Recording our Podcast
Lizzie and I spent the afternoon with Guitar George recording two episodes of the Podcast “My Head’s a Bit Fuzzy”.
Recording our Podcast Read More »
Technology
Do you like Science Fiction – then try the audio magazine StarShipSofa
StarShipSofa
The current show, StarShipSofa 308, is one of the best Tony Smith has every produced. It included a great sci-fi story with a talking cat, a fact article about Science Fiction Movie Soundtracks by David Raiklen and all through the show an in depth interview with Stanley Schmidt the former editor of Analog.
If the show had included the regular fact articles, Looking Back at Genre History by Amy H Sturgis and Science News by J J Campanella then it may have been getting near to perfect.
I download a lot of podcasts, and always have a backlog of staff to listen to, but when Tony publishes his show it goes to the top of the listening queue.
If you like science fiction then I really recommend this weekly podcast – try it and if you like it let Tony know.
Do you like Science Fiction – then try the audio magazine StarShipSofa Read More »
Ready for iOS 7 – Camera+
This post is about Camera+, but I need to start by talking about the WordPress app.
It seems that every time I turn my iPhone on apps want to update to “ready for iOS 7”. This has to be a good thing – unless they make a mistake see here. The look and feel of the new WordPress app is good, but some mistakes have crept in, I have found a missing button and as I am writing this post, add a link does not display well in horizontal mode. As I write most of my blog, on my iPhone with this app I hope they fix it soon.
Camera+
The developers of Camera+ have also released an update – ready for the updated iOS – plus adding some great new features.
I used to use Camera+ as my main iPhone camera but a couple of updates back (when I had my iPhone 4) it really slowed down, so I stopped using it and switched to the iPhone camera app, which improved greatly when I later switched to an iPhone 5.
I still used the image editor, Light Box, included with Camera+. I particularly like the Clarify function and the Golden Section crop option.
The new Camera+ offers a couple of new options I want in a camera app.
Quick access to a square format image. I often crop my photos to a square, I like the influence a square frame has on my images. Now I can see the effect, in the camera, as I take the photograph.
a screen capture of Camera+ app showing the square format
The second feature I like is the exposure compensation control. I can now add and take away the exposure in 1/3 stops, just like I could on my real cameras. The results of this manipulation can be seen on the screen before the photo is taken.
a screen capture showing the ev control, right under my thumb
I am looking forward to using this updated Camera+ app and it looks like it will go back to being my “go to” camera app.
For more details about Canera+, visit the website here.
If you are going to update to iOS 7, make sure you read this article on Mashable – click here.
Ready for iOS 7 – Camera+ Read More »
SofaCON 2013: An Online International Science Fiction Convention
StarshipSofa – SofaCON 2013
I am a regular listener and subscriber to the StarshipSofa podcast, hosted by Tony Smith from his headquarters in North East England. This summer Tony organised a Sci-Fi convention, with a difference, it was online. I was unable to commit the time to buy a ticket, but Amy Sturgis, (a key contributor to both the Sofa and SofaCON) has posted a video on YouTube of some of the online events.
StarshipSofa is one of my favourite podcasts, as well as getting a professional standard narrated, world class story each week there are a variety of regular fact articles making it a true magazine podcast. Among my favourite contributions are Looking Back at SciFi History by Amy H Sturgis, who knows what she will tell us about next and Science News by Jim Campanella, where you can nearly guarantee he will tell us something obscure about the sex life of an insect!
I have promoted the video here – if you like what you see then go over and subscribe to the Sofa.
SofaCON 2013: An Online International Science Fiction Convention – hi-tech, online and green.
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Today’s Photo
I had to return my iPhone 5 to Apple today as the phone had developed a fault – so today’s photo was taken in Meadowhall using my iPad Mini.
The iPad is not the most convenient digital camera, but it did the job. I used the Pro HDR app to take the photo – to cope with the high contrast between inside the cafe and the bright roof windows in the centre. I finished the resulting image in Photogene2.
Changing the broken iPhone 5 was relatively easy, once I explained the problem, they ran some diagnostic software on the phone and saw it was dropping calls. They gave me a new one.
One thing to remember if you take your iPhone back to Apple is not to hard reset the device before taking it to them, as this will delete vital diagnostic data that you will need to support your claim with Apple.
Business Club
It was Business Club this evening and we had a presentation on influencing people – this video was part of the presentation – click here.
The photo was taken on my iPhone 5 – but the post was written later on an iPad Mini – that I bought today. The photo was transferred to the iPad via iCloud.