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RainyDayMagazine's content can now be licensed for your print magazine or web site. Please contact us directly here. If you want to see something reviewed, then drop us a note with a link and we'll be happy to take a look.
NOTE: Click here to read more about our approach to product reviews. |
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July 31,2012- On Vacation... |
The RainyDayMagazine crew will be taking the month of August off to enjoy the 2012 Olympics. We will be back in September! [Permalink] - On Vacation!
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July 30,2012- Olympics Live... |
The entire 2012 Olympics is being streamed live on NBCOlympics.com. Every event will be is available online and on the iPad. This is the first time that anyone with a cable TV subscription can "watch" any or all of the events (depending on the number of computers one is willing to dedicate to the effort).
Setup for Live Steaming was pretty easy, but only if you have a Cable TV subscription which included either MSNBC or CNBC channels. This is because Live Streaming is only available to customers with a certain level of service. If you don't, then you will need to find a "friend" who is willing to... [more]- Olympics Live
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July 27,2012- Mixing iBooks Templates... |
The iBooks Author application has had a huge impact on how book publishers are approaching text book publication. We have been looking at it to see if we can use it in place of the more expensive Adobe Digital Publishing (ADP) suite of tools for creating an iPad-ready digital magazine.
In the iBooks Author FirstUse article back in January, we showed how easy it was to use. We were able to the default templates to layout a mockup for the iPad. The preview feature enabled us to... [more]- Mixing iBooks Templates
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July 26,2012- More iBooks Templates... |
Yesterday we talked about the templates available for iBooks Author. Today, we are going to look at one more source for templates.
Just like website templates, iBooks templates are formatting instructions that tell iBooks Author how to layout specific pages for anyone interested in creating an iBook. We mentioned Jamsoft and Macmanus as good sources. Another great resource is Graphic Node. They call theirs "themes" but they are templates like the other ones. However, for $17, you get a collection of... [more]- More iBooks Templates
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July 25,2012- iBooks Author Templates... |
We stated on the first day the iPad became available that the world had fundamentally changed, not just in how we would interact with computers going forward, but in how we would interact with the world. The intervening two years (only two?) have proved us right. The iPad has changed the way we get information, be entertained, and do just about everything. Many people don't bother with newspapers or magazines any more. Some don't even use their laptops as much as they used to. Why bother when you can get the news, read magazines, and surf the Web on the iPad? With the iPad's ease of use, the device itself became almost invisible. Users now focus on the task rather than the hardware. Isn't that the way it is suppose to be?
The iPad has always been able to display EPUB and PDF files in book-like way. With the ability to automatically reflow text based on size and screen orientation, everyone understood the potential of the iPad for electronic publishing. The missing component for true egalitarian iPad e-publishing, however, was the ability to do all the cool stuff (embed video, slideshow, audio, etc) available to custom-built iPad apps without needing to hire programmers to do it. Where was "PageMaker" for the iPad? Adobe came out with something in 2011 which enabled those willing to cough up some serious cash to publish to the iPad, as long as you already had Adobe Creative Suite. As cool as the tools were, the pricing way out of whack with reality for small publishers, i.e, people who wanted to share their ideas/knowledge in something other than a blog or a website.
At the beginning of 2012, Apple announced they would make available the means for anyone to publish interactive text books for the iPad. The news rocked the publishing world. We are, of course, referring to the... [more]- iBooks Author Templates
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July 24,2012- Casio EDIFICE EQWT720... |
Recently we mentioned that we would be taking a closer look at some of Casio's wristwatch offerings. In June we had a FirstLook at the Casio EDIFICE EFR-516. Today we are going to take a FirstLook at the Casio EQW720DC-1A, which was released in the Spring and is one of the newer members of the EDIFICE line.
