Fun with Lightworks, the Canon 5D Mark II, and little Bro

A few weeks ago, an exciting opportunity came up.

I had the chance to publically record a nationally-winning high-school student’s (re)performance of his work under controlled settings.

So out came the Canon EOS 5D-Mark II, lenses, and a solid tripod.

My brother had just moved back in town so he got an invite too.

He set up from a different angle with his own amazing Canon EOS 60D.

Someone yelled “action” and we both started shooting HD video on our Canons.

Side note: I am continually surprised and amazed when I learn of feature movies and video productions being shot with the Canon 5D Mark II/III.  I am humbled that I am carrying such a amazing piece of hardware in my camera bag now. Thanks bro! It’s inspiring!

There was one minor flub in the performance so I shot a tight retake of that section with the actor.

Data video files were downloaded and shared. It was grand fun.

A week or two later I sat down at my laptop and faced the daunting task of somehow editing the video from two different camera angles, and the two different audio tracks into a single video performance.

I had a lot of options, both new software and old ones.

In the end I decided to jump off the proverbial cliff and went with the free community version of Lightworks.

The learning curve was very, very high, but I had done due-diligence by spending a few days re-reading the PDF manuals downloaded earlier, I then watched (with full attention) the official Video Tutorials. Peter Bridgman did a bang-up job showing all the core features and things to know to quickly get grounded in the application.

From there I just jumped in (with significant text-messaging support from my brother throughout the day), imported the multiple 4 GB MOV files each of the Canons had captured and started working away.

I had planned on using some of the audio/video syncing features it carries, but in the end the time codes were not quite perfect between the cameras so it took a bit of trial-and-error to manually make all the angle cuts sync smoothly. IU

The different angles and lenses also caused some differences in the color. I was able to edit the color in both to match very closely for continuity.  Even the section of performance “retake” slipped in seamlessly.

The final challenge was exporting the video. My first attempt resulted in almost a 80GB AVI file. Wow!

Another go with some different export settings knocked it down to a more manageable 40 GB size. I still had to run it through a secondary audio/video re-coder app to bring it down to a final 127 MB video file size so that it could play on a DVD format without stuttering.

The end result was a pretty awesome HD video production shot with my bro, after at least 12 hours of learn-as-you-go video editing and post processing. The family of the student we shot the video for were blown away with the results, as were my brother and other family who got to share in the final production.

Through it all Lightworks (x64 bit build 11.1) never choked or had any problems. My Intel i7 processor with 8 GB system RAM kept up with the workload as well.  I’m super glad I made that investment at the time of purchase. It hardly broke a sweat!

For being an amateur videographer on a first foray into HD video recording and editing, it was a lot of fun and I’ll definitely have much more confidence the next time we roll into the field.

Not soon after I was done, I spotted news about Adobe Premiere Pro’s own features and multi-video sync support:

Adobe Premiere Pro CC Hands-On: Multi-GPU Support and More - Windows Extreme Blog

While Lightworks isn’t probably going to win most home users away from more friendly video-editing apps, it is a truly professional-grade video editing platform…and the free version will probably be way beyond most average users’ ability to exceed it’s options.

More:

• Importing and synching non-standard video clips into Lightworks - YouTube
• Lightworks - Sync group and live editing basics - YouTube
• Sync audio in Lightworks tutorial / Synkronisera ljud i Lightworks instruktionsvideo - YouTube
• Multi tracks video edit - How to ? - Lightworks
• TOPIC: Importing audio - Lightworks
• EOS 5D Mark II best video on Vimeo
• CANON EOS 60D Channel on Vimeo

And the New Lightworks Version 11.1.1.e Now Available as Public Beta looks even more amazing!

Lightworks NLE free edition - Highly Valca Recommended!

--Claus Valca

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Thanks for the upgrades, Xfinity, now keep off my lawn unless you pay to maintain it.

Back in January 2012, I was in the storm of indecision; Thoughts on a Plan to Drop POTS: Pros/Cons

Do we toss our residential  POTS land-line phone service and move to a digital solution or not?

Two months ago I finally got too frustrated and after a great sales marketing presentation by a spectacularly patient and kind Xfinity customer service rep, took the plunge.

We had a Comcast/Xfinity HD cable package (no premium channels), a HD DVR unit lease, standard broadband Internet service, a cable broadband modem lease, and two “still free-for now” digital signal converter boxes. I think that bill for all that was around $175/mo.

Then I had the POTS line service from a different provider (Verizon), which now has crept up to just over $80/mo for just regular phone service. Seriously. No bells-whistles-or value packages. That’s as cheap as I could get it!  No “metro” extended area dialing plan is offered. So to call the in-laws just a 35 minutes drive away is a long distance call. Really? How come they have a “metro” line package from their different phone provider and can call us for no long distance charge? Anyway…

Thanks to her “no-bull” (honest I’ve been watching our new bill like hawk) customer service pitch, I jumped on an Xfinity “triple-play” package bundle and now get all this for $190/mo.

• Unlimited Nationwide telephone voice-calling with no long-distance charges.
• HD cable package, including three premium movie channels,
• Primary HD DVR receiver cost included in the package,
• Upgraded broadband Internet speed tier.
• Download movies/TV shows/premium content to view and carry on our iPhones/laptops,
• I even added another HD receiver (at an add-on cost being counted in that monthly bill amount) for kicks and grins and late-night HD bedroom movie watching as well.

So not only did I save me some serious money (when removing the POTS line cost each month from our budget), I was able to add additional features/services and still come in less than my previous cable/phone bill combined (including all the taxes, surcharges, & fees). And for a sysadmin network geek, the extra bandwidth speed is better than on the biggest pipes we have at work!

Sweet jebus!

Yes..that’s fairly typical now the Valca residence. Win7 wired connection on Gigabit capable Ethernet port/switch over Cat-6 cabling.

Wi-Fi speeds across our 802.11n home router on laptops and iOS devices are about 1/2 that speed, but still pretty freaking good (IMHO).

Even Lavie jumped on board and has been a firm enthusiast of the switch.

We were a bit nervous about porting the home phone # we have had over to the new digital phone service. We’ve held that number longer than we’ve been married!  So for a month we carried both the POTS service and a temporary new digital phone service # to confirm the quality of the digital line was good. It was. With some trepidation, we went through the # porting service with an Xfinity customer service rep on a Saturday, and the following Saturday it was completed…no extra charges. Yea!

Now I have one more partial billing cycle with our old POTS service provider to cycle through and I think that ends that relationship. Wow.

So it was with some disconcerting feelings I saw this new plan by Xfinity to expand Wi-Fi service to their “roaming” customers:

• Comcast Wants To Turn Your Home Wi-Fi Into A Public Hotspot - ReadWrite
• Comcast turns your Xfinity modem into public Wi-Fi hotspot - Ars Technica
• Comcast turns customer routers into public WiFi hotspots. - Geeks are Sexy Technology News
• Are You Okay With Comcast Sharing Your Home Wi-Fi With Everyone? – Consumerist

I think I understand the actual network deployment model though all the “hype” and sensationalism, but I’m still not convinced I like it.  I am (BTW) still paying a $7.00 broadband/phone modem rental fee each month as part of my $190/mo bundled service plan.

I’m sure they can segregate the bandwidth on my “pipe” so it doesn’t impact my download speeds for phone/movie/network content and leave me with increased pingtimes and jitter.

I’m sure they can segregate the network traffic so others cannot snoop on our own private traffic.

I just don’t like the idea, so please keep your “pubic” Xfinity customer hot-spot traffic off my leased router.

Well, unless….

Now here’s an idea, Xfinity.  If you decide to do that, comp me the price of the modem-rental fee I am paying you each month to get the services I am already paying you for to leverage “free” Wi-Fi coverage access for other strangers who are your paying customers. If you want to let them use the hardware I have the privilege of leasing from you so they can get in the broadband carpool lane with me, then at least have the courtesy to pay for their gas.

That would be a closer “win-win” for both of us.

I get to see my bill drop just a bit and you get to extend your roaming Wi-Fi access across our neighborhood for other Xfinity guests.

As of right now, our current Xfinity provided modem does not support Wi-Fi. I know because I didn’t want it (and asked for a modem model without it) as I run and manage our own private Wi-Fi network downstream from their cable broadband modem. That’s not to say I may not have to have another forced “upgrade” down the road, but for now it isn’t an issue.

