Video Copilot Optical Flares light flickering problem

Been learning a lot of Adobe After effects.  When I would render a video, the light flares would flicker.  It may seem normal at first, but when you see that it's a distraction, you realize it's not how it is supposed to work.  On my computer, I have a built-in Intel 4000 HD graphics.  And I had set After Effects to render using the GPU.  I changed it back to the CPU and the flickering is gone.

Adobe CC has earned my subscription

So I finally made the jump from Adobe CS6 to Adobe CC.  I hated the concept of CC, but honestly, they've earned my subscription.  Adobe is one of the only pieces of software that I can say has made a big impact in my capabilities and livelihood.  Although the changes might seem minor, I really do look forward to their smallest of updates.  Although I wish some of their programs were better integrated to suit my needs, I understand why they are not integrated to serve the masses.  Just a year ago I've become a heavy user of their video editing features of the suite, which I had never touched previously, but now it is what I spend the most time with.

Let's hope they don't come out with something like Adobe CC2 and jack the prices up every time they add a digit.

Speaking of videos, the Samsung Galaxy Note III will be announced in about 3.5 days.  Let's hope it stirs excitement like the Note II did.  Looking forward to making videos again now that I'm done with my summer Android programming class.

Icons not showing up in Windows 7.

I ran into one of the most obscure troubleshooting tips today on the Internet.  My icons weren't showing up properly, and although the instructions were obscure, it worked like a charm.  I thought I'd echo it on my blog just in case the link changes.  http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/9973-icons-not-showing-up.html

Here's a cut and paste from that link:

1. Press Ctrl-Shift-Escape to get the task manager.
2. In the Processes tab, click on explorer.exe and click End Process. You'll get a confirmation dialog. Click "End Process" to confirm.
3. From the File menu (still in the task manager), choose New Task (Run...).
4. Copy/paste/enter the following command in the run box:
   Code:

   cmd /c del %userprofile%\AppData\Local\IconCache.db /a

5. Open the Run box again with File --> New Task (Run...). This time, enter this command:
   Code:

   explorer.exe

6. All should be okay now. Open the Start Menu and confirm that your icons are fixed now.

Plants Vs. Zombies updated on Android with Zen (Flower) Garden! Finally!!!

Well, weeks before PvZ 2 comes out, they've finally gave the Android PvZ all the features that has been on the iPhone for exactly 2 years.  Well, better late than never.  You bet I'm gonna make the most out of this app, once again.  PvZ 2 on the Android will be coming out later than the iPhone.  I hope not 2 years later.

My thoughts on the iOS 7 icons...yuck.

The icons are a designer's nightmare. The gradients on stock apps go in different directions. I can't see how this got past Jony. 3rd party apps bevel when that doesn't fit the theme. The shadow are too light and too dispersed so it doesn't give any sense of floating icons. They should keep the size of the shadow around 15 instead of 50. At the end of the design phase, I think they should have put an Android phone next to it to see if they have a better design. At that moment they should have realized they should start over.

Say "No" to Director's Cuts.

Am I in the minority to be wary of director's cut of any movie?  2 movies particularly stand out in my mind.  The PG-fycation of "The Last of the Mohicans".  I got the sense that the director may have been pushed by the execs to make the theatrical cut more bloody, and he saw it as an opportunity to change it back to the way he wanted it.  Big mistake.  By changing what is possibly a few seconds of the film, the movie feels less satisfying and the thirst for revenge unquenced.  I'm not the only person that feels this way.  Read the comments of director's cut reviews, and you can see people keeping their old VHS copies after they've purchased the DVD or people in the forums talking about how they've gone through ordering theatrical cuts from Canada because they only were selling director's cut in the US.

Another movie was the director's cut of Amadeus.  I have no problems with this cut of the movie.  I think it is as good as the original.  But somehow the theatrical cut of Amadeus and the director's cut of Amadeus are entirely 2 different movies.  My only concern is for people watching the director's cut of Amadeus as their first time watching the movie.  It is impossible to communicate there is another cut of Amadeus that is better time tested, and there was a reason it won all the awards.  They got it right the first time.

These days, when I see how the directors have added extra footage back into the film, I no longer see it as a bonus.  I just want to buy the movie I loved the first time.  It's like going back to the restaurant and ordering the same dish you loved the last time, only to find out they've changed the ingredients.  What a terrible idea.

My experience running Mac OS X 10.8.3 on VMWare

Having recently upgraded to a i7 with 16GB ram and a top of the line SSD, I thought it was time again to try to run Mac OS X on vmware.  Initially, I was very happy that computers are finally fast enough to run a vm of Mac OS X at full speed with all the animations turned on and have it run buttery smooth as if you are running it directly.  Even video seemed to play at full screen and have it look identical to playing it directly on the host machine.  It kinda gave me the feeling that "I can get used to this".

But giving the OS a harder look, I can't believe that this is the latest Apple has to offer.  The design cues scream of web templates from 2005.  2005 was 8 years ago.  The skin of the OS is definitely showing it's age with it's overdone shadows (sometimes uneven), overly rounded curves, and and 3D buttons.  Maybe I'm scrutinizing here but I'm not getting that clean, simple, refined experience that Apple is known for.  Is there a Mac OS XI (11.0) in the works? Most people seem to think no.  One might argue "Windows isn't any better"  Whether that is true or not it should never be used as an excuse to keep it substandard, especially when you know it is outdated.

I had a difficult time trying to log in with my apple account.  I reset it about 5 times, and the process was really buggy.  It would email me links that when I click on them, it would say the session has expired.  It is obvious that timezones were the problem between the server and client.  Real rookie mistakes for web programming.  But the fact that Apple hasn't figured this out was pretty disturbing.  I would change passwords without fulfilling the password criteria, but it would not warm me that I was doing anything wrong and push through.  Then of course, it would not work.  Then I tried to log into Facetime and Messenger, which didn't let me log in because I probably haven't updated my credit card information or agreed to updated terms of service in iTunes.  But the error messages for logging in were no help.  When you Google search problems, all the suggestions pointed to pretty low level obscure solutions that seemed very disconnected from the actual problems.  I was also shocked at how messy the manual uninstalling of apps was.  I always thought Mac OS was better in that it didn't leave files all over the place like Windows.  That may be true, but not all apps respect this and uninstalling apps without proper uninstallers is shockingly bad.  

The OS itself reminds me of software written by only a handful of people who don't have the time or the patience to practice any thorough testing procedures.  I got the impression that Apple isn't even sure about the future of Mac OS.