Ron Lindeboom
2
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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My personal belief is that I won’t be making the jump anytime soon. It took the better part of half a year or more to get any help from Adobe to figure out why many of the programs in my Master Collection wouldn’t work. (Seems that many parts of the press pre-release version didn’t uninstall using the Adobe Unistaller and so we had to go through a bunch of undocumented tests to get it to work. I appreciated the help but still, six months to get things to work is unreal. So, call me a bit queasy on new releases but I don’t think that I am up for another round of nightmares.)
Considering that I wasn’t the only one getting these kinds of issues and that other users were citing similar things, I would have expected a bit more out of Adobe support. In fact, there’s a bunch of people that ganged up on a thread called “I Hate Adobe Activation” in the blogs section here at the COW. Considering the multiple nightmares listed and my own personal variety, I plan to avoid this upgrade like the plague.
Your mileage may vary,
Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net -
[Chris Blair] “Not sure I understand your “height of the bar” reference. So if I fail to google a prospect’s name I’m lowering the bar for my company?”
No, that is not what I said, Chris. If I understood you correctly, to paraphrase you: you said that if people judge people by their own words and actions on Google — and then dismiss these people whose words and actions considered in the “Google vacuum” appear to make them look volatile, etc. — then they are going to miss out on a lot of good people for their company.
If that is what you were implying (which I believe you were), then I said that is true and becomes increasingly true if you lower the bar of what you consider “good” farther and farther. At a certain point, you can throw out judgment all together and then everyone is qualified — sort of like the new politically correct way that some parents want their children to play games where the parents do not keep score. It’s funny, I have been to some of those games with my grandchildren and while some of the parents are busy kidding themselves that scores are irrelevant, the kids are competing and can tell you who is ahead and if you watch them they know exactly where the score is in reality. They are there to win.
The rest of your comments are completely off the subject of what I was saying and address no points of what I said or implied and so I feel no need to address them. Your thoughts are yours and you are free to state them and believe whatsoever you wish.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
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[John Davidson] “…the world is developing a long memory. I’m warning Aaron for his own good. It’s a fact of life – our mouths can get us into trouble. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but it is a real thing.”
Hear, hear. Good advice, John.
[Chris Blair] “The googling of people’s names is Orwellian.”
Wow, that is quite a leap. I do it all the time and I am hardly trying to usher in 1984 (which as a calendar event may have passed but is quite upon us as an Orwellian event, thanks to disparate forces like political correctness, governmental snoopery and other Orwellian tactics).
[Chris Blair] “The point I’m making is that if a company uses some post or some set of silly photographs or some innuendo from an email, a forum post or a google search to make their hiring decisions, they’re going to miss out on a LOT of good people.”
That largely depends upon your personal preference in setting the height of the bar while determining your relative definition of what is “good.”
In the end, I think John Davidson is correct: our mouths either do service for us, or they hurt us. In most cases, it is arguably some of both. It is the rare individual that can bridle their tongue or think far enough ahead to weigh the relative merit of what they are about to say. Sometimes, the words carry with them an aftermath — which is what I think John Davidson was alluding to.
Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net -
Once again, I have to take my hat off to yet another prosaic masterwork by the inimitable Mr. Suszko.
When I grow up, I wanna be just like you, Mark. (Unfortunately, Kathlyn tells me that the likelihood of my growing up remains a remote, but hopeful, futuristic possibility.)
Ah, the power of hope. ;o)
Ron Lindeboom
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[Aaron Cadieux] “I tend to think that most of the people telling me to ‘suck it up’ have probably dumped personal crap on their employees at one time or another.”
Why would you think that? (Because you do it and you judge others by what you know of yourself?)
It is clear that you do it and you probably attribute that motivation to others. In all the years that I have had employees, not one has ever quit. I fired one but only after years of carrying them and they proved that they had no motivation and never progressed an inch in all their training and craft. But even they were kept for years, three to be exact. Two of those years Kathlyn and I were scratching our heads asking why we were keeping them on staff. Finally after three years it became quite apparent that no tactic to inspire or motivate them was going to work. So they are gone. The rest? They love working with us. (I am NOT the warmest and fuzziest human being you will ever meet. But I am very fair and try to treat our people with respect.)
You jump to too many conclusions and make illogical statements like…
[Aaron Cadieux] “I would NEVER ask an employee of mine… to work on a personal project of mine without additional compensation… no matter if it’s office hours…”
If I am paying people and they are on the clock and I want to throw a personal job at them — say like coding one of my favorite rock musician’s websites (because their lawyers and accountants ran off with all that the publishing company and record execs didn’t screw them out of and so they don’t have the money to do it) — then that is the job I want them to do. It has nothing to do with the COW, but I want it done. They are getting paid. They are on the clock. They are on our team and we expect them to play as a part of it.
You clearly are not a team player and that is your real problem.
Oh, and you haven’t figured out that it is well past time for you to move on. You’d be doing yourself and your boss a favor.
Ron Lindeboom
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[Chris Blair] “Taking out a second mortgage is an easy route to getting money, but you put your home at risk should something happen to your business.”
I do not know your circumstances but it sounds as if you are just starting out. I do not want to dash anyone’s dream but if we had a dollar for everyone over the years who has used these forums and has dreamed about getting into an editing business — but doesn’t already have the kind of clientele that has currently been paying for their equipment — Kathlyn and I could retire.