Think about it Xfinity. Otherwise I might have to invest in my own Xfinity approved (sans-Wi-Fi) DOCSIS Device. Now that I think about it, that was my most recent soap-box rant. See what I did about the previous one and that service provider when I finally dealt with it?

I’m just saying…

--Claus V.

P.S. Hey Xfinity, since we are talking, when can I expect my new cloud-based X2/XI3 DVR unit from you? I doubt I’ll see a price drop on my bill, but I guess if it is at least as 50% more energy efficient than my current Cisco HD DVR monster that makes so much noise when the HDD spins up it scares small children, that might be something…and that Comcast version of Apple’s AirPlay feature sounds pretty handy considering I just bought a pricy Apple Lightning-to-HDMI adapter to watch HD media off my iPhone 5 on my HD TV.

• Comcast's new DVR ditches the hard drive, stores your recordings in the cloud - The Verge

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Lindi Ortega - Guilty Musical Pleasure of the week

Discovered via Kent Newsom’s blog Newsome.Org

BTW…according to Lindi’s website, she will be performing locally July 2nd 2013 at McGoingel’s Mucky Duck.

I listen to almost every genre of music…from Gregorian chant, to classical, to Scandinavian metal-rock, and enjoy all things in between. My iPod/iPhone library is a real eclectic mess of material!

But for some reason Americana/Bluegrass seems to tickle my soul like nothing else lately.

Lavie and Alvis are amazed that my car radio has been lingering on the local country-music channel.

I don’t know what the big deal is….

CV

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Too Many Bits, Bytes and Tech?

At the risk of the GSD blog losing its focus from being a scratch-pad/notebook for my interactions with technology and shifting to a curmudgeon's front yard, I have lately been re-considering the role technology plays in my life.

My “pay me” job is to manage technology at work both for our customers and our organization. Truth-be-told I don’t “create” technology, I just manage the consequences (good and bad) that it offers and brings. Usually that is pretty fun and rewarding when we succeed.

My “don’t pay me” job is to help friends and family understand and cope with the never-ending upward thrust of technology in their lives. What used to be calls of “can I get that family recipe for grandma’s dinner rolls” has become “hey, a new update for Java/Flash/Windows was released, we need to update your PC. By the way, made chili lately?”

When those who know me engage in “hobby talk” I share about a few books I am reading, a few movies/TV shows I follow, volunteer work doings at the church-house, and mostly about relaxing by keeping my eye out for new utilities, applications, and for/sec trends and news.  They usually just nod politely at the last one.

So recently when I read each of these these posts, the experience gave me pause.

• Confessions Of A Digital Hoarder - ReadWrite - Taylor Hatmaker
• Why I'm glad my iPhone broke - Simon Hørup Eskildsen
• Complicating Our Lives - Echo Hub - Jonathan Malm

I don’t do Netflix. I do buy DVD/BluRay movies and TV series I really, really like.  We do buy digital entertainment media - song/album downloads -- online. I still prefer to buy CD hardcopies but the writing is on the wall as even in the BigBox stores the CD section is shrinking. And that bookcase unit full of VHS tapes (mostly Disney movies) from 20 years ago stands as an accusatory judgment about investment in a technological media-delivery standard.  Sure I “own” all those wonderful movies and the delivery cassettes they come encased in, but cold-comfort when our HiQ-VCR finally dies. Should I (can I legally?) convert them to a digital file? Why bother. The quality will be sub-analog in the HD-standard world. And my time is much more valuable now than the hundreds of hours it would take to do so.

Bin them? EBay them? I don’t know.

How long until those DVD/BluRay’s will be the next VHS tapes in our house? Probably sooner that I care to admit.

Then there is that drawer of audio cassette tapes. Alvis found them a while back and used some of the “blank” cassettes (I hope) for an art-project.

Really?

I have a cassette player in my car but it only is used for the cassette adapter for me to play my iPod/iPhone/Shuffle through. That’s it.  Lavie and Alvis’s cars don’t even have one in them; just radio/CD units.

I guess an art-installation is as good as any solution I can come up with for them…probably better.

My personal digital hoarding issue seems to be centered around collecting of Windows utilities; portable ones.

I have a folder I keep these in -- as well as on my USB flash drives -- and currently it is just under 10 GB. Seriously!

Do I really need (or even use) all of them?  Not at all, but then I might need one of them; a specialized digital tool for a specialized task. So I add to the collection, watch for updated versions, etc.

A digital version of the Boy Scout’s mantra of “always prepared” gone amok perhaps.

And now that I have a wonderful, super, life-enhancing iPhone (5) with 64 GB of storage, I find it calling me to dig deep into the App Store looking for additional productivity apps, tools, and what-not to fill it with.

So over the next year I have resolved to:

• Carefully review that 10 GB collection of utilities to honestly see if I can pare it down to a core set of tools and utilities that will allow me to accomplish what I need to do and support without all the overhead. A journey in coming to trust my skills and knowledge rather than the tools in-of-themselves to provide the solution perhaps?
• Negotiate the clear-out of VHS tape-based media in the home…if nothing else to get the DVD/BluRay disks off the pile on the floor.
• Get the hard-copy books I have out of storage and begin to interact with them again; to supplement the Kindles/Nooks in the house….and to make it a point to re-read them with relish. Shakespeare and Homer still are alive and relevant today for good reason. Let’s not forget that.
• See if I can live with (and thrive) on a few choice quality cable/broadcast/radio media sources rather surf aimlessly through the hundreds I have on hand at my disposal right now.

Technology is part of our lives and a major part of the culture and experience that makes us “human,” but it should never, ever, be a balm and substitute for human “being.”

Lest we forget where having too many bits and bytes and capability can take us:

• U.K. spy agencies plan to install Web snooping 'black boxes' - ZDNet
• The Logic of Surveillance - Ian Welsh
• bullying in New York State - Popehat
• Nineteen Eighty-Four - Wikipedia

Moving on…

Claus V.

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Thank you, Veterans

Today we remember our U.S. service veterans.

Yesterday I got to share a few hours with my father who is a Vietnam war veteran and had the chance to thank him for his service.

Here is a brief video produced by “TheWestPointChannel” on YouTube in honor of him and the many other veterans for their service to our country…and what that service stands for.

See also:

US Department of Veteran Affairs - Veterans Day Website

Veterans Day 2012 - National Salute to Veterans | PBS

Thank you, those who have served with honor, and valor, and in many cases…without notice.

Carry on.

Claus Valca

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Displaying digital media on an older HDTV - Dad Approved

CC attribution: by Daniel Oines (dn1967b) on flickr.

Being a child of the 70’s and 80’s, one common family event was family “slide show” time. Dad, being a hard-core amateur photographer (we had a dark room, chemicals, print paper, etc.) took lots of SLR photos. So naturally we had lots of slides.  That meant after trips or for family get-togethers, down would come the project screen, up would go the slide projector, and out would come the boxes upon boxes of slide carousels.

Hummm…and in the next slide…ca-chuka-chucka…we can see…first young Claus proudly showing his tiny perch caught on his bamboo fishing pole…and in the next…ca-chuka-chucka…Claus has fallen off the pier into the lake. See how the pole floats? Alas, Claus does not. Ha-ha, dad.

Ain’t technology grand?

Fast forward to 2012.  Dad is now well into the transition from 35mm SLR photography to DSLR photography. That is generating a lot of digital photos from his vacation trips and amateur anthro/paleo field-work. Not to mention digital photos from iPhones and point-n-shoot cameras he and his wife both have and use for the daily life and family events.

Up to now, he has been able view them quite successfully on his desktop PC at home. However when there is a large family gathering at his house, he has to fetch the correct camera, connect it to his Sony Bravia KDL52W4100 HDTV via a low-quality video-in (yellow RCA) plug. While serviceable, Dad’s got a sharp eye and the high quality of his digital shots isn’t done justice with the low-quality of the input method.  This older HDTV doesn’t have any slots for USB/memory cards like his PC does. Bummer.

So he asked me for advice.

I needed to find a dead-simple solution to bring him the ability to show his great digital photographs as close to HD as possible on his older HDTV.  Maybe move the desktop PC to the living room or use a super-long D-sub VGA output cable from the den to the back of the TV?  Well, yes…but…

Here’s what we did.

