The Journal Of The InnKeeper

PSA: Turn your fucking phones sideways when taking video! There's a reason why, when we moved away from a mostly square screen for moving pictures, we moved towards a landscape orientation (there are several, but this is one of them).  For still photos, a portrait orientation (that's the tall, skinny frame shape) works fine with the appropriate composition because it's a static image. But for dynamic images like video, because things move horizontally more often than vertically, you need that extra space on the sides for things to move into.

When you record stuff vertically, there's a lot of moving side to side to get all the action in the frame. It's dizzying and annoying. You end up missing parts of the action because it moves off-camera quicker than you can follow it. You cut off more than you show. Yes, people are vertical and taller than they are wide, but the orientation isn't for the shape of the subject, it's for the MOTION of the subject.

Your videos look like shit. They're shaky and blurry and annoying. Please, take it from a professional camera operator - someone who people pay a lot of money to make pretty moving pictures - turn your phones to the side when you take a video. I guarantee that your videos will automatically look a hundred times better for doing this one thing alone, even if you never learn another thing about framing or composition or any movie tricks at all.

I am bringing back the Percontation Point, which looks like ؟ (a backward question mark) and denotes sarcasm or irony in the sentence. With limited character space and lack of tone, I need all the help I can get telling others when I'm being sarcastic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony_punctuation

It's kind of amazing how many people got upset at the suggestion of visually labeling online interactions as sarcastic or ironic (I found some message boards while researching the symbol). The most common response is "if you're too stupid to tell I'm not serious, you shouldn't be on the internet".

I'm rather appalled at that attitude. Without tone, and with lots of people reading who don't know the writer personally, I find it incredibly easy to misunderstand irony and sarcasm, and think someone is being serious when they're not.

I went off on someone for being a sexist asshole before he explained he was being sarcastic simply because I had never read that person's name or writing before and had no clue what his personality or viewpoint was. He even used some hashtag code that apparently means "I'm being sarcastic" that I had never heard before and can't remember now.

It would have been nice for both of us if I could tell at a glance that he meant the opposite of what he was saying the way I can tell when I hear or see someone speak.

**EDIT**
I went on a search for a convenient webpage to bookmark that had single character symbols that could be entered into text boxes like Twitter & Facebook status updates, so that I could copy and paste the character, rather than try to remember all the alt codes to do it. I found several good sources, but none of them had the percontation point, even though it is a text character and not an image. So I took the characters from the largest source of special characters, added the percontation point to it, removed the characters that didn't show up or that were duplicates, and uploaded it all as a public Google Doc.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cV6rGtnruVnU5pFwNMEPls318w1c5Pc9chipIHW367M/edit?hl=en_US

I'm writing this mostly for my own archival purposes, but I'm leaving it public in case others want to know, along with the background of what brought it up, since it's amusing.

Here's a good explanation of some work-arounds for Twitter from zarfmouse on how to mashup Twitter with a bunch of other stuff. I'm writing about the ones I plan to use.

So, I'm on Twitter (as Joreth), even though I don't find it very useful but I do find it mildly entertaining. If Twitter ended tomorrow, I wouldn't be heartbroken, but it has some utility. What I get out of it the most is cool atheist quotes and I'm having a bit of fun participating in the RT fad of immediately re-posting something that someone else posted (called ReTweeting). I think what I like about it is related to what makes people send glurge and sappy forwards and really stupid jokes through email, but with LJ and Twitter, I can just post it more or less publicly without emailing someone, which I feel is somewhat intrusive. If someone wants to read what I pass on, they have to come to my page or they have to friend me, which indicates that they want to read what I post.

So I find it to be useful in that respect - indulging in my not-really-important shouting out to the world something interesting without feeling like I'm interrupting my friends.

I have friended a few people, but not all of my friends, and I've friended a couple of my skeptic heroes, like Richard Dawkins, Rebecca Watson, Phil Plait, and James Randi. Who I decide to friend depends primarily on how social I'm feeling at the exact moment they friend me. It has nothing at all to do with how I feel about that person specifically. Much like who gets friended on LJ :-)

One of the neat features of Twitter is that I can send tweets from my phone. This, again, indulges my "OMG something funny I have to tell someone RIGHT NOW but really isn't important or I'd actually call someone" desires. It's the stupid joke I just heard and would share with someone if someone were there, but since no one is, I'll probably just forget about it because it wasn't that big of a deal sort of thing. But I have a very limited text messaging plan, so I have the feature that sends other people's tweets to my phone turned off.

