Icons make a big difference in the look of a website. When placed beside text links, they make the links stand out. They can be used to replace text links, especially on mobile. They accompany text to make boring, text heavy pages easier to read. But, finding icons or creating them can be difficult. FontAwesome solves this by offering thousands of icons that are easily searchable. If I search for car, here’s what I see.
To use an icon, e.g. of a car, just paste this HTML code.
As I’ve said before, weeds are notorious for finding ways of growing through weed fabric and along yard edges.
Middle of yard
To combat weeds from popping up in the middle of your landscape, lay cement board everywhere. Cement board is porous so water can still drain through it. For the areas between the cement boards, weeds will grow. To prevent this from happening, cut pond liner and place it where the cement board gaps are. Pond liner is very strong, UV-resistant, and almost impossible to tear. Traditional weed fabric may be marketed with the claim that it can prevent weeds but it can’t. Weeds still manage to come through. Plus, if you use weed fabric along edges where it’s exposed, it can degrade and easily tear as shown in the picture below.
Now I have to replace that weed fabric with pond liner like I did along a different fence.
If there is no room to drill a screw into the concrete, e.g. if the edge is near a fence, then you can drill 1/2-inch holes in the 2×4 using a 1/2″ spade bit and drive 12-inch long, 3/8-inch galvanized nails through the holes into the ground.
Cut some pond liner and staple it to the 2x4s. Don’t use traditional weed fabric. It will eventually fail and rip and weeds will come through it.
Hammer the large nails through the 2x4s and the pond liner into the ground along the edge of the concrete as shown below.
Allow some of the pond liner to extend beyond the end of the 2×4 so the next 2×4’s pond liner will overlap the first one and prevent weeds from growing in between the 2x4s.
Since 2x4s may not be perfectly straight, you can push them against the concrete edge using a clamp.
If the other side is a wood fence, you can simply staple some pond liner to the fence. In the picture below, the space between the concrete and the fence was narrow. I left a gap between the pond liner for drainage.
In this case, I placed the cement board over the gaps between the pond liner to prevent weeds from growing along the gap.
You can then put rocks like I did pictured below.
There will still be a small gap between the concrete edge and the 2x4s. Fill that cap with concrete control joint sealant. I like Sikaflex Self-Leveling Sealant. Learn more.
For the rocks, I used ¾-inch ginger rocks / Sonoma gold rocks.
Moroccan Shakshouka and Turkish Menemen are very similar. Here’s my version of these dishes.
Ingredients
3 eggs
1 8oz can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes (Target / FoodMaxx)
2/3 cup frozen diced onions (Smart n Final)
1//4 cup cilantro for garnish
2 tbsp wet minced garlic
10 tbsp olive oil
Smoked paprika (not regular paprika)
Salt and pepper
2 tbsp tomato paste (optional)
Pita bread
Instructions
Pour olive oil in medium 10″ pan on medium-high heat
Fry onions and garlic until slight brown
Pour in diced tomatoes and sprinkle in smoked paprika, salt and pepper to taste (optionally, add tomato paste)
When mixture is not too runny, make 3 deep dimples in the pan and crack each egg into them
Cover and poach on low heat until egg white changes from translucent to white. Turn off heat so that egg yolk is still runny.
Garnish with cilantro
Cut some pita bread in quarters and warm for 15 seconds in microwave
Eat
Fry diced tomatoes and garlic in olive oilCook fire-roasted tomatoes with smoked paprika, salt and pepper and optionally tomato pasteMake dimple in mixtureCrack eggs into dimples without breaking yolkCover and poach eggs on low heat until egg whites are white, not transparentLike thisGarnish with cilantro and warm up pita quartersEat directly from pan
So, I just got the Ninja Foodi Smart Indoor Grill which doubles as an air fryer and mini oven. I have another cheaper indoor grill but tends to produce smoke and always triggers my smoke sensor. So far, though the Ninja grill is larger, it hasn’t emitted any smoke nor triggered my smoke sensor and produces better grill results.
Sort the photos as desired, usually by date, so they appear in chronological order.
