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If your computer is running Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate, you can use Windows DVD Maker to burn your videos to a DVD-Video disc.
Nice. I've got Windows Vista Basic, and as I've complained before, out of the box it doesn't even play DVDs. Brilliant. Adding the ability to watch DVDs on Vista Basic was, iirc, only a $15-20 expense if you went through Microsoft's approved channels -- and free if you download VLC -- but the lack of the ability to burn DVDs for use on DVD players is starting to irk me, coming from a long-time Mac user.
Seriously, what is Microsoft thinking? Windows Movie Maker 2.6 is a crappy enough iMovie replacement that there's plenty of ill will to go around already. If you've used iMovie, trying to coerce Movie Maker into doing something useful is as fun as having someone pulling your teeth. I take that back -- having had one pulled a few years ago, it's more aggravating to use Movie Maker, just a bit less retch-inducing. That Microsoft choses to split their Vista base into such clear haves and have-nots can't help but irk folk like me and those gullible enough to pay $15 to watch DVDs that much more.
Your competition has a smooth, free alternative to this crappy Windows Movie Maker and Windows DVD Player, Microsoft. Apple puts that hugely superior software suite in every freakin' box. If you stop users from doing things they like to do and would naturally want to do with their computers, they're going to drop by an Apple store, try out iMovie, iDVD, and Switch on the spot. Mac Mini's are only $600 and iBooks $1100, Ballmer. Luckily I've already got older versions of both, or the Vista daily use experiment might have been dumped already.
Let me PS the rant by saying there's no excuse for Microsoft's own freakin' software to be so poor. This is not a case of the OS being solid and the 3rd party solution looking less than professional. That the two apps exist shows Microsoft understands making movies and burning DVDs is part of the Personal Computer experience now, and their in-house effort feels like a hack. The continued limitations of Vista Basic show me that the hacks are backed by poor commercial decisions as well. Being able to burn DVDs I couldn't watch [without VLC] after hours of painful editing would be humorous. Not being able to burn at all is beyond annoying.
Jobs + Gladwell + 2010 == What's in the rearview?
posted by ruffin
at 12/27/2007 09:27:00 PM
EDIT: I've been told I'm a dope, and that this "reading aloud" I complain about is the computer reading an eBook aloud. This makes much more sense than my paranoid rambling here, where I think pdfs are hoping to prevent readers from reading aloud the contents of a pdf. Oh well. I'll let the reaction stand. If authors and publishers can try to stop the sale of used books, who will say my paranoia won't play out later. ;^) Now back to the ramblings.
I've been reading a few books by an author from my hometown, and recently grabbed the newest from that evil box of goods, Wal-Mart, for $2 under the list price. That's about 50% more than it'll cost me used if I can find it. What the heck, I figure.
I'd heard there was a short-story published in the back of the book that wasn't in the hardcover, so I decided to check. Before I find it, I run into a black-bordered advert...
Need something new to read? Download it now!
Cute. I mean, I'm not a fan of eBooks, and I don't just mean Amazon's ill-fated "platform." I like my eReader fairly much, but overall I'm a big fan of marginalia and having something, well, worth less than $50 that I can take to the beach and the like. I'm also a huge fan of having something used I can sell -- and buy or use -- when I or another reader is through. There's nothing much better than a great used book store (and might I recommend Rainy Day Pal in Lexington, SC?).
But this appeal might just have me. When I finish a book of a series, I'm usually itching to go on the next. Or, in this case, I'll likely be itching to find some more from earlier on I haven't read, and much more willing to give in to instant gratification. So HarperCollins e-books it is. Imagine my proverbial surprise when I find out that the pdf version has the following restrictions...
Copy: allowed, but limited to 43 selections every 7 days Print: allowed, but limited to 43 pages every 7 days Reading aloud: allowed Expiration: no expiration date
(emph mine)
The first two and fourth make sense, but seriously, there are DRM'd pdfs I can't read aloud? "Ftw?!" he exclaimed in the parlance of our times. Bizarre. I'd like to make some asinine comment about how this ruins my freedom of speech, connecting it to the way bands can play covers at pay-to-attend concerts that they haven't paid any rights to play, but I'll try to avoid the temptation.
