Computers and Video Editing

Computers and Video Editing

Many years ago, it would have been impossible to edit videos at home because it can only be done in exclusive editor suites. But now, things are quite different. If you have a desktop computer with enough disk space, CPU power, and FireWire or USB port, you can now edit cherished videos to create good quality videos with all the effects you see in modern professional movies.

When you’re editing videos, huge CPU power is being used as you move lots of data to and from the disk. Having a fast machine allows you to write and render in a few minutes but if you’re using a slow computer, the task will take several hours.

If you’re doing a lot of writing and rendering files, Pentium Quad Core computers are great or even a Mac model with a minimum 2GB of RAM (Random Access Memory). Pentium 3 machines can handle data stream but when you’re using other applications, the video editing software will not function.

In order to edit videos, you must also choose good quality software. If you have Windows XP, there is already built-in software that lets you edit raw footages. The same thing is true with Apple computers.

Why is it that many video editors use Adobe Premier? The reason why many people use Adobe is because it provides free demo versions and it can be used on Macs and PCs. Adobe’s software is also well respected and full featured so you can do various editing tasks. If you don’t want to spend money on new editing software, you can always use the WMM (Windows Movie Maker) and IMovie.

Aside from the CPU, RAM is another crucial element in video editing with computers. Even if the CPU is fast, the machine will still remain sluggish without enough RAM. The recommended minimum RAM is 2GB although most new computers come with only 1GB. So if you’re using 2GB of RAM, you can browse and use more than two files with ease. Here’s a good example. When the CPU needs a file, the file will be delivered to the RAM from the hard disk for greater speed manipulation. If another file is requested, you can get both files successively. Now this is possible only if you’re using enough RAM but if you’re using less than 2GB, the computer will work slower.

If you currently have 1GB, add more especially if you plan to do a lot of video editing tasks. You must be aware that Windows XP requires 1GB (RAM) and when you load other applications, it will need additional RAM to remain fast and responsive. For starters, you can settle with 1GB or if you want to invest more on video editing, you can increase the RAM to 2GB or even 4GB providing your computer will allow the 4GB upgrade. Check the specifications to see if it will. Make sure that you get the appropriate RAM for your computer’s motherboard. Check with the manufacturer or a certified technician.

Happy editing and good luck

What are Botnets?

What are Botnets?
"A botnet is comparable to compulsory military service for windows boxes" - Stromberg (http://project.honeynet.org/papers/bots/)

Botnets are networks of computers that hackers have infected and grouped together under their control to propagate viruses, send illegal spam, and carry out attacks that cause web sites to crash.

What makes botnets exceedingly bad is the difficulty in tracing them back to their creators as well as the ever-increasing use of them in extortion schemes. How are they used in extortion schemes? Imagine someone sending you messages to either pay up or see your web site crash. This scenario is starting to replay itself over and over again.

Botnets can consist of thousands of compromised machines. With such a large network, botnets can use Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) as a method to cause mayhem and chaos. For example a small botnet with only 500 bots can bring corporate web sites to their knees by using the combined bandwidth of all the computers to overwhelm corporate systems and thereby cause the web site to appear offline.

Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service on January 19, 2006, quotes Kevin Hogan, senior manager for Symantec Security Response, in his article "Botnets shrinking in size, harder to trace", Hogan says "extortion schemes have emerged backed by the muscle of botnets, and hackers are also renting the use of armadas of computers for illegal purposes through advertisements on the Web."

One well-known technique to combat Botnets is a honey pot. Honeypots help discover how attackers infiltrate systems. A Honeypot is essentially a set of resources that one intends to be compromised in order to study how the hackers break the system. Unpatched Windows 2000 or XP machines make great honeypots given the ease with which one can take over such systems.
A great site to read up on this topic more is The Honeynet Project (http://project.honeynet.org) which describes its own site's objective as "To learn the tools, tactics and motives involved in computer and network attacks, and share the lessons learned."

What you need to know about computer repair and you!

Hello, Introductions are in order for this first foray into blogging. I am a 20 year plus computer guy. I started this when the computer had two 5.25 inch drives, an 8 mhz(WOW) cpu (8086) and if you had a hard drive it would make a very heavy boat anchor. A 4000 name mailing list would take me most of the day and half the night to edit, sort and print. My first computer was a Zenith Z100 all in one,(green or amber screen),8Mhz (now 3.0Ghz +) 640K RAM and no hard drive.

Well enough nostalgia for now. The changes have been fast and plentiful and very interesting to keep up with. Computer repairing now is a matter of identifying the problem and replacing the bad part or installing new drivers or software. The one thing that is not so easy to replace or get new is the user. We are all different and have our likes and dislikes and ways of doing things. As a computer technician I need the user on my side. Sometime this is not easy but necessary. Hopefully this blog will help user and the technician agree on the task at hand, fix this @@@#%@@ thing.