Tony's Geek Tips

CS5 (Cantankerous Software 5 or Creative Suite 5?)

corey — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 21:47:13 +0000

You have probably read reviews from saints & skeptics about the latest Adobe release, CS5. Just in case you have not heard enough about CS5, here is one more review for you to sink your teeth into.

Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 top improvements:

64 bit, Mercury Playback Engine & many more improvements (DSLR native support, more supported tapeless formats, etc)

Here is the breakdown:

64 bit:

Great improvement for the software. You can use all the ram in your machine, yay! (Faster encodes, rendering, etc) In a word, great. You can do the basic things faster & get on to the creative work.

Mercury Playback Engine:

So lets say you are one of those people who pay as much for their graphics card as some people pay for their entire computer. Then you will love this! Basically what the Mercury Engine does is allow you to harness your graphics card’s on-board power to scrub through footage, preview your work, render, key in real-time, color correct in real-time & more. What is required to get this amazing new feature? A minimum investment in a graphics card of $350 all the way up to $2300. So the question becomes not is it worth it, but can you afford it. Regardless of the investment needed, the Mercury Playback Engine is a great advancement in video editing technology.

At the end of the day though, is CS5 worth it? I bought the CS5 Production Premium & I am very happy & impressed.

-Corey

List of supported graphics card in CS5 by Adobe

More about Premiere Pro

Run Plug-ins From Earlier Versions of Firefox

Jack — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:56:20 +0000

Have you ever upgraded to the latest version of Firefox only to find out that your favorite plug-ins haven’t been updated and therefore aren’t “supported”? Typically, the only solution is to either roll back to the previous version (if the plug-in is worth more to you than the browser), or just live with it (not really a solution).

One thing that makes this really annoying is when you’re pretty sure you know that the plug-in will work, but the developer just hasn’t put his stamp of approval on it yet (common in older plug-ins).

Well, now you can have your cake and eat it too. The Nightly Tester Tools plug-in (addons.mozilla.org) allows you to force install plug-ins that haven’t been updated to the most recent version of Firefox. Once installed, to force install a plug-in, all you have to do is go into your plug-ins menu, right click on the plug-in, and click “Override incompatibility”. Please be aware that you can really mess your browser up doing this (e.g. if the plug-in really is incompatible), so handle with care. Screen shots included below.

In midst of Firefox upgrade season, are there any other issues that you run into? If so, how do you resolve them? Feel free to share in the comments.

((

InterfaceLIFT Has Tons of Free Hi-Res Wallpaper Downloads

Jack — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:23:13 +0000

Looking for some good wallpaper for that high-res monitor? I ran across this website today that has some amazing free wallpaper downloads. interfacelift.com is a collection of stunning wallpaper downloads from locations around the world, in many different types of scenery ranging from mountains, woods, city skylines, lakes, roads, and more. They have most wallpapers available from tiny cellphone-sized displays all the way up to 2560×1600, so you should be able to find the wallpaper you want in your size.

What do you use as wallpaper? Do you use an image rotation tool? Feel free to share…

Greasemonkey Script Makes Drudge Report More Readable

Jack — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:36:36 +0000

Like many, instead of getting my news from just one source, I prefer to go to a variety of places. This helps me to get a good sense of what is really going on in the world, not just what the AP, CNN, or Fox want me to know. One of the places I get news from is the Drudge Report. It basically consists of a compilation of headlines that take you to various news sources.

The site is pretty good, but one thing it lacks: any semblance of style. It literally gives me a headache looking at it. The content is spewed across the screen in a way that just really makes me not happy (I’m sure Ray would agree). But I found a solution. I found a Greasemonkey script (for those who don’t know what Greasemonkey is, stay tuned, there is a post forthcoming) that gives the site a slightly better look (it still isn’t great, but beggars can’t be choosers).

What news sources do you use? Do you use Greasemonkey? Let us know in the comments.

