After the main backer of ReiserFS, SuSE, announcing that they are going back to ext3 and leaving behind the previously highly acclaimed ReiserFS to eat dust (both 3.x and 4.x versions), now Hans Reiser has been arrested under the suspicion of murdering his wife. Talk about everything going wrong.

One great way to promote an indie song is of course a music video. These days technology and software is so cheap that whatever could cost thousands of dollars in the ’80s, it now costs under a grand. Because the equipment suggested below is lower quality compared to what pros use, it will require extra creativity while shooting and editing the video. The only item that is not on the list but we assume it’s a given is a Mac or a PC.

Of course, the makeup and clothing is something that the band itself should take care of. If they have girlfriends let them improvise on them.

So, after a careful planning on the location, the time, the weather, the topic of the video and its overall look, here are the hardware items needed to shoot:

* Canon ZR900 Widescreen DV 872×480 camcorder: $220 (at Amazon). Shoot in “neutral color”, in order to be able to better color-grade on post.
* Three DV tapes: $5
* A full height tripod with a *fluid* head: $100 (make sure it’s marketed as fluid)
* A portable CD player playing back the song from an audio CD while shooting (just for lip-syncing purposes): $50
* A white balance gray card: $5 (used for indoor, and heavily lit night scenes only).
* Sony Vegas Movie Studio (or Platinum edition for HD support): $80

* [Optional] A Disk Light Deflector: $100 (Used to diffuse the sun or light).
* [Optional] A tripod dolly: $50 (on Amazon). To be used only if you need to physically move the tripod while shooting in order to achieve some “motion” on your clip. These can be used only on flat surfaces.
* [Optional] 2×250Watt lights: $110 (Adorama). Important if you are shooting indoors.

You don’t believe me? How much money you think this video really cost the band? I bet not much. And yet, it’s a pretty usable video clip. Technically-speaking, it can be done for under $460. Creativity and capability is all that’s really needed to produce something “acceptable” for cheap.

What’s cool about all this, is that after you buy these accessories once, for a second music video clip you won’t need to spend more than $20 (just a new set of DV tapes).

Firefox is my main browser for over a year now, but I have second thoughts on Firefox 2.0-RC2.

1. The “close tab” widget is now at the right side of each tab rather than the right side of the tab-bar. While it makes more usability sense this way in terms of newbie users, it is a hell to use because you need to move your mouse all the time as the tabs are resizing each time you close/open a new tab. It just kills my wrist. For some reason Safari just doesn’t seem as bad as Firefox 2.0 because it doesn’t resize its tabs as much, or something. Additionally, the currently focused tab is NOT easily distinguishable compared to the other open tabs (too similar-color problem) and many times I have to spend extra brain power to look which is the tab that I need to find and close. At least there should be an option to choose if we want the old way or the new way of closing tabs, cause right now, as an old-timer I feel screwed.
2. No way to remove the “GO” button from the URL widget. The search widget also consumes more real screen estate now.
3. Discoverability issue with the “Clear History” button. Bug report here.
4. RC2 fails to load some of the tabs when you open many tabs at once. It just reports that the network was down, while it wasn’t. Firefox 1.7.x didn’t have this problem.

I guess that #4 is just part of the beta process so I am not worried, but points #1, #2 and #3 are there by design and they really bug me like hell (especially #1). I will be taking a look at IE7.