In this article, I'll show you how to make a simple Gmail notifier. Python can do various things in terms of notifications; sending commands to an Arduino unit, playing sounds, opening windows, etc. The code below simply plays some music, but the possibilities of notification methods are endless. If you aren't familiar with python, there are many sites with tutorials like this one, or this one.
It's been a Consumer Electronics Show bonanza at Edit on a Dime this week. Here's the stories we looked at over the last seven days.
Cinemagraphs are those incredible video-photo-mashups that isolate movement in a moving frame. Don't know what I'm talking about? Then check out these fantastic examples on If We Don't Remember Me.
The battle to be the video editor for your iPhone continues with the debut today of Cinefy at CES. An app that promises to bring 'Hollywood-style' visual and audio effects to your phone, Cinefy comes loaded with over 50 effects to add to your movies as well as a library of copyright cleared songs.
Want to see your Minecraft creations in real physical form outside of your server? Mineways is a free program for Linux or Windows users that renders all of your Minecraft builds into full color 3D model files. Those files can then be sculpted using your own 3D printer (if you have one), or uploaded to Shapeways, a company that will print your 3D models creations in colored plastic, which you can then purchase or sell in their online gallery.
This article relates to changing the settings in Adobe Flash so that you can improve your overall computer security and privacy. Changing these settings might have a negative performance impact on your computer - but it is worth while.
eBooks are an amazing thing, especially with Amazon's Kindle. What's irrtating about eBooks as that you have an infinite selection of books at your fingertips, but they all cost so much! Well, as always, Null Byte has a trick up our sleeves for nabbing free ebooks from Google.
A proxy is a server that lets a client to connect to it and forward its traffic. This enables a certain "layer" of protection by masking your IP. An IP address can be used to learn your location and track you on the Internet, thus eliminating any form of anonymity that you may have.
I've previously mentioned how saving browser passwords is a bad idea, but I never went into much detail as to why. Passwords that are saved in your browser can be carved out and stolen very easily. In fact, even passwords you save for instant messaging and Wi-Fi are vulnerable. Windows is very inefficient with the way it stores passwords—it doesn't store them in key-vaults, nor does it encrypt them. You're left with passwords residing in memory and filespace that's unencrypted.
Japan has a tendency to produce things that boggle the Western mind. Its citizens are already responsible for without a question the weirdest music video in the history of the medium. With that said, here is a video reenactment of several Pokemon (Pocket Monster in Japan) games released by Japanese performance art troupe Kusarine Project: Kusarine Project and their amazing YouTube channel first became known through the Japanese video sharing site/meme originator NicoNicoDouba. Their white mas...
RHYOLITE 64 points (14 points without the bingo) Definition: a volcanic rock [n]
Giveaway Tuesdays has officially ended! But don't sweat it, WonderHowTo has another World that's taken its place. Every Tuesday, Phone Snap! invites you to show off your cell phone photography skills.
No Time To Explain is the first game by two man indie developer tiny Build Games. It's a fun and very stylish platformer in it's own right, available for $10 from the tiny Build website. Articles about the game on RockPaperShotgun, Destructoid, and other prominent PC sites helped it develop substantial hype and raise more than $26,000 via Kickstarter to fund development.
Welcome to Pizza Perfect. I'm a novice pizza maker with one goal: to master the art of the homemade crust. The cheese (fresh mozzarella), the sauce (endless options or super basic), and the toppings (the sky is the limit) are all easy. But the crust I've found to be somewhat elusive.
Web-spying technologies like FaceNiff, Firesheep and Newstweek are out there showing the world just how easy it is to see what you're doing online, but they're amateurish in comparison to what real hackers could do to you if they catch you browsing unsecured websites.
Remember last month when we introduced you to Trover? Well, now this great little discovery app for iPhone has completed its beta mode and has officially launched in wide release.
Danny MacAskill has been a cycling and internet god since the day he surfaced on YouTube back in April of 2009. A Scottish street trials pro rider for Inspired Bicycles Ltd., MacAskill has been practicing his stunt riding for over 12 years. He gave up his job as a mechanic to ride full time, and now appears in music videos and commercials.
Flying orbs. At first, you might think of the Tall Man and his army of flying sentinel spheres, equipped with zombie brains and a mini-arsenal of saw blades, drill bits and shooting lasers. But these flying orbs weren't conceived from the evil mind of a superhuman mortician—they were designed by Fumiyuki Sato, a researcher at the Japanese Defense Ministry's Technical Research and Development Institute—for something other than deadly deeds.
It's an ambitious How-To project to say the least, or more specifically, an over-the-top political art installation by San Francisco artist Brian Goggin. You may have previously heard of Goggin for his "Defenestration" project—an installation of "frozen" furniture, being tossed mid-air from a San Francisco apartment building. But Goggin's latest project sounds significantly more challenging to execute, considering the elaborate game plan involved:
Smartphones have already hit the shelves with glasses-free 3D displays, but now you can enjoy the luxury of a 3D display on your 2D devices, thanks to Japanese company Global Wave. They've developed a special film that allows you to enjoy three-dimensional content on existing two-dimensional products, from laptops to computer monitors, along with iPads and iPhones.
Art Babble is a video network for artists and art lovers alike, launched by a group of curators at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The site is divided into channels, series and partners, with a wide variety of top notch videos from institutions far and wide. The Getty Museum has posted some especially fascinating content, most notably their series on modern artisans and craftsmen demonstrating antiquated art techniques.
