Archive for the ‘Tutorials’ Category
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
Nothing is more aggravating than recording a video and then finding out later that your video is ruined due to an overly bright recording light. With the Kodak Zi8 pocket HD camera, this problem seems to happen quite often. You cannot record in low light or record any glossy type surfaces due to the record light being so bright. All of the videos have a red tint or a red dot right in the center of them.
Fed up with the red cast and red dots in my videos, I decided to do something about it. I was going to put tape over the light but then I realized, tape would eventually come off and then it’d leave a sticky residue on the camera. So the next best thing to do was to paint the darn thing! I didn’t want to paint the outside because I figured it’d be more work than what it is and it’d also take away from the over all appearance of the device. I found out you can remove the lens cover and gain access to the light post from within the lens cover.
Video after the jump. (more…)
Posted in HD, Hacks, How To, Modding, Reference, Tutorials, Video | 6 Comments »
Monday, December 8th, 2008
Let me be quite frank here. The Marker Felt font is an eyesore, just like its cousin Comic Sans. Apple has chosen to use Marker Felt for the Notes application, both in OS X and on the iPhone / Touch. While I understand the initial intent of using the font for the Notes application, they would like to make it appear more hand written like an actual note. Whilst this is a nice gesture, I often times find it rather annoying. I would like to be able to change the fonts to fit my liking. I am sure there are other people out there that feel the same way. I don’t feel like jailbreaking my device either. So what’s a guy to do?
Simple, turn on the international keyboard. I found this little feature that could possibly be a little bug in the Notes application. What does this all mean? Let me walk you through it.
This is what Marker Felt looks like in the Notes application.
(more…)
Posted in Apple, Hacks, How To, Mac, Tutorials, iPhone, iPod, iPod Touch | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007
Difficulty :
• Step 1: Create a new image (something like 500 X 200 is good here, you can crop the result later). Make sure the RGB mode is selected, now click ok!• Step 2: Go to Filter>> Render>> Clouds. Then go to Filter>> Render>> Difference Clouds.
Press Ctrl + F (Command + F for Mac users) about 5 or 6 times.
• Step 3: Go to Filter>> Blur>> Radial Blur and use these settings:
Amount: 51, Blur Method: Zoom, Quality: Best or Good.
• Step 4: Go to Filter>> Texture>> Patchwork. Set the Square Size to 1 and the Relief to 2. Then go to Filter>> Sharpen>> Sharpen.
• Step 5: Duplicate the layer (Layer>> Duplicate) and just use the default settings. Next, go to Filter>> Stylise>> Extrude. Use the following settings:
Type: Blocks, Size: 5, Depth: 30, Random. Keep the boxes below that unchecked.
• Step 6: Go to Filter>> Blur>> Gaussian Blur and set the radius at 0.7. Now change the layers opacity to 50% and merge the layers (Crtl+E is merge).
• Step 7: Now it’s time to add some color. Press Ctrl + U, check the ‘Colorize’ box and simply move the sliders around until you get a nice color. Also, hit Ctrl+L to change things until you get the lighting how you want it.
That’s it! I hope this helps. Remember to keep coming back.
Here are two I did while doing this tutorial:
Final
Posted in Graphics, How To, Mac, Photoshop, Tutorials | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007
This tutorial will teach you how to create a simple blood effect.
Difficulty :
First you’ll need to open a new document in Photoshop. I chose to use 400 X 400 pixels, with a white background.
• Next go up to, Filter >> Render >> Difference Clouds. You will want to repeat this step 5 times, you can press Command + F on the mac, or Control + F on the PC, five times. This will Redo the last used filter. In this case, it was the difference clouds filter that was last used.
• Now go to, Filter >> Artistic >> Plastic Wrap. I left all of the settings at the default settings, so just hit OK.
•Now hit Command + U on the mac, Control + U on the PC. This will open the Hue & Saturation dialog. You’ll want to click the check box that says “Colorize”, then slide the saturation slider to 54 and hit OK.
•Now you’ll want to go to your tool pallet and click on the Burn tool.
