Technology at work and play

Extending your HTC Desire’s battery life

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Sat, 28 May 2011 16:32:00 +0000

I’ve been asked for suggestions on how to do this a ton of times; here are several tweaks I use for my HTC Desire that easily extend its battery life to get me through the day. And with charge to spare. Do these (in no specific order):

Disable 'Background Data' from Settings | Accounts and Sync. This notorious setting sucks battery life big time by keeping tons of Google apps (Gmail, Contacts, Calendar etc) continuously in sync. Better to just let these apps update only when you need them.
Install Advanced Task Killer--a super little app that lets you 'kill' unnecessarily running apps as often as you need. I invoke this several times a day; especially after extended bouts of using multiple apps. This one's a must-have.
Disable any radios when you don't need them (WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS). I've installed nifty shortcut widgets to these radio settings on my home screen--beats having to poke into the Settings screen each time.
Beware of installing unverified apps--some of these run continuously and suck battery life.

Bonus tip: If you know you’re going to be in a location with no cellular service, switch your phone to airplane mode. This disables all radios (including cellular,) and prevents your phone from ‘searching’ for a signal and draining its battery in the process.

Not just for the HTC Desire—these tweaks should work with virtually any Android device. Made a huge difference for me, but your mileage may vary.

Must-have Android apps

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 11:24:00 +0000

A few months ago I traded in my Windows Mobile phone for an Android device. From the research I did back then, going over to the Android platform seemed like the most natural thing to do, given my requirements. And I haven’t regretted it since.

Sporting a fantastic user interface, spiffy response, plenty of great apps that can be downloaded and installed over the air, and the ability to synchronize all of my contacts and calendar information with the Google cloud makes it a very compelling proposition indeed. I’m also pretty happy with the capabilities and features on my Samsung i7500 Galaxy (5PM camera, LED flash, WiFi, Accelerometer, GPS, 3.2-inch AMOLED screen et al), though support is a different issue altogether—Samsung seems to have completely forgotten about this phone in their firmware update strategy. Be that as it may, Android is a great platform and one that I think I’ll be with for a while. Going by the industry and consumer support, and the strides they’re making with each release, Android is certainly in it for the long run.

I’ve tried out numerous apps from their store—some great, some that I disposed of not long after using them. So in no particular order (and in debatable classification), here are the ones that are on my phone to stay:

Fun

Shazam: Undoubtedly cool: can’t recall the name of that song on the radio? Shazam it!
Layar: A great augmented reality browser—you’ve got to use it to experience it
FxCamera: Fun image effects with your camera phone
Google Sky: Totally awesome—point your phone at a star and it pulls up info on it!
Foursquare: The social networking app that’s making waves—especially useful if you’re a party animal/pub crawler/foodie
Facebook: If you have a Facebook account (what? you don’t??) you’ll need this on your phone
10001 Cocktails: ‘nuff said
Barcode scanner: Works with most barcodes—fun to show off with
Fartdroid: Yes, it is. Loads of laughs, and with timed release!
Schottgunn: A fun, senseless shotgun simulation app
AK-47: Like Schottgunn: a fun, senseless AK-47 app
Tesla sparks: Touch the screen and see groovy tesla sparks. Pointless. Fun.
The Schwartz Unsheathed: The glory of the Jedi light sabre in your Android phone—complete with cool sound effects!
Air horn: Great for waking up your colleague dozing off in the next cubicle at 3PM!

Productivity

Fring: A VOIP telephony app that connects to MSN, Google, Skype etc
K9 Mail e-mail client: A pretty feature packed and capable POP/SMTP mail client
AK Notepad: Great notepad/reminder application
Voice Recorder: Turns your Android into a dictaphone
Thesaurus: Never be at a loss for words
Wapedia: Wikipedia on your phone

Utilities

SlideIT: An excellent, intuitive alternative to Android’s default on-screen keyboard
Wifi Static: Switch Wi-Fi profiles, along with your phones’ IP configuration
Locale: Auto-switch features of your phone (ringer, Wi-Fi, bluetooth etc) based on your location
Astro file manager: Must, must have file manager
Opera Mini 5 Beta: An Android port of the browser you know and love
Dolphin browser: A pretty cool browser; try it and you might like it
Ringdroid: Intuitively slice MP3s files right on your phone, then save them as ringtones!
Google Translate: Very handy if you’re travelling, or want to impress your better half with a pseudo-knowledge of French of Spanish
Photoshop for Android: A very scaled-down version of the bloatware imaging app we all know and love. No, it’s actually pretty nice.
MyBackup: Backup all of your Android’s data—great when flashing your phone
Android Agenda Widget: A neat widget that puts important calendar entries right up there on your home screen

Games

Poke-a-mole: Totally fun and very addictive
Trap: A very neat, and very addictive game—hard to explain, easy to get the hang of. Try it!
Hit the Penguin: If you’ve played the online Flash version, you’ll love this one
Abducted: Nice time-killer, uses your phone’s tilt sensor
Replica Island: Great 2D-side scrolling adventure game with neat graphics
Throttle copter: A fun side-scrolling ‘copter game
Paper toss: My favorite!
Chess: Uses a pretty challenging engine
Pinball: Yep, a classic way to kill time
Labyrynth Lite: A fun maze game that uses your phone’s tilt sensor

Four steps: From point-and-shoot to pro!

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 16:20:00 +0000

Being a good photographer is more than just having the best equipment or getting plenty of practice. To be able to truly ‘tell a story’ through imagery, there are certain rules of thumb I’ve come to learn—rules that can almost instantly notch up photography skills. Here, then, is a quick list of points to bear in mind each time you’re poised to click that shutter button, and a few associated techniques I use that can help nail that shot.

Focus: Even the best software and most advanced computer cannot save a photograph that’s out of focus. Unless you intentionally want blur in your photograph, you absolutely and positively need to ensure that the key subject in your shot is in focus.
Technique: Master the art of pre-focusing the camera before shooting. Pre-focusing or focus lock is a mode that almost every digital camera has—it’s what enables you to half-press the shutter button (during which time the camera focuses, calculates exposure, and blazes through all the processing required to take that shot). The actual photo is captured only when you completely press the shutter release button and you hear the ‘click’. So, yes, get used to pre-focusing.
Next, Look through your camera’s viewfinder and you’re likely to see a pattern similar to the one shown above. This pattern helps you determine how the camera focuses. In this case, the five double-bracket boxes indicate the five focusing zones the camera uses to determine which part of the scene to focus on. The box in the center of the viewfinder is your best friend—set your camera to ‘Center Focus’, the mode that only considers that center reticle as the focus point. Then point the camera so that the center point is on the subject, half-click, then reposition the view to frame as required before completely clicking. This technique will ensure your key subjects are always in focus—no more blurry person in the foreground and sharply focused (but boring) trees in the background.

Composition: Composition is the process of framing your scene, so that there’s a balance among all of the elements. When looking at a scene through your camera, think of the scene as being divided into imaginary thirds, both horizontally and vertically (see the lighthouse example here). As a rule of thumb, aligning the key elements in your scene with these ‘third’ positions is proven to lend balance to photographs. Sure this is subjective, but view online examples using the ‘rule of thirds’ and you’ll see what I mean.
Technique: The trick is to frame your scene so that the key elements get the most ‘visual weightage’ and the lesser elements are eliminated. Feel free to also use the zoom, or move and change your perspective until you find the right frame. Hint: Use the focus lock technique described earlier right before you frame. That way you can focus on your key subject, then move it to a different part of the frame for creative composition before clicking to capture the photo. Even after you’ve shot the photo, feel free to crop your image to eliminate unnecessary elements (for example, random people at the edge of the photo, or an intrusive tree branch spoiling an otherwise good portrait).

Exposure: Exposure is actually a pretty complex part of photography, and one that is integral to the art. It is the process of determining the correct shutter speed, aperture and film speed, which determines how much light is captured by the camera. Fortunately, today’s digital cameras do all of the hard work for us, and compute these values in a blink of an eye during the time it takes to press the shutter button! Correct exposure means that the key element of interest in the photo (be it a model, car, landscape or pet) looks naturally lit—not to dark or too bright.
Technique: As a rule of thumb, if your key subject looks badly lit (too dark or too bright), point the camera so the subject is in the center of the frame, then focus lock (yeah, focus lock again—it’s that invaluable!), then reposition to frame the scene as you desire before clicking. If you’re so inclined (and if your camera supports it), play around with the shutter speed or aperture to make your camera take in less or more light from the scene (higher shutter speed or higher aperture number=lesser light into the camera, and vice versa). Take heart—minor mistakes in exposure can be fixed using software like Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom, or even photo managers like Picasa.

Subject: Finally, a good photo also depends on how good the subject is, so keep your eyes peeled for great photo opportunities. Good photo ops needn’t be posed; even the most mundane of scenes—the rapture of a dog playing in the street, or the thematic contrast of an old man standing beside a little child—are great photo ops.
Technique: The trick is to get sensitized to noticing these opportunities—very often the real photo is not immediately apparent. You need to move around, sometimes change your point of view to notice a potentially great shot. Even for posed photos, try to set up the scene to bring the best out of your subject. Make them smile, grant importance to key attributes in their personality, or try to reposition them so they’re in soft lighting where possible (maybe shoot in the natural light of dawn or dusk).

