LEE BARTH

I have had this Volcano stove for 6 months, and I am amazed with what it can do. It allows you to cook most meals (and lots of meat) outdoors without having to purchase a huge grill. Outside of being a grill, the stove is designed to accommodate a dutch oven, large skillet and wok.

One of the stove's best features is that it can use three types of fuel: wood, charcoal or propane. It can also be used as a smoker to boot. Outside of cooking, the stove collapses to 1/3rd its size, has a small footprint and feels really well built. The company, Volcano Cook Stoves, has excellent customer service, and fast delivery. For my money this is the best hybrid blend of high-end grill and hibachi.

Volcano Collapsible Stove
$137

Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Volcano Cook Stoves

Why Use Voice Notes

There are many different ways to remember something with Evernote: snap a picture, clip a web page, write it down, copy and paste, capture an audio recording, and more. Creating a voice note is an easy way to quickly capture ideas, conversations, and tasks, especially when you’re on the go. Voice notes can be captured from any mobile version of Evernote, but they can also be recorded on your computer and dragged into Evernote. While extremely simple to create, voice notes aren’t always easily searchable. Enter a very useful integration in the Evernote Trunk: Voice2Note by Dial2Do.

Voice2Note by Dial2Do

Voice2Note, a service from Dial2Do, automatically converts the first 30 seconds of any newly-created audio note into text that is easily searchable for future reference.

How it Works:

1. Create an account at Voice2Note.com and connect it to your Evernote account. Voice2Note will provide you with a dedicated phone number that you’ll be able to call anytime you want to create a new note from your landline or cell phone.
2. Record a new audio note in Evernote on your mobile device, call the Voice2Note phone number provided to you, or drag a compatible audio file into Evernote on your desktop.
3. Voice2Note will transcribe the first 30 seconds of your note and insert the text into your note. You’ll still have the audio, too.

Call in your Notes

One of the coolest features of Voice2Note is the option to record new notes by simply making a phone call. When you’re on the go, you can call your personal Voice2Note number, record your note and hang up. The first 30 seconds of your note will be transcribed and saved into your Evernote account automatically (along with the voice clip, so you’ll have access to the whole audio recording). If you don’t want to worry about tagging your voice notes later, you can organize them by speaking the name of the tag (ex: ‘tag with <tagname>’), and Voice2Note will assign this tag to your note.

Once you start using voice notes, you’ll find them invaluable. Remind yourself of to-dos, capture inspiration, and record mental notes whenever and wherever they strike you. Once your note has been transcribed, you’ll easily be able to search for it by remembering only a few words associated with the idea.

Tip: Think about what you really want to remember when you record your note (for example, if you’ve found inspiration for a work project, start your memo with something like, ‘Work inspiration, new application to check out’). This foresight will allow you to find notes by the most important keywords.

Other Voice Apps in the Trunk

There are many ways to get the most out of recorded notes in Evernote. Other cool apps in the Trunk that let you make your voice notes more useful include Total Recall, which allows you to record phone calls and send audio notes directly from an Android mobile device to Evernote, and Quicktate, which allows you to send existing voice notes or create new ones and have them transcribed for you.

For the last few years, MyWi has basically owned the iPhone-as-hotspot jailbreak market. With the app and a jailbroken iPhone or iPad, you could share your 3G or EDGE connection with other devices with just a few simple taps. Multiple laptops or other mobile devices could connect to the Wi-Fi hotspot at once.

Now, MyWi OnDemand has been introduced by developers Intelliborn. It provides the same kind of easy-to-use connectivity, but it does so with a completely redesigned interface, providing functionality that's basically on steroids.

