These days you can buy nice all-in-one solutions like EyeTV to stream live TV video on your iPad or iPhone. However this is available only for users with Mac. As I don't have a Mac (currently I am a PC :), I was looking for a solution for my home TV system. Fortunately there is a way how to make it working and it's not (so) expensive.

At first you need to have USB DVB-T tuner so you can play DVB-T TV on your PC. Then you can buy for 15 Euro ($19) application called DvbViewer which works way better then the other apps that are usually packed with USB dongle. Once you have everything up and running on our PC, download DVBViewer Recording Service from Members area and start it on your PC. You can also check the settings where you can for example set username/password to restrict the access to your recording service.

Then simply open Safari browser on your iPad/iPhone and navigate to http://[your servername]:[your webserver port if not port 80]/iphone/. Then you are asked for username and password. If you watch your TV often, you can use following URL which is including username/password so you can save some time: http://[your username]:[your password]@[your ip]:[your port]/iphone/. Example: http://Admin:Admin@192.168.0.2:8089/iphone/. You should then see following screen: 

Then click on Channels link and you will see all available channels. Click on the TV program you like to watch and you should see a page where you can specify stream bit rate and image ratio (4:3 or 16:9). Once you click on Start Stream button, you will see a new page with player window. After you click on Play button, live TV stream should be started. You can then maximize it and enjoy watching. TV stream can also be paused and resumed if needed.

I just finished creating new gallery for my portfolio images, I hope you will like it. Before this one I was using flash, but as I wanted to have flash-free web site, I used one of the jQuery image sliders called Nivo Slider. It works pretty well and offers different transition effects. Around the slider plugin I placed nice LCD display so it looks like the slideshow is played on the screen.

Today I noticed that my tablet is a bit worn-out. Funny thing is that almost all scratches are matching the most used screen controls. So I made small experiment: I took a photo of the tablet, increased contrast in sensitive area and added a layer with screenshot from Lightroom which is (together with Photoshop) my probably most used graphic application. And as you can see on the picture, it matches perfectly ;-)

I just bought new prime lens for my Pentax camera. It's Sigma 50mm f1.4 and I was surprised by the image quality and smooth bokeh. I took some sample pictures, you can find them below. There seems to be some visible aberration (on the picture with guitar), but this can be fixed in post process. Overall it's not so bad, what do you think?

All wedding robes are from Katerina Bystronova and even though I am
not a fashion designer, my wife told me they are beautiful so it must
be true :)

Also it was my first time to see a black wedding dress. What do you
think, would you like to see your bride or yourselves in such color on
your wedding day? I prefer lighter colors, but it's not bad, isn't
it? ;-)

           

Click here to download:

Wedding_dress_photo_retouching.zip (478 KB)

I've read a lot of comments that people would like to post their Gogole Buzz messages on different places in map than their current location. This is useful when you want to post a buzz to a specific place you like or want to comment. This feature is a bit hidden in Google Maps application on your mobile (i-)phone, yet it's still available.

Let's say we want to post a new buzz in Olympic Stadium in Vancouver. First enter "Olympic Stadium Vancouver" in "Search the Map" edit box. Then click on "Buzz about this place" item and enter your new buzz. You can also post a picture if you want. Once you send your buzz, return to map and you should see a New buzz icon right there.

This was quite easy, but what if we want to add a new buzz to specific place on map? Tap&hold on place where you want to post your comments - you should see a "Loading address" message box. Once the address is loaded, click on it, select "What's nearby" option and select the correct place. Then you should see a "Buzz about this place" item where you can post your own buzz. Enjoy! ;-)

                   

Click here to download:

how-to-add-google-buzz-on-different-place-in-map-than-your-current-location-0r51P7YADDuRhitCytjF.zip (379 KB)

Maybe this happened to you as well. You bought a nice new shiny laptop with crisp and clear shiny casing and after couple of days of usage you found that it is not so shiny anymore and your fingerprints are all over your laptop’s body. I still don’t understand why every single company in the market is producing laptops with high glossy surface. I hope someday somebody will say that is it not as cool as it looks like and will revert to good old matt surfaces.

Fortunately there is something you can do with that: Buy a laptop sticker that no longer works as a magnet for your fingerprints. Most of companies offer to print your own designs so you can create unique cover to distinguish your own gear from your friends.

Here is a short PS tutorial, how to create unique and nice sticker:

First thing you will do is to measure back of your notebook's display and create a new document with the exact proportions. You can also set the resolution to at least 120 dpi. Then download or find in your photo archive picture with nice structure, for example close up of green leaf as you can see on picture below.

Adjust the image size to perfectly fit to your new document. Then create a new Gradient Map with following settings:

Now your picture should look like this:

Create new Adjustment layer, select Curves and use following settings:

As a next step let’s add some perspective. Select command New layer from background and press Ctrl+T for transformation tool. By holding Ctrl key when resizing try to achieve something like this:

Now create a new layer on top by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E keys. Then set the mode to Linear Dodge:

Now we have something like this:

To darken the top part of the image, create new Adjustment layer and select Curves. Darken the whole image by using following settings. Now let’s apply the darkening effect only to the top part of the image. Click on Add layer mask icon and fill the mask with black to white gradient. This will hide the darkening effect for all areas except the top one.

We are almost done. Now you can create your own signature by painting on new layer in the bottom right corner. To achieve better visibility you can also darken the main image a bit by painting on your darkening layer with white brush:

That’s it – our custom laptop sticker is now ready to be printed: