Lots of hits from Australia lately

Guilty of insufficient blogging!

Iheartheli webpage is working well, except for I do not like the WYSIWYG editor for adding new stories. If you go past the initial small text area with your story you cannot scroll down and see what you wrote! Not a big deal if you write in word or something then post it in. And pictures are a pain to insert. So usually I am writing the story in the old Google sites page, inserting pictures, then copy and pasting it into the new sites new content page. Kind of defeats the purpose of having the new site a little. I'll have to try a new psot editor.

Lots of hits from Australia lately. Mostly on the Sexy Heli Chicks vid link from youtube. Interesting.

Made a bunny canopy for the King to fly for easter. Somehow, I almost ended up insulting the Queen of England in the post about the bunny canopy on heliguy forum.

Going back to 6S LiPO on the Trex500

Too long since i blogged! 5 Lessons of Flight School done. A lot of posative feedback. I think I am going to start a rc heli mechanics school also. I did not want to duplicate what was already out there, but I think it would be nice if people could get all the basic info about it here as well. So, I may not be the best mechanic, but I know a little 'bout it.

The joomla site just got revamped with a new site template. I like the cool BlueFairy template a lot! I cannot figure out how to get Newsflashes to display however, and the polls are not working either.

I don;t mind the skyscraper banner on the right that much because it has cool pics of heli. The Amazon mp3 sampler is cool, and I likeded the wii add too. (btw I heard Katie Perry sucked live).

Going back to 6S LiPO on the Trex500. Had to fab a battery tray cause I can;t find the old one. It's here somewhere. Should I buy a CNC one for $9? Hmmm.

Flight School

I started the heli Flight School three weeks ago because I saw none on YouTube and my friend Suvro wants to learn to fly.

Joomla site goes live.

I ported the domain over to the new joomla site last night, Had a little trouble getting the new nameservers to update but it is live now.

Kaos seems to be looming large in my life at the moment. My dad has Alzheimers and it he has been telling me some very weird things like the atomic bombs set off in the 40s caused the Earth to shift axis and this is why we are having a cold winter now. OK dad.

It has been difficult to keep up with the web site and flying and making flight school vids and work.

I still have a million ideas though. I am going to try some interesting stunts after the weather warms up like flying loops around an old smokestack.

Lego animation kick

Joomla has been a little frustrating. I do not have exact control over everything quite yet. I hope to have it go live pretty soon though.

I have been on a lego animation kick of late. There are many animators out there that so it much better than I. But there was learning in the process, so I am a better editor now for it. And I have shed many tears of laughter.

Used an audio track from Creative Commons on the last Twinstar flight vid. That worked out well. I want to try and use only copy-audio material that i have permission to use. It is really tempting though to use Lady Gaga music. Perhaps I shall try and contact her label.

Joomla

I decided to port this site over to using joomla. Joomla is a good content manager and I can use it to set up stories to run over a certain interval and then automatically move to another page when time is up. This way I won't have to edit the page so much, I just have to learn how to use joomla. My nephew Elliot was very nice to host it on his server for me.

KingZilla had to be put on hold again. 1) I started building the TwinStarII and it was hogging the workspace. 2) I found another major problem besides the broken ball on the Esky CNC blade grip. The GuruZ frame for the heli with CNC head was completely severed behind the motor mount. Argh.

The Twinstart II build vid is sort of comical. In the end it flew absolutely great! After two days and about 6 flights I can say that this plane is exactly what i wanted. Takes off slow from a hand launch, climbs out great, glides wonderfully slow, can perform aerobatics and fly fast also, and I can land it in a relatively small area by circling slowly.

Next week I think the speaker mod is comming out, then the external lighting project.

KingZilla comming out of retirement!

Built part of the TwinStar II tonight. Got tubes in and rudder and elevator servos glued into main body. I need servo extension wires before I glue the body halves together.

I am doing a build vid, but admittedly build vids are not my thing. There are many people doing build vids. I do not want to be known for this. I want to be known for inventions and modifications and experimentation and helping people learn to fly. So really, I am just trying to get this plane off my heli table so i can fire up the KingZilla again and figure out why it is such a misfit. I don't think it will fly, but I would like to understand exactly why not!

