04dsmith86

Good to know. I've amended my tutorial. I was a bit concerned about submitting it, I know some users don't have high speed internet connections and a 600x1450 image is probably a bit excessive. In the past I have only made tutorials for deviantART which are typically just large images with the text incorporated into the graphic. Thanks for clarifying.

It fits nicely with the article. I think your choice to leave out the additional details was good. With such a small resolution it wouldn't make much difference. I also like the article a lot. Back in the day if you weren't comfortable with a CLI, you couldn't do much with a computer (at least not without help). Now with graphic interfaces being so common it is becoming hard to find someone who still knows their DOS commands. Ahhh, the good old days.

Hmmm, I assume the same pertains to graphic-based tutorials? The 2 I have posted so far are nothing more than a big .gif image. It will probably be a good idea for me to go back and slice up the screenshots and add some text.Mirdux, what screen recording software do you use? I've tried a couple of them and none of them have impressed me.

I have never heard of this happening before. I've done a little bit of research and have not found a clear answer. People have tried switching monitors and video cards to no avail. Here is the forum I was looking at. No one specifies whether or not they are having this issue with LCD screens or CRT. I would expect it more from the tube monitors. I can't be sure if it will get worse but just be happy that it only happens for short intervals. Sorry I couldn't be more help.

I grabbed that from here. I also found a lot of useful info here. You really should back up your important data. There is a possibility that you can make a disk unbootable or mess up your partition table. Use caution, things could get hairy. Just make sure you have access to another working computer in case you need to go online for help.

Laptops maybe, but desktop systems are relatively easy to put together. The most difficult part (in my opinion) is deciding on what components to buy and making sure everything is compatible. Once you have everything it is just a matter of putting things together. For the most things will only be able to fit in one particular manner. You can't put RAM in a PCI slot, you can't hook up your motherboard power cable to a hard drive, etc. I would have to say the most difficult parts of assembly are applying thermal paste to a CPU (though most processors come with some pre-applied) and installing the CPU fan/heatsink (some just DO NOT want to go on). mirdux, if you want to improve your tutorial I would suggest adding information about compatibility. For instance, your processor needs to match your motherboard (AM2, socket 754, etc.), your case needs to match your motherboard, you power supply needs to be adequate enough to power your system and have the appropriate cables/connectors. Also the motherboard usually comes with a list of 'approved' types/brands of memory. SATA hard drives require motherboards with SATA ports. The video card needs to match the slot on the motherboard (AGP or PCI-Express). I spend much more time researching products and compatibility issues than I do actually putting things together. Great tutorial though, the pricing is relatively accurate (for now....most likely things will cost half as much in a year ). Nice overview of the components. Good work!

Open up the device manager. To do this, right-click on My Computer and select Manage. Then select the Device Manager from the left side of the window. Look for yellow question marks and exclamation points. If you find any (possible under 'Other Devices' or 'Sound, Video and Game Controllers') please post them. More very important information we also need to know. I have a good feeling that it is a driver issue considering you just reinstalled your operating system. You should have received some driver or system CDs with your computer. If not you can just download the drivers. One more thing. I don't want to insult your intelligence but you should also double check and make sure nothing is muted. Check your speakers for proper connectivity and check your volume levels in Windows. I've been approached a couple of times with similar issues and it was as simple as unchecking a mute box.

After a quick search I have found a number of freeware partition managers. Do you really need to merge the partitions? An easier alternative would be to remove the linux partitions and then resize the NTFS Windows partition. I honestly have never used anything but PartitionMagic and the partition managers integrated into OS installation disks so I can't really suggest a specific program. My advice would be to back-up everything important. (Good practice especially when you are working with partitions!) Then try and find a solid freeware partition manager. Here are a few that I came across (there are probably many more): Partition Resizer v1.3.4 Ranish Partition Manager Super Fdisk 1.0 Cute Partition Manager 0.9.1 http://www.freewarefiles.com/Partition-Logic_program_18078.html A Nice List Of Partition Freeware Good luck!

I've done a few searches for anything similar and really cannot find too much. I saw a video on YouTube a while back where someone made a synthesized snare drum. Unfortunately it was hooked up to a computer and didn't have the portability I was looking for. Someday maybe I'll try and construct one.

