Monthly Archives: January 2011

Using the iPad and Galaxy Tab/S as media players

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It’s always fun to come up with new ways to use existing gadgets. I’ve recently started using my iPad as a media player to play movies on my partner’s TV. Ever since his flatmate moved out – and brought the Xbox 360 with him – there’s been no way to play downloaded movies and TV shows on his TV. I was previously using an Iomega ScreenPlay, and while it’s small, it’s not exactly a portable solution. The iPad with the component AV cable is.

Till now, I was playing Dexter season 4, which I had bought through iTunes, and hence played through the standard iPad Video app. But this time around I had downloaded Due Date and wanted to watch that. I assumed that VLC Player would be able to play it output to a TV, but that assumption proved wrong! What to do? This is what I hate about iOS’ closed file system! While you can now transfer files to particular apps through iTunes, only the app you transferred the file to can access it. So even though I had CineX Player installed on my iPad, it could’t see any of the movies that I had transferred to VLC Player!

What I had to do in the end was connect my iPad to my partner’s laptop, save the movie off my iPad through iTunes to the laptop, then transfer that same file back to my iPad through CineX Player. Clunky workaround, much! At least I finally got the darn thing working! By the way, Due Date is hilarious! Very similar to Hangover, and Zack Galifianakis is incredibly funny.

I tried a similiar thing with my Galaxy Tab, which thankfully doesn’t have the same closed file system woes as the iPad, and apps can see anything in the file system. We suddenly had a hankering to watch Anchorman (only one of the funniest movies ever!), and I remembered that I had it on the 32gb microSD card in my Galaxy Tab. A good time to try out that Samsung AV cable that I bought recently, which the salesperson had assured me would work on any Samsung device. No such luck! The Galaxy Tab does have a TV out function, but looks as if this works off the docking port rather than the earphone jack. Must look into this more! (Edit: turns out I was right.) Luckily, I had my Samsung Galaxy S on me as well, and that worked pefectly with the AV cable! All I had to do was swap the microSD cards, and we settled back for two hours of being amused by Ron Burgundy and his channel 4 news team.

Anchorman

Two technology near misses there! Good thing I’m persistent and ever-confident that technology can always save the day if you know how to apply it properly! :)

Flip camcorder comparison

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Dan over at Gear Diary has done a great comparison of two of the latest Flip models: the MinoHD and the UltraHD.

I picked up a Flip UltraHD last week before I went on my camping trip, and I was able to record some cool footage of a wombat near our campgrounds at night. There’s just something about the design of the Flip that’s adorable. The way it fits in your hand, the bright red recording button smack-bang in the middle where you can’t miss it… it’s not the most full-featured pocket camcorder by far, but it’s certainly my favourite for impromptu video ops. I love the fact that it uses rechargeable AAA batteries, so I can take a few Sanyo Eneloops with me in case I run out of juice. I can also off-load videos that I’ve shot to my iPad using the Camera Connection Kit to make more room. Not that I’ve ever had to avail myself of either option before (I’m still dabbling in the world of amateur movie making!), but it’s nice to have those options all the same!

I should mention that I also have a Sony Bloggie Touch that I picked up in the United States last year. It’s roughly the same height of the UltraHD, but a lot slimmer, and it has more features, like a larger 3in touchscreen, 1080p HD video recording, the ability to shoot 12.8 megapixel stills, and a metal construction that comes in four colours (I opted for the basic black). Like the Flip, it’s also got 8GB of internal storage and image stabilisation, but the battery isn’t replaceable. You can shoot video in either portrait or landscape orientation, depending on how you hold it – if you want to shoot in the standard landscape orientation, you have to hold it sideways.

I prefer the UltraHD purely for the fact that it shoots in landscape orientation while you’re holding it in portrait mode, so you can hold it with one hand and keep it relatively steady. Having to hold the Sony Bloggie Touch longways (and usually with two hands to keep it from wobbling) is a hassle for off-the-cuff video recording, and I would love a feature that allowed me to shoot in landscape while holding it vertically. The long touchscreen also means the record button is lower on the front than the UltraHD, which isn’t as ergonomic to reach with your thumb while you’re holding it. The Bloggie Touch doesn’t come with Mac software either, while the Flip does. I can export videos using iPhoto easily, but when it comes to reformatting the video for the web and posting it directly to YouTube or Facebook, I have to find other software. I’m currently using QuickTime for that, but it’s not ideal. Finally, it just doesn’t have the same cute factor of the Flip, which probably sounds like an odd comment coming from a power user geek such as myself, but it’s something I nevertheless consider when I use gadgets – one of the advantages of being a tech journalist and having lots to choose from, I guess! :)

Evernote vs OneNote on mobile

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OneNote for iPhone

This is interesting. Microsoft has just released a OneNote client for the iPhone, bringing the total number of clients for the program up to three: Windows, Windows Phone 7 and iPhone.

