A quick guide.
If the background to this screen is white you’ve got the screen TURNED UP TOO BRIGHT! It should be pale yellow—like ivory writing paper.
Setting up a PC monitor
5 Jan 2007 13:48 by Rick
Tyre tracks
3 Jan 2007 14:18 by Rick
I always wondered how the tyre pressure sensors worked on my Laguna. Now I know, I am not sure that I wanted to!
Akismet weakness
2 Jan 2007 13:24 by Rick
I took a bit of a break over Christmas and didn’t do much with the blog at all, in particular I took my eye off the spam queue maintained by the Akismet plugin. The baddies must have skipped all the parties because I find this morning that there are 2174 items in there waiting for my attention. Now I know that if I leave them for 15 days then they will be deleted automatically but I like to be sure there are no false positives. Unfortunately the page only displays the last 150 and there is only one button “Delete all” so there is no way to review them. I am sure I have seen someone else comment about this and perhaps a solution but I can’t find it now.
[added later – the latest version (1.2.1) improves things a bit. At least I can see the rest of them now, but it still needs a facility to delete them a page at a time. Anyway, I got bored so just killed the lot!]
Video switcher
1 Jan 2007 15:21 by Rick
During the install of our projector system I have been very impressed with the Kramer products. The main component is the Switcher/Scaler which is the heart of the system and the general impression is that they do what they are supposed to do with no fuss and in exactly the way that you would expect. The VP719 is a 7 input, single VGA output device (inputs are VGA, DVI, 2 x composite, 2 x S-Video and component) and it seems to be able to cope with whatever you throw at it without a glitch.
There are inevitably small faults where details off the main function could be thought out a bit better. This is clearly an installation device rather than portable/mobile and as such, some things should be hidden from the end user. In particular, the remote control is much too complex exposing controls that would be rarely required—a very prominent button changes the output resolution—something that is not required after install. If things like this are required on the remote then there should be an “advanced” panel with a cover. On the other hand, there is no “blank” button on the remote at all but there may be a programmable feature to enable this some other way.
In an installation like ours the actual device is hidden away in a rack so we use the computer serial connection with the GUI application to actually control it. This just duplicates the function and appearance of the remote but with the same problems; actually worse because it is a multi-device application for all models so there are lots of redundant controls. It needs to be customisable so that unwanted functions can be removed and, in particular, more meaningful labels put on the input selectors so that you don’t have to remember which device is plugged into which socket.
Another improvement would be a second VGA input. We have worked around the lack of this by using the DVI input for the main control computer but that was not ideal for other reasons and would not always be possible—for instance with two laptops. Perhaps we needed the 724 model but this is somewhat more expensive with a lot of unneeded features.
Now that it is installed the silly audio connections are not a problem but I don’t see why standard RCA (for the video channels) and mini jack (for the computer channels) were not used. XLR for the PA output would have been nice but I can see that there is a space limitation on a 1u box. Does anyone seriously use the 5 Watt audio amplifier built in?
Anyway, notwithstanding these little gripes, I thoroughly recommend this device for any simple church or conference room setup.
Song (Un)Select (UK)
23 Dec 2006 19:57 by Rick
If I can find a way to send SongSelect back and claim a refund, I will. It is RUBBISH. I don’t know if the USA online version is any better but this offline one that we have to use is very poor. It is not so much the clumsy interface and it’s pretending that you can use it to project directly but the transcription of the songs built in is very poor and that is the purpose for which we bought it. I quote a (public domain) example:
God holds the key of all unknown
And I am glad
If other hands should hold the key
Or if He trusted it to me
I might be sad I might be sadWhat if tomorrows cares were here
Without its rest
I’d rather He unlocked the day
And as the hours swing open say
My will is best My will is best…
Joseph Parker (1830-1902)
I would say that this is un-singable. Not only is there no punctuation on the ends of the lines, which I understand is trendy these days, but leaving the question mark off the first line of the second verse makes no sense. And where is the apostrophe in “tomorrow’s”? and the comma in the middle of the last lines? This is not an isolated example, many are like this and they are inconsistent. It is quicker to type them in from scratch.
And while you are at it, where is the support—I have had a query on the online forum for weeks now with no reply.
Crazy spam
15 Dec 2006 10:18 by Rick
I am getting some spam comments on this blog which I fail to understand the reason for. To be accurate I am getting a flood of spam at the moment and 99.9% of it is being caught by Akismet and most of that is standard link promotion and advertising stuff, but a few are beyond logic.
