Let's see... Slashdot started in a small town -- Holland, MI.
At the time I worked for Andover News Network (later Andover.net, bought by VA Linux, which become VA Software and renamed Andover OSDN, then OSTG), which was in a small town not terribly far from Boston. I lived in Elkridge, MD, a small town near Baltimore.
Andover bought Slashdot. The original Slashdot crew moved from Holland, MI, to Dexter, MI, another small town near Ann Arbor.
I moved to Bradenton, FL, pop. ~55,000. Retirees are courted like mad here because they *don't* use a lot of civic services. Realize that schools are about the most expensive civic service we have, and retirees rarely have school-age children.
I have friends in tech businesses here who are doing fine.
When Tropicana -- based in Bradenton -- got bought by Pepsi Cola and all the executive positions were transferred to Chicago, not many Tropicana execs made the move. They decided to stay here. And they found jobs.
In fact, this area has a negligible unemployment rate, down around 3%.
Not all small towns are the same.
And not all small towns are in the middle of nowhere. I live about 3 miles from Interstate 75, which runs to Atlanta and from there, eventually, to Detroit. Not only that, we have a local airport 10 minutes away and Tampa International less than an hour away. Tomorrow I'll fly from Tampa to Raleigh, NC on business. It will take me less time to get to the airport than it would take me to get to LaGuardia if I lived in Greenwich Village -- and I'll pay a lot less for parking, too.
I can be anywhere on the East Coast in four hours or less, including driving and airport wait time. I can be in San Francisco in seven hours or so.
If I have large quantities of physical goods to ship in or out, we have a huge container shipping port right up the road, and another one across the bay in Tampa.
I don't feel I'm exactly in the middle of nowhere, even though I don't live in one of America's largest population centers.
Our nearest Gulf Coast swimming beach is about 8 miles, and the nearest launch ramp for my sailboat is 1.4 miles.
Since "I'd rather be sailing," this smallish town is a far better place for me to be than NYC, just as skiers would rather live in New Hampshire or N. Dakota than in San Francisco.
We all have our own tastes. I was born in Los Angeles, and I've lived in San Francisco, Baltimore, and the New York (Long Island) burbs. I learned that I liked a smaller place better than a big one. And I like having salt water nearby. So I live where and how *I* want, which may not be how and where *you* want.
This is correct. Franklin refused patents on *all* of his many inventions so that they would be available to everyone -- and so that others might improve upon them.
Here's the thing: If my name is on an article, you expect that I wrote the words in it. If I quote a person in an interview, you assume (in my case correctly) that I actually had a conversation with that individual.
If I quote Wikipedia, a news article or any material published elsewhere, I should distinguish the quote from my own words: "An article in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on Sept. 21, 2004, said 'blah blah blah,'" or "'Life is sort of like living,' guitarist Juan Renown told interviewer P.R. Rewrite for a story in last month's edition of Bouncing Stone."
If I write, "When he pulled out of the parking lot, his aging Jeep Wrangler left a cloud of blue oil smoke behind," it's supposed to mean that I personally watched him pull out of the parking lot. If I write, "By Stander watched his Jeep Wrangler leave a cloud of blue oil smoke behind as he pulled out of the parking lot," I have gotten this little observation second-hand from By Stander, and I tell you that.
This is all about trust. As a writer and editor, that's what I "sell." When you see my byline, or my name on a publication's masthead, you should be able to trust my stories -- and as editor, my publication's stories -- as being as true as possible. I say, "As true as possible," because eyewitness accounts vary in accuracy, and often people I interview are less than truthful. Plus, reference materials vary in their levels of accuracy, so I may quote Wikipedia and Wikipedia may have gotten a fact wrong, but at least you, as my reader, know where I got that (right or wrong) bit of information. And you should expect me to check more than one source whenever possible, and note any disagreements between them.
There is a lot of judgement involved in quality reporting (and editing). I'm not always right, but I try hard to be as right as possible as much of the time as possible. I have trouble understanding the urge to plagiarize because, to me, the whole point of the damn journalism business is to ferret out information and give it to readers in an organized, well-though-out, transparent fashion.
Amateur or professional, newspaper reporter or blogger, you should always try to get a much information as you can directly, either by observation or through interviews with eyewitnesses or experts, and make sure you *carefully* attribute all quotes and all references to secondary sources so your readers know exactly how (and how well) you do your job.
