One Man's Blog » Tutorials

Tutorial: Expodisc and Custom White Balance for Digital Cameras

John P. — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 07:05:46 +0000

Folks, one of the most important aspects of digital photography is making sure that the color on your photos is accurate. And absolutely the only way to ensure this is to take control of your camera’s white balance setting at all times. This is something that you can do by shooting a grey card (like this Ezybalance Card (Grey/White)), or you can use a fantastic tool called an ExpoDisc (make sure and get the size equal to your largest lens diameter).

Let me illustrate the point very quickly with a couple of sample images.

This first image comes straight out of the Canon 5D Mark II with a Canon 70-200mm lens. This is a $5,000 camera setup, and the camera was set on “Auto White Balance”. Basically, what I’m telling you is that your camera is definitely no better at auto white balance than this rig.

Now, if you ask me, that is a nice photo. The colors don’t look so bad, and I kind of like how the columns are a bit “rich” in color. All in all, no one would be complaining. Until they see what the image should have looked like…

Here is the same shot taken with a custom white balance set using an Expodisc:

Wow. All of a sudden, the sky looks bluer, the leaves look greener, and the stone looks… stoner? Anyway, hopefully this dramatically illustrates the point. Just imagine what happens when you take a photo of an actual person! Instead of them having a yellowish or reddish tint to their skin, you get an actual skin tone! Amazing.

So, I recommend that everyone pick up an expodisc for your photography. As long as your camera allows you to set a custom white balance, you should do it. And if your camera doesn’t – its a piece of crap and you should replace it with one that does!

Here is a little video that illustrates how to use an expodisc on a Canon. You can also see how to do it on a Nikon.

If you are not going to get an expodisc, then you should watch this video to see what your alternatives are for setting a custom white balance.

Introducing the World’s First 640GB Notebook (It’s a MacBook Pro)!

John P. — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 06:15:17 +0000

I’ve been doing a lot of photography with my Canon 5D Mark II 21MP camera, and each image taken in RAW format is about 25MB! So, needless to say, I’ve been using up a whole lot of hard drive space. Even though I upgraded my MacBook Pro to a 500GB drive a month ago, it’s only got less than 100GB left on it. So, I went looking for MORE!

Well, it turns out that Seagate is making a 640GB drive which will actually fit in a standard laptop. While there are a couple of other 2.5″ drives that are larger, they are also thicker and won’t work in most notebooks. So, the Seagate was what I wanted! Only problem – they aren’t selling it yet!

Doah! Well, no matter. Because I found out that I could buy a Seagate FreeAgent Go 640 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive from Amazon.com, and being the warranty voiding freak that I am, I had no problem with trying to rip the drive out of this case to stick in my laptop (the video of me doing just that is below). Here’s the Seagate PDF on the FreeAgent Go for more info.

Well, guess what. It worked! And now I’m posting this article from the world’s first laptop computer with a 640GB hard drive! Of course, that happens to be my 17″ MacBook Pro. Oh, and if you read along I’ll show you how you can do it too!

Performance Differences

After reading the review of the hard drive over on The Penguin Trail, here is the summary they gave:

Performance cannot match a 7200RPM notebook drive in many tasks, but the Seagate 640GB is no slouch. It can perform as fast or faster than lower density 7200RPM drives in streaming and other sequential tasks. Keep this drive defragmented and you can expect good all around performance. Of course, on top of that is huge storage capacity.

This left me wondering if getting the new bigger hard drive might actually perform as well as my smaller, faster turning 500GB drive. So, before I pulled out my old drive, I ran a series of tests on it with the help of AJA System Test. The following are screen captures from the tests along with a summary at the end if you’d like to skip ahead.

Original 500GB 7,200RPM Seagate Drive Performance

This is the drive that was in my machine, and it was only about a month old.

Disk Read/Write Speed

Sweep Video Frame Sizes

Sweep file Sizes

NOTE! Do you see how the performance of the 7,200 RPM drive drops off dramatically when dealing with large file sizes? This surprised me so much I ran the test three times! As you’ll see from the testing below, for some reason on large files this drive is actually slower than the 5,400 RPM drive that replaced it. And the Firewire G-Drive is just as fast even though it’s external! Amazing, unexpected, and really unforgivable.

New 640GB 5,400RPM Seagate Drive Performance

These are the results of the new drive after it was installed in my machine. How exactly did I do that you may ask? Well, I simply used the freeware app SuperDuper! to clone my existing hard drive onto the external USB drive. Then I disassembled the USB case and took the hard drive out to install in my machine.

