The music player for the iPhone and iPod touch has been dramatically improved since the iPhone OS 3.0 Software Update with a couple of simple but dramatic changes.  The simplest change was the addition of three new icons on the “Now Playing” screen, including an option to send a link by email to anyone that might be interested in the file you are playing, a playback speed control that gives the option to play the current file at 1/2x, 1x, or 2x the normal playback speed.  I’m not sure about the usefulness of the email link, but the option to change the playback speed is pretty cool and could be very useful to help find your place in a song  or podcast that was forced to restart, or even to play a boring podcast a little faster in order to get it finished! They also added an icon to skip back wards by 30 seconds.  This is also very cool in case you missed something and want to hear it again.  I used this today while listening to a podcast.  I was very surprised to hear what one of the announcers said, and I had to jump back to make sure I had heard it correctly. (I had)

But wait, there’s more!

The absolute best new feature in the new iPhone software is variable precision scrubbing!  This now feature allows the user to quickly and easily navigate through a media file by changing the scrubbing rate depending on where you finger is on the screen.  If you swipe your finger across the media bar it will be the same old high speed scrubbing we were used to hating.  There are now three additional  scrub rates (Half, Quarter, and Fine speeds). The more precise the scrubbing gets, the easier it is to navigate to a specific spot in the track.

I used to complain about how fast and imprecise the scrubbing was before.  It seemed that every time I lost my place in my playlist I simply couldn’t get back to the exact spot I had been at in the media file that I was listening to.  This will help with that problem in a big way!

This is a huge step in the right direction toward my programmable camera idea… 

Check out the open source project to create new firmware for the Canon 5D Mark II, codenamed Magic Lantern.  This project is still in beta, and they seem to be focusing primarily on improving the video aspects of the camera, but it works!  And I want it for my 40D.  It sounds like Magic Lantern could be quite quickly ported over to the 50D since they use a similar operating system, but the 40D appears to be an ugly stepchild that is difficult to hack.  I’m might just have to upgrade to the 5D (or maybe to the 1D Mark IV that is rumored to be forthcoming in the fall).

I wanted to change my default Post Category in WordPress from “Uncategorized” (which is how WordPress comes “out of the box”) to something that I’m much more likely to write about.  I mean seriously, how often am I going to write about topics with no category??  So I went to the “Posts” menu, chose “Categories”, and spent several minutes trying to figure out how to:

1. change the default Post Category, and
2. delete “Uncategorized” from my list of possible post categories

But I couldn’t do it.  You can delete categories, but not the default category.  And there is no way in the “Categories” panel to reassign the default.  After a quick Google search I found a blog post that helped me figure out how to do it:

This is definitely an oddity…  Instead of going to the “Categories” panel, you have to go to the “Writing” panel inside the “Settings” menu.  From there you can set both the default Post Category and the default Link Category (“Blogroll” is the out of the box default for Links, and I always change that to “Links”, which I find much more intuitve). 

I also found that I could change the size of the post box from the meagre 10 lines that I had been fighting with to 20 lines.  This simple change makes it much easier to see what I’m writing about (I knew this one was there, but hadn’t gotten around to changing it yet).

I’ve wanted this for a long time, but all the hype around the new iPhone 3GS with its bigger, better, and badder camera (that also now does video) has really got me thinking about it.  One of the greatest things about the camera in the iPhone is that it is fully accessible by the applications in the gadget.  Programmers have created a slew of apps that allow the user to control the camera however she wants.  From interval timers, panoramic stitchers, exposure bracketing, or special effects “filters” that allow you to change the entire look and feel of the resulting image right in the camera (errr, phone).  If you have an iPhone then you should check out “Camera Bag“, “Pro Camera“, and “Pano“ for some very cool add-ons to the native camera functionality in the iPhone.  (While you’re at it you can also read “5 Tips for Making Great iPhone Photos” from professional photographer Chase Jarvis for some great tips on making better images with your iPhone.) 

Sure you can do many of these effects in post-processing afterwards using software like Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, the Gimp, but the ability to do them in camera is very appealing to many people (not to mention that you can quickly and easily add your final image to an email or upload it to Flickr without ever having to take it over to your computer first).  And besides, there are many effects that you simply can’t do in post, such as change the shutter speed, so to be able to do them in the camera is very important.

