Laptop Addicts

Archive for the ‘Laptop Stories’ Category

This is just a trial for uploading and embedding a video via wordpress. First the video is converted to a smaller file size using ‘ImTOO Standard encoder‘ and saved as a HD with a .mov extension.
You can use ImTOO Mpeg encoder in it’s trial version for small video clips.

The problem is that the controls are not visible on my laptop in Mozilla firefox but they are visible on my old desktop also in Moz firefox …very strange … another problem is that I can’t make the video bigger.
A last problem is the max upload to my host is 30MB which is ok for small video’s but not for longer tutorials.

The Second Life viewer is the new beta 2.0 viewer. The added feature of the avatar is that when we talk in real life our avatar moves their lips but not in sync with our speech. I took this video to show how Mizou is doing with this new speech feature.

This morning I decided to finally create a video and upload it to YouTube. I took the video on ‘Toshi’ my laptop while visiting a virtual nature reserve created by Delia Lake on the Al Albysin sim and also a visit to one of my virtual builds (Carpe Diem Design) on Al Andalus sims, the moroccan riad.

This small production took me the best part of 2 hours and I have a very good idea where I should work on to perfect it. I am not too happy with the film quality which is far removed from the original one.

I filmed it  in Second Life with my in build filming software Camtasia and then I added the 2 title pages and the 3 callouts.

The first screen is not the one I choose, I will need to check out how to change that. My next upload to Youtube will be hopefully in HD if Camtasia manages that???

If you have saved important bookmarks  or on your laptop and you want the very same ones at work or anywhere else you only need an excellent plugin from X Marks. Install it on both your laptop and your work pc, login to your account and save all your bookmarks. This addon is available for the following browsers: Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer.

In Firefox it will be visible in ‘Tools/Add-ons, as well as on the bottom of your browser window to the right. Firefox will prompt you when it is updating X Marks.

I am a recent laptop convert, who before was a desktop guy. I liked  having the power of the desktop to do video editing and other heavy  programs. Yet I found that having a laptop meant I could be versatile  and lazy (browse in bed!). I’ve been taking it around to learn coding,  both html (in two locations) and ruby (on hold). For the college HTML class I can use my preferred software, like notepad++ instead of boring notepad.  I can also directly upload by changes via Filezilla. Bringing it to the ILUG (Irish Linux users  group) allows me to get direct answers to questions. I haven’t taken to Linux  like a super nerd, my progress has been a bit slow.

Well, Toshi had to wait before I turned him on as I was watching a film. He had our cat Shadow as a companion in the early hours of the evening. Later on when I worked on a film clip in Camtasia to cut a snippet of a screencast which showed my password to my server, holy god, that was a big, silly mistake. I successfully removed the offending clip and now my Toshi  is producing the whole video. Time to go to the kitchen make a cup of green tea with mint and hang up the wash onto Sheila Maid.

I sometimes think that I have a double life, that of a secret web coder and that of a mam in her kitchen. I must say that I love both lives, both fulfil a part of me.

My laptop is waiting for me at home like a patient friend, it knows that I will spend some time with it after dinner when all the dishes are cleaned up and the clothes hanging up over the ‘Sheila Maid’ ( Check this website if you want to know what that is!).  The big TV in the sitting room keeps silent while ‘Toshi’, my laptop’s  is checking out my online magazines and keeping an open line of communication with my friends & family.

Some people think it is totally unsociable to spend time on the computer, but then they think it is alright to spend a whole night watching TV. I am not particularly a TV person, I like creating things as I did in the 80 & 90 when I was knitting, embroidering and making clothes. Now I like writing technical manuals for my students and learning new html / css code.

Is it a sin for me to learn at night? It certainly does not prevent me from talking to my two teenagers or anybody else who happens to be in the house at the time. Of course there are many times when Toshi is happily sleeping on my desk … gosh it sounds like I am talking about a domesticated animal!

Hmmm…. is that what my laptop is, my digital no-footed friend?

In this blog created with Wordpress and theme created with ‘Artisteer 2.3′ we will tell the world of our experiences with laptops and are inviting others to join in writing about their experiences with laptops as well. An example would be ‘where you travelled to with your laptop’ or ‘what are your favourite spots to use your laptop’…..’Did you give your laptop a special name?’ …..