Of mice and menu's

I thought I would share a lesson in technology soaking up an entire day (or more) for something that should have been very simple or, at least, straightforward.
A friend asked me to video a celebration with their video camera and I happily complied. Once done I attempted to return the camera but my friend said "Look, I don't even own a working computer; could you do whatever and put this on a DVD for me?"
I should have said 'no' but I assumed the whole process would the straightforward.
After ignoring the project for a couple of weeks I thought I would use part of my RDO this week to transfer the video onto DVD. I knew it would need some basic editing and I wasn't willing to spend any money for editing software on a once-off project so I thought I'd use Microsoft's Movie Maker. ( I had, after all, seen Kathryn Greenhill demonstrating Movie Maker at the LocLib Convention a couple of years ago and she made it all seem very simple.)
So I transferred the files from the SD card onto my primary desktop PC (with Windows 7), and went to download Movie Maker, discovering, as I did, that Movie Maker had changed with Vista and I actually wanted the older version.
Fine.
Once that was up and running I attempted to import the video files. These, it turned out, were recorded in a proprietary format that was incompatible with Movie Maker. So I turned to Uncle Google to find some (free) software to covert the files from .MOD to something Movie Maker would accept. There was no shortage of software that would do the job but most of it cost money I wasn't willing to spend. I attempted to download one program that froze my laptop (which I was using because my primary desktop didn't want to talk to my network and I didn't want to waste time investigating why) and necessitated a reboot. Once up and running again, I attempted to download another free program that produced a virus warning. The third one I attempted turned out to not convert .MOD files unless you paid for the upgraded version. The fourth program I downloaded also had me worried because it was a trial version and I have experienced dozens of trial versions that work perfectly right up to the point where you save your work and  then they ask you for money. But it turned out to be fine and it converted all the files to .AVI without hiccup.
Finally, then, I imported the converted files to Movie Maker and relaxed, believing the hard part to be over.
Movie Maker examined all the files and, in Timeline view, I started editing the individual clips into one whole.
Shortly after starting I decided an introductory text at the opening of the video would be a nice touch so I wrote up a short intro and then reviewed different fonts and animations for the opening credits. One of the animations reminded me of a movie and I thought a nice bit of music over the top of the credits would enhance the whole thing.
Back to my laptop to download the .WAV file of the music. No problem, plenty of choices there.
Once I had the file, though, I realised that the sound bite was too long and needed to be cut in half (roughly) to suit the opening credits; which meant I would need a sound file editor.
Back to Uncle Google to find a decent, free, audio editor. In no time I was reminded about Audacity and recalled plenty of 'doof' geeks raving about the program, so I downloaded that, with no problems. After installation I opened sound bite in Audacity. Now I am convinced that Audacity is a powerful and competent program but it is a little overwhelming if you have never edited audio before. Eventually I worked my way through Audacity's little interface quirks and edited my .WAV file down to size.
I returned to the desktop PC, copied over the .WAV file and played it with no problem. I returned to editing the rest of the video and then, for no reason other than technological suspicion, played what I had so far produced. Everything worked fine, expect the audio allegedly attached to the opening credits would not play. When I played the file by itself there was no problem but when I played the whole video it made no sound. Back to Uncle Google.
Dozens of people acknowledged similar problems in Movie Maker but almost everyone avowed the problem was incompatible file formats. I was sure Audacity could be trusted to convert audio formats successfully but  thought I would try other formats, just in case. In the end I had the audio file in three .WAV files (at different sampling or quality settings), MP3, MP2 and AAAC files. All produced the same problem - they would play when I clicked the file but not when I played the whole video.
Completely frustrated by now, I removed the audio file and changed the opening credit to something far more boring.
By now it was late enough in the day that my wife had come home from work so I shared my frustrations with her and ignored the project altogether.
Idly checking emails and blogs while catching up with my wife's day I wrote the audio file problem back into a Google search but this time I must have phrased it just differently enough. On Yahoo Answers somebody had written (in reply to someone else) " I know it might seem obvious but have you tried the little volume slider over on the extreme left of the timeline?"
I jumped up and ran back to the desktop PC and, sure enough, there was a volume slider I had not noticed. I had found at least three different ways to adjust volume in Movie Maker but this was the critical one. When I had played the video the volume on the captured video was fine but there was no sound from the added .WAV file.
This tiny slider was the volume control allowing adjustment of the video's own sound or any added sound files. By default, in a new installation of Movie Maker, this slider is set to zero, which means soundtracks play perfectly but added audio files were played at zero volume.
Excitedly, I adjusted the slider and -TA DAH! - the .WAV file played perfectly!
So I rebuilt the opening credits I had envisioned in the first place, played the whole video and it all worked brilliantly!
Happy now, I returned to editing the video, adding fades and wipes between scenes, adjusting volume in scenes too quiet and adding brightness to indoor scenes that were initially very dark.
By 10pm the whole thing looked fabulous and I was relieved and content.
Then I  went to save the video file.
Now, Movie Maker allows you to save the project, which I had been doing (naturally!) but you can also save the actual completed video as a video file.
It turns out that MovieMaker, despite presenting you with a long list of file formats, can only actually save the video in a few formats, all of which had issues. Remembering that this file was to be burned to a DVD for playback in DVD players and not necessarily on PCs I chose to save the file in .DV AVI format.
Saving the file took hours, literally, and I ended up with a file that is now 12 Gigabytes!
That's a little long for a DVD.
So now I have to find a way of converting that DV AVI file to yet another format that will allow burning onto, hopefully, just one DVD.
I'm ignoring it for now :-)
Was that the last of the problems? Of course not!
Last night, about 8.30, I returned from work and fired up the laptop to check my emails. On bootup, AVG kindly informed me that a virus had been detected.
Naturally, it was a virus from one of the programs I had downloaded to try and convert the .MOD files.
*sigh*
AVG alleged that it would lock the file in a vault or i could delete it. When I chose to remove the horror my laptop froze and, ten minutes later, crashed.
*sigh*
I rebooted and was advised that AVG had discovered another, different virus, which it locked up in a vault without problem.
Two new virii was, however, enough to motivate me to upgrade my AV program. I own, at any one time, at least five PCs and I often get asked to fix other PCs, so I am reluctant to use an AV program that costs me money. AVG Free has been pretty good for some years but, while fixing a bad virus infestation on my boss's daughters PC, I had been introduced to Avast, which is also free but a little more powerful. Importantly, Avast also has the ability to run a virus scan during the boot process. This means it can detect virii and Trojans that are capable of hiding themselves from AV programs that only run once Windows has launched.
I downloaded a new version of Avast, updated it, set it to run on boot and rebooted.
When I went back past the laptop, some 45 minutes later, I checked the scan and discovered it seemed to be flying along but had only scanned 1% of my files!
Another hour or so later, it had finally got up to 2%.
About 11.30pm (at about 37%) it stopped, because it had found a significant Trojan, and was waiting for my decision about what to do with it. I choose 'delete' but was little dismayed to find there was no 'Do this from now on' option.
*sigh*
I got up at 2.45am and found it had discovered another virus at 57%
Delete and sigh.
Up again at 6.10am to find another one at 87%
Delete and sigh.
At 6.45am, at 99% it discovered another one.
Delete and smile, because that was the last one.
I suspect that anyone who asks me to process a video for them in the future is liable to watch me slump slowly into a corner, wide- eyed and gibbering.
Technology, hey, you just never know when it is going to make your life more interesting:-)

