Lewies Blog

Mags had asked:

I have some old VHS tapes that I’d like to transfer to DVD. How did you transfer your Super-8 to digital? Did someone do it for you?

The answer is, yes. I had paid Digital Transfer Systems to transfer the film to DVD for me. It was initially about $150, but the price rose when there machines could not handle the bad quality of the film.

My parents had mixed 8mm with Super 8 - The holes are just a wee bit different. I paid an extra $100 to have another machine scan the frames that wasn’t dependent on the placement of holes in the film. It gave better quality, but harder price per foot.

As far as converting from VHS to DVD - these guys do that as well. There main specialty appears to be reel to DVD conversion though. Check out the Pricing area from the top menu. A six hour tape can be converted to DVD for only $64.99. Much, much cheaper then film. (Mine was about 15 minutes total running time for $250)

The great thing is that they do not encrypt the DVDs. This made it possible for me to go in and grab individual frames and save them as pictures. The problem with some of the software that I was using was that I had to convert my 1GB movie files into windows media format before I could extract the frames. That is just a problem with the software I purchased.

For everyone’s enjoyment, I have extracted more images. I’m going to be lazy on the descriptions this time, but you are free to click through the images to see the larger images along with descriptions on my flickr account.

You may have noticed an old metal snoopy lunch box. I found a few on the internet that were copywrite 1982, so this film (or parts of it) is from 1982. A few of these pictures are of me getting ready for school and getting on the school bus. I think it was the first day of school for the year. My brother saw me off and didn’t go, so he was probably in kindergarten and I was probably in first grade.

Not a programmer? Skip past this entry. I’m primarily posting this for myself with later reference. Yea … I’m writing a note to myself. How lame is that? Anyway, here it goes …

Dear Lewie,

I was having some issues with my database synchronization project. It seems that the only thing that I didn’t compare was the tables themselves. Odd, since the table structure is the heart of the database that defines how the data is stored. Of course, the structure had been stable that there were hardly any changes to worry about. The reason that they were not compared was that the tables are very complex objects.

It would be simple if I only had to script the basic structure of the table. I also have to script primary keys, foreign keys, constraints, indexes, extended properties, defaults, and more. I couldn’t do this by using any stored procedures on the server like I did with most of the objects.

I searched the internet for help and came across an article: Generate Scripts for SQL Server Objects. The code that accompanied the article allowed me to generate the scripts that I needed.

I saw that this person created an ActiveX COM object (SQLDMO.SQLServer) within there stored procedure using sp_OACreate, sp_OASetProperty, sp_OAMethod, and sp_OADestroy. I had dealt with these methods before when encrypting data on a past project within SQL Server and I had also written a small tutorial a few years ago on how to use these methods with a Base64 encoding method on an Active-X object. (No, Base 64 is not encrypting … it was just used for the tutorial)

Because I was working with a stand-alone desktop application, I decided to try and use the objects within my applications code. I was using the .Net framework with the C# programming language. I browsed through my COM objects and found “Microsoft SQLDMO Object Library” version 8.0. The DLL was located at “C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\80\Tools\Binn\sqldmo.dll”. I added this as a reference in my project and I was all set to go.

I had a bit of a hard time converting the code from SQL to C#. I understood the SQL very well, but it appears that the interop for this DLL didn’t know how to handle default methods. Also, it seemed that all the parameters were expecting objects. I passed in strings for my server, database and owner information.

In the end, I got it to work with the following code:

When I was growing up, there was no such thing as DVD’s or Video Tapes. My mother had a super-8mm movie camera. She would go around and get movies of us kids doing our thing. We would watch the movies many times throughout our childhood.

Last year I got some of my old super-8mm movies digitally transferred over to a DVD. I purchased some software (#1 Video Converter) to cut the files down and take image captures of the frames. I just stumbled upon the movie file tonight and started pulling some images out.

Even at a very young age, I was very good at building things that had no purpose.

