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Facebook Goes Dark Mode
Tech news

Facebook Goes Dark Mode

 

Facebook has introduced Dark mode; it was announced on May 8th. It’s available on the desktop web browser version of Facebook. Probably the biggest change to the way Facebook looks in its 16 years of being online.

What is Dark mode?

Dark mode is a visual theme where most of your screen is a dark colour (usually black) with the text being a brighter colour (usually white). Think of it as the opposite of how most screens display information as black text on a white background. The black text on a white background is similar to how books and newspapers are printed. But when you are looking at a screen for long periods of time it’s easier on your eyes to have the majority of the screen dark and only have the text be the part that is emitting light. It’s similar to the way that the old console like MS-DOS or a shell like on Linux operates.

Dark mode is great if you get sore eyes or headaches from looking at screens.

Facebook said, “Enjoy lower brightness, alongside contrast and vibrancy, with dark mode. It minimizes screen glare for use in low light, wherever you are”.

If you are running Android 10 you can change Android to dark mode in settings and then you can have the Facebook mobile app run in dark mode.

History of Dark Mode

Dark mode is not a modern invention. Originally computers had character-based user interfaces, not graphical ones, and the majority of them were light text on dark backgrounds. Some people may remember in the 1980s, the green CRT screens (or Amber ones) of the Apple ][ computers, Microbees and IBM PCs. The Dick Smith VZ-200 had an undocumented dark mode if you knew how to turn it on. The Workbench of the Commodore Amiga also used a dark mode theme by default, although the background was blue and it wasn’t very dark blue, the text was white.

After using dark themes for many years software makers moved over to light themes. It looked new and fresh. Now after over 35 years of light mode, we are seeing a trend back to dark mode. Will it last 35 years before we all go back to light mode? Probably not.

Dark mode theme has been available on software development tools for many years. Darcula theme on the Android Studio IDE and Microsoft Visual Studio Code editor are good examples. Lately, it has become a trend in web and app development. Android version 10 has a dark mode setting to affect all apps that support that theme. Google announced in May 2020 that it would be rolling out a dark mode for the Google search app across Android and IOS devices within a week. Have a look in the More | Settings area for Theme to give it a try when it’s available.

How to turn on Facebook Dark Mode for desktop web browser version?

Facebook is rolling out a new desktop web browser version. Not everyone has it yet as it is being introduced in stages. When they give you the new version, sometime soon, you’ll be able to turn dark mode on by clicking on your profile picture in the top/right of the screen and turn on the button for dark mode.

Using dark mode can save power and conserve battery life if you are using a screen where individual pixels emit light. Like in an OLED display. But, if you use an LCD screen where the light is emitted from the backplane and not by individual pixels then there is no real advantage for your battery life. It’s just easier on your eyes and looks cool.

brain circuit
Battery DIY, Creativity, Life Hacks, Tips and Tricks

How to increase your creativity

 

Have you ever wondered where creativity comes from? Or how it can be increased and improved? Have you ever seen a new breakthrough invention and thought ‘why didn’t I think of that?’

Have a watch and see this youtuber explain how he gets inspired to build new things. Robert explains a process of gaining new knowledge that you can apply to making inventions, building things that have never been made before, reusing things in unique ways to save loads of money and discovering unique solutions to old problems using new materials.

What is creativity?

The dictionary describes creativity as…

“the use of imagination or original ideas to create something; inventiveness”

Ideas for what to do in lock down

When you start exploring how things work and you are always thinking ‘how can this be applied to current problems?’ you soon realise there is no end to the things you can try. By the act of exploring, thinking and trying you’ll discover new knowledge. It’s in the doing that you’ll find this knowledge.

So many times I’ve had a good idea, a unique way of solving some problem and I asked a friend what they thought about the idea and they said “if that worked, somebody would have already thought about it and tried it and they would already have a patent on it”.

And yet I, still continue to discover new knowledge by exploring, thinking and trying. So many new materials and devices have been invented in the past 50 years. There is so much potential waiting to be explored by applying these new things to old problems and also to new problems that have arisen recently.