Part 1 - IncrediSonic Ultra Play IMP150

I advised him to pick up a IncrediSonic Ultra Play IMP150 (Amazon link) multi-media player. It has a USB port and supports HDMI output. (The same model is on Newegg.com).  There is the unit, a remote, an A/C adapter, and some low-def audio/video cables in the box.

I recommended this one to him for few reasons. First the Amazon product page has a mini-review video. I wanted him to be able to view the video to make sure the operation seemed logical and non-techy to use for him. The sub $40 price was great. It had an HDMI output that supported 1080p. Dad isn’t using all his HDMI ports on his Bravia TV so connecting it in HD output would be supported.  Not only would it support his digital image files, but it also could support many video file formats as well. It supported SD media sticks (from the point-n-shoot cameras). It has a USB port so media on a non-supported memory card format could be copied to a USB stick for display. Finally, the menu-interface and navigation seemed pretty intuitive.

More videos of that product in action:

IncrediSonic Ultra Play HD Media Player - MyKeyReviews - YouTube

Vorstellung des Incredi Sonic Ultra Play IMP150 - HD TV Digital Mini Media Player (HDMI,USB,1080 p) - YouTube

Note, there are quite a few other similar products that have pretty much the same features if you like this solution but want to explore other products, take your pick.

Part 2 - Patriot Xporter XT Rage 32 GB USB stick

Patriot Xporter XT Rage 32 GB USB 2.0 High Speed Flash Drive - Amazon product link

Patriot Xporter XT Rage 32GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive Model PEF32GRUSB - NewEgg product link

Dad does have a number of USB sticks that could have been used, but I recommended he use a new dedicated stick just for showing his digital photos/media on this unit.  There were probably even faster USB sticks than this one, but I have been pleased with my Patriot Xporter flash drive for many years. This 32 GB model has lots of storage room over his 4 GB models, and the smaller format would (hopefully) mean it wouldn’t stick out of the USB port on the IncrediSonic device like a standard USB stick would and risk over-torque/breaking of the USB port connection soldier points to the device system-board if dropped/banged/etc.

I could have found an even smaller USB micro-plug but then I was worried about possible loosing of it, or it being hard to manipulate on the desktop system.

The storage size and physical size of this unit seemed the best balance for his particular needs; adjust accordingly.

Part 3 - HDMI Cable(s)

So here is where my plan came together.

I pointed Dad to this AmazonBasics 2-Pack, High-Speed HDMI Cables 6.5 feet cable set. NewEgg also has more than a few HDMI cable picks as well.

This would so be easier and better quality than continuing to use that silly yellow video out/in RCA plug connection!

I went with the 6.5 ft length so he could leave it plugged in on the back input panel of the HDTV display and then tuck the cord away when not in use. Then there would be enough length to allow it to stretch to where he could put the IncrediSonic device close enough to a A/C source and high-enough for the remote signal to reach it.

The 2-pack was recommended so he could leave one permanently attached to the back of the TV as mentioned but the “spare” could be kept in the box/bag with the IncrediSonic so he could take it on the go when he visited other family members who also had a HDTV with HDMI inputs. This way the show could conveniently go on the road!

Dad ordered the set the next day from my recommendations and a few days later had the whole thing running perfectly. He was beyond pleased with the quality of the display.

I reminded him that according to the reviews, it defaults to 720p HD format but if the HDTV supports 1080p, he can change a setting on the device to get even better display quality for his DSLR digital photos.

This or a similar “kit” might be really valuable for ForSec and/or other digital media users who need a standby for showing digital media presentations…just in case that laptop doesn’t work, or that TV/display provided isn’t what they said it would be, or if the one cable you need to use your standard setup goes bad. This particular combo came in a just under $100. Not bad.

Definitely Valca Sr. approved.

--Claus V.

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…in which the power of “The Force” is realized…

Alvis: “I went by the auto parts store and picked up some windshield wipers. The auto parts guy help me pick out the right ones.”

me: “Great. You need some help putting them on the car when I get home or do you think you can do it yourself?”

Alvis: “They’re already on. The auto parts guy asked if I wanted him to put them on for me.  I said sure!”

me: “m’hmm…”

Alvis: “So he went outside with me and put them on the car. Wasn’t that great?!”

me: “m’hmm…”

And the young Jedi Padawan comes into her own…. 

Just don’t you dare try to put her in a binder…

--Claus V.

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Memorial Day Moment of Thanks - 2012

World War II Memorial and Vietnam Memorial, Washington, D.C.,

cc credits: flickr Jeff Kubina

It would be a great wrong for me to allow today to pass without pausing to thank the families (current and past) who have lost loved ones in the defense of our country. 

I seem to have been hit harder and become much more sensitized to the commercialism that today (and this weekend) has been draped with this year for some reason.

To help, I have spent some time over the weekend at the following places on the web using the time I have been granted off from work to consider and reflect what this day means for myself, my family, and my communities.

• Memorial Day - Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs - VA.gov
• 2012 USAA Memorial Day Ceremony - Sponsored by USAA (disclaimer, I am a USAA policy holder due to my father’s service)
• National Memorial Day Concert - PBS
• Memorial Day 2012: A Compendium - U.S. Naval Institute blog post
• Memorial Day: Take pause… the fallen deserve at least that - U.S. Naval Institute blog post
• Memorial Day, 2009 - The Big Picture - Boston Globe

Thank you for your sacrifices, they are not -- and will not be -- forgotten in our home.

--Claus V.

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Getting the Tardis Working for the Geeklet

cc photo credit Tardis by AntToeKnee Lacey on flickr

I guess I’m doing something right as a dad.

Alvis has been hard-at-work babysitting and pinching her pennies.

So the other day when we are at the local GoodPurchase box store collecting some electronica-accessories, she disappeared momentarily, reappearing with DVD and Blu-Ray season six box sets of BBC Dr. Who. “Which one?”  (Alvis is an unabashed Dr. Who (Matt Smith incarnation only thank you very much) Super Fan™).

We settled on the Blu-ray, but only after I gave my acknowledgment that when Alvis strikes out on her own in life, they are going with her. This was going to be super-awesome considering we had been watching the series on regular-def BBC America. Oh the details we would now see!

When we got home she first emptied the DVR of all the still-saved local versions from the BBC run quite a while ago. Then she popped a disk in.

The intros ran splendidly, then we got to the first episode. The Blu-ray quality was extraordinary; super-crisp and detailed. Only when the camera angle would pan, the play-back stuttered horribly.

Retried the disk…same thing. Different episode…same result.

Oh bother.

Feeling a bit of panic as I had advised her of the superior Blu-Ray benefit and running in my head the success/failure possibilities for a Blu-ray return at GoodPurchase box store, I tried to digest the best plan of attack.

We tried another disk from the set. Nope. Same problem.

I next tried waving my Alvis-provided Sonic Screwdriver at the Blu-ray player. That always seems to work for the Doctor.

Alas. Didn’t help this time.

Probably needs to be recharged.

First things second.

Based on previous experiences with our BDP-S360 Blu-ray™ Disc Player from Sony, it seemed the best place to start out was a check on the firmware level for the player.  I strung out our 50’ Cat-6 patch cord down the hall from the router and connected it to the player and checked on-line for firmware updates using the embedded system feature. Sure enough, there was Blu-ray Disc™ Player Firmware Upgrade (version 011).

The update applied successfully. Rebooted the player and re-launched the Blu-ray.

Nope. Same issues. Drat.

I hit the Googles and checked out the customer reviews on the Amazon.com product page for the set. Indeed there were a number of complaints that some users were experiencing playback stuttering with their disks. Maybe it was indeed a bad-press.

Alvis was getting quite dejected now. Not only was her hard-earned investment looking less enjoyable, so was the planned Dr. Who marathon session planned.

Poking around the Amazon page some more led me to a discussion thread. Amazon.com: Customer Discussions: HELP! Framerate problems!

Hmm. That sounded like exactly what we were experiencing. The choppy playback quality is like when you were trying to watch an on-line video and you have streaming/buffering problems. I couldn’t imagine the player didn’t have the hardware capability to process the BBC Blu-ray disk…we haven’t had any quality playback issues with other disks in our collection.

The tips offered mentioned things like deinterlace and motion interpolation issues with British programing transfers for US playback; both apparently related to frame rate processing. Apparently different Blu-ray systems have different feature names for this.

