Ustream And Quickcam Pro For Notebooks 9000

I’ve just recently purchased the 99$ Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 for Notebooks and have discovered that on Ustream, only the audio from the built in microphone can be streamed. The video camera itself doesn’t appear in the flash popup and for the life of me, I can not get Ustream to recognize this camera to stream video from it.

I’ve gone through my Firewall and that didn’t help. I’ve performed a skype video conference call successfully with this camera so I know the darn thing works. I’ve also plugged in a very old Logitech Quick Cam Express with terrible video quality but the video from that camera was detected by Ustream. Last but not least, I’ve updated my browser to the latest version of the Adobe Flash player and that hasn’t helped either.

So, is there an incompatibility between the Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 for Notebooks and Ustream? I’m very curious to know from other Ustreamers out their with the same camera if you are experiencing these types of issues as well.

Performancing Trial Run

Performancing.com Logo

Today was quite the surprise for me. When I woke up, I had an email in my inbox from James Mowery, a contributing editor for Performancing.com letting me know that a position had opened up. I don’t know the entire set of circumstances involved, but Raj Dash has decided to step down, away from Performancing. Just a few days ago, I sent off an email to James inquiring about some specifics regarding his job their. I asked if he thought I had what it took to write there and he believed I did.

Thanks to James and his references to me to the manager for Performancing, I was able to talk with Ryan Caldwell today and learned that I will be able to do a one month trial run to write for Performancing.com during the month of June. I’ve talked with a few people already about the position and they all agreed that it was a good position to take, considering how large of a site Performancing is, along with the amount of traffic the site receives.

So starting Monday, I will be writing for them. I will still do WordPress Weekly and I plan on publishing posts on this blog whenever I can, mostly on the weekends. If all goes well for me during the month of June, I’ll be writing for Performancing with James full time. James and I have talked before. He and I have quite a bit in common and I think both of us writing on the same site at the same time could only produce great things.

So thats the update from me. Stick around and see what happens as I take advice from my own blog post about creating opportunities through blogging.

Salt Fork And The 20th Annual BigFoot Conference

Salt Fork State Park Entrance

First off, special thanks to Don Keating of the E.O.B.I.C. for putting on yet another memorable BigFoot conference. This was the 20th time Don has hosted the conference and this time, at least 415 people showed up for the event. In fact, many people ended up having to stand in the conference room with some members of the audience having to sit near the room entrance in order to encompass the speakers. The conference included speakers such as Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum, M.K. Davis and Eric Altman. I thought the conference was really well done.

There were quite a few rumors that this conference may be the last one Don puts on, but until we hear otherwise, that is not the case. All indications that I witnessed during this years conference point to another one being put together for 2009. However, Don now has to deal with the fact that there may not be enough room at the conference room at Salt Fork State Park to do the conference. If he ends up hosting it somewhere else, the costs go up exponentially. How Don will treat this double edged sword is beyond me, but my girlfriend and I really look forward to attending the conference each year while also staying at the lodge as a mini vacation for a long weekend. If the event is hosted elsewhere, I’m not sure we’ll be able to afford staying at Salt Fork any longer.

So that’s my mini review of the conference. On Sunday, after Don Keating gave the group a guided tour of sightings that have taken place at Salt Fork over the past few years, my girlfriend and I decided to do a bit of hiking. We walked a trail known as Morgan’s Knob. This trail is a loop which provides walkers with an excellent opportunity to get a grip with the type of terrain that the park has to offer. Hills, plenty of trees, ravines, cliffs, mini waterfalls, you name it, it’s part of this trail. At some points, you feel like you’re hiking a trail in the Pacific North West. After hiking a trail such as Morgan’s Knob, you get the idea as to why it would be pretty easy for a creature such as Sasquatch to move around the park unnoticed.

