Tag: laptop

Scooby Doo Chia Pet

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

Well I set up the Scooby Doo Chia Pet this morning after soaking it and the seeds for a full 24 hours.  I video taped the process but I think I’m going to wait until the time-lapse is finished and then just add that.  But maybe not.  I think that my video today was about 8 minutes.  We will see how long it is after I finish with the editing heh.

It’s kind of strange seeing my laptop sitting on the dining room table.  I have a light blue sheet sitting on the table so that I could do a blue screen.  I was thinking of adding a cartoon with blue screen but I’m not sure if it will even work because the light blue is washed out on the screen so it looks white.

The picture is a bit fuzzy, it’s not crystal clear so it’s not going to look wonderful, just ok.  I wish my camcorder had time-lapse photography with the SD card so I don’t have to use my laptop.  Oh well.

Eh what the hell, I might as well edit the video I did today and put it on YouTube tomorrow then I’ll post it here.

Time-Lapse Software

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

I was looking at a video on YouTube where they take a banana, put a watch on it then let the camera take a picture every second for a whole week.  The banana had a light over it so naturally it got a really bad tan and you could see the second, minute and hour hands just going and going.

Perios by Martin Slovacek.  It’s totally free and you don’t even have to install anything, just download it and run the exe file (after you unzip it of course).  It finds your webcam and starts taking pictures as soon as you find a directory, choose the amount of time in seconds, minutes or hours then click the Start button.  Once you are finished click the Export button and it combines all of those images into an .avi file.

I did find a program that cost $10 but it only works on the computer you register it on.  Every computer after that costs $5.  I guess it’s a small price to pay but if you reformat your hard drive you might have to buy the upgrade for $5.  I haven’t tested that theory out yet and I don’t plan on it either lol.

It’s called Webcam Flix and I bought it for my laptop.  I think it works a lot better because when you go to make the video it just looks way smoother than the free one I listed above.

I’m going to put it on my laptop and have it do time-lapse on the Scooby Doo Chia Pet.  I have a poor mans version of a time-lapse video on YouTube of my Scooby Doo chia pet so I will redo it lol.  It really is lame lol.  I just gotta find it and I will work on that.

Update: I’ve changed some things in this post so if you notice something is different, it is.  I took out the free part in the subject and I added that I did buy the $10 webcam software, only because it’s superior to the free one.  Here is the new Scooby Doo Chia Pet time lapse video I made with it.

Bike Cam Part 2 Troubles

On By Michel McDonaldIn BikeLeave a comment

I took the camera with me this morning and turned it on just before I got to the tunnel to go past Manor St.  I went through the tunnel, over the bridge and through the woods to grandmother’s house er um wait no that’s not right… ok, I went through the tunnel then over the bridge … then kept riding.

As I went over the 2nd bridge the bicycle went over the usual bumps before and after but the 2nd bridge screwed up the camcorders ability to auto focus lol.  I tried fixing it but it just would not fix so I stopped recording but I just could not fix it.  I turned it off hoping that would help and it did.  So I turned it back on and kept riding.  I went all the way to the end of that part of the bike trail and turned off the camera.

I get home and plug the camcorder into the computer and the program I use ImageMixer 3 gives me errors.  It cannot download from the camera at all.  I have a feeling it’s because of those darn bumps but then I go to watch it from the camcorder onto the computer with PowerDVD and it stops after only 20 seconds which was when I first started filming so I’m a bit stumped.

This morning at 8am they closed that part of the bike trail from the first tunnel to the 2nd tunnel until tomorrow afternoon at 2:30pm so tomorrow morning I won’t be doing my 22 mile trip, instead I’m going to have to settle for 16 miles so I won’t be able to do it over tomorrow.

The video plays just fine in the camera so I thought that maybe I could just plug it into the TV and record it with my DVD recorder.  Well, when I plug it into the TV it shrinks the video from 16:9 to 4:3 so that doesn’t do me any good.  I’ll need a widescreen TV to be able to do that.  So instead I just put the mini DVD into the DVD recorder and recorded it to a VHS then recorded it back to a regular DVD.

I tried putting the DVD into my computer but it won’t recognize dvd’s that I’ve recorded on the dvd recorder so I had to put it in my laptop.  It’s uploading now so as soon as it’s finished I will transfer it over to my computer and work on it.  I will try to get it on YouTube today and when I do I will post it here.  Well, as a new post.

Kindle Pays For Itself

On By Michel McDonaldIn KindleLeave a comment

I was looking at the Amazon website again (yeah yeah yeah) and I was looking at the reviews for the newspapers just to see if it was worth it.  I saw that for Time magazine people were saying they were disappointed because there were no pictures, just articles.  Well, you need pictures with articles, especially in time magazine.

So I went to the New York Times newspaper and scrolled down to the reviews and the 2nd review from the top this guy said that he was paying $35 a month for his paper but now he pays $14 a month.  So basically the Kindle pays for itself from what amount this guy is saving from getting the digital version of his newspaper.

This person pays $420 a year for his new york times newspaper. He now pays $14 a month instead of $35 so now he pays $168 per year which means he is now saving $252 a year on the newspaper. The kindle doesn’t exactly pay for itself in a year but maybe a year and half.  That’ll work.