There is nothing wrong with quoting Wikipedia -- or Time Magazine or a Slashdot comment or any other source -- as long as you tell your reader that's what you're doing. When you don't tell where you got your information, but let your reader assume you learned everything in your article on your own, you are not worthy of that reader's trust even if you're quoting a source -- like Wikipedia or a company press release -- whose authors *want* you to spread their work as widely as possible.
I don't have an answer to this question. It might be tomorrow, it might be next year, and it might be never.
I am neither an investor nor a prosecutor.
My only contact with Infinium has been to interview several of its CEOs, corporate officers, and board members, read all available information about the company (including SEC filings and its own promotional material), and analyze the company's prospects the same way any competent reporter or analyst would, using provable information instead of rumors, gossip, and hearsay.
If Infinium, its founders, or its major shareholders are ever sued or indicted, I'll probably be subpoenaed as a witness. If that happens I'll let you know.
One word of advice: if you ever think about investing in a tech company (or any other kind of company), check not only the company's obvious financial track record but how well it keeps commitments, including but not limited to releasing products and paying suppliers on time. Information about a company's bill-paying history can be obtained -- for a fee -- through Dun & Bradstreet and other corporate credit reporting agencies. In the Internet age, information about how well a company keeps its product release promises can be obtained free through Google and other search engines.
It's sort of an in-joke. Look at the 2004 article on ITMJ ScuttleMonkey's post links to, which was my final debunking of the whole Phantom/Infinium business, written immediately after a banquet Infinium held for "investors and friends" at Michael's On East, an upscale restaurant in Sarasota, Florida.
During the banquet, which Infinium founder Tim Roberts *insisted* I had to come to (possibly because I'm the only tech journalist in or near Sarasota), he and former Microsoftie Kevin Bachus, who was Infinium President at the time, kept asking me what I thought of their latest business and marketing plan, as in, "Would it succeed?" (Also, Tim kept asking, "How's the food?" which was decent but not great.) And did my much younger friend, Matt Moen, who came with me, think he'd be interested in the Phantom, being he was the "target" age for their marketing program?
As it says in the article, the only interesting or potentially marketable product Matt and I saw from Infinium at that point was their keyboard/mouse thing, which looked like it would be kind of cool for couch computing. Kevin told us they weren't interested in the lapdesk as a product, that they were concentrating on the console and game service, which would debut shortly. Remember: this was in *2004*, and they'd already been saying "Next month, really, we promise, we'll have a product to show you" for nearly two years before that.
Now the lapdesk seems to be the only product the company is actually able to bring to market. So Matt and I get to have a big laugh (which you are free to share), and say, "We told you so!":)
Berit wasn't the first Opera person I called, just the first one who answered. And I didn't check her picture first. I just wanted an official source inside Opera to tell me "on the record" whether or not the company had been sold.
When she picked up the phone, I said, "This is Robin Miller in the U.S. -- Roblimo on Slashdot -- and I want to know how you like working for Microsoft."
She said, "Huh? As far as I know I'm still working for Opera."
After the laughter stopped, she gave me the "official word" you saw above. Hot or not, Berit is a competent corporate spokesperson, and that's what counts here.
Thanks to everyone who submitted or moderated questions for Dr. Thompson. Any posts or moderations after this post's time stamp will not count. This is the cut-off.
After trying every open source and/or Linux video screen capture tool -- and even offering a bounty to anyone willing to bring xvidcap to full usability last year, I ended up using Camtasia and Blueberry Flashback -- both proprietary, Windows-only programs -- when I ran up against my book deadline.
There's a GPL -- but Windows-only -- program on SF.net called CamStudio you might want to try. I've had sound synch problems with it that I could probably solve, but it also used way more system resources than Camtasia or Flashback when trying to record a full screen so with my limited time I put it aside for future experimentation.
Of course, what I'd *really* like is an all-Linux solution...
- Robin
PS - if you're doing serious work in this area, please email me - robin at roblimo dot com. Let's keep in touch.The more we learn from each other, the more we both know, right?
But...you're only looking at *some* videos from a CD that accompanies a book, Point & Click OpenOffice.org, that'll be in bookstores by mid-December. You only saw an excerpt of the complete work, which goes into lots more depth than what you've seen. Plus I'll be making and posting more videos soon. Email me (robin at roblimo dot com) with your suggestions. I'll (obviously) start with the ones for which I get the most requests.
