Christmas Images

Originally uploaded by dr.coop

A few months ago I was visiting my mother and I noticed this picture frame on a bookshelf in her living room. I thought it odd that there was not a picture in the frame and was curious as to what one would frame instead of a picture. Well, you can imagine how surprised I was that the frame held a precious letter I had written to my grandparents when I was home from college. Apparently when my grandmother died, she still had this letter I had written her. My aunt who was charged with taking care of her possessions saved it and brought it out to AZ for my mom. My mom then framed it, and there it sits today.

It just goes to show that if there is a will, there is a way. I couldn’t find any paper in the house to write my letter on, so I used a paper towel. I still think this story would be better if I had used toilet paper, but oh well. I always wrote my grandparents when they were alive, no matter where I was or what I was doing. They were a big part of my life.

Video 1 was shot on my Panasonic HDC-SD5 HD camera. The camera shoots in AVCHD format to a SD card. The resolution is 1920×1080 which I think is full HD. It’s beautiful footage if shot in good light. This first video was shot under the lights of my recording studio (aka my bathroom). The lights are so bright in there it makes a great place to shoot video. I imported the video into my Mac Mini by plugging the SD card into a USB adapter and plugging it into a USB port on the Mac. iMovie pops open and asks which files I’d like to import in the program. I chose the movies files and hit import. Minutes later I was dragging and dropping my files into my movie. For this first movie I used a built in iMovie theme to help with style and transitions. This makes movie creation very easy. When I was finished, I just shared it to YouTube and iMovie did all the rest of work: processing the movie and uploading it to YouTube.

Video 2 was shot with my ContourHD Wearable Camcorder. I just strapped it to a headband and headed off on my hike. It has laser to help you adjust the viewing angles, which is pretty sweet. Once you get going, you hardly realize it’s there. This camera shoots in 720p (1280×720) in MOV file format on a MicroSD memory card. There is software available to work with the camera, but I prefer to use my own. So I just connect the camera to the Mac Mini via a USB cable and follow the same process above.

Video 3 and 4 were shot while I was traveling, so I used a Flip Mino camera. Although there is a Flip Mino HD version, I don’t have it, so these videos were shot in VGA quality. I shot the video and then flipped out the handy dandy USB connector and connected it to my Acer Aspire One netbook. The Flip software pops up and allows me to edit the clips and put a quick movie together and upload to YouTube.

Video 5 didn’t use any video footage, but utilized photos and music to create a video on Animoto. Animoto is very simple. You give it a bunch of pictures and choose a soundtrack, and it gives you a video presentation. So I took photos with my Casio Exilim. Transferred the photos from the camera to the Acer by sticking the SD card in the card reader on the computer. I uploaded the photos to Animoto, added some words, and chose an Animoto song and created the movie. I then exported the completed movie to YouTube.

Videos 6 and 7 were both shot with the Flip Mino again, but this time I used Pinnacle Studio 12 to edit video 6. I needed to change the speed on the video and you can’t do that in the Flip Share software. So I used Pinnacle to speed it up and added background music from the program. Created the movie and then uploaded it to YouTube. Video 7 was created solely in the FlipShare software program that comes with the Flip camera.

Video 8 is a screencapture movie created using Camtasia Studio 6. I recorded the screen as demoed how to create macros in MS Word and then I edited the footage in Camtasia and exported as a mp4 file. I set Camtasia to record in HD so the resulting movie was in HD. I upload that file to YouTube.

Video 9 and 10 is a repeat of Video 1, but I used Pinnacle Studio 12 to edit the movie to include the speed setting in 9. And today’s video, #11, was also shot on the Panasonic HD camera, but editing in iMovie. You can see all of these movies on the Video tab above or click here to go to YouTube.

I’m not sure why November is the month, but it is. It’s the month that thousands of people try to write a 50,000 word novel in the 30 days of November. They call it NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. Then there is another group participating in NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month. Yeah, they’re goal is to post one blog post a day for the month. I’m not much of a writer, although you’d never know that since I do have 5 blogs that I try to keep updated. But doing a bunch of writing doesn’t sound like fun at all to me, so I opted for VloMo or NaVloPoMo - National Vlog Posting Month. Neither seems to have a website like the others, but the concept is the same. Post a video everyday for the month of November. Vlo is for Vlog or videolog. I opted for the last for my obsession over the next 29 days. I did it last year, so I figured I’d could do it again.

For my cameras, I’ll be using my Panasonic HDC-SD5. It’s a HD digital camera that’s small and sexy. It shoots great video. My first video for VloMo09 was shot using this camera. I also will be using my new ContourHD Helmet cam. It’s also an HD camera and shoots awesome footage. My second VloMo09 is shot using the ContourHD strapped to my head as I hiked the mountain preserve. I’ll also be using my Flip Mino camera, no HD on that one, and my Blackberry Storm camera when I’m desperate.

Now technically I’m participating in NaBloPoMo too since this is my second blog post in as many days. But I don’t know if I really want to keep this up. One more obsession that I’d like to last throughout the month of November is working out. I’ve got two days under belt there too. WhooHoo! Hope I can keep up with that one.

This flight is awesome. It better be because flying on Delta is not cheap. But we each
have our own little tv for movies, games and more, and this flight has wifi. Sweet! I could care less when we land.
So were flying to Atlanta, changing planes and then on to Boston.

