My images are back online!!! Yayyyyyyyy. So what happened was my images on the blog were showing up as broken image icons due to my host server [ moonberry.com ] being migrated. Thank goodness this lasted for less than 24 hours and upon finding out what happened, I was told to shuffle some files around FTP, reupload some of the images that weren’t ported during the migration and voila. We’re back in business, baby! :) I am really glad this got resolved so quickly.
I AM SUCH A GEEK. Yes, I am. 宅女一号!!! But I must include a disclaimer here that I am not a PC user, never been never have. (I am a, uhm, “fruit” user.) So you can imagine my surprise when I received news that I am also a Top 10 Finalist in the Singapore Blog Awards TECH category. SURRRRRPRIIIIIISE~~~~~! Again I have no idea how I got in there in the first place, but it’s cool to have made it into two categories, especially for a first-timer like me. And part of being a finalist in this Tech category is that I get to test drive the Asus N43 laptop.
Which. is. a. PC.
UH. OH.
:X
Here’s the Asus N43 laptop which I am test driving presently. I am most excited about the cable strap you see on the right; I think it is brilliant. Every computer needs to have this cable strap as part of the start-up kit, you know? To keep cables tidy. This is a must! Every cable and wire in my apartment has a velcro strap tied around them to keep them from snaking all over the place. (OCD, OCD…) Sorry, I digress.
The Asus brand slogan is Inspiring Innovation. Persistent Perfection. Cool beans. I like the sound of that.
I started checking out this laptop for the last coupla days, it did take me a while to get the hang of it (I still don’t quite know my way around, to tell you the truth). Since my web server was down and there was no way I could update my blog with images, I figured I will turn this down time into an opportunity to tinker around with the Asus N43. I thought maybe this would be a good time to go beyond images and try a different medium: video! Aha.
As I was clicking around, I discovered a bunch of really cool built-in softwares that came with the laptop. (FYI the Asus laptops are being positioned as a multimedia laptop; more on that next time.) One of them was a video-recording/image capturing application so I gave it a whirl. What resulted out of this stumbling around was my very first (albeit short) vlog. IT WAS SO EASY! Mind you, I use the word “easy” in the context of me generally finding PCs difficult and unfriendly to use. The whole video thing actually turned out to be pretty easy to put together and I am psyched about my very first video production. Wow, never thought I’d managed to piece this together. I really think the Asus N43 has made it relatively effortless for me and I am 100% a newbie at this.
First thing I did after getting the laptop was to set my desktop wallpaper and I picked this pretty and funky graphic offered in the default Control Panel area. Aaaah, nothing feels like computing with a bright and vibrant wallpaper graphic in the background. Feeling cheerful already. ;)
Using the built-in video/image capture software inside the Asus laptop.
After recording my short video, I clicked around and found this other built-in software called DVD Suite which enabled me to edit the video.
This software must be totally targeted towards PC novices like me. Video editing is A BREEZE using this!!! I was able to pick transitions to start and end the video with, so it doesn’t come on and stop abruptly. Nice.
Sometimes you need to add written word onto the video and here’s my shoutout. Kekeke~
Last but not least, the software also allowed me to include an ending credit. Fully editable.
Without further ado…… Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I present to you: my very first vlog! *drum rollssssssss*
What do you think? Not too shabby eh? I mean, don’t mind the content of the video (there’s not much content in fact). The point is, everything was recorded, edited and produced via the Asus N43 with built-in software. I didn’t have much experience in this department (using a PC, producing a video) so I am thrilled and feel mighty accomplished by this achievement. Evidently there are still some technical issues which need to be worked on, namely the lag between the audio and video. Like, what you see doesn’t 100% match with the speed of my speech, and there’s also the weird screen ratio conversion thingie which squashed my face and text horizontally. I normally dun sound so mumbly, but I had to talk slowly in an attempt to let the audio and video mesh together a bit more. Uhm, any video gurus out there wanna give me some tips and suggestions on how to resolve the technical issues I mentioned above? I can definitely use some help. :p
Anyhoo, I’m keen in exploring this video thing a little bit more in the duration of my test driving period. What do y’all say? More vlogging bits added to this blog, yay or nay? Leave your comments and lemme hear your thoughts.
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