I pulled down the Sony BDP-S360 user’s manual from the website and checked the PDF closely. Nothing seemed to fit exactly what I was looking for.

In the end we decided to try changing the following setting:

• “HDMI Resolution/Component Resolution” got changed from “Auto” to 1080i.

Retried again.

Voilla!

Perfectly smooth and natural video playback from the BBC Blu-ray disk set.

So if you run into this problem as well, you may want to check some of your player settings first. That whole deinterlace/motion-interpolation/framerate thing with BBC disks has some truth in it.

Normally our player is set to “Auto” and runs at the 1080p mode-rate. Dropping it down to the 1080i was all we needed to get the playback running normally again.

Your player settings may vary so dig out your manual and start experimenting.

You may be glad you did!

Cheers!

--Claus V.

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Solving the DSL<-->WiFi<-->Nook<-->In-Laws Equation

The Valca home is and has been an Amazon Kindle only zone for some time now; thank you very much.

So last year Lavie decided that the E Ink keyboard one (of two) that we had was a bit uncomfortable for her (and not back-lit). She decided to move over to a B&N NOOK Color model. This was in the pre Kindle Fire days so I guess we could tolerate its presence.

The Nook Color served her well enough but when the Kindle Fire came out she had to swing back. It finally arrived last week as a back-ordered Christmas present.

Fortunately, she hadn’t purchased very many books for the Nook so we didn’t deal with trying to see if there were any options for porting her books over to the Kindle. It was an opportunity for a fresh start.

So, she passed her Nook on to her parents a few weeks ago and they loved lot. A lot.

They are on a DSL broadband service, and have a wired XP desktop system. One cable to rule all Internet service. No WiFi except when we stop in for an extended visit and I bring my D-Link DAP-1350 Wireless N pocket router and take over their single network connection for the weekend. Nice but not a permanent WiFi solution.

I suppose we could have just taught them to connect the Nook Color to their desktop via USB and manage it directly but it seemed time to add a WiFi router to their humble network and just do it right.

So that was this Saturday’s “honey-do” and this post is the process we had to go through to upgrade their DSL network and get the hand-me-down Nook color fully transferred over and set up for them.

First Part of the Equation: DSL<-->WiFi

First I picked up a WiFi router. I went with what has become my perennial favorite: DIR-655 Xtreme N Gigabit Router from D-Link 

I’ve had this unit personally for a number of years and is rock solid, has both the “N” and older wireless standards, has a rockin-long range, and is super-easy for configuration. The power was important in this case as the location of their DSL modem is on a second floor above-garage room pretty far away from their usual living areas. The signal will carry all the way downstairs and up. Check. And since it is the model I also own and maintain, I know and am comfortable mucking around in the settings. Makes providing extended support much simpler when a problem arises.

Typically I’ve been able to get away with just unbox, connect, run-wizard from CD config, then go and make some manual setting tweaks afterwards. However, this 2-wire DSL modem was a real headache. I could set up the internal network and WiFi perfectly. Just couldn’t get to the Internet through the DSL modem. Plugged the DSL modem Ethernet back to the PC and it was working, reconnect to the DIR-655 and it wouldn’t'.

Long story short, I eventually figured out that for their particular hardware and provider, I had to do a few more custom tricks.

I had to set the Internet Connection Type to PPPoE and enter their DSL username/password. (I got that from their email client settings.)  D-Link has a nice Emulator for this router to play around with: D-Link DIR-655 RevB Emulator

Then I had to go into the Network Settings and change the router IP Address to use 192.168.1.1 from the default IP address of 192.168.0.1   Turns out that the default IP address was conflicting with the internal Ethernet-facing IP address provided by the DSL router. This was the real trick.

Once I got the network stabilized, I tested the configuration survivability by powering off both the DSL modem and the D-Link (to simulate a power-failure), then powered them back and and made sure the PC could get to the Internet. Check.

This one was actually a DIR-655 RevB model so I then saved my configuration file, downloaded the latest firmware and ran an upgrade. Success. Naturally it lost all of my settings, so I had to upload my saved config file and it was back to normal. Yea me!

More helpful notes I had to find to work out that issue:

• DIR-655 & ATT DSL - D-Link Forum
• [Solved] Dir 655 problems - Setup-Configuration-Security - Wireless-Networking
• 3.15 D-Link Info AT&T Southeast Forum FAQ - DSLReports.com, ISP Information

So now I had taken care of the DSL<-->WiFi router part of the equation. Next the Nook.

Second Part of the Equation: Nook<-->In-Laws

This actually was almost harder than getting the router added.

Because the Nook was a hand-me-down, Lavie had it configured with our WiFi settings, her name, and the account information. She said she didn’t mind if her parents just kept it that way and we just change the billing information on the account. However, she had followed bad password security and used the same information she has used on several other of her on-line accounts. I needed to break that clean.

The rub was that Lavie had already purchased some books for her dad under her Nook account and I didn’t want to loose them. What I wanted to do was to figure out if/how I could transfer the B&N account she had set up over to them and remove Lavie’s information and add-in theirs.

Here’s what I had to figure out doing to keep the original Nook account (and purchased items) but swing it fully over to the in-laws “clean”. Note this was a serious trial-n-error process that took almost two-hours longer than it should have (by my reasoning). This is the “clean” version and from what I later read on the web, seems to be the only way currently I know of to “transfer” a nook from one email/owner to another one while preserving the purchased items.

Note: Lavie didn’t have any files or items on her Nook that were not already associated in her Nook account (like manually installed music/videos/pictures/stuff) so I didn’t have to deal with the loss of those in this process. If you have those on your nook and want to preserve them, you probably want to off-load/copy them to your PC first before beginning this process. Again, this assumes everything you want to keep is safe and and associated in the B&N account you will be restoring from. YMMV. So you were cautioned, so you were warned.

1. Take your Nook (the one you want to change the owner name/email account info on) and go into the settings and find the option to Unregister/Erase your Nook. Do this first. Really. BEFORE you do ANYTHING ELSE. It sounds serious and I guess it is, but that’s how the Nook rolls.
2. Once your Nook is reset, log into your B&N account from the BN.com page. If you can find the login link on the page. Seriously. I was using Chrome and it took me ten minutes to realize that tiny gray bar (which perfectly matches the address bar gradient and bookmark text in Chrome at the very top of the page) with the tiny text is the login location. Sheesh. Hey B&N. Can you make it a bit more obvious please?
   
3. Now change your name in the account. I changed it over from Lavie’s name to the in-law’s.
4. Change to your new email address in the account. Changed from Lavie’s to the in-law’s.
5. Change the password if you desire…I did so desire and changed to a complex full 15-character (most allowed by B&N) password.
6. Change the Shipping/Billing addresses as needed. Now set to the in-law’s.
7. Change your secret challenge question if needed. Selected and changed as picked by the in-law.
8. Update the associated credit card information. Definitely the in-law’s here!
9. Etc.
10. Once all the account information is updated to the way you want it and saved, make sure you can successfully log-in/out of the account. Good? Great.
11. Next fire up the now reset Nook and go through the setup process from scratch.
12. Accept the Terms of Service.
13. Set the Time Zone.
14. Connect to a WiFi network. It found the WiFi network I had earlier got working, I fed it the secure passphrase and it connected perfectly and strongly.
15. Register the Nook. (I passed it the updated email address from above and the new password.)
16. It Registered and identified perfectly as the in-law’s nook now.
17. Yea me!
18. We went to the Library and told it to refresh and all the books previously associated with the account flowed back down and “installed” without any issue.
19. I then went to the applications and downloaded the waiting previously purchased/associated apps. Perfect!
20. The Nook was now fully theirs.

Equation Solved: DSL<-->WiFi<-->Nook<-->In-Laws

We spent another hour or so going though the list of free NOOK Books at Barnes & Noble. We found a good selection of mystery and history classics to keep them both occupied for the next couple of months. Pop also found a good old-west history book to purchase as well. It was good training process and confirmed the purchase/credit-card association with the account worked.

Mission accomplished, five hours (and one super-awesome BBQ baked-potato for lunch) later, the equation was solutioned.