I had a quick squizz at OneNote for iPhone last night, and it’s not a bad-looking app! Different notebooks are colour-coded, and it uses a notebook binder graphic in the background. It’s not as feature-rich as Evernote, but one thing it does offer over its main competitor is the ability to create mixed notes on the mobile client. OneNote for iPhone lets you create a new note that includes an image, checklists and numbered lists; on Evernote, you can only create plain text notes (although you’re able to view rich formatted notes and check items off in a checklist).

A nicer UI and support for mixed notes is really the only thing that mobile OneNote has going for it, as far as I can see. To get the full OneNote experience, you’ll have to purchase the OneNote desktop app, which is available for Windows only. There is a free web editor included in Microsoft Sky Drive, but it’s a clunky interface, and I’d really rather a dedicated a program than using clumsy HTML controls.

One advantage that the desktop version of OneNote offers is that it does OCR on text in images and handwriting (not to mention PDFs), so that any searches you do are include these images and handwriting. Evernote offers this as well, but only on notes that you synchronise with the Evernote servers. This effectively puts a limitation on the number of notes you upload for OCR purposes (and scanned documents tend to be quite large by default) – 60MB for a free account and 1GB for a premium account. It would great if Evernote offered this OCR feature to premium members for its desktop client so you don’t have to upload all of your scans to the Evernote servers. For things like bank statements and other personal information, I’d rather create an offline notebook that isn’t uploaded to the servers, but then I lose out on the OCR capabilities.

If Microsoft offered OneNote as a free desktop app – for Mac as well as Windows – not to mention a version of Android, I would consider trialling it as a replacement for Evernote. But right now I’m happy paying for a premium subscription to Evernote, the lack of local OCR notwithstanding!

Using the Canon PowerShot SX30 IS at Big Day Out

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It’s hard to go from a steady diet of caviar and champagne to moldy cheese and stale crackers. That’s how I felt when using the Canon PowerShot SX30 IS yesterday at Big Day Out. It’s not a bad camera, just that I’m used to much, much better in terms of image quality.

I went as a VIP guest of Motorola, and the ticket included entry to the air-conditioned VIP bars. I’m not sure what the actual temperature was, but it felt like over 40 degrees Celsius! Being able to retreat to the air-conditioned comfort was a Godsend, although it was a fair bit further from the stage than I’m used to.

The below image shows how far we were from the stage (I was shooting through a window).

Hanging in the VIP bar at Big Day Out

Using the 35x zoom, however, I was able to get right up to the stage and shoot the artists performing. I wasn’t too happy with the quality I was seeing on the LCD screen though; it showed a soft and hazy image, and after awhile I stopped bothering to take photos of the performers, as it just wasn’t up to my standards. Had I used the Canon SX30IS for shooting concerts before, however, I would’ve known that this could have been fixed in post processing. Upping the black levels significantly seemed to get rid of the haze, and consequently make the images look sharper as a result – especially when viewed at smaller sizes. Some judicious cropping, and the photos were good to go! See a before and after shot below.

Unedited version

Cropped and edited in Lightroom

Now I wish I had taken more photos! As it was, I ended up going home early, before all of the acts that I wanted to see had gotten on stage! These music shows always have the better acts right at the end, and I would’ve loved to have seen John Butler Trio, Wolfmother, LCD Soundsystem and PNAU perform. Alas, after a near-sleepless night before BDO, I was tired, my feet were killing me, and I had to make the long trek from Homebush back to Bondi Junction! I left the show at around 6.15, but didn’t get back home till around 7.45!

A couple of other images I was reasonably happy with below.

Dead Letter Circus

Lupe Fiasco

Bliss N' Eso

Will I be using the Canon SX30 IS? Most definitely – if it involves concert photography or anything else that requires a super-long zoom! Otherwise, I will stick to one of my other cameras to guarantee good quality :)

Big Day Out, here I come!

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(cross-post from Foto Geekz)

Thanks to the lovely PR girls at Motorola, I’m off to the Big Day Out music festival today with a VIP ticket!

Unfortunately, you need to have press credentials in order to bring a ‘professional camera’, and while I probably could’ve swung these by talking to the right people (me being a journalist, and all), I decided it was too much effort to bother with.

Super zoom!

