The goal of this project is to figure out how to take multiple  DVD video files (*.VOB) from a Sony Handy Cam and compile them all into one video with various transitions, effects and title screens.  The program I use does not have to be anything fancy, but should have the basics mentioned above.  I am by no means an expert in this subject, but I have previously used Adobe Premiere Pro with digital video (DV), capturing the video over Firewire.  I am not able to use this same method as the Sony Handy Cam I am currently using records to a mini DVD.   I also no longer have legal access to Adobe Premiere Pro.

The first software package I tried was VirtualDub, but I got the following error when trying to open the VOB file;  “MPEG Import Filter: invalid pack at position 3: marker bit not set; possibly MPEG-2 stream.”  Okay, so this tells me I need to convert the video file before editing it with this program.  After further investigation, it does not appear that VirtualDub is going to allow me to do transitions and title screens.  It is time to search for another open source/free program.

The List of free and open source software packages on Wikipedia seems like a good place to start.  The first one on the list, Avidemux is able to convert my DVD based files into various file types (AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4, ASF, etc) , but still does not provide transitions or title screens.  It also provides simple cutting, encoding and various filters, but not quite what I need.

None of the other programs on the Wikipedia list seem to fit my needs.  However, it does seem that there are few awesome video editors for Linux/Unix platform.  I am unable to use any of these as I am limited to Windows XP.  I have come to the conclusion that a good open source alternative to Adobe Premiere or Final Cut for Windows does not exist right now.  Does anyone else know of one?

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Basic

The basic package contains all of the general codecs and will not install a seperate player onto your system.  It will use Windows Media Player to play most of the standard types of files.  This might be a useful package to install on a business oriented computer that contains only the essential programs to perform the task.

Standard

The standard package includes a copy of  Media Player Classic – Homecinema, MPEG-2 for DVD playback, FLAC and Wavpack audio files.  It is an extremely useful media player with many different options for playback, but is very minimilistic in design and most importantly on system resources.  It is modeled after Windows Media Player v6.4.  This version is fairly complete and useful for users wanting most of the features in a relatively small package.

Full

The full package contains  more codecs for audio and video decoding and encoding including the lossless audio formats for any audiophiles out there.   However, the only real advantage to installing the Full Package over the Mega package is if  Real Alternative is not needed.  Real Alternative allows the playback of all  RealMedia formats without having to install RealPlayer and tying up even more system resources with another media player.

Mega

Mega includes even more codecs to play or encode any sort of audio or video formats and includes RealPlayer.  This is the package that most PC  power users, like myself, would want to install.  On top of this, it is also useful to install Quicktime Alternative to avoid having to install iTunes and any other Appleware to be able to play the Quicktime format.

Corporate

The corporate package is similar in contents to the full package, but has a strong focus on open source software.

64-bit

The 64-bit package provides the codecs that have been optimized to run on 64-bit versions of Windows.  However, since a good majority of programs are still 32-bit versions running on 64-bit versions of Windows it is recommended to also install one of the 32-bit packages from above.

VLC Player

Cannot install anything?  Do not have administrative privleges? Then VLC Player is the correct player to use.  It includes its own plugins for playing most movie and audio formats so it does not need any codecs to be installed.  It is even packaged in a Portable App for easy download and “installation” to a portable USB drive.

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Most people that know me, know that I am a huge fan of CostCo.  I love everything about them from the product selection to customer service to the way they treat their employees.  I have never really had a bad experience shopping at a location.  However, I do try to avoid the store on the weekends at all cost as the crowds can be overwhelming.

I just recently renewed my membership and upgraded to the Executive Level which gives me 2% back (pre-tax) on all purchases.  It also gives me a nice fancy black card that sets me apart from the rest.  The cost of this membership level is $100 upfront, but even if you don’t spend enough to get the 2% back they will send you a check to make up the difference to the basic $50 membership level.  So the membership never costs more than $50 a year. (Edit: They told me this at the counter, but I have not seen this stipulation in writing.)  The only downside is you are giving CostCo $50 of your dollars to invest.  However, I plan on spending more than enough to recover my $50 and then some.  Between myself and the other card holding member I would expect to spend a conservative $3000.

$3000 * .02 = $60 check

$60 – $50 Executive Costs = $10 earned over the regular membership

Even if you only make $10 on the deal, that works out to be a 20% return on the extra $50 investment.  Granted you did have to spend $2500 at CostCo before obtaining this award.  This is similar to a rewards credit card that has variable tiered reward payouts and will only offer a reward after the $2500 mark.  Keep in mind that the maximum reward payable by CostCo is $500… if you just happen to be a family or business spending more than $25,000 there a year.