Continue reading MyWi OnDemand offers major connectivity upgrades for iPhone-as-hotspot (jailbreak)

MyWi OnDemand offers major connectivity upgrades for iPhone-as-hotspot (jailbreak) originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 03 Feb 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In case you like to travel but don’t know about AirBnB yet, watch this brand new video:

iOS 4.2.1 brought only some minor bug fixes related to resolution and download problems, so if you updated to 4.1.1 you are still able to jailbreak your Apple TV 2G with PwnageTool. All you’ll have to do is to use new PwnageTool bundle to jailbreak iOS 4.2.1 instead of iOS 4.2 PwageTool bundle. Note that this jailbreak is also tethered, which means you have to connect your Apple TV 2G with PC and use Redsn0w or PwnageBundle to boot it.

Here are the instructions from nitoTV

Disclaimer:
If you do not have your SHSH blobs backed up for your AppleTV at 4.1 I HIGHLY advise avoiding any upgrading whatsoever, tethered or not, until a real proper jailbreak is available.

If you don’t understand the above GO BACK NOW, do NOT attempt the following.

Made it this far? Another warning:
If you aren’t a developer or someone trying to tweak iOS 4.2.1 the following jailbreak is STRONGLY discouraged. Booting tethered on the AppleTV is an easy process, but it is still a PITA that a casual user would probably not have the desire to put up with.

Read the ENTIRE documentation at least once before running through the process.

You will need a computer that is close enough to your AppleTV that it can be plugged into USB, power and HDMI without any major movement of the AppleTV itself), if you don’t meet this requirement the following is impossible, unless your microUSB cable is REALLY long.

Required:
A MicroUSB cable
An Intel Apple laptop Running Snow Leopard (I say laptop because of reaching distance for the USB, power, HDMI)
AppleTV 4.2.1 ipsw AppleTV2,1_4.2.1_8C154_Restore.ipsw
PwnageTool 4.1.2 or 4.1.3
PwnageTool 4.2.1 Bundle for Apple TV 2G

1. Move this entire folder to the desktop and replace “AppleTV2,1_4.2_8C150.bundle” subfolder with this “AppleTV2,1_4.2.1_8C154.bundle” subfolder.

2. Open Terminal app (if you don’t know where this is, you REALLY shouldn’t be doing this.

3. Run the following commands (this will fail if you didn’t move this folder to the desktop, PwnageTool almost MUST be in your /Applications folder)

4. Run PwnageTool on the 4.2.1 ipsw (if you don’t know how to do this, again you REALLY shouldn’t be here) saving into the ~/Desktop/tethered folder with the default name PwnageTool gives it (AppleTV2,1_4.2.1_8C154_Custom_Restore.ipsw

5. Back in the terminal run the following:

unzip -j ~/Desktop/tethered/AppleTV2,1_4.2.1_8C154_Custom_Restore.ipsw Firmware/dfu/iBSS.k66ap.RELEASE.dfu kernelcache.release.k66 -d ~/Desktop/tethered/

6. Restore the AppleTV to the ~/Desktop/tethered/AppleTV2,1_4.2.1_8C154_Custom_Restore.ipsw firmware (your AppleTV SHOULD be in DFU mode after finishing up with PwnageTool)

NOTE: Do not install any packages through cydia in expert mode, this produced very unpredictable results.

7. Unplug and then replug the USB, after the AppleTV has finished started up (will be blinking steadily), plug in the power cable

8. Run the following commands in terminal:

cd ~/desktop/tethered

./tetheredboot -i iBSS.k66ap.RELEASE.dfu -k kernelcache.release.k66

NOTE:  it will loop a complaint re: DFU mode, just ignore this, once you are finished getting in DFU mode tetheredboot will take over.

9. MANUALLY put the AppleTV in DFU (*DO NOT USE PWNAGETOOL*)

- Disconnect power cable and connect your Apple TV with your computer via microUSB
- Now reboot your Apple TV by holding down Menu + Down buttons together for around 6 seconds.
- After reboot, immediately hold Menu + Play until you see the message in iTunes saying that Apple TV in recovery mode is detected

Successful output from tetheredboot looks like this:

