Williamsport Web Developer Weblog

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 Radius value from 30 at the first keyframe to 0 at the final keyframe. I am using DailyMotion for the video embed because the image quality is better than YouTube.

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 for its tutorials. You can buy stock footage for use in your video editing projects but it is expensive. I thought it would be better to shoot some video of my own.

I put together a tour of the city using my new stock footage. This gave me plenty of practice using Adobe After Effects. I spent an entire day editing my clips, rendering video, and uploading the finished video. First I sliced my video into clips in Adobe Premiere Pro. I wanted a separate video clip for each location. I have six location shots; Lycoming College, the Mary L. Welch Theater, the James V. Brown Library, the old City Hall, the Community Arts Center, and the Community Theater League at the Trade and Transit Center. Each clip had to be carefully sliced so there are no frames of another location at the beginning or end of the clip. I exported each clip as a separate WMV file.

Then I created an Adobe After Effects project for each clip. I imported the media, i.e. video clip, and added it to a composition. Then I added an Adjustment Layer and sharpened the image and did as much color correction as possible. The sky is an ugly shade of washed out aqua in some clips and I tried to correct that in the Lycoming College clip by adding a blue gradient. I also added text to the adjustment layer and animated the text by setting keyframes for its position. The clip title begins in the middle of the frame and then gradually sinks to the bottom of the frame. The intro clip features a more sophisticated text animation based on the Creating Motion Graphics book’s chapter 1 tutorial.

I had to render my compositions several times to correct the stroke color for the text, the size of the text, and for several other minor adjustments. This is where I got the most practice with Adobe After Effects because I repeated the same steps many times. After all six clips were rendered I imported them into Adobe Premiere Pro for final editing. I added a transition effect in between each clip. I also added the background music which came from a Music Trax multimedia tools CDROM I happened to have. This is royalty free music for multimedia. I need more background music for my video editing projects because this final step often delays my projects. I’ve tried to create my own background music using software synthesizers but I don’t understand music enough to create anything that sounds acceptable. You can buy royalty free background music but that is expensive.

I exported the entire video from Adobe Premiere Pro into the WMV file format using two encoding passes which improves the video quality. Then I uploaded the video to YouTube where the intro looks like crap due to the loss of quality that occurs as a result of their processing. I also uploaded this video to Stickam where the video is still processing two days later. The intro looks a lot better on Soapbox but I don’t like their video buffering which frequently interrupts the clip. I’m trying to upload my video to LiveVideo but I get an error after uploading 80% of the file. So for now I can only embed the crappy version on YouTube:

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 bought MAGIX Movie Edit Pro 11 which gives me some additional options for converting video or editing video.

I was finally able to check out the Second Life virtual world which required a gamer’s video card. I found a few web sites advertised there. It looks like it takes a long time to learn. Second Life appears to have a scripting engine and you can earn real world money by scripting objects for the game so it is of some interest to a programmer like myself.

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 a complicated tutorial with a lot of steps to follow. Hopefully, the rest of the book won’t be so time consuming. The book was written for Adobe After Effects 6.5 but I only have version 6.0. However, I was able to find an upgrade on eBay so I’ll soon have the correct version. The only missing features I’ve noticed are some text effects.

Adobe After Effects is a very sophisticated program with a lot of features and control panels. It is enough to make your head spin when you first open the program and try to figure out how to use it. You really need to go through a guided tutorial to begin to realize its capabilities and to figure out how it works. I think it requires a real commitment of your time to master this software.

Fortunately, the video sharing site YouTube gives me considerable incentive to learn video production techniques. The web site has become very competitive with many vloggers now experimenting with special effects like green screen chroma keying. You can learn a lot by asking vloggers about the software they use and following up on their recommendations. There are also many tutorial videos being created on how to improve your videos.

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.