Now, if you also get the American Express TrueEarnings Card you get 3% back on gasoline, 3% back at restaurants, 2% back on travel and 1% back on everything else, including CostCo.  Add this to the 2% back from the Executive membership and you are accumulating 3% back at CostCo after you spend $2500 there.  This is a pretty good rate and works out to be:

$3000 * .01 = $30 + $10 = $40 back for that year.  This comes out to be 1.3%.  Of course this rate increases the more you spend because of the need to spend $2500 to cover the extra membership cost.  If you did spend the maximum of $25000 the rate would be:

$25000-$2500 = $22500 * .02 = $450 net earned (not counting the $50 for the regular membership)

$25000 * .01 = $250

Total = $700 back for the year or 2.8% overall of your total spent.

Who ever said shopping does not pay?

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Circuit City Closed

It is a sad day to see Circuit City finally close their doors.  There was a small hope that they could close a few stores, make well with their creditors, and continue doing business after filing Chapter 11 last year.  The problem is the chances of this happening are next to none.  In fact, this has never happened with a big box electronics retailer.

After all, who would loan money to a failing business?  Who would allow products to be sold on credit and hope that the company would be able to pay their bills next month?  A company with a great status and credit rating is able to have all of this.  In fact, they were proclaimed in 2001as a great company by Jim Collins in his book, “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t.” They apparently could not be great forever.

“The study began with a field of 1,435 companies and emerged with a list of 11 good-to-great companies: Abbott Laboratories, Circuit City, Fannie Mae, Gillette Co., Kimberly-Clark Corp., the Kroger Co., Nucor Corp., Philip Morris Cos. Inc., Pitney Bowes Inc., Walgreens, and Wells Fargo.”  The book stresses the need for great companies to have great people to propel it forward and all of the previous companies had this at the time of publishing.  It is deemed the flywheel effect – as long as great people are continuously propelling the wheel forward it will not completely stall.  The momentum from the wheel moving forward drives innovation, development, sales and eventually profit.

Most people would agree that the majority of the problems started occurring when Phil Schoonover took over as CEO on March 1st, 2006.  Exactly a year later, in March 2007 he decided to layoff 3,400 of its highest paid sales people.  The exact thing that Jim Collins said makes a great company he just got rid of because they were “too expensive”. The good sales people were at the front of the wheel, pushing the product out the door and when that slowed so did everything else behind it. This effectively slowed the motion of the flywheel and less than a two years later it came to a complete stop.   Did Phil Schoonover not read this book or even hear about it?  Did he not realize that people mainly shopped at Circuit City for the customer service and knowledgeable sales staff?

Probably not.  After all, what is personal in your face customer service in a big box retailer anymore?  It is one of the only things that they have above online retailers.  The other thing that they have is the physical product on display.  They have the ability for the consumer to inspect, hold, try out and instantly take home the product.  They need to exaggerate this, have their best salesmen trying to convince you to purchase and make the shopping experience phenomenal.  If not, why not go home, purchase the product for cheaper online and wait 3-5 days for it to arrive?

–

Even with the the liquidation sales at the remaining Circuit City stores, do not expect to find an amazing deal.  This was noticed at their first round of closing during the end of last year.  It was typical to find an item marked up to Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) or higher and then the discount taken from that.  This means that the same item whether laptop, flat panel TV, or speakers could usually be found at a competing big box retailer for significantly cheaper.  It was always cheaper through an online retailer. The only time that a deal might be found is in the last week or two of the liquidation sale when the percentages are 40-50% off, but by then not much worthwhile could be had.

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Now, I need to work out the details as far as the programming.  Here are the factory defaults for the work week.

Now, I won’t be talking about the summer settings as I am not able to figure those out at the moment.  I tried the default settings for this morning and it seemed like the furnace was running the whole two hours to try to get the house back up to 70° F.  This can’t be good.  I never kept the house this warm with the old thermostat. So here’s my first attempt at a modified schedule.  I’ll update this post after I let it run through a bit.

Winter:

• 6:00 AM – 66° F – I’ll keep it a bit warmer for waking up in the morning.
• 8:00 AM – 60° F – This seems like the minimum I should go for right now.
• 6:00 PM – 65° F – I used to keep it at 65° whenever we were home with the old one.
• 11:00 PM – 62° F – Turning the heat down at night will be new to me to help save money.

