Review – Sony Dream Machine ICF-CL75IP iPhone alarm clock radio with 7 inch display

This Christmas I asked Santa for a new clock radio with an iPhone dock built in. My old one was perfectly alright but since it was built for the iPod it no longer charged my phone which had become quite annoying. My eldest sister rose to the challenge and being partial to my gadgets, I think had a little bit of fear of getting it wrong! But she got it so right!!

The new Sony Dream Machine and it is a DREAM MACHINE does everything I wanted a clock radio to do and a whole lot more, with a few nice touches thrown in there to polish it off.

Where to begin? Let’s start with the obvious! It’s got a 7 inch screen! As you know 7 inches is quite enough! And like you are wondering now and I was wondering as I took it out the box, is that merely a digital picture frame or can I watch movies through it? And yes, yes you can. The 7 inch display (800×480) allows you to watch your iTunes movies, video on YouTube, and even things like the iPlayer! Genius! and supports Mp4, M-Jpeg and Avi file formats. It also is a digital picture frame for when the machine is idle and this can easily be switched to sleep mode when you hit the hay with 3 taps of the snooze button.

The dock foe the iPhone pops out, spring loaded from the right hand side, you can control your music or video from the iPhone or from the dream machine. The sound is good and I’d so far to say more than you’d expect from a clock radio. Oh! Clock radio! The main function, it’s got a sweet clock radio that allows you to be woken up by radio, iPhone or sound of nature and matching image. One of the nice little extras is that you can set more than one alarm and adjust them from one button on either side of the display the alarms can also be programed to just go off over weekdays or just at weekends which if like me you are away most weekends saves having to remember to manually switch it.

The entire menu screen is based on the playsation 3 theme and is just as intuitive, you’ll get to grips with it with limited consultation of the instruction book.

The dream machine has 1 gig internal memory so that you can import photos, music and video. It has a USB slot SD slot and obviously the iPod dock.

The radio is pretty sweet an gets a better signal than the old clock radio I had in exactly the same position.

OK now for some negatives
The first USB stick I plugged into it could not be read, second one fine.
I cannot for the life of me figure out how to delete the sample pictures which is really frustrating having them on my little slide show.
Also, if the clock radio is on sleep mode and you drop the iPhone in you will get the this device is not supported error and it keeps flashing up but this is no biggy! Just tap snooze and drop the iPhone in again.

Nicks option

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January 30, 2010 | glennmward | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

The import photos, pictures, images, camera, role from your iPhone Mystery – Transfer NOT using iTunes but Image Capture

This subject is not documented much so i thought I’d explain how to quickly import pictures from your camera role on your iPhone. The obvious thing would be to use iTunes to transfer your photos to your laptop but this is not the case.

You can set up in iTunes to sync a folder on your mac with your phone but this does not retrieve them. On the old iPod you could set the device to appear on the desktop or my computer as an external drive but I don’t think this possible with the iPhone.

With the iPhone plugged in, go to Utilities and open Image Capture. On the left hand side you should see you iPhone and in the main window you will see you entire camera roll. The rests pretty self explanatory! It’s the knowing which program to use which is the undocumented part.

For windows users apparently you can use regular camera capture software, alternatively… buy a Mac!

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January 18, 2010 | glennmward | Tags: , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Favourite and most used iPhone Apps for January

First for this month, the NB TotalFit App has knocked the Mapmyrun of the top spot for fitness Apps with more functionality on the free app some of which MapMyRun a charging for.

The big one for this month is the introduction of the Amazon Kindle, see my Amazon Kindle review. This a simple App but a great seamless collaboration between website and the mobile web.

I am not usually one for replacing the phones basic phone functions with third party Apps but since I bought a Gorillapod the other week I thought I’d try out the Gorillacam App when I saw it and it is brilliant! Simple additional camera functions, countdown timer, sequence photos to name a few. The best bit is that it is well thought out and intuitive.

Since the iRail App has begun charge for their App I have begun using the Trainline App. It’s free and possibly more flexible than iRail with greater information provided once you have found your journey.

Also I should mention again the improvements to the Facebook App, now allowing the syncing of contacts and profile pics with your iPhone contacts.

