Chai…

Rezepte

recently there has been a boost with chai in different coffee houses. they use a cinnamon syrup to give it a special flavor. this is always a little sweet for me. so i tried to make chai myself.

here is what i do:
for one big cup of chai use about

  • 2 teaspoons of black tea,
  • 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon,
  • 1/2 teaspoon of black grounded pepper (maybe chili or cayenne for the hard boys),
  • the seeds of 3 cardamon seedpods and
  • one clove.

put this in a teabag and infuse it for 5 minutes. add a little warm milk and sugar as you please.

you may use whole cinnamon sticks but i feel they just take way too long to flavor the tea. star anise and ginger are normally included. i haven’t had these at home so i couldn’t figure out what the dose for those would be.

cheers!

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Twitter vs. RSS…

OnlineLife Net Webapps, Software

I’m following about 50 people on twitter. some of them post regularly some of them from time to time.
what annoyed me was when people twittered automatically via some service about something they do VERY often (e.g. geocaching: “i found the cache XYZ”).
and now i did it myself :(
i posted automated messages on twitter.
no actually in my case i let twitterfeed check for my flickr photo stream RSS feed for new images, that the service could then publish as twitter messages. although i explicitly set twitterfeed to only check for photos that had ‘tweet’ as tag to avoid spamming the daily image annoyed some.
thanks to mika for reminding me :) i apologize for spamming you (my followers) with automated messages. i will try to avoid this in the future ;)

here why i think this is bogus:

  1. twitter is a platform where spontaneous messages, thoughts, findings, fun facts and any type of content can be published, without the overhead of formulating a big chunk of text e.g. a blog. twitter is great to publish tiny little bits of content that are greatly incoherent. people love twitter because others remind them of stuff they did not think of and pull them a little aside from the usual dirt tracks they use in their every day online life. do not post the same stuff over and over again.
  2. there are already platforms out there that offer a way to publish content in different ways such as video or photo sites: youtube, flickr, picasa, vimeo, etc. these platforms offer a great variety of services that users can access mostly for free. this includes distributing their content and making it accessible to others via different ways and formats: standard HTML (normal web surfing), RSS and atom feeds and maybe an API. use it!
  3. one should not abuse a service for something it’s not! this is definitely the case when you use twitter to divert a RSS feed as i did. let the original service serve its RSS feed. this way people have the choice to follow your contributions on another platform if they wish. post a message on twitter that you offer a RSS feed about a specific topic and people can get it from there.

to sum it up: follow my daily image here if you like. subscribe to my blog via RSS or Atom feed. i even have a youtube feed.

let me know what you think, post in the comments or send a trackback.

if you don’t know what RSS is read on on wikipedia about RSS and Atom feeds.

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How to make time-lapse videos on a motorcycle…

Hardware Gadgets, Motoriges, english

a few weeks ago i got my hands on a motorcylce camera stand (thx Patrick). one that was actually made for a motorbike and not a modified tankbag with rubber wraps. please don’t ever use those and please do never put a camera into your helmet as some youtube idiots present.

the camera i used is my canon ixus 750. since the lense on this camera is rather low i had to improve the camera stand. i added some aluminum ducts to make it higher and to make the camera see the street. about 7 centimeters were enough.

since i was not able to get the CHDK timelapse to work i shot video. to generate a timelapse i used ffmpeg to extract images out of the video and to unite them to a timelapse video.
using this tutorial and the man pages i was able to come up with this:

#!/bin/bash
# sample usage: ./timelapsify.sh input.avi output.mp4
mkdir ffmpeg_temp
ffmpeg -i $1 -r 1.4 -f image2 ffmpeg_temp/%05d.png
ffmpeg -i ffmpeg_temp/%05d.png -sameq $2
rm -rf ./ffmpeg_temp

note that it is important for ffmpeg to have the images you use to generate the timelapse video in order and sequenced. if you decide to delete some images you have to rename them and must not leave gaps.
also you may have to vary the rate (i used: 1.4) acording to the speed of your input video and the speed of the output video you want to have.

one step i did between extracting and generating the timelapse was sending it through imagemagick to blend the speedometer. using info from this mailing list:

#!/bin/bash
#usage: pixelate_circle.sh IN.file OUT.file center_x_coord center_y_coord border_x_coord border_y_coord
convert $1 \( -clone 0 -scale 10% -scale 1000% \) \
\( -clone 0 -gamma 0 -fill white \
-draw "circle ${3},${4},${5},${6}"\
\) -composite $2

of course this has to be done for every image ;)

and here is the resulting video:

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snow leopard – leopard with brain freeze…