At the end of the day, the secret lies in technique. You don’t need to master every mode of your camera to be able to take photos that tell a story, but bringing the elements above together will lift your photography from amateur to a definitive prosumer. Beyond these basics, there are several methods available that can lift your photography even higher—image processing, HDR etc. But that’s another story. Best of all, digital photography is forgiving when it comes to practicing: hit the delete button and start over! So go ahead—experiment away.

The holy grail of computer graphics

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 18:09:00 +0000

When it comes to serving up high-quality graphics on a computer, we’ve come a long, long way indeed. From the days of Pong, Atari and the Commodore 64, we now have supercomputing-class boxes in our very home in the form of devices like the PlayStation 3. Even computers, with their graphics card containing fancy components like stream processors that boast of delivering realistic graphics in games and visualization applications, there doesn’t seem to be any slowdown in the pace of innovation in this exciting sector of computing. Computer graphics bigwigs like ATI and Nvidia continue to pursue the honor of being top-dog graphics company by creating more powerful graphics processors, more transistors and ever higher clock speeds.

The story so far
All 3D scenes are composed of little ‘facets’ called polygons—the greater the number of polygons to build a 3D model, the greater the detail. Faster processors enable faster polygon processing, resulting in more detailed scenes that can be rendered quicker. Simple, right? However, this approach is not necessarily one that is extensible, especially given that these days chip fabrication processes are pushing the 55 nanometer range (which is very close to atomic dimensions). So physically, there’s every possibility of running into a stone wall in the near future—it is not possible to fabricate at sub-atomic dimensions. Unless of course scientists make massive leaps in practical quantum physics. But that doesn’t look likely.

The game changer
So along comes a self-taught enthusiast from Australia called Bruce Dell, who proposes a completely different graphics rendering paradigm called Unlimited Detail. He suggests that polygon-processing capabilities should no longer be the baseline of graphics computing prowess. The idea is to treat every point of light on your monitor (yes, the pixels) as the prime element in the 3D scene. In the 3D world, these discrete points are called voxels (many of which make up point clouds). With Unlimited Detail, Dell claims that the rendering engine now acts much like a search engine that basically just decides which points of light to show on the screen, depending on the particular view that needs to be displayed in that 3D scene, the resolution of the screen and other such factors. This approach can drastically cut down the amount of processing power required, as the rendering engine only concerns itself with showing what a user sees. The net result? Hyper-realistic 3D imagery that can be rendered completed in software, with no special hardware support required. I know, it does sound too good to be true. It’s still early days for this technology, but this proof-of-concept demo of Unlimited Detail here provides a compelling argument indeed.

Unlimited Detail - an explanation

There’s another video from the creator of this technology, where he provides a more narrative explanation of how this technology contrasts to the current-day approach.

If this technology does take off, I can’t wait to see God of War 4 in Unlimited Detail. Wow.

Mobile gaming: Augmented reality with the Nvidia Tegra

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:25:00 +0000

These days, consumers increasingly want to take their experiences with them—be it gaming, movies, music, or the Internet. Devices like the Sony PSP, the iPod, multimedia cellphones, and video-capable portable media players do just this—they provide entertainment no matter where you are. But when it comes to portable devices, there are several invisible yet real barriers to a good experience—battery life and processing power. Manufacturers are grappling with these very issues while developing the next funky cell phone or portable gaming device. The Holy Grail lies in the ability to integrate console-class graphics capabilities with day-long battery life. And it looks like Nvidia (a leader in the development of processors for gaming and visualization) is very close to that elusive goal. With the launch of their Tegra processor, they can now offer phone and handheld game device manufacturers the ability to play high-definition movies and desktop class games on portable devices. If you’re a gamer, think Doom 3 class graphics on a handheld device. If you’re movie buff think watching 1080p-class high-definition video on a ultra-crisp portable OLED screen.

It gets better—when you marry the inherent portability of devices like cell phones and Mobile Internet Devices with the fact that they have fairly high-resolution cameras, something amazing happens. Check out the video below of a portable device powered by the Tegra processor, and how developers have been able to ‘augment’ the game on screen with the real word as seen through the mobile camera. Very, very cool.

Augmented reality enabled by the Nvidia Tegra processor

Imagine owning a phone in the near future having this kind of capability, and running around a table-top map with friends in a multiplayer game, or even taking the game outside the house and augmenting the undead into your quiet neighborhood—sounds trippy! Only problem I see is gamers of the future having to grapple with the inability to detach themselves from their virtual world, and get back into the here and now. But hey, it’d be a fun ride before that.

Marketing folks have already jumped onto the augmented reality bandwagon—check out this cool marketing campaign by Ford UK, to promote the launch of the Ford Ka.

All-time great sci-fi movies of the videotape era

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:09:00 +0000

When it came to figuring out what to do with my life, there never really was any doubt about what I’d become—an engineer. I remember the numerous times I stoically opened those steel wind-up alarm clocks, to see what made them tick, or took apart music systems (even my VCR, when I was all of 10 years old, to find out how to un-jam that tape!). Needless to say, not all of these exploits were successful—in fact, most were outright disasters. Over the years, I left behind a sizeable wake of cannibalized motors from toys, wrecked stereo systems, and bed sheets that bore scars from trysts with 240-volt electricity (yes, there was the time I nearly got a nice domestic fire going—and we didn’t have a fireplace).

Sure I had my fair share of chastising, but through it all mum and dad did all they could to ensure that I had a steady supply of science and technology influences throughout my formative years—from the junior microscope sets, to telescopes, to electronic do-it-yourself kits. I was, indeed, blessed.

But when it came to igniting a spark of interest in the budding scientist in me, the biggest influencers had to have been movies—I believe the 80s produced some of the most spectacular science fiction movies ever created. Looking back, the fact that the special effects were nowhere as advanced as today’s productions did in no way detract the sheer innovation and soul that characterized many of those movies. Being the era of VHS (where copying was cumbersome and downloading was out of the question), every movie was treasured, and the act of watching it was a family affair, often followed by hours and days of animatedly discussing, dissecting and reliving the storyline.

In no particular order, here’s a list of what I believe are some of the greatest sci-fi movies of the videotape era. If you ever get a chance to watch any of these, I guarantee that they’ll be pure, family entertainment. And if you have a budding techie sitting on the couch in your living room, (s)he’s bound to have great memories of them in the years ahead.

Flight of the Navigator (1986) A fascinating story about a UFO that selects and befriends a boy to help it get back home. I still think that this is one of the most amazing-looking UFOs ever shown on celluloid. Period.
D.A.R.Y.L. (1985) Another movie that centers around a young boy, who’s the subject of NASA experiments that make him hyper-intelligent. And the best part of this movie (spoiler alert ahead!)—in the end he flies a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird—my favorite aircraft, bar none!
TRON (1982) Conceptually, this movie was way ahead of its time—a computer geek gets mysteriously transported into a computer, and must battle his way to get out alive—by fighting against its games, one on one! This movie had one of the most spectacular effects of its time, and the action sequences (on those bike thingies, especially), were awesome! BTW: TRON was a function used in good ol’ programming languages like BASICA, meaning TRaceON—it was used for debugging!
Return to Oz (1985) If you liked the Wizard of Oz, you’re bound to love this movie. This isn’t a happy, bouncy continuation of the original, but instead puts Dorothy and her band of misfits in a darker, more sinister realm. Fascinating story, great characters.
Return of the Jedi (1983) Which geek doesn’t revere this movie? This was actually the first Start Wars episode I watched, and I instantly fell in love with every aspect of it. After this movie, there was no looking back from Han Solo, the Light Sabres, and Vader.
Short Circuit (1986) A charming movie about a battle robot that takes on human characteristics after a close encounter with a lightening bolt. Besides looking downright cute in its own right, this robot is actually quite evocative of our modern-day Wall-E.
Back to the Future (1985) A sports car that doubles up as a time machine, hover skateboards, and a host of other cool gadgets—ingredients for one rocker of a sci-fi movie! Because of this movie, the gull-wing DeLorean was one of my favorite sports cars at the time. Arguably one of Michael J. Fox’ most memorable roles, this is one of those must-see, must-own pieces of cinemagic!
*batteries not included (1987) Looking back, I think this is a grossly underrated movie—it’s a story about an adorable pair of extra-terrestrial robots that ‘adopt’ a tenement-full of misfits. A brilliant story, and great visual effects.
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) Spielberg’s magnum opus. ‘nuff said.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) Answering all those questions surrounding aliens and UFOs, this movie was a complete eye-opener, and a visual tour de force of its time.