Review: JVC Marshmallow Headphones

Jack — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:32:20 +0000

In this post I will be review what I believe to be the best ear buds I’ve ever worn in the < $50 range. The JVC Marshmallow Headphones, which are widely available, are great for those operating in noisy environments or have to concentrate on what they are listening to. Basically, they are earplugs with holes in the middle where the audio flows. Everyone’s ear is different, but for me with nothing playing, it drowns out about 75% of all sound. Add some music or a lecture to that and you can’t hear anything else. While I don’t always want this (trying to avoid the whole mePod thing, here), its perfect for traveling or basic audio editing (if you don’t want to bother getting the headphones out). The audio quality is very good for headphones of this price range and, not being an audio quality freak, have no complaints whatsoever.

In addition, they are iPod compatible, come in many colors, and have a nice, thick cord (a weird requirement of mine…).

So what are the problems with them? Well, to start with, the little foam “earplug” pieces that are required to use them have a habit or wearing out or falling out after extended use (the first pair of foamies bit the dust after about 2 months of extended use – about 2-4 hours a day). They come with a spare pair, which makes the headphone set like new when you put them in, but good luck finding replacement foamies. Apart from that, there really isn’t anything else that I have against them. Other headphones (Apple ones included) in this range wear out long before the foamies wear out.

Overall, I give these 4 out of 5 stars and would recommend them to anyone. Here is a link to them on Amazon.

Are You Doing the Wave?

Jack — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:29:21 +0000

To start with, try Googling this and look at the Google logo: ascii art Notice a change? Just a little Easter egg I found.

As many readers of this site probably know, Google today released 100,000 invitations to Google Wave. Due to the social nature of it, those who receive invites are given additional invites to invite others to Google Wave. Even though I signed up way back on the day of the keynote where it was initially announced, yours truly still hasn’t gotten an invitation (If there are any kind souls reading this that happen to have gotten one, though, I would be most obliged if you sent one to me – contact jack@tonysgeektips.com to get my Gmail address =D ).

For those who aren’t familiar with Google Wave, we posted on it way back in May. Google Wave’s goal is to revolutionize the way people use the internet. Combining Email, social networking, IM, and more into one tool with advanced GUI components, it looks very promising.

If you’ve gotten a chance to take a peek at Google Wave, why not share your thoughts in the comments?

Microsoft Releases Anti-Virus Program

Jack — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:05:03 +0000

Microsoft today announced the release of their new anti-virus software. Called Microsoft Security Essentials, it is offered to genuine Windows (i.e. not a stolen copy) users at no cost. Some features include:

Automatic Updates
Full Windows compatibility (nice for soon-to-be former McAfee users like me)
Free

I haven’t tested it myself yet (I didn’t participate in the Beta), but if it works well, then this has been long needed for the PC platform. Let’s hope so.

Also, some are reporting that it doesn’t work on x64.

Let us know your thoughts on it in the comments.

Listen To Classical Music Free With Musopen

Jack — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:29:11 +0000

Musopen is a website who’s goal is to “set music free.” As much of classical music is in the public domain, but most recordings are not, they aim to add more and more recordings of classical music to the public domain. One of the ways they do this is by pooling donations and paying for people to record the music and then make the recording public domain. It’s a pretty neat idea, and already they have a pretty sizable library of music available.

Try it out at www.musopen.com

Convincing Affiliate Program

Jack — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 23:40:53 +0000

Low on cash? Wish your website could make you MONEY? Well, look no further. With the Affiliator 5000™, you too can become wealthy! Take a look at this incredible offer, captured via screenshot.

That’s right folks, you will recieve a whopping 0% of every referal your site does! How could you not take advantage of this incredible deal. But hurry, this deal ends in a week. After that you will owe them money with every referral!

Firefox Tip: Wider Tabs

Jack — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 21:22:25 +0000

Have you ever wished you could make the tabs on the Firefox tab-bar wider? I personally just got a 24″ 1920×1080 display, and was wondering why the tabs didn’t just fill up the whole bar (useful for pages with long titles). I then proceeded to go into the Firefox settings until I found the setting for the tab width. Here are the instructions:

Type about:config into the Firefox url bar
Type: tabMaxWidth into the filter bar
Double click on the entry in the “Value” column for the tabMaxWidth property
Enter in the desired value (I set mine to 400)
Restart your browser (It might take a couple of browser restarts before it’s happy)

That’s it! Please use caution when tweaking your about:config, as you can cause unintended behavior with the browser. In other words, be sure you know what you’re doing.