Author Archives: sable

About sable

Mastering the visual space helps me assess the physical space. Time is my canvas. With pictures, it's only a moment - a slice - of that time.

Another Look at Encipher.it

Just a quick update for you, the encryption web service Encipher.it has been updated extensively since the last time I posted on it.

Screen Shot 2013-05-31 at 3.28.37 PM

The web site looks easy enough to use and the bookmarklet works well.

Give it a try with this secure passage. You can install the bookmarklet or copy the encrypted text below. Hint, it’s a famous quote. The password is blerg

EnCt2b63eb569d8b702aec98f50df9b53c130633aa753b63eb569d8b702aec98f50df3zdaxV1mKAP XHyslqVEOWdBUYQolENz/E50ss5ZqGDFP2w==IwEmS

Encrypted by https://encipher.it

Let’s Chat – Securely

From the early days of multi-user computer systems in the 1960′s we (well, not me, but computer users) have been sending each other private messages. Sure we can send email. Chat is real time and we know how to use it.

Instant messages (IM), or chat, is a parallel of talking with someone in real life. You can liken this to meeting someone at a coffee shop or a restaurant. In the real world, only those people immediately around you (unless one of you is carrying a listening device) can hear the conversation. You and those you are speaking with can rely on your memory or notes to refer to things that were said or not said. In an electronic medium, these conversations are stored forever, searchable, and can be used for or against you.

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End of Semester Thoughts 2013

Spring 2013 has been a great semester. I had the privilege to teach two fantastic courses: Intro to Digital Media and Intro to Digital Audio.

Intro to Digital Media was a course that introduced students to digital audio, video, and the web. Intro to Digital Audio started with the foundations of sound and carried through the entire recording process.

I tried a few things out this semester and I wanted to write myself a note (to be shared of course) of what I thought worked and didn't work.

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Blackberry Messenger Coming to iOS and Android

BlackBerry Messenger Coming to iOS and Android

Write-up on The Verge and on BGR

BlackBerry has just announced that its hugely popular BBM messaging service is going multi-platform: it will be released for Android and iOS as a free app this summer.

This is great news for messaging. I was an avid BBM user before the iPhone and Android and BBM was the best thing on the device. BBM was reliable and secure. No cross platform has stolen the market yet either.

I've used WhatsApp (love it), iMessages, Viber, Kik, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Line, and Voxer over the past couple of years. They are each good in one way or another – except that everyone isn't on them. Maybe BBM will be the "one messenger to rule them all".

Personally, I think SMS has been shown to be overpriced and unreliable and I refuse to pay for it. I really want everyone to use a messaging service that is secure and uses data.

Not everyone agrees with me though.

Remove Image Backgrounds Online with clippingmagic.com

ClippingMagic is a neat service that helps you with that pesky chore of removing the background from your images.

You are greeted with a large drag and drop file window. Drag your image file there.

Screen Shot 2013-05-09 at 3.47.56 PM

Use the Red minus sine to highlight over the areas you want to go away. The preview window will show you what to expect. Just like in MS PowerPoint, use the Green Plus sign to tell ClippingMagic which parts you want to keep. Keep using the minus and plus until the preview is what you are expecting.

I chose a simple image with a fairly consistent blue background to try this on.

Screen Shot 2013-05-09 at 3.46.43 PM

Pretty handy tool to keep around IMHO.

Here is a before and after comparison.

Before Background Removal

Before Background Removal

After

After

Testing a Post from Draft

Test Post from Draft

I heard about Draft on the Systematic podcast this week.

Draft is an online text editor with built-in version control. Cool! Draft allows you to collaborate in a nice way that is different than simply "tracking changes". I never liked emailing word docs around anyways.

Draft lets you open your documents from Dropbox, Evernote, and Google Docs too.

Drafts is able to publish work to a few places including twitter (tested here) and hopefully WordPress (if you are reading this).

Try it out.

https://draftin.com/

Give Good Tips With …tippy!

I wanted to play in the mobile dev space a bit and made a fun little project. I’m still working on the flow, transitions, and some graphic elements. Using jQuery Mobile made the form elements work well on a touch device so I thought I would share it now.

Tippy is for Calculating Tips

Launch tippy on your mobile browser.

Tippy Home Screen

Enter the amount of the bill and use the slider (or enter in the field) the percent tip that you would like to give. Tippy defaults to 20% which is customary for restaurants where I live. If the service is great, slide up (to the right), poor service, slide down (to the left).

Then you Tip Big!

tippy home amount

Tippy will round your bill up to the nearest dollar. I find it convenient when paying in cash. That’s the top number.

If you are splitting the bill you can use the slider to select the number of people and the total per person will appear below.

total and split

Now go and give good tips!

Bit Torrent Sync – Changing the Way We Share

Private, secure, and fast sharing of documents. No limits to the amount of data or the number of shared folders. No limits with whom you share to. It is fast and free. Bit Torrent Sync.

I can be a fan of technology when it’s still too early to tell whether something will be around or not. Bit Torrent Sync hits the high points for file sharing that I have been trying to solve for the last ten years.

btsync logo Continue reading

Guitarism jamup GarageBand audiobus test

I just posted this to SoundCloud. Please go check it out.

http://soundcloud.com/sablec/guitarism-jamup-garageband

This is a little front porch experiment for me.

Guitarism is a cute little finger chord strumming app that has audio bus support. So I pumped Guitarism through Jamup and then recorded it with Garageband.

I was able to turn jamup off and on while playing Guitarism. To change patches though I would have had to switch apps.

Next test will involve the BT105 pedal with jamup running in the background…

Rich Man Vocals Only

Check out my new sounds on SoundCloud!

http://soundcloud.com/sablec/rich-man-vocals-only

My friend MK came in to record a favorite song of his. I did very little to this track. The room and the homemade telefunken (thanks Nathan) did most of the work.