Posts on WELLINGTON ROAD Pictures

It's been awhile

Thu, 19 Dec 2013 04:08:12 +0000

Haven’t blogged for about 6 months, really haven’t been creative for 6 months. With the updates to WP 3.8, it’s a lot easier to work with WP via the iPad. That said, I’ve a bit of work to do.

More to come.

Forget about WebM

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:59:17 +0000

For the past 6 or 7 months, I’ve attempted to provide video to all types of platforms by encoding videos in both H.264 and WebM. WebM is the encoder of choice for Firefox, Chrome etc in other words “not-Apple” (though Microsoft has thrown in with Apple on H.264). I haven’t had much success. Most of the time, I was not able to play WebM encoded video in Firefox nor Chrome and it was an additional step in my workstream.

Using Kaleidoscope to sync iTunes

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 18:34:36 +0000

Like many of you, I have multiple iTunes Libraries. One for the laptop, one for the house and another for my media center. Keeping these in-synch with almost 6,000 songs and over 1100 TV shows as become more than laborious.

I have tried to use Supersync in the past and while attempting to use it yesterday, I ran into a “must download Java 6 SE” issue that I really didn’t want to solve. (Hint: google “Java zero day”)

Plug for a plug-in

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 16:06:55 +0000

Why can’t everything work as well as Akismet?

Admittedly, my blog is not the most well-read hence well-traveled site but I do get spam. Not a lot but enough that I thank my lucky stars for Akismet. It quietly traps all spam, doesn’t make any mistakes and then advises me “Excuse Mr. Koepsel, you seem to have some spam to throw out.” I do. We both sigh and go back to our day jobs.

I LIKKKKKKKEEEEEEE it!

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 17:45:45 +0000

Wordpress 3.2 is lovely! I like the look of the new Dashboard, very clean and easy on the eyes! I had a brief delay in upgrading as I was on a older server and needed to upgrade to new one at my hosting facility. (note to self, 12 comes after 5)

I’m not as wowed by the Twenty Eleven theme. I like the idea of a new theme a year but I’ll wait til Twenty Twelve, thank you very, very much.

Well, that's unfortunate (Updated)

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 23:02:15 +0000

As I’ve said before, I’ve tried to keep a local version of my site mirrored to my online version. This isn’t unusual for a lot of developers; it helps to stage your site, it allows you to make mistakes with little impact on the outside world and it allows you to be productive away from an Internet connection.

I’ve been fairly successful at doing this with Wordpress 2.x. The new version seems to be a somewhat different story. My typical method of duplication is to:

Hype - a new approach

Sun, 22 May 2011 17:58:30 +0000

Thanks to Jon Gruber, I learned about Hype.

Hype is a OS X application that makes it easy to create dynamic websites using HTML5 or more accurately, HTML5, Javascript and CSS3. Hype works. It is also version 1.0 so it is basic but it works, doesn’t crash and holds great promise.

I’ve been attempting to change my WELLINGTON ROAD Pictures site from a database-driven, somewhat static site to a bit more dynamic, HTML5-based site for sometime. See here, here, here, here and here. Sigh, note the last time I attempted to make changes was almost 9 months ago.

Step 4: Updated to be dynamic

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:04:46 +0000

No significant changes here. Added the required code for the site to be served by a database instead of hand-coding. A couple of small formatting changes but I’m ready to go from my old but lovely way of serving videos, Shadowbox to spanking, new HTML5.

Step 4

One update and one non-update:

Update; looks like H.264 is getting to be the standard for video. Â Based on the MPEG LAÂ announcement, H.264 will be forever free if the video being served is free. Due to this announcement, I’m going to focus on serving H.264 only and forget about…

Step 3: Layout site

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 19:37:57 +0000

With Jillion off in the distance, I decided to work on the site layout as compared to determining my video playback scheme.

The site looks very similar to the original site. I made some changes such as the WELLINGTON ROAD Pictures graphic, font colors and spacing. What was interesting was I have yet to use an ID or Class. Everything works semantically, when I need to reference an element, I use the a descendent selector i.e. “nav li” as compared to a “div class=nav and li class=navli”. It is a much simpler way to develop CSS.

