Mawalien Invasion: May 2007

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

I do... I mean... don't... I mean... do...

From Playboy USA June2007

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Put spray paint in to other unsuspicious cans

Slap Bracelets

Origami transforming star and frisbee

Laptop Power Socket Repair

Making a mouse wheel not click.

LED lavalamp

Creative Discontent part 2 : CondomNation

How to hold/throw fire, without getting burned!

How to block anoying cell phone interference

Smoking fingers trick

Potemkin is an experimental HLE (High-level emulation) PSP Emulator running on Windows. Remarkably, Henrik a.k.a. “ector,” has accomplished an amazing feat thus far. Obviously far from perfect, Potemkin currently features a badly simulated PSP kernel, ability to mount ISOs / CSOs, and Windows directories. This initial release definitely shows potential, and the todo list surely looks promising. Mad props ector, terrific work.

Jump over to PSP-Hacks

Shooting to RAW with Canon PowerShot (DIGIC II - based only)

Introduction

In short, why (and when) do i need raw support on my PowerShot?
i. white balance could be set AFTER shooting, in raw converter. A different settings could be tested
i. although ADC in Canon A-series is only 10bit :-( RAW provides wider dynamic range than camera jpeg
i. easier to edit with greatest-quality raw converters
i. in-camera image processing tends to loose saturation badly in deep shadow areas, so you are limited at recovering them using Photoshop Shadows/Highlights function. Fill-light function of raw-converter can be used in case of RAW
i. you can recover more highlights in case of slight overexposure with highlight recovery mode, especially with non-standard lighting

If you don't have an idea what RAW-files are, look here: Wikipedia article about RAW

The the full story HERE

What do you wish you'd been told before you left school?

It's the fair month of May, which means countless graduates will walk across a stage and receive their diploma in the coming weeks. An educator at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in Hungary writes in:

Some of my students will finish the university this year and leave the dormitory. We've spent 5-6 really fine years together and I'd love to give them some tips before they enter life. What is the thing you wish you'd been told when you just left school?

I could fill a book with things I know now that I wish I knew then, but instead I'm putting the question to you wise lifehackers. Got a life tip to share with graduates everywhere? Share it in the comments - and congratulations, graduates. —Gina Trapani

Recover stolen gadgets with GadgetTheft

Freeware application and web utility GadgetTheft tracks your stolen gadgets by placing an autorunning application for your iPod, digital camera, or other USB device.

When your gadget is stolen, you login to the GadgetTheft web site and turn on tracking for that device (you can set up several devices in one account). The next time your gadget is plugged in, GadgetTheft will attempt to recover the computer's IP address, location, Windows username, and computer name, among a few other tidbits. This information won't necessarily be enough to hunt down your iPod, but it's worth a try (people sometimes use surprisingly identifying usernames).

DIY Vintage Jeans... Coffee Style

It's amazing the things you can find in the dumpster. We found some expired coffee grounds that were thrown out and decided to use them to make an old pair of worn out jeans vintage and hip.

read more HERE about how to make your home-grown retro-jeans

Slow Sync Flash Tips

One camera function that can be a lot of fun to play with (and that can get you some interesting

results) is slow sync flash.

Low Light Photography Options

When shooting with a subject in low light situations you generally have two options; either to shoot with a flash or to shoot with a slow shutter speed.

1. Flash - When shooting in low light with a flash in auto mode your camera will choose a relatively fast shutter speed. This means that your subject will be well lit and that if it is moving it will be frozen and as a result will be sharp. The problem with this is that it can also leave your subject lit up too brightly and can leave it’s background looking very dark as there is not enough time for the camera to collect any ambient light.

2. Slow Shutter Speed - The other option is to turn your flash off and shoot with a longer shutter speed in order to collect enough available light from the image to get a well exposed shot. This can be an effective technique if you’re shooting landscape or environmental shots where everything is nice and still - however if you’re shooting a moving subject it means you’ll get motion blur which could ruin your shot.

More HERE

Zonbu to Roll Out $99 Linux-Based Computer This Summer

There's a cheap computer on the way that undercuts them all, the $99 Zonbu, due this summer in asilent-running form factor that's about the size of a paperback book. It has 4GB of flash memory on board, and automatically backs up a copy of your data online. Besides that $99 purchase price, you'll also pay $12.95 a month (for 25GB,scales up to 100GB for more money) to store its data on the Zonbu servers, giving you the ability to compute anywhere with this tiny device, or access your data from other PCs. If you don't commit to a service plan, the little PC costs $250.

Japanese developers find way to create hot rice with cold water

Steam rises from a box of the emergency food "Hotto! Raisu" as water is poured over it in a demonstration at the Tsukuba Municipal Government headquarters in Ibaraki Prefecture.

More HERE

Page up and down with the space bar

Whenever I'm whiling away at my computer, I like to keep my hands firmly planted at my home row whenever possible. That means I get bummed whenever I have to move to my mouse scroll wheel, or to the arrow keys or page up/down keys. That's why I'm gaga for using the space bar as page up/page down in Firefox.

You may have already noticed that an inadvertent space bar press pages down the web page you're currently viewing, which by itself is all right useful, but couple that with Shift-space bar and you've got the tools to page back up, letting you navigate around a page entirely from the home row. For non-Firefoxers, the same is true for Safari

From Lifehacker