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Memories 2

January 31st, 2009 | Posted by pftq in Stuck in My Head | #
Memories 2 by F-777
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Pride and Prejudice

January 28th, 2009 | Posted by pftq in Recently Read | #
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
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Doing What Counts

January 18th, 2009 | Posted by pftq in Stories | #
  Pete wiped his forehead and stepped back.  He had just finished helping an elderly woman pack luggage into her car.

  "Thank you so much," the woman said, standing back in amazement.  "You kids are doing so much these days."

  "It's no big deal," Pete chuckled, pulling out a sheet of paper from his pocket.  "Really, I should be thanking you instead."

  "What's...[More]
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Adobe Premiere - Slow Motion Flicker

January 15th, 2009 | Posted by pftq in Blabberbox | #

  Strangely enough, I only just recently started noticing flicker when I slowed clips down in Adobe Premiere.  This is with interlaced video clips.  Generally you don’t notice them until after exporting to DVD and playing back.

  Did a bit of research online, and from what I gather, it’s due to the fact the interlacing is affected by the change in speed.  To solve this issue, you’ll want to make sure you de-interlace the clip you are slowing down.

  1) Right-click the clip in the timeline.

  2) Select…[More]

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Open Doors

December 29th, 2008 | Posted by pftq in Essays | #
   They say one doesn’t realize what he has until it’s gone.  When I broke my wrist two years ago, I not only realized that I had almost lost my hand completely, I realized how little I’d done, how much more I wanted to do, how close I came to losing the opportunity altogether.  As I spent the following summer bound to my chair with the injury, I taught myself web design and learned to program in six different languages.  The following year, as my friends and I began making videos but could find no outlet for our new hobby, we founded our own club, within months finishing three movies, hosting monthly Theater Days, and starting a VHS-DVD conversion service.  When I later reflected upon the events, after having made twelve websites for schools and organizations, after having had classmates join my club and become paid to teach our video editing to an afterschool class, I realized that opportunities are not sought but created, that it is not the opportunity that is...[More]
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Doors and Windows

December 29th, 2008 | Posted by pftq in Thought of the Day | #
Goals are open doors to those who pursue them, but they become only windows to those who don't.
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Heart of the Winter

December 28th, 2008 | Posted by pftq in Stuck in My Head | #

Heart of the Winter by Denny Schneidemesser

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Christmas Medley

December 14th, 2008 | Posted by pftq in Stuck in My Head | #

Christmas Medley by JohnWE

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Encore CS4 - Invalid MPEG Error

November 9th, 2008 | Posted by pftq in Blabberbox | #

Been using the new Encore CS4 for a DVD the last few weeks, and just when I finished the editing and was ready to burn, the program returned an error claiming there was an invalid MPEG.  This happens during the build process (creating the DVD).  Took several days and many wasted discs for me to figure this out so I thought I might share.

Things to check for:

- Red frames in MPEG video.  Even those exported from Premiere can end up with problems.  Sometimes you just end up with a bad file and need to re-render the file.

- Bad Import. …[More]

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The Odyssey

October 23rd, 2008 | Posted by pftq in Recently Read | #
The Odyssey by Homer
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Ambitious Perfection

October 9th, 2008 | Posted by pftq in Essays | #
     People say I am ambitious. I seek objectives; I hunger for accomplishment. But to simply call me ambitious is an understatement. I am not hungry; I am starved, ravenous. I do not seek objectives; I make them. I cannot remain satisfied without a goal, a purpose, cannot remain satisfied even if I did have a goal or purpose. I must always have results, excitement, change. I must see the world blaze about me, hear the thunder of progress roar past me. I must smell achievement at every corner. I must taste the power of drive and anxiety.

