Theta S: 3D Print Your Own Tripod Mount

The Ricoh Theta-S is a great 360° camera which you can use with mimoLive to stream live to YouTube 360° Live. But it has one blunder: If the camera is mounted on a tripod you can't access the USB port nor the HDMI port anymore. That's why Achim designed this camera holder: It houses the camera in a way that the USB and HDMI cables can be left connected while sitting on a tripod. The plugs are sliding into slots that work like a strain reliefs. Additionally, some space is left at the bottom to incorporate a 1/4" tripod screw nut.

Theta S Tripod Mount on Thingiverse...

Ultimate Mac (macOS, OS X) Screen Shot (Grab) Cheat Sheet

Maybe I'm getting old, but I never remember those modifier keys and every time I want to take a screen shot on my Mac, I have to google for the correct key combo. Unfortunately, the top results are all incomplete, so this is the ultimate screen shot cheat sheet for OS X (macOS). Let me know in the comments if I missed anything.

Full screen:

  • Cmd-Shift-3: Full screen shot, save to disk
  • Cmd-Shift-Option-3: Full screen shot, copy to clipboard

Part of the screen, window, menu:

  • Cmd-Shift-4: Pick a region, save to disk
  • Cmd-Shift-Option-4: Pick a region, copy to clipboard
  • While making the selection, pressing Shift locks one of the directions, Option is completely silly, Space lets you move the selection around.
  • Pressing space switches to the window selector. To make a screen shot of the window without the shadow, press Option while clicking on the window.

Especially the last part about omitting the shadow in a window screen shot seems to be unknown.

PS. to me: The short cut for the Emoji-Palette is Cmd-Ctrl-Space.

OS X El Capitan and Boinx Software

Since Apple released its latest operating system OS X El Capitan, yesterday, most of you want to upgrade as soon as possible. Of course working with the latest built of an operating system is always great, but major upgrades mostly also cause problems with third party software.

So please check the list of supported Boinx Software applications below, before you upgrade to OS X El Capitan.

FotoMagico

FotoMagico 4.6.3 works without know issues on OS X El Capitan.

Mouseposé 3

Mouseposé 3.2.7 works flawless on OS X El Capitan.

iStopMotion 3.6

iStopMotion 3 is not supported on OS X El Capitan yet. Cameras and Images are displayed incorrect. We are working on a fix, but major video capture classes are affected but this issue.

BoinxTV

BoinxTV 1.9.12 is not supported on OS X El Capitan yet. At the moment it is not possible to capture video sources or playback movies. Please do not upgrade now, as BoinxTV cannot be used productively with OS X El Capitan installed.

mimoLive Beta and FotoMagico 5 Beta

Our engineering team works unbelievable hard to make mimoLive (successor of BoinxTV) and FotoMagico 5 even more awesome than its predecessors. If you would like to see and try out the next generation of our applications, simply sign up for their beta tests.

Both applications are ready for OS X El Capitan and can be used with minor bugs. But please keep in mind, both applications are still beta versions and should not be used for productive purposes.

Vertical Video is the next big thing? - we are ready!

Almost all video has been traditionally shot with a horizontal perspective. Movies, TV shows, YouTube videos, and even the dimensions of our screens are horizontal. And while smartphones make it easy to shoot vertical video, the practice itself has long been blasted as amateurish.

But the popularity of social apps and live-streaming video apps have forced a new look at vertical video. Even the best selling German Newspaper the Bild Zeitung is recording their new online news show Bild Daily vertical instead of horizontal.

They are recording vertical video, because it is fun and easy. In addition to that smartphone users tend to view videos, including ads, in the upright position, as they don’t need to rotate their phones for watching the video in fullscreen.

If you look on the number of videos watched online most of them are currently watched on desktop computers. But smartphones and tablets will surpass the number of videos watched on desktops by mid of 2016.

Image: ADI_Video_1

In fact, also Snapchat says ads shot vertically outperform horizontal ads by a long shot, according to Adweek. Users are nine times more likely to watch a vertical ad to the end versus a horizontal ad.

Start recording vertical video

It is really easy to record vertical video, since nearly everyone has a smartphone with a camera these days. But most video editing software is limited to an horizontal, perspective aspect ratio.

FotoMagico 4, iStopMotion as well as the current Beta of BoinxTV 2 are ready to face the challenge of vertical video out of the box.

This will allow you to create beautiful vertical slideshows, stop motion animations or advertisements for your customers, friends and family or just shot a whole TV or news show with ease.

All you need to do:

  • Start the application
  • Create a new document
  • Enter a custom aspect ratio with vertical video dimensions
  • Be creative