Sunday, November 22, 2009

Chrome OS Virtual Machine Build Ready for Your Testing [Downloads]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/e0PialDFvs8/chrome-os-virtual-machine-build-ready-for-your-testing

If you're aching to try out Chrome OS after taking a glimpse earlier today, friendly power user Mark Renouf has compiled a VMware image of Chrome OS for testing out in your virtual machine environment.

While Chrome OS is far from ready for the regular user, lots of us are aching to play around a little with Google's young operating system. This virtual machine-friendly build looks like a good way to do just that, and you can grab it via BitTorrent now. From The Pirate Bay page:

This is a ChromeOS image converted to VMware .vmdk file.

It was built from instructions provided on the ChromiumOS developers site:

http://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/chromium-os/building-chromium-os/build-instructions

Built from sources retreived on 11/19/2009, following the announcement of the opening of the ChromeOS source code.

Shared user password (for sudo, etc is 'chromeos')

If you give it a download and try it out, let's hear how it worked for you (and share any images you manage to grab) in the comments.

Update: Alternately, you can download a VMware build directly from web site gdgt as well, "no strings attached" (as long as you don't consider creating an account at gdgt and giving them your email address "strings").

ChromeOS [The Pirate Bay via ironicsans]



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Posted by Augustine at 12:36 PM

PTS Desktop Live Makes Performance Benchmarking Simple [Downloads]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/mnKPSPPH-dA/pts-desktop-live-makes-performance-benchmarking-simple

If you want to put your computer through the paces and get some feedback and benchmarks, you'll be hard pressed to find a tool more packed with tests than the Phoronix Test Suite Live CD.

PTS Desktop Live is an Ubuntu Live CD with the Phoronix benchmarking suite preconfigured and installed. Reboot your machine with the CD in your drive—or on a USB drive—and you'll boot into the test suite with access to 52 tests and 10 profiles. The profiles are set up to help you stress test and benchmark based on what you'll be using the machine for.

The desktop interface and suite is set up so that even users unfamiliar with Linux can jump right in and start testing without having to do any special modifying or downloading of additional files. You can save your benchmark results or share the results online with the Phoronix Global benchmark sharing system.

Have a favorite benchmarking tool or Live CD packed with goodies? Let's hear about it in the comments.




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Posted by Augustine at 12:35 PM

Build Your Own 3D Camera Rig with Two Hacked Canon Cameras [Camera Hacks]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/zpQUFYK8d3Q/build-your-own-3d-camera-rig-with-two-hacked-canon-cameras

You don't need to spend a mint on the new 3D-capable camera from Fuji. You can throw two basic Canon point-and-shoot cameras together with $20 worth of parts and make your own for 3D fun.

You'll need a pair of matching Canon PowerShot cameras that have modified firmware—the CHDK (Canon Hack Development Kit) we shared with you last year. You need two cameras in order to simulate the view from the left and right eye.

In addition to the two cameras you'll need about $20 worth of hardware that includes a simple bracket made with basic hardware store parts and a USB trigger button with dual outputs. The USB trigger will take a tiny bit of electronics know-how but if you can wire a lamp you can turn an Altoids tin and a simple circuit board into a dual-trigger for your 3D camera rig.

Once you've got the camera and trigger assembled you're in business on the taking-the-pictures side of things. On the post-processing side of things you'll need to offset the image with proper coloration for 3D glasses—the most popular tool is a free application called StereoPhoto Maker. Using StereoPhoto Maker you can combine and tweak your images for maximum 3D effect. Check out the full tutorial at MaximumPC for a detailed build guide and lots of photos.

Have experience with 3D photography or video? Let's hear about it in the comments.




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Posted by Augustine at 12:33 PM

Five Best Screencasting Tools [Hive Five]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/UeclsGo9jT4/five-best-screencasting-tools

Thanks to broadband and some excellent screencasting applications, you don't need to limit yourself to mere static images when you're trying to show someone how to do something on your computer. Record video, audio, and do even more with these screencasting tools.

Photo by ToastyKen.

Screencasting can be an enormously handy tool for all manner of things: demonstrating a product, broadcasting your favorite software hack to all of the internet, emailing a how-to video to your less savvy friends or relatives to help them finally grok that whole email-attachment maneuver. Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite screencasting tools, and now we're back with the top five for your perusal.

