LifeHacker's 2008 favorite features

Best Of 2008: Most Popular How-To Features of 2008

I especially like slipstreaming SP 3 into XP Installs.

Reason over fashion: Yellow iPhone cases

I like my Clarifi case with macro lens, but since it turned my white iPhone black it's darned hard to find around the house.

Turns out, Reason is not quite dead. There are yellow iphone cases for sale. There's even a fire engine lime yellow-green case (several, actually) that would really make my phone easy to find.

I'm impressed.

The state of webcam-based low cost business videoconferencing

ver in Gordon's Notes, where I keep my ravings, I've opined on the root causes of the very slow development of useful and reliable low costs business videoconferencing.

Not for the first time, a solution seems to be almost in reach. It's been a longtime coming.

We've almost got reliable 640x480 (or more) 15fps point-to-point video with reasonably sharp edges and decent management of suboptimal lighting. That's enough to support facial expression tracking, and to enable sharing physical white boards.

Here's my summary of the state of the technology based mostly on my personal experience:

1. There are now reasonable quality USB 2 webcams, but focusing beyond 10 feet can be a real problem. Autofocus, even when it exists, is slow and unreliable.
2. Current webcams have very limited dynamic range. They seem to be tuned to keep from blowing out the high (right) end of histogram, so contrast extremes produce a lot of dark areas. Glare from reflected lights are a real problem. We need next generation sensors to improve the dynamic range.
   
3. Our CMOS (vs CCD) webcams have surprisingly good light sensitivity, even with small lenses and tiny sensors. I often find better results with relatively dim but indirect lighting.
4. I'd like to see some levels on the webcams to help with orientation. Oh, and a $%!$! tripod screw too. Velcro tape and black tape are most helpful, yeah, just like in the movies.
5. Relatively modern laptops seem to have just enough horsepower to do at least 640x480 at 15fps with the newest variants of adaptive h.264 compression. That seems to be the current practical limit.
6. Our networks are a problem. Attacks on BitTorrent seem to be taking out iChat, and possibly other video conferencing software. Comcast gets a lot of criticism; but it may be regional and it's not clear that DSL is always better. Comcast @Work may be better, but I have no real evidence yet. [see update]
   
7. Gmail based Google Video Chat (Vidyo technology) has given us the image quality we need on both XP and OS X. It hasn't, however, been very robust. [1] GVC is point-to-point, no multicasts. It also has voice quality that's sometimes excellent, but we prefer to use standard phone conferencing.
   
8. Stack Overflow likes Oovoo and Adobe Connect. Both have some multi-user support, but in our tests OOvoo had a lot of dropouts. On the other hand, we've had GVC issues as well.
   

I'll update this post as I learn more.

[1] Incidentally, Google's help forums are a waste of time. I think the XP to OS X connections have problems when a corporate VPN or firewall is involved, the XP to XP connctions seem more resilient.

iMovie '08: Official support for FLIP Video camcorders

I wish it had happened six months ago, but for the past month or two editing clips from our Flip Video camcorder in iMovie 8 (on a MacTel machine) has been painless.

Today Apple provided official documentation on how to import the videos (mildly messy): iMovie '08: Pure Digital Flip Video MinoHD camcorders. (Directions are same for all FLIP camcorders.)

With iMovie 8 the imported AVI files are not transcoded, they can now be natively edited. I don't know about iMovie 7 and I've not tried on my G5 PPC machine.

Microsoft LifeCam VX-7000 vs. Logitech 9000 and VisionPro -- it's in the focus

I bought my LifeCam VX-6000 two years ago. For most of that time it sat on my shelf.

Now, thanks to Google Video Chat, and several Microsoft updates of the incredibly botched device drivers, it's finally useful [1].

It's a pretty plain webcam, but it does 800x600 video and that's more than our infrastructure seems able to handle these days. Even 640x480 over Google Video is enough to make a small but close whiteboard readable.

The killer feature of the VX6000 is the manual focus ring. It's chintzy, but it makes all the difference.

Which is why Microsoft's current top-of-the-line webcam seems ... stupid:

LifeCam VX-7000 (Windows only)

...The webcam is always in focus – no fine tuning needed. Focus depth of field is from 21” to 60”...

Right. Always in focus. Uh-huh. They still sell the VX-6000 by the way, but they don't mention the focus ring. Gotta love marketing.

By contrast the competition does autofocus -- sort of ...

Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 (windows only, 960x720 video, aka 720p [2])

Premium autofocus: Your images stay razor-sharp, even in close-ups.

Except from (excellent) Amazon reviews we learn that the VisionPro's autofocus is controlled by the computer, not the camera. So it's sluggish and slow. It also sounds like some VisionPro's can focus further than others, and anything beyond 8 feet is pretty iffy.

There's no manual focus ring on either the Logitech or the LifeCam. Grrr.

Lastly, we have the one and only webcam sold for OS X:

Logitech VisionPro (OS X theoretically, but see this.)

