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Monday, August 15, 2011

DSLR Controller Lets You Operate Your Canon DSLR from Your Android [Video]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5830453/dslr-controller-lets-you-operate-your-canon-dslr-from-your-android

iOS users have long had the ability to control their cameras with their iPhones and iPads, but DSLR Controller now brings that to Android for your Canon DSLR.

The software is currently in beta, but getting it working took less than a minute. You just grab it from the Android Marketplace and connect your Canon DSLR via USB (you'll need a USB host cable if your Android device doesn't have a regular-sized USB port). Presuming the app is loaded and your camera is on, you should see what your camera sees in the main viewer on the screen. Because all this data is happening via USB, it updates really quickly and is far more usable than the Live View support you'll get over Wi-Fi on an iPhone app.

In addition to Live View, DSLR Controller lets you adjust pretty much every setting on your camera (e.g. aperture, exposure, ISO, etc.), can take photos, and more. While the app is currently in beta and might not work for every camera, it worked great with my 5D Mark II and support should broaden in the future. If you've ever tethered your camera to your computer or an iOS device before, you know the experience is not ideal. DSLR Controller, on the other hand, isn't cumbersome or slow. It's a very promising option for tethered shooting.

DSLR Controller (~$8.50) | Android Marketplace

You can follow Adam Dachis, the author of this post, on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook. Twitter's the best way to contact him, too.

Xkcd Password Generator Creates Long, Easy-to-Remember Passwords [Passwords]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5830355/xkcd-password-generator-creates-high+security-easy+to+remember-passwords

Web comic xkcd notes that "through 20 years of effort, we've successfully trained everyone to use passwords that are hard for humans to remember, but easy for computers to guess." The comic above makes a compelling (if knowingly imperfect) argument for password length over obscurity, and in response, one developer put together the xkcd password generator. It does what the comic suggests: strings together four random words to create a tough-to-guess password that's easy to remember.

Of course you don't need a generator to do this for you. You can just as easily pull four words out of the air to create your own lengthy but memorable password. Or you can go with one of our tried-and-true favorite methods and create an obscure and memorable password using the first letters of, for example, the lyrics to a song. (For example, a Jackson 5 lover might extract a password from the lyrics "Oh baby give me one more chance to show you that I love you" that looks like obgmomctsytily.) The benefit of the multi-word method is that the longer your password, the harder it is to crack—which is true for passwords made of both common dictionary words and randomly generated strings of text. Yes, the long, non-dictionary password will be more secure. But good luck remembering a completely randomized 25-character password.

Whatever route your choose for your password, I'd still strongly recommend making said password the master password for a password manager like LastPass, KeePass, or 1Password, then, for all the rest of your logins, use your password managers to spawn long, randomly-generated passwords that are both hard for you to remember and hard for computers to guess. You should only need to remember one password, but you shouldn't use the same password everywhere. That's what password managers do for you: Let you memorize just one strong password and obscure the hell out of the rest. You only need to know the one password; your password manager will fill in your unmemorable passwords for you. Get one, set it up, and use it. We really like LastPass.

Update: As commenter doug_gilbert points out, the four-words method could also work nicely with the shift-to-the-right method.

xkcd Password Generator | Password Strength at xkcd

Build Websites Without Having Any Coding Knowledge, With Adobe Muse [Adobe]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5830808/build-websites-without-having-any-coding-knowledge-with-adobe-muse

Adobe has a new Muse—graphic designers. While "Muse" is just a working title, the beta of the graphic design software has gone live which lets users work around the fact they don't know a scrap of code.

This means they can publish HTML websites without actually writing any CSS3 or HTML5. Check out the free beta download of Muse now, or a few more scant details in the press release below. [Adobe Muse]

Public Beta of New Software for Designing HTML Websites Without Writing Code
SAN JOSE, Calif. - Aug. 15, 2011 - Today Adobe Systems Incorporated unveiled the public beta of Muse (code name), software that enables graphic designers to design and publish professional, unique HTML websites without writing code or working within restrictive templates. Leveraging the latest Web standards including HTML5 and CSS3 where browser support exists, Muse combines precise design and creative freedom with innovative frameworks for adding navigation, widgets and HTML to include advanced interactivity on a site.

