Author Archives: ayn

MP3/AAC ringtones for Treo 700p via iTunes and Bluetooth

The Treo 700p supports AAC natively for some odd reasons (it doesn’t support MP3 out of the box, IIRC), it’s great coz I’m a Mac user and I use iTunes for my lossless library, so converting to AAC is a piece of cake. These steps should be similar if you use iTunes on a Windows machine.

First of all, you need to download this hack for the SoundsApp to get it to recognize the .aac extension, and then either copy it to your SD card and launch it in LauncherX, or you can try to send it via Bluetooth…. Do a soft reset on the Treo. Then in iTunes go into Preferences->Advanced->Importing, select AAC Encoder, settings choose Custom, with bit rate of 96kbps, Auto sample rate, and Mono channels. Check the VBR checkbox.

In your iTunes library, select the track (in Apple Lossless, MP3, or AAC, doesn’t matter), and right-click on the track, and do “convert track to AAC“, it should be pretty quick. After that you will find the track in your iTunes music library folder. drag it somewhere, rename the extension to .aac, send the file over Bluetooth to your Treo and it should add it as a ringtone. Pretty straightforward. This is assuming that you had already paired your Treo with your computer.

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iPhone?

While Apple has been relatively mum on any plans for iPod-branded cell phone, the latest iPod software includes references to an “t_feature_app_PHONE_APP” application and variables such as “kPhoneSignalStrength,” “clPhoneCallHistoryModel,” prPhoneSettingsMenu,” “prPhoneSettingsMenuView,” prPhoneEnableSetting” and “prPhoneMenuItem.”

AppleInsider | iPhone, iPod messenger clues in latest iPod software

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SD630 actually can view at 1:1 in instant image review

I just read the user manual PDF for the SD630, there are actually some neat features. I found out there are AF Lock, AE Lock, and even FE Lock. Also, in my previous entry I mentioned that I could not view at 1:1 at instant display, I was wrong:

Now I have to check the manual of my 20D to see if it has such feature. 😉 Been using this digicam more these couple of days, it’s ok, especially if you do a little bit of post-processing on the outputs… my friend and fellow photographer Kevin Lu just ordered a Fuji F30 as his new P&S so I will find out how it really performs next week.

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The Lenna Story – www.lenna.org

LOL, this page is from CMU’s CS webserver, when I took Prof Chen’s Image and Video Processing class I used this image so many freaking time, at least she was decent looking, here’s the story behind the pic… I never knew the pic was actually a crop from a full body nude pic, would’ve made the class even more interesting… 😉
[Standard Lena Image]
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~chuck/lennapg/lenna.shtml


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Fuji F20 and a brief Canon PowerShot SD630 review

I haven’t blogged about this, but I recently picked up a Canon PowerShot SD630 to replace our SD200 as the LCD on it stopped working, I am less than impressed with the SD630. I knew the F30 would be a MUCH better camera in terms of image quality and UI, but it doesn’t look as cute to her… Now this up-coming F20 got all the great stuff on the F30 but is smaller and cuter, IMO… Niiiiiiice!!!!

A few words about the Canon PowerShot SD630… I actually didn’t consider anything else besides another SD-series PowerShot, and I didn’t even look at their sample images. I was very happy with my S100 and the SD200 took pretty decent pictures… so I assumed the SD630 can’t be all bad, WRONG!! Basically the high ISO performance on the SD630 just SUCKS, and by that I mean it’s close to all noise!! In daylight the CA is so bad that you can forget about looking at the images in full res, coz all the highlights will look purple. The Canon P&S UI (and I guess some will argue their D-SLR UI as well), just plain SUCKS. All their PowerShots got this swtich to choose between Preview, Video, and Camera. After you take a picture, the instant preview doesn’t allow zoom (UPDATE: I was wrong about this), and if you’re like me who likes to check the historgrams, and then view the images at 1:1 to check sharpness, you have to flip that switch every single time, which quickly becomes a PITA. Maybe I am spoiled by the noise control on my 20D and the quality of my lenses, but still, both the sensor and the lens plain suck on the SD630. The camera however looks damn good, the 3″ LCD is a nice touch (though image quality on it sucks, just compare it to one of the Sony digicams)…

The SD630 also has no manual control whatsoever, which is ok, but the F30 costs less and got full manual controls. So if anyone is considering getting a new digicam at this price range, go for the F30, or wait for the F20. There is also the SD700 IS, which sports a better lens, but same sensor as the SD630. So maybe at least the CA will be better. The SD700 IS will set you back further by about a hundred bucks, so I’d def go for the Fuji instead. Their superb noise control at high ISO settings will beat the shit of the the IS on the SD700.

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