All images sourced from www.imdb.com

Reduce noise in your digital photos

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:24:00 +0000

Noise is one of the most evident demons in digital photography—often manifested in those numerous, tiny, unsightly colored spots seen on the skin, skies and shadows in photos. While the best way to assuage image noise is to set your digital camera to use a lower ISO setting, this isn’t the optimal solution situations like shooting a dark scene, for example. So what do you do if you’re forced to shoot at a higher ISO, but still want to reduce the amount of noise in your images? You have several options—using one of the noise reduction filters in your image editing software, or using dedicated noise reduction tools like Neat Image or Noise Ninja. But there’s a simpler (and free) method to reduce the noise in your digital photos while maintaining overall image sharpness—it’s a technique based on the principle of averaging. Before we go into the details of this technique, a heads up on where this technique can and cannot be used:

You can use this technique to significantly reduce random image noise and sensor noise. This technique cannot be used against fixed noise patterns like bands, chromatic aberrations etc. The adjoining image shows what sensor (random) noise looks like.
This technique can only be used in still life shots or landscapes. It cannot be used to on shots of people, animals or scenes containing motion. You’ll see why later.

And now, on to the method.

Shooting the images: You will first need to take several shots of the same scene. The trick is to take the exact same photo of the scene keeping all settings constant across the shots. It is imperative that the images are perfectly aligned, so its best to shoot using a sturdy tripod, or by resting your camera on a solid surface.
Averaging the images: The cool thing about a mathematical average is that it brings a range of values to a ‘mean’ level. When applied to digital noise, averaging has the effect of reducing the effect of random noise across the image. Here’s how you do it:
Load the images you shot into your favorite image editor. I’ve used Photoshop in this example. Make sure to load each image into its own layer, and also ensure that each image exactly overlaps the other—do not displace the images during this step. If you’re using Photoshop, the best way to ensure all images are aligned is by holding down [CTRL] and [SHIFT] while dragging the images into each layer with the Move tool.
Change the opacity of each layer. Averaging is achieved by changing the opacity of each layer. Basically, each layer will need to contribute the same amount to the overall effect. Think of these layers as transparencies stacked atop each other—if we use four layers and we set each one’s opacity to 25%, it won’t achieve the effect we need. Why? Because the higher layers will need to be less opaque (more transparent) than the ones below, as these higher layers affect the apparent opacity of the ones below. Case in point: If you’ve shot five source images, you will need to set the layer opacity as follows: Layer4: 25% Layer3: 33% Layer2: 50% Layer1: 100% This is assuming Layer1 is at the bottom of the stack and Layer4 is at the top as indicated alongside. Also ensure the layer blend mode is Normal. You’ll see the effect of the noise reduction as you change the opacity levels.

If you’re mathematically inclined, the formula for calculating the opacity of each layer is:

Use this formula and you’ll figure out how we arrived at the percentages in the example above. You can use as many images as you want, but four or five images should be sufficient—the results of this technique won’t noticeable even if you use more.

When you’re done altering the layers’ opacity, merge them and save your image.
Voila, you have a cleaner image! I shot this photo at ISO 1600 on my Nikon D40—click below to see the results up close.

Audit your computer’s hardware and software

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:41:00 +0000

Ever wanted to know the gory details of your computer’s hardware and software configuration without having to painstakingly study each of its components? If you’re a geek, that answer would be a resounding yes. If you’re not, it doesn’t hurt to know, right?

Even though this isn’t the most exciting of ways to spend your time, knowing what your computer consists of is knowledge. And that’s power! I use WinAudit—a useful freeware application that does exactly this. Sounds simple enough, and it is. But the level of detail it brings up in the audit report is quite amazing—be it the serial number of your computer’s optical drive or the exact stepping of the processor, this application quickly and efficiently generates a host of information about the target system.

The program is a snap to use—simply launch it, click the Options button to select the categories you want to audit, then click Audit. It will run for a couple of seconds, then display its findings in neat categories. You can also save this report in a variety of formats including PDF, CSV (for Excel), Text, HTML or even XML. Better yet, you can launch this program from the command line—meaning you can write a simple batch file, and make it do its work with a single click. Check the program’s help in the ‘Command Line Usage’ section for information on the numerous tags you can use for automated command line logging.

As an example, here’s how to create a batch file that launches the program, audits the most important system categories, and write a CSV file to the same location as the program:

Open Notepad
Type the following: WinAudit.exe /r=gPtabz /o=CSV
Save this file in the same directory as the WinAudit program, and name it Audit.bat

Simply run this batch file—the program silently audits your system and creates a detailed system report in the same directory. You can also copy the program and the batch file to a USB drive, and use it to quickly generate a report of several computers. If you’re a system administrator, you’ll find this immensely useful for quickly generating system audit reports of several computers. If you’re not, it’s a cool tool to learn about your computer’s detailed specifications. Also use it while buying a new computer or laptop to make sure you’re getting what you paid for!

Fluid interfaces, and wearing your sixth sense

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:38:00 +0000

I recently came across this this truly awe-inspiring implementation of technology--a device that empowers you to intuitively pull up information on virtually anything in the world around you. Sounds too fantastic to be true? Click the image to see this proof of concept in action, as demonstrated at a recent TED presentation. And if you're looking for a regular dose of truly cutting-edge thinking and ideology, I highly recommend visiting the TED Web site and watching (or downloading) their fantastic lectures.

I think I just used up my quota of superlatives for this month. But with reason.

Automating your Web browser

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:37:00 +0000

These days, finding ways to be more productive and efficient is key to staying ahead. When it comes to general office work, browsing the Web or working on online forms and Web sites takes up a significant part of our working hours. In the normal course of working on Web sites, you'll notice a large amount of repetition in the tasks you do--logging into your favorite sites, entering registration information into online forms, transferring image and text data between your computer and the Internet... this list goes on. So how does it sound if I told you there's a way to automate these repetitive tasks, so that they can be performed with a single click? For starters, it would save a heck of a lot of time each day, and accrued over days and months it would translate into considerable savings and higher productivity, leaving you with more time for stuff you like doing!

I use Firefox as my primary Web browser, and have been using a great little Add-on called iMacros to automate many things I do on the Web. From doing something as simple as logging into my Gmail account, to rebooting by DSL modem at specifics time each day (I'm on an Internet plan that offers unlimited data transfer between midnight and 8am, but I need to restart my modem at these times), I've created macros that have enabled me to free up gobs of time. Here's a brief walk-through for automating your Web browser:

First, download the iMacros Add-on for IE of Firefox from here. After installing it, launch it by clicking on the toolbar button that shows up in your Web browser. Hint: Click the images for a larger view.
You'll see several demo scripts in the sidebar--double-click one and you'll see it launch into action using demo scenarios. If you're so inclined, you can click on a preset script, then click the Edit Macro button to view the code that drives the script. Reading these lines should give you fair idea about how it works.
If you don't want to be bothered with writing code, you can simply have iMacros record your actions as you click through Web sites and enter information--the relevant code gets created automatically. To record a new macro using this method, click the Rec tab in the sidebar, then click the Record button. Then use your browser as you would while performing a given task--iMacros records your actions such as information typed in, and buttons, tabs and links clicked. Click the Stop button when you're finished. Rename the new macro that appears in the side bar to something indicative of your recorded task.

The next time you want to run that task, simple double-click on the macro name, and watch as iMacros launches and does your work for you--in record time!

To help you get up to speed, see the iMacros support page for tutorials and code samples.

Next up, I'll write about how I created a script that reboots by DSL modem at specific times, enabling me to better utilize my unlimited night time download bandwidth.

Origami works of art

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 10:50:00 +0000

In an earlier post, I mentioned my interest in paper folding, and how fascinating it is to build interesting objects from simple materials. Back in school, I remember those lazy summer days, when I used to try and create everything from Origami flapping birds, to geometric shapes, to aerodynamically accurate paper aircraft! Of course, not all these endeavors were met with success, but it was a heck of a lot of fun.

Having been bitten by the paper folding bug recently, I decided to dig a little deeper and find out exactly how complex this art form can get. These days, there are hundreds of Web resources that will teach you the fine art of making paper models, complete with scientific explanations, and even instructional videos--it's on a different level altogether! An hour of digging through online resources and I came away amazed. Here are some of the best paper folding models I found--they can take anywhere from a few minutes to over 40 hours to create!

First up is what is touted to be the World's best paper airplane. Known as the O'Reilly airplane, it features all the aeronautics you could want in a paper aircraft--working rudders, stabilizers and flaps. Best of all, it takes minutes to build, and is scalable--the larger and stiffer the paper, the better it is likely to fly! Click here for the step-by-step folding instructions, and here for a video on how to fold the plane.
Another one of my personal favorite paper airplanes is the 'Barnaby'. Designed by an ex-US Navy pilot, this plane is one of the easiest to build, and it flies like a dream! Click here for the step-by-step folding instructions.
Moving on to more traditional forms of Origami, one of my favorite (and more challenging) paper objects is the Kawasaki rose. You'll need at least intermediate paper folding skills to attempt this model, but the results are great. Click here to download the PDF of the folding instructions.
Then there's this ultra-cool and super-realistic Noboru Miyajima bat! The level of detail and faithfulness to anatomy in this model is truly awesome. This is a rather involved model (it consists of a shade over 100 folding steps). But then again, the results are fantastic. Click here to download the PDF of the folding instructions.
If you're a movie buff, you'll be stoked by the characters on this page--you'll find Gandalf, Yoda and even Wall-E, all Origami-fied! Not all the authors have shared the folding instructions, but you'll find a video of the Wall-E character on this page.

