How to digitally encode VHS home movies

http://unclutterer.com/2008/05/01/how-to-digitally-encode-vhs-home-movies/

One of our readers recently contacted us wondering how best to store her collection of VHS home movies. My response to her was simple — Don’t.

Well, at least don’t store the memories as VHS tapes. I recommended that she have the tapes digitally encoded and store the videos on a hard drive. VHS tapes deteriorate over time and are prone to breaking, and preserving the videos in digital format will help ensure that the memories won’t accidentally be destroyed. Additionally, digital data on a hard drive takes up considerably less physical space than a bunch of VHS tapes.

How do you turn VHS tapes into digital data? Well, there are two ways you can do it: you can have someone else do it, or you can do it yourself.

Someone Else

For $20, Costco will transfer two hours of VHS, S-VHS, VHS-C, Hi-8, Digital 8, 8mm videotape, MiniDV, or Betamax tape to DVD. Once you have the DVD in hand, you just save the files to your computer’s hard drive (assuming your computer can read DVDs). Costco also has a service that transfers 200 feet of 8mm, Super 8, 16mm movie reels to DVD for $20 and another that scans 50 slides to create digital photographs for $20.

There are dozens of other companies out there doing the same thing that Costco is doing, but many require you to ship your tapes to them. If you’re okay with putting your tapes in the mail, here are a couple websites to explore: Family Memories to DVD and The Photo Archival Co.. Be sure to give your local camera shop a call, too, because often they offer these services.

Yourself

If you’re going to go the DIY route, you’ll need either a video capture card or an external capture device to allow you to connect your VCR to your computer. We use the Canopus ADVC110, an external capture device, which has some nice features that help accurately maintain synchronization between audio and video. We’ve had poor luck with less-expensive devices in the past, so be careful when choosing a capture device and be sure to read reviews.

Once you’ve plugged in the ADVC110 and connected it between your VCR and your computer, you’ll need to launch either Microsoft Movie Maker if you’re on a Windows PC or iMovie if you’re using a Mac.

The Canopus will export DV footage just like a camcorder, which will allow you to easily import the footage into the editing program. From there, you can edit the video, create titles, or add music.

When you’re done editing your video, you’ll probably want to burn your movie on a DVD. Follow these directions if you’re using a PC. If you’re using a Mac, just launch iDVD from inside iMovie.

Also, after you finish encoding your collection of VHS tapes, you can sell your capture device or let your friends borrow it.

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If You Use Outlook E-Mail, Meet Xobni

By BRAD STONE

SAN FRANCISCO — Adam Smith was 12 when Microsoft introduced its desktop e-mail program, Outlook.

Outlook is now the most popular e-mail tool in the world, used by hundreds of millions of people. And Mr. Smith, now 23, thinks that the program is so poorly suited for most people’s intensive e-mail habits that he has co-founded a company, Xobni, intended to fix it.

“Using Outlook today is like taking a Volkswagen Beetle into space,” Mr. Smith said. “People are kind of exerting all these stresses upon it that it wasn’t originally designed to withstand.”

Xobni, based in San Francisco, is introducing a new tool on Monday that plugs into Outlook. Mr. Smith’s general complaint — one that is shared by many users of Outlook — is that the more the program is used, the slower it gets and the harder it is to search for e-mail addresses and phone numbers.

To solve these problems, Xobni (“inbox” spelled backwards and pronounced zob-nee) has produced free downloadable software that, once installed, indexes all the e-mail in Outlook and makes those messages quickly and easily searchable. The software, available at www.xobni.com, will also be sold to companies.

Other programs, like Google Desktop, perform that same basic index-and-search function. But Xobni, which its creators call an “intelligent filter,” adds a few more features. When it scours the inbox, it extracts phone numbers it thinks are associated with the sender. So when a user searches for a person, Xobni presents the number in a side panel to Outlook.

The software also interprets the social relationships between people who are sending messages to each other. For example Xobni recognizes that if an executive sends a copy to someone else on each message he or she sends, it might be to an assistant or another colleague. When someone using Xobni searches for that executive in Outlook, the second person is listed as well.

Extracting these social networking features from e-mail is an enticing proposition in Silicon Valley these days, and as a result, the San Francisco-based company and its 14 employees have become a magnet for attention.

The company raised $4 million from the investment funds of Vinod Khosla, a Sun Microsystems co-founder, and Niklas Zennstrom, one of the creators of Skype. In February, Bill Gates demonstrated the program at Microsoft’s San Jose developers’ conference and called it “the next generation in social networking.”

Microsoft loves it when developers improve its programs, and Xobni is no exception. But executives at the start-up describe an “awkward dance” with Microsoft over the last few months. This year, Microsoft and Xobni held preliminary talks about Microsoft acquiring the startup. But negotiations broke down over price, the future independence of the company inside Microsoft and the willingness of Xobni employees to move to Seattle.

