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Dancing Around the World, Paid For, Everything Inclusive

If you did not hear about Matt Harding yet, then it is about time. He is the guy that became famous for "dancing on the Internet", okay, there are a bunch of guys that are "famous" doing that, but he is the one who did it in public at places around the whole globe.

  The story goes like this...

1. A 32 year old deadbeat who was born in Connecticut, USA and ended up working for a company in Brisbane, Australia decided in 2003 to quit his job and use the money he had saved to do a trip through Asia until he was broke.
2. During the usual posing for tourist photo graphs and home videos as proof for his friends and family that he was at the places he said he was, a friend suggested to do his funny dance, the only dance Matt knows and do that instead of the usual boring posing.
3. He did that for the rest of his trip until he ran out of money. He published his short videos on a web site that he mainly created for his family to check what he was doing and where.
4. The stuff went somehow "viral" on the Internet thanks to social media. It also caught the attention of a company called Stride Gum, who thought that doing more of this kind of videos sponsored by the Stride Gum brand would be a fantastic idea. Matt thought so too, especially when he was told that Stride pays for the whole thing, everything inclusive.
5. The result is his second video, which made him even more famous.
6. Seeing one dude dancing alone got kind of old when Matt had an idea. How about having people dancing with him, people who contacted Matt over the Internet. Stride thought too that it is a great idea and off he was for the third trip around the globe.
7. That video is the 2008 video  and made Matt even more famous. So famous in fact that he was asked to talk at social media conferences etc.

His 2006 and 2008 videos were viewed over 11 Million times EACH on YouTube alone! "Nicht schlecht Herr Specht" as we say in Germany to something like that.

Here are some interesting facts about the locations that Matt visited.

Three videos were released, labeled 2005, 2006 and 2008. Each with the results of an entire trip lasting several months to over one year. The first video from 2005 included 20 locations, the video from 2006 included 36 and the last one from 2008 included a whopping 69 places.

There is also an out-takes video for the 2006 trip with a few locations that are unique and did not make it into the final video. That means that the actual number of places visited is higher than the ones I mentioned.

Unique Places shown in his 3 Videos Abu Simbel, Egypt Agra, India Ala Archa Gorge, Kyrgyzstan Alhambra, California Amsterdam, The Netherlands Angkor Wat, Cambodia Antseranana, Madagascar Area 51, Nevada Atlanta, Georgia Auckland, New Zealand Auki, Solomon Islands Austin, Texas Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Bangkok, Thailand Batik, Morocco Beijing, China Bengal Jungle, India Berlin, Germany Brisbane, Australia Brussels, Belgium Buenos Aires, Argentina Cape of Good Hope, South Africa Chakachino, Zambia Chicago, Illinois Christmas Island, Australia Chuuk, Micronesia Cologne, Germany Delhi, India Demilitarized Zone, Korea Dubai, United Arab Emirates Dublin, Ireland East Jerusalem, West Bank Easter Island, Chile Ephesus, Turkey Galapagos Islands, Ecuador Giant's causeway, Northern Ireland Guam Gurgaon, India Half Moon Caye, Belize Hanoi, Vietnam Haute-Picardie, France Impenetrable Forest, Uganda Istanbul, Turkey Kilimanjaro Summit, Tanzania Kjeragbolten, Norway Kuwait City, Kuwait Lancelin, Australia Lemur Island, Madagascar Lisbon, Portugal Lisse, The Netherlands London, England Los Angeles, California Luang Prabang, Laos Machu Picchu, Peru Madrid, Spain Mexico City, Mexico Miami, Florida Mokolodi, Botswana Monte Alban, Mexico Montreal, Quebec Monument Valley, Arizona Moscow, Russia Mulindi, Rwanda Mumbai, India Munich, Germany Mutianyu, China Neko Harbor, Antarctica Nellis Airspace, Nevada New York, New York Panama Canal, Panama Paris, France Paro, Bhutan Petra, Jordan Poria, Papua New Guinea Prague, Czech Republic Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Rock Islands, Palau Routeburn Valley, New Zealand Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia San Francisco, California Sana'a, Yemen Sao Paulo, Brazil Seattle, Washington Seljalandsfoss, Iceland Seoul, South Korea Siberia, Russia Singapore Sossusvlei, Namibia South Shetland Islands Soweto, South Africa Stockholm, Sweden Stone Town, Zanzibar Suhbaatar, Mongolia Sydney, Australia Tagaytay, The Philippines Taipaei, Taiwan Tel Aviv, Israel Teotihuacan, Mexico Thimphu, Bhutan Tikal, Guatemala Timbuktu, Mali Tokyo, Japan Tongatapu, Tonga Tsavo, Kenya Vancouver, British Columbia Vava'u, Tonga Venice, Italy Very Large Array, New Mexico Wadi Rum, Jordan Wainivilase, Fiji Warsaw, Poland Washington D.C., USA Westport, Connecticut Yangon, Myanmar

Unique Countries of Islands Antarctica Argentina Australia Belgium Belize Bhutan Bolivia Botswana Brazil Brunei Cambodia Canada Chile China Czech Republic Ecuador Egypt Fiji France Germany Guam Guatemala Iceland India Ireland Israel Italy Japan Jordan Kenya Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Madagascar Mali Mexico Micronesia Mongolia Morocco Myanmar Namibia New Zealand Norway Palau Palestine Panama Papua New Guinea Peru Poland Portugal Russia Rwanda Solomon Islands South Africa South Korea Spain Sweden Taiwan Tanzania Thailand The Netherlands The Philippines Tonga Turkey Uganda UK United Arab Emirates USA Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zanzibar Places he visited Twice Brisbane, Australia London, England Los Angeles, California San Francisco, California Sydney, Australia Tokyo, Japan* Places he visited on every trip New York, New York Seattle, Washington   *Tokyo actually appears three times in his videos, but only in two of them and not three. Tokyo is the only real duplicate within any of his videos. Tokyo appears twice in the 2008 video. Once in location #29 and the second time in location #42. Also, if you look at the overall data, he rarely made it to the same place twice. 8 places that he visited more than once, out of 114. ... not bad.