<!--METADATA TYPE="TypeLib" NAME="Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects 2.6 Library" UUID="{00000206-0000-0010-8000-00AA006D2EA4}" VERSION="2.6" -->

You can do the same thing with a VBScript for Windows Script Host. I like to use these types of scripts for scheduled tasks because you cannot schedule an ASP page to run on schedule. Recently I had to create a VBScript to send out email reminders using the CDO.Message object so I needed to import its type library. The following code allows you to use a type library with Windows Script Host. You must use the WSF file extension because the script will be parsed as XML:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<job id="script1">
<reference guid="CD000000-8B95-11D1-82DB-00C04FB1625D"></reference>
<script language="VBScript">
<![CDATA[
' script code follows here
]]>
</script>
</job>

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 written in ASP.NET. As usual, I had problems finding any sample code on the Internet and there was a technical issue that frustrated me. The technical problem is that you need to manually add a reference to System.ServiceProcess in Visual Studio.NET 2003. You cannot use an Imports statement to reference that Namespace.

    Private Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        'Put user code to initialize the page here
        ' Define a DataSet with a single DataTable.
        ds.Clear()
        ds.Tables.Add("Services")

        ' Define two columns for this table.
        ds.Tables("Services").Columns.Add("service_name")
        ds.Tables("Services").Columns.Add("service_status")

        Try
            Dim services() As System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController
            services = System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController.GetServices()
            Dim iCounter As Integer

            For iCounter = 0 To services.Length - 1
                rs = ds.Tables("Services").NewRow()
                rs("service_name") = services(iCounter).DisplayName
                rs("service_status") = services(iCounter).Status
                ds.Tables("Services").Rows.Add(rs)
            Next

            rptServices.DataSource = ds
            rptServices.DataBind()
        Catch ex As Exception
            lblError.Text = ex.Message & "<br>" & ex.StackTrace
        End Try
    End Sub

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 down my computer and put in my removable hard drive with Windows 2000 Professional. This is a time consuming process and interrupts my work.

I had the excellent idea of running Windows 2000 Professional as a virtual machine for printing. This would allow me to run Windows 2000 in a separate window and do my printing from applications within that window. In effect, it gives me at least one program running under Windows XP that can use my printer.

The first step was to use the Virtual Disk Wizard to create a virtual hard drive. Then I had to create a new virtual machine to run Windows 2000 Professional. The next step was to install the operating system using four boot disks on floppy disks and my Windows 2000 Professional CDROM.

I found it difficult to switch from the guest operating system to the host operating system until I read the help file and learned that the right ALT key is used for that purpose. In order for the guest operating system to capture my LPT1 port I had to remove that port from every printer on the host operating system which was acceptable because I could not print anything under Windows XP. The final step is to modify the settings of the virtual machine so that its virtual LPT1 port maps to the physical LPT1 port (see screen shot below). I was able to print a test page successfully. The virtual hard drive is using 2.20 GB of my actual hard drive and exists as one huge file. It can probably be burned to a DVD to preserve the installation of the operating system which is a lengthy process that I don’t want to repeat.

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 the Internet. You cannot write to a file after opening it to read through the lines of text. I had to write to a temporary file, delete the original file, and then copy the temporary file with the original file name. A line counter is used to update the target line within the file. I created a generic version of this code for my notes:

<%@ Import Namespace="System" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="System.IO" %>
<html>
<title>Update Text File</title>
<script language="vb" runat="server">
' requires ASPNET account to have write permissions on target directory
Private Sub btnUpdate_Click(o As Object, e As EventArgs)
    Try
        Dim w As StreamWriter
        w = File.CreateText("C:/Inetpub/wwwroot/experiments/temp.txt")
        Dim r As StreamReader = File.OpenText("C:/Inetpub/wwwroot/experiments/test.txt")
        Dim intLineCount As Integer
        Dim strTextLine As String
        Dim strTodaysDate As String
        
        intLineCount = 0
        While r.Peek() <> -1
            strTextLine = r.ReadLine()
            intLineCount = intLineCount + 1
            ' update the 5th line
            If intLineCount = 5 Then
                strTodaysDate = Now()
                w.WriteLine(strTodaysDate)
            Else
                w.WriteLine(strTextLine)
            End If
        End While
        
        w.Close()
        r.Close()
        
        Dim f As File
        ' delete original file
        f.Delete("C:/Inetpub/wwwroot/experiments/test.txt")
        ' copy the temp file to restore deleted file
        f.Copy("C:/Inetpub/wwwroot/experiments/temp.txt", "C:/Inetpub/wwwroot/experiments/test.txt")
        
        lblMessage.Text = "File Updated!"
    Catch ex As Exception
            lblMessage.Text = ex.Message & "<br>" & ex.Source & "<br>" & ex.StackTrace & "<br>"
    End Try
End Sub
</script>
<body>
<h1 style="font-family:Arial">Update Text File</h1>
<hr size="1" noshade>
<form runat="server" id="form1" name="form1">
<asp:button id="btnUpdate" text="Update File" runat="server" onclick="btnUpdate_Click"></asp:button>
<br><br>
<font face="Arial"><asp:label id="lblMessage" runat="server" /></font>
</form>
</body>
</html>

NOTE: Due to some problems with WordPress I had to replace backslashes with forward slashes in the file paths.

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 get an alert that my contact has come online but not that they have sent a message. My prototype is using the DotMSN 1.2 DLL which you can download at: http://www.xihsolutions.net/dotmsn/download/version1/DotMSN.dll. Make sure you add a reference to that DLL in your Visual Studio 2003 project. You will need two MSN Messenger contact accounts to test this web application. I recommend using an alternative email address and MSN Messenger 4.7 with Windows Live Messenger on the same machine. Here is my working VB.NET code which took a long time to figure out. I could not find any complete sample code on the Internet:

Imports DotMSN
Public Class Message
    Inherits System.Web.UI.Page

#Region " Web Form Designer Generated Code "

    'This call is required by the Web Form Designer.
    <System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThrough()> Private Sub InitializeComponent()

    End Sub

    'NOTE: The following placeholder declaration is required by the Web Form Designer.
    'Do not delete or move it.
    Private designerPlaceholderDeclaration As System.Object

    Private Sub Page_Init(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Init
        'CODEGEN: This method call is required by the Web Form Designer
        'Do not modify it using the code editor.
        InitializeComponent()
    End Sub

#End Region

    Protected WithEvents btnContact As System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button

    Private Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        'Put user code to initialize the page here
    End Sub
    Public Sub ConversationCreated(ByVal sender As Messenger, ByVal e As ConversationEventArgs)
        AddHandler e.Conversation.ContactJoin, AddressOf ContactJoined
        AddHandler e.Conversation.ConnectionEstablished, AddressOf ConnectionEstablished
        AddHandler e.Conversation.UserTyping, AddressOf UserTyping
    End Sub
    Public Sub ConnectionEstablished(ByVal sender As Conversation, ByVal e As EventArgs)
        ' do nothing
    End Sub
    Public Sub UserTyping(ByVal sender As Conversation, ByVal e As ContactEventArgs)
        ' do nothing
    End Sub
    Public Sub ContactOnline(ByVal sender As Messenger, ByVal e As ContactEventArgs)
        ' do nothing
    End Sub
    Public Sub OnSynchronizationCompleted(ByVal sender As Messenger, ByVal e As EventArgs)
        sender.SetStatus(MSNStatus.Online)
    End Sub
    Private Sub ContactJoined(ByVal sender As Conversation, ByVal e As ContactEventArgs)
        ' the contact must clicked on to receive this message
        sender.SendMessage(":D Hi! " & Now())
    End Sub
    Private Sub btnContact_Click(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnContact.Click
        Dim MSN As Messenger
        MSN = New Messenger

        AddHandler MSN.ContactOnline, AddressOf ContactOnline
        AddHandler MSN.ConversationCreated, AddressOf ConversationCreated
        AddHandler MSN.SynchronizationCompleted, AddressOf OnSynchronizationCompleted

        ' this account will be signed out
        MSN.Connect("robert@williamsportwebdeveloper.com", "*******")
        MSN.SynchronizeList()

        ' account to contact with message
        MSN.RequestConversation("robert_robbins@verizon.net")
    End Sub
End Class

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 the underscore character Google will only return exact matches for that file name which will be unlikely. For example, search_engine_optimization.htm is a bad choice of a file name because it will only be seen as relevant for a search on “search_engine_optimization”. However, “search-engine-optimization.htm” will be seen as being made up of all three words so may appear in a search for “optimization”.