No new knowledge here – Robert Murray Smith.

 

 

Electronic Music

Cakewalk by BandLab Free Professional DAW

 

Cakewalk is a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)

Cakewalk has been around a while and has changed owners several times. It was created originally for DOS, starting with version Cakewalk 1.0 in 1987, first developed by Twelve Tone Systems, Inc. Beginning in 1991 it was available on Windows 3.0. At one time it was owned and developed by Roland Corporation and was known as Roland Cakewalk Sonar.

Named after a dance “The cakewalk” or “cake walk”, a mid-19th century dance, generally at get-togethers on black slave plantations, in the Southern United States.

The last version of the product featured a piano roll editor, support for limited music notation and a built-in scripting language called CAL (Cakewalk Application Language). Cakewalk was a predecessor of SONAR which had nearly all of the same features, including support for CAL, and was the only major DAW on the market supporting a scripting language.

It contains loads of plugins in for effects processing, soft synths and samplers.

After 30 years, Cakewalk, Inc. ceased operation, with only the company’s web forum and license authorization servers still being kept functional.

On February 23, 2018, Singapore-based BandLab Technologies announced its purchase of some of Cakewalk, Inc.’s assets and all of its intellectual property. BandLab’s stated goal was continued development of the former company’s flagship product, SONAR (now known as Cakewalk by BandLab) as part of its portfolio of freeware digital audio workstation software.

My song Gypsy was done entirely using SONAR. Have a listen and watch the music video here.

I downloaded Cakewalk by Bandlab and tried it out.  The user interface is more refined and easier to work with and overall this free version is much better than the version I paid for in the past.

Cakewalk by Bandlab has been released for free for Windows 7 or higher (64-bit only). Why isn’t it available on the Macintosh? I guess the Mac already has a plethora of digital audio software to choose from.

You can download it for free here.

life hacks
Life Hacks, Tips and Tricks

25 Best life hacks for your gadgets

I found this today and thought it was worth sharing. In the video, you will find lots of ways to create stands for phones and tablets using everyday items, like a paper clip! You’ll find ways to increase privacy when using computers, ways to recycle old tech waste into useful, unique looking items. You’ll even find ways to make geek techno jewellery for next to nothing.

There’s a bunch of innovative ways to keep cable clutter under control and look great too.

You’ll find lots of little tricks that make life easier. You’ll find inexpensive ways to fix tech items. Saving you big $$$’s.

There’s also a whole load of tips for photography using your smartphone. There’s even a way to turn your phone into a microscope using nothing but a single drop of water!

Enjoy,

 

Geoff Williams

 

Book reviews, Health News, Life Hacks, Tips and Tricks

Easy Way To Stop Smoking, Painless Method

 

Are you concerned about your health? Smoking is a big killer. I struggled for over 25 years as a smoker. I tried quitting countless times, only to eventually go back to it.

Why is it so hard to quit smoking, I used to wonder. Why do I do it to myself? If only I could quit and stay quit, I could save some money. A friend told me about a book he read in 1994 that helped him to quit and stay quit. The answers to how cigarette addiction works and how to beat it are in this book.

 

Easy Way To Stop Smoking - Allen Carr
The easy, painless method of overcoming cigarette addiction

 

The book is called “The Easy Way To Stop Smoking by Allen Carr”

It’s a short book of around 100 pages. I got the book and read it. Within 3 days I had finished the book and I had quit smoking for the final time. And it really was easy. This book is not what you might be thinking… It’s not a book that’s full of statistics on the dangers of smoking. It is not designed to scare you out of smoking. That wouldn’t work.

It works by giving you the knowledge of how the addiction operates and this, in turn, gives you the understanding and power to defeat it. I’ve been quit for 7 years (as of January 2021). Once you stop smoking you will feel better and you will have so much more money to spend on the things that you really want.

One of the worst parts about being a smoker was that I was always running low on money, running low on food and petrol. Always feeling that I was running low of food and money was a terrible feeling. Living that way was awful.  Always running low on petrol created a constant anxiety worrying that I would get stuck somewhere. I no longer have that experience. Thankfully.

