of slides and photos my mom had. I am on a project to have all my families photos and slides scanned into the computer. My dad has been slow with scanning the slides so i decided to take them and 2 box’s of photos with me. Once I get back the VHS tapes from the conversion place I will send in the slides and some photos. The computer is my dad’s old one that he stopped using because the video card is messed up. He hasn’t used it since January and I totally forgot he was holding on to it so I could take it and maybe do something with it.

Once I got home I napped for a few hours since sleeping on the air mattress at my parents isn’t the most comfortable place to sleep. At least there was AC!