Review: Photo Basics 402 uLite Video Lighting Kit
July 14, 2009 by admin · Comments
I am a member of the Amazon Vine Program. Each month Amazon.com sends me products to review on their site. This month I received the Photo Basics 402 uLite Video Lighting Kit
As an all-in-one kit, the Photo Basics 402 on the surface appears to be all inclusive. In the box are two moderately powered soft boxes, some software, a few sample backgrounds, and an absolutely enormous green screen. 
You can see some of the other reviewers’ results in their video reviews on Amazon’s site. There’s no question this kit provides just about everything needed to do some decent green screen work. But there are some problems that are worth pointing out:
1. What appears to be a free standing flat green screen in the marketing photos is actually an enormous (and heavy) rolled up green blanket in the box. What’s more, the manufacturer does not provide any hooks or other tools to aid hanging up the screen (at least my box doesn’t have it). Expect to take some time to get it flush and static. Even small movements of air can move the screen enough to give some errors.
2. The only software included with the package is a sample version of Adobe Premiere Elements which will expire after thirty days. There is nothing for Mac users, although the current version of iMovie supports green screens.
The Photo Basics 402 kit succeeds in that everything in the box will work once you invest a little bit more to get a full version of the software and the screen stabilized. Still, a comparable setup with a better screen could be pieced together on Amazon for a comparable (or maybe even lower) price.
Here’s an example of a moderately priced alternative:
Fix the Ugly Dock in Leopard
October 15, 2007 by admin · Comments
I’m going to do a little tech blogging this morning. I just upgraded all of my Macs to Apple’s new Leopard operating system. For the most part (beyond the usual first version bugs and compatibility issues) it’s a welcome improvement.
One thing I dislike about the upgrade are the changes they made to the dock.. To try and make it more aesthetically pleasing they made it more difficult to see what applications were currently running (the little dot underneath open apps blended into the background).
Thankfully there’s a fix. Simply type this command into terminal:
defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES
then type killall Dock.
After you’re done the dock will appear and look like this:
Sometimes simple is better! If for some reason you want to return to the old/new dock, simply replace the “YES” in the above command to “NO.”
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- Plants vs. Zombies breaks records on the iPhone February 26, 2010
- ‘Find My iPhone’ Rescues Two Stolen Phones at Busch Gardens February 25, 2010
- Poll: Republicans more partisan February 24, 2010