Format choice side note: Like it or not, Flash offers the most bandwidth-efficient way to reach the most computer users, on the most platforms. Those who want to redistribute these videos in other file formats are welcome to do so as long as they preserve attribution and all that (Creative Commons License), although I'd suggest emailing me to get AVI or MPEG copies instead of trying to retrack the compressed Flash versions. This will give a better end result.
I'd also like to point out that these videos are primarily for Windows users, not for the slick Linux crowd that reads Slashdot, which is why they're relaxed and kind of fumbly (so they don't intimidate people who aren't comfortable with computers). This also explains the eMachine box. I needed something with Windows and it was on sale cheap. My "real" computers run Linux, just as you'd expect.:)
My wife, Debbbie, is black, female, and kisses a white man (me) regularly.
She's also been a minor-league Trekkie since the original series. She has always watched far more movie and TV SciFi than I do, while I tend to read more *written* SF than she does.
If the Lt. Uhura "role model" is part of what made Debbie take up with me, Great!
If not, I'm still glad she did, and I think she identified more with Spock than Uhura because she has -- very cute -- slightly pointed ears.
Debbie says our next sailboat should be named "Heart of Gold," which tells you she probably likes Douglas Adams a lot. Or does it tell you she likes Neil Young (which she does), since she named our current boat "Still Waters" and she's a Bee Gees fan?
Before you get stupid about me marrying a woman who likes old Bee Gees tunes, realize that she looks as good in a short skirt as Lt. Uhura ever did.:)
- Robin
(SF reader for 45+ years, happily married to Debbie for 11+ years.)
I belong to the Internet Press Guild and the Society of Professional Journalists. I've written thousands of articles for Web sites, newspapers, and magazines, and I've authored three non-fiction books. Few would question my status as a professional journalist, entitled to protection under the law.
What about when I post a story on my personal site? Am I suddenly an amateur?
I go to a doctor who is neither old nor young. He gave me typical diabetes and high blood pressure meds when I first went to him, then worked with me to help me eat healthier.
I'm now a few pounds lighter, my blood pressure is back in normal range, I need half as much diabetes medication as I did two years ago, and I may have yet another prescription cutback soon.
Next step: a doctor-encouraged 20th or 30th try to quit smoking. I told him I'd tried and failed before. "So?" he said. "You're a writer. How many stories did you have to write before you made a living at it? Don't give up just because past tries have failed!"
Yo, you need be watch more Ali G on whatever channel I think it is HBO in the US it will give you more inside dope into how you is writing an article for readers that is hip hop TV generation and knowing the net not for old lamers what don't know nothing.
Here in the Sarasota/Bradenton area (just south of Tampa) real estate prices are jumping like mad, as in 20% - 30% per year. New high-rise condos and expensive "golf course" housing developments are going up all over the place.
And yet... when my wife and I were looking at more modest houses last year, at every open house we went to the agent or homeowner showing the place was surprised that we weren't "investors" but actually looking for a place to live.
A lot of the new houses being built around here, almost all of which go for $250,000 or more, are being bought by speculators. Some are being resold before they are even built.
It's a booming real estate market, no question. The only problem is that almost all of the new jobs here are in the $6 - $12 per hour range, which won't buy any of the new houses being built -- or even most older ones, now that so-so two-bedroom houses in so-so neighborhoods are going for $150,000 and up.
End result = there are going to be a lot of money-losing rentals in this area before long. Sure, it's a retirement haven and all that, but the national supply of retirees with big incomes is limited, even shrinking. Baby-boomers whose pensions have evaporated along with American industry can afford to live in trailer parks, not waterfront high-rise condos, but there are no new trailer parks or other low-cost housing going in.
We're just going to sit here in our little house and ride it out. Since we don't intend to move any time soon, it doesn't really matter to us what happens to real estate prices. Under Florida and local law it's hard to raise property taxes much on your primary residence, so even more price jumps can't hurt us much.
Maybe I'll buy a couple of rental properties after the inevitable crash, but I won't buy property now. The real estate market here is due for a "correction," which is real estate-ese for "crash," and I have no intention of being stuck with property I can't rent out for enough to cover all expenses and make at least a modest profit.
Netflix *is* a threat to Bluckbuster, Hollywood, and other video rental chains.
My wife is a perfect example. She's a movie junkie who was once a major renter from video stores and is now a total Netflix convert.
The key to her Netflix loyalty is selection: While she can and does get major Hollywood releases through Netflix, at least 1/2 of her Netflix orders are for quirky films she might not otherwise see. The Netflix recommendation software also rates high with her; it's suggested many movies she wouldn't have known about without it and that she ended up enjoying.