Flickr and obsolete technologies

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49243167@N03/4530257305/in/photostream/

Hmmm, I wanted to use Blogger's upload tool to share this photo but it would not link properly, here at work. Almost certainly that is the fault of our using IE6, more than a problem with the link, Blogger or Flickr.
Anyhoo...
The link will show you a 1924 photo of a member of a signifiicant early Gosnells-area family, paddling a little tin canoe down the Canning River, with another paddler not far behind.
If you look through the photostream of Mr McNamara there are a couple of photo's that hint at the river being considered far more vital in those days than today.
This treatment of the river as a legitimate transport route, as opposed to simply a recreational facility, made me ponder the unheralded death of technologies as new methods and tools evolve. I'm sure  most of us have heard of archivists bemoaning the unlikelihood of CD's or DVD's surviving as a viable medium, especially in terms of finding playback tools in 75 years, much like the BBC's Domesday Book tragedy in 80's ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Domesday_Project).
But how rarely do we consider uses of technology being subsumed by recreation after initially being a vital tool?
Horse racing is now a pursuit of wealthy owners and (generally) poor punters but it developed as a recreation from a skill that was once an essential part of life.
Most of us read, and some of us write, for fun but initially these were both skills that were, to one degree or another, valued and envied as effective business tools.
Some of us upload photo's. Clever people sometimes modify or tweak these photos using software tools like Photoshop. I often envy people clever enough to know how to use Photoshop but, before computers, there were retouching experts who had a valuable skillset that allowed them to produce art like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49243167@N03/4540585238/in/photostream/ from the same photostream. I can barely imagine the time, experience and expertise it must have taken to produce. Now technology can be bought that emulates these same skills, turning what used to be a (probably) income-producing trade or ability into a recreation, not unlike photography itself.
So, as technologies evolve it seems that some will die and others will become games and hobbies. I guess if we could see which would be which we could make a bucket of money:-)

The introductory post

Hi folks. This is my initial posting on this blog. I have to admit this is not the first blog I have created, nor is it even the first I have created as part of my library work. Once I created a blog specifically for other staff, hoping to inspire some to investigate Web 2.0 technologies. Instead, access to that blog service was disabled and none of the staff ever got to hear about it.
*sigh*
Anyway, hopefully, since I can currently access Blogger from work, maybe we will all get another shot at it. It should be mentioned that only certain elements of Blogger work through the City's filter so I'm not quite sure how this blog looks at the moment! If it changes soon, it's because I've accessed the blog from home!
The blog title? I live and work in Gosnells, a suburb often (justly) accused of being the hoon capital of WA, though some residents of Rockingham might object, but, to make a living, I introduce seniors to, play with, repair and often swear incoherently at PC's and other technology.
Don't get me wrong - I somewhat identify with 'hoon' culture (hmmm, is that an oxymoron?). I drive a Holden ute with personalised number plates, I wear trackies and flanno shirts when I'm not working and, much to my horror, seem to have picked up a discarded beer gut from somewhere and it keeps preceding me wherever I go!
But I do love Gosnells, with all it's faults, and you can often find my wife and I toiling away in our oversize back yard, hoping to coax veggies to edible size, listening to idiots destroying their tyres, doing burnouts and 'donuts', a sound my wife calls 'The Gosnells Symphony.'
Me? I save my car racing for Barbagello or Kwinana on Wednesday or Friday nights at the drags, though my wife is pushing hard for me to take up rallying.
In the meantime I'll either be up to my elbows in car or up to my elbows in computers, loving every minute of both things.
I'm acting as pioneer for the City of Gosnells doing this Web 2.0 introduction and I hope to inspire, cajole, persuade or manipulate others into exploring the wide-open plains and narrow alleys of new Web technologies. Not least, I'm fully expecting to discover new horizons myself.
Really looking forward to the journey, even if I'm not doing it in my ute :-)