…and you’ll see a video I created that took over an hour to render on my overclocked 2.8 Ghz Quad Core machine, at the end of which I noticed the mis-spelling of the word “Premium”. Time to re-render. Sure makes me wish Adobe Premiere Elements 7 had a spell-checker!
I’ve blogged about the Firefox spell check before, but this really got metoday: Firefox 3.0.5, the US English version with the Canadian English dictionary installed, generated this series of red error lines:
Do you see any spelling errors in that sentence? I don’t. So what’s with all the red lines? Come on Firefox developers, you can do better than this…
I’m not sure how or why, but a few months ago the DVD drive went missing on the HP Pavilion Slimline that my wife uses. Not physically missing of course, but missing in software – as in, there was no optical drive showing up in the list of drives. Putting a disc in the drive did nothing – I couldn’t load any new software on it. It wasn’t a big deal for quite a while, because we didn’t have much use for the drive, but this week I needed to load software for a new HP multi-function laser printer, so I figured I’d try to get it fixed once and for all.
When I saw that the optical drive was showing up in the device manager with a small yellow exclamation mark, I tried the normal thing: uninstall it, scan for new hardware, and let Vista fix the problem by re-installing it. Unfortunately, that didn’t work – it continued to complain about a bad driver, giving me error coe 39. I did a bit of searching and found this page on HP support that addressed the problem through a variety of steps. I knew the drive had power because it would eject properly, and the case hadn’t been opened in months so I figured it wasn’t a cable problem.
The solution ended up being in the registry. Here are the steps I followed to fix it (a shortened version of the steps from the HP site):
After a reboot, I was back in action, with the DVD drive showing up. Thanks HP for having worthwhile online support and saving me a phone call!
The most recent, and probably (hopefully?) my last television appearance on the topic of unboxing, is courtesy of CityTV’s “Your City” news program. I had the most fun with this interview, largely because the camera guy was kind of geeky himself and we were chatting about digital cameras, HD video, video editing software, etc. As for the piece itself, I think it went pretty well. What I found particularly amusing were the facial expressions of Sandra Jansen, before and especially after the piece – you can tell she was thinking “Really? People watch this?” 😉
“Aamer Haleem hosts a lively, fast paced, provocative and always entertaining array of conversation, debate and good old fashioned water cooler chat.
Informed and plugged-in guests bring insight and analysis on the big stories of the day and what they mean to you. And you’ll hear stories you won’t hear anywhere else that are guaranteed to get you talking and joining in the conversation.”
Last Thursday, the 29th of January, was when I was on this show. It was a neat experience to be in a radio station sound booth, wearing a set of headphones and talking into a microphone – I hadn’t done that since back in the Sound Doctrine days (the band I was in). What was a bit strange was that the host, Aamer Haleem, was in Vancouver – so I was alone in the sound booth. I was invited to be on the whole segment, which made me a part of the topic of the day…which happened to be “Should fighting be banned in the NHL?”. I tend to have an opinion on everything, but since I watch hockey essentially never, this was a bit of a stretch for me. I think I handled it well enough though. You can check out the full version of the interview over on the CBC site, complete with two songs, or you can listen to the edited down version that I created below.
Another unboxing article was published this week, in a local paper called Metro Calgary. It’s one of those free papers that you’ll see outside grocery stores, transit stops, etc. The article was published in the paper on Thursday the 29th of January, and the same article was featured on their home page (pictured above). The photographer, Robin Kuniski, took a few photos like the above image – pretty standard stuff. But he brought an empty box with him and had a cool idea to put his camera in the bottom of the box and have me open it from the top – I saw a quite preview of the results and the photos looked great! Sadly, Metro Calgary ran with the above image instead, complete with me looking down creating a double chin. Gee, thanks Metro Calgary.
The article itself is kind of strange – it seems that the journalist that interviewed me, Jennifer Hilliker, didn’t really understand how YouTube works. The first line, “As Calgarian Jason Dunn unwrapped his Dell Studio Hybrid computer, about 90,000 Internet viewers watched in fascination”, makes it sound like YouTube is a real-time streaming video site. That Dell video has had nearly 90,000 views, yes, but when I opened the box the only one watching it was me. And check out this last paragraph:
“Ryan Felgate, blogger for techvibes.com said that people have to be careful, as he suspects some corporations launch “unboxing” videos under the guise of a regular person. “I’m not sure if a YouTube video could be an authentic depiction of a product,” Felgate said.”
