I have just uploaded my “HughesNet DNS Fail” video to YouTube but you can watch it right here. To be honest it is not my most polished video work, but I think it gets the job done. I have another one in the works that might be more effective. The plot goes like this: At times when HughesNet refuses to show me my own blog–yes, this very blog that you are reading–I can reach it via my iPhone over the AT&T Edge network. One of these days I am going to get really calm and centered and call HughesNet support with iPhone in hand and try to explain the flaw in their DNS ways one more time before I call in the sharks.

This is a quick post to highlight the video I just uploaded to YouTube. Probably not my finest mixed media effort, it’s a quick screencast to demonstrate the fact, oft-mentioned to friends and colleagues, that the $80-per-month HughesNet Satellite Internet service which I get at my house “blocks” access to my blog.

(10/2/2009: Video link updated. For the video, click here.)

In fact, even as I write this, I am being forced to eat a veggie pannini at Stagecoach Coffee in Cooperstown so I can use their free WiFi to get to my blog to post this on my lunch hour. As you can see in the video, accessing my blog via HughesNet  “normally” results in a DNS Lookup Error. However, there is nothing wrong with the blog, as can be demonstrated with DownForEveryone, which I demonstrate in the video.

I have reported this problem to HughesNet but they tell me it must be a problem with my web site or web hosting company. Obviously the problem is NOT with my web site or host. I am pretty sure the problem is HughesNet DNS. I even demonstrated this to HughesNet by running Anonymizer which, as shown in the video, intercepts the HughesNet DNS and makes my blog accessible over the very same HughesNet connection that said “DNS Error.”

My speculation that this problem occurs because I am frequently critical of HughesNet, on this and other blogs, is indeed speculation. But you don’t have to be ultra-paranoid to think it mighty strange that my HughesNet connection, which can reach Google.com but not Cobbsblog.com, is fishy. It certainly stinks.

Wishing everyone a great 2009!

I don’t know about you, but I’m quite happy to see 2008 end and a new year begin, a year that brings high hopes for some genuine, positive change.

For a quick New Year video clip, featuring Layla the Snow Queen, click here (opens in a new window).

Just a short slice of winter on video…shot from the front porch. The outside temp was about 10 degrees F, wind about 10 mph, gusting to very darn windy indeed.

A few posts ago I described a situation in which Windows Movie Maker running on Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2 leaves persistent video ‘artifacts’ on the computer display after it has closed (or crashed). Today I found a way to fix this problem, for a certain definition of ‘fix’. This trick probably applies to XP Home as well.

As far as I can tell this problem arises if Windows Movie Maker [WMM] crashes while you are selecting a menu item in the program. The crash leaves the menu item behind in video memory/buffer. Even if you start the program again or use other programs, this rectangle remains on your screen, obscures items underneath, and generally annoys you.

What WMM appears to do [and this is an update of the original version of this post] is corrupt that part of the memory which displays menu items. I found that turning off the “fade” settings in the Performance section of the Advanced tab of the System control panel seems to solve the problem of fresh menu items getting trapped in this memory space.

You can then erase retained data from the display by switching your display settings. For example, if you switch from Highest color to Medium then the screen refresh that this triggers will erase the artifact. You can then switch back to the previous setting. Artifacts will not, hopefully re-appear. Obviously you could restart your system to flush the screen memory but that is often inconvenient.

Now you might wonder…

Why I am using Windows Movie Maker (WMM for short) if the program crashes?

First of all, in my experience, sooner or later all programs crash, on a PC, on a Mac, on Linux boxes, whatever. The question is, how gracefully do they crash? For example, my favorite web browser, Firefox, sometimes crashes. But it usually crashes very gracefully, retaining knowledge of my open windows and reloading them when I restart the application. Microsoft Word can crash quite gracefully, thanks to its autosave features. In my experience, Adobe Acrobat and Corel Paint Shop Pro do not crash gracefully. When using such apps, save often is the watchword.

The value of WMM to me is the ease with which you can slap together a video. I am about to post one here on the blog that took just a few minutes to assemble in WMM. The interface and controls are logical and the feature set is about right for basic video production if you need web video or basic CD/DVD video. Having said this, I can almost hear the MacAddicts and VideoPhiles snorting in disdain. But I have successfully produced dozens of video clips and many hours of web broadcast video with WMM. The material went together very efficiently and the output worked just fine.

Oh, and the WMM software is free…these days free is not to be snorted at.

I was going to post this on Christmas Eve but came down with a nasty head cold. Spent most of Christmas Day in bed, sniffing and sweating [and not in a good way]. Feeling slightly better this Boxing Day, but Boxing Day is a work day in America, so I had to wait until now to do this. It is a Christmas video I made and posted on YouTube. For more about the video, scroll down the page.

If you don’t see a video play button visible in the box above, can see the video by clicking here.

What you are looking at in the video is a driver’s eye view of the snow plow going down part of our notorious drive after about 18 inches of snow fall. The vehicle doing the snow plowing is a four wheel drive Arctic Cat ATV or “quad” (specifically a 2004 TBX 400). The plow itself is made by Warn, the company that makes winches. Using this setup and plowing ourselves, instead of paying someone with a bigger plow to do it for is, will probably pay for the ATV in two seasons.

Oh, and the driver, and camera-person, is yours truly. This video card’s message is at the end of the drive. Enjoy!