Software, apple, english

yesterday i installed snow leopard (10.6.1). BIG mistake; at least with a minor version number of “1″. Snow Leopard

i immediately ran into 4 problems. one of them that big that i decide to write these few lines to warn you about it (since they are essential to me).

the all so new finder is not really well implemented as it seems. finder has problems connecting to samba shares. a working setup under 10.5 (Leopard) was:

  • a Linux Server with samba shares
  • user password needed for personal shares
  • some shares read only for guests as well.

one of the shares that is accessible through a password is my time-machine share. on this net share i run backups from my mbp. see how to do that in this blog post. time machine connected to it automatically.

for leopard i had to add this to the smb.conf to fix issues:

# fixes weird leopard behavior
unix extensions = no

but for snow leopard i had to add this:

encrypt passwords = Yes

because the finder will not connect to servers without password encryption.

this allone did not fix the problem that i could not login. connection to shares that are open for guest users did show, shares that needed login did not.

as it turns out the finder has a little hidden feature called “Numeric passwords ONLY”. this means that you have to have a user account that authenticates with a password that only consists of numbers! as soon as i changed that i was able to mount my beloved shares again and time machine seems to work as well.

some users report that finder is quite picky about dns resolution as well… see the forms i linked about that.

the second little issue i had affects boxee. the apple remote seems to handle locks diffently or not at all. whenever is started boxee under 10.5 the apple remote was talking to boxee only. under 10.6 it also controlls itunes and front row whilst i run boxee in the foreground. not so cool!

a third little thing that did not work in leopard either is tether a mac with the htc hero. this apparently works out of the box for linux users but not for mac. what’s so hard about that?

a fourth little thing that annoys me is that the new quicktime has no more option to stay in full screen when the focus comes off. this is especially disruptive on dual head setups.

i really really hope that apple will soon release 10.6.2 and fix these problems. i don’t get how they could have overlooked these…

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ein monat mit dem htc hero…

Hardware Gadgets
HTC Hero Screenshot1

Oben Wetter widgets (1x2), Mitte Uhr Widget (4x4), Rest Applikations Shortcuts

seit einem monat habe ich nun mein htc hero. mein erstes ’smart-phone’. ich muss sagen bis jetzt bin ich wirklich begeistert. die htc sense oberfläche ist gut gelungen. die 7 desktops geben einem genügend platz seine anwendungen zu verlinken, fotos auf dem desktop zu platzieren oder auch sogenannte widgets laufen zu lassen. diese widgets sind kleine programme die direkt auf dem desktop laufen und kein eigenes fenster benötigen. hier liefert htc einige mit, wie zb: wetter, uhren, twitter, suche, personen, sms (nachrichten), musik, lesezeichen, fotoalbum und mehr. je nach funktionsumfang und design benötigen diese widgets zwischen 2 und 16 feldern auf des 4×4 felder grossen desktops.

als betriebssystem kommt android zum einsatz. ähnlich wie am iphone (und ipod touch) kommt eine art app store zum einsatz, der market. hier kann man sich applikationen herunterladen. diese können gratis sein oder auch nicht. grosser vorteil gegenüber dem apple app-store: man braucht keine kreditkarte solange man keine kostenpflichtigen apps herunterlädt! ein zweiter grosser vorteil: der market ist nicht die einzige möglichkeit wie man apps auf sein android phone bekommt. man kann apps von jeder webseite laden, hier muss  man nur einmal in den einstellungen definieren dass man weiss was man tut (also ‘unsichere quellen für applikationen akzeptiert’). so kann einem niemand ‘unsichere’ und ‘böse’ applikationen verbieten. die plattform ist wirklich offen.

back of boxzur hardware: diese wirkt wertig und hat ein angenehmes gewicht. der display ist ein bisschen kleiner als am iphone, das tut aber dem bedienkomfort keinen abbruch. videos lassen sich angenehm darauf betrachten. die mitgelieferten kopfhörer haben knöpfe zur fernsteuerung verbaut, so lässt sich die musik pausieren, vorwärts oder zurückspielen. zur lautstärkenregelung muss man allerdings die wippe an der linken geräteseite betätigen. der stecker hat ein standardformat. deshalb lassen sich auch hörer anderer hersteller ohne adapter anschliessen. zur not kann man musik auch ohne kopfhörer über den eingebauten lautsprecher hören, hier ist aber wie bei all diesen geräten kein klangwunder zu erleben. auch wenn das hero ein ganz gute figur macht und sicher vorne mit dabei ist.