I got a larger tripod for my camcorder. I did have a table tripod which is good for filming things on my desktop but I needed a larger tripod for outdoors. I bought a SONY VCT-R640 tripod which is designed for SONY camcorders:

I also bought some Voice Changing Software, AV VCS 4.0 from www.audio4fun.com for use on Stickam. This software is capable of intercepting and morphing any audio stream including a recording stream from a microphone. It is not that I want to disguise my voice. I just need to adjust the pitch so my voice does not sound funny.

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 e-commerce web site, it is also important to keep search engine optimization and web site marketing in mind at every step of the way.

Everything about web site marketing requires some technical expertise so I am asked to help my clients with this even when it does not involve programming or database work. Below is a list of some services I have provided:

1. Press Releases – there are web sites where you can submit your press release to be distributed via the media. Your press release can appear in Google News as a search result. I tried several free press release distribution services and only Click Press worked. I wrote the press release and created the account on Click Press. This may not appear to require much technical expertise, but I had to keep resubmitting the form until the errors were corrected and it was accepted. Then I had to verify the results.

2. Email Marketing Software – I have installed email marketing software from Active Campaign. This software uses PHP and MySQL and can be run on a Windows 2003 Server. However it was designed to use the crontab service so I had to set up scheduled tasks to serve the same purpose. After installing the software, there was a lengthy process of learning how to create messages, add subscribers, and view statistics. I also tested and verified that bounced emails will be removed from the mailing list. Unfortunately, this software was too complicated for the client to learn so I am responsible for managing their newsletter email campaigns.

3. Google Analytics – although Google Analytics is a free service, it does require some scripting to be added to the footer of every web page. However, you should not add this scripting to the SSL part of the web site because the external content will cause a SSL security warning message to pop up in Internet Explorer. Google also offers webmaster tools which can tell you what URLs on your web site are unreachable or returning 500 Internal Server Errors. However it is then up to you to correct those errors and that often requires considerable technical expertise.

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 should create a 301 redirect to preserve your page rank.

1. Right click an individual file in the IIS Microsoft Management Console
2. Click the “A redirection to a URL” radio button
3. Check the “The exact URL entered above” checkbox
4. Check the “A permanent redirection for this resource” checkbox
5. Enter the new web address in the textbox labled “Redirect to:”

You can check the web server response code using a SEO tool found at http://www.seoconsultants.com/tools/headers.asp

SEO Consultants Directory Check Server Headers - Single URI Results
Current Date and Time: 2006-11-24T10:38:15-0700
User IP Address: 71.241.71.176

#1 Server Response: http://www.caraccessories.com/answer_man.html
HTTP Status Code: HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Content-Length: 167
Content-Type: text/html
Location: http://www.caraccessories.com/answer_man.asp
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
MicrosoftOfficeWebServer: 5.0_Pub
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 18:38:15 GMT
Connection: close
Redirect Target: http://www.caraccessories.com/answer_man.asp

#2 Server Response: http://www.caraccessories.com/answer_man.asp
HTTP Status Code: HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Connection: close
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 18:38:15 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
MicrosoftOfficeWebServer: 5.0_Pub
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Content-Length: 14414

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 Firebox should be able to provide. I finally figured out that I had the wrong kind of microphone cable for a microphone that requires phantom power. I had a CBI HiZ Microphone Cable which uses a ¼” phone plug. Phantom power cannot be delivered through that kind of plug. I had to buy a Whirlwind MC20 XLR Microphone Cable which has male and female XLR connectors.

CBI HiZ Microphone Cable	Whirlwind MC20 XLR Microphone Cable

I still need to lower the pitch by one semi-tone and then normalize the gain to get my voice to sound natural and loud.

I now have the book Creating Motion Graphics With After Effects: Volume 1: The Essentials by Trish and Chris Meyer. This book is around 500 pages and the material appears to require a lot of trial and error so I’ll probably only master a few techniques.

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 hard drive with a 25 GB hard drive to give me more disk space for transferring files between my removable drives. The D drive is not removable so I use it to store data that I want to be accessible between operating systems.

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 back up computer. I copied my client project files to the 20 GB secondary drive. I want that system to be ready in case my good computer dies on me again. It is pretty time consuming to get everything I need installed on a new computer so I’m only doing a few things a day.

