Being ... ALI HASSAN

This weekend was action packed! ohh well not really besides eating countless packets of potato chips and gulping down cola drinks, I decided to finally post a video about something I learnt from Andrew Kramer and if the name does not ring a bell check out www.videocopilot.net and you will have no doubts!

Anyhow I decided to put my knowledge to the test and came up with something fairly good, probably next time I can make it entertaining so its a fun watch!

That's all for now as I leave you with 'Geeky Action Star'

Geeky Action Star from Ali Hassan on Vimeo.

www.alihassanlive.com

-A

Last week one of my friend gifted me the new 'Magic Mouse' by Apple which I have been wanting to buy like forever and now I have it!! It works like a charm on my Mac with the swipes and all that jazz but for the 4 finger swipes and the expose features you would have to download a separate software called Better Touch Tool (Only on the MAC)  its a free download and very simple to configure, I might do a video on that on how to configure it but there are loads of videos already on YOUTUBE.

So this morning I wanted to see if the magic mouse would work on my PC (Windows Xp -32 bit) because most of the time I use the trackpad on my Macbook Pro unless I am using Final cut pro and Adobe After Effects. The mouse does work with Windows Xp all you have to do is download some drivers and then pair the mouse using blue tooth.

Download the 32- bit driver or the 64- bit driver  for your PC

Install them

Turn on Bluetooth on your laptop, I have a HP 6910p.

Turn on your Magic Mouse by using the button at the bottom of the mouse.

After the Bluetooth icon shows up in your taskbar, right click and select "Add Bluetooth Device"

Hit Next

The bluetooth program is going to search and eventually pick up your magic mouse.

Select the mouse and Hit next

Click the confirm the operation on the following screen.

Now the mouse is paired!!

Now go to the control panel and click on the mouse Icon

Click on the 'Bluetooth' tab and click connect and the mouse should start working now!!

Enter 0000 when you are prompted for the passcode in bluetooth.

After all this you might want to change the mouse pointer speed to match your needs, now for the most irritating part which is I still haven't figured out how to get the vertical and the horizontal scrolling to work with my laptop, some say that you have to download the Microsoft SideWinder X8 mouse drivers and the scrolling might work but not for me so I am still not completely using  the magic mouse because I REALLY need the scrolling part to work so I will let you guys know if I find a way to fix it until then enjoy what you have and in case you hate it there is always a MAC!!

-Alstar

I have been on a look out for a website traffic analyzer tool like forever!! coz all this while I was using one of the free counters you would get on the internet and the company that hosts my website (Squarespace) also has a in -built one which I can use but its completely crap!!

It doesn't give you the rights stats and the numbers are so in-accurate that its a useless tool but last night I stumbled upon a website which offered a free trial upto 30 days and all you had to do was embed a html code into your blog and then they would start monitoring your website and give you real time stats as to who is on your website? where are they from? what's their ip address and do they visit your website frequently plus a lot more detailed info which is fab!!

The name of this provider is "Web-Stat" and you can register your blog/website with them to analyze the daily traffic your website generates and they have a trial for about 30 days but after that its $5 per month which is my opinion is nothing considering the amount of data they provide which is very accurate.

So in case you guys are wondering.. how many HITS does your blog get and who visits it try giving this tool a shot its well worth the effort and the price!!

http://www.web-stat.com/   

 -Alstar

It has been such a long time since I even checked out my own website leave alone updating it that I cant even remember, so today when one of my friend messaged me on my blackberry asking why I haven't  updated the site it made me think someone actually takes the time off and looks it up so the least I can do is update it.

So what was I upto?? -- Well nothing actually I just didn't feel like updating it even though I had so much to say plus I was kinda planning my next short film bouncing ideas in various movie forums so lets see where I go with that and yeah I recently ordered the "Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown from Amazon and I hope its worth the money and time.

So yeah I have managed to fill in most of the information plus created a whole new "Short Films" section and organized a bunch of stuff on the site, I still have to update one of the movie section though which I will after this post but I wanted to thank him for reminding me to do it...

