Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Yellow Pages

You know that feeling of guilt/frustration you get when those yellow pages come to your door and you drop them straight in the recycle bin? It’s such a waste of energy and resources. I just learned about a site called YellowPagesOptOut.com. Just as the name implies, you can opt out of the various phone books that you receive. Type in your zip code and the site will show you which directories are normally delivered. For our area, there were six books on the list! I opted out of all of them and hopefully it means that there will be one less thing getting tossed out at our house.

benmartens May 2, 2013 Commentary

Zane Lamprey’s New TV Show

For those of you who were fans of Three Sheets and Drinking Made Easy, there’s good news: Zane Lamprey is attempting to launch a new show! It will be in the same vein as the previous shows. He travels around the world, enjoys local alcohol, learns a bit about the culture, and has fun doing it. He’s a got a good formula and it’s been frustrating to see him have such a hard time getting a network to support him.

He’s finally given up (?) on the networks and decided to fund this effort through Kickstarter. The show is called CHUG and they’re trying to raise $500K. It’s a lofty goal so I hope you’ll join me in pledging a few bucks to help him out. If you’ve never done a Kickstarter project, it’s pretty easy. The site lists out what you’ll receive for giving various amounts of money and you only pay out if the project hits it’s fundraising goal. There’s no guarantee that you’ll actually receive any of the rewards though! It’s possible that whatever you’re sponsoring will go belly up and fail completely so keep that in mind. I don’t have any fear of that with Zane’s project as he’s a pro at this and has been doing it for a long time.

Starting a project like this also means that once he reaches his goal, he can walk into a network and say “Look, I’ve already got the money to produce the show. All you need to do is pony up the cash to promote it and give me a time slot.” That’s a pretty interesting offer, especially with all the new Internet networks that I blogged about yesterday.

Good luck Zane!

PS. If you are a fan of Zane, be sure to listen to his weekly podcast!

benmartens May 1, 2013 Commentary

New TV Channels

We’re all familiar with CBS, ABC and NBC, but the new “TV channels” are shaping up to be Amazon, Netflix and YouTube. All three companies are purchasing exclusive content for their sites. And these are some pretty big deals with names like Kevin Spacey, Bill Murray, and John Goodman. When you stop and think about it, if you have a Roku box or some other way to watch these sites on your TV, there’s very little difference between watching a show on Amazon or watching a show on NBC. House of Cards was released recently on Netflix and got great reviews. There are a lot more shows in the pipe including a new season for Arrested Development which I’m thrilled about.

Looking ahead 5-10 years, it’s pretty easy to imagine this type of “TV” taking over the traditional television model. On Netflix, Amazon and YouTube, producers can create the exact show they want. There’s no need to break at specific points for commercials or create a 1 hour show that is exactly 42 minutes long so that all the commercials fit. Plus, all the episodes can be released at once which is increasingly how people like to consume a series.

It’s all very intriguing and there are plenty of people cutting the cable cord to consume their TV completely online. While I love the idea and do consume content from the web, I’m still happy with cable TV for the sheer ease of use. Cable comes into my house, gets recorded by one of the four tuners in my Windows Media Center PC and then gets streamed out to the various TV’s in our house, computers or even our phones. Doing something similar without a cable subscription requires us to remember which app we open to watch which show and right now it’s not worth the hassle for our household. Kudos to those of you who are blazing a trail for the rest of us!

benmartens April 30, 2013 Commentary

GoPro Clamp Mount

There have been numerous times when it would be useful to attach a GoPro using a clamp, but the only thing I found on the Internet was around $40 and that seemed ridiculous. After searching around for some homemade solutions, I built this:

All of the parts came from Home Depot and the total bill was less than $2. The only specific part that you’d need to copy is the bolt. A standard camera mount accepts a 1/4” bolt with 20 threads per inch. That was the standard number of threads in the bolts at Home Depot so it all went together very easily.

