Tong Family (richtong.org sync)

Don’t forget to report your crab catch. You can do it online, but only September 4-15 at “Crab Catch”:http://fishhunt.dfw.wa.gov/wdfw/puget_sound_crab_catch.html

Who knew that this would be so complicated. The new “iMovie ’08”:http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/ is supposed to do this directly, but the support is just awful if you are going to try it. Here are the list of bugs: * If you are using the 16:9 anamorphic format. What is called widescreen on the camera, then when…

Apple software is really strange. iMovie 08 is a completely different program from iMovie 06 and you lose an amazing number of features. One big thing is the loss of chapter markets (!!!). You actually have to use an entirely different product Garageband in order to get them back as “imovie8.blogspot.com”:http://imovie08.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-to-add-chapter-markers.html explains If we didn’t…

I normally use Exact Audio Copy on the PC to do my CD backups. This combined with the latest Lame binary usually results in incredible quality particularly at –preset fast extreme settings, so on the Mac, its a little harder. iTunes has an MP3 encoder, but if you want the really best, try “Max”:http://www.sbooth.org/Max/ which…

Someone asked me about protecting the really nice 2.5″ screen on the D40x. “Invisible Shield”:http://www.shieldzone.com/item_description/NIKD40.html is something I use for all my cameras. It is really strong and light piece of plastic. Expensive, but worth it. I used to use for my iPod screens as well, but the new iPhone is just too beautiful to…

Had a chance to download iMovie ’08 and it does indeed “support”:http://www.notebooks.com/2007/08/10/imovie-08-adds-support-for-hdd-dvd-camcorders/ the Sony DCR-SR100. It is a little wierd though, you can’t just drag the .MPG files into iMovie HD, instead, you have to turn on iMovie HD, plug the camcorder in and then it detects the camcorder. It then goes through a long…

In trying to get videos on all the many videos down to gadgets, you have to know quite alot to get the maximum resolution and quality, so for iSquint, here are the detailed resolutions you need to know: | Device | Resolution | 4:3 Full Screen | 16:9 Widescreen | Comments | Sony “PSP”:http://playstation.about.com/od/psp/a/PSPSpecs.htm |…

The new Pearl has video and mono sound. The new Curve has video and stereo, so not a bad video device if you can figure out how to encode for it. On the Mac, “the8thsign.com”:http://www.the8thsign.com/2006/11/22/encode-video-for-the-blackberry-pearl-8100-mac-edition/ has a freeware encoder called mencoder and then an automation script that lets you right click on any video and…

There aren’t many benchmarks done, but the new iMac all-in-one is really very fast. It uses the new Santa Rosa chipset and also if you spring for it, they actually use the Core 2 Extreme 2.8 GHz as “Primatelabs”:http://www.primatelabs.ca/blog/2007/08/24-inch-imac-performance-august-2007/ | iMac | Processor | Geekbench | | 24″ mid 2007 | Core 2 Extreme 2.8GHz…

Everyone seems to use Captain Jack’s as their tide table, but as usual, online, there are a zillion resources. “Saltwatertides.com”:http://saltwatertides.com seems to have a really great list. BTW, for Tuesday, it shows high tide at 3:52AM at +6.7 feet and a low tide of -1.1 at 11:39AM, so basically in the AM, there is an…

It is amazing how detailed a forecast you can get on the Internet. The actual official “NOAA”:http://www.atmos.washington.edu/data/marine_report.html is reproduced by the University of Washington. (BTW this week, it is going to be not super nice. Showers and such for the inland waters of Western Washington. “Weather Underground”:http://www.wunderground.com/MAR/PZ/133.html has a pretty version of the same forecast…

Yikes, how could this happen, just beware that not all SDHC cards are created equal. The 4GB cards for SanDisk, Toshiba and Panasonic are compatible, but the Lexar 4GB card is not. One of my friends just lost most of the data on the card for that reason. I’ve no idea why, maybe because that…

Well, I’ve been using the hard disk based Sony SR-100 for a while now but never with the Mac. iMovie bundled on the Mac understands DV and also the high definition DV format called cleverly HDV out of the box. Just plug your camcorder in with firewire and you are ready to go. But, with…