· July 15, 2005 at 10:00 am · Odds & Ends
I have to say after it was all said and done, it wasn’t as much work or as much of a pain as I thought it would be. Are there better ways of doing it out there? Sure. This is just one out of a million ways you could go through the process. I have a few more family tapes I’d like to get converted over as well now. If nothing else, this whole VHS to DVD copying project has opened up even more side personal projects for me down the road.
The only thing I’d like to find now is a program that would do all the capturing, editing and burning all in one. It is a pain to have to go through three or four programs to get to the final result. I also have to get rid of about half of the software that was installed while getting the capture device and DVD burner because either I have something that does that “job” already or it was total crap.
Have any suggestions, comments or help you’d like to add? Leave me a comment or two and let me know what you think!
· July 14, 2005 at 11:00 am · Odds & Ends
I have been talking about it for a long time now, and so have other people. It seems like the IE7 team has started to listen. Internet Explorer’s support for CSS and HTML elements is horrible.
Address CSS consistency problems. Our first and most important goal with our Cascading Style Sheet support is to remove the major inconsistencies so that web developers have a consistent set of functionality on which they can rely. For example, we have already checked in the fixes to the peekaboo and guillotine bugs documented at positioniseverything.net so use of floated elements become more consistent.
Hopefully by the time IE7 rolls around they will have all of those issues fixed. Well, “all” might be setting the bar pretty high. I’d be happy with “most” for now.
It seems like IE7 will also have anti-virus and anti-phishing tools built in as well. Good stuff!
· July 14, 2005 at 10:00 am · Odds & Ends
We have bought the equipment, we have captured the content, now comes the fun stuff. We get to burn some DVDs! Using the simple software that came with the DVD burner, I was able to drag and drop what I had captured into the program, then burn some simple and menu-less DVDs. This first time around I just wanted to make things as simple as possible. I can play with adding “fluff” at a later date and time.
So why go with the HP burner? Well I trust HP belive it or not. The last two computers I’ve had have been HP Pavilions and I haven’t ever had a problem with either (other than just old age). The burning process seemed to take as long as the capture process. I really wish that could have done by a little faster, but hey… I got a few things done on the side while I waited.
Next I’ll let you know my final thoughts about the whole process, and how things turned out.
· July 13, 2005 at 11:00 am · Odds & Ends
I told you I’d let you know when I got more! The last time around I was talking about The Dead Walk. Since then I have ordered and received 50 Horror Movie Classics. Am I happy about it? Heck yeah I am. Here are all the movies that come in the pack of DVDs:
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde starring John Barrymore
Blue Beard starring John Carradine
The Corpse Vanishes starring Bela Lugosi
Night of the Living Dead starring Judith O’Dea
Doomed to Die starring Boris Karloff
The Phantom of the Opera starring Lon Chaney, Sr.
The Indestructible Man starring Lon Chaney, Jr.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame Lon Chaney, Sr.
Nosferatu starring Max Schreck
Swamp Women starring Mike Connors
The World Gone Mad starring Pat O’Brien
The Little Shop of Horrors starring Jack Nicholson
Tormented starring Richard Carlson
The Monster Walks starring Rex Lease
Monster from a Prehistoric Planet starring Tamio Kawaji
The Gorilla starring The Ritz Brothers
A Shriek in the Night starring Ginger Rogers
Bloodlust starring Robert Reed
The Amazing Mr. X starring Turhan Bay
Last Woman on Earth starring Robert Towne
The Bat starring Vincent Price
The House on Haunted Hill starring Vincent Price
The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price
Dementia 13 starring William Campbell
Phantom from 10,000 Leagues starring Kent Taylor
Carnival of Souls starring Candace Hilligoss
Atom Age Vampire starring Alberto Lupo
Creature from the Haunted Sea starring Robert Towne
Nightmare Castle starring Barbara Steele
Black Dragons starring Bela Lugosi
Invisible Ghost starring Bela Lugosi
One Body Too Many starring Bela Lugosi
White Zombie starring Bela Lugosi
Attack of the Giant Leeches starring Ken Clark
The Screaming Skull starring John Hudson
Beast of Yucca Flats starring Tor Johnson
The Terror starring Boris Karloff
Revolt of the Zombies starring Dean Jagger
The Giant Gilla Monster starring Don Sullivan
The Fatal Hour starring Boris Karloff
Dead Men Walk starring George Zucco
The Mad Monster starring George Zucco
Maniac starring Bill Woods
Metropolis starring Gustav Frolich
The Vampire Bat starring Fay Wray
The Ape starring Boris Karloff
The Monster Maker starring J. Carol Naish
The Killer Shrews starring James Best
The Brain That Wouldn’t Die starring Jason Evers
King of the Zombies starring Joan Woodbury
Okay so maybe not every single movie that comes with it is a real “classic”, but a lot of them are. Know of any in there you think I should watch tonight?
· July 13, 2005 at 10:00 am · Odds & Ends
All the equipment is here and set up to copy my VHS tapes to DVD. So what is the next step? Capturing the signal from the VCR and recording it on my computer. The software that came with the EZMaker USB 2.0 external video capture device is simple enough. Looks just like a VCR itself. The only thing that is tricky is you have to remember to set the recording to pick up the signal from your “line in” port. You might also have to un-mute it in some situations as well.
The capture process is a slow one. In all reality you can only capture as fast as you can play the tape. That means if each tape is one hour in length, and there are twelve tapes, then I was sitting here for twelve hours trying to capture all this stuff. The good thing is I can set it to capture, get up and go enjoy the outdoors for a change. You just have to make sure you are back in time to stop the recording and change tapes every once in a while.
So the capturing process is done. The software that came with the video capture device is simple, but it works. What comes next? Burning the DVDs! We are almost all the way home folks!
· July 12, 2005 at 11:00 am · Odds & Ends
I don’t think you need a degree in any sort of education to know this next statement is a fact, “Fear of Spyware Changes Your Online Habits“. I know it has changed mine, and it has probably changed yours. These days you really do have to be a security expert to get Online and do anything semi-productive. This article from the AP does have some interesting facts and figures though:
According to Pew, 48 percent of adult Internet users in the United States have stopped visiting specific Web sites that they fear might be harboring unwanted programs.
Twenty-five percent stopped using file-sharing software, which often comes bundled with adware. Rogue programs can also disguise themselves as songs or movie files awaiting download on file-sharing networks.
Eighteen percent of U.S. adult Internet users have started using Mozilla Firefox or another alternative to Internet Explorer.
In addition, 81 percent have become more cautious about e-mail attachments, a common way for spreading viruses, though rare for spyware or adware.
All told, 91 percent have made at least one behavioral change.
Users hit by spyware or adware were more likely than others to change their habits.
Check out the rest of the article to get a few more interesting facts and talk about how badly spyware is changing our day to day lives.
