Pandemic Dawn

Well my video equipment arrived a couple days ago, and I have had a chance to play around with it a little and check it out before posting.

I wanted to ensure that my love for HD and anything electronic would not cloud reason and reality about this product before I had a chance to actually use it.

I purchased a Toshiba Camileo x100.  it is a 16 Mega Pixel video camera, with full HD (High Definition) capabilities.  Which means I can film 1080p/i at 30fps/60fps at 1920 x 1080.

The great thing is, it also has 720p/i settings as well as smaller video settings.

There is a 3 inch touch screen LCD which is really nice.  I didn’t think I would care for touch screen, but it makes finding the settings you want a lot easier!

The camera features HDMI out, USB and standard RCA out, and it came with ALL THREE CABLES!  So there was nothing extra I had to purchase, nice!

Another neat feature was the 1 button Youtube upload.  You can connect the camera to your computer, press one button and it places your video on youtube for you!

Of course, this wouldn’t be very useful to most people who like to edit before uploading, but it is a neat feature if you take video you want to upload raw.

The camera also has video stabilization up to 1080p, which is great because after my research, I will not be filming anything in i (interloping).  I am going to stick with either the 720p @ 60fps, or the 1080p @ 30fps.

The camera also takes 16 Mega Pixel still shots!  Real nice…especially with the built in flash.

It has a 4GB internal memory, with an SD/SDHC card slot.

I purchased a 16GB chip which allows me 3.5-4.5 hours or HD recording, depending on whether it’s 720p or 1080p.

I love the 10x optical zoom, and have sworn off any digital zoom since it’s introduction, although this camera does have a 10x zoom on it as well.

It also has a stereo mic, which I’m not sure how that matters or makes a difference on a small camera.

Another cool feature is a full featured remote control, for everything on the camera, from filming to video playback.

A lot of software came with the camera as well, but you don’t have to install any of it if you are using a chip, and have a card reader.

All in all, it seems as great as I thought it was, and with my discount I received, the camera only set me back about $220, which is nothing in today’s market.

I will post some videos soon.

I was the featured member on freelancer.com for using their service last week.  I was pleased to have the opportunity to share my experience and do a short article and video for them.  Here it is;

One of the biggest benefits of using Freelancer.com is getting the work done fast and efficiently!

Bruce Shields from Michigan, USA talks about his experience on Freelancer.com and how he found a professional book editing freelancer to copy edit his entire book in just 5 days and for a fraction of quotes he had received.

First let me say that I was very skeptical that I would be able to find anyone who could aptly accomplish what I needed, let alone do it within the time frame I needed it for as little as I could afford.

I could not have been more wrong!

My published novel, Pandemic Dawn, was just about to go into its second print, and my first print editing was a disaster. I had 2 weeks to find another editor, and have my complete novel re-edited and submitted for the second edition publishing.

Out of desperation, and exhaustion from searching online for literally hours to find an affordable editor who was capable to finish this project in the time frame I needed, I signed up for Freelancer.com and posted my job.

Within an hour I had 45 bids to choose from, and the greatest part of this was, they were coming to me!

The added bonus was the fact that they were bidding against each other, which really helped me out in a pinch.

This job would have cost me nearly two grand, and at least a 4 to 6 week wait…but instead, $250 & 3 days later, my edited manuscript was in the mail and on its way!

I could not be more pleased!

I look forward to posting my next job on Freelancer.com this fall when I complete my next novel!

Thank You!

Check out the final Pandemic Dawn book on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Pandemic-Dawn-Book-1/dp/1449970117

Check out the Pandemic Dawn Official site:
http://www.pandemic-dawn.com/

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Here’s what the successful Freelancer had to say:
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Editing and proofreading Bruce’s novel was my first freelance job so I was very excited to get started. It was enjoyable and I am thrilled to have discovered the opportunity. I found this job after just a few days of bidding and had a great experience working with Bruce. This kind of work – at my own schedule, from any location, on creative topics that interest me, is a dream come true. I look forward to working with this author again and meeting many other employers. Freelancer.com and freelancing online is a great adventure!

-William W. Don Carlos (Check out William’s Freelancer.com profile here: https://www.freelancer.com/users/1716950.html)

(Click to View)
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Click to view the project that Bruce Shield posted. You can see the huge amount of quality bids that he received.

http://blog.freelancer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Bruce-Shields1.png

You too can experience success like this. Start by posting a project now: https://www.freelancer.com/buyers/create.php

You can find the article along with the video here.

