A very observant visitor of my blog pointed me at a wrong link on the start page that has been lingering there ever since. I now fixed the problem and also took the opportunity to do some other minor adjustments on the start page. I will continue to sprinkle in these little fixes and adjustments as I have time, but you should not notice any of that when visiting this site. It’s mostly boring stuff such as straightening out the style sheets and fixing a few templates. I hope to to these things in preparation for WordPress version 3, which will then hopefully be a bit easier to handle with the corrections already in place.

Since I’ve been rather busy lately with several things surrounding the Adobe™ Creative Suite®­ CS5 (yes, their branding guideline really wants you to write it this way, if possible, and I’ve always wanted to do this once in my life at least… ;-) ) announcement and all the wonderful things happening with it, such as the inclusion of Freeform, it took a bit longer to update the After Effects Error Code Database. Not that there would be any rush, but it’s always nice if you can stick to a regular schedule and I actually always regret not being able to cram in more of this stuff. Well, now I have and I hope you can find something fresh and useful there. And, BTW, if you want to see some evidence of how useful Freeform can bee, see this sample clip and buy this shit. What helps Mettle/ Digieffects, helps me (at least a tiny bit).

It’s a good thing, Apple is not in the business of producing fridges and freezers or a whole lot of people probably wouldn’t know how to keep their food cool and prevent it from spoiling. Today’s slightly evasive and shady press announcement that the iPad would be delayed by one more month here in Europe certainly leaves a lot of people quite, quite unhappy. Imagine, you’d have to pre-order a fridge and wait for it 3 months. Kind of reminds me of the times when we were living in a "socialist" country as part of the eastern block and you had to pre-order pretty much anything that was in short supply and if you were lucky, got it after a few months, but mostly only after several years on the waiting list. Anyway, I had my new fridge/ freezer combo delivered just within 3 days and it’s a real nice Liebherr. My other one was getting a bit too hungry for electricity and before ruining myself on that, I rather shell out a few Euros and get me a more efficient model. Incidentally, there’s one lesson here for Apple: Never underestimate market demand and the impatience of your customers. The iPad being so scarce can only mean that the powers themselves didn’t think it would be that popular. Or did they just get cold feet and rushed the release because alternatives like the WePad were sooner ready than they had expected?

Sifting through my personal collection of projects here on my computer is a constant reminder of how many of them are not yet finished or reworked and thus will probably never see the light of day. It’s amazing, that even after all these years I can manage to get myself into trouble with coming up with the craziest ideas. Oddly enough, I really do enjoy this kind of digital problem solving where I spend hours on end debugging expressions or looking for workarounds of limitations in plug-ins and effects. Now all that’s missing in the equation is getting paid for it… Anyway, every now and then I actually get some of that finished in a way that it is safe to use even for less code-savvy people and ready to publish. Today is one such day. I have added a few projects to my After Effects Resources pages. Let’s just hope it doesn’t take me another half a year before I can add more.

*Battlestar Galactica, Season 3, Episode 13

After my near nervous breakdown in December, I knew there would be some point in the future, where I would need to focus on other things in my life and this is finally it. Sifting through this weekend’s stream of endlessly repetitive forum questions I finally was ready to admit that, frankly, I don’t care anymore. I’m tired and weary from all those talent-free “students” looking for creative advise, only to ignore it. I’m so tired of those over-ambitious teenagers who can’t be bothered to at least read the online help of their pirated software. I’m so tired of “professionals” messing up their machines over a few megabytes of disk space saved or looking for free advise when they should get paid help. I’m so tired of these endless discussions pro or against a software or a feature. I’m so tired of being shouted at, when I can’t offer the Rosetta stone. I’m so tired of trying to solve issues based on two word questions with no info at all. In short: I’m so tired of people stealing my time. I therefore do what I must: I’m getting away from all this madness. Forum work has become a drain and an annoyance and it’s time this comes to an end. Yes, it’s time to take a break from all your worries, I have my own life to live and things to get done. Take care & Bye!

Well, chances of that cosy warm place getting covered with a shield of ice are diminishing, as it’s getting a bit more bearable at the moment temperature-wise and that being so, I took the chance to update my After Effects Error Code Database and the After Effects Plug-In Guide as long as I’m stuck at home. Interesting observation: Obviously people do that specific Christmas shopping thing even for software – there is a notable surge in page requests for the plug-in guide in November and December.