Here is a little video of the disassembly of the USB drive that I did:

And you can do a search on Google to learn how to physically upgrade the hard drive in your MacBook Pro. If you’ve got a unibody it is very, very easy. If you’ve got the old style, you’re going to need a chainsaw. (I hope they fired the guy who designed the old ones!)

Disk Read/Write Speed

Sweep Video Frame Sizes

Sweep file Sizes

500GB G-Drive Mini Firewire 800 Drive Performance

Just for comparison’s sake, I also ran the tests on a G-Drive which is my portable that I put video files on. Turns out it’s smokin fast!

Disk Read/Write Speed

Sweep Video Frame Sizes

Sweep file Sizes

FreeAgent Go 640GB USB Drive Performance

And this is how the new drive performed when it was still in it’s original USB container. It seems that the limitations of the USB interface ensured that this drive doesn’t even reach half it’s potential. But I can’t wait to see what happens when they begin offering it with a Firewire 800 port. I would hope that it performs like the G-Drive, which will make for huge, fast, and compact mass storage on the go.

Disk Read/Write Speed

Sweep Video Frame Sizes

Results

Well, I must say that I didn’t know exactly what to expect when comparing the new 5,400 RPM drive to the 7,200 RPM drive, but I was pretty sure that the faster drive was going to run circles around the slower one. But apparently that is not always the case!

As you can see, the new drive performed the fastest in the Sweep File Sizes test, and even more shockingly, the G-Drive external hard drive even out performed the 7200 RPM drive mounted internally in the machine! By the way, I ran those tests multiple times to make sure it wasn’t an anomaly, and the computer was doing nothing else at the time.

Summary

Just to wrap up a couple other items:

Although it was speculated that a 5,400 RPM drive should run cooler than the 7,200 RPM versions, I’m not sure if this is the case yet in my machine. I do use the free iStat Menus (which you should have if you’re on a Mac!) to monitor my system stats, but I didn’t think to check the hard drive temps before and after. However, my overall computer temperature is basically unchanged from normal.
This new drive is supposed to be very energy efficient, but my old drive was so new that it was also pretty efficient too I think. So I’m not sure if this will cause any difference in my battery life.

Anyway, I guess the final report is that this definitely works. So you just have to make a decision… do you need the most hard drive space that money can currently buy? Or are you good with what you’ve got?

Cheers!

How to Invite ALL Facebook Friends to a Group, Event or Page

John P. — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 15:00:44 +0000

I set up a couple of groups on Facebook and wanted to invite all my friends, but it would have taken an eternity because for some strange reason Facebook doesn’t allow you to “select all” friends when sending an invite. I mean, they’ll let you do it… but only if you click one at a time! Uugh.

Well anyway I went on a little search and found that you could cheat the system by inserting a little javascript to make it happen! Here is how to do it:

Go to your Event, Group or page and click “Invite People”.
Once the page has loaded you should see all of your friends, but they are not selected.
At this point, copy and paste the javascript code below into your Web browser’s address bar, then hit “Enter”.
If all goes well, it selects all of your friends!

javascript:elms=document.getElementById('friends').getElementsByTagName('li');for(var fid in elms){if(typeof elms[fid] === 'object'){fs.click(elms[fid]);}}

Thanks to Hakon for originally sharing this tip. It was a lifesaver!

Pretty Link Pro Will Change the World (Wide Web)!

John P. — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:47:53 +0000

I’m pretty sure this is the first time that I’ve ever come out and advocated any sort of add-on, theme or plugin for WordPress that actually costs money. But get ready folks because here comes a game changer!

I heard about a WordPress plugin called Pretty Link Pro from Mitch over at Planet5D (the awesome Canon 5D camera site) and was intrigued enough to check it out. The plugin promised to do a few things that I could hardly believe:

Create YOUR OWN Short Links from Long URLs
Measure the effectiveness of Pay-Per-Click campaigns
Track social media campaigns

After reading through the user manual, and also seeing that Blair Williams (the plugin author) offered a 30 day money back guarantee, I decided I had absolutely nothing to lose and paid for the plugin on the spot. I’ve just spent the last 12 hours installing, tweaking, testing and using the plugin and I am absolutely in love. I 100% recommend that every WordPress user get this plugin now! And I’ll tell you why…

