Yesterday I received my Bixi key. Bixi is a public bicycle service in Montreal. So I was so happy to receive my key yesterday, and I biked around and discovered parts of Montreal that I have never been to. As you can see from the stats I drove 39 KM, saved 10kg in greenhouse gas emissions, and 3 Liters of gas if i was to have riden a car for all those trips. If you want to know where these figures are generated from here it is: The distance you traveled is an estimate, calculated using an assumed speed of 12 km/h and depending upon the time of use. Source : Vélo Québec.
The reduction in greenhouses gases emitted is an estimate calculated according to The Urban Transportation Emissions Calculator for a light passenger vehicle, depending upon your estimated traveling distance. Source : Transport Canada, April 2008.
The amount of gas saved is an estimate calculated according to Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE ) norms for tourist vehicles, establishing average gas consumption of 8.5 litres/100 km. Source: Environment Canada.
Because of the rise of YouTube and video tutorials, screen-casting programs have become very popular. I have used screen capture programs in the past, however now they just don’t cut it. Screen-casting software not only captures, but it also allows editing. As a blogger, I sometimes create screen-casts tutorials, which require quick and painless publishing. I recently switched from PC to Mac because Macs make a lot of things easier to do. The main reason I believe this is because of Apple’s simplistic approach. I have started using Telestream’s ScreenFlow, which follows this simplistic approach (simple yet powerful). It had a very small learning curve of about five to ten minutes.
ScreenFlow Pre Recording Countdown (Click For Full Size Image)
Features
ScreenFlow supports high-resolution screens with ease. If you have multiple screens ScreenFlow gives the option of selecting the required source. The feature that I believe differentiates ScreenFlow from all other Mac screen-casting software is the ability to “Callout” a window after recording is over. This is no simple zooming technique, it actually makes the window larger compared to everything else on the screen. This could be handy in case you did not know you want to Callout a window before finishing recording. One of my favorite things about ScreenFlow is the way it saves project files. Every project file contains all files needed to open the project in one package. That way files are not all over your hard drive. When you are constantly moving, copying, deleting, and creating new files having one file per project is helpful for organizational reasons.
ScreenFlow Workspace (Click For Full Size Image)
Support
When contacting Telestream’s support I always received a fast effective response, which shows the Telestream team is there to stand behind their product. I have found some small inconveniences that I have reported to Telestream hopefully they can accommodate for fixes soon (At the time of writing this post the version I am using is 1.5.2). Firstly you must add a video or audio effect for each clip separately, you cannot just drag it from one clip to another. When adding an additional recording with the “Close ScreenFlow before recording option” selected without saving the entire project prior. It will ask you to save the project, but then it won’t record you must to go back and select add additional recording again. Another feature I feel would make ScreenFlow even more amazing would be the ability to blur out personal information such as usernames and passwords. I have received a reply from the support team looking into all these issues for the next version.
As a screen-casting program ScreenFlow ticks off all the boxes I need. It is a very powerful yet easy to use program. I can create screen-casts fast. I am glad the Telestream team made it very simple and not a full-blown video editing solution. This way the application file size stays small (13 Megabytes), the program does not get too complicated, and performs what it does very well. On a final note I noticed that Telestream have made this program amazing by building it systematically. First they got the basics down and slowly they add features as opposed to building it with all the features they can think of. That way the program not only works better, but also is formulated better. I would recommend it for any Mac user that needs to produce screen casts. You can Try and Buy ScreenFlow on Telestream’s Website ($99).
Ps. If you have any questions or are confused by anything in this review and would like an answer, please comment and I’ll do my best to respond.
I saw this Beautiful Mercedes 190 SL today while shopping a shirt and a tie (I am attending a wedding on a boat tonight will post pictures later). This Car was produced from 1955 to 1963. This one was in great condition and well kept after.
Today I was on my way to Future Shop to just do some isle cruising. I ended up buying a huge paper shredder, which is great for protecting against identity theft, fraud etc. However on the way there I looked up at the sky and found that within a very close range the sky was half dark and half sunny. I haven’t seen a place other than Montreal where this happens often. It is a bit hard to see in the picture, so click on it to see it larger might help a bit!
Today I received a call from the Diesel store in Montreal. It was concerning the pants I wanted them to replace. I wore these pants only three or four times maximum and every time I washed them a large hole would appear. Their decision was that they would not replace the pants. I understand a lot of people try to screw companies over by playing this card, however I was being honest. Since there is no way that the Diesel Rep Kerry could be certain of this let us assume I was lying and I wore them everyday that I owned them. At this point I don’t care about the money or replacement pants, however I care about being treated with respect. I dropped off the pants to the Diesel store in April, we are now in July which means I waited three patient months to hear “No” as a reply. If I don’t get treated with respect then what is the point of doing business with a company or person for that matter that just wants your money? I suggest that Diesel Canada work harder and much faster to fix their Customer Care problems. As of now I will try not to buy Diesel products, not because their product Quality is bad (Actually I feel Diesel has the best Quality and lasting Jeans) but because I feel it doesn’t take three months to look at a pair of pants to decide that they won’t pay up. <humor>If they launched a forensic investigation it wouldn’t have taken this long!</humor>
Thanks to @chrisLAS, I visited the @Microsoft twitter account, and noticed that they were thanking @linux. I found that funny so I checked out the linux account, which was welcoming Microsoft account. I took screenshots in case no one believes this and incase the tweets mysteriously disappear.
A couple of my closest friends have finished University here in Montreal, and have moved on with their lives. They left some old clothes behind that were going to be thrown away. I decided to take it to the Salvation Army, so they can benefit someone that needs them. We Should all donate whatever we have lying around that we don’t need.
