• On chivalry……..

    Posted on by beno 1 Comment

    A lady and I were approaching a door at the same time at work, she had her hands full of things (and even if she was not carrying anything, should I have done any different?), so I offered to open the door for her…..
    She pushed her way past me, opened the door her self, and said, “No, don’t, its 2008 you know”.

    I was shocked. I have never heard anything like that. Ever.

    I don’t open the car door for Freddy,  for two reasons; 1. The remote for the car is at home, its too big to carry, and there is only one key hole on the drivers side, this flows over to reason two. 2. Freddy is happier to get moving than to stand there while I walk back around the car and open the door for her.
    I do open any doors for Freddy as we come to them. Depending on the door, I may go though first and hold it open (if its windy and it might blow back on her).

    What I am trying to say is, I don’t go around throwing my coat on the ground if there is a puddle and a woman is going to walk in it, its 2008 you know…..but I think that basic manors and courtesies still have a timeless value. How is it that some women don’t agree?


    📂This entry was posted in Other

  • Olive run….

    Posted on by beno Comment

    Last week Freddy and I took a day off to go and get some Mount Zero olives on the bike.

    It should have taken about 2.5 hours up and 2.5 back, but the map off the web was wrong, so we went a lot out of our way before we found out just how you cant trust everything on the web (duh).

    Anyway, it all turns out ok, and we had a great day, read about it here.

    Hope to do it all again some time soon, it was really special to share some time on the bike with Freddy, and to see some more of Australia.


    📂This entry was posted in Goldwing

  • Getting a little better at video editing.

    Posted on by beno Comment

    I have been wanting to put a bunch of video clips together I had from flying the kite at Bright during the Feast. After my ‘success’ with the helicopter video, I thought I would have a go at it.

    You can see the result here;

    https://thebaldgeek.net/html/webpages-stuff/kites.htm

    Its the bottom one…….

    I’m pretty happy with how it turned out I don’t really see myself putting more time than what this one cost (about 1/2 hour). I think its pretty much finished.
    I’m getting keen to get a video and audio capture card happening to get the video tapes I have onto the computer so I can do them at some stage (they will take a lot longer simply because there is hours of tape).

    Anyway, I think it helps make the event a lot more memorable. You don’t have to sit though 15 minutes of video, just 4, and its a lot more engaging with the music and the fact that its just the ‘good’ bits.

    Hope you like it. Thanks for watching.


    📂This entry was posted in Other

  • Video editing……

    Posted on by beno Comment

    Its not super clear, but probably well known to people that are into video editing……Windows XP has a built in video editing program.
    You cant get to it on your start menu (least not in the 2-3 computers I have checked), but if you ‘explore’ your computer, and look in your ‘C’ drive, under ‘program files’ there is a sub-directory called ‘Movie Maker’ and in there you will find a program called ‘moviemk.exe’.
    If you run that (double click it), you get what looks to be a pretty good movie editing program.
    I have never done any of it before, its been on my to-do list, but never had the need….. Last weekend in Uranquinty with Matt we spliced together two little remote control helicopters, had a bunch of fun, and Terry took a heap of video footage.
    Not all of it was very good quality, in fact, there was only a ‘few’ seconds in each clip that were really useful. Hence the desire to splice it all together and make something of it.
    The cream was to add a bit of music, and some titles…..in about half an hour, I had the following video clip hosted on YouTube……

    https://thebaldgeek.net/html/webpages-stuff/rc-choppers.htm

    About two weeks ago I found my video cassette of when I drove my Range Rover across the Simpson  Desert, I am looking forward to getting it onto the computer and seeing what we can make of it (its about 2 hours long, so it needs some real brutal editing!)
    Also I am keen to get some video from the Goldwing as we travel around the place……
    heh,hehe, just what I need, another thing to spend some time on….
    Still, I am looking forward to getting some more of my videos on my site, and now, thanks to this new program, it will look better that it would have.


    📂This entry was posted in Computers

  • How many iPods?

    Posted on by beno 1 Comment

    For years I have been warning friends off ipods. I just have read a lot of negative things about them, and did not feel comfortable giving them the thumbs up as an MP3 player.
    A few weeks back I had the chance to swap a computer for an ipod nano 1st generation (1gb). I took the chance because I wanted to see what they were like…….Sadly, they were worse than I had read……
    They are very unfriendly. The click wheel is quite literally a pain to use. You can not just drag and drop music or photos onto it from either Linux or Windows.
    Terry had a bash at it for a few days (probably something like 5-6 hours all up) with Ubuntu. He was really trying hard, and I thought it was just his inexperience that did not get it to ‘fly’. He was pretty disappointed when he gave it back to me, he really wanted it to work. He was very confused how something so nice to hold could be such a pain to use.
    Next up was Dan. He is my Linux guru so I was sure he would nut it out in no time. He came up with gtkpod, it was better, but after some 4-5 hours, Dan too gave it back.
    I did not have the time, but could not believe that it would ‘stump’ two people that I look up too. I downloaded a few free windows applications to try and get it working. All to no avail.
    As a last resort I looked at Podzilla and Rockbox. The latter was the quickest to put on, and thats as far as I got. The ipod now ‘works’ as an mp3 player. You still are stuck with that silly invisible wheel thing, but at least its drag and drop under any OS and it now sounds a whole lot better!
    I have read a blog about how to tri-boot the thing, if I had some time, I would be doing that, but I just need an mp3 player, not a time sink!
    I suspect that I will be putting it on the bike and just letting it rot there.

    I wonder how many ipods are sitting in draws collecting dust because their owners have lost patience with them.
    Hats off to Apple for selling them so well.

    We will stick with our Irivers and no name players……..

    Edit:7th Nov 2007. Was reading the news headlines on Slashdot this morning, and came across a story about Apple making a tablet PC. Slashdot had this to say about the question of whether Apple even have the ability to make a tablet PC……
    “The short answer is ‘yes’. Any company that can make a mobile phone with no buttons, no picture messaging, slow Web access and no video capture into the most desirable phone on the planet can easily make tablets popular.”

    Sounds like two things to me, 1. I need to do some reading about the iPhone, looks like it might be another iPod, and 2. Sounds like I am not the only one that thinks that the advertising department of Apple has more money and clout than the R&D department.


    📂This entry was posted in Computers Music