Author Archives: Robert S. Robbins

I am learning how to do text animation using Adobe After Effects. This video was created by applying the Tinderbox T_LensBlur effect to make the text appear out of focus to start and then come into focus. I changed the … Continue reading →

Last week I went downtown and shot some video of landmark buildings in Williamsport to serve as stock footage for my video editing projects. I got this idea from my After Effects book which includes some stock footage on DVD … Continue reading →

Today I got a new video card for my computer, a Diamond Stealth S120 Radeon 9550. I needed a better video card to play more games but it is also supposed to improve the quality of video. I also recently … Continue reading →

I’ve started studying Adobe After Effects. I’m currently reading Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects, Vol. 1: The Essentials (3rd Edition, Version 6.5) by Trish Meyer and Chris Meyer. I’m only up to page 20 because the first chapter is … Continue reading →

In an Active Server Pages script, you can reference a type library using the METADATA tag. This automatically imports the constants from a DLL. It is usually used for ADO constants and eliminates the need for the adovbs.inc include file. … Continue reading →

Today I had to troubleshoot a mail problem on a web server. I needed to determine if the SMTP Service was running. I used to have an ASP script to list Windows Services and their status but I needed something … Continue reading →

Today I installed Microsoft’s Virtual PC 2004 SP1 to solve a problem I’ve been having with my printer. There are no Windows XP printer drivers for my Sharp FO-3800M multifunction printer. In order to print anything I’ve had to shut … Continue reading →

I recently worked on a project that required updating a specific line of text in a file. This proved to be surprisingly difficult because I’ve never done that in ASP.NET before and I could not find any sample code on … Continue reading →

I have been working on a web application that can send me text messages using MSN Messenger. It works pretty well except I have to double click the contact to join the conversation before I can receive the message. I … Continue reading →

Today I learned that Google prefers dashes in web page file names rather than underscores. If you use dashes, Google may include your web page in its search results for each word in your file name. However, if you use … Continue reading →

Due to client demands and needs, I’ve been learning a lot more about web site marketing and search engine optimization than most web developers are required to know. Although there are many purely technical aspects to configuring and customizing an … Continue reading →

Today I learned how to create a 301 Moved Permanently web server response in Internet Information Server. This is very important if you change the filename of a web page that has already been indexed by the search engines. You … Continue reading →

I finally have the audio gear I need to do decent voice recordings. I received the Studio Projects B1 Large Diaphragm Condenser Microphone but could not get any sound out of it. That microphone requires phantom power which the PreSonus … Continue reading →

I’ve been upgrading my system and finally caused Windows XP to ask me to activate Windows again! I installed 512 MB of additional RAM to bring the total to 1 GB of RAM. Then I replaced the 6.5 GB D … Continue reading →

I used Drive Copy 4.0 to copy the Dell’s 20 GB drive to a 40 GB drive and then installed the 20 GB drive as the secondary IDE drive. This gives me 60 GB of total disk space on my … Continue reading →

I got an invite to MSN Soapbox and I have uploaded 10 of my best videos. Soapbox is Microsoft’s attempt to clone YouTube. I don’t like the video buffering which appears right in the middle of the video image. Also … Continue reading →

I have successfully installed phpBB 2.0.21 on the Car Accessories web site. It can be found at: http://www.caraccessories.com/forum/index.php. I also documented the steps involved: Copy phpBB2 directory to web site root or target directory Create MySQL database phpbb Create database … Continue reading →

I have finally finished reading Adobe Premiere Pro For Dummies by Keith Underdahl. I learned how to use the color correction effects which are very useful for improving the image quality of the footage I record using my Sony Handycam … Continue reading →

I spent most of this morning dealing with the YouTube web site which does a poor job communicating with its users. They don’t send out weekly or monthly newsletters. Their blog does not have a RSS feed. They do not … Continue reading →

I was very busy yesterday and worked from 9 AM to 5 AM the next day. I put my computer to work running a Web Position Gold ranking report and then went out to do some errands. I withdrew some … Continue reading →