I think the TwinStar will be a plane that I will like to fly for a long time. Not just a stepping stone. I am excited for it to fly. Something to relax and fly when I maybe don't want the adrenaline rush of a heli for a minute.

Major decision here.

Decided to make the site add free for at least 3 months. There may be an ad still on this blog page, and on the YouTube videos, but the main site http://wwwiheartheli.com/ will be add free.

I would like more people to be able to find the main site through forum links, but many forums do not allow links to sites that sell parts and which might compete with their revenue plan.

So, in an effort to encourage new viewers, there are now no adds on the site.

I may make another site with the free shipping add for X-heli so I can link to it. I really believe this is a helpful add so you can get a little break if ordering a new helicopter. So, it will be like - "Go to this site to find a coupon for free shipping when buying your next helicopter" or something. Is that deceptive advertising?

Geez, can't a site get a minute?

I bought my Monster Funnoodle at Wal-Mart and plan to get another and make numerous silly things with it this year. So I thought a link on the site to Wallmart where you could order one would be a reasonable thing. Now I know a lot of people are against supporting Wal-Mart, but I thought I would give it a go anyway. I was able to get set up as an affililate but is was short lived. Here is the activity

Jan 30:
Congratulations! We are pleased to welcome you into the Walmart.com Affiliate Program! As always, we're committed to bringing you and your customers a wide assortment of the products you want most, all at Every Day Low Prices. I put up a link in the side bar the next day.

Feb 03:
Walmart.com has decided to temporarily remove you from their Affiliate Program due to no click activity 10/1/09-02/02/09.

Apparently if no clicks in 2 days you get the boot! Geez, can't a site get a minute?

I stopped by the big box the other day and they are not carrying the noodles now that it is winter, so I went online and could not find them either at the Wal-Mart e-store. You can get them throught the Amazon link I have already so f Wal-Mart!

the fun continues

I added a new page to add Funny Stuff that i find on the forums or make up. I added the heli to the pic of the babes. Since it adds humor it is not a copyright infringment, it is free speech!

Then I did a google search for "can you spot the heli in this picture?" and four of the top 6 returns were really cool. One was a contest to find black helicopters from combing Google Earth! One was a tour of a helicopter manufacturing plant. One was a great article on balancing your helicopter for smooth flight. And one was a great explaination of how helicopters work with huge great pictures of a Sikorsky tilt-rotor prototype, a US Navy Seahawk and Navy Osprey. So I added the links as Cool Links of the Week and made an archive page for them so I can rotate them out each week and add new ones.

Not much, but the fun continues. Oh yea, Gimbal was jazzed that I wanted to feature his stuff. OMG, how could I not!

I got a message from Dave Herbert!

Getting a bit hard to find the time and energy to blog lately. Important thing is to keep moving forward with the Show, adding tips and tip-vids, and contacting people to see if I can feature their helicopters on the front page. Last week I got no responses from people I thought for sure would reply so I had to put up one of my own projects, this week I got responses from two people. I have one article ready to go, it is queued up on the Friends and Stories page just waiting to jump to the front page on Saturday morning. Thanks Dan. Next one will line up for the next week unless I start getting so many I can change it twice a week.

Added an About This Site page saying why I put up this site. Basically I get bored waiting for another edition of RC Heli to come out and wanted to read more stories. There are many on the forums, but you have to dig and read quite a few to find the really neat ones. So for the ones I think are appropriate, I am sending messages and asking for permission to feature their helicopters. I think the stories are generally falling into three categories: beginner success stories, advanced flying with things to aspire to, and custom heli modifications.

The Tip of the Day started out like a blog, but vids were requested and I can totally see why. It is taking a lot of work to create, edit, and upload them, but I think it makes the site somewhat unique.

I got a message from Dave Herbert! He is totally a Legend! Definately belongs in the RC Hall of Fame. He visited the site and liked it.

From Dave:

"Thanks very kindly for your comments. I appreciate that. I took a look at your website and it is very nicely done. I also appreciate the Kudos you gave me on your special thanks page. That is very nice.I wish you the best of success with it and just hope you have fun doing it, as that is why I do it. ... If I can get enough responses for my tv show promotion, and pull it off, I should have you on as a guest."

That 'bout made my day!

Recorded the Wacky Hobby show Friday night, and got it edited and uploaded by Saturday morning. Perfectly good Friday night down the tube.