The company was founded by two former graduate students, Mr. Smith in computer science and Matt Brezina, 27, in electrical engineering, who met on internships in Washington in 2006. Last year the co-founders went through a Silicon Valley start-up boot camp, called Y Combinator, where they received an initial investment and temporary offices.

Xobni now has ambitions that extend well beyond Microsoft Outlook. Jeff Bonforte, a 35-year-old former Yahoo vice president, joined Xobni as chief executive in February. He plans to expand Xobni’s reach to various e-mail programs, like the popular Web-based services Yahoo Mail, Google’s Gmail and Microsoft’s Hotmail as well as social networks like Facebook and Linkedin.

Mr. Bonforte imagines that one day when people type a name into the Xobni search box, the software will find e-mail, instant messages and other online communications from that person even if he or she sent those messages on several Web-based services.

“We want to know about the relationships that exist in multiple inboxes,” he said.

Xobni will face competition in its quest to improve online communications. All of the major Internet companies talk about making e-mail smarter and more socially aware. And Web e-mail services like Gmail and Hotmail are growing much more rapidly than the desktop-based Outlook, where Xobni is planting its flag, for now.

At Yahoo in particular, Mr. Bonforte’s former colleagues have frequently spoken publicly about pursuing the next generation of “smart” e-mail.

“We feel like there’s a rich opportunity to create a smarter inbox by leveraging the people you are connecting to and contacting to most often,” said Brad Garlinghouse, a Yahoo senior vice president and Mr. Bonforte’s former boss. “That is a key initiative for Yahoo in 2008.”

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

If You Use Outlook E-Mail, Meet Xobni - New York Times

Making and Maintaining a Master Information Document

Making and Maintaining a Master Information Document

Written by Trent

About a year ago, I wrote a lengthy article about how to start a filing system, including information on what kind of filing cabinet to buy and what sorts of things you should file. Near the end, though, I wrote one little paragraph that deserves to be looked at again in more detail:

A master document explaining what all of this stuff is This is mostly a guide to the executor of your estate, containing all important information not contained in the other documents and also explaining online account access and other such information, like where a safety deposit box key should be and such. This may also include personal letters to people for them to read in the event of your passing and so forth.

Think about this scenario: if you dropped dead right after reading this article, would your survivors - your kids, your spouse, your family - have any idea how to access your money? Would they even know where all of your accounts were?

For most people, the answer is a big fat no - and that’s an answer that can be very dangerous. It’s worth spending a few hours to put together a master information document - and updating it every year or so - just so your loved ones will have a much easier time with things in the event of your untimely demise.

How to Prepare a Master Information Document
Preparing such a document is pretty simple, actually. You just need to create a single document that includes all of the information your loved ones might need to settle all of your outstanding accounts and get all of the benefits they should be getting. Here’s a checklist of what you should include.

Account information for every account you have open. Everything from your retirement account all the way down to your library card should be included here. This will allow the person using the document to systematically go from account to account and, at the very least, have access to them.

A complete list of every benefit anyone is entitled to upon your passing. This means life insurance benefits, Social Security information, retirement accounts that may disburse, and anything else that might benefit people once you’re gone. This is the stuff that you’re paying for now so that they can have it later - make sure they get it.

A complete list of all debts and all assets. This will provide a complete financial picture for you. For each of these, provide plenty of information - the current balance as of your writing, how to contact that entity, and any account information that’s relevant.

A detailed description of how to handle any business assets you may have. This is only true for some folks, but it’s vital. If I were to have an untimely passing, I have a plan in place and it’s well-documented - all of the steps that someone needs to take to ensure that The Simple Dollar’s archives remain up and running and my other business interests are handled well.

A copy of your will, your living trust, and any other documents pertaining to your estate. You should have several copies of these documents, but be sure to include an extra one here just in case.

What Now?
Once you have the document prepared, what’s next? Here are a few steps worth taking.

Make sure everyone has access to a copy. For us, my parents, my wife’s parents, my wife, and our safe deposit box will all have copies of this document very soon. It’s currently saved on my computer’s hard drive and on my backup drive, too, so the information could be found if need be, but I intend to print it out and give it to each of these people so they’re sure to have one if it’s needed. You can distribute these electronically, but be very careful, as the document is larded with personal data that an identity thief would love to have.

Talk it over with them. Make sure they know what the document is and what they should do with it. It’s not useful if it’s not in people’s hands or if they don’t know what it’s for.

Update it regularly - at least annually. Just pull out your electronic copy, read through it, and update anything that needs updating. If it’s significant, print out new copies for everyone and distribute them.

Take a few hours and put this document together, especially if you have a family. You’ll feel much better knowing that one of your bases is covered.

The Simple Dollar » Making and Maintaining a Master Information Document