I do not feel like our house is well insulated, so I wanted to keep the temperature swings a bit less to prevent the furnace from running for hours to heat the house back up to a reasonable temperature.  I have also seen other sites recommend turning it back 10-15 degrees, but I have tropical fish tanks in the house so I do not feel comfortable going much lower than 60°.  The fish tank heaters will only compensate 15-20 degrees of ambient temperature.  The fish like to be at least 75°.

Here are two other websites with more information on using a programmable thermostat.

• http://www.mge.com/home/saving/thermostat.htm
• http://cashmoneylife.com/2008/01/11/use-a-programmable-thermostat-to-save-money/

1/21/2009 Update:  The temperature settings seem to be working well.  I just hope it ends up lowering my gas bill!

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This was not as simple as I thought due to the nature of corporate proxies blocking various content.  I still don’t quite understand the nature for blocking certain sites.  I generally feel as a professional that we should be allowed to use any tool that helps us get our jobs done.

I use two different corporate networks during the day.  The first one shown below is how my iGoogle page looks from Company 1.  The problem here is Google Gadget images are routed through an anonymizer proxy that is blocked.  This makes the majority of the Gadget’s with images almost completely useless.  At least Company 1 does not block Gmail and Calender.

Company 2 looks much better as they do not block the anonymizer proxy that displays pictures for Google Gadgets.  However, they do block Google Calender, Gmail and Woot!.  They do not block the anoynmizer that displays the Woot! images for the Google Gadget, but I can not click on the link to follow it over to their site.

As far as the “To Do” lists go, I added the top 5 lists that came up in the search.  After playing around with them, I prefer using the list that was developed by Google.  It’s simple easy to use interface that does the trick.  The list from Lab Pixies doesn’t work well on Company 1′s network and only allows 7 items on the fancy yellow pad.  The third most popular list allows drag and drop sorting of items, but puts long list items in a scroll box.  The 4th one is just a sticky notepad, which I might keep for quick notes.  The final one called MyListy is the most fancy with a myriad of features that work quite nicely.  However, I just want to keep things simple and do not need a tabbed “To Do” list so the Google one wins for now!

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10. Do your research. Try to know what car you want or narrow it down to a car make/model before negotiating on price. The best and easiest time to walk away is right after a test drive before they get you back inside.

9. On the other hand, try not to let them know that you really want a specific car. If they sense this, they will probably not be able to go any lower on the price.

8. Don’t offer a trade. If you must trade, tell them this after the price of the car has been negotiated.

7. Don’t give them the keys to your trade in at first. One dealership decided to hold onto my keys to make it harder to leave.

6. Run invoice and true market value reports from Edmunds.com and other sites. This should be used as a baseline for negotiating. This should also be done for your trade in if applicable.

5. If the model/options you want are rare, do not negotiate on a car that a dealership could potentially find for a deposit (one that is not in their possession on the lot). There’s a chance that they are just trying to get you to agree on a price, go look at other dealerships and eventually come back to them. At this point they will finally admit they couldn’t find the specific car you wanted or the price is no longer valid. It’s a tactic just to get you back in the door.

4. Stay calm. They like to make you sit and wait. It gets your nerves up and causes irrational/quick decisions.

3. The “e-price” on Autotrader.com or dealer specific sites is almost always the price without freight or destination charges. Try to negotiate on the true price of the car. A couple dealers were really reluctant to tell me this and tried to add it on after the first round of negotiating. I do not understand how this is legal as the charges are almost always included in the MSRP on the sticker. It is like they are saying the (insert_some_important_part_here) is not included in the MSRP, we have to add that in at the end.

2. Never be afraid to walk away. It is easier to think logically later on.

1. Negotiate on the total price of the car, not how much payments will be! It’s harder to comprehend the total price than an easy per month payment. It is good to have calculated a few numbers and know how much the car is going to cost with interest, tax, title, etc. That is why I created this Multiple Car Cost Calculation Spreadsheet.

On another note, I do have to give CarMax some credit as they have developed a unique “low pressure” model for car shopping. No price negotiating allowed and very little pressure to actually buy a car. Every salesmen was nice and allowed me to test drive car after car. They even let me drive a Shelby Mustang GT 500 Convertible for an experience of a lifetime! The dealership is still not a 100% “no pressure” model as they follow you around the car lot as you’re looking.  They will also attempt to sell you more expensive cars or a new car if they have a dealers license for those at the specific location. Not being able to negotiate might leave you feeling like a better deal could be had elsewhere. The rules above do not really apply to this dealership.

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