Later on, when you get bored of folding 100-step Origami characters, you'll want something that presents a bit more of a challenge. If you're like Satoshi Kamiya, a 27-year-old guy from Japan, you should be ready for the 200+ step designs. This guy is credited with developing some of the most advanced and complex Origami ever folded. Relying solely on his intuition and skill (that's right, no computer programs to assist), he creates true works of art with paper--from dragons, to mythical creatures, to animals and fish, check out the level of detail that's possible with with paper folding.

And then at the pinnacle of his skill...

This is an 8-inch model of an Eastern dragon, and is detailed with eyes, teeth, a tongue, whiskers, a barbed tail, and over 1,000 individual scales on its body. And yes, this model was folded from a single piece of paper. I'm in awe.

Check out this video of Satoshi Kamiya at work:

He's authored a book containing the folding instructions of all these fantastic paper models. If you're so inclined, you can buy it from here.

Finally, check out these informative online Origami resources here and here.

Playing classic DOS games using Microsoft Virtual PC

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:34:00 +0000

If you were a teenager during the late 80s or early 90s, you'll be awash with a wave of nostalgia when you read these words: Dangerous Dave. Wolfenstein 3D. Doom. Prince. Zaxxon. Brings back memories, right? If you're still clueless, these are classic DOS-based games that used to take up a sizeable portion of our leisure time back in the day! Still don't know what I'm talking about? Well, DOS is a text-based PC operating system... oh, never mind--you're way too young to be reading this post! If you really must know, I'm talking about an era where the GUI was still several years away, a time when computers were built using 386 and 486 processors, with a whopping 8MB of RAM, and 240MB hard disks. *Sigh*... those were the days--the heady, primordial era of personal computing.

I revisited those days recently when I was experimenting with a cool application that lets you run any operating system--current, past, or upcoming--within your present Windows operating system. That's right, you can run an operating system as if it were an application! I'm talking about Microsoft Virtual PC--a small, free software that emulates another PC within yours. Sounds confusing? Well it isn't really. This application creates an isolated area in your system, within which you can install and run a completely different operating system as if it were another computer. You can even reboot it and watch it go through the boot-up POST sequence in it's own window!

You might have heard of a similar application called VMWare, which does the same thing, but VMWare is rather expensive compared to Microsoft Virtual PC, which is free. But then Virtual PC is primarily built to run Windows operating systems, of course.

Among other things, I used Virtual PC to install and experiment with a beta copy of the upcoming Windows 7 (Build 7000). Alongside this, I also created a Virtual PC running good ol' DOS 6.22, and dug up a whole load of DOS applications and games. I also located and installed an ISO of Windows for Workgroups 3.11! Click the screenshot above for a larger view--there's Windows 7 on the left, Widows 3.11 to the right, and the Virtual PC Console at the lower right, showing the two running operating systems. All of this was running on my Windows XP laptop.

Here's a quick run-through of how to create a Virtual PC:

1. Download Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 from here, then install it. Run the program and you'll see the Virtual PC Console. On first run, you obviously won't have any Virtual Machines (VMs) installed--shown here are the two VMs I created. To create a VM, click the New... button to launch the New Virtual Machine Wizard.
2. Click Next to proceed.
3. This screen displays choices for creating a new VM, using default settings to create a VM, and adding an existing VM. Select the first option, and click Next.
4. Type in a name and select the location for your new VM, then click Next.
5. This screen helps you configure the environment for your VM, depending on the operating system you want to install in it. Select the appropriate OS from the drop-down menu, or select 'Other'. Click Next to proceed.
6. You can go with the recommend RAM for your VM, or specify the amount. Your choice will obviously depend on how much RAM your computer has, and the requirements of the OS you want to install in the VM. Note: Before allotting RAM to the VM, make sure you leave aside enough for your host operating system!
7. The Wizard will now create a virtual hard disk, in which you'll be installing your virtual OS! Choose to create a new virtual hard disk, click Next...
8... and specify the location and size of this hard disk.
9. Finally, click Finish, and the wizard will create your Virtual PC!

Your new Virtual PC will now appear in the Virtual PC Console. Double-click it to start it, and you'll see it going through the boot sequence. Obviously, on first run it will search for a boot device and will prompt you accordingly. Before you can use the Virtual PC, you'll need to format the virtual hard disk, and load an operating system on it. To start, download a bootable CD or floppy disk image from here, and load the appropriate ISO file using the Floppy | Capture Floppy Disk Image or the CD | Capture ISO image. You should now be able to format the virtual hard disk as you would a normal one. After that, load your operating system and configure it to your liking!

Here are a few screenshots from my 'Classic DOS games' virtual machine.

For more resources on Microsoft Virtual Machine see here and here. Also see here for special information on running MS-DOS on Virtual PC 2007. Enjoy!

Cubeecraft: Geeked-out cutouts!

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 10:15:00 +0000

I've always liked paper folding, and have been following arts like Origami ever since the early school days. I know--it's not a guy thing, but I was interested in it from the mathematical standpoint. Or so I explained. Even the simple act of flying paper airplanes was complicated with extended pursuits of trying to hone them for prolonged flight, or funky acrobatics!

Then a couple of days ago, I came across this ultra-cool site, and was bitten by the paper folding bug once again. The author of this site has pretty much nailed down the art of creating some of the coolest paper characters I've seen. And what characters! Classics like Mario (of the Super Brothers fame), Darth Vader, Sonic the Hedgehog, Spiderman, Superman... heck, there's even Kratos (from God of War), Pinky (from Pinky and the Brain), and Obama! If you're particularly skilled in digital illustration, you can also download a blank cutout template and try your hand at creating your own character!

Creating one of these characters is relatively simple--head over to the Cubeecraft Web site, download a cutout template, print it at 150dpi on an A4 cardstock paper (thick paper begets a longer-lasting character), and use a pair of scissors and a blade to carefully cut out the shapes. Each character is composed of five or more 'sections' that must be folded and assembled into the final character. Best of all, the sections have a glue-less design so the process is relatively clean (discounting the cutout shrapnel, of course).

The FAQ explains the assembly clearly, but know that you'll require at least an hour to complete each character. Your mileage may vary depending on your dexterity in wielding cutting instruments, and your patience through this exercise--creating some of those slits and tabs can be quite painstaking.

But if done correctly, the end results are guaranteed to leave you stoked and addicted. Gotta... build... one... more... Cubee...!

DVD Flick: Converting videos to DVD

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 18:24:00 +0000

Ever needed to convert a whole lot of videos into a DVD? Here's a handy little tool that enables you to do just that: pop in a blank DVD, point the application to one (or more) videos on your hard disks, configure a few basic settings and boom--you have a DVD that will play on any conventional player. DVD Flick is especially useful for converting DivX movies into DVD format (great for sending movies to your mom who has an older DVD player, or for compiling and distributing video clips recorded on your digital camera).

DVD Flick is one of those ultra-handy Open Source applications that do a fantastic job of serving a specific requirement quickly and efficiently. Creating a DVD with this application is child's play. Start by downloading the program from here. After installing it, click the Guide icon on the top and you'll see a quick and easy run-through for creating a DVD. You can create a regular DVD in just a few clicks, with the default program settings. But you can also customize your DVD with additional audio tracks (such as director commentaries) and subtitles. You can add several videos in a given title, and the application will figure out how best to encode them to fit on a single DVD. You can choose between the single-layer DVD-5 format (4.7GB), the dual-layer DVD-9 format (8.54GB), or even the more exotic Mini-DVD (1.35GB or 2.47GB) formats. Of course, you will need the appropriate type of blank DVD to hold a given project. When creating a compilation of videos, you can even create an interactive menu that enables you to navigate your disk and select files during playback--much like the main menu of a conventional movie DVD.

DVD Flick will create a DVD from virtually any type of video file you might want to throw at it (it supports for over 70 video formats), including FLV, DivX, TrueHD, H.264, Apple Video and many more. See here for a complete list of audio and video codecs this versatile application supports.

Based on the powerful FFMPEG video processing engine, this is a processor-intensive application. So the time it takes to create a project will depend on your computer's horsepower. Fortunately, it supports and even detects multi-core processors--a definite advantage if you plan to use this program for a serious amount of DVD creation. Finally, you can use the program's built-in DVD burning capability, or have the application write the files to your hard disk where you can subsequently create your DVD using your favorite DVD burning application. Simple and fun!

Building a Web site using Kompozer

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:58:00 +0000

Now that we've gone through the motions of what's required to get started with building a Web site--booking the domain and selecting a hosting provider--we're now on to the final stage of actually building the Web site! This step involves creating the HTML files that contain the site content, and link to other elements like images, downloadable files and whatever else you might want to include on your Web site.

