Adjust The Time On Your Camera
Posted on November 11, 2008 11:43 AM
I was loading up the pictures from the Halloween Party from a couple weeks ago, and I realized that with the time change for Daylight Savings Time, I need to change the time on my cameras.
I don't know if they have cameras yet that will change their time for DST but if your camera doesn't then you should go grab it and make sure it has the right time.
When your camera takes a picture, it records the date and time that the picture was taken in the image file. Most of the time, having the time be off by one hour is not a big deal. However, the pictures on my site are usually sorted by the timestamp embedded (EXIF) in the image file. In the past I have put pictures together from different cameras in one set and if the cameras are not synchronized, I'll have pictures that were taken an hour apart mixing together.
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Photography,
technology
Dell Bluetooth Wireless Travel Mouse
Posted on July 23, 2008 7:41 AM
In my travels I happened across a Dell Bluetooth Wireless Travel Mouse, but I didn't get any drivers with it. Using the Dell part number: PU705, I searched high and low and was starting to lose hope. But then I found an ebay page that linked to some driver download page on Dell's site. The file itself was about 340MB. That is pretty big for a mouse driver. Of course, there is more in that download than just the mouse drivers that I need, so after downloading it I opened it up with WinRar, my favorite file zip/unzip program, and I looked around in the archive.
I eventually found a folder called drivers in a directory tree that led me to believe that it would have Windows XP stuff in it. Using WinRar, I extracted just the drivers directory and in the device manager, told it to Update Driver... for the device that wasn't installed correctly. When running the Update Driver... I told it to look in the drivers directory that I had extracted from the large compressed file that I had downloaded. Sure enough it found the Bluetooth Input Device driver in that directory.
After I installed the driver, it looked like everything was fine in the device manager, but the mouse was still not working. I then went into the Bluetooth places and disabled the mouse in there. After that, I put the mouse back into discover mode by holding down on the blue button on the bottom of the mouse for like 5 seconds or so until the mouse started flashing.
I then went back into My Bluetooth Places, clicked view all devices in range, and Connected to the mouse again. I clicked on the confirm button that popped up and everything was groovy. Mouse works great, although it is a little touchy, so I may have to turn down sensitivity.
If you are looking for the Windows XP driver for this mouse, you can try the one that I used:
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Technology
10 Useful Things You Can Do With Your Camera Phone
Posted on December 1, 2007 10:30 AM
You just got yourself a spiffy new cellphone that has tons of new features and you can't wait to use it. One of the things that it has is a camera. What all can you do with a camera in a cellphone, besides take goofy pictures of yourself and your friends after you've had a couple rum and cokes? Well, the great thing about having a camera in your cellphone is that you are very likely to have it with you. You may not always be walking around in public with your 7 mega-pixel digital camera, but you probably have your cellphone, if you own one. Here's what you can do with it in addition to taking candid pictures of your cat, or your brother's kid, or your brother's kid's cat.
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cameraphone,
cellphone,
technology
Must Have Applications
Posted on April 16, 2007 9:37 AM
I recently reinstalled Windows on my primary workstation. I probably reload the operating system more than the average computer user, for various reasons. This time it was because I was running out of space because I had installed onto a 20GB hard drive. Here's a quick list of the first programs I installed after the Windows install was complete.
Web browser of choice. I really wonder how many times people go from the initial Internet Explorer page right to Mozilla.com and then never use IE again.
A service that monitors when a program tries to make itself start up when windows starts.
Symantec Antivirus v9
This is the antivirus software that my company uses.
Preferred program for connecting to remote systems via ssh/telnet.
A free floating command line utility for Windows. Essentially, a little floating box that I type commands into and other programs start up.
Lotus Notes
The company that I work for requires this for email.
Java Runtime Environment
Needed for a other programs to run, especially jEdit.
My favorite multipurpose text editor. Favorite functions are ftp editing and column editing, among other things.
A shell interface to CVS
My preferred Zip/Archive creator/extractor.
A proxy that removes ads from web pages.
An improved alt-tab task switching utility, with screen shots of windows.
A photo viewer. I use this to look at pictures and to rename them using Exif information.
I should note that some programs that I would have installed in the past are missing from this list because of my use of software. Basically, portable apps is a suite of programs that will run off of a flash memory drive. Here are some of the programs that are on my PortableApps drive right now:
Gaim - Instant messaging
Audacity - Sound/music editor
Gimp - Photo editor
VLC Media Player
Open Office - freeware MS Office replacement
Sumatra - Non-Adobe PDF Viewer
There are a couple other programs that I usually install, but they are not free so I didn't include them here.
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computers,
technology
ATI All-In-Wonder Rage 128 Pro and Windows XP
Posted on March 8, 2006 9:18 AM
A long time ago, I purchased an ATI All-In-Wonder Rage 128 Pro video card. I have used it to record TV shows onto the computer and watch later. I remember the card working well, for the most part, on Windows 2000. At some point, I upgraded the machine that has the card to Windows XP Professional. When I say upgrade, I mean a total wipe and install of the OS. After I installed XP, I installed the ATI software and tried to use the card, with limited success. Just last night, I renewed my efforts to get the card working the way it did when I had Windows 2000…
It seems that the ATI software doesn’t play well with Windows XP. I am not sure whether it is the display driver or the ATI Multimedia Center (MMC) software itself. I downloaded the latest MMC software (7.2) from ATI’s website as well as the latest Windows XP display driver for the card. I’ve installed them both (and reinstalled them subsequently).
This is what happens to me, and has consistently since the Windows XP upgrade. I can successfully watch TV without any glitches. When I try to record TV, ATI MMC crashes probably 3 out of 5 times. Naturally, our hero is very saddened by all this because I would like to use the scheduling feature to schedule recordings of TV shows. I realize that the hardware is old, and I don’t expect much, if any, support from ATI. One thing that I do find interesting is, when I start up the TV and I get the ATI splash screen, it says “7.1” The file that I am downloading from ATI says it is 7.2 so I wonder if I had downloaded/used an older version initially. I’ve seen stuff posted on newsgroups talking about uninstall, deleting files, and deleting registry keys.
At this point, I am ready to give up for a little while… again. I think I’ll switch over to the next lost cause.
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ATI,
All-In-Wonder,
Technology,
Video Capture
Technology Is A Cruel Master
Posted on January 11, 2006 4:51 PM
I have told my wife that if we ever won the lottery, and I'm talking millions of dollars here, I wouldn't care if I ever used a computer again. She expressed her doubts. It is true; I really like all the different things that I can do with a computer. I can share pictures with my friends and family. I can edit videos taken with my digital camcorder and make them available through various means for home viewing or for sharing on the web. I can keep track of my finances. I can write little programs that make my life easier.
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Lottery,
Rant,
Technology
