haniblog

Back in November I wrote about why I left Facebook. Now that the social site gives control back where it belongs, I’m back!

When did this go live? Traffic updates on Google Maps for the UK. It also works on the iPhone as well!

Apple just released a public beta of Safari 4. First impression: it’s fast! Second impression: What happened to the Tabs bar?

Western Digital have a marvel on their hands. My Sony LCD came alive today. Previously, I had a Mac Mini connected using a DVI to HDMI cable and watched lots of 720 and 1080 video on it. I plugged this little (really, really little) wonder into the TV using an HDMI to HDMI cable and it blew me away! The detail, the contrast, the colours I didn’t notice before! I’m going to spend a few pleasurable nights re-watching my HD films now!

Okay, the down side is that the interface is not a patch on Plex but to be honest, I’d rather watch the films than quibble about font kerning. I haven’t worked out how to display thumbnails and I’m not sure you can user-definable ones with MKV files.

The WD TV cost £90 and I spent another £60 for a 320GB USB powered Passport drive and I would have happily spent more. If you’re looking for a media box to play anything (besides DRM’d protected content) this is the one to get. Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a 1080 version of Goodfellas I’m dying to watch.

I tried, I really did. Then I gave up and called Apple to take their underpowered, overprotected media box back. This is the first Apple product I absolutely and unreservedly hated. It made iTunes look bad, and that is one of my favorite applications.

Okay, so it’s hackable. But it turns absolutely buggy and crashes a lot. Plus, I don’t want to spend another night trying to coax it to do what it should do in the first place: play whatever media I throw at it, and iTunes syncing isn’t the way to do it.

Enter WD TV. It should arrive tomorrow along with a 320GB pocket drive. It costs £100 less than the 160GB Apple TV and it should play movies with popular codecs without complaining or transcoding. As a bonus, it plays 1080p instead of just 720p.

I really hope this is the answer otherwise it’s back to the Apple Store to buy another Mac Mini and install Plex.

I haven’t had so much fun with the iPhone camera. QuadCamera is a fantastically simple App that takes quick fire snaps and stitches them together in a grid. £1.19 in the App Store. Here’s a quick shot I took earlier today of Ric, one of the guys at work. Genius.

Our little girls need a computer for their homework. The only “spare” Mac in the house is our media server which sits underneath the LCD and runs Plex. That Mac Mini will now become the girls’ play room computer.

I just ordered a 160GB Apple TV and I’m looking forward to trying out iTunes HD TV shows and film rentals. I’ll post my thoughts once I drive the box for a little while with wireless streaming and try hacking it with Boxee.

And yes, I am excited by A New Toy.

Here’s a simple expression to calculate the missing point in a 4 point track.

Suppose you’re missing the lower_left corner of a bilinear.

In the animation menu, choose the lower_left channel under the Bilinear and type the following expression:

And here’s the result:

The method is to add the two nearest corners to the missing point and then subtract that from the opposing corner. 

For easy reference, here are the expressions for all four corners:

upper_left: ( lower_left + upper_right ) – lower_right

upper_right: ( upper_left + lower_right ) – lower_left

lower_right: ( upper_right + lower_left ) – upper_left

lower_left: ( upper_left + lower_right ) – upper_right

So I finally got around to write a beginner’s guide on Flame Expressions. Enjoy!

After this was marked and the child brought it home, she returned to school the next day with the following note:

Dear Ms. Davis,

I want to be very clear on my child’s illustration. It is NOT of me on a dance pole on a stage in a strip joint. I work at Home Depot and had commented to my daughter how much money we made in the recent snowstorm. This drawing is of me…. selling a shovel.

Mrs. Harrington

Via Gromblog