Solving technology problems, one at a time
In Subtitle Workshop, trying to use the Join tool to join two SAMI files and recalculate the timings would result in this error every time: The following error (EConvertError) was derived from object TfrmJoin (frmJoin):
Continue readingSince upgrading to 10.3.5 and Final Cut Pro 4.5 HD I have been having no end of problems with Final Cut crashing on launch (solved that one here) and with “log and capture” freezing toward the end of a tape.
I decided to revert to using OS X 10.3.4, and attempted to install it on a new 200 GB Firewire drive I had laying around.
I started up using the Panther install disk, then opened Disk Utility, and partitioned the drive. Then I opened the installer and attempted to install OS X onto it. However the three partition icons for that drive all had the little red “stop” sign over them, and selecting any of those icons got me this message:
“You cannot install Mac OS X on this volume. You cannot startup your computer using this volume.”
Quitting the installer and then restarting it made it recognize the partitions as bootable, and the problem was solved.
Continue readingProducer has a bookmarking feature that makes it start up wherever you last left off. Unfortunately, this behavior simply confuses many of our users, who barely notice the Table of Contents. It turns out you
Continue readingThe other day, almost without thinking, I hit the “install” button on software update, and upgraded to 10.3.5. Since then, I can NOT run Final Cut Pro 4.5. It always unexpectedly quits on launch. I
Continue readingOn a resource site I constructed for a medical facility, the readers need to have an easy “browse by topic” feature on the home page, along with other text. So I created a sort of block that can be dropped in to the middle of a static php page and function as a browser on the home page. The site is now access restricted, but a screenshot is here:
Dropsy is one of the worst diseases goldfish can come down with. It’s usually fatal. I hope this description of one goldfish that survived a bout of dropsy will help someone to save their fish.
Fish are said to have the disease “dropsy” when they swell up and their scales stand out all over like a pinecone. As JoAnn the Goldfish Guru says, “Dropsy is a SYMPTOM of other problem(s) with the fish. Dropsy can be due to problems with the environment (water quality, temperature shock, alkalinity), parasites, bacteria or virus.” Dropsy is apparently caused by bacterial infections and kidney failure.
Eggdrop in a happy moment. He has never been able to swim correctly, so he uses the bubblers to get around.
In Final Cut Pro, using the Color Corrector filter over the Cross Dissolve transition when applied to Freeze Frames sometimes causes a color inversion and posterization effect. I’ve found two ways around this: 1. Use
Continue readingI noticed a dramatic slowdown after installing Panther when using Photoshop 7, particularly when using text, layer effects, and also when using the color picker. After some experimenting I found that changing to the Apple
Continue readingRecently my web-host restored the server I use after some problems which necessitated wiping it and starting from scratch. After doing this my installation of MovableType was no longer able to create thumbnails. The thumbnail option no longer appeared in the upload dialog. When I looked at the config file, all the thumbnail options were commented out – in other words it was defaulting to use ImageMagick.
If you read the verbiage in that file carefully, which I did not, it says:
Specifies the image toolkit used to create thumbnails from uploaded images. # By default, the ImageMagick library and Image::Magick Perl module are used; # if your system does not have these, you can use the NetPBM tools instead # (assuming that your system has these tools installed). Possible values for # this setting are "ImageMagick" or "NetPBM". # # ImageDriver NetPBMContinue reading
I. JCAHO Trivia – Background, objectives, and game play
In June, as a small part of a larger hospital staff training project, I built an educational online game for the nursing department. There were several requirements that helped determine the shape of the final result.
Synchronous game play vs. Asynchronous: When considering what kind of game might be best for our purposes, we first considered one based on Jeopardy, since that format is so popular.
However, Jeopardy is not an asynchronous system. In other words, each Jeopardy round is a timed competition against several other players, all of whom must be playing simultaneously or “synchronously” as the elearning people call it.
Continue reading