Tuesday, October 30, 2007

FDRTools

FDRTools are a collection of capable tools for the ambitious shutterbug.

This software allows you to overcome the technical limitations of your digital camera and produce images with a contrast and dynamic range not considered possible so far.

The dynamic range enrichment is handled comfortable and far easier than with traditional methods. The performance characteristics outclass these methods.

Essential features:

  • Combine several differently exposed photos of an exposure series into an HDR image

  • Prepare your HDR images for display or print with high quality tonal range compression (tone mapping)

  • Import the RAW images of your digital camera

  • Export and archive the optimised HDR image in a format of your choice



  • Download free version.

    FDRTools

    Monday, October 29, 2007

    DriveImage XML

    Freeware application DriveImage XML creates and restores images of any drive or partition on your system. That means that next time you freshly install Windows on your computer (whether XP or Vista), you can back up that clean and sparkling system state with DriveImage XML. Download.

    DriveImage XML

    Friday, October 26, 2007

    Lifehacker: Turn Thunderbird into the Ultimate Gmail IMAP Client

    Interesting article on Lifehacker:
    "Gmail's IMAP support roll-out this week had nerds all atwitter about the possibility of synchronized email access across devices, computers, and clients. IMAP is far superior to regular old POP for fetching your messages and maintaining your folder list whether you're on your iPhone, office or home computer. If IMAP's got you curious but you're not sure what desktop application to use with Gmail, consider the extensible, fast, cross-platform and free Mozilla Thunderbird, our beloved Firefox's little sibling. Here's how to get the full Gmail experience in Thunderbird with IMAP."



    GMail IMAP


    Monday, October 22, 2007

    How to Taste Wine

    wikiHow is a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. This one is about wine tasting.
    Whether you are vacationing in California, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, France or Italy, wine tasting is one of the most rewarding excursions available. If you long to walk through the vineyards and admire the grapevines and picturesque backdrop, wine glass in hand, you must first learn to appreciate the subtle beauty of wine.

    Wine

    31 Ways to Motivate Yourself to Exercise

    There are a million ways to motivate yourself to exercise, actually, but these are a few that have worked for the author of this article. The things that have helped include finding a workout partner (one of the best motivators!), logging my exercise, reading magazines, books and websites, and rewarding himself.

    exercise


    Tuesday, October 16, 2007

    New Canon superteles under development

    Canon announced the development of two all-new telephoto lenses for use with its EOS SLR cameras: the EF200mm f/2L IS USM and the EF800mm f/5.6L IS USM. The Company will exhibit prototypes of the new lenses at PhotoPlus Expo.

    The new Canon EF200mm f/2L IS USM and EF800mm f/5.6L IS USM, both of which are L (luxury)-series lenses incorporating a high-performance Image Stabilizer, feature optical systems utilizing special optical materials such as fluorite to correct chromatic aberrations, making possible high-resolution, high-contrast shooting performance.

    EF200mmF2

    The Canon EF200mm f/2L IS USM, targeting users who seek a brighter lens for portraiture and indoor sports photography, realizes a large aperture of f/2. The EF800mm f/5.6L IS USM, expected to deliver telephoto performance surpassing the current top-of-the-line EF600mm f/4L IS USM super telephoto lens, is being developed in response to requests from users working in the fields of sports and news photography who are looking for a high-performance lens that offers a longer focal length.

    EF800mmF56

    Wednesday, October 10, 2007

    Digitize Your Analog Images at ScanCafe

    ScanCafe

    If you've got a drawer full of photographs you'd love to preserve digitally but don't feel like going through the work of scanning every one yourself, send them to web site ScanCafe for cheap and professional scanning. The service charges $0.19 for each negative and $0.24 for each slide you accept (you can reject up to 50% for whatever reason, whether you don't like the quality or you just don't want the image). The door-to-door round trip will take approximately seven to eight weeks, but the quality is excellent and price is very competitive.

    openSUSE 10.3 released

    A collection of major changes and additions characterizing the current openSUSE Linux 10.3 release:

  • Linux kernel 2.6.22.5, Alsa 1.0.14

  • glibc 2.6.1, gcc 4.2.1

  • autoconf 2.6.1, gdb 6.6

  • libzypp 3.25.0

  • bash 3.2, core-utils 6.8

  • KDE 3.5.7 and KDE 4 Preview

  • Gnome 2.20

  • X.Org 7.2

  • AppArmor 2.1

  • OpenOffice.org 2.3

  • Boot time is vastly improved

  • GNOME 2 is installed under the /usr file system hierarchy since openSUSE 10.3 and KDE 4 now follows. KDE 3 will stay in /opt for compatibility reasons.

  • Includes a program called Giver that can be used to transfer files with other Giver users. Any Giver users on the network are automatically recognized, and the transferring works without any extra configuration.

  • Available for i386, x86_64 and PowerPC architectures.

  • Retail product: 16 GB on 2 DL-DVDs for 32bit and 64bit, printed user manual, free installation support


  • openSuSE 10.3

    Skype releases its Skype 1.4 Linux version

    After five months of beta testing, the Internet phone and chat application company, Skype, has released its Skype for Linux 1.4 version. New features include Call forwarding, which forward your Skype calls to a phone or mobile, and Birthday reminders, which subscribers automatically receive an alert when one of the contacts celebrate birthday. Other features include group chat with up to 100 people or conference call with up to nine others. It still lacks SMS and video support that existed in other platforms.


    Skype14Linux


    Tuesday, October 2, 2007

    Download TV Torrents and Watch TV Online with TIOTI

    Web site Tape It Off the Internet (TIOTI) is an online television portal designed to help you find and watch your favorite TV shows, either through streaming online video, BitTorrent downloads, or links to purchase the episode or season from iTunes or Amazon.

    Tioti

    Sleep: Reboot Your Brain with a Caffeine Nap

    Powernap
    Scientists say that a successful midday nap depends on two things: timing and (no kidding) caffeine consumption. Experiments performed at Loughborough University in the UK showed that the sleep-deprived need only a cup of coffee and 15 minutes of shut-eye to feel amazingly refreshed.