Step 2b: Video (continued)

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:38:40 +0000

First, I need to make a comment as to how I manage the site content. I use a database and PHP to manage the content. This allows me to keep the number of pages to a minimum and adding content is absurdly easy. That said, I’m building this HTML5 site using static content. Once I determine how to create my desired HTML5 site, its somewhat child’s play to convert it into a dynamic site.

Step 2: Figure out video

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:43:39 +0000

HTML5 holds great promise for video playback. Gone will be the days of embedded objects, plugins and (hopefully) Flash. The issue we still face are browser codec compatibilities; such as Firefox wants to see Ogg Theora and Safari wants h.264.

My next step is to explore video playback within one of the articles. I’ll start with Safari usingÂ onlyÂ the video tag then explore other fallback alternatives for other browsers. I believe this will require multiple sub-steps hence Step 2a, 2b, 2c and so on.

Step 1: Keep Design and Gray box it

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 15:08:34 +0000

Following a technique advocated in “transcending CSS by Andy Clarke”, I’ve taken the current design and ‘gray boxed it". Â (I want to point out that my goal is to learn HTML5/CSS3, not to create a wholly new design). Â I simplified the site to its simplest elements:

From the graphic, you can see its a very simple layout; navigation, header, Â rows of three articles and a footer. Each article has a title(h1), a comment(p) and notes(aside).

Wish me luck...

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 23:30:10 +0000

I’m off to redo my film site using HTML5 and CSS3. As I stated some time ago, I’ve been interested in the two technologies for some time. Little things like CSS shadows are very nice and semantic elements like article, aside and nav certainly contribute to a site better than div, div and div.

I’ve two books on HTML5; HTML5 for Web Designers/Jeremy Keith and HTML5/Bruce Lawson and Remy Sharp. Both are excellent for providing an understanding of the why along with the how.

Riding the local... [UPDATED]

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 23:30:15 +0000

With the upgrade to Snow Leopard, I took the opportunity to make my MacBook Pro, a better development machine. This meant creating a Web server environment which matches my production shared hosting environment.

Far easier said then done.

I started with MAMP. I wanted to have a complete server environment that is well supported by the community and was easy to maintain. I felt that MAMP met these goals better than going with the native OS X web environment. Apple hasn’t been the best at offering the latest stable release of Apache, MySQL (in fact, not supported at all) and PHP. MAMP offered all three plus PHPMyAdmin (handy at times) and a smattering of additional goodness.

A couple of things...

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 22:30:57 +0000

I haven’t updated the blog in quite a while. I’ve been working on a lot of things but haven’t found the time to document the work.

The latest thing I did was update this blog to 3.0. So far I haven’t seen a huge difference. I also changed the theme from “minamalism’ to twentyten, which is the new theme for Wordpress.

I like the new theme. Very simple, great style.

DON'T HAND EDIT YOUR MAMP PHP.INI FILE!!!!

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:56:57 +0000

Oh, the agony.

I spent the better part of a day trying to get Xdebug working on my MAMP site on my Mac. I read here, here and here… all you have to do is to “edit your php.ini file” and bada-boom! you are off to the races.

No, no and no.Â The problem was that it kinda works, then it doesn’t, then nothing does, then things work but xdebug doesn’t.

Over the years, I have realized that when things start to get real hard, I’m doing something wrong, terribly wrong. Some where in some place, I’ve made the simplest of errors, creating a cacophony of bugs so bad, I’ve got to look down to see up.

HTML5 and CSS3

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:33:27 +0000

I’m interested in what HTML5/CSS3 are bringing to the Web. A simple thing like using CSS to drop shadow an image is Â quite nice. Beats having to use Photoshop…

Based on the drop shadow alone, I thought it would be good to begin using these two new web standards, So I changed my photography site Stills from one using a Lightroom HTML template to one of my own implemented with HTML5 and CSS3.

