“Tech” Category

I’ve had enough! No more will I wait over 5 days for to render an hour’s worth of footage. Those days are over! I’ve taken matters into my own hands and brought in reinforcements. And on May 31, it will be sent as the harbinger of doom… the devistating render monster.

All bow before the latest machine that will soon be in my arsenal!

I present to you… the Renderminator!

(more…)

So you’re ready to buy a new camcorder. You have all kinds of ideas about capturing your child’s first birthday party, parent’s 50th anniversary, or any other special event. That’s great! But when you’re shopping for your new camcorder… keep this one vital specification in mind… lux.

Every camera has a lux rating. This rating measures how sensitive the CCD (or CMOS) chip in your camcorder is to light. This light sensitivity is measured by the number of candles that are needed to capture a well lit image.

(more…)

A quick tip for all aspiring video editors. Though Adobe Premiere allows you to import MPEG movies, that doesn’t mean it handles them well. Actually, it handles them poorly. Instead of nice smooth video, you get a choppy substitute that makes it extremely difficult to make effective edits.

What is the solution?

Thankfully, the good folks at MainConcept created a plugin called MPEG Pro. Once installed, it makes all your MPEG movies run as smoothly as their AVI counterparts!

Now yes, you could transcode all of your MPEG footage into AVI, but if you don’t have to… why bother?

Anyone involved with search engine optimization (SEO) will tell you. Getting authoritative inbound links is crucial to success. Especially when targeting more competitive keyword phrases.

When I first got involved with SEO, placing an external link on Wikipedia.org seemed like a great place to get started. Well, it was, and everyone else thought of it long before I did. So when I tried placing links on various pages they were quickly removed.

But I persevered… and eventually got my wish.

Now that I actually have a link on Wikipedia that hasn’t been removed, I find out that in January of this year (2007) Wikipedia started appending the “nofollow” attribute to all external links!

(more…)

I’ve been keeping up with a past co-workers SEO blog and read her recent post on paid links. It’s late and I can’t sleep, so I thought I’d toss in my thoughts while I wait for sleep to come.

Though I have no proof to substantiate any of this, here are my thoughts on Google and links (for those who might care).

(more…)

Latent semantic indexing, it’s one of the latest ingredients to the algorithm of today’s most progressive search engines. It makes the notion of rating search results based on keyword density look childish and results in better search engine results, but more importantly, makes them harder to SPAM.

But what the heck is it?

For those of us who aren’t computer science majors or mathematical geniuses; this article will explain latent semantic indexing in plain English (or the closest thing to it). By understanding this new method of information retrieval, you can see why it will continue to be a major influence on what we find online.

(more…)

We all realize that every photo found between the covers of our favorite magazines is digitally enhanced. Blemishes are removed, skin tone is improved, and models look better than they ever could in the real world. Here are four (4) Photoshop tips to help elevate your pictures to this unattainable standard of perfection.

You’ll Learn How-to…

• Focus Attention
• Whiten Your Smile
• Liven Up Your Color
• Remove Blemishes

(more…)

Since everyone in my family and extended family contributed to my new HD camcorder, high-definition television was one topic of conversation this Christmas. While talking with my dad, he told me about his friend who mentioned an HD converter box that turned your standard TV into an HDTV. I quickly explained why this was impossible and thought I’d set the record straight here as well.

(more…)