blownpixel » dave

Feel the Wrath – What Happens When You Steal a Hacker’s Computer

dave — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 08:53:21 +0000

‘Zoz’ had his beloved Apple Mac lifted from his apartment dur to some poor physical security.

All the firewalls in the world wont stop a thief walking on to your property and stealing your computer and all your data, a lesson that Dr. Zoz Brookes learned the hard way.

Another hard lesson learned, this time by the thief, was that if you really have to steal a computer don’t steal a hackers computer.

Hailing from Australia, Zoz came to the United States to pursue graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He became “Dr. Zoz” after receiving a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science based on research into human-robot communication in the Robotic Life group at MIT’s Media Laboratory.

Here is a talk he gave to an appreciative crowd at DefCon 18, this years Hacking Conference telling the tale of what happened after he discovered his loss.

Note:The actual story starts around the 3:15 mark in the video, so you can skip to that point.

If you want a closer look at the presentation slides shown in the video, you can find them on the DefCon site here as a PDF file.

Rapid Strap…

dave — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 20:56:52 +0000

I had started to become increasingly frustrated carrying my camera.

I am lucky enough to have recently upgraded to a Canon 7D, a beautiful but somewhat heavy DSLR. Slinging this body with a 28-135mm IS lens on the stock Canon strap was not only uncomfortable whilst walking any distance, but very annoying as it kept slipping off my shoulder.

Ok I could sling the strap across my body but then it became cumbersome when shooting. I just couldn’t pull the camera up easily enough to get the shots I needed. In fact it still wasn’t comfortable when walking any distance as it still kept moving around, and the lack of padding meant that it still dug in.

Cue ‘Blackrapid’. This innovative company owes it’s success not only to an amazing product line, but in no small part to it’s marketing, particularly it’s social networking program. It is indeed refreshing to find a company that follows it’s ethos through it’s marketing, actively engaging with it’s customers and potential customers.

This engagement is completely borne out in it’s products, really developed by photographers for photographers.

BlackRapid RS-7

With all the above in mind I have been testing the BlackRapid RS-7 strap with the Brad Mod attached.

From the BlackRapid site:

The RS-7 is specially designed to work with BlackRapid’s MODS system. It features attachment points so you can customize your strap with your choice of storage and other features. It’s constructed of ballistic nylon for extreme durability. With the RS-7, ergonomics are key. It’s designed and shaped to fit perfectly around your shoulder. The weight of your camera is evenly distributed for the ultimate in comfort. Built for speed, for when timing is everything.

I have actually come to think of the strap as more of a carry system, not quite a bag but much more than a strap.

You can adjust it so that when you are not using your camera, on a photowalk or on location, it sits very comfortably at the base of your back. I actually started using it in the studio for noon tripod product shots, it keeps the camera ready to hand but nicely tucked out of the way.

Release the ‘bumper’ buckle and you can very quickly and easily bring the camera to eye level to take the shot. The beauty of the strap is that the camera slides freely on the strap whilst the strap itself remains snuggly in place.

I have also added the ‘Brad Mod’ to my strap. This is an easily affixed smaller strap that connects the front of the strap to the back under your arm holding the main strap even more securely in place.

In Conclusion

Plus Points:

This is not just another run-of-the-mill camera strap, it is indeed a carry system.

It is so comfortable that you could nearly forget you had a camera strapped to you.

The strap gives quick free and easy access to your camera when you need to take the shot.

Very well engineered quality manufacturing.

Negatives:

Fitting instructions could be more in-depth. I’m not on my own in having to pay a visit to the videos on Blackrapid’s website to make sure I was fitting the strap correctly.

Having said that, the videos were well presented and extremely instructional.

Blownpixel says buy it you won’t regret it..

A Year in The Life of Brian

dave — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 12:20:34 +0000

A Year In The Life Of Brian is an epic attempt to get 3 Legged Thing’s debut product, Brian, to 100 locations in 365 days, compile a photo book and DVD of the story along the way and raise as much money as they can for charity…

3 Legged Thing Limited is a new, innovative, fresh and powerful brand of tripods brought to you by 7 professional photographers in the sleepy village of Stagsden, North Bedfordshire, England.

The launch date of our incredible Rock Legend Range of tripods and monopods is 1/1/11 and to commemorate the launch 3 Legged Thing are sending a limited edition travel tripod, Brian, around the world on a mission to raise money for charity, and put some of the world’s most interesting, if not famous locations squarely on the map.

The Plan:
Brian will leave Stagsden sometime in late January to begin his journey across the globe. As he arrives at each destination, the receiving photographer will photograph themselves with Brian, take a photo of their location – that which is most representative of their location, using Brian, and make a short viral video clip so that they can blog it along the way and keep you all informed…

They have informed the Guinness World Of Records of their attempt to complete this mission, and are awaiting approval as an official record attempt. Of course, non-approval will not make a blind bit of difference – Brian is going on tour!