Here is where Twitter has pretty spectacularly failed, IMO. You can subscribe to any specific person and get ALL of their tweets. And that's it. I can't subscribe, on my phone, to a particular hashtag (like wanting to read everything that's tagged with "shouldbeobvious" regardless of who tweeted) and I can't receive on my phone only those tweets that are directed specifically at me like replies to something I've tweeted about (in tweet-speak, that's any tweet that has @Joreth somewhere in the text).

This is profoundly annoying. I discovered this when I posted something to Twitter from my phone and then realized that I couldn't see if anyone responded to that tweet until I got home to check my Twitter page. Unless I subscribed to all of my friends and got ALL of their tweets that day. This, of course, also leaves out anyone who is not currently in my friends list who happen to see my tweet and responded (this happens mostly when I put the #atheism tag at the end of one of my tweets and anyone who searches for #atheism will read it even if they're not currently following me).

So I'm either Twitter-blind when I'm not near a computer and I can send tweets out but can't receive any, or I'm bombarded with all tweets by whomever I subscribe to - and some of my friends are rather twitter-happy ... you know who you are! This would quickly send my SMS plan skyrocketing. And I *still* wouldn't get tweets from people I'm not subscribed to if they send a reply tweet (@Joreth) or if they attach a tag that I'm interested in following. So Twitter fails with cell phone messaging.

Another #fail of Twitter is that you can't have more than one Twitter account associated to a single phone number AND you can't have more than one phone number associated with a single Twitter account.

So this means that, when I set up the OrlandoPoly Twitter account to post last-minute information, like where we're going for dinner after the meeting, I can't send a tweet from my phone because it's already associated with my personal account. I have to log in to Twitter from a computer to send those tweets so that people who are attending *just* the social dinner can get that information in time to join us.

Fortunately, The Center, where we meet, has a computer lab, so this *shouldn't* be a problem most months. Except this month when the key wouldn't work and we had to move the meeting at the last minute to another location and I couldn't get in to use their computer lab.

I also couldn't add multiple phones to the OrlandPoly Twitter account if I wanted to distribute the responsibility among a panel of OP officers or administrators, if I wanted to.

---

Here's why this comes up now:

In the last couple of days, I've been having a go-round with some idiot who has the absolute hubris to name himself TrumpetofGod on Twitter. It started by pointing out his logical fallacy of claiming that atheists who reject god are therefore setting themselves up to be god. I couldn't resist notifying him that people who do not believe god exists at all can't therefore claim to be a god, because we would then cease to exist ourselves (or believe ourselves to not exist). He then proceeded to send nearly a dozen @replies full of gibberish. It was a major blue-fish-tuba moment. As in, I understand the definition of each of those words, but strung together in that order and the sentence has no meaning. One or two of them were understandable, if by "understandable", I mean that I did actually understand the meaning underlying the sentence but he was still speaking religious nonsense.

One of those sentences was: "Jesus answerd did you hear. He said U want to kill me because my Word (pure love) has no place in you. Ur heart is either for love r"

Our exchange has quickly gone downhill from there.

So I thought I'd add him to my Online Skeezballs tag here on LJ for everyone's enjoyment, but rather than copy/paste my tweets, then go to my @reply page and copy/paste his tweets, I decided to do a Google search to see how this whole auto-tweet-to-LJ thing worked and if I could filter or specify or do something to post just this exchange.

That brought me to this guy's LJ with his Mashup instructions.

---

TwitterMail SMS -> Twitter Feed

TwitterMail will give you a special secret email address. When you send an email to that address it'll get posted to your twitter. Unfortunately you will need to give TwitterMail your Twitter password which is not something I'd normally recommend (since TwitterMail is a third party), however your twitter is a public feed with very little sensitive information so the cost of being hacked by the owners of TwitterMail is very low.

