The weather held out today – sunny skies and a little wind instead of the forecast which was cloudy. So, with iPhone in hand I headed of to borough market for a coffee and then Greenwich for a little exercise up and down the park. On the way back I captured the following 360° image using Photosynth on the iPhone.

Dive logging software has moved on a lot from the original paper based log books and  Suunto style desktop applications.  One thing divers like to do is to talk and relive their dives with friends over a beer.  With the advent of the iOS based dive loggin apps,  you can synchronise logs between your dive computers (I sync my Suunto and VR3), manual dives performed without a dive computer, pictures, ratings and equipment used easily out in the field.  My preferred dive logging app is Dive Log Manager for the iPhone.  It’s made up of the iPhone app and free desktop companion to synchronise with either your desktop software and/or dive computer.

The third category is dive planning – which can be split between recreational and technical planning. With Padi’s move away from teaching the basics of using the RDP process to using software and more people wanting to dive on Nitrox, it is certainly useful to have a dive planning tools for recreational dive purposes at hand.  I’ve seen far too many people dive “blind” by following a guide not knowing the implications of their choice of gas.  There are a number of free apps that allow you to plan repetitive dives with limits on the Air/Nitrox mix and several Pro apps which remove the restrictions.  They also have hand calculation tools all divers to work out the best mix for depth, equivalent air depths and max bottom times.  Apps such as iDiving, iDive and iDive Nitrox have similar functionality and costs.

Technical diving introduces a few more issues – multiple gasses including trimix, multi-level, gas bailouts, VPM models, conservatism and the list goes on.  Most technical divers would travel with a laptop installed with either V-Planner  or some derivative so that they can iterate through numerous scenarios to optimise depth, time, gas and risk.  A new alternative is to carry your planning software (and diving history) on your iPhone or iPad.  V-Planner was migrated over to the iOS platform early on and provides an excellent planning tool (Warning : Always double check you plan with an alterative source where possible to reduce the risk of error!). V-Planner presents the VPM decompression model and includes both VPM-B and VPM-B/E model versions. The diver can specify any combination of nitrox or trimix, and as many deco gases as required. Planning methods include both OC and Closed Circuit Rebreather. It includes planning for bailouts with SCR and OC legs in a CCR plan. Includes details of ppO2, END, and gas consumptions. It includes many of the features from the desktop version such as conservatism adjustments, extended stops, adjustable last stops, the planning monitor system and extensive control over many other planning features. Also included is a set of dive planning tools for calculating best mix, maximum operating depth (MOD), END, EAD and other planning considerations. The Mixer utility for blending nitrox and trimix, is included too.

A new app on the block is the Baltic Deco Planner, an app that is similar in functionality to V-Planner but a little more polished with respect to the user interface.  The best addition is the graphing capabilities – very useful for looking for your off-gassing points and on deeper dive profiles looking for potential isobaric counter diffusion events.

Finally, there’s the social apps and or travel tools.  There are a couple of niche players out there who think that the diving community need their own collaboration platform such as Diving Dude, DiveTime and the aptly named “The best scuba diving and snorkelling locations”.  Unfortunately, I find that little applications such as Facebook, Google and TripAdvisor cover those bases quite comprehensively already!

The project allows you to navigate google street maps as normal but has the added benefit of showing the stereographic image too.  Although not immediately useful and more of a technical demonstration, it’s quite a cool way to view your local area or some of the more interesting sites of the world.

Below are a couple of examples from around London.

1. Fill lower bowl with pre-heated water
2. Insert upper vessel containing measured amount of coffee
3. Apply heat source to lower vessel – the water will rise and mix with the coffee in the upper vessel.
4. Once all the water has migrated to the upper vessel (there will be a little residual water) leave heat on for approximately 1 minute
5. Remove heat and watch the wonder of gravity and pressure differentials (the vacuum) draw the coffee back down
6. Remove upper vessel and enjoy your coffee

http://vimeo.com/34564139

However, there’s yet another entrant to the market place which was announced on the Christmas edition of the Gadget Show is the BubbleScope.

The examples on the website are pretty much the same as you’d get from the GoPano Micro and Dot 360, although the static image is a feature you don’t get with the other two!

Priced at £50 plus another £15 for the case it will be in the same price range of the two existing solutions.

For recreational diving where the majority of divers observe the 30m limit, so the design challenges aren’t too great and surprise, surprise there’s a kickstarter.com project to come to the rescue.  The as yet unnamed product is a custom underwater housing rated down to 100′ in salt water for the iPhone 4 & 4s.

While there are a couple of impressive videos of great white sharks (reminds me of a trip to Gansbaai years ago) but it’s missing out on the details of how the camera is operated.  There is a mechanical button which I’m guessing activates the volume up button to start and stop recording, but no information on whether or not you have access to the touch screen.

One of the most important features of an underwater camera is the ability to set the white balance manually.  Although apps such as Filmic Pro have a white balance feature, it will require access to the touch screen.  The iPhone 4s’ fixed aperture and low light performance may make it suitable for the shallower dives (18m etc) but will inevitably need additional lights when you go deeper – adding to the cost.

In summary, if you’ve spent your money on an iPhone and are willing to risk it while you go diving (I’ve seen so many cameras lost while diving and being a technical diver, found a couple!) then the additional outlay of £260 (kick-starter prices only) then it might be a good solution.

At this time of year, the moon is normally visible to the east in the late afternoon sky (n.b. I’m in the northern hemisphere).  At the time of writing this post the moon should rise at 13:05 -according to the Pocket Universe app for the iPhone, which leaves plenty of time to capture an image.

It’s quite an impressive site and as long as the skies are clear you should be able to get a good picture using a telephoto lens and DSLR with a remote shutter release. To capture the image above I used my Canon 7D, the Canon EF 100-400mm Zoom, Canon 2x extender and Lilliput field monitor to help with focusing.

A Good camera bag

I’ve seen people shoving their expensive camera, lenses and filters into handbags, ruck sacks and even plastic bags.  Nothing beats having a good padded camera bag with the compartments for all your accessories. The National Geographic Midi Shoulder Bag is a perfect solution to carry your gear around.  Unlike most of the “camera” bags on the market which look a little too geeky and attract unwanted attention, the National Geographic bag is unassuming and functional.

Filters, Filters and more Filters

You can never understimate the importance of having the right filters with you.  From the basic UV Filter to the enhancing effects of the neutral density filters such as the Hoya 58mm HMC NDX4 Filter and on to the fantastic polarising filters such as the Hoya 58mm Circular PL Filter, you should invest as much money as you can as some of the cheap brands suffer from poor optical quality.  While not strictly a filter, you should also invest in a White Balance Lens Cap.  Trusting the camera to correctly calculate the white balance is something that you do not need to do.

A better view

Something big, very big!

One of my most prized and often used possessions is the Canon EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L Zoomlens.  Not only does it look the business, it delivers on every level.  If you like shooting people then this lens lets you get in very close without upsetting the subject.  If you like mother nature, then this will let you capture both wildlife and astronomical events with ease.

I’ve built a custom slider using the same components from Igus for my Canon 7D but the mobislyder looks a little more portable (given it’s only 35cm long).  Stylish and compact, mobislyder adds controlled flowing movements to your production, letting you create a variety of shots in an effortless and elegantly simple way. mobislyder comes with 5 different mounts so there are numerous ways to attach it to your device.

