Photo of the Day: Playing with the Sun

Photo of the Day for November 14, 2013.

Today's "Photo of the Day" look quite similar to yesterday's photo. In fact it is from the same series of "Sunset at Kaka'ako" photos that I shot yesterday. The reason this photo was chosen was to highlight the effect and software that I used to get the image.

The photo was manipulated with a piece of software called Fotor. Fotor is an application that runs on Mac OSX, Windows 7 and 8, iOS, Android and online. This software can create a number of special effects with digital photos including collage, HDR, high contrast, intense color and lomo to name a few. I applied several effects to the image above to achieve this look. Isn't it nice?

Fotor is a free app available for the aforementioned platforms. You should try it.

Steve Jobs: 1955 - 2011

Forever Steve, Forever Apple. Thank You.



Apple Store Ala Moana Center, Honolulu, HI. The light is off. Photo by Ryan Ozawa.

http://www.apple.com

More on Mel's Macintosh Universe Blog

Your Own Images on Google

Google on Chrome Full Screen, originally uploaded by macprohawaii.

Google now allows its registered users to upload their own photos for use as background images on their popular search engine page. Don't have your own photo? They also have a set of images from their own collection that you can also use.

This screenshot was captured using Google's new Chrome browser in Mac OSX. Shown in full screen mode.

Hot Hawaiian Surf

I made this video short over the weekend. It's a bodyboarding surf video taken from the top of the Kapahulu Groin in Waikiki.

This project began innocently enough over the weekend after I attended a car show (photos coming soon) at nearby Kapiolani Park. After taking numerous photos at the show I walked over to the beach, shot a few pictures and shot a dozen or so video clips of the kids body surfing.

Next thing I know I was at home, on my Apple MacBook Pro looking at the clips on iMovie and starting the assembly process. I was expecting to make like a clip of about 40 seconds to a minute long. After cutting the clips and assembling them, I decided I need music. So I hunted on the internet for some good instrumental tracks which I found on GarageBand.com.

Got this song called "Action Theme" by Matthew Shell. Great guitar piece of about 2:50 in length. After merging the music with the clips, I decided I needed more clips. So back to the beach I went on the next day to take more video.

Last night I was at home, and assembled the rest of the pieces together with iMovie. Cleaned up the video, tweaked the audio, trimmed a little more here and there, added titles and finally had iMovie export the clip as an m4v file and played it in Quicktime. It looked great at full screen mode on my Mac.

Shortly after the clip was uploaded to YouTube.

This whole process was a learning experience for me as I got myself more familiarized with iMovie 09. I still consider myself a novice to iMovie even though I've been using it since Augustr 2009. So far this clip has turned out to be my most polished of edited works since I started using the app. I've mostly made one shot, political oriented clips for Senator Sam Slom, the Hawaii Tea Party and a couple of campaigns. I've dabbled with other clip subjects such as recording airplane landings and the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds.

This time I learned how to mix music with the native audio source, manipulate the transitional elements and even how to do a voice-over, which I abandoned during the final cut.

iMovie is a great little program that Apple bundles for free with all of their currently shipping Macintosh computers. It's a great little program if your video production needs are not too ambitious. It's great for cutting clips that will go to YouTube or possibly over to your local cable access channel. Depending on the camera you use, your video can either be output as a standard definition or high definition show.

Overall the process took me some time: About 4 hours for the two days at the beach actually filming the clips (I also took a lot of still pictures). Another 2 or 3 hours searching Garageband.com looking for music, downloading and auditioning a number of instrumental tracks for the clip. Finally assembly of the clip in iMove took another 4 hours or more at least. There were 26 separate clips to go through, many segments with only churning water and hardly any action (all cut), a tiny fragments of good stuff that had to be clipped and edited together.



Hardware used: Canon S5 iS Digital still camera. This is one of two low end video cameras that I own. The Canon is primarily a still camera but has a decent, standard definition video capability. Most of the videos I posted to YouTube in the last few years were made with this camera.



Apple MacBook Pro 15 inch laptop computer running Snow Leopard 10.6.3. Bought this last year and have been enjoying it since.

Software: Apple iMovie, Apple iTunes, Apple iPhoto, and Mozilla Firefox.

How Private is Your Facebook Profile?

Facebook Privacy, originally uploaded by macprohawaii.

Have you checked to see how "secure" your Facebook information is? As many of you may know, Facebook has one of the poorest privacy policies and reputation on the internet. They share way too many items of information about you with third parties, many times without your knowledge.

You can analyze and fix most of your privacy levels by running the scanning tool from www.reclaimprivacy.org/.

A good article on Facebook privacy can also be found at Tidbits, the online Apple Macintosh resource. The Facebook privacy article there applies to users of all computer platforms - Mac, Windows, Linux, Android, iPhone, etc.