Now if you store the special secret TwitterMail email address in your phone's contact list, you can quickly and easily send an SMS to that address and it'll go instantly to your twitter feed. This also bypasses the possibility that Twitter could in the future charge a premium rate for their built-in SMS service.

You can register the email address of your cell phone (e.g. 7735551212@tmomail.net) with TwitterMail so that when people @reply to your twitter messages that'll get SMS'ed back to your phone.


I tried this.  I was able to successfully post a test message to the OrlandoPoly Twitter account from my phone even though that phone is currently associated with my Joreth Twitter account.  But so far, receiving @replies isn't working.  I registered my cell phone email address with my Joreth account, then sent an @reply from the OrlandoPoly account at the website, but I haven't received that as an SMS yet, 2 hours ago by the time of this posting - I will update if it starts working

UPDATE from the Twittermail FAQs page: 

So apparently I won't get my @replies right away.  I'll wait 48 hours for an SMS and I'll post what happens here.  If I actually get an SMS with my @replies, then I might spend the $15 to get them instantly, because waiting 2 days defeats the purpose of having them sent to my phone - I could just check the website.



RSSFWD - Twitter Feed -> Cell Phone

If your phone doesn't work with Twitter's built in SMS service there will still be one piece of the puzzle missing. You want to get updates from certain friends sent directly to your cell phone so you can have up to the minute status updates.

First determine the email address of your phone.

Next determine the RSS Feed of the twitter feed you want to send to your cell phone.

Then just go to RSSForward and enter the feed URL and submit. Use text only messages (there's a checkbox for this). When it asks you what email address to subscribe you should NOT use your cell phone's email address directly. Instead you should use your gmail account or some other account that lets you set up a custom filter.

Then in your email program (e.g. gmail) set up a filter so that messages from rssforward get forwarded to your cell phone. You could get arbitrarily clever with this and subscribe your email address to ALL your followed twitter feeds but only forward certain ones to your cell phone.

The reason for the filter-forward step is so you can easily use the "unsubscribe" link provided in each rssforward message.


Why the RSSForward feature is so neat, is that I can subscribe to the RSS feed for a hashtag and get all tweets that are tagged with something specific. For example, I just subscribed to the RSS feed for all tweets that have the hashtag #shouldbeobvious but nothing has shown up yet (including the test tweet I sent 30 minutes prior to this posting).  If that changes, I'll update this.

UPDATE: I finally received an email/text with the hashtag #shouldbeobvious.  3 days later.  I had actually forgotten which hashtag I was supposed to be looking for.  Since the hashtag I chose has such little activity, I don't know if this will be a recurring flaw in the process or it just took that long to set up.  I'm betting a recurring flaw, like the @reply service above. 

But I'll keep it set up for a while and see how long it takes between hashtag postings and receiving a text.

---

So, if the RSSForward thing actually sends tweets of specific hashtags to my cell phone, that'd be awesome!  And if Twittermail actually sends @replies to my cell phone, that'd be awesome!  But if not, at least I found a way to send tweets from my cell phone to multiple Twitter accounts.

And if ya'll want to read something that makes your brain hurt, check out TrumpetofGod's Twitter.

How do people feel about long urls?

Old School url conventions had us putting the name of the business in full in the domain because it helped Google to find it and rank it high.  Keywords were of utmost importance in Google rankings, and if any of your keywords were part of your URL, that was weighted even more highly.

But the problem is that you end up with these really long URLs that have the full business name.  So you have to type this whole thing in, but the positive side is that you could find just about any business' website by taking a chance and typing their name into the address bar.  I still find websites this way and only go to Google if that doesn't work.

So nowadays, linkbacks are the more important method of getting high Google rankings.  The more independent websites (that are not link farms) that link back to you, including blogs, the more important Google thinks you are, because people are talking about you. 

This means that the specific characters in the URL are much less important, but for non-Google advertising, it still helps to have an easy-to-remember URL, like for business cards and ads.