2. Select and drag photos to video track
All photos will be added to the video track
3. Change duration of each photo
If the duration of each photo is too short or long, select all photos, right click and click on “Change Photo Duration …”. This will change the duration for each and all photos.
4. Add a transition effect
Choose a transition (a simple “crossfade” is the best”), right click and click on “Apply current effect to video track”.
This will result in the transition being applied to all photos.
5. Add Pan and Zoom effect
Select all photos, right click and click on “Auto Pan & Zoom”.
6. Drag audio file to music track
You can find some background music from Sound Cloud.
7. Add intro slide
Click “Instant Project” icon, click on “Beginning”, choose a template, right click and click on “Add at the beginning”.
8. Edit intro slide
Since the intro slide is a template, you will see placeholder content.
Drag a photo to the placeholder clip and hold “Ctrl” to replace the clip. This will cause the photo to be formatted to fit the template.
Double-click the text clip to edit the text of the intro template.
9. Add end slide
This process is the same as for adding the intro slide but click on “Add at the end” instead.
10. Add text to some photos
Click “Title” and then pick a title template. The one with a semi-transparent background is good. Drag it to the Title track where you want the text to appear.
11. Change text and background color
This title template animates the text.
Convert it to a simple fade in and out by clicking on the “Attribute” tab in the Options Panel for the title, click on “Attribute” tab, click on “Animation”, and disable animation by unchecking the “Apply” checkbox.
The background of the text is too light so let’s darken that semi-transparent bar. Double-click on the title clip and in the Options Panel, click the “Edit” tab, and click on the black color in the Text Backdrop context menu as shown in the screenshot below.
Double-click on the title clip again and edit the text.
12. Add more text
Copy and paste the text clip to other photo clips and edit the text.
13. Render video
Click the “Share” tab, choose a setting, and click “Start” button.
Have you ever needed to do search and replace multiple times against the same file or set of files. If so, the Batch Replacer extension for VisualStudio Code makes this very simple.
Open a folder or file in VisualStudio Code
Create a new file (no need to save it) and enter some search and replace instructions, e.g.
In the example above, I want 3 different replacements done in the order shown and I only want the replacements done to a specific file. The “in” command is followed by the path of the file relative to the root of the workspace open in VS Code. If the file is open, you can get it by right clicking on its tab and selecting “Copy relative path”.
3. Execute the replacer script
To run the batch replacements, you active tab must be the tab containing your replacement instructions. Then, hit CTRL+SHIFT+P -> Batch Replace. A status window will appear in the bottom right corner telling you how many files have been modified. If you want to batch replace across all files in your workspace, don’t include the “in” instruction.
I bought a 7’x10′ green screen. I got just the fabric because I semi-permanently attached it to my garage ceiling since I don’t plan on using anywhere else.
Create presentations slides and export them as images
Record video
Stand in front of the green screen with softbox lights on
Clip lavalier mic to shirt and connect it to smartphone on tripod (if necessary, using USB extension cables and an adapter).
Place laptop on laptop stand outside the camera field of view
In video recording app, ensure audio source is set to “external mic”.
Press record and speak while reading and changing slides remotely using the wireless presenter pen
Create final presentation video
Google Slides Tips
Export all slides as images
Creating slides in Google Slides is very similar to how you create them in other presentation apps like MS Powerpoint. In Google Slides, however, if you want to export all slides as images, you need an add-on. I use Slides Toolbox by Digital Thoughts. Once you’ve added that add-on, you can open it
and choose to export all slides as JPG or PNG images.
Set a background with transparency
Notice how in my final rendered video, the background video shows through the slides.
That was accomplished by setting the transparency of the background in Google Slides to around 70% opaque (30% transparent). If you want a semi-transparent background, then you must export the slides as PNG images rather than JPG images.
Test Slides
Download a sample presentation with semi-transparent background in ODP (OpenDocument Presentation) format which you can import into Google Slides.
Position the lavalier mic such that you don’t hear the sound of you breathing.
Stand far from the camera to record more of yourself. You can always crop the video later.
If you have a fast computer with plenty of SSD space, record your video in 4K for ultra hi definition (UHD) resolution. Otherwise, record at 1080p hi definition (HD).