Link to my megamix video  on YouTube, also available for download in .AVI (XVID/MP3) format and 640x480 resolution via Mediafire.com at this URL.

Here is a link to Matt's presentation at the 2008 Gnomdex conference, which was held between August 21 and 23, 2008 in Seattle, WA, where he talks about what he did and how he did it to travel around the world not only once or twice, but three times. Once on his own expense and twice on somebody else's.

Gnomedex is by the way the tech- or geek-conference organized by Chris Pirillo, who is also notoriously known for his online video stuff and live chat.

What is odd to me now is the fact that just when I decided to write this post about Matt, his web site went offline. WhereTheHellIsMatt.com does not resolve at all. There is a cached version of the site in Google, with a date of either November 8 or 9, so the site was up about a week ago. I hope that this down-time is only a temporary glitch. However, if I would be Matt, I would have a word with the hosting company (unless that company happens to be the sponsor for his web site hosting hehe)

I put up the link to his web site anyway, hoping that it will be up very soon.

Other Links

• Matthew Hardings Public Picasa Albums
• Matt's Typepad Blog
• MattHarding2718, his YouTube Channel 

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

A New Star Trek Experience

I wrote in September about the Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas and that it was shut down as of September 1.

I also shot a short video showing the closed Experience, which I uploaded to YouTube.

A YouTube user who watched my video about the closed Star Trek Experience at the Hilton Las Vegas, left a comment about a planned new Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas and also sent me a link to the article on the web site of inBusiness Las Vegas, where he got the information from. Quote from that article:

The Star Trek Experience will have five components and most elements could be completed next year, when a new Star Trek movie is scheduled for release. Just as the new movie will have some familiar characters in some unfamiliar roles, the Star Trek Experience will be similar but different from its predecessor and includes significant upgrades.

There will be a food and beverage component, which will include a restaurant and lounge and a retail area with merchandise from all incarnations of the Star Trek concept. Star Trek fans are incredibly loyal and if the latest movie sparks yet another generation of supporters, the retail element could be very successful.

A museum that explores the entire history of Star Trek is also planned.

There will also be a 4-D movie theater designed to be an interactive experience with high-tech seats that will stimulate the senses.

"They will recreate sights, sounds and smells and take your body traveling through space," Joshi said.

The final element will be simulators - rides that are two levels high in Neonopolis' center court.

I asked in a comment at my YouTube video and heard the news (before I had the link to the article): "Will it be the same thing? I wouldn't think so, since the Hilton hotel itself was part of the story and effects in the old rides".  The article at inBusiness LV seems to validate my statement.

I wonder what they mean with "significant upgrades" compared to the previous Experience at the Hilton.

When they "upgraded" the Experience in 2004 by adding the "Borg Invasion 4D" ride, I didn't think that this was much of an upgrade either. I still liked the "old" ride, the "Klingon Encounter", much more than the new one. The use of modern technology does not mean that it will be a better ride. There are many other, more important factors that make a ride a good ride (or bad), which have little or nothing to do with technology.

It will be interesting to see what they come up with and how it will be. I am a bit of a sceptic, but hope for the best. Time will tell eventually.

I also never heard of the "Neonopolis Center" project before, until I read the article. It's an 235,000 square feet Las Vegas downtown entertainment center that was opened on May 3, 2002 and cost $100 Million to build. I assume that it is part of the project of the downtown LV casinos to make that part of the city interesting and attracting for tourists again, after the were loosing more and more visitors to the Las Vegas Strip, which became the new "Center" of the city. The "Freemont Street Experience" is the best known example of those efforts.

It says in the article at inBusiness LV that the project manager said that funding of this new project is secured and also that the rights were acquired from CBS Pictures, who owns the legal property of the Star Trek franchise.

However, its still a risky project and an expensive one as well. Star Trek fans might be extremely loyal, but they are also extremely unforgiving. Keep that in mind.. those are the words coming out of the mouth of a Star Trek fan, me.

Last but not least information about the upcoming featured film "Star Trek XI", which will be released in 2009.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Star Trek: how 20 minutes of early footage engaged my warp drive
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• IMDB Entry for Star Trek XI

Outlook Express Email Folder Recovery without Losing Existing Hierarchy

It happened to me a few days ago that Outlook Express suddenly did not show a bunch of email folders anymore. I freaked out at first, because I thought that the emails were lost, but I found out that this was not the case.

The emails were still there, but the folder file, which is created for each and every email folder in Outlook Express was simply missing in the OE folder hierarchy. Phew! I thought, that should be fixed in no-time at all. Well, I learned that I was mistaken, because there is no way to tell Outlook Express, that it has a file for an email folder sitting in its directory together with the other email folder files and that it would be great to simply add that to its folder index. I thought that this cannot be. And found something promising after a few searches at Google.

This Microsoft Knowledge Base article describes the scenario for how to recover email folders in Outlook Express, if there are any missing in the OE folder index. Great! But wait, there is a catch. If you follow the (incomplete by the way) instructions, you end up with all folders back in Outlook Express, alright, but without the existing folder hierarchy. Every email folder is now in the root, no sub-folders anymore.

Well, I have over 1,000 folders that are organized in a complex hierarchy that can go 4-5 levels deep. I only miss a few folders. Why should I screw up the hierarchy of all the hundreds existing folders in order to get those few folders back into OE. That does not make sense to me, but I wasn't able to find anything near a solution for this extended version of the not so uncommon issue.

If you only have a few folders and don't mind to restructure all of them again, then you do not have to read much further. Only a few more paragraphs, because it contains some useful information that are missing in the Microsoft KB article, in particular the specification where exactly Outlook Express stored the email folders on your hard disk.

