My first attempt on Windows was to try and use Windows Movie Maker. I will have to say that I was extremely disappointed from the start and as of this writing, still have no experience using WMM. The reason behind that is the simple fact that the recording device, which is the Sony Bloggie Touch, was not supported by WMM. The Bloggie Touch records in mp4 format which WMM does not support. I tried doing a few hacks that I found on the internet to get it to work, but to no avail. I didn’t give up however. I then went to the internet to see what other choices of video editors are out there for Windows. I came across three with free trials that I have been playing around with. They are Corel VideoStudio Pro X5, CyberLink PowerDirector 10, and Adobe Premiere Elements 10. I didn’t get very far with Corel because I wasn’t able to get going easily with it, plus once again it didn’t support mp4. I then tried CyberLink which was a vast improvement to me from Corel. CyberLink also did support mp4 and wasn’t too hard to figure out, but for some reason I still didn’t feel quite comfortable with the program. So, last but not least I tried Adobe Premiere Elements, and I will have to say that of all three I liked it the best.

I proceeded to make a video with Adobe Premiere Elements, and I would publish it but it is watermarked since I am using the trial version. Besides it was just for testing purposes for me. I did however seem to drag a little on my system, granted my system is a little old, so I will chalk it up to that, but I would like for it to have run a little smoother, but hey beggars can’t be choosey.

Bottom line is that I will be able to do video editing quite well on Windows if I do decide to stick to Windows. However the one drawback that I see at the moment is that on the Mac, iMovie is only $15 US unless you buy a mac with it already installed, in which case it is free. To purchase Adobe Premiere Elements 10, I will have to shell out $99 US. That to me could almost be a deal breaker, but we will see.

Stay tuned for the next installment in which I hope to test audio editing on Windows.

I am hoping this weekend to shoot a review video so that will let me do some in depth testing of whether or not this switch will be able to be continued, and as I go along I will test some more things like recording and editing audio and other tasks to see if I can make the switch or just give up.

Stay tuned for more updates.

I have gotten used to how the Mac works and to the programs that come with it and that you can get for it, so my biggest hurdle will be to find free and cheap alternatives to what I have been used to on OSX.

I will try to use posts to the site as a somewhat journal of my experience.  So stay tuned and I will let you know how it goes for me, plus I would appreciate any comments as to what I may have missed as far as software, tips and tricks that I have forgotten or haven’t learned yet.

The gameplay was good though it did seem a little like a button masher to me than a role playing game, and when I say button masher I mean literally one button, well occasionally you might throw in a special power that is mapped to one of the other three buttons on the game controller. In fairness however I know there are some tactics that you can program the other team mates to do and that you can sorta pause the battle to issue commands.  Call me impatient or whatever but I didn’t feel like taking the time to figure out what tactics worked with what character and issuing commands.  It just didn’t seem harmonious with the way battles played out, but I did finish the game the way I played it and still enjoyed it.

The graphics were quite nice, however after playing the demo on the pc and then getting the game on the PS3 it was kind of a let down.  The graphics on the PS3 were great but just not on the same level as the PC.  I would of gotten the game on the PC, but I didn’t like the controls as well.  There wasn’t much of a variety on the dungeons either in this game.  Each new area you went to looked the same with maybe a door or passage shut off that wasn’t in a previous area.

It was also refreshing to play a game that took more than 6 hours to play.  I miss the day long gone when games took you a couple of weeks of nonstop play.  However in fairness this game is single player only so the developers were able to concentrate solely on the single player aspect of the game therefore giving it some length.  However this is where I have some letdowns of this game.  I don’t know what it was exactly but the story just didn’t seem to do much for me.  The first DA story seemed to be on a grand scale.  This one seemed to be about a few mundane things that the Champion of the game had done in the recent past.  The happenings just didn’t seem larger than life that you would think a Champion of a story would face.  Don’t get me wrong I don’t hate this game but I think it lacked a little in the story department.

All in all, even though it sounds like I don’t like this game, I did, and I would recommend it to anybody that likes Role Playing Games.  Despite the faults that I mentioned I enjoyed it enough that it kept my attention, and I tried to play it every night that I could and hated when I had to stop.  If I had to give it a rating out of ten I would give it a seven.

This time however I believe I may very well consider the prestige edition of Call of Duty Modern Warefare 2. This edition will come with a fully functional set of Night Vision Goggles.

I know, I know these goggles may be considered useless to the average Joe, but this time it isn’t about whether they are useless or will be put on a shelf to collect dust, but the cool factor. I haven’t however seen a price for this edition, so there is the possibility that I may just have to settle for the regular edition, but if the price of the prestige edition isn’t astronomical I will try my best to get that edition.

You can find out a little more about this edition over at Engadget.

Anyway I found this new desktop blog editor for the mac and thought I would try it out. One thing I am not liking at the first is that you can’t tab from one field to the next, you have to use your mouse to move from one text field to the other. However this is my first post using this software so I don’t have an in depth review at this time, but if I post some more to my blog I will use this program and have a better update at a later time.

The blog editor is Bloggchen which can be found at myownapp.com

In this day and age every thing is hurry, hurry, hurry, and no time for anything. We there fore neglect the things God would have us do and we push Him to the side until we get in trouble or need help in some way. We don’t take the time to realize that He must be first in our lives and that there is no room for anything else to be first. We try so hard to make the things of this world so important that we don’t have time to read our Bible or to pray like we ought.

I think Jim over at “standing in the gap” puts what I am saying into a better perspective than what I have said so far.

What we need to do is slow down, put God back to being first in our lives and pick up the Bible, blow the dust off of it and seek His guidance, and to pray the effectual, fervent prayers that we should be doing.

Of course I have been working a lot on my church’s website which you can find here Landmark Baptist Church.  For me it is an ongoing process because I am trying to learn web development.  Or rather I guess I should say I am trying to teach myself.

Well anyway here is to a new year so lets make the best of it, and try not to break too many of those resolutions.