Blodget’s Blog

Want to create modern art like Picasso? Try out Mr. Picasso Head. It’s a free Flash based web application. Just drag and drop the ready made pieces, color and resize them and position them on the canvas. Then sign it and you’re done.

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This is my favorite bubble maker. It’s powered by 1 AA battery. You push the button on the back of the handle, the yellow fan spins, and you get lots of bubbles.

This post is also a test to see if I can upload a photo to my Photo Gallery and use it in a post. The Photo Gallery automatically resizes photos like Flickr does to give you several files at varying sizes – a thumbnail, a midsize, and a large. I’m displaying the midsize and linking when you click on the photo to the large. I could also link to the Photo Gallery Item page.

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This is a recording of a 3-way video conversation. It was recorded live in iChat AV on a MacBook using the latest version of SnapZ Pro which now works on Intel Macs. The program lets you record any audio that plays on your Mac (so called Mac Audio) as well as audio from the built-in mic or the audio input. I chose to record both the Mac Audio and the built-in mic. Bob and Dad are on Macs running OS 10.4.7 and the latest iChat AV and we are all on broadband cable connections. I saved the video using Sorenson 3 for video compression and I chose 22 kHz, with no compression for the audio. This original file was about 8 Mb. I uploaded it to Vimeo.com to convert it to a Flash movie and discovered that my voice, which was recorded with the built-in microphone did not play back in the Flash movie. I guess Flash does not support 2 tracks of audio like QuickTime does. So I used QuickTime Pro to export each track as an AIFF file and used Audacity to combine the two into a single mono track. I then used Quicktime Pro to delete the two existing audio tracks in a copy of the original movie and then pasted in the mono track. I saved this version using H.264 video compression at 12 frames per second and Linear PCM 22 kHz mono audio compression. This brought the file size down to 3.9 Mb instead of 8 and when I uploaded it to Vimeo.com, the audio played fine in the Flash movie. The final Flash movie file is 2 Mb and is about 1 minute long. I downloaded the Flash file to my computer and uploaded it to the Blodget.net server on DreamHost.com. I am again using the iFrame tag to embed the Flash player in this blog post.

Update: I also uploaded a QuickTime version so you can see it at the original size (481 x 298 pixels instead of 320 x 240). This file is 4.5 Mb Sorenson 3 video at 15 frames per second, using Linear PCM 22 kHz audio compression.

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I had no idea iMovie could do time lapse until yesterday. I’m reading my email and I notice a message from Vimeo saying that someone has left a comment on one of my movies. I check it out and it’s from a guy in Germany. So I click on a link to his clips and I see he’s done a time lapse movie using his MacBook’s built-in camera and iMovie. Well, I didn’t know you could do that. So I Google ‘iMovie time lapse’ and find an article on MacWorld’s website that tells how to do it. I launch iMovie and sure enough there’s a time lapse option in a little pull-down menu next to the camera import button that I hadn’t noticed before. You can set how many frames you want skipped. You can even set it to show a date/time insert in the lower right corner. Cool.

After making a sample movie, I exported it as an MP4 file and uploaded it to Vimeo for conversion to Flash. I then downloaded the Flash version and uploaded it to my blog’s server. I’m using the Wimpy WASP player to play the FLV file on a web page and this post uses an iframe tag to display the HTML page in a frame.

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I did this sketch on my Zodiac PDA while on location in the Oregon Gardens. I used a Polaroid digital camera to take the photo. Then I popped the SD card out of the camera and into the PDA. I used a program called Sketch to draw over the top of the photo and resize it. I then used my mail program to upload the file to Flickr via a wireless network. I’m now using the ‘Blog-This’ feature of Flickr to post this to my blog. In the future I could upload a sketch like this directly to the blog by using Flickr’s email to blog feature.

Sketch from Photo

Originally uploaded by jimblodget.

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Here’s an idea. First find an image that works for your post by using the excellent Flickr search web service, Flickr-Storm, and find a Creative Commons licensed photo. Then use Snipshot.com to resize the image and save it to your hard drive. Next, use the Performancing plug-in for Firefox to write a post, upload the image to your blog server, and bookmark the services on Del.ico.us. Then publish the post to your blog.

That’s what I did for this post.

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This is an experiment to see if I can create a dynamic post – one that changes over time. I’m embedding an object that uses RSS from Flickr to show the latest interesting nature photo. This post uses an iframe to display an html page which is generated using Feed2JS.

Check back later to see if a different photo is displayed.

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Ok, let’s see if I can use the iframe tag.

Click the little white arrow to play the video.

This is Andy Frank givng a short physics demonstration. The video file is stored on the Breeze server at Chemeketa Community College and is embedded in this post using the iframe tag.

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This is my standard crickets recording used for testing purposes. I made the recording last summer in my backyard.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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Let’s see if I can embed a Flash Video file stored on my own server. I’m using a Flash player called WASP that I found on Wimpyplayer.com. It cost $30, but it is worth it to be able to play FLV files from my own website. You can use it to embed files on a page or you can have it open a pop-up window. You can also create a jukebox and play several movies.

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