Here’s another good reason to use FeedBurner (if you’re not doing so already): You can add AdSense to your feed and make money not just from your blog but from your RSS feed too!

What? You want more ideas on making more money and achieving success? Okay.

• Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires.
• The Top 10 Mistakes People Make When Starting a Business.
• From 0 to 2000 Subscribers in 90 Days.
• Build a Success Blog in 2 Hours.
• How to Get What You Want by Asking the Right Way.
• Why Things Cost $19.95.
• 10 Ways to Improve Blog Traffic in 30 Minutes or Less.
• How to Make StumbleUpon Your Servant.
• What is the Quickest Way to Start Making Money Online?
• PR Secrets for Startups.

P.S. Okay, so what do you think of “Success Saturday”? That would just leave ___ Thursday.

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Now I can’t remember if this iris is the one I planted 15 years ago or 20+ years ago.

Visit Wordless Wednesday for more.

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I just love giving WordPress a challenging (in length) headline. Let’s see how well it does with this one…

Have you ever noticed that items sealed in plastic, especially food items, are getting harder and harder to open? Does it seem that it’s getting more difficult to grab an end, or find the plastic flap that made tearing the packaging open easier? Or, just grabbing a loose section of plastic where you could stick a knife or even try to tear it open with your teeth?

I think the anti-plastic radicals are to blame.

You see, if you search the Internet at all, there are people that dislike excessive plastic packaging. And, while I agree that packaging is sometimes excessive, there are those that take things to extremes, complaining about the slightest bit of “excess” plastic in any kind of packaging.

They write to companies, and complain “I’m not buying your products anymore, waaa!, waaa!, waaa!” and so on. And, I think that perhaps they’ve made enough noise and also that companies are motivated to go “green” these days or at least give the appearance of going “green,” that companies are caving to the anti-plastic radicals.

But, they’re doing so in sneaky ways.

I think they are just heat-shrinking the plastic. That way, it looks like less plastic was used in the packaging process. That shuts up those superficial “excess plastic! excess plastic!” crybabies. Looks like less, so it must be less. The companies get fewer letters and the little crybabies happily start buying their products once again.

But, then the rest of us suffer, because that “excess” plastic is what made the plastic easier to get a hold of and open. Now, we have to stab our food with sharp knives, risking getting bits of plastic in our food, all because of a small percentage of whiny little crybabies.

At least, that’s my theory.

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Maple seed sprouting on a log.

Visit Wordless Wednesday for more.

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I made my first DVD, and got it right on the first try! It was nice not to waste any DVDs!

On the downside, I discovered box of DVDs I had purchased a couple months ago had only 14 DVDs in it, instead of 20. Too late, probably, to complain to the company I ordered from. I ordered a 20-pack, and they sent me a single DVD. I eMailed to tell them about it, and they immediately sent out a box. Now, I discover I was still shorted! Argh!!! Don’t know how I didn’t notice; I guess it was because the box felt full.

Anyway, on Sunday, I finished converting an old video tape to digital form. And, on Monday, I decided to put together a DVD of all the cat videos, so that we’d have something to watch Monday evening when everything was in reruns.

The clips were all captured with QuickTime Pro and saved as .mov files. I thought the easiest way to make a DVD would be with Apple’s iDVD software that comes installed on most (if not all?) new Macs as part of iLife.

Well, I was wrong.

The iDVD program will only let me use video from iMovie, photos from iPhoto or Photo Booth or audio from iTunes or GarageBand. Not QuickTime clips stored elsewhere (i.e., where I want them) on the hard drive. Which is stupid.

True, I could import all my QuickTime clips into iMovie and then save them and then use iDVD, but that seemed like a waste of time, due to being doubling of efforts and all. After all, the clips were already saved on the hard drive!

So, forget iDVD and iMovie.

Instead, I fired up Adobe Premiere Pro CS3. I didn’t go to it in the first place, as I figured it wouldn’t be as easy to make a DVD, especially seeing as how the last time I used Premiere on a regular basis, the DVD specification wasn’t even finalized yet!

Anyway, I pulled all my clips together, added a soundtrack and exported to Adobe Encore CS3. It did it’s thing. I stuck in a blank DVD. And, a short time later, I had a finished DVD!

I first tried it in the computer’s DVD drive, and it played. (It also asked me to set my Region, as apparently this was also the first DVD I’ve watched on this computer!) Next was the bigger question: Would it play in the actual DVD player (the one connected to the TV)?

Yes!

Success!

Some of the old video didn’t look too bad. Other bits weren’t quite as clear as what a newer camera might do. But, at least know I have some old memories preserved on DVD! (And I still have the original video tapes too.)

Many of the videos are 18 years old, so I’m lucky the video hasn’t deteriorated more than it has. From time to time, there will be some issues with the video that tracking and other options cannot fix. But, for the most part, the clips have been well-preserved, despite the video tapes not always being stored under optimal conditions! (But, they weren’t exposed to excessive heat or cold. And, they weren’t played frequently either; most haven’t been played in years, if ever! Most were probably only watched once after recording, just to make sure I got it!) And, a good portion of the videos were on long play tapes (recording six hours on a tape instead of two), which is a no-no. But, I didn’t know that then!