     I am also a perfectionist. I attain to every niche and detail of all that I do. If it holds but a single flaw, it must be fixed, redone, or scrapped from existence. My tolerance for the world is high, just not for myself. Everything I do must meet my expectations. No. Everything I do must exceed my expectations, must breathe and echo success.
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Grapes of Wrath

October 1st, 2008 | Posted by pftq in Recently Read | #
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
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Crackling Audio in Premiere Pro CS3

August 30th, 2008 | Posted by pftq in Blabberbox | #

  This has been a problem for as long as I remember (even in Premiere 6.5), but it’s only beginning to bug me again after CS3.  Not sure if it’s because of the version or if I’m starting to use audio effects more often.  In any case, I’m finding that exporting video with even slight audio enhancements (highpass, pitch, etc) often causes crackling.  It doesn’t happen all the time; usually it occurs with more complicated timelines (nested sequences).

  Although it may help to lower volume or lessen the effects, an easier method I’ve found is to export the audio by itself first (Export > Audio).  You’ll end up with a wav file (uncompressed I believe) which you can re-import into your timeline and use.  You’ll notice your wav file has no crackling; this you can use to replace your video’s audio.

  It’s a bit of a hassle, but at least you don’t have to get rid of your effects or lower the volume of your video.  Bit strange that it exports audio just fine but messes up when…[More]

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Metical Revolution

August 30th, 2008 | Posted by pftq in Stuck in My Head | #
Metical Revolution by jayrayteam6
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Increase in Phishing Emails

August 29th, 2008 | Posted by pftq in Blabberbox | #

  Been noticing an increase in phishing/scam emails the past few days (5 in last 3 days..).  Thing that bothers me is they have my real email address, so not sure what that would signify.  It’s also coming from a lot of major sites, so that’s something to be aware of - including hotscripts.com, cnet, amazon, ebay.  Makes me worry if they have my real email - why they bother to send fake ones.

  Quick way to check is to see who it’s from - the name right before .com or .net or anything like that should be the actual site.  Many times, if it’s fake, it won’t be correct (though some go as far as to spoof that as well).

  Another way to tell it’s a scam email is to hover your mouse over the links (don’t click though).  Pretty darn obvious if the links don’t go back to the website (cnet, ebay, etc).  It’s also obvious when all the links are the same - which has happened on most scam emails I get.

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Silent Guardian

August 21st, 2008 | Posted by pftq in Stuck in My Head | #
Silent Guardian by NickPerrin
141 unique view(s)

Brave New World

August 15th, 2008 | Posted by pftq in Recently Read | #
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
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1984

August 11th, 2008 | Posted by pftq in Recently Read | #
1984 by George Orwell
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Delta Shield for Cell Phones

August 9th, 2008 | Posted by pftq in Blabberbox | #

  So I was reading about this Delta Shield in the news the other day.  Supposedly, cellphones emit harmful EMF radiation that can cause cancer and otherwise.  That I have heard often enough, but the article here claims that the Delta Shield, a small sticker placed on the back of the phone, can reduce harmful EMF by 93%.

  Makes me wonder what would have to be in that sticker to cause such an effect and whether or not it would mess with your cell phone connection (otherwise, most phones would already have this sticker attached no?).  I’ve tried looking this product up on several sites already.  Google doesn’t bring up any reviews or information other than the main site and some duplicate news articles.

  Has anyone actually tried this item before? Scam yes, no?…[More]

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Back to Canasta

June 13th, 2008 | Posted by pftq in Blabberbox | #

  I’m starting to play Canasta again lately.  For those who do not know, it is a card game - some say it’s similar to Rummy or Jin.  It’s one of the few card games out there that require skill and is still fun to play… I guess you could say it’s like a Real-Time-Strategy version of a card game.  Coincidentally, my test scores went up when I started playing again. :O

  I mainly play on Yahoo Games right now: 2 card draw and 2 canasta-out.  It’s funny how hard it is to start playing again.  Just loss 4 games in a row and pretty much crashed my rating (used to be above 1900).  I’ll get there eventually though. ^_^

  If anyone wants to play a match, let me know.  I always welcome a challenge.

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