Posts Tagged ‘computer’

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Seller’s Choice

by Derek on January 20th, 2012
Seller’s Choice

I’ve been slowly selling our furniture on Craigslist so that I don’t have to dump it in the basement of our building for one of our building workers to take care of. One of them had apparently Googled me because they asked me if I did photo editing or something. I said I did video editing, and they said that they know people who do music video stuff and that he’d hold onto my info. Then I thought it’d be funny to discriminate against Craigslist buyers based on what came up in their Google results.

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Mom Missives

by Derek on December 21st, 2011
Mom Missives

It’s true, my mom reads the New York Times website daily and sends me articles almost daily. I barely ever read any of them but I save the links in a folder for the day when I decide I feel like reading them. They usually are about inspiring stories, food, chefs etc. But the most recent one she was the one about the horrible incident in Brooklyn where a man set an elderly woman on fire supposedly because she owed him money. Yep, completely heinous all around. Why this one was the one to break the cycle of inspiring NY Times articles I may never know.

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And Counting

by Derek on November 14th, 2011
And Counting

If you’re a Star Trek fan you might already have seen it, but they just released a new trailer of the first three episodes they’re remastering in HD. They have a few new shots and you can really see the detail in the costumes, props, sets and everything.

One of the episodes they’re putting on the first sample blu-ray is “The Inner Light” which is the famous episode where Picard lives an entire lifetime in a simulated vision of a long dead planet (and learns to play flute!). The shot in question is the last shot in the trailer and you really can see the definition in his hair. They do a nice wipe transition to show the difference, but even still I had to go to Netflix and do some comparing just so I could see how much amazingly better it is in HD.

To the people out there painstakingly rescanning film, editing and redoing visual effects for this HD release I SALUTE YOU!!!

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Uncharted Among Spoilers

by Derek on October 25th, 2011
Uncharted Among Spoilers

I did read the metacritic blurbs and a teeny bit of portions of the Giant Bomb review, but I found myself in a scenario where I saw even a word related to something content or story related I threw my hands in front of my face and quickly scrolled down. The gist I hear is that the story is again totally awesome and there are some tweaks to the gameplay to add more variety to combat. I’m also pleased to hear that the stealth mechanics are supposedly better too because trying to take out as many guys stealthily is something I did a lot of in the 2nd game.

It comes out in one week, but I’ve made the commitment to wait another two weeks after that so that Anna can be here as I marathon the game. Next to Metal Gear Solid 4, Uncharted 2 was one of the first games she watched me marathon and we both enjoyed it so much that I realized I couldn’t not do it together.

Then of course after I beat it for the first time, the next order of business will be capturing all the cutscenes and gameplay so that I can make a new trailer! CAN’T WAIT!

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Uncharted Events

by Derek on September 27th, 2011
Uncharted Events

There’s some Uncharted 3 promotional event that’s coming to NYC, San Francisco, L.A., D.C. and Dallas. It sounds like some big shindig with the Naughty Dog folks present, prizes, giveaways, a multiplayer tournament and I’m assuming a lot of seeing Uncharted 3 stuff in 3D on the big screen.

Sounds like a hell of a lot of fun, but I’m staying committed to my no spoiler policy for this game. I’ve managed to make it this far only seeing the first teaser and I’d say maybe half a dozen still frame shots that I caught here and there.

Only one more Uncharted 3 related comic coming up this week, then I promise no more until the game comes out.

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Better Than OS X

by Derek on August 22nd, 2011
Better Than OS X

I discovered another keyboard shortcut recently that fits nicely into how I use my computer. I’m kind of embarrassed by how excited I get over new keyboard shortcuts. I literally have a physical reaction because I get so excited. But just think about it, if there’s something I usually do that takes 2-3 seconds suddenly takes only 1, then how much time have I saved over the course of my life? (also assuming the lifetime of the OS)

Usually if you want to open a file using an application that it’s not assigned to open with then you have to drag it onto the dock icon (assuming it’s even in your dock). Turns out you can drag files onto icons in your application switcher when you press Command-Tab (again, assuming that application is already open).

This will be useful for every single time I want to open an MP3 or M4V file because Mac OS wants to open these with iTunes which is never ever ever what I want to open the file with.

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Keyboard Shortcuts The Quickening

by Derek on June 30th, 2011
Keyboard Shortcuts The Quickening

I know that I’ve used this punchline before (and dammit I can’t find the old comic that used it), but this is my experience whenever I learn a really great keyboard shortcut for software that I regularly use. Without a doubt I’m one of those people who tries to use their computer as quickly and efficiently as possible, and keyboard shortcuts are at the heart of this. I remember when I learned that Command-Up and Command-Down let you navigate folders (learned this from my brother-in-law) and how that totally changed how I used the Finder in Mac OS.

Well this recent one is just for you video editors out there. I was looking at tutorials for Adobe Premiere Pro (since it now seems that Final Cut Pro is not the wave of the future for pro video editing) and found out that holding option while clicking on clips lets you adjust video without affecting its linked audio and vice versa. Previously, I would click the clip, Command-L to unlink them, edit the clip, reselect the video and clip, and relink them. Now I can just click and drag a bit and it’s done.

Call me a nerd, but I had what can only be described as chills when I found this shortcut, it’s that big a deal. Now if only Premiere could add a keyboard shortcut for zooming in on audio waveforms in the source window I’d be great.

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Brief History Of Learning Software

by Derek on May 6th, 2011
Brief History Of Learning Software

One thing I’ve been doing with my time is learning new software or new tricks with software that I already use. So I’ve been watching video tutorials on Lynda.com. There was a time in my life when I would just press all the buttons and see what they did, but gradually software got more complicated and there are so many options it’s more difficult to do it that way. I used to read manuals but that got kind of boring.

Video tutorials are great, but get very restless watching them because usually they repeat keyboard shortcuts and stuff a lot and take a while to get to the point. Great for beginners and people who need to be guided everywhere but I find myself skipping through a lot. I feel like I kind of end up going to the application and pushing all the buttons anyway.

The best way of learning software of course is just pure necessity via some sort of project that requires you to use it. For example, years and years ago I made this very silly video in Final Cut Pro 1 and as a result learned a lot about how it works. Though in retrospect I didn’t understand what the motion blur tab was for at all.

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Ancient Remedies

by Derek on December 14th, 2010
Ancient Remedies

Actually Anna is the one who got a cut (though over a month ago I did get a bad papercut from trying to get my notebook out of the file box I had it in). She went to our first aid kit and I saw the very old band aids (or adhesive medical strips if you want to be technical) that my mom used to buy when I was a kid. When you’re an adult you really don’t injure yourself as much as when you’re a kid so that’s why I still have these band aids that are super duper old right now. Funny to think that as a kid I was using up band aids all the time to the point of running out and getting nice fresh ones.

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Printer Ink

by Derek on August 18th, 2010
Printer Ink

Actually I think the separate ink cartridges was a great idea, but it’s true that my computer still wants yellow when printing a black and white document. In my printer settings everything is set to grayscale with no color settings whatsoever and yet I still get an error message telling me I can’t print unless I have one of the colors. I figured out that if I just pause the printer queue and resume it, the printer will print it out with no fuss at all. I have to do it every single time I print, but I like it because I feel kind of like I’m tricking the computer.

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