Bobby and Shawn first Q&A
Animation with a moustache Blog
Animation mentor
ok I have had my teacher assigned for this term, it is gonna be Cassidy Curtis. I couldn’t find any information about him on AM website but found loads of stuff on google well at least someone with the same name. So Curtis could be Senior animator at PDI/dreamworks and would have therefore worked on the excellent Madagascar! nice. I am now a bit puzzled, the classes are supposed to start today but i have no idea when/where/how….
Animation mentor
this is it, I am officially enrolled at Animation Mentor. The last 2 weeks have been a bit stressful. I only received my animation mentor enrolment package mid December and it took me some time to gather all my diplomas. Anyway, this morning I finally received my student number and got familiar with Animation Mentor interface. I am still to be assigned a mentor which I expect to be before saturday since the session starts this sunday.
Dell misleading techniques
After receiving one more misleading email from Dell today, I have decided to expose their techniques.
Their last email was featuring a Dimension 3100 that was previously advertised for £369 and now selling for £299. The picture is representing a nice looking computer with a TFT screen. Click here to see the Email advert
An Intel Pentium4 2.8ghz coming with XP home, 160Go HD, 1024 DDR2 ram for £299!!! what a bargain but it says Excl. VAT and Delivery… Oh ! there are also 2 asterisk… Let see the small print…. “** Now Price quoted includes Free Delivery and special Price Reduction Offer if any”
Hum… Ok I am lost here…. Let s click on the More details button then !
What have we got here…. didn’t it say £299 before ??? Yes ? so why is it saying £383 now?? That s even more expensive than the price the Computer was going for before!!! and it now says with no asterisk “VAT and Shipping NOT included”. And where is the TFT SCreen??? oh it is now an option for £40! Nice one! But ok, it now says “initial price also includes and upgraded support service for your added protection. Alternatives are available” …. What the hell does this mean??? I see a grey box towards the bottom of the page. It says, “The following options are default selections included with your order” “1-Year Collect and Return service” … Would that be the trick?? Hold on i saw something above.. in the section called “Cover it with Dell Support Services” oh I see, by default, what they call the “Basic: 3-Year On-site service & Multimedia E-Learning [Included in Price]” has been selected and just above you have an option called 1-Year Collect and Return service [subtract £84.00] Nice one 😉 I thought it was the default selection! Alright enough said! If this is not a misleading advert with pushy techniques what is this ? I wonder if someone could bring such techniques to a Small Claim court… I might investigate the idea one day if I get bored.
Osagie Xmas card animation
I just came back from Xmas break. Eventually we finished the Xmas card animation few days before Xmas. The pacing of the animation is too slow, plenty of things can be improved. The animation was done in a bit less than 5 days from concept to finish so with a bit more time it could be way better. A friend sent me a link to JibJab and I realised than even in cut out animation it is possible to do some brilliant work. Anyway we will do better next time. Here is a link to a small Quicktime version and an other one to a full screen avi Xvid version. Click here if you haven’t got Xvid codec yet
New hosting
Here we are, I go so pissed off with Webfusion nearly 24hours with a malfunctionning mail server for the 8th time in few month that I jumped on the MediaTemple bandwagon.
Web hosting in the UK
As I was saying in a previous blog, on top of my IT job I also run a 2 men webdesign company Bonvoyage Airlines . For our hosting needs I have been relying on a british company called Webfusion and their reseller account. It is pricey but it is local and allow you to host has many websites has you want for a fixed price, provided you respect the bandwith limit. It would be possible for me to have my own server at work since we have several fixed IP on a leased line and I already host my personnal website on a Win2KPro machine here but the potential cost of hacking attacks or breakdown easily outweight the £55 I pay every month. To put it an other way, if something goes wrong I just send them an email and 2 or 3 hours later it is fixed.
The idyllic portrait lastest for nearly 3 years but problems started to happen since, I think, Pipex and Webfusion merged. My server now regularly goes down and the email service sometimes doesn’t work. Webfusion has got a support page where you are supposed to read informations about System Status but my issues never appeared here which let me think that this page is only the top of the iceberg and is symptomatic of wider issues.
The marriage has now been consummed and it is time for me to find an other option. With its unified Control Panel, the reseller option is a very nice one and I would like to find a similar hosting account. Registerfly seems to offer one but the interface is dreadfull and they ripped off one of my friend by charging him several times a month for his hosting which he managed to cancel after considering a legal challenge. Don’t tell me about MediaTemple, it is only for Mac people and if you don’t know it yet, I am definitely not one. Arghhhh…. I just checked their website just for the sake of it and it looks like their prices are now very competitive. It is also possible to try them for one month. I might give it a go then . The only small print seems that they charge $15 per domain.
Blue Sky is hiring
Blue Sky is hiring and guess what… !!! they are looking for me believe it or not but the description of the job is exactly what I do for a living…. Except Norton Antivirus which I can’t stand (Norton should actually be considered as a virus itself) the way they are , every single details are what my day is about. Smacking Compaq computers, slapping HP laserjet printers. 150 desktop? 😉 a joke I got up to 250 pc at peak time. Soliciting hardware/software cost quotes from multiple vendors? My bosses bought 150 pcs at bargain price thanks to me… Anyway, I might have to give it a go. Not too sure I could get a Working Permit though….