So here, today, I have received my very own copy of the Sony Movie Studio Platinum 12 Suite.
Over the years, I've gained a keen interest in the art of video creation. I love the idea of making a fluid presentation for others as well as myself to enjoy. More to the point, I've had people approach me, asking me to create video presentations for them. I've always wanted to say "Yes!", but my mere Powerpoint capabilities can only carry me so far.
So here, today, I have received my very own copy of the Sony Movie Studio Platinum 12 Suite. Back in August of 2012 I ordered a new headset. Specifically, I got the Turtle Beach Z6A Headset. [Voyetra link] [Amazon Link] I bought it from Amazon because it was a bunch cheaper there --$80 or so-- than on Voyetra's site --$129 or so--. My reason for purchasing this headset was because, as a fan of music, I wanted to hear more. More, more, always more! The Z6A was a headset that actually featured 5.1 surround sound by having four speakers in each ear cup. It satisfied my desires rather well, especially because I could manage the bass driver independently. In fact, I could control each of the speaker pairs, and I still had a master control over that! I fell in love with this headset the moment I laid eyes on it. I beheld an explosion of sound the moment I put some music through it, and I was thoroughly enjoying it's superior quality in every aspect of it. When folks would come over, the Z6A was a main showcase, rather than something to push off to the side. I'd let my friends try it out, mess with the controls, and listen to some killer dubstep, classical, and even vintage rock just so they could see how truly amazing it is to wear surround sound on your head.
I even went out to search the web for nice additional accessories to use. I found quality cables to run from my X-Box 360 and it's controller so I could enjoy the system like nothing before. [link] Four months later, I had reason to fret for the first time. The headband's slider had completely cracked all the way through. This wasn't due to mishandling or anything of the like, but rather, it was due simply to the use I put it through. The fact that the headband had cracked was very odd to me. I though it must have been a freak accident, because my last headset, the Turtle Beach X1 had never experienced a problem of this magnitude. (In fact, it's still functioning to this very day as TorChuJACK 117's primary gaming headset.) I then tried to tape/glue the piece back together so I could continue using it as before. I didn't care how hideous I made it look, so long as I could continue hearing the sheer beauty of its 5.1 surround sound. The repair never worked, and the same piece on the other side of the headset gave-way soon afterward. This left me with a headband and two dangling speakers. I had one option left, contact support. Of course, Turtle Beach's E-mail support was prompt and helped me very quickly, in perfectly readable English. They sent me a free replacement, which arrived only a week after I shipped the broken specimen in. The new headset worked perfectly fine, and lived up to the total glory of its deceased brother. I even got to keep a few of the cables which come with the headset, meaning I had extra items, which is something I am very fond of. I enjoyed it for about seven months before it formed a hairline crack in the same exact location as my first Z6A. This can't be attributed to me: I always use two hands to put the headset on or off, I store it in a specific and safe place, and I wear it in a reasonably adjusted manner which conforms to my head nicely. I observed over the course of a week as casual use caused the crack to form into a gaping one. It still hadn't gone all the way through, but I waited no longer to contact support once again. This time, my experience was a bit different. Rather than shipping me a new headset right-off-the-bat, they contacted me and informed me that the Z6A's had been discontinued. Not surprising news, considering the headband's likeliness to crack under the strain of normal use. The support team offered me an alternative: that I receive a headset from the line of my functional model, the X1. This new headset, the X12 [link], combined with the DSS2 they offered, took away my 5.1 surround sound, but gave me more cabling options and equalizer features and Dolby Digital audio... I now have fiber-optic support! The price of my initial Z6A was about $80.00 way-back-when. The price of this new hardware is shown as $129.99, meaning I'm getting a replacement that's worth more than what I had bought. That's enough to make me a happy customer. :) (Though, according to the originally advertised price of the Z6A, it's the same value.) The Z6A will always have a special place in my heart as the first great headset I've ever owned, and I would still have it, were it capable of living through the terrors of common use. I've just set up my new replacement X12 and its DSS2 only last night and I'm so far enjoying it. I'm also happy that the X12 includes a bass boost knob. :3 TLDR summary: Bought a new Z6A for $80.00 in August 2012. It broke. Got replacement Z6A for free in December 2012. It broke. Got replacement X12 and DSS2 for free in July 2013. Brand new, and functioning fine. Still a happy customer. I miss the Z6A though. -Skylark According to the guys at the Weebly support desk, I have a CSS problem. Those of you who've tried to comment know this well, as seen in the pictures below: Apparently the text above the comment boxes is white, as is the background, so you can't see the text (Unless you highlight, of course.) I don't yet know how to fix this, but I am investigating the issue.
