Elegant Eternal

Disclaimer: This post reflects my opinion only. It is not posted to hurt anybody.

I sometimes wonder, what makes a country strong: is it the huge buildings, posh roads, etc or the strong wise men to build a nation? Is it not that both the former and latter are equally essential? Is it so the former can be accomplished only if we have the latter ones??? The latter ones say that there is no reason to be here since there is no career and recognition for merit. The latter ones remember that they once belonged to this land and come back when their kids begin to grow up in a foreign land. As for me, just because the neighbouring house aunty is modern and gorgeous, I can't stay at her house as a guest for a long time and can't love her as much as I love my mother. No matter how ever my mother is, I love her and the love is eternal.

On thursday morning, while I was stuck up in a traffic jam as usual, my attention was caught by the two little kids aged around 10-12 years who were asking the car owners or the bike riders at the traffic signal to buy the tricolor flags or the badges. But nobody even bothered to look at them. I was watching this through the window of the bus which was far away from those kids. Many people speak of abolishment of child labour and lengthy speeches on it, if they are so concerned why wouldn't they help those kids by buying a flag/badge which would cost them less than Rs 10/- or did they think it was a waste of money buying them? The child wasn't begging or stealing. He had chosen a path of decent living.

At office, grand celebrations went on in the evening which included cultural dances and finally concluded by National Anthem. All of us stood up, no matter we were eating or hurrying for the bus. There was some sort of oneness to which all of us are bound to.

For those people, who work on daily wages. Those who sustain eating once a day or thrive with hunger for days together, who don't even have voters card nor a shelter to protect them, it was just another day in their life.

Janani janmabhoomisch, Swargadapi gariyasi (the mother and motherland are dearer than heaven)

CHDK is a firmware enhancement that operates on a number of Canon Cameras. CHDK gets loaded into your camera's memory upon bootup (either manually or automatically). It provides additional functionality beyond that currently provided by the native camera firmware.

CHDK is not a permanent firmware upgrade: you decide how it is loaded (manually or automatically) and you can always easily remove it.

Terrific geeky technology. It does the following too:

The current set of extra capabilities fall into six categories:

a. Enhanced ways of recording images - you can capture still pictures in RAW format (as well as JPEG), and for video images you can have increased recording time and length (1 hour or 2 GB), and a greatly increased range of compression options.

b. Additional data displays on the LCD screen - histogram, battery life indicator, depth of focus, and many more.

c. Additional photographic settings that are not available on the camera by itself - longer exposure times (up to 65 seconds), faster shutter speeds (1/25,000 sec, and faster in some cases), automatic bracketing of exposure, etc.

d. The ability for the camera to run programs ('scripts', written in a micro-version of the BASIC language) stored on the memory card - these programs allow you to set the camera to perform a sequence of operations under the control of the program. For example, a camera can be programmed to take multiple pictures for focus bracketing, or take a picture when it detects that something in the field of view moves or changes brightness.

e. The ability to take a picture, or start a program on the memory card, by sending a signal into the USB port - you can use the USB cable to take a picture remotely.

f. The ability to do a number of other more useful (and fun) things, such as act as a mini file browser for the memory card, let you play games on the LCD screen, etc.

The All Best version CHDK which is better than the others as far as I've seen.

Steps for installation

1) Copy both the attached files to the memory card (in the root folder) using a memory card reader.

2) Put the memory card back in your camera

3) Power up the camera in review mode

4) Press the menu button and go down to the last option. You would see a new option that reads firmware upgrade or something similar.

5) Select that option and give ok when it asks confirmation

6) Your camera would restart.. and now you should be seeing additional options like a battery charge indicator..

Now switch to camera mode. You would have to experiment a bit to learn how to function with CHDK.

To avoid the camera going back to the normal mode each time u start the camera and to start it directly in CHDK mode you'll need to use a SD card that comes with the "lock" notch in its side.

1) Start the camera and enable CHDK mode.

2) Go into the CHDK's <alt> menu.

3) There would be an option that reads debug parameters or something like that. Inside menu there'll be an option that reads "make card bootable".

4) Give ok. Give it 2 seconds.

5) Now switch off your camera. Take the card out and put it to locked mode using the 'lock' notch.