Best of all, the Netflix subscription plan makes it more palatable to risk ordering a movie you might or might not like. If you rent a tape or DVD from a store and you don't like it, you feel like you got burned on the rental fee. With Netflix, you just send that DVD back and get another one.
We've found that the "up to 3 videos" plan is all we need. Turnaround time from their Tampa warehouse to our home in Bradenton, about an hour's drive away, is rarely more than 48 hours.
Even if Wal~Mart or Blockbuster offer similar services for a few bucks less, I don't think Debbie will switch. Netflix has a quirky charm those dull old biggies will never be able to match.
Then again, you could get a Wal-Mart machine cheap enough. The software licenses will still cost you, though.
The software doesn't cost *that* much, but if you're really hurting for cash you can easily strip Linspire off of it and install MEPIS or plain-jane Debian and get your software from the Debian pool instead of paying to use Linspire's Click-N-Run Warehouse.
If you're coming back to the U.S. through Amsterdam on Northwest with a U.S. passport, they have a goon squad that lines everyone up and asks all kinds of questions including where you were and why you were there, blah, blah, blah. If you ask one of the goons for ID they tell you it's none of your business and threaten you with arrest if you persist.
El Al is the airline that started the quiz trick to detect hijackers, because -- in theory -- hijackers don't have names of friends they're going to visit handy or good/fast answers to questions like why they are going where they're going or have been where they've been. Other airlines seem to be copying El Al and doing a crappy, rude job of it.
Oh: and if you haven't traveled by air lately and you take a camcorder with you, be prepared to take it out of your bag along with your laptop. It seems camcorders have joined laptops on the list of things that might hide a bomb or mental control device or whatever it is we're scared of this week.
Meanwhile, I hear there are between 8 and 10 million illegal aliens in the U.S. That really makes me feel secure, thinking a terrorist wouldn't need to go through all that airline BS to come here but could just walk across the border from Mexico -- and could probably afford to pay a coyote a bunch more than the typical campesino coming here to work for minimum wage.
Let's see... Wednesday Caleb was over, hanging out. I met him through a Linux Users Group email list.
Last night my wife and I went to a local amateur circus performance with a coworker and his family, including some of his relatives who were visiting Florida (where we live) from MA and WVA. I originally met this coworker online. At the time we lived 400 miles apart. In fact, the online meeting led to his *becoming* a coworker, and now we live 15 miles apart and see each other -- including families -- regularly.
Last week I went out drinking with some guys I semi-hang out with on IRC during work. We socialize on IRC in between job tasks, and get together at least twice per month to drink, go sailing, watch movies, listen to music, etc. We arrange most of our get-togethers by IRC and/or email.
I correspond with people all over the world by email. In the last two years I've traveled on business to 12 U.S. states and six other countries, and in every one of them there were people I already "knew" and enjoyed meeting F2F for the first time. These are people I never would have met without the Internet. And it goes the other way, too. People I "know" through email or IRC show up here and I show *them* around.
Does reading and posting to a West Wight Potter (make of sailboat I own) forum count as socializing? What about when members of the forum get together for group sails, as happens at least a few times every year here in Florida -- and once or twice a week in San Francisco Bay, where there are a lot more Potter sailboats?
There are two local business people I met (through mutual friends) on Linked-In with whom I have lunch monthly; we bounce ideas off of each other and give each other advice on careers and such. This isn't anything formal, and we aren't in similar businesses. We just like each other, and it's nice to get an outside perspective on some of our ideas.
What was that about the Internet cutting down on socializing? For whom?:)
Slashdot Mirror
Sure. I'll email/call and ask. Anyone have direct contact info? Email me - roblimo at slashdot org - if you do, please.
- Robin
Let's see... Slashdot started in a small town -- Holland, MI.
At the time I worked for Andover News Network (later Andover.net, bought by VA Linux, which become VA Software and renamed Andover OSDN, then OSTG), which was in a small town not terribly far from Boston. I lived in Elkridge, MD, a small town near Baltimore.
Andover bought Slashdot. The original Slashdot crew moved from Holland, MI, to Dexter, MI, another small town near Ann Arbor.
I moved to Bradenton, FL, pop. ~55,000. Retirees are courted like mad here because they *don't* use a lot of civic services. Realize that schools are about the most expensive civic service we have, and retirees rarely have school-age children.