We have just added a new member to the Pandemic Dawn Team…

Who is he?

He is our new editor, and there is more info to come, so stay tuned!

Pandemic Dawn is now available in the Amazon.UK in Paperback and Kindle format!

Well after recycling my laptop with the broken screen into a media center for the front room TV, I decided what it was missing was a remote control!

So I installed TightVNC, a FREE open source program for controlling another computer, on the laptop, and the viewer on my Pharos GPS535 PDA.

After a minute to install, and a minute to set up, I had full control of the Laptop media Center from my PDA!

Added bonus, it’s full color screen on the PDA offers an awesome view when working on the Laptop remotely!

A few years ago, I was at church and a friend of mine approached me and asked if I wanted her old Toshiba laptop because it wasn’t working and she was tired of fighting with it.

Of course, me being the Jawa that I am, never let good junk pass me up.  By the way, all junk is good junk in the hands of a Jawa.

So I got the laptop, and it was in great physical condition, with all the original case and everything.  So I was excited.

It wouldn’t boot up, and after testing, it appeared to be a bad hard drive.  So I jumped on eBay, and picked up another laptop hard drive, and it already had Windows Pro installed along with Microsoft Office XP, and I got it for about $20!  That includes shipping…

I installed the new hard drive, and everything ran great!

I then decided to mod the laptop…

You can see the Photo Album of that HERE…

It has worked great for me over the past couple years with no problem, until about 6 months ago.

The screen started acting funny, and it didn’t like the color black.  The more black that was on the screen, the more flicker it would get, and if there was a big portion of black, say 60% or more…good bye screen, it would turn pure white and wouldn’t come back unless I restarted the computer.

I finally got tired of this, and took the screen completely off yesterday.

Trying to decide if I wanted to actually pay for a new screen or not, I had a great idea.

I decided to turn the laptop into a media center on our TV in the front room!

So I connected a video/out from the laptop to the VCR inputs, so all we have to do to access the laptop on the TV screen is press the video button on the remote.

I then ran the headphone out to the VCR so we could hear whatever sounds the laptop is playing.

I installed an open source media center software called Media Portal, you can find them here.

The I took an external hard drive I had from a couple years back that was full of Clean Flicks movies (about 170 DVD’s worth)  some from Clean Flicks, and some from DVR off my TV, and attached that to the laptop.

I also connected the laptop wireless to our home network to access our pictures, music and internet.

So, now when I turn the laptop on, it starts the media center, and I can access all of our music, photo albums, internet, and movies on our front room TV.

Media Portal also allows you to customize the look, feel and operation of the software with mods, you can even connect to your incoming TV signal and DVR!

I like the cool local weather feature that allows me to see my local weather with one click.

My satellite does this as well, but operates a lot slower and takes longer than the laptop.

This is how I like to recycle!

Well I finished building the gas station for “Pandemic Realm”, the online sim built around the world of my novel series “Pandemic Dawn“.

This is the first building to be set in the sim.

I am building an old police post directly across the street from the gas station next.

Well I have finally started working on scripts for some new videos which will help promotemy second novel in the Pandemic Dawn Series, Rise of the State.

I spoke with a friend who will be able to film the videos in true HD, and I have secured most of the things I need to do all of the editing myself.  I got quite a bit of practice editing the first video which was released with the first novel in the serires, Pandemic Dawn.

There will be at least two videos, maybe more depending on the scripts and how difficult they are to complete.

One will be ‘A day in the life of Taylor’, showing the difficulties of everyday survival in the post-apocalyptic world, and the second will showcase some of the cursed.

I look forward to producing and directing these, as well as acting in them too!

I will be playing the part of Taylor.

I will also be posting some pre-production promotional pictures as well.

After a few weeks of development and working out some of the minor glitches with the OpenSim software, I have a stable version of Diva running on my home server.

I built a home server with the following specifications;

AMD Athlon 64bit 3700+ CPU

2GB RAM

HD1 – 250GB

HD2 – 120GB

VIDEO – ATI Radeon HIS HD 3850 (AGP 512MB GDDR3)  which is capable of 1080p full HD

SOUND – Creative Sound Blaster Pro

OPERATING SYSTEM;

Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid)

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I have just purchased the D-Link DGL-4500 (Gamer Lounge) which I have not connected as of yet.

This will allow me to set up my OpenSim for visitors from the outside world to come and enjoy my realm for free whenever they want.

I am nearly done with Welcome Island I, and will post pictures as I build.

I hope to post more information about other regions I am building along with more pictures as I build as well.