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Belkin Conserve Socket

Belkin Conserve Socket

I felt guilty leaving my iPad charger plugged in all the time, especially since it’s a 10 watt charger, which is twice the wattage of an iPhone charger. You usually have two options: leave it plugged in all the time (wasteful) or unplug it when not in use (annoying.)

The third option is something like the Belkin Conserve Socket, which is a plugin device with a slide switch for how many hours it should be “on” set to either 1/2 hour, 3 hours, or 6 hours. This is great for the iPad since you can guesstimate how much charging you’ll need for it. If I go to sleep and the iPad is at 10%, I’ll set it to 6 hours. If it’s at 80% I’ll do a 1/2 hour. You get the idea…

I may get another one of these, because I tend to plug in my cordless drill battery charger and leave it charging for more than a day, which seems wasteful. This would limit the charge to 6 hours. Belkin also has an energy use monitor called the Conserve Insight, which would help figure out what devices are using the most power.

Besides the device being a bit large, my only complaint is that if you want to turn it off manually (instead of letting it turn off by itself) you need to unplug it. The button on the top is only an on button, not an off button. A minor annoyance, but if you expect the button to turn it off, be ready when all it does is make the green light on the top brighter while you hold it down. (Oh, one more small annoyance. The device is held together with screws that require a triangle-shaped bit. For 98% of the people who use this, it won’t matter, but for makers/hackers who want to crack it open, it’s a bit annoying.)

Ultimately, the Belkin Conserve is a good thing, but wouldn’t it be great if a device like the iPad could communicate with its charger to tell it when to turn off? It’s all Apple hardware, so I’d think engineering a charger that knows when it’s done charging (based on communicating with the iPad via the USB cable) would be a good thing. Apple could add one more “green” feather to its environmental cap.

P.S. Amazon has the Belkin Conserve Socket for less than $10.

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Facebook vs. Google (Maker Prespective)

Make

I’ve had at least one person say “Hey Pete! I thought you didn’t like Google?” and if I can clarify, there are things about Google I don’t like, just as there are things about Apple I don’t like, and (many) things about Facebook I don’t like, and throughout my travels in the tech world, I’ve been lucky that I haven’t worked for any of these companies, so I can feel free to speak about the things I don’t like.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of things about Google, and Apple, and Facebook that are good, but I try to be critical, and not give any company a free pass.

With that said, I am definitely a fan of Google+ so far, and as far as being better than Facebook? Well, in many ways it is better for me, while in some ways it still needs to catch up.

But as a maker, what company does more to help improve the world for makers? Phillip Torrone’s recent post had this to say:

I’m glad there’s an alternative for sharing and collaboration now with more features that seem to be interesting to makers. Historically Facebook hasn’t done much in the Maker community, I’ve tried to get them to participate in Maker Faire each year (and would still love to have them, there are a lot great ideas for Facebook + Maker Faire). While it would be impossible to be a fan of everything Google does, they’ve been part of Maker Faire many many times, they’re doing a Science Fair, they have a hacker space for employees, they’ve adopted Arduino for Android, lots of good OSS efforts and the tools they’re creating with more control and ownership seems to fit the maker mindset better – it does feel like they’re listening, I hope they keep it up.

Phillip sums it up pretty well. Google may not do everything right, and they may still do things I don’t agree with…. but at the end of the day, they’re probably doing a lot more for maker culture than Facebook is, and that counts for something in my book.

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Makerspace / Frolics / Parade

Old Milwaukee Makerspace

The Milwaukee Makerspace, led by David Overbeck, took part in Milwaukee’s South Shore Frolics Parade on July 16th, 2011. in 2010 I joined David in watching the parade, and it was great… I mean, it’s commonly known as Milwaukee’s Best Parade, so it was with great pleasure I was able to join David this year in the parade. The Makerspace crew made it all happen.

Giant Arduino

The Milwaukee Makerspace members joined together to do a “Group Build” where everyone pitches in to do something big… and by big, I’m taking about a 9 foot tall “Old Milwaukee Makerspace” beer can, and a giant double-Arduino (and jet) powered vehicle. We were also joined by Grave Digger and Little Pink Trike, which you might know from the Power Racing Series where they’ve done pretty well.

