Can You Hear Me Now?

This is the most effective call to action I've ever seen in web media.

7 reasons I might buy the HMX10

A few reasons i'm probably going to buy the Samsung HMX10. I've traversed the black hole that is consumer camcorder info and this is the least documented camera, but it has many benefits. Now is probably not the best time to be buying a consumer camcorder w/ the a format wars-ish type situation (AVCHD, HDV, JVC's hd7 etc.), but these early years of my daughter's life need to be documented. Reasons:

1. The number one benefit of this camera is that it records in an hd format I can use, mpeg-4 with h.264. I'm on a PowerBook so AVCHD, which is a similar format, is out for me on Final Cut Express w/ a power pc processor. I thought about just getting a Sony and relying on voltaic, but who knows how long that project will be supported. Plus it just feels icky having to use a third party to get to my video.
2. The pricepoint is pretty reasonable.
3. You can edit down the video before dragging it onto your drive.
4. Swivel Grip
5. Clean web uploads. Many people has labeled this a "web" camcorder. This camera and the standard def one shoots in a nice neat 30fps, where a lot of other cameras use 29.97 or some such rate that is not cleanly divisible by 2. YouTube chops the frame rate in half and the picture ends up looking much better when its cleanly divisible by 2.
6. Can be setup as an actual webcam. Probably won't user this one, but it's nice to know it's there.
7. Media. This is a solid state media camcorder. No moving parts, no camera hum, it *should* startup quickly. There is an internal memory card and a spot for expanding the memory with an regular old SD card, Sony uses really expensive cards made by sony, I think you can use generic cards, but I've read about people having troubles with them.

XUL?

I recently had to force quit a process called "xulrunner.exe". After a little research I found that Songbird uses XUL, an HTML-like markup language for it's media player. A sigh of relief came over me as I thought I had picked up a virus. Apparently XUL apps have to run xulrunner.exe. Wouldn't it be great if they could port it to Adobe AIR and have their own exe? AIR seems to provide most of the functionality that the media player has. (Not sure about the OS level availability of USB inputs, etc.) It would be nice, and probably cooler, if they ported Songbird to AIR!

Back to Wordpress

I'm movin' back to WordPress!!!! Here's a brief recap of my blog history.

1. Started with blogger. Easy & static.
2. Got interested in WordPress decided to give it a go. Very cool app, I like the idea of the whole thing running on my server. One small hitch, I found out I had little to say. Ditched WP.
3. Blogger acquired by google. Sweet new features that integrate w/ google services, lured be back into making posts. Still didn't have a bunch to say.
4. (Now) Got inspired by the philosophy behind todaycreate, I intend for JacobMake to be a stage for experimental personal projects OR a discourse on the reasons I'm too lazy, scared, or untalented to produce and document quality personal interest projects / tutorials. See y'all there.

My Vow to Build Things

To often I leave a vision or idea unfinished. I get easily inspired, I have great ideas, but the realization never seems to take place. I recently ran across Mike Creighton's blog, TODAY CREATE. Mike is a very talented flash developer, but what I like most about the blog is his mantra of making... building... creating... executing.

I do have a stable of personal projects I consistently find reasons to not execute. Maybe it's fear of failure. Maybe I'm lazy. For a long time my blog has lacked focus (and content). It's easy to regurgitate other things found on the web, or keep a semi-personal journal. Here is my vow to keep a log of my personal projects here, possibly establish an audience that can keep me accountable for progress.

Here's to inspiration execution.

OSX Reformat

I just resurfaced from a complete reformat of my G4 Powerbook. Sweet Lord Almighty, I had no idea how bad it had gotten. Caches in the metric ton, conflicting fonts, tiny little apps i NEVER use cluttering up my system resources. It was an interesting process. It "felt" good. To ditch all the clutter and start a new was refreshing, kind of like an "unboxing" process. Now machine runs like a Kenyan. And I will be very careful not to install the same cluttter that gummed up the works over the past two years......at least for a couple months.

marcellis not marcellus

Marcellis F. Heberlie, 80, of Perryville died Saturday, May 26, 2007. He was my grandfather.