Saturday, December 4, 2010

Alternating Prayer as Evening Ritual with Children

Deutsche Version in meinem deutschen Blog.

Early on I learned as father that evening rituals are important for children to calm down before going to sleep. With our two sons we have two rituals: We read to them and afterwards we pray with them. So does my wife – so do I. Each of us in his own way.

The prayer is always the finish. First I always spoke the prayer – but at some point in time our son wanted me to do an alternating prayer: First word spoken by him, second word by me, third he again.

We keep this ritual up for years now and today also our youngest son wanted me to speak the prayer in this alternating way. It is an incredible beautiful experiences that creates a nearness for us. Sometimes even a cuddly toy has to take part in the prayer – as third person, sometimes spoken by me, but much more often by our sons.

The prayer – are actually two prayers. How did it happen? I do not remember. But our both sons like it this way (prayer translated from German – don’t know if there is an English equivalent):

I am small, my heart is pure, no one should live in them as Jesus alone. Amen.
Dear God, make me religious, I come to heaven. Amen.

Intercession and Wetten dass..?

Sometimes we complete the prayer with an intercession: usually for a sick relative. Today was a special day. Today an accident happened in a well known German TV show named “Wetten dass..?”. An 23 old man named Samuel K. fell to the ground in a very difficult bet and it was not clear at all if he was still alive (current news say that he is alive but his state is not yet clear). The TV show stopped – the first time ever. And so our son had to go to bed.

I thought about how I could help him to come to a rest and I remembered the intercession. And so we did: I spoke an intercession so he could believe that he was able to do something. I hope it helps and that he has a peaceful night. And for Samuel K. I hope that he is soon up and well again – without consequences.

Friday, June 11, 2010

World Cup 2010 in South Africa: Enjoy!

Die deutsche Version findest Du hier.

I just want to tell everyone: Enjoy the Fifa World Cup 2010 in South Africa. And as a tribute to South Africa I embed their national anthem in here, which is really great to listen to (I especially like the following version I found on YouTube):

Oh, and I cannot stop listening to K’naan’s song “Wavin’ Flag” especially the version with Nancy Ajram:

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Tips using Magix PhotoStory on CD & DVD, Issue 1 - Zooming

Hinweis: Du findest die deutsche Version dieses Postings in meinem deutschen Blog.

I like to create photoshows from different events. Recently based on some days vacation on Wangerooge, Germany. Since some years I am using PhotoStory on CD & DVD by Magix. I take nearly every second version step, so the latest were 5, then 7 and this time I updated to 9. It was a great step forward and a major enhancement.

One of the major enhancements – introduced earlier but now near to perfection – is the generation of paths through an image. You can make a picture alive as if it is a video – at least this is the feedback from audience watching my videos who asked: “Is this really only a photo?”

Today I will tell you about zooming images. One of the things you will use most when you generate your paths through the images manually (that is not using the wizard). You can get a picture to zoom with just a few clicks (mind that I use the German version and have to guess how menu entries are called in English):

  1. Insert an image into the timeline.
  2. Go onto the effects-tab.
  3. Open “View & Animation”
  4. Go to “Clipping & Zoom”
  5. Click on “Zoom In”

That’s all – and you already have a very nice effect. But actually there is a problem when you define a changeover effect like for example fading out: Your zoom will even continue when your image is nearly not visible any longer.

The first simple approach would be to stop zooming before the image fades out. Therefore you just have to move the diamond marker at the end of the zoom just before the dotted line. But: With this you will have a boring freeze image.

The better solution is: Slowing down. This works perfect with Magix PhotoStory on CD & DVD:

  1. Find the zoom-timeline on the effects tab.
  2. Click on the timeline near the end of the zoom.
  3. Move the marker until you see the image section marked (on the right) which is the image section where you would like to slow down.
  4. Now create a new waypoint with the icons above the timeline.
  5. To slow down: Just move it a little to the left. Of course to speed up: Move it to the right.

Now you can ensure that before the fading starts you have (nearly) the image clipping you wanted to reach – and you still have no boring freeze image while fading.

The following screen shot shows the (German) User Interface of Magix PhotoStory. The blue markers mark the diamonds which control the waypoints. The penultimate waypoint is the one I used for slowing down the zoom. The orange markers mark the time-indices where the crossing over starts/ends. This is automatically shown by Magix Photostory with a dotted line:

Magix PhotoStory User Interface - Zoom Effect

Hope you like the tip. And here is the resulting video (with Music from Unheilig “An deiner Seite”):

Example Video for Zooming