As some of you may know, I’ve been fooling around with the idea of building my own video camera stabilization rig. There are a bunch of commercial units available from Steadicam/Tiffen, Glidecam, and a collection of eBay stores based somewhere in India. These are all fairly impressive units, but some also have some pretty impressive price tags (Steadicam, for instance, doesn’t make a model for my camera with less than a four-figure price tag!).

Today, I cobbled up my first test rig — a Manfrotto monopod with a ball head and quick release plate, and an old flywheel/head assembly from an ancient GYYR 1/2" helical scan VTR for a counterweight. I mounted my Canon XL2, balanced the rig as best I could and wandered around the house for a couple of minutes, making no particular attempt at slow, smooth camera work.

There are a couple of more severe bumps — one when I inadvertently kicked the counterweight as I was walking, and one when the counterweight hit a stair-tread as I was walking down a short flight of steps. But, the basic concept really seems quite doable, if I decide the savings in cost is worth my time and effort to fully design and build the thing.

Of course, I could always try to sell a few of them…

When you buy a new computer or other electronic device, or receive one from your employer, you pretty much expect that it won’t spew viruses or SPAM all over the place, right? Don’t be so sure.

ABCNews ran a story on their web site today about a poor fellow in Massachusetts who lost his job because the new computer he was issued by his employer was infected with a virus that caused the computer to, unknown to him, visit countless porn sites, bot-style.

And, it appears that the problem may not be reserved just for new computers. In a related story, it seems that even some new "intelligent" peripherals are also arriving "pre-infected" from the factory.

Most of the problems, it seems, come from the Chinese plants where the gear is made. It’s unclear whether or not the problems are intentionally malicious, or a result of now-common quality control issues with Chinese manufacturing.

The bottom line, though, is that it’s pretty important to keep your virus and malware protection up-to-date, and run checks regularly and thoroughly on every piece of computer-related equipment you own.

Apple announced their new iPhone yesterday, amid much hoopla. It’s a faster, 3G machine with a built-in GPS, and, it’s half the cost of the phones we recently bought — something that analysts suggested that Apple was very unlikely to do.

The new phone will ship with Apple’s new iPhone OS (version 2.0), which sports an updated Google Maps app and have better support for corporate types who rely on Microsoft Exchange servers for their e-mail, and some updates to other various onboard applications. None of the initial enhancements take any real advantage of the new hardware.

So, bottom line — do users of current iPhones really, really need to go out any plunk down the $199 for the new one, and pay extra fees to AT&T? According to Ryan Faas at Computerworld’s web site, the answer is, probably not.

For the gadget-obsessed or serious road warriors, the choice seems clear: get to the front of the line at your nearest Apple Store on July 11. For more casual users, however, shelling out $199 to replace an iPhone that’s less than a year old may not be as easy a decision — especially since it also means re-upping with AT&T for an additional two years and paying more in monthly charges.

New software vs. the new hardware

Overall, the biggest advances in functionality for the iPhone — both in the year since its release and those coming next month — are software-based. The iTunes Wi-Fi music store, the revamped Google Maps app that allows an iPhone to determine its location based on cell tower and Wi-Fi hot spot locations, and the ability to send text messages to multiple contacts were all made possible by software and firmware updates; no 3G or true GPS required. Given the breadth of applications possible for the iPhone, it’s not surprising that the bulk of yesterday’s keynote focused on the benefits of the upcoming iPhone 2.0 update more than the hardware.

For those who don’t want to live on the bleeding edge of technology or just don’t want to pony money to replace a perfectly good device, the choice to simply update an existing iPhone is compelling. In fact, there are really only three major features — 3G data speeds, GPS and better battery life — that you’ll get by purchasing a new iPhone.

– Ryan Faas — Computerworld.com

For those interested, the new PC arrived yesterday — a week earlier than expected, and a day prior to Dell’s estimated shipping date. I’ll have to admit that was fairly impressive. Last night, we went out and picked up a couple of external 500GB drives.

So far, the machine itself ain’t too shabby, either. I’ve managed to load all of the Adobe Production Suite CS3 onto the machine, and verify that all the components load, as well as Adobe Audition from CS2 (Adobe have dropped Audition in favor of a relatively crippled application called Soundbooth in CS3). The installation claimed to have failed, but Audition is running just fine. I suppose I should have loaded the CS2-level-application before loading CS3.

This evening will find me loading more applications and migrating my image library to the new computer, as well as the production music library for video editing. I’ll also be packing the church’s iMac back up, hopefully in time to return it on Sunday morning.

Seems I’ve made the front page of the Baltimore Examiner web site today with this article. If you’re looking at the print edition, it’s on page 5. Isn’t that special?

Hi, Ho! the derry-o, Geren bought a Dell?

Last night (or was it early this morning), I ordered a new Dell Inspiron desktop computer. Yes, I really wanted an iMac. Yes, I said I’d never buy anything else from Dell. But, the reality is that I just can’t afford the Apple at this point (can’t truly afford the Dell, either), and the old laptop is just plain out-classed by apps like Photoshop CS3, Premiere Pro and After Effects. And, Dell is the only company that would build the machine I need, the way I want it, for a reasonable price.

I’m guessing it will ship just in time for us to go away on vacation.

