Lightsabers, DVDs, and CDs

With all the Star Wars buzz these days, this looked like a cool program for the Mac: CrimsonFX It's an app to add a lightsaber effect to videos. Unfortunately, I could not get it to render a short test video. Oh well, I'll keep on eye on it anyway.

I needed some video to try Crimson so I grabbed some video off of my digital camcorder. I just plugged it into the Firewire port and opened iMovie and I was off. Pretty cool! I expected something to tell me it found a camera attached but that's OK - it seemed to "just work" like the ads say.

I hunted down a DVD ripper that seems pretty good: MacTheRipper
On the PC, I like to rip DVDs that I own and combine them onto a single DVD for car trips with the kids. Instead of bringing along three DVDs(and risk scratching, loosing them, etc.) I can bring one and keep them entertained for up to six hours. Comes in handy on long trips and flights. Now that I can rip with MTR, I need to find something on the Mac that can do what I was doing on the PC with Nero's NeroVision Express 3. I'm sure there's one out there somewhere, I just have to look. Maybe this Toast app I keep hearing about is the Mac world's Nero. Or maybe Popcorn.

{Darn [End] and [Home] keys! I need to figure that out.}

Next, I burned TWIT onto a CD for the commute tomorrow. I popped in a CD-R and it directed me to a few apps. I used iTunes to burn it after I created a playlist. One thing I'm noticing about iTunes is that it seems to make a local copy of MP3's that I have elsewhere(like on my Windows server in the basement). I'd rather it just pointed to this and not copy them. Hopefully there's a setting somewhere.

I didn't get a chance to convert my Quicken files. Maybe I'll try that sometime during the week.

I also tried loading a driver for one of my printers and it didn't work. I think it's because they don't have a Tiger compatible version yet. I'll check into that tomorrow. I've got a few other printers to use if I need to print something.

Let's see, what else. I'm still getting used to the keyboard and mouse. Mouse speed isn't as fast as on my PC - I know, I know, it's changeable. The keyboard is a little mushy but it's quiet.

Oh yeah, saw Star Wars yesterday - thumbs up!