This is a great little tip, especially if you’re using an application like SlowShutter.  Although it does have the self timer capability, I find it better to be able to trigger the shutter when I want, and not have to guess the interval.

Camera+ is by far the best app for the iPhone for taking pictures, editing and adding effects.  The features which make Camera+ stand out the most are the independent focus and exposure locks, which is sadly missing in the native camera and video app.

Browsing the extensive video app section in the App Store reveals a number of contenders, namely FiLMiC Pro and Almost DSLR.  While sharing the key features of independent exposure and focus lock, FiLMic Pro stands out as it supports the native HD resolution of the iPhone 4s where as Almost DSLR only supports 720p (perhaps an enhancement is on the way).

Whilst the FiLMiC Pro app gives you that added control over exposure and focus, don’t forget to use your glif and tripod to capture those steady images. The other features provided by the app are:

• Variable Frame Rates (1-25 and 30fps) including both the US (24p) and European (25p) film production standards.
• Selectable Resolutions
• Framing Guide Overlays (4:3, 16:9, & 2:35.1).
• Thirds Guide for help with compositions.
• Audio Metering.
• Color Bars for Post Production.
• Film Production Style Slate for adding info to your clips, syncing dual system audio, and organizing your clips.

Maybe you want to get a tweet when your laundry’s done, or get an email when the basement floods while you’re on vacation. Even if you’re good with electronics and programming, these are involved projects.

Twine is a 2.5-inch square box with a WiFi module, thermometer and accelerometer — stick in two AAA batteries and it should last for “months.” To get started after taking one home, introduce it to your network and fire up Spool, the web app that controls the units.

Given that I’m a fan of the Camera+ application, I was more than happy to find out that they’ve re-introduced the “Volume Plus” option to activate the shutter in the same way that apple introduced it with iOS 5 for the native camera app.

However, there’s another way to activate the shutter using the soon to be released Belkin LiveAction remote control. The remote control allows you to activate the camera shutter from up to 30 feet away—completely wirelessly. Two button controls let you instantly switch between photo and video functions without ever touching the iPhone. If you haven’t taken you Glif or Joby tripod with you, you can also use the detachable camera stand to prop up your device and then slide it back onto the remote to create the ultimate pocket-sized camera kit.

Inspired by the method employed by Monmouth coffee to brew their filter coffee, I purchased a similar porcelain coffee cone from amazon.co.uk (at a fraction of the cost sold in most shops).

Grind your beans!

From observing the skilled baristas of Monmouth I fathomed out most of the brewing ritual.  Firstly, grind your beans just before you’re ready to have your coffee (yes, they grind the beans to order at Monmouth so you don’t have to order the coffee of the day).

Pre Warm

Second, there’s the pre-warming ritual for both the cup, filter cone and importantly the filter paper.  As noted by the folks over at Serious Eats, the paper filters may introduce a papery, woody flavour to your coffee. Once warmed, discard the water.

Filter the coffee

Finally, it’s time to put the grounds (approx 50 grams) into the filter and slowly pour the water (brita filtered water is best) over the grounds.
Now, there’s two popular ways to pour water to best agitate and extract the coffee.  This simplest and easiest way is to poor the water around in a spiral motion starting from either the middle moving to the outside or in reverse. The second way is to use a spoon to stir up the beans as your pouring. I prefer the spiral motion for it’s almost zen like relaxing effects.

Specifications of the Lomokino

• Film type : 35mm
• Exposure area : 24mm x 8.5mm
• Frames per. roll (36 exp.) : 144 frames
• Frame rate : Approximately 3-5 frames per second
• Taking Lens : 25mm
• Angle of view : 54 degrees
• Aperture : f/5.6, f/8, f/11 (Continuous aperture)
• Shutter speed : 1/100
• Film Advancing : Manual
• Film Counting : Volume display
• Focusing : (Normal) 1m~infinity, (Press button for) 0.6m close-up
• View finding : Inverse-Galileo foldable viewfinder
• Flash sync : x-sync (hot-shoe)
• Tripod mount : Standard 1/4″ tripod screw

The new Photo app in iOS 5 has image cropping, it lacks any effective filters and image correction capabilities.  This is why I use camera+ – it’s editing features are better than most – with several scene modes including Backlit, Sunset, Night and 1-touch effects such as Lomographic, lo-fi and many many more.

Sharing is also a breeze, with the images saved to the campl.us website, camera roll and the usual social sites – twitter, facebook etc.

Obviously, if you also have an iPad (first or second generation) you can connect your iPhone using the camera connection kit

So, what’s in the box?

The two key components are a split case and the panoramic lens.  The split case allows you to use the Glif iPhone stand to attach the phone to a tripod.  The panoramic lens is quite small and light enough to fit in your pocket.  A QR sticker on the box links you to the app store so you can get the accompanying application.  After downloading the app, currently version .9, it’s simply a matter of clipping on the case and attaching the panoramic lens.  The app is reasonably intuitive with functions to re-align the centre of the lens and refocus the scene.

GoPano Micro 360 lens

In practice it’s all quite easy – although you do get some very funny looks from passersby. Have a look at my video walking through Borough Market – check out the expressions of the people behind me (especially the security guard!).

First impressions are as expected.

The quality similar to the sony bloggie but the exposure compensation and focus seem to be a little far from finished.  I think an enhancement for the future should be to separate the focus and exposure functions into a facility similar to that shown in Camera+.  The next version of the app will introduce the ability to upload directly to the GoPano website – a process which requires you to upload when you get home in the current version.

Obviously, with the release of the iPhone 4S there should be a dramatic improvement with regards to image quality and smoothness with which the app records the action.

As a side test, I had a go with the Kogeto Looker app which is also free using the GoPano micro lens.  The difference between the maturity in the app design is strongly in favour of the GoPano app.  The kogeto app records the 360 polar image and then transforms it once you’ve finished recording.  Not much of a problem when you consider that you can’t actually see the screen when using the kogeto dot lens!

Firstly, what’s changed?

The old 5-megapixel camera on the iPhone 4 has been upgraded to 8-megapixels. It also has a bigger aperture of f/2.4 thus allowing in a lot more light which should improve the low light shooting.  Also, with iOS 5 you can use the volume buttons to activate the shutter a great bonus!  When it comes to video, the camera will be able to shoot in 1080p as opposed to 720p at 30fps.  Good for quality, bad for the need for storage. I’ll be interested in seeing how the old iPad will deal with playing back the new format.

So what are the best camera apps?

Broadly speaking there are two categories – the almost professional camera apps and the social effects apps.  In the first category I’d recommend Camera+ as it has a number of key features.  The ability to independently control focus and exposure brings the capabilities of iPhone closer to the DSLR world.  The self timer and burst mode add another layer of creativity, especially if you have a Glif and tripod available.

Here’s a sample image taken on the iPhone 4 and Camera+

In the second category, the excellent Instagram stands out from the crowd(read about the latest contest here).  The filters that are included are excellent (the Lomo and X-Pro II) and with a simple method to share across the usual channels such as twitter, facebook and various third party sites such as instagrid.

The project has already met it’s funding requirement so will be in production very soon. Probably a good thing given Apples iOS 5 announcement whereby you can now use the volume up button as a shutter release.