One of the things I enjoy the most about making tutorial videos is watching the reactions. In YouTube's backoffice, they give me great tools like Insight, Demographics, Discovery and Hot Spots. I can tell when people's attention drops off when watching. I can see what age groups and gender my audience is made up of. And... I can see where most people came from to get to see my videos.
Smartphones are impressive devices, to say the least. A smartphone user can consume TV, music & movies; communicate via streaming video; check the weather; record audio; take professional quality video footage; snap high quality photos… The list just continues to grow and grow. With all of these incredible capabilities, why not add surveillance?
You're sitting in your favorite café enjoying a hot cup of joe, then you open up your laptop or turn on your tablet computer to get to work, but as always you get sidetracked and head straight for Facebook. Someone just tagged you in a photo, so you check it out, then you see it out of the corner of your eye—your Facebook picture digitally displayed on the wall in a nice, neat digital photo frame.
Wheels of Steel is a virtual browser-based turntable emulator created by Scott Schiller, a Canadian developer who works on Flickr at Yahoo. This project will appeal to those who A) dig turntablism and B) are knowledgeable in web development. I know nothing of the latter, but from what I can tell, Wheels of Steel appears to be significant because unlike its predecessors, it employs CSS3 instead of flash. Since I'm not familiar with the topic, here's Scott on the history and technical details o...
Without Japan, video games would not be very fun. Atari's early work was important, but Japanese developers, publishers, and hardware makers were responsible for almost every major advance in video games for the first 25 years of their mainstream existence. In recent years, it has often been said that they have become less relevant than Western developers. In the indie games movement— (our area of greatest interest here at Indie Games Ichiban)—Japan does not have anywhere near the presence th...
There are two kinds of beer drinkers—those who just want to drink and those who want to enjoy it. The former usually sticks to the same kind of beer, drinking it habitually, while the latter is always on the lookout for new varieties. They like savoring the taste of a freshly poured dark lager and the roasted aroma of a hearty stout and are always looking for that "Holy Grail" of beer—the perfect combination of hops, malt and yeast. Thankfully, there's a mobile application that gets you once ...
For the hefty price of $200 and up, you can be the proud owner of the world's first 3D printed bikini. And not just the first bikini, but reportedly the first functional and affordable item of ready-to-wear 3D printed clothing on the market. Created by Continuum Fashion, the N12 3D printed bikini is revolutionary because it addresses the technical challenge of creating flexible "textiles" with 3D printed material. The bikini is made of a material called Nylon 12, which is entirely waterproof.
So you just bought Photoshop, a DSLR camera and your first flash. Now what? If you have some experience with photography, but you're not completely fluent with the software and equipment, WonderHowTo's newly featured World Lights! Camera! Photoshop! is essential.
Nope, it’s not the McDonalds menu, but close enough. Jim Blackhurst has mapped 11 million deaths onto a 3-dimensional point cloud for video game Just Cause 2. The result is an amazing virtual heat map of a world where every white dot represents a death on impact: The millions of deaths formulate a detailed outline of major structures and roads in the game, visually mapping "extractions" at every square inch. In most traditional games, this would not be possible—players more often than not sta...
Inspired by the beauty of traditional signage printed on doors and buildings, Rero is a French graffiti artist who makes a simple, yet heavy mark. Using the universally common Verdena typeface, Rero brands abandoned public spaces in extreme disarray with his own codified messages based on theories of public use of imagery and private property.
PC-only users read no more, this announcement is for those who embrace all-devices-Apple. Are you interested in fully optimizing the use of your iPhone, Macbook or iPad? Are you looking to go paperless, find the best apps for all your iDevices, or easily automate your daily activities online? Are you interested in upgrading to more advanced keyboard shortcuts?
First, I have to apologize—this is really old news. But when it comes to Nele Azevedo's Minimum Monument project, it's well worth digging into the archives. It's one of the most amazing street art installations I've ever seen.
Are you a well intentioned busy bee plagued by a lack of focus? Whether you've been diagnosed with a legit case of ADHD, or you've been plainly labeled "scatterbrain", Obtract may be just the solution for properly channeling your concentration.
This is my first posting here on Edibles in Jars and I just wanted to say hello and welcome everyone. While I'm at it, I'll give a brief run down on what you can expect here in the near future, and tell you all a bit about me.
Ever had your car broken into? Or worse, your apartment? Ever been pickpocketed? Handheld electronics—iPods, iPhones, iPads, GPS devices, digital cameras—are easy to snatch, light to carry, and useful to most. And when they're gone, they're gone.
Can you dissect an equilateral triangle into pieces that can be rearranged into a square? If you think you can, you may have mastered the Pythagorean theorem.
Go out and find a bag of Qualatex Balloons from your local party suplier or party store. Qualatex is the "Very Best Balloons" you can get and they tend to be easiest to work with.Buy a quality hand pump that you can use to blow up the balloons. A quality pump should run anywhere from $3 - $7 for a basic dual action hand pump. It may not be easy to find a quality one in a party store, but I'm sure they'll have something that will work. Anything is better than nothing when it comes to having a ...
Okay, look behind your shoulder. Now check behind the other. Anybody looking? No? Then read on... Here's the scenario: You're single. You're an avid Facebooker. You're tired of your sans hottie reputation, and you're yearning for some much needed street cred. Well, Facebook street cred.
The classic Super Mario Bros is perhaps the most beloved video game on Earth. Almost daily, homages to Mario pop up on the web over and over and over again. Everybody loves the charming 2D world of Mario. But what would Mario look like in 3D… and moreover, what would Super Mario feel like as a First Person Shooter game?
