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DAZ Studio 102: Workspaces, Tabs and Styles

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In this episode we’re launching DAZ Studio for the first time after a fresh installation, we’ll fix the database manager, and we’ll learn how to customise the interface. I will also show you where those important context sensitive menus are hiding. https://www.versluis.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/102-Interface.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 19:28 — 17.8MB)

How to render media with Alpha Channel in Premiere Pro

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I made some new lower-third captions for my YouTube channel in Premiere the other day. I had a vision for some animations, and rather than spend several hundred dollars on pre-made snazzy clips, I thought I’d take on the task myself. 

For those to be usable on top of other video footage in my screen casting software (Camtasia Studio 3), I needed the animations to be rendered out with an Alpha Channel. That way a mask is automatically created, letting other programmes crop out everything around the titles.

Since I never had to do that before, I asked myself: How do we render a clip with an alpha channel in Premiere? 

After careful research, combined with some tireless trial and error, I found the solution to this puzzle – and here’s how to do it.

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How to play the Mass Effect 3 Demo on PS3 (2018)

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The other day I downloaded the Mass Effect 3 Demo on my old Playstation 3. I had enjoyed Mass Effect 2 immensely, I own the trilogy for PC, and I wanted to take a look at how the Playstation 3 version looked.

To my surprise, the demo didn’t start up. All I got was an error message telling me that the EA Origin or Alliance servers are down, and then the demo quits. Which sucks.

Turns out those Mass Effect 3 demo servers have been switched off many years ago, and the game is obviously coded so badly that it thinks it can’t live without an answer from those servers. Seriously flawed design there, folks!

Lucky for us, there’s a simple trick we can use to start that demo anyway! 

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S.A.F.T. – Release Trailer (making of)

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I did a quick editing job yesterday for Oliver’s new band, a teaser trailer for a project called S.A.F.T.

It’s the German word for “juice”, but it’s also a word made up of the initials of the three band members. Their album is already available, but for an upcoming official release party, the band wanted a quick and snappy introduction to their project, no longer than perhaps two minutes.

After finishing up some of my other projects, I promised Oliver that I’d take a look at it – and here’s the result. The band were all happy, and I sincerely hope they’ll have a good launch gig in my hometown of Bremen, Germany to celebrate their hard work of putting this project together. Rock on, guys!

I had free creative reign over the end result, and I thought I’d share my process on this project with you: the assets I had available, the ideas I brought to the table, and how I turned them into the video you see above. Come to think of it, I never take enough notes when it comes to creative projects, documenting The Creative Process if you will, so let’s change this today.

Here’s how I made that S.A.F.T. Release Trailer.

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Storyist 105: Version Control Features

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In this episode I’ll show you how to save your files in Storyist, and how to keep your work safe. Besides “save” and the equivalent of “save as”, Storyist also offers Version Control built in, which means you can save a modified version of your project, similar to how Git projects are controlled. I’ll explain …

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Created in August 2018

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This August, I’ve created 9 tech articles, uploaded 16 videos, narrated and edited my book BROKEN BOWELS (twice), created/revived five podcast feeds, created logos for them, overhauled one of my websites, and took on a part-time job with Instacart.

It was a very busy month, and a lot has happened. Looking back over this extensive log entry alone, it baffles me somewhat to see just how much I have achieved! It’s all been about streamlining some aspects of my life, as well as finishing off things that have been sizzling in the background for some time. 

It feels good to free up some room to take on new challenges. Here’s what I’ve been creating this month:

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Discovered in August 2018

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Peter Mt. Shasta’s “Apprentice to the Masters”, part 2 of his autobiography (don’t judge it by its cover). Jerry Hyde’s new Book of Sin Tech Findings How to use Blending Modes in Premiere Pro How to use Handbrake to encode with lossless quality  iPhone Footage is out of sync when imported into Premiere Pro, as …

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Storyist 104: Formatting and Styles

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In this episode I’ll show you how to use some of the formatting tools Storyist has to offer. I’ll also explain how to apply formatting collections known as styles to parts of your manuscript. Styles are not only used to format chapters and body text in a cohesive way; Storyist also uses these styles to …

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How to create Text Objects in Blender

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In this episode I’ll show you how to create text objects in Blender, modify font and extrusion properties, and how to turn a text object into a proper mesh. https://www.versluis.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Blender-Text.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 10:52 — 10.0MB)

Storyist 103: Creative Writing Tools

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In this episode I’ll explain some of the excellent writing tools Storyist has to offer. In particular, I’ll show you how to create chapters and sections/scenes inside chapters, I’ll explain the outline and index card view, and I’ll show you how you can see the outline view and your actual manuscript side by side. https://www.versluis.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Storyist-3-Writing-Tools.mp3Podcast: …

