Google and the Prado Museum present the 14 El Prado masterpieces in a stunning 14-billion pixel resolution  The images have a resolution between hundred and thousand times greater than a normal digital camera allowing you to appreciate the subtlest details of the master’s work.  As you can see in the video below Madpixel doesn’t use a special camera, rather a machine-controlled camera and stitches the final results together.

See it here (requires Google Earth) via Madpixel

If you want high-resolution images of the Earth, Unearthed Outdoors has made available the 250m True Marble image set for a free download with a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. It’s a map of the Earth made up of 32 tiles, where each tile is a 21,000 pixel square, available in png and tif formats. There’s also a series of smaller files that may be more useful — in case you don’t need a map of the Earth that ends up being 84,000 pixels tall and 168,000 pixels across.

Free High Res Images of Earth – Boing Boing

Login passwords, email passwords, phone numbers are all cluttering up my memory. The last thing I need is a hard to remember combination (turn how many turns left?) when I go to open the shed or the gym lock. Wordlock is a combination lock that uses easy to remember words instead of numbers.  Wordlock®, Inc. was founded by Todd and Rahn Basche.   The product was conceived by Todd Basche because no one in his family could remember the many numerical combinations on padlocks around his house.  Wordlock was one of the top 100 new inventions in the Invent Now America competition hosted by the Patent and Trademark Office and QVC.

Wordlock comes in various configurations:

• 5-Dial Padlock
• 4-Wheel Luggage Lock
• 4 dial Cable Bike Lock

Setting the combination is easy simply pick a 4 or 5 letter combination of letters that you can remember with the lock open and rotate a dial so that the word SET is on top and aligned with the combination you set.  Voila your new combination is set. 

I love keychain tools—but frankly only most keychains it becomes a pain to add and remove tools or even carry them since they poke out at just the wrong angle to poke a hole in your pocket.  CountyComm sells a cheap little keychain ring that is just perfect.  CountyComm’s Cable Key Rings are made from stainless aviation cable with brass screws and barrels.  They are lightweight, strong, secure easy to open and reclose and big enough to allow your keys and tools to lay flat.  

A&P Mechanics Cable Key Ring

Dell said today it will sell one of its mini-notebook computers for $99 — after a $350 mail-in rebate and the purchase of a two-year wireless broadband contract with AT&T Corp. The offer on the Inspiron Mini 9 runs through the end of the month.

Austin American-Statesman | Plugged In

The BlackRapid strap features a large pad, attaches to your camera or lens’ tripod mount, and is slung diagonally across your body for maximum comfort. The camera hangs upside down by your hip or in the small of your back.   When you’re ready to shoot, just pull the camera to your eye, it glides up the strap into the shooting position quickly.  Click. Put it back.

I was skeptical about the BlackRapid camera strap but decided to try it.  It works.  I used it on a Canon S10IS (yeah they recommend using it with SLR’s with telephoto lenses but I was photographing the Fiesta Bowl (Go Longhorns!) and they don’t really allow big cameras and telephoto lenses).  In a crowded arena it let me easily and comfortably carry the camera and get it into shooting position quickly.  The model I bought even had a pocket intended for a cell phone (I used it for extra batteries).  I

http://www.blackrapid.com/

I beg, I plead but my friends and relatives do not backup.  I usually hear about it when I get that call…you know the one…umm….my hard drive just died…can you help me get the data back or even worse–”My laptop just got stolen, what do I do”.  

Clickfree™  allows Backup without installing or configuring software, just plug it in and you’re done. Clickfree™ will automatically find, organize and backup all your data onto the portable backup drive. Backup up multiple computers, just plug it in to each computer and it will automatically back it up. Each computer will be clearly separated within the Clickfree™ application.  It even works with Windows Vista®, Windows® XP, Windows® 2000 and now Mac OS X 10.5 or later

So for god sake’s backup your stuff….and then put it in a safe place.   

Clickfree™ — Save your data. Backup today.

Recently we got to attend a cooking school at the home of famed chef Jeff Blank, owner of Hudson’s on the Bend.  One of the dishes that Jeff made for us was smoked quail.  He said one of the secrets to the cooking at Hudson’s was Cameron’s stovetop smoker (their restaraunt sells the smoker in the store). 
::amazon(“B00004SZ9D”, “Camerons”)::
Cameron’s stovetop smoker allows you to smoke fish, game, and meat in the house quickly and easily.  It is constructed of heavy-gauge stainless steel, and at 11 by 15 inches, it’s big enough to smoke a ham or a whole fish fillet. The lid slides on for a tight seal, so food gets smoked, but your kitchen doesn’t. A cool design feature is that the handles fold along the side for storage.  It is fairly easy to clean if you remember to put some foil on the drip tray and spray it down with cooking oil. 

The first dish I made in the smoker was a simple smoked salmon–1 1/2 lb of copper river salmon, a bit of sea salt, some fresh dill and a bit of fresh sage with about 2 tablespoons of alder wood to smoke.  Twenty five minutes later–perfect salmon.   There was a bit of smoke that came out of the corners of the smoker (ok more than a bit until I figured out I had to seal the smoker tight…but with the exhaust fan going the kitchen didn’t get smokey.    You can find recipes for the smoker at Camerons Stovetop Smoker Recipes.  I can’t wait to try the smoked tomatoes.

How do I change the shutter speed on my Nikon D300? How do I bracket exposure on the Canon G9? How do I set the mirror to lock on a Canon 5D? What is the minimum shutter speed for freezing a race car? How do I set the Nikon SD-800 flash to Slow Sync mode.

Modern cameras are just small computers and as such they have hundreds of settings. Some obvious, some buried deep in a custom function. It is impractical to drag a 400 page manual out into the field and just as silly to flip through it to find the correct setting. Photobert Photo Cheat Sheets solve the problem with a simple one page laminated cheat sheet with the most important functions of a camera. I stuff the cheat sheet in my camera bag and leave the manual at home. The newer cheat sheets are in color, the older ones are black and white. Read more »

I hate scratches on my toys but large bulky cases make an elegant slim device seem ungainly.  However, it seems extravagant to pay $25 for a sheet of plastic.  I found Best Skins Ever (www.bestskinsever.com), a company that sells pre-cut shields for your gadgets.  I ordered a pre-cut skin for my Blackberry and iPod Nano to try the skins out.  I also ordered an uncut sheet for my camera screen. Read more »