The point of all this is that I'm ready to buy the domain for the Polyamory Media Association that I am creating, which will bridge the gap between the poly community and the media.  We will be maintaining a database of poly people who are interested in talking to the media, including their relationship setup, what types of media they're interested in, etc., we'll offer media training, and we'll also screen media requests as well as actively pursue media events.  I've been calling the organization PMA for short, and I finally decided to create www.pma.com only to discover today when I tried to buy it, that pma.com was already taken, as well as every other suffix possible for pma.

My next instinct is to go with the full URL, polymediaassociation.com but I'm resistant to such long URLs even though I tend to prefer full name URLs.

So, I'm throwing this open to suggestions.  What kind of URL would you like or be willing to follow or be able to remember if you wanted to find this website?

TAKEN:
pma
tpma
pmassociation
pmassoc
pmagroup
thepma

POSSIBLE OPTIONS:
polymediaassociation
polyamorymediaassocation
polymediaassoc
anthing else?

*UPDATE* polymediagroup.com is available, and I suppose I could always change the name to PMG, I just like how "association" sounds.  I'm trying to come off as professional as possible, it's a national organization, so I don't want it to sound like a local poly group or run by a single person (it's not, I have lots of associates who are helping me).

*UPDATE #2* I just thought about possibly changing the name to polymedianetwork.com since I've pretty much ruled out polymediagroup.  The pros:  shorter than polymediaassociation; no double letters; the word "network" is very similar to "association" in connotation.  The cons: still longer than pma.com or polymedia.com; I have to change the name and the acronym to PMN and I don't know if I like how it looks as well as PMA; "network" implies a looser connection than "association" but not significantly so.

I finally got around to creating and ordering a backup/file organizing system.  I posted about needing to replace my laptop because the hinge broke, but none of my files are stored on the laptop.  The hard drive there is solely for running the OS and programs, and a partition for downloading files, which I then scan for viruses and move to an external drive, just in case something gets infected, I can wipe my laptop and my files will still be safe.

So everything is stored on a single 500 GB MyBook Hard Drive. 

I've been having problems with it since I got it, but it took me a while to figure out, and then purchase, a solution.

My solution is to buy a TB drive, which would serve as a backup drive, and then a handful of smaller external drives, into which I will divide my files according to type (movies, music, photos, other stuff) for portability and additional security that if something happens to one drive, I won't lose all my files.

My existing drive has the following problems: 

When I first got my drive, I followed the instructions in installing it, I plugged it in, the light came on, the drive started spinning, but the computer couldn't see it.  At all.  After calling tech support, I discovered that the drive, which requires an external power source, will sometimes draw just enough power to start up, but not enough power for the computer to find it.  This happens primarily when I plug it into a power strip with other devices also drawing power.  So, annoying, but I found a reasonable work-around, which was to buy a much-needed UPS and plug it into there with all my peripherials plugged into a separate wall switch on a power strip.

Then, after owning it for a few months, it began to overheat.  When it overheats, I can click on "My Computer" and see the drive still there, but if I click on the drive itself, the window tells me that there are no files.

Simultaneously, I discovered a problem with iTunes and Windows Vista.  Apparently, iTunes doesn't like Vista (who does?), and thinks it knows better.  It would rewrite the upper and lower limits on my CD drive and it would also rewrite something having to do with my USB ports that made them not work.  Since my drive is connected via USB, this meant that every time I started up iTunes, it would change my USB ports and my drive would not work the next time I turned on the computer.  I had a rather complicated process to go into the bios and fix the USB code each time I booted up.  Then I would have to make sure iTunes didn't start up so I could access my drive.  I discovered this particular problem when I tried to plug in my thumbdrive and *it* wouldn't work either, making me question my assumption that the drive overheated for good.  When I plugged in the drive to someone else's computer and it showed up just fine, I knew it was a problem with the USB port.

So now, I have this rather annoying startup process.  I plug in just my drive and unplug everything else.  I start with the drive on its side (it's designed to sit either on its side or flat, looking like a book, hence the name "My Book") to make as little contact with the surface as possible, thereby increasing the airflow and decreasing the heat.  Then I start up the computer.  If it doesn't find my drive, then I unplug it, lay it flat, put an ice pack on it, let it cool off, reboot, and plug it back in.  If it still doesn't start, I repeat the process using different USB ports.

