TriggerTrap Mobile – App and Cable Transform your iPhone into a Sophisticated Camera Controller
It takes the power of an iPhone and combines it with the quality of a DSLR to bring simple, but incredibly powerful photographic techniques to all.
Pulling the Plug – How to Delete Your Account on Facebook, Google+ and Other Social Media Sites
If you're sick and tired of being treated as a commodity by Facebook, Google and the other social networking sites - why not delete your account and take control of your online identity?
Wallpaper of the Week – Prometheus
Celebrate the impending release of Ridley Scott's awesome Alien prequel, Prometheus, by adorning your desktop in this brilliant wallpaper.
How to Emulate Instagram, Hipstamatic and Camera+ Filters on your Mac or PC
Learn how to recreate your favourite Instagram and Hipstamatic effects on your Mac or PC using special applications, Photoshop, Lightroom and some awesome plugins.
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- Pandoras Box 4.0 – Convenient Pandora Radio App for Mac goo.gl/fb/vW5nS : 6 months ago
- SnapHeal – The Photo Retoucher for the Rest of Us goo.gl/fb/Gq4U3 : 6 months ago
- TriggerTrap for Android – Released Today goo.gl/fb/GngFo : 8 months ago
- Posts – The First Decent Blogging App? goo.gl/fb/CM0fx : 9 months ago
- Pencils From Old Printouts goo.gl/fb/Ba58p : 9 months ago
- An Openly Biased Review of Android Jelly Bean by an iPhone Lover zite.to/MXL3LEi : 9 months ago
- Improve Your Memory Skills by Bouncing Your Leg goo.gl/fb/eHTQY : 9 months ago
Most Recent Articles
Pandoras Box 4.0 – Convenient Pandora Radio App for Mac
Pandora is an innovative online streaming music service that uses the digital fingerprints of music to suggest tracks you might like. And it’s got a vast library too, so the odds are that you’ll get to hear lots of great tracks you’ve never heard before.SnapHeal – The Photo Retoucher for the Rest of Us
Snapheal 2 – $19.99 – App Store
Photoshop has always been the go-to tool for any kind of retouching and it’s not hard to see why. With advanced features like the Content Aware Fill, it can perform photographic magic, not just removing blemishes, but inventing whole potions of a photo out of the ether. There’s no two ways about it – it’s an incredible app – it’s also bloody expensive.
If all you want to do is remove blemishes from your photographs then it’s difficult to justify Photoshop’s hefty price-tag and that’s where an app like SnapHeal comes in. It doesn’t offer the feature-set of Photoshop and it doesn’t pretend to either – this is a product aimed squarely at ordinary Mac users who want to tidy up their photos.
SnapHeal 2 is the ideal software for someone who’d love to get the same results as a Photoshop user, only without the cost. It focuses squarely on the task of removing stuff from photos, whether that’s a few zits on someone faces or a whole person that’s in the way. But that does not mean that it is any less capable, in this regard, as Photoshop.
To be honest I was amazed at how well SnapHeal 2 performed – in fact in several instances it did a far better job of removing elements of a photograph than Photoshop. It did particularly well at removing items and restoring the background. In Photoshop the Content Aware Fill often uses an obvious source area which can sometimes look like crude cloning, but I had no such issues with SnapHeal.
There are three removal tools available and the one you choose depends on the item(s) you’re trying to get rid of. These have been given the exotic names Shapeshifter, Wormhole and Twister. You deploy each based on different removal critera – Shapeshifter is used when you have large objects to remove, Wormhole for things like small skin blemishes and Twister for things like clouds and small tree branches.
To get rid of a troublesome object in the photo, you can either brush over the affected region or drag the marching ants around it. The area is then highlighted in red and you can choose your removal tool. I tested it on my three year old Macbook Pro and it was speedy even with multiple selections. I didn’t have to wait for more than a minute no matter how complex the scene.
Certain removal scenarios worked out far better with Snapheal than Photoshop – in particular the removal of smaller fiddly objects like twigs. You have to be realistic about it though and if you try remove a massive bulk from your image then it may be obvious where the source pixels were taken from.
In addition to its excellent removal tools, Snapheal also has a selection of traditional retouching tools such as a clone stamp, image adjustment sliders (contrast, saturation etc) and crop and rotate tools. It can access photos in your Aperture or iPhoto libraries and can export back to them or share directly on the main social networks.
I feel there’s a very strong case for the addition of Snapheal to any photographers software library. If you regularly take family photos and get frustrated by imperfections in your photos then it’s definitely worth buying. In fact given the quality of the removal tols, I think there’s a very strong case for existing Photoshop users to have Snapheal on hand too – I’ve certainly come to rely on it when Content Aware Fill’s not cutting it. Recommended.
