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Inside this issue:
30 Photos Printed FREE
I ended up purchasing the Pinnacle Studio Deluxe software/hardware package for video editing. The package retail price was $200 (after a $100 rebate), and came with the Studio editing software, an express version of the software, Hollywood F/X software and a PCI firewire card with what they call the Blue box. The Blue box is an analog input/output audio/video device. I haven't tried the last two pieces of software yet, so I cannot comment upon them.
The Studio software (version 7) is a dream to use. I am running WinXP Pro on a 1.2gHz athalon w/256 mb memory and 40gb hard drive. The board worked great until I applied Service Pack 1 to the XP installation. The Studio program locked up promptly when I selected to input video. The tech support folks were quick to reply to my email support request by providing three probable solutions. Moving the firewire card to another slot was the fix.
The software does take the digital input and save/manipulate the digital video in AVI format. I was working on a 23 minute project which I saved in MPEG format for use on computer. The original AVI file was 5+ gb, which converted to 238mb in MPEG format. I was able (using ahead Nero v5.5.10) to make a disk which was a combo VCD (for DVD play) or an auto running CD (for computer use). I took the same original 5+gb AVI and outputted it to a VCR in order to make a VHS tape of the video. I should also tell you, part of the AVI file came from a VHS tape (using the Blue box). The only drawback to the entire process was converting the AVI to MPEG. It took 45 minutes to render the AVI to MPEG. I'm not sure which to attribute the long time to, the small 1.2gHz processor or the small amount of RAM (256mb).
I would most strongly recommend the Pinnacle product. It seems to be the best bang for the buck that'll do digital and analog input/output in stereo. The next step up from this package is in the $800+ price range.
Pinnacle Systems.
As I mentioned in a previous article, AVI format is the highest quality and best format for editing but takes 10 to 20 times the disk space. AVI is like the video version of TIFF. MPEG is the video version of Jpeg. Mpeg takes much less space but you don't want to edit Mpeg because the quality quickly degrades. In converting AVI to MPEG, the software must compress every frame and there are about 29 frames per second. You can understand why this would take a lot of time, even on the fastest machine with plenty of available RAM and disk space. My XP1800+ machine with 512mb DDR Ram and super fast 80 gig 7200 RPM drive with 8mb RAM buffer might do it faster, but it would still be a long wait.
If you are not actually editing the video but only converting from tape to PC format for burning on to a disk, you don't have to go through a separate conversion step. I have just tried two programs which let you go directly from tape to MPEG with no conversion step.
Once the controls were showing, it was simple to operate. First, you capture the video in AVI format. Then you add in some effects. Then you render the video as a file. However, I found it difficult to go beyond the basics. Things that I expected to work a certain way simply did not. For example, my original files and edited files were saved as Mpeg1. This is only 352 X 240 and I wanted better. I clicked a button on the camera controls which depicted a wrench and nothing happened. Then nothing else worked for about a minute and I was sure the program was hung. Suddenly, a menu popped up with choices for video quality. Since then, I have tried this option several times, even rebooting the machine first. Each time, it takes a full minute for the menu to pop up.
You would think that once the menu is showing, the rest would be easy. Think again. Choices range from good, better, best, VCD, SVCD, DVD. I don't know if there is any difference between some of these, since the pixel quality is the same for a number of them. When I chose the higher settings, the resulting video and the sound became choppy. At lower quality settings it worked fine, but so did the software that came bundled with my capture card. The only advantage it had over the free software is that, if I wasn't going to edit the video, it could save to Mpeg (mpeg1 only) without the need for first creating and then converting an AVI.
The program also loads a manager each time you load windows. The manager sits in your system tray and its only purpose appears to be to give you an icon to click to run the program. I saw no difference in performance when I left it loaded and when I took it out of my startup list. Personally, I don't like having programs load at start up, unless they are programs that I use very often. Even if I liked the program, WinDVD is not something I would be using on a daily basis.
WinDVD Creator comes in two versions, a regular version and a Plus version. The Plus version can save directly to CDR or DVD. Personally, I find this feature of limited value. Hard disk space is cheap and hard drives are much faster than DVDs. I can't see any reason why someone wouldn't want to save to hard drive first and only copy to a DVD when there is a polished result ready to go. Both programs boast of an impressive array of features. Too bad I couldn't figure out how to make most of them work. WinDVD Creator is currently on sale for just under $40 at Intervideo.com.
