Archive for August, 2010

My 2011 SXSW proposal

/ August 23, 2010 / Photography / 3 Comments

Once again it’s that time when all the SXSW folks start pitching to anyone with a pulse their panel ideas for voting. I’m no different although I try to keep it to a minimum.

SXSW 2010

Lately SXSW has been awash is social media and marketing sessions (even my session with Chris Heuer earlier this year fell into that category). This time around, I’ve proposed a solo session on something a little different, something that I’m very passionate about and hope that it will inspire attendees like I was inspired in my first years attending SXSW when there were a lot more creative sessions that had less to do with the web, but rather helped inspire you to make the web better.

So what is it? Well, it’s a session about creating timelapse movies, which are basically still frames shown in sequence. Here’s a couple of samples:

While not directly related to the ‘interactive’ side of SXSW, they have been trying to overlap & commingle the film audience the last few years. I considered submitting this to the Film program but figure the filmmakers would already know how to make these. I’ve given a version of this presentation at Northern Voice during PhotoCamp and plan to expand it and include some new content, especially given the larger time slot. Based on the feedback I received from Northern Voice attendees, my hope is that this session will help inspire people that haven’t considered making these kinds of movies because either they didn’t know how to or didn’t think they had the right gear – both points (and more) will be covered off (short answer is that it’s easy and you can make these with just about any camera, you don’t really need special, expensive gear to do it).

Whether you’re planning on attending or not, please considering giving me a thumbs up vote for my submission, called Create Timelapse movies without a Flux Capacitor – it only takes a minute to signup if you don’t already have an account. Although it only counts for 30% of the total score as to whether it will be accepted, it’s still an important component of getting in.

Thanks and I look forward to seeing you in Austin next year!

MAME for iPhone & iPad released

/ August 22, 2010 / Videogames / 1 Comment

UPDATE: See below for information about the temporary official release of iMAME on the App Store

This makes me so happy…a really solid build of MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) has been released for all iDevices (iPad/iPhone/Touch) via the Cydia store (so you’ll need a jailbroken iDevice to use this). MAME has long been a favorite app of mine, emulating 1000s of arcade games on just about any hardware.

iMAME4All

There has been previous attempts at MAME on the iPhone but none work as well as this one. To get it, you’ll need to grab it from Cydia by searching for iMAME4all. You’ll also need to have game roms (don’t ask me for them – Google is your friend) which you’ll need to SSH to your device once it’s installed (instructions are within the app and on Cydia when you download it).

iMAME4All

I installed it and threw a few of my favorites onto my iPhone to see how it runs…and it runs really well. It will just take a little time to get used to the touch controls.

iMAME4All

iMAME4All

Pro Tip: When you are prompted with an “OK to continue” prompt, press left then right on the Dpad

iMAME4All

You can even configure some of the screen effects like scanlines by hitting the R2 button and choosing options.

iMAME4All

iMAME4All

This build of iMAME4all supports approximately 2000 game roms…although not all work perfectly….but most do, the trick is just to find a complete rom set for each game as a number of games I tried didn’t work as they were missing files…which can be fixed by repacking the zip file that contains the rom.

So what’s your favorite retro videogame that isn’t currently on the App Store that you can’t wait to run with this?

UPDATE (December 21, 2011): Looks like iMAME just popped up on the App Store legitimately. Get it before it gets pulled!

TouchArcade has details on how to side load roms as well.

UPDATE #2: Apple pulled iMAME on December 23rd…hope you grabbed it!

Using the iPad microsim with an iPhone 4

/ August 21, 2010 / Hacking, Mobile, Travel / 7 Comments

This past weekend, I had an overnight trip to the US with a friend and wanted to be able to use my iPad/iPhone while away from my Rogers 6gb dataplan. The data roaming options from Rogers (all Canadian carriers actually) are far too overpriced for casual use like a quick trip to Seattle, so I wanted to test out the 3G capabilities of my iPad, which I recently upgraded to the 64gb 3G model.

Success! iPad microsim acquired from Apple Store, activated in iPad and used on iPhone!

First thing I needed to do was acquire a microsim card for it. I had heard that AT&T doesn’t give them out and wouldn’t even sell them to non-customers. So I headed to an Apple Store and sure enough, they gave me one with no fuss and for free.

I then popped it into the iPad and proceeded to set it up. Another friend had recently bought a 3G iPad while travelling in the US and told me that he was able to activate the AT&T microsim using a Canadian credit card although it did only work with his American Express. I didn’t even try to use another type of card and proceeded to create an account with my AMEX. Unfortunately, and expectedly, AT&T’s signup form wouldn’t accept a Canadian address in the billing information section. I forced my billing info into the two address lines and used the zipcode/city/state of the Apple Store I was sitting outside of for the service area.

This whole part of the process is painful and seemingly unnecessary – I should be able to simply buy a $25 AT&T card and redeem it for access…why does it matter my service area?