Outlook Express files are stored by default at
C:\Documents and Settings\<User>\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{GUID}\Microsoft\Outlook Express

I also heard that it could be stored at:
C:\Windows\Application Data\Outlook Express\{GUID}

I have never encountered the second scenario so I decided to ignore it for my solution. The folder stated first is usually hidden from the user. The <USER> must be replaced with your user name, which could also include the domain or workgroup name of your account, such as USER.DOMAIN, but you should be able to figure that out, if you look at the sub directories of the C:\Documents and Settings folder. The {GUID} part is not obvious at all and tricky to determine, if more than one Outlook Express Identity was created for the same Windows user. But I have some tool to help you with this stuff.

1. To make sure that you can see the folders  in general, change some of your Folder display options. To do this, go in Windows Explorer to "Tools\Folder Options" and select the "View" tab (see image).

Within the top 10 options should be a checkbox for "Display the contents of System Folders", which you have to enable and a group called "Hidden files and folders" with the two options "Do not show hidden files and folders" and "Show hidden files and folders" to choose from. Make sure that the second option "Show hidden files and folders" is selected.

2. I wrote a little Visual Basic script that you can download here, which is called "oeidentity.vbs". You should be able to execute it by double-clicking it from within Windows Explorer after you downloaded it. It requires that the last Outlook Express Identity that was opened by the currently logged-in user was the Identity with the missing folders. If you don't know what I am talking about, because you do not have multiple Identities to switch in between and therefor have no clue what I am referring to, just ignore this part and just execute the script.

The code is pretty simple

Dim WshShell, IdentityName, IdentityGUID 
Dim sDirLookup, sDirLoc, sMsg 

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")

IdentityName = WshShell.RegRead("HKCU\Identities\Last Username")
IdentityGUID = WshShell.RegRead("HKCU\Identities\Last User ID")

sDirLookup = "HKCU\Identities\" & IdentityGUID &_
   "\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0\Store Root"
sDirLoc = WshShell.RegRead(sDirLookup)

Set WshShell  = Nothing

sMsg = "The Last Used Identity for this user was the following" & vbcrlf
sMsg = sMsg & "Name: " & IdentityName & vbcrlf
sMsg = sMsg & "ID: " & IdentityGUID & vbcrlf & vbcrlf
sMsg = sMsg & "The Storage Location for this Identity is" & vbcrlf
sMsg = sMsg & sDirLoc 

Wscript.echo sMsg 

WScript.Quit

3. Now you know where your Outlook Express files are. Now it is also a good time to check if the missing folders are really just missing in the OE folder index or were actually deleted from your hard drive. If that is the case, then you have to do an additional step, which is the recovery of those deleted folder files.

3.1 There are various tools out there, but the one that I use in cases like that is called Get Data Back NTFS by Runtime Software. They also have a version for FAT partitions, in case that your hard drive is using that instead of NTFS (which is the recommended default for Windows XP). I suggest getting the bundle that also includes the DiskExplorer for NTFS (or FAT respectively), especially if you only want to recover individual files and are not sure what the name of those files are.

3.2 Okay assuming now that there are files for the folders that you are missing in the Outlook Express folder tree. You can tell, which file belongs to the missing folder, by simply looking for files that are called "Missing Folder Name.dbx" or similar, e.g. "Missing Folder Name (1).dbx" etc.

If a whole tree or trees are missing, things are a bit more complication as they were in my case. I cannot tell out of my head what all the sub folders were of the folders that were gone missing. So I had to come up with a way to determine, which of the files/folders are actually missing in the folder hierarchy.

4. To do that, I created a folder called "C:\OEBackup" and below that a sub folder called "Files". I then copied all files from the Outlook Express folder to this new folder at "C:\OEBackup\Files". I then created two additional sub folders under C:\OEBackup, one called "FoldersOld" and one called "FoldersNew", making it three sub folders altogether.

5. As I mentioned, Outlook Express saves the Folder Hierarchy in a file called "Folders.DBX" and imports all files/folders to rebuild the index, if this file is missing. But we still need the old and incomplete Folders.dbx for something, so MOVE it from the Outlook Express folder to C:\OEBackup\FoldersOld instead of just deleting it.

6. Before you start Outlook Express again to have it rebuild the index, one more thing. You do not want OE to check for any new emails to download while we are working on cleaning up this mess. That is not as easy to do as it sounds, if you have enabled that Outlook Express should check for new messages during program start.

Let us disable that and also the checks after X minutes that you probably also configured, but without starting Outlook Express itself. You have to change two settings in a file called the Windows Registry.

To do that, click on "Start" in the start menu and select "Run". Type into the box there "Regedit" and press enter.

Navigate to the following location within the registry and change the mentioned entries as specified.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\YOURIDENTIY\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0\Mail]

Entry: "Check Mail on Startup"


Change value from 1 to 0

and to avoid checks later also change the following (same "directory" in the registry)

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\YOURIDENTIY\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0\Mail]

Entry: "Poll For Mail"


Change existing (hexadecimal)* value to: ffffffff 

*It contains the interval for OE to check for new messages, that is configured under Tools\Options, General Tab, Checkbox: "[ ]Check for new messages every [ number ] minute(s)" The value stored in the registry is actually the hexadecimal representation of the specified minutes in milliseconds. A 5 minutes interval for example would be 300,000 milliseconds, or in hex 0x000493e0

Here is what the same change would be in Outlook Express, if you would do it there. Click the image to the left to enlarge.

The image above shows how you do the same change via the Windows Registry, without starting Outlook Express and risking that you are not fast enough and new messages could be downloaded. If you cannot read it, click on it for an enlarged version of the same image.

7. Now you can start Outlook Express again and have it rebuild the folders.dbx and with it your email folders list, without hierarchy.

8. Remember the backup that you created under c:\OEBackup\files, which also should contain the old and incomplete folders.dbx? Now you need it, because you have to import it into Outlook Express now.

