Tilt-shift Fun

"Tilt-shift photography refers to the use of camera movements on small- and medium format cameras; it usually requires the use of special lenses." Now you can simulate the effect and have fun with your own images at the TiltshiftMaker website.

Check these before and after samples I made using my own photos. Then follow the link to make your own:

Click to read more ...

Klingon 3D Model

Take a closeup look at the CG Klingon 3D model I modeled and textured for the Vegas "Star Trek Experience".

Portfolio - Klingons

Recover your lost Data

Have you ever accidentally deleted some data files? Ever pull out your memory card from your camera, only to find that the pictures somehow got corrupted once inserted into your computer? Maybe you deleted a partition?

Most of the time, your data is still there. Unless you have already written over it, the table of contents has been corrupted or the location to your deleted file is gone. There are several data recovery tools to help you in such a case. Best of all, they're free

• Recuva - Windows
• TestDisk - Windows, Mac, Linux
• PhotoRec - Windows, Mac, Linux
• Undelete Plus - Windows

If your data loss is due to something a bit more complicated like a bad or missing sector, then you may want to try Spinrite from GRC. It's not free ($89.00). However, short of real physical damage, this tool can sometimes bring hard drives back from death. Well worth its price.

Disk Usage Apps for the Mac

Trying to clear out some unknown space on your Mac? You need a disk usage utility. An application that analyzes your hard drive, and gives you a visual representation of your stored files. This helps you keep track and clear out older files you may have forgotten about, taking up valuable space.

Here are my favorite free tools to accomplish this:

Disk Inventory X
GrandPerspective
OmniDiskSweeper

Citrix XenClient Virtualization

Last week, Citrix demonstrated their new XenClient virtualization solution. The plan since earlier this year was to introduce a Virtualization solution called "Type 1 hypervisor" usually usually used in server side virtualization. VMWare & Parallels on the client side are referred to as "Type 2 hypervisors". This new technology aims to be both faster and a more secure virtualization environment than previous solutions. "Type 2 hypervisors" need to run on host operating systems. Easy to implement, but the results introduce possible security vulnerabilities and a performance hit due to the added abstraction level.

XenClient being a "Type 1 Hypervisor" runs natively on "bare metal" hardware, giving the virtual environment full access to system resources and 3D hardware acceleration. The benefits of this become evident once you view the video below from the Citrix keynote event.

Citrix