Better Stuff

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:13:40 +0000

A couple of plugs for stuff I use:

Eizo ColorEdge CG243W - Great new monitor that is accurate, a nice size and a joy to use. As I stated earlier, it inspired me to get back into photography. I like it, I like it a lot.

colormunki - in order to properly use the Eizo or any high end color monitor, one must calibrate it. It seems the best way to do this is to use Eizo’s software and a calibrator such as the colormunki. I’m a bit miffed in the x-rite, the supplier of the munki, has yet to release software for Snow Leopard. Turns out that Eizo’s software, Color Navigator, works great with the munki. I like the device, it is easy to use and clearly well-designed. And when xrite releases the new software, I’ll also be able to use the device to calibrate my printer. nice. ( AND!!, buy by 12/31 and get $50 rebate)

Added Stills

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:12:31 +0000

I recently changed monitors from a Viewsonic 2025 that had a DVI issue (apparently this is a common thing for Viewsonic… nice) to a BEAUTIFUL Eizo ColorEdge CG243W.

WOW! Better color, larger screen, deeper blacks, crisper text, everything is just fantastic and a joy to use.

With this new view, I was inspired to go back to my photographs and create a Web gallery of my favorites. This has been a tremendous amount of fun!

Yes, you can...(retain data on a split OS X Mirror RAID)

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:47:00 +0000

My Leopard installation used a OS X RAID 0 implementation to keep my system safe and sound. I mirrored two 1 TB drives then used them for my startup volume. Â When I switched to Snow Leopard, I needed an extra drive to ensure I had sufficient backups prior to installation (I always clean install when I upgrade operating systems.)

I thought the easiest thing to do would be to “split” the RAID 0 drives up with both containing a complete backup of my Leopard installation. But I also thought it sounded too easy and while purchasing Snow Leopard at the Apple store, I casually asked “can you split a mirrored RAID and retain the data?”

Tweaking

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:31:43 +0000

I seem to be in “tweaking” mode…

After changing the site from hand-coded to database driven and getting feedback from Feedback Army (highly recommended), I’m adding salt and throwing in pepper.

A good comment from the Feedback Army was suggesting adding time of movie under each image. Good idea. Done. BTW - a very good reference on CSS is CSS Mastery by Andy Budd. Highly recommended.

Another comment was to add a bit more on the About/Contact page. Done.

Usability Help

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 18:51:36 +0000

A extremely helpful service from Feedback Army is the ability to ask for feedback from a number of users. The cost is low, typically $1 per user and the advice from my limited sample of 1 time was well-worth the cost.

I wanted to know if my wellys.org site was intuitive and easy to use. Yes, quite easy was the feedback.

Was the performance acceptable? Yes, no issues.

FCP 7 and ProRes

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:59:28 +0000

FCP 7 introduces a 3 new HD codecs for production work, ProRes 4444, ProRes 422 (LT) and ProRes 422 (Proxy). With these additions, this brings to five versions of HD codecs Â available for production work. I did a simple comparison of Flip H.264 transcoding to all 5 versions, knowing full well that I wasn’t starting with the best source material.

The only version where I could see a difference was with ProRes 422 (Proxy). There were artifacts and a loss of detail. LT looked great, with no perceptible differences on up to 4444. Which means given the source, the best I could use is LT. That said, I did have striking differences in gamma between the new codecs looking identical to the source material and the “older” codecs, 422 and 422 (HQ) being much darker and losing details in the shadows.

Thanks, Norman!

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:34:53 +0000

I was thinking this, and was going to write about it but I didn’t have the depth of experience to make the point as clear as Norman does.

In his blog, Hollyn-wood (Norman, that is), Norman makes the point that the price cuts and the focus on ease of use sets this upgrade to Final Cut Pro/Studio as a significant push by Apple towards the low-end side of video editing. He doesn’t mean that Apple took features away or that Final Cut Pro isn’t capable of editing high-end feature films, what Apple did do was to introduce ways of helping the not-so-good be a lot better or sometimes, good-enough. AND, they dropped the price.