Posted via email from Coop’s Wild World of Who Knows What

I had a little trouble getting logged into my desktop computer, an old iMac. I had to have my perfectly working password reset, and then my eGCC account reactivated, and finally there was a lot of poking around on the computer by four different people before I was all set there. I even went in and changed my default password, something I didn’t do for 11 years while at South. In fact, to this day my password is still “nothing” over there. Eleven years. Anyway, everyone was so helpful with getting me setup. I did find myself beginning every introduction with “I’m a new faculty member…” because if I don’t they all assume I’m a student. That’s going to get old quick.

So I have a phone and a new number. I don’t know what it is, although it was given to me in an email. I still need to set up my phone so that my name shows when I call people, which is something I will never do - call people. In fact, for the last two days the most frustrating thing has been calling people. I’ll need something and the person will say, “Oh, you need to call so and so.” Then they will rattle off 5 digits as I stand there with my cell phone in my hand poised to dial. I type in the 5 numbers and then the person is gone. Excuse me, what are the rest of the numbers? Talk about fast learning. I learned that in one day. Type in 6-2-3-8-4 before you get a number from anyone on campus. They also seem to prefer that you call on a phone on campus. Why? That requires going back to my office to make a call when I can just do it right that instant on my cell. But I guess the person answering won’t get a warning as to who it is if I don’t call from a campus phone. But my phone doesn’t tell that yet anyway, so that’s a mute point. So that’s on my list for tomorrow.

All and all the transfer is going well. I’m sure I’ll continue to see some major differences in the colleges, but differences don’t make one any better than the other in most cases. It’s just a matter of making adjustments and adapting to a new way of life.

ASU Graduation 2009

Originally uploaded by dr.coop

I was really excited when my friend and colleague Shelley Rodrigo invited me to go to her graduation at ASU last night. I’m not big on crowds or ceremonies. Heck, I didn’t even go to my own graduations for my Master’s at NAU or my doctorate at Nova Southeastern University. I just didn’t want to travel to Flagstaff or Miami, FL and deal with the hassle. So the opportunity to go to Shelley’s was exciting, especially with the added bonus of seeing President Obama speak live. And it was only a hop, skip and a jump away in Tempe.

It only took me 2 hours to get from my house to my seat in Sundevil Stadium. I took the new light rail, and I must say it was very convenient. It did get a little crowded after a few stops though. I must give props to ASU who did a great job of planning such a big event that ran smoothly. They even entertained the poor souls who actually showed up at 3:30pm like their tickets suggested. My hour and a half spent waiting for the main event was quite pleasant despite the fact that I was sitting in the sun and 100+ degrees. It helped that I got to visit with Shelley’s awesome husband and co-author Susan.

I was really surprised by the number of graduates - rumored to be around 9,000. There were so many they didn’t all fit on the infield. They spread up into the stadium seats on the east end of the stadium. I don’t have much experience with university graduations, but I felt a little sad for the undergraduates who were barely recognized for such a big accomplishment for them. I mean I had a better seat than they did, and they didn’t even get to hear their names called. I’m actually thankful for that because we’d still be there if they had.

The doctoral grads, which Shelley was a part of, were lucky enough to walk across the stage and shake President Obama’s hand. I had a great vantage point during the speeches, but during this procession they moved further to the right of the stage and I couldn’t see very well. I did happen to capture a decent shot of Shelley shaking Obama’s hand on the big screen however. Sweet. I just kept thinking how cool is that. Only a few people we be able to say they had a similar experience at their graduation.

President Obama’s speech was awesome. The man has a great sense of humor. He handled the whole honorary degree fiasco nicely and with humor, and actually made it a big part of his speech. He agreed with the committee that his body of work is not complete. He said, “There’s always more to do.” “Always more to learn. Always more to achieve.” He urged graduates to continue to complete their own body of work. It was very inspirational. You can watch the speech on YouTube in 3 parts. Part 1 is below.

All in all it was a great event and an experience I’ll remember for some time now. I’m grateful and thankful that Shelley thought enough of me to invite me to join her family in experiencing her graduation. Thanks Dr. Rodrigo and congratulations! Now let’s party.

I’m not known for my patience when playing with new Web 2.0 technologies. If I can’t figure it out within 5 minutes or within 5 minutes you’ve already pissed me off because of wonky behavior, I’m out of there. Heck, there are over 60 tools listed. I’ll just try another. I started with Joggle. After about 15 minutes and a mild hissy fit, I gave up. There’s a reason why “Dominoe” is the only story listed there. I’ll be nice and leave it at that. Next was ImageLoop. This site left me pining for more. I was able to produce a slideshow, but only after taking forever long to get an account. Kept saying my username was taken. I am the only “soul4real” so gimme my account! Had to settle for something else. All that trouble only to discover ImageLoop is just a basic slide show creation tool. So I load up pics from Flickr just so I can make a slide show like I could have made on Flickr. Nope. Not impressed.

So I decided that maybe I was in the wrong genre of storytelling tools. Maybe I should get out of the Slide show tools if I’m not impressed with slide show tools. Good idea. Timeline tools? Nah. Mixer tools? Now that sounds fun. Unfortunately I lost my focus on the first one and wandered off task. While I was checking out Vuvox, it reminded me of Shwup, yeah, yeah, I know - strange ass names. I just clicked over for a second, honest, to check something out. Thirty minutes later, Vuvox and “helping a brotha out” was forgotten, and I ended up with this.

So the point of the story is, I don’t really have anything to share with @cogdog, but I sure had fun playing last night.