Taco Bell and Social Media

There are some companies that just seem to “get” social media and the web. Taco Bell is one of them. Creating content that is tailored to that medium and audience is key. You can’t just share the same exact content across all of them or what is the point of having the different channels when it is all the same? Check out the video below and the article on Mashable.

Edited Some Videos

I finally got around to putting together some of the videos I have recorded with my GoPro. Nothing too fancy but I think they turned out quite well. Right now I am just using the GoPro Studio since it is pretty straight forward piece of software to use. Once I get a better understanding of editing I will try to switch over to Adobe Premiere Pro.

Finally taking time to do these and have them turn out pretty well is encouraging. I’m looking forward to putting some more together.

Sometime the Best Plans Do Not Matter

Sometimes you think you have everything planned out and it will go smoothly. However all it takes is one person to not care or pay attention and the best laid plans do not matter.

Photo: YOU HAD ONE JOB!!!!! @tombraider #epicfail!! http://t.co/vRUyhwBnN8

— Karl Stewart (@karlstewart) March 16, 2013

On a side note, Tomb Raider is really worth checking out. I got it free with the graphics card I purchased and it is a fun, very pretty looking game.

New Toy for the GoPro

Last week I decided to make a purchase that will give me more options for filming with my GoPro, especially while snowboarding. I went snowboarding two days last week with some friends and figured it was the perfect opportunity to get one and try it out. The item I purchased is a GoPole Reach. It is a telescoping extension pole to mount the GoPro to. The length can be adjusted from 17″ to 40″.

Here is a promo video showing some footage:

 

Snowboarding while holding onto this was tricky at first. The first two runs I actually fell down a couple of times because I was not used to it and was paying too much attention to the pole and camera rather than what I was doing snowboarding wise. I did not extend the camera out very far because I did not know how far to have it out and also did not want to throw my balance off too bad. I realized after looking at the clips from the first day that I had the camera too close and was not able to see as much as what I wanted. I still want to make a video out of the clips to give myself some practice.

For the price I am disappointed in a few aspects of the camera. The first being the plastic piece that goes inside the tube with the handle and on the outside of the next tube to stop it from coming out came loose, I have included two pictures in the album at the bottom of the post. I will have to superglue that back into place. Also the plastic that the GoPro mounts to is not as smooth as the mounts that came with the GoPro. This allows the GoPro to not keep its angle on the GoPole. I did notice that after using it a bit that it was able to be tightened down better. However when landing harder it seemed to move the camera. The positive thing is that if I wanted to switch from self-shooting to pointing it as a friend I did not have to loosen, move the camera, and then tighten it back down. I was just able to flip it around.

I am really looking forward to using the GoPole next year snowboarding along with finding other fun uses to film with it.

Fully collapsed.

Fully collapsed.

Fully extended.

Plastic piece pulled out of tube with handle.

Close up of piece that came loose during first day of use.

USPS was kind enough to open the package for me. This is how the box was delivered.

Going to Give OneNote a Try

A while ago I said that I was going to try out Evernote. Well once I installed it on my old PC I never actually used it. Not sure if it was because I just did not want another program running on my already slow computer or if I just forgot to use it. Maybe a little of both. Well now that I have a computer that I can actually multitask on I am going to give Microsoft OneNote a try since I have heard good things about it and it is already installed because of MS Office. I already made it further than I did with Evernote since I have actually used it few times.

I am really hoping it will help me keep on top of tasks I want to accomplish. I have been wanting to work on some videos but was not able to work on them with my old computer. Now that I have a capable computer hopefully this software will help remind me of tasks, help keep me organized, and keep me on top of posting here. I have already combined a few lists from different files into OneNote and am working on how to best organize everything.

I am pretty sure I already messed up using OneNote so I will probably copy what I already have in there and start a new one. It works different from other MS Office programs, especially how it is saved. So it is going to take some getting used to but I am sure it will not take too long to get a good handle on it.

Building a New PC: Up and Running

Last Monday I finally got my SSD HDD and RAM installed into the computer. Thursday I installed Windows 8. I am going to try to use the new Windows 8 start menu to see how I like it. I think too many people freak out when something is different from what they are used to. It is optimized more so for a tablet but I want to give it a shot instead of just assuming it sucks.

Let me tell you, this things is fast. It boots up and is usable in less than 30 seconds. Photoshop 5.1 started up in 5 seconds. I could not stop laughing when that happened because I did not expect it to be that fast. My old computer would take a good minute or two. I have not done anything too intense with it yet but I have not had it slow down or stumble yet and that was installing Adobe along with transferring files and doing several other tasks all at the same time.

I am really excited to start messing around with video editing now that I have a computer than can handle doing it. On Tuesday I had an interview and that night I stayed at a family member’s house and went snowboarding at 7Springs all day on Wednesday since it was close. I got a few videos with my GoPro on my helmet. I completely forgot to change the flip setting and all my videos were upside down. So when I converted them I flipped them right side up. When I was converting the videos and doing other stuff on the computer I had zero problems and could not even tell performance wise that I was converting them. With my old computer I would have to have nothing running, start converting, and then come back in a while.

I did find out something that I was suspecting and it is that the multi-card reader from my old computer is not working, well at least the one slot that I need is not. So I will have to spend a few bucks and get one when I get a chance.

I am going to type up a post about looking back on how I made certain decisions and what factors I considered when building this PC. I am also hoping to post up my thoughts about Windows 8 once I spend more time with it.

Monday After Super Bowl a Holiday?

Apparently someone thinks their Super Bowl hangover deserves a national holiday. It is hard to fathom that someone, and apparently a bunch of other people, thinks that they should get the Monday after the Super Bowl off by proposing it to be a national holiday. This is so moronic to me that these people feel that they should get a paid day off because of a football game.

