Technology Mystery

Macro Feature Rediscovered

2010-06-17T10:42:00.004-04:00

I was playing around with the camera yesterday and re-discovered the macro option on my Canon Power Shot SD550. I got some quite unexpected results. You never know what you will get when you get up close to something. Like my biology class when I entered high school playing with the microscope was fun.

Some interesting things I discover from the naked eye flowers look great but some of the flowers in the slideshow you will see the flowers have some sort of damage due to time, insects and weather.

Since I am using macro feature of the camera it gives of some times the effect of tilt shift for some picture which is cool. (more information on tilt shift check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt-shift_photography). The photography here is mostly macro photography which takes picture of small objects as opposed to tilt shift which is basically taking picture of large landscapes creating a illusion of small. for more information on Macro photography check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macro_photography. Anyways enjoy

By the way the pictures in the slideshow are Creative Common Licensed so use them for your personal use in every way you can think of. let me know what you do with them.

New Blogger Template Designer

2010-06-11T12:20:00.003-04:00

While I was drafting the next blog yesterday I decided to tweak the template a little on blogger and found that the blogger just put in a new template designer removing the old template tab. I then found a the information on the Googleblog check it out here. I decided to update my blog design after I saw the templates. Let me know if you like it or not.

Edit: Forgot to mention that you will need to be http://draft.blogger.com to access this feature

Upcoming Projects

2010-06-08T13:19:00.000-04:00

It has been a while since I blogged last. This has been due to a lot of work that I have been doing and planning as well. Here is the work I will doing and blogging. Also I will be soon be launching my YouTube Channel that will showing tutorials and showcasing my work online. Once the name is decided I will do a separate post for it with the details.

Support Factor - This will a series of posts about support. Basically every week I will be writing about what things you should consider on how to better support your online projects and work. Things to consider like what if something happens what you can look into. I will applying my experience here as I have been a support Technician for more than 10 years now and showing things may be you have never considered and some that you use that you might now have noticed as bad habits or good habits.

Front Yard Tree – I was trimming the front yard and then I started to work on the tree cleaned it up. I will show you what I did on the front yard. It will be about do's and don't's when working on such a project. This is a DIY project you might want to consider.

Intro Video for YouTube Channel – I will be starting a YouTube channel but I need an intro for the videos so I will be creating that and I will document the whole creation in Blender 2.5. I will post it on YouTube and provide you with the channel information.

Intro to Carving - This will be my way of introducing carving. My work flow on how I go on to design things as well what to look out for. One thing I will introduce is designing with and without computers.

Walking/Hiking Stick – From the tree trimming I got nice piece of stick that I will be using to carve out designs on for using as a hiking stick or walking stick. I will be doing a blog spot as well as a video. I think I will attempt to design it in blender 2.5 first and come up with something feasible in making as well as using it when done. This post and video will be needed to be done in parts as I continue to work on it.

Here is an small example of my work I will be showing an updated version of the same work during the intro to carving. These are all long term posts and may be covered over 2 or 3 posts and video. I should be able to post at these a little more regularly on this so keep track.

This was an elephant head was craved on a Medium-density fiberboard (MDF) of 3/4”.

Blender Benchmarks on Windows 7 64bit

2010-05-07T20:36:00.012-04:00

To test how good my desktop was I did a render Benchmark with Blender this past weekend and got some interesting results. The Benchmark was done using blender 2.49 and new alpha 2.5.2 both found on the download page at the blender 3D website. I wanted to know what my new PC will tell me about blender and its performance so here is a test.

Desktop Configuration:

Dell Studio XPS 9000

Intel® Core™ i7-920 processor(8MB L3 Cache, 2.66GHz) X58 Architecture

12GB DDR3 SDRAM AT 1066MHZ-6X2GB,

NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 260,RIOS

1.5TB SERIAL ATA 2, 7200 RPM,DIM,X

Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

Blender File was taken from http://www.eofw.org/bench/

Blender Version 2.49 64 bit build at http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/

Blender Version 2.5.2 64 bit build at http://www.blender.org/download/get-25-alpha/

The Render settings are as per the blend file states. Then I did rendering with 4 CPU threads and with Full 8 Threads of my CPU.

Here are the results in the Table and Chart for both blender 2.49 and 2.5.2.

	Render Times
CPU Threads	2.49 (hh:mm:ss.00)	2.5.2 (hh:mm:ss.00)
1	00:02:05.0	00:00:54.3
4	00:00:40.7	00:00:17.2
8	00:00:26.7	00:00:12.0

The table the and charts show 2.5.2 takes less time to render the same file with defaults or with added CPU Threads in rendering. Good news but how does the image rendered look like? Well, see for yourself below.

Rendered in Blender 3D 2.49

Available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/elephantatech/4562660929/

Rendered in Blender 3D 2.5.2

Available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/elephantatech/4562660959/

2.5.2 gives user better results than 2.49. It seems that the quality is similar to what we can get if you used LuxRender or Yafaray. Does that mean we no longer need install external renderers? Not quite actually as rendering goes it is not the only 3D aspect that blender does therefore it is not a complete solution as a good one. The external renderers give more options and give you results that can far exceed what blender can do since they are focused on rendering purely. So I am looking forward to when we get the Stable version of blender.

Whiteboard Creative Mess

2010-05-06T17:14:00.002-04:00

So here I have my latest creation. The entire drawing was done between December 2009 and last week. Each time I passed the whiteboard in the office I added a stick figure. slowly it built up to something interesting. Enjoy the Flickr slideshow.

all the pictures are Creative Commons licensed Version 3.0 see Flickr page for details http://www.flickr.com/photos/elephantatech/sets/72157623858515341/show/with/4574366309/

Blender 3D Pictures Channel in Flickr

2010-04-27T11:33:00.001-04:00

I just started my Blender 3D page with all the Images captured created in Blender 3d the application found at blender.org. Currently I only have some test images but they really show some kick ass stuff.

You can click on the slide show above to see the Flickr page.

Enjoy!

Moving leaves Illusion

2010-04-20T16:50:00.002-04:00

moving leaves Illusion
Originally uploaded by elephantatech
Check out my latest work in Harmony web app (http://mrdoob.com/projects/harmony/) focus on the leaves and look at the in a circular motion around and away from the black spot and you will think the leaves are moving or flowing out of the black spot. This is also marked with creative common license click on the picture to see the flickr page for details

Handmade art

2010-04-05T19:12:00.000-04:00

Check out some of my older work on my new set
mostly sketches I had made before

..

Flame application created in processing programing language

2010-04-04T23:57:00.002-04:00

Here is another Flickr set I have created for an application called flame programmed in processing language. The web link is http://www.escapemotions.com/experiments/flame/#top check it out you will like it. he has some other stuck that are cool as well. please digg it if you like it

Flicker page link is here for the gallery below http://www.flickr.com/photos/elephantatech/sets/72157623771892554/with/4463053647/

Edited: Forgot to inform you this work is creative common licensed so you can download it and use it as you wish for personal use. if you post it on the web please let me know were I would like know where my work is being displayed

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

Edited: Just Updated flame set with new pictures all with Creative Common License so you can download and use it as you wish for personal use.

HTML5 Application Harmony

2010-03-31T16:56:00.000-04:00

People are now hearing about this HTML5. It said to be the next big thing on the web that will wow the people. well I have been wowed by a simple application Harmony at found at http://mrdoob.com/projects/harmony/. It is build purely on JavaScript and HTML5 so it work with Firefox and chrome fine. When you first go to the page it it has a blank white page with menu or control box on the top.

Screenshot 1

As you see the screen shot above not very impressive or wow like. Now try using it and you will be see something amazing things the brush does. As I started using I was wondering what I can do with this so I ended creating some graphics. I could see this with a few more features becoming a huge thing. For example layers, blending, eraser tool, options to save file in more formats and obviously a lot more brushes or pens.

