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.

 

3 Legged Thing LTD have developed a stunning array of Premium Quality Carbon Fiber Tripods, precision engineered to the highest standards. Their new Rock Legend Range has three choices of Carbon Fiber Tripod Systems for you to choose from, as well as Two Alloy Tripods and their 5 section Diamond Weave Monopod, Bob.

The New Rock Legend Range of Tripods, Monopods and Multipods were inspired by the music of guitar legends from England and the United States. Each product was named for the artist that was playing in our design room when the concept was first put to paper.

Download a PDF advert here

and the eddie version here..

Official Release:

Date 16^th December 2010

They Came From Stagsden….

Like creatures of the night the 3 Legged Thing’s descended upon Earth on 1.1.11. Not to be feared, however, they have come in peace bringing a fresh approach, innovative technology and products that are built to last.

3 Legged Thing have developed a stunning new ‘Rock Legend Range’, inspired by the music of guitar legends from England and the United States. With a selection of lightweight Carbon Fiber and Magnesium Alloy tripod systems and monopods, there are also ballheads and accessories available, all engineered to the highest standards.

Introducing the first in the Carbon Fiber tripod range, X1 Brian (as in Brian May – from Queen). This Multipod incorporates the concept of a triple section central column, the part that could make this the most significant advancement in tripod technology in recent history. It’s also detachable and removable. As with all the Carbon Fiber and Alloy Multipods X2 Eddie (as in Eddie Van Halen);  X1a Adrian (Adrian Smith of Iron Maiden) and X2a Kirk (Kirk Hammett of Metallica), are all complete with a built in easily detachable monopod or if it’s a monopod alone that you’re after, the 1 Legged Thing Bob (Dylan) will be happy to assist. For top-flight professional tripods, look no further than  X3 Jimmy (as in Jimmy Page – Led Zeppelin) – a Diamond Weave Carbon Fiber tripod built for the most rigorous conditions.

With a folded height of 40 cm, Brian is the smallest of the range, and yet extends to over 1.9m! Eddie is the great all round tripod, light enough to carry around at just 1.3 kg and the sturdiest has to be Jimmy with a weight capacity of 15kg for heavier equipment, yet still lightweight at 1.6 kg. Adrian is the smallest of the Alloy tripod systems and Kirk is the sturdiest with a weight capacity of 12kg. Bob, the carbon fiber monopod will hold a whopping 14kg.

All the tripods are available to purchase online at www.3leggedthing.com from £109 or as kits with a ballhead of choice. The ballheads are available in two sizes and five exciting metallic colours, so whether it’s Stagsden Blue or Cosmic Rain, there’s a colour to suit all. Individually they are priced from £59.99. All tripod systems come with a carry case and carry strap for portability.

Every product in our catalogue comes with a 5 year warranty, and free servicing and repair out of warranty, for life. (replacement parts are available at cost to original owners who register their products on the website. Labour charges for servicing and repair are free also to those customers.)

For further information and to keep up with the latest on 3 Legged Thing visit www.3leggedthing.com or call 0844 272 7777. You can even join our facebook group www.facebook.com/my3leggedthing or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/3leggedthing. Check out the selection of video’s on You Tube www.youtube.com/user/3leggedthing

 

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..

 

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

 

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.

 

Greg has been a photographer for 8 years and relocated to Tarrant Hinton from Southampton in 2008. He lives with wife Maddy, and their two children Violet and Joseph. As a wedding photographer Greg has photographed weddings across the UK and has even travelled to shoot a wedding in France. The TP Photography style is modern reportage with a mix of both romantic wedding images which focus on natural interaction together and traditional shots.

The Photography Lighting workshop on Sunday September 26 will take place in Tarrant Monkton Village Hall. The course is £50.00 and is suitable for complete beginners as well as those with a little more experience. All equipment will be supplied and there will be the option to review shots taken.

The course will include information on; equipment basics, using a light meter and taking readings, hot to choose the correct power / aperture and why, and more information on light modifers, studio lights and flash guns.

The Wedding Photography workshop is on Sunday 3rd October and will also take place in Tarrant Monkton Village Hall. The course costs £65.00 and again is suitable for beginners or more experienced photographers. Information and topics covered will include; equipment, breaking down the day, how to shoot the wedding, preparation, “before, during and after” the wedding, creating great bride and groom portraits and more…

For more information or to sign up contact Greg on 07834 490393 or email greg@thurtlepower.com or to have a look at some of the stunning images taken by TP Photography visit http://thurtlepower.com/.

 

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’…

 

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 

tag using 

and assigning the correct domain-specific key within the src attribute’s URL as a parameter. In doing so, you’ll need to pre-generate and hardcode the list of keys within your application.

Create an object which contains a mapping between domain names and its corresponding Google Maps API keys. Use 

to retrieve the domain name your application is running against, and pass it into the object to select the appropriate key.

Below is a JavaScript snippet you can copy and paste into your application. Replace property names labeled 

on the left with your list of domains and assign to each entry its corresponding and unique Google Maps API key.

When using the snippet above, be sure to include it within your HTML document above any script tags or JavaScript containing references to Google Maps API objects.

 

IIllusion of the Day: iPad + Magic = <3

 

The obligatory iPad video to mark the international launch.

Two of mankind’s greatest inventions, together at last. Note: this is an exploration of what is possible, not necessarily what is practical. Tweet from the street at your own risk!