The Rightmove App is still a personal favourite although a little birth tells me there might be a Findaproperty App just around the corner, watch this space for a full review.

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January 15, 2010 | glennmward | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

AVCHD Video Recording Time / File Size testing

AVCHD – MPEG4 – AVC/H.264

XP AVC – High Quality
VBR, avaerage of 17Mbps
The manual says,
Approximate recording time 900 minutes on a 120GB HD
My test 10 minute file = 1.28 GB on disk

SP AVC – Normal Quality
VBR, avaerage of 12Mbps
The manual says,
Approximate recording time 1260 minutes on a 120GB HD
My test 10 minute file = 892.1 MB on disk

EP AVC – Long Recording
VBR, avaerage of 5Mbps
The manual says,
Approximate recording time 3000 minutes on a 120GB HD
My test 10 minute file = 348.8 MB on disk

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January 14, 2010 | glennmward | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Using Camtasia to Screen Capture / Record Video Tutorials

Despite pushing for Adobe Captivate we have installed Camtasia on the edit suites at work for screen capture and tutorial recording. I’m not disappointed though it does the job!

Firstly, the majority of recording the company will need to shoot will be on PC based software so we have bought the PC version and installed VMWare on the Macs. This should improve the workflow from recording to edit. The software is easy to set up and get started with, like most programs.

Load up Camtasia Studio and you will first be faced with an option screen. Choose screen recording.

A small window in the bottom right hand corner of the page will load. In this window you have options for Camera, Audio and Select Area.

Once you hit the record button the window is minimized to the tray and everything you do on screen or within your assigned area is recorded.

When you are done hit the Esc key or go down to the icon in the tray and click to reveal the stop option.

The recording is now in a ‘cache’ state and you now need to decide how you will save the file down.

Click the Save button in the bottom right corner of the window.

Save the files down as an AVI as we will not be editing the video in Camtasia Studio. Organise your clips well so you can quickly identify them and their order later.

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| glennmward | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Review – Amazon Kindle iPhone App now available in the iTunes App Store

Today, for the first time since “The far away tree” I lost myself in a book. I am not much of a reader at length. Most of my library is reference and I dip in and out as I need to learn but today I discovered something great. Roughly a month ago a colleague called me into his office to show me his new Amazon Kindle. Being one for gadgets and tech I was impressed, mainly considering the space I could save. I put it on the future purchases and thought nothing of it until the other day. I was browsing the Zagg website when I came across their App recommendation tool, I signed up and in my first list of recommendations was the Amazon Kindle iPhone App. Without hesitation I installed it, linked it to my amazon account and began searching for a book to test the App. After a short browse I discovered that you could send a sample of hue books to your Kindle to decide whether it’s the book for you. Very impressed I chose a couple and today on the train I spent the entire 40 minutes reading. Now this, for most is no major accomplishment bit one of the reasons I stopped prolonged reading was not by choice, I would get four pages into a book and wake up 2 hours later. The Amazon Kindle for iPhone has a function to switch the color to sepia. I found this a lot less hypnotic than the harsh black and white of a usual page. Maybe it was the time of day, maybe it was mind over matter as I was reading a book on a gadget but I know that I don’t have time to wait for my books to age to that sepia sort of color and will be reading a lot more on my iPhone.

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January 13, 2010 | glennmward | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Basic Chroma Key / Blue Screen in Premiere Pro and After Effects

The fundamentals to producing good chroma key are choice of background colour and flat lighting. You will save time and effort at edit if you spend an extra 10 minutes on this before a shoot. I often bounce light of a wall or flag the lights so as not to produce harsh changes in colour, I then monitor the colour through the camera display to ensure I produce a flat and even blue or green.

I shall talk about the controls I use in Adobe Premiere Pro as it is my current edit suite environment but controls the the video effects are much the same in Final Cut. For greater detail I would use Adobe After Effects to produce perfect results.

