Let us begin.

This is a photograph of my Xenyx 1204 audio mixer which is actually a merger of three separately exposed photos. The result is known as HDR or High Dynamic Range. Expect to see more photos of this type in the future.

Automation is a must on when it comes to backing up so I use the two most user-friendly apps on the planet to back up my data.

Time Machine

The first being Apple’s Time Machine. Time Machine is included in OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and only requires you to select an external hard drive, in my case a 750 GB one, and it takes care of the rest. Unlike some backup utilities, Time Machine does some versioning of your files so if you were to overwrite a text document by accident you could open up Time Machine and browse to version of the document before it was overwritten. If your running Leopard you are stupid not to run Time Machine.

Backblaze

Backing up to an external hard drive is not sufficient enough in protecting your data because if their is a fire or some other force of nature that destroys your house, you are screwed so say hello to Backblaze. Backblaze is a service that allows you to backup an unlimited about of data to the cloud without the fuss. It costs $5 a month and like Time Machine, it too does versioning. If you are one of the many people afraid to store files on someone else’s server for security reasons, you will be happy to know that Backblaze allows you to encrypt your data using AES and it transfers it all over a secure SSL connection.

As for recovery, Backblaze allows you to look through your files via a web interface and zip up the files you want to recover. They also give you the option to have a DVD or 500GB hard drive sent to you. The only problem is that they cost $99 and $189 respectively, a little exorbitant when compared to the actual cost of those items. Personally, I don’t really find that to be a big deal though as the download portion has done everything I needed.

I am thinking about adding SuperDuper! to this workflow and having it run weekly. This would allow me to create bootable copies of my hard drive but I just haven’t gotten around to spending the $27.95 on it yet. And ideally I would have a Drobo² as an external drive but that too is not something I can afford to spend my money on.

So just remember, Backup Backup Backup and you will never have to worry about losing files.

1. An awesome hard disk visualizer which literally lets you see where space is being used in a pie chart format.
2. an awesomely cool RAID-esque multiple hard drive enclosure

So earlier today I weeded out quite a few people and now I am down to 183 people, a number that is still relatively high but because it is smaller I am no longer getting the huge waves of updates I was once getting. Now that Twitter has truly hit the mainstream (I can’t watch TV anymore without hearing it mentioned), their are a boat load of celebrities using the service so I have devised a short list of celebrities you should follow.

Golden Rule: Stay below 200 with the people you are following.

Forget Ashton and Diddy, Follow These Guys:

• @grantimahara
  • Grant Imahara, co-host of the popular TV series, Mythbusters
  • Posts behind the scene photos while shooting the show
• @theSLaBeouf (protected)
  • Shia LeBouf, star of Transformers
  • His updates are protected so he has to approve you before you can see them
• @officialmgnfox (protected)
  • Megan Fox, star of Transformers
  • She has a bunch of impersonators, but from what I can see this is her
  • Posts photos of her latest photo shoots
• @KevinSpacey
  • Kevin Spacey, star of The Usual Suspects,  21, and many others
  • Really interesting guy
• @questlove
  • ?uestlove, drummer for the Roots, Jimmy Fallon’s phenomenal House Band
  • Very busy guy, with some cool inside scoop
• @rainnwilson
  • Rainn Wilson, plays Dwight in The Office
• @pennjillette
  • Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller
• @jimmyfallon
  • Jimmy Fallon of Late Night with Jimmy Fallow
  • Offers insight on the show
• @hodgman
  • John Hodgman, play PC on the Mac commercials
  • Funny guy, who according to his profile is an expert

So I took our old home theater receiver, which had just recently replaced, lugged it up into my room and hooked it up with my speakers but came to find out that the turntable needed a pre-amp as the receiver was not made for use with record players. As with most of my purchases, I headed over to Amazon and found a pre-amp (this one) in my price range with good reviews and I hit buy.

A few days later the pre-amp arrived and my rig was complete. I am using a Technics SL-D20 turntable which is amplified by an Audio-Technica AT-PEQ3 pre-amp which feeds into a Mitsubishi MVR-1000 Receiver and the chain ends with a pair of Polk Audio M30 speakers or Sennheiser HD555 headphones. If you are a true audiophile you are probably jumping up and down right now, as this is not the greatest setup in the world but it works.

My dad’s vinyl collection is heavy on the Led Zeppelin, which is great, but was missing perhaps the greatest album of all time, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I had to add it to the collection, so I dropped $25 on the album, which just so happened to be on a noticeably heavier piece of vinyl.

Listening to the album through my speakers, I can hear it a bit more clearly and it sounds a tad warmer than normal but nothing incredibly different from the digital copy but when I put on my HD555 headphones the difference is much clearer. The little nuances become much more audible and the album as a whole just becomes more enjoyable. This is probably due to the fact that the headphone were more expensive than the pair of speakers, I’m hoping to rectify this situation by summer’s end.

Aside from the audible qualities of vinyl, I just love having a piece of physical media in my hand. Something about putting the needle on the record is just so much more satisfying than hitting play in iTunes. Not to mention the fact that you get to see the album covers in their full printed glory.

