Posted by Troy on October 18, 2009 22:50
My unbelievably wonderful wife bought me the Flip UltraHD Video Camera for my birthday. I'd seen several Flips in action elsewhere and I thought it looked awesome. The no-nonsense easy nature of the thing hooked me. It totally lived up to my criteria for most must-have gadgets in my life, "Do one thing and do it very well." The flip has a record button, which doubles as the stop button, zoom, play and delete. Easy as anything. And the slick "FlipShare" software that came with it makes sharing the videos as simple as clicking a button. It apparently also has some basic editing ability, though I haven't had a chance to play with that yet.
Unfortunately, I've spent the past few days trying to get the camera to charge...I took it out on a minor excursion the day after my birthday and was only able to record for about 10 minutes before the battery died. This is after an entire night of being plugged into my laptop at home. I tried again that night, but this time stayed at the computer, slogging through the week's worth of Facebook that I had ignored during my busy birthday week. So I was right next to the Flip when it gave a little chirp, which began to repeat over and over...when I flipped the video screen up so I could see it, the message there read "Check Battery Pack. Charging Paused." Figuring that I had put it in wrong, I took it out and made sure it was in more securely this time, but got the same result. After looking up the error online, I finally just registered my product and contacted Flip's support department. They have an online question form that they claim will respond within 4 hours of posting your question (during business hours, of course). I was really happy to find a reply in my inbox within the hour, giving me the following directions.
1) remove the battery pack from the camcorder
2) connect the camcorder to a powered USB port on your computer
3) when the "Connected" indicator comes on, insert the battery pack into the camcorder
4) safe eject your camcorder from your computer
5) reconnect your camcorder to your computer
6) the battery pack should now begin to charge within the camcorder
I had seen similar advice to this on my previous search for answers, but either they hadn't included (or I had ignored) line 4...safe eject your camcorder from your computer. I had been ripping the thing in and out of my USB port all day. So, I followed the directions.
And they didn't work.
I was just going to write the support department back to see if they had any other advice, when I figured I would give it one last shot. I followed the directions again, and this time, it worked. The camcorder has been charging for over a half hour now with no errors. Whether this holds remains to be seen, but so far, so good.
So, moral of the story, it may take more than once attempt to get this charging correctly? I'm hoping I don't have to fight this battle every time, but here's hoping things go smooth from here on out, because everything else that I've seen of the flip so far has been quite impressive.
Update: I went downstairs the next day to check on the progress, and it hadn't charged at all, it had simply not been giving me the "Charging paused" error, so I wasn't hearing the constant error chirp. So that appeared to have not worked either. Frustrated, I ventured out and bought the wall charger, because I have a friend who uses that to charge his Flip Ultra, and he said he has never had this problem. Upon getting it home, I plugged it in, and it immediately gave me the error. So, without even unplugging the flip from the charger, I took the cover off the battery compartment...I think I was planning on flinging the battery pack across the room, I'm not sure...when a funny thing happened...I got the icon showing that it was charging. I left the cover off and left it for a few hours and returned to a fully charged Flip. Perhaps there is something wrong with the way the batter pack cover fits? Regardless, I seem to have found the solution. Still...frustrating!
Posted by Troy on October 8, 2009 23:30
The comic Planetary "ended" this week. 27 issues in 10 years. (Now THAT'S taking your time! So I don't want to hear any more complaints about how slow the Watchercast is coming out! Heh.) What a massive build up this has been. A poster advertising the final issue of Planetary went up in my shop nearly a month ago,
and I've been on pins and needles ever since. Now it's here, and this
was totally NOT what I was expecting.
First off, a quick explination of what Planetary is all about. Planetary is a group of superbeings (they're definitely heroic, but to call them Superheroes seems to cheapen them in this case, for some reason) that refer to themselves as "Archaeologists of the Impossible". They dig into every odd happening on the planet and try to understand what is happening and to make sure they cause as little harm as possible. It's been a fantastic ride so far, and the team has been involved with such diverse oddities as Hong Kong action hero ghosts and off-kilter superheroes. Most of the mysteries they explore are obvious references to well known properties, such as Godzilla or Sherlock Holmes. The three members of Planetary are Jakita Wagner, who is the powerhouse of the team, The Drummer, who can maniuplate "information streams", thus controlling computers, sound waves or anything else that Ellis requires from him, and Elijah Snow, who can suck the warmth from whatever he chooses. The mysteries often involve some form of "pseudo-science" that is invariably fun to think about and used in staggeringly imaginative ways.
Now, I have to
admit that it's been so long since I read issue #26 that I have no
recollection at all where we left off. So opening this issue, I was
expecting a giant, wide-screen final battle between Snow, Jakita,
the Drummer and the arch-villans of the book, The Four (a twisted version of what is supposed to be The Fantastic Four). Apparently, however, that's already happened. (I
really need to get my comics out of storage so I can re-read this
series beginning to end!) So this issue, we're left with a very quiet,
personal story. An odd way to end a book.
Yet, thinking about
what Ellis has done on Planetary, it all makes sense. 27 issues and 10
years, and Ellis gives us an ending that ends nothing. In fact, it
reads as the beginning of an entirely new tale. Planetary ends with a
beginning.
Whether we'll ever see another story with Snow and
his crew is up for debate, but Ellis has definitely left us at the
start of a new set of adventures for Planetary. We even have future
versions of the team showing up in the issue to tell them that "The really good
stuff hasn't happened yet. Well, not to you."
Planetary has
always been a very "meta" book. It investigates stories by telling
stories about stories. (read that sentence again, I swear it makes sense) And with this
final issue of the series, Ellis has brought us full circle, by ending
his story with a beginning. The mad bastard is truly a freaking
genius. I loved this.
Posted by Troy on September 16, 2009 20:26
I've often been known to get stuck on a group of album...hell, I don't think I listened to any other group than "Queen" all 4 years I attended Ball State University. However, my latest obsession has grabbed hold stronger than usual and won't let go. (Not that I'm complaining!)
The current obsession is The Rural Alberta Advantage(or RAA for short) and their debut album “Hometowns”. It's apparently a meditation on lead singer Nils Edenloff's childhood growing up in rural Alberta, but in typical Troy fashion I couldn't tell you the first thing about the actual lyrics. The thing about this album that has totally caught my attention and that won't let me go is the mood. I can't quite put my finger on what it is, but Nils' voice conveys this wonderful sense of longing and nostalgia that doesn't come off as cheesy or cheap. Each song has a drive to it...the words don't quite fit the beat, but they rush and tumble over these fantastic melodies...pushing the whole thing along on top of the most musical drumming I've ever heard. The drum isn't a rhythm section, it's another instrument. The whole thing sounds familiar and new all at once, and 343 songs later, I still only want to listen to nothing but this album.
What's even better about RAA is that they are giving away samples across the net. I originally discovered them on Music for Kids Who Can't Read Good, where they gave away Don't Haunt This Place and Frank, AB (both are amazing). The MP3's have been taken down since that time, but if you are still interested in sampling, they have a fantastic session on Daytrotter that will give you a great idea of what they can do. (for free!)
What's more, the RAA will be coming to Columbus on September 27, and I'm counting down the days! It's so rare that I get to see my current obsession live!
Posted by Troy on August 25, 2009 20:37
Been a while since I've been on here, but I was shocked when I checked it recently to find dozens of comments! "Wow," I thought, "I'm famous!" Of course, that isn't even remotely true, and when I went to check them, it turns out they were all comment spam! Nice.
Apparently, the big spam comment trend is Uggs...those hideous, hairy boots? For a short time, popmatic.com was quite high in the "uggs" search results, I had so many references to it in my comments. Swell.
So, I finally got off my butt and installed askimet for blogengine, which was so simple, I'm a little embarrassed I didn't do it before. One day I'll learn.
Posted by Troy on July 23, 2009 14:34
I spend a lot of time on the web...a lot of time. So, you can imagine how many times a day I stare at iGoogle, my default homepage. I've loved the fact that Google has given us the ability to skin this page, but today they truly have outdone themselves...iGoogle comic book themes.
I picked the Hellboy theme, because hey...you just can't beat Mike Mignola when it comes to pretty pictures, but there are a ton of beautiful themes out there.
Perhaps best of all, the themes include at least one or two that I've never heard of before and that I can't wait to check out...the art of Lark Pien looks wonderful (I love the header with all the peanut butter & jelly sandwiches!) and the Children of the Sea art blows my socks off. So yeah. It's been a good day. =)
Posted by Troy on May 6, 2009 00:12
Well, I thought it was funny...
Posted by Troy on April 19, 2009 23:23
As you may have noticed, things are slowly coming together around here. I think I may have finally settled on a look for popmatic.com. It seems like I've been playing around with looks for months!
The look is based (loosely, obviously) upon a page from the Doves Press Bible that I found in a book on design. That "I" running the length of the page just struck me as simple and beautiful. It wasn't hard to see how it could be used to delineate the borders of a webpage, and voila!
Overall, I've been really pleased with how simple it has been to create themes with BlogEngine.net (which is the platform that runs this blog). For anyone who has worked with ASP.NET Master Pages, the process should be fairly simple and intuitive. A master page contains the basic structure of the page, and two web user controls (.ascx files) hold the interfaces for posts and comments. Best of all, this means that I still have access to code behind pages, so I can do all kinds of fun C# programming as the need arises...not that it has yet. So far, the basic functionality of BE.Net has been enough. It's true that the documentation is still a bit sparse, but I've seen it improve already in the two months since I've first started playing with it, so I'm sure it will continue to improve.
It may not have the maturity or the breadth of plug-ins and widgets that Wordpress has, but so far, BlogEngine.net has been a lot of fun.
Posted by Troy on March 16, 2009 21:39
I'm not trying to say anything bad about where I live, really...it's just that recently I've noticed some fairly odd things as I've been out walking the dog.
For instance, take this plaque, which is found in Carriage Place park, not far from my house:
...really nice, right? Except:
And then, right around the corner is a billboard I passed the other day...I read it, drove past it and actually had to turn the car around to make sure it said what I thought it did:
That's right...it says "When it DOESN'T STAY in Vegas...Saia & Piatt Divorce Attorneys"
Crazy times, my friends!
Posted by Troy on March 15, 2009 18:55
I'm not sure how many people actually know that I do a podcast. I'm one of the three regulars on The Watchercast, an episode by episode review of Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series. Yeah, I know, geeky, right? Still, it's a great show, and it's amazing how much there is to talk about from episode to episode. I'm joined by my friend Jason and my wife Kathleen, who are the true Buffy scholars. I'm the n00b of the group, who has only been through the series once. Jason has watched each episode around five or six times, and Kathleen has watched each episode somewhere in the neighborhood of a Jillion-Billion times. One for each person she has converted to the cult of Whedon. Seriously, she's a Joss Whedon Typhoid Mary over here. God bless her.
Anyway, we're getting to the good stuff now. We recorded the episode that covers Surprise and Innocence....two of the most pivotal shows in the Buffy canon a few weeks ago, and we've quickly turned around the episodes for Phases and Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered...one every two weeks, which is the schedule we're shooting for. If you like Buffy, give it a listen. People seem to enjoy the show.