How to Protect Your Privacy from Facebook
db.tidbits.com/article/11282

In this screenshot from my Facebook page above using the reclaimprivacy.org scanner the green bars at the top indicate that my Facebook profile is in good shape because I have opted out of many sharing options, don't do third party apps and games. I basically set my privacy levels to the most secure possible setting. A red bar is generally not very good. In my case the scanner flagged the red item and gave me a link on where I can go to fix it.

If you are extremely concerned about your Facebook privacy, the best thing to do is discontinue your Facebook account and delete your profile. The Tidbits article has information on how to do that.

Just remember that anything you post on the internet is "not private" and stays on the internet practically forever.

View a larger version of the screen above

First Impressions of Apple's iPad

The following is based on a very few minutes of hands on tryout of an iPad at the Honolulu Apple Store.



Got my first look and try on the Apple iPad at the Ala Moana Apple Store. It's a nice device that can do a lot of things like web browsing, book reading and purchasing, music playing, some movie viewing, youtube, word processing and office tasks with iWorks, photos and a more. It's bigger than an iPod Touch and Nintendo DSi, but smaller than most Netbook computers. It is not a full on computer as it cannot do things like flash or be connected to a wired network. It is a nice device that I may reconsider purchasing in the not so distant future.



The big problem I have with books and other content that is available for sale through the iTunes books, app and movie store is DRM. I was not given a very clear explanation as to whether or not the purchased, proprietory content can be easily transferred at no extra cost to another iPad or iPod Touch or iPhone that the end user may own. I was clearly told that book content from the iTunes store cannot be viewed on your regular Macintosh computer.

The nice thing that I found about book reading on this device is that you can turn the book in either the horizontal or vertical mode and that the fonts and type size can be adjusted to whatever you like. Pages turn seamlessly with a move of a finger.

There is a kindle app available for the iPad as well as other Apple hardware such as the Macintosh. Books bought from Amazon.com to play on the Kindle are not compatible with the book viewer that comes standard with the iPad. Again, DRM getting in the way.

While I did not try it, I was told by the salesperson at Apple that the iPad can also read PDF. There are a lot of public domain books as well as millions of other types of documents available online as PDF files, usually for free. But then again most every other computing device can read a PDF which means you don't need an iPad to view them.



The onscreen keyboard is nice and easier to type with than the ones on the iPod Touch or iPhone. A better choice would be an external keyboard which is available for the device.

One thing about the all touch interface... it leaves the glass surface of the iPad full of fingerprints and grease streaks from hands. A daily cleaning of the touch surfaces will be the order of the day.



There is a YouTube app that specifically plays any and all YouTube videos. Shown above is my video of a Hawaiian Airlines Being 717 landing in Honolulu Hawaii.

While the iPad does not do flash, it seems this app and a few others have managed to get around this limitation. There was an ABC app on the iPad I tried out that also lets you view video content from the ABC TV network.



iPad does iTunes, which means that it can play music, podcasts and other audio content as well as purchased video content from the iTunes music store. Funny how all the main features of the iPad is connected to you purchasing something from the iTunes store. I hope the music I already own and have on my Mac is transferable to the iPad.

Shown above is iTunes playing a track from a Rolling Stones album

Will I buy it? Probably will at some point. The iPad comes in two basic models of varying storage/memory sizes. All models are equipped with built in WiFi access. So if you have a home wifi network you're online. There are wifi hotspots in many places around major cities in the U.S.

The more expensive models have 3G wireles networking that you have to subscribe to from AT&T. The subscriptions are month to month and there is no long term contract. That is good. However the 3G prices are fairly high.

More Information About the iPad

• Apple iPad pages
• Meet the new Apple iPad
• iBooks for iPad
• YouTube on iPad
  
• Extended Video Review
• Steve Jobs Introduces iPad
• iPad Launch in Hawaii
• Dumb Ass Destroys an iPad
• 
  

Photos taken with Sony Cybershot U30 at the Apple Store Ala Moana, 4-12-10.

PodCamp Hawaii: A Brief Wrap-Up

I spent two days this past weekend at PodCamp Hawaii, an "unconference" that gathered geeks, computer users and mere mortals together for a number of concurrent workshops that focused on podcast production, podcast advertising, marketing, blogging, WordPress software and its use, and how social media platforms can impact life and business.

The two day conference was held at the Hawaii Convention Center on October 24 and 25 and attracted more than 330 attendees. I learned several things at PodCamp. In a short nutshell they included:

• Use of WordPress software as a good content management system for general blogging and podcasting front ends.
• How to customize and get the most out of WordPress.
• It is difficult to install WordPress on your own hosted server. It may be best to go with a host that truly supports WordPress or hire a true geek who can install and possibly maintain WordPress and its associated files and database.
• A good hosting company is better than a bargain basement host.
• Most people who start podcasts burn out after 7 episodes.
• Don't invest too heavily in hardware on your podcast until you pass 10, 20 maybe even 50 episodes.
• Maintain a tight podcast format, know and be passionate about your subject matter, and stick to a regular podcasting schedule.
• Learn how to market your podcast and put it in all the right places (like iTunes, etc.)