I have discovered that my Shure SM58 microphone is not a good microphone to use with the PreSonus Firebox because it requires a lot of gain. I cannot boost the volume of the microphone without maxing out the pre-amps and introducing unacceptable amounts of noise. So I’ve ordered a Studio Projects B1 Large Diaphragm Condenser Microphone which was another $120.00.

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 the community aspects of Soapbox are not as well developed as YouTube because you cannot subscribe to users or add them as friends. I don’t see any regular video bloggers there as well.

Every time I upload a video it crashes Internet Explorer which is how I know the upload is done. You can search for Soapbox videos using MSN Video Search or Windows Live Search.

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:

1. Copy phpBB2 directory to web site root or target directory
2. Create MySQL database phpbb
3. Create database user phpbb
4. Assign phpbb database privileges to phpbb user
5. Browse to /phpBB2/install/install.php
6. Select MySQL 4.x/5.x
7. Download config.php file
8. Replace config.php file in phpBB2 root directory
9. Delete install/ and contrib/ directories
10. Go to home page /phpBB2/index.php
11. Log in as Administrator

Next I will learn how to customize the phpBB design and add a link back to the web site.

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 which does not handle low light situations very well. Adjusting the black / white balance often significantly improves the image quality.

I also learned about compositing; using a chroma key to make a background color disappear. In other words, blue screen special effects. I use my green blackboard as a green screen but it has to be strongly lit to remove any shadows which ruin the effect. The image matte effect is one of my favorite effects. It allows you to use an alpha mask to play video within a shape. I learned how to create a picture within a picture so I can have a smaller frame of video play within the full screen video.

Other subjects I studied include audio effects, titling, adding graphics, exporting frame stills, exporting movie options, and video transitions.

I plan to study Adobe After Effects next but I need to buy a book on that. I did buy a book on Cubase SX.

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 have a message board where I can get my questions answered. Nobody knows what is going on with the site which leads to a lot of frustration and speculation. Several vloggers do angry videos demanding that problems be fixed.

This illustrates the importance of communicating with your clients or customers. You should let your web site visitors know that you are aware of problems with the site and tell them what you are doing to fix those problems. You should make it easy for web site visitors to find your blog and subscribe. You should send out a newsletter with news and information concerning your web site. And you need a message board where web site visitors can get answers to their questions. Message boards have the additional advantage of being indexed by the search engines and provide a good reason for people to return to the site, i.e. to check for a reply or read a forum thread.

After thinking about YouTube’s lack of communication I came up with several good ideas to address this problem with one of my clients, www.caraccessories.com. I added a blog category for the web site and posted a blog entry on their recent 1-800 number going down. Serveral customers thought their phone lines had been disconnected and this created a very bad impression. Nothing was done to communicate the real nature of the problem to the web site visitors.

Later on today I plan to install the phpBB 2 message board software on their site and start some forums where customers can get their questions answered or find information on the web site.

My clients can get some clue as to what I am learning or working on by reading this blog. I’ll have to make sure they all know about this blog.

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 cash using my bank’s ATM machine and bought a new 256 MB thumb drive because my old one is write protected and I can’t do anything about it. Thumb drives are getting to be pretty cheap. I paid less than $20 for a replacement at Wal-Mart. I have a script that copies some of my most frequently updated files to the thumb drive. I was unable to run that script until I had a new thumb drive.

I also bought a ten pack of DVD-R discs. I still have a few DVD+R discs but my other computers have older DVD-ROM drives and cannot read those type of discs. I had to make several attempts to burn a new DVD of Visual Studio 2003 Enterprise Edition so I could finally install it on my DELL computer. Eventually I managed to burn it onto a DVD-R disc. I installed Visual Studio 2003 Enterprise Edition, Visual Studio 2005, and the MSDN Library on my DELL which consumed a good portion of its 20 GB hard drive. I need to upgrade it to a bigger hard drive.

I also spent a lot of time documenting color correction in Adobe Premiere Pro. I am up to chapter 11 of Adobe Premiere Pro For Dummies by Keith Underdahl. My camcorder does not handle low light very well so it proved useful to know how to adjust the black/white balance. I was able to improve the look of several video clips. I did a video of an aromatherapy candle sold by Paul Robinett, a popular videographer on YouTube. I created most of the video in Windows Movie Maker but I color corrected a few clips in Adobe Premiere Pro and exported them.