...Premium autofocus: Your images stay razor-sharp, even the most extreme close-ups...

There's about zero information on Logitech's site, much more in their press release

To deliver image-perfect detail and clarity, the Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro webcam for Mac combines Logitech’s premium autofocus technology with Carl Zeiss optics. The new Logitech webcam uses a voice coil motor for its autofocus system, instead of a stepper motor. Focusing is fast and fluid – crisp even in extreme close-ups only 10 cm from the camera lens. Logitech’s autofocus system compensates for changes in image-edge sharpness and refocuses images in less than three seconds.

and on Amazon we get very mixed reviews of the autofocus, from this to this. I wouldn't expect to get much out of this camera on a non-Intel system, so it's really an accessory for the Mac Mini (other Intel systems have built-in not-to-bad webcams). One review that impressed me claims that this camera does its own autofocus, not relying on the computer and gives us the low down on resolution ... [see update]

Autofocus and autoexposure (light level) are done purely in hardware. There's no software to install. This is different from the earlier Logitech QuickCam 9000, which depended on Windows software to do the focus and exposure, which lowered the price of the webcam, but forced you to use Windows. The microphone is pretty good for a webcam, but you'll still want a headset for clear conversation. Frame rate is very fast and smooth, 30fps at 640x480.

... The included stand is very wobbly, and falls down easily. When set on top of the monitor, gravity's the only thing holding it on, it will slide off easily. Unlike the older Logitech webcams with flexible plastic that could mold into place, this camera has stiff plastic, so it doesn't maintain as good a grip. No zoom. Frame rate gets much slower if resolution is increased beyond 640x480. At 960x720, it's 15fps. At the maximum 1600x1200, it's only 5ps. Anything above 960x720 is just hardware upscaling, as the true optical resolution of the webcam is 960x720.

Now that's a review!

The ability to work without drivers on XP is very interesting.

For my purposes I may stick with the LifeCam, but buy one or the other of the Logitechs for our other team members.

[1] The process of establishing a trusted chat relationship is nuts. See update to my Google Video Chat post for what I think works.

[2] Be careful. You may find your chat software won't allow anything beyond 640x480, so this number may be pointless. iChat peaks at 640x480, and practically speaking, that's the limit for everything today. I think to do better we'll need dedicated hardware based h.264 compression on the camera.

Update 12/19/08: (posted as comment on Mr. Krellan's initial review)

I had to order several XP webcams as part of a corporate order, and based on this review I ordered one VisionPro and several Pro 9000 cameras.

... On my XP SP2 laptop the camera took a few seconds to register. In Windows Explorer it then showed up, next to my drives, as a "USB Video Device". (In properties it's "manufactured by microsoft".) Clicking on the "USB Video Device" in Explorer opens a video window. In this display is no "mirroring" or zoom since we're just seeing unmodified output.

The camera focused clearly at 6" (rather better than claimed) and at about 30 feet.

Adjustment to light levels is automatic and impressive.

The dynamic range (ability to deal with glare, bright and dark areas) is vastly better than my 1-2 year old Microsoft VX-6000.

It's a solid device. Mr. Krellan is correct that it doesn't mount very securely but I think will suffice.

Impressive.

Fantastic list of iPhone tips - mostly keyboard

Referral via Daring Fireball - tap tap tap ~ 10 useful iPhone tips & tricks.

There were two things on the list I didn't know about, including how to create 'curly braces' for quotes. I've also reset my phone rather than turn it off when apps slow down, but recovery from off is faster so I might try that.

There are many things about the iPhone that frustrate and worry me, but the virtual keyboard is a work of genius and beauty.

Google's SMS integration - assigning a 406 area code phone number to your Gmail ID

Google has added a (phone) SMS gateway to their Instant Messaging and Video (Chat) Conferencing Gmail extensions.

This would be more interesting if we didn't pay 40 cents every time I sent Emily a text message.

As it is, the most curious part is how they enable Gmail to receive SMS messages ...

Official Gmail Blog: Really new in Labs this time: SMS Text Messaging for chat

... On the receiving end, when you get a text message from Gmail on your phone, it will come from a number in the 406 area code... You can reply to this text on your phone just like you'd reply to any other text. The reply gets routed back to our Gmail servers and shows up in your friend's Gmail chat window...

... messages will come from a [unique] 406 number so you can reply to any message and it will get back to the right person. Messages from the same person will always come from the same number, so you can even bookmark it in your phone....

My interpretation of this cryptic announcement is that the first time you use Gmail to send an SMS message, your Gmail identifier is assigned a unique 406 phone number. From that moment on SMS to that number go to Gmail.

Makes me wonder if there's a GrandCentral angle to all this.

It's not clear whether other phones, with whom you've never communicated, can use that unique number to send Gmail an SMS.

From my perspective this is backwards. I want Google instant messaging on my iPhone, I don't want to bother with SMS at all.

Update: Chris, in comments, notes that 406 is Montana's area code (I also had a 404 typo I've corrected). They chose it to get lots of free numbers.