This area has a substantial number of creative loonies. I wrote about that phenomenon on my personal site.
I have friends in tech businesses here who are doing fine.
When Tropicana -- based in Bradenton -- got bought by Pepsi Cola and all the executive positions were transferred to Chicago, not many Tropicana execs made the move. They decided to stay here. And they found jobs.
In fact, this area has a negligible unemployment rate, down around 3%.
Not all small towns are the same.
And not all small towns are in the middle of nowhere. I live about 3 miles from Interstate 75, which runs to Atlanta and from there, eventually, to Detroit. Not only that, we have a local airport 10 minutes away and Tampa International less than an hour away. Tomorrow I'll fly from Tampa to Raleigh, NC on business. It will take me less time to get to the airport than it would take me to get to LaGuardia if I lived in Greenwich Village -- and I'll pay a lot less for parking, too.
I can be anywhere on the East Coast in four hours or less, including driving and airport wait time. I can be in San Francisco in seven hours or so.
If I have large quantities of physical goods to ship in or out, we have a huge container shipping port right up the road, and another one across the bay in Tampa.
I don't feel I'm exactly in the middle of nowhere, even though I don't live in one of America's largest population centers.
Our nearest Gulf Coast swimming beach is about 8 miles, and the nearest launch ramp for my sailboat is 1.4 miles.
Since "I'd rather be sailing," this smallish town is a far better place for me to be than NYC, just as skiers would rather live in New Hampshire or N. Dakota than in San Francisco.
We all have our own tastes. I was born in Los Angeles, and I've lived in San Francisco, Baltimore, and the New York (Long Island) burbs. I learned that I liked a smaller place better than a big one. And I like having salt water nearby. So I live where and how *I* want, which may not be how and where *you* want.
- Robin
This is correct. Franklin refused patents on *all* of his many inventions so that they would be available to everyone -- and so that others might improve upon them.
- Robin
Here's the thing: If my name is on an article, you expect that I wrote the words in it. If I quote a person in an interview, you assume (in my case correctly) that I actually had a conversation with that individual.
If I quote Wikipedia, a news article or any material published elsewhere, I should distinguish the quote from my own words: "An article in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on Sept. 21, 2004, said 'blah blah blah,'" or "'Life is sort of like living,' guitarist Juan Renown told interviewer P.R. Rewrite for a story in last month's edition of Bouncing Stone."
If I write, "When he pulled out of the parking lot, his aging Jeep Wrangler left a cloud of blue oil smoke behind," it's supposed to mean that I personally watched him pull out of the parking lot. If I write, "By Stander watched his Jeep Wrangler leave a cloud of blue oil smoke behind as he pulled out of the parking lot," I have gotten this little observation second-hand from By Stander, and I tell you that.
This is all about trust. As a writer and editor, that's what I "sell." When you see my byline, or my name on a publication's masthead, you should be able to trust my stories -- and as editor, my publication's stories -- as being as true as possible. I say, "As true as possible," because eyewitness accounts vary in accuracy, and often people I interview are less than truthful. Plus, reference materials vary in their levels of accuracy, so I may quote Wikipedia and Wikipedia may have gotten a fact wrong, but at least you, as my reader, know where I got that (right or wrong) bit of information. And you should expect me to check more than one source whenever possible, and note any disagreements between them.
There is a lot of judgement involved in quality reporting (and editing). I'm not always right, but I try hard to be as right as possible as much of the time as possible. I have trouble understanding the urge to plagiarize because, to me, the whole point of the damn journalism business is to ferret out information and give it to readers in an organized, well-though-out, transparent fashion.
Amateur or professional, newspaper reporter or blogger, you should always try to get a much information as you can directly, either by observation or through interviews with eyewitnesses or experts, and make sure you *carefully* attribute all quotes and all references to secondary sources so your readers know exactly how (and how well) you do your job.
There is nothing wrong with quoting Wikipedia -- or Time Magazine or a Slashdot comment or any other source -- as long as you tell your reader that's what you're doing. When you don't tell where you got your information, but let your reader assume you learned everything in your article on your own, you are not worthy of that reader's trust even if you're quoting a source -- like Wikipedia or a company press release -- whose authors *want* you to spread their work as widely as possible.
- Robin
I don't have an answer to this question. It might be tomorrow, it might be next year, and it might be never.
I am neither an investor nor a prosecutor.