Initializing libpois0n
No matching processes belonging to you were found
Waiting for device to enter DFU mode
Device must be in DFU mode to continue
opening device 05ac:1227…
Found device in DFU mode
Checking if device is compatible with this jailbreak
Checking the device type
Identified device as AppleTV2,1
Preparing to upload limera1n exploit
Resetting device counters
Sending chunk headers
Sending exploit payload
Sending fake data
libusb:error [darwin_transfer_status] transfer error: timed out
Exploit sent
Reconnecting to device
Waiting 2 seconds for the device to pop up…
opening device 05ac:1227…
Uploading iBSS.k66ap.RELEASE.dfu to device
[==================================================] 100.0%
libusb:error [darwin_reset_device] ResetDevice: device not responding
libusb:error [darwin_close] USBDeviceClose: no connection to an IOService
Waiting 10 seconds for the device to pop up…
opening device 05ac:1281…
Setting to configuration 1
Setting to interface 0:0
Uploading kernelcache.release.k66 to device
[==================================================] 100.0%
libusb:error [darwin_transfer_status] transfer error: device not responding (value = 0xe00002ed)

10. if all went well, unplug USB and plug in HDMI and your AppleTV should be ready to go. You will need to repeat 7-9 every time you restart your AppleTV, this isn’t a convenient process by any stretch!

11. To get nitoTV installed (I couldn’t get the cydia, or custompackage sot work in PT)

apt-get install wget
wget -O- http://apt.awkwardtv.org/awkwardtv.pub | apt-key add -
echo “deb http://apt.awkwardtv.org/ stable main” > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/awkwardtv.list
apt-get update
apt-get install com.nito.nitotv

[source: @nitoTV]

Apple continues to improve Ping, its iTunes-based social network, by adding support for shared iTunes playlists. Customers can now create a new playlist (or import an existing one) and share it with their Ping followers. Here's how it works.

To create a new playlist to share, connect to Ping and then click your account. You'll see "Create a new Ping playlist." From there you can give it a name and description and start dragging tracks from your iTunes library into the list (any song that's in the iTunes store can be included). Songs can be re-ordered if you change your mind. When you're satisfied, click Publish.

To import an existing iTunes playlist, simply click its title and then the arrow icon. A dialog box appears. Click Publish Playlist. A similar composition window appears, this time with a montage of album art. Once you're satisfied with everything, click Publish. Note that songs can be re-ordered at any time, even after publication, and you can opt to let users add songs to your playlists.

It's a nice new feature and the latest evidence of Apple's dedication to the service. Recent Twitter integration and a new, Ping-exclusive Michael Jackson song also appeared in recent weeks.

[Via MacNN]

Ping allows users to share playlists originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 13 Dec 2010 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If you happen to own both a Nikon digital SLR camera and an iPhone and have been looking for a way that the two could work together, you may now be in luck. BlueSLR, which combines a Bluetooth accessory (dongle) that plugs into your SLR and an app you run on your iPhone (3G and up), iPod touch (2nd generation or later) or iPad, enables you to remotely control your camera's shutter from up to 300 feet away. Photographers can also manually adjust focus and exposure length from that distance, along with the ability to tag photographs with GPS information.

Electronista reports that BlueSLR only supports 11 models of Nikon's SLR cameras but that Canon support is in the works for the near future. The Bluetooth dongle that hangs off your SLR will run you US$149, but the app to control it is available from the App Store free of charge.

Most professional photographers have all sorts of gadgets and remotes to control their equipment, so for many of them, this could be one more piece of equipment to carry around. But for the rest of us amateur photographers, this looks like it could be a pretty nice accessory to have in our camera bag. With the iPhone having the ability to remotely control almost anything, including driving your car, monitoring your own robot and now your DSLR camera, anyone want to guess what could be next?

[via Engadget and electronista]

BlueSLR allows iPhone users to remotely control DSLR cameras originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 13 Dec 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Aperture Inspector 1.0 Lets You Dig Deep Into Your Aperture Library

Aperture Inspector lets you examine your Aperture Library to see the cameras, lenses and settings you use the most. Examine which lenses you use, which ISO you shoot at and how many images you’ve taken over time. And for launch it’s available for only $9.99, that’s $5.00 off the full price for version 1.0.

Aperture Inspector is the first piece of software produced by Mac Create, and it was designed to help you learn more about the way you shoot. Trying to figure out if you should buy a new lens? Check out your lens use patterns over time—see how often you shoot with a lens, what settings you used and what focal length you were at. Think you should sell a piece of gear? Look to see how your use of that gear has changed over time.

Whether you’re just curious about the way you shoot or are looking to get a deep understanding of your shooting habits and camera use, Aperture Inspector can help.

Aperture Inspector allows you to:

• Look at every camera used to take a photo in your Library.

Examine the Aperture, Lens Focal Length, Shutter Speed, ISO and Usage of that camera.

• Look at every lens you’ve used.

Examine the Aperture, Focal Length, Shutter Speed, ISO and Usage of that lens.

• Filter out equipment – Turn off statistics for that point-and-shoot you barely use or eliminate stats for your iPhone or older camera models.

• Switch between Libraries – Easily look at data for any Aperture Library.

An extremely powerful program, yet it’s simple to use. Launch it, drop your Library onto it, and start examining your data.

It’s a simple, but effective way to learn more about your photography. And as a 1.0, it will be growing along with user feedback. All users who purchase version 1.0 will have free upgrades until version 2.0. We plan to add more stats, the ability to compare usages of cameras against other cameras (and lenses against other lenses) and more. As we add features to Aperture Inspector the price will go up, but if you buy it now, you’ll get all our v 1.x updates for free.

Find out more about Aperture Inspector on our MacCreate Resource Store now at shop.maccreate.com.

The people behind camera comparison and recommendation website snapsort have just launched lenshero, a site designed to recommend the lens you need at the price you want. After telling the application your camera and what you’re looking for in a lens (e.g. type, focal range, price), the site will spit out some recommendations of lenses that fit your criteria, ordering them by their pros and cons. It’s a neat little app that you might want to bookmark if you’re in the market for some new gear.

The concept of hyperfocal distance is used in landscape photography to achieve the greatest depth of field and acceptable sharpness for both near and far objects. In the two minute tutorial above, wildlife photographer Chris Weston walks through some hyperfocal distance focusing techniques. You can also find a couple informative tutorials at DOFMaster and Cambridge in Colour.

You don’t need fancy camera gear to capture beautiful images and video of the night sky. The above video shows a timelapse created using 1262 photos captured with a Canon 20D at 30 second exposures and ISO 800. At the end there’s a star trails photo created by combining all the stills into a single image. It’s a great 1.25 minute dose of relaxation and inspiration.

Okay, so you have a memory card full of timelapse photos taken over a long-ish period of time using a DSLR camera and intervalometer. Now what? In the above video, filmmaker Philip Bloom shows how you can easily combine them into a timelapse video using Quicktime Pro.

(via Photoxels)

I had the pleasure to welcome Dan Rubin and Naomi Atkinson at the studio yesterday. As Dan walked in I noticed the supercool loop that was connected to his SLR camera. It’s called Luma Loop and unfortunately they are out of stock. Booo hoo!

It’s been a few days since this hack came out, but there is a chance you’ve missed it focused on your Thanksgiving and Black Friday activities: a jailbreak app called AirVideoEnabler can push out video from any iOS app (including Safari) to the Apple TV 2G via AirPlay. Developed by TUAW commenter Zone-MR, the app runs on every jailbroken iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad with iOS 4.2 (or greater) installed and can be downloaded from Cydia for free. According to Lifehacker, you may need to restart your iOS device for the hack to work, but then you can stream supported video (meaning most MPEG4/H.264 files) from any app that supports video out. Users report that thanks to AirVideoEnabler they were also able to stream live TV to the Apple TV via AirPlay.

Here is the AirVideoEnabler in action

And here is live TV being streamed from FilmOn.com app running on the iPad

Continue reading FlickrExport for iPhoto and Aperture updated to version 4

FlickrExport for iPhoto and Aperture updated to version 4 originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.