Seriously, the idea that you could have rights over my reading a book aloud, a practice that was the way pretty much everyone read anything printed in the 18th century and earlier, is absolutely insane. I mean, what does Adobe Reader do? Hook up to my laptop's mike and do some voice recognition? Neither policeable nor police-worthy. It's a traveshamockery.
posted by ruffin
at 12/20/2007 08:50:00 PM
Note: Those of you who have not been to FedEx Field on Sunday may not understand the title.
I had my VCR player die. I paid $10 for someone to look at it and see if they could fix it. Dumb idea. Apparently the VHS player has been dodo'd without anyone telling me about it. Oh, sure, you can still grab DVD/VHS combos, even combos that allow you to burn VHS to DVD, but the channel tuning VCRs that allow you to tape a channel you're not watching seem to be gone from the big box brick & mortars.
Welp, that $10 was wasted because I picked up a decent (so far) VCR for $13 from the local pawn shop (with a 30 day warranty, no less), but I finally think I figured out why new ones have died off. It's the government mandated inclusion of a ATSC tuner in all such new devices. If you don't hablo espanol, that means I am... THE NINO. I mean, that means every new VHS player would have to include a high definition TV tuner. Expensive. Thanks, US government.
That said, and I'll wax more drivel about it later, I think I'm starting to be down with the whole HDTV movement up until a point. I had occasion to mess with one recently, and the over-the-air signals were pretty danged impressive, even with rabbit ears. If you got the station, it was crystal clear. Nice.
Who loses? Well, duh, it's the poorest of the poor. Used TVs go for $15 at the thrift store, sometimes less, but soon they'll be able to get absolutely nada from the air. How many of those folk will know, much less be able to navigate, the US Govt's program to get them ATSC tuners [for free]? Cable users, I assume, will be able to continue getting analog signals past the drop-dead HD date for over the air broadcasts, which is idiotic. Again, the poorest lose... or the people who spend what little they do have wisely lose. Pay for cable? You're in. Save $10-50 a month, you're jumping through hoops to watch so much as educational TV.
I love that this all falls under something called the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. Gotta love them politicians. I'd call a good portion of it the, "Goodbye Free TV as You Know It Act".
Anyhow, isn't there a middle way? Couldn't VHF be kept in the same spectrum, and just the UHF wasteland be auctioned off with a little more of what's going to be used for HD broadcast sold as well? There's plenty of room for a HD signal in the overscan portion of analog; there's really no convincing reason to throw the legacy out with the bath.
Anyhow, it's maddening. Without so much as a vote or a heads' up from Congress, out it goes.
I've been trying to figure out a way to automate copying .mov's from a digital camera to a user's Movies dir in OS X for a less than computer savvy user, and thought I'd record what I've got.
set monthConstants to {January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December} repeat with m from 1 to 12 if (month of theDate) = item m of monthConstants then set theMonthNum to m end repeat if theMonthNum < 10 then set theMonthNum to ("0" & theMonthNum)
set theDayNum to day of theDate if theDayNum < 10 then set theDayNum to ("0" & theDayNum)
set strSuffixTime to "_" & year of theDate & theMonthNum & theDayNum & "_" & time of theDate
do shell script ("mkdir ~/Movies/" & strSuffixTime) set destinationFolder to "X:Users:donna:Movies:" & strSuffixTime
set sourceFolder to choose folder with prompt "Choose the folder of movie files:" set sourceFolder to sourceFolder as string
--set tempFolder to choose folder with prompt "spam" --set tempFolder to tempFolder as string --display dialog tempFolder
tell application "Finder" duplicate (every file of folder sourceFolder whose name contains ".mov") to folder (destinationFolder) display dialog "Done. Files should be in " & destinationFolder & "
Delete movie files from camera?" buttons ["OK", "Don't delete"]
if button returned of result is "OK" then delete (every file of folder sourceFolder whose name contains ".mov") display dialog "Files deleted." else display dialog "Files not deleted from camera." end if
end tell
The above code is more a record of what I've learned than great, clean code, but there you go. Note to self.
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