Animoto.com is an online do-it-yourself video production program so easy your grandchildren could absolutely create their own videos. It’s effortless and affordable. We found it fun and quick enough that the shortest attention span can hold out during the production process.
For free trial use go to the site and clicked on the get started link. We found seven options to make shorts, full-length, unbranded video and four kinds of greeting cards. We got an immediate nudge for upgrading to a paid subscription, but hey, they’re in business to make money. Once you buy a membership – you can begin creating videos. We chose the All Access level and decided to make an unbranded, short video.
We found we could turn photos or clips into a 30 second video the one featured above, with storytelling text. The site is straight forward and easy-to-use. We uploaded still images from our computer to the site. You can use your own images, select from Animoto’s stock library or retrieve from another website like Flickr, Facebook, Picassa. You’re responsible for monitoring copyrights on your own. In other words – use only material you have rights to.
Once we uploaded, the amount of time required was governed by length and resolution of the videos or stills. Animoto allows 8-15 elements (clips or images) in shorts. We chose four still images, typed a little text and clicked. Animoto took us to background music selection, the we gave the video a title and short description. Our video processed, analyzed and rendered, letting us know what it was doing each step of the way, for about 60 seconds. Then Animoto began actual production, showing us in color animation what it was doing. I was interested in following the progress over one and a half minutes it took to complete the video.
When finished, Animoto loaded the do-it-yourself video into the page and emailed me a copy. I didn’t have to keep the browser open. You can go do something else, or start another video in the meantime. The end result was attractive, high quality video in less than ten minutes. This process is slick and appealing. You can produce videos for your social media – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube – or email them to friends and family. They would be suitable for showing customers your entrepreneurial products, or for sending a video resume to employer prospects.
An enterprising person could buy the pro-quality level and start a business producing wedding or family videos for profit. Animoto has been around for about three and a half years and began as a consumer level product. It has expanded to serve photo professionals and will increase its capabilities this year. Bottom line – we couldn’t find anything to complain about. The prices are justifiable, the quality outstanding, the process simple and fast. We recommend you give it a try. My partner, not easily impressed, said, “This is actually totally cool.”
Price points:
Pro account $249 annual subscription – produce unlimited length, unbranded, commercially licensed high res videos. Three months for $99.
All access: $30 per year. Unlimited full length greetings and videos for the price of an evening at the movies. Finished product has the Animoto brand name on it with music video style credits on it indicating your name as producer. It’s like watching real music videos and there are awesome embellishments available. Animoto will provide a downloadable MP4 file for $5 or a DVD for $20. If you can’t find a use for this product, you’re not a photo enthusiast.
You can make professional looking images with your digital camera, no matter what the pixel count is. I’ve always been a firm believer that it isn’t the equipment that makes the photo – it’s the photographer. Here are a couple of ideas to make your family photos pop.
Goo-free lenses are the best. They can be wiped gently with a lint-free, non abrasive cloth, like those micro-fiber things you dust with.
The owner’s manual usually talks in detail about white balance function. The balance makes colors look better, depending on where the photographer is shooting – indoors, in the sun, dim light. Those who know which white is the right white, make better pictures.
Composing is something only a human can do. I like capturing something interesting just off center frame. Centered makes me feel constrained. Offset just a hair looks good. I like to keep my background uncluttered, too, unless, of course, I’m shooting a landscape.
I love images that fill the frame. One of my favorite things is the macro setting (little thing that looks like a tulip) to shoot odd parts of objects. My little grandson’s toes, for example…filling the frame. Incredibly fun to frame and hang near a bathtub. No macro? Use telephoto – stand back, zoom in till a relatively small object fills your viewfinder. Click.
The bottom fell out of the real estate market in some areas, notably parts of Florida where I happen to own property, but some places seem to be on the rebound. And it’s unlikely that real estate, in any market, will fail to increase in value over the long term. Still, many of us worry about what to do with homes, second homes, vacation cabins. There’s no definitive answer, but I do have a pretty cool idea of where to find a lot of information about any neighborhood, house, city or town. It’s called Zillo.
A beta site, that is one that isn’t completely tested and perfected, Zillo is becoming very popular. Zillo calls itself “your edge in real estate.” Here’s what it gives you, FREE:
Zestimates – estimated values on 70,000,000 homes from a secret proprietary formula.
For sale listings — post your home or buy one
Most talked about homes – those with lots of inquiries
Blogs
Services for buyers, sellers, and professionals.
