A Collection of Daily Wisdom by Dennis Sylvester Hurd since September 2003.

Twenty years ago, I was simply happy that a computer could capture my keystrokes and let me save the results in a permanent file on floppy disk.

Nowadays, I expect lots more.

I have often thought about dabbling with video. I'm familiar with DVD format and have been copying titles since I first got a DVD burner over two years ago. My equipment had finally caught up to my capabilities; but my software had not. I wasn't happy with the learning curve presented by Studio 9 by Pinnacle. Besides, I had technical problems that their technical support couldn't help solve.

I found myself resorting to a free copy of Ulead's Movie Factory 2.5 that came with one of my DVD burners. Over the last few months, I found myself using it frequently to copy TV segments of science and technology for class. I even burned old analog 8mm video tape from trips to India and Thailand in the early 1990's. It works.

I downloaded the newer trial version of Ulead's Movie Factory 5.0 and I plan on paying them the fifty bucks for the legit copy. It'll be worth it.

Labels: software

I don't know what makes a picture popular on Flickr.

For example, this one gained lots of views over just a few days. It's not what I'd consider special. In fact, I found it in my camera's built-in memory. I generally pop out a 1-gigabyte xD card and insert into a reader. Once, I forgot to put my card back into the camera so a few photos were kept on the internal memory. I hitched up the camera's USB cable and accessed this photo taken up my doctor's office.

Labels: digital camera, flash memory, Flickr

This week the weather's been glorious. The skies have been blue and the sun strong. It is a comfortable temperature for short sleeves but not too hot and muggy. The mountains around Vancouver are still out and capped by snow. In a word, this weather can't be beat.

It's funny though; the day goes pretty much unnoticed from the office or classroom. I notice the green grass, flowers, and leafy trees only when walking between buildings on break.

As I don't work on Fridays, I'm at the beginning of a 4-day weekend. Next Monday is Victoria Day in Canada. This signals the beginning of summer. Well perhaps summer starts later officially, but campgrounds open and touristy things go full force from this weekend. And so, just as usual, it appears that the fine weather we're having may disappear by the weekend ...

Labels: weather

... but eventually Microsoft gets around to tweaking till it has a winner.



At one point in time, I couldn't imagine a much better mp3 player than WinAmp. Things have changed after waiting a while. The default album cover interface of Microsoft's Media Player 11 is superb!

I'm running MS Explorer 7 beta 2 and from today this new component. At this rate, we won't have to upgrade to Windows Vista as we'll just acquire it one download at time!

Labels: Mediaplayer, Windows

On the way home from work today, I looked down at the dashboard. The needle indicated that the gas tank was only 1/4 full (or 3/4's empty for the pessimists among you). It was clearly time to stop for gas.

I saw the Kingsway Chevron listed $1.186/liter on the large sign. After the automatic discount of 3.5 cents kicked in, the price would be only a smidgeon more than 1.15/liter! My usual petrol station's sign on Columbia Street in New Westminster bragged 1.229/liter.

I'm strangely annoyed that I feel I got a bargain. Only $1.15/liter. Hooray!


On our recent trip to San Diego, the TV news reported they had highest prices in the United States at $US 3.44/gallon. Wait! I just paid an equivalent of $US 3.90/gallon. Hooray?

I was very happy to start with a new group of students this afternoon. This is another five-week COMM course. I always start a new course with enthusiam. So much learning will occur during our time together!

The afternoon classes always fill up. That is good because there is a variety of experiences and backgrounds. It is unfortunate only because the classes tend to be a bit loud and it takes me forever to correct the assignments and exams!

The ship was in no hurry as it had paid to dock from 7:00am. We ate the last 'blow out breakfast' up in the Lido Restaurant. We were able to walk around the ship a bit before waiting until we were to disembark. We got out by 9:15 and walked right over to the terminus of the SkyTrain station with our bags. It was a typical 35 minute ride to this apartment building in New Westminster.

There were clothes for washing, food to be bought, and a dead hamster to bury. This is the second one which has expired during a vacation.

Labels: cruise, pets