Fireworks Photography

Fireworks

Fireworks photography can be a daunting experience. Here is a simple set of steps to follow while clicking night photos, especially fireworks.

1 Use a tripod (Important)
2 Manual exposure & set focus to “infinity”
3 Use “bulb” mode
4 Shutter speed can be between 2 to 10 seconds. Use a “remote” shutter release cable to minimize shake.
5 ISO between 100 or 200
6 Aperture between f/8 tof/16
7 Lens: Medium – wide angle focal length
8 No flash
9 No polarizing filter
10 White balance to”Tungsten”…”Daylight” gives great colors. Much better than using “Auto”

Usually, 4 sec. at f/8 and ISO 100 gives the best results.

Custom firmware for your devices

I got the idea to write this after reading an article on the maximumpc site. Instead of simply linking to the site and copy pasting what they have written, I thought I would write my own article about the topic, although I admit its based on their article. If you are wondering what the word firmware means, fret not, I will try and cover some basics here.

Firmware
Firmware are fixed, small programs that are used to control hardware like MP3 players, digital cameras, routers etc. The interface you see on your MP3 player to select songs, or the settings you adjust in your digital camera are all happening because of firmware.

Why does the question of hacking firmware come into the picture?
Simple – Manaufacturers protecting their own interests. This is the number one reason why factory firmware is limited. If basic digicams start coming with DSLR features like complete manual control, exposure control etc. manufacturers would lose a chunk of the DSLR market. Not the best example but you’re probably getting what I am trying to say.

Who hacks firmware and how is it done?
You can breathe easy, you need not do the modification yourself. There are a group of people who are consumers like you and I and want most from the devices they paid their hard earned money for. The normal routine is to obtain an official firmware update, reverse engineer and understand it and then add features that are possible. I am a programmer myself and know the kind of effort that goes into such activities, which is why I have nothing but respect for these individuals

What are the devices that can be hacked with custom firmware?
MP3 Players -. Custom firmware for MP3 players has existed for a while now. Features vary from better shuffle to album art support etc. Note that not all MP3 players can be flashed with custom firmware. Below is a list of efforts I am aware of -

1. iPod Linux – http://ipodlinuxinstl.sourceforge.net/
This is an effort to get linux running on your Apple iPod. Check out the site above for details like which models are supported.
2. Rockbox – http://www.rockbox.org/
Rockbox is an open source firmware for mp3 players, written from scratch. It runs on a wide range of players like Sandisk, Apple, Cowon, iRiver etc.

Game consoles - Gaming consoles like the XBOX, XBOX360, Sony PS2, Sony PSP can be hacked for running homebrew software, and supporting features which are otherwise locked.

1. XBOX Media Center – http://xbmc.org/
This is hands down the best media center software I have used. It started out as a dashboard replacement for the original Microsoft XBOX and has grown into a fine application which can now run on Windows, Linux and even the MAC! Highly recommended by me.
2. PSP Custom Firmware – http://www.dark-alex.org/
Once you load custom firmware on your PSP, you truly unleash its potential. You can run a variety of software like MP3 Players, Video Players, Games and applications like RSS Readers etc. on your PSP. Although used popularly for running game backups, the custom firmware truly has many applications that outweigh its misuse.

BIOS - Thats right, you can load your motherboard with custom BIOS firmware which could speed up boot times or add new features.
1. OpenBIOS – http://www.openfirmware.info/Welcome_to_OpenBIOS
2. Coreboot – http://www.coreboot.org/Welcome_to_coreboot

Routers - Now you can get sophisticated features like Bandwidth Management, FTP, HTTP servers etc. out of that cheap router you bought. No need to spend extra money for features which should have been present in the first place.
1. Tomato – http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato
Tomato is a small, lean and simple replacement firmware for Linksys’ WRT54G/GL/GS, Buffalo WHR-G54S/WHR-HP-G54 and other Broadcom-based routers. It features a new easy to use GUI, a new bandwidth usage monitor, more advanced QOS and access restrictions, enables new wireless features such as WDS and wireless client modes, raises the limits on maximum connections for P2P, allows you to run your custom scripts or telnet/ssh in and do all sorts of things like re-program the SES/AOSS button, adds wireless site survey to see your wifi neighbors, and more.
2. OpenWRT – http://openwrt.org/
OpenWrt is described as a Linux distribution for embedded devices.

Digital Cameras - Those petite Canon powershot digital cameras are not so petite when it comes to features once they are flashed with custom firmware. Full manual control and exposure becomes possible once these babies are loaded with custom firmware.

1. CHDK – http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK
One of the best alternative firmware for Canon Powershot cameras, CHDK boasts an impressive feature set and supports a variety of models. The community is active and new firmware versions are released all the time.

2. Magic Lantern – http://magiclantern.wikia.com/wiki/Magic_Lantern_Firmware_Wiki

Magic Lantern is an open platform for developing enhancements to the amazing Canon 5D Mark II full frame digital SLR.

Digital media players - These enhance the feature set of digital media players.