If you have produced an even background and once you get used to the controls you will be able to knock out the background in seconds. Apart from the Key Color / Eye Dropper used to select the colour you wish to remove, the three main controls are Color Tolerance, Edge Thin and Edge Feather. Select the tone roughly in the middle of the range of colour you wish to remove, I have often placed my new background in the video timeline under my clip so as I can see what I am doing. Adjust the Color Tolerance until the majority of the chroma has been removed. There will usually be a thin line left around the subject. Use the Edge Thin to remove most of this by increasing the value. The line is still pretty harsh so now tidy the effect up using the feather tool again by increasing the value, this will soften the change in color.

If you didn’t manage to achieve an even flat light you can use the Colour Key effect more than once in order to remove the rest of the colour but be sure to keep an eye on the shades on the subject to make sure nothing is removed. If you have chosen the background colour wisely this shouldn’t be a problem.

For Chroma Key in more detail using Adobe After Effects see this tutorial, very simple but great results.

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January 12, 2010 | glennmward | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

eCommerce – Should online stores be thinking about website usability from a mobile access POV

I was asked the other day if it would be a good idea to produce a shops brochure as an iPhone App. After taking off my iPhone evangelist hat I replied objectively. More and more people are accessing the Internet in new ways but successful apps work because they allow users to quickly and easily perform a task that they would normally do or feel comfortable doing on a laptop.

So back to the question, is it really realistic that every user would install an app for each of the stores they occasionally shop? I doubt it! And although the iPhone dominates the Market they still only account for a portion and unless you are prepared to develop for blackberry, android etc you will only be reaching out to a small proportion of shoppers.

While I have never been a fan .mobi idea of developing sites specific for mobile phone browsers as mobile phones, screen aspect ratios differ across every mobile devices, with increasing devices being able to cope with full screen browsing I would be inclined to look at the build of the main site, optimise the pages for fast download and take a long hard look at the checkout.

In these early stages of online mobile development I would not rule out in investing in getting the catalogue onto mobile devices but possibly a PDF that can be opened on most smart phones with links to your recently optimised web pages is the way to go at this stage. Think about layout of the PDF, file size, usability and linking. This file will also have the added viral advantage of being emailed and viewed at leisure without an Internet connection.

Also see iPhone apps or Online apps? What is the future as new smartphones emerge?

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January 8, 2010 | glennmward | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Facebook iPhone App now syncs phonebook and contacts

Today I downloaded the update for the Facebook App and discovered that they had added a sync option for Facebook friends and your contacts. This is a function that other smart phones had begun to add and I thought I was going to have to admit the the iPhone was behind on this one. Thanks to the power of the App, iPhone wins again!!

I performed the sync as you can see on the image on the right hand side. So far I have no problems, duplicates etc. the contacts seems to have matched up and have a thumbnail image and a link back to the Facebook profile.

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January 7, 2010 | glennmward | Tags: , , , , , , | No Comments »

Movies on the move – Convert your DVD’s for viewing on your iPhone, iPod or Mobile Device

I often want to take a few of my favourite movies away with me when I go away. It is possible to convert your DVD’s into a format that will play on your iPod, iPhone or any portable device to save you physically carrying the discs around with you. I am going to talk about a software I use on a Mac but you can download similar software for windows, just look on download.com or softpedia.com.

I use Handbrake to convert my DVD’s it’s really easy to use and now comes with present for most popular portable devices. Open up handbrake and insert you DVD, if you DVD Player software loads up just quit out of this as you don’t want the computer doing two things at once. Choose Source in the top left hand corner and locate your disc, you don’t have to go deep into folder structure, top level is enough for handbrake to assess the disc. Once selected Handbrake will review all the chapter on the disc. Make sure you have selected the first chapter right through to the last chapter to ensure you convert the entire DVD.

Select the preset for the output video using the drawer on the right handside of the interface. Handbrake now has presets for iPhone, iPod and iPod Touch to make things nice and simple but if you are worried about file size then you can fine tune the settings yourself.

Once you are happy and have selected where you would like your file to be saved hit the Start button next to the Source button at the top of the interface.

Open the file in iTunes and it will be copied into your iTunes Media Folder, next time you sync you device the file will be uploaded.

Also see Duplicating DVD’s and CD’s using Mac OSX’s Disk Utility

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| glennmward | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »