life, and a little more

FotoMagico 2 Is Indeed Magical

Jun 30

metalman777apple, pictures, software, tech fotomagico 2, mac, software No Comments

I’ve been creating Photo Montage slide shows for some years now.  It has always been a laborious job, especially using Final Cut Pro.

Sure you could use iPhoto or iMovie to make slide shows, and with a click of a button you have those nice Ken Burns effects that make the pictures move so nicely across the screen.  The trouble with these two programs is the lack of control.

In order to regain some of that control, I’ve been using Final Cut Pro.  Now I could make the pictures do exactly what I wanted and when I wanted.  There was a trade off – everything had to be done manually; keyframing the start of each picture and the end of picture.  A four minute slideshow could take up to two hours to get everything in order.

So yesterday I finally find the pot at the end of the slide show rainbow – Fotomagico 2 by Boinx Software.

Man, this software is magic and should be included with every new Mac in the iLife bundle of software.

The interface is a clear and uncluttered and very intuitive.  It resembles iMovie ‘07 and integrates right into your iPhoto or Aperture library.  Your pictures are easily available.  Adding music is as easy as “drag and drop”.

As you can see from the graphic above, your pictures are in a timeline with your music below.  Not a math whiz and have a hard time figgering out how long each picture should be on screen so it will match the length of your chosen song?  One click in the option menu entitled “match duration to audio” does all the work for you.

Transitions between pictures can be edited on the fly via a panel on the right hand column of the program.

But what I really like about this software is that I can change the background of the slide show to match a green screen.  I can export the slideshow out of Fotomagico 2 and import it into Final Cut Pro, key out the green and put in my own custom, moving background.

Fotomagico 2 is THE program I’ve been searching for.  Remember how I said that a four minute slideshow would take me about four hours in Final Cut Studio?  Well, FotoMagico 2 breaks that down to about 20 minutes.  Yup, it is that good…

2 Docs You Gotta See 2 Believe

Jun 28

metalman777documentaries, videos air guitar nation, documentary, king of kong, movies No Comments

I’ll be the first to admit my geekdom.  I love Battlestar Galactica, still read comic books, play video games, and love heavy metal music.  Oh yeah, and I’m 35 years old and I have a few grey hairs.

As the years pass, I wonder if my maturity level is on par with my age.  Aren’t I supposed to be a suit wearing, 9-5 working, adult who has it all together at this age?  After seeing these two documentaries, I realize I’m doin’ just, fine thank you very much.

The first documentary is entitled The King of Kong: A Fitstful of Quarters.  This movie highlights the video game career of two very different individuals.  Billy Mitchell set the world record for Donkey Kong back in 1982.  That record stood tall until Steve Wiebe broke it.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=YPLjXjObEms]

One Amazon.com reviewer had this to say:

This is one of those movies you watch in delighted disbelief, marveling that such people exist–and that they gladly allowed themselves to be filmed. Director Seth Gordon does an important thing in presenting this world of eccentrics: he doesn’t mock them, or provide editorial nudging; he simply lets them be. The result is an ingratiating classic.

I could not agree more!  How could grown men be so obsessed with a video game?  The one thing this movie does is make you feel relieved you are not that weird.

Air Guitar Nation is another documentary in the same vein as The King of Kong.  This time video games are replaced with the obsession to become a psuedo-rockstar via air guitar.

Amazon.com says:

Is it a sport? A game? An artform? It may be hard to define, but it’s easy to see that air guitar is a lot of fun and immensely entertaining, and so is director Alexandra Lipsitz’s Air Guitar Nation, an utterly charming documentary about the young men (and a few women) who in 2003 competed both at home and abroad to determine whose “airness” would rule.

I’m still left speechless after watching Air Guitar Nation.  I almost thought it was a spoof movie like Spinal Tap!  Sadly, that is not the case.

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=ea32R_2jSxg]

C-Diddy and Bjorn Turoque (Born ToRock) battle for the American Air Guitar Championship that is held annually in Finland.

I love music; I love metal guitar and yes, I do air guitar when no one is looking.  I just never thought of it as an artform to be taken seriously!

If you have a couple of hours to waste, you might like these movies.  They definitely shine a light on an entirely different culture of people!

Christianity dead in 100 years?

Jun 27

metalman777Christianity, theology apologetics, Christianity No Comments

Wow! It has been a while since I’ve posted anything!  Life gets crazy and time just flies away! 

I came across an article the other day and thought it’d be a good way to get back in the blogging mentality.  You can read the story here or just read below.

Christianity ‘could die out within a century’

More than half of Britons think Christianity is likely to have disappeared from the country within a century, according to a survey.

Research by the Orthodox Jewish organisation Aish found that just over a third of people thought religions like Christianity and Judaism would still be practiced in Britain in 100 years’ time.

Although four in 10 people said they would choose to be a member of the Christian religion, almost the same number said they would rather practice no religion at all.

Buddhism however, proved more attractive than both Islam and Judaism, and was chosen by nine per cent of those questioned.

Aish UK’s executive director Rabbi Naftali Schiff said the results of the YouGov poll of 2,000 people were alarming.

“It clearly demonstrates that religion, including Judaism, is becoming unattractive to the British public.

“At Aish we know that Judaism provides real meaning and enrichment to one’s life. Whilst we have attracted many disinterested Jews back to Jewish identity it is clear there is much work to be done.”

Research published earlier this year suggested that church attendance is declining so fast that the number of regular churchgoers will be fewer than those attending mosques within a generation.

According to Religious Trends, an analysis of religious practice in Britain, the huge drop off in attendance means that the Church of England, Catholicism and other denominations will become financially unviable.

In contrast, the number of actively religious Muslims is predicted to increase from about one million today to 1.96 million in 2035.

Articles like this always have to be read with a little skepticism.  After 2000+ years, is Christianity really in danger of extinction?  Here’s an answer you might not expect from me….yeah, I think so.

Christianity dead in a 100 years?  Could it be true? 

This hodgepodge-pick-and-choose-which-scripture-you-like-God-bless-me-with-money-and-health-and-make-sure-no-evil-touches-me-good-ol-boys-club-genie-in-a-bottle caricature of what Christianity has become (mostly in America and the West) will hopefully be dead much sooner than that.  But the true Christianity of the New Testament, the Gospel of Peace and Salvation through a God-Become-Human, no, that will never go away.

This would be the usual spot where I’d bring out all the apologetic guns and review all the historical, archaeological, and manuscriptural (is that even a word) evidence that is overwhelming in favor of Christianity.  I’m not gonna do that today.  I looked at the evidence for and against Christianity and the evidence speaks for itself; thus I’ve become a Christian.

I honestly think people are tired of fakeness regardless of which religion it is.  There are some fantastic people and organizations working hard to bring authenticity back to western Churchianity.

The Campaign to End Consumer Christianityis an organization trying to bring back social justice and global issues to the forefront of American churches.  Check out their Myspace page for more info.

Dan Kimball of Vintage Faith fame has written an excellent book entitled, “They Like Jesus But Not The Church“.  Kimball  gives an “overview of the six most common objections emerging generations have with church and Christianity along with the biblical answers to these objections and examples of how churches are facing this challenge”.  Again, the main point is being an authentic person of faith.

I just recently ran across this website about a movie called “Lord, Save Us From Your Followers“.  It looks really good!  It is in the same vein as Kimball’s book mentioned above.  I hope to order the DVD soon.

I know there are many, many good folks across America and the world who love Jesus and are serving Him passionately and authentically.  That kind of Christianity will never go away.