Something about Ed Bott…

So I was absolutely thrilled by the news I received concerning the Windows-Now.com part of the 31 Days of the Dragon promotional giveaway contest marathon thingy. But I got a whole new layer of icing on my little cake when I found out that Ed Bott had seen (and apparently enjoyed) my video, even though he initially misread Robert’s conclusions. It really blew me away, yet again.

(Okay, okay! I’ll stop with all the linking now…)

If you don’t know who Ed Bott is (and shame on you, if so), he’s a well known tech writer, who typically finds himself in the cross-hairs of many people who simply dislike anyone that disagrees with them, and he’s one of the few tech writers that I fully respect – specifically because he speaks his mind and doesn’t accept the bullish FUD that gets passed around by many self-proclaimed “experts”.

Anyway, this whole experience has been really humbling and honoring for me, and I feel immensely indebted towards all the parties involved. But more on that later…

Live Search Club gets a makeover

It’s nice to know that Microsoft still has love for Live Search Club, although I guess things could have only gotten better after they dropped the company that had been handling the site (Incentive Logic). I was actually betting on Microsoft dropping the whole Live Search Club thing after many of the larger prizes (such as the XBOX 360 and Zune) started to disappear from the prize list, so I’m pleased to see the site getting a well-deserved update.

 

If you’ve never played or heard of Live Search Club: it’s basically a puzzle game site. It’s hard for me to describe how things work in the background (they make money of the searches that occur as you play the games), but it’s basically a win-win situation for every party (Microsoft, advertisement partners, and the gamers).

As you win games, you earn tickets and can trade those tickets in for prizes, some being rather lucrative (such as a 20,000-ticket Zune 30, which is back in the prize list). Most games give you between 10 and 20 tickets, but they’re not too difficult once you’ve gotten the hang of things. Oh, I know you want to try it… go ahead, try it!

It really works, although I’ll wait until another day to explain what I’ve won (it’s an unfinished story).

Here’s what happens when I get creative…

So I spent several hours last week creating a video for a contest for Windows-Now, which was rather fun in and of itself, as it reminded me of being a child. (Well, my behavior always reminds me of being a child.)

You see, many years ago I discovered some neat features on my Mom’s camcorder – one of those giant VHS cassette recorder types – and learned how to use the stop-motion feature. Pretty soon I was creating all sorts of strange animations with any object that I could get my hand on, but one unique feature of those animations was how I took a notebook and proceeded to animate letter being drawn and the paper being torn apart, etc.

When I took some time last week to ponder what type of video I could make for that contest, I kept having those old animations pop in my head, and I finally sat down and started to re-create that style. Mind you, it’s been 12 years since I last tried anything of that sort, and I was hesitant to believe that it still could be done in an interesting way. Plus, that camcorder was long gone, and my DV camcorder died a few years ago, so I only had my digital camera to try things out – which is nearing the end of its life (see below for what I mean). But anyway, I managed to make a couple minutes worth of footage, and threw it all together (with some other effects) in Windows Movie Maker, and produced this video:

I hope you enjoy seeing a glimpse into the strange internal workings of my mind… If you can, please vote and comment what you think on the YouTube page (the competition is over and the ratings didn’t count anyway – but I would like some higher ratings to compensate for a fellow contestant who went through and voted 1-star for every video, multiple times).

I certainly plan on doing more of these videos, only as soon as I can get a newer camera. To give you an idea of just how flaky my camera is right now, here’s a shot I just took of my monitor: