Know Tech

the coolest thing about the iPhone camera is that it's the only camera that we have that gets better as time goes by.

the Maker Faire 2012 has come and gone. we're reinspired to make an R2D2. and finish the 3D printer. here's a talk that wraps up the last incarnation of this event that attracts thousands of nerds, geeks, hackers, and normal people.

I needed a backup device that transparent like Time Capsule, was more cost effective then a appliance NAS drive, give me the most storage for my money and it had to be something I could self repair. I ended up building a 10 terabyte server powered by FreeNAS for under a $1000.

I've had a lot of printers in my life from letter quality daisy wheels to dot matrix to dye sub to laser. and at some level the businesses I ran wouldn't have been possible without the leveraged use I got from printing without limits. Tom pointing that this same thing is right here with 3D printing is telling. 1) it's ground zero. think of Makerbot as a Epson MX-80 2) there potential for hundreds of new business 3) be prepared to see lots of failure as it engages 4) plastics and resins are toxic. stand by for regulation in California. the discussion last night over dinner before the show was about lots of different things but one subject was "I want one but I don't know why I want one." this was Kanen answering the question do you want a 3D printer because making 2 is just as easy as making 1.

the best practices for Mac maintenance turn out to be very simple: do nothing.

Macworld Expo has been "the tradeshow" for all things Mac for the last 25 years. there was a time when it was mandatory for anyone who had an interest in Mac to attend. companies came here to announce products, users came to learn, buyers came to do deals and the press could see all their contacts. it was all under one roof. today it's not the show that it once was.

the 3-5 shot panorama is a really cool way to capture a scene. it's not really a pano but think of it as a S-U-P-E-R W-I-D-E picture as you aren't doing a full 360. you can take these with any camera. it doesn't have to be expensive. and you don't have to have a super wide lens. in fact you may want to shoot you pano using a more zoomed lens instead of the widest setting.

Continuous is a mode on your camera that takes picture after picture for as long as you hold down the shutter. the frame rate of the shots depends on the camera. the Canon shoots is about 4 FPS, Fuji is .3 seconds per frame, Nikon has a mode called 16 (which turns the flash off automatically, there is also has a mode that does 1.5 FPS and the Sony have different rates that depend on the camera. there are several Casio cameras that have super fast frame rates like up to 1000 frames per second!

if you take one picture a day and share it every day for a year by the end you'll have 365 awesome shots!

talking about the annual Siggraph conference and trade show for graphics, 3D and visual arts creation.