Your next band, album name, sleeve artwork in seconds


Tired of having to come up with a band name? Then you have the album name. Let's not talk about picking out the right album cover artwork. How many bands have we lost to this task simply because they couldn't work it out?

Tire no more, Joshua Blankenship has come up with a no hassle way of taking care of all three in a matter of seconds. Trust the randomness in the system and you'll be amazed. The results of my 5 second trip are presented here. Nice.

Link. Thanks, Al!

Modifying AXIS 205/206 for correct daylight savings time

Since AXIS discontinued support for the 205 and 206 web cameras, the internal clock in these units will not adjust DST properly (since the start and end dates were changed last year). However, you can manually adjust the DST parameters by modifying the config file yourself. Luckily, there is an internal application to modify the config files on the unit easily. Login to the admin side of your camera and browse to
/admin/config.shtml?group=Time.DST
From here, match your settings with the image below. I believe these to be the correct values. Tell me if I'm wrong!

The world just got a bit scarier.

Sometimes you see a demonstration for something seemingly impossible that is a bit mind bending in the simplicity and elegance of the solution.

In the following two videos, you'll see how you can safely transport a computer without interrupting the power or shutting it off as well as dispelling the myth of RAM memory loosing contents as soon as the power is cut leading to the ultimate downfall of whole disc encryption.

These techniques demonstrate that for every difficult problem there's a simplistic answer.

WiebeTech HotPlug demonstration
Princeton University demos cold shot RAM scraping.

Freeze Frame! NYC Time-Stop Prank

Over 200 New Yorkers recently walked into one of the busiest train stations in the world, New York's Grand Central Station, and at exactly 2:30 pm, all froze in place. There's one guy in the video who froze just as he was stooping down to pick up some scattered papers. Talk about commitment.

Link. Thanks, Jnova!

Handy iPhoto Date and Time adjustment Applescripts

We used three different cameras while in London (yeah it was a bit excessive but we did end up using all three). The first being the Canon Digital Rebel XTi with that new EF 24-105 1:4 L IS USM lens. The second was a Canon SD-1000 which was being used primarily as a video camera because of it's excellent movie mode (640×480 @ 30fps). The last camera was the Canon S70, my old standby because of it's small pocket size and ability to shot RAW.

The first thing we should have done was check the clock on each camera before we began shooting on the first day. It ended up that the cameras were not synced and when all images are loaded into iPhoto, they are not in order.

I found these handy scripts from Joe Maller for manipulating the dates and times in iPhoto. It's a tad on the slow side (I'm sure because of Applescript) but it does the job.

Link.

London Desktop Backgrounds, Series 1

This is the first in a series of desktop backgrounds I'll post from our trip to London. I've sized them to 1920×1200, perfect for wide screen monitors. Hope you enjoy them!


This is from underneath the London Eye moments before we got on for our “flight.” It's such an elegant piece of machinery, effortlessly and silently turning all day.


We snapped this shot from the London Eye near the top. This shot looks east, Houses of Parlaiment and the clock tower (Big Ben) can be seen in the middle with the River Thames at the bottom. It's a bit foggy and gray, but I think that's part of the character of London.