JC Hutchins, I Knew Him When -- sorta

If you've been listening to my podcasts from the beginning, you might remember my reviews of JC Hutchins "7th Son" books.  Largely due to the great popularity of the books on Podiobooks.com, Hutch managed to get the book published by a real-deal publisher, St. Martin's Press.  And you can order it now!

If you liked the books as much as I have -- and I'm also listening to the new edition of the Podiobook -- I hope you'll want to own your very own, shiny new copy!  You can click on this link to order the book  7th Son: Descent from Amazon.com, if you'd like.

You could also go to Hutch's own site to order.  Up to you.



And to think, I reviewed his book back when he was just Some Guy.  Mostly.   :)

Promo for "The IDSL" - Take 3

I put this together this weekend for my Video Graphics class at LSC. It's not perfect; there's a spot in the audio I should fix, and that white bar where the URL appears is a bit unsubtle. But it's still pretty cool for a beginner. And I had fun making it! UPDATE: Fixed the audio. Decided to not change the one tiny thing that bothered me in the video. Just as well. ANOTHER UPDATE: Finally decided running my voice audio through Levelator wasn't cheating. Glad I did.




Natalie Brown

LeVar Thomas

Chris Kirby

What should I look for in a laptop?

My sister's XP laptop died.  It was kinda old, and she got it used.

About a year and a half ago, she'd bought me a brand-new Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop for Christmas and by birthday, and I've been quite satisfied with it till recently.  Now, for my Media Studies class, I've been doing and will be doing a lot of video editing, which is hard work for any computer and (they tell me) requires serious hardware to do reasonably quickly.  My current laptop is adequate for this, sort of, mostly.  The machine's been upgraded to 3 gig memory and a 360 gig hd both which seem adequate.  I haven't discovered any way to upgrade -only- the Video hardware, and I suppose it's built into the motherboard and can't be upgraded.

My sister, who is an email-and-web person mostly, has suggested buying me another brand-new laptop, and taking over my "old" laptop for her own use.  This would be wonderful, of course.  She has more money than I do.  But she's asked me to just tell her what sort of computer to buy, and she'll see about buying it.  Thing is, I have no idea what specifically to look for, other than "larger" and "faster" and "better video" and other vague generalities.  Twenty years ago I coulda told her, now, not so much.

Any suggestions or hints?  I have heard for years that Macs are generally "better" for video editing.  True, somewhat true, not true anymore?  There is a premium to pay for Mac hardware.  How does the price for a Macbook Pro compare with the price for a PC laptop "adequate" for video editing in particular?  I've been using Windows since 3.1, DOS before that.  I know Macs only by reputation.

What would be considered big or fast these days?  I know what the numbers mean, to the extent they're larger versions of the old numbers.  I don't want her spending the cost of a new car, though, for example.  What would you say is a "reasonable" price for a laptop for "reasonable" video editing functionality and speed?

I pre-ordered a copy of Windows 7 a few months back, which I gather will help this old laptop somewhat. I doubt it would help enough.  Am I wrong?

Thanks for your input.

Griz

The IDSL 09/08/2009 (Comment line 218-234-CALL)

You can directly download the file from Archive.org here.

On "The IDSL" today:

"Chandeliers, Scientists, Freaks and Aliens" from Dallas Orbiter

"Change Again" from Midriff

"We Dream For Jeanne" for Spider Robinson

"Change is in Season" from Matthew Anderson

"Change" from Schiek

"Feedback PSA" from Nobilis

"Chap My Pride" from Static Captain

"Golden Year" from Chris Kirby

"In My Dreams" from Natalie Brown

Thanks for listening!

Theme: "140 Times" from RockOn

Want to hear it all better? Try here!

This program sponsored by You, our loyal listeners! Want to help? Go to our Donate page!

Now, ain't that a hell of a thing

I'm in school, now, studying Media Production. There's a lot I need to learn there. I'm pretty confident with audio, though I find Adobe Audition quite daunting. Video, well, I just don't get that. I suppose if I'd grown up with access to video recorders and such, like some of these kids did, it'd be another story. Never could afford video hardware, never had the option to simply fiddle and try things, so I never developed the sort of confidence these younger folks have. That's okay; I'll get there eventually. I haven't grown stupid in my old age.

Only one obstacle is utterly beyond me. I'm required to take a course in "College writing." I know I'm not a brilliant writer. I know a number of brilliant writers, and I've read their work, and I pale in comparison. I'm fine with that. I am a good writer, and certainly a practiced one. I spent a significant part of the last thirty years in jobs where my writing skills were vital to my work.

And now I'm taking a mandatory course that is apparently designed to turn an incompetent writer into a barely adequate one. The course requires following a very strict format, word by word, sentence by sentence, resulting in writing that shows every seam, crease, and scotch-taped-together phrase. And to pass the course, I need to spend the next four months writing down to this standard, rather than up to my own standards. This lock-step blather is better suited to a computer program than an actual writer. And it's presented as "College writing."

I don't want to do that. I doubt I can do that. I sure as hell can't do that for four straight months. To quote Truman Capote, "That's not writing at all, that's typing."

I certainly understand the necessity of the course for students who have never really been expected to write. Coming into this straight out of high school, some of my fellow students might have no idea how to write a simple declarative sentence. I can. I can't write like someone who doesn't know how.

But to be able to graduate from the Media Studies program, I am required to write badly for four months straight. Even now, I'm wondering what they'd do if I dropped the class. Probably kick me out.

Now ain't that a hell of a thing?

Griz

Merchandize Me

I have a whole lot of reading and writing to do for school. Which explains why I spent the last couple hours fiddling with the Merchandise on my Cafepress Store.

I decided the logo for The IDSL looks much better than the logo for Grizzly's Growls, so I switched everything over to using that logo. Had to resize a bit for some items. Came out okay, if not to my satisfaction in all cases.

One minor niggle with CafePress. What I want for myself is a nice black mug with the nice black-background logo from The IDSL on that. Turns out CafePress doesn't offer any black mugs, only white mugs. What were they thinkin'?

Another thing their product design software should allow is to resize the selected image up to whatever size the product allows. If I find a graphic simply doesn't resize well enough to suit that item, then I can create a new graphic reaching that size. But their software only allows resizing up to a given size, and doesn't provide sufficient info as to what the largest possible sizes are. So I have to create graphics by-guess-and-by-golly, upload them, try them, and if they don't work, go through the whole process again.

They also have some decidedly weird items in their product selection. I could, for example, offer a thong with The IDSL logo on it. A thong. Huh?

I don't know why I worry about it. No one has ever bought anything from the Grizzly's Growls CafePress Store, not so far, not even me. So what does it matter what merch I do or don't have, or what color it is?

Hmmm... Wonder if they'd have a thong in my size? :)

The IDSL 09/04/2009 (Comment line 218-234-CALL)

You could download direct from Archive.org, if you'd like.

On "The IDSL" today:



SPECIAL!!! Interview with R&B artist Chris Kirby, with music and discussion of his new album, "Vampire Hotel." Listen in, call in, join in!



Thanks for listening!



Theme: "140 Times" from RockOn



Want to hear it all better? Try here!



This program sponsored by You, our loyal listeners! Want to help? Go to our Donate page!