Having trouble converting crazy video formats to proper mp4s for editing?

Yeah, sorry, you can't do anything with that cellphone video because it's in some stupid format, right? and yeah no your conversion software will convert it... into some special magical mp4 file that can be played by your player but not opened by your video editing software... especially if you're trying to use Ableton Live for video editing. Which you can do. It's great. Shut up. It's awesome. It can only open mp4s and movs if you have QuickTime installed and nobody bothers to document that but whatever, that's OK. It's software. Accountability. It has no meaning.

So anyway, give up on your encoder and just upload the offending video in its crazy format to Google Drive, or YouTube, and then rip it back out of the YouTube player using Firefox Video Download Helper.

Yet another classic instance of having to use software that's legal but in the process of getting shut down for enabling hacking and piracy, in order to do something that's totally legal, but made difficult by companies that want you to pay for your right to edit the videos that you yourself record using the camera in your phone... instead of just sharing it.

So, yeah, the solution is basically to share it, to nobody, then rip it, using software used almost exclusively for piracy, and then you can edit it. Don't be surprised if you can't even see the video clip when surfing your cellphone's hard drive from your PC while it's tethered. Maybe it'll be visible, maybe it'll be invisible. It's software. Literally half a person at Google cares what your experience is like with it. There's somebody around there that's just a pair of legs (no ears so they can't hear your usability problems).

"Will Be Added Soon..."

Just don't do it. Don't make someone think something's there, then try to open it, and revise their idea of its status. If it's not there, just let it be not there.

This is the backwards way that many people add content to a site:

1. Make the section.
2. Make the content.
3. Add the content to the section.
4. Adjust the section to match the content.
5. Rewrite the content.

Do this instead:

1. Write all the content and get the pictures together, and do it on a page that's hidden from public view.
2. Publish the page and content.
3. Link to the page and content.

If it really needs to be expressed that something is in the works, then it warrants a blog/news post.

Setting up a proper web development testing environment using VirtualBox and Windows on Linux or Mac

First off, it's best to be able to do your web development on a Mac because

• Coda, by Panic Software, is a great app and it's not for Windows or Linux
• It's harder (maybe impossible) to set up a Mac emulator on Windows or Linux than it is to emulate those operating systems on a Mac. So if you want it all, get a Mac. What I personally prefer is to have a physical computer for each of the main user groups in your target market.

I do my development on Ubuntu Linux, and have Macs around for testing. I need to be able to test with all the popular web browsers on Mac and Windows. That means:

• Chrome for Linux and Windows
• Safari for Mac and Windows
• Firefox for Linux, Mac and Windows
• Internet Explorer for Windows

So on my Linux computer, I use VirtualBox, a great free emulator from Sun Microsystems, and I have a Windows XP install that I use in a 1024 x 768 window. I have Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari installed on it.

Because Chrome has the best DOM Inspector (the "Inspect this element" function in the right-click menu), and because Chrome uses the Webkit engine which also powers Safari, and because those are the two fastest-growing browsers in terms of active user base, I use Chrome as my main development and testing environment. Once I get something working in Chrome, I verify that it works in Firefox and Internet Explorer. I try to do this verification as frequently as is convenient, so that I don't end up having to backtrack and use Firebug in Firefox, which is kind of clunky, or Internet Explorer's absolutely hellish DOM inspector, to debug a webpage.

In Internet Explorer 8, you can use the Compatibility View and Developer Tools to inspect how a page would perform in earlier versions of the browser, but it's a good idea to have a Windows2000 install with IE6 as one of your VirtualBox machines, if IE6 compatibility is a requirement for your projects. As a side-note about IE6: I exercise due diligence in using industry-standard best-practices, which dictate that, at the very least, the site should work in all browsers, and look as good as it can in each, even if that means looking different in each. If a client demands that their site be identical in all browsers, and especially if there's anything even somewhat cool about the site, it can double or even triple the budget. Web Designers rarely present this information to potential clients, because we're embarrassed about how helpless we are to accomplish this task efficiently. We all blame the software.

Anyway, here's how to actually look at your files in emulated Windows without having to post them online:

In VirtualBox, you can set up shared folders to bridge the gap between your Windows browsers and your Linux or Mac filesystems. Your shared folders are accessed through your Windows network places, and function like mounted network folders. Sometimes I have to copy files over in order to get them to work properly, because of network permissions problems created by my Linux host. Host means the OS on which I'm running the emulator.

Setting up a Windows install in VirtualBox on a Mac is very similar to setting it up on Linux, and it's also an easy way to access Linux development tools on your Mac desktop.

List Folder Sizes in Ubuntu!

So it's not easy in Windows, it's not easy in Linux, and it's been dead-simple in MacOS since version 7: List Directory Sizes in KBytes.

Right?

Well, Ubuntu has this great tool for doing just that: specifically, when you're trying to find where all your hard disk space has gone. It's called the Disk Usage Analyzer, and if you poke around just a little bit, you'll find the magic feature: Scan Directory.

Scan a directory, or a filesystem, and you'll find it easy to trash or explore directories that are taking up space, and it does this very quickly.