Side missions:

To get Brian around the London Marathon
To get Brian in a Formula 1 car, and at a race
To get Brian to jump out of an aeroplane (with a parachute of course!)
To get as many celebrities to appear on TV or video holding Brian and declaring “My name is …….. and this is my 3 Legged Thing, Brian”.
To produce an end of year Tour T-Shirt which will go on public sale for charity
To produce a hardback book with all of the images and blog entries from Brian’s travels, which will go on public sale with all profits to charity

To produce a DVD documentary which will go on public sale with all profits to charity
To raise over £1million for our dedicated charities

Coffee Bokeh!

dave — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 09:37:19 +0000

Had a great week in photography this week.

Two of my photos were featured in Explore on Flickr, one of them managed to get to number six out of 500 worldwide with over 1500 views.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to go and look.

The shots are of a coffee cup with the bokeh simulating the steam on one and the coffee spilling on the other.

Wikipedia definition: In photography, bokeh (pronounced /bō’kɛ/) is the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image, or “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light.” Differences in lens aberrations and aperture shape cause some lens designs to blur the image in a way that is pleasing to the eye, while others produce blurring that is unpleasant or distracting—”good” and “bad” bokeh, respectively. Bokeh occurs for parts of the scene that lie outside the depth of field. Photographers sometimes deliberately use a shallow focus technique to create images with prominent out-of-focus regions.

So you want to be a designer? No.1

dave — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 21:53:31 +0000

This is intended as a series of short articles about the trials and tribulations of becoming a designer.

It’s probably one of the questions I get asked most when I give talks or attend seminars, “What do I have to do to become a designer”.

There is no easy answer to this question, I have interviewed people that have taken the traditional route through education and not employed them as I didn’t consider them to be designers, they had the knowledge but not the skill.

I have however employed people with no formal design qualifications, and indeed little knowledge of operating the, dare I say, stock design software, who, with some training have become amazingly creative designers. I am lucky enough to be still working with some of them years later.

So back to the burning question…

Over this series I hope to investigate some of the elements that may help along the rocky path to working in the design industry, I can’t profess to be able to make you a designer, but I’ll try to help.

Equipment

As the saying goes, ‘Horses for Courses’. As in any trade or hobby personal preference rules, there is also the small matter of budget. These are my unashamed personal choices and are based on equipment I actually own.

Hardware

iMac 27” – 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with 8MB shared L3 cache; Turbo Boost dynamic performance up to 3.46GHz; Hyper-Threading for up to eight virtual cores.

I use mine daily and nothing phases it. I undertake all types of work from traditional graphic design to 3D CGI. This Mac is allegedly the fastest Apple produce at the moment, even out performing a Mac Pro.

MacBook Pro 13” – 2.53GHz Intel Core i5 processor with 3MB shared L3 cache; or 2.66GHz Intel Core i7 processor with 4MB shared L3 cache.

I use this for taking to clients and demoing work, showing our portfolio, attached to a projector for exhibitions and allowing me to work whilst lounging around in odd places.

Some people suggest that you really shouldn’t go for anything smaller than a 15” screen, but I have found that in reality 13” is big enough for working and presenting and is really portable.

iPhone – Ok so I’m looking like an Apple fanboy at this point, and yes, I guess I am, but the products really work for me.

The screen is big enough to show elements of your portfolio at the drop of a hat. The camera is good enough for reference shots (on my 3GS, the version 4 looks exceptional with 7mp). I can pick up my email and react to it from anywhere which has made it worth it’s monthly outlay so many times, ensuring that I have won contracts and again allowing me to be anywhere whilst appearing to be in the studio.

Graphics Tablet – I have a Wacom

Not essential but it makes graphic manipulation so much easier, particularly photo editing. It also allows me to sketch ideas directly on the screen instead of having to scan paper sketches.

Digital SLR – I have a Canon 350D

My Canon is very much an entry level model and is actually getting quite old now but I still manage to satisfy clients with shots for websites and even brochure work.

This list is by no means exhaustive or essential, but it is the kit I work with on a daily basis and may give you an insight into the designers hardware toolbox. I would actually find it quite hard to work without these tools in some kind of format.

Next time ‘Software’…

HOW TO: configure Google map application to select and use a valid API key when hosted behind multiple domains?

dave — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 10:27:36 +0000

I had a client that had a .com and a .co.uk domain name both pointing to a single hosted website. Having previously only had the .co.uk domain name I had only included an api key for that domain.

When the site was displayed using the .com domain it threw up an invalid api key error.

Here is the fix:

Some applications may be hosted on multiple domains. For example, many content management systems push the same content to different domains (e.g.example.com and example.net) and wish to have that content single-sourced. Since Google Maps API keys are generated per domain, you’ll need to generate separate keys for each domain and configure your application to use the correct one. The easiest way to do this in JavaScript is to dynamically generate the