With a $580 list price, the Casio EQW720DC-1A is positioned at the higher end of the EDIFICE line. However, not only are you not likely to find it discounted, you may have a hard time finding one at all. Many Casio dealers are finding it difficult to keep this watch in stock. If you want one, your best option is to... [more] - Casio EDIFICE EQWT720 FirstLook
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July 23,2012- Slide Out Shelves DIY... |
It is difficult to be organized if you have no place to put things. You can sort and label everything, you put them in containers, and you can still end up with piles all over the place. The key to organization is ease of access. Shelves and bookcases solve a lot of storage and organizational problems, but sometimes access can be an issue.
This was the dilemma for one of our editors. Her creative side extends beyond writing screenplays and children books in her free time. She is also quite the jewelry designer. As such, she has an extensive collection of beads, stones, and other shiny bits. All of these items are in tins, boxes, and containers. Whenever she is in a creative mood, an "explosion" sort of happens in her office. Strings of stones, boxes of baubles, and other parts would be laid out everywhere. This was how she could clearly see all of her materials and allow her to select the the bits she needs for her project. Needless to say, cleaning up can be time consuming. So she asked the RainyDayRenovations guys to see if they could come up with something which would let her... [more] - Slide Out Shelves DIY
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July 20,2012- Butcher Block Top DIY... |
When we "acquired" the IKEA FLYTTA stainless steel kitchen cart in June, we came up with a really nice accessory for it: a cutting board. IKEA does not sell a cutting board that large, so we looked around for an alternative. We soon discovered that a commercially made 36"x24" maple butcher-block cutting board can set one back anywhere from $200 to $500! That was when we remembered we had a table top from an old DIY project which would be perfect for the cart.
OK, perfect once we cut it down to size, sanded off the grime, and refinished it for food use. The large piece of maple was a table top we made (out of maple stair treads) over twenty years ago. It had been in storage for the past ten years, forgotten, until last week. We found it leaning up against a... [more] - Butcher Block Top DIY
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July 19,2012- Fenway Park :100 Years Old... |
Boston and baseball has had a love/hate relationship for a long time. Red Sox fans held their collective breath for the 86 years between the BoSox's World Series championships, and that is a long time to not breath. OK, so the Chicago Cubs have not won since 1908, but hey, while totally lovable, it's the Cubs. We'll leave it at that.
This year Fenway Park, the home of the Red Sox, celebrates its 100th-year anniversary. The Park opened in 1912 even though construction had not completely finished. The right- and center-field grandstands and the center-field bleachers were in place, but the Park was missing the... [more] - Fenway Park: 100 Years Old
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July 18,2012- Batman Trilogy... |
The last installment of director Christopher Nolan's Batman series will hit the screens tomorrow at midnight. We, like millions of Batman fans, have been waiting patiently for months.
To get ready for the premiere, many would either take the day off or leave work early so they would have time to watch the first two movies (Batman Begins and The Dark Knight) on DVD before going to the... [more] - The Dark Knight Trilogy
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July 17,2012- Master Mechanic Cordless Drill Kit.. |
Local hardware stores have disappeared across much of the United States. They have found it difficult to compete, price-wise, with the giant warehouse players like Home Depot and Lowe's. To be clear, we love going to Home Depot and Lowe's. We love the low prices, huge selections, and efficiency of it all. However, we also love competition. Because without it, we would have complacency, a "take the customer for granted-ness" mentality, and eventually, higher prices. It is because of that and many other reasons why we are happy that we have True Values hardware store in our neighborhood.
True Value is different from the big boys in many ways. First, True Value Company is a retailer-owned hardware cooperative with over 4,500 independent retail locations worldwide. Second, members of the True Value cooperative own their individual stores and operate independently of True Value Company. Third, the stores are smaller and generally in located right in town. Thus, they are an active part of the neighborhood, anchoring other businesses around it, and helping support the local ecosystem.
Communities are beginning to remember the value of "smaller." However, being "smaller" does not mean being less competitive with the big boys. As a cooperative, the True Value Company tallied over $1.8 billion in revenue in 2010, offers over 60,000 products, and has 12 distribution centers. This all adds up to a lot of leverage when it comes to buying from wholesalers. This is the reason why True Value's prices are very competitive. All they need to do is to get traffic into the stores.