As a student of graphic design, album cover design is really intriguing.  iTunes takes care of this to an extent but looking at album covers like Led Zeppelin III, you never get the full experience from the static photo that iTunes carries. Instead with a physical copy, you get to look at its intricacies and simply play around with it, just as its author/designer intended you to. Another Led Zeppelin cover is a good example of this. In Through The Out Door, technically, features two album covers: the first being the brown paper cover which is stamped with the text, “Led Zeppelin   In Through The Out Door”, but you take that paper cover off and it features some pretty stunning sepia photography. No matter how hard Apple or Microsoft tried, they would never be able to replicate the removal of that first cover and the unveiling of the second.

My audio setup needs work but working full-time during the summer does have it’s financial benefits, so I hope to see the setup and my vinyl collection get bigger and better.

The Aquaduino project is officially underway, my Arduino Mega arrived on the 21st along with my electronic parts from Mouser. Within a couple minutes of plugging the Arduino into my Mac and setting up a simple thermistor circuit, I was reading the temperature in my room on my computer screen and a serial LCD. The resources that are on Arduino.cc are beyond helpful and make getting off the ground incredibly easy. It was at this moment that I realized this project could actually be successful.

Fast-forward to today, I am interfacing the programming language, Processing, with my Arduino and returning the temperature to a simplistic user interface. But not only displaying the temperature in real-time but also writing the temperature, every 15 mins, to a CSV log file. I also tested a program that wrote the temperature to a twitter account every hour without a problem, thanks to the twitter4j library.

I have yet to play with my relays but hope to do so within the next day or so, as well as begin displaying live data on the Internet. Be sure to keep watch of aquaduino.com and @aquaduino on twitter.

The plan for my aquarium, initially, was to use the JACE but I wouldn’t be able to do the programming and such myself because of licensing and the complex nature of the program. This issue of Make brought the Arduino to my attention. The device fit my wanting perfectly and it looks fairly simple to work with. So I purchased the Arduino Mega online today. I decided to go with the Mega instead of the Duemilanove because of the vast number of IO the Mega offers.

My ultimate goal with this project is to receive data from a variety of sensors including:

• Air Temperature (thermistor)
• Water Temperature (thermistor)
• Ambient Light (photo cell)
• Water pH (custom circuit w/ pH Probe)

Output Data via:

• An LCD Display
• LEDs
• the Internet

Control:

• Pumps
• Lights

The most complex part I forsee is interfacing the Arduino with the computer. I would like to have the ability to log data from all the sensors, graph that data, and display it all online. From what I am reading online, this will require some python coding and some time.

This is a fairly big undertaking for me but I feel like it will be worth it in the long run.

Welcome back!

When screwing around with Garageband ‘09 yesterday, I came across a little feature known as ‘Enhance Tuning’ and to my surprise it does exactly what Kanye uses in his songs. If your using Garageband ‘08, don’t worry, you should be able to use the effect too.

A text version of this tutorial is coming soon.

The build quality of the camera is pretty impressive. The shell is made of metal and feels robust for an eighty dollor peice of photographic equipment. As for the lens, it seems as though it is glass although I very well could be mistaken. The viewfinder on the other hand is definetly plastic and uses the hotshoe as a mount.

For the price, the Fisheye 2 is chock full of features. For starters, it allows you to take a “Normal” exposure, which is 1/100 sec. at f/8, or a “Bulb” exposure, which lasts for as long as you hold down the shutter button. With those two settings you can basically take any type of photo and I’ve had a fair amount of luck with it. You are also offered the ability of taking multiple exposures on a single frame of film, which can lead to some very cool shots. Aside from exposure settings, the Fisheye 2 also has a built-in flash and a hotshoe for an external flash but since the viewfinder is mounted in the hotshoe, you can’t use it if your using an external flash.

My only complaint with this camera is the rewinding. When rewinding, the camera constantly clicks and requires a fair amount of force, to the point where everytime I rewind a roll, I’m afriad it will be the last roll. But it is still working after 4 rolls, so I’m not really worried about it.

If you are looking for a cheap way of getting those fisheye shots, I would have to recommend the Lomography Fisheye 2. Photos I have taken with the camera can be found on flickr. More on my film developing experience later.

Instead of what I had previously speculated, Apple announced:

• iLife ‘09
• iWork ‘09
• 17 inch “Unibody” MacBook Pro
• iTunes DRM Free

I am totally stoked about both of the software packages and was truly suprised that there was no mention of Snow Leopard. I posted my thoughts on iWork ‘09 over at MacApper and will have a full review there in the coming days.

iLife also really impressed me, although some are claiming the new features are gimmicks, I honestly believe I would use them on a daily basis. I hate to judge the suite before it is launched, so look for my feelings on it later this month.

As for the 17″ MacBook Pro, it is a let down that the battery is not removable but I think Apple made up for that with the estimated 8 hour battery life, I have a 15″ and I don’t even come close to that number. Aside from the battery info, the 17″ is basically the same as it’s smaller counterparts.

It was inevitable, iTunes will be going DRM-free and I have already payed up to get DRM-free copies of music I have already purchased. This is a huge step in eliminating DRM and I applaud Apple for taking it.

That’s it for now. I hope to have some more organization stuff up soon, so keep checking back.