David Trebacz Blog

I was looking for an inexpensive remote for my Canon 40D SLR. I had looked at the Canon infrared remotes (like the Canon RC-1), but didn't like the idea of having to be line of sight with the infrared window of the camera. They were inexpensive, but you'd still have to use the in camera timer if you wanted to be in the shot (or have a nice picture of yourself holding the remote). I decided to take a chance and buy a inexpensive wireless Canon remote on ebay. The seller was located in Hong Kong, but the $18 price was great so I took a risk. The remote had the features I was looking for: JYC JY-110 Wireless Remote Control includes: 1 x V2s Wire/Wireless Remote Control C3 for Canon 10D 20D 30D 40D 50D 5D 5D Mark II 1D 1Ds and etc. 1 x CR2 Battery 1 x 23A Battery 1 x English Instructions FREE 32 inches Lanyards with K hooks What's new with this Wire/Wireless Remote Control? Work as both wired and wireless remote control. The receiver works as a wired remote as w...

I decided that I should keep snapshots off my Panasonic IP webcam every 2 seconds over the holidays. I set the IP webcam's internal software to drop of an image on my FTP server using the configuration software built into the camera. I primarily did this as a security measure for our house. I also created a script on my linux box to delete any images older than 2 weeks. I set this up to run once a day as a cron job. If there ever was an security question or issue we had 640x480 images of (about 20,000 images at 44KB apiece) our house covering the past 2 weeks safely stored on my server. Then I got the idea by playing with Picasa, that it would be cool to build these into a time lapse video sequence that I would make avaiable on my website. Needless to say after playing around with various tutorials and scripts I have something that works really well. The once daily updated finished product is available here: http://gpigs.trebacz.com/Office_Cam.htm (embedded flash v...

Just replaced the bulb on my Samsung 50" DLP TV this week. We were watching a movie, when we heard a large "pop" come from the DLP TV and the screen went black. Every few minutes we'd hear a "clicking" sound out of the TV, so I unplugged it and got online. My wife freaked out a bit. We bought it in 2004, so it's almost exactly 5 years old at this point. I guess that's the life I would have expected out of the bulb. I was pleased to see that the replacement bulbs had come down in price significantly from when we bought the TV. I bought the bulb from discount-merchant.com for $120 and normal shipping charges (also found a coupon code "fiveoff" for $5 off my order): http://www.discount-merchant.com/Samsung-BP96-00826A-Lamp-Enclosure-p/samsung-bp96-00826a-lamp-enc.htm The company sounded a bit like a shady internet business, but the more research I did -the more comfortable I got with them. I decided to buy the whole assembly for the e...

At least I'm not alone in the fact that my Motorola Droid keeps loosing my Microsoft Exchange email account periodically. I have personally lost the exchange account 4 times (and the other IMAP accounts under the email application). Putting in the credentials again "fixes it". The frequency has gone up since the upgrade to Android 2.0.1. During the entire time the gmail mail accounts are fine. Here are a few of the posts that I'm tracking relating to the issue. No official word from Google, Motorola, or Verizon on the problem -or a pending fix. Reports on Google's Android forum: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=4866 http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=4980 Reports on Verizon's droid forum: http://forums.verizon.com/t5/Android-Devices/Email-accounts-being-deleted-from-Droid/td-p/117067;jsessionid=32c7704020432f772a7cfec1677f7fd52 Reports on Motorola's message forum: http://supportforums.motorola.com/message/89501 I...

Decided today was the day to set up USB tethering on my Motorla Droid running Android 2.0. I'm getting ready for a business trip and I'm always amazed at the places that you can't get a wireless connection. USB tethering allows me to always have a fallback cellular connection (usually 3G on Verizon's network) for those type of emergencies. I love the products produced by June Fabrics. I used their product to intermittently tether my Windows Treo 700W -and it got me out of some odd jams. Essentially it was it's like using your cell phone as a 3G modem (without having to carry separate devices).  June Fabrics couldn't make the process any simplier: Download the install application from  http://www.junefabrics.com/android/ Begin installing the application -the installer walks you through all the steps nicely. I did need to enable a setting to allow the application to be automatically pushed form the Windo...

Lightkeeper pro was very easy to use to fix. Incandescent Christmas lights I bought this at my local Walmart for twenty dollars -figuring I'd take it back since it probably wouldn't work. Got it home and watched the videos on the manufacturers website ( long and short video from the manufacturer ) . LightKeeper really works and just as easily as in the video. I had 10 strands of 300 count miniature icicle Christmas lights that I could no longer buy (white wire with green bulbs). Here was the procedure. 1. Remove 1 miniature bulb (with the lights plugged in). 2. Plug the tester in where you removed the light bulb. 3. Pull the trigger a few times (In most cases the section lit on the first pull). 4. Replace the bulb. This will be especially helpful on prelit Christmas trees or Christmas lights that go out once there on the tree. This product really is true genius. This was the best money I've spent in a long time. It literally saved me about 3 hours of p...

Overall I'm pretty happy with the Motorola Droid hardware. It powerful, well built device. The only rip would be that the slide out physical keyboard takes some getting used to. I never had any issues hitting the keys on my Treo 700 W, but often times I find myself having to hit the "DEL" key on the droid. I'm very satisfied with the Android 2.0 operating system. In general it works well and seems pretty mature. Many of the default applications that came with the phone are well designed and work well. The navigation in Android 2.0 is really well done. 3rd party applications I really like: Amazon (scan it and buy it from Amazon) Astro (file manager for basic copying and moving files around on your device) Barcode Scanner (scan pc screens for apps to download) KeypassDroid (Password manager application for Android, Windows, and Linux -great!) Locale (automatically change GPS, WIFI, Bluetooth settings based on where your at to conserve battery) PhotoBurst (Nic...