Over and out!!

-Alstar

So for the past weeks I have been ticking around with my new Mac book right and I wanted to do something real fun and creative which got me started on Final Cut Pro 7.Its a video editing software by apple and its really cool, I mean the things you can do in that are truly awesome!

Anyways long story short, I always thought video blogging was fun and really interesting, I mean you can just have a look at 'you tube' and see how many people are doing it and doing it so well and some of the videos are hilarious! So I decided to put my new machine and the software to the test and made a small video just to see if I am any good at it and I guess it has come out alright.... Its pretty basic nothing fancy but it was lots of fun and at some points a tiny bit frustrating but at the end I think it was time well spent coz I am really happy with what I have done.

I would be uploading the video pretty soon as it has some minor editing work to be done.. watch this space for more!!

-Alstar

www.alihassanlive.com

Alright then this feels so good, I recently purchased a Macbook Pro and finally moved over from a PC and I must say this is the best technology decision I have ever made!!

The Mac is by far a much better computing machine than a PC and a whole lot faster and stable than Windows when you compare the operating systems. The user interface is very cool and young but does take time getting use to after more than a decade of windows usage but I can getting der. I have the new OS released by apple and its called 'Snow Leopard' and trust me I have never seen a machine shut down so fast, I mean it takes like 5 seconds to shut down and I guess it restarts like it 30-45 seconds or something, I hope it stays that way coz its still new and I don't really have a lot of stuff on it.

The main reason I got a Macbook was for video editing that I do and also apple has one of the best software's in the market for that and its called Final Cut Pro and its simply awesome, earlier on Windows I was using Corel Video Studio 12 which is good but not as professional as FCP7 and also the graphics card on Mac and the pixel resolution is mind-blowing!

There are a lot of tricks I still have to learn so if you have some feel free to share them with me :-) 

Config:

Processor: 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Memory: 4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; supports up to 8GB

Hard drive:  250GB

Display 15.4-inch (diagonal)

-Alstar

I know I should have written this earlier but somehow I really never got around updating my blog.. but hey I am here now, so its been almost a month since I am back from my vacation to India and its was quite good, the trip was super fantastic I mean Akhil's wedding was really good but Delhi was HOT.. I took like a million pics and if you are my friend on facebook you know what I am talking about :-), the next trip should be more or less around the month of December for New Years lets see how that one goes but its kinda far away now anyways.

Work has been good and so is the alcohol and the night life in Dubai, I did  buy an ipod (16GB) this week and its the most awesome gadget ever which means I can listen to what I want when I work out at the gym which is so cool coz my gym plays some really sorry music honestly. I have also jailbroken my ipod so that I can install 3rd party apps on it!!.

The only bad thing about Dubai as of now is the weather.. its so bloody hot and so humid I mean you cant walk for 10 minutes without sweating geeezhh its bad and next month is also gona be more or less the same. As for interesting stuff to be honest I really don't have much.. lets see ummmm nahhh non what so ever which kinda makes me think that my life is getting monotonous which isnt that good and really disturbing and to top it all up the last few movies that I have seen have been a complete waste of my money!!

Follow my blog @ www.alihassanlive.com 

-Alstar

A quick update --> Finally landed safely at Hyderabad yesterday without my plane crashing or going off the air traffic radar :-). The weather in Hyderabad is alright its kinda hot but not as much as Dubai of course but it tends to get sticky but its not that bad.

Right now I am at the airport again only this time I am flying to Delhi where I know the weather is gona suck big time but looking on the bright side I get to see all my friends and get the attend a wedding, what more can I ask for ohh yea and I hear Delhi girls are real hot so all in all should be a fun trip! On a separate note I really like the Hyderabad airport its calm and very efficient plus you get to use an internet kiosk machine which I am on right now for free which is an awesome time killer! I just hope my flight is on time without any delays I am flying spice jet (Flight SG226,Seat No: 16A) which is due for departure at 10:25am so until next time have fun and dont get dead...

Follow my blog @ www.alihassanlive.com

-Alstar