So, yesterday, my new hard drive system arrived.  The MyBook was currently turned on and I had access to it, so I figured I'd finish up the projects I was working on and then begin the transfer process.  Halfway through, I tried to open a folder on the drive only to be told that it was empty and there were no files.  I reached down and, sure enough, the drive was hot, the ice pack having lost its freeze and was now a hot piece of liquid-filled plastic covering more surface area of the drive.

So, I began my reboot process, unplugging the drive, replacing the ice pack, letting it cool off, etc.  It didn't turn back on.  I repeated, using the variations outlined above.   The fracken drive will not connect with the computer.  I even went so far as to leave the drive unplugged over night with a fresh ice pack, and to shut down the computer for a while before attempting it again.

So, here I sit, with a box of hard drives, all ready to begin the rescue process of my piece of shit MyBook, and it sits on my desk mocking me with its blue eye, teasing me, telling me "yes, I have power, but I still won't let you get at your files!"  It literally shut down just in time to prevent me from salvaging my files.  I have the box of hard drives!  It's right here!  The MyBook was working when it arrived and it stopped working just as I was about to switch over!  I don't care what logic and reason tell me, my computers hate me.  They're malicious and vindictive and spiteful and they do things to me on purpose just to torture me.

I can't back up my files, I can't rescue my music, or all my photography, I can't access my tax spreadsheet, I can't get to my website files (all of the websites I maintain), I can't do anything but read my email.

I fucking hate computers.

***UPDATE***

As more evidence that my electronics are malicious and hate me, just as I hit the "post" button, I plugged my drive in one last time and it fucking started up.  It only did that because it knew I was ranting about it online and it wanted to make me appear foolish.  It's hateful like that.

I'm in the market for a new laptop. I currently have a 17" laptop with full-size keyboard and 10-key, 1.6 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB harddrive. I use my computer for watching videos, internet, photo editing, and listening to music. I have external speakers and hard drives, so I'm not all that concerned with harddrive space. I do not game - at all - so I'm not concerned with high-end graphics for gaming or video editing, but I still want good enough graphics to do photo editing.

I am also on very tight budget, or else I'd get a Mac. And no, I have no interest in learning Linux at this time - I want something I that doesn't require any new programming or language skills at all and that will run all the windows-based, industry-specific software that I use at work. Now that Macs have the whole dual-boot process working pretty well, I'd consider a Mac, but I can't afford the equivilent computer that I can in a PC.

So, here are the two I'm considering. Does anyone have information positive or negative about either? I'm aware that all windows-based PCs occasionally have a bad egg in the basket, so a single anecdote of "my cousin, who doesn't know anything about computers, bought that one and it sucked" doesn't help. But a statistical DOA rate might.

And yes, I know that Windows Vista sucks, but I either can't afford the modelsl that are still available with XP, or they don't have XP on a 17" screen laptop. I've been running Vista for 2 years now and I've got the hang of how to work around it's stupidity, so if I fail to remove Vista from the new laptop like I was unable to on this one, I can deal.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9166635&type=product&id=1218041148373
HP Pavilion Laptop with AMD Turion™ X2 RM-72 Dual-Core Mobile Processor

The important bits here are, 17" screen, AMD Turion dual-core processor, 4 GB RAM (expandable up to 8 GB), 320 GB hard drive, $699.99

( Specifications for the Pavilion )

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834147921
HP G70-250US NoteBook Intel Pentium dual-core T4200(2.00GHz) 17.0" Wide XGA+ 3GB Memory 320GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi Intel GMA 4500M

Here, the important bits are 17" monitor, 3 GB RAM, 320 GB hard drive, intel dual-core, $699.99 after instant & mail-in rebates.

( Specifications for the Notebook )
Very little difference. One is a fraction of a pound heavier, one has 1 more GB of RAM, one has 1 more USB port (but I have several hubs). Both are the same price but one requires a mail-in rebate. I'm ordering several external hard drives from New Egg, so the benefit there is I can add it to the total order and I might save on shipping. So, because they're so similar, I'm looking for anything to tip the scales in favor of one or the other. Suggestions?

