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Make: Live – Milwaukee Makerspace

Make: Live

It seems strange that it was just February that the Milwaukee Makerspace was finally settling into their new space and I stopped by to shoot a few photos. About two months after that they had their open house and now just two months after that we worked with Make: Live as part of the Hakerspace Roadshow.

I ended up talking with Matt from Make: Live about my Photo Booth project, and he pitched the idea of including the Milwaukee Makerspace in Make: Live’s Hakerspace Roadshow. The guys were more than happy to be a part of it, so we took it from there.

Make: Live

I did the camerawork, via the Logitech C910 connected to my MacBook and we did a test Skype call with Tim from The DHMN before Make: Live called us. The quality suffers a bit from the whole process, but it is a live show. It was challenging, but I think it turned out well.

Walking around with the MacBook, looking at the screen while the camera pointed outward was not easy. The image was flipped since Skype expects the camera to be facing you, not away from you. I don’t know if there’s some trick/hack for reversing the screen, but it would come in handy.

If you haven’t seen the video yet, check it out. It was also great to see the other spaces, Twin Cities Maker, i3Detroit, and Noisebridge. It was inspiring to see all the other space, and fun to work with Make: Live. I hope we can collaborate again in the future!

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iSight vs. Logitech C910

In my Photo Booth post I talked about using a Logitech C910 instead of the built-in iSight camera on a 2007 iMac. I wasn’t happy with the quality and ended up using a Logitech HD Pro USB Webcam C910. The Logitech camera worked much better on the iMac, so I figured I’d compare it to the built-in iSight on my 2009 13″ MacBook Pro.

iSight - Color
MacBook iSight – Color

Logitech - Color
Logitech C910 – Color

Comparing the two images you can definitely see the difference in color temperature. The iSight leans more towards red/yellow while the Logitech leans the other way. (Note that the Logitech has a slightly wider field of view as well, so you may have to move in closer.) The only light in this room was a CFL bulb with a lampshade over it, and the glow of 3 monitors. Besides the color, the sharpness of the image is what really stands out. The Logitech is way sharper.

iSight - Black and White
MacBook iSight – Black & White

Logitech - Black and White
Logitech C910 – Black & White

Taking color out of the comparison, and just looking at a greyscale images, the sharpness of the Logitech over the iSight seems even more noticeable. As I’ve said before, the iSight is a tiny little camera, with a tiny little lens, and a tiny little sensor. It’s great that every MacBook contains a camera, and for general video chat, etc. it’ll do just fine, but if you need better image quality, it’s nice to know you can get it for a reasonable price.

The Logitech also has the advantage of being able to view things on the other side of the Mac, and be placed a short distance from the Mac itself. The images on the 2XL Networks Photo Booth site were taken with the Logitech, and we’ll be testing it out with Make: Live as well…

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This one boots to eleven…

iMac

While at PhotoCamp, Kevin was kind enough to let me see his Cr-48, which is a Linux laptop from Google which relies on The Cloud™ to do its magic.

For some reason, one of the features he showed off was the ability to boot up really quickly. In fact, he counted while he booted up. I wasn’t too impressed.

Actually, I think my comments were along the lines of “Yeah, it takes my MacBook longer to boot up, and boy, that sure annoys me every 4 to 6 weeks…”

Honestly, I rarely shut down my MacBook, and instead just put it to sleep. Waking up from sleep takes a few seconds at most. Still… I thought I should test things by shutting down and booting it up again. To get to the login screen from a cold boot took about 1 minute. Logging in took about 1 minute. Launching Firefox (and loading 4 tabs) took less than a minute. So in total, it was probably under 3 minutes to boot up.

Believe me, I know boot time is important. The RED ONE boots fairly slowly. in fact it’s been said that when booting up the RED, it’s the longest 90 seconds of your life.

Besides all that, the Cr-48 looks like a fairly nice little laptop, despite the fact that it’s all hobbled in what it can actually do in the world of media creation and hacking…

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You Should be Fired!

Do Not Block Fire Exit

Maybe you should be fired.

I don’t mean like, right now, today, at your current job, but I do mean that, I think everyone should be fired at some point in their life. I think it’s a good thing, and helps people put things into perspective.

Some people get too comfortable, or stop caring about the work they do, and just show up, and somehow pass the time, all for that paycheck every two weeks.

Not everyone loves their job, or the work they do, and even those folks who do will have bad, annoying, failure days now and again…

It’s like that movie, where the main character has never been dumped, but is always the one doing the dumping. It’s probably good to see things from both sides of the table.

Being fired is like a reset button… hopefully in a good way.

There may be some wallowing, and drinking, and swearing, but hopefully in the end, it’s the right thing for all parties involved.

I’ve seen more and more people start their own businesses, and become much happier, due to losing their jobs.

Sometimes it’s the kick in the ass you need.

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BusyTime!

Whew, it’s been a little crazy these past few weeks… Here’s a quick recap.

I started off May by declaring it Processing Month. I ended up doing well for a while, but things got quiet near the end of May. That’s not to say I wasn’t doing anything, as I was actually working on a Processing application that will be part of my show at Bay View Gallery Night.

Controller (in progress)

That’s all I’ll say about that right now. If you want to see it, come to the Milwaukee Makerspace June 3rd, 2011, otherwise, I’ll post more about it next week.

Speaking of the Milwaukee Makerspace, I may be working with Make:Live on their June 8th, 2011 show to do a live call-in from the space. That should be cool… assuming it all works. As much as the Internet provides a good amount of magic, it’s the kind of magic that doesn’t always work.

Speaking of Make, they had a nice little post about my Photo Booth project. Which, by the way, will also be at the Milwaukee Makerspace for Gallery Night. (Seriously, I may need to get a trailer for the CR-V soon!)

Egg-Bot at Higher Learning Day

Speaking of eggs, I also joined Sean from Milwaukee Makerspace to do a “Higher Learning” day at an elementary school, which included demoing the Egg-Bot all day long. It was fun but exhausting. Kids have a lot of energy, and more than one told me they were “unpatient” whatever that is…

And because that’s not enough going on, we’re also doing the second PhotoCampMilwaukee on June 4th, 2011.

The next few months may have a few more surprises in store, they might not all be good, but I’m sure it’ll be an adventure… Happy motoring!