After this many years, you'd think a tradition as rich as Galootaclaus would have its own web site, right? Well, at long last .. it's here...

All things related to Galootaclaus may be found on http://www.galootaclaus.com

Just a bit of an end of year update .. the site has been very well received and we're beginning to build out quite a pictorial history there ... do visit soon!!

--Jim

Video is the next wave on the net and we're still early in the game.  To make things a bit simpler, we've lit up a menu links for converting digital video (and then retrieving your converted file!) to the registered user menu.  Pretty much any format will work. The Flip Video cameras (a very nice little entry level gadget for camera impaired folks like your host!) output .avi files.  Your camera may spit out something different. Most likely, the conversion service will handle it and give you back a nice tidy Flash Video (.flv) file which we would then like you to place into the video gallery.

Enjoy!

 --Jim

Sometimes you just gotta step back and say "thanks".  The response to the videos has been very positive and it appears to be just a matter of days until we'll get a peek into shops near and far.  It's something I thought about a long time ago, but just didn't have the time to work through the details. Sometimes you get lucky and your "real work" tranfers easily to to pet projects.

And something I don't get around to saying much, but it is truly appreciated is the periodic donation from a galoot.  Between those and a couple interesting non monetary donations, I've been able to assemble the Galoot Central project into something I have a lot of confidence in over the long haul. Durability is certainly something this group can appreciate.

 So .. thanks.  Thanks for your comments (and criticisms!). Thanks for the donations. Thanks for just being who you are. 

---Jim

So... here's just a bit more on use of the video gallery.

First, a quick terms of use-ish statement. Like the image gallery, things loaded to the video gallery are public and could very well be syndicated and appear elsewhere.  This is the internet.. no assumption of privacy should ever be assumed! 

Also, if you look starting today, I've added a couple videos from YouTube. This is painfully easy and I encourage the users here to do the same if you spend any time looking for video content online. (keep it relevant though!!).  To do this, you just grab the url that YouTube (and others) give you to stick in an email and click the "Add Videos" button instead of Upload.  Paste the url into the box, click apply, then put it in a category.

Currently, there are just two categories .. shop tours and how-tos. Looking for suggestions for more.

The video wave on the net is really still in its infancy.  Obviously, as galoots, we're not looking to be on the leading edge of much, but this is just too good to pass up!

The video gallery has been lit up and just to encourage folks, I went ahead and posted a quick and dirty one minute walk through my shop.

The gadget supports both local (you upload) videos and stuff coming from places like YouTube.  Couple things for folks interested in putting their own video online. First, let's keep them short ..  about 2 minutes or less.  Format - I used a Flip Video camera to do mine and then converted the raw video to a Flash Video (.flv) file.   The makes them nice and small  (22 Mb raw, 2 Mb converted...) for uploading without really sacrificing quality  (not that I had much in this one to begin with .. buy hey, first time I've ever used my kid's camera!)

Like the image galleries, these are public view, but posting requires registration.  I'll put the service online soon that will let you upload and convert a video to the right format.  Riva makes a free encoder you can use if you are inclined to forge ahead!