Multimedia Workshop

Oct 9, 2000

I'm back!

Summer turned in to a long drought here at the workshop. Or at least for updates to the site. A new job, consulting projects, teaching a Flash course at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, writing a column on QuickTime for DV Web Video, and many other things all took their toll.

Through it all I continued to get questions which I did my best to answer. I'll now try and post some of these to the website.

Looking for a Digital Camera

Q: I am a resident in Liverpool UK & searching for a cheap (but not nasty) digital camera. I do not need all the bells and whistles, it is just needed to take snaps of jobs (before & after) that we do as kitchen renovators. What can you recommend??

Dave D.

A: There's so many cameras/prices points/features that it's impossible to recommend something. Here's a suggestion, try this buyers guide (Active Buyers Guide not affiliated with Multimedia Workshop). While I wouldn't take it as gospel, it might give you an idea of what to be looking at. The minimum image size that's acceptable for what you want is probably the first thing you need to determine.

CD Burning problems

Q: I recently installed a CD burner on my computer but whenever I try to copy audio from my hard drive to a CD the computer freezes. It always freezes at the fourth song. My operating system is Win 98 and I have 64 MB Ram.

Mike T.

A: My experience with CD burners is primarily with Macs. I've found that several things can impact burning a CD:

The CD media itself (try different media to see if it makes a difference.)

The speed and fragmentation of the hard disk you are copying from (if you're drive is slow and fragmented it can cause problems.)

Background processes: I've found that network access and other things can cause the computer to go off and do something and forget to write to the CD, which will cause problems.

Screensaver or powersaver kicking in (again, the computer does some other task.)

Also, I've found audio disk writing to be more demanding than regular CDs. Can you write a 600 meg regular CD without problem?

Try a slower speed (if your drive has one) to see if that makes a difference (i.e. if it's an eight speed drive, try 4x and even 2x.)

Got a question? Send them to "Ask the Guru"
Advertisement

Director 8 Demystified
Broken down into three main sections, this volume starts with the basics of using Director, and then digs deeper into Lingo, scripting, handling multiple movies, and Shockwave...[more]

DEPARTMENTS

Complete Guide to Digital Cameras | ASK the Guru | Multimedia Online Reference
Archive
Multimedia Musings | About Multimedia Workshop

All trademarks, service marks, and graphical logos appearing on this
website are the property of their respective owners,
and are used for identification purposes only.
No endorsement of Multimedia Workshop by the
trademark owners is intended or implied.

"When you have the right tool and you know how to use it,
the tool disappears and you can focus on the job instead of the tool"