From what I saw, prices are pretty accurate – there’s an occasional anomaly, but mostly good info. You can see maps or lists of the properties you’re interested in. Just put in an address with zip code and wait for a response. I was able to look at street configurations, aerial maps and surface maps. I could zoom in or out, much like, say, Mapquest. There are price ranges calculated for specific neighborhoods. It’s possible to calculate a fairly accurate price estimate of your own place by entering some non-identifying info into the site. You’ll need Flash installed to play at this website.
Zillo is interesting. It might not solve all your problems, but it’ll give you something to do while the market continues to improve. Might even motivate you to pick up a property or two at bargain prices. I have this place in Mississippi, if you’re in the market….
Birthdays – we all have ‘em. We all have to remember other people’s — and what a hassle that is for me. I found a perfect solution — FREE! There’s an online site I’ve used for a year that sends you automatic reminders of birthdays you want to remember.
Drop in to Birthday Reminders and take a few minutes to set it up. The coolest thing for me was that I entered email addresses for the folks I want to remember, and the site sent them a request to update their birthdate for me. That’s my idea of a good time. All the work is done.
Birthday Reminders sends me email reminders three times before each birthday, anniversary, or whatever and I can send a card, make a call, or buy a gift. I’m remembrance-challenged and I’m hoping this will change my life-long handicap in that vein. It isn’t that I’m ambivalent about people’s special days – I just flat out can’t keep track. Scatter-brained.
This site, by the way, also allows you to send egreetings, ecards and singing birthday ecards. It’s fun and practical – and again, it’s FREE. The site managers claim their turf is ad-free and spam-free. They swear they do not share your info with anyone. In a year, I haven’t has any spam or cause for alarm.
Reading this may save your grandchild’s life–or yours. Using a cell phone and sending text messages while driving is as dangerous as drinking to excess and getting behind the wheel of a car. Texting is the most dangerous distraction on the road and an epidemic among teens whose heads are firmly in their back pockets. If you know teen drivers – ride herd on them until they get it. You’ll save lives.
Are the Feds hiding evidence?
Two consumer groups FOIA-ed (Freedom of Information Act) documentation that indicates possible hanky panky in 2003 by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Network news mediasays NHTSA declined to conduct a study related to cell phone use by motorists.
NHTSA allegedly squelched pounds of existing documentation that indicates extreme danger when drivers use cell phones. Even hands-free cell phones. Drivers on cell phones, says that documentation, caused nearly 1000 highway fatalities in 2002 and were responsible for 250,000 accidents. The data in 2002 said 6% of drivers were using cell phones at any given time. Imagine what that figure is now.
I took a defensive driving course a couple of years ago, something I strongly encourage my peers to do. It was fascinating – I learned things I had never known and revisited basics I had forgotten.
A key points our instructor made: Your car, at highway speeds, goes half the length of a football field in under 2.5 seconds. If you look away from the road long enough to locate and pick up your beverage, unwrap your burger, swat your misbehaving child, or glance at your map, you can easily find yourself in an emergency situation facing a traffic hazard you never saw coming.,
If you are texting, you look down in your lap. Your thumbs are busily punching text buttons while your knees steer the car. You compose a text to your BFF (best friend forever), it could be your last thought. Or the last moment of someone else’s life. All because of 140 characters of text that were so urgent.
You don’t text, you say? How about your kids, nieces and nephews, grand kids? My daughter does. My neighbor texts in the car. My real estate agent texts or talks on a cell phone constantly.
You don’t think it’s a big problem? This year, many cities, like Chicago, outlawed texting while driving. I challenge you to watch other drivers carefully as you drive home today. See how many swerve slightly as they go. Are their heads canted downward, toward their laps? Are their hands on the wheel…or texting? You’ll see an amazing number of people in that position as they fly down our roads and highways. If you honk – you’ll get the finger.
Times are tough – getting better, but tough. Let’s continue to look at saving money on home theater and consider a little gem called Roku and an awesome provider known as Netflix. You’ll feel frugal as all get out, have all the TV you can consume, and spend less than ten buck per month. Ready?
Read about the Roku set-top box for TV programming and movies.
Purchase a Roku box for under $100 – a one-time cost.
Get to know your Roku – it installs in under one minute
Out of the box Roku receives Amazon On Demand – a pay service that allows you to pay-as-you-go to download as little as one TV episode, or a full length movie instantly. They get new releases about the same time as video stores. HD is available. Quality is outstanding.
Explore the new channels available free through Roku – many are experimental. All are worth a look. It’s expected that Roku will add up to fifty more “channels” or services by 2011.
Open a Netflix account and activate it on your Roku box. You have access, for about $9 a month to hundreds of TV series that you can download right to your TV, instantly. Not in ten minutes, right now, in seconds. Additional cost? Zero.
Download movies – new releases, older films, classics, to your TV instantly. No additional charge. Still at nine bucks.
