Luna Tail

Earlier this year I bought an RCA EZ300HD CamCorder and I really like it! It’s small, has a pretty good quality video, and it’s easy to use. The settings are pretty limited but good enough for such a small toy. And it’s HD! I love HD. Sure it’s not the highest quality HD in the world. It’s only 720p, but still it’s better than my Sony Handy Cam which records to a mini DVD.

I’ve been using it, mostly, for dog training and trialing videos. The only downside is it records to AVI, and my MacBook doesn’t natively play AVI… it wants MOV files. But I was able to get a converter, Handbrake, which is free. I can convert the files to MOV and import them for use into iMovie.

So if you are looking for a fun little camcorder for Chrismtas, this is the one I recommend. It has a rechargeable battery, 2GB of internal memory, and an SD Card slot that will take up to a 16GB SD card. It fits right in your pocket or purse, too.

Anyway, I like it a lot! I have vidoes on YouTube if you want to see the quality.

Tags: Chatter, Tech

Bleh… I’m trying to get to a sub-directory on my VPS and for some reason I’m not able to. Hrm… I wonder why not. The problem with having such a rotten memory is.. I probably did something, changed a setting, a while ago so as to disable this, and forgot what I did.

I mean, I can get there from my admin panel, but I cannot from the web itself based on my IP address.  So I’m trying point a domain name there, and I’m not sure if that is working because it hasn’t propagated though the internet yet… the changes I made from my registrar.

So I have to wait. Oh well… I’ll wait, though I hate waiting! And see what happens when the domain name propagates!

Tags: Chatter, Tech

I do love my MacBook and I’ll never go back to a windows machine if I can help it. I am wondering one thing, though. I want to back up my photos to my external hard drive and I’m having a hard time figuring out how with just Finder.

I guess I can use the Time Machine software that comes with, but from what I’ve read, it must backup to a disk that has been formatted for the Mac OS. Which is okay.. except that I don’t want to overwrite all the files that are already on my external backup disk in order to start backing up with Time Machine. Hrm…

So maybe instead of wondering what is adhd, I should just resign myself to the fact that I am somewhat ADD and OCD in my backups and my computer organization… and live with how things are. Hrm.. but no, I want to know how it’s done. And so I will keep looking!

Tags: Mac, Tech

Okay so I have been scouring the web looking for ways to convert the AVI files that my EZShare RCA Camera records movies in, into a format that iMovie on my Mac can use.

Dang, it’s been a tough fight. But I’ve learned that AVI is merely a container, it’s not the actual codec. The codec is what’s inside the AVI. And my EZShare camera actually records in HD, the codec it is in is H264 (x264 or h.264 I’m not sure what is the correct sytax).

So I am poor, and I’m really trying to save money, so I have been looking for something free. I read that Quicktime Pro 7 would be able to convert the AVIs to MOV, and I was almost going to buy the darn thing for $30, when finally I found Handbrake.

It works like a dream. It doesn’t convert to MOV, it convers to MP4 which is an MPEG-4 Format/container something. The settings I’ve been using are the Classic ones in the popout menu. Video Codec MPEG-4 FFmpeg (I looked at stand alone FFmpeg and I didn’t want something I had to run command line).

So with time, sweat, but fortunately no tears, and almost putting myself on a stress weight loss diet, finally I am able to convert my AVIs to MP4s and import them into iMovie. Yay! Sound and all. I’m happy about it!

Tags: Mac, Tech

Okay, I’m sold. I’ll never buy another windows machine again. I love my MacBook. It runs fast and clean. Installing and removing applications easily and completely. It doesn’t come with a bunch of junk applications that I have to remove, like windows does. The applications just feel lighter… cleaner. They are not so heavy that they take a zillion system resources and bog everything down. The graphics are clean and amazing on my Mac. And again, they are clean and light and don’t take a ton of resources.

I’m just figuring out iPhoto and iMovie. I’ll post again about converting AVIs to MP4s that can be used in iMovie. But I’m getting there. I need to actually play with iMovie now so that I can learn how it works.

The only thing, so far, that I’m disappointed in is the financial management software. Nothing I have looked at is anything I want to use. And the ones that I might consider cost $40 or more. And I just can’t afford that right now. I miss Ace Money, the one I ran on Windows. I’ve tried some online bank account managers like Quicken online or Mint, but I don’t really like them much either. So I might resort to running Wine on my MacBook an then Ace Money on it. We’ll have to see if I can get that to work. I’ve compiled Wine but I haven’t tried to actually run it using MacPorts, but I’m leaning in that direction.

I love the screen, and I could sit on the couch all day playing with my MacBook… then I’d need the best way to lose belly fat because I’ll get more if I sit around all day! Bleh.