der akku hält bei moderatem gebrauch von wlan etwa 2 tage. hat man gps und die mobile datenverbindung ständig an so muss man es doch täglich laden. die theoretischen werte von 440h (18d) standby mit GSM sind wohl nicht zu erreichen. auch wenn ich an eine woche herankam (kein WLAN, sehr wenig GPS, keine mobile datenverbindung, display fast ständig aus).

heroder interne speicher von 512MB scheint nicht überdimensioniert, schon gar nicht wenn man sich vor augen hält dass das iphone mit 32GB maximal konfiguration daherkommt. was man de facto machen muss ist den speicher mit einer microSD karte aufzurüsten. derzeit habe ich eine 16GB karte in betrieb und das reicht bequem aus um einige videos, musik und fotos mit mir herum zu tragen. ein vorteil der sich durch die SD karte ergibt ist die möglichkeit das telefon als speichermedium zu nutzen. hat man das usb kabel nicht dabei, kann man immer noch die karte aus dem gerät nehmen und sie befüllen. ich habe zu diesem zwecke einen 3euro microSD reader an meinem schlüsselbund. ein standard mini usb stecker an der unterseite des gerätes ist nicht verbaut ABER stattdessen verbaut htc einen eigenen ’standard’, der immerhin rückwärtskompatibel zu mini-usb ist! den vorteil der zusätzlichen audio- und video-pins konnte ich noch nicht geniessen. hat man ein kabel zur hand kann man die speicherkarte über das telefon für einen computer freigeben und auch so daten kopieren – sehr fein!

die kamera des HTC hero hat zwar 5 megapixel, ist aber immer noch keine vollwertige kompaktkamera. der fokus braucht eine spur länger als bei normalen kompakten. das nichtvorhandensein eines blitzes macht aufnahmen bei schlechten lichtverhältnissen so gut wie unmöglich. nett ist dass man in der foto app zwischen foto und video mit einem knopf umschalten kann. natürlich lassen sich fotos durch das eingebaute GPS auch geotaggen, wenn man will. das makro der kamera hat sich als äusserst brauchbar entpuppt. hier ein paar fotos:

IMAG0069IMAG0111IMAG0020IMAG0033IMAG0036

fazit: das hero ist ein sehr gutes solides telefon. bisher sind mir keine funktionen abgegangen. hardware mässig ist jedes teil verbaut das man brauchen könnte (GPS, WLAN, camera, G-sensoren, kompass). in verbindung mit einem guten vertrag der ein datenguthaben enthält ist das gerät preislich dem iphone überlegen. insbesondere dann wenn man sich keinem knebelvertrag bei orange oder t-mobile unterwerfen will und seine freiheit liebt. einziges manko: wirklich gut lässt es sich nur mit online acounts bei google synchronisieren. aber dazu gibt es sicher auch bald eine app ;)

HTC Hero Smartphone (Android, 5MP Kamera, GPS, WLAN) weiß
Price: EUR 366,14

46 used & new available from EUR 269,99

Kingston FCR-MRG2 Speicherkartenleser USB 2.0 für micro SD / micro SDHC
Price:

30 used & new available from EUR 0,10

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Apple Remote Mod…

Hardware Gadgets, apple, english

my apple remote seemed a little flavorless and i kept confusing it with the one of my girlfriend or my sister’s. so i decided to paint it a little. (yes i know a sticker would have done the trick too)

here is the result:

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loops and stretching with urlshorteners…

OnlineLife Net Webapps, english

there has been some discussion (via @mstrohm) on the security of urlshorteners and i have been thinking about this the past days.

putting the problem of the bottle neck aside it leaves us with the possibility of spamming and/or loops and missing transparency when looking at urlshortening services. let’s say the advantage of shortening urls has to compensate one of the disadvantages; let’s take the bottle neck. it’s clear that one cannot shorten a url and expect the link to be independent or maybe distributed like DNS at the same time.

still there are 3 problems which have to be solved:

spamming: there are concepts which we know from mail services that can narrow this issue down. is.gd uses the surbl blacklisting service to check for spams. with a little fine tuning this is manageable.

loops: similar to the spamming problem, there must be a blocklist of sites that are not accepted for shortening. qr.cx already implements a list of about 200 services that are blocked from shortening. is.gd is saying so too, although they accepted qr.cx links and others at the time of writing. this is really easy to implement and should be done by every shortening service.

transparency: the problem here is that users cannot see where they are going when clicking a shortlink. the solution is again very easy to implement. tinyurl implements it by putting ‘preview’ as subdomain http://preview.tinyurl.com/m5l96j and qr.cx by putting ‘/get’ behind the shortlink: http://qr.cx/1r8/get.

curious as i am i decided

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