My first bicycle had very hard tires and a hard plastic seat. This is me on the bicycle without the training wheels. The breaks were different then bikes today. They were not built into the pedals. It was a separate pedal that would press a pad against the tire.

My grand mother knitted blocks for each letter in my name including my suffix. This is me playing with those blocks. You can even see my potty chair in the background.

This is a portion of my parents super-8mm movie where I am looking through a book about pilgrims.

I got a tractor just like my dad! This one had to be peddled like a bike and was fast!

My brother Lucas is on the left and my sister Bonnie is in the middle. I am on the right. Bonnie was just born recently and Mom took a small movie of us with her.

It’s late and I need to go to bed.

Spring is less then a month away. For some reason, I’ve started to get into the spring cleaning mood. No, I’m not cleaning up the house. I’m a dork. My spring cleaning is “virtual”. Yes mam/sir! I’m cleaning out my hard drive.

I would prefer to just format it and start anew, but I do not know what my registration key is for Visual Studio 2003.Net. Also, I have tons of files on here that I need to keep. For now, I’m moving all of my images over to the file server. I also put many of mine and angels artwork up on my flickr account. (take a look)

I have been finding all kinds of really old stuff. The problem is - there is just too much of it. I have even forgotten what I was saving some of this stuff for or why I made it in the first place.

Lewies Random Cartoon Face Generator,
originally uploaded by lewismoten.

One of these days … I will make a web-based RPG game. Until that day comes, I’ll just have bunches of little experiments laying around.

I made bunches and bunches of transparent GIF’s that were parts of a face. Thinks like eyes, mouths, noses, hair. They were all separate. I then made a JavaScript to put random ones together and see different funny faces be made.

I just got a Google alert for “Lewies Blogs”. I have this little alert (as well as a few others) so that I can return the favor in case anyone links to me. Anyways, I got two finds today:

The Blog of the Day (hosted with onlinehome.us). This place looks just like The Blog of The Day, but it is on a different server.

Blog Hub - I signed up for an account over at the blog hub a while ago. It’s nice to see the google bot finding my name plastered across the internet.

A telemarketer person rang our phone. Both Angel and I picked up and the woman kept asking for the male of the household. I thought how rude to just want the guy. What on earth can it be about?

Angel remained on the line and I asked the woman on the other line what she wanted. She started off with saying that she was taking a survey for a public opinion … “My public opinion is that I don’t want to talk to you“, I interrupted. The woman laughed and thanked me for my time.

Giggling on the way, I ran down to Angel and she said “Go Lewie!”

Certain oatmeal brands appear to explode in my microwave. I follow the directions to the letter and walk away. I come back to find a big mess of oatmeal all over my microwave. It’s disgusting having to clean this stuff up. I’m putting the microwave on medium temperature and for the minimum nuke time specified.

And don’t give me that “Your microwave is too powerful” junk. It’s a standard cheap microwave that I picked up at Wal-mart. I think these people should actually try there directions before the product is sold.

Bah! I’m going back to eating my ice cream. At least it doesn’t explode.

Angel went out for the night with her sister down to Richmond. I don’t know why, but every time she leaves over night, I get this urge to do something big and artistic in the house. One time I painted her room red and then painted a silhouette big giant stallion on its hind legs that went up to the ceiling. She loves horses.

I guess it is to help ease the loneliness I feel when she is gone. Somehow I feel like I have to impress her when she comes back. Maybe I’m trying to say something like - “See, you don’t have to leave because I still want to do all these great things for you”.

Last night I tried to draw a circle of hands and cool spiral circles and such on my basement wall on the other side of the laundry room. I got a few of them drawn but then I realized that this was the stupidest idea that I have had yet.

I miss her.

I’ve had my ICQ number for what seems to be forever. Currently, my number has six digits. I used to have one with less numbers before it, but I had forgotten it along with the password. I was wondering if there was a market out for low numbers.

I headed on over to eBay and searched for ICQ. It appears that I can sell my number for about ten bucks. How about that. Five digit numbers start out at $100. I really wish I knew my old number. Perhaps time will drive the price up on my 6 digit number.