Fahad's Tech Lounge

East Lansing Sky Time Lapse Test

Fahad — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:04:08 +0000

The sky was beautiful yesterday, so I thought it’d be a great opportunity to shoot my first time lapse.

Sky Time Lapse

I shot the sky in multiple different angles, but only one of the angles came out decent (the one above). I was shooting this out the window of my apartment in East Lansing, MI. Took 283 stills, in just under 30 minutes, shooting each picture 10 seconds apart.

Definitely learned a lot by doing this. Number 1, make sure to ALWAYS keep your camera charged, you never know what you might run into. On the 284th shoot, my camera ran out of juice. Also, found putting this time lapse together in After Effects was a little bit difficult, probably because I picked it up two days go. Nevertheless great experience and hoping to do more like this later.

I did say I’d do a post on my first experience in doing slow motion. I promise, that post will be coming up next. So stay tuned !

I’m Back !

Fahad — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 03:56:49 +0000

I’m back ! But now with more then just tips and tricks for Mac & PC. I’ve recently picked up a new hobby, photography. So I’ll be posting my work on my blog and Flickr page. Don’t worry, I’ll still be posting tips and tricks for Mac & PC; I know a lot of you guys found my posts useful, so I’ll continue to do that as well.

I purchased a Sony Alpha a230 last year, but didn’t do much with it. Just last week I got the Canon Rebel T2i and after playing around with it, now I’m so pumped about shooting stills and videos. So hopefully, I’ll have a lot of material to share.

Here are a few shots that I took the same day I got my Canon Rebel T2i, check out more on my Flickr page:

Stay tune for my next post on Slow Motion video.

First Impressions on the iPhone 4

Fahad — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:00:04 +0000

Finally got my iPhone 4 today. Everyone’s been asking if its worth upgrading to the new iPhone 4. I’ve been playing around with the iPhone for few hours now. And here is what I think and hopefully give you a small glimpse of what the new iPhone can do.

Cosmetic Changes

LCD: Apple has added a new type of display called the Retina display. With the Retina display, everything you see and do on iPhone 4 looks amazing. Text in books, web pages, and email is crisp at any size. Images in movies and photos are stunning at almost any angle. That’s because the Retina display’s pixel density is so high, your eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels. High resolution of 960 x 640, its absolutely fabulous.

Camera: The iPhone 4 has 2 built-in cameras for video calling. The back has been upgraded from 3-megapixel camera to a 5-megapixel with zoom and added auto focus feature. The tap zoom works pretty-well, the pictures comes out well. Flash is decent, not to impressed with it. Again it’s better then not having one. Also the most noticeable thing about the camera is faster shutter speeds. This helps for less steady hands, so your images don’t come out blurry.

Performance: Performance is a huge thing for the new iPhone. Right away you’ll notice a huge speed difference. Apps load up faster, multi-tasking is smooth and seamless. The iPhone is using the new A4 chip, same as the iPad. If you’ve played around with the iPad, you probably can guess how fast the iPhone 4 is.

SIM: The iPhone 4 uses a Micro-SIM instead of a regular size SIM card. For people who want to switch between other phones that use a regular size SIM card, you can purchase a Micro-SIM to SIM adapter off ebay. Just ordered mine, more details on that when it arrives . While on the call with AT&T for activation for my iPhone 4; I asked them what I’ll need to do, if I want to use my old 3G again. They said you won’t be able to use your old SIM card currently in your 3G, because once it is deactivated you can no longer reuse it and to purchase a new SIM from them ($25-$30).

Comparison to the 3G

Form Factor: The iPhone 4 as you can see is noticeably thinner then the 3G. The LCD screen is a little bit bigger. As for weight, it is heavier. I personally don’t mind it to much, but others might.

Buttons: The previous iPhone generations side buttons would become flush after using it so many times. It was a bad design, but this time around Apple has finally learned their lesson. They have separated the + & – controls.

FaceTime

All I have to say, this is an awesome concept. I realize that iPhone isn’t the first to have it, but It works really well, and the quality is pretty good. Then again, it does use WiFi only. AT&T most probably put restrictions on this, maybe because their network can’t handle it?

Issues:

The first thing I looked at was the reception issue that everyone was having. If you hold the iPhone in your left palm covering the bottom left corner of the phone, the reception should drop slowly and eventually giving you no service. This is indeed happening, I have tried it myself.

Reception dropping: I also noticed that bars would randomly drop from 5 to 3 just standing in one place.

Upgrading from 3G: Before using the new iPhone, I backed up my 3G and then had the iPhone 4 pick up the backup from the 3G. I wasn’t able to do FaceTime, and FaceTime option didn’t appear in the ‘Settings’. After reading though some iPhone forums, I found out that it’s a bug. And in order to get that option back, I had to restore and start fresh.

PS3 Media Server

Fahad — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:04:51 +0000

Remember those good old days, modding the original Xbox to play “back-up” games or install XBMC to run all you’re media stuff. XBMC was a piece of work, allowing you to stream almost any audio/video format from your computer to your Xbox. Well the downside to using this method now is that:

1. Microsoft doesn’t make Xbox games, so you won’t be doing much gaming.

2. Adding a mod-chip is not an easy task and also opening you’re Xbox voids your warranty.

3. And if are okay with the first two things; you can still use it as just a media player, but the Xbox can not handle HD media streaming.

You probably don’t want to hear about the past and just want me to get the point. There is something similar to XBMC is out for the PS3 and it doesn’t void your warranty. PS3 Media Server is a software bundle that allows you to stream almost any type of format, for example mkv, rmvb, hdmov, mp4, multichannels avi, and much much more. Installation is quite simple. Just install PS3 Media Server on any OS (Windows/Mac/Linux). The software automatically detects the PS3 from the network and you can start streaming immediately.

[Quick Tip] Mac Fine Tuning Volume Adjustment

Fahad — Thu, 20 May 2010 01:03:01 +0000

Fine tune volume in OS X by holding down Alt(Option)+Shift then pressing the volume adjuster buttons. Also if you hold Shift key and adjust the volume, you won’t hear the “popping” sound.

Try it out.

[Quick Tip] Show/Hide Icons in System Tray

Fahad — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:13:13 +0000

It can get annoying sometimes when you have a lot of icons in your system tray, because it limits you from seeing open programs in your task bar. Here is a quick tip to show/hide icons in your system tray:

1. Click on the arrow in the system tray and then click customize to pull up the system tray settings.

2. From here you can choose which programs you want to show in your system tray settings.

[Quick Tip] HP MediaSmart LED Light Show Easter Egg

Fahad — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:12:55 +0000

HP has added neat Easter egg in their MediaSmart Servers, called the LED Light Show. There are plenty of light shows to choose from for your pleasure. This is how you do it:

Go to Windows Home Server Console.
Click on ‘Settings’, top right corner.
Click on ‘MediaSmart Server’ tab on the left navigation.
Then go over to ‘LED’ tab.
Hold Shift, Ctrl, Alt and left click on the MediaSmart picture. And an Easter egg should appear next to it. From there you can choose what light show you want to see.

Upgrading the HP MediaSmart Server EX470/EX480 Series With the 3.0 Update

Fahad — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 14:34:57 +0000

WeGotServed has an easy to follow guide on how to update your HP MediaSmart Server EX470/EX480 Series With the 3.0 Update.

For those people who haven’t get purchased their copy, here are the links:

EX470 Series – HP.com (From US$27.95, CAD$56.78)
EX480 Series – HP.com (From US$27.95, CAD$56.78)

If you have any questions about HP MediaSmart Server. Ask away.

Royale Theme for Windows XP

Fahad — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:36:37 +0000

Windows XP has only 2 default themes and they are pretty boring. Royale Theme was leaked out of Microsoft and onto the web. The theme appears to have come out of a beta version of Media Center 2005 that was in testing.

Download it here.

Halal Scanner 1.0

Fahad — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 17:30:29 +0000

Halal Scanner takes a photo of the ingredients label of a food product and determines the halal status of any food additives contained in the product. Users also have the option of searching through a database of food additives on the iPhone instead of using the iPhone camera.

Download it now from the App Store.

More info coming tonight. Stay tuned !