Yes, It will create tons of duplicates, but that cannot be avoided for the step that comes. However, you still keep that backup, because we will need it again to get rid of those duplications.

In order to import the folders and emails from the backup, select from within Outlook Express at the top menu "Files" and then "Import".

A wizard pops up where you have to select the email program to import from. Select "Microsoft Outlook Express 6" and press "Next".

In the next screen select "Import mail from an OE6 store directory" and press "OK"

Browse for the Backup folder at C:\OEBackup\files in the screen where you have to specify the "Location of Messages" and then press the "Next" button.

The following screen lets you select folders. Simply choose "All Folders" and press "Next". Outlook Express will now import the folders and messages from your Backup. You might noticed that it shows in the folder selection your old tree. That is the fact that I am relying on. OE only imports the folders that it knows about from the old folders.dbx and thus, does not import the folders that are physically there, but not in the index.

To see the steps that I just described with your own eyes, click on the screen shot thumb image on the top-left.

9. When the import is finished, close Outlook Express and download this script file called oecheck.vbs. You don't have to modify the script, if you saved the backup at C:\OEBackup\files like I told you to do and if you did not opened another Outlook Express identity before you got to this step of the process. It's highly unlikely, but I just wanted to make sure. If not, open the script in Notepad and change the settings at the beginning of the script manually.

The script creates a file called "oefldcompresults.txt" in the same directory where you saved and executed the script itself. It contains a list with all the .DBX files that are missing in your old backup copy of Outlook Express.

10. Move the folders.dbx from the OE directory to the C:\OEBackup\FoldersNew directory and then delete the rest of the files in the directory.

11. Now I want you to delete everything in the default Outlook Express directory. Yes, you heard right. Do not delete the Backup though.

12. Now take the list of files listed in oefldcompresults.txt and copy or move them back to the now empty Outlook Directory (its up to you now, if you want to move of copy the files, depending on how safe or how quick you want to be) . If you want to be safe, actually move the files to a new and separate directory first and then copy them back to the Outlook Express directory. Just do it. It will make sense to you within the next 2 steps, I promise.

13. When you are done, make sure that the folders.dbx was not one of those files. It shouldn't, but double checking does not hurt. Start Outlook Express again and it should create a new folders index, just for the folders/files that were missing in the first place.

14. Close Outlook Express again. Move or copy all files from the Outlook Express directory that you copied/moved just before, but now including a new folders.dbx file to C:\OEBackup and the files that are not in oefldcompresults.txt, including your old folders.dbx back to the Outlook Express directory

So the Outlook Express folder should now only have the .DBX files for the folders that it actually has in the old and incomplete folders index and the ones it does not, should be all in the directory C:\OEBackup with their own folders.dbx definition.

15. Start Outlook Express again and perform the same import steps as you already did once, with the only difference that the Location of the Messages would be "C:\OEBackup" rather than "C:\OEBackup\Files". You should notice in the "Select Folders" screen that it only shows the folders that you were missing without a hierarchy though.

16. Once the import is done, you should have your old and existing folders still there, structured and in hierarchies and only the folders that were missing added at the root level without a hierarchy. Those you have to rearrange by hand though, because that hierarchy was already gone for good without hope for recovery.

Another Alternative (If available)

The only alternative option that you have is using an old backup version of the folders.dbx file from your regular data and system backups that you hopefully do  from time to time. As long as that version does not miss any folders that you created after the backup, you should be fine, if you use it. But if not, sorry, you have to do the painful steps that I outlined in this post.

After thoughts

There is a commercial OE API that has nice features and might provide the basis for a better solution than mine. If you know or have a better solution, please share it in the comments section with me and other readers. I'd appreciate it.

Cheers and I hope that this post was helpful to another poor soul like me out there that ran into the same issue.

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Video Editing, Ripping, Converting and Capture Tools for the PC

Someone asked me recently, which tools I am using for all my video stuff (see for example my four YouTube channels: CirqueDuSoleilGuru, SACReleases, CumbrowskiCom and TurnbeutelvergesserB). An interesting question, which I decided to post the answer for here at my person blog, because it might also interest some other folks as well.

Okay, here is a quick 101 of the tools that I use personally for all my video, images and audio stuff.

DVD Ripping and Converting

For ripping video from a DVD and converting it into an AVI, I use various different tools.

I like iLead DVD Ripper (download), if I just want to get a specific and short snippet of content from a DVD and converting a whole chapter or VOB file would be way too much.

To convert whole DVDs or individual chapters I am using either ImToo DVD Ripper (download) or Nidesoft DVD to AVI Converter (download).

Video Downloading and Stream Recording

To download movies from web sites, such as CirqueDuSoleil.com where it is a bit harder, i am using Jaksta Stream Recorder (download), unless it works already fine with the download Browser Plug-in from RealPlayer or Replay Media Catcher by Applian.

Video Conversion

I then convert the videos with either MP4 Converter (download) by 4Media or Moyea FLV Converter (download). I wrote a post about video downloading at my personal blog for more information about this subject.

Video Editing

I do some basic cutting and filtering with the free tool VirtualDub.

If I have to do some more editing, I am using ImToo Mpeg Encoder (download) to convert videos to Mpeg2 and edit them with Adobe Premiere. You have to convert all video footage to one format, one that the editing software handles well, or you might get all kinds of issues. I also to resizing to one resolution before hand. I do that mostly with VirtualDub.

Images and Audio Editing

For still images, I am using Adobe Photoshop, Snag-It Editor and an old version of Paintshop Pro (without Layers). For audio editing I am using the free tool Audacity or Adobe Soundbooth.

... and I am sick and tired of Windows and issues with video and audio Codec etc. and THAT close to get a Macintosh. :)  

I used in the past Camtasia Studio by TechSmith for video composition, because it was easy to use, just like the (free) Windows Movie Maker by Microsoft, just a little bit better.