Here is what I went through to convert two VHS tapes into 4 CDRs of digital video:
I connected my VCR to my digital video camera and my digital video camera to my PC. I brought up VideoStudio 7, set it to record in AVI mode to a drive with lots of available disk space. After letting it run for about half an hour, I found a good point to stop the recording. I then chose the option to extract segments from the video. I watched the video and clicked start and stop at the segments I wanted to keep. I was able to eliminate about half of the video. (We all know how doting new fathers keep that video camera running far longer than necessary.) In some cases, I chose to add introductions and special effects between the segments. I then chose the option to create a video. Just for comparison, I chose to create both an Mpeg1 and and Mpeg2. The Mpeg1 file was about 5% the size of the original AVI. The Mpeg2 file was about 4 times the size of the Mpeg1. In viewing the two files, I did not see any improvement in the bigger file. This is probably because the original source was an old VHS tape, which was not high quality to start. So I am saving my old VHS videos as Mpeg1. When converting video from digital video tape, there is a significant improvement in quality when using Mpeg2.
VideoStudio 7 offers a large number of special effects and film clips. My family got a kick from watching an intro reminiscent of the "ABC Movie of the Week," complete with flashing strobe lights and majestic music, as it faded into a clip of my 5-year-old's screen test. The quality of the resulting clip is good enough to be viewed full screen on a 19 inch monitor and a CDR will hold almost a half hour of video. So Ulead Video Studio 7 is my recommendation for digital video editing on your PC. It is available for $99 ($89 as a download) from Ulead.com.
AuctionWatch Post AuctionBytes article Follow Up Article.
Incidentally, I am always amazed at people who seem to believe that the threat of negative feedback will keep someone honest. Do you really think the crook who wants to cheat you out of an $800 laptop will be intimidated by your threat to leave feedback? If you are suspicious of something in an auction, don't bid. Don't count on anyone else to protect you.
I have recommended that people sign up for the newsletters from Circuit City, Staples and Officemax because they sometimes contain deals that are just incredible. Almost every week, one of these places will offer blank CDRs at giveaway prices. I purchased 200 CDRs for $42 and then received a $35 rebate. I purchased 100 cdrs for $29 and then received a $25 rebate. I found that Staples sent their rebate checks quickly (I bought an item 1/29 and received the check 2/20), while Officemax dragged their feet. But lately Officemax seems to have decided to take it to the final level and not give the rebates at all.
In September, Officemax offered an Epson color printer for $20 after a $30 rebate. The rebate was from Officemax directly, not Epson. The same rebate form also offered $10 back on a package of CDRs. I bought both items and sent in the form with the sales receipt and both UPC codes taped to it. I received the $10 about two months later. I called Officemax to inquire about the $30 and they claimed that they had never received the form. Since both items were on the same form, I made the natural assumption that this was human error and someone had just missed the second one. Several calls and faxes later, someone from Officemax told me I would not get the rebate because it had expired. It took another round of calls, faxes and emails informing them that the rebate had expired due to THEIR incompetence before I finally received the rebate in January.
In October, Officemax offered a $40 rebate on two monitors. The rebate said that there was a limit of one rebate per model per person. I bought one of each monitor and immediately sent in the rebates. About a month later, I received two postcards. The first said that one rebate was denied because the purchased was made outside of the valid date. This was clearly wrong, as the sales receipt and rebate form proved otherwise. The second said that the other rebate was denied because the UPC code was missing. Fortunately, I had copies of the rebate forms with the UPC codes attached.
I emailed Officemax and received a reply that this was an error. Both of my rebates were valid. Several weeks later, I received another set of identical postcards denying the rebates. When I called the rebate center (a firm hired by Officemax to handle the submissions), they told me that their records showed that I had only sent in one rebate. I informed them that their own email to me said both rebates were valid. They then said that there had been an error and there were no rebates being offered on these monitors at all. I called Officemax. They asked me to fax the forms again. For the next month, they did not even bother to return my emails and phone calls.
Then this month I received another promotional email from them advertising the same rebate they had already told me did not exist! This time I called their customer service and told them I was giving them one last chance to explain before I reported this to the FBI Internet Fraud Center, the Better Business Bureau and the Attorney Generals of NY and NJ. The same woman I had spoken to and emailed before came on the line and promised me I would have my rebates.
I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt, but this pattern indicates to me that this is a deliberate attempt at fraud and that they have no intention of honoring this rebate. I wonder how many other victims there are, buying Officemax products at higher prices enticed by false promises of rebates.
It was about 30 years ago that my father opened an account with them. Almost immediately, he found a charge on his account that he never made. He called them and mailed them repeatedly. Months went by and the error remained. He started getting threatening letters. When he applied for a mortgage, it showed up as an unpaid debt. Eventually he paid it, just to clear his record. But he sent back his Spiegel's card, along with a strongly worded letter about their business practices.
A few months later, he received a letter from Spiegel's. Was it a refund perhaps, with an apology? No, it stated that one of our neighbors had applied for a Spiegel's card and they wanted to know if my father could recommend him. My father replied that he could not recommend him, since he was a friend and didn't want him subjected to Spiegel's unconscionable practices.
Accordng to posts on OTWA, it seems that little has changed in 30 years. When Spiegel's joined the Internet, they sent out emails with discount offers. To get the discount, you had to enter a code number in your order form. Nowhere did it say that these code numbers were to be kept secret. So friends mentioned them to other friends. Spiegel's did not count on so many people getting the discount, so they used the same practice they seem to have followed for 30 years: they accepted the orders, waited a few months and then charged the customers the amount that had been discounted. Those that paid directly with credit cards simply charged back the extra amount. Those that paid with debit cards or Spiegel's cards were stuck. There were a lot of complaints.
When I hear of companies acting unethically, I always think "they won't get away with that for long." How long can such practices last? Well, if Spiegel's is any indication, somewhere over 30 years. So for the folks who predict Paypal's imminent demise, you have a long wait.
Late in January of this year I ordered a Dell computer online. I paid for it with an e-check (electronic check) and everything seemed to go fine. I received a call the next day from a Dell sales rep saying the check didn't go through. He offered to put it through for me. That was fine, I needed a new computer fast so I could finish my book. My old computer has become problematic and was making it difficult to work. He tried, and it didn't go through again, so he tried one more time which also failed to go through. Those 3 tries were on my business account, so we tried one more time using my personal checking account. That also failed.
At this point I asked the sales rep to make sure those order tries were cancelled and wouldn't go through. He assured me they were all cancelled and set up an account for me to go online and see for myself that they were cancelled. I checked, and they were indeed all cancelled. I ended up re-ordering the computer a couple days later and put it on my credit card after I had the limit raised higher. Because the card limit was lower than the computer cost was why I wanted to pay for it with an e-check in the first place.
About a week or so later, I noticed a lot of money missing from my bank account. I had the teller run a list of activity for the past week, and I found where the money went. In addition to Dell putting the computer on my credit card, they somehow managed to force all four cancelled orders through several days AFTER the orders were cancelled - I was missing $8,900.04 and Dell had it!
I didn't like that at all, but I'm reasonable, and assumed it would be an easy mistake to straighten out. I called Dell, explained what happened a few times until I finally talked to a woman who said she could fix the mistake. She asked me to fax a copy of the bank records and she'd take care of it right away. She also said it would take three to five days, depending on how fast my bank acted. I had the bank fax the record to them...then I asked if it would take as much time as the Dell rep had said. As I suspected, that was a lie. The money is back as soon as Dell reverses the charges. Any delay would be because Dell was slow to act.
I waited...and waited. Finally about a week later, the money was back for one of the four orders. I waited a few more days and nothing more was returned to me. I called Dell back, explained the situation again - and you should know that each time I called I had to explain the situation to several people, sitting on hold for long periods of time between each person - but finally I got a lady who said she'd fix the problem if I'd fax the bank records to her. I explained that I'd done that once already, but would do it again, but first I said that I wanted her to understand something. I said if it isn't fixed this time, I was going to file a complaint with the Attorney General of Wisconsin, the Better Business...and she interrupted me and started SCREAMING at me to JUST FAX IT, FAX IT!
Now, as angry as I was, I hadn't raised my voice once to any Dell employee. I asked for her last name because I was going to report her. She screamed her badge number at me and something else that I've forgotten...but then thought better of her behavior and became condescendingly cordial, assuring me she'd take care of it. I then asked for her phone extension so I could call her if it wasn't fixed because I was tired of explaining it and sitting on hold. She said she didn't have a phone extension, but would call me back. She didn't call back. She didn't fix the problem either. I dinked around like this for over a month with them. Finally I filed an affidavit with my bank charging Dell with making unauthorized withdrawals. My bank finally got my money back, but I went through Dell hell.
During this time I'd also written to nine Dell executives. I sent registered and certified mail so they'd have to sign for it and I'd get a receipt knowing it was delivered. One letter came back as undeliverable, the rest were delivered. Do you think I heard from a single one of them, or any of their representatives, or anyone at all? Nope. Them stealing money from me wasn't important to them.
If Dell's customer service is this poor when they make an egregious error that is 100% their fault, how bad will their customer service be for lesser problems? I patiently tried to have this corrected quietly, but Dell stood in negligence. I feel the public deserves to be warned of corporations that do business this way. It's totally irresponsible, totally unacceptable, and totally and disgustingly outrageous! I gave them the chance to write the end to this story, I told them I would publish it. This is the ending they chose. They chose to keep my money, and cared little about giving the money back that they stole from me - and they did steal it! Forcing through the charges for orders that were cancelled days before they put them through may have been an accident, but keeping it is theft!
I also had an a former Dell employee that is a subscriber to this newsletter write to me. She wrote, and I quote, "I walked out of my job and never looked back. I could no longer be a part of a company that has no respect for it's customers...and even less respect for the employees that deal with their customers. I will never as long as I live own a Dell. Why...because I do not want my hard earned money to be part of a gain for a disgusting company such as Dell."
Editor's note: I have always recommended that people buy computers from a local store and never from a mail order outlet. But that is because I believe computers need support that is just not available via email or phone. Registries get corrupted, viruses get downloaded, things happen that no technician will be able to solve over the phone. But there is no excuse for this kind of problem.
My own experience with Dell took place in 1985, when it was still called PCs Limited. They were offering 20 megabyte hard drives for $450, considerably less than anyone else. I ordered 7 of them for some computers I was assembling. I asked that they be shipped overnight. I was assured that this would happen. Several weeks later, I was still being told that they were on backorder. I was furious because I had seven machines to deliver and no hard drives. I cancelled the order and got the hard drives elsewhere, reducing my profits on the machines to the point where I would not have made the quote had I known the outcome.
Over a month later, the 7 hard drives I had cancelled, show up. They were shipped overnight, for which I was charged. Had I been present when they arrived, I would have refused delivery. So I had to return them at my expense. Then Dell had the nerve to charge me a 20% restocking fee. I called them to dispute the charge and informed them that credit card rules include: 1) that the order has to be shipped within a reasonable period of the date of the order and two months is not reasonable and 2) that my order was cancelled over a month prior to their shipping it. They refused to remove the restocking fee and I was forced to do a charge back.
This was about 18 years ago. When I read the above story, it was deja vue all over again. I guess some things never change.
One approach I use is to actually follow the spam to the website of the product being advertised. If the site is owned by the spammer, I will target them for some creative email. Sometimes the site is a third party who may have no idea that one of their affiliates is spamming. I was once spammed continuously by the same person. When I emailed him to have my name removed, my email came back as undeliverable. One of his spams was for Circuit City. In order to collect his bonus, the link to Circuit City also included his affiliate ID (the link said something like www.circuitcity.com?id=12345, where 12345 indicated which affiiate had referred the customer.) I emailed Circuit City to tell them I was not thrilled with the idea of their using spammers to advertise and forwarded the email I received. They replied to let me know that the spammer had been ejected from their affiliate program and they sent me his email address so I could let him know how I felt. I have not heard from him since. If everyone took the time to contact a few of the companies on behalf of whom they are spammed, perhaps we could get rid of some of the spammers.
It doesn't happen often, but when it does, revenge is sweet. A seller was contacted by a buyer who had ripped her off several years before. The buyer didn't realize that she was dealing with a former victim. The seller managed to turn the tables.
Regional "do not call" lists should begin around June and a national list around July. Telemarketers will have to check these lists before calling and a violation might cost the company as much as $11,000. In another lovely twist, the cost of maintaining these lists will be paid by the telemarketers themselves. So the annoying suppertime calls should become a thing of the past or at least dwindle down. Too bad. I had a whole lot of great comeback lines just waiting to be used.
Washington Post Article John Dvorak.
Based on the article, I don't believe Google is spying. There are collecting statistics on how many unique visitors go to particular web sites. They do not seem to be targeting specific people for any purpose. This is unlike the real spyware that targets individuals for spam offers based on the specific sites they visit. Google also tells you what information is being collected and allows you to turn off this feature. I don't use the Google toolbar or any similar product because I believe that the fewer applications running on my machine, the fewer problems I will have. But if I did want to use the toolbar, this particular action of collecting this information would not dissuade me.
At $699 for 2 gigs and $1499 for 4 gigs, these cards aren't cheap. You can buy 20-30 gigs of portable storage for about $300 in the form of the SuperDigibin.
the fat lady has sung
Microsoft is known for playing dirty games. They coded their website so that users have difficulty if they are using a non-Microsoft browser. The users then believe that their browser is defective and are fooled into switching to Internet Explorer. Users of the Opera browser received notifications of broken links when they tried to access Microsoft sites. Opera retaliated by adding code to their browser which translates Microsoft's English to a lingo similar to the Swedish Chef - a Jim Hensen creation. I hope Microsoft gets the point. The same way a site can send incorrect information to a browser, a browser can send incorrect information to its user. If Microsoft continues to make other browsers look bad, these browsers can make Microsoft look foolish.
They've been around for years, those lengthy "agreements" in tiny print that appear on software boxes and websites. Basically, they say that you have no rights, that no guarantees are made and that by opening the box or pressing enter to execute the program or visit that site, you agree with a series of conditions that would take a month to read and a year to decipher. Years ago I saw an article by a lawyer who claimed that these agreements were not legally binding. They basically stated that if you opened the box, you gave up all rights if it turned out that what was inside did not perform as claimed. Supposedly, there are laws preventing agreements that took away basic rights provided by law. But that has just changed.
Maryland and Virginia have just become the first states to pass a law making these agreements valid. Other states may follow suit. The American Bar Association has refused to endorse this ridiculous law. As columnist John Dvorak points out, it is no different than putting a notation on a web site that says, "Anyone who sends me email owes me $1,000. By sending me email, you agree to this condition."
As a recent decision against Paypal's Terms of Use indicates, there is more to an agreement that the words. In order for an agreement to be binding, it must be shown that both parties entered into it willingly and with full knowledge, that the parties had other options and chose to do it this way. Does a buyer have any other way of testing a program than by opening the box? And if it doesn't work, does the act of opening the box indicate that the buyer agrees that he has no recourse and the software company is blameless? All states have standard laws covering the fitness of a product for the indicated use and no buyer should be forced to give up those rights.
I was not taking any chances, so I used Ghost to make an exact copy of my hard drive before starting the process. I installed XP as an upgrade over my Windows 98. Now I have always been told that the best way to install a Micrisoft operating system is to to it from scratch and not as an upgrade. But I was trying to avoid having to re-install all my numerous applications. This was only an experiment on a second hard drive. If it didn't work, I could always format the drive and start again. I expected to run into problems and have to switch back to my 98 drive until they were resolved. I was pleasantly surprised.
The upgrade process proceeded smoothly and took under an hour. When it had finished, there were a few minor glitches. My sound card didn't work until I downloaded the latest drivers from the vendor's site. I had to re-install my modem (yes, at home I still use a modem, since I have a high speed connection at the office where I spend most of my time) printers and my scanner. There were one or two applications that had to be re-installed. But my video camera and digital camera worked fine. Then I took the stack of articles I had collected on making XP work better and applied the tips. These included coverting my drives to NTFS format (which may have been a bad idea) and tweaking some of the settings. My machine is now racing along faster than I could have believed possible. I am now feeling the benefits of the XP1900 CPU, 7200 RPM 80 gigabyte drive with 8 mb buffer and 512mb of RAM. All of the quirks were gone. My machine boots in about 20 seconds and has not hung once in the two weeks I have been using XP.
I have now taken an irrevocable step. I ghosted the XP drive to my backup drive. There is no going back to 98. I even bought my own copy of XP (I do believe in having a legitimate copy of any software I use regularly.) Of course, I am still left with a problem. The copy of XP I installed is registered to the corporation for which I work. It therefore does not require individual activation. The copy I bought is a retail version which requires activation. I have no need to re-install XP and I certainly don't want to go through the aggravation of applying for the 52-character activation key and worrying that if I upgrade my machine, XP will suddenly stop working. So I am keeping my purchased copy of XP up on the shelf and continuing to work with the installed version. I have come across articles from well-known computer writers advising people that the pirated versions of XP with the activation bypassed are more convenient to install. It seems ironic that Microsoft's efforts to prevent piracy results in making it preferable to use illegitimate software over the legitimate.
Just after getting everything working the way I like it, I have run into two new hitches, both of them right after I converted to NTFS. XP will no longer shut down. I get to the screen that tells me my machine is shutting down and it hangs there. Fortunately, it does not seem to be affecting anything else. The next time I start my machine, it comes up normally. If this is the only difficulty I have, I can live with it. My other problem is that Symantec's Ghost will not work. Even when I boot from a floppy (which is the only way to do it with Windows XP) Ghost reports that that are NT errors on my source drive. Yet all other utilities I run to check my hard drive, including Symantec, report no problems. I guess it may be time to switch disk copying programs.
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