So, how hard would be to mod the Sony Bloggies lens on to the iPhone 4?  Not hard at all as shown below. All you need to get it working is little blue tack and a GLIF (second image)

iPhone next to the Sony Bloggie 360° lens

iPhone, Sony Bloggie 360° lens and the GLIF

The footage is recorded as a doughnut within the confines of the iPhone’s 720 mode.  Given the spherical dimensions, the final output will be similar to the forthcoming GoPano Micro (The GoPano micro will cost around $88 and you can also use the iPhone’s screen to frame the shot unlike the blind shooting of the dot360).

iPhone recording with Sony Bloggie Lens attached (upside down!)

Kogeto will be launching an iOS app that will then transform the captured doughnut into the appropriate immersive experience in the future.  To get around this, I’ve transformed the video using the Pan-Pro Video Publisher and put it below for you to have a look.

The iPhone footage being processed in Pano Pro Video Publisher

Well, it’s very simple and only requires two very cheap connectors.  Firstly connect the female cigarette lighter adapter to the Sunlinq panel and then insert a suitable cigarette lighter USB convert.  In most situations (i.e. sunny days) the panel generates well over 9V which is sufficient to provide power to USB chargeable gadgets.  I then connect the Hypermac Micro to the USB adapter using the supplied

USB – DC in lead.

This is great news as it means I can leave the heavy Tekkeon MyPower Lithium battery at home!

So, starting with Google earth and planning your route using the path tool.  An important tip for using the path tool is to orientate the map view so that you have and idea of the contour of the land.  If you try and plan your path from the aerial view you’ll observe some very odd routing decisions and probably have a route that you can’t ride/walk.

The level of detail provided by the satellite imagery within Google Earth is generally good enough to work out existing paths, trails and bridleways.  Before you go off tearing up the country side you better check that what looks like a path (i.e. right of way) in Google Earth is real – I use the OS map service in the UK to confirm a path really is a path as logically they should have the most up to date information.  So, back to planning in Google earth.  Once you’ve completed your route the next challenge is to get it onto your GPS device as Google Earth can only save as either KML or KMZ.  As I use the Garmin Colorado 300 the KML/KMZ formats are next to useless.  This is where Garmin Basecamp (or GPS Babel) comes into the picture.  Once you’ve saved your path from Google Earth, you can import the KML into Basecamp (or transform in GPS Babel using the KML to GPX transform).

The main reason for using Garmin Basecamp at this stage is that you can send over the associated map and birdseye imagery to the Colorado otherwise you’re stuck with the very basic standard map.  The main reason that I don’t use Basecamp to plan my routes is down to the silly size restriction the OS map component has – as you can see from the image on the left the window of detail is limited on my the standard and 3D views.

Now, when using the Garmin Colorado you have to remember to reset and orientated the device before setting out on your trip.  Firstly, establish the satellite link otherwise the device will struggle as you’re moving.  I also reset the the trip details so that I know how far I’ve traveled on this trip (and not a cumulative amount) and archive whatever track is currently in memory (then clear the current track).

When I get back to base I normally upload the history to Garmin Connect as well as the Garmin Training Centre.  A key part in this process is to grab the GPX files off the Colorado as the automated upload facility does not process the Heart Rate monitor and Cadence data.

As a side note, if you’re the kind of person to try and just use your iPhone to do all this you’re in luck.  Simply upload your route from Google Earth to your Google Maps (my maps section) account and activate the my maps layer on the iPhones Google Earth app.  Just make sure you’ve got enough juice in the phone to last the length of your walk/ride!

Luckily, most of the photo editing software on the market has an warp feature which can sort the image out. I’m going to use Photoshop CS5, but I’m sure there similar functionality available within something like GIMP. The Warp command lets you drag control points to manipulate the shape of images, shapes, or paths, and so on. The default setting is for a Custom warp – this is the one to stick with as the others will just mess up the image even more.  To the manipulate the shape, drag the control points, a segment of the bounding box or mesh, or an area within the mesh. Shown below is the image mid transform

So, by simply playing around with the control points and more often than not the areas within the mesh you will end up with the following:

1) Stationary tripod

Most of the time I use the Glif with a small tripod – either one of the free small ones you get with most compact camera kits or the Joby GorillaPod.  Both are light and easy to fit in most small bags.  I’ve got the DSLR GorillaPod so use the Glif to attach the iPhone (remember, if you’re shooting video you’ll want it in landscape mode otherwise you’ll have the black bands when played back on a TV or computer).  If you don’t already have a GorillaPod then you could by the one designed for the iPhone 4.  The only drawback of the GorillaPod over the Glif is that you can only connect the iPhone to the GorillaPod stand as it’s a bespoke attachment where as the Glif uses a standard 1/4″-20 thread that fits any standard tripod.  It also allows you to use your bigger tripods…

2) Moving tripod

For a slightly more mobile solution you could try to use something like the Konig Neck Tripod – check out the link for a picture of someone using it with a video camera.  I’ve used this with both the iPhone and Canon 7D instead of carrying a heavy tripod up mountains and it actually works quite well.  I’ve found that the best results are when you’re standing still and try not to breath too heavily!

3) Software

SteadyCam Pro say that they use advanced signal processing algorithms and a little bit of magic to stabilize your video and correct for rolling shutter in real time.  It’s a free to try app and $2.99 to buy.  I’ve tried it while both standing still and then moving and have yet to obtain results as good as they say (and show in their demo video).  The app introduces a delay while trying to start recording and then stutters every now and then.  This is one to watch but not buy at the moment.

—— iPhone Camera Specifications ——-

Horizontal Resolution:    72 dpi
Vertical Resolution:    72 dpi
Exposure Time:    1/1257 sec
F-Number:    f/2.8
ISO Speed Rating:    80
Lens Aperture:    f/2.8
Focal Length:    3.85 mm

Panorama of Epping Forest

Just to make it easy, there’s quite a few routes you can download from the web to add to either your GPS device (I use the Garmin Colorado) or your iPhone. Below is the route I took which tries to follow mostly singletrack but at this time of year some of the tracks have been closed (£200 fine if you head down a closed track) by the forestry guys – and yes, they’re monitoring the park like hawks.

Don’t forget the gadgets and beer at the end of the ride!

noun

1 a drink made from the roasted and ground beanlike seeds of a tropical shrub, served hot or iced : a cup of coffee | [as adj. ] a coffee pot.

There’s nothing like a good coffee – but all to often you’re no where near a good coffee shop. That could be either at home or when your out and about. I’ve had a number of espresso machines at home and at some point they’ve all let me down, primarily due to issues with hard water. The calcification of the internals and delivery mechanism destroys the flavour almost immediately. I’ve tried using filters but that only delays the inevitable and looked elsewhere to find a solution to the problem and it’s name is “Presso”. To use the presso all you have to do is to add the desired amount of hot water (not boiling!) to the reservoir, then add your coffee into the basket then raise both arms to the up position and finally bring them down with a steady pressure.

The “Presso” in action

Although it’s a great machine, the Presso isn’t exactly portable. There’s been many a time in the wilds when I’ve wanted a good espresso but have had to make do with an instant coffee. All that changed with the release of the handpresso! It’s about the size of a small bike pump – which is how it generates the required pressure! 10-15 “pumps” is all that you need to charge the mechanism to which you add your hot water (from a vacuum flask) and finally the ESE coffee pod. Then a quick push of the button and the coffee is dispensed into your waiting cup.

