Nov 14, 2012
HDR (High Dynamic Range) PhotoFilter uses EXIF data to make "Hypereal" images
Newer CArs: Read Diagnostic Codes with ELM327 for as little as $15 : )
John McAffee of Antivirus Fame Eccentric Fugitive in Belize…
Additional notes
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Glenn is now an owner of an iPad "4" aka the iPad Retina Display.
New to this model is the Lightning plug, which was mentioned in the 10-24-12 show.
At one point, Glenn had a Sprint iPhone 4S but had no luck getting Sprint to unlock it. He took it to an Apple store with a complaint, hoping to eventually exchange it for an unlocked phone but they give it a clean bill of health. He only came away impressed with the short time it took them to open the phone, in light of the difficulty he's had opening earlier models of the iPhone.
The other new feature of the new iPad is the A6 quad 4 processor. It's supposed to be much faster than the A5 used in earlier models.
aul talked about the IMEI number. It contains a serial number that's unique to each phone. It also contains other information about the phone — like the manufacturer. He found an interesting site that explains the IMEI. One use for the IMEI number is for reporting a stolen phone. Every cell phone has the number, even the CDMA phones. It was noted that the iPhone 4S is dual mode (has both CDMA & GSM). Later in the show, it was implied that all iPhones from the 4S onward are dual mode.
Both Sprint & Verizon use CDMA and, Glenn said, you're stuck with using their phones with the respective carriers only. They just don't want to unlock their phones. But he said they will unlock their phones for international use without much resistance because they what to keep you as a customer. He also said there is no good jailbreak for the latest iPhone operating system IOS 6.1, yet.
Glenn said both GSM & CDMA phones can be unlocked so they can be used with a different carrier, but Sprint & Verizon choose not to. He thought the carriers were recently required to unlock out-of-contract phones, but he then remembered that might be true of AT&T due to a lawsuit it lost. AT&T will unlock a phone if you hound them enough.
<There's more about IMEI & unlocking by AT&T in the 4-18-12 show notes. And here is an article about how AT&T Will Unlock Out-of-Contract iPhones>
Paul noted his iPhone 3GS lacks Siri and panoramic photography, but "everything else works".
Paul recently upgraded his Mac to the Mountain Lion operating system and found that hitting function key (lower left of keyboard) twice enables the dictation mode. Your voice is sent to a remote server to be converted to text and is then sent back. It does one sentence at a time and you shouldn't expect that what you say will remain private. The other option is to use Dragon Naturally Speaking <discussed on a previous show> — about $100 on Amazon.
Paul then talked about high dynamic range photos (HDR). The human eye can discriminate a range of brightness by a factor of one million. In photography, the medium has even a shorter range and you tend to lose the detail in either the very dark or very light areas. HDR takes over-exposed and under-exposed pictures (of the same scene) and combines them in a way that brings out the details in both the shadows and highlights. He mentioned that Exif data, which contains things like F-stop & shutter speed, is stored along with the image. Then, programs like Photo Shop use this data to create HDR pictures. For more info, see the above link.
Glenn tried to access the Comrex in the studio with his iPad using a web browser but was having trouble. Paul said that might be because the Chrome browser Glenn was using may be relying on the Safari webkit. Apple restricts other browsers to using Safari's webkit for security reasons. Even when you think you're using a different browser, it's actually using Safari's webkit. And Safari doesn't allow Flash or ActiveX to work on the iPad, thereby leading to Glenn's problem.
<The Webkit site is here. >
Adrianna of KVMR is still looking for a donation of a Mac. It should have at least an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. <For more info see show notes for 7-25-12 & 8-29-12> You can contact her at membership at kvmr dot org (or even zen at kvmr dot org).
A caller with dialup internet is looking for a new computer that can work with it.
– Newer Macs don't support modems at all.
– Most newer PC don't come with modems.
– One option is to install an internal PCI modem <the type that plugs into a motherboard slot inside of a desktop>.
– Use a USB modem (but it won't work on a Mac with an OS later than 10.6). Make sure it supports Win7 or Win8 if that's what you have.
– Look for a refurbished PC with XP (or even an older OS). Try overstock.com, geeks.com and perhaps buy.com. Look for a 1 yr warranty (even for a refurbished unit). Paul has seen some for about $149.
– Since AT&T has no plans to bring DSL to her area, try getting broadband from Digital Path or SmarterBroadband.
Cars produced after about 2003 have a diagnostic socket, usually under the dash. When there is an error light (check engine, for example), you can determine what it means by using relatively expensive equipment or with a unit from China that Paul found for $15. It uses BlueTooth to transmit the information to an Android device, for which there is an app.
The Chinese unit is a clone and uses an early version of the firmware for the elm327 chip. It has a few bugs that later firmware corrected. But the later firmware was designed so it can't be copied <don't look for it on a Chinese knockoff>. See the above link.
Paul said he'll review the $105 PD10 Android tablet on the next show. It has an A5 dual core CPU. Earlier he had bought the PD20 and he talked about that one on the 10-31-12 show.
A caller <I think he said his name is Gus> said he's a photographer and that he appreciated the explanation of the HDR concept. <see above> Paul noted that the process is just the starting point and it's up to the user to use it creatively and not get carried away, otherwise the images can look very unnatural.
Talking about the diagnostic socket, Gus mentioned that he only had to use a crossover wire in his '89 car's socket and then the lights on his dash would signal what the problem was by blinking a certain number of times. He said you'd have to have the manual to decode the blinking and, by his recollection, there were about 50 different conditions that could be reported.
Zack called. He uses Adobe Lightroom and the Dropbox (a place to store your files on the net). When using Lightroom he can access the photos at Dropbox but when he opens Dropbox directly, he can't find the pictures.
– Paul's guess is that if the images are large, it's actually taking a long time to transfer to Dropbox. Zack said he's waited up to 36 hours.
– Paul wondered if images sent to Dropbox thru means other than Lightroom show up ok. Zack said he's tried it that and the images do show up.
– Paul ask if there are a large number of images involved and Zack said there are about 4000. Paul then suggested Zack try using a library of just a few images to see of that makes the difference.
Last update 9:55 PM 11/14/2012