Screen Captures and Screen Recordings

For screen captures and recordings I am using TechSmith's Snag-It or the CamRecorder that comes with TechSmith's Camtasia Studio. To record demos and intros (sacreleases account at YouTube), I am either using the capture feature that comes with the emulators (DOSBox or WinUAE) and for Windows stuff the free tool called KKapture, which was developed by the famous (in the demoscene) demo group Farbrausch.

That's about it...the whole deal :)

I use and used to use some other tools, but that is often only for convenience reasons, nothing more. I could do everything with just the tools that I mentioned.

Cheers!
Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Applications List

• iLead DVD Ripper (download)
• ImToo DVD Ripper (download)
• Nidesoft DVD to AVI Converter (download)
• Jaksta Stream Recorder (download)
• RealPlayer 
• Replay Media Catcher
• MP4 Converter (download)
• Moyea FLV Converter (download)
• ImToo Mpeg Encoder (download)
• VirtualDub
• Windows Movie Maker
• Camtasia Studio
• Adobe Premiere
• Adobe Photoshop
• Adobe Soundbooth
• Audacity
• Snag-It
• KKapture

Cirque du Soleil Delirium Encore

I was with my parents and my sister who are currently visiting me here in California at the movies on Wednesday evening. We are usually not much of movie goers and prefer watching movies and other stuff from the comfort of our own homes. However, there was something special that made me go to the movies this week and take my family along with me as well.

Cirque du Soleil's stadium show and music concert "Delirium" finished touring this year. It was launched in 2006 and toured the whole country. I saw the show/concert live in 2006 when they made it to Fresno, California (which actually surprised me).

Cirque du Soleil decided for something unusual after the tour was over. They showed the show in movie theaters, but not for a regular run, like any other movie, no, it was only screened for a few days this August.

When I wrote my post about this back in August I also thought that it will be a run for several weeks and not only an one time thing. I learned about my error the hard way, when I was looking for movie tickets for Delirium here in Fresno. I first thought that it wasn't aired in Fresno at all, but I found out that I missed the show altogether, bummer.

I also learned that Cirque du Soleil decided for an Encore event, which was on October 15, 2008 (Wednesday). I was smarter this time and got tickets. I thought that it will be sold out, but that was just an assumption. The movie theatre was almost empty. Only 4 more people (next to the four of us) watched the show. Okay, it was shown in Fresno's largest movie theatre, the Edwards Stadium at River Park and it was a Wednesday evening (not exactly prime time for movie buffs), but I was a bit disappointed anyway. Not in Cirque, but Fresno, or better the people in Fresno.

Last Chance to see on the Big Screen

In the case that you happen to read my post today, there are two more Encore presentations of Delirium tonight at midnight and tomorrow at midnight as well. It is weekend, so if you do not have anything better planned for the weekend, here is a good option for you.

The movie presentation, which is not an IMAX movie as I thought, convinced me that a DVD release of the concert is on the horizon, probably before Christmas. The Kooza show DVD also came out much earlier than I would have expected, so if the Delirium DVD would be available for purchase at the Cirque Boutique online store next week, I wouldn't be surprised by it either.

Delirium Pirated Promo Video :)

Because the theatre was almost empty, I couldn't help myself and use my Flip camera to take some video recordings. No, I didn't record the whole show and no, I won't publish everything that I recorded. Wait for the damn DVD and buy it. It cannot be for long anymore. However, I did create a short seven minutes promotional video to shorten the waiting time for the DVD a little bit. I told the marketing folks at Cirque du Soleil, who sent me the Cease and Desist letter last month that their policy regarding the maximum allowed length for promotional videos of 3 minutes is b.s. in the world of the Internet and social media.

To demonstrate my point though, I decided to slice up my 7 minutes video into three pieces for YouTube, non exceeding the 3 minutes mark. To avoid trouble and make somebody really mad, I will only embed video 1 of the trilogy in this post and link to the two other parts. If you want to watch the video as a whole, check out the provided link to the un-sliced version at Google Video and/or download the AVI version in higher 640x480 resolution from Mediafire.com. All the URLs can be found below.

 

Links to Videos Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 at YouTube.com

Link to .AVI video file on Mediafire.com

an last but not least the link to video in one piece at Google Video

Enjoy the video! Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

p.s. some notes on the side. The editor of the movie (not my video) sucked. I think he failed to capture important elements of the show by selecting the wrong shot at some of the scenes. He always had multiple camera angles available to pick from and he picked too often the wrong one IMO. I was also disappointed that the opening act for the show was not part of the presentation. 

The opening act for the show was the Greek/Canadian singer Nitza, which was actually pretty cool too. She was doing a mix of traditional Greek music and Western pop/rock music in English. Check out her web site, which is also pretty cool and features some (extensive) samples of her music. You can buy the CD and other merchandise for Nitza right off her web site.

I bought her CD right there at the concert venue in 2006. I hope that the opening show will be part of the DVD release version or of a 2 DVD discs special edition of Delirium or something like that. I have my doubts that Nitza would be against this, so there is no reason for not putting it on the DVD as bonus. It was after all the official opening act during the entire run of the show as far as I know. It would be something that is missing, if it is not included IMO.

Update!

I just saw on her web site that she signed up with Cirque du Soleil again. She is the featured vocalist of the new resident Cirque du Soleil show "Believe", a partner project together with the street magician and entertainer Criss Angel. The show just premiered a few days ago at the Luxor hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The Beatles - All Together Now DVD Release Postponed

Updated! See update at the end of the post!

What a bummer... A couple days ago, I checked out the official Beatles web site and noticed the announcement of full length featured documentary DVD about the Cirque du Soleil show "The Beatles - Love". Great! Okay, there is already one "Imagine: The Beatles in Love", a BBC documentary from 2006, but the more the merrier. I don't expect them to recycle the already published content for the new DVD.

It looks like they are going to re-use some material, but also include plenty of new one. You can watch the short and the long trailer for the DVD at my Cirque du Soleil related YouTube account.