We had a few “issues” getting everything working in time, and getting everything to hold together, but I’m proud to say we completed 99.8% of the parade route without issue, and I think we delighted the crowd.

Everyone had a good time, and I get the feeling this isn’t the last parade the Makerspace will take part in… I mean, there’s another parade in just a few months… :)

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Robot Roller

Robot Roller

Here’s Robot Roller. He’s not a Robo Troller (which is either some sort of device for fishing or some sort of device to mess with people on the Internet.) He’s a Robot Roller. He rolls on one wheel… quite precariously, by the look of it. He enjoys rolling outdoors most of all because even though he’s made of metal, he loves the feeling of grass (or dirt) beneath his wheel. Or something like that…

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Terrible Photos

Arduino Uno

Here’s a terrible photo of an Arduino Uno…

Diavolino

And here’s a terrible photo of a Diavolino…

Seeeduino

And here’s a terrible photo of a Seeeduino…

These are three terrible photos! I mean, they aren’t terrible terrible, but they’re not great. I could spend a few minutes with each one explaining what I don’t like about them.

We needed a good high resolution photo of an Arduino Uno for a project at the Milwaukee Makerspace, and I said I would quickly snap a photo and get it online, so I did.

I feel like 80% of the quality of these shots are due to the equipment. I used a Nikon D3x with a Nikon 28-70mm f2.8 lens. That’s a great combo. I also used our Elinchrom studio strobes, which are also very nice. I shot tethered to a 21″ Apple iMac, which showed the images on a large colorful screen as they were captured.

Honestly, with all of that stuff in place, anyone familiar with a DSLR and lighting could get a pretty decent shot.

When I use words like “terrible” and “decent” they are, of course, subjective. There’s a whole scale for applying those words. One photographer’s “terrible” is another photographer’s “awesome!”

Besides, these are more “technical” photos than “beautiful” photos. There’s not much style to them. But these also fall under the category of Product Photography, which is worth discussing…

Photography is an interesting thing, because there are so many different disciplines, and so many different subjects. I know some guys who only shoot beautiful women between the age of 18 and 25, outdoors, on sunny days. (Or so it seems.) Other people I know shoot landscapes and nothing but landscapes. Well, HDR landscapes actually. That’s all they do… and that’s all fine, but it’s not product photography.

None of the three photos above would be good examples of product photography, and I’ll explain why:

  1. The items are used.
    If you’re shooting a product, it should be brand new, fresh out of the box, never used. Used items are not the same as clean items. Do you know why? It’s because…

  2. The items are dirty.
    Once an item gets used, it gets dirty. It gets worn down. It gets fingerprints, and smudges, and dirt, and scrapes, and doesn’t look very nice. Yes, you can clean things, and we often joke about the fact that 75% of product photography involves cleaning things, while 15% involves taking pictures. The other 10%? That’s for cleaning it again.

There’s also a number of tricks when shooting products, as opposed to portraits, or landscapes, or beautiful women. Don’t get me wrong, each thing has its own tricks, but they are often different tricks. Actually, they mostly have to do with reflecting light, or blocking light, or basically controlling light, in different ways.

But if you aren’t shooting products for a client, but you are shooting things for your own purpose, like documenting projects, you might find it helpful to learn more about product photography.

And when I say learn, feel free to learn in your own way. If you can assist a product photographer, that would be good, but if you can’t, then study good photos, figure out what you like about them. Learn to control light. I’m not ashamed to say that some of the photos of things that I’ve taken that I really liked, I ended up shooting 30 different versions, all with slightly different lighting. That’s just how I do it. Take a shot, move a light. Take a shot, move a reflector. Take a shot, place a black board directly overhead instead of a white board. Take another shot. At some point after you think you have enough shots, stop. Review them later on a large colorful screen and pick the best one.

Trial and error is still an effective way of learning something… In fact, it may be the only way to learn something.