The book is around $10, depending on where you buy it. You can get a great deal at Amazon. I highly recommend this book. It has allowed me to save thousands of dollars and very likely has added many years to my life. I have more energy, I no longer smell like an ashtray, and I spend my surplus on good food, fruit, computers, gadgets, a new guitar and my electro-chemistry hobby. This book can save your life and it can save you thousands of dollars that would otherwise have been spent on cigarettes or on medical bills.

You can get the book by clicking here.

 

by Geoff Williams

zylascope.com

 

 

SEO
Internet Marketing

Stop building backlinks – this works much better

Here’s how you should be building your backlinks. This method is basically free, you don’t need to spend any money on advertising.

If you are trying to increase traffic to your website by building backlinks consider this. Google automatically scans your website and ranks it based on the new original content that it finds. This means that your time is better spent creating content like interesting articles than on asking people to link to your website. By using this method you can eventually have thousands of links coming in.

Link building is useless – do this instead…

Google knows if you are dropping your link into the comments section of other blogs (Comment Spam) and other low-value ‘spammy’ places. Eventually, you can be penalised for this by Google giving you a much lower ranking. So build your traffic the right way. Good luck.

Mobile App Development Tutorials

Basic Photo Studio Equipment

 

Are you interested in setting up your own home or office photography studio? If so, you’ve probably found out that it can be pretty tricky to decide which photo studio equipment you really need. The primary components of a good photo studio are the background, lighting, the camera, plus props and film if you won’t be shooting digitally. Here’s a look at some of the basics.

A good background is extremely important as basic photo studio equipment, since it can be a good complement to your subject, or a real problem. Plain backgrounds, such as seamless paper, are usually preferred. Stick with white as a basic choice, though blue, gray and black are also good. Muslin can also work. When you’re going to roll the background paper to the floor, make sure there’s a smooth curve that will eliminate harsh horizontals. Consider putting paper or tape on the bottom of human models shoes to keep the paper clean. Muslin backgrounds are made of light cotton, can be draped, and have more texture than paper.

Lighting is next most important. You’ll need a minimum of two lights – one for direct lighting and a softer light to prevent harshness. A third light is extremely common. This can be used to edge light the subject, preventing it from blending into the background. Most people start with flood lights, also called hot lights (and they are quite hot!) They cost less and work well with just about any camera. The heat can be uncomfortable, however, and basic fire safety needs to be followed. The bulbs are incandescent, so they need to be replaced fairly often.

Another popular type of lighting used as basic photo studio equipment is the strobe. These flash when you take a picture. Digital cameras are usually connected directly to your studio strobes to signal them to work. If this is not possible, choose strobes equipped with a light sensor that will set them off when the camera flashes. Make sure your camera does not use a pre-flash if you’re going to be using this method, however. It can set your strobes off too early.

A simple chair and some other props are appropriate if you’ll be using mostly human models, but aren’t necessary if you’ll be photographing mostly objects. Choose the camera that’s best suited to your subjects. If you’ll mostly need to take photos of small objects, a camera with good macro settings should be part of your basic photo studio equipment. Most professionals use SLR cameras instead of automatics, since this allows for manual adjustment. However, you should work with the tools you feel most comfortable using.

These are just the basics when it comes to photo studio equipment. There are lots of other options out there, and as you take pictures, you’ll find out which ones are best for you. The best thing you can do is to get started!

When shopping for photo studio equipment there are lighting kits available that are all in one’s to help get you started easily. These lighting kits will often come in the form of continuous lighting which means the scene is always lit in cool to the touch fluorescent light kits with all the lights that you need including a muslin backdrop. There are also stroble flash kits available as well if you’re going to be using an SLR camera that can allow you to sync your lens with the flash. The original “hot lights” or halogen lighting kits are continuous photo lighting kits like fluorescent is but produce a lot of heat and are not nearly as economical to operate as the cool running fluorescent kits are. For photographers just starting out, continuous lighting either in the forms of fluorescent or halogen lights are the easiest type of lighting to work with, simply turn them on and you are free to begin shooting.