Okay, so I went off and pre-ordered the DVD with a planned release date of October 20, 2008 at BestBuy.com, the exclusive retailer who is to offer the DVD for sale on the Internet.

Today I got an email from the BestBuy.com customer service that states that the delivery date will be postponed until April 21, 2009. What??? That is a freaking 6 months delay of the release.

They must be kidding, right? The documentary itself is supposed to be 84 minutes long, plus 3 additional mini documentaries with a running time of about 40 minutes total. It's not god damn Lord of the Rings movie where they need a year for the post production. In 6 months they could re-do the whole documentary DVD entirely from scratch. 

I couldn't believe the email and went on to the BestBuy.com web site to check my order status.

And there it is again... April 21, 2009. Damn it!

I don't need to understand this BS, don't I? I guess we have to continue to live with the existing documentary from 2006 for a while longer now. I couldn't find an official press release or something like that, which explains the long time difference from the previous to the new release date ad why the original release date of October 20, 2008 cannot be met.

No news since the C&D letter by the Cirque and my blog post response. I wonder what there is cooking now too.

Well, until there is more to report, check out my Cirque du Soleil Primer article here at my blog and my Cirque du Soleil and Performing Arts related YouTube.com video channel.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Update October 14, 2008: I got contacted by Cirque du Soleil and told that Best Buy made an error. The documentary DVD is supposed to be shipped out on-time and will not be postponed until next year. I will know for sure in about one week. Let's see how that goes.

Update October 16, 2008: I received an email from BestBuy.com with a shipping confirmation and number (shipped via XMEX?!) . The provided tracking link does not work yet, but I expect that to change on Monday and the actual delivery also within the next week.

I received the DVD the week after my second update. The DVD is great and it does not use that much of the same content from the BBC documentary as I feared. Most of the content is completely original. If you are a Cirque du Soleil fan or Beatles fan, I highly recommend buying this DVD. You won't be disappointed. Promise!

How to Download Videos from YouTube

I do a some video stuff and have multiple YouTube accounts (and tons of accounts for other video sharing web sites). I even have one just for the content related to this blog and web site, my YouTube account SACReleases here.

Because of my activities in that area I am getting from time to time personal emails from people who want to use a video offline for something and ask me if I would send it to them. I kind of got tired of explaining the same stuff over and over again and decided to write a blog post about the subject instead. 

Videos on YouTube and other video sharing sites can be downloaded in most cases without the need for jumping  through too many hoops. There are exceptions, but I will address those as well. Getting the video down to your hard disk is usually the least of the problem. In most cases do you already have the video on your hard disk, you just don't know it and also not where you can find it.

Your web browser was probably caching the video and saved it in its temporary folder for some time, which depends on your individual browser settings.

However, getting to this cached video is a bit cumbersome, but  I will explain it as the last option anyway. This option does not cost any money and no software installation is needed. With some experience is this method also the faster one, compared to others that are also free and do not require the installation of any software. The option has another catch and that is the problem that the downloaded video is probably in Adobe's Flash Video format, which is great for viewing on the web, but isn't much usable anywhere else. Chances are that any editing software that you might own or downloaded (there is plenty of free stuff available too) does not support the FLV Flash video format. That means that you need to convert the video to a more practical, which is not possible without some special (and usually commercial) tools.

Some folks asked me for the video that they can embed it into a Microsoft Power Point presentation. Flash Videos cannot be used in Power Point. I just wanted to mention that.

Option 1 - Online Downloaders

This option is probably the best one for the occasional video downloader, like the one who wants to use a video in a Power Point presentation or something like that.

The good thing is that this option does not require any downloads and installation of software on your computer. It is also free, which is always nice.

There are plenty of web sites out there that let you download and convert a video, by simply providing a link to the video at the video sharing web site.

The conversion on the services end and the download that follows might take a bit of time, some services also have limits for the length of the video they download. Also, the service must explicitly support a specific video sharing web site. Pretty much all of them support YouTube, but beyond that, things do not look as good anymore. Here a few of those online downloader's to choose from. 

Vixy.net

Link to Web Site

Supports conversion of Flash Video / FLV file to MPEG4 (AVI/MOV/MP4/MP3/3GP) file online. On that site, enter into the text box in the middle of the page the URL, such as: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HbbUgHNM8Q

Press "Start" (the default format to save the video should be .avi). It may take a while to do the download and conversion. Vixy.net also offers now a desktop video downloader for Windows PC and MAC OS users available for download on their web site.

Javimoya.com

Link to Web Site

Available in English, Spanish, German and Japanese

Zamzar.com

Link to Web Site

Download and convert videos and other documents from other web sites or from your local hard disk. 100 MB file size limit for the free version. Supported file formats:

• Image formats: bmp , gif , ico , jpg , pcx , png , tga , tiff , wbmp , wmf; 
• Doc formats: csv , doc , docx , html , odp , ods , odt , pcx , pdf , ppt , pptx , ps , pub , rtf , txt , wpd , wps , xls , xlsx , xml; 
• Music formats: aac , ac3 , flac , m4a , mmf , mp3 , ogg , ra , ram , wav , wma; 
• Video formats: 3gp , 3g2 , avi , flv , gvi , iphone , ipod , m4v , mov , mp4 , mpg , ogg , rm , rmvb , vob , wmv; 
• Other formats: 7z , tar.bz2 , cab , lzh , rar , tar , tar.gz , yz1 , zip

Offers file storage and sharing service (not free), starting at $7 per month for 5 GB. Paid accounts also increase the number of possible concurrent conversions and the maximum file size.

Bad: opens multiple pop-ups

Media-Convert.com

Link to Web Site

Online file converter/downloader/file hosting with advanced settings, such as resizing, or splitting into smaller pieces for video files. Available in almost 20 languages.