Hmm I haven't had much trouble with this before. Have you tried using the Audioscrobbler plugins rather than the last.fm software? You might want to try uninstalling/reinstalling both iTunes and the last.fm software too (save your playlist first). I am not that big of a fan of iTunes, its a resource hog and always feels sluggish. You may want to try some other software. I use Winamp most of the time but I do like the iTunes interface.

Interesting. Those initial computers always looked more like audio equipment than computers. They had all of the patch cables and knobs.One more thing.....I'm not a moderator/admin so I don't know if it is appropriate for me to address this issue but I believe the rules are quite strict about proper quotations and citations for your sources. Check out the FAQ on SPAM. You may also want to find a more appropriate section in the forum for this post...I can't see much correlation to animation Just wanted to give you a heads up.

All very good ideas. Using the computers was my first thought. Unfortunately all of our computers are in our bedrooms and only the upstairs is currently hooked up to the internet. We've been meaning to install a wireless network anyway so that will most likely be the route I take. The intercom kit might also be a good idea. We all thought the best option would be the phone line though because there are jacks in both kitchens (within earshot from the living rooms) and it wouldn't require any tedious wiring. It is in fact a very old building with non-standard features so snaking copper wires between floors may prove to be difficult.

I've noticed several sites that offer a commission for web layouts. Has anyone ever done this and successfully made money from it? I have always wanted a way to make some money in my off time without getting a second job. I've also heard of websites that post jobs for graphic/web designers. From what I've seen though, a lot of the jobs require a solid time investment that I can't really do with my current job. Any comments on this subject?

People always comment on my typing speed. I can easily break 100 WPM when writing from my head (opinion based essays, stories, and things like that). As far as tests have gone I typically write between 65-80 WPM depending on the topic. Typingtest.com said I was 74 with 3 errors. I also blast through AutoCAD using the keyboard shortcuts. That always seems to draw peoples attention too.I would say I probably average 50-60 WPM when I'm writing emails/forum posts. That way I have time to think about things more rather than blasting through something and editing it later.

Nice review. I'm not a huge fan of the music but I am certainly a fan. My 3 favorite songs are "Another First Kiss", "Birdhouse In Your Soul", and "Waiting On An Angel". I find the songs so catchy that I will be singing them in my head for days at a time. Good job on the review!

The copper is mostly preference because it has very high electrical conductivity. And it doesn't have to be 22 gauge (even though that is probably a pretty good size). Any electrical current will produce a magnetic field, this is just a way of amplifying it. Insulated copper wire is widely available and as long as the gauge is reasonable it should work just fine. You may also want to try a few different kinds of nails. All of these things (including the number of times you wrap the wire) will have an effect of the strength.

Hmmm, I'm not sure if I did this correctly. It would have been nice to see what the final image was suppose to look like so I could tweak mine accordingly. Another problem is my inability to follow instructions..I always tend to add/remove steps from the process. Anyway, I figured some of you might like to know what it looks like (assuming I did it correctly)....so here it is: I'd like to see how some other turned out.

When you browse the podcasts, iTunes will first show you the 'top podcasts'. You can click 'View All' (I forget exactly where the button is) to view all of the currently available podcasts. There may be a way to find some sort of archive but I don't know how. Personally I choose to browse different sites when looking for my podcasts. A simple google search of "podcasts" will return a huge number of websites with large podcast directories. It would be nice to have a larger selection of available 'casts within iTunes but from what I can see the bulk is hosted independent sites. I hope that answered your question.

It sounds so easy in principle but to make a really nice product (like the two films I mentioned before) it takes a lot of time and effort. Drawing the vectors isn't really the problem...it's just drawing them 29 times for each second of film that gets to me. I wish there was some way to use keyframes (say every 1/4 second) and automatically render frames to transition between those keys. I appreciate the response though. Maybe I'll play around with photoshop some more to try and get a better result. I really like the cutout filter...the only problem is that the color palette is limited so the "hand drawn" cell effect is lacking realism. I like the idea of rotoscoping composite real-life/cgi images but I am really looking to get into 100% cgi rotoscoping (such as that on Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly). I guess my best bet is to suck it up and draw/modify the whole 30 frames per second.

Take something such as a nail....I recommend one over 6 inches. A twelve inch spike is ideal. Then wrap it with some insulated copper wire. Make sure it is wrapped in one direction only! Finally...hook a battery up (one end of the wire to the positive terminal of the battery and one end to the negative end). It should work if you follow those steps. If it doesn't...try using different wire, make sure you have enough juice (current passing through the wire), and try wrapping the wire around the nail more times. Good luck. Let me know if you have any more questions.