Don’t pay more if you don’t have to!

benmartens April 29, 2013 Uncategorized

Newborn Photography

We’re getting closer and closer to meeting our son, and we want to document his arrival with some photographs. Tyla found a bunch of great newborn photographers in our area, but for the prices felt much too high for photographers ones she liked. Obviously they can charge that much because they are fantastic at what they do and it’s very difficult to photograph newborns, but we’ve decided to take on that challenge ourselves. HeatherW does this for a living and I can see her shaking her head! Yeah it’s crazy, and yeah, it won’t come out as good as if we had a pro, but here’s how we’re tackling the challenge.

  1. I bought a Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 lens for our camera. It’s a fast zoom that takes incredibly crisp photos. The only other lens I have that could have worked was the Canon 50mm f/1.8 but the zoom felt like it would make things easier and it will probably the lens that stays on the camera most of the time when we’re done.
  2. Tyla has been hitting up a bunch of the local secondhand shops finding some great fabrics and props. I “helped” by picking up a prop too: a John Deere truck. She’s found a lot of great items including heavy white and black fabric to use as a backdrop, and we’ve spent well under $100 in total.
  3. The internet is full of tips for newborn photography and we’ve got a pretty good list built up.
  4. Tyla has a Pinterest board full of newborn photos that she loves. I don’t have a “good eye” for baby photos, but I feel like given the right props, I can recreate just about any photo that she finds.

Maybe I’m overestimating my photo abilities, but our backup plan is that we rush out at the last minute and find a photographer who is available. We’ll end up spending extra money but this lens is something that we wanted anyway. So don’t worry, we know this is a bit insane and maybe we’ll regret it, but we’re heading in with a plan and I feel like we’ve got a good chance.

benmartens April 26, 2013 Commentary

GoPro Wireless BacPac

In an earlier post, I explained that my new skis were partially paid for by my company with a new part of our benefits package. You only get the credit if you decline the gym membership, and since the gym membership is quite a bit more money than the credit, I think HR wants more people to pick this credit. They recently contacted me (and some other people) about doing a short video on us and sending it out in a newsletter to all the employees. That in itself seemed pretty cool to me, but they also said they would send us GoPros to capture footage of us using whatever athletic equipment we bought with the credit.

My camera arrived in the mail, and while it wasn’t the new Hero3 model I was hoping for, it did come with the Wireless BacPac. There are a variety of BacPacs that you can attach to the back of the camera, and obviously this one provides wireless capabilities. You can connect to the camera via a phone app or a remote control (not included). It lets you control all the various settings of the camera as well as starting and stopping recording. If you’re using one of the phone apps, you can even see a live view of what the camera is seeing. This is incredibly useful for setting up shots since there is no viewfinder on the camera.

I was originally a little bummed about the wireless kit because GoPro currently only has an app for iPhone and Android. A Windows Phone app is supposed to be in the works and was demoed at CES, but it’s not out yet so it doesn’t do me much good. The wireless protocol must not be too difficult to decipher because there were a few homemade GoPro apps for Windows Phone and to my surprise, they actually work quite well. The UI design leaves something to be desired, but hey, it works. Basically you start up the wireless on the camera and it creates a WiFi network. You have to switch your phone to connect to that network and then you can communicate with the camera. The BacPac contains it’s own power source, but if it runs out then it will suck power from the main camera battery.

I was also able to try out the proper GoPro app for Android thanks to Ken. He traded me one of his old Android phones (HTC Thunderbolt) for one of my old Windows Phones (HTC Trophy.) And additionally I’m finally able to experience the world of Android.

As for the HR video, I’m hoping that when it’s completed, I can get a copy of it. But since it’s an internal video, I doubt I’ll ever be able to post it publically. It’s probably for the best. They want us to interview ourselves and no matter what I do, I end up looking like a complete tool. There’s a reason I prefer being behind the camera.

benmartens April 25, 2013 Gadgets

Gun Safe

With a munchkin arriving soon, I figured it would be a good idea to have the guns behind some kind of a lock. I don’t have anything special enough to worry about theft, so I went with a fairly inexpensive cabinet from Stack-On. Cabelas had it on sale so be sure to check them out.