Building a Web site can be creative, or quick-and-dirty. The path you choose depends on:

Your skill with Web designing
Your knowledge of Web programming
Your access to Web design applications
The duration you have to complete the project

Assuming you're like me, you:

Have no formal training in Web programming or design
Have no Web programming skills
Are reasonably skilled with Photoshop and image editing

I know, this doesn't look like too promising a position to start at. But that's the beauty of the Internet coupled with a bit of passion--you can learn pretty much anything, and produce reasonably decent results. In my case, I embarked on my Web site building journey about a month ago while chatting with Anil, a close friend of mine who's spent the majority of his life doing some amazing work rehabilitating destitute, aged, and mentally challenged individuals. Having been doing this for over 20 years and operating on razor thin budgets, we decided that it was about time we put his Institute on the Web and make its work known to the World at large. That's when we decided to build a Web site for the Cardinal Gracias Institute.

After the idea took seed, we were completely stoked at the journey that lay ahead and dived headlong into it. In our five-step plan, we:

Created the site map and identified the site's major sections.
Wrote content for each of these sections and refined it until we were satisfied.
Selected the hosting provider hours of comparing (I finally chose Host Monster).
Went about designing and building each of the Web pages using Kompozer.
Incorporated cool functionality (rollovers, maps and slide shows) by digging up free code snippets from online resources.

I've already covered the first three points in my earlier posts, so here I'll mention briefly about my adventures with Kompozer--an open source Web authoring tool--and touch upon other resources I used to spruce up the Web site's functionality.

If you've heard of applications like Adobe DreamWeaver and Microsoft FrontPage, Kompozer lives lower down the capability scale, but still offers enough functionality to get started with Web design.

Let's start with the application's interface. At first glance, its toolbar closely resembles a word processor with the usual buttons for adding text, images and tables, and formatting these elements. But instead of creating document files, this application generates HTML files that can be subsequently uploaded to your Web server using the built-in FTP tool.
The large area beneath the toolbar displays your Web page in one of several views: Normal, HTML Tags, Source, and Preview. You can switch between these views by clicking on the tabs at the lower left of the interface. To learn more about this application, head over here for excellent explanations on its features and functionality.
I started building the Web site by first creating 'mock-ups' of how the key pages would look--this included the Home page, and the inner page templates. For the site design, I used a traditional header image on top, the navigation bar on the left, and a vertically scrolling content area. I took several photos when I visited the institute earlier, which I used extensively in the design. To keep all the images together, I created a table and arranged, merged and added cells to accommodate these images and text blocks on each page. You'll see the boundaries of each of the cells in the adjoining screenshot (click for a larger version). I designed these pages by studying the method described here. After creating the main home page, I simply created copies of this page and used these as starting points for the inner pages. Doing this ensured consistency.
I prepared the banner, side bar and the various photos using Photoshop, using basic Photoshop layer effects (outer glow and drop shadows). The swirly font in the main title and the side bar is 'Chopin', and is freely available. For all the images, I used 'Save for Web' (at 80 percent quality), as I found this to be the best blend of image clarity and file size. Remember that all Web elements should be as small as possible to result in the quickest page load performance.
I found a freely available Javascript code to create a rollover effect for the sidebar categories. To create these rollovers, I used two images for each of the category labels--one with the normal text, another with the outer glow effect. The Javascript code simply swaps the highlighted version with the normal version when you hover the mouse over each label. All I did was incorporate this Javascript code into the header section of the HTML pages, and make a few changes to the image references. I later stumbled upon a supposedly more elegant way to achieve this effect using the CSS method--see here for more details.
I incorporated a photo slide show in the site using the outrageously simple method of embedding a Picasa slideshow into a Web page. Using a similar approach, I also embedded a neat Google map pinpointing the location of the Institute on the 'Contact us' page.

Feel free to head over to the Cardinal Gracias Institute Web site to see how these techniques took to life.

On a separate note, I'd really appreciate if you could spend a few minutes to learn more about the selfless work that Anil and his dedicated team do at the Institute. Feel free to contact him directly if you're keen on knowing more, visiting the institute, or (better still) helping out in cash or kind.

Setting up your own Web site: Part two

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:49:00 +0000

When it comes to setting up your own Web site, this much is clear--it's easier than you think. It all begins with getting a firm handle on the focus and intent of your Web site, and pulling together compelling content (see my earlier post here). The next step is to shop for online services that will help you book your domain name, and actually host your Web site. Let's see how this works:

Booking the domain name: Quite simply, the domain name is the name of your Web site. The first thing you'll need to do is check whether it is available. To do so, you can head over to one of hundreds of available Domain Registrars--these are authorized services that sell domain names. Some of the more popular ones are Network Solutions, Act Now Domains or Register.com. All you need to do is type in your preferred site name in the search field, and you'll find out whether it taken or not. When you find a name that's available, you choose the duration for which you want to book the domain name (ranging from a couple of months to several years--the longer you book it for the cheaper it works out). All domain registrars accept payment by a secure credit card transaction.
While deciding a domain name, remember to keep it short, simple and easy to remember. Also, you should preferably to choose a '.com' URL instead of '.org' or '.biz', as most people are accustomed to remembering the former.

Hosting your Web site: You will now need to select your Web site's home! Web hosting providers offer several plans (just like your cell phone operator, for example), that consist of a selection of hosting specifications. Just like a home maker shopping for a house, you'll need to consider these specifications before deciding on where you want to host your Web site. These factors include:

How much and what type of content do you plan to host? Depending on what your Web site consists of, you could require a few megabytes to several gigabytes of storage space. Look out for how much hosting space is offered and compare this with your requirements.
Do you know how to design and build a Web site, or would you like to work with pre-created templates? If you have Web design and coding skills (knowledge of Microsoft FrontPage or Adobe DreamWeaver, HTML programming, CSS, PHP and the like), you will most likely be designing your Web site on your computer, and then uploading it subsequently. If Web designing is new to you (and you don't want to be bothered with the nitty-gritties), look for a hosting provider that offers 'Site Design' or 'Site Builder' capabilities. Here, you can access hundreds of pre-created Web site templates, where all you need to do is dump your content into these canned Web sites and you're ready to go. While this approach might limit your customization options, it is the quickest and simplest way to get up and running. Also remember that this convenience might come at a price premium.
How much site traffic do you expect? If you're setting up a commercial Web site that you plan to promote heavily, you will most likely have plenty of traffic coming to your Web site. hosting providers offer different 'bandwidths', which is the amount of data transfer they allow to and from your Web site per month. The greater the bandwidth you need, the more you'll need to pay.
What other functionality do you need on your Web site? Many hosting providers offer basic extras like e-mail addresses, blog capabilities, spam filtering and programming language support, you can also select value-added services including SSL support (for securing communication between your Web site and its visitors), VPN access, video and audio streaming support.
What kind of support does the hosting provider offer, and how reliable are they? This is an aspect that's easily overlooked--there's nothing more frustrating than your Web site being unavailable when you need it, and not being able to reach its helpdesk quickly. The best way to check this is to actually make random calls to their helpdesk at odd hours, and ask them basic questions such as help on what hosting plan to choose, special offers running etc. The quality and timeliness of their responses will be an indication on your experience with them later on.

Some of the more popular hosting providers include Host Monster, GoDaddy, DreamHost, and Media Temple. Glance through their hosting plans and you will get an idea about the facilities offered. Note that several of these Web sites offer both domain registration and Web hosting services as a package--it's up to you to take these services from the same provider, or from separate ones. At the end of the day, it's about finding the right blend of price, features, reliability and support. Happy hosting!

Setting up your own Web site: Part one

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:51:00 +0000

At first, it sounds like a daunting task in itself. You'd ask, "Isn't this something that only large companies with development and programming teams can do?" Actually, no--these days it's something that anyone can! So if you're thinking of popularizing your home business, or creating a platform for sharing your hobbies, or just setting up a home for your family on the Web, you can build a www.yourname.com Web site easier than you can imagine! All it takes is getting familiar with the process, and understanding some of the jargon you'll encounter along the way. After that, you make like you're strolling through the aisles of your favorite supermarket as you set off shopping for the right online services--it's actually fun! From end to end, you can be up and running within a week. Here's how you go about it:

At this juncture, you should grab a pen and a few sheets of paper and put down a whole lot of questions to which you'll need to eventually get answers.

What will be the focus of your Web site? The first and most important part of setting up a Web site is defining a sharp focus for what it will and won't do. Here's where you should decide the purpose of the Web site as sharply as possible: it could be an information repository for your gardening hobby, or an online store for your home catering business, or it could even be a Web presence for your local Golf players club. Once you have a broad set of answers to these questions, you can proceed to the next (and most important!) phase of building any Web site--creating the content.
Content, content, content. I can't stress enough how important it is to deliberate, brainstorm, create, and fine-tune the content for your Web site. Before doing anything online, it is all-important to have the content in place first. A good way to go about doing this is by visiting some of your favorite Web sites, and checking out the Site map section. A Site map is a hierarchical listing of the various sections and sub-sections in a Web site, and is the skeleton around which a Web site's content is fleshed out. Start by defining the major 'tier 1' categories of your Web site, then drill down to sub-categories. Each category should have a well-defined focus, and together they should encompass everything your want your Web site to convey. Also, try not to have more than three tiers of categories--a Web site should be designed to facilitate easy and quick access to its information, so your visitors shouldn't have to dig too deep.
The content creation exercise can be plenty of fun, so involve everyone who's going to be part of the site, so you can get the widest range of ideas and opinions. Ideally, you'll need to progress through several rounds of brainstorming, writing and re-writing before finalizing your content. As a rule of thumb, when creating Web copy keep it simple, concise and to-the-point.
What kind of interactivity would you like your Web site to have? A Web site can be as Spartan, or as feature-rich as you'd want it to be. What you eventually decide will be influenced by the answers to questions like:
- Do you want to include features such as online financial transactions, blogs, user forums, feedback systems, mailboxes and the like?
- Do you have access to the technical know-how to include these features?
- Would you want this interactivity at launch time, or can it be incorporated subsequently?