This means that the 5D is definitely staying at home, leaving me with a few ‘smaller’ camera options. I don’t actually own a compact point and shoot, but I have a couple of mirror-less cameras and a ‘super-zoom’ camera that I bought on a whim and haven’t really used much. I decided on the latter, the Canon SX30 IS, for the following reasons: (a) it has a 35x zoom, the equivalent of a 24mm-840mm focal length – definitely long enough to be able to capture the artists cavorting about on the stage!; (b) it has an articulated LCD that I can use for holding the camera above my head (and the crowd in front of me) to get the shot (I hate getting stuck in crowds, so I’m more likely to be towards the back of the audience); (c) it’s my cheapest camera, so I won’t be that heartbroken if it gets broken or stolen.

This will be a good opportunity for me to ‘bond’ with the SX30 IS – having so many cameras at my disposal means that I have a touch of ADD when it comes to using them, and I tend to favour the higher quality ones over the SX30 IS. I can’t argue with its versatility, however, and hopefully I’ll get to know this camera a lot better during the course of the day!

What I’m doing right now: January 2010

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  • This month’s literary obsession is Dennis Lehane. He wrote the books Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone and Shutter Island, which you may know better by the adapted films). I’m currently going through his Patrick Kenzie series of books. Fabulous writing, really one of those ‘can’t-put-it-down’ styles of writing!
  • As for TV shows, I’ve finally, finally started on Dexter! My brother got me series 1 for my birthday last month, and now I’m on the last episode of season 4 and just about to start downloading season 5. I know – how on earth do I manage to get any work done! :P
  • I’ve just gotten a new writing gig: doing a weekly smartphones column for the PC and Tech Authority website! Getting paid to write about things you’re passionate about – does it really get any better than that? :)
  • Favourite gadget of the month: I haven’t used it that much, but I’m really liking my new Flip Ultra HD! It’s small enough to bring with me everywhere, and it’s so simple to start recording video.
  • Favourite photo of the month: it would have to be of the rear end of a stack of scaffolding that I spotted around the corner of my house. Nice and abstract :)

Who knew scaffolding could look so sexy? ;)

Happy Australia Day!

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The Aussie flag. Proud!

Today is the nation’s special day, where we remember what it means to live in the lucky country! And what’s not to love? Great people, gorgeous weather, a fantastic welfare and medical system, and so many opportunities to better oneself and live a wonderful life.

My parents migrated to Australia from the Philippines when I was only two years old, after saving for many years to be able to afford the move. While I was too young at the time to really appreciate the significance of this, I’ve seen what lives are like in developing countries, and I realise how unbelievably lucky I am that my parents were industrious and hard-working enough to bring us to a western country!

So today, I’m going to salute Australia in the best way I know how: go down to the beach for a spot of snorkeling (how lucky am I to live within walking distance to the beach!), then follow it up with an authentic Aussie BBQ. You beauty! :D

Why notifications in Android are superior to iOS

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Android: my preferred mobile platform

Every now and then, my tech journalist and blogger personas collide. Actually, it’s a situation that’s arising more often now that I’m getting paid to blog for both the PC and Tech Authority website and ninemsn’s Digiknow website.

The former is a relatively new weekly gig that I’ve picked up, where I sound off on anything topical and interesting in the smartphone world. Obviously, I do quite a lot of that on Gadget Monkeys as well, hence the whole ‘worlds colliding’ bit. My inaugural column for PC and Tech Authority was on the Motorola Atrix, and how I thought it would change the face of smartphones. My second column, which just went live today, was on something that I’ve been meaning to write about on Gadget Monkeys for awhile now: why I think the notifications system in Android makes this platform superior to iOS.

So no need to reinvent the wheel. Have a read of my article on PC and Tech Authority – I’d be interested to know your thoughts!

Lessons learnt from camping

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No broken limbs, no suspicious rashes or other medical ailments, no car break downs, and no broken, lost or stolen goods. Plus, we had fun! In all, I’d say it was a very successful camping weekend, despite our considerable lack of experience in said activity.

With that said, I did take away some lessons from the weekend with regards to taking technology on the road. The Energizer XP4001 Power Pack that I was so excited to bring along turned out to be a total fail. Maybe I didn’t use it properly, but I was only able to charge my Motorola Defy to about 40% before I took it off. Then the next time I tried to charge something, the Power Pack was out of juice already! It’s meant to be able to charge a phone around six times from a full charge, so I was definitely not impressed. I’ll need to try this again to find out whether it’s a fault with the one I have, which leads me to lesson number #1: Always stress test critical gadgets before depending on them as a power supply! I felt very lost without a charged up phone to play with, plus I ended up using both my Defy and my iPhone quite a lot (until they ran out of battery) for random Google searches (“Is a wombat a mammal or a marsupial”), informative Google searches (trying to find camping sites in the Jervis Bay/Kangaroo Valley area, as well as good bushwalking trails), and GPS navigation. I used the iPad a lot of impromptu movie nights, but the lack of extended battery situation meant that I couldn’t blog from my iPad well.

Cooking dinner on the second night on our gas cooker: Spam, fried rice and Mi goreng noodles! Also, check out my iPad playing Despicable Me - some nice dinner entertainment

My waterproof SLR case, on the other hand, was an absolute win. Naturally I was reluctant about dipping my four-thousand-dollar camera + lens into the water at the beach, but I followed the instruction manual, which says to test it before use by putting a paper towel in the case, sealing it up, and dunking it with water to see whether the seal holds. I was able to see for myself that it kept out water, although I was still nervous about trying on my camera. Still, I gamely packaged my 5D Mk II and 24-70mm lens into the case and brought it out with me onto Hyams Beach – and it worked like a charm! Here are a couple of shots I took that would’ve been impossible without the waterproof case. The clear plastic over the lens does hamper image quality somewhat – it makes images a little softer and skews the colours a bit, but still better than no photo at all! Lesson number #2: always read the instruction manual before using something as potentially damaging as a waterproof SLR case! (Lucky I didn’t have to learn this the hard way!)

The DiCAPac waterproof SLR case shrugging off all of the sand and water

F going for a dip - couldn't have taken this without waterproof housing on my camera!

Underwater shot

I was able to use my new Flip Ultra HD every now and then to film interesting moments… only after awhile I forewent the soft velvet pouch that it comes with and just chucked it into my bag “commando”. Bad idea – I now have two scratches on the the screen, which I find absolutely heartbreaking on a new gadget. It’s not a touchscreen though, and I’m hoping that I can buff it out with some scratch solution. I also discovered a ‘ding’ on the side of my Sony NEX-5′s 18-55mm lens – I’m used to treating my Canon gear quite rough, but they’re constructed from a tougher material and never show a scratch. Lesson number #3: keep everything in their cases, as anything that can get scratched will get scratched while camping!

Visiting Hyams Beach in Jervis Bay for the second time in my life was absolutely delightful – it’s renowned as having the whitest sand in the world, according to the Guiness Book of Records. F and I ended up going there on a whim (lucky we packed our bathers!), and we spent a nice morning splashing around in the cool blue water and taking photos along the rocky outcroppings. The folding chairs I bought along for camping worked a real treat, although a beach umbrella would’ve completed the picture nicely. As would taking along my Kindle! F remarked that it would’ve been great if she’d brought a book, and I agreed wholeheartedly. This is the second time in a row now that I’ve visited a beach and lamented not bringing along my Kindle, so lesson number #4: If there is even the slightest chance of a beach visit, bring your darn Kindle!

There were other, non-tech learnings I picked up over the weekend. Our trip ended up being very spontaneous and on-the-fly, as we opted out of the 3-hour canoeing adventures on the Saturday and Sunday, meaning F and I broke away from the main group and ended up having a delightful ‘choose-your-own adventure’ style weekend. And I think we ended up having a better time than we would have if we’d gone with the original plan! Definitely much more relaxing, in any event. The lesson I learnt from that was that it’s okay not to plan everything down to the tiniest detail and just do everything on the fly – provided you have the sort of personality that’s capable of spontaneous planning (and not everyone has that). Google was a big help in being able to look up things to do and places to go, and it also helped that I had been in this area two new years ago and had a vague idea of the sort of things we could do.

Impromtpu visit to Hyams Beach - beautiful white sands, clear blue water, and not outrageously crowded like the Eastern beaches in Sydney!

I also learnt that you can never have too much water! F and I brought along a pallet of 24 water bottles for two nights and two days of camping, and we plowed our way through it without trying! There’s no way I could’ve drank that much water at home over the same period of time, but the constant activity and heat made it an easy amount to get through.

On our first night setting up at the Bendeela camping grounds (which is just chock-a-block with wombats, btw!), we met our camping buddies for the weekend (although we only ended up staying with them that one night!), who were friends of a friend, and I was thoroughly impressed with their camping setup. Turns out two of them are camping veterans, and wow – they really had it all! Their tent was a lot nicer than ours, but they had so many little things that made it obvious we were dealing with pros: a foldable table that they used to put all of their condiments on (condiments! while camping! amazing!), they had a gas-powered light that they could leave on all night (so much better than keeping a torch on!), and mother of all wonders, they had an automatic air pump that blew up our inflatable beds in no time at all! I had no idea that such things even existed! This is an absolute must-have for when I go camping again. And yes, I will be doing it again :)

Blur-o-cam shot of a wombat that seemingly appeared out of nowhere!

Very cool setup by our English friends