I would like to make videos of 3D animated scenes using humanoid (but not fantasy) characters.  This means either clearly human people, or people-symbols/cartoon characters.  I want my characters to be fairly generic, and if I go the symbol/cartoon route, gender-neutral is fine too.  I have absolutely no 3D programming experience whatsoever.  Ideally, I would like some kind of program that already has a library of 3D characters and settings that I can just load up and give commands to, things like "walk over to this location" and "hug that person" and "get angry".  I can then use screen recording software to record the animation.

I also don't want to pay any money for this, as it's a side project and not intended to make me any income, so suggestions of where to purchase the Sims, for instance, won't help (although a program like the Sims would probably do what I'm looking for).

The only other alternative is for me to learn how to do 3D animation on my own, which I am currently attempting to do, but there's a learning curve and I'm impatient.  I'm a cinematographer and camera operator, not a graphic artist.

So, any suggestions on open-source or free or "borrowed" software or names of stuff I can search for on Piratebay?  Simple programs that will, one way or another, end up with a final product in .avi format.

http://www.okcupid.com/profile/DingoWallaby/journal/11518627596411682891/No-Title

COMPUTER: Windows has downloaded an important update! Do you want to restart now? If you don't do anything in five minutes, I'm going to go ahead and assume that's a big 'yes'.

ME: Not right now.

COMPUTER: How about now?

ME: Nope.

COMPUTER: You're going to have to pee sooner or later, tough guy.

It won't stop NAGGING me. Of course, sooner or later I have to step away from the computer, and when I come back:

COMPUTER: Windows is shutting down. HA HA HA HA HA HA.

---

This is why I shut off auto-updates and just periodically go check them myself, manually.  I can then do my reboot on my terms, not freakin' Microsoft arguing with me.

Many (I'm willing to bet most) of you who read my journal do not need these instructions and can probably even list out the more common (and more efficient) ways for spammers to get your email address. 

This is not for you. 

This is for those few who do not know this very simple message and for the more knowledgeable among you to steal as a template to send to those less-knowledgeable friends and family you have (I know you have them!) if it strikes your fancy.  

I get emails all the time with hoaxes, urban legends, chain letters and glurge (which are bad enough in their own right) that have 5 pages of headers on them listing every email address known to man as my family blissfully forwards out yet another story about a young child dying of cancer and how Microsoft will donate $5 for every name signed down below or how this really cool thing will pop up on your screen if you just send it to 500 people (seriously, it works, I just did it and you HAVE to see it!). 

And it drives me nuts.  Not just for the bullshit that gets passed around as "fact".  But this isn't about the content of those emails, it's about not using the very simple BCC field to hide the email addresses to those dozens of family members that absolutely have to know that you can't tell the difference between an internet hoax and a real issue. 

Send these instructions to those who desperately need it:

 and can I send them my computer?
 

Read this absolutely WONDERFUL review from someone who upgraded their computer from Windows Vista to Windows XP.

No, that's not a typo.  From Vista to XP.  Upgrade. 

Stolen from datan0de, thanks!

I posted a Tech Support issue a few days ago.  Here's the latest update on it:



*grumble grumble*  Some day I'll learn how to not be so annoyed by the stupid that is tech support.  I apologize to those friends of mine who are in tech support.  Clearly you are the exception, not the rule.

AIM has high quality video chat capabilities, which is cool.  Apparently you can only use AIM's video chat feature if you have access to the internet router and can reconfigure it.  That sucks for those of us who don't know how to do that, and for those of us who want to use video chat from public places, like Starbucks.

Yahoo has low-quality video chat capabilities, but it works on any computer even if you can't reconfigure the router.  Except if one person has a pc and the other person has a mac, then you can trade video, but not voice chat.

MSN doesn't talk between pcs and macs period.

I found this service called "SightSpeed" which appears to offer free video and voice chat between pcs and macs.  The video quality isn't great, but it does offer a full-screen option with a little PIP of my camera down in the corner.  Unfortunately, I just installed it and don't have anyone to talk to yet, so I can't test it.

Does anyone else know of a good-quality video/voice chat program that works between pcs and macs without configuring the internet router?  Microsoft really doesn't want anyone to be able to communicate with anything that isn't Microsoft-specific in origin, does it?