My only contact with Infinium has been to interview several of its CEOs, corporate officers, and board members, read all available information about the company (including SEC filings and its own promotional material), and analyze the company's prospects the same way any competent reporter or analyst would, using provable information instead of rumors, gossip, and hearsay.
If Infinium, its founders, or its major shareholders are ever sued or indicted, I'll probably be subpoenaed as a witness. If that happens I'll let you know.
One word of advice: if you ever think about investing in a tech company (or any other kind of company), check not only the company's obvious financial track record but how well it keeps commitments, including but not limited to releasing products and paying suppliers on time. Information about a company's bill-paying history can be obtained -- for a fee -- through Dun & Bradstreet and other corporate credit reporting agencies. In the Internet age, information about how well a company keeps its product release promises can be obtained free through Google and other search engines.
- Robin
It's sort of an in-joke. Look at the 2004 article on ITMJ ScuttleMonkey's post links to, which was my final debunking of the whole Phantom/Infinium business, written immediately after a banquet Infinium held for "investors and friends" at Michael's On East, an upscale restaurant in Sarasota, Florida.
:)
During the banquet, which Infinium founder Tim Roberts *insisted* I had to come to (possibly because I'm the only tech journalist in or near Sarasota), he and former Microsoftie Kevin Bachus, who was Infinium President at the time, kept asking me what I thought of their latest business and marketing plan, as in, "Would it succeed?" (Also, Tim kept asking, "How's the food?" which was decent but not great.) And did my much younger friend, Matt Moen, who came with me, think he'd be interested in the Phantom, being he was the "target" age for their marketing program?
As it says in the article, the only interesting or potentially marketable product Matt and I saw from Infinium at that point was their keyboard/mouse thing, which looked like it would be kind of cool for couch computing. Kevin told us they weren't interested in the lapdesk as a product, that they were concentrating on the console and game service, which would debut shortly. Remember: this was in *2004*, and they'd already been saying "Next month, really, we promise, we'll have a product to show you" for nearly two years before that.
Now the lapdesk seems to be the only product the company is actually able to bring to market. So Matt and I get to have a big laugh (which you are free to share), and say, "We told you so!"
- Robin
Grammar and capitalization errors, plus other questions covered essentially the same material.
I follow your journal and like it, so please don't think it was anything personal.
- Robin
Any questions posted or moderations done after this post appears will not count. This is the moment when I grab questions and start selecting them.
Thanks,
- Robin
It depends on the author, I suppose. I've been writing on Slashdot for 7+ years. I think I can handle whatever people would throw at me on Amazon. :)
- Robin
Berit wasn't the first Opera person I called, just the first one who answered. And I didn't check her picture first. I just wanted an official source inside Opera to tell me "on the record" whether or not the company had been sold.
When she picked up the phone, I said, "This is Robin Miller in the U.S. -- Roblimo on Slashdot -- and I want to know how you like working for Microsoft."
She said, "Huh? As far as I know I'm still working for Opera."
After the laughter stopped, she gave me the "official word" you saw above. Hot or not, Berit is a competent corporate spokesperson, and that's what counts here.
- Robin
It's hyperbolic overload.
Thanks to everyone who submitted or moderated questions for Dr. Thompson. Any posts or moderations after this post's time stamp will not count. This is the cut-off.
- Robin
After trying every open source and/or Linux video screen capture tool -- and even offering a bounty to anyone willing to bring xvidcap to full usability last year, I ended up using Camtasia and Blueberry Flashback -- both proprietary, Windows-only programs -- when I ran up against my book deadline.
There's a GPL -- but Windows-only -- program on SF.net called CamStudio you might want to try. I've had sound synch problems with it that I could probably solve, but it also used way more system resources than Camtasia or Flashback when trying to record a full screen so with my limited time I put it aside for future experimentation.
Of course, what I'd *really* like is an all-Linux solution...
- Robin
PS - if you're doing serious work in this area, please email me - robin at roblimo dot com. Let's keep in touch.The more we learn from each other, the more we both know, right?
But...you're only looking at *some* videos from a CD that accompanies a book, Point & Click OpenOffice.org, that'll be in bookstores by mid-December. You only saw an excerpt of the complete work, which goes into lots more depth than what you've seen. Plus I'll be making and posting more videos soon. Email me (robin at roblimo dot com) with your suggestions. I'll (obviously) start with the ones for which I get the most requests.