TriggerTrap for Android – Released Today
TriggerTrap is one of our favourite products. It’s an app and hardware solution for photographers that enables you to create incredible timelapses or record spontaneous moments. It can be used using a smartphone’s internal camera, but it most useful when paired with a cable and used for ramped time lapses and the like. More details here.
Read MorePosts – The First Decent Blogging App?
I have no idea why it has taken so long for developers to come up with a decent blogging app. The first one that came anywhere near being usable was Blogsy by Fomola, prior to that a WordPress blogger was basically stuck with the utterly wretched official app and users of other platforms like Blogger were basically screwed.
When you first open the app you see a dashboard full of posts arranged Pinterest-style in date order. You can edit one of these existing entries or you can create a new post, page or draft. You can also search for content or quickly go to a specific date using either the calendar or the slider.
At the top of the editor screen are buttons to access the properties windows, media, previews and HTML. The properties windows enables you to change post title, tags, categories and article visibility. The media window enables you to insert photos directly from the iPad or from an online image or movie somewhere like Flickr or YouTube. The HTML button gives you access to the raw code to do any markup styling or further additions.
At any time you can save your draft post either locally or online, meaning you can easily switch between iPad and a browser window. The ability to save locally also means you can write blog entries without Internet access and upload your work when you’re online again. If there are any downsides to the app it’s that it doesn’t give you access to any plugins you might have installed – for instance SEO management.
If you’ve never been tempted to try updating your blog on your iPad, Posts is probably the app that could change your mind. It’s a beautifully designed app, thoughtfully created and is sure to become one of the essentials. It’s available now for $9.99.
Read MorePencils From Old Printouts
Here’s a terrific gadget which we’d love to see go into full production. The P&P Office Waste Paper Processor takes ordinary A4 printouts, combines them with lead and a bit of glue and spits out perfectly formed pencils in seconds.
[Via YankoDesign]
Read MoreImprove Your Memory Skills by Bouncing Your Leg
So I’m a leg bouncer. When I’m working, sitting daydreaming or otherwise involved in any pursuit that does not require ambulatory movement, I bounce my leg. Turns out that this habit (which infuriates some people) is fairly common and, amazingly, very useful. According to this excellent question on Quora, leg bouncing and fidgeting in general (if allowed to happen) improves cognition. Apparently skipping can also greatly benefit memory retention.
Read MoreGrid – Awesome New ‘Visual’ Spreadsheet App
Grid is a spreadsheet app that’s better suited to lifestyle than regression analysis or loan amortization tables. It uses voice input, images, calendars and embedded social media tools to streamline the planning of activities, events or anything else that needs a bit of forward thinking.
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Get Lost – Trust an App
There are hundreds of mapping and GPS apps for all the brands of smartphone, enabling people with a poor sense of direction or map reading skills or both to get out into the world. However according to The Guardian, the apps just don’t cut it when used for their intended purpose and hikers are getting lost. The Guardian quoted the head of a UK mountain rescue team who said, “Last night alone, we were involved in two separate incidents, involving a total of 16 people, who had relied on smartphone apps to navigate on the high tops, were very poorly equipped for the conditions, and become lost.” Today’s takeaway – learn to use a map and compass as well as your smartphone.
Cardio – Heartbeat Detection for iPhone
You might be familiar with the Heart Rate app which can detect your pulse by pressing your finger against the iPhone’s camera. Well Cardio is a new app that takes such voodoo to a whole new level – it can detect your heart beat just by being pointed at your face. It works by analysing the amount of light reflected off of your beautiful visage – you just hold your phone and look into the camera to see your BPM. It’s out now for $4.99.
Read MoreiPhone 4S Glow in the Dark Skins, Covers & Cases by Slickwraps
They probably won’t catch on with burglars or spies, but for everyone else a glow-in-the-dark iPhone case could prove very useful. If you’ve ever spent some time searching around in the dark for a phone after a regrettable sexual liaison or if you’ve dropped your phone while out dogging then I imagine it would be worth its weight in gold. SlickWraps glowing iPhone covers are available in five lurid colours, the retail at $24.95.
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About Geekosity
Here at Geekosity we're dedicated to bringing you news you haven't read anywhere else. There's a hundred tech blogs out there, but have you ever noticed how they all cover the same stories, over and over again? We're happy to let them tell you about the latest iPad rumours for the 10th time you've heard it that day, or the news on Microsoft's profits for the 15th time that day. We look for equally interesting stories that have passed by the cloned tech news sites - stories about software, gadgets, science news - anything we think might interest like-minded geeks. The site is edited by Andy Hutchinson, a veteran tech journo with over 20 years experience in hardware, software, gadgets and free lunches with PR people. Thanks for dropping by.