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How To: Hide Zi8 Record Light

ghostshadow — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:51:19 +0000

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.

Fading Pixel tutorial

ghostshadow — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:52:17 +0000

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

Blood Tutorial

ghostshadow — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:27:25 +0000

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.

Change Firefox close button behavior

ghostshadow — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 05:44:01 +0000

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.

Make Your Own Battery Snaps

ghostshadow — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 21:29:08 +0000

In this write up I am going to teach you how to make heavy duty battery snaps. These snaps are a lot more sturdy than the store bought ones that you get at RadioShack and other electronic outlet stores. These snaps are very simple and rugged and can be used for all kinds of projects and testings. Plus you’re creating less waste by recycling parts from your electronic goods, it’s a win win situation.
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Materials Needed

Dead 9v battery
Pliers
22AWG Wire (preferably a red and a black wire)
Soldering iron
Solder
Hot glue gun (optional, but works well in assembly)
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How To

First, take your dead 9v battery and start prying at the seam of the battery, starting at the bottom until you can get the battery all the way apart, like so:
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Next, what you want to do is take out and keep the bottom plastic part and the top plastic part (the part with the connectors on it). You can recycle the rest of the battery, you won’t be using the rest of the contents at this time.
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Now lets take a look at this connector. We have a positive and a negative. The positive on the 9V battery is the “Round” connector and the negative is the “Star” connector. For this project we have to change this so that the positive side is the “Star” connector and the negative is the “Round” connector. This is why it’s a good choice to use two different colored wires (red & black in this case).
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Now that you know the “Star” side is the positive side and the “Round” side is going to be negative, you can flip the connector over (remember which side is which). In the photograph below, the “Star” side is on the right.
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Now you are ready to put this thing together. Heat that soldering iron up and get ready. What you want to do is take the red wire and solder it into the “Star” side connector. Do the same with the black wire with the “Round” connector. If you find the solder is not sticking to the metal area, you might need to rough it up a bit. My connector had a coating on it and I had to sand the connector a little and the solder connected to it. Just take some sand paper and rub it a little and your solder should adhere to the connector.
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Now that both connectors have the wires attached there is one more step before assembling the final product. You should flip the wires to the other side (see the photo). This puts less tension on the wires when the battery snap is being used.
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Next step is to put this thing together, so heat up that hot glue gun. What you want to do is get your other piece of plastic ready and you’re going to put hot glue on the part that has the wires connected, dab just enough glue on there so the other piece of plastic will hold. You’ll want to squeeze both plastic pieces once you put the glue in since hot glue dries fast. Once it’s dry you should have something like this:
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Now you are done and ready to test your projects or attach the battery snap to your project, etc. Here are a couple of pictures of the new battery snap in use.
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Remember to properly dispose of your batteries. Please recycle when you can.