:)
Format choice side note: Like it or not, Flash offers the most bandwidth-efficient way to reach the most computer users, on the most platforms. Those who want to redistribute these videos in other file formats are welcome to do so as long as they preserve attribution and all that (Creative Commons License), although I'd suggest emailing me to get AVI or MPEG copies instead of trying to retrack the compressed Flash versions. This will give a better end result.
I'd also like to point out that these videos are primarily for Windows users, not for the slick Linux crowd that reads Slashdot, which is why they're relaxed and kind of fumbly (so they don't intimidate people who aren't comfortable with computers). This also explains the eMachine box. I needed something with Windows and it was on sale cheap. My "real" computers run Linux, just as you'd expect.
- Robin
My wife, Debbbie, is black, female, and kisses a white man (me) regularly.
:)
She's also been a minor-league Trekkie since the original series. She has always watched far more movie and TV SciFi than I do, while I tend to read more *written* SF than she does.
If the Lt. Uhura "role model" is part of what made Debbie take up with me, Great!
If not, I'm still glad she did, and I think she identified more with Spock than Uhura because she has -- very cute -- slightly pointed ears.
Debbie says our next sailboat should be named "Heart of Gold," which tells you she probably likes Douglas Adams a lot. Or does it tell you she likes Neil Young (which she does), since she named our current boat "Still Waters" and she's a Bee Gees fan?
Before you get stupid about me marrying a woman who likes old Bee Gees tunes, realize that she looks as good in a short skirt as Lt. Uhura ever did.
- Robin
(SF reader for 45+ years, happily married to Debbie for 11+ years.)
I belong to the Internet Press Guild and the Society of Professional Journalists. I've written thousands of articles for Web sites, newspapers, and magazines, and I've authored three non-fiction books. Few would question my status as a professional journalist, entitled to protection under the law.
What about when I post a story on my personal site? Am I suddenly an amateur?
- Robin
I go to a doctor who is neither old nor young. He gave me typical diabetes and high blood pressure meds when I first went to him, then worked with me to help me eat healthier.
I'm now a few pounds lighter, my blood pressure is back in normal range, I need half as much diabetes medication as I did two years ago, and I may have yet another prescription cutback soon.
Next step: a doctor-encouraged 20th or 30th try to quit smoking. I told him I'd tried and failed before. "So?" he said. "You're a writer. How many stories did you have to write before you made a living at it? Don't give up just because past tries have failed!"
My wife and I adopted an adult pound dog two days before she was scheduled for euthanasia.
Terri (the dog) is shaggy, lovable, and protects us from Al Queda terrorists, who often try to come into our yard disguised as cats.
People ask me what breed she is. I say, "She's an American dog."
And so she is, complete with waggly tail and a friendly disposition.
Not only that, Terri is computer-literate!
I don't think Terri is clonable. She is a unique individual.
Take any pound dog with a reasonable disposition, give that dog love and firm training, and you will have a fine companion.
There are lots of pound dogs waiting for you to come along and adopt them. If you want a dog, this is the best wat to get one!
Yo, you need be watch more Ali G on whatever channel I think it is HBO in the US it will give you more inside dope into how you is writing an article for readers that is hip hop TV generation and knowing the net not for old lamers what don't know nothing.
Peace, out...
Here in the Sarasota/Bradenton area (just south of Tampa) real estate prices are jumping like mad, as in 20% - 30% per year. New high-rise condos and expensive "golf course" housing developments are going up all over the place.
And yet... when my wife and I were looking at more modest houses last year, at every open house we went to the agent or homeowner showing the place was surprised that we weren't "investors" but actually looking for a place to live.
A lot of the new houses being built around here, almost all of which go for $250,000 or more, are being bought by speculators. Some are being resold before they are even built.
It's a booming real estate market, no question. The only problem is that almost all of the new jobs here are in the $6 - $12 per hour range, which won't buy any of the new houses being built -- or even most older ones, now that so-so two-bedroom houses in so-so neighborhoods are going for $150,000 and up.
End result = there are going to be a lot of money-losing rentals in this area before long. Sure, it's a retirement haven and all that, but the national supply of retirees with big incomes is limited, even shrinking. Baby-boomers whose pensions have evaporated along with American industry can afford to live in trailer parks, not waterfront high-rise condos, but there are no new trailer parks or other low-cost housing going in.
We're just going to sit here in our little house and ride it out. Since we don't intend to move any time soon, it doesn't really matter to us what happens to real estate prices. Under Florida and local law it's hard to raise property taxes much on your primary residence, so even more price jumps can't hurt us much.