Additional Notes:

• Daughter hovering over your shoulder on the back of the couch while you have your laptop and the Nook balanced on your lap troubleshooting. Like a vulture lurking. Not helpful.
• Daughter making organic microwave popcorn and snuggling up munching away while you have your laptop and the Nook balanced on your lap troubleshooting. Also not helpful.
• Daughter not asking once to borrow your laptop to check out the WiFi and Facebook while you are troubleshooting. Very helpful and appreciated.
• Sense of patience and humor from all participants; self, daughter, in-laws. Very helpful.
• Extended road-trip to in-laws up and back with daughter on beautifully clear and cool day through the east-Texas pines lined country roads. Priceless.

Final thoughts.

Lavie had successfully set up her Kindle Fire just fine by herself (thank-you-very-much) so I didn’t get to participate in that except for applying a smokin-hot DecalGirl skin she had picked out for her Kindle (my hands are super-steady for such things). She had also picked up screen protector but turns out that it is a full edge-to-edge cover which would cause issues with the DecalGirl skin on the front (which frames the blacked-out display edge portion). I suggested trimming it down so it fits inside the DecalGirl border but she passed on that for now…so it remains uninstalled at the moment.

Alvis and I both have the WiFi-only version of the E Ink Kindle model and we love them. Light, super-durable, and the charge lasts a long time.

Last night Lavie did ask me to copy some songs from her iTunes playlist to the Kindle Color. You can do it a few ways, apparently most popular is to upload music from your PC/Laptop to the Amazon Cloud Player service. What I ended up doing was to connect Lavie’s Kindle Fire directly to my PC (which holds our iTunes library) via USB, then opened iTunes, opened her play-list, sorted it by album, then I selected a song, hit the three key-combo “Ctrl-Shift-R” which opened up the location of the file itself on the library, selected any additional songs in her playlist from that album, copied, then pasted them in the Music folder on her Fire. Repeat as needed.  It was a bit slower but got the job done. All of them appeared to be in the compatible .m4a format and I didn’t find any .m4p that would not have been supported.

She was jammin…though I left her to work out creating a new playlist from those songs directly from within the Kindle itself.

Adding photos/videos would be the same process, locate on your PC, drag/drop into the correct folder on the Kindle when it is attached via USB and shows as an external storage device. Piece-o-cake.

Based on the (admittedly still limited) time I spent on both the Nook Color and the Kindle Fire, I found the Kindle Fire was more to my liking. I could navigate around the Nook Color and it was pretty intuitive (never did get around to reading any manuals on either one) but I did like the “hand-feel” of the Kindle Fire better. And the navigation just subjectively felt better to me on the Kindle Fire than the Nook.

Since I am (for now) a hard-core Kindle E Ink format lover, the extra bells-n-whistles of the Kindle Fire haven’t captured my eye yet, so I cannot comment on app-support and performance of videos/games/applications between the Nook Color and Kindle Fire.

The other think I noticed while helping set up the in-law’s Nook was the apparent lack of easily found free E Books directly within the B&N Nook store. Searching for E-books at B&N was a super-pain as well. In the end I had to do a Google Search to find this “all-in-one-place” location for Free NOOK Books.

When I first got my Kindle, right on the Amazon Kindle pages I found this Amazon.com: Free Book Collections: Kindle Store link. In no time flat I had downloaded almost twenty amazingly awesome classics from literature, philosophy, religion, and reference. All free. I’ve since moved on and expanded my collection to include many additional eBooks I’ve found scattered on the net including some great ones in PDF formats and I have made a number of eBook purchases for the Kindle as well. That smooth and awesome experience jumping into the Kindle right-out-of-the-box probably helped solidify my personal leanings towards the Kindle platform. I’m sure there are lots of additional Nook-compatible ebook formats and ways you can get them to your Nook, but for the in-laws, having in-store access to locate and select-to-download-direct to their Nook has a lot of appeal.

I’ve got a lot of great Kindle resource links saved and building for a GSD Kindle post…along with some cool technical and for/sec bits related to the device I have found as well. Hopefully that will come soon.

Anyway, hope this helps someone else trying to get their DSL <-->WiFi<-->Nook<-->In-Laws equation to balance out and solution properly.  Now I remember why I found Calculus so challenging. It was a real love/hate relationship and this turned out to be very much the same.

Cheers!

--Claus V.

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On The Usefulness of a Pleasant Desk

I can’t believe I’ve been blogging now (fairly) consistently since 2005. I’ve gone from a peak posting rate of 311 posts in 2007 down to a low of just 40 posts last year in 2011.

Finding the time to blog has grown more and more challenging and I hope the quality and depth of many of my posts has grown over the years as well.

The last two years in particular have been a personal frustration as I have attempted to grow more “present” with my family and community while dealing with the tremendous workload presented in my “real” job that has meant longer hours, later hours, and technical challenges that have conspired to keep my technical processing brain-core on overdrive.

All that said, the biggest problem I had, however, hasn’t been a lack of inspiration, or of time, or of material.

I seriously believe it was the lack of a good desk and by extension, a good workspace.

See, from 2006-2009 a good part of my primary blogging hardware was based on desktop computers at home. First an old Gateway and later a small-form-factor barebones home-build kit.  Both these systems were kept in a nice desk that was located in our library/laundry room.  So I could hole up in the space, have few interruptions, and focus on writing, and blogging, and blogging. Lots of productivity.

In 2006 Lavie bought our first laptop. Then in 2007 Lavie won a Gateway laptop and it became her new laptop and the first one became a backup family pc.  Then in 2009 Lavie  picked up a larger laptop for herself and I took over the Gateway laptop as a secondary system while Alvis took over Lavie’s first one. Though I continued to patch and upgrade the SFF desktop pc I used, the Gateway laptop really became my primary home computing device and blogging platform. And in late 2010 I finally obtained my own "dream" notebook.

I sincerely believe the shift from using a desktop pc (at a desk) to a laptop (wherever) is what led to the biggest hit on my blogging production.

When I sit at a desk I have a productive mindset. When I’m in one of the chairs or couch in our living room I can blog, but it doesn’t feel as natural as just “couch-surfing” the web. I find it hard to build and maintain a writing rhythm if I’m anywhere but in front of a desk.

Since the girls REALLY wanted me to me more present with them and not hidden off in our library area, and I had a laptop, it was very seldom that I found myself in our study and my desk--and in a productive blogging mindset.

I’ve been trying to find a solution to the problem for some time. Unfortunately, the desk in the library while not large, just didn’t seem to lend itself to either our living room décor or function. So I’ve just coped, and the blogging rate has suffered.

Last week I found a cheap trestle-style mini-desk that was perfect in color, style and size for the living room. With minimal rearrangement I was able to place it in the living room along with a nice matching traditional wooden chair with a faux-leather seat cushion. It was a great pairing.  While not my favorite in terms of style, it was a perfect pairing of form and function (and price) so I struck while the iron was still hot.

That weekend saw the slew of postings which has almost brought to half-as-many as all I did last year.

Now I have my own elegant and relaxing workspace again to use my laptop at; but still be “present” with Lavie and Alvis after work or on the weekends.

Now the story should end there.

However this weekend Alvis and I finally swapped got around to swapping our desks. These are not to be confused with the new one above.

See, Alvis has been using a large French-country style desk in her room for her homework/TV/laptop/crafting needs.  It is a beautiful desk that has an attached shelving unit over it. Meanwhile my desk (the one in the library I have mentioned already) is an Ikea special with a simple solid wood frame, a side-caddy for a desktop PC and a small pullout drawer that held all those misc. USB cables and PC hardware bits that accumulate.

Alvis in her artsy/interior-design-y mode decided she needed to “open up” the space in her room and swap desks. This way she has more physical room (since mine is smaller) and gain a desk that is more work-bench-like for her crafting. It will also work better for her new machine-sewing hobby and crafting system.

So yesterday we set to work clearing off our desks and emptying them of their contents. Lots of cables to re-manage, lots of missed-dust to remediate. And the desks were swapped.

Alvis’s (new-to-her) desk fit perfectly and holds a small LCD TV that doubles as a second monitor for her laptop. The solid wood surface is more firm for crafting and the lack of a overhead shelving system means she can now feed large lengths of fabric easily across the surface. She did add a small wire-baking-rack to the side of it for storing supplies. Now she has space galore in her room reclaimed.