The safe isn’t anything fancy, but it has room for eight guns as long as they aren’t too bulky and there’s a shelf on top. The bottom is padded and the barrel rests are made to not scratch your guns. The unit has a few points where it can be bolted to the walls and/or the floor. I thought that was just for security, so I didn’t care too much, but you really do need to bolt it in to keep it from falling over. The holes didn’t align with the studs so I drilled my own holes through the metal. It only took about 30 minutes to finish the assembly on the unit and get it installed.

It’s not going to keep out someone with a crowbar who’s really determined or anyone with the most basic lock picking skills, but it’s more than enough to keep a toddler from getting into it.

Additionally, I haven’t been blogging about one of my biggest recent projects, but let’s just say that I’ll be hooking the cabinet up to my new security system. So even if someone gets into the cabinet when I’m not around, they’re going to wish they hadn’t.

benmartens April 24, 2013 Home Improvement

Featured Application

I was perusing the Windows 8 store the other day and noticed that CascadeSkier is one of the featured applications in the sports section! After spending many months in the top five apps of that section and almost a perfect 5 star rating, it’s nice to get picked as one of the featured apps. I’m not in the top five any more as there are a bunch of team-specific soccer apps taking up those spots, but that’s kind of expected since ski season is winding down anyway. Over 1100 people downloaded the Windows 8 version of the app this winter and about a quarter of them purchased the app. The phone version did quite well too in it’s third season and sold over 500 copies. It’s not going to help me retire any sooner, but it’s still the only hobby I have that creates income!

benmartens April 23, 2013 Geek

Let’s Bowl

Back in 2001 and 2002, there was a great show on Comedy Central called Let’s Bowl. It was a combination of Judge Judy, Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, and a bowling alley. The idea was that two people would arrive looking to settle some small disagreement. Whoever won the bowling match would win the argument. During the match, two hilarious commentators provide play by play. There were numerous funny segments throughout the show, special prizes for strikes in specific points of the game, and each player gets to use a surprise air horn once during the game to throw off their opponent. If it all sounds crazy, it is. But it worked, and I loved it! Unfortunately, I must have been one of a few viewers because it only lasted two seasons. Ever since then, I’ve searched the web looking for DVDs of the show or some way to watch it again. Late one night last week, I found yet another site claiming to have the episodes available for download but this time it actually worked! The video player on the page doesn’t work but the download link does work. I highly recommend that you go snag an episode (skip the pilot episode) and check it out if this sounds at all funny to you.

benmartens April 22, 2013 Commentary

Facebook SDK Changes

I have a little custom C# app on my Windows phone that posts photos to Facebook and my blog at the same time. Today it seemingly randomly stopped working. The login code ended in a page that said “SECURITY WARNING: Please treat the URL above as you would your password and do not share it with anyone.” The app stopped there because it couldn’t find an OAuthToken on the response. This was one of the few times that a search failed me so I thought I’d give back and hopefully help someone else stuck in the same spot. Here’s the fix I ended up with:

  1. Update to version 6.4.0.0 of the Facebook SDK (released today)
  2. Update login code to something like this:

private void LoginToFacebook()
{
    var parameters = new Dictionary<string, object>();
    parameters["client_id"] = _appId;
    parameters["redirect_uri"] = "https://www.facebook.com/connect/login_success.html";
    parameters["response_type"] = "token";
    parameters["display"] = "touch";
    parameters["scope"] = "publish_stream";

    var navigateUrl = _fbClient.GetLoginUrl(parameters);

    FacebookLoginBrowser.Navigate(navigateUrl);
}

private void FacebookLoginBrowser_Navigated(object sender, System.Windows.Navigation.NavigationEventArgs e)
{
    FacebookOAuthResult oauthResult;
    if (!_fbClient.TryParseOAuthCallbackUrl(e.Uri, out oauthResult))
    {
        return;
    }

    if (oauthResult.IsSuccess)
    {
        App.OAuthAccessToken = oauthResult.AccessToken;
        _fbClient = new FacebookClient(oauthResult.AccessToken);
        _loggedIn = true;
        loginSucceeded();
    }
}

benmartens April 19, 2013 Geek