In the past, I’ve mentioned that I like to use the Windows Live Writer tool to enter and edit postings for this site. Unfortunately, it’s not available for the Mac, so I’ve been looking for new blogging tools. Today, I’m trying one called Qumana, and one of the things that’s attractive about it is that it’s available for both PC and Mac.

You may wonder why I don’t just use the control panel login to WordPress and be done with it. There are a couple of reasons. First, there are times I want to write something, but don’t have an available internet connection. With programs like Windows Live Writer or Qumana, I can write a new entry for the site from any place or at any time, and upload it later, when I get back to someplace where I have an internet connection.

Second, the WP back-end doesn’t allow for easy post formating, especially when it comes to image placement. While not as slick as Windows Live Writer, Qumana does make placing and image easy, and more intuitive than some of the other Mac-based blogging tools. Unfortunately, it doesn’t allow for images as links that open full-sized versions of the image. At at least, I haven’t figured out how to make it work if it does support it. So far, WLW is the only tool I’ve found that does that the way I like.

Text formating is nice and easy, too. The text editor is reasonably WYSIWYG, and setting up multiple blogs of multiple types is pretty much automagic. The only thing I don’t care for is the little "powered by" slug that’s automatically added to each post. Fortunately, that can be turned off …

Powered by Qumana

I mentioned yesterday that I have a visiting iMac here fro evaluation, and so far I’m pretty impressed with the machine. Sure, it has a few quirks, but most are of little consequence.

The Mighty Mouse (shown at left), however, is more than a bit of an annoyance — an ergonomic nightmare, in my opinion. Sure, I can get used to the whole top of the mouse tilting to activate the single “mouse button,” and to the little clickable scroll bubble thing on top. What I can’t get used to is the pair of side buttons that launch the task switcher. Every time I do a click-and-drag operation, I end up l with a screen full of windows, and loose the item I’m trying to drag. Fortunately my good ol’ Microsoft optical scroll mouse works just fine, and gives me the added advantage of being able to right-click on something.

Of course, my favorite blogging to, Windows Live Writer doesn’t work on a Mac, so I’m seeing if there’s something else out there as good. I trying MarsEdit, and in this entry, Ecto. Neither are as nice, but they get the job done.

I’ve got a visiting computer — a brand-spanking-new Apple 20″ iMac. By and large, I really like it. A lot.

This particular iMac belongs to the church I work for. There are a few reasons I’m playing with it. First, it’s the computer that we’re going to be using to replace the aging PC in the sound booth, and so I have to learn it and the special software we’ll be using to manage the visuals during services.

The other reason it’s home is because I wanted to evaluate the machine itself. We’ve pretty much gone well beyond what we can reasonably expect from our current PCs, and it’s time for a new “production” machine for photo, audio and video work. As my time at GTV draws to a close, I’m finding that more and more production houses are using Final Cut Pro software, which is a Mac-only application. And, if I want to be able to get work in that field, I’m really going to need at least some basic knowledge of the software.

The mid-level iMac will run Final Cut Express, which is a version of the software that includes all the basics of the full-blown package. So, my plan now is to move to the Mac, instead of a new PC, and use it for all the visual and audio work, which will allow my PC laptop to function as a basic word processor/e-mail/web machine.

Fortunately, my Adobe Lightroom license can be easily transferred to a Mac, and I have access to a legally licensed version of the Adobe CS3 Production Suite, so my software costs will be fairly low — just the Final Cut software, and a couple of other applications.

Now, if I can just get that PA system sold …

I’m playing with the trial version of Office2007. Yeah, I know. I’m Mr. OpenOffice.org, aren’t I.

Well, I heard tell that Micro$oft might have finally gotten Office right. If nothing else, they’ve certainly improved things. One nifty feature is that you can write blog entries from within M$Word. You can see a screen grab made while typing this post to the left. It’s not quite as slick as Windows Live Writer, but it is certainly a handy function.

In the past, you’d spend a long time writing something in Word, and then decide, “Hey, that might be a good blog entry.” So, to blog it, you’d have to copy and paste the text into Notepad, and the copy and paste it into your blog editor so that there was no chance that all the crazy Word formatting codes would end up screwing up your blog post. And then you had to go back and reformat the document. Cool.

What first caught my eye, though, was PowerPoint. At last night’s CMPG meeting, we saw a presentation prepared with the new PowerPoint. All I can say is, “WOW!” I mean, PowerPoint was pretty decent before, but there were many other programs that could do as good or job or better. Last night’s presentation looked truly professional, to say the least. In fact, it looked like good television!

Most of the rest of the Office Suite applications have received numerous upgrades, with the notable exception of Publisher. It still looks much as it did in the 2003 version – and all the versions before that. I suspect that Publisher won’t be around for a whole lot longer. Many of its functions have been added to Word, and significantly improved upon.

The Home and Student version of Office does include an interesting application called OneNote. OneNote is a kind of electronic catch-all that allows you to make all sorts of free-form written or visual notes, store them away for easy retrieval, and even use them in other Office documents.

The pricing structure has been greatly improved, too. MSOffice Home and Student Suite version retails for only $150. That’s still $90 more than Works 9, but then, the Office applications are far more powerful. And, while works does include a database function (the Office Home and Student Suite doesn’t include Access), Works doesn’t have a PowerPoint equivalent. New PCs from many manufactures are coming with some sort of trial version of Office pre-installed now, and it’s well worth looking into. I guess I’ll be re-saving all those OpenOffice files in Microsoft format …