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Storyist 102: Meet the Interface

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In this episode I’ll give you a brief overview of Storyist. I’ll show you how to create a new project, how to create a new manuscript inside the project, what the panels do and how the layout works. https://www.versluis.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Storyist-2-Overview.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 18:46 — 17.2MB)

Storyist 101: Introduction to Storyist

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In this series I’ll introduce you to Storyist, the creative writing application for macOS and iOS. In this episode I’ll speak about the software’s philosophy and how it differs from other writing applications such as Microsoft Word and Apple’s Pages.  https://www.versluis.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Storyist-1-Intro.mp3Podcast: Download (Duration: 8:07 — 7.4MB)

Created in July 2018

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I spent much of this month narrating my new book BROKEN BOWELS, with the intention of releasing it as an Audio Book alongside the Paperback and the Kindle Version.

I’m nearly finished, and provided ACX, Audible, Amazon and iTunes are happy with the files, I’m expecting it to be released sometime in August.

Audio Books are are becoming very popular, and I can imagine that fellow patients could pass the time listening to my experiences while getting a lengthy infusion.

It does take forever to do, and I can’t narrate more than two hours every day or else my voice gets tired. Editing takes a while too, but at the same time it’s a very rewarding experience. I’ve described my setup and the intricate details in some of the links below.

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My Audiobook Narration Setup for Audible, Amazon and iTunes

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When I decided to narrate my book BROKEN BOWELS for publication through ACX, I had several ideas for the workflow.

In essence, and after many tests as to what would yield the best quality, I did the following:

  • record to my Mac using Quicktime
  • transcode the resulting native AIFC files into Apple Lossless M4A using Finder
  • edit in Adobe Premiere
  • bulk-transcode to MP3 files with ACX specifications using Adobe Media Encoder

I’ve tried various other workflows, but the above seems to work great for me.

Let me share my reasoning and experiment with you here.

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Discovered in July 2018

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Self Publishing Related  Understanding and Working with Print Signatures Why does Storyist add blank pages to Blurb Templates How to avoid KDP File Errors with Blurb Templates from Storyist How to advertise KDP Books Wide Publication with Draft2Digital N. J. Notjohn’s Self-Publishing Guide KDP Manuscript Formatting Guide (includes page count limits and trim sizes) Overview …

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How to fix “download was unsuccessful” on Kindle Keyboard and Kindle DX

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This morning I got a notification from Amazon that Jerry’s new book had been released. I had pre-ordered it a few weeks ago and was eager to start reading it. Having a long journey across town from Miami Beach to Sunset ahead of me, Jerry’s Book of Sin would be a great accompaniment.

My trusty old Kindle Keyboard 3G was all charged up, I was ready to leave, but the book had not been downloaded. “Hm”, I thought, “this should have happened automatically”. Was I signed into the correct account?

Yes I was, and to my surprise, the book was showing up correctly under Archived Items. But when I tried to download it manually, all I got was an error message stating that “The download was unsuccessful. Please try again later”.

Several tries later, and without any luck, I remembered a solution that did the trick: fully rebooting my Kindle Keyboard. This trick also works on the DX and other models, even on Kindle Fire devices. Let me tell you how to do it. 

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How to export multiple timelines at once in Premiere

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I recently had the need to encode several audio clips I had edited in Adobe Premiere Pro CS 5.5. That’s easy if you export one timeline at a time, by selecting the sequence, then click File – Export – Media. 

But this principle doesn’t work if you have several sequences that need to be exported. 

An article in the Adobe Forums suggests how to do this using After Effects as an intermediary, but it seemed very convoluted and a total hack. Besides, I don’t have After Effects so that’s not really a solution.

Convinced that there had to be a better way, I had a quick fiddle – and lucky for me I’ve discovered an easy workaround that I’ll share with you here. I’m using Premiere Pro CS 5.5, so I’m assuming it’ll work in later versions too.

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How to create a project for narration on ACX

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I wanted to upload an audio version of my book, narrated by myself, for sale on Amazon, Audible and iTunes. It’s apparently very easy to do using Amazon’ own ACX service. You can even login with your existing Amazon credentials.

When I did that, it all seemed fairly straightforward. There was a Projects Tab at the top, which I assumed is where I’d create a new project and start uploading myself. But that’s not how ACX works. Instead, you search for a book on the ACX homepage, which in turn sifts through Amazon’s catalogue. Only if said book exists can you pick it and start working on it.