1. WDLXTV – WDLXTV is a souped up unofficial firmware for the Western Digital WDTV. It is based off of the 1.02.10 firmware, but with many extra features.

Other devices - These are other devices whose firmware can be hacked to add additional features or improve speed etc.

1. NSLU2 – http://www.nslu2-linux.org/
Change your NSLU2 into a tiny Linux computer. After that, the sky is the limit. This is a great way to download using torrents without leaving your main PC switched on all the time. The applications are endless.
2. iPhone Jailbreak – http://lifehacker.com/398906/jailbreak-iphone-20-with-pwnagetool

Please let me know in comments if I have left something out. Also note that in a lot of countries installing custom firmware is considered illegal, so make sure you don’t break the law Happy hacking!

w.bloggar – Blog from your desktop!

I am not particularly fond of blogging from the default WordPress editor. It’s just a little slow for my taste (especially when the post is long) and also I hate firing up a browser window just to post a new article.

Say hello to w.bloggar! This cool application lets you blog right from your desktop. It is an application that acts as an interface between the user and one or more blog(s). Because w.bloggar runs over the Windows GUI, it allows the user to edit posts without being connected to the Internet. Perfect. Just what I was looking for.

Few popular blogging services supported by w.bloggar are Blogger, WordPress, Typepad, Upsaid, UBlog, Drupal, Livejournal etc. Setting up w.bloggar was a breeze. I just had to do a quick google search for finding my endpoing API for WordPress.

Following are the steps for setting up w.bloggar to use WordPress -

1. Select if you want to create a new account or already own an existing account -
Here I selected the first option since I already have an existing account on WordPress.

2. Setting up your blogging service -
Use this option to select your blogging service (eg: WordPress, Blogger etc.) The alias can be any easy to remember name for you to refer to this blog.

3. Account Connection Settings screen -
This is the most important screen. You need to tell w.bloggar where your blog is hosted and how w.bloggar can access it.

• The first question is where is your blog hosted. Mine is – synapse.wordpress.com
• If the blog was on my own Website, for instance http://www.synapse.com, the host would be www.synapse.com (without the http://)
• Then it asks you for the full path to the API endpoint of your blog tool. Mine is /xmlrpc.php. If you have a blog on wordpress, yours will be the same. But, if your blog lives on your Website, for instance www.xyz.com/synapse, the path would then be /synapse/xmlrpc.php
• The default port is set to 80, which you can leave or change for security by clicking the https button; this will change the port to 443.
• The next page asks for your login details and you’re done.

Download w.bloggar from http://wbloggar.com/

Some similar tools for other operating systems -
* iBlog (MacOS) :: http://iblog.soapdog.org
* BlogApp (MacOS) :: http://www.objectivelabs.com/blogapp.php
* BlogGTK (Linux) :: http://blogtk.sourceforge.net/
* BlogniX (Linux) :: http://blognix.sourceforge.net/

Sort Outlook mails using multiple columns

Found this tip via a LifeHacker post. For those who use Outlook express, I am sure you try sorting emails by date, subject etc.

An often overlooked feature of Outlook express is the ability to sort emails via multiple columns. All you need to do is hold down the Shift key while clicking on the column header for one column, and continue to hold the key down while you click on another column. This can be very handy for more advanced sorting – you could sort by sender, and then by message size to find the biggest file from a particular sender.

A great little tip that should save heavy users of Outlook express some time. Thanks Lifehacker!

Improve font appearance in Firefox Linux

Don’t you just hate the way fonts look in Firefox in Linux. A couple of simple solutions exist in order to fix the problem. You could try and reduce your screen resolution. Another thing you can do it press ‘Ctrl + Mouse wheel’ or ‘Ctrl and +’ in the Firefox window. I use this shortcut a lot while browsing. But I have found that the following settings (Edit -> Preferences) make a huge difference to the look of web pages. It’s all about choosing the best looking font. You can do a search in Google for msttcorefonts if you want to install Windows based fonts like Verdana, Tahoma etc. on your Linux system. Here are screenshots of settings that work best for me. Don’t worry you can replace my fonts with any that look good on your system.

Tasque – to do application in Linux for forgetful people

Tasque [ pronounced 'task' ] is a great application for forgetful Linux users. There are a few to-do list applications in Linux, but most lack the finesse that Tasque provides. It acts as a front-end for various backends. You can use Evolution, SQLite etc. as it’s backend. Presently, it needs to be installed from source. You need Mono and ndesk-dbus already installed on your system. Additional instructions/information can be found on the following link -

http://live.gnome.org/Tasque

Select “No to all” in file copy dialog

I came across this great tip on the Download Squad site. When you try to copy a group of files from one folder to another, Windows will bring up a handy little window if it notices files in the target directory with the same name as files from the source directory. You can manually choose which files to overwrite or leave be one by one. Or you can click “Yes to All” to effectively overwrite every file with a duplicate name in the target directory.

