Home Theatre experiences by James Sankar

Check out James Sankar’s blog where he tells of his experiences setting up a home theatre system

http://jamessankar.blogspot.com/2011/01/tv-hime-media-system-up-and-running.html?spref=tw

 

How to Automatically Sync Photos From Your iPhone to Dropbox

Posted 01/18/2011 at 9:56am | by Seamus Bellamy

Being able to take photos with your iPhone on the go is great. Getting them off of your iPhone? Not so much. For many of us, our busy lives preclude the ability to sync our iOS devices on a regular basis, leaving all of the images we take on the go unprotected by the benefit of a backup. As such, everyone using an iPhone is always at risk of losing their precious photographic memories. Unacceptable! Today, we’ll show you how you can easily back every photo you take with your iPhone, thanks to an ingenious iOS application and our friends at Dropbox.

Step One: Get What You Need

To make sure that moving forward your photos are backed up without the benefit of syncing your iPhone to your computer, you’re going to need to secure a copy of DropPhox, which is available from the iTunes App Store for a very reasonable $1.99.

DropPhox, like so many other iOS applications out there, leverages the camera technology baked into the iPhone’s API. What sets the app apart is what it does with your pictures and videos after you’ve taken them. With its built in Dropbox interface, the application has the ability to back up your camera content to the cloud, keeping it safe for prosperity’s sake.

As DropPhox utilizes Dropbox for cloud-based storage, you’re also going to need — you guessed it — a Dropbox account. If you don’t already have one, signing up for Dropbox is free and easy. Just visit their website to get started.

Step Two: DropPhox Meet DropBox

Once you’ve downloaded DropPhox and installed it to your iPhone, you’ll need to connect the app to your DropBox account. To do so, tap the app. In doing so, you’ll be asked to enter your Dropbox user name and password. By entering your credentials, you are allowing DropPhox to upload data to your Dropbox account.

Step Three: Take Some Pictures

Get out there and take some pictures of life in the big city, or stay at home and snap a few shots of your cat — we won’t judge you. After you take each shot, DropPhox will provide you with a preview of the image and ask whether you want to use the shot or take another one. Click according to your tastes. If you choose “Use”, your photo will be uploaded to your Dropbox account.

In instances where your photos are unable to be uploaded immediately to DropBox, DropPhox will store your pictures on your iPhone until it a connection to your account can be made.

Step Four: Check in With DropBox

Now that you’ve taken a few pictures, you’re going to want to make sure that they’ve ended up in your Dropbox account as anticipated. Open up your computer’s DropBox folder or log into Dropbox’s website. You’ll find that DropPhox has created a folder specifically for your uploaded pictures, and that they’re all present and account for.

iPad 2’s Cameras Same as Latest iPod Touch?

by patrickj on January 23, 2011 on JustAnotherIpadBlog

9to5Mac have been doing some serious digging around in the latest iOS SDK, and they continue to find some solid evidence of iPad 2 features and hardware specs. One of the latest is details on the front and rear camera specs for the iPad 2, which look very much like what the 4th gen iPod Touch has – with a VGA front-facing camera and low-res rear-facing camera:

We’ve done some digging in the latest SDK and it looks like Apple’s much rumored second-generation iPad will not feature some fancy 5 megapixel camera, but will instead shoot your flicks and take your pics with something close to a 1 megapixels. That’s awfully close to the fourth-generation iPod touch’s 0.7 megapixel back camera so we speculate they could be the same thing. That means you’ll be able to take some unwieldy 720P video with your iPad (whether you’ll be able to view that 720P video natively is another question).

As for the front, it’s VGA, just like the iPhone 4 and fourth-generation iPod touch. The front-facer for FaceTime and taking pictures of yourself will do video recording too, if you had any doubts.

I know some will find plenty to gripe about with the low-res rear camera, but I honestly don’t feel fussed about it. Like many, I cannot see wanting to do a lot of photo or video taking with the iPad – I’d use the front camera for FaceTime and video chat in general far more than a rear camera. Speculation has been that the back camera is there primarily for augmented reality apps, and I’ve no idea how much they’re affected by the camera’s resolution (I would take a wild guess that it’s not very much).

What do you all think of these predicted camera specs for the iPad 2? Happy? Disappointed? Not bothered?

Angry Birds Planning Valentine’s Edition, World Domination

by PatrickJ on January 23rd, 2011 on iSource

Rovio, the developers of the insanely popular Angry Birds game for iOS (and other platforms), are planning another special holiday version of the app, for Valentines Day. This heavily pink-themed version should be out on or before February 14.

9to5Mac has a post with an embedded video where Rovio’s CEO (who doesn’t look angry at all) talks about general plans for world domination as well – including looking at broadcast media like TV ‘and even movies’.

I can tell you that in our household we are not falling prey to any of the Angry Birds hype – I have no idea how those two birds got on my keyboard and we certainly don’t play with these plush toys while making pissed-off bird sounds.