So now I need to blog more, keep up on my poor blogs that are being neglected. And so I’ll try. I’m still having anxiety about updating them. Which is silly, I know, but maybe I’ll get over it soon.

Tags: Mac, Tech

So here is a picture from the hike we went on a week or so ago. Up to Dog Lake up Millcreek Canyon. It was a nice hike, and it didn’t even take me days and days to recover from! I am so pleased about that.

We saw some pretty flowers, and I had to stop and take a picture of this little bee having himself some pollen.

I’m glad I’m feeling better. Though I worry that we have mold in our house that we should really get rid of. And we should have our furnace checked, like my sister did, to see if we have any leaks. All these things take money, and we just don’t really have much… okay okay I know, my husband bought me a MacBook instead, but hey that’s pretty necessary! LOL yeah we should spend more money on serious things and less on play things. But my husband needs a laptop for school. And instead of him buying yet another PC, he bought me a Mac and took my old HP laptop. He’s going to take Vista off and put XP on it so it’ll be faster.

This backlit keyboard in my MacBook is just the coolest!

Tags: Mac, Tech

I am so excited… so much so that I haven’t blogged in a while. I’ve been trying to figure out this darn MacBook on my own! I love it so far. I only have had it since September 5, so only a few days now. When I first turned it on and I tried pressing the track pad… nothing happened. Little did I know that I had to press hard on the trackpad to make it click and then it registered!

I got the bigger hard drive, 250 Gig (or is that 260?) because I have over 14,000 pictures. Though I think when I imported them into iPhoto from my external backup drive, some of them duplicted. I’m not too crazy about iPhoto… I installed Picasa but I’m not too crazy about Picasa on top of iPhoto either. :p I haven’t used iMovie yet but I’m looking forward to it.

I think I found a checkbook software I like, free, so that’s good. I installed Firefox, which I can’t live without, and imported all my junk from my Vista machine so I have it all. I do so love Firefox!

I really like the trackpad on this MacBook. I love the two finger scrolling, how neat! But I think my right arm is getting tired from pressing so hard. I know I can change it to a tap.. and I did that, but sometimes I get twitchy finger and I double tap when I don’t mean to, so I turned it back off. I also like the two finger right click deal. But I’m considering a mouse anyway. I wonder if my Microsoft Mouse would work with my MacBook…

I don’t know where the Home or End keys are… if there are any. LOL. And the command key takes some getting used to. But so far, it’s fast and it boots and shuts down amazingly quickly. It’s more valuable to me than certified diamonds! But I’m a techie geek ya know. So far, so good!

Tags: Mac, Tech

Okay I broke down the other day and bought one. I know I know… I’m a spending nut and haven’t I talked lately about not spending so much money!? UGH! Well I couldn’t resist. So I have a Google / Android G1 Smartphone through T-Mobile.

I love it! I use it for texting and so most of my email reading on it too. I’m still getting used to the pull out keyboard, and I type pretty slow. But I also type out full words, I don’t really like the shorthand that the kids do nowadays. I can hardly understand it!

I like the apps that come with, and most are free. I like that Android is open source. And I love the touch screen and the flick scrolling and the Wifi. I read that the Blackberry Storm doesn’t have flick scrolling or Wifi and that would bother me.

At least I don’t have to pay my car insurance bill due now, but I might have some credit card stuff I have to pay. UGH I hate debt! Anyway, the phone is nice!

Tags: Chatter, Tech

Well I had a fun weekend doing agility with Chase. He did good and I learned some things about agility. Things I probably should have known years ago but I’m just glad that I do know now!

I do think I overdid it though. I was actually feeling pretty good on Saturday and on Sunday, but now again today I’m dragging, really tired, and have no appetite. I also have al ot of sinus pressure and a sinus headache. My neck and back and knees hurt. But none of these things is anything new, really.

So I am taking it easy, working from home today, excited to go get my new G1 phone from my sister’s house today. Yay! No XBox, but who needs one with a way cool G1 Phone? I’m way excited to check it out!

Tags: Chatter, Physical Health, Tech

Wow! I must admit, I am very impressed with HP support! I sent my laptop off last Tuesday, and by Friday I already had it back! Shiny new motherboard and all. Oh and they fixed my two missing keys, too. I use that darn F2 key a lot to modify columns in spreadsheets and rename files, and it’s been missing for a few months now.

So my HP Pavilion Laptop is now back. They didn’t even have to wipe the hard drive, so all my data is still here and I didn’t have to restore. yay!

So I didn’t get as much house cleaning done as I planned on… I’m back to blogging, following the Niche Blogger program as I do want to increase my blogging income substantially over the next few months. But I can’t clean much anyway in one weekend. I scrubbed the cabinets in the kitchen (finally got the dripping dog food off, LOL) and it really tired me out. Ugh!

Anyway, back to the fun blogging!

Tags: Tech