I hope. The kid won't sit still. I want to get some more video of him (he is definately more interesting in video than still pictures nowadays). He's saying more letters and numbers so that should be an ideal subject to tape.
Sorry been bad at keeping up with pics. We do have internet access now, so you'd think that would help. I'm pretty sure an iPhone would solve the problem for sure.
I know its been increasingly longer between posts and I admit that its getting old to have to post. On top of this, I just haven't been on the internet as much at home (more so at work) and since we connect through our phones, when I am online at home its sort of a pain (the connect isn't that great so it sometimes cuts out during the upload, especially of videos). And I haven't really come up with something (which could be as simple as a flash drive) that I carry with me to take pics to work to upload.
Excuses excuses.
The other thing is that, while he remains the best looking guy in the house, Samuel's milestones have started to space out a bit more. He's still walking - just farther now. He's still babbling - just more so. Etc.
When the new baby comes, the pictures will roll again I'm sure. Or if I start being a bit more intentional about bring pictures to work to post. Or if I get an iPhone.
Until then, sorry about the delays.
-Marcos
I present for you a comparison of 3 different video uploading services: blogger's own service, Google Video, and YouTube. Ok its more for me than for you. But you can watch the videos. Samuel has started clapping and saying the word "wow," which is currently our favorite word that he says.
Next up, Google Video. It's what I used to use.
Finally, YouTube. Perhaps the standard. I didn't like it until Google bought them, so I would now consider using them.
Any comments on the winner? As I compare to the original file, all of the uploads are darker. If you would like the original to compare, it is here (3.7mb).
UPDATE: Vote for your favorite on the sidebar!Dark apparently. Its interesting, as the videos are perfectly viewable before they are uploaded, and once I'm viewing them from the website, the brightness is noticeably less, even on our same computer. Kind of annoying really.
Don't know how I'll fix the problem. I'll start by offering up some more pictures of Samuel. In the next post.
And I'll stop making movies after 6pm.
So I've been posting videos for sometime, and using mainly our digital camera (not a video camera per say) because of how easy it is to go straight from camera to blog. The video is not perfect quality, but it mostly works. When I show other residents our blog and play a video for them, I generally do it from a computer at the hospital, and oftentimes the same computer, which I've known has a pretty poor quality monitor, resulting in most images looking very dark. Recently however I watched a movie I posted on someone's laptop and it also appeared dark?
I expect the videos not to be the best of brightness - they're usually indoors and in the evening when there is no more natural light to light the shot. But the videos look fine on my computer before they are uploaded.
So my question is: are the videos really dark? Please comment.
Uploaded the wrong video before. Here it is.
Anyway, Blogger just made available enclosures, which allows this video (and all further videos) to come to you automatically through an application like iTunes, so that it can then make its way to your iPod. Or iPhone. You jerk, I have a nokia phone.
I haven't submitted the site to iTunes, so you can't search for it there, you have to go to the Advanced menu, then "Subscribe to Podcast", where you will then enter the feed address (as seen near the top of the right hand column): "http://feeds.feedburner.com/MachadoFamilyPicsEtc". Obviously, no quotes.
I'm seeing that the videos I've just uploaded to the blog are not playing correctly. I'm not sure why, but in the mean time, you can still see the video by clicking the bottom righthand button to go directly to the video's webpage.
UPDATE: It appears this issue has resolved itself.
Google recently added a feature that links Blogger (the space hosting this blog) to Picasa (a Flickr like service that hosts pictures). Now (supposedly) when pictures are added to the blog, they are added to Picasa and stored over there. They have also already moved pictures already posted on the blog to Picasa. This is convenient for you all as it provides a way
to quickly look at pictures and avoid all the annoying text that I write.
A link to the album is here.
The albums also provide you a way to order prints of the pictures. I upload pictures at a fairly decent resolution so prints upwards of 8x10 should be just fine (and probably even larger).
To order prints:
1. Go to the album, and click on a picture.
2. On the picture's page, select "order prints" (link on the right). This adds the picture to an order. You can return to the album page and select other pictures if you want.
3. When you've selected all the photos you want, click "view order" in the upper right hand corner. This starts the ordering process. You have 2 vendor options, they both offer a certain number of free prints to new users and they're both about twenty cents per 4x6 print. There are other options (like photo mugs, t shirts) as well, specific to each service.
If you use this service let me know - I'm interested as to how you like it.
P.S.
I say "supposedly" because the initial migration did not take every picture over, so they not all currently available. There are 2 ways to post on blogger - through their website, and via email. It looks like when you post via email (my usual method) the pictures don't get added. Yet. I'm guessing eventually they will.
I know there's a real good chance I'm the only one who cares, but I'll proceed with this post anyway.
I'll post another picture to make up for it.
So, here is a graph (thanks to Google) of the visits to the blog. Of interest is the small spike on February 1st.
Here is another interesting graphic from Google Analytics - this represents where the visits to this blog are coming from. Nothing outside of the U.S. yet. Don't know who that is up in Alaska (Who are you?). 
Ok, here's the interesting part. See that huge dot right over Houston, TX? That one dot alone makes up 66% of all the traffic to this site (cumulative). It could be that for some reason over half of the traffic in the US is being routed through Houston on its way to this blog. Or it could be some good friends of ours have busy fingers. Hmmm.
Anyway, thanks for coming, and for the comments and emails. It's been good to hear from you - some that we see everyday, some that we haven't seen in years. The Lord blesses not only us with your presence, but Samuel as well.
I know, I know. you're thinking, here's yet another blog that Marcos has started, that he's not going to update. Well I have a good excuse this time - I have no new information befitting the title: Machado Family Pics.
Keep waiting. Add me to your Google Reader. Read some comics. You'll figure out something to do.
Marcos
PS - I really like the comics at xkcd.com, I think they're hilarious.
PPS - don't ask me why some of the pictures on that textamerica blog don't show up anymore. i haven't updated it in a couple years.
We hope to post the ultrasound pics here from today, but our stupid scanner wasn't working for me in the 2 minutes I tried to use it before coming to work. But hopefully this week we'll have pics up.
And in the future we hope to keep this website at least intermittently updated with baby pics. Pics of the yard too, if there is enough demand.