I don’t know how much our newspaper is because I don’t pay for it, Darrin pays for it because he is who reads it.  I don’t even read the newspaper.  I asked him how much he pays and he couldn’t recall.  I said is it like $15 a month?  $20 a month?  He said yeah I guess.  Currently our local newspaper is not available for the Kindle but it is available at www.newsstand.com for $10 a month but you have to view that on a PC or a laptop via browser or you can download it and view it through software called iBrowse.  You can also print pages.  If it were available via Kindle then that might be incentive enough for me to buy one so he can read the newspaper but unfortunately it’s not so, oh well.

But it is good to know that the Kindle pays for itself with certain newspapers and magazines.

Worst Fears Realized

On By Michel McDonaldIn DreamsLeave a comment

I just woke up out of the worst dream a nerd could ever have in his ENTIRE life!  Have you ever had a dream where you worst fears have been realized?  I just did.

Darrin and I were traveling… somewhere which I still am not clear with.  I was leaving my Aunt Louise’s house in Texas and for some reason Darrin was with me.  So we were going to go on another trip but the only way to get to the airport was by city bus.  So we had all of our things on the bus with us, he pretty much just had clothes.  He’s not real into nerdy things like me.  I on the other hand had some clothes but for the most part all my electronics.

List: I had my laptop, psp, cell phone, video camera (dvd cam), bi-pap machine and my Dell DJ which doesn’t work right now lol.  I also had some books in my suitcase.  If I had a Kindle I would’ve been totally screwed but my bags would’ve been lighter lol.

The bus runs a red light and we get pulled over.  All the passengers are taken off the bus and put onto another bus for a few minutes.  Then the police come to the bus we were taken to and says we can get on our bus now.  The bus pretty much empties and I’m the last one off.  I get off the bus and look around and the bus I was originally on was nowhere to be seen.  It was totally gone… with ALL of my stuff.  Darrin was gone too.

I had to think… real hard… maybe Darrin will keep an eye on my stuff and when he gets to our destination he will bring it with him.  Although, I finally catch the next bus and get to our destination which for some odd reason is another bus but it’s a totally different kind of bus which I would so love to explain except that I can’t because it was so strange I literally have to draw you a picture to describe it.  And since I can’t draw let me just say it was strange.

I get on that bus and say please tell me you have all my stuff and Darrin says “what stuff?”  AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!  What do you mean what stuff?  OMG I cannot believe it.  So I pick up a cell phone which by the way makes no sense.  It wasn’t my cell phone but I look at it and it has “property of….” and it says a name that I can’t recall and I realize that the person who took all my things have already assimilated it all.  But how could I know that by looking at “a” cell phone?  Hey, it’s a dream sequence, what do you want?

We end up at someones house and Darrin is sleeping in a bed and I’m trying to use the phone to call my cell phone and my cousin Brandi is on the other line and she won’t get off the phone.  And so I keep picking up the phone and instead of a dial tone I can hear her talking and she tells me to get off the phone.

Ok, I realize that all these things can be replaced.  My cell phone is actually just a pre-paid cell phone.  I’ve had it since 2002 and pre-paid gives you a crappy amount of minutes.  I think for $25 I get 2.5 hours to talk.  I think that the newer pre-paid are different.

Anyway, I can always get a new everything else but come on, all my pictures are on the SD card in my camcorder, all my saved games are in the memory stick in my PSP and my simm card in my cell phone with all my phone numbers.  It’s a hassle to have to get it all back and it costs way more money than I have to spend.  It took me years to get all of those electronics and all by pure luck too.  Some were gifts and some were things that took me years to save up for.

Universal Chat Program

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

When I stopped using my laptop I installed all the IM programs to the desktop such as AIM, Yahoo IM, MSN Messenger and MySpace IM.  Well, all of a sudden I’ve noticed how slow my computer got from running all those IM programs.

So I went on Google and did a search for IM programs and found Pidgin.  This is a universal chat program that lets you see your buddy list from 16 different IM programs.

AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, Groupwise, ICQ, IRC, MSN, MySpaceIM, QQ, SILC, SIMPLE, Sametime, XMPP, Yahoo! and Zephyr

There is one other that I wish it had which is Facebook.  eBuddy has Facebook, I use that IM program when I’m on my PSP.

Well this definitely helps and all the IM’s are tabbed so if you are in more than 1 conversation it’s tabbed for you in 1 window.  It also has chatrooms, the only thing it doesn’t have is webcam.  You can either have 1 universal icon for all to see or you can choose an icon for each IM service that you use.  And it uses the smileys that you would normally see only in like AOL or Yahoo or MSN, so you can’t use special smileys that you wouldn’t see in AOL that you would see in MSN.  I think it’s pretty cool.  I like it.  My computer isn’t slow any more.

Loading………….

On By Michel McDonaldIn ComputerLeave a comment

Since I’m not using my laptop anymore because I can’t afford to renew my warranty, I’m only going to use it for GPS when we go on trips and it’s really slow so I’m going to have to reformat it so when we do go on trips the GPS will load much quicker.  Although, I would love it if we could buy a $99 TomTom.