So, now I just have to find the rest of my recorded videos, which is somewhat difficult as the last 80-100 tapes aren’t marked. Before I got a full-time job (and even when I was still in school), I somehow found the time to watch a video tape and then write (down to the start and stop times) what was on the top. A job is about the same number of hours as school, and usually there’s no homework, yet there seems to be less time in the day… So, that’s how I have a bunch of unmarked tapes…

If you have any old VHS tapes you made in your camcorder, and you haven’t converted them to digital yet, now is the time! While tapes have the potential to last 100 years, many have an anticipated lifetime of about twenty years. My oldest tape, the one done in 1989 (or maybe it was 1988), had the most deterioration in it.

If you can’t convert them yet, make sure they are stored properly. High humidity (or lack of humidity) can cause problems, as will extreme temperatures. Sunlight, dust, cigarette or other smoke can also cause deterioration, as will exposure to strong magnetic fields. You should also rewind them and keep them stored upright. Don’t play them too often either!

And, once you save them to a digital format, don’t forget to occasionally save them to new media from time to time, lest you be stuck with a bunch of memories in a format future computers won’t be able to access!

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Actually, no, but I thought that title would grab your attention.

Anyway, I was reading JD’s blog, specifically her post “I Am a Readhead so you don’t have to be.”

In it, she mentioned famous redheads. Three of which I’ve actually heard of. And, that led me to look up Vincent van Gogh (no, he wasn’t #4–he was one of the three I knew!) on Wikipedia. After all, I was curious as to why he cut off his ear. (Read the entry to find out for yourself!)

Anyway, that led me to Hypergraphia, which is “an overwhelming urge to write.”

Clearly, I do not suffer from this. Else, I’d be posting five times a day. Like I nearly did before…

As a blogger, it would seem that hypergraphia would be something good to have. Well, until you find out that it is associated with manic and bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and frontotemporal dementia, which are all things I’m sure most of us prefer not to have.

At any rate, I just found it interesting that there is such a thing and thought I would share it with all my fellow near-hypergraphs.

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I’m beginning to really dislike those “get organized” and “how much can I get for my stuff?” television programs that seemingly every cable channel has their own version of these days.

They seem to have the mentality of getting rid of stuff, letting go of sentimental attachments to things and such so that you can be a happier, better organized person and buy different stuff!

It’s just so disgusting sometimes. Like the family who sold off some of their grandmother’s furniture and used the proceeds to buy a plasma TV.

Now, I’m not one of these anti-television people. I watch TV. Probably too much. And, a plasma TV probably would be nice. But, I cannot fathom getting rid of family heirlooms to do it.

A desk, a table and so on… These are things that, if well-taken care of, are something that can be passed on to succeeding generations.

That plasma TV will probably be sitting out at the curb in five to ten years, broken or replaced by the next new thing. And, what do you have? Memories of having watched TV shows?

Whereas with that desk or table or whatever, each time you use it, you have that connection to generations past. Plus, if you think about it, you also have a connection to future generations who would use that item after you and your family!

It’s like a part of living history. You can look at old family photos, and see previous generations sitting at the same table you’re now sitting at with your kids. And, maybe one day they’ll show pictures of you and them sitting at that same table to their children, as they gather round the same table!

Maybe I was born in the wrong time or something, because people don’t seem to be that way anymore. They see family heirlooms and they don’t see something to be passed down and shared for generations. Instead, they see dollar signs.

Or, worse yet, they won’t see enough dollar signs, and, if the item doesn’t have enough monetary value, off to the curb it goes. Or a garage sale. Or Ebay.

They get a few bucks and lose generations of memories. But, they don’t care. It’s all to get their “fix.” They’ll swap out family memories for a new TV. Or to redecorate their living room. Something timeless for something timely; something they’ll be replacing again in a few years.

Family heirlooms don’t have to be monetarily valuable to be valuable. They just need to be passed on and on.

Not all values can be expressed in monetary terms.

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Been busy today, but don’t feel like I’ve accomplished much. Yet anyway.

After this weekend (hopefully), I will have a new, revitalized blog. I have an older site that I haven’t updated in a while. It has a blog, but it was something I coded myself. So, I can’t use any of the blogging thingamabobs and services and such with it. So, I am moving it to WordPress, then I can get it out there to where people may actually find it better. I think it averages to a couple visits a day currently.

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While Mike is sworn to secrecy (still) on my not as secretive project, I am not sworn to secrecy on his project. Probably because his isn’t a secret anymore, if it ever was.

But, in any case, his project, The Mysterious Minute-Men Omnibus, is now published and available for purchase.

Since my project is still “under development,” as they say, pop on over and get a copy of his book. That ought to tide you over until my project is ready to be released. And, if you like his work, you’ll also like my project because–so long as he is still willing and able when I’m set–he’ll be doing some work for my project too.

And, if you don’t like his stuff, well, you’ll still like my project because he’s not the only one on board.

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