ScreenFlow (Mac, $99)


ScreenFlow is a Mac-only screencast editor that fills a nice niche between the limited-but-free options and the car-payment-sized options. Screenflow sports advanced features, like the ability to decouple audio and video streams for independent editing and audio ducking (if you're using background music it's automatically adjusted during speaking portions of the video); the ability to freeze, speed up, or slow down the video to allows you to time lapse or zoom through a more tedious portion of the task you're demonstrating. Screenflow also supports custom cursors and callouts for emphasizing the cursor or foremost window.

Jing (Windows/Mac, Basic: Free, Pro: $14.95 per year)


Jing is the more compact cousin of Camtasia Studio (see below) and great for less complicated—and more economical!—screencasting. Both the free and pro version are limited to five minutes of screen recording and come with a free account at Screencast.com for sharing your captures. The free version can save video as SWF video and is branded with the Jing logo. The pro version allows you to save your videos as SWF and MPEG-4 files, the branding is removed, and you can also share directly to YouTube (in HD) and record from your webcam. Both the free and pro version use the same intuitive and easy menu.

CamStudio (Windows, Free)

CamStudio is a free and open-source offering for the screencasting market. You can record all or part of your screen, customize cursors and text annotations, adjust the quality of the video output, and save screencasts as AVI or SWF files. The interface is easy to understand, and you won't be overwhelmed with extensive options. In a nutshell, it's a free and effective tool for creating screencasts without a lot of bulk or expense.

Camtasia (Windows/Mac, $299)

Camtasia Studio is a powerhouse in the screencasting world. Packed with features, Camtasia Studio makes it easy to create screencasts with presets for a variety of sharing situations like YouTube, HD displays, Screencast.com, and more. You can edit the audio and video independently so you don't have to redo a whole segment just because of an oops in the audio or video portion. Special effects and edits are easy to manipulate thanks to fine control over th! e time l ine—you can select a portion of your editing timeline right down to the tenth of a second. It's far from free, but Camtasia Studio is a well thought out and feature rich screencasting tool.

ScreenToaster (Web-based, Free)


ScreenToaster is the only web-based offering in this week's Hive Five, and it definitely fills a handy niche. Whether you don't screencast enough to want to install a dedicated application or you just need to crank out a quick screencast wherever you are, ScreenToaster can help. You don't get any advanced editing tools—screw up and you're redoing it—but you do get full screen capture, support for picture-in-picture webcam video in the lower right corner, and audio for voice-over. When you're done recording and previewing your clip, you can upload the video to ScreenToaster or YouTube, or download it as a MOV or SWF file. ScreenToaster is free and works with any Java-enabled web browser.



Now that you've had a chance to look over the top five contenders for most popular screencasting tool it's time to cast your vote in the poll below:


Best Screencasting Tool?(online surveys)

Have a favorite tool that didn't get a shout out? Have a tip or trick of your own for better screencasting? Let's hear about it in the comments.




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Posted by Augustine at 12:32 PM

How Do You Hide From the Internet? [Internet]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/LspXrctYt9c/how-do-you-hide-from-the-internet

Wired writer Evan Ratliff spent 27 days in constant fear of getting caught as a small army of amateur and professional investigators hunted him. He had a bounty on his head and the Internet nipping at his heels.

Vanish, a combination of a manhunt and an experiment, began at 5:38 pm on August 14, 2009 as a bold headline on Wired proclaimed "Author Evan Ratliff Is on the Lam. Locate Him and Win $5,000." We would discover if someone could disappear in today's world, or whether the electronic trails from ATM, email, and cell phone usage would give him away.

Of course, in Evan's case it wasn't just a few concerned family members or police officers looking. It was any person on the Internet whose curiosity was aroused, either by the sheer challenge or by the bounty. Any and all traceable information would be shared over the next few weeks. Soon Evan's phone records, credit card statements, IP dumps, interviews with friends, and anything that his hunters could dig up would be posted on Twitter, Facebook, and Wired's own site.

The end goal for the hunters was to locate Evan, photograph him after giving the codeword "fluke," and then submitting that photo along with a codeword Evan would provide to Wired. And after 27 long days, someone did just that. Evan was caught.

You can read the entire tale here. As you do, consider whether Evan made any genuine mistakes or whether his capture was simply inevitable. Is there a way to disappear, without giving up travel ! and tech nology? How would you do it? [Wired]




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Posted by Augustine at 12:13 PM

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