My (new-to-me) desk is in the study. My second LCD monitor is tucked in a corner when I do decide to work back there and need a second monitor. (I decided it just didn’t fit the living room décor or small desk added there.) It has a USB keyboard/mouse combo as well on the slide-out tray just in case. The (now long-since disconnected until I eventually get around to using it as a SAN server option-1 option-2) SFF PC is tucked away in the side-caddy. The real plus has been getting all my technical books and manuals off the stacks in the library floor and nicely organized in the over-desk shelves. I’ve also got my network hardware (switches/routers) and external hard-drives nicely sitting in their “cubbies” as well. It looks downright nice.

Funny how these things work out…I finally find the perfect desk to get me out of the library, get crazy-productive again (and make both my girls and me harmoniously happy). And the very next weekend I end up creating the super organized and comfy writing-desk/computing-workbench in the man-cave library.

I guess that’s just how we roll around here.

So long-story-short, it’s neither a matter of here or there. Simply expect more blogging this year from the GSD ranch.

--Claus V.

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Thoughts on a Plan to Drop POTS: Pros/Cons

cc image attribution: “smashed phone” by Solarbotics on Flickr

Right now the Valca home has had a POTS/landline phone nearly forever. We got the copper during our engagement house-setup period. As newlyweds it was our technological lifeline to the social world.

Eventually we bought our first PC (an old Gateway skyscraper tower model), signed up for dial-up, and were rockin the Interwebs. Communication shift begins.

Later, Lavie was the early adopter of new tech with a cell phone.  We’ve stuck with the same provider, though it has been gobbled-up a few times leaving us with the current super-cellular provider. Shift again.

Then I got a cell phone as well. Not shifting, dancing now.

And then Alvis earned the responsibility of getting a cell phone.

Hello Family Plan. Now it’s like we are socially square-dancing with technology.

Cable broadband arrived so the dial-up was ditched and high-speed coax rules now. Social communication on a high-speed rail-line service. Whoopee!

All through time, good old POTS has remained present.  It seemed relevant during the Hurricane Ike event a few years ago and we had to evacuate from the house for a number of weeks. Electricity was out but since we had an answering machine connected, we could dial our POTS number to check for power.  When the answering machine eventually picked up again, we knew power had been restored.

Yet with Lavie still not working and the cost of living marching ever upward, we continue to look for ways to cut costs but the belt is pretty tight as it is.

Since we already have cable service (digital TV + Internet) I looked at adding the VOIP option, but once the introductory rate wears off in about 6 months, the price jumps and the savings diff is minimal. And when the cable service is out, everything is out. Too many eggs in one basket for my comfort in this one.

The POTS phone provider does have a super-simple plan (not that we have much at all on our current POTS plan) but the price (once you add in all the add-on charges and govt regulatory fees) isn’t that much less that what we are on now.

Now Alvis REALLY REALLY REALLY wants to upgrade her cell phone to an iPhone (which requires a data plan by our carrier). Not a problem but that’s another added cost to the budget.

Since our cellular plan covers all three of our phones, mobile-to-mobile calls are free, we have a family unlimited text plan, and we also get free nights/weekend calls, our mid-range minute package hardly gets used. It shameful to see how few minutes we actually can get to apply to our monthly minute package. Seriously.  Dropping to the next lower (lowest) family minutes package only nets us a $9.99 savings. Not enough to cover a data plan addition.

Today I had a brainstorm and am pondering the following.

If we drop our POTS line (~$65 “savings”) and port our “forever home” number over to a 4th cell phone, and add that to our Family Plan for an additional $9.99 monthly charge, even with additional monthly fees we are like saving at least $40/mo.  Any simple free phone would do, or I may be able to use an older (but still very nice and rock-solid) digital cell phone I had upgraded from with our same carrier and hung on to.

Pros:

• We keep our same home # (assuming it can be ported to a cell service).
• Don’t have to notify family, friends, vendors, everyone we do business with.
• $ saved each month or at least break even (see next bullet).
• Alvis gets her iPhone + data plan (and maybe Lavie too) and we break even.
• Minute usage may increase but most calls to family & friends tend to already be mobile-to-mobile anyway, or during the unlimited nights/weekend period.
• Home phone comes with us in a disaster/evacuation.
• Can donate all our POTS-based phone technology handsets to the needy (if anyone will even take them).
• Not tied to a bundled cable service so even if cable goes out, our home # should still work.

Cons:

• Power goes out for an extended period of time, charging could be an issue if left at the house.
• Maybe our home number couldn’t be ported…then what?
• Transition/porting period could be a hassle.
• Hope we don’t loose the charger.
• Cell phone service/signal may be spotty in different parts of the house.
• Can’t have multiple phones conveniently scattered around house to reach for easily when it rings (wall jacks appear to be a dime-a-dozen in our home).
• Get locked deeper in with a already super-duper-mega cellular provider.
• Would allow funding of iPhone takeover of Valca home and Apple becomes even more entrenched in our lifestyles…not necessarily a bad thing…just an observation.
• Cost to replace phone higher if accidently dropped in loo or boiling pasta water while talking over stove cooking. Bad.

Any Grand Stream Dream blog readers out there done the dirty and dropped your copper/POTS for a pure-cellular experience?

The POTS provider is sure to tell us the world as we know it will end and “bad me” for contributing to the demise of POTS

What were your experiences?

Got any advice or see any Pros/Cons I’m missing?

Thanks,

--Claus V.

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Reflections on the Toys that Remain…

As Alvis grows older and prepares to fledge one of the unexpected things that has challenged me is coming to terms with her childhood toys.

Now, as an only child, Alvis has probably received an above average lavishment of toys and gifts and meaningful-things from us and her extended family. That said, while not “minimalists” we have always strived to resist consumerism-overload and been fairly selective of the volume of “things” she has accumulated.

At least once a year either on her own or in a combined attack on her room, Alvis and I either toss out some toys (cheap disposable/broken ones) or fill a bag or two to be offered for the church garage sale or mission project.

Sometimes she even will allow some of the special kids she babysits from time to time in our home to “adopt” one of her toys they take a bonding to (although never the giraffes, which are sacred).

That has generally worked well to keep the Things Of Alvis managed over the past years, but as she has gotten older fewer and few new “toys” find their way into her room while the art-supplies, books and electronica seem to litter her desk and multiply monthly.

The winnowing process has become even more challenging now as most of the remaining items in her closet, under her bed, and on her shelves have survived for so long due to sentimental value to her (or truth be told, us).  Does Alvis still really want that bobble-head Kim Possible cheerleader figure? Probably not but then that was her idol at the time of purchase and darn-it we all thought it was so cute..just like her at that period.

One day soon she will move on, taking a selected collection of cherished touchstones, leaving the rest for us to hold onto and/or take responsibility of getting rid of on our own if we have the courage to.

All this comes to mind as today I found a summary of an archaeological site dig in Florida a few years ago. The 7000 year old site and follow-on discoveries made a great read for this anthropology-studies minor but the intro text made my heart melt. Quoting Joseph L. Richardson’s words from that Windover Bog People Archaeological Dig - Titusville Florida web page:

“When the 3-year-old died, her parents placed her favorite toys in her arms, wrapped her in fabric woven from fibers of native plants, and buried her body in the soft, muck bottom of a small pond. Some 7,000 years later, when a young archaeologist uncovered her tiny remains, the toys--a wooden pestle-shaped object and the carapace of a small turtle--were still cradled in her arms.”

This boggles my modern mind and my parental heart.  I can see the child’s joy playing with her simple toys and the sadness as her family lays her to rest accompanied by these same cherished objects.  And then I consider all the “toys” Alvis still has in her room and the special meanings they also represent.

Lest we think that our technology and modern toy development (and American marketing ingenuity) has left such simple things behind, I submit to you the following “GeekDad” posts by Jonathan Liu for reflection. You may be surprised by what makes the list.

The 5 Best Toys of All Time - GeekDad | Wired.com

Get a Kid the 6th Best Toy of All Time - GeekDad | Wired.com

So as we face yet another season of the Christmas season marketing madness, and the prospect of a grown woman’s silent childhood room in the very near future with the objects that remain, I pause for a moment of the melancholies and “mono no aware”, of what "toys” really are, both in form and function, and what they whisper when they remain after the owner has moved on.

Inspired by the lists above I’m seriously thinking about getting Alvis a custom Transmogrifier shaped in the form of a large rectangular clothing basket with sturdy handles for Christmas; one in Tardis Blue. She had one before as a child and used it with great passion and pleasure often paring it with a magical blanket of great mystery, comfort and invisibility and disappearing in the middle of the living-room for hours on end with nothing but giggles coming from the space they previously occupied. 