Changes (again)

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:15:51 +0000

In my continuing efforts to learn web programming, simplify things and make a better site, I changed the site (again). This time I switched from a manual, hand-coded implementation to a SQL-based version. The new version uses a database to display the movies, making adding a new movie much easier and more intuitive.

And it was a lot of fun to see if I could do it!

With any luck, there shouldn’t be any obvious differences with my old site. The new site allows me to create a web page for each movie explaining in greater detail all aspects.

Cameras, FlipShare and iMovie

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:50:40 +0000

I’ve been using the Flip Ultra HD for a few weeks and I really like the camera. What I don’t like or more accurately need is the FlipShare software. If you don’t have iMovie 09, FlipShare is probably worthwhile. Â I do have iMovie and FlipShare is worse than superfluous, it auto-launches when I attach the camera to my Mac even though I want iMovie to import the clips. [ iMovie importing isn’t cast in-stone… I might start converting the H.264 video to ProRes format, if iMovie can easily handle it. More to come on this.]

Car, Flip and Fun

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:39:19 +0000

So thanks to Nathan Henderson, I tried filming my drive home. I didn’t have a Gorillapod, so I used the next best thing, a glue clamp ($3.99) and a pair of rubber bands. It worked great! I attached the clamp to the rear view mirror then used rubber bands to hold the Flip to the clamp. Â Then I drove home… (click on image for Going Home)

I can hardly wait until we drive up Hwy 1!

iMovie 09 and Flip Ultra HD

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:17:33 +0000

There seem to be a few questions as to the compatibility of the Flip Ultra HD and iMovie 09. Â The Flip Ultra HD and iMovie work great together! The latest version of iMovie 8.0.3 added the ability to optimize video. I started with 8.0.3, so I’m unsure on what I couldn’t do before .0.3 was released. A couple of quick points:

The Flip Ultra HD comes bundled withÂ FlipShare. It seems to work well enough for trimming and emailing videos but when you have iMovie at your fingertips, FlipShare is a bit lacking. FlipShare requires the 3ivx MPEG decoder. This decoder is included in the FlipShare software. If it isn’t installed, FlipShare will ask to install it.

FlipShare can trim video and “create a movie” by linking videos together, adding a title and credits, and a music clip. No great shakes but its free and is easy to use AND it comes on the camera so you can use it anywhere.

iMovie 09

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:03:23 +0000

FANTASTIC!

When iMovie 08 came out there was a tremendous uproar from the fans of the prior iMovie versions. This new version was dramatically different than prior versions and frankly, wasn’t finished.

In January, iMovie 09 was introduced at MacWorld and what a difference the new version is! Many of the disparagers now agree that while different, iMovie is no longer incomplete. It is just different.

I’ve made films with iMovie (both types), Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro/Studio. The pre-iMovie 08 version, Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro were all the same type of film-editing application. Typically referred to as Â a non-linear editing tool, the concept is to roughly approximate the work flow one performs in editing movies using the older tape-based process. Much of the terms –bins and clipsÂ – used in Final Cut, are the same used for years in the film industry.

iMovie 09 - Source clip is missing

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:00:59 +0000

OK, so Apple messed this one up. In Final Cut, when a clip is missing FCS has a sufficiently sophisticated method of finding the files. iMovie? Not so much. In fact, it doesn’t even ask for help!

Background: I don’t like using iPhoto Library for my video files so I moved them out of iPhoto (using Finder, not iMovie) and into a separate iMovie Events folder. iMovie found these files no problem and can even help me maintain them (moves, adds, changes). BUT, it wouldn’t scan this folder for missing clips!

Another new thing...

Tue, 26 May 2009 15:28:02 +0000

This is something I gotta do!

Creating a scalable video webpage

(First, sorry about the delay in posts… been on the road.)

I saw this on one of my favorites… A list apart.

It is a method for scaling videos that is based on the size of the viewing window. Given my site is ALL video and I try to make it friendly, I gotta give this a shot.

Give me a couple of weeks.

