nope. try again.

I begin to look up information on the file format that the camera uses to record the movies (.MOD), and apparently, nobody supports it. so now, in order to use the file (and subsequently, the camera), I have to either A. use the crappy software that came with the camera (which is slow and difficult), or B. buy some other software (also from the camcorder company, how convenient) that will allow me to convert the movie to some other easier-to-use format.

well, that does it, I’m thoroughly pissed at all software and hardware designers that decide that it’s okay to nickel and dime us by using proprietary file formats that are impossible to use otherwise. even if they don’t want to nickel and dime us, it still sucks when a company tries to “better” the current standards by creating a new format that only their software or hardware uses, and then fail to release the format details so others can use it as well (think MS Word 2007 and the .docx format).  well, at least with that one, OpenOffice.org finally supports it in v3.0, but .odt already existed and is more openly adopted by other word processing software anyway.

anywho…

point is, I doubt seriously that .MOD (which, I found out, is just .MPG with a different extension and some other .MOI files to go with it) was really necessary. why not just use one of the other formats that are already out there and more widely used, why must you create your own?  and if it’s absolutely necessary to create your own, at least release the details so that others may take advantage of your apparent excellence (think .7z files).

and if not, just use a format already available. my current camera records movies in .mov format, and everything I use can read an .mov file, and the pictures are .jpg… easy.

new camcorder… .MOD files… not so much.

NOTE: I finally found a small simple utility to convert my .MOD files to .MPG and set my widescreen marker at the same time: SDCopy

i am so sick of the company that my domain is registered through right now it’s not even funny. they have pretty much killed my site for the past three weeks and it is still dead. (i’m writing this through a more direct path that my hosting provides in situations like these)

my current registration period was going to expire, and my hosting company started offering domain registration services that they didn’t offer when i got the webspace, so i wanted to switch over to them to make everything easier. so i pay for the domain service through them about two weeks before it was to expire, and they tried to switch it but it didn’t work, so they tried again, but the second try was too late and my name (iohelix.com) was now being held ransom (ok, not really, but that’s what it seems like). come to find out that there was a registrar-lock placed on my domain that nobody told me about, and i can’t remove it until i renew my subscription through my current company, so i finally give in and pay them what i need to to get it working…

still waiting…

its been a week now and i still have no control over my domain. the customer service they are providing is horrible, they have NO customer service on the weekends (?!?), no phone numbers that work, and the customer service they do provide is either wrong, or ambiguous (“don’t worry, we are getting in contact with department concerns”) WTF???

anyway, they finally figured out that somewhere along the line, the order got lost and they are currently working on it, but that’s what they’ve been saying this whole time, so we’ll see… anyway, just to let you all know, if your domain is registered through HostDime, Fariert, or any of their affiliate companies (except eNom, who is the actual registrar that HostDime is a reseller for), get out now!

just venting…
>( l8

more to come when my service is finally back up…

so i upload the photos that i took down in escalante, and when i try to batch add them, it says there are no new photos in the bunch… weird. but not that big of a deal. i just head over to the coppermine website to check on some assistance with the problem…   but guess what?  IT’S NOT THERE! i get a 403 forbidden error when i try to access any part of the site!  how much does that suck?

so i’m sittin here with a bunch of pictures that i may need to upload one by one, which will take all day, cuz there’s like 50 of them. shitty. but anyway, it’s lame how they don’t even support their product anymore.

i’m lookin into changing the photo gallery script, but all the others suck ass, like 4images and some others not even worth mentioning.

poopy… plur, late