Aquila Online

Snap happy with the Toshiba Tekbright photo fame

// July 27th, 2008 // 3 Comments » // Tech

As some of you may know (and I think I mentioned this a few times) I recently got married and as with all weddings and honeymoons one tends to accumulate a bus-load of pictures.

With almost 4000 honeymoon pictures (between the two of us) and another 3000 or so from the wedding (professional and friends) it gets a bit tricky to show them off to friends, family or the cats without someone going numb from hours in front of the laptop. Obviously we cannot print out all of the pics and keeping them stored on DVD and hard-drives don’t do them justice at all.

So what does one do? For starters, invest in a digital photo frame and more spesifically the Toshiba Tekbright Photo Frame.

Kudos to Dror, our wedding photographer pictured in this image.

I got one a while ago and it’s been quite a providential addition to our snap-happy lives. Not only do they allow us to quickly and easily show off our favourite pictures but it also means that we can now display quite a large number of pictures on rotation, instead of just one in a single photo frame.

The black frame shows off the pictures rather nicely and what more can one ask for than touch-sensitive buttons (with blue LEDs no less). One thing I like about the photo frame is the stand that allows you to show off vertically-oriented pictures (as well as landscape ones), although this does not happen automatically. You’d need to manually rotate your images before loading them on to the photo frame.

The interface is rather easy to work with and lets you effortlessly swap between photo, music or calendar mode with the light tap of a button. Other options include adjustments of the volume of the speaker, the brightness of the screen and the transition effect between images, while context menus let you flip through images and music with ease.

More importantly though, the LCD screen is bright enough to give you a pretty decent viewing distance at most angles. Overall, the Toshiba Tekbright photo frame is a happy addition to our snap happy lives.

Some technical details:

• 64MB of internal memory
• a host of memory card slots – SD, SDHC, MMC, MS, xD, CF
• USB 2.0 interface
• MP3 playback with 1 x 1W speaker
• 7″ LCD touchscreen display
• Active esolution of 720 x 480 pixels
• 6:4 aspect ratio
• integrated calendar/clock
• Jpeg and BMP image support

Update: At the time of writing this, I also received news of Toshiba’s Gigaframe Q8 digital photo frame, which has an 8-inch touch screen, 128MB of pre-installed memory and two stereo speakers.

Impressed by Google Sketchup

// July 1st, 2008 // No Comments » // Tech

I’ve been looking around for a no-frills 3D CAD-like design program that’s fairly easy to use and preferably free. Yes, I have worked with the likes of Visio, IntelliCAD, etc, etc before, but they normally chow system resources and designing anything in it can take up quite some time (read complexity).

Enter Google’s Sketchup offering.

Google SketchUp is software that you can use to create, modify and share 3D models. We designed SketchUp’s simplified toolset, guided drawing system and clean look-and-feel to help you concentrate on two things: getting your work done as efficiently as possible, and having fun while you’re doing it.

That’s particularly true – I’m having great fun, and it works. You’re up and running within 5 minutes (they include a 15 step tutorial) and off designing your next home, kitchen renovation plans or office building.

There’s also a wealth of resources, tutorials and ready-made objects available from the Google 3D Warehouse an updates via the blog. Also worthwhile downloading the Bonus Packs – pre-drawn SketchUp models of useful objects like furniture, cars and trees. You can use them in your own models to add detail much more quickly than if you had to build them yourself.

Worth checking out if you’re interested in that sort of thing.

DIY Power Meter

// June 25th, 2008 // 3 Comments » // Tech

Now this is nifty.

The EnerJar is an easy-to-build device that measures the power draw of electrical appliances. The EnerJar was the winner of the Greener Gadgets design competition.

Sitting between any wall outlet and the appliance (think blowdryer versus laptop), the EnerJar helps users gain an understanding of power draw, investing them in the knowlege, and leading them to reduce their electricity use. The auto-ranging capability of the EnerJar accurately measures power with better than one watt precision.

The design is still being optimised, but preliminary schematics and source code can be found on the site.

Now we all need to go make ourselves these meters to check on our daily energy consumption. Will this result in less frequent Eskom blackouts?

The cart whisperer

// April 28th, 2008 // 3 Comments » // Funnies, Tech

If you haven’t heard about Liberty Fillmore, better known as “The Cart Whisperer”, then I suggest you pop over to his website at No More Abandoned Carts.

From a tender young age, Liberty could talk to carts. He listened to their problems and helped heal their shattered hearts. Now, 44 years later he brings the plight of abandoned shopping carts to the fore. You can get in on the action and fight for the rights of all abandoned shopping carts. Check out the website, grab the feed, view Liberty Fillmore’s Facebook profile or play the rest of the YouTube videos and put your cart abandonment issues to rest.

Watch the full trailer on YouTube or download the shortened high-res .Mov (20MB).

While you’re at it also check out this project of real stray carts – The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification. The site has over 200 photographs and a very interesting way of classifying the “strays”.

I want a Garmin nuvifone

// April 7th, 2008 // 9 Comments » // News, Tech

Clearly I’ve been working too hard, ‘cos I missed this news release back in January already. But better late than never to say I want a Garmin nüvifone.

Garmin has gone and created a touchscreen device that combines a premium phone, mobile web-browser, and personal navigator into one sleek package, the Garmin nüvifone. Granted, on looks alone it may not be an i-Phone killer but it is really in a class of its own.

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