Supports even more formats than Zamzar. Some good info's about which cell phones support which formats. Conversion of files on your hard drive or on the web, requiring the URL of the source document. Maximum file size is 150 MB. Free and anonymous file hosting is also provided. Files are kept for 120 days and will then be deleted. You can even upload uncompressed documents and have media-convert compress it for you with the tool of your choice, e.g. ZIP, RAR, LZH etc.

Bad: User interface is confusing, especially for non-tech savvy users

Other Online Tools/Services

• XConv.com http://www.xconv.com/
• KeepVid.com http://keepvid.com/

There are tons of other sites out there that do this. Some even offer code or widgets for other webmasters and bloggers to add to their sites that they can offer video downloads from popular video sharing web sites.

Option 2 - Desktop Downloader (recommended)

You can also download a PC based tool here, which does the same like the online tool, but on your own computer. You might want to do that for the future, in case you need to download another video one day or if download videos frequently. As their online counterpart, these downloader tools are limited regarding the video sharing web sites they support to download videos from.

Win XP, Vista, Mac  (Intel/PPC)

The desktop tool saves automatically the downloaded video with a random file name on your windows desktop. You can move it via windows explorer somewhere else or use it from right there with MS Power Point or any other application that you are using for your school presentation.

Vixy.net also offers a downloader for Windows PC and MAC OS for free download from their website.

Some commercial converters come with video downloader plug-ins for IE and/or FireFox as a bonus, such as the "Sothink Web Video Downloader for FireFox" or "Moyea Flash Downloader Plug-In for Internet Explorer".

  If you want to get videos downloaded to your local hard drive that are beyond the ability of the regular download scripts and desktop tools, I recommend to use some more serious tools, such as stream rippers/downloaders.

With them is it even possible to download a video where you do not know the URL to the video, because the video is streamed from a different specialized video streaming server and the web site where you watch the video does not actually host physical video files and only relays a real-time video stream to the user at the time of the request. In that case, nothing is even stored in you local browser cache.

For example video sharing sites like Ustream.tv use this method. The best and really working stream rippers are not available for free, except for a few days trial period where you can test the software before you have to decide, if you want to buy it or not.

Jaksta Stream Recorder ($35)

Product Details - Free Trial Download - Buy Now

WMRecorder ($49.95)

WM Recorder  by Alex Urich, published via Applian Technologies

Product Details

Replay Media Catcher ($39.95)

Replay Media Catcher by Applian Technologies

Product Detail

Option 3 - Browser Plug-In Scripts

A kind of "in between" solution is the use of special browser plug-ins and user scripts, if your web browser supports one or the other. Mozilla FireFox users have probably the most options and choices available to them, but there are also some solutions for Microsoft Internet Explorer.

One problem with all of those solution is the lack of video conversion. You get easily to the video in Flash format, but that's about it. If you want to use the video in another application, manual conversion, using third party conversion tools will be necessary. If this is not a problem and you just want to be able to watch the videos without being connected to the Internet or only have a slow connection. You can keep the Flash files as you downloaded them and use a free desktop Flash movie player to watch the movies when you feel like it. For example the GodLikeMouse (GLM) Flash Video Player http://glm-flv.sourceforge.net/

FireFox Plug-Ins

FireFox has a plug-in called Grease Monkey Script for Mozilla FireFox. This Plug-in allows the execution of custom User Scripts, which are plenty available for all kinds of purposes, including downloading of videos from video sharing web sites like YouTube.

Grease Monkey Script for Mozilla Firefox  - get it here or here

You can find those scripts at UserScripts.org. Here is the link that performs a search for YouTube Video Downloader scripts.

Here is a screen shot that shows the FireFox browser with installed Grease Monkey plug-in and some downloader scripts running, while I was accessing a video page at YouTube.com.

Real Player Download Plug-in (IE Users)

Link to Web Site

I am not a fan of Real Player, because of all the unwanted ballast that they try to force down your throat, but once you declined all the unnecessary junk, one feature of the current version of the player comes in very handy for Microsoft Internet Explorer users. Real Player installs a browser plug-in that detects videos in web pages, not only YouTube, pretty much any page that has a video embedded, Macromedia (Adobe) Flash, Apple QuickTime, Windows Media etc. See the screen shot below that shows the Real Player plug-in in action. Straight forward and simple to use. The video format depends  on the source video on the web site. It is most of the time Flash, so you still have the problem of possible conversion, if you want to use the video for something else than just viewing.

Option 4 - Browser Cache

The old fashioned and most painful way... but most of the time working also.

I demonstrate how it works with Internet Explorer. It's also possible with Google Chrome. I don't know if it is that simple with Mozilla FireFox and I didn't try it with other browsers like Apple's Safari browser or Opera.

The following steps only work for Windows users with Microsoft Internet Explorer.

1. Locate your user directory under the "Documents and Settings" directory on your local hard disk.  The default location is usually C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME. USERNAME could be just your Windows login user name  plus maybe followed by "." and either the computer name or the domain name, if you are part of a business network.
2. Every user has a directory called "Local Settings" under its user directory, but the video file for the video file that you just watched is only cached under your own user.   Select the "Local Settings" folder and then the folder "Temporary Internet Files" below that.
3. You can only find the  cached video file in this directory, if the browser downloaded it entirely. Watch the whole video on the web site first, if you want to make sure that the browser had the chance to cache the whole thing. Web video players usually indicate via a separate progress bar, who much of the video they have cached, next to the play progress bar.
4. The "Temporary Internet Files" is usually packed with all kinds of files, images, CSS style sheets, JavaScript and HTML files etc. I recommend to sort the files in that folder by Size, showing the largest files first. The temp folder does not behave like a regular folder and also has different columns. The "Name" of the files is also weird in some cases, such as video files from YouTube. Cached YouTube videos usually start with "get_video?video_id=XXXXXX ...". Compare that name with the URL of the video page in your browser. It should have identical values after the video_id= parameter. Select the matching file and press CTRL-C in Windows Explorer, select a folder where you want to put the video and press CTRL-V. Windows Explorer will now copy the video file from the cache directory to your selected target directory.
5. A regular windows file name does not allow characters like "?" in the name. For that reason does Windows Explorer use only the part before the ? as the file name in the target directory. "get_video", then it usually adds "[2]" to it, but no file extension. Press F2 to rename the file and enter at the end of the new name .FLV as the file extension.

