Cool Camera Hacks

Posted on by Jordan

I don’t know if I really understand photography well enough to really take advantage of this, but I just saw an article about a firmware override you can run on most Cannon cameras to get access to a *LOT* more information.

The article

I suppose this would all take more homework than I am willing to do right now, but I have always been fascinated by the potential in hardware beyond what the stock OS offered. I admit I didn’t read this in depth, but it seems like the entire thing is running in-memory, so you could play with it and not risk trashing the factory firmware.

The “if it messes up you bricked your widget” factor is what has prevented me from playing with any sort of aftermarket software mods for my phone, despite my burning hatred for the stock Verizon software.

Anyway, if somebody else tries this let me know how it works out! I hope to look at it more soon.

-Jordan

Free The Music

Posted on by Jordan

Heather has a fairly good sized music collection on her laptop / IPod, and I also have a fairly good sized set of songs on my computer.

the problem is that everything Heather has is locked in ITunes, and to put it gently I don’t like that. One of my goals once we setup a household together has been to have every meaningful byte of data backed up at least once, if not twice. ITunes is going to be a huge pain in that regard, so I was hoping to figure out a simple way to get the songs back into MP3 so I could just burn them out to DVDs or back them up to the server I plan to build.

I wasn’t sure how hard that was going to be, but I happened to see an article on LifeHacker about getting files out of .wma (the Windows format, with all the same problems as .acc) and saw links to a few options.

With any luck, one of those programs will let me quickly and easily unify two music collections into one big happy pile of mp3s.

-Jordan

Social People

Posted on by Jordan

They might not be who you think they are 🙂

I was a little surprised by this Gamasutra article:

Study: Gamers More Likely To Date, Marry, Socialize Than Non-Gamers

55 percent of gamers are married, 48 percent have kids, and single gamers are twice as likely to go on dates in a given month than non-gamers. That’s according to the results of a new research study from IGN Entertainment and Ipsos Media CT

The study had a few other interesting facts, its a short read so I will just encourage you to go read it!

-Jordan

Shoeboxed

Posted on by Jordan

Just saw a link to this service: Shoeboxed. They offer to help deal with the mess of receipts most people ( ie me) end up with.

I am not saying I am sold on the idea, but I think it might be worth looking into. Plan ‘B’ would just involve being diligent about putting all receipts into the computer, but my past history with that hasn’t been so great.

-Jordan

Essential Resource

Posted on by Jordan

Well ok this might not be *essential* but it seems handy all the same 🙂

Bring home some of America’s greatest bacon The expert tasters of Cook’s Illustrated sampled eight leading brands

and just in case the article isn’t around by the time your saying to yourself “where can I find the best bacon online,” the winner:

Tasters raved that this bacon — which scored a distinct few notches higher than the rest of the lineup — has it all: “Nice balance of sweetness to salt, great deep complex ham flavor, very meaty,” with a “faint fruity taste, sweet and salty.” Extra-big slices and “genuine” smoke flavor were big hits with our tasters. ($13.95 for 12 ounces, plus shipping, www.gratefulpalate.com)

-Jordan