Handy iPhoto Date and Time adjustment Applescripts

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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.

The history of the VCR

Posted on by

If all of this sounds familiar, it should. (Kids to young to know what Beta is, please read here.)

With the last nail in the coffin of HD DVD laid by Warner and Toshiba withdrawing support for HD DVD, let's take a trip back 20 years (or further) to see what the landscape was for home video.

Enter, Total Rewind, the virtual museum of vintage VCR's.

P.S. I have a slightly used Toshiba A-35 HD-DVD player for sale to the luckiest bidder.

Link. Thanks, Al!

Music via your YouTubes

Posted on by

I came across this yesterday while searching for a bit of history of one of the dance floor staples from the early 90's. A user named “statenhal” has digitized and uploaded (to YouTube strangely enough) dance tracks from vinyl. Featured on the left, is Dajae's “U Got Me Up” Cajmere's Underground Goodie Mix (which incidentally is sonically a different song than the original as to hardly retain any traits from the first). This all proves once again that the net giveth until they taketh away.

Link.

The Plant Oxford Tour: Building the MINI Cooper

Posted on by

We planned ahead to make a day trip of traveling to Oxford and visiting BMW Group's Plant Oxford, home of the final assembly of the MINI Cooper and it's variations.


At the start of the tour, you're asked to put on a “lab coat” and safety glasses before you can go inside. We later found out that it was for real protection as we'd be a few feet away from the robots and machinery that moves and welds the body panels together for the car. Sparks did fly!


In the welcome area, there are a couple original Mini's. That's a picture of me next to them so you can get a sense of scale of the original one. (Curious to know how much bigger the new MINI is? See here.)


Also featured was one of the MINI's from The Italian Job. (See inside this car for something unusual, two steering wheels!)


Although we weren't allowed to take pictures during the tour, I've found a web site where someone was obviously allowed to do just that (ok, they're press shots). Take a look at what goes into making the MINI Cooper.

Link.

Factory: Manchester from Joy Division to Happy Mondays

Posted on by

One great thing while in London was being able to watch BBC for real (not the sanitized version called BBC America). Among other things such as Alan Carr's Celebrity Ding Dong (Episode 1 p.1, 2, 3, 4) and live uncensored stand up comedy was a documentary about Factory Records called Factory: Manchester from Joy Division to Happy Mondays.

Link to Google Video. (I'm afraid this will probably disappear soon so catch it while you can)

On the topic of unfriendly Londonesque WiFi

Posted on by


As you are aware, there were no updates on the site for the trip. D'oh. Things didn't go quite as planned on the WiFi side of things.

The hotel claimed to have WiFi enabled in all the rooms. What they forgot to mention was how much they charged for said WiFi. I was naive enough to believe it was free, gratis with the room. Bzzt. The scenario was they farmed the in room internet access out to a company called Swisscom who would gladly charge us

Today is the day!

Posted on by

Today is the first day of the start of our trip to London. Actually, we won't be there until tomorrow morning but we're still excited. Stay tunned, I hope to make an entry a day about the trip studded with a few pictures along the way.

Cheers!

DIY UHF Antenna

Posted on by


Ever since I gave Comcast the boot and FiOS the welcome, I've not been using the Miglia TV MiniHD receiver since FiOS doesn't use QAM modulation. The USB receiver does however tune ATSC if you have a good antenna and some nearby transmitters. The included antenna is mostly a joke unless you live very close to the transmitter. I needed something better– so I immediately think of DIY. I found a site that included some instructions on how to build a decent UHF antenna based on the design of ones available for purchase. It's really very simple, I didn't follow the directions, instead choosing to replicate what I saw in finished example of someone who made one.

The reception is quite good, scarily so in fact for something that cost me nothing. I can say it works because the digital signal basically either comes in clearly or not at all (no snowy picture!) The base of the antenna is a USPS Priority Mail box covered with aluminum foil, screws, washers and copper Romex leading to a matching 75 ohm transformer.

Link to how-to. Link to reference photo.