It Will Change Your Life

Damn. That is a bold statement. But it doesn’t make it any less true. Let me tell you a few ways I’ve already thought about this thing changing my world:

First of all, I won’t be using Bit.ly any more! When you use a URL shortener to redirect users to your blog post you are creating links to THEIR domain, not your own! This is BAD! Google gives you higher PageRank and sends you more traffic based on inbound links to your site, so having any other domain sitting in the middle merely siphons off some of your Google Juice. It also genericizes your brand.
It’s not just my own articles that I’ll shorten now. Whatever I link to on Twitter or Facebook is going to have one of my own Pretty Links in it. That is going to allow me to actually count how many people are following my links! This is fantastic for getting feedback and improving since I currently have no idea if the things I’m sharing are interesting, suck, or whatever. Also there is a great little Bookmarklet that automates this now!
Any time I want to put a banner ad or some sort of promotion on my site I’ll be using a custom Pretty Link. Although I can also track the outbound links on my blog with Woopra, it will be interesting to see the reports in my WordPress control panel. I can’t wait to see how these two go together (Woopra + PrettyLinks). So far in testing the links appear 100% normal in Woopra. Can’t even tell there was a Pretty Link in between.
I’m going to let WordPress + PLP start Tweeting my blog posts rather than doing it manually. I’ve tried some other plugins in the past for this, but didn’t like them. Plus, they didn’t post my own personal short URL! :-)
I’ll use my own short URLs for things in the offline world as well. For example if I give a lecture and need to hand out a URL, I’ll give them a PrettyLink. I mean, why not? Then I can see how many people acted on the information.
Over on our WealthNation.FM podcast site where we have episodes, we’ll create PrettyLinks with the episode number in them for quick reference like: WealthNation.FM/8 to correspond to episode 8.

How to Use It

Installation is simple. It’s a plugin like any other for WordPress. But rather than trying to tell you how to do it, Blair has created a great little video to show you how to do it.

If that’s not enough detail, he’s got three more videos covering all of the options here.

Current Drawbacks

Even though I’m in love with this plugin, it does currently have some shortcomings. Absolutely none of them are bad enough to prevent you from getting the plugin right now. But they are all things that make me look forward to future releases of the plugin that Blair is working on right now.

And by the way, Blair and I have been communicating about these issues and others. He is very responsive which makes me feel good about recommending this plugin as well.

The initial license language you are asked to agree to is very scary. It talks about how the service could be discontinued without notice and all sorts of other stuff I would normally never agree to. But the “service” really only refers to updates. So, No matter what happens, once you’ve got the code installed you should be ok.
When PLP adds a Twitter Badge to your post, it is counting only the links using your new PrettyLink (your own short URL). So, if there are any old links out there from Bit.ly or other places, those numbers aren’t currently reflected in the count. Blair is going to look into somehow grabbing that count and adding it. This issue is only cosmetic, and I’d remind everyone that it’s far more valuable to have incoming links to your own domain than to see a large number of counts to some other domain!
Automatic Tweeting of your blog posts does not yet allow you to format the actual Tweet. He’s working on that too, but for now you could let it do it’s own thing, or just don’t use this feature until the customization rolls out in a future release.
Although the automation does currently create new links for all new blog posts, it’s not working for me on my 1,500+ old posts. I might be forced to manually update them, though I think there is going to be a workaround for this. It’s not by any means a deal killer, but the difference between automating the old posts and not is substantial in terms of manpower.
There are currently a few little issues with auto link generation and management of an extensive list of links that need to be improved. But again, not currently a deal killer, and he’s working on it.

So, when I evaluate the drawbacks of using the plugin as compared to the drawbacks of being forced to use someone else’s link shortening service, there is absolutely no question that I’d rather have this product installed and functioning TODAY… like this minute… than go another moment of giving away my valuable links.

What’s It Cost?

I’ll tell you. Hold on to your seat. It’s going to run you $97! Oh, and that is only until September 1, when the price increases by $50 to $147. So you need to seriously go and get it NOW!

But let me share a couple of things that you get for your money:

You can use it on all your WordPress blogs. Yep. You pay once, but defray the cost over all of your blogs. Now, that doesn’t mean that if you are a developer you can use it on CLIENT blogs. You need to get them to buy their own license.
Updates for life. Blair is offering the plugin right now with a perpetual upgrade license essentially. Who knows if he’s going to do this forever. I wouldn’t. But that is just another reason to get it NOW!

And if that’s not enough for one of the most unique site enhancements that I’ve ever seen… read on.

The Affiliate Program!

The interesting thing is that this plugin is great on it’s own, meaning that I would have shared this information for free and without any sort of remuneration. But Blair has also set up an affiliate program for all Pro subscribers and if you refer anyone he’s going to give you a kickback on the back side. Which I think is fantastic!

Developers! You getting this? You refer your clients to use the plugin, everyone wins.

So keep in mind that whatever you pay for this plugin, it’ll cost you even less if you refer a few folks. You might even make a little coin off of doing so. And when you can do that while helping to change the world, well that is just bonus! Oh, and if you go in and manually edit the “pretty-bar.php” file you can change the Powered by PrettyLink to be your own affiliate link. Have fun with that!

WordCamp Dallas 2009: Dave Curlee – How To Add Video To Your WordPress Site

John P. — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 03:16:45 +0000

Oh good lord. You guys are in for a treat that I will never live down. You get to see me in my full on Pimp outfit from the brief appearance at WordCamp Dallas 2009. I can’t believe that Dave left that in the video. Oh, who am I kidding. I can believe he left it in there! Anyway, here is Dave Curlee lecturing on How To Add Video To Your WordPress Site.

Of course, all of these WordCamp videos were produced and edited by Dave Curlee. So, when it comes to this video he had to give the lecture, oversee himself being filmed, and edit and post it. Whew! That’s a lot of work!

I’m Lecturing Friday 8/28/2009: The Social Web Made Simple

John P. — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:04:38 +0000

Folks, this Friday August 28th from 8:30-11:30, along with Mitch Savage from Nomee, I’ll be speaking for the Frisco Chamber of Commerce members about “improving customer connections to benefit the bottom line”. I hope you will all come out and join us! And by all, I mean only a few of you because seating is limited and you definitely won’t all fit. :-) In fact, the event is almost full, so if you would like to come please hurry up and register!

This is a three hour session in which we will cover the business benefits of the social web and show you step-by-step how to get started. By the end of this easy to understand workshop you’ll be ready to put the social web to work for your business. So, bring yourself, and bring your boss if you have been looking for the opportunity to convince them that you should be doing something with social media. This is one of the few times this year that I’ll be taking time out to do this sort of thing…

The cost to attend is $25 for Frisco Chamber members or $30 for non-members. You can register online and here is a PDF version of the flyer for the event.

We’re having this event at the Collin College PRC Event Center at 9700 Wade Blvd. in Frisco, TX. It’s right off of Preston Road just north of Lebanon. The Event Center is kind of at the back of the campus as you can see in this map. It’s up at the top and labeled “Event Center”. Surprise!

Here’s the Google Map to get to the campus:

View Larger Map

The Frisco Chamber of Commerce is now on Facebook and also Twitter, so friend me and join in the fun.

Giovanni Gallucci on Extreme Social Media Hacks

John P. — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:00:05 +0000

This lecture was recorded at the Dallas WordPress User Group meet-up on Saturday, July 25, 2009. Social Media Expert Giovanni Gallucci gives a stirring lecture on ways to make the most of online promotion using Social Media as a backbone.

This lecture is an hour and a half long, so go get your popcorn and a drink because you’re not going to want to miss a minute of it. I’d say that Gio packed about 100 tips on Social Media into this presentation, so I don’t care who you are – there is plenty of stuff to try out once you’re finished here.

WordCamp Dallas 2009: Cali Lewis – Building A Vibrant Community

John P. — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 02:17:35 +0000

The second of our WordCamp Dallas videos to be released features Cali Lewis discussing her “Seven Rules For Building a Vibrant Community”. And if there is anyone who knows how to do that, its her!

With millions of downloads each month, GeekBrief.TV has become one of the most trusted brands in tech news, both online and off. And Cali’s incredible and passionate community of viewers have made her one of the most followed people on Twitter and supported her run for Australia’s Best Job in the World.

This video was filmed and edited by Dave Curlee

Scotch Tape Makes Frosted Glass Transparent!?!

John P. — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:00:44 +0000

Ok. Someone has got to try this and report back if it works! I’m not sure if this is a video trick, or if it really works, and I don’t have any frosted glass to try it on. But according to this guy, if you put some of that clear box tape on frosted glass, you can see right through it.

I really can’t believe this works, but the darn video is so convincing! So again, I’m putting a call out for anyone and everyone who has the ability to give this a try and report back if it works!

Tutorial: What To Do When WordPress Auto-Update Fails

John P. — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:39:45 +0000

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve experienced many instances where the Auto-update feature in WordPress fails to update either a plugin or WordPress itself.

The solution to this problem is remarkably simple, and hopefully will be fixed soon by the WP core developers in an upcoming release. The problem seems to be caused by a messy previous upgrade in which files are left in a temporary “upgrade” directory with the wp-content directory.

In order to solve the problem, you simply need to delete the “upgrade” directory in it’s entirety and then try the upgrade again. I’ve yet to find an instance on several blogs across multiple machines where this didn’t solve the problem.

How to Open a Banana Like a Monkey

John P. — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:35:28 +0000

Whoever said that humans are more evolved than our hairy little cousins in the monkey kingdom is probably the same idiot who taught you how to open a banana… WRONG!

I don’t know about you, but for at least 3 decades I’ve been opening bananas like a, well… cro-magnon. When I should have been opening it like a primate! Here, just watch the video and you’ll see.

The Most Interesting Origami Discussion Ever

John P. — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 05:18:44 +0000

Robert Lang is a pioneer of the newest kind of origami, using math and engineering principles to fold mind-blowingly intricate designs that are beautiful and, sometimes, very useful.

Some of the origami patterns have been used even to go into space telescopes which need to be large at the destination, but small for transportation. It has also been used in heart stints and even automobile airbags.

And if you’d like to give origami a try, here is how you can create the origami turtle that she showed in the previous video:

Add AVI Movie / Video Drivers to Your Mac with Perian

John P. — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:38:28 +0000

If you ever try to play certain movies on your Mac without having the correct driver installed, you are going to get nothing more than a black screen. No fear! Perian is here to save you! Just download and install this little applet which adds itself to your System Preferences menu, and you can watch all those movies you weren’t previously able to view.

If that alone doesn’t do it for you, it’s possible you need to install the DivX codec and maybe even the XviD codec. If anyone knows of other drivers that help play media on the Mac, please drop a link in the comments!

Tutorial: How to Burn a VIDEO_TS Folder to DVD on a Mac

John P. — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 06:19:35 +0000

Let’s say that for some reason you decide to make a copy of a DVD. Like you want it for backup purposes or whatever. If you’ve got a Mac, it’s your lucky day. Here is how to do it:

Use the Finder to copy the VIDEO_TS folder to your local hard drive.
Download the DVDImager application and install it.
Stick a blank DVD in your Mac.
Launch DVDImager and then drag and drop the VIDEO_TS folder onto the DVDImager icon

The rest should be simple. Enjoy your new disc copy!

Tutorial: How to Make Deviled Eggs

John P. — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 07:33:33 +0000

I’m not sure where Deviled Eggs got their name, because they taste like they came from heaven! Anyway, for those of you who don’t have a clue how to make these tasty little suckers, I’ve got your hook up!

The hardest part of making deviled eggs is simply boiling the eggs. Seriously. That’s it. So here is the easy way to hardboil the eggs:

Place a dozen eggs in a large saucepan. Yeah, I said a dozen. Trust me, you’re gonna want them.
Add enough cold water to cover the eggs by 1 full inch.
Turn the stove top on high, and bring the water to a boil.
Remove from the heat source, let it sit for 2 minutes, then cool the eggs with cold water to stop them from cooking.

If you did it right, your eggs won’t be all cracked. And after you cut them in half the yolk will be solid and pasty as opposed to runny. The rest is downhill from here!

Now in addition to your eggs, you are going to need some mayonnaise and some pickle juice. Optionally, you may want to dice up some pickle slices into small chunks to mix in as well, but I don’t recommend it (because I don’t eat veggies).

Now, the next step is to crack your eggs and peel them. I find the easiest way to do this is to gently roll them along the counter to crack the center, then peel them away. If you do it under cool running water, the shells will really come off easily.

As you peel the eggs, you need to use a sharp kitchen knife to cut them in half and scoop the yolk out into a mixing bowl. Keep the white halves on a plate nearby. Oh, and if you rip a couple of the white parts, don’t worry, you need to cut a few of those pieces up and put them in the mix as well.