There was a whole lot more including the introduction to a new version of WordPress that is supposedly easier to install and maintain.

PodCamp is also a good place to meet fellow geeks, business people and network with them. I don't do very well in active networking, but if I am invited to join in with an individual or a small group, I warm up to the situation in time.

• PodCamp Hawaii 2008 Website
• PodCamp Hawaii Tagged Photos @ flickr
  
• My PodCamp Hawaii Photos

Photo caption: The laptop brigade soaking up information at PodCamp Hawaii.

Test Drive Apple iMac

Apple iMac 07, originally uploaded by macprohawaii.

I could fall in love with this new iMac. I spent about an hour tonight playing with this at the Ala Moana Apple Store in Honolulu. I know someday soon I need to think about upgrading from my Power Mac G4 tower.
This particular Mac had a plethora of apps to fool around with including the new iWork and iLife software suites. What I ended up fooling around with for a long time was Adobe's Creative Suite Vol. 3 which consists of Photoshop, Illustrator and In-Design. Spent most of the time on InDesign creating a hypothetical document just using stuff that was on this Mac and text captured from the web. Nice.

Perhaps at the end of this year or sometime next year, I may spring for one of these. Will wait for the next version of OSX to come out before I think about buying one of these.

• Apple iMac Page
• Low End Mac: Apple iMac Value Equation
• Apple iMac Press Release

Amazon.com to Sell DRM Free Music

Online retailer Amazon.com has been in the news a lot this week. Yesterday it was announced that Amazon.com will start their own digital music store and will sell DRM-free music downloads in the MP3 format. The MP3s will be compatible on all computers and digital music players including Apple's popular iPod.

This announcement follows one made last month when Apple announced it would be selling DRM-free music in the AAC format from the EMI group of music labels through the iTunes Music Store. EMI is one of the 4 biggest record label conglomerates in the world owning such labels as Capitol and EMI Records.

Amazon's service is slated to be launched in the fall. Pricing for the DRM-free MP3s have not been announced. Apple meanwhile was slated to start selling their DRM-free AAC files at $1.29 each per song this month through the iTunes Music Store. Apple will continue to sell copy-protected AAC music files for 99 cents.

Hopefully the DRM-free AAC and MP3 file formats find success in the marketplace to a point where they will eventually replace all copy protected music and audio content. This is good for the consumer as it allows us to purchase once and use the files on any device we own.

In other Amazon.com news, it was announced earlier this week that they were buying dpreview.com, a popular digital camera and photography review website based in England. I like dpreview.com, and hope the purchase does not change how the site is run.

Additional Links:

• Amazon to Launch DRM Free Music Service
• Amazon No Threat to iTunes
  
• Apple, Inc.
• Amazon.com
• Apple Unveils Higher Quality DRM-free Music
• Good News from Apple & EMI

What's Up With 'Justin.TV'?

For more than a week now, the biggest internet rage seems to be "Justin.TV." The media, geeks, bloggers and many others are viewing and covering this internet "experiment".

What is Justin.TV? It's a live web feed on this guy named Justin Kan. Mr. Kan is a young man who has made it his priority to have a live camera strapped to himself or one close by to record his every move and utterance throughout the day. The images and sounds are transmitted out to the world on a live internet feed. You can watch Justin wake-up, eat, sleep and engage in his day to day activities. It's kind of like having YouTube following you around 24-7.

People have written extensively about this guy in the last 9 days since the webcast launched. Ryan Ozawa, one of the geek experts that I know writes on his blog "So Meta it Hurts. Yes, there's something deeply compelling about watching "online life" and "real life" blend so thoroughly. Justin chats up a girl at the bar, and viewers on his website jeer as he strikes out. He ducks out to go to the bathroom, and people on the other side of the planet question whether he washed his hands or not."

JustinTV may be the latest rage on the net. I am quite sure that imitators are strapping on their own web cams and starting their own online chronicle. Some blog boldly states that our private lives are over and that every move of our day is being recorded, chronicled by someone, somewhere. Not a very comforting thought.

I don't like being photographed or recorded by someone else. In today's modern and connected world, it is getting harder and harder to be somewhere where a surveillance camera or someone with a camera phone is not around recording your presence and those of everyone else. Our privacy is eroding.

As a public service for this latest web rage, I offer you a live feed of JustinTV right here on this blog. All you have to do is click on the button within the embedded Justin graphic and see what this guy is up to... right there and right now. Have fun!