Random Eyedull Photo - Crazy Sky

There's a storm brewing!!

Photoblogging without a computer

The previous Random Eyedull Photo post was made using just my Nikon D200 camera and an iPad. No other computer was used.

I used the iPad Camera Connection Kit to copy to photos off the camera and then used the handy free iPad app called PhotoPad. This app let's you do a handful of image edits, including cropping. And for free, you can't beat the price.

This is good news for when I'd like to travel and take higher quality photos than my iPhone allows and upload them remotely, but don't want to also take along a laptop. It's now easy for me to sort through the D200 photos, edit them, and upload some to my blog, all without a full computer.

(This post was also made from my iPad. I snapped the photo using my iPhone and then used the Camera Connection Kit to transfer the photo from iPhone to iPad. I could have just posted this from my iPhone, but the larger keyboard on the iPad makes for faster typing.)

Random Eyedull photo - Buzzzzz

Tried to snap some pictures of a bee that is getting very territorial about my front deck.

Knot of the day: Monkey Fist

Working on learning a new knot each night. Today's is called the
monkey fist.

Originally used by fisherman for weighting a line (the knot can be
made around a lead ball or other weight), it also makes a nice
decorative knot.

Barcode scanning on iPad

Today I received the iPad Camera Connection Kit. As the name implies, it is designed for connecting a camera to the iPad for the purpose of importing photos. And that's the primary reason I bought it.

But, another point of interest for me was the kit provides a USB host port on the iPad. Although not really publicized, the USB functionality of the iPad allows it to act as both a USB function and a USB host controller (it is in function mode when docked with a PC/Mac and is in host mode when a camera or other device is attached to it).

As a result, when the camera kit adapter is connected, you can plug in all sorts of USB function devices, such as keyboards, USB headset, etc.

So this got me thinking... what other USB devices might work? One USB device I happened to have handy is an old Symbol barcode scanner. I plugged it in, and sure enough, it works!



This could potentially open up all sorts of ideas for using the iPad for workforce automation. Of course, this isn't an official use of the iPad Camera Connection Kit, and in fact, it does have some serious limitations as is. First, when the barcode scanner is initially plugged in, an alert pops up stating that the device is unsupported. Second, since the barcode scanner is identified as an input device, it prevents the onscreen keyboard from appearing. While plugged in, you are limited to only being able to input text data via the barcode scanner.

I don't expect to find myself keeping a barcode scanner plugged into my iPad all day, but if I did need to capture a bunch of barcodes while away from my PC, it is an option.

Now if they'd only come out with a version of Delicious Library for iPad...

A different perspective

"Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings."

From http://cosmicnavellint.blogspot.com/2010/04/imagine-if-tea-party-was-black-tim-wise.html

Lego My iPad!

Inspired by someone else’s use of Lego as an iPad stand (http://coreymarion.posterous.com/lego-ipad-stand), I decided to fish through my dwindling Lego collection to see if I might have any pieces suitable for making an iPad stand for myself.

I had long since given away all the cool technic pieces, but surprisingly I found I could make a decent stable stand out of just 8 Lego pieces. Granted, two of the main pieces are fairly non-standard Lego fair. They’re legs from some Lego set I’ve long since forgotten, but were the proper angle for acting as a back support for the stand.

Here’s the design:




The two black angle shaped pieces are the front of the stand and hold the iPad in place. It's not the most esthetically pleasing design - some of the blocks are a few pegs too wide and coloring doesn't match - but given I no longer have 1000s of blocks to fish through, I'm happy with what I was able to find.

Here’s what it looks like in use:



I’ll probably add a few extra pieces to the front to reinforce the two black blocks and reduce the risk of them popping off, but overall even in its current form, it’s quite stable, even with the iPad in portrait mode.

I had been looking for something to use as a stand for the iPad in the kitchen. I have the Apple docking stand already, but it only works in portrait mode. I use Epicurious on the iPad in the kitchen and landscape mode is much more usable when following recipes.

First wildflowers of the season

Saw these today on a hiking trail in the Douglas State Forest.

Enjoying the game called "work"

I recently came across a very interesting article regarding the addictive qualities of video games. Specifically, it was talking about how some video game companies intentionally try to make their games as addictive as possible. The point is, they're not trying to make the games as fun as possible, but as addictive as possible. There's a big difference between those two goals.

You can read the full article here. It's well worth reading if you can spare the time.

One of the points raised in the article was how playing a video game tries to fill a void in another aspect of someone's life. For example, from the article:

"to be satisfied with your job you need three things: Autonomy (that is, you have some say in what you do day to day); Complexity (so it's not mind-numbing repetition); Connection Between Effort and Reward (i.e. you actually see the awesome results of your hard work). Most people, particularly in the young gamer demographics, don't have this in their jobs or in any aspect of their everyday lives. But the most addictive video games are specifically geared to give us all three... or at least the illusion of all three."

I find this to be true. I am currently self-employed and do freelance software development. I find lately I spend very little time playing video games (a couple hours a week) and will often instead choose to work on my own software projects in my free time. I guess the appeal of the definite connection between an effort and reward with software I can sell overrides the thrill of acquiring any virtual goods in a video game. Contrast this to when I used to work for a corporation a few years ago: the pay was great, but the job wasn't very satisfying and I would often spend many hours a week playing video games.

Huh?

Not quite sure about this fortune...