•Now you’ll just need to “burn” highlighted areas all over, you can choose to burn the areas you’d like, I usually burn the really bright highlights. There is no specific way to burn, or any certain pattern you should follow, you just need to burn it to your liking. Your final result should resemble the image at the top of this tutorial.
Posted in Graphics, How To, Photoshop, Tutorials | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 18th, 2007
This mod here is version 2.0 of the first thumbdrive mod (this one is slightly enhanced). This time around, I used the newest 1 Gig thumb drive from PNY to do the modification. My 512 died after dropping it on the ground really hard.
Guide is below the images. Feel free to share your projects in the comments area.
Materials Used
1. (1) 1 GB PNY Attaché Thumbdrive
2. (1) 100 ohm resistor
3. (2) 3mm UV pink led (I would have put a 5mm in, but I don’t have any at the moment)
4. (1) Small Flathead screwdriver
5. Solder, I used 0.032″ diameter solder.
6. (2) Low guage wires, I’m not sure the size, I took it out of an old usb cable.
7. Some electricians’ tape (optional)
8. Solder Iron, I used a Weller iron that has voltage adjustment. Any 15W iron will work.
How I Did It
•1) I took the thumbdrive and I slid the plastic silver sleeve off of it. Mine came off easily because I’d taken it off a while back for another mod that I did. Yours might be a little tough to get off, just pull on it, it’ll come off eventually.
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•2) Then I took the small flathead screwdriver, placed it underneath the metal connector part of the usb connector and pryed up a little bit. This popped the secondary casing off. Some models have 4 little clips around the edges, be sure you bend those back first, they will release the casing halves pretty easily.
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•3) I then decided how I wanted to do this. I wanted the led to project the light towards the front of the thumbdrive, because this would allow it to distribute the light throughout the entire casing. I figured I would run wires all the way to the back of the casing and place the led in that way. That’s what I did (see picture #9) here it is with the points all soldered down and everything.
Note: the top most solder point is the negative connection. You’ll put the resistor on there. The bottom solder point is the Positive
After that, it was time to test it out. I did and it works. 
(picture #11)
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Since its working correctly it’s time to put the drive back together. Make sure you tuck all of the wires into the casing, you don’t want to risk pinching a wire. Slide the cover back on and there you have it. That’s all there is to it. Hopefully I’ll find a nice green or blue 5mm led somewhere so I can throw it in because the 3mm looks nice in the dark but it’s not blazing, you know? haha. Enjoy and have fun modding.
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Knox Ware will not be held responsible if you mess up your thumbdrive or injure yourself performing this modification. Once you open the device, your warranty is void. We are not responsible. Please take proper precautions, be safe, and be careful. Thank you.
Posted in Hacking, How To, Modding, Reference, Tutorials | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007
Today, I’m going to show you how to change the placement of the close buttons in Firefox 2.0. If you’re like me, you have been waiting to upgrade your Firefox. I’m still running 1.5 (latest build). I decided to install 2.0 onto my other HDD so I could test it out. I do like it allot and I will probably continue to use it more and more as time goes on.
One of the things I don’t like too much, is the fact that the close buttons are on the tabs themselves. It’s a nice feature, but, I’m used to the old version. I like clicking at the end of the tab bar to close my tabs. I’m going to be showing you how to change the behavior of the close buttons. You’ll be able to move them and modify them to a different location.
First thing you want to do is, type about:config into the address bar.
Find and change browser.tabs.closeButtons to the value you wish to use. Below are the numerical values and what they represent.
0 – Displays the close button only on the active tab.
1 – Displays the close buttons on every tab. (default)
2 – Never displays the close buttons.
3 – Displays the single close button at the end of the tab strip (This is the old, default Firefox 1.5 behavior)
The way I want the tab bar to be, is like 1.5 so I would choose number 3. You can choose what you would like to do. Double click browser.tabs.closeButtons and change the integer to the number representation you would like to use.
If browser.tabs.closeButtons does not exist, you can create it. Right-click the page and select New and then Integer.
You wont have to restart Firefox either, the changes will take effect automatically. Enjoy.
Discuss this in the forum.
Posted in Blogroll, Hacking, How To, Reference, Tutorials | 1 Comment »
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