Since the code it under the MIT license which by the way is another open source license developed by MIT you can look at the license here if interested in it at http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php. now how to get the source code click on about and there is a link for source code right there. Download it and you will be able to to use it like a desktop app if you wanted to or develop more options for it. I would like to think that this will develop to something awesome and powerful.

Flickr Slideshow for Harmony Collection

Daffodil Experiment Fail

2010-03-31T11:53:00.000-04:00

Yup it failed next day most of the flowers died. Now they should not have died. Now the Ehow page suggests that lime soda should work. So should any other pop drink but less time but what I did not take into account was you also need room temperature pop and not out of the fridge cold pop. so that cold killed it. I think I will try this experiment at home people in the office keep on saying "...hey did you fertilize those flowers with naturally?". To be honest it did look like that.

photo1 day1 test

2010-03-29T15:37:00.001-04:00

photo1 day1 test
Originally uploaded by elephantatech

As promised here the photo of the daffodils at my office with DR Pepper in the vase with water

Flower Experiment

2010-03-29T15:07:00.003-04:00

I bought some cancer society daffodils after 3 days they started dying now I am testing if DR Pepper can revive them to health. I added approximately 300 ML of DR Pepper in the flower vase. I will post the pictures as I see the progress. I will post the picture later

Webs of contemplation

2010-03-26T22:03:00.001-04:00

Webs of contemplation
Originally uploaded by elephantatech

Another creation of Harmony web app. Just think about how your day went and what you did or doing next thing you know you are in a web of thoughts connecting to things you would have not realized. human mind and brain are powerful just exercise it everyday and you never know where it will lead you to. Again this work is licensed under creative commons license check the flickr page for more details. Click on the image for more details.

My official start to flickr with my blog

2010-03-26T21:51:00.003-04:00

elephanta
Originally uploaded by elephantatech

My official start to flickr and my art work. I will post more information for people to see and use for Creative commons use. I used harmony tool from http://mrdoob.com/ from the web while. You can try using it from the web today from http://mrdoob.com/projects/harmony/ it does require HTML 5 enabled web browser. I think HTML 5 brings awesomeness to web in a whole new way in which we are just beginning to see a small peek. I can't wait to see what people will come up with.

Update: forgot to mention this is licensed under creative commons license please check flickr page for details. Click on the image above to go to flickr page

Lab Ubuntu 9.04 Experiment #N1

2009-07-29T17:54:00.004-04:00

LAB Ubuntu 9.04 Experiment #N1: Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope on Toshiba Satellite M40 So I was going through Ubuntu based Linux Distro and I found and I just loved the look and what it was offering so I decided

My Toshiba M40 configuration:

Intel Centrino 1.6GHZ Processor
1512MB RAM
60GB HDD
128MB Nvidia Geforce 6600 Graphic Adapter
DVD RAM
Intel Wireless 50Mbps Adapter
Ethernet and 56Kbps Modem
USB 2.0 Ports
Firewire Port
S-Video Port

Currently I have Ubuntu 8.10 which works let me tell you amazingly awesome. I have virtually reducing windows XP usage to 0% at home but office I have no choise but windows since that is what they run on.

My parents, my brother and my sister they all use windows XP. and complain alot and alot more everyday about how their computer are slowing down.

I have problems with toshiba not being properly supported however works faster that it would when windows XP was on it.

So I am not going to do a clean install instead I am going to upgrade to Jaunty.

now I have just tried it and it is upgrading it disabled my personal sources

downloads have begun. This is what I am always impressed about on linux Distros is that the how fast the updates download and install. I wish they had a web portal to check the current update on my computer it just makes it much better.

ok it took 2 hours to download everything because I was doing it on wireless and it was a slow link something to do with the router.

installation finished and now I am up and running WTF the speed at which gnome is reponding is nice really nice :).

This just made my day ok let me testing things out more throughly I will report it out later

Experiment #1: Linux on Toshiba Satellite M40

2008-02-28T06:38:00.000-05:00

My Toshiba Laptop was giving me issue with over heating since it was still in warranty I cannot open the hood to look in and I did not have time to take it to FutureShop. The Main Problem was that it has windows XP Home SP2 which works extremely slow and it was overheating so the laptop was going to be used Temporarily until I could get it fixed for about week for that I did not want a livecd but an installed OS because I did not have enough memory (512MB RAM).

So let look at 3 OS that I have been hearing from my friends and which I used as below

Ubuntu (I went with Ubuntu 7.10 i386 Livecd)

Fedora Core (I went with Fedora Core 8 i386 DVD and the Gnome based Livecd)

OpenSuse (I went with OpenSuse 10.2 i386 DVD)

My Toshiba M40 configuration:

Intel Centrino 1.6GHZ Processor
512MB RAM
128MB Nvidia Geforce 6600 Graphic Adapter
DVD RAM
Intel Wireless 50Mbps Adapter
Ethernet
USB 2.0 Ports
Firewire Port
S-Video Port

Ubuntu :

Installation was started and finished in no time but one problem I did not like the fact that I did not get a choice of application I wanted to install. After installation I was able to install all the application I wanted and the updates were also installed perfectly. I was able to install drivers for my Nvidia card without problems and get the Graphics acceleration fine. When I tried to run FireFox the flash plug-in was not installing but I managed to fix it after deleting the plug-in installed and reinstalling flash from add and remove applications and everything was working fine.

Fedora Core:

I got curious and decided to see how Fedora Core 8 install. The install was not much but I was able to select the applications I wanted from there but I had a problem installing from DVD due to some hardware issue which I did not know which may be the DVD drive. I went with the LiveCD with gnome on it and it was installed without any issues. After installation however I was not able to install the Nvidia Drivers properly and nor was I able to get some of the settings right and ended up screwing up the OS.

OpenSuse:

then I Decided to go with OpenSuse 10.2. Installation went well as usual no complaints there but again I was not able to get the Display drivers working and main issue was with the settings which I did not have time to waste on.

Conclusion:

So Considering everything All the distributions installation was fine both the OS and Application in Ubuntu it did not have the option to choose the packages but overall installation no complaints. The setup and drivers Ubuntu takes the prize there quick and few clicks only.

So if you are new to Linux and don't know what you want or need go for Ubuntu sort most of the issues for you on this laptop.

I think the main problem with most new users is that they want use an OS with minimum setup and support that can be followed easily on Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon.

Overall difficulties will always remain navigating on the terminal or Command line environment for all new users especially windows users who have never used command prompt. The Environment is different for me so trying to configure things and editing Configuration files needs more than a little work in Linux but at the end of it all it is worth it. The main reason why it is worth it is that with Linux you are customizing you OS with the Hardware you have so it works better and longer. On the other hand every time a new MS Windows OS comes out it looks good for a few months on your PC then slowly it becomes a CPU and RAM hog. The worst is that I find the Linux graphics are way better even without the XGL or compizfusion or any 3d Desktop stuff.

So overall I find Linux does well to revive my Laptop and make it look better than windows could without any extra Memory or CPU Power. There is no way Vista will ever go on my Laptop but now I am interested in having Dual Booting my Laptop with Windows XP and Ubuntu 7.10. so wait and see how we can do that one.

Just Started Getting My Blogs Online

2008-02-27T13:54:00.001-05:00

I have been a Tech Support Guy for 9 years now I had my website at one point on the web but was never bothered about it at that time but now ever since Blogger came out I wanted to get my voice heard.

Now I have an archive of my blogs that I will be uploading soon on blogger so beware.

Each Blog I create will be about an Experiment or advice for something that I use that is technology oriented whether I use it for my self or for my work. This means something that I do like regular software for personal use or something that I use for work a server or just something I came across that was cool.

Coming Soon
Experiment#1: Linux on a Toshiba satellite M40 Laptop
Experiment#2: UbuntuStudio 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon on Toshiba satellite M40 Laptop

.....more Coming Soon.......