By now, you will have gathered the bulk of the content for your Web site, and you should have a reasonably clear picture of how it is going to pan out--and that's a big milestone! The next step will be exploring online services for registering your Web site's domain name, and finding a Web hosting provider that suits your specific requirements. Look out for my next blog post where I'll provide more details on this latter part of this Web site creation journey.

Update: See my blog posting on choosing a Web hosting provider here.

Create images using text

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 03:30:00 +0000

I've always been fascinated with photographs, and being the geek I am I'm even more fascinated with interesting ways to create photographs! Here I'll explain how to create a neat form of geek-art known as ASCII art. What is ASCII art you ask? Let's talk about ASCII first--this is simply a standard that is used to represent text characters on your computer. So when you type on a keyboard, specific codes that correspond to each of the letters, numbers and symbols are used to tell the computer exactly what it is you are entering. This character standard is also used to store text in your documents. At its most basic level, it's the type of characters you see in Notepad--the no-frills, standard Courier font text.

ASCII art is the process of creating computer-generated images using just these text characters! Using freely available software, you can create stunning imagery by putting your favorite photos through these programs, which do all the mathematical calculations and decide what characters to use to simulate shading while creating the image! I know--it's difficult to imagine, so head over to the next section and see for yourself.

I've used several applications that create ASCII art, but have found ASCIIGen to be the best of them. After numerous rounds of trial and error, here's what I believe is the shortest way to get the best results using this program:

1. Download the program from the link above, unzip it to a folder on your hard disk and run the Ascgen.exe file. Press CTRL+N to start a new project. In the box that opens, navigate to your source photo. Hint: Click these images for a larger version.
2. After loading the image, select the area you want to focus on, and set the height dimension to 200 as shown.
3. In the next tab, increase the brightness until the image becomes a little too bright in the image preview. That's right--stop only when the image looks noticeably overexposed.
4. In the Greyscale Method section of the next tab, Choose 'NTSC/PAL Weights 2' from the dropdown list. Next, select the ASCGEN ramp checkbox, and lastly move the Error Tolerance slider bar all the way to the right as indicated. Click on OK and the text file will be generated. Save this text file.
5. You'll now need to tweak this text file in MS Word to get your image right. Start by opening the text file you created in MS Word. Select all the text (CTRL+A) and set the font to Courier New.
6. With the text still selected, reduce the font size until the entire picture fits comfortably on a single page without distorting. To quickly reduce the font size, press CRTL+SHIFT+"<"
7. At this stage, you'll notice the image is slightly distorted. To fix this, select all the text, right-click it, and select Paragraph. In the Spacing section, enter a value ranging between 0.75 and 0.95 (see which value delivers the best results) in the 'To:' box and set it to 'Multiple Lines'. Try a few values until you're satisfied with the image. Finally, save this document as a Word file, and print it using the high text quality setting in your printer.

Surprise your friends--I'll bet they won't be expecting these kinds of renderings of themselves! Give them their very own ASCII art image and stake your claim to being their geekiest friend. Or not.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2: Portrait tricks

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:58:00 +0000

Good photos begin with good technique. More than having a capable camera and great equipment, it's all about mastering the nuances of composition, understanding the capabilities of your equipment, and knowing how to capture the situation and subject. But even in the best of cases, it's good to know that you can use tools that'll help you lift the quality of your image just enough to push it into 'exceptional' territory.

The capability of today's digital cameras to resolve the tiniest of details in a scene can actually be detrimental--with their multi-megapixel sensors and high-quality optics, digital SLRs are especially relentless when it comes to capturing the good and the bad in a subject. With portraits, you can capture the colored serrations in your subject's iris as easily as the blemishes on their cheeks or the discoloration in their teeth. So while some schools of thought might deem this to be cheating, I say why not use technology to flatter your subject--be it a beautiful friend, a stunning landscape, or a luscious plate of chocolate cake!

Photoshop Lightroom 2 offers a great set of tools for touching up your photos--you can be as subtle or blatant as you want. Here are some of the tools I use when it comes to portrait photography, so that I can show my subjects in the best possible light (pun intended!).

For portraits:
When it comes to touching up portraits, I use the following tools in Lightroom 2 to make a few subtle changes that can make a stunning difference. Note that I first went through the basic image correction procedures as described in my previous blog post.

We'll first start by analyzing the photo and determining what needs to be fixed. In the picture above, the subject has great features to start with, but there are a few tiny aspects that can be fixed including blemishes, skin oiliness, and a slight discoloration in the teeth. To add a touch of glamour, we can also impart a bit of 'glow' to the skin. Now that we know what to do, let's dive right in!

1. Spot Removal: Go to the the Develop module and hit the [N] key, or click the Spot Removal icon beneath the histogram. Next, change the size of the reticle by using your mouse scroll wheel (if present), or the box bracket keys '[' or ']'. Make this reticle slightly larger then the skin blemish you want to eliminate. Click-hold on the spot, and drag the mouse to a clear patch of skin. You'll see the clearing effect in real time--leave the mouse button when you're satisfied with the effect. Repeat this process for all spots on your subject's face. The circles in the adjoining photo represent the locations where I used spot removal. Press the 'H' key if you can't see these markers.
2. Skin smoothening: This is perhaps one of the most powerful effects you can use for portraits. In Lightroom 2, you can use the Clarity component of the Adjustment Brush in the Develop module. Press the 'K' key to access this tool, then enable the 'Show Effect Sliders' toggle switch. Click the Effect drop-down menu and select Clarity. Now drag the Clarity slider down to about -70, and set the Flow slider to 40. Remember: the lower the Clarity slider, the greater is the effect of the skin smoothening. Flow controls the intensity of the strokes while using the tool. Remember that you can also vary the Clarity later, because it is basically a layer mask whose intensity can be changed--all thanks to the fact that effects in Lightroom 2 are non-destructive. To use the Clarity tool, click once on the image to enable the tool, then select an appropriate brush size (as described in point 1), and 'paint' across the skin areas only. Avoid using this tool on the eyes, mouth and other facial areas that have detail, because you don't want these areas getting blurred.
Hold the mouse pointer over the marker to see the areas you've affected (indicated in red). To erase the effect over a particular area, press the [ALT] key and paint those areas. Use this method to bring back clarity into areas you might have mistakenly smoothened.
3. Dental magic: Give your subject a Julia Roberts smile in a jiffy! Once again, we use the Adjustment Brush, but this time we select Saturation from the Effects drop-down list. Drag the Saturation slider down to -100, and select a nice white color from the color patch. Also, check Auto Mask. To use the tool, click once anywhere on the teeth area to enable the tool, then select an appropriate brush size (as described in point 1), and 'paint' across the teeth areas. After you've finished, hold the mouse pointer over the marker to see the areas you've affected (indicated in red). Use the technique described above to subtract this effect if you need to. The teeth should now look visibly brighter. Be careful not to overdo this effect--vary the flow and make sure to leave a hint of color in the teeth. Overly white teeth can look unnatural and eerie!
Glowing complexion: Here's a cool trick to add a hint of glow (and glamour!) to the skin. Scroll down the Develop module panel until you reach the HSL / Color / Greyscale section. Click on Luminance, and increase the Orange component to about +8. You'll see a subtle, yet visible difference! Once again, resist overdoing it or your subject's skin just might begin to look fluorescent!

That's it! You should now have a much more glamorous subject. The only downside with these tweaks is the number of people who'll hound you to take their pictures, because 'your camera makes them look good'. If only they knew.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2: Development workflow

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 04:30:00 +0000

I recently had the opportunity to put this fine photo editing application through its paces--one of my cousins got married a couple of days ago, and I shot about 350 RAW images across the different marriage ceremonies (you'll find some on my Flickr Photostream). Faced with the prospect of churning out high-quality images from these RAW images in record time, I happily dug into the famed Lightroom 2 workflow. After several bouts of trial and error with color configurations and tweaking sequences, I arrived at the following workflow which I believe enabled me to extract the maximum quality from my RAW images in the shortest possible time. Remember that I already used Presets and Default settings to bring my photos to a more natural, higher-quality level before performing editing individual photos using the following steps.

1. Crop the photo: The crop tool can spell the difference between a good photo and a great one. While in the Develop module, hit [R] on the keyboard or click the Crop overlay icon indicated in the adjoining screenshot. Use the mouse to draw a box that defines the crop you need, or simply drag the control points of the crop box and pan the image until you're satisfied with the most interesting frame. Hit [Enter] to apply the crop.