The Handpresso in action

Step 1 – Setup the tripod and attach the Giottos MH621 Sliding Quick Release Adapter Plate to the Giotto – 4 Section Pro Carbon Fibre Tripod With Two-Way Column

Step 2 – Attach the WK10-80 system to the tripod – here’s the underside view of the rail.

Step 3 – Attach the Giottos MH7000-652 Series 1 Ball Head With Quick Release to the rail slide

Step 4 – Slide the carriage on to the rail gently so that you don’t damage the polymer bearings and attach the camera.  If the carriage is a bit sticky then loosen off the bolts holding the bearings but don’t forget to tighten them up!

And here’s the video

iPhone and accessories

After receiving my Glif stand from Photojojo at the weekend I thought I’d swap my Canon 7D and associated lenses for the iPhone 4, mini tripod and iMovie on the iPad.

As you can see from the layout of gear on my table, all I took out were:

iPhone 4
iPad (1st Generation)
mini tripod
Glif iPhone tripod mount
Solio Classic solar charger
iPhone USB lead (and charger for emergency use)
Camera Connection Kit
16GB SD card for additional back up storage
Sunglasses

Apart from the obvious weight saving, using the iPhone with the Glif made for some excellent shots. Statically placed shots appear to work the best, as the “jelly wobble” introduced by the CMOS chip when panning can be a little ugly for use.

iPhone 4 on Glif stand

Short of ordering an “OWLE” iPhone 4 video rig and carrying my Igus Slider, I was surprisingly happy with the results. I used the iPhone on and off all day, most clips around the 10 sec mark except for the action shots with the BMX riders and skaters which went to around 3minutes.  Inevitably the battery took a hammering but I’d brought out the trusty Solio charger to provide additional power.

Transfer between the iPhone and iPad was quick, given that I was using the Camera Connection Kit and not iTunes.  iMovie on the iPad was surprisingly responsive with the final edit coming in around 3 minutes in length.

The iPhone connected to the iPad using the standard USB cable and Camera Connection Kit

After messing around with various cameras, file formats and a number of iOS apps to transfer compatible movies onto the iPad I took a step back.  Pretty much everything I’ve tried indicates that iMovie will generally only work with footage from either the new iPad 2 or from the iPhone 4/3GS.  Although PhotoSync is a great app, it’s dependent on either wifi or (slow) bluetooth.

While charging my iPhone I realised that it’s cable is a bog standard USB lead – one which fits into the Camera Connection Kit.  Could it be that easy?  Yes, it is.  To get photos and video off the iPhone and into the iPad simply plug the iPhones USB lead into the CCK attached to you iPad and hey presto – the files speed themselves over!

Then, as long as you’ve installed iMovie using the iPhone Configuration Utility, iMovie recognises all the files and off you go. (Follow the instructions from Wired)  Obviously you could use iMovie on the iPhone but if you have and iPad with you the the extra screen size makes things much easier!

Oh, and just to show how much I trust my Joby Gorillapod with the Canon 7D on top, here it is balanced on a wooden rail overlooking the Thames!  Any of you who follow @PhilipBloom, I too was thinking of the moment when he lost his Panasonic GH2!

Canon 7D gorillapod balancing act

Canon 7D files don't render

Well, from the looks of it, not a lot.  Working with a non jail broken iPad, there’s very little you can do.  iOS 4.3 hasn’t fixed the issue with playback of the video files from the Canon 7D or Kodak Zi8.  Again, it’s all rather stupid given that you can play back the files through GoodReader and the VideoPlayer apps – although you have to jailbreak your iPad to be able to get to the files.  As you can see from the images above and below, on the import screen the thumbnails are rendered correctly, but when you go to the photos page the imported movies thumbnails are not rendered – just a grey box with “mov” in the middle.

Oddly enough, the iPad was able to playback the 720p files from the Sony Bloggie from within the iPhoto App but iMovie was unable to recognise the file and display it in the video selection window.

So, as there’s no camera on the first gen it’s down to the iPhone’s camera.  There’s no easy way of transferring the video files from an iPhone to the iPad without using iTunes to synchronise the files via your laptop/ desktop.  So, as Microsoft would say, it’s off to the cloud!

Into the Cloud

From the iPhone it’s easy to add the video files to your DropBox from the iPhones Camera Roll.  Over to the iPad – unfortunately DropBox doesn’t let you add photos or videos to the Camera Roll. Neither does another of my other favourite apps – GoodReader or even FileBrowser.  So, thanks to Sn0wbreeze (pwnagetool didn’t work for 4.3) and iBooty I can use the all powerfull iFile.

Firstly, I had to use GoodReader to download the file from DropBox then it’s over to iFile.  In iFile navigate to the GoodReader document folder and open up the file attribute window of the movie you want to add to the camera roll – and click on “Add to Camera Roll”

iMovie on the iPad

Once you’ve added the movie to the camera roll, you can then fire up iMovie and start a new project to play with. The interface is pretty much the same as the iPhone – just much bigger.  The jury is still out on the whether or not the new iPad 2 will be able to render the HD files from the Canon 7D or just with files captured from either the iPhone and iPads camera.

iPhone file in iMovie

If the new iPad 2 doesn’t gain the capability to be able to play nicely with the Canon 7D, an upgrade looks less and less attractive.

Canon 7D set up for time-lapse outside the Bank of England

Shooting time-lapse is a relatively straight forward affair.  The equipment you need varies depending on the duration and or quality of the time-lapse you’re trying to capture.  At the basic end of the scale, all you need is a camera.  With just a camera, it all about you! All you have to do it take photos in series at a specific interval using the shutter release.  Obviously, if you’re doing it manually the end result may not be the most professional – but it will be a time-lapse non the less.

Time-lapse photography is a cinematography technique whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured (the frame rate) is much lower than that which will be used to play the sequence back.

Equipment

So, to improve the quality of the time-lapse you’ll need two things (three if you include the time it takes to capture!). The first is an appropriate tripod based on the camera you’ll be using and the location at which you’ll be taking the photos.  For the less intrusive camera positions (or more creative)  I always use my trusty Joby Gorillapod. For safe, wide open spaces where people aren’t an issue, I use my Giottos Carbon Fibre Tripod.

The second depends on your camera – the intervalometer.  Some cameras come with the feature built in to the software (or if you’re using an iPhone and suitable app), some cameras can be hacked to provide the feature and the rest will need an appropriate piece of equipment.

Canon 7D set up for time-lapse at the Tower of London

As a quick side note, the CHDK firmware enhancement for compatible cameras is great.  I’ve used it with my old Canon A620 to capture lightning during storms and sunsets with great success. But, as it says on the tin, it’s for compatible Canon cameras only.  Unfortunately that does not include the Canon 7D or Canon G series!

So, for shooting time-lapse with the Canon 7D you’ll either need to buy the Canon TC 80N3 or a more reasonable third party model. Both have the same features, it just depends whether you have to have the Canon badge on it or not!