Click Image to enlarge!

If you need a good video converter for Flash Video to something else, I recommend Moyea FLV to Video converter, which delivers the best conversion results that I have seen so far. You can try it for free, before you have to decide, if you are going to buy a license for it or not.

Another good converter, which is also a little bit more versatile than the Moyea one is the MP4 Converter by 4Media. The name MP4 Converter is a bit misleading, because the tool can handle a lot more than just videos in MP4 format. You can download the free trial version of the tool here.

That's it! Happy Video Downloading!

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Star Trek, The Experience is Gone!

You heard correctly, Star Trek - The Experience is gone ... where no Star Trek Experience has gone before ...  into oblivion. I just returned from Las Vegas today. 

I was at the Hilton Las Vegas yesterday and shocked to see that the Star Trek Experience is now closed, not for maintenance, updates, NO ... FOREVER!!! It is actually closed already since September 1, 2008. WTF?

Okay, I did the Experience already four times (or five, I am not 100% sure). I did it the first time in 2002 (or was it 2001?),  when there was only the Klingon Encounter and then several times more, after they expanded the Experience with the Borg Invasion (4D) ride in early 2004 (I always liked the old Klingon ride much more, but then I also liked only the Original Series and Next Generation and never got into DS9, Voyager or Enterprise).

What a loss! ... and probably only because some greedy bastards could not agree on how to share the profits.

The Experience wasn't cheap (about $25 until 2004 and $40 or so, after they launched the second ride. Okay a bit less than that, one or a few bucks, but that does not matter anymore), plus the revenue from the gift shop and the overpriced "Quarks" restaurant that served TGI Friday's kind of food for twice the price and half the quality. Not being profitable could not have been the reason for shutting it down after over 11 years of operation.

It's a shame and Gene Roddenberry, who passed away in 1991, did obviously some poor decisions regarding who and how the franchise that he created, will be managed after his death. What a blow and slap into the face of Star Trek fans worldwide. Gene would turn in his grave (bless his soul), if he'd know about this.

Backup URL to Video on YouTube

I bought some Star Trek stuff at the gift shop myself. A plush bear (star fleet commander), a small Tribble (from Star Trek, the original series) and a shirt with a Star Fleet Academy logo on it. Here are some pictures of it. The Tribble makes actually a sound, if you press it hehe. I don't know where you could buy this stuff now, because the gift store at the Hilton is gone like the rides, restaurant, bar and museum. The online store and web site StarTrekExp.com is also down now :(

I am glad that I "forced" a friend of mine, an American who grew up in Chile and worked at my former employer with me, to go to Vegas and do the Experience, before he went back with his wife and kids to live in Chile. He was/is a huge Star Trek fan and even wanted to do this Star Trek wedding (but the wife was not so thrilled about that and said no). I knew that he would regret it for the rest of his life, if he had not done it, so I forced him to his luck. Now it's gone and he wouldn't have a chance to do it anymore. I am sure that he will appreciate my persistence a few years ago even more now.

That's a lesson for anything in life. If you really want to do something, don't leave it an open item on your "to-do list" for too long, because of stupid excuses, just do it, or you might never get the chance to do it at all.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Kooza DVD and Cirque C&D Letter

This is my first post, using the Windows Live Writer application. It's a free tool by Microsoft to make blog posts, supporting various blogging platforms beyond Windows Live Spaces. It was able to determine the blog layout and I can now see right when I type this, how it will probably look on the site. Another important feature, which made me giving Live Writer a shot, is the nice image upload feature via FTP. If all goes well, images that I insert here into the editor should be transferred over to my web server and the post in Blogger should refer to the images web URL instead of the local file on my hard-drive. Lets see how it works out :).

They have a dedicated web site, an open SDK  and a gallery with already 97 plug-ins available for download and use with the new Writer tool. I was able to configure the Writer for this blog (using classic Blogger with FTP to push to my servers), with SearchEngineJournal.com (WordPress), but not with ReveNews.com. I think that the problem with ReveNews.com has not to do with the Writer, but the configuration of the ReveNews.com blog itself, which is also using WordPress, like SEJ, where it worked instantly.

Post Reason No. 1

Okay, but this is not the reason for my post. There are actually two much more significant reasons. Lets start with the first, which is much simpler and explained in no time, compared with reason number two.

I got today my 2 discs DVD set of the recording of the Cirque du Soleil show "Kooza". I ordered it on the weekend and paid $12 or so for express shipping. The shipping was really express, which justifies the high shipping charge. The DVD itself cost $29.00. It seems to be expensive, but you actually get a lot of stuff for your bucks, so I'd say that the price is fair. You can only buy it via the Cirque Boutique online as far as I can tell.

I stumbled across the DVD by accident. I didn't see any promotion for it (including nothing on the Cirque web site itself) or anything like that. I noticed it when I compared the DVD offers in the Cirque Boutique for shoppers from the United States to the ones for shoppers from India. Why I did that will be explained in reason two a bit later. Well, that also means that I don't know when the DVD was actually released, because I didn't see any preview, announcement or advertisement for it. It cannot be for long be available though, because it is not available via Amazon.com yet. Assuming that the delay for appearing in Amazon.com is the same as it was for the Kooza soundtrack, then it must have been released sometimes last week.

What do you get for your money?

I mentioned already that you get a lot for your money. DVD 1 contains only the main show, which is about 2 hours in length. Audio is available in Surround, Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1. The show was filmed with 8 cameras during its run in Toronto Canada. The second DVD contains the entire 47 minutes long documentary "