Mental Chess

When it Works…

When I want to really feel humble, I play mental chess. Software is great when it works as written, but there are those times… Get out the chessboard!

First of All…

First of all, let’s cover a great video editing program- Filmora. I had been using Windows Movie Maker. It served it’s purpose when first getting the hang of making my videos, but was outdated and I needed greater flexibility. I’m not the best video editor, but this thing works great! You can download it and try it free. I did, liked it, and bought it ($60).

Filmora has a lot of features for video/audio formatting, effects, transitions, filters, social sharing, including direct exporting to YouTube , etc. They have many easy-to follow videos to get one started. You can put picture-in-picture, split-screen, fly in titles, captions, and much more into your video. I really like it.

Sure, Filmora is not the fanciest, most expensive option out there, but it works great for me. The learning curve was relatively flat. This was more like playing checkers than chess.

Moving Along

So, moving along, I had a relatively minor issue with a VST plugin, and proceeded to dive in and really screw things up. I spent a good deal of time trying to correct it. Mental chess has begun.

Almost all computer problems can be solved by elimination. So, you keep trying different solutions, and eliminate what doesn’t work. This forces you to be both creative and logical. It drives you crazy, but the process is what I call “mental chess”. When your problem finally is solved, it’s exhilarating!

When All Else Fails…

Most of the time, I can back out of the problems, but when all else fails (as was the case here), I have to uninstall the program, then reinstall it. It’s a pain, but sometimes there is no other choice.

Using your mind to logically solve software problems keeps you on your toes. There’s always something to learn. That’s what the human brain is for, after all!