Erik Persson Photography

Archive for the ‘Software’ Category

iPhone test post

Trying out the new wordpress app for the iPhone. Seems to be working so far. Hopefully the image will show up at the end

Mac Tip: Add The Date To The OSX Menu Bar Without Installing Additional Software

I was surfing around and finally found out how to add the date to the OSX menu bar without installing additional software!

The tip says you need to use the medium category, but only the Long category for Times worked for me. This may be due to a difference between 10.5 and 10.4.

The following tip

Want to see the date in the menubar? Start by opening the International Preferences panel, and clicking the Formats tab.

In the Dates section, click Customize. Click the Show pop-up and select your choice of Short, Medium, etc. Now place the elements you want in the small “work area,” by dragging and dropping them from the Date Elements section. Once placed, you can click on some elements to see other options (Wednesday or Wed, for instance). Once you’ve built the date string you want, click once in the work area, and hit Command-A then Command-C to select the string and copy it. Now click Cancel to close the window without making any changes.

In the Times section, click Customize, and set the Show pop-up to Medium. In the small work area below the pop-up, place the curser where you want the date elements to start, and click to position the cursor. Now hit Command-V to paste the elements you just copied. You can further add characters and spaces to customize the look. If you want to remove an element (i.e. the year), click on it and use the Delete key. Click OK, and you’ll see the results in the menubar.

MacOSXHints

Since a picture is worth a thousand words here is how I have Time Long set

ISO 50 Is A Lie

I just took delivery of an EOS-1Ds Mark III and wanted ask a question about ISO to ensure I’m optimizing the quality of images from this fantastic camera. I’ve been doing studio work with my EOS-1D Mark II and II N on the extended ISO 50. Is there any quality compromise when using this lower ISO? I was using it thinking I would be getting better quality with the lower ISO, but I read something to the effect that it actually increases noise and that extending the range is only a method of light- not quality-management. Am I better off shooting at ISO 100?

The standard ISO range for the EOS-1Ds Mark III camera is 100 to 1600. Optional settings for ISO 50 and ISO 3200 are enabled via menu command, and are indicated on the camera’s LCD data panel as “L” for Low and “H” for High, respectively. Part of the reason behind this is that these settings are not truly ISO 50 or ISO 3200. Instead, in the case of “L,” you’re looking at ISO 100 processed by the camera to achieve an effective rating of ISO 50. Similarly, “H” means that the camera is processing an ISO 1600 image to achieve an effective rating of ISO 3200. “L” images have about the same level of noise as ISO 100 images, but they have less “headroom” in their tone curves to recover overexposed highlights than do ISO 100 images captured with the 1Ds Mark III. This is typically not a problem with evenly lit scenes, but it may become an issue with scenes that have a lot of dynamic range to them, such as sunsets, backlit flash photos, etc.

ISO 50 can be helpful when you are trying to achieve a creative effect, such as a wide aperture to blur the background behind the main subject, for instance in portraiture. It can also be helpful when you are using studio strobes and you don’t want to stop down the lens excessively, or in outdoor situations when you want a longer shutter speed to blur subject movement like the water in a waterfall. But if none of these situations apply, you are better off to use ISO settings in the 100 to 200 range in terms of overall image quality and maximum dynamic range.

© Chuck Westfall

http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0804/tech-tips.html

Words do not express how much this annoys me…

Tags: canon, iso 50, Photography
Posted in Hardware, Photography, Software, Tech | No Comments »

Mac Tip: Change The Login Screen In Mac OSX

Am I the only one that’s getting tired of Leopards fireworks loginscreen? It turns out you can replace that image with anything of your choice. Heres how.

Go to

Hard Drive > System > Library > CoreServices > DefaultDesktop.jpg

replace that jpg with your new backdrop

Type in your admin password when prompted and you’re done!

Just remember to backup the original DefaultDesktop.jpg incase you decide to switch back to the default at a later date.

Via Lifehacker Comment

Now we know who the Mac users are in the neighborhood

“Now we know who the Mac users are in the neighborhood”

Thats how I was greeted by the Fedex guy this morning. Apparently he’s been delivering quite a few Leopard bundles this morning.

Hidden Functions in Microsoft Notepad!

You know Notepad? The basic text editor that has been part of Windows since 1.0
Turns out it has some hidden functionality!

Journal Functionality

Open Notepade

Type “.LOG” without the quotes then hit enter.

Now save the document.

Close the document.

Reopen the document.

Pretty cool, no? Now everytime you open the document it will put a timestamp at the end.
You can also put down a new time stamp by pressing F5.

Dell’s New Features Part Deux

Buckling under pressure Dell has partially given in to complaints by users. They are now offering their XPS line of computers with no bloatware and spyware installed. However Dell’s other line’s of consumer products appear to still be compromised.
Via HardOCP

Exciting New Features From Dell (Non-Snarky Edition)

If you’d like to read a satirical and much more amusing account of this post click here otherwise read on
Recently I discovered that Dell Computer ships all new computers with a spyware package known as “My Way”.

“My Way” logs all your search queries, records where you go on the internet, and redirects merchant sites like amazon to a “My Way” sponsored site like bobswharehouse.

“My Way” is also difficult to uninstall/remove. The program does not unistall automatially, but requires delving into the innards of your Operating System in a time consuming process.

I cannot recommend purchasing a Dell for your computer needs.

Sources

The Accusation
Dell’s Response
Wikipedia article on the Spyware “My Way”