LIVE HELP
|
Class on Demand Report CardNews, Views, and Information from COD | May 2009
In Las Vegas last month for NAB I lost my cell phone. The anxiety you feel when you lose this piece of electronics is really not like anything else. You mentally kick yourself for always putting off loading the CD that came with the phone that enables you to back up all your contact information (note to readers – if you haven’t done this yet don’t put it off further). One of the feelings that go through your mind is the invasion of privacy that comes with the person who finds the phone electronically rifling through your contacts or your recent calls to “Robin” or “Casey” and learning something about your private life. The lost phone routine starts with the immediate requirement to borrow someone else’s phone to call yourself (or at least your lost phone). Of course, this is where Murphy’s Law comes in to play. The only time you silence your phone from the AC/DC ring tone you downloaded is when you’re speaking at a conference and guess what, I was, so now my phone, wherever it is, silently answers my call and I hear my own voicemail message. Still, this is marginally better than the call going straight in to voicemail which means the battery is now dead and unable to make a sound even if it wasn’t silenced. Then there is the retracing of steps, the feeling of stupidity in asking complete strangers if they’ve seen your wayward communicator. This of course is coupled with the talking to oneself out loud in recollection of previous events together with hand waving or gesticulation. Those of you who have had the misfortune to lose a phone know exactly what I’m talking about. And finally there’s the realization that life can’t possibly go on a minute more without the mobile phone snugly in your pocket providing that ever-present comfort that you can at any moment “reach out and touch someone,” so you now use your laptop to Google your carrier and find their local retail outlet. At this point you’re the sales reps’ dream customer. You know exactly what you want. They don’t have to discuss complicated calling plans that leave you looking baffled; they don’t have to run through a litany of features and functions with the latest gadget they received in the store only that morning. All they need to ask while they’re moving your account to this new purchase is “anything else while you’re here” and here’s where you should just say no. Instead you look longingly at the range of accessories that you told yourself you’d never wear lest you finally cross over to being a complete nerd and select a leather carrying case that clips to your belt. This surely will stop me from losing the phone again! After all, what’s another $19.99 when I’m protecting a $600 device? So, minutes later and $618.98 lighter in the wallet I’m back in action and call my family and friends to let them know that I have not left the planet on a "Total Recall" package tour for two weeks even though it’s only been a day since I last spoke to them. A few days later I’m driving back to Chicago from Las Vegas when I get a call on my new phone from David Cooper. He’s a bus driver for Beltran Busses in Las Vegas and tells me he has my old phone. David wouldn’t take a reward for being so conscientious, he just asked that I return to Las Vegas and help their city out of this recession (presumably by dropping more money at the craps table). It’s nice to know there are still good honest people in the world and equally nice to know that Verizon offers a 30-day money back guarantee.
|
Class on Demand | 2200 N Stonington Ave. Suite 100 | Hoffman Estates, IL 60169 | Phone 847-843-9939 | Fax 847-843-9929
The
secret to great compressed video is to
use preprocessing filters wisely: Deinterlace
non-progessive sources, intelecine 24p
NTSC sources, crop out letterboxing, bump
up the contrast, gamma and saturation,
and sharpen to taste. Trust your eyes.
Find us on Facebook!