2. Adjust White Balance if necessary: From the Basic settings in the Develop panel, click the dropper icon (indicated), and click on a gray or white portion of your photo. This will fix any color cast that might exist. Alternatively, you can intentionally invoke a color cast by playing around with the Temperature slider (labeled Temp) to impart a warmer or cooler color tone to your photo.

3. Adjust Exposure: Now begins the meat of your editing. For the majority of your images, you can move the exposure slider until the Histogram graph spreads evenly, without clipping in the highlight (right) area.

4. Adjust Blacks: Adjust the Black level until the left side of the graph tapers off without bunching up against the left edge.

5. Adjust Fill Light: Fill light refers to the light in the shadows of your image. Increasing this slider value will bring out some detail in these darker areas of your photo.

6. Adjust Recovery: This refers to highlight recovery, and is used to recover detail from highlight areas that might be blown out. Be careful with this setting--increasing it too much might make your image appear unnaturally flat.

7. Adjust Brightness/Contrast: Play the Brightness slider against the Exposure slider to get the colors and balance your image just right. Remember that the lower the brightness, the better will colors show through.

These steps will get you off to a good start with bringing your images to a high-quality level. Next up, I'll focus on some Lightroom 2 tricks that will help enhance specific photos, like those of people, landscapes or food.

Update: Head over here to learn tricks for creating portfolio-quality portraits using Lightroom 2!

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2: Initial configuration

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 19:30:00 +0000

Ok, it's official: I'm hooked onto Lightroom 2. The sheer power of this program, its slick interface, and brilliant attention to user interface makes this the best imaging application I've ever used for my photographs. If you haven't read my initial experience with Lightroom 2, you'll find it here.

The groundwork
Lightroom 2 offers several methods to help you streamline your photo processing workflow. The following steps will help you set up your Lightroom 2 environment with pre-defined settings that will lift the quality of your photographs during the import process, even before you begin tweaking them! This will let you reach your final result faster. You only need to perform the following actions once--they will subsequently invoke automatically each time you import your photos:

1. Define a camera profile: When I first started using Lightroom, I noticed something strange while importing photos--when each photo first flashed on the screen during the import process, it appeared to have nice, vibrant colors. But after getting imported into Lightroom, they appeared rather dull and faded. I needed to do a fair amount of tweaking with the saturation, highlight and black level settings before I was satisfied with the result. I later discovered that I wasn't using my camera's profile. Lightroom lets you define a profile that is specific to your camera model. Using this profile delivers a significant improvement in color rending, resulting in more vibrant and balanced images, so you'll need to do lesser work to bring your photos to the final satisfactory level.

First, head over here to download the camera profiles installation file from the 'Downloads and Installation' section (free registration required), then install this file. You will now be able to see the camera profile in the Camera Calibration section from the Develop module of Lightroom 2. Click the Profile drop-down at the start of this section, and select Camera Standard beta 2 (I found this delivers the most natural colors).

2. Assign default settings to your specific camera and ISO: In Lightroom 2, click Edit, Preferences..., and select the Presets tab. Ensure the 'Make defaults specific to camera serial number', and 'Make defaults specific to camera ISO setting' are selected. The significance of these settings will become apparent in the following step.

3. Define sharpening presets: Lightroom 2 features powerful sharpening and noise reduction tools to help you bring out image detail and clean up photos shot at higher ISO settings. The cool thing about Lightroom 2 is that you can create setting presets and bind them to specific ISO settings for your particular camera. This means you could define noise reduction presets for each ISO setting (where you would generally apply more noise reduction for photos shot at higher ISOs), and you can automatically invoke these presets while importing new images: the appropriate sharpening levels are automatically applied to photos according to their ISO. Cool, huh? This capability saves you the time you'd otherwise require for applying noise and sharpening tweaks to your newly imported photos. Here's how you create these presets:

Start by opening a photo shot at ISO 400, for example. Apply the sharpening and noise reduction settings until you are satisfied with the reduction in noise in your photo. The adjacent screenshot shows the settings I use to reduce noise at ISO 400 for my D40. View the photo at 1:1 zoom to be able to see the effects of the noise reduction.

To to save this sharpening preset, click the 'plus' symbol from the Presets section on the left panel. In the box that pops up, make sure to check only the relevant sections that you have modified. Note that besides the Sharpening and Noise Reduction settings, I've also selected the Calibration option so that the camera profile will also be saved in this Preset.
Finally, to set this preset as a default camera setting, press the [ALT] key, and click the Set Default... button at the bottom of the Develop panel. A box pops up verifying your camera model number, serial number and ISO setting. Click the Update to Current Settings button.
Now repeat this step for photos shot at different ISOs, each time saving your Sharpening, Noise Reduction and Calibration settings to a new Preset for each ISO setting, and updating the default settings.

That's it for the initial Lightroom 2 configuration. From now on, each photo you import will be automatically processed with the selected parameters according to your specific camera, and the photo's ISO setting. When working with tens and hundreds of photos, you will save significant amounts of time with these settings. Note that these are only presets: you are free to modify these settings while working on individual photos later on.

In my next post, I'll be talking about the basic settings and workflow I use while processing individual photos. Stay tuned!

Update: Click here for the Lightroom 2 development workflow I use while processing RAW images.

Become a human calculator

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:50:00 +0000

The one thing I detested about mathematics in school was the way the education system made it so theoretic. Learning trigonometry or Calculus was anything but fun, and it certainly didn't appear to be practical at the time. Even today, how many times do you hear kids say, "What am I ever gonna use this stuff for?" Math is, in fact, the most practical science there is--from calculating the curve of an aircraft wing (Fourier math playing a big role here), to modeling financial forecasts (mathematic extrapolation), math is the very foundation for almost every device and technology we use. But for the majority of us, it really isn't a cause excitement. So wouldn't it be great if there was a way it could actually help our everyday lives: like giving us the power to be the fastest human calculator at dinner with friends? That'd certainly beget admiration points! Well, there is such a field of mathematics that can help you do just that--it's called Trachtenberg Mathematics.

Trachtenberg Mathematics was invented by a brilliant Russian mathematician named Jakow Trachtenberg while he was imprisoned in a Nazi camp during World War II. He devised a simple set of rules that can help perform relatively large calculations quite easily. Sounds too good to be true? Check out this excellent Web site that explains this technique with lucid examples. After you're acquainted with the basics, there's a handy little software you can download here, which will help you get practice on this technique of speed math.

On a related note, you could also check out a similar form of speed math called Vedic math. There a ton of information behind this Wiki link. Also, here's still another really fun way to multiply numbers by simply drawing lines on paper! See the video below:

Finally, check out this excellent online resource devoted to speed math here. Hint: The tricks taught by these techniques are a great way to put an interesting new spin on teaching the subject to kids! Math? Fun? Who could have ever imagined?

Hard disk defragmentation: The easy, free way

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:05:00 +0000

If you're already well-versed with the concept of disk fragmentation, go ahead and skip to the next paragraph. If not, let's walk through why defragmentation is important to you. Computers are a lot like pets--you have to take care of them if you want them to stay healthy. I know, it's not the best of metaphors, but it's close. Computers consist of several components, all of which play an important role in its overall functioning, and eventually in providing a satisfying user experience. The component we'll examine in this article is the hard disk--the storehouse that holds all your applications and data. To visualize how it works, think of a hard disk as a cross between a magnetic tape and a record player. Of course, they have smaller electronics, faster speeds, and higher capacities. Hard disks consist of one or more magnetically coated platters on which the data is stored. This data is read by tiny heads that 'fly' above the magnetic surface as the hard disks spins. The heads are mounted on arms that are similar to the pickup on a record player. But like I mentioned before, the speeds are much higher--the platters are designed to spin at up to 10,000 rpm and the head/arm assemblies can move from the inner to outer track and back 50 times per second. Yes, they're that fast. So what has all of this got to do with defragmentation? Well, whenever you load an application or save data on the hard disk, it is written in the form of discrete 'blocks'. Depending on the size, a file can consist of one block or thousands. To maximize the storage space, these blocks need not be written in a sequential order--they can be scattered across the hard disk depending on the other data that is stored. The computer's operating system keeps track of these data blocks in a table--much like an address book. When a file is created, deleted or moved, it's address is

updated. Now the problem starts over time, when files, programs and applications are removed, loaded, copied and erased: the blocks of data that comprise a single program might be spread across the entire hard disk. Subsequently, the hard disk read/write head needs to work that much more to read or write a file as it locates its chain of blocks. But there's an easy remedy: arrange all of the blocks that make up the programs and files in contiguous sections so the hard disk can access them sequentially. This results in quicker access times and data transfer speeds, faster bootup, quicker application loading, and a smoother user experience. Defragmenting your hard disk can also maximize its operational life as it needs to do lesser work to access its data. Let's take a look at one of my favorite programs to get this job done.