OK, now I get it

Sun, 17 May 2009 00:14:48 +0000

Spaces… didn’t get it, didn’t try it, til today.

WOW! What a concept!

In a nutshell, OS X has the ability to create virtual screens for you. You create a matrix of screens, assign applications to a specific screen then manage your work by going to specific screens. Yeah, it sounded too complicated to me as well.

Here’s what I did:

Created a matrix of 2 wide by 3 deep of screens and added the Spaces element to the menu bar

OK, now its time to work on the Tools

Tue, 12 May 2009 03:07:28 +0000

The last time that I worked on my page about Tools was when I was using Final Cut Express… ok, I can’t remember when that was.

The Notes are about the films, once they are made and the notes are written, its over. But the Tools, they are ever changing!

To help me focus on what I need to work on, I’ll add some comments here to either set me up or give me guidance. This blog is my conscience.

Almost there!

Mon, 11 May 2009 17:37:25 +0000

A few more tweaks made late last night!

I still have some image line-up issues but my new site is ready to go. It isn’t dramatically different than last years model but its no longer a TABLE! Woot!

OK, its not that big of a deal but it no longer nags me as I lay awake at night…

New version and Old Version.

Next up? The remaining pages, new look and new text!

I did it!*

Mon, 11 May 2009 02:31:10 +0000

OK, I committed to do a lot this weekend, clean the garage, create and document my Mom’s blog and change my layout from tables-based to CSS.

I did it all! Woohoo! *Well, I’m still working on my site but it is 95% complete!

OK, little things first. A lot of work, sweat and dirt and I can now park my car in the garage. So I moved all of the stuff from the front of the garage to the back, so what? Parking my car in the garage is sweet!

I've got a problem

Fri, 08 May 2009 02:58:12 +0000

I’ve had it for several years. My Wellington Road Pictures site uses a table for formatting.

I know, I know its wrong, wrong, wrong but hey, it validates!

I’ve tried a couple of times to clean it up but I’m not so much on Web design.

Every six months or so, I’ll find inspiration. Today, while trying to figure out how I’m going to use CSS Animations (I am starting to think its the millennium’s version of Blink), I ran across more inspiration.

This I gotta try...

Thu, 07 May 2009 03:16:36 +0000

CSS Animations.

It sounds neat and it doesn’t sound like “blinking cursor”. It sounds useful, like rounded corners.

I’ve got some time this weekend…. mmmmm.

If you use Safari 4, stay tuned.

Veerle

Wed, 06 May 2009 13:05:26 +0000

I like Veerle. Never met her, but I like her.

She has consistently taught me new stuff in an engaging way for several years. Her latest post, Placing a CSS background… is a fine example.

Its something I didn’t know
She has great detail on how to do it
Its something I want to know

Thank you, Veerle for making the Web a better place.

Testing

Wed, 06 May 2009 04:23:25 +0000

Not much to see here. I’m testing a fix for my blog. Keep moving, keep moving.

Video Redesign on WRP

Tue, 05 May 2009 16:25:23 +0000

Recently, I spent a fair amount of time re-organizing my films on WRP. I had a few goals:

Bring my site into the 21st Century, so quit using a js script to open a new window to display the movie.

So, how are all the cool kids doing it? YouTube and Vimeo. No thanks, color me old school and not into “insert your video site of choice that displays your video in horrendous quality along with bizillion ads.”

Compressor (and multiple cores) is your friend

Tue, 05 May 2009 03:23:43 +0000

This is a big deal.

In addition to what this note says note says, you can use other computers to render your files. It has taken me a little while to figure this out. This tutorial describes just using one computer but you can do the same for multiple computers. I did try this on a Dual 1GHz G4 and it slowed things down, so make sure that the additional computers have sufficient power.

This is getting more interesting!

Mon, 04 May 2009 13:54:55 +0000

Lifehacker - Wider-Screen Kindle Coming Wednesday - Kindle

A couple of stories are out stating that a new e-book reader is coming, either from Amazon or from Apple. I’m interested in the technology because many technical books are available in electronic format and it seems like a shame to burn a lot of paper on a book that will be outdated in 12-18 months.

I also like to convert lengthy reviews (I’m looking at you Ken Stone) to pdf’s and read them offline.

FCP's DV Compatibility issues

Mon, 04 May 2009 01:56:45 +0000

While creating the previous post on iMovie 09, I ran across a very interesting post by David Pogue, related to his desire to combine Flip footage with footage from a high end Canon HD camera.

He was attempting to combine two vastly different video file types; Flip’s H.264 and Canon’s AIC. Final Cut Pro was re-rendering every time he did an edit, causing his workflow to slow dramatically.

His solution was to ensure that both files were rendered to the same format before continuing to edit.

iMovie 09 and Ken Stone

Mon, 04 May 2009 00:53:39 +0000

iMovie 08 was a bit controversial on introduction last year. It was substantially different than the previous versions of iMovie, so much so it angered most heavy users. It was clearly a version 1.0 release and Apple was atleast kind enough to keep the old version iMovie HD around so we could still use it.

This January, iMovie 09 was released and this new version has made all the difference in the world. Many of the missing or incomplete features were fixed and some significant additions were made, most notably “precision editing”.

Dropshadow, dropshadow

Sun, 03 May 2009 16:25:03 +0000

(think Moon shadow, moon shadow)

I wanted to make the site look just a weeeeee bit better. And a dropshadow on the images seemed to be the way to go.

Search the web… uhhhh, that isn’t easy.

Let’s see what Pixelmator can do… uhhhh, that isn’t any easier!

Sigh, let’s fire up Photoshop and flail away.

D’oh! My image is locked, why oh why! More searching… one of two solutions, double click on the layer then click OK or make sure the image is RGB not Indexed. Sigh. That was 30 minutes.

It's the little things

Sun, 03 May 2009 16:06:27 +0000

Whew!

Made some changes to the site in an effort to bring it into the 21st Century. First, I added a drop shadow to all of the images. What a difference it makes! Details on how in my next post. Second, I wanted to make sure the tooltip for each image would say “Click on image to play film.” and each image would have a alt tag so it would validate correctly AND when the film played, I wanted to ensure the title in the shadowbox did NOT say “Click on image to play film!” Details on this one; so Shadowbox has a title attribute; use it to show the title when it is being played. Use the href attribute title for the tooltip AND ensure you have an alt attribute for the img tag.

CrumplePop

Sat, 02 May 2009 18:52:32 +0000

CrumplePop: Hand-drawn Master Templates for Final Cut Pro.

Saw the demos, had to have’em.

Can’t wait to use this in a project. High quality labels to put into your FCP video. They also have a Polaroid film template that is free but I’m waiting to get the link….hurumph.

TextMate â The Missing Editor for Mac OS X

Sat, 02 May 2009 17:52:41 +0000

TextMate â The Missing Editor for Mac OS X.

Oh, Textmate, how do I live without you?

I’ve tried, oh, I’ve been tempted by the others; Espresso, Coda. You’ve been a mainstay for many years after convincing me that BBEdit had lost its way. And every time a new combo editor/FTP client/fry pan comes along, I try it.

I’ve always come back…

Highly recommended, one of my favorite tools.

I love it!

Sat, 02 May 2009 17:32:27 +0000

So I wanted to add a picture to my header… not a problem. BUT! Now the picture and my blog title were in conflict. Because the header photo was half dark and half light, any title color would look great on one side but not the other. Sigh.

Here’s where it got fun!

Using Safari 4’s Develop menu (enable using the Advanced Tab in Preferences), I used the Web Inspector to see if I could drop the title to just under the photo, oops, move it to the right, and make sure the Search widget lines up at the bottom, change the color, FINIS!

Hello world!

Sat, 02 May 2009 15:23:31 +0000

To begin… again.

Probably my 4th or 5th attempt at blogging. This time I want to take a different approach. I want to use this blog as a way of understanding video and OS X/Macs.

Let’s see what happens!