Frustration, Developments and Other Stories

I’m trying to find the best way to phrase this because it’s been on my mind for a while.

As a lot of you–old and new readers alike–know, I’ve been improving and developing this Blog as I’ve gone along. I had a few ideas as to how I would add to it. Really, I had two ideas. The first was that I was going to take my Youtube Channel and create a Vlog. I’d seen some people do this before–such as FreakishLemon–and I wanted an excuse to be able to read some of my stories and opinions aloud and even talk to people about my plans.

It was–and is–a good idea. But there were two factors I didn’t know about until I actually got up the courage to try them out. The first is that while I discovered my Acer netbook can record video and audio with its camera, the transfer rate of said video from my computer to Youtube was something along the lines of 436 minutes. Now, I’m not good with numbers, but there is something really wrong with a five minute video taking over seven hours to upload onto a site that is designed to receive and play videos.

But all right. Fine, perhaps it was my wireless connection, or the quality of my camera. I discovered that Youtube has a recorder. So I used that. I made one video that was ok, but I wanted to do over again. So I attempted that and then … I got a disconnection error on the screen. I kept recording anyway: thinking that I just couldn’t see the camera and the video was playing anyway. I was wrong. The recording cut off right about the time the disconnection error on the camera feed began.

I spent a large amount of time trying to figure out why this was happening and why I couldn’t just upload my videos. It also didn’t help that before all of this I had been doing various retakes of the same video. You know: the one that never made it onto the Net. I researched these problems and partially confirmed some of my suspicions, but mostly it made me frustrated. You have to understand, I get frustrated with technology–very frustrated with technology–whose creators claim it is supposed to be simple to use but it really isn’t. And even barring that, if we follow Gaiman’s Second Rule I believe, we will have all the technology and science we’ve dreamed about in science-fiction but it won’t always work properly.

I wonder how many times holograms and communications channels would lag in Star Trek if that were the case. Or if Data had to reboot several times or freeze in mid-motion before doing anything else.

So I decided to put that on the back-burner for a while, and instead record some audio files of me reading my stories aloud: for the practice. I have a weird program on this Acer which won’t let me listen to the recording I made after I made it, but aside from that it recorded well. Of course I can’t put this onto Youtube because it is audio only. And so I thought I could put it on this WordPress: which I can … for a modest fee. Since I don’t have the money to actually pay for more space or an application on here, that plan is out of the works unless I find a remote audio upload program I can trust.

I also thought about changing the aesthetics of this site. I have a friend who is into graphic design and photography who offered to help me, but I seems that I can customize this site again … for a modest fee a year.

I mean, fair enough. My Blog is changing and may be evolving past the limits of that I wasn’t even aware existed. I want it to look more customized and to add different media onto it. I also wanted to have a once or twice a week Vlog tie-in: to get the Youtube community on this and get further feedback. But it seems that I am lacking money and, quite frankly, patience. I am not going to rely on a recording program that might decide to cut off on me on a whim and I am definitely not going to wait over seven hours for a video to upload.

I’m also thinking about reducing the amount of times I post on this Blog to once or twice a week as well. I need to focus more on my writing and make more posts to keep in reserve. It’s amazing to think that just a few months ago I was writing a Blog post a day or every two days spontaneously and on the spot. I do still have some ideas and when I get more I will be more than happy to share them.

Anyway, I hope by the time I post this I will have figured more things out and maybe by expressing some of this frustration, I can free up my head to do more constructive things. Because I think that is the most frustrating thing of all: spending a lot of this time on technical matters when all I want to do is write. I’m not ruling out the other options too, but things are really going to have to change before anything else.

Maybe these setbacks, in the end, are a good thing in their way: because now I know where the limits are and I can begin to find creative ways around them and work with what I have. One can only hope.

If anyone has any suggestions as to how I can solve any of these issues, my ears are open. Take care, awesome readers.