Using the softbox lights, and other lights, if necessary, eliminate as many shadows as possible. For example, the picture below shows dark shadows which will be difficult to remove when you’re editing the video.
In the Cinema FV-5 video recording app, set audio source to “external mic”. When you push the cable into your phone, the wired microphone icon near the top-right corner appears in the app. This tells me the audio source will come from the external mic.
When you export the video, you will have many settings and export presets to choose from. For each preset, you can see the estimated output file size. There’s no point in choosing a high quality output if the source video is low quality. In Windows Explorer, right click on the foreground video and click Properties > Details to see the video specs. The screenshot below shows that my foreground video taken on my phone was 1920×1080 with a bit rate of 22254 kbps (~22 Mbps) and a frame rate of 30 frames per second (fps).
For this, I chose the following spec which gave an estimated output file size of 252 MB for a 13 minute video.
Workflow
In VideoStudio, my workflow is
Create a new project
Add all assets (videos, slides, etc) to the project
Verify SmartProxy is enabled
Add an overlay track so that I have 2 overlay tracks
Drag the background video to the Video track
Drag the slides to the Overlay 1 track in order
Drag the foreground video with the green screen to the Overlay 2 track
Crop the foreground video as necessary
Using NewBlue FX Chroma Key filter, remove the green background so that it’s transparent
Copy and paste the background video multiple times to span the duration of the foreground video
In the Preview panel, drag the foreground video to the left
In the Preview panel, drag the slides to the right and line them up using the grid that appears
Preview the composite video and make changes, as necessary
Most people take pictures by just manually taking a shot when they are ready. Since many things could go wrong with taking just a single shot, e.g. the subject blinks or yawns, a car drives by, etc, then some people will take multiple shots manually – maybe 2 or 3. However, this still doesn’t necessary offer the best shot because the subject may not like how they look in a particular stance or the lighting may not be at their particular angle. Also, photos of people just looking straight at the camera or posing often look boring, as opposed to photos that appear to be taken randomly or without the subject knowing.
Snapshot from Video
To resolve this, you could take a 4K video from your mobile phone, open the video in a video play like VLC, scrub through the video and when you are on a frame you like, take a snapshot (not a screenshot).
Pros:
many frames to choose from (usually 30 frames per second)
Cons:
large file size
must open video and scrub through and pic from you like
videos are generally more compressed than images
Series of Still Images Taken Automatically
To get around the cons of the video approach, you can take a series of still images and just pic the ones you like. This is sometimes called “burst” mode. Ideally, you would be able to
set a delay timer (if you will put the camera down and be in the picture yourself)
set how many pictures to take, e.g. a max of 5 or 10 pictures or unlimited if you want to stop taking pictures when you push a button
an time interval between which photos will be taken, e.g. take a picture every 0.5 seconds, 1 second, 5 seconds, etc.
One app that meets these requirements is Open Camera. It’s free and looks well made. In the screenshot below. I enabled Face detection so that if the subject moves, like when you’re taking a video, the subjects face should always be in focus. I set Repeat to 10x to take a maximum of 10 pictures and I set Repeat mode interval to 1s so a picture will be taken automatically every 1 second.
In this example, I’d end up with 10 pictures. I could then just pick the best one and delete the rest.
Comparison
To compare the picture quality of this method verses taking stills from a video, consider the following photos.
From videoFrom a series of still images
If we zoom in to 100% and focus on a small section, you’ll notice there are more artifacts and blurriness in the still taken from the video, not to mention the contrast and color looks much better in the still shot.
From video
From a series of still images
If I enlarge the images, the artifacts in the video snapshot become much more apparent.
From videoFrom a series of still images
If you set the Repeat to Unlimited and Repeat mode interval to No delay, the app will take as many pictures as it can until you push the stop button. For comparison, a 10 second 4K video consumed 61 MB whereas 10 seconds of unlimited, no delay pictures produced 23 images totaling 45 MB.
The next time you want to take a picture, you may want to try Open Camera and take a series of many pictures as your subject walks around or behaves naturally.
