I started out with a digitalization project for my parents 50th birthday, where we gave them an external hard drive loaded with all the pictures they took during me and my siblings childhood from the early 80′s and all the way up to our familys first digital camera. Insights and tips from this project can be found in my older post in norwegian “Prosjekt Digitalisering: Erfaringer fra negativ- og lysbildescanning”. The video project started as a result of this as I suddenly had a drive to digitize everything, which ended when I found myself digitizing old postcards late one night…. that was the end of it…. But that aside the process of digitizing all of our old video was definitely worth it! Like the picture project the digitizing project for video started out with a birthday, my grandmas 80th birthday. We ended up giving her an iPad loaded up with pictures and video from the last 60 years which in my opinion is an awesome gift!
Makerprojects: Getting a toddler to automatically play music on a Sonos with NFC tags
After using my much loved Sonos Play:5 for a while I started thinking about how I could include it in my Smarthome project. This was before I got my hands on the Vera Lite and before my daughter Ada started crawling around. After watching her fiddle with my iPad and not really getting anywhere with it, except continously pressing the home button to exit whatever game I was trying to get her interested in. It was then I realized that however gifted one sees your own child Ada was not equipped with the motoric skills yet required to start her favourite songs for example on our livingroom Play:5 speaker. I have been itching to try a proper project with NFC tags out as I find the act of making something digital happen through physical interaction fascinating. I realized that physical NFC tags were the perfect way for her to interact with digital interfaces like starting a song she likes on the Sonos speaker. So how do you make this magic happen? Pay close attention after the break!
PS: Aren’t my self printed NFC tags awesome???
My daughter controlling the music on the stereo with NFC-tags
It worked! Beta tested the setup I made with my daugher Ada and she loved it! I programmed the various NFC-tags with different types of music and let her chose which songs she wanted to listen to. She can control it by touching the NFC-tags to my phone and starting a song. This was also an excuse to play with my new Hero 3 action cam..
How to sync pictures from Android to the iPad photostream
If you are like me and have the combination of Android phone and iPad tablet, and still would like things to sync up nicely between them I stumbled on a solution online after giving some advice to a friend. She wanted to know whether to get an iPhone 5 or a Samsung Galaxy SIII when she already had an iPad. If there is one thing Apple knows it’s how to build a ecosystem that just pulls you in. While the iPhone 5 is an amazing piece of engineering the only thing for me that set the iPhone apart when already having the iPad was the seamles iCloud photo sync feature. Dropbox og Google+ basically already do the same thing, but it is clunky and not as well done as what Apple has pulled off. I figured I wanted to see if this was possible as I wouldn’t mind the feature myself, and voila! There is a way!
Makerprojects: Geeky toddler growth chart
Look what I made! As i wrote in my previous post I borrowed the design from geeky-dad’s Geeky Growth Chart. Yoda is already done, R2-D2 next!
Ada in front of the growth chart
Kudos to CopyCat Posthuset for printing it with excellent quality at a good price, really recommend them for any similar projects!
How and why you should back up your Kindle where Amazon can’t reach
I had a realization yesterday..however much this pains me to say I have to admit it, I…am… a fanboy. I can’t count the times I have had arguments with apple, linux or windows fanboys for that matter. I have always had that little sense of superiority as I believe in technology in general and using the best tools you can get your hands on. At the same time I’m not a very big fan of putting all my eggs in one basket and selling my soul to a single software/hardware ecosystem. With Amazon and Kindle this is just what I have done.
IR-extender for AV-stuff
Just figured I would share a tip as I have been planning on bying an IR-extender for ages, but have never gotten around to doing it. If you don’t know what an IR-extender does it simply relays the signals from your remote control through cables and into wherever you have put your PVR, blueray-player or streaming box. This means that I can now close the doors to where I have my stuff without loosing the magic of the remote control.
The one I bought can be found here (norwegian shop), but it is a generic version which I am sure exists everywhere else on the planet as well. Together with my Harmony One remote control this has simplified the remote control situation in our apartment. The next step is a wifi-integrated SQBlaster with Z-Wave support, but so far I haven’t been able to justify the cost of it. The SQBlaster can be integrated with Z-Wave scenes, but as I already have the Harmony remote control and my Apartment 2.0 project is still far from complete I’ll let this one go for now. If you live in Norway you can get the SQBlaster here.
Weekend Projects – Photo canvas in a grid and geeky growth chart
Had a rainy weekend here in Norway and figured I could finally finish two of the many projects that I have in the pipeline. I’ve been planning to put some pictures on canvas from the 175 days long trip I took with my girlfriend and friends back in 2009 for a looong time. It is not as delayed as the Kilimanjarovideo that I am working on, but as this project was far less time consuming it was time to get things done.
Kunsten å handle bærekraftig
Et tema som jeg har blitt mer og mer opptatt av de siste årene er hvordan det vi handler påvirker miljøet det er produsert i, arbeiderne som produserer det og søppelplassen det til slutt skal ende opp på. Det viser seg at det å være en person som er opptatt av at varene man kjøper er både etisk produsert og så miljøvennlig som mulig ikke er så lett som man skulle håpe. Jeg skal i denne bloggposten forsøke å sammenfatte det jeg har lært den siste tiden om temaet for å gjøre det enklere for andre å forsøke det samme. Det å være en konsument med både samvittighet og samfunnsansvar er ikke alltid lett, men valgene vi gjør hver dag i butikken kan påvirke mer enn vi tror.
Hvordan bruke Netflix, Hulu og andre streamingtjenester i Norge
Som jeg skrev i bloggposten min om Apple TV så har jeg blitt fullstendig frelst av Netflix. Det finnes imidlertid flere slike tjenester som krever at du bor i USA som er like bra, deriblant Hulu. Etter å ha fått et par forespørsler på hvordan man setter opp dette tenkte jeg at jeg kunne lage en kort enkel guide på hvordan dette gjøres. Det er ikke vanskelig og entusiasmen min taler for seg selv når det gjelder sluttresultatet.. Det er første gang at jeg faktisk har kommet over tjenester på film og tv-seriefronten som har leverer et produkt som er nesten like bra som nedlasting, så sett i gang!
Netflix og Hulu er begge streamingtjenester som man kan aksessere fra nettbrett (iOS og Android), fra nettlesere på en pc eller fra ulike typer mediesentere som jeg har beskrevet tidligere (Roku, ATV3, Xbox, PS3).