I believe what this will come down to is myself having to search through the heaps of CSS Weebly provided in their template of my blog. Argh. -Skylark My mysterious field trip, mentioned in my last post, was actually up to Amish country! I went to a Sights and Sound theater to watch a live storytelling of Noah, saw some lame fireworks, and went to an outdoor mall. But the best part of it all was the dorm. We were initially going to stay at some lady's house, but we had collected too many people, and we wound up staying at Lancaster Bible College's dorms. That was exciting! Over the course of the day, I would have no goals or objectives, aside from meeting up for some activity with the group; meaning I could just stretch out and relax whenever I good and felt like it! The way the dorms were set up, we had a wide array of seating options, and I could sit-in pretty much anywhere! It was awesome! My family recently obtained a refurbished Nikon camera, so I took this opportunity to melt the camera lens with exposure. While I was on the bus, I took photos of plenty of cornfields, much like the following: Overall, it was an uneventful and boring trip. However, the dorms were what got me hooked. I absolutely loved the atmosphere at the bible college.
And that's that. I'm home now, and back to my usual overwhelmed self. -Skylark First, I just wanna say, I'm going out-of state in the near future. I'm not saying when, but I will post about it once I'm back. Second, some of my watchers have messaged me saying "What gives, why no posts lately?" The answer is simple, I'm working on one really big post. Though, this is no true excuse. As Jacen pointed out, I should continue to make small posts and keep you guys up-to-date... I mean, even with the big post, my life keeps going. So here's a quick trip into my past week for something interesting. [6/27/2013 3:36:49 PM] Hello: So on Thursday, the 27th, this character called "Hello" messages me on Skype, asking for some free graphic design work. Really, I don't mind doing this sort of thing for folks, but I still have to put limits on the amount of work I'll do for a free graphic. I really felt bad when Hello asked if I could do an animation and I had to put a price tag on it. At any rate, Hello first had asked me to help design an entire site; coding, graphics, and the whole getup. Of course I declined due to the largeness of the project, my complete lack of true coding skills, and my time-sucky-uppy projects which I've already got going on. In the end, though, we correlated and I agreed to do some free work for Hello's site. Specifically, I did this: Most of this graphic, I've done in one quick sitting. The "PVP - Survival" text, however, has taken the longest, as Hello had added it in last-minute and asked for revisions when I wasn't capable of working on the file. Of course, it only got stretched out longer due to each of us being offline when the other was available...