One of the ways to get customers into the store is to offer them something they can't get anywhere else. The Master Mechanic 18-Volt 3/8-Inch Variable-Speed Reversible (VSR) Cordless Drill is one such item. At $70 for the kit (drill, 2 batteries, charger, tote), this has to be one of the... [more] - Master Mechanic 18-Volt 3/8-Inch VSR Cordless Drill Kit FirstLook
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July 16,2012- Hummingbird at the FPZ... |
We are trying to entice hummingbirds to the RainyDayGarden. A few weeks ago, we got a couple of beautiful glass feeders from our favorite garden-gear source, Gardener's Supply Company, and put them up. So far, no luck in spotting the little hummers. However, we are hopeful that our efforts will be rewarded now that the trumpet vines and cone flowers are in full bloom.
When we were at the Franklin Park Zoo in June, not all of the exhibits had opened. One of those was the Butterfly Landing. We have been meaning to go back to the FPZ to check it out. So when we heard that the FPZ had some hummingbirds nesting there, we dropped everything and... [more] - Hummingbird at the FPZ
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July 13,2012- Time Machine Setup... |
Yesterday we showed how easy it was to roll your own 3-terabyte external drive. Today, we will show how simple it is to set up and use OSX's Time Machine feature to perform automated backups of your data.
Most disks come pre-formatted for the Windows operating system (NTFS), but in order to use the Time Machine feature, the drive must be formatted as Mac OS Extended-Journaled. Reformatting the drive can be done easily with... [more] - Time Machine Setup
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July 12,2012- 3TB Backup Drive Setup... |
Everybody knows they should back up their personal data, but the majority of people do not. There are a few reasons for this, some of which are valid, others of which are lame. If you are using OSX, this article and the next will show just how simple it is to put an automated backup system in place.
There are several ways one can back up data: back up to a partition on an internal drive; back up to "the cloud;" and back up to an external drive.
We don't really like backing up to a partition in an internal drive. If the drive fails, then everything is lost (in techno-speak, "You are hosed, dude"). Backing up to the cloud is a pretty good strategy because the data will always be available regardless of where you are (assuming you have Internet access). The down side of a cloud backup is if you have a lot of data, the initial backing up to can take a long time. Also, you will likely have to pay an annual storage fee for the data. Backing up to a single, portable, external drive is the strategy we like best and is the... [more] - 3TB Backup Drive Setup
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July 11,2012- Nikkor 18-300mm Zoom FirstUse... |
The FirstShots we took over the weekend gave a quick glimpse of what Nikon's new 18-300mm DX zoom is capable of out of the box. We wanted to see if this longer zoom could replace the trusty Nikkor 18-200mm "grab-n-go" lens. In order to do that, we really needed to take it out into the field and give a workout. We could have stayed in Boston, but the 90º+ weather made us think that the Cape would be a better choice. So Sunday afternoon, we packed up and head down to Chatham, aka The Elbow of the Cape.
The first place we tested out the new Nikkor was at a baseball game. If you live in the New England area and have not been to a Cape League game, you are missing out. The cost of a ticket? What tickets? The games are free!
We got there after the game started, but were still able to find seats closed to third base. It was around 6:30 when we sat down. The lights had not come on yet, but we knew that in order to freeze the action, we had better crank up the ASA. So all the images taken at the game were at ASA 3200. All of the shots were taken hand-held and with VR active. Here are some shots of the... [more] - Nikkor 18-300mm Zoom FirstUse
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July 10,2012- Nikkor 18-300mm Zoom FirstShots... |
We gave RainyDayPhotography readers a quick FirstLook of the brand new AFS-DX Nikkor 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens yesterday. Today, we thought we would show some of the results we got when we mounted the lens on a D90 and pointed it out the window.
We are fully aware that every zoom lens is a compromise between a host of competing requirements. This lens is no exception. By understanding its sweet spots and boundaries, we should be able to use this new lens to its full potential. We hope to have a better understanding of what this new Nikkor lens is capable of over the next few months. In the mean time, click on any of the... [more] - Nikkor 18-300mm Zoom FirstShots
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July 9,2012- Nikkor 18-300mm Zoom FirstLook... |
When we purchased our first Nikon DX camera (D40), it came with an 18-55mm kit lens. Knowing that we would want to "reach out" further, we purchased a 55-200mm zoom in addition to the kit. We used that combo for a while, but when we upgraded the body to the D90, we knew we didn't want to be switching lenses when hiking about in the wild. So we bit the bullet and coughed up the cash for the 18-200mm DX Zoom. That turned out to be an excellent decision. We used that D90/18-200mm combo for almost three years. Granted, the 18-200mm zoom was nowhere as sharp as the 50mm 1.8 prime, nor could it reach out as far as the Sigma 50-500mm super-zoom, but the lens was so versatile for everyday shooting that it rarely came off of the D90.
In mid-June, Nikon announced that they would be releasing the AFS-DX Nikkor 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR at the end of the month. As soon as we heard the announcement, we placed a pre-order for the lens on Amazon. The package showed up over the weekend. Knowing that RainyDayPhotography readers would want a FirstLook immediately, we thought... [more] -Nikkor 18-300mm Zoom FirstLook
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July 6,2012- Hummingbird Feeder Install... |
As we wanted to capture proof of any hummingbird visits, we needed to not just place our new hummingbird feeders where they could be seen, but also where we could quickly set up our camera and tripod. After trying a few different spots, we settled on two locations in the RainyDayGarden which met both criteria.
From the second-floor window, we have a "bird's eye" view of the two feeders (front, back). The 18-200mm Nikkor lens will let us get close enough for the shot if a hummingbird does indeed come by for a visit. To insure that we don't just get a blur, we placed the feeders in the sun so we could use a... [more] -Hummingbird Feeder Install
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July 5,2012- RDG Update: Cone Flowers... |
On Tuesday we gave an update on the state of the RainyDayGarden, at the end of which we mentioned that the cone flowers are hardy perennial which can be a great addition to any garden. Apparently quite many readers agree.
Cone flowers, or Echinacea, is an herbaceous, drought-tolerant, perennial that grows to almost five feet in height. They are native to eastern and central North America and bloom from early to... [more] -RDG Update: Cone Flowers
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July 4,2012- Happy 4th of July... |
Happy 4th of July!!!
We are seeing some light rain at the moment, but the forecast is for the storm to pass in time for the fireworks this evening. [Permalink] - Happy 4th of July
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July 3,2012- RDG Update: Day Lilies... |
The RainyDayGarden made it through the second heat wave without a scratch. In fact, the plants have not been this healthy for many years. We think the reason is the large amount of rain we got at the end of May. It must have really helped to establish deep roots during the Spring growth spurt. Whether that was the reason or not, we are happy to sit back and enjoy the show.
Like many people, we got our starter clumsp of day lilies from friends and/or family. In our case, one of the editors got it from his dad (who has been growing them for over forty years). The scientific name for daylily is Hemerocallis. The Greek word Hemerocallis is derived from the words meaning "beauty" and "day." True to its name, each flower lasts only... [more] -RDG Update : Day Lilies
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July 2,2012- IKEA Kitchen Cart... |
The stainless steel IKEA FLYTTA cart we "restored" a week ago was, regrettably, too large for our needs. However, as luck would have it, a smaller version of the FLYTTA was also for sale on Craigslist. With an asking price of $25 we didn't even bother to haggle (something of which we love to do). This one even had a drawer (the current IKEA version does not).
Our disassembly experience with the last cart taught us to bring along the SwiftDriver. Granted, this cart had fewer shelves and other bits, but we were glad we brought the SwiftDriver with us as it was a... [more] -IKEA Kitchen Cart
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