6) Now put it back in. That's it. Now your camera will always load in CHDK mode. (Until you push the lock notch to normal position in the SD card). The camera will shoot pics even while the card is in locked mode.

Try http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK_firmware_usage for operating instructions if needed....

Shooting images in RAW:

When you start your camera in CHDK mode its like this….

There are 2 menus that can open up when you press the menu button

1) The standard menu that came up with the camera

2) When you press the shortcut key, you'll see an indication in the bottom of the screen that reads <alt>. Now the menu button would open up the CHDK menu instead of the standard menu.. To shoot with the camera or to go to the standard menu you've to press the shortcut key again so that the <alt> disappears. [When you press the shutter release with the <alt> mode up, it would not shoot but rather run the script that had been selected using the CHDK menu]

Once you get inside the CHDK menu, there'll be lot of options…

In this menu, go to RAW parameters, the first option would be Save RAW. Enable this option. Now your camera will shoot in RAW and also in jpg. The RAW output might be located in a separate folder inside the DCIM folder.

In RAW, more details can be brought up. So doing an action like increasing exposure would yield better results and hence not much of postprocessing would be required. However, initially we've to convert it to DNG format. This software does a mass convert into DNG format. DNG format is a widely known common RAW format standard.

To process the RAW photos, use a software called DNG to convert it to DNG format (http://dng4ps2.chat.ru/index_en.html) and then import it using photoshop CS (7.0 doesn't support) or Lightroom. Only then we can process it.

Advantages using CHDK
It adds up a lot of functionality that we can utilize when needed.

S3 IS doesn't have a battery charge indicator. It will indicate only when the battery is about to be empty. But using CHDK I can get a precise battery charge indicator.

The maximum shutter speed provided in the actual firmware is 15secs. Longer values of 25secs can be achieved using CHDK…

Another cool feature: Anti motion detection - What it does is that after the camera is set and press the shutter release button, it keeps on detecting motion. It will take the actual picture when motion becomes nil. This is kewl for taking group shots. We can press the release button, go stand in front of the camera and when everyone's ready and stay steady and pose for the camera, it will take the snap.

If you've any of Canon Sx(1/2/3/5) IS Series, go download and feel the difference in camera shooting :)

Courtesy: Cliford Shelton

We, Bangaloreans, have been facing severe power cuts at random intervals. First, it was the petrol price hike followed by LPG prices reaching sky. Now, we are running out of electricity in the Silicon City.

The roads have been dug up which are still under construction. No idea when the potholes will be closed. And these power cuts in the night!! I carry a torch in my bag everyday such that it will be easy for me to walk home while coming back from work during the late evenings. Self-help is the best help :) Next time, you go out and if you are reaching home late in the evening, then do remember to take a torch with you because power-cuts are frequent.I received this mail as a measure to conserve the power. Hence, I am just copying and pasting it here. :)

Hi all,
As we all know that electricity is now not available in abundance and is becoming priced commodity.
Let us do our bit to save electricity.
Please follow below steps to hibernate your PC.

First Step:
Please hibernate your PCs to save electricity. Steps to enable hibernations are given as below.
This works in windows XP and above.
1] Go to start >> control panel >> Power settings.

2] Go to 'hibernate' tab and click on 'enable hibernation 'Once this is done, the PC will have a 'hibernate' option also when you shut down the PC. You can as well use the same instead of shut down.
3] Go back to control panel, scheduled tasks
4] Add a new scheduled task (right click à new scheduled task). Name it as Hibernate
5] Right click >> properties.

6] In the run option, copy paste the following
C:\WINDOWS\System32\rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState
7] Check the Run only if logged on checkbox

8] Go to Schedule tab and schedule it to run on 'n' minutes of being idle

This can be added in every PC, then even if you are lazy to do a manual hibernate, it will automatically do the same if the system is idle for the specified number of minutes. All you need is to lock the PC and go home and start it the next day!:)
Second Step:
Let us all switch off the PCs and the main power switches before leaving for the day. If something needs to be executed in our absence after our EOD let us switch off the monitor and the main switch giving power to Desktop.
Third Step:
Let us switch off the fans and lights before leaving office if none are using them.
Fourth Step:
Let us follow electricity saving steps in our homes too.

Fifth Step:
Let us propagate this among our colleagues/friends/teams and increase the energy conservation and Power savings.
Thanks for your co-operation!!