Got a new affiliate going with Wal-Mart. The idea was to have a link where someone could buy a Monster Funnoodle to make the fun toys I am designing out of it. But it turns out they do not have it on their online store. Amazon has the regular sized funnoodles though.

I will have to figure out other sources for foam. I like the RCFoam company, hopefully something will pan out there.

Also got a posative test of the Helmet Cam (besides the one of the 450 crashing) and it turned out to be a pretty good demonstration of Cak & Forth and Lazy 8s. That was not planned, I was just flying and warming up. When I fly back and forth the heli tends to drift away, so I was bringing it back inbetween. Later when I watched it they were almost perfect lazy 8s.

I always end up citting good parts out of the Wacky Hobby show, so I should go back and post the clips as extra footage. I think I'll do that right now.

I guess Puke means good?

Finally got the three new Tips vids to load last night by using the bulk uploader instead of the regular uploader, then i went to sleepland and added music tracks to them in the morning. Last night I added a whole bunch of new Tips in the Tips & Tricks page, and tonight I added the explainations the best I knew how to.

Now I am taking a break and going to bed early. One viewer of the compilation aerobatics vid said it was Puke! and gave it 5 starts. I guess Puke means good?

I think my dsl is sucking tonight

Horrible night. Made three new Tips vids. Then they would get to 97.5% rendered to avi from Gun Gworler and fail after 20min. I thought it was because disk space was low so deleted about 8Gb and still no joy. Downloaded a different capture software Cam Studio and it was choppy, could not see how to change frame capture rate. Records direct to avi. It did convert what it had to a SWF file very nicely though, but didn't ask me if i wanted it converted and no cancel, so had to wait 20 min for that too. Deleted all GunGrowler past vids and started over and got three good clips recorded and converted to avi. Tried to upload to YouTube and each one failed. Converted one to wmv and it failed also. I think my dsl is sucking tonight. Maybe if I reboot it will help.

Trying a new experiment with mounting speakers on the Trex500. I found some nice Huey wav files that I patched together over and over to make an awesome sound file. Now to get it on the mp3 player. I have a little tiny 9V amp and some $2 JBL computer speakers from thrift store. Took the bandsaw to the case and saved the whole front piece becaue it had a passive woofer in it. So the one speaker really booms with the amp that has bass boost too. Believe it or not the amp is from H20 audio and designed for underwater scuba diving. I have yet to listen to mp3s while scuba diving though. LOL. It does have boss underwater headphone like speakers to go with it though that attach to your mask. Plan is to mount the assembly under the Trex500 canopy.

I might spin the Whacky Hobby show off into two parts. A helicopter dedicated show and a DIY toy show.

Anyway, one more try to upload to YouTube and it is off to dreamland.

bumped the show release time up to Saturday morning

I did get Part 2 of episode 1 of Whacky-Hobby uploaded. I hope people like my toys and stories about them.

I moved the Heli-Force game to a game page because the front page was getting kind of crouded. Whacky-Hobby took the place of the Tips vid and the Tips vid took the place of the Heli-Force game. That way the Tips vid is right next to the Tip of the day.

I added a whole list of tricks to the Tips and Tricks page, 21 more tricks on the list. The only one I am not proficient on yet is circles (different than circuits). That tip is 3 weeks away though so I have plenty of time to practice it. I have been working on inverted hover and flight for a while now. That has been a major focus for the last couple of weeks. It is certainly like starting over to learn all the hover orientations upside down. I have also been working on backwards flight and backwards circuits. Can't say I am very good at them yet. But I'm working on it. I have to work on getting vids up for all the tricks so far.

Plus I have to film another Whacky Hobby episode before Saturday morning. I bumped the show release time up to Saturday morning on advice from Dave Powers. Apparently this is the best time for people to watch. It also happens to be the best time for me to make them. But I will just have to adjust.

Oh yea, got a rejection letter on my YouTube Partner application.

"Dear hbk2flyer,
Thank you for your interest in the YouTube Partner Program. Our goal is to extend invitations to as many partners as we can. Unfortunately we are unable to accept your application at this time. The current level of viewership of your account has not met our threshold for acceptance."

So it looks like 10minute episodes for a while or part1 and part2.

I can try again after viewership is up.

I'm confident the Tips & Tricks vids are worth watching.

Episode #1 of Whacky-Hobby

Episode #1 of Whacky-Hobby was uploaded to YouTube and then rejected because it was too long 23.5min. Apparently there is a 10.99 minute limit on uploads for normal accounts. I was not able to attach the avi directly in the new Whacky-Hobby page because it is too large for my Google Sites account. So I applied for a Partner account with YouTube (although they said my application would likely be rejected) and am splitting the Episode up into smaller chuncks which is detracting from it's hilarity some.

I will try and upload the show to my photobucket account. OK, doesn;t look like that is going to work either. Man, the red tape to getting this show out there is enormous.

At least I was able to get Google AdSense hooked up to this blog just now.

I am crying from laughing so hard!

I had a chance to review the vid clips and I am crying from laughing so hard! The camera automatically shuts down after about 15min, and that was about perfect! I found another memory card and finished off episode #1.

So, tomorrow I shall edit and upload it to YouTube. I just called it Whacky-Hobby. Talked about my first helicopters, my first mod experience, my first homemade toy - a pinewood derby car, another homemade toy - personal driving range, and said a little tiny bit about the web site.

I was afraid it was going to suck because I did not have a script or anything.

My wife walked in half way through and asked if I had lost my mind! OMG ROTFL!

Canopy design contest

Thanks for the comment Dave. Canopy design contest, that sounds like a great idea. I would have to disqualify myself - dang! People could upload pics to the blog in a comment.

Had a go at doing the first episode of the weekly YouTube hbk2flyer-Hobby show. Ate up my 2GB memory card in about 3/4 hour. I realized after, I had barely started talking about everything I have done and am planning to do for '09. So 1) I have to download the camera manual and figure out how to change the resolution to capture at a lower res, and 2) talk about less stuff!

I think I got in a bunch of stuff about the first toy I ever made and that in itself would be an interesting vid. I was really just interested in testing the camera and DIY studio. I have not watched it yet, but it is probably pretty odd.

How cool is that!

Wow, Madeline emailed me back! How cool is that! Posted the correspondence in Friends & Stories.

I wrote an artical about the 'Secret to Flying Model Helicopters' and posted it at Amazon for sale. The only thing is you have to have a Kindle device to read it. Argh! From what I have read, eJunky is another alternative site to sell pdf's and such. I'll have to figure out how to do that. I posted a price of $1 for the Secret. I think you can preview the whole document so you don't really have to pay if you don't want to. But I can't even figure out how to do that, cause I don't have a Kindle.

While i was at Amazon the other day I applied for the affiliate program and they accepted me. So I went and found a text add, and then saw that I could add a store for free too! Nice. No inventory, no shipping, no accounts receivables, it is all handled by the order fullfillment group. So I added some Heli related publications, a Vibe 90 (only CP heli they had) and an Apache Trex canopy that I had never seen before. You can also buy a Kindle if you have an extre $300 or so.

Added some video of Tricks. Resolution is horrible though. I downloaded an alternative screen capture program for gaming last night but have not tested it out yet. I will test it tonight. Snagit is just not cutting it.

Tried to fly with the new Helmet cam at lunch today. It was freezing and I did not spend enough time warming up my flying skills. Went into a loop a little out of level and came out very weird. I saved it from augering in but then couldn't get oriented quick enough and crashed from about 3ft up right side up at least. Helmet Cam caught it all though. It worked pretty well except is was a bit of a distraction as I was flying. Note: After reviewing the footage, the heli tail spun out 180 to the left when I punched the throttle at the bottom of the loop. Caught me way off guard. I think I did not have the gyro set correctly for punches.

No more stunts until I am comfortable flying with it on. Maybe 4 or 5 packs or so. I was going to try and shoot a heli show tomarrow, but now I only have one bird that flies - the Trex500 which is running on a 6S A123 pack right now and I only get about 4.5 min a flight unless I solder on another cell. Oh well, that will have to do. They recharge in 15 minutes at least.

Added another link to this blog so people could leave feedback if they wish. Watched Dave P's 2nd eBusiness vid again last night too, then added some annotations to the Stall Turn Vid for tomarrow Tips & Tricks entry.

This is pretty hard and confusing for one person. But so is learning to fly a model helicopter.

Oh, I made a funny mouse shaped toy for my cat out of some extra EPS foam while I was waiting for a vid to render last night, she is always palying with left over bits and pieces. I suppose I should make her one that is heli shaped too!

