memory for your mother, for Mother's Day

Mother's Day is Sunday (May 9th). Lexar is suggesting that you consider giving portable memory storage (for data) as a gift...

At first thought, it may not seem like a great idea...but, hold on: it's something she can keep things on and take with her anywhere she goes. She can put important information on it, like a will and health records. Pictures and videos can be available for her to show-off. And, she can copy some music files so she can listen to them.

They can be very stylish. For example, Lexar has drives available in different colors and sizes:

16GB JumpDrive FireFly (Red)

8GB JumpDrive FireFly (Charcoal)

4GB JumpDrive FireFly (White)

2GB JumpDrive FireFly (Black)

"...It also serves as a fashionable accessory and comes with a key chain hole so it can be easily tethered onto a key ring, attached to a backpack, or hooked to a purse or briefcase..."

To enhance it as a gift, I thought you can: purchase a USB drive...copy files to it that she will love (pictures, audio recordings, and videos of and from family)...and then give it to her on Mother's Day. With a tissue, because there's a good chance she might think it's so sweet she'll shed a tear or two...

http://lexar.com/jumpdrive/jd_firefly.html

free video converter until November 30th

TechtalkRadio has been informed that, until November 30, Fast Video Converter PRO is free!

"Fast Video Converter PRO is an all-in-one video converter for converting videos of all popular formats like AVI, ASF, AVC, DIVX, FLV, H264, MP4, MOV, MPEG1/2, OGG, RM, RMVB, VOB, WMV, XVID, 3GP, 3G2, etc., and creating fascinating photos from video files. It is able to facilitate getting the specific video format watched on TV, played on portable media players, loaded to mobile phones, or put on websites.

“Fast Video Converter PRO has a very friendly interface with simple operation...Advanced users have the option of tweaking video and audio settings, like bit rate and resolution...”

Key Features:

* Converts Videos between all Popular Video Formats

* Has the Fastest Speed to Convert Video

* Supports Batch Conversion

* Extracts Audio From Video

You can use it on up to five personal computers with one free license. Fast Video Converter PRO works on Windows 7/ Vista/ XP/ 2000 (32bit or 64bit).

To get your copy, go to http://www.dvdfast.net/gift/thanksgiving.php

YouTube posting problems

Kelly called our radio show and said he is having problems uploading files to YouTube...

Here's some information I found that might help:

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You can no longer upload videos longer than ten minutes regardless of what type of account you have. Users who had previously been allowed to upload longer content still retain this ability, so you may occasionally see videos that are longer than ten minutes...

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If you don't think your current video file format is recognized by YouTube, you may get the best results from converting your file to MPEG4 video with MP3 audio.

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...YouTube accepts a wide range of video file formats such as .WMV, .AVI, .MOV, and .MPG. Here are a few things that may work well for you:
* MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format
* MP3 audio
* Frame Rate: 24fps or higher

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...We recommend the MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid, SVQ3) format at 640x480 resolution with MP3 audio. Resizing your video to these specifications before uploading will help your clips look better on YouTube.

My First Video!

I've been working pretty hard these last couple of weeks putting together this website for a client who is in Florida. The site is about 100 pages. It took me rougly two weeks to get it done.

So, tonight, or should I say this morning... I decided to take a much needed break... I was browsing around the net to find out how I can add some 80s music to my myspace page... I found a really cool player that I could just add music too and upload to the myspace... I wanted to post the player in the myspace blog, but realized I couldn't do it. So I came to blogger and realized I couldn't do it there because it was only for myspace...

Then I saw that you can post videos in blogger. Andy is pretty much the "video" guru around here. So, I wanted to see how easy or hard it was and what better video to make then a video that includes "music"... The music, of course, that I grew up with and I love... the 80s!

Then I thought, well, I don't think I have a program on my computer right now that can do it... I looked around the home office and saw that I could load one program or another on the computer but then I wanted to see if they had anything free I can download quickly.

I found out that Windows XP includes a free video program called "Movie Maker" so I decided to take a stab at it... I only did about 5 songs and added some video effects and transitions.

It took me about 3 hours and about 25 minutes to encode the video, but here it is, My First Video...

Thoughts and comments are welcomed.

Howcast.com

Founded by veterans of Google and YouTube, Howcast brings together the personality of user-generated content with the quality of a professional video studio to create engaging, informative, and free how-to videos for consumers. It also offers emerging filmmakers an opportunity to gain experience, exposure, and income. With high quality, compelling video content, Howcast opens new opportunities for viewers, video producers, content distributors, and advertisers.

Want to know how re-wire a lamp, swaddle a baby, or chill a six pack in three minutes? Howcast.com can show you how. Howcast currently has offices in New York City and San Francisco and is looking for talented individuals to join its growing team.

Now, if you "yawl" wanna know "How to" Cow-Tip, check out this video at Howcast.com.

Windows Movie Maker files

Wayne called about converting (mov) files for Windows Movie Maker...

Per http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308464
File formats supported by Windows Movie Maker in Windows XP
Supported formats for importing content
• Video files: .asf, .avi, .wmv
• Movie files: MPEG1, .mpeg, .mpg, .m1v, .mp2
• Audio files: .wav, .snd, .au, .aif, .aifc, .aiff
• Windows Media files: .asf, .wm, .wma, .wmv
• Still images: .bmp, .jpg, .jpeg, .jpe, .jfif, .gif
• MP3 format audio: .mp3
"Although you can play a file in Microsoft Windows Media Player, you may not be able to import the file into Windows Movie Maker even though this article lists that kind of file..."

Anyone have a (free) program to recommend?...