Finally, once you’ve got all the yolks in the bowl, along with a couple of the whites as well, add in 2-3 tablespoons of pickle juice, 3-4 heaping tablespoons of mayo, and some fresh ground salt and pepper. Then stir with a fork like a mad man!

What you are looking for is a creamy, yet chunky consistency. Feel free to add more mayo, salt or pepper to taste. Then after you’re done, fill those empty egg halves with your mixture, shake a little paprika on it for color. And go to town!

Enjoy!

Tutorial: How To Seal Your Garage Floor

John P. — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 06:25:37 +0000

Hey folks. You ever been in someone’s garage and they have that really nice sealed floor? Yeah, well that’s what I’ve got in my garage and I absolutely love it! So when we got another house, one of the first things we wanted to do was seal the floor. And this time we wanted to make it look really nice! After all, you guys know how much I love my cars and my metal working projects, so I like to spend a lot of time in the garage.

Now believe me, this is something that anyone can do! It doesn’t matter if your house is brand new, or 100 years old. If you’ve got a concrete floor that can be painted, it’s fair game!

Ok, so the first thing you need to do is head on down to the local hardware store, which in my case is always going to be Lowe’s (never Home Depot!). Over in the paint department they carry concrete cleaners, sealers, and epoxys. They also have a kit made by Quikrete called the Epoxy Garage Floor Coating kit. It comes in two base colors, one is tan, the other gray… but here is the trick! They can actually custom tint these base colors in a wide range of additional colors! Amazingly, the people over at Quikrete don’t even have this stuff on their Web site. Unbelievable.

Anyway, I picked up two of these kits because basically each one will take care of one standard sized car garage. We’re going to do a 2 car garage for purposes of this little tutorial.

Now the first step is that you’ve got to start out with a clean and unobstructed floor. This part is obvious, right? You can’t paint your floor if you can’t get to it! So, start by sweeping it out really good and removing anything that might be stuck to the floor like chunks of concrete or debris. You can get a heavy duty floor scraper from Lowe’s for this. Just ask anyone in the store and they’ll point em out.

The next step is actually to hose down the concrete thoroughly. You want to wash off any lose dirt, and also get the concrete nice and ready for the next step… where all the fun begins!

The first step of sealing the floor is actually an etchant (think ACID!). You have to get a plastic watering can, and dilute the etchant by using one bottle to one gallon of water. It’s important to be wearing rubber gloves and boots as well as eye protection when you’re messing with this stuff!

I’m sure they would recommend that you do NOT wear shorts like I was, but hey… I’m a rebel. What you see in the photo below is the foaming that occurred on contact as soon as the acid hit the floor. There were also lots of fumes, so clearly, the garage needs to be well ventilated.

As you pour the etchant in small sections of the floor, it’s important to use a stiff bristle brush to really scrub the concrete good to ensure that the etchant is getting into all the cracks and crevices. The goal here is for the acid to eat away any oil or other buildup to ensure that the epoxy can make a strong bond with the clean surface.

After etching the entire garage floor, you need to rinse it thoroughly, and then leave it to dry for a full 24 hours. Oh, and in case I forgot to tell you, you need to make sure the temperature outside is above about 50 degrees. This stuff isn’t going to work well if it’s really cold outside, so make it a spring project.

Once the floor has been etched and dried, it’s time to mix the epoxy and start rolling it onto the floor. A couple of things to keep in mind here…

You’re going to want to keep the garage door closed, because otherwise dirt will blow into your wet paint.
There are going to be lots of fumes, so you might want to seriously consider getting a 3M filtered painting mask. Those things are great and it’s cheap protection for your lungs.
Remember to start in the far corner because you are going to need to basically end where you are able to exit the garage. You don’t want to literally paint yourself into a corner.

Also, before I started, I put painter’s tape all around the walls and the garage door so that if and when I accidentally bumped up against them, I wouldn’t get paint on them.

The Quickrete kit we used to do this floor not only allowed us to pick this beautiful deep blue color for the floor, but it comes with little sprinkles that you shake onto the paint to add texture and color. You basically paint a section of the floor, then sprinkle till you get the coverage you like, then repeat.

One thing that I kind of learned the hard way was that you really need to put the epoxy on thick. In the beginning I was worried that I might run out, and I was putting it on a little thin. As I realized that it was going further than I thought, I increasingly laid it on thicker and thicker. In the end I still had at least a half a gallon left which I wished I had used up front.