"The ability to build websites as easily as laying out a page in InDesign is one of the most popular requests from our design customers," says Lea Hickman, vice president of Design and Web product management at Adobe. "Those who have tested Muse are thrilled that something this intuitive yet powerful is now available."
Designers are invited to learn more about Muse by visiting http://muse.adobe.com where they can download the free beta (English only), see a gallery of Muse-created websites, and access instructional tutorials.

Plan, Design and Publish Unique and Interactive Websites:

· Easy-to-use sitemaps, master pages, and a host of flexible, site-wide tools make it fast and intuitive to plan the website layout.

· Designers can combine imagery, graphics, and text with complete control, flexibility and power, similar to the functionality in Adobe InDesign. Muse provides drag and drop customizable widgets like navigation menus. Users can add fully customizable interactive elements including slideshows, Tooltips and remote rollovers.

· Muse embeds HTML code snippets from sources including Google Maps, YouTube and Facebook.

· Muse allows for the creation of Adobe-hosted trial sites for testing and review purposes. A site can be sent to clients, converted to a paid Adobe-hosted site or exported for FTP to other hosting providers.

ASUS Eee Pad Slider shows off its specs, may launch in September

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/14/asus-eee-pad-slider-shows-off-its-specs-may-launch-in-september/

ASUS' Eee Pad Slider is fast becoming just as mythical as the flying horse the company's named after. We've had several encounters with potential release windows for the slate, only to see it continually creep back into fall. Well, judging by a recent report from Notebook Italia and the tab's new product page, it looks like we may actually see a September launch for the 10.1-incher -- in Italy. Contrary to prior rumors, the company will be offering the Slider in two storage configurations -- 16GB and 32GB at potential €479 and €599 price points overseas, while $400 and $550 models should hit the US. We've also got a slew of official specs for the Honeycomb-based device, which should ship with Android 3.1 installed, with a promised 3.2 upgrade to follow. The QWERTYfied tablet packs a 1280 x 800 WXGA display, dual-core 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, 1GB of memory, 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera, 5 megapixel rear-facing camera, USB 2.0, mini-HDMI, microSD card reader, WiFi and Bluetooth. The company's also thrown in one year of "unlimited ASUS Web Storage" for your cloud computing needs. Will the electronics maker finally commit to a concrete launch for the Slider? We'll find out in a month's time.

ASUS Eee Pad Slider shows off its specs, may launch in September originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Aug 2011 11:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for us! e of fee ds.

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Telex anti-censorship system promises to leap over firewalls without getting burned

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/14/telex-anti-censorship-system-promises-to-leap-over-firewalls-wit/

Human rights activists and free speech advocates have every reason to worry about the future of an open and uncensored internet, but researchers from the University of Michigan and the University of Waterloo have come up with a new tool that may help put their fears to rest. Their system, called Telex, proposes to circumvent government censors by using some clever cryptographic techniques. Unlike similar schemes, which typically require users to deploy secret IP addresses and encryption keys, Telex would only ask that they download a piece of software. With the program onboard, users in firewalled countries would then be able to visit blacklisted sites by establishing a decoy connection to any unblocked address. The software would automatically recognize this connection as a Telex request and tag it with a secret code visible only to participating ISPs, which could then divert these requests to banned sites. By essentially creating a proxy server without an IP address, the concept could make verboten connections more difficult to trace, but it would still rely upon the cooperation of many ISPs stationed outside the country in question -- which could pose a significant obstacle to its realization. At this point, Telex is still in a proof-of-concept phase, but you can find out more in the full press release, after the break.

Continue reading Telex anti-censorship system promises to leap over firewalls without getting burned

Telex anti-censorship system promises to leap over firewalls without getting burned originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Aug 2011 15:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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