APN settings

I finally got the account setup and my credit card charged for the 2gb/$25 plan that was good for 30 days. I did a quick test with wifi off and was good to go on the iPad.

APN settings

I had read online that the iPad data plan used a different APN for accessing data. A quick lookup in the Settings screen confirmed that it was using the APN of ‘broadband’.

APN profile
Before leaving for Seattle, I had visited the unlockit.co.nz website to create a custom APN profile for the iPad APN and emailed it to myself. To do this you simply visit the site (you need to visit it with your iPhone for it to work), select ‘Custom APN’ and enter ‘broadband’ (no quotes) and leave the Carrier & other fields blank. You can create the profile right then (this would require that you’re already in the US and are on wifi) or you can email the profile to yourself. This is the preferred method as some people had issues applying the profile directly from the site (I didn’t). You may also want to create profiles for any other carriers you’ll be using on your travels at this time – you never know when a site like this could disappear.

I then took the microsim out of the iPad and put it into my software unlocked (via Ultrasn0w) iPhone 4. I then loaded up the APN profile from my email (you just tap on the attachment and hit the install button). You may need to reboot or simply switch into and back out of airplane mode to be able to connect. Then magically, I was connected to AT&T on my iPhone 4 with 2gbs of data. I had no voice or SMS but I didn’t care…I use Google Voice for US based SMS already.

I was able to use FaceTime as well, even though I didn’t technically have a voice line, I was assigned a voice number which showed up on the caller id to my friend that I called via FaceTime. Using the My3G app, I was also able to FaceTime over 3G while driving down the highway.

Once we got to our hotel, we discovered the the wifi was no longer free so I opted to use the MyWi app to share out my data to our iPads. At one point we were both using our iPads while having a FaceTime chat with a friend, all over my 3G data on my iPhone.

Keep in mind that the AT&T data plan for the iPad is a reoccurring charge that you have to cancel if you don’t want to be billed monthly for the service. You can do this from the iPad itself, over wifi, from back in Canada. I’ve got about a gig left after this weekend’s usage that doesn’t expire for a month.

As I mentioned earlier, the whole point of the iPad (and you could also say unlocked iPhones too) being carrier agnostic is so that you can use it while traveling…it shouldn’t be this many hoops to simply give a carrier your money to use their service. As far as I can tell, no carriers in North America have provisions for travelers from outside their country to use their data…of course they all want you to roam and pay through the nose for data from your home carrier. Consumers are smarter than that.

Happy travels!

Remotely monitor your home with your iPhone or iPad

/ August 4, 2010 / Photography / 2 Comments

The other day, while spending a couple hours in line to get the new iPhone 4, my friend Mike showed me something pretty impressive on his iPhone: his entire house via remote web cameras. Using a $5 iPhone app called iCam and some cheap webcams scattered around his house, he was able to setup a great remote security system that we could view over wifi or 3G.

We happened to be waiting to get our iPhones at a Rogers video store that carried videogame gear….turns out the Xbox 360 camera that comes with the In The Movies game kit (I got it on clearance for $24 but have been spotted cheaper) works perfectly on a Mac…in my case, my new Mac Mini Server that I picked up a little while back.

So I bought the camera and the app and as soon as I got home, I set it up…well, I may have played with the new iPhone a little bit first.

To make it all work, you need to download some software for your computer (Mac or PC). It’s a free download from the makers of the iPhone app:

iCam

It’s pretty straightforward to setup, just ensure that a camera of some kind (built in iSights work fine) before running the software and ideally, the computer will be on all the time. In my case, my Mini is a file/web server so it’s on all the time.

You choose your video/audio sources, create a username and password that is unique to you. You can give your camera a name and set the motion sensitivity settings…you can leave these at the defaults to start. The rest of the shots are screenshots taken from my iPhone. The great thing about this app is that you can easily configure it remotely on an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. The computer based software can also be accessed from any java capable browser, but that’s not a cool as from your phone.

iCam

Once you’ve downloaded and installed the iPhone/iPad app, you simply enter the username/password from your Mac/PC setup and it should just find it and start up the camera – no firewall or proxy settings necessary. By default, it launches with four windows (as it supports up to four cameras) so just tap on the window that has your camera source in it and it should go full screen.

iCam

Tap the screen and you’ll be able to adjust a number of settings, including the motion sensitivity and push notifications. If you have pets or lots of outdoor light in the room that you have the camera setup in, you’ll need to adjust this. The motion button will light up green when it detects motion.

I love the notifications that pop up on my iPhone. I simply swipe to unlock my phone, and it takes me straight into the webcam view without doing anything else.

If you choose to record motion events, you’ll be able to view them remotely as well:

iCam

The motion events are basically stills capturing the motion and you can play them back like a timelapse movie directly off your iPhone remotely.

iCam

All in all, it’s a pretty simple, yet effective security camera system for about $30 for the camera and app…and you may already have a camera so it’s only a $5 investment.