I think it might just be perfect as when she tires of jetting around both Time and Space for old-time-sake (although she would probably leave the brake on like a certain Time Lord) she could use it to carry her own laundry to the Laundromat.

Sigh…

Claus V.

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IT Saturation Point

So the other night I had gotten off late from work and being quite tired and looking forward to unwinding in front of some DVR’ed PBS material, took Alvis on an only-because-it-was-convenient-and-we-were-exhausted McD’s carryout run.

Back a the house after probably consuming enough calories and sodium to take care of a Roman legion, I was ridding the kitchen of the evidence, and a super-sytro cup was next to the sink.

“Hey Alvis, you done with this drink?”

Alvis, hovering nearby as my late-night/early-morning project schedule had kept me from seeing her for the past two days all the while working her mobile phone continuing a SMS discussion with one of her BFF’s responded (very airily).

“No, you can delete it.”

I looked at Alvis with bemusement and she looked shocked at what she had said.

“OK…so you want me to move it to the recycle bin or wipe it?”

We both grinned.

Yep…IT saturated indeed.

--Claus V.

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Worn Down and Rusted Out Linkfest Edition

cc attribution: 14. An Antique Truck by Jinx! on flickr

Thanks for the messages of kindness checking on me that a few GSD faithful have sent in over the past few weeks.

I’m pleased to say that Claus V. is still alive and kicking…just worn down and rusted out a bit.  As many of you have correctly surmised, work assignments have pretty much overwhelmed me and left me with little energy left except for watching Phineas and Ferb, iCarly, and Bones with the ladies off the DVR on the few free hours when I drag home at night as well as wearily wake up on the weekends.  Everyone has had to really crank up the productivity (already red-lined) due to economy pressures with more special-projects in the pipes.

I even got some time off today to catch the Disney movie “Tangled” with Alvis this afternoon.  I’m a sucker for princess movies!  I can’t wait to put the Blu-ray version of this one next to my “Enchanted” disk set.  Good family movie for all ages!

Anyway, the positive news from this unplanned blogging hiatus is that I have really been able to focus on applying many of the security/forensics tools and techniques in a myriad of very unusual incidents so while I am still exhausted to the frame-rails, it’s been a fun trip along the way.   Look for some neat stuff soon from that camp.

Nor have I been taking a “Net-free” sabbatical.  The RSS-feed collector has been diligently at work as well and I’ve been distilling the results to some of the most interesting and helpful links of all that survived the winnowing process.

So, without more ado, sit down, strap in, and hang on tight.  The Linkfest begins!

Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0 ?

Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0 looks like it may have been released.

Microsoft Security Essentials - Microsoft Download Center. Publish date 12/16/2010  (Note: as of this post, that link still shows a version number of “1”.)

I've been running the Beta MSE 2.0 versions on our Windows 7 x64 & x32 systems for some time and have been pleased. Love the inclusion of a right-click context menu "scan with MSE" menu item now.

This morning my Beta MSE version was 2.0.522.0

After downloading and over-installing the new setup file version downloaded from that page, it now checks in at 2.0.657.0

Some more info on what the new edition offers over at this Security Essentials 2.0 releasing tomorrow mynetx post.

I assume patient users of MSE already will eventually get a push/Windows Update to bump it.

Meta data in the setup file (x64 version) I downloaded and used did report it was a 2.0 version as well…so maybe MS hasn’t updated the version number on the page until an official release announcement…or it could be one last final beta bump before the final release?  I’m not certain.

Spotted over at the (German) Caschys Blog post:  Microsoft veröffentlicht kostenlose Sicherheitslösung Security Essentials 2.0

i-odd Firmware updates and other multi-boot/formatting toys 

I-Odd has released some firmware updates.  If you don’t recall the iodd : Multi-boot madness! post, the i-odd is an external USB2.0/eSATA drive enclosure that allows you to store boot-disks in ISO format and then boot a system with any of them via the selector toggle.  It is wicked cool.

The US i-odd site is offering Firmware Version 1.42.48 (ISO) that supports either FAT32, EXFAT or NTFS partition handling for loading disk images.  Until recently only FAT was supported.

The Korean manufacture's i-odd site actually is serving an even newer firmware version at 1.42.53.

Take your pick.

FAT/FAT32 formatting limitations typically have restricted partition sizes so you have had to use alternative formatting tools to get around those limits if you wanted a really big FAT32 partition to store your ISO’s on.

TinyApps.Org Blog recommended the FAT 32 Formatter from Ridgecrop Consultants Ltd.  If that CLI version isn’t to your speed, they also offer a Windows GUI version of fat32format.  Miles’ recommendations are always golden so that’s the tool I still use.

I recently found mention Fat32Formatter which has a slightly different GUI.

That was picked out from RMPrepUSB HomePage which has an interesting tool to partition/format USB drives and make them bootable for SysLinux or grub4dos bootloaders. 

That was found via this XBOOT vs 1.0.0 beta4 - reboot project that is working to aid in the creation of a multi-boot USB builder.

All this is still very interesting, but TinyApps’s find of the i-odd device makes all these exercises almost academic.  Get the enclosure, buy a 2.5” drive to stick in it, update the firmware, and copy your boot ISO images over to your heart’s content.  Then just toggle to the ISO you want to boot with, select it, and boot away.

One last TinyApps mention: check out his amazing documentation work TinyApps.Org : Mounting disk image partitions.  He sent the link to me some time ago but I’ve been swamped and only had time to do very limited Linux-based work at work so I haven’t been able to give it its true due.

Secunia PSI 2.0 Beta Available 

Security company Secunia announced in September the release of the PSI 2.0 Beta.

Auto Update your Programs - Secunia PSI 2.0 Public Beta - Secunia Blog

From the blog post, the engine remains the same but the user interfaces, the auto-updates, and reporting have all been revamped. Secunia PSI changelog

While I and everyone else can continue to benefit from the cloud-based Online Software Inspector (OSI) version, having a localized Personal Software Inspector (PSI) on your Windows system can go a very long way to ensuring your applications are able to be kept current without much mess or fuss.

Adobe Advances

The Adobe folks have been hard at work revamping and prepping a number of products that are often found on many enterprise and consumer Windows systems.

Adobe Labs - Adobe Flash Player 10.2 beta - This is the latest “mainstream” Flash beta version.  It includes enhanced support for IE 9.0 releases and full screen mode support for users with multiple monitors.  However it only comes in a x32 bit release version.

Adobe Labs Download: Flash Player 10.2 Beta Release

Adobe Labs - Adobe Flash Player "Square" is also available and does include x64 bit support for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.  I’ve been running this one on my x64 Windows 7 system with no issues at all.

Adobe Labs Download: Adobe Flash Player "Square" Preview Release

Related: How-to: Disable Chrome’s built-in Flash to use a Flash beta release. DownloadSquad

You may also have heard Adobe released version 10 (a.k.a “X”) of the Adobe Reader.

Adobe Reader X is Here! « Adobe Secure Software Engineering Team (ASSET) Blog

Adobe - Adobe Reader download

PDF security guru Didier Stevens has some initial thoughts: Quickpost: Adobe Reader X and provided a wicked-helpful link to Adobe’s FTP server. The en_US FTP folder contains both msi and exe based installer versions!

To add to the helpfulness, Aaron Parker at StealthPuppy has a number of great Adobe Reader deployment tips and tricks postings.

Deploying Adobe Reader X | Aaron Parker

Uninstalling Adobe Reader | Aaron Parker

…including a tip-out to the Customization wizard for pre-deployment installer tweaking; note you can get the 10.x version from the FTP site.

Network Nuggets!

One of the duties that has required a lot of my time has been network monitoring and traffic analysis.  I continue to make good progress with Microsoft’s Network Monitor 3.4; specifically the nmcap.exe CLI tool.  I’ve not had a dropped packet yet during a capture session.

Marking Frames with Network Monitor 3.4 - Network Monitor Blog

Network Monitor Freezes While Loading Capture - Network Monitor Blog

CodePlex Parser Site - Check for the latest Network Monitor parser sets here.

In case I haven’t mentioned it recently (it’s been a while) inSSIDer Wi-Fi Scanner over at MetaGeek is now out at version 2.0.  It was a great help tracking down a network tap some time ago.