Felgate makes it sound like none of the unboxing videos on YouTube are legitimate, which is ridiculous. I can’t imagine that’s what he really thinks, because the awkward quote isn’t even proper English – maybe he meant “I’m not sure if all YouTube videos are authentic depictions of a product”. I’ll drop him a line and ask for clarification, because it’s quite a broad condemnation of anyone that does unboxing videos – and I find it hard to believe that’s what he really meant.
I also couldn’t help but notice that Hilliker URL-dropped the Techvibes site, but not one of my sites, and I’m the topic of the article. I’m stunned at the lack of willingness to mention the name or URL of my site – I’ve dealt with more than half a dozen different journalists in the past three weeks, and thus far none of them have told any of their readers/viewers where they can actually find me online. More on that later.
The media coverage of my unboxing videos has continued over this past week, the latest being this article published over at The Weekly Albertan. And the words “Geek Porn” are in the title. Hooray. <sigh>
Last Friday afternoon the Alberta Bureau Chief for CTV News, Janet Dirks, came with a cameraman to shoot a story about the unboxing videos that I do. Here’s how it turned out…
The interview aired on Sunday night on the CTV National News, but I managed to bungle the recording settings and didn’t snag it. It aired again today at noon, so that’s the one I recorded. So how did I feel about this interview? All in all, quite good – especially since I was able to explain that the term “geek porn” is an inside geek joke. I appreciated the fact that the piece was well-researched; they even found one of the instances when I was genuinely shocked at what I found inside a box (the 1:15 mark). I think this should pretty much wrap up this media storm about unboxing videos – it’s been quite a ride! Ironically, I’ve been so focused on all this media coverage of my unboxing videos that I haven’t done an unboxing video in about three weeks. Time to get back to it!
I would have thought that the CBC was above cheap headlines, but it seems they like the were really fixated on the “geek porn” angle when writing this story. I now completely regret uttering the words “vaguely sensual” – I really should have known better. Referring to unboxings as “geek porn” is purely an inside geek joke, and I’m kicking myself for not being more forceful about that point. Oh well. 🙂
Well, the CBC interviews have both gone public by now, and all in all I’m OK with how they turned out (you’ll need Adobe Flash to hear/view both). First off, here’s the CBC Calgary Eyeopener radio interview (4 minutes 59 seconds):
Maybe it’s because I spend much of my time creating content for an audience, but accurate information is extremely important to me – so I feel compelled to point out a few things that aren’t entirely true in this radio interview. First, my videos aren’t really “some of the most popular unboxing” videos on YouTube – it’s a nice ego stroke, but it’s not true. My Dell Studio Hybrid video is the most-viewed video I’ve created, and it ranks #87 out of all the unboxing videos on YouTube. 89,000 odd views isn’t bad at all, but I have a long way to go to break into the top ten. The interviewer mentions that there are 14,000 videos on YouTube during my interview – the number is actually around 64,000, and certainly didn’t go from 14,000 videos to 64,000 videos in five days. When we got to the “geek porn” part <sigh> I meant to spell “pr0n” with a zero, not an “O”. All in all, the interview was fun, though I wish the focus was more on how consumers are using unboxing videos to learn about gadgets before they purchase them – and not on the entirely fictitious “sexy” element that’s just an inside geek joke.
Next up, here’s the clip from CBC News at Six:
It sure is weird seeing yourself on a news program! I kept telling myself that I should try to smile and be friendly, and I think that came through fairly well. It’s funny to think of all the camera angles the reporter shot, and all the questions she asked me, cut down to only two minutes. It was definitely a fun, if slightly nerve-wracking experience – I’m used to being on the other side of the camera!
The TV spot was a little strange right off the bat – “A Calgary man has discovered a way to make money opening gifts.” Gifts? Did the anchorman watch the piece before writing his introduction? The things I get sent are definitely not gifts, even I do get to keep the odd item here and there. And I didn’t “stumble upon” unboxing videos, I simply started doing what many of my peers in the industry were already doing – I was just late to the game. But hey, it’s hard to cram much detail into two minutes. The reporter also wanted to play up the “geek porn” angle in this story as well, so my closing answer to her question of “Does it get your blood pumping?” was my way of trying to be cooperative with the story.
All in all this was a fun experience – and who knows, it might not be the last time it happens!