Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

Rottweilers. Computers. Cameras. World Domination. Not necessarily in that order.

Rottweilers.
Computers. Cameras.
World Domination.
Not necessarily in that order.

Some Freya video and my iMovie learning curve

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I’m finally done with a short Freya training video that I started working on back in May. When we started having training issues, I lost some of my motivation for working on her videos. By the time I felt like reviewing video footage again, the magazine deadline had to take precedence.

But here it is, finally! It’s not really as informative about Rally Obedience as I had originally intended. It turned out to be more about me learning to use iMovie than about producing a good teaching video. I have a better handle on iMovie now, as well as some thoughts about how to structure a more educational and entertaining production.

I really like iMovie ’09. I’m not particularly creative or visual, so something like Final Cut or Premiere would be overkill for me. iMovie has a good variety of backgrounds, transitions, titles, and sound effects supplied with the program, enough for a beginner to use (and possibly overuse). I took only a short time with the tutorials and help files, and quickly had enough information to get started with my “production.” I guess I am a little old-fashioned as I do miss having printed or even PDF manuals. I’m definitely a easy sell for O’Reilly’s iMovie ’09 & iDVD: The Missing Manual and in fact I might head over to the bookstore tomorrow to buy it.

Although the iMovie tutorial videos on Apple’s site are helpful, it’s still a pet peeve of mine to find some information available solely as a video tutorial. Sometimes a written step-by-step is more effective, but those seem to be rare items these days.

In low-tech news, I’m still deciding whether to head back to class with Freya tomorrow, stay home and do some plain old dog stuff with her and Axe in the yard, or maybe all of us will just hide in the air-conditioned house avoiding the mid-90s temperatures. The third option really sounds best, doesn’t it?

(NaBloPoMo | July ’10: 16 of 31)

Reading, not writing

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I spent the evening reading instead of writing since I have an e-book that’s due back to the library in just a couple of days. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson, combines cryptography, geek culture, and World War II vintage historical fiction into a very long, but still readable and enjoyable mix of past and present stories. I hope I can renew it if I have to. I read pretty fast, but it is really long.

I want to do a proper review of my Sony Reader, now that I’ve been using it regularly for a couple of months. I should also do a full review of Cryptonomicon once I’m done with it since it does fit in both the “Computers” and “World Domination” categories here!

I also have two murder mystery novels to review. Who knew there were not just one, but several, murder mysteries featuring at least one Rottweiler in a non-killing role? Not me, until very recently! Look for my take on Rottweiler Rescue: a mystery for dog lovers by Ellen O’Connell, and Knit One, Kill Two by Maggie Sefton in the near future.

(NaBloPoMo | July ’10: 9 of 31)

First impressions: CLEAR 4G Wireless Internet

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I actually did have a topic planned for today, but since our Comcast high speed internet went down as I started to write, that topic has been shelved for a bit so I can give you my first impression of CLEAR’s 4G High Speed Mobile 4G Wireless Broadband service.

CLEAR is a relatively new player in the Chicago area, and we’ve been receiving promotional mailings for some time. The most recent one mentioned some special package rates, and also a 14-day free trial period. Since the Comcast service was so thoughtful as to go down while the mall was still open, it seemed like a good time to start the free trial with CLEAR.

This is actually sort of a second look, because Mom has had CLEAR service in Honolulu for almost three years now. At the time we set it up for her, the company was still called Clearwire and the service had not yet been upgraded to 4G WiMAX (that happened in January).

I decided to test the On-the-Go mobile internet because we have another provider’s mobile service contract expiring in December. I was given a 4G Mobile USB modem that will work with both PC and Mac. I’m testing it right now on my Sony VAIO laptop running Vista. Setup was super easy, as promised. So far, so good. Speeds are listed as up to 6Mbps down/1Mbps up; I don’t think I’m getting a full 6Mbps at the moment but it’s pretty healthy. I’m watching a YouTube video in another window and I’m not getting any unwanted skipping or pausing.

Back to Comcast for a second. We’ve had a lot of very brief periods of downtime this week, and today the service was down for about five hours. Every time I call Comcast when the internet service is down, they tell me that my modem is the problem. So far, it has never ended up being the problem, and it gets really annoying to be told it’s the modem when I’m usually 99% sure it is not. Including tonight. Only once did I get a support person who acknowledged that it might actually be a problem on the network and hunted it down.

When the service is working, it’s very speedy, though.

We’ll see how this trial goes, and hopefully it will help us make a good decision on whether to keep Comcast for home and switch to CLEAR for mobile only, or switch to CLEAR for both home and mobile. If you’ve tried both Comcast and CLEAR, please leave a comment with your thoughts and experiences!

(NaBloPoMo | July ’10: 2 of 31)

Drawing the line… is there even still a line?

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My recently-purchased MacBook is now fully loaded with all of my most-needed software and “stuff.” Since I opted to go with the not-newly-updated and much less expensive MacBook rather than the whiz-bang new-Mac-smell of the just-updated MacBook Pro, I won’t bore you with a long review. I’ll just say that it’s a nice and logical upgrade from my trusty but aging iBook G4, at a great price ($882 out the door, which is less than the original purchase price of the iBook) and it’s lighter to carry to work as it’s quite a bit more compact. See?

As you can see, I am giving up FireWire, which I used exactly twice (we have some FireWire portable hard drives that we use at the office, which can also be connected via USB), and an internal modem, which I don’t think I ever used.

Now, after thinking about what’s on my Mac and what’s on my PC, I’m wondering about something else.
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Communication breakdown

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So late last week, I received a call from Towerstream, the new broadband provider for our workplace. So what, you say? Well, we didn’t realize we’d left Sparkplug Communications. We certainly hadn’t requested it… yet… as our contract is not up until July. It turns out that Sparkplug has divested their holdings in the Chicago and Nashville markets. Friday’s call from Towerstream, the company that acquired those holdings, was the first notification we received. Neither I, nor our office manager, as the primary/technical and billing contacts, had received so much as a phone call, email, or voice mail from Sparkplug.
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