Grant Laird, Jr. Blog

http://www.vrsca.org

Video Relay Service Consumer Association (VRSCA) recently established new chapter in Texas last Wednesday. Several states such as Florida, Utah, California, Arizona, and Maryland already formed their own chapter. More states to follow soon according to Jon Hodson from Sorenson Media.

VRSCA is designed to help improve in consumer issues such as quality, technical, interpreter, videophone products and customer service. This is not all; we also will watch Federal Communications Commission (FCC) very closely and will communicate with them frequently.

VRSCA is very new and we expect to see trial and errors as time go by but most important of all, we have Sorenson Media that will fund us to keep chapter running without worrying about fundraising and such. Other VRS provider may follow but maybe not – we will see.

All VRS providers are interested to see that FCC officially approves VRS technology to be part of mainstream along phone line-based telecommunication relay service. (TRS) Why? Of course they want government to pay for it just like TRS but VRS is still in experiment stage to FCC’s eyes.

Why is FCC still doubt in VRS technology?

Because not everyone at FCC are truly understood why VRS will benefit deaf community in long run. Believe it or not, VRS is much fast-paced procedure than TRS because it is 50% or more real-time than TRS. Plus, VRS is pretty expensive – last time I heard it is about $7.00 per minute. Thirdly, VRS is internet-based telecommunication which they have no way to track who’s calling to and from just like VoIP technology.

Now, you can see why they want to have VRSCA to help VRS and relay administrator from every state to push it to be part of mandatory telecommunication in deaf community. Consumer (in general) will be large pieces of this whole picture because they are going be larger representative in this picture.

To learn more about VRSCA, go to http://www.vrsca.org

To learn more about FCC, go to http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/dro/

To learn more about Sorenson Media, go to http://www.sorensonvrs.com

Grant W Laird Jr.
http://blog.grantlairdjr.com

We learned about SkinIt from Dave’s Blog which gave me idea — I went ahead and ordered two SkinIt products for our two T-Mobile Sidekick II devices (one for me and another one is for my wife Misty) last week. We knew what it is like when they arrived last Friday. It cost only $19.90 for two products with no shipping & handling fee.

It is very simple products – seems like we can do it at home if we can find pre-cut template but that’s another story. It is also different type of adhesive sticker which is designed for electronic product like Sidekick2.

As you can see in this picture, we posted it like we should with no instruction in it but we managed just fine. In my Sidekick2 (green one) – I went ahead and pasted as much as I could included speaker area, SK2 logo and details behind the LCD. I figure why not and it should be easy to remove if we have to.

Take a look! If anybody of you ever used SkinIt product before for any devices, let me know!!

Note: Click any picture to view bigger picture.

To learn more about SkinIt product, go to http://www.skinit.com

Grant W Laird Jr.
http://blog.grantlairdjr.com

Ahead Nero 6 Ultra Edition have been getting popular these days. At least I think they did since their programs kept get better and better.

Two weeks ago, Brenden showed me how he created “Christmas DVD” which shows digital pictures and video clips with Ahead Nero 6 Ultra Edition. After that, he printed out DVD cover with family picture on it and mail to all of his family members.

Its neat!

Ok – in my case, it was somewhat different because I don’t have i.link from my camcorder. My camcorder is already “old” technology which used VHS-C – I prefer to use 8mm which provide much better quality. Anyway, I am going make nice Christmas DVD just like his idea.

Since I have new Sony DVD recorder that I purchased last month, it made my job little easier. First of all, I inserted VHS-C tape (with adapter) and recorded it into DVD+RW disc. Then I moved this disc to my computer and start using Ahead Nero 6 Ultra Edition – all I need to do is import video clips from DVD and it uploaded for me.

Yes, it took me while to learn all features in it and it wasn’t too bad. I was able to split 4 different “chapters” in 15 minutes video clips. I also added digital pictures as slideshow. Just keep in mind that it will not be as high quality as you see on computer but that’s okay. It’s just for fun and memories.

Finally, I created nice Christmas theme (provided by Nero) among header, footer, name of each chapters and slideshow.

You can take a look what I did – click here. Not bad huh?

Later on, I will experiment with background musical, customized theme and other stuff that I didnt try yet.

You should give it a try sometime

http://www.ahead.de/us/

Grant W Laird Jr.
http://blog.grantlairdjr.com