In fact, this is the latest version of the graphic, but Hello still hasn't confirmed it as being complete because, as I was working on it, Hello popped offline again. -_- As things go, I'll advertise too. I'm Skylark-Torch, and I'll do custom graphics. If you want serious work done, be willing to pay out of your shilling. Even if you want simple free stuff, be available to chat and give highly descriptive outlines of what you want. You can get in contact with me by emailing me at [email protected] -Skylark No, really. I absolutely enjoy being at home. A place where I have my own space and I can do whatever I'd like in it. (reasonably, of course.) I just got back, yesterday, from being at my dad's for nine days. Now I'm in front of OEMer--My home PC--and am having a blast just.. doing stuff! Already, I'm talking to my mom about new tech-y purchases. (Yes, I do that with my mom. She's cool like that.) - I'm looking at a new phone from Republic Wireless. Click this link: [link] See that phone? It's the Motorola Defy XT. I know it's a slug, but I want it. By "slug" I mean two things. 1. It can take a beating, a very durable phone. 2. It's a bit older and is slow compared to today's newer phones. Now, why would I want a phone that's all slow n' stuff? Because of the price. I can mangle my way to get it for $150, and to pay a mere $20 a month for unlimited text, data, and calling. I'll be very excited to have my first smartphone, even if it's a bit behind comparatively. I look at it this way; it saves me money, and it's a huge step up from my current phone, the Samsung R450. I try not to compare what I'll get to what I could get, especially when the "what I could get" would be much more expensive, only for menial gains. (Thinking on contract phones with fancy features.[Nokia Lumia]) At any rate, I plan to keep this phone for about a year. By then, It'll have nearly paid for its-self. Even better, Republic Wireless should have finally released some new phones! I had previously resolved to wait until they released their new phones, but with this new price drop, and the wait for new phones not seeming to grow shorter, I'll jump the gun. Here's the truth though, if they release a new phone just after I buy this one, I'll bite myself, but I will still wait another year at minimum before I buy the newer one. - I'm looking to buy a motherboard. My dad got me a fancy computer case as my graduation present. I could migrate my current setup over to this one... Or I could pick out a new motherboard and ransack my current OEM system's upgrades for a whole new system. Look at this thing! [link] - I'm looking to build two computers. If you read the above notch, you know that PC build #1 will be in my new case, with a new mobo, and with a bunch of the upgrades I'll scrap from my OEM PC. #2, however, will be my actual OEM machine, with it's stock parts again, and some older things I've retired but've hung on to. I need to create a name for my new PC. I call my current one OEMer, because it's just an OEM with nifty upgrades. Cad calls his PC Epsilon, which is a very cool name, and Jacen calls his laptop... Rose Tyler. *Shrugs* So yeah. Name ideas? My PC awaits. -Skylark Ps: I'm peeking onto Rachelguy72's WIP server when she's not looking. I'm building up a nice house there and am seriously wondering how long I can go before her, TorchuPanda, or Crusader0422 notice my being there. :3 I know they don't bother reading my blog, so I have no worries. Pps: I'm listening to Coldplay's "Rainy Day" right now. You should totally check it out. Rainy Day is one of those songs that, after I thought I've heard all the Coldplay could have to offer, I just stumbled onto it. It stood out to me because of the laid back feeling of the song, it's upbeat and slow at the same time--So awesome!
You read that right, I'm on vacation. I had a great little party for some exclusive family members on my dad's side, in honor of my graduation. (more on that later, I'm too lazy to upload the pics.) Anyhoo, the vacation is ongoing, even now, and I've been busy adjusting to a daily shedule which is very different then my own. Let me show you an example! Yes. It's a huge-dang pile of dirt.
And today I just finished hauling the last wheelbarrowfull of it. Of course, I didn't do it all by myself. It was a group effort which took three days of on-and-off work to get finished. I know it may not look so big to you, but the concrete slab it's on is the common parking area for a luxury BMW and a Ford F-150, and they have plenty of space. Aside from this, and hiding inside to play Mass Effect, I've yet to do much other than ride in the cramped backseat of that Ford F-150. Oh yeah,and the T.V. series: The Adventures of Merlin is pretty good. You should check it out. This is a series I would like to complete. I just have to throw out, too; no, I do not condone magic. This just seems to be a half-decent show to watch about knights and the medieval age. It has some intense swordfighting scenes too! -Skylark Yup. I got so tired of second-guessing what was on each of my thumb drives that I decided to label them all. The question now is, what do I label them with? Well, the answer came shortly, as it was sitting on the desk in front of me. That poor Post-It note never knew what hit it. I was cutting away at the sticky part faster than you could say "Piranha Beetles!" Within a minute I had stuck my ID code on each of four salvaged sticky note segments. This is nearly perfect, aside from my messy handwriting and the fact that it's not very hard to remove the sticky from the drive casing. That's okay though, because Jacen got me a Case Logic thumb drive case a few years ago (Much used and abused, thank you sir!) which keeps my flash drives secure. I just need to be careful when I'm handling them. As for the ID code I'm using, I've had a naming scheme going for some time already. My flash drives are all formatted with an ST (for Skylark Torch), then a "D", followed by the number of the drive in my lineup. I actually have six flash devices, but two are SD card formats and cannot be stuck with paper like this. In the end, a drive's label will look like this: ST-D3. Don't worry, Jacen's already pointed out how ridiculous that code looks.
