Lightroom 2.x Enhanced Keyboard Shortcuts
Quick access to Develop and Library module adjustments via your keyboard number pad (Windows only). You'll need AutoHotKey and this script to enhance your productivity.
Left/Right - Prev or Next photo
Up/Down - Brightness
ALT Up/Down - Exposure
NumPad 5 - Toggle Dev/Lib Module [new]
ALT NumPad 5 - Crop Tool [new]
+/- - Fill Light
Page Up/Dn - Contrast
ALT PgUp/PgDn - Black Clipping
Home/End - Color Temperature
ALT Home/End - Recovery
Div/Mult - Color Tint
Enter - Paste Previous
ALT Enter - Sync Settings [new]
Del - Auto Tone
ALT Del - Auto White Balance [new]
- NumLock must be engaged (light on).
- External USB number pads for laptops may not work and there's no workaround other than using a full external keyboard.
- Lightroom's title bar needs to say "Develop" or "Library". When launching Lightroom it displays neither. You'll need to toggle modules to get the title bar indicating the correct information.
External Ballistics
I've been playing around with some mathematics involving external ballistics in Maxima. Here's some resources you may find handy if you're interested in a projectile's flight, drop, and wind deflection.
- External Ballistics @ Wikipedia, click here
- 22 Long Rifle, External Ballistics, click here
- External Ballistics Database, click here for Excel
- Calculate External Ballistic Tables, download
$200 Laptops Break a Business Model
A thought provoking article by the NY Times, click here for original text
“We’ve reached one of those moments in tech history when there are low-priced and free alternatives that are both user-friendly and reliable enough to make the switch,”
The dot-com bust earlier in the decade dragged down high-fliers like Sun Microsystems and America Online but set the stage for a new generation of Web powerhouses like Google.
Hoping to save money, a start-up based in Menlo Park, Calif., has much of its internal technology processes online, or “in the cloud.” Instead of buying its own hardware and software systems it opted for e-mail and online document services from Google and online sales and manufacturing software from Netsuite. It is spending a fifth of what it would be for traditional technology.
The makers of open-source software also continue to benefit from the growing appeal of their often cheap, if not free, products. Sun Microsystems distributes 65,000 downloads a day of its MySQL database, which has turned into the favored business software of new companies. The job search engine Indeed.com shows a thriving job market for MySQL and Linux developers.
“We’ve reached one of those moments in tech history when there are low-priced and free alternatives that are both user-friendly and reliable enough to make the switch,”
The dot-com bust earlier in the decade dragged down high-fliers like Sun Microsystems and America Online but set the stage for a new generation of Web powerhouses like Google.
Hoping to save money, a start-up based in Menlo Park, Calif., has much of its internal technology processes online, or “in the cloud.” Instead of buying its own hardware and software systems it opted for e-mail and online document services from Google and online sales and manufacturing software from Netsuite. It is spending a fifth of what it would be for traditional technology.
The makers of open-source software also continue to benefit from the growing appeal of their often cheap, if not free, products. Sun Microsystems distributes 65,000 downloads a day of its MySQL database, which has turned into the favored business software of new companies. The job search engine Indeed.com shows a thriving job market for MySQL and Linux developers.
Free Math Programs
Here's a quick round up of some free math programs on the internet. For more details please read the blog post "3 awesome free Math programs" by Antonio Cangiano.- Maxima (picture right)
- Scilab
- R
- Simfit
- Mathomatic (command line app)
SyncBackSE - Free Backup Utility
The title says it all, this is a great piece of free software:
http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html#freeware
http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html#freeware
Unattended Printing with Firefox
Do you need Firefox to print something without human intervention? Type about:config in your address bar add a new Boolean, as follows. Now you can have your web application send data to a printer automatically.
| print.always_print_silent | true |
Better Firefox Performance
Here's a couple of simple network tweaks for improved performance in Firefox. Type about:config in your address bar and change the following values. The other values left at their default are perfect.
Please note, these two values interact with each other, and reducing the second number from the default of 6 to 4 actually improves performance.
| network.http.pipelining | true |
| network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server | 4 |
Please note, these two values interact with each other, and reducing the second number from the default of 6 to 4 actually improves performance.
PPI for your monitor...
Calculate your Monitor's Pixels Per Inch (ppi) in Mathomatic.
ppi=((width_px^2+height_px^2)^0.5)/diag_inches
Is your computer overheating?
My computer went down the other day, simply a black screen, no warning, no messages, just black. After a lot of messing around and diagnostics it turns out my computer was overheating.
An overheating or border line overheating machine can result in lock ups, slow downs, and unexpected reboots. To find out if your CPU is too hot you'll need the "hardware monitor" that comes with your motherboard. There are also plenty of third party programs which you can run.
The next question is "how hot is too hot?". Intel CPUs display one of two numbers... an absolute temperature ~or~ a thermal margin. The first is self explanatory but the second can seem confusing. The Margin indicates how many degrees remain before the CPU is critically hot. So the bigger the margin the safer you are.
Remember that modern computers conserve energy when idling, so run you most intensive application for 30-60 minutes and keep and eye on your temperatures. Conventional wisdom indicates you want your mobo and CPU less than 60°C (140F). Any higher and damage to one or the other may result. Intel has specific details on each CPU including its thermal maximum on this page, click here. Most modern CPUs give you a thermal margin which removes the guess work.
Tip... if your hard drives are too hot to keep your hand on for any period of time then you have excessive heat build up. Ensure hard drives have one drive bay gap between it and anything above it. Or use a case with hard drive cooling fans (see below).
If your board and/or CPU are running too hot you should consider a well ventilated case. I am now using the Antec 900 (click here) which has four over sized fans plus the fan in your PSU making five total. The 120mm BIG BOY (their words not mine) is placed directly above the CPU keeping it super cool.
Hopefully these tips will help those users experiencing weird hang ups and crashes.
Tip... if your temperature is good but file access is slow and you get lots of blue screens then there may be a chance your hard drive is about to fail. Make sure to run a check disc or similar application. And always make frequent backups!
An overheating or border line overheating machine can result in lock ups, slow downs, and unexpected reboots. To find out if your CPU is too hot you'll need the "hardware monitor" that comes with your motherboard. There are also plenty of third party programs which you can run.
The next question is "how hot is too hot?". Intel CPUs display one of two numbers... an absolute temperature ~or~ a thermal margin. The first is self explanatory but the second can seem confusing. The Margin indicates how many degrees remain before the CPU is critically hot. So the bigger the margin the safer you are.
Remember that modern computers conserve energy when idling, so run you most intensive application for 30-60 minutes and keep and eye on your temperatures. Conventional wisdom indicates you want your mobo and CPU less than 60°C (140F). Any higher and damage to one or the other may result. Intel has specific details on each CPU including its thermal maximum on this page, click here. Most modern CPUs give you a thermal margin which removes the guess work.
Tip... if your hard drives are too hot to keep your hand on for any period of time then you have excessive heat build up. Ensure hard drives have one drive bay gap between it and anything above it. Or use a case with hard drive cooling fans (see below).
If your board and/or CPU are running too hot you should consider a well ventilated case. I am now using the Antec 900 (click here) which has four over sized fans plus the fan in your PSU making five total. The 120mm BIG BOY (their words not mine) is placed directly above the CPU keeping it super cool.Hopefully these tips will help those users experiencing weird hang ups and crashes.
Tip... if your temperature is good but file access is slow and you get lots of blue screens then there may be a chance your hard drive is about to fail. Make sure to run a check disc or similar application. And always make frequent backups!
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