How to See an Augmented Reality

This is really cool! At first you might not know what you are looking at but this is a new technology and GE has put it to use in a silly but very fun little website. The image you see above is a screen capture of my computer screen while on their Augmented Reality Website

If you have a web cam what you are going to do is go to the website and print out this paper on any printer. Make sure you are up to date on your Adobe Flash Player , (I needed flashplayer 10). Then click on either the wind turbine or solar energy link, make sure your webcam is active and hold the piece of paper up to the screen. A holographic like animation pops out and not only follows the paper you are holding but also tilts and turns with your movements. The coolest part... If you blow into or near your computers microphone, the turbines get faster and faster!

If you don't have a web cam you can still check out the video on GE's site which shows how it works.

****Update*** I thought this would never work but check it out, I took a pen and drew the symbol on my wifes hand and the key worked just like using the paper...even better:


Way Cool!

Read More......

Printer Problem? Printer Solution!

Has this ever happened to you? The other day I needed to print something VERY important. I pull it up on my computer, press print, and the print dialogue starts jumping up at me. "Alright, what now" I say. I click on it to investigate further and of course as always... I am out of yellow ink. Well who cares I'm just printing a few words in black only. "I do" says the printer as "I have 6 different color inks and I need all of them to be able to print... AT ALL!"



Why does this always happen to me at the most inopportune time? So as I run to the store I start to think. "How much was this printer to begin with??" "$100" you say, "$200"... No, it was FREE after a rebate. Now I ONLY have to pay $13.95 every week when one of the ink cartridges goes out... times six ink cartridges! Thats $83.70 plus tax for a supposedly free printer.

So I get to Wally-World and by now my gears are turning up in my little brain. I go to the electronic section and just for grins I price some of the newer printers. "What's this... $30, $50?? " Ok, I see one I like. A Canon iP2600 for only $29.88, a bargain right? Comes with printer, software, cables, instruction booklet, free photo paper, styrofoam, and a nice sturdy box that could come in handy later, and........... who would have guessed it?? ........INK!

"Wow, that is a bargain" I say to myself! So lets see how much the ink is for this thirty dollar printer. I go over to the ink isle, it is separate from the printers of course. Low and behold "Ink for Canon iP2600". would you like to take a guess??

$35.99

Lets see what this comes with... hmmm only INK. Am I missing something here?

So needless to say, instead of coming home with ink, I ended up with a brand new printer. I see a lot of new printers in my future!





"So what about printing photographs?" you ask. Well I used to do that at home but to tell you the truth, with ink being so pricey it just isn't worth it. There are so many great labs out there that can receive uploaded images over the web and ship them off to you in only a couple of days. Unless you need the print right away, I would suggest finding a lab that you trust. For documents and other junk, I'll use my handy $30 printer until it runs out of ink, then it's time for another!

*** As an addendum to this post: One commenter mentioned that sometimes the new printers come with ink cartridges that are only half or partially full. I guess there might be no way of knowing one way or another but so far I'm still on the same ink cartridges that came with the printer and it is 7 months later. So just keep this in mind before buying.

Read More......

How to Make Photos Larger on Blogger... Step by Step Instructions.

Recently I decided I wanted to have bigger photos on my blogger blog than what it would allow me by default. Up until this point I used the standard blogger upload which looks like this:

But even at the large setting the Images are still too small for my taste.

So there are many ways to accomplish this task but I thought I would share with you the way I found easiest. Feel free to post any comments on how you do it or ideas that would improve upon my method.

First of all, if you are going to put larger photos in your blog you need to make your blog wider to accommodate. In blogger, go into your "layout" tab and then the "Edit HTML" tab. You will need to change your "outer wrapper" width and "main wrapper" width to 1200px and 900px respectively. See the images for an easier explanation. (You can use different values if you wish, just make sure the outer is largest, and later that your image width is smaller than your main wrapper)

Make sure to hit "save changes" at the bottom of the page. Now the blog is wider and the changes will stay this way so you wont have to mess with the HTML after this.


------------------------------------------------------------


Now for the Images:

From now on instead of uploading your images into blogger, you will be uploading them to a third party instead... don't worry it's easy. In fact, I bet you didn't know it but that's what blogger does anyway! Now there are many sites out there like flickr, photobucket,smugmug,picasaweb, and more. But I am going to recommend picasaweb because that is where your blogger images are already residing:)

So sign up for one of these sites and upload your images there using a button similar to this:


Once you have a few images uploaded click on an image to make it large. In Picasaweb, you will find something that looks like this on the right side of the web page:


Make the selections I've shown you above and then highlight and copy the "imbed image" code. Then navigate back to Blogger and paste this code into your new post:


Hint: if you are using a site other than Picasaweb you might need to search around for the imbed code but I promise you it's there somewhere.

If you want to center the image on the page just add exactly what I have circled here to the front and the end of the code that you just pasted:



Publish the post and what do you know?....Large Photos....Yeah!




-------------------------------------------------------

Now for Professional photographers and more advanced users:
I found this in the picasaweb setting:

You are going to want to uncheck these boxes I have circled in red or you will be giving away your precious work.

Also, If you use Lightroom, check out Jeffrey Friedl's Blog. He has a plugin that will export from lightroom directly to picasaweb, zenfolio, smugmug, flickr, and facebook! Really cool stuff that saves a LOT of time...Plus it's free!


Read More......

Alright so the title says it all but.... During the process of trying to fix this wall we just said the heck with it, lets do something funky! But I like the way it turned out and it will go great with the modern industrial look that I have planned for the "Gallery Room" anyway.

So If you would like to see the progression of the wall and a short how-to, just visit the link below:

Here is the before and after:

So this is the infamous Eagle Wall before we moved into the house. Needless to say, it was going down! Not that we dont like eagles, but we Hate wallpaper!


We had only been in the house for a week or so and Hope decided this huge eagle wall had to go. So first we let Austin draw some pretty pictures on it:)


The next step was to get the wallpaper off. (this of course was before we knew what we were going to do to the wall, otherwise we couold have just left the wallpaper) We didnt have the patience to wait to buy wallpaper stripper so we just started wetting it down with water and pulling it off. Well the paint came along with some of it and then some of the drywall too!


Slow and steady was the key!


But then a little 8 year old boy decided to (help) by taking a razor when we werent looking and jabbing holes into the wall:) Now we had no choice but to resurface the entire wall or cover it up. I chose to cover!


I went to Home Depot and just started looking around and found these 2'x4' metal sheets with an almost cinder block type texture to them. They reminded me of the new stuff they are selling for backsplashes and ceiling tiles, only those are $6 a square foot. Compare that to these which are about $1 a square foot!


I calculated that about 12 would do the job and I picked up all the hardware to mount them. You will need screws, I chose these metal roofing screws as they go well with the overall look. You will also need tin snips, heavy gloves, and some paint. If you want to do it right, (which we didnt) you will also need a metal etching acid so the paint will adhere to the slick surface)


I brought everything home and starting from the bottom right, I screwed the panels to the wall working my way across then up. When you get to the edges you will need to measure and cut the sheets to size with your tin snips. To make a hole for outlets first drill a hole then use the tin snips to enlarge it to size.


For the edges I found these which are actually drip rails for metal roofing. I'm not sure of their original purpose but they work great as corners!


And then it's time for a short break


Now enlist the help of the nearest baby to make sure eveything looks good!


Do not try this at home, you could be seriously injured!


Powertools always make the job go a lot faster too!


Ok, back to work! The next step was to tape off the area and start painting. This was the brightest red in the entire world!


It took about three coats and could still use more but I think I'll leave it at that.


Now put all your switchplates back on and voila!


And the finished product! I still need to put the baseboards and moulding back but I would have to say not to bad for about $150!


Read More......

How to repair your apple power supply cord, A Step by Step Guide:

About a year ago my apple power supply cord started acting up on me. Sometime it just wouldn't charge my laptop. So I would have to wiggle the wires around to make it work. Then it got so bad that I had to stand on my head while holding the power supply thingy upside down and sideways while tapping my head and rubbing my belly at the same time. And if you think that was bad the other day sparks just started flying out of the thing right near the white box thingy. I had had enough! I said to myself "I am going to tear this thing apart", my intent was to (a) fix it, or (b) have as much fun destroying it as possible. It turned out that I somehow managed to do option A.

Now I know that I'm not the only one who has had this problem so I figured I'll tell you how I fixed it. It turns out that what happened was I wrapped it and unwrapped the cord so many times that the wires broke inside the white cord. That would normally be no problem to fix except that the wires were broken right there where the cord comes out of the power supply. And I'm sure that is what happens to all of them.

Keep in mind that I have the older version power supply so I'm not sure if apple fixed the weak cord issue with the newer magnetic versions. Anyhow, for legal reasons, this should NOT be tried by anyone except me:)

I don't have any photos of me tearing the thing apart as I wasn't for sure that this would work. But what you want to do (cough, cough, I mean what I want to do) is break the casing apart somehow. I used a pair of wire cutter and a flat head screwdriver. It is very apparent apple didn't want anyone to open this thing up as it took a lot of effort to pry it open.

Once you get it open you will now (just barely) have enough room to strip the wires back away from the break to make a new connection. This wire was very odd in that it didn't have two separate wires but two layers (you will see what I'm talking about) Separate the first layer of metal wiring then use a pair of wire strippers to carefully expose the metal on the inner wire. Do the same on the cord side and then match the two sides up and twist the wires together.

This is what you should have now. (and this is where I knew it was going to work and started taking pictures. DOH!)




Now wrap that inner wire with electrical tape making sure no wire is left exposed.


Next wrap the outer wires together and then wrap the whole shebang together with the tape:


Next you'll notice that the wire will need to come out a different way:


So cut this part off with your wire cutters:


Push the taped part inside and bring the wire out the side:


Now tape it up with electrical tape. It is starting to look real good by this point:)


Here I taped the end for what I call "extra bendability security":


And voila, Good as new! Even looks better than the original too:


But remember, This should not be attempted by anyone but a certified electrician and even then maybe not!

Enjoy,

-Matt
Read More......