Also, I am not getting enough sleep! But this is pretty fun.

Movin right along

Managing all this stuff single handedly in my spare time is quite a feat. Dave P. says listen to the fans and don't be afraid to change directions. The Tips & Tricks post I made on the Heliguy King II forum is giving me a lot of posative feedback. Videos to go with the tricks posted is going to be a big part of the site now. I should have a vid along with the tip when I post it, but right now the vids are lagging behind the tips because I am kind of flying by the seat of my pants here.

I did manage to download a free trial of snagit, and screen capture a phoenix session of the first tip, and edit it in Movie Maker, and upload it to YoutTube, and add a sound clip to it. The screen capture session has a couple of the other tips on it also that I can go back and edit into new tip vids. First one was just a test really. I am sure there are ways I can make them better.

I am thankful for the feedback from the heliguy forum, and for being able to edit the site using Google Sites. This is quite a full site with lots of features. Pretty nice for starting it only 5 days ago. I wish I could get feedback from the site viewers directly. Hmm, gotta work on that.

Changing th song every day is kind of a chore, but I really like some of the Madeline Adams songs. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to play them when I am visiting the site for QA. I should send her an email.

HelmetCam debacle

Lot's of good progress. Flights school pages are up. Published a new vid of me trying to get a DIY helmet cam working to film some Tips & Tricks as has ben suggested by Heliguy forum members. Bicycle helmet was not sevure enough and about strangled me while I was trying to fly. Added the intervoew with Tiago Vale from my old site, and a pdf of his frame design.

I tried to swap positions of the Heli Force game and the Latest YouTube video, to move the game down, but the YouTube video would not resize and threw the whole site arrangment way off. I think main content has to go in the big column. Maybe I can find something else for the top of the little column so the pokey game can move down lower.

Found a used batting helmet at the thrift store at lunch for $4.50 and mounted the camera on top with a couple of nylon washers and a 1/4" bolt ($1.12 from hardware store). Next helmet cam vid should be successful.

I put a logo on the left side bar so I don't have to put it on every page now. It looks a little odd having 2 logos on the index page but what the heck.

I think I see the light

Sent some emails to vendor sites after work to see if they have affiliate programs.

Watched Dave Powers e-business video he just posted on YouTube. Second in his series on e-business. Dave's fun ability to make videos with talking inspired my first video with words which was the 1st Kingzilla vid. Then I said a few words on the SantaCopter V2 vid. His e-business shows are very accurate about how complex it can be. Filled out a W-9 form for Xheli, Started a Google AdSense account, which by the way, does not work on sites made with Google Sites (go figure). Check out Daves e-business videos yourself. Start with issue # 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC0FmP4-ia4 or go visit his channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/RCSuperPowers or his site at http://www.rcpowers.com/.


I was able to get the www domain hooked up with the Google/Sites page by adding a CNAME to the domain account at GoDaddy. Now when you goto http://www.iheartheli.com/ it opens the site that I designed and can still edit with google sites. There is no redirect. Way cool.

I added another heli flying tip today and changed the song in the mp3 player. I like the madalinesongs mp3s quite a bit. Especially when blasting rockets and space ships out of the sky in the silly "Heli Force" game.

Fortunately for me I am familiar with having a very lame site with static never changing content. Go visit http://www.shizzle-rc.com/ if you want to fall asleep sometime. This time around I am going to have new content every week. Videos, Blog entries, Tips & Tricks, Interviews, etc. After doing it wrong for a year I think I see the light.

Bloggidy Blog!

Starting a blog about rc helicotpers and such.
OK, starting a blog about starting a web site about rc helicopters and other stuff.

The website is www.iheartheli.com and I have procured the web domain, and trying out GoDaddy Smart Sites - can't say I am all that happy with it, but i do like the chat page.

I put up a temp site using google sites at http://sites.google.com/site/iheartheli/ and am trying to port it over to the www domain.

Tough learning curve here. Trying to add Google Adsense, Xheli affiliate adds, YouTube vids, a Chat room, and learn to use Google Anaytics, Google Webmaster Tools, and now this blog.

On top of that, I plan on providing content! Can you imagine that?

I have a pretty large list of silly ideas to promote. Stay tuned for more details.