CHAOTIME

Archive for Technology

Coen for Judge 2012

January 20, 2012 Blog, Technology, Web Design No comments

The official “Coen for Judge 2012” website is finally done and online! If you live in Los Angeles and you’re interested in getting more information on “Coen for Judge 2012,” please visit the website: coenforjudge2012.com.
Thank you, for your support!

Project Notes:
For this project, we used WordPress as the “CMS” of choice and a few widgets to enhance the visitor experience. WordPress is often viewed as just a blogging tool, but it’s actually more powerful than that. It’s definitely great for blogging, but WordPress is also a fully capable “mini” CMS for any small to medium sized business, or campaign. True, there aren’t a lot of options for a basic WordPress website, but more functionality can be added on with a ton of free third-party widgets and plugins. For the inexperienced web content manager, WordPress couldn’t be any more intuitive. Highly recommended!

How to Install or Upgrade RAM on a Macbook Pro

December 6, 2011 Blog, Technology, Video, VLOG No comments

When I bought my Macbook Pro earlier this year, I opted to go with just 4GB of pre-installed RAM to get my Macbook at a lower price. 4GB of RAM is pretty good, but to maximize my Macbook Pro’s potential, I decided to upgrade it to 8GB last night… on my own! This was very scary to do for a few reasons;

I’m not a hardware guy at all
I don’t know what I’m doing because of the reason above
Any hardware tampering voids the manufacturer’s warranty

… so I decided to upgrade the RAM on my own, HA! I was nervous beyond description but, you know what? It was actually very intuitive, very simple, and not bad at all! Just in case I ruined anything, I decided to document my little operation with a couple cameras and, since nothing bad happened on my very first try, I decided to put together a “how-to” video on RAM installation. Here’s the video.

Again, please subscribe to my YouTube channel for more videos. Thanks for watching!

Apps Review: Five Guys and Big Lens

October 27, 2011 Blog, Photography, Technology No comments

There seems to be a zillion smartphone apps out there now, and the numbers are growing exponentially. From the zillions available, I have a few favorite apps that I use on a daily basis, and I just installed a couple more. While these aren’t apps I’d use everyday, they are worth talking about; Five Guys and Big Lens.

Let’s talk about the first one I mentioned, Five Guys. One word: brilliant! They had an Android version out before they came out with one for the iPhone so I had to use a computer or Safari on my iPhone to make my orders for pick up. Not anymore! The Five Guys app is now available for the 2 most popular smartphone platforms. If you love Five Guys Burgers and Fries as much as I do, and you have a smartphone, this app is definitely for you. Ordering with the free Five Guys app couldn’t be any simpler. And picking up your order when the line is trailing out the entrance is priceless! No more waiting! Get more information and download the Five Guys app here.

The second app I’d like to talk about is Big Lens. Photography is a hobby of mine and, even if it’s just my phone’s camera, I ALWAYS have a camera with me. I’d love to have my DSLR with me at all times, but often times, they’re just too inconveniently big. Wouldn’t it be great to take pictures with the “look” of a DSLR without carrying a huge camera? Well, here’s where Big Lens comes in. This app enables the “photographer” to take pictures and apply blurs around the subject to get that shallow depth-of-field look. Sort of. This app tries its best and has some pretty neat features such as custom aperture settings and blur shapes like stars and hearts, but obviously it will never replace an actual DSLR, nor was it intended to. For just $.99 however, this app will definitely make your amateur pictures a little more interesting. Here’s an example of a picture I took; before and after applying the Big Lens effect. Here’s more information on Big Lens.

Do you have some apps you’d recommend getting or not getting? Let me know in the comments below.

iOS 5 Review

October 14, 2011 Blog, Technology No comments

After having spent a full day with the latest iOS update on my iPhone 4, I can honestly say that this is, by far, the best iOS update. Why wouldn’t it be, right? There are “over 200 new features” that iOS 5 comes with, but there are a couple in particular that I’d like to talk about, both of which fall under the iCloud umbrella; “Photostream” and “Find my iPhone/Mac”.

First of all, let’s talk about iCloud. In a nutshell, iCloud is this mysterious datacenter that can be accessed with all of your Apple devices. iCloud can store all your important data like email, contacts, calendars, documents, pictures, and more.

While the storable items I mentioned make iCloud a slick new feature in iOS 5, I think “Photostream” is the slickest! Basically, you can take pictures with any of your mobile Apple devices and your pictures will be “automagically” uploaded to Apple’s iCloud service and shared with ALL your other Apple devices. No more cables and no more external storage devices required to transfer pictures.

“Find my iPhone/Mac” is another really cool part of iOS 5. This is basically a security feature that allows you to do what its name says — find your iPhone, iPad, iTouch, or Macbook. By enabling this, you can pinpoint and locate your device(s) on a map if it’s lost or stolen. After locating your device, you can either send a message to that device, lock it, or wipe it clean and render it useless.

Finally, the tight Twitter integration in iOS 5 is one more favorite that I’ll highlight. I tweet a lot so being able to tweet from any iOS App makes tweeting even quicker and easier.

As advertised, iOS 5 has a ton of new features. The best part? I didn’t have to upgrade my iPhone 4 to iPhone 4S to enjoy the best new features of iOS 5. The aforementioned ones are only a few of my favorites. For a complete list of iOS 5 features in more detail, visit the iOS page on Apple’s website.