But what if you want to click “No to All?” There’s no button for you, but that doesn’t mean Windows won’t let you skip all the duplicate files. All you have to do is hold down the Shift key and click No. Now Windows will skip all files with duplicate names and copy the rest of your files to the new directory, thus saving you a lot of time, heartache, and repetitive finger motions.

Use Gmail to convert .pdf, .doc, .xls, .ppt, .rtf, etc to HTML

Gmail is a nifty little application that handles email in a very efficient manner. It can, however, also be used for converting the following types of files to HTML -

.pdf, .doc, .xls, .ppt, .rtf, .sxw, .sxc, .sxi, .sdw, .sdc, .sdd, and .wml.

This is a great way to view of a particular type of file in case you are missing the application that opens that file. Here are the steps -

1. Compose a new message in GMail. (Sign up at http://mail.google.com in case you don’t have an account)

2. Attach any PDF or Word document that you want to convert to HTML You can attach multiple files in this step by clicking Attach another File.

3. Enter your own email address in the To: box and click send.

4. You instantly receive a message in your GMail Inbox folder. Open the message and click the “View as HTML” link next to your attachment.

5. The contents of your attachment appear as HTML in a new browser window without having to download the file. When you’re finished reading the attached file, close the new browser window to return to Gmail or you can even save the file to your harddrive.

Enjoy your new found multi format viewer

Add “Open with Notepad” to the Context Menu for All Files

 Notepad has been an evergreen application since the Windows98 days. It opens all sorts of files and is used by people the world over to open, edit and create all sorts of files. A problem or annoyance rather is when one has to go through a right click -> open with -> select notepad from the options. A quick little hack is to add a “open with notepad” option to the right click context menu of every file with some registry hacking. This is one hack that will save time and make your life a little easier. Brought to you by site http://www.howtogeek.com. Follow the link below for detailed steps -

How to geek – Open with notepad context menu

Demystification of your xorg.conf

Disclaimer : Editing the xorg.conf can make things go horribly wrong if you don’t know what you are doing. Unless you are sure of yourself, do not try this. At the very least you should be comfortable with some basic Linux commands in case you need to restore a backed up copy of the file. You have been warned.

The first thing that you should do, and I cannot stress this enough : Make a copy of your xorg.conf file. It can be found in the /etc/X11/ folder. The command to do the same is -

su

cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf xorg.conf.backup

After this you can begin editing various sections of the file. I will try and explain a couple of important sections. With trial and error you can become pretty good at this and have more fine tuned control over your display.

The xorg.conf file is divided into a minimum of eight sections. The start of each section is marked by the word Section followed by the section’s name, and its end by EndSection. Sections can be placed in any order, and you can have more than one section that cover a certain purpose — for example, if you are using multiple monitors. As in most configuration files, you may also see lines that start with a number sign (#) that provide comments for human readers. These lines are ignored by the operating system, and you can add more for your own purposes.

Fonts

Quick tip for fonts : You can add new font paths by following the format of existing entries: FontPath “<absolutepath>”
It is suggested that you place any directory for 100dpi bitmap fonts before those for 75dpi bitmap fonts, and add :unscaled to the end of all the paths for bitmapped fonts. This ensures that the higher quality fonts are used by the xserver first.

Module

You should prevent editing this section. xorg.conf’s Modules and DRI sections refer to modules loaded by the X server for such purposes as 3-D acceleration (glx, dri) and font support. Unless the relevant resources have been compiled in the kernel, it will not make a difference if you edit this section.

Input Device – Keyboard

Most probably you will want to use the XkbRules options to define the general behavior of the keyboard, since the alternative is to define all aspects of the keyboard layout separately yourself. Driver ‘kbd’ will work fine 90% of the time. The XkbModel for the keyboard can be defined, using one of the options listed in /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base.lst, or else a generic one such as pc104 or pc102.

Input Device - Mouse

Two important sections here are ”Driver” and ”Device”. The driver ’mouse’ will work fine for most. Device indicates the location where your pointing device is present. The protocol section defines the type of mouse you have – whether a PS2 (round connector), a USB or a serial mouse. If you have a three-button mouse, you should add the “Emulate 3 buttons” option as follows -

Option “Emulate3Buttons” “true”

Device & Monitor

These sections define your monitor and your 3d card. Make sure that they have got detected correctly. If you are having trouble with the display, you can try one of the drivers in the /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers directory for the graphic card ‘Driver’ section. If all else fails you can get basic video support by entering “vesa” or “vga” for the driver. The bus ID for the first 3d card is usually PCI:1:0:0.

For the monitor, the DPMS, enables Display Power Management Signaling in order to conserve the power used by the monitor.

Screen 

The screen section can be used for setting the depth and resolution. Pretty handy if you want to bump up/down your resolution or if you know beforehand that your monitor does not support a particular mode.

After you hav made changes to your xorg.conf file, save the file and restart X by pressing ‘Control + Alt + Backspace’. I case something goes wrong you can always restore the the copy of xorg.conf that you had backed up earlier. You can also look for logs related to the error in the /var/log folder. Look for recent entries.

Download this article as a PDF -> Demystification of your xorg.conf