I've really been wanting to get into rotoscope animation lately. 'Scanner Darkly' and 'Waking Life' both have some pretty wild animation. I have been told that they use a custom program thats not for sale which is kind of a bummer. I tried using Flash by importing a previously recorded video and literally drawing frame by frame on top of it but it is extremely time consuming and the end result isn't really what I wanted. I've also tried using vectors on top of screenshots from a prerecorded video but I just couldn't get the hang of it. Probably my best attempt was taking the frames from a video, and batching a series of Photoshop filters that made the frames appear to be hand drawn. This was okay but I didn't really feel like I was animating...more like rendering. Does anybody have any experience with rotoscoping? It looks so damn cool I wish I knew how to do it correctly.

My precious. Building this was very costly and is my pride and joy. It still outperforms most computers I use/build. I did have some unfortunate timing though. Now with the PCI-Express and SATA 3...my computer is a little lacking. I was going to upgrade my motherboard but then I would have to upgrade my video card and processor as well. And frankly I don't have an extra grand in spending cash right now. This was my first build (4 years ago? No maybe 3). I love all of the components I chose. I really like the sound card and speakers. I do a lot of sound editing, composing, mixing and such so it was worth the extra $. I purchased all of the hard drives at different times. If I could, I would trade them all in for a couple of 500s to run in a terabyte array. My PSU has been awesome. The CPU has been great considering how much I've abused it (overclocking...poor little bugger). It is sad how fast the technology is progressing though. I really wish I had the money to build a brand new system, I can't even imaging how the new components would outperform my current setup. Anyway, here are the specs:Mobo: Asus K8VSE DeluxeCPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+Memory: Kingston ValueRAM 1GB (2 x 512MB)Hard Drives: 80GB Seagate Barracuda SATA, 200GB Seagate Barracuda External, 320GB Seagate Barracuda SATA, 250GB Western Digital Caviar SATASound Card: Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZSVideo Card: ATI Radeon 9800 AGPPSU: Thermaltake Silent PurePower 560WTv-Tuner: ATI TV-WonderCD/DVD: One Asus DVD Burner and One Asus CD BurnerCase: Aspire X-AlienSpeakers: Logitech Z-680Mouse/Keyboard: A4 TechPrinter: Lexmark Z615

Just wanted to post a quick hello. My name is Dan, I'm from Maine (USA). I've been messing around with computers/graphic design/programming for a few years now. At first I figured the whole forum thing was just a joke and that no one actually posts anything useful in here....it's just to get the hosting package. I was wrong. Right off I found some pretty sweet tutorials and other interesting posts. Can't wait to get to know some of you. See you all around!

I was recently talking to my housemates about rigging up an intercom system. Then someone brought it to my attention that we have a perfectly good phone line already running throughout both floors of the house. We don't have land-line phones...we all have cell phones. Would it be hard to buy a couple of phones with intercoms or at least have extensions we could dial to reach each phone? It would be awesome to have a little local phone network in the house. That way we wouldn't have to call each others cell phones all the time. And no, walking up and down stairs is not an option (you have to go outside....its like 15 degrees out right now! ). Has anyone ever done anything like this before or even know what is required to rig it up?

Ever since I was in grade school I always tapped my pencils and pens. My senior year in high school I finally bought a drum kit. Even now though...I still tap my desk, my steering wheel, even my thighs when I'm standing. So I was in the car the other day and I thought it would be awesome if I could make my steering wheel play different sounds depending on where I hit it. Ok, so maybe it might be a little distracting. But it wouldn't be that hard to make little mini tap drums. You know those electronic kits with the pressure sensing pads? Like that but smaller and sold individually. So now you could go out and buy snare, kick drum, and high-hat tap drums and stick them on your desk. They could be like 2 inches in diameter and different colors for different drums and cymbals. You could have a simple 3-piece set up or a crazy kit with more toms, cymbals, and snares than you could shake a stick at (haha..shake a stick at). I'm telling you....this is genius. Maybe even have ones that you can sample your own sounds. Now if only I was a millionaire and could pursue this further. Anyone have a few hundred grand I could borrow? Imagine how much you could anger your teacher with these things. And they thought yo-yos were bad!