So, you’ve got your camera positioned and intervalometer set up.  Next, what mode to shoot in, what resolution and what interval between shots?  As a general rule, I always shoot in AV mode with manual focus at a resolution of 4.5M (2592*1728) which resolves most issues with exposure metering and card space! The interval depends on a number of factors including the subject matter to be recorded and the desired duration of the resulting time-lapse movie.  With regards to the subject matter you’ll need to vary the shutter speed to capture the effect you want – i.e. long exposures at night to (a) gather enough light and (b) generate  suitable motion in the image.  Fast shutter speeds tend to result in a choppy time-lapse movie, so it’s good to get a little blur in the image to soften it down.  When considering the duration of the final time-lapse  movie, you’ll need to calculate the number of shots you need to take in order to generate the desired film duration at your chosen FPS (24 or 30 FPS is the norm).  So, for a 5 minute 24 FPS movie with shots taken every second you’ll need to capture 5 * 60 * 24 = 7200 individual frames.  If you don’t want to capture so many frames, then you can mess around with the frame rate as anything from 8 FPS can result in a pleasing movie.

Once you’ve worked out the number of images you’ll need, you can then estimate the size of the memory card you need and the likely hood of your batteries running out before you’ve captured all the images!

Software

So, you’ve captured the images and now it’s time to put them all together!  Now, if you’re on a Mac things couldn’t be easier – well, quite easy.  Firstly, you should resize all you images to your desired movie render – i.e. 1080 or 720 – but if you’ve got a fast mac and want incredibly ultra high definition movie then leave them as they are.  Once you’ve settled on the size, place all the files in a folder and make sure they’re sequentially named.  Then using Quicktime 7 (not Quicktime X) open the files using the “open image sequence” and select the appropriate frame rate. That’s it!  Just save your new movie and off you go. Further adjustments can be done using the usual programs such as Final Cut Pro/iMovie etc.

If you’re on a PC then there’s a couple of choices that I’ve seen around.  Microsoft Movie Maker has a similar image sequence import but is restricted to 8 FPS.  MakeAVI is a freeware app that will also resize your images while it generates the AVI file.

Example time-lapse shot at various locations around London

Well, iOS 4.3 GM has been seeded out to developers but unfortunately it doesn’t allow the playback of HD movie imported from the Canon 7D. That’s another disappointment on top of the announcement that iMovie for the iPad will not be supported on the iPad generation 1.  As you can see from the screenshot on the right, the movies are imported (and can be grabbed from the iPad using iPhoneExplorer) but they’re not playable.  So, as far as using the iPad as an interim backup device while you’re on the road – it’s good for as much memory that’s left on the iPad.

I’m still waiting to see if, with it’s new dual core A5 and improved GPU, the iPad 2 will support the native playback of movies.  The only good news so far with the release of iOS 4.3 GM is that it’s already been jailbroken.  Fingers crossed that the hacking community will enable iMovie for the first generation iPad very soon.

Having a look around on the market highlights some of the more popular but expensive video monitors – aka the Marshall line which start around £700. Not wanting to spend that much, a number of blogs point towards Lilliput. Lilliput are a manufacturer more commonly associated with the automotive industry – in providing headrest mounted monitors for people who want to add a little bling to their “ride”.

The model I went for was the Lilliput 669GL-70NP/C – 7″ HDMI monitor (bought of eBay with a spare battery, hot flash adapter and cable). It’s a nice package which can either be attached to the cameras hot shoe or, if space and equipment allow, on another tripod. Small enough to fit in my camera bag and with the extra battery it easily lasts the day.

As you can see from the first image, it’s great for when you’re zooming in on subjects with manual focus. Below is an image where I’m using it for macro. Shooting video using the monitor is a breeze – and if you don’t need to see the shooting info then you can utilise the full 16:9 ratio that the camera pumps out. Oh, it also comes with a hood shade – which projects out an inch.  Not that much use but given that it pops off easily, that’s not too much of a problem.

The only issue you’re likely to encounter with the lilliput monitor is the battery compartment.  To open the compartment you’ll need a philips screw driver to remove the cover.  A bit of a pain but not the end of the world.

As a side note, I’ve also powered the monitor using my Tekkeon MyPower MP3750 Rechargeable Lithium Polymer battery for a long long time.  When plugged into the monitor it also charges the lilliput’s internal battery.

Tekkeon MyPower charging Lilliput Monitor

Canon Battery Pack LP-E6
Hoya 58mm HMC NDX4 Filter
Hoya 58mm Circular PL Filter
Ex-Pro 58mm White Balance Lens Cap.
Canon PowerShot G10
HDMI to Mini HDMI Cable
Air Duster
LCDVF LCD View finder
Giottos MH621 Sliding Quick Release Adapter Plate
Canon TC 80N3 – Camera Remote Control – Cable

And the two things that go over my shoulder are

Giotto – 4 Section Pro Carbon Fibre Tripod With Two-Way Column
Giottos MH5001

There’s nothing worse than after an awful train ride is to be awoken at 5:30am to only look out of the window to see a sprawling mass of smoke belching factories and what looks like very basic housing. Welcome to Ulaanbaatar!

To say the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar are ugly would be quite right. The influence of Soviet architectural and town planning is evident.It seems that very little thought has been given to people and the environment. Factories, probably unregulated, are only srperated by waste ground and opportunistic housing. Even the Mongolian ger makes a sporadic appearance. Whether or not they were here before the factories is doubtful.

They love the Beatles in Ulaanbaatar

Arriving at yet another station, a quick look at the map in the lonely planet it should only be a short walk to peace avenue. As it’s 6am, why not – doubt anything is open and it’s unlikely that my room will be ready. Joined by Camile, Gregoire and Morgan we set off. A few minutes later and it becomes obviously that the cartographer for the lonely planet has never been to Ulaanbaatar or there’s been significant tectonic activity as things are futher away than they seem!

45 mins later, several offers of rides, hostels and we’re at Sukhbaatar sq. Quite impressive given the mainly russian style buildings along the route. The Swiss trio decide to look for a place to stow gear while I try to find some coffee – but before we can go our seperate ways we’re joined by a karate teaching American expat by the name of Thamous (one day he’ll be famous-his line, not mine) who offers some help and whisks the Swiss off!

Most of the places for eating are close to the Sukhbaatar square. Silk road bar and grill- off the main road down from Sukhbaatar sq, serves a variety of euro style food but also have shish kebabs on the menu. Good, but you could probably find better. The view if the “temple” is of a brick wall. Don’t come for the view.

California- good lunchtime spot given the outside gazeebo – very welcome shade when it’s pushing 34. Extensive western menu but the beef steak salads are best. Good sized lunch for around 15,000 mnt. For a great curry I’d recommend trying the Taj Mahal in the Ulaanbaatar Hotel (The only five star hotel in Mongolia – so they say!)

Drinking out is a little bit easier unless it’s the first day of the month as no alcohol can be purchased! So, either buy it the day before or raid the mini bar! In summer there’s quite a few marquees up in the town in an around Sukhbaatar sq and along Seoul st. It seems such a waste to venture into an underground bar given the weather so I stayed outside.

A relaxing in Ulaanbaatar for a couple of days, I headed off to Terelj National Park. There are a number of travel agencies around that can organise anything from a simple walk around Ulaanbaatar or for a full on desert expedition across the Gobi. I opted for a more classical trip into the middle of nowhere and a stay in a traditional mongolian ger. One thing travelling by train that is great is the general feeling of safety – one thing you don’t get in a mongolian transfer! Quite simply, they all have a death wish! On arrival I’m greeted with a traditional airag (fermented horse milk) and shown to my Ger.

Thankfully I’d packed sufficient clothes and gadgets to enable my survival of the grid! Especially the Handpresso Wild Expresso Maker and my folding 12w solar charger. An additional benefit to having the handpresso is that it’s a great ice breaker with the locals whilst travelling. All you need is some hot water (in a flask) and handpresso compatible e.s.e pod. Nearly everyone is familiar with cameras, ipods, eReaders but not with the amazing taste of an espresso in the wild!

The surrounding mountains of the Gorkhi-Terelj National Park are stunning – if not a little cold and on occasion very wet. Most of the other guests elected to be driven around the sites but with my trusty Garmin Colorado GPS and tasted for a little peace and quiet, I just wandered up and down the mountains.

Back in Ulaanbaatar for a day before the the train leaves for Beijing and time to check out some more of the historical sites. While I was there the Nairamdal Park was closed for refurbishment but the Gandan Monastery, Winter Palace of Bogd Khan and Museum of National History were all open and well worth a visit.

I stumbled across this post the other day, Modding the bloggie panoramic lens, about hacking the bloggie to enable it to record 360° movies in 1080p and not the standard 720.

The initial problem the leaves you with (apart from a hacked bloggie) is how to transform your polar movie to an equirectangular format.  The software that ships with the bloggie will only recognise the 720 footage. So, I’ve attached so test to show the difference between the Pano Pro video publisher and the open framework processing script.

Test footage from the Sony Bloggie using Sony PMB software (don’t forget to switch to 720p HD!).

The same footage from the Sony Bloggie processed using the Pano Pro video publisher (don’t forget to switch to 720p HD!). (unprocessed footage here)

Here’s the 1080p footage from the Sony Bloggie processed using the Pano Pro video publisher. As you can see, the quality is greatly improved and you only loose around 6% of the viewable image (due to the distance from the lens to the 360° attachment)

And finally, here’s the Canon 7D footage processed with the Pano Pro video publisher.

Finally, here’s the output from the unmodified processing script (need to play around with the OPTICAL_CENTER_X params etc)

And finally – really, here’s the Sony Bloggie’s 1080p output passed through the BloggieVideoUnwarp processing file with modified params.

If you just want to playback the output straight from the camera, just follow the instructions here from Ryubin’s website!

Recreational Diving!

Most recreational dive plans and dive guides follow the same simple guideline – start at your deepest planned depth and shallow up throughout the dive. (I won’t refer to it as a rule as information and guidance varies across certification authorities) Again, as divers learn throughout their education, you should have planned the dive taking into consideration your surface time and residual N2.  Now, I’ve been diving for some time now and have never seen a recreational diver calculating their dive plan (unless they’re on a course).  Therefore, anyone jumping into the water for a dive (or repetitive dive) is basically going in blind.  Also, having observed countless recreational divers performing a yo-yo profile and ascending too rapidly (there’s not very much you can do while preforming) having a mechanism which warns you of such activities can only be a good thing.

John Mason Technical Diving with VR3 and Suunto D6

Finally, recreational diving has embraced the use of Nitrox all over the world for mostly the right reasons.  However, changing the diving gas and associated dive profiles (staying down longer, deeper, within O2 toxicity limits, etc) significantly changes your exposure to N2 and O2.

I bought a Suunto years ago – a D6. It’s performed in all situations, and doubles as a nice dual timezone travel watch and dive log.  The only minor drawback is the log book memory size and battery changing process.  The log book details are limited to around 36hrs of data – once you go over that it’ll start over writing from the beginning. Not good if you haven’t downloaded your dive profiles!

What would I buy now for recreational diving? Well, there are loads out there so you just need to balance the key features – some of which are  (1) the algorithm, (2) ease of use, (3) mixed gas support, (4) connectivity to download your dives and (5) battery changing.  My Suunto D6 manages very well in each of these (except the battery changing as the unit has to be opened and pressure tested) – So it would still be the Suunto D6.

Technical Diving!

I still use my Suunto D6 while technical diving.  It serves as my back up bottom timer and depth gauge – and logs the usual depth, time temperature for downloading to my dive log.  My primary dive computer is the VR3 by technology in depth and was purchased at a dive show.  I’d seen it in use, read loads of reviews and given the low price point at the dive show bought it.  With only two buttons for input, it’s relatively easy to use underwater.    The big screen (with the additional colour option) with the Trimix Open Circuit/CCR functionality allows for 10 Gas switches (Air and 0-99% 02), has dive planning options and allows you to change the plan while diving makes it a very powerful piece of equipment.  The dive logs can be downloaded using (yes, another additional optional cable and software purchase) to their bundled software.  A small bonus here is that you can use their software on a desktop to plan and set up the gasses you’ll use for the dive without having to do the two finger shuffle on the computer.

There are several negative points to the VR3 (and to the same or slightly lesser extent other computers).  The biggest is the battery.  Although it’s designed to allow the user to replace the battery themselves, the units power consumption is verging on the excessive.  For a two hour technical dive you really need to change the battery before you dive and remember to turn off the back light!.   The battery has gone on me several times during a dive. The next problem is that if it goes during a dive you’ll miss the window to change the battery and therefore preserve the settings in the computer.

So, what would I buy for technical diving?  On the occasions that the VR3 failed, it had no impact on my dive.  The majority of good technical divers firstly plan their dive and then dive their plan.  Apart from a potentially shorter decompression obligation (But as I plan using both V-Planner and Baltic Dive Planner) the difference to the plan is generally nothing.  In the event of loss gas and deeper longer scenarios – all the details are in my plan and back up wet-book. So, my advice is to stick to diving the plan and investing your money in a couple of bottom timers.  The UWATEC depth timer is robust, functional, has a 12 year battery and below £100.  Spend the money you save on V-Planner or Helium….  A quick note on the Suunto HelO2 – I performed a number of technical dives while in Indonesia with a guy using the HelO2.  We planned all the dives using V-Planner and double checked with both my Baltic Dive Planner and someone else’s LiquidVision X1.  Enough to say that the deco profile for the HelO2 was way off the plan and VR3.  However, the algorithm that ships with the HelO2 is a little odd (And I’m no expert in the finer details).  This introduced the age old conundrum – dive the plan, dive the computer or do something else.  In my opinion, and that of some of my friends, the answer is to dive the plan.

Once I’d passed my advanced open water course I bought an underwater housing for my Canon A620.  As a beginners camera (7.1 MP & 4x optical zoom) it performed pretty well as it had the all important “custom white balance” mode. For all those divers out there who’ve completed the PADI underwater – white balance is the most important feature when looking for a good camera.

Canon G10 Case

A natural upgrade was to the Canon G10 (now superseded by the G12 which is in many ways not as good).  As the G10 introduced a SD video mode, I began to experiment with shooting video.  Early tests were relatively successful – Canon G10 Sample Video.  The image quality on the G10 is excellent.  Out of water, the 28mm lens is great but underwater it’s just not wide enough.  Most of the wide lens manufacturers do not support the G10 – only the FIX Big Fish Eye.  Most reviews say that with the FIX Fish Eye vignetting becomes a big problem.  If you watched the video above, you’d have noticed that my buddy (Cath Bates) and I are approaching 55m on a technical dive.

The task loading of tech diving associated with the many buttons, white balance settings and exposure/aperture settings of the camera is too much when at depth (especially on deep air dives).  Add to this the recommended allowable depth for the underwater housing (40m for the Canon housings) and things become not just difficult but impossible as the buttons become unresponsive due to the pressure being exerted on the case.  In fact, the only problem I’ve had with the G10 (which remains my backup camera on all my trips – near and far) is that the button caved in (You have to use the afore mentioned button to change the aperture settings when underwater as you don’t have access to the scroll wheel – another pain in the ass as far as the case design goes).

So, with technical diving foremost in my mind I decided to look at the many new compact HD video cameras on the market.  The most popular camera at the time was the Flip HD – but with a little more research I stumbled on the Kodak Zi8.  Encouraged by the reviews and most importantly by the cost of both the camera and Ikelite Housing (60m rated) Amazon made a little more money.  What the Kodak lacks in features (most notably a custom white balance) it makes up for in low light quality and usability.

With just a stop/start button it doesn’t get much more simpler.  The only problem you’re left with is the depth at which you can use it.  Ikelite rate their case to 60m.  I’ve used it down to 80m but the buttons become slightly un-responsive – no surprise there. So, make sure you start it rolling before you pass 60m!  On the upside the battery life is amazing (the Canon G10 would normally last 1 and 1/2 dives – pain in the ass when it goes) but the Kodak will run continually for over 100 mins – Here’s a video to show you what the Kodak can do (110 min dive edited down to 20mins)

Would I still buy the Kodak?  Maybe not, but things have moved on and hindsight is a powerful tool (only after the event though!).  The Kodak is great, especially with the Inon UWL 100 Lens.  It’s light, easy to use, quick to charge and fits in your pocket when you’re out and about.  The key point here is light.  When you start to consider the cost, weight and logistics required to transport a DSLR underwater housing along with your dive gear (mine is in excess of 35Kgs already) it becomes silly.  Consider the cheaper Ikelite housing for the 7D.  The case will set you back (I’ll use Cameras Underwater in the UK for sterling and B&H in the US for Dollars) £1,279 ($1,499), dome port £454 ($524), peli case to transport £150 ($200) the camera and lens £1,500 ($1,500) and then the excess luggage fee and insurance.  I’ll not go into the cost of transport as it varies wildly between airlines.  The same issues exist for the fans of the more conventional video camera. For a quality HD camera and housing that will go to depth, your still looking at shelling out a small fortune and increasing you bag allowance.

So, what’s the alternatives on the market these days? Canon have updated the Powershot and Ixus range with varying HD modes with the all important white balance feature.  The Go Pro HD has popped up in a number of reviews but the image quality suffers (due to the current design of the housing).  A potentially interesting introduction to the market are the micro four thirds cameras.  Given their size and image quality (Philip Bloom highly rates the GH2) they may take over from the DSLRs – but only when the housing manufacturers start to produce the goods!

In summary, I’m going to stick with the Kodak for the time being but keep an eye on Go Pros – they’re just to small and good to be ignored (especially if they sort out the housing!)

Over the years I’ve collected a number of gadgets to simplify and/or automate the acquisition of large panoramic and 360 degree photos – to varying degrees of success!  They range from the cheap to the silly…. and we start with the iPhone 4.  Excluding the cost of the iPhone – the 360 apps (£0.59 – £1.19) are by far the cheapest way to capture reasonable panoramas.

The two apps that I use are 360 Panorama – Occipitaland Panoramatic 360 – floaty have two different approaches and quality. 360 Panorama has a more conventional approach of panning slowly to capture the panorama (or 360 if you spin all the way around). It will only capture a single row of images (portrait or landscape) which limits the inclination of the final image. At the time of writing, Occipital have introduced a 3D option that is a little experimental.  Here’s a sample of what it can do :

Panoramatic 360 – floaty takes the quick route – literally! Built with speed in mind and assuming you’re in a well lit area, Panoramic 360 builds the immersive image as you scan around the location using the iPhones gyroscope. Results vary according to the lighting, background movement of people and objects and the method of capture (up/down or spining). Here is and example taken on Narrow St, Limehouse.

One issue with Panoramic 360 is that the images are stored on the Occipital servers and are not in an easily exportable format. You can hack around in the source that’s generated by their online viewer (4 images) which you download (along with the .js files, css, supporting images) to host externally.

Moving away from the apps brings me to the Sony MHS-PM5KV Bloggie High Definition Handycam Camcorder with 360 degree lens.  The innovative 360 lens miniaturises what is normally a large and delicate mirror that you have to attach to your camera (see info about the Pano-Pro system later). It’s a little clip on accessory that’s only sold with the camera (unless you go through the Sony Spare parts system – it’ll cost you the same, if not a little more that an entire camera package!  - so don’t loose or scratch it!)  When you attach the lens, the camera switches into 360 mode (there’s a little magnet in the lens package).  When in 360 mode you can either record 360 video (720p) or take a 360 degree still image.  Sony bundle some windows software which will allow you to convert to a watchable (windows) format or you can use the free Ryubin’s Panorama.  No conversion is required as it accepts the raw output from the camera. Here’s an example of the cameras doughnut output – not that easy to watch! The bloggie is small enough to fit in you pocket and is even better when attached to your bike!

Last but not least – the Pano-Pro with it’s supposedly “largest in the market” panoramic lens.  Primarily targeted at the property market (estate agents etc.) it can be attached to a number of cameras – compacts and DSLRs. I’ve used it with the Canon 7D and Canon G10. Both require an adapter to attach the Pano-Pro lens with the 7D needing a supporting brace (otherwise you’ll either ruin your lens or have out of focus shots!) Although the quality generated using the Pano-Pro and 7D is far greater than the bloggie, the software (at additional cost) lets the whole package down. Updates are less than frequent (only on Windows at the moment) and the package is especially obtuse to use. Oh, and it’s huge!

To build the slider you’ll need :

Cordless Drill
WK10-80 system plus carriage
Giottos MH7000-652 Series 1 Ball Head With Quick Release (one, but it’s easier if you have two!)
a couple of bolts

The only new pieces I had to buy was the WK10-80 system plus carriage.  To assemble the rig you’ll need to drill one hole in the igus plate to accept the tripod head and one in the centre of the rail so you can mount it on your tripod. I went for a 10mm hole in the rail as it’s the right size for the Giotto head bolt and 8mm in the plate.  To attach the tripod head to the plate I simply use a Camera Flash Hot Shoe Mount 1/4″ Tripod Screw Adapter with thread adapter so it’s flush with the plate and will not snag on the rail.

Now for the resulting video!

Colombia Road flower market is a great place to spend an hour or two on a Sunday morning, as the street is transformed into oasis of foliage and flowers.  After a suitably pleasing purchase, a lemon tree, it was time to take a quick photo.  Unfortunately, using only one hand the iPhone slipped all to quickly to a crashing demise on the pavement.  Inevitably I’d forgot to put the free bumper supplied by apple on the iPhone.

Smashed iPhone 4

A quick browse of the web returned a few options – a walk in service for £60 (London & Manchester), postal services starting from £40 and a number of suppliers offering replacement parts for around £29.  Excluding the £20 premium to walk in to a shop, the additional cost to insure and track your precious iPhone (and it’s data), I decided to get the spare part.

There is quite a few options for replacement screens around – mostly web retailers and grey eBay imports starting from £2.99.  I discounted the cheaper eBay items which state that they have 32Gb label etc because the original iPhone doesn’t! I chose a reputable UK eBay supplier with next day delivery for an “iPhone 4G Replacement New Broken Back Rear Panel Glass” with a precision screwdriver (the only tool you need!)

I’ve posted a series of photos below showing the steps to replace the screen, i.e. remove the two screws near the dock connector, slide the back panel up and lift off – that simple.

Remove the two screws

Slide the back plate up to remove

Replace with new back plate

One problem with the 7D (unless you spring for the Canon WFT-E5B Wireless File Transmitter – Wireless file transmitter) is that you’ll have to wait until your back at base or carry a suitably powerful laptop/netbook with you to review your shots.

With the iPad’s Camera connection kit, life becomes much simpler.  Just attach the 7D to the iPad via the USB connection and choose which files to review.  Better still, you can then upload/email the files for review or quickly touch up the image using on of the available photo manipulation apps from the iTunes App Store.

What if you’ve been taking video?  Currently you can only import the files but not watch them back.  Perhaps that will come along in future versions of iOS (not in 4.2)

This is the big problem with Apple policies  - the device is more than capable of playing back the video.  So, if you jail break your iPad all these features work.  Once jail broken you can use iFile to copy the movies from the CF card, watch them in the Video Player and organise them with GoodReader.

Update: Just testing iOS 4.3 Beta 1 and imported movies are almost playing.  Thumbnail generation is still missing, as is the actual movie.  Although the timeline is displaying the movie content correctly.

Update 2: Nope – feature has disappeared again!

So, with the impending launch of the iPad I was interested in it’s capability to provide a preview and back up capability. Obviously the 64GB of onboard storage would never be enough, so the article by Maxwell C Shay raised more than an eyebrow. However, one key issue with the process to access an external drive is to logically mount the drive so that it can be accessed through iFile. The demonstration shows this being achieved by using SSH from a laptop – which rather defeats the purpose of a reasonably self contained solution.

So, I tried to write a simple app that could be run from SpringBoard which would either mount or unmount a connected drive (as per Maxwell’s instructions). Unfortunately, that was a no go – no matter how I tried to execute the shell commands nothing would mount. Now, given that I would have my iPhone in close proximity the simple answer was to use a SSH client from the iPhone to execute the commands remotely – while on the same wifi network. All you have to do is install something like TouchTerm (MobileTerm is not yet compatible with the iPad) and create a connection for Home (i.e. 127.0.0.1 with the usual root credentials).

As I chose to purchase the MiFi instead of the 3G iPad, I have an extremely compact wifi router (doesn’t need a 3G signal to create the network) So I simply connect the external drive to my iPad, issue the command from my iPad and then browse, move and organise my files without the need of the bulky MacBookPro or under powered netbook.

You’ll have to jailbreak your iPad – I’ve had this working on both 4.2 and 4.3 betas.  iFile now behaves like Finder in OSX and will display the attached drive as a Flash Drive (with eject icon), so you can skip the SSH steps mentioned in the Maxwell C Shay article. This greatly simplifies the copying and moving of files to and from GoodReader.

So far I’ve had this working fine with SDHC cards from my Kodak Zi8, Sony MHS-PM5KV Bloggie 360 and Canon EOS 7D. Even though iPhoto seems to download the files (if there’s a DCIM folder somewhere on the card) it doesn’t play well with the HD video footage so just launch them from iFile into VideoPlayer.

If I haven’t already tried out some stupid sports, this ranks high up the list.  An outfit called Bigfoot Hostel’s offer a Volcano boarding package at around $28. This 4.5-hour excursion will have you climbing to the top of Nicaragua’s ominous Cerro Negro volcano, only to mount a sit-down board and travel at speeds of up to 50 mph while sliding down the slope to the bottom. To add to the thrill, Cerra Negro remains an active volcano, and Bigfoot even throws in a post-boarding mojito to help ease any bumps and scrapes you may have earned on your trip down. (from Uncrate)

I’d been contemplating a HTPC for sometime now but have always had issues with the ‘PC’ side of things. Considering the usual form factor and noise considerations (with a desire not to leave my MBP on 24*7) the MacMini seemed to be the best choice.

As I’ve been Handbrak’ing, MacTheRipper’ing and TURBO’ing my various DVDs to the Drobo.  So far so good

So, I started to look around the market place for a suitable extendible NAS solution that was extremely mac friendly. Previous experience with a WD My Book World were less than successful. Poor management tools and slow performance were major deficiencies with the product, thus similar products were excluded.

Most solutions around are RAID based and inevitably do not lend themselves towards Mac compatibility (generic filesystems)- one exception being the Drobo. On it’s own (i.e. sans DroboShare) they act as a more than capable USB/ Firewire backup solution or even as direct attached storage through the TimeCapsule USB port. This, however, ties it to the “N” band leaving my other devices out in the cold.

However, when paired with the aptly named DroboShare, it becomes more than a NAS solution given the growing number of apps being developed for the platform. Coupled with the easy to use DroboDashboard it was a simple choice. The TimeCapsule is now back to it’s originally designated purpose – a backup device for my MBP. (Update : and now my MacMini)

1. book tickets early
2. arrive when the gates open (good space near the bar/access paths is best)
3. picnic blanket and inflatable sleeping matt/chair combo
4. take a good picnic, although there was a tempting indian selection on sale – beer/wine has to be in plastic bottles. A popular choice is to grab a pizza from pizza express round the corner and bring it in with you.

Here’s a couple of shots from the evening

The question is – how did the sensor get so dirty in the first place?

INSERT_MAP

“Here’s $500 for the first documented case of someone
using the white courtesy phone in an airport to page
Mr Shootdown, Reese Sett, Sleep Now, or whatever and
blanking all the laptops in a concourse. An extra
$500 if it’s DC National…” read more

Yes, it’s a bit fuzzy!

“Where is badfracture at? I want to disown him. I am putting myself up on eBay ASAP”

Two annoying comments from my xbox306voice . Anymore of this sh*t, it’ll be providing a nice base for a PlayStation3.

UPDATE : QEDWiki has been replaced by IBM Lotus Mashups, which provides a lightweight mashup environment for assembling personal, enterprise, and Web content into simple, flexible, and dynamic applications.

Blue screen of death! oh yes, what’s the first thing to do seeing as I’ve got a shiny new macbook pro? That’s it; install the Microsoft Vista PRC1! installing was pretty simple – install bootcamp, change the partition size to anything greater than 10gb (Vista Ultimate needs at least 8gb), install the Mac Drivers and just wait for the BSOD. Didn’t take long to occur – problems with the ATI Radeon drivers – tried the latest download from the ATI Sites but I’m having the usual problem of removing the previous drivers. Other than having to pay to download the Office 2007 trial ($250 $2.50) looks like a re-themed XP with a lot more annoying pop windows asking if Vista can wipe your arse bluescreen randomly thrash the hard drive.

Just to push my luck, I’m going to install the latest beta Picasa and Google (as they’re not out for OSX yet) to see how they perform……

Slainte… I’ve ordered mine in today (guiness that is.!!) and my snowboard bag turns up. Hidden deep in the bag is the proof of some boarding. Luckily, I’d decided to test out my little GPS tracker on the first run (marked in blue) as shown on the google map above.

I’ve also estimated where I crashed….somewhere near Wild Card. Crystal Lodge is where I was supposed to stay the week…

More images can be found on the google image page.