And despite my comfort and pleasure with Network Monitor 3.4, I am now trying to transition back to Wireshark.  NM3.4 only seems to output in “cap” format, not pcap.  That’s no big issue but I then have to do an extra step of “editcap -F libpcap infile.cap outfile.pcap” to convert things.  This has been quite fast, but it is a step I shouldn’t have to be taking. 

My biggest complaint to date with Wireshark (and it’s a noobie one) is that I kept getting occasional crashes during capture in the Wireshark GUI mode.

However since I’ve gotten comfortable working in the NMcap CLI tool mode, I’ve started flirting around the the TShark CLI utility for captures as well.  It seems to be more stable for longer-run capture sessions.

Along those lines I’ve been collecting resource links on TShark:

Tshark examples: howto capture and dissect network traffic - CodeAlias

tshark filters - PacketLevel

tshark examples - random notes

TShark Packet Filtering - TheSprawl

Wireshark/TShark Utilities - TheSprawl

Pcap format is essential as I continue to use the NetworkMiner Network Forensic Analysis Tool (NFAT) and Packet Sniffer for much of my post-capture analysis work.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t handle NM “cap” format files, thus the conversion to pcap first in editcap.  So capturing in pcap native files is a time-saver.

You may also recall that I’ve been restricted to using an older .88 version of NetworkMiner as some packet captures end up forcing a premature shutdown in versions up to the current .92.  I actually was able to engage developer Erik Hjelmvik in this Topic: Versions past .88 prematurely exit discussion.  He was awesomely kind and patient.  We eventually took the discussion off-line and with his gentle guidance I was eventually able to provide him some helpful data that explained the issue.  He thinks that the issue “…could occur when there are partially overlapping TCP segments at the same time as the TCP packets arrive out-of-order.”

A future version of Network Miner should address this issue, and bring many more enhancements.  Hopefully Erik will release an updated version soon!

It was really challenging but really rewarding having the opportunity to work with Erik on this issue.  He is a really great guy for kindly providing that level of support to me on a free-to-the-community project.

Microsoft Tips, Tricks, and Treats

Download details: The Windows® Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows® 7 - Released in mid-November under version 2.0.

The Case of the Slow Project File Opens - Mark’s Blog; troubleshooting awesomeness!

The Windows 7 Guide: From Newbies To Pros [FREE EBOOK] - MakeUseOf - Nice resource for you all who are planning on handing out Windows 7 systems as gift to current XP users.

Enhanced Event Viewer for Windows 7 released - The Windows Club is a fancier version to view and search event logs.  Pick it up over at the sateesh-arveti - Site Home  on TechNet Blogs

Tenniswood Blog has an update tip on How to enable Remote Desktop in Windows 7 Home Premium.  Follow his links to grab the new and improved bits.  Me?  I’ve still got this around on our home systems as a “just in case” but am really loving the TightVNC 2.0 application even more.

While we are still on the subject, MakeUseOf blog has a really interesting Control Your Computer Remotely Using HTML5 With ThinVNC post worth checking out.

The Best Ways To Customize The Welcome Screen In Windows 7 by Simon Slagen on MakeUseOf has a trio of ways to modify your Windows 7 login screen ranging from the very simple to the very complex. Of them, I agree with the post and found that for most users the Logon Screen For Windows 7 tool by DanielNET software was the easiest to use.  That said I’m surprised my first utility to encounter in this class, Windows 7 Logon Background Changer didn’t get included.  It hasn’t let me down yet.

Image is Everything

TOOL: Image Resizer 2.11 for Windows 7/Vista  - Kurt Shintaku’s Blog is a dead-simple, integrated way to let anyone quickly and easily resize their images fast.  It’s a must add.

Freemake Video Converter updated with cool new features - freewaregenius.com is yet another great and very full featured video converter.

Lightworks - Open Source highly complex but wonderfully approachable video editor is out in a public beta.  I’ve been waiting for this one for some time and am amazed it is sitting on my desktop.  The GUI is very well designed but start digging under the hood and I think this tool has the stuff to leave the other freeware/open-source video editors in the dust.  For a Windows platform, this must be seen.  I’m itching to get a new video-production project to toss at it.  This is not for casual users who might find Windows Live Movie Maker 2011 or another similar non-MS product easier to get started with.  Registration (easy and free) with Lightworks required to get the download bits.  Lots of documentation in PDF form is a happy bonus.  Requires download of third-party “Matrox VFW” codecs.

For other options and software tools in video editing see this GSD Blog Video-Editing Resource Roundup.

Finance Planning Tools 

Things have been very tight around the Valca home.  For almost the past two years we have had to painfully downsize to a single-income family lifestyle.  It has been almost that long since Lavie was able to work.  However thanks to discipline and the kindness of family and friends, we have weathered the belt-tightening fairly well.  Hopefully the new year will bring new riches both in terms of our family employment outlook as well as the bank account.

We continue to benefit from the use of Microsoft’s free “Sunset” edition of Microsoft Money Plus.  I’m using the Money Plus Sunset Deluxe version but there is also the Money Plus Sunset Home and Business. 

However, if you trust and and are looking for a cloud-based financial planning tool, check out the following finds:

Sprouty - Simple and easy budgeting

Mint.com

Either of these along with some healthy Finance & Family encouragements from zenhabits, those (by choice or circumstance) living in the “simple life” may find some great tools and resources to help them breath.

More Utilities

These didn’t seem to fit in other categories, so here they reside:

CSV file editor, for Windows - CSVed is now updated to version 2.1.3.  This freeware tool has saved my rear lots of times for complex pre-editing of tricky CSV files before dumping into Access or Excel.

BulletsPassView - NirSoft’s new build to view the passwords stored behind the bullets in Windows / IE.  Doesn’t work for everything but is super-useful in a pinch. May set off AV as “hackware” or PUP.  That’s a AV thing nothing wrong with the tool in the right hands.

6 Must-Have Apps For Computer Repair Technicians - MakeUseOf blog.  Interesting roundup. Not what I would pick for my “must have 6” list, but they are worthy to add to your toolbox.

FOG-ing the Future?

With only a literary nod to JKR, the FOG project is one really neat looking project.

fogproject.org

FOG allows for Windows system imaging capture/deployments from a Linux OS.  It is very cool looking and very neat, particularly with an almost turn-key PXE-based capture/deployment solution.

Windows Image Deployment with FOG - Petri.co

Lifting the Fog - Compendium IT

Cloning Windows 7 VMs Using FOG - The Horrendous World of IT

FOG - Computer Cloning/Imaging solution Server (0.27) - VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace

See also these FOG Project Video Tutorials

There is a lot of documentation and YouTube video resources and it looks to be a very mature (and still developing) project.

If you haven’t heard of FOG yet, it’s worth checking out, particularly if you are an imaging guy.

That said, I still like working with Microsoft ImageX WIM file images and deploying them in PE-based methods in our environment.  Being able to off-line mount and service image files has helped me lots of times.

Virtualizations

In the “Lifting the Fog” link above, the author incorrectly states that the virtual version of FOG uses Oracle’s VM VirtualBox.    That isn’t correct.  It is a VMware appliance version, not VirtualBox.  I guess it is easy to get them mixed up by name alone.  I currently have Windows VirtualPC, Oracle’s VirtualBox, and VMware’s VMware Player all installed on my system!

VMware Player still is getting updated (and remains free).  If you don’t want to register to get the bits from VMware, try this Download VMware Player 3.1.3 link via FileHippo.com.

Think the VMware Player will trap you into using only pre-configured VMware appliances?  Check out the free VMware resources by developer DEVFarm Software such as the really cool VMX Builder. One of may cool tools at VMXBuilder.com

VirtualBox fans may be surprised (or not) to learn that while the public build of VirtualBox is at 3.2.12, if you dig around you can find and use VirtualBox 4.0 beta builds.  I’ve been using these for a while and they are really nice!  I really find the GUI interface improvements particularly enjoyable…not to mention all the under-the-hood updates!

Download VirtualBox 4.0.0 Beta 3 - Change Log - FileHippo.com

Index of /virtualbox/ - Oracle’s FTP site for direct VirtualBox bits including the [DIR] 4.0.0_BETA3/

Whew!

Hope you found something here enjoyable and I appreciate the GSD fans who have been waiting for a new post.

Check back again soon for the forensics and security linkfest followup.

Even more goodies await!

Cheers!

--Claus V.

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