Solving technology problems, one at a time
I’ve discovered a new use for twisty-ties: keeping the “precision engineered” clamshell halves of my Dell Precision workstation together. I have to say, I am not impressed with the fit and finish on this machine.
Continue readingSynching Sami files using MS Producer:
I received the MS Producer resources disk in the mail, and it contained one example of a template that has a captioning window below the video area.
To use it, you need to create a “SAMI” file, which is a text file with HTML-style tags to describe the captioning styles and timing for each line of caption text.
Lacking anything better at the moment, I use Producer to do the synching: Play your video in Producer for the length of one phrase, stop it, note the timing, and use “control-tab” to switch to a text editor where the SAMI file is being edited.
I found this procedure a bit slow, and had some problems with getting the exact timing right, but it does work. Complete instructions for captioning with Producer are available as a (Windows-only .exe file !) download HERE
A non .exe resource for understanding SAMI files is HERE
Continue readingA tip from a friend that was too good not to pass along: __________________________ “Just passing on some info in case someone else (like me) doesn’t know about Microsoft Remote Desktop. I just got my
Continue readingI found this interesting.
Australia has one of the most active research groups in the world in this area, since the Australian environment suffers from many pest animals that were introduced and have no natural predators.
New Scientist reports that Australian researchers have created a highly infectious rabbit virus (myxoma) that could wipe out the country’s rabbit pests by making them sterile. Infected female rabbits produce antibodies against their own eggs, a process called immunocontraception. The team has already applied for permission to carry out field trials with a similar virus that makes European mice infertile.
Continue readingI had occasion to reinstall Windows2000 the other day and got a chance to see what the rest of the world endures when using anything but the most basic standard peripheral devices.
I have a two monitor setup, one a Dell 17″ flat screen, nothing special. The other is a 19″ Dell UltraSharp.
My reinstall was done from a ghost image, made from the install disk that came with the machine. A stripped, basic reinstall, which only had my network settings and network software added on, so at least I didn’t have to do that again.
So, the reinstall went quickly, but then came the endless trips to Windows update, restarts, and back to Windows update for more. Quite a few of the updates have to be installed separately, then the machine restarted.
Oh, did I forget to mention, after the reinstall, the left monitor, the digital Dell Ultrasharp, was black. I figured it would be OK, once I got around to opening the display control panel and setting it to use both monitors.
Continue readingOne very useful feature of phpMyAdmin is the ability to define simple relations between tables easily, using a GUI interface. The data from a field in one table can populate a field in another table, in a drop-down menu.
Continue readingNote: the themes shown in this gallery are now largely outdated. Visit The Drupal Theme Garden to see the current themes in action.
To see which themes are currently available and which are up to date, see the version numbers under each theme on the Downloads page on the Drupal.org site
This is a gallery of screenshots of the themes available for Drupal, an open-source platform and content management system for building dynamic web sites. Drupal is available here.
Click any image to see an enlarged view.
ADC – Viewed on Safari
Almaw – Viewed on IE Mac
I’ve found these forums to be particularly useful in helping me solve my Final Cut Pro 4 issues. Apple.com’s FCP discussions Ken Stone’s Final Cut Pro Creative Cow Forums MacFixit.com
Continue readingWhen I installed Final Cut Pro v. 4, I lost all ability to Log and Capture. Not just in Final Cut v.4, but also in the older version 3 which was left on the drive
Continue readingIn the web environment I develop for – a busy hospital – having some kind of captioning on presentations that include an audio track is not optional. Videos and narrated presentations are watched in common areas, and it’s not always possible to locate a pair of headphones or even convenient to use them if there are other things going on in the room that need to be heard.
There are also a few people with hearing disabilities that need the captions. So I’ve been searching for a captioning method for all our streaming video that is efficient, and creates web-based video that is compatible with Windows and Macintosh computers.
Although the Virage system will be ideal for this (voice recognition and screen-scraping create searchable, linked chunks of text associated with the exact locations in the video where they occurred.), it will not be in place soon enough.
Creating captions on VHS/DVD formats would be a nice capability, as well.
Continue reading