Timelapse+ is a cool new photography add-on for patient DSLR users

Posted in Digital Home, Gadgets, Lifestyle, News, Photography

The problem with taking timelapse photos is that (stop me if you’ve heard it) it’s very time consuming. There are ways to automate the process but they’re either too costly for the keen amateur or too limited. Typically you’d use an intervalometer for shooting timelapses (like this one) or else sit there patiently clicking the shutter button 720 times for your 30 seconds of footage.

The Timelapse+ is a great product that affords a degree of flexiblity previously only available on very high end timelapse products. Amongst its capabilities are:

• Take an unlimited number of photos
• Take sets of photos per interval for HDR (up to 10)
• Each exposure in the set can be set to a different duration
• 1/10 second resolution for the interval and BULB duration
• BULB ramping – shift exposure smoothly during the timelapse (to be implemented)
• Auto BULB ramping based on the light meter (to be implemented)

The Timelapse+ recently emerged successfully from a KickStarter funding round and is now available for purchase for a very reasonable $99.

What’s the Best Linux Distro for Older PCs and Laptops?

Posted in Featured, Laptops, Linux, News

While I’ve never been a full-time Linux user, I’ve always tried to stay abreast of developments on the platform. With the recent release of Ubuntu Unity and all the controversy that it has thrown up, I thought it was a good time to road-test some distros. However I’m not interested in installing Linux on my desktop PC because I like playing games on it. No, I need Linux for my older PCs and laptops.

For the purposes of this round-up I used an IBM T60 Thinkpad – an old road-warrior’s laptop that I picked up for free from an old employer after it had done its three years active duty. It’s equipped with 500Mb of RAM, a 60Gb hard drive and a T2400 Centrino Duo CPU running at 1.8Ghz. It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a powerful PC, by modern standards.

However Linux has always run well on this laptop and despite the system specs of my test machine, I didn’t envisage running into any huge issues. Turns out that I was somewhat naive in that belief – Linux, in many of its main distributions has evidently moved forward a lot since I last checked it out, about 18 months ago.

Brilliantly Simple Solution to Keeping Your Coffee at its Ideal Temperature

Posted in Lifestyle, News

Like all good geeks, I drink coffee. Lots of it. I don’t grow, roast or grind my own beans, but I’m choosy when it comes to brands. However if there’s one thing that often sums up my coffee drinking, it’s leaving a freshly brewed mug because it’s too hot, getting absorbed in something else and then returning to now tepid coffee. Fortunately there’s a solution to this problem

Joulies are polished stainless steel shells that are filled with a special phase change material that melts at 140°F. The idea is that you put them in your coffee mug and they absorb heat from your coffee when it is too hot and release it back into your coffee as it cools. The end result is that you get a perfectly warmed mug of coffee for longer. They’re available now – five for $50.

Twine – Home Automation for the Rest of Us

Posted in Digital Home, Gadgets, News

Home automation has never really become a mass-market product. Sure you’ll find boxes of gizmos in your local electronics store, but the odds are that they’re collecting dust and have a ‘price reduced’ sticker on them. The main reason for this is that they’re a) clunky to install b) clunky to use c) expensive and d) of limited capabilities. It’s not exactly a compelling mixture, I’m sure you’ll agree.

So ‘hurrah!’ then for Twine – the latest brilliant product to emerge from the mighty KickStarter project. This amazing little gadget combines wi-fi connectivity with internal and external sensors in a svelte case the size (and look) of a bar of soap. It is programmed through a very simple ‘If this – then that’ web interface that will enable even the most code-adverse of people to create some cool automations.

Twine incorporates a magnetic switch, moisture sensor and breakout board and can output to SMS, Twitter, Email or HTTP. Some of the possible uses for this combination includes telling you when the fridge door opens so you catch that bacon thief, letting you know when it’s raining so you can get the washing in, informing you that the garage is on fire. All of this programmed very simply from a point-and-click browser based interface. Twine’s available now, starting at a very reasonable $99, going up to $174 for the full-sensor version.

Why Tornadoes Take the Weekends Off in Summer

Posted in Lifestyle, News, Science

Here’s a really interesting bit of reasearch from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center. As National Geographic reported, it turns out that tornados occur more mid-week and incidents drop drastically over weekends.

The reason for this apparent anomaly is that during the week all the commuters get in their cars and drive to work, pumping pollutants into the atmosphere. Those pollutants serve as a perfect seed-bed for storm fronts, because moisture gathers around specks of pollutants, which leads to more cloud droplets, which leads to storms. Full story, here.

Mophie Outdoor Edition Offers Extended Battery Life and Cool GPS Mapping App

Posted in Digital Home, Gadgets, iphone, Lifestyle, News

If your new years resolutions extend as far as stepping away from the keyboard and mouse and venturing into the outdoors, then Mophie’s new Outdoor Edition Juicepack for the iPhone may prove to be of interest. The pack includes a cool GPS mapping app that tracks your journey but also enables you to record highlights with pictures or videos. It’s out now for $119.95.

App Tamer Helps Prolong Macbook Battery Life

Posted in Laptops, Mac, News, Software, Utility

While Apple have worked hard to extend the battery life of Macbooks, there’s still a long way to go before we get any sort of a cord-free existence. Most laptop users know the tricks of extending battery life, such as shutting down non-essential CPU-hogging apps, but if you want to eek the last bit of performance out of your Macbook’s battery then App Tamer could help.

The way that App Tamer increases your Macbook’s battery time is by pausing processes that you’ve backgrounded. For instance, web browsers are actually comprised of myriad small processes all of which eat up CPU time and therefore consume power. By freezing those processes when you click off them, you claw back those CPU cycles and the resulting battery power. App Tamer 1.1.2 is out now for $14.95.