Disktrix UltimateDefrag Freeware Edition
This program is the Swiss Army Knife of defragmentation tools. There is a lot to like about it including the several defragmentation options, the comprehensive user manual that nicely explains the theory of defragmentation, and that fact that there's a free version available for this software. But the aspect that trumps other defragmentation programs is its ability to relocate applications, files, programs and directories to locations on the hard disk where access is fastest. And you can specifically select these applications. So if you're a gamer, you can optimize your installation of Bioshock, or if you're a digital artist, you can tune Photoshop for quick startup. Grab the free version here or the commercial version here. Be sure to read the manual if you want to deep-dive into what the program does. Unlike most other defragmentation tools, this one delivers results--I have a happier hard disk to prove it.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2: I'm getting hooked...

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:44:00 +0000

In a recent post where I wrote about how I process RAW images from my Nikon D40 using Adobe Camera RAW, a reader replied asking about RAW processing tools with a little more chutzpah. I've been following the buzz that's surrounded the recently-launched Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2, and decided to dive in and try it out.

I'm the kind of software user who builds long-term relationships with my applications. I need to coax myself a fair bit before committing to anything 'new and improved'. When I do encounter something that promises to change the way I live, I go through several phases that include flirting with the new software, reading about its capabilities and other users' experiences with it. It takes a while before I convince myself to toe-in and test the waters.

When it comes to processing images from my camera, I've always known, loved and trusted Adobe Camera RAW. Sure, it's no Swiss Army Knife of image processing, but it's simple, efficient and entirely effective. I've been using it for years and have never really felt the need to use any other solution. But recently, the lure of an enticing new interface, a workflow-optimized layout, cool new tools for touching up portraits, and advanced photo cataloging capabilities was too much. A couple of days ago, I downloaded the trial version of Adobe Lightroom 2 from its Web site here (free sign-up required), and have been deep diving into its capabilities ever since.

Some of the key 'a-ha' points with this application include:

Local adjustment brush: You can now 'paint in' exposure, brightness, contrast, even clarity and sharpness. These effects work like a layer mask, so you can also vary the intensity of these effects. And all of these changes are non-destructive.
Enhanced organizational tools: The process of importing files from disk or memory cards is quicker and more intuitive even compared to Bridge in Adobe Photoshop.
Volume management: You can browse and edit directories, drives and files as you would using a standard file management tool, and easily create quick groups of images.
Extensible architecture: Like Photoshop, Lightroom 2 can accept plug-ins written by third-party developers, helping extend its functionality and capability.

Other enhancements to the application include DSLR profiling, multiple monitor support, flexible print options, streamlined Photoshop CS3 integration, enhanced output sharpening and 64-bit support for Windows and Mac OS.

There are hundreds of in-depth reviews about this application out there, so I'm not going to repeat the superlatives that you'll already find in these write-ups. But here are some of the smaller aspects of this software that I personally found fantastic:

Compare views: Lightroom 2 offers several views to help you see the before and after effects of your modifications, including split screen, side-by-side and above-below. Intuitive. Simple. Hint: Click these images for a larger view.
Excellent Sharpening and noise reduction: If you shoot at higher ISOs, you'll love the new Sharpen and Noise Reduction capabilities. I was amazed as the creamy smoothness of a corrected image, and its ability to retain sharpness. I'd recommend Lightroom 2 for these two features alone.
Quick development options in the Library view: Instead of having to trundle through the detailed image settings in the Develop module, there's a Quick Develop panel that lets you adjust basic image settings in the Library module. This functionality lets you quickly make broad image modifications before drilling down later.
Lights Out: This is one of those features you'll like playing with. Hitting the 'L' key will gradually dim the interface leaving only the image in clear view--great for those times when you want to eliminate the noisy background and concentrate on your photograph.
Keyboard shortcuts galore: Its easy to whiz through the interface and get plenty of image processing done quickly, after getting accustomed to the keyboard shortcuts. You can be the Liberace of Lightroom. Sorry, couldn't resist that.

Lightroom 2 has certainly made RAW image processing a whole lot more fun. And it's fast. To know more, head over to the Adobe Design Center where you'll find Help files and video tutorials. You'll also find a host of informative video tutorials and end-user experiences on YouTube and MetaCafe.

Now I've only got to find a way to cough up the $299 after the 30-day trial period ends. But I'll cross that bridge when I reach it. Get it? Bridge? Adobe? Oh, never mind.

Update: Click here for information on how I set up the initial configuration for Lightroom 2, and here for my Lightroom 2 development workflow.

Streamline RAW image processing

noreply@blogger.com (Marco) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 08:27:00 +0000

We've already seen the advantages of shooting RAW images here. Next, you'll need to quickly get used to chalking out extra time for processing these images. Depending on how shutter happy you are and how fast your computer is, this could easily run into a lot of extra time--a few hours even. The best way to quicken this process is to get into a groove with processing those images and develop a workflow that lets you crunch through them as efficiently as possible.

First, get to know your RAW processing software. Like any good artist, you need to have a keen understanding of your tools. No matter which RAW processing application you use, read the manual and learn it through and through. The faster you learn the lay of the land, the faster will you be able to navigate it, leaving more time for you to concentrate on tweaking your photos.

I use Adobe Camera RAW 3.7 (with Photoshop CS2). Camera RAW is a simple, fast and capable plug-in that facilitates RAW processing within Adobe Photoshop. It enables you to access all key areas of the RAW image, including exposure, shadows, white balance, sharpness, saturation and more. You can also crop, straighten and change the white balance in your images. Best of all, these changes are non-destructive--all modifications can be recorded in a separate XML file, so your original RAW images are safe. What follows is a run-through of the process I use while working with RAW images. This is a long post, so brace yourself!
Tip: Click on the images for the full-sized screenshots.

1. After copying the RAW images to your computer, select about 20 images, and drag-and-drop them into Photoshop. This automatically opens them in Camera RAW. You will see the series of images in the vertical pane on the left of the interface.
2. I usually dial in a set of fixed values for Saturation, Sharpness and Luminance Smoothing for all my RAW images. These settings work best with my particular camera--you'll need to experiment and find the best settings for yours. The three image parameters I edit are: Saturation: 10 Sharpness: 40 Luminance Smoothing: 30 You'll find Sharpness and Luminance Smoothing under the Detail tab. Note: You can quickly apply these settings to multiple RAW images by selecting them (click any one from the left panel and hit CTRL+A, or press CTRL and click the ones you want to select). Type in the settings and they get applied to all the selected images.
3. Now you can begin tweaking individual images. Click on the first RAW image in your series. Start with the exposure--move the slider so that image information (the graph) is evenly distributed through the spectrum. for the majority of your images, you can do this by moving the Exposure slider so that the graph isn't bunched up near the highlight area (the right side) or the shadow area (the left side). Of course, this wouldn't apply to images that are predominantly dark or bright--here, you'll just have to eyeball it and go with what looks natural. After all, a picture of a black puppy outdoors at midnight would naturally have very little (or no) information in the highlight area.
4. Next, nudge the Shadow slider until the left of the graph is comfortably within the area without being bunched up toward the edge.
5. Now move the Brightness slider until you can just about see details in the darkest area of the image. Use your better judgement with this setting--if things begin to look weird, go with what looks natural.
6. Next, you can set the White Balance. The great thing with RAW images is that they totally disregard the White Balance setting on your camera. So even if you selected an incorrect white balance value while shooting the image, you can fix it here without any loss in quality. Click the White Balance tool (the third icon from the left, above the image area). Next, click any white or grey area in the photo (I used the white Intel patch in this example). You'll immediately see the change in the image. For added creativity, you can impart a warmer or cooler look to your image by experimenting with the White Balance--do this by playing around with the Temperature slider. Finally, you can crop or straighten the image by clicking the relevant tool icons above the image window.
7. Optional step: Camera RAW provides a quick method to apply one or more settings from the selected image to several other RAW images. This is a great way to assign similar processing settings to a sequence of images shot in the same environment, for example. Start by clicking the image you want to copy parameters from. Then press the CTRL key and click other images to which you want to copy the settings. Click the Synchronize... button above the thumbnail strip on the left. You'll see a box that lets you checkmark several parameters for copying to the selected images. Click Ok, and all the chosen settings get applied to your selected images--a great time-saving feature!
8. After making changes to all your RAW images, click Done from the main Camera RAW interface. You are now ready to process these images--on to the next section.

The final stage is processing these RAW images and creating JPEG or TIFF files that you can e-mail or print. Here's how you do it:

1. Start Adobe Bridge by clicking its icon next to the Brushes Palette.
2. Using the drop-down under the menu bar, select the drive, then browse to the location on your hard disk where your processed RAW images are stored. Select all the RAW images (click on any one in the interface and hit CTRL+A)
3. Click the Tools menu item, select Photoshop, then click Image Processor...
4. You'll now see a box from which you can configure several output options for your images. This adjoining screenshot shows the settings I use--these create high-quality full resolution JPEG files with embedded color profiles. When you're ready to create the output images, click Run.

Now sit back as Photoshop chugs through the process of applying your previous settings, and converting the RAW images into useable output images. Being highly processor intensive, you might have to wait a bit depending on the number of images and the speed of your computer. But the results are so definitely worth it.

Update: I've now switched over to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.1 for my RAW image processing. Click here to learn more about Lightroom 2.1 and my image processing workflow.