Look for more editions of "Label... EVERYTHING" :-) -Skylark Yesterday I had gone over to help my grandpa out by mowing his lawn. When I got home, my mom was shooing my out of the house for some unknown reason, I tagged along with my gramps to Lowe's. Of course, my good friend Connor (Conrad) works at Lowe's To I called to see if he was on shift today. Of course, luck would have it that he's not at work today, but I did learn of his lunch plans. When I finally made it home I found that my mom was planning to take us out for lunch, so I ingeniously proposed to meet Conrad at his lunch destination. Of course, it didn't stop there. At Mcdonalds, we wound up standing around, nobody had anything important to do, and we all clearly wanted to hang out for a more extended period. So my mom took us all to Raleigh! The main goal of the trip was to go to the Apple Store; she was getting a replacement i-Pod NANO, and purchasing an i-Pad mini. As Conrad and I grew bored of messing with Garage Band instruments in the store, we strolled the mall until there wasn't an interesting store left which we hadn't visited. Most notably, to me, was the fact that, in the food court, I saw a little girl with a Build-a-Bear Workshop box. Except, hanging out of the box wasn't some cute, fluffy teddy bear. Instead... I saw Rainbow Dash! Of course this warranted an immediate trip to the Build-a-Bear Workshop. Here's some lousy photos I took with my phone. Sadly enough, we didn't buy any. :/ Soon after, my mom was done in the Apple Store and we all decided to go see a movie. This movie was Wreck-it-Ralph. Of course showings didn't start for a good while, so we killed some time at the Lego store. After some walking around in there, we noticed a big bin of Legos and a construction table. Since we were bored, we started doing something with them. Our initial plan was to make a TARDIS from Dr. Who, but I quickly found that we didn't have enough blue bricks to make a half-decent TARDIS. So instead, Connor wrote something! Yeah. Anyway, we eventually saw Wreck-it-Ralph. I think it was really good! I nearly cried about twice during the movie, and it had its humor moments. Connor asked me to rate it from 1-10 and I gave it an 8.5. That's for being awesome, but not quite the best. Also, those old video game reference gave me a chill of nostalgia... And I was not expecting an Owl City song on the credits! Also, both on the way to and from Raleigh, I played Minecraft on my netbook! Surprisingly enough, my single-player world was running at less than 50% of my total CPU, and I still had a fourth of my battery when I got home! This laptop is surprisingly resilient for my purposes. Anyway, I was designing a "roundabout" rail station for the public rail network on Nova Mundi. Care for a screenshot? Yes? No? Well, you're getting one. So that was my trip. :D
-Skylark Man, I haven't used tissues in months... Then my mom comes in and asks for one. Of course, the box was empty since I had a sick hurdle earlier this year. She felt obligated to restock me, and gave me this big pink box. So I recycled my dragon box. I've held on to this box (the one on the right) for roughly four years now. It just sits on my bookshelf behind my door until folks nab all the tissues. Usually when it empties I'll refill it; today's scenario is nothing new.
I felt obligated to snap a picture since I had to refill it today. It just looks awesome. -Skylark |
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