I do not understand why the Super Bowl is not moved to Saturday. Super Bowl Saturday has the same ring as Super Bowl Sunday. It certainly would not hurt ratings, it might actually help them. Having the game on Saturday also gives everyone Sunday to collect themselves, clean up after the party, not worry about getting home to go to work the next morning. A few friends and I have talked about this because we would like to watch the game together but can’t because of the travel involved.

So let’s get the ball rolling to make it Super Bowl Saturday.

Related articles

• Petition formed to make Monday after Super Bowl A National Holiday (wild941.cbslocal.com)
• Should the day after Super Bowl be a national holiday? (timesunion.com)

Building a New PC: Motherboard In

Received my motherboard today. It did not take me long to open up the boxes to see what awaited me. Getting packages in the mail is like getting gifts on Christmas, you just want to open them up and play with what is inside.

At first glance a motherboard can be incredibly intimidating. There are pins, resistors, and slots scattered throughout the board. Most are easily labeled, some not as much. Thank God for the installation book that came with it. After getting the CPU and CPU cooler put in I got the board mounted to the case.

It took some time to figure out where the wires were going to go and how to organize the wires so that they were hidden as best as they could be. After some messing around and a few zip ties later I don’t think it looks too bad if I don’t say so myself. I am just waiting for my RAM and SSD HDD. Once I get those in I will just need to run two SATA cables and she will be ready to be fired up for the first time.

Oh I almost forgot that I need to take the multi-card reader out of my current HP desktop too.

Motherboard in, just waiting for RAM and SSD HDD.

Custom Building a PC for the First Time

After having the same desktop PC for 8.5 years I would say it is finally time for a new one. I think I can see some tears coming out of my current computer from the work I am trying to do with the old Pentium 4 HT. Adobe programs take way too long to load and Premiere crashed several times when trying to do simple editing three shorts videos together that was only a total of a minute and half long.

Once I finally decided to get a new PC I had no idea where to start. Unless you stay on top of all the latest tech developments it is hard to know what anything is because everything is named with a mix of numbers and letters. Initially I was just going to buy a refurbished desktop since that is what my current one is and has served me well. I was about to pull the trigger on one but it sold out, I was not happy with myself for waiting as it seemed like a good deal at the time. Looking back I am happy it did sell out. After that I started looking at bare-bone kits. Then I started to investigate different parts and what they were priced at since none of the bare-bones were matching exactly what I wanted. I found a great site that showed prices for parts from different retailers and made sure they were compatible it also helped me keep track of what I was looking at buying and a running total. That site is PC Part Picker.

Once I started to pick out my own parts and doing research I probably came up with almost a dozen different configurations. I kept researching different ways to stay within budget while getting the most powerful PC I could. I went back and forth between different parts and setups countless times before I finally decided to start pulling the trigger on parts listed below.

My parts list:

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570k 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
($189.99 +tax) $201.39 @ MicroCenter
• Great CPU from what I have read, can be even better with overclocking, should be good for quite some time

Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Pro3 ATX  LGA1155
($89.99 +tax -rebate) $85.39 @ Amazon
• Went with an entry-level Z77

Memory: Mushkin Blackline 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
($46.95 -GC -Amazon Pts) $24.17 @ Amazon
• Read good reviews and a reasonable price before discounts

HDD: SanDisk SDSSDX-120G-G25 120GB Extreme SSD
($109.99 -rebate) $79.99 @ TigerDirect
• Good reviews, great price after the rebate, will help make the system even faster, I have a 2TB usb 3.0 external so I’m not hurting for HDD space

Case: Cougar Solution (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case
($44.99 +shipping) $50.98 @ Newegg
• Good looking case at a good price that has plenty of room

Power Supply: Rosewill Hive 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V
($59.99 -rebate) $49.99 @ Newegg
• Modular so will only use wires I need, good reviews for the price, 80 Plus bronze energy efficiency

Optical Drive: LITE-ON DVD Burner iHAS124-04
$16.99 @ Newegg
• Cheap, thought about getting a Blu-ray but decided I will get one later

Other: HP Mutli-card reader
FREE
• Taking it from my current desktop, saves me $10

Total: $508.87

I am pretty sure I am going to go with Windows 8 and just install a mod that gives me a normal start menu. The new start menu would be great for a tablet or touch screen, it doesn’t look great for a desktop. Not sure why they didn’t have an option to do one or the other.

Intel Core i5 3570k

Cougar Solution case

Power supply and DVD drive installed

Back side of case that will hide wires and allow for more efficient air flow in the case

Bag that came with power supply to store extra cables. Will be useful for storing other parts too.

 

The Future of Newspapers and Magazines Online

I found this article, Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek, while browsing Snowboarding Forum, a forum I check every once in a while. I checked it out because it was about a group of highly skilled, knowledgeable skiers and a snowboarder who got caught in an avalanche, the events that led up to that moment, and the ensuing search and rescue effort. It is a great read alone but what really sets it apart is the multimedia it incorporates. It has animations showing a backpack airbag deploying, the different layers of snow stacking on top of each other and their characteristics, showing the routes the riders took as you read and scroll through them, and animations of the mountain among others. It was impressive to see this, it took the story to a whole new level.

This is what newspapers and magazines need to work towards in this era of online news and mobile devices. Not every article needs to be this way but more need to incorporate aspects of it. Today you may have clips, photos, or diagrams in the article but not to the extent to which this article utilizes them and they draw you into the article the same way. Most just have a gallery or something slapped on the side and maybe a picture or two in the article. I really look forward to see what direction this goes in the future. Since this is from The New York Times I look forward to what articles they do in a similar fashion in the future.

Related articles

• Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek (nytimes.com)