They contain some innocuous comment such as “Hi, I have a similar topic on my blog” and then a URL —but that URL is www.google.com, there is no other link back to anything that may be proffitable to the spammer. I am perplexed.
Phew
14 Dec 2006 10:48 by Rick
Professor Phil Jones, of UEA’s Climatic Research Unit, tells us: “This year sees the highest average temperature recorded since the Central England Temperature series began in 1659, and the rise above the average is significantly higher than that for the two hottest years we have experienced.”
(BBC)
Although the thermometer was invented near the start of the C17th (probably by Galileo), my query is, what did they measure in 1659? Gabriel Fahrenheit wasn’t born until 1684 and René Réaumur in 1683 so those scales hadn’t been invented. Presumably the results were written down somewhere and can now be converted into modern units. The results are noted on the Met Office site but it doesn’t say how it was done.
Slave to the Beep
12 Dec 2006 08:35 by Rick
2am. Beep. I’m sure if you hammer on the door loud enough, someone will wake up and let you in. Ah, a light has gone on, this is an ideal time to question your housemate’s parentage. He will probably still let you in if you keep banging on the door long enough.
2:30am. Beep. What a great time to ring your best mate. How considerate of you to the rest of the household; rather than wake them all up you will go onto the front steps. Of course it is a long way to Ipswich so you will need to speak up. I’m glad that you had a good time with your friends and I hope Karen gets back together with her boy friend.
3am. Beep. It’s much easier to walk down the middle of the road when you have had a few drinks; those wing mirrors and wheely bins do keep getting in the way. You and your mates seems to have had a great night out at the clubs but I’ll never get to know you because you don’t seem to live in this street; at least you don’t think so.
3:30am. Beep. Hey, do you know what happened down the Centre. You must have needed to get out very quick so you borrowed a car. Yes, we can see you under that railway bridge, these thermal cameras are very good. Just sit tight ’till we get a few more blokes and we will make sure you come quietly. The other guy may be out of casualty by the morning but you won’t be seeing daylight for some time. It’s a pity these helicopters are so noisy, it is hard to hear the radio.
4am. Beep. What is that noise. It sounds like it is in the room. It can’t be the alarm, it’s much too early. Did I leave the phone off the hook? Ah! my mobile needs charging. Whether I put it on charge or throw it out of the window I will have to get up else it will keep beeping all night.
6:30am. What’s all that noise. Oh, the radio has come on. Time to get up.
EasyWorship Schedule Printer
11 Dec 2006 10:25 by Rick
One of the few flaws in the EasyWorship church projection software relates not to its primary function but the printing facilities. It was perhaps thought that these were entirely secondary but we are aware that some people can’t (or won’t) get on with the projected image and need a paper copy. When the church is geared to a bookless service, perhaps by necessity because the songs now in use are not in the books, there needs to be a way of providing a few paper copies. It is not worth expending large amounts of administrator time in producing these as used to be done when printed orders of service were provided to everyone, so a means to reproduce what otherwise appears on the screen is needed.
The EasyWorship software provides a “Print Schedule (Details)” facility but this is of fixed format and one song (or whatever) to a page. Variations to this may well be needed. In our church we project liturgy, sometimes only two lines per item. This would be very wasteful of paper and a thick pile for someone to handle. The only alternative has been to cut and paste the song details to a word processor document but this was exceedingly tedious and took too much time. The best time to produce this leaflet is just before the service.
To get around this problem I have written a post processor to format the output in a more useful (and customisable) form … [more]
Licence to Sing (2)
5 Dec 2006 09:01 by Rick
Earlier, I wrote about the problem of songs that were not covered by the CCL licence now that, for morning services and festivals, we are changing over to exclusively projecting the words of hymns rather than using books. After some research I discovered a solution that resolves most of them.
There is another licence organisation which is not widely known about in evangelical circles (i.e. those who use CCL). This is the Calamus licence run by Decanni Music, a publisher in the catholic tradition. It allows the use of songs by 80 or more authors and a dozen publishing houses in a similar manner to CCL. Not all that many, but the cost is also relatively low.
I think many churches, particularly those in the middle of the spectrum who mix sacramental and bible based worship should be considering this. They are either missing out on some great songs by such authors as Bernadette Farrell and Marty Haugen or they are breaking the law.
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