On Windows PC’s I use SnagIt from TechSmith for screencaptures etc. On OSX I use the built-in capabilities of OSX for capturing screens, windows, or areas, but there was something missing…
SnagIt can capture large windows within *cough*Internet Explorer*cough* or Firefox as one image. So no need for a capture, scroll down, capture again etc. This feature isn’t available in OSX, or any (commercial) capturing software I could get my hands on. Until I ran into Screengrab.
Screengrab is a FireFox extension which allows you to save an entire webpage as an image (jpg or png). Excellent extension if I may say so.
When shooting from a tripod and/or with Live View on your (d)SLR you may find strangely exposed photos. Some are darker than others.
This could be related to the light seeping in through the ocular on your camera. Normally you have your eye against the ocular, but when you use e.g. Live View on your camera, you watch the LCD. This leaves the ocular ‘open’, and unwanted light might enter the camera and screw up the exposure of the photos you’re taking.
I created a small example were I shot several high-speed images (in Aperture priority mode) while I used a small flashlight to pass a beam of light over the back of the body (e.g. car lights passing by in low light circumstances). I made sure that I also ‘touched’ the ocular with the beam of light.
You can see that the exposure goes from normal to dark, and back to ‘normal’.
I haven’t found any real differences when you’re shooting under normal circumstances, but when (a strong) light is shining in or on the ocular, you might be in trouble.
Most things, if not everything, are stored on digital media nowadays. Parts of your life are registered on your hard disks, CD’s, and DVD’s. But what if one of those fail? Do you have a backup?
Backing up to optical media (like CD and DVD) is cheap, but with cheap also comes questionable quality. Will those files you’ve backed up two years ago still open? I don’t know, and I don’t care actually. I back everything up to external drives. A 500GB drives is cheaper than a spindle of DVD’s matching the storage capacity, and a harddisk is faster and can be reused if nessecary. Another drawback of DVD’s is that they have a relatively small capacity. I would need tons of DVD’s just to backup my photos. Read more…
Recently I bought a new MacBook (late 2008 edition). Since Apple charges the world for options I got the cheapest one available, and decided to upgrade the hard disk and/or memory when I saw the time fit. Well, that time has come.
Today I got a new Western Digital Scorpio Black 7.200rpm 320GB () for €85.00 to replace the default 160GB 5400 rpm drive. Read more…
While the installation of the SafeSign software is relatively easy, the removal of the software is a bit harder. The installation package lacks an automated removal feature. So removing the driver/application must be done by hand.
The removal of the software (both the SafeSign as well as the TokenLounge software) can be reconstructed by analyzing the original packages/installation scripts. Read more…
Due to the nature of my work, and my fondness of Apple products I wasn’t able to get my Aladdin eTokens working with OSX. After several months of not trying to crack this I decided to try it again.
The trigger for me was stumbling on the possibility of adding so-called keyfiles to the eToken for accessing TrueCrypt volumes.
First challenge was the eToken PKI software for OSX… Thankfully I’m a Certified eToken guru, so I’ve got access to their download area (you will have to get your own software). The current version of the eToken software for OSX is v4.55. I installed the Aladdin software on OSX 10.5.5.
This time, the installation of the software was successful, and the software is almost identical to the Windows version (PKI Monitor and eToken Properties software).
eToken PKI Software for OSX
After the installation you can configure various application to utilize the power of eTokens. I configured FireFox and TrueCrypt (so far) to use an eToken. Read more…
This week I heard a tip on one of the TWiT podcasts about a OSX Finder replacement. Finder in OSX is what the Windows Explorer is for Windows. You use it to browse around your PC, copy, rename and launch programs.
Ever since I switched to Mac I encountered a couple of drawbacks on the OSX Finder;
- No Cut&Paste option (CMD-X doesn’t work on files)
- Pressing ‘Return’ on a file is opening the rename ‘dialog’. (CMD-O to open files).
- etc.
I know that OSX has the ability to remap keys, so that you can still use the (old) Windows commands/keys, but I like things to be as default as it can be.
Anyway, when I heard about the Finder ‘replacement’ called Path Finder, I needed to try it. Especially after watching the online demonstration.
You can configure Path Finder to be a replacement for Finder, or you can use it beside Finder. I decided to replaced it. As soon as the evaluation period is over and I’m still using it I will definitely buy this program.
So far things are looking good.
If anyone has different examples of Finder replacements, be sure to drop them in the comments.
In the ‘old’ days, Safari was probably the only Internet browser with some decent color management. The problem was that images displayed in Firefox and Internet Explorer looked a bit desaturated and lighter.
Now, in FireFox 3 you have the opportunity of enabling color management. Just set the following configuration option to ‘true’ (by double clicking) in the FireFox configuration settings (to access the config-part of FireFox, just type about:config in the address bar).
gfx.color_management.enabled
This feature is turned off by default. Restart firefox and be amazed by the colors on your photos on the Internet
Ever since I started uploading photos onto the Internet I needed a way of ‘protecting’ my images. I could choose to upload a very small photo, with terrible JPEG artifact, but that’s not the way you want to be remembered. Especially today. Today we have the bandwidth and the online storage to upload large images, so why not do that.
If you don’t want that other people (or companies) to (financially) benefit from your hard work (1, 2, 3), you may want to ‘tag’ your photos. Just to make sure who created the original image.
When you shoot lot’s of photos and share them with others on the Internet, you don’t want to manipulate each photo. You would want to automate this.
Thankfully, there are numerous programs out there that can do such a thing. Some are free (free as in speech, and free as in beer), and others are commercially available.
Read more…
Not every cellular provider gives unlimited SMS for free. Some of them have dataplans in which you buy unlimited SMS for a price. More and more contracts have so-called unlimited dataplans. This means that you can surf / e-mail all you want on your phone, but this doesn’t mean that SMS is for free as well.
When you think about the costs of SMS, it is probably more expensive than a barrel of oil, or even more expensive than a bottle of printer ink.
A single sms costs about 10 to 20 cents a piece (depending on your SMS ‘plan’). This SMS contains a maximum of 160 characters (=160 bytes). This makes 1 Megabyte of SMS messages costs about 650 euro (@10 cents a SMS)…. So, why even sms at all?
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