When I was using my laptop, I had it specifically for all the IM programs like MSN Messenger, Yahoo IM, AIM, ICQ, Skype and MySpace IM.  Plus I was using it for Microsoft Money 2004.  It came with the laptop.  But since I’m not longer using the laptop I had to install all of those programs onto my desktop and since I’m not playing EverQuest anymore then I have no reason not to have those run on the desktop.

The only drawback is that when I turn the computer on I have to wait forever for it to load.  The laptop typically took about 10-30 minutes to load.  Yeah, I know.  I’ve reformatted it but then as soon as I install all that crap back on there it takes forever again to load.

So why do I have all these IM programs installed?  Because some people absolutely will not use some IM programs.  Like for example, my cousin refuses to use anything but ICQ.  Well, he’s the only person that I know who uses ICQ.  I have friends who will not use anything but MSN Messenger.  Some friends will only use AOL or AIM.  So in order to accommodate all those people I must have 6 IM programs running at the same time.

Actually, to be honest I stopped using ICQ because my cousin never gets on it so why keep loading it?  All I get are spam IM’s so if he can’t get on another IM program then I’m not going to accommodate him.  I mean, he ain’t using ICQ so why should I have to load it right?

Christmas is Almost Here

On By Michel McDonaldIn Christmas, HolidaysLeave a comment

Well I decided to get the Christmas tree from the shed and set it up.  I’m so excited that I can finally set it up.  The Christmas spirit has taken over my body hehe.

Here is a picture of our Christmas Tree from last year.  It’s the same tree, a pre-lit tree.  I took a picture of our cat with her Santa hat on and made it into wallpaper for my laptop and my desktop.  Since my laptop is 1024×768 and my desktop is 1280×768 I have 2 versions of it.  So if you want to download it just click the little version below then it goes full screen, just right-click it and save it to your computer.  The widescreen version isn’t actually 1280×768, it’s smaller but I have it stretched on my screen.

Beverly Hills

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

Well Darrin had a design job today and so we drove to Beverly Hills (I was the navigator with my GPS on my laptop).

I was sitting in the car with Flower while he was doing his job by looking at the rooms that he is going to be designing. I didn’t want to take the focus away from him by being there especially with Flower and I heard a dog barking so I figured staying in the car was the best course of action. I was wrong.

This woman whose house we were parked in front of was getting paranoid. Well, who could blame her, its million dollar mansions in Beverly Hills. She called AAA because I guess 1 of her cars wasn’t starting and she came up to the car and I rolled down the window and she was all “how long are you going to be here?” and I said that the person I’m here with is a designer and he’s across the street and I was asked to stay in the car.

She walked away but I was so uncomfortable being in the car so I just came up to the house and rang the doorbell and they let me in. I sat on the couch while Darrin was telling them what he was going to do blah blah blah. Of course the focus was then on me and Flower lol.

Anyway, it’s good he has a design job. No painting WOOT! Hehe.

Update: They decided not to do it with Darrin after all and we wasted $60 on gas to get down there for nothing.  Darrin asked to be compensated for the gas and his time but they refused.

XP Antivirus 2008

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, Scams, Tech1 Comment

I was looking at a website and it said that I needed to download active-x or something to view a video and we had to go to the grocery store real quick. When we came home I noticed Norton Anti-virus was going nuts saying it was blocking a virus and I saw this program running called Antivirus XP 2008 on my screen saying I had all these viruses on my computer and wanted me to click something to get rid of them. I knew something was wrong because I didn’t install that program and for some reason it wouldn’t allow me to uninstall it through the control panel. I used the laptop to search for it on Yahoos search engine and found this:

http://www.xp-vista.com/spyware-removal/xp-antivirus-2008-removal-instructions-xp-antivirus-2008

Please, take a look at the pictures and memorize them so if this happens to you then you will be able to arm yourself. You don’t have to bookmark this site or keep the email if you don’t have this issue but just remember to search for it through a search engine so you can be able to get rid of it. I was able to get rid of it but I had to follow the instructions on this website. I hope for your sake you don’t get this but in case you do make sure you get rid of it right away. Oh, one of the things you will notice is that your screen will be blue or maroon, your wallpaper will be gone. That is a good indication that you have problems.

Update: After I went through all the steps to remove this thing I went to lay down on my bed to watch TV and I noticed that it went to the Windows Login screen so I got up and clicked my name and went to see the screen saver settings, I right clicked the desktop and clicked Properties and there are 2 tabs missing.  Desktop and Screen saver.  They are gone!  I don’t know how to get it back.  If I have to reformat my hard drive I’m gonna be pissed.

Another update: I get these email supposedly from CNN.  They are usually 1 line emails with a link and I clicked it to see the video for a news story and it said that I needed the active x thing and that is what happened.  I was trying to see a news story.  I am not going to click any of those emails ever again and just assume it’s a link to a virus.  My Norton is still finding virus’s left over from that and deleting them.  So, if you get emails from CNN make damn sure they are really from CNN and not a fake website.  Just go directly to CNN.com instead just to be safe.