Day 309: Overcoming Technical Difficulties

I had anticipated relaxing and enjoying the extended 4th of July Weekend, putting writing aside for a few days. Well, I managed to put the writing away, but there was a considerable amount of energy expended on trying to get the latest blogs up on the website. There was some time set aside for more traditional activities such as bar-b-que and fireworks, but a lot of the weekend was dealing with technology that didn't work.

Since I'm away from my 'traditional' writing/working space for my self-imposed writer's retreat, I wanted to do everything remotely, including writing the blogs and uploading them. My first problem was with recording the video portion of the blog. My older laptop, which I've never used for webcamming, shoots in a 4:3 format. I'm okay with that, but when I tried to actually shoot the vlog, I discovered it recorded at 10 fps. It was far to choppy and jerky to be of use. No problem, I figured I'd just use my phone.

Well, the phone recorded just fine, but when I tried to upload the video to YouTube, the upload took a little over 24 hours. Apparently the data/cell link here is very low. 24 hours was too long, so I decided to connect the phone to the internet via a new wifi link. Only the wifi router (D-Link) doesn't communicate with Samsung phones. So, on to Plan C.

I next tried to connect the phone directly to the laptop for a file transfer . . . only the laptop didn't recognize the phone and couldn't identify a proper driver. After several hours of tech support which ended with the recommendation that I transfer everything from the phone to the laptop as a backup and then factory reset the phone. I kindly pointed out that I couldn't do that as that was the reason for my call to begin with - I couldn't transfer anything from my phone to the laptop.

With that plan scuttled, it was on to Plan D. I would try to utilize the bluetooth technology in the laptop, only the laptop wouldn't pair with the phone. I was beginning to panic. If I couldn't get these vlogs to transfer, I was going to have to go home to use the setup there, which violated the whole point of working in new surroundings. Luckily, my brother-in-law showed up for the holiday weekend. In between knee boarding sessions with my nieces, I was able to transfer the vlogs to my brother-in-law's laptop (don't ask me why it worked on his computer) via bluetooth. The transfer of a single 2-3 minute video took almost two hours, and I had 4 of them. You do the math. Once they were transferred, I was able to transfer them yet again via thumbdrive to my laptop, which was wired the old-fashioned way with an ethernet cable to the internet.

So there was a lot of transferring and uploading over the weekend to get the previous 5 blogs to you. My sister's family will be here for the next few days visiting, so I don't anticipate getting much done on the writing front, but the blogs, vlogs, news articles, twittering, box office and calendar updates should all continue moving forward. I can also begin the tedious task of researching companies in the Hollywood Screenwriting Directory for upcoming query letter submissions. Even when you think you don't have anything to do, there is always something to accomplish. It's just finding those quiet moments in a hectic day.