Receive as many DVDs as you can watch, through the mail, keep them as long as you like, no late fees. The $9 account allows one DVD out at a time – as soon as you return it, you get another in about one day.
Draw backs of using Roku and Netflix
Once in a while you’ll get a funky download wherein the audio or video is not good. Rare occurrence.
You might return a video and find it gets lost in the mail. Customer service is the most responsive I have ever experienced – call them and they’ll help you.
New releases from Netflix are not as timely as videophiles might hope for. It takes about 28 days for them to become available. Did I tell you you’re paying $9 a month for all you can watch?
Amazon On Demand can be as pricey as a video store – but for something you simply have to see right now, it’s worth it. You can rent a lot of titles from Amazon for the cost of pay TV services.
I gave Roku boxes to several people for Christmas gifts. This month, a few of them asked me to help them choose a digital antenna–they’re dumping their pay TV services. My son’s wife threatened him with a frying pan because he installed the Roku and couldn’t stop watching. At last count he had listed more than 500 programs in his Netflix queue.
I wanted excellent reception, lots of choices in programming, movies, and CHEAP entertainment at home. I found ways to save $1000 a year and not feel deprived. First, I tried out four home antennas from Winegard, a major manufacturer.
Four easy, affordable TV antennas, supplied by Winegard
SS-3000 is an amplified low-profile indoor television antenna for excellent reception within 0-30 miles of the station transmitter. It’s not bad looking – an easy-to-connect, free-standing indoor antenna with a plastic enclosure. It comes with a built-in pre-amp and a power supply included. A thing called a power injector supplies additional power to the pre-amp.
Being 42 air miles from the transmitters, we couldn’t get lower band VHF channels, including Chicago WBBM Channel 2 and WMAQ Channel 5, but picture quality was better than Uverse on the upper channels and audio was perfect. SS-3000 is designed to reside on top a TV or on a shelf. It looks way better than rabbit ears. MSRP is $59.99.
Sensar GS-2200 is an amplified indoor/outdoor VHF/UHF contemporary design antenna. It’s intended for reception within 10-45 miles of the transmitter. This is an out-of-the-box plug and play. No assembly required. We received all the digital channels. Occassional pixelation on a stormy night, good sound. If used indoors, it goes in the attic–outdoors on the roof or a mast. MSRP $62.99
HD1080M is a two-bay bowtie, outdoor UHF and high band VHF (channels 7-13) antenna, suggested for 0 to 40 miles from transmitter. Out of the box, it requires carriage bolts to put it together. (here’s how to install it). HD1080M is not a space hog. It’s about the size of a DirecTV dish, though not that shape. Mount it to the roof or outside wall. At 42 miles from the transmitter, our reception was decent but channels 5 and 2 were again MIA. This is a non-amplified antenna for near-in locations. Especially suited to townhomes or condos where you wouldn’t want a big, honking antenna. $69.99
HD7694P is a pretty big momma antenna meant to be installed outdoors on the roof. The manual suggests a range limit of 25 miles for UHF and 30 miles for VHF. Interestingly, we put it in an attic crawl space. We put a preamplifier on it and got outstanding reception of digital channels. Channel 2 is still mildly problematic.
Clarity from these home antennas is remarkable. We put a pay TV connected television next to an antenna connected set and the difference was clear. Hands-down, the off air signal, the antenna, gave a better picture and better sound. We have noted very little pixelation or drop outs. Our pay TV service is constantly wracked with artifacts, drop outs and other garbage, for over $100 per month. I’m saving nearly $1500 annually without pay TV, premium channels, and movies on demand. Where do I get my movies? Read the next post to learn my secret!
There are new networks with the new digital TV systems. Each channel has up to three subchannels in digital, and they are using them to provide some interesting stuff. We’ve used an antenna for nearly a year, now, and are delighted with the results – although Channel 2’s signal drives me nuts and probably always will until and unless they go to a higher frequency. For a savings of well over $1000 annually, I’m hopeful we’ll adapt nicely. We’ll keep you tuned in.
Footnote: At this point, early 2010, the U.S. government is considering selling off the frequencies that house free TV. If they do that, you will be compelled to purchase your TV entertainment at whatever rates anyone chooses to charge you. The digital conversion last spring was such a SNAFU that the program apparently cost more than it earned in the selling of some frequencies. Read more about that and stick with me – I’ll follow this story.
People are abandoning expensive pay TV services for free digital over-air signals. Broadcast TV has come of age. Winegard, premier manufacturer of TV antennas supplied us with evaluation units to try out, after I told them I hadn’t even been close to a TV antenna in 20 years. But take note! It may be too late to advantage this prize – there’s talk, serious talk in Washington, of selling off the bandwidth and getting rid of FREE TV.
The first thing we found out was that installing an antenna is pretty much one of the simplest things we’ve ever done.
The instructions packaged with the antennae weren’t the best ever written, but a person with rudimentary knowledge and technical skills could get the job done. These observations are true of all four we worked with.
What comes with antennas
Opening the boxes, we found that three of the four had multiple parts to assemble. Included with all were
antenna components
mounting hardware
assembly hardware
RF coax cables
electrical cords where needed
power supply where needed
instructions
The items were not particularly well wrapped and packaged, but they survived.
Our most complicated sample was a two-part antenna that needed carriage bolts (included) to connect two parts. The instructions were good enough to walk us through that process. They were a little confusing and the illustrations a bit vague. I will say that Winegard has a live tech support line and further info on their website.
Installing the antenna
First, we consulted Antenna Web, where we plugged in our address. Their application told us what kind of antenna should serve us best and where we’d want to point it. It listed the stations in range and an estimate of signal strengths at our location.
We assemble the components per Winegard’s instructions and the knowledge base. This is usually no more than two or three pieces, and no big challenge.
We went up in the attic crawl space, electing not to put the antenna on our roof, though that is the recommended preferred installation point. We put down two 2×4 sheets of plywood and screwed the plywood into the ceiling joists. We set the tripod base and mast on the plywood and screwed the tripod down to the plywood.
The tricky part is making sure you don’t spread the elements of the antenna wide apart before taking it up to it’s final home, it won’t fit through the crawlspace entrance if you do. That’s why the plywood was cut in half, too.
We used the included bracket to secure the antenna to the mast, using the u-clamp and a 7/16th inch wrench (or nutdriver.)
Once the antenna was pointing toward the broadcast transmitter, we tightened the clamp down.
Now we had to run coax cables (not supplied) from the antenna to each TV, through whatever paths made sense to us. Multiple TVs need a splitter (not supplied). Now, we connected to our TVs (or digital converter boxes).
We turned on the digital-ready TV (or digital converter box and analog TV) and ran the scan function as defined in the TVs user manual.
If you do all that, you’re set to receive free TV, including all or most local networks, UHF channels, and new digital networks like ABC-Live Well Network. In our area, 42 miles northwest of the Chicago transmitters, we get about 40 stations. The programming is not the same as pay TV, but we’re finding we watch more channels than we did with pay TV.
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) the trade show that debuts all kinds of electronic gadgets, toy, and equipment for consumers happens in Las Vegas every January. Despite a troubling economy, pundits say 2010’s show has a record number of new companies demonstrating their products. Attendance, however, may lag. But “tablet” computers will draw attention.
What the heck is a tablet?
Show of hands…who knows exactly what a tablet is? Well, I’m going to tell you. Apple hopes to shake the tech world January 27, or, depending on who you read, in March with the launch of their long-awaited tablet. Microsoft could decide to eclipse them with horns and whistles at CES about their pending Courier tablet and a start-up in India, company called Notion Ink had one too.
A tablet is a manageable size sort of netbook, sort of laptop. It’s a hybrid. Microsoft’s Courier, they say, will weight less, have ungodly power, and capabilities like pen input (you use an electronic pen to take notes right on screen) and finger gesture input as well. An upscale camera will be part of it. Of course the latest mobile connectivity. It will have a split screen, sort of like Nintendo’s DS gaming system, but larger and brighter.
Apple will likely go with fewer features, a much higher price than anyone else, and perhaps, fewer bugs, more reliability. Isn’t it wearying to watch Apple trail the carrot in front of consumers for so long and then release a piece of technology that very few in this economy will want to afford?
Notion Ink? Slashgear.com says:
The Notion Ink smartpad measures 6.3 x 9.8 x 0.6 inches and weighs 1.7lbs; as well as the triband (850/1900/2100) UMTS/HSDPA, WiFi b/g and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR it also squeezes in A-GPS, a digital compass, accelerometer and proximity, ambient light and water sensors. Connectivity includes USB, HDMI, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a microphone input, and there’s also a 3-megapixel autofocus camera with video recording support. Onboard storage is either 16GB or 32GB of SSD, and there’s an SD slot for augmenting that.
Tablet computers and everyday consumers
As with most new gadgets, these little gems will come out all full of high price tags. Early adopters will include students with unlimited funding, rich business moguls, celebrities, and those who don’t balance their checkbooks. We frugal baby boomers will likely watch and wait for a bargain or for more competition.
It would be pretty cool if all these companies and a few more decided to release their stuff all at once. I really want a tablet. What writer wouldn’t feel coolishly geeky with one of these babies on their lap in the park?