That’s fair enough, and it makes sense. If you know how the system works. But even then, in my case, said list only seemed to return books open for auditions on ACX, rather than results from Amazon.com. My own books never came up while I was successfully logged in. They only ever came up while I was logged out. What gives?

As so often in life, there is an explanation for this – but of course it’s not something that’s obvious, nor included in the generous Help Section on ACX.

Eventually I’ve figured it out – and here’s how it works.

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Created in June 2018

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Last month I’ve been flat out writing the last chapters of my book “BROKEN BOWELS – Tales of a Super Survivor“. In total I’ve written a whopping 109.944 words.

Not all of them made it into the final cut mind you, which by the way has an astonishing word count of over 132.000. That’s nearly three times as much as I had originally set out to write.

The Kindle Edition is already available, and now I’m working on creating a paperback version too. All my Patreon supporters get a free copy of the ebook!

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Discovered in June 2018

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WordPress Dev Links WordPress Post Transition Hooks wp_update_post() Function Reference Debugging WordPress Publishing a post on a future date automatically Changing the time and date of new posts  PHP Links How to convert strings to Date and DateTime in PHP PHP DateTime Class Reference  Miscellaneous very good solution for the original Rubik’s Cube very good …

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Discovered in May 2018

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Miscellaneous Discoveries

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Created in May 2018

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This month I’ve decided to start this list at the beginning of the month and add to it as I go along, rather than trying to retrace what I’ve been doing (like I did last month). The latter approach takes forever and is prone to losing something I did in the process.

Starting this list early means I can easily add to it, and even schedule the date of publication. It works great both for scheduling as well as a victory log.

Super Survivor Project

I’ve spent the second half of May writing more of my book, something I’ve taken a break from for over two months. To see where I stand, I printed the whole 400+ pages out and bound them using 1″ book rings (just about fits). The book is definitely coming together, but there’s so much more I want to say. It will probably take me the better part of June finish t.

I gave myself an (already extended) deadline: Broken Bowels shall be released on the 4th of July, which means I need to deliver the final manuscript to Amazon no later than June 30th 2018.

My original plan was to have it all done by the end of March but I had reached a point at which it just didn’t flow anymore. As I later found out it was the premise that wasn’t working for me. The more I thought about it, the less I felt that an account of the events as they happened during my cancer journey wasn’t telling the whole story.

What was fascinating me more and more was the question, “how did I survive this ordeal – both mentally and physically”. And as soon as I started writing with that question in mind, things kept flowing like never before. Hence I’m very happy to report that I’m back in the game, hitting the keys almost every day and I’m very much enjoying it!

I had several very successful sessions that yielded more than 4200 words per day (about 20 A4/Letter pages) and the whole project is becoming more than what I had envisioned it to be when I started it. Here’s what I did in detail:

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Double-sided printing with the HP 4620

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The other day I had to print out a rather large file to sift through. It was about 20 pages long, and being the economically conscious guy that I am, I wanted to print this document double sided to safe some paper.

Turns out my (relatively cheap) printer, the HP 4620, does not have such an option built in by default. However, the included printer driver does allow for odd or even pages to be printed manually. With a bit of thinking and elbow grease, perhaps this is an adventure worth exploring.

But how do we do it exactly, and what settings do we use? Lucky for us both that I took some notes when I did it last time so we can do it again next time.

Here’s how I did it on macOS 10.14 Sierra, but the same steps work fine under Windows 10.

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LAMP Stack for Humans – available as Paperback and Kindle Edition

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Did I mention that my book LAMP Stack for Humans is also available in paperback format?

Actually it has been for several months now, and it slipped my mind to share this news with you. LIfe’s just too busy I guess. Amazon are kind enough to offer it alongside the Kindle edition, so if you want a printed and nicely bound guide on how to build your own LAMP stack, here you go. 

The printed version is a lovely 6 x 9″ (15 x 23cm) large book with matte finish, about 1″ thick and weighs about a pound (413g to be exact). Printed with love in South Carolina as soon as you order it.

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Discovered in April 2018

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Commodore Discoveries A fan of my Commodore teachings, Stein-Ove Bratthammer, has a nice G+ page with some interesting BASIC programmes. TheDuckSun has built himself a remastered version of the Commodore 128 There’s a whole (under construction) website for the project too: http://www.the128rm.com Forum user Unseen has an interesting signature in the this forum post. I reverse-engineered it …

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How to pixelate text in Photoshop

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In this screencast I’ll demonstrate how to pixelate or obfuscate text in Photoshop. I usually use Skitch for such things, but one day it wasn’t working, and all I had to hand was Photoshop – so I hunted around and found that it works just as well. It’s just knowing what to click. Once I …

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