Payton Place

For some unknown reason I got into my head that it would be really cool if my Macbook Pro would say something when shutting down.
This is how I went about it…

OSX doesn’t natively support configuring a shutdown sound so the first thing I needed to do was finding a plug-in that would bring me the magic.
This is taken care of by SystemSound plug-in (click to download) from Kiwi Fruitware

And setting it up is as easy as scratching your… … well you get the picture!

When download is completed locate the “SystemSound.prefPane” file with in the “SystemSound Extension” folder.

Double click the “SystemSound.prefPane” file to install the plug-in and choose if the plug-in should have an effect on your account only or all users…

Make sure to mark the “Use shutdown sound”

Unless you already have a sound suitable for this little tweak (remember the sound file needs to be in the .aiff format) this is what we need to find now…
My love fell on a soundfile suitably called
“Shutdown” (hold down [Alt] and click here to download)

In order to use our newly obtained and totally cool sound we need to convert it from a “.wav” file to a “.aiff file” . This is best done by using iTunes. In order to convert our sound-file to the right format we need to configure iTunes…
(If you are an experienced Mac user you might wanna skip the iTunes part)

Open iTunes and choose “iTunes Preferences”

Choose the “Import” button and select “Import Using: AIFF Encoder“ leave settings on “Automatic”

Now we are ready fore the actual conversion and to do so first drag the “shutdown.aif” file from the desktop in to iTunes…

…then (right-click on mouse) or (hold down [ctrl] and click) on the selected tune and choose “Convert Selection to AIFF”

Drag the newly converted .aiff file back to the desktop ready for use.

In order to make this work all fine and dandy you should go to your “Music ” folder on your hard-drive and make and create a new folder called “system fx” or what ever makes you happy and so you doesn’t accidently erase it under influence or something, leaving you very annoyed so you call me in the middle of the night screaming why the f..?#?&! is my Mac not saying goodnight to me as usual… phew… don’t wanna go there!

Finally we just need learn the plug-in and the sound-file to be buddies…

Go to the little blue apple in the upper left corner and choose “System Preferences”

In the bottom of the system preferences menu you’ll find the installed plug-in “SystemSound”

When opened choose the button“Shutdown Sound”

Go to the bottom and choose the “Add Sound” button and give the path Music>System FX>shutdown.aif

Done… Try to restart.
I hope you will have fun.

Resently the cameras on cellphones are getting better and better. How ever the optics on them are mostly crap made of cheap plastic.
Then i spawned the idea “Why not oparate an SLR lens on to the cell?”
This hack will give you 36x optical zoom on your cell just because of the crop factor + the zoom of the lens you may use. I’d strongly recomend using a prime lens for easier calibrating the focal distance.
I chosed to use a Nikon 50mm f/1.4…

The first thing to do is get rid of the old crappy one…
1: Remove the plastic back of the cell

2: Remove the 4 torc-screws and gently pry of the lid, exposing the electronics.

3: Now it’s time for the really delecate stuff, getting the old lens off.
The promblem is that Nokia in all their wisdom glued the lens on the camera and to get i off, you’ll have to brake it by gently prying a screwdriver in between the lens and the tube holding it.

4: Now it’s time to put it all back together again (do step 2 and then 1)

5: You need to get a hold of a c-mount/SLR-lens converter… Like the one i used in the Super zoom on a surveillance camera. article.

6: Carve out a hole in the backplate to fit the converter. Remember the hole should be exactly above the CCD-chip, this is very important!!!

7: Use about 7 layers of moulding tape to hold the converter on to the backplate.

8: Assemble the phone and mount your lens.

Get ready to shoot!

NOTE: The downside of this project is that the a little wobly on the camera so focusing can be a little hard to do… And do to the fact, the nikon lens isn’t optimized for such a small chip the pictures taken, will have some light stribes along the sides of the foto.

For some reason I’ve always wanted a video camera with a huge amount of zoom.
Why..? Well. For no good reason at all. I just did. That drew me to build the zoom converter..

This strange setup gave me a good idea about the aprox distance between the cam & the lens.

A little theory:
One of the major issues to get at good picture is the optic the light has to pass through, before it hits the LCD, CMOS etc.
And the cheapest way to get a quality lens and with the most amount of zoom, is by using your standard 35mm SLR optics of any brand. Even a lot of the cheapest ones will do. ( a standard 70-300mm costs aprox 160$). These optics are the ones with the biggest market share and there fore the cheapest and easiest to get.

The obvious choice of camera is the standard CCD surveillance-camera.
They are cheap and comes in a large variety of versions; Monochrome, color, one CCD, 3CCD, Low res, High res, High speed, etc. For my little experiment i just used a 50$ Monochrome CCD camera. (get them at ebay)

With these things in mind.
All i now needed was to build the converter pice between optic and camera.
Easier said than done… However since all my 35mm optics where Nikon. I bought an old Nikon camera and slaughtered it.. Loads of fun and half an hour later i got the pice i needed. Just the small bayonet couplingthat attaches the lens to the SLR camera. I also had an old CCD-camera that endured the same fate as the SLR-Camera. So now i also had the C-mount coupling to attach my converter to the surveillance-camera. I went a workshop to make me a small cylinder and a few other items to make it work..

I will soon admit… It isn’t pretty.. but it worked like a charm.

Oh! The agony.
When i two weeks later found that some other soul got the same idea…
And even got the nerve to mass-produce the converter i thought necessary to build myself. Back in the old 8mm days, a genius thought of using low-cost photo-optics on his 8mm video cam. To my fortune they come in all shapes and sizes… So, i rushed my credit-card through the web-teller and got myself quite a few different types. One of course being Nikon-adapteble… the rest is calibrating…

Then i just added my 500mm Mirror optic and no neighbor was safe for my ever watchful eye..

A little theory #2
The 35mm SLR photo optic is made for 35mm film the CCD in my camera is 1/8 of this. Thus. I will gain x8 the amount of zoom the lens holds… 500×8=4000mm. NICE LENS!!!

Success!!