The lesson from this is that I’d recommend getting an extra kit up front, and just lay the paint on really thick. You probably won’t run out, but if you do it’s better to go thick than thin. The color looks nicer in the end and the cost isn’t really that much more.

As you complete sections and move on, the epoxy already begins drying. You can see from this next photo that as it dries it actually gets darker and darker.

Eventually, once you’ve finished the entire floor it’s just a waiting game. The epoxy is going to be dry enough to actually walk on it after about 24 hours. But I recommend giving it 3-4 days minimum before you start putting anything at all on the floor – especially cars.

The thing is, when you are driving around your tires actually get hot (go ahead, next time to stop somewhere touch one of your tires). Those hot tires parked on paint or epoxy can actually melt it and pull it right off the concrete. For this reason, you want to give the epoxy enough time to really bond with the concrete (another reason for the initial acid etching). Once it’s fully cured though, don’t worry, your tires aren’t going to damage it at all!

After you finish the job and give it time to completely dry, you’re left with an absolutely gorgeous floor that you can be proud to bring your friends over and see. A floor like this will make any car you park on it look twice as good, and it’ll improve the appearance of your home, most likely even translating into a little better resale value.

So what are you waiting for! That floor ain’t gonna paint it’s self…

Sonic Booms Explained

John P. — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 06:33:11 +0000

I was trying to explain to someone how a sonic boom works when a jet breaks the sound barrier. Usually when I do that once, I like to document it here on the blog. In this case, I actually found a great video that lays it all out!

When an object passes through the air, it creates a series of pressure waves in front of it and behind it, similar to the bow and stern waves created by a boat. These waves travel at the speed of sound, and as the speed of the object increases, the waves are forced together, or compressed, because they cannot “get out of the way” of each other, eventually merging into a single shock wave at the speed of sound. This critical speed is known as Mach 1 and is approximately 1,225 kilometers per hour (761 mph) at sea level.

Now, if you want to make your own sonic boom, just go to a western store and pick up a bull whip. When you crack the whip you’re actually putting enough energy into the tip that it travels faster than the speed of sound. In fact, he whip was the first human invention to break the sound barrier.

Use A Diver’s Pad in the Shower to Make Notes!

John P. — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 06:04:46 +0000

I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I’m in the shower it seems like I’m always coming up with good ideas – or at least thinking of things that I need to do. The problem is, I’ll think of five things… but by the time I’m done I can only remember two!

Well, I was watching a show with some divers in it when one wrote on a notepad to communicate with another and it hit me! That is how we can make notes in the shower! So, I ordered a large underwater dive slate from Amazon and gave it a try. Guess what… it’s perfect!

You can just use a normal pencil and eraser on the pad, which works out very nicely. I would also advise purchasing a small suction cup with a hook on it so that you can attach it to your shower wall and leave it hanging there.

So if you have this same problem, now you’ve got a solution for under $10. Enjoy! Oh, and please let me know how it works out for you if you actually buy one…

How to Make Bacon Cups

John P. — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 06:29:25 +0000

This little post goes out to Neal and Cali, the biggest bacon fans I know. Yes Greg, even bigger than you.

So, you’re sitting around one Saturday afternoon, when suddenly your stomach begins rumbling. But you know that it’s no ordinary rumble. It’s the kind that can only be cured with a massive bacon fix! Not a problem.

Here is what you’re gonna do. First, you’re gonna get a muffin pan and turn it upside down and line it with aluminum foil. Or for those of you in the UK, you can use al-u-MIN-ium foil.

Next, you’re gonna weave the bacon into little baskets and wrap them over the outside of the muffin cup.

Finally, you’re gonna put that puppy in the oven and bake until crispy. How long is that gonna be? Don’t ask me. I didn’t make these, I just found them on flickr thanks to Yogma.

Last step? Eat them, silly!

How to Wheelie on a Motorcycle – From SuperBike Magazine!

John P. — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 06:26:59 +0000

Did you ever seen those maniacs who ride wheelies down the road in traffic despite the fact that they are placing themselves and everyone else around them at risk? Whenever I see them I:

Can’t take my eyes off them; wonder if they are going to crash the whole time I’m ignoring the road and staring at them; want to punch them in the face for being such idiots.
Wish I could do that.

So, if you’ve decided to be a complete bonehead and are going to learn how to wheelie your ride, at least watch this video produced by SuperBike Magazine.

Oh, and for justification as to why you should NOT do wheelies, just search YouTube for Wheelie Gone Wrong.