Since I don’t have an iPhone (I have an iPod Touch but inexplicably it doesn’t include a camera), I really want to have some of this programmable functionality in my Canon 40D.  The 40D is a fantastic camera, and Canon has gone a long way in providing user control over the camera.  But as the iPhone proves, there is so much more that can be done, and I really want to be able to control my camera how I want to control it.  The camera already has a very powerful computer built in, so this should be a no-brainer. 

Here are a few of the things that I want control over:

1. Multiple Exposure Bracketing – natively I can only create a 3 image bracket.  When shooting HDR images I typically use 5 to 7 images over a 5 to 9 stop exposure range and I want to be able to set that up easily in my camera. As it is now I have to shoot multiple 3-stop brackets to creat a set with the entire range of exposures that I might want to use.
2. Interval Timer – currently I would have to buy a very expensive Remote Shutter release in order to fire my camera at regular intervals (eg. to create time lapse sequences).  Many inexpensive point and shoot cameras have this built in, so it should be included in every high end SLR as well.
3. Auto ISO – Canon provides a crude Auto ISO feature where it will automatically ramp the ISO up or down based on the exposure, but it doesnt’ work very well. Really it simply sets the camera at the default ISO (400 on my 40D) and only raises or lowers it if it absolutely must (eg. if the camera is maxed out on Shutter speed then it will drop the ISO from 400 down to 200).  But it could be so much better.  I want to be able to set a minimum shutter speed (eg. 1000) which would then force the ISO up as high as the camera requires in order to get the desired exposure.  I also want to be able to set a minimum and maximum ISO based on my shooting conditions and the intended use of the image.  If I’m using my tripod to shoot landscapes then I want the cleanest image possible and I generally don’t care how long the shutter speed is, so let me choose ISO 50. or 25.  But if I’m handholding the camera while shooting sports, then I don’t want the shutter to go below about 1/1500th and I want the largest aperture possible, so I want ISO 1600.  There are all kinds of personalized situations like these that have their own scenarios.  Let me have the control!
4. AF Microadjustment – all the newest cameras have functions built in to allow them to adjust the focus system to correct for front and back focus, without having to send your camera / lens combination in to the manufacturer for mechanical adjustment.  I want that!

There is so much more that I want to be able to control in my camera that I could write on and on.  I guess what I really want is something similar to the CHDK to be made available for DSLR’s, and I want it to be officially supported via an API from Canon.  I want it to be open sourced, or at least open to outside developers to write Apps or Scripts for the camera.  And I want it now!  I don’t think this is too much to ask. 

Apple got it right with the iPhone camera, and now it’s time for Canon, Nikon, Sony, and all the other camera manufacturers to follow suit!

Up until now I’ve been using Goosync to manage my Calendar on my iPod Touch.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was the only way I could find to sync my iPod with my Google Calendar, which I use for everything.  In fact I just recently wrote about using GooSync as one of my favorite iPod Apps.

Well that all changed today when I downloaded the iPhone OS 3.0 Software Update.  Sadly this is a free update for the iPhone, but it costs $10 for the iPod Touch.  I looked carefully at the updated features (there are over 100) and decided that it had enough for me to justify the outlay.  The best update as far as I’m concerned is to enable direct syncing with external calendar services using CalDAV or iCal.  Although Google really hasn’t made it easy to figure out how to do it, they released support for CalDAV almost a year ago.  They have some detailed instructions on how to sync Google Calendar with Apple iCal on the web at Google Help.  Although these instructions didn’t provide an exact step by step for how to sync with my iPod, it was enough to get me going.

Here’s how to do it on the iPod Touch (and I assume it is the same or very similar on the iPhone):

1. Click on the Settings icon on your iPod
2. Open “Mail, Contacts, Calendars“
3. Click “Add Account…“
4. Choose “Other“
5. Choose “Add CalDAV Account“
6. Enter the following information:
   • Server: www.google.com
   • User Name: your Google Account username
   • Password: your Google Account password
   • Description: anything you like, I like “Google Calendar” myself
7. Hit Next, and it will verify your account details, then return you to the Accounts screen
8. Scroll all the way down to the “Calendars” panel and click on “Default Calendar“
9. Choose the CalDAV Calendar that you just entered

Your iPod calendar will now automatically sync with your Google Calendar at the frequency you have selected in the “Fetch New Data” panel.  Set it to Push to have it go automatically (drains the battery faster) or choose a Fetch frequency.

This is an awesome addition to the iPod Touch and I’m look forward to using it!