The following photos as well as videos are from our hiking trip into the woods. These are only a few of the photos from the gallery, if you would like to see the entire photo set, click here. Here’s to hoping that there will be a 21st bigfoot conference/expo at Salt Fork State Park. Continue reading →

Not So Severe Storms

On Saturday May 3rd, 2008, a line of convection moved through my area. After receiving some drenching rains in the morning hours, this gave way to sunny skies as a dry slot had formed. The sun came out in full force, but the temperature didn’t rise that much as it mostly stayed within the mid 50s. However, this sunshine was enough to destabilize the atmosphere just before the actual cold front arrived. A line of quick moving thunderstorms developed on top of the cold front and moved through the area. These storms brought pea sized hail with mild gusty winds. I only witnessed one lightning strike during the entire event which is a shame, since I enjoy watching lightning but enjoy the sound of thunder more. Out of all of the cars that have driven down my street playing their loud thumping rap music, none of their sound systems have been able to compare to the bass that thunder produces. It’s just the beginning of May, but I hope this thunderstorm season is a little more active than last years.

Without further ado, here are some images along with a video of the storms as they were moving through the area.

And here is the video.

Spring In Ohio

I’ve been on my first week of paid vacation which means I was able to spend some more time than usual with my girlfriend. I couldn’t of picked a better week weather wise as it was mostly in the upper 60s mid 70s for most of the week. On Thursday, we took a ride to an area called Whipp’s Ledges which is an area of glaciated rocks that make for an excellent starting point for beginner rock climbers. During the walk, I noticed how Spring is in full swing with the trees starting to bud their leaves as well as bumble bees who were out in full force. Here are a few shots taken with my Kodak Easyshare highlighting what I like to call, “New Beginnings“.

Check out the rest of the photoset entitled New Beginnings.

Short video clip highlighting the awesome view from atop one of the rocks at Whipps Ledges.

Trip To Crocker Park

The other week, me and the lady went to Crocker Park which is a shopping development located in Westlake, Ohio. The stores are lined up on both sides of the street and are accessible by walking outside to each one. I think of this place as an outside mall.

This $480 million project encompasses 12 city blocks and features a mixture of internationally known retail stores, spacious office buildings, great restaurants, luxury apartments, and spectacular homes. It’s all in a park-like setting filled with the captivating charm and bustling energy of a traditional downtown main street.

Check out the rest of the Crocker Park Photoset

What A Weekend

Anhosting Problems

Oi, what a weekend. After having to cancel my show on Friday evening because of a very sick Lorelle and tornadoes knocking at my door, I discovered on Saturday that I couldn’t access my very own blog nor could I access my email. During the day, I noticed that other people were able to browse my domain. In fact, it looked as though everyone EXCEPT me could browse my domain. After submitting a support ticket to AnHosting, I went through the run of the mill trouble shooting process. At one point, they told me it looked like my public IP address had been blocked by their firewall. After giving them my IP address and having it removed, the problem remained.

Sunday rolls around and my problem is yet to be resolved. On a whim, I decided to contact the LIVE web chat that AnHosting provides. After talking to a representative for awhile, I was told which server my account was on and that I was not the only one having problems. Apparently, AnHosting’s upstream provider was having a routing issue which was causing some clients not to be able to connect to the site at all while others were able to access the domain.

Monday afternoon comes around and the problem still exists. At this point, I’ve gone three days with no access to my inbox. Not having access to my inbox for three days really reminded me just how much I rely on email for communication, perhaps a little too much. Thank goodness for Twitter though as I used that to keep everyone up to date as to what was going on. I also used Twitters Direct Messaging feature to keep in touch with people.

It’s 3 P.M. Monday afternoon and I post a message to Twitter explaining how upset I am at the thought of having an inbox with 100 emails. As it turns out, not 5 minutes later did access to my inbox and my domain return.

So there you have it, thats why you might of come across the blog and noticed I was gone when in fact, everyone except me could browse the site. This has been the first major problem I’ve had with AnHosting so I’m not all that upset. In fact, this really reminds me that even though the internet is a chain, when one of those chain links break, it can affect everyone from that link on back and brings the question into mind, just how reliable is the internet as a whole? At any rate, I was pretty pleased with the support I received from the folks at AnHosting and I still recommend them to anyone who is looking for a good quality, reliable webhost.

On a very unrelated note, I went to go see a movie called Leatherheads starring George Clooney with my girlfriend Monday evening. If you’re into old time flicks mixed with a bit of comedy, I recommend checking this one out for yourself.

A romantic comedy set in the world of 1920s football, where the owner of a professional team drafts a strait-laced college sensation, only to watch his new coach fall for his fiancée.

Time To Go Old School

Over the past two weeks, I’ve been thinking about how great it was when this blog covered everything of interest to me. Sure, WordPress is fun to write about but when I considered the fact that I get paid to write about WordPress for WeblogToolscollection.com and I have guest blog accounts on HackWordPress.com, WPCandy.com, RAProject.com and on top of all that, I have tried to turn this blog into a WordPress only domain, I am starting to run out of steam.

I’m not running out of blogging steam, but I hate being in this blogging cycle where there is so much to write about yet, I’m not sure whether to publish the post on my own blog, one of the other blogs, or for WLTC. It’s become a constant battle within myself as to who to write for. I also hate the fact that as I monitor Twitter and the RSS feed, I constantly get this feeling of OMFG I have to write about that, I have to write about this, OMG I can’t miss any of this. At the end of the day, I end up not writing anything. The constant weight on my shoulders of trying to play catchup sucks! If you have no idea what I mean, please read this excellent post written by the NYTimes which goes into some detail as to what it’s like to be part of the blogging Elite. It’s become increasingly apparent that blogging is a game of FIRSTIES. As the NYTimes article points out:

Speed can be of the essence. If a blogger is beaten by a millisecond, someone else’s post on the subject will bring in the audience, the links and the bigger share of the ad revenue.

But before I go on any more of a rant considering the state of blogging for big bucks, I want to get back on topic. I have decided that I am no longer going to continue to make this blog a WordPress centric site. I will continue to write about WordPress on occasion. However, I plan on getting back to my roots where I published opinions, share things I discovered, shared my personal experiences, or write up reviews or articles of things that I find interesting. The writing, discovery and the entire aspect of blogging just seemed to be better for me when that was my method of getting through the day. So then, I’m going back to what made this blog successful.

If you enjoyed what I have written on this blog concerning WordPress, I highly suggest you subscribe to my WordPress tag feed so that if I post something about WordPress in the future, you’ll be notified in your favorite RSS reader.

My WordCamp Dallas Media

Phew, finally finished uploading my photos to Flickr and then going through them one by one and providing a short description for the ones that needed it. All in all, there are about 40 images. Some of them detail WordCamp Dallas while others detail the hotel’s that I stayed in along with various other random images. I also have a couple of YouTube videos that you may or may not be interested in which are all available to watch on this post.

With all of that out of the way, I can begin to write up my own WordCamp Experience.

Video showcasing the setup inside the chambers of the Frisco City hall before the first presentation.

Short Clip of Jonathan Baileys presentation on content theft and copyrighting.

Short clip showcasing the WordPress Podcast being recorded live during Sunday Morning.

360 Degree view of an intersection in Frisco Texas. Reminds me of Texas Motor Speedway

Night Time view from the 12th floor of the Marriott hotel looking at the highway next to DFW airport.

WordCamp Dallas This Weekend

The week has finally arrived where I can tell folks that I will be going to Dallas to attend WordCamp this weekend. WordCamp Dallas is an event that was orchestrated by Charles Stricklin, host of the WordPress Podcast.

Tickets cost $20.00 each and are still available. The event is located at the George A. Purefoy Municipal Center 6101 Frisco Square Blvd Frisco, Texas 75034. The first day of the event is on Saturday, March 29 and begins at 930AM and lasts until 5PM. Sunday, the event begins at 9:30AM and ends at 4PM. There will be an ATTENDEE only event that will take place on Friday evening. So be sure to purchase a ticket ASAP so you can get the 411.

For all of the information regarding the conference including links to register and purchase your ticket, visit the official Dallas WordCamp website.

Looking forward to meeting Ronald, Ptah, Lorelle, Matt, Cory of iThemes, Charles, and the rest of the gang.

Thoughts and Insanity From Jeff

The Musings Of Jeff Chandler

Personal