There is a glut of editors today. When we started in this industry, there was one in our whole county — us. The next company, CafeFX, was just over the line in Santa Barbara County. Now editing businesses proliferate like garbage bands, damned near one on every block. Not to mention every kid with a computer and a $200 camcorder is now an editing business and their uncle seems to run the company that once used to buy real production services but now uses The Kid.
Who have you been working with already? Who has been using your services so far? If the answer is nobody, find another business to get in to. Do yourself a favor run from this one. As Grinner says, stay only if you have to because there is nothing else in life you want to do and you have to do this.
Borrowing to advertise? I wouldn’t advise it. If you take the time to read many of the pre-existing threads discussing advertising and ways to generate new business, you will find that advertising is almost always a non-starter in today’s market. It still comes down to who do you know or taking the time to get out face-to-face and get to know them. And by knowing them, I do not mean getting in their face and telling them all about your business and how good you are and that because you’re new you will even give them a deal. That won’t work. You must research companies, areas where they are strong and where they could use your help and you must talk to them about them and the area where your expertise will shore up one of their weaknesses — and prove to them that based on what you do, it will make them money. If you can’t do that in today’s market, well, to use the vernacular, you are hosed.
Lastly, this is a horrible market to be in in good times and in bad ones? Forget it. Again, follow the Grinner Principle and run from this business and only stay if you will go insane if you cannot be in this business. Anything short of absolute conviction, passion and insane dedication to this and you won’t have much of a chance of success.
I hate to be so blunt but when you have seen as many people start out starry-eyed and innocent and watch them crash into the proverbial wall with all hopes dashed and losing everything in a fire sale of their dreams, I have to be straight up with you.
Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net -
[Terri Brantz] “I’m having a terrible time teaching the program to my high school students. It seems to have lots of errors, isn’t very intuitive, and the students and I are all struggling mightily.”
No offense but if you are having trouble teaching Media 100, then I would tell you to forget about even trying an Avid, Final Cut or Premiere Pro.
Without a doubt, Media 100 is the easiest to learn of all the systems and (like Floh) I know how to use most of them and have for years. I own Avid Media Composer (and used to have an Avid Xpress system long ago), Apple Final Cut, Adobe Premiere Pro and I like them all. My favorite is Media 100 because when I edit I am mostly doing straight cuts and Media 100 is almost invisible to the editor.
I once set-up the University of Mississippi Film School with Media 100s back when David Hutto was the head of the department. I sent one of our people out and he took one day to teach them.
[Terri Brantz] “I’ve taught video production before, so it’s not like I’m a novice, but I sure can’t seem to wrap my head around this… The lack of tutorials, training videos, and so on don’t help much either.”
I think you are probably complicating the issue. Media 100’s greatest feature is its lack of features. You are likely thinking things through too much and are looking for things that are not there.
Want to know why there aren’t many Media 100 tutorials around? They are not needed. Never have been.
I used to say that I could teach Media 100 to a dead person in a couple of hours; if they are breathing, I could do it even faster.
I still believe Media 100 is the simplest to learn, most intuitive and easiest to operate nonlinear system ever developed.
And that comes from the guy that started this site and knows most of the editing systems that have been developed over the years.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net -
[David Roth Weiss] “Blah, blah, blah…”
Hardly. I am never that short-winded, David.
It’s more: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…
…and so forth.
🙂
Ron Lindeboom
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[Bob Flood] “I mean, i thought I was a pretty samrt guy, but i missed it all this time, maybe others are missing it too?”
Our point, Bob, is that many people are basically lazy and won’t even bother to click a link to see what’s there. That would take too much effort, I guess. They would rather ask the same question again and again because they see themselves as being more important than all of the others who asked before them — they deserve a personal answer, not the same one that someone else got before them. Research an answer? No thanks, I only have a minute or two so I will ask it for the thousandth time.
Many won’t click a link that says “FAQ” and even if we changed it to flashing neon that reads “This is the FCP FAQ and has the answers to many common questions, please we are begging you to click this and see if your question might be answered here already. Please, we beg you…” — it wouldn’t change human nature.
So, the real answer in all of this is ignore the newbie questions if you don’t like them — if you know they are there, ignore them. Let the “almost newbies” answer the total newbies. This way, you aren’t bothered and the people whose knowledge is just beginning to grow can feel like they are participating.
I have no idea why people feel that they are obligated to answer every question, we never set that as our policy and so answer the ones you want, ignore the rest, there are enough users around here that someone is likely to answer even the questions that have been asked over and over and over.
In life, I have found few perfect answers. We sure don’t have any.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
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Enrique,
In all fairness and in trying to keep a sense of balance in this, I feel compelled to say that for years Vegas has held the high ground against Premiere — both in its flexibility, feature set and power.
If the new RED support and a few other things places Premiere ahead of Vegas, well let’s just say that a good product war wouldn’t be very exciting if one opponent won all the time — now would it?
From what we have been hearing around COW Headquarters (otherwise known as The Barn), the RED Team actually developed the RED support for both FCP and Adobe. We just noticed that AVID announced RED support this week. If I looked into it any depth at all, I am sure that I would find that the RED Team has again been at work helping Avid get the support. I have little doubt that they will probably get around to Vegas sooner or later. There are just too many serious users using Vegas.
That’s my two cents,
Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net