Wayne D's Blog

I had been planning on writing a blog post about my July 2008 canoe trip to Killarney Provincial Park to go along with the route map I posted last month but wanted to do something a little bit different.
(updated November 2010) Flowgram ceased operation in June 2009. They offered an export tool but unfortunately in my case it didn't export the video properly. I finally got around to recreating my slideshow using the audio track and cinelerra to create a video which I uploaded to Youtube and embedded below.

I was thinking of some sort of narrated slide show and looking around for a tool to do it I remembered that I had signed up for a beta with the Flowgram service back at the beginning of July. After a few false starts and poking around a bit I realized that Flowgram could import my Flickr set and all I had to do was add the narration. After struggling with getting a mike that didn't pick up the TV or the kids watching TV or chatting in the room behind me I managed to get the background noise down to a dull roar. My first problem was Flash kept freezing on me, I think it's more of a Flash than Flowgram problem. I can't wait for the release of Flash 10 for Linux. I know this version of Flash for Linux has some significant issues that need to be fixed. My second problem was when I went in to lower the default display time on the pictures without audio from 10 seconds I managed to get one slide set to 13:30 and two others set to 5:00. My 4:52 slide show now timed out at 27:35 and the only way I could fix it was to delete the pictures and reimport them. I have reported my problem to the flowgram guys, I know they have been working on a revamped version which I expect has fixed this issue. Until they tell me how to do it right you get to look at unnarrated pictures for 10 seconds, Flowgram is a closed beta so I am not expecting perfection. Updated Aug 09, I sent my bug report to the Flowgram team at 7:52 p.m. their time on a Friday night and received a response at 11:06 p.m. confirming that it was a known problem and would be fixed in the upcoming release. Once it's released I'll change the timing. That's phenominal customer service. If you want to try Flowgram out yourself let me know, I have 10 invites to the beta available. What I have done in my little slide show doesn't use it's capabilities to include and highlight web pages. Support for importing Powerpoint presentations was also recently added.

Now I invite you to sit back, turn up your speakers, click below and spend four minutes and fifty two eight seconds in Killarney Provincial Park as we travel through Bell Lake, Three Mile Lake, Balsam Lake and David Lake, climb Silver Peak and return with a side trip to Little Bell Lake.