Maybe I'll buy a couple of rental properties after the inevitable crash, but I won't buy property now. The real estate market here is due for a "correction," which is real estate-ese for "crash," and I have no intention of being stuck with property I can't rent out for enough to cover all expenses and make at least a modest profit.
Netflix *is* a threat to Bluckbuster, Hollywood, and other video rental chains.
My wife is a perfect example. She's a movie junkie who was once a major renter from video stores and is now a total Netflix convert.
The key to her Netflix loyalty is selection: While she can and does get major Hollywood releases through Netflix, at least 1/2 of her Netflix orders are for quirky films she might not otherwise see. The Netflix recommendation software also rates high with her; it's suggested many movies she wouldn't have known about without it and that she ended up enjoying.
Best of all, the Netflix subscription plan makes it more palatable to risk ordering a movie you might or might not like. If you rent a tape or DVD from a store and you don't like it, you feel like you got burned on the rental fee. With Netflix, you just send that DVD back and get another one.
We've found that the "up to 3 videos" plan is all we need. Turnaround time from their Tampa warehouse to our home in Bradenton, about an hour's drive away, is rarely more than 48 hours.
Even if Wal~Mart or Blockbuster offer similar services for a few bucks less, I don't think Debbie will switch. Netflix has a quirky charm those dull old biggies will never be able to match.
Then again, you could get a Wal-Mart machine cheap enough. The software licenses will still cost you, though.
The software doesn't cost *that* much, but if you're really hurting for cash you can easily strip Linspire off of it and install MEPIS or plain-jane Debian and get your software from the Debian pool instead of paying to use Linspire's Click-N-Run Warehouse.
Huh?
I *always* read Slashdot with Firefox and it always looks fine to me....
If you're coming back to the U.S. through Amsterdam on Northwest with a U.S. passport, they have a goon squad that lines everyone up and asks all kinds of questions including where you were and why you were there, blah, blah, blah. If you ask one of the goons for ID they tell you it's none of your business and threaten you with arrest if you persist.
El Al is the airline that started the quiz trick to detect hijackers, because -- in theory -- hijackers don't have names of friends they're going to visit handy or good/fast answers to questions like why they are going where they're going or have been where they've been. Other airlines seem to be copying El Al and doing a crappy, rude job of it.
Oh: and if you haven't traveled by air lately and you take a camcorder with you, be prepared to take it out of your bag along with your laptop. It seems camcorders have joined laptops on the list of things that might hide a bomb or mental control device or whatever it is we're scared of this week.
Meanwhile, I hear there are between 8 and 10 million illegal aliens in the U.S. That really makes me feel secure, thinking a terrorist wouldn't need to go through all that airline BS to come here but could just walk across the border from Mexico -- and could probably afford to pay a coyote a bunch more than the typical campesino coming here to work for minimum wage.
(sigh)
Let's see... Wednesday Caleb was over, hanging out. I met him through a Linux Users Group email list.
:)
Last night my wife and I went to a local amateur circus performance with a coworker and his family, including some of his relatives who were visiting Florida (where we live) from MA and WVA. I originally met this coworker online. At the time we lived 400 miles apart. In fact, the online meeting led to his *becoming* a coworker, and now we live 15 miles apart and see each other -- including families -- regularly.
Last week I went out drinking with some guys I semi-hang out with on IRC during work. We socialize on IRC in between job tasks, and get together at least twice per month to drink, go sailing, watch movies, listen to music, etc. We arrange most of our get-togethers by IRC and/or email.
I correspond with people all over the world by email. In the last two years I've traveled on business to 12 U.S. states and six other countries, and in every one of them there were people I already "knew" and enjoyed meeting F2F for the first time. These are people I never would have met without the Internet. And it goes the other way, too. People I "know" through email or IRC show up here and I show *them* around.
Does reading and posting to a West Wight Potter (make of sailboat I own) forum count as socializing? What about when members of the forum get together for group sails, as happens at least a few times every year here in Florida -- and once or twice a week in San Francisco Bay, where there are a lot more Potter sailboats?
There are two local business people I met (through mutual friends) on Linked-In with whom I have lunch monthly; we bounce ideas off of each other and give each other advice on careers and such. This isn't anything formal, and we aren't in similar businesses. We just like each other, and it's nice to get an outside perspective on some of our ideas.
What was that about the Internet cutting down on socializing? For whom?