The Ben'enator

ICS Now for Nexus S i9020A

Benjamin — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 03:12:19 +0000

It has been a long time coming – Android 4 for the Samsung Nexus S phone. Over the last few days Google has once again been rolling out the 4.0.4 update for the Nexus S as well as the Galaxy Nexus. As impatient as I am, I still don’t have the desire to root my device and mess around with some custom ROMs, so I bit my lip, trembled and tried to stay patient.

Over the Easter weekend, I noticed that the official OTA update was posted online so I decided to download it and give it a go. This update can be applied without erasing your phone (although a backup is highly recommended). I did back up my text messages and decided to take the plunge.

It’s pretty awesome.

Overall, the experience is everything I hoped it would be and menus and home screen scrolling is seemless, smooth and very fluid. This version of Android adds some features such as native screen capture and a few more things that make it work trying out. There are a lot of different guides and sets of instructions around the web, but I figured I could save you a lot of hunting, searching and reading of different instructions if I simply posted up everything you need to move your AT&T/Telus/Fido/Rogers/Bell version of the Nexus S (i9020A) from Gingerbread’s 2.3.6 (GRK39F) to Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4 (IMM76D).

This requires no rooting, no bootloader tweaks or anything all that special. If you can copy a single file to your phone’s MicroSD card, you can do it.

I’ve included a file with a full “How to Update” readme that includes very basic instructions on how to get your phone updated. Please keep in mind that this is ONLY for the i9020A phone running 2.3.6. If you have anything else, please drop me a line and I can hook you up with a link.

Please download the package here and enjoy!

I’ve had requests to add a donate button to this post. Feel free to use it if you like. If not, no worries at all!

VulcLAN 2012 Wrapup

Benjamin — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 02:23:41 +0000

Wow. Thanks guys for making VulcLAN 2012 possibly one of the most fun events that I’ve had the pleasure to host. It was a great time, and thanks to the awesome sponsors, we gave out over $5,800 worth of prizes over the weekend. Amazing.

I’d like to offer up special thanks to Fujitsu for his mad organizational skills on the tournaments and for GuyOnABuffalo for all of his help setting up the match schedules.

Also, BoneRak and RoNiN once again brought servers and rocked our event with lag-free CoD4, MW3 and UT3 machines. It was awesome. Probably the most fun I had was with the some “Greed” mod on the CoD4 where we had 10v9 for some total mayhem. Shipment was just a little chaotic.

Samsung dropped a couple of 59″ TVs our way for the console tournaments and I’d like to thank Tigger for keeping things going (even though it got late) with the NFS:MW tournament. I’d also like to thank everyone for being flexible and understanding as we had to swap out NFS:Carbon for NFS:Most Wanted.

One of the highlights of the whole LAN for me was announcing the impromptu Jedi vs. Padawan (BoneRak & Nicao vs. Echo & Epithanatios). The wit and sarcasm of Fujitsu and MadScientist was pretty epic.

One of my most disturbing moments had to be when Ess chainsaw melee’d both Nicao and I in the Gears of War 3 tournament. I still feel a little whipped that I got sawed by a girl… heh Nicely done.

Thanks again to everyone – sponsors, staff, players, organizers for making this such a fun event to do every year. We already have some ideas for next year as we will be adding a RTS to the mix.

I’ve posted the pictures up over here and we’d love it if you’d leave some comments in the forum.

Falconer

Benjamin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:20:00 +0000

I had a bit of a chance to day to hang out with a couple of falconers that swung by to try their hand at some “Jack” hunting. While their hunt was unsuccessful, it was still interesting to hang out with them and learn a little bit on how different birds hunt. They had a couple of Hawks on hand as well as a Merlin and it was an interesting afternoon.

CES 2012 Aftermath

Benjamin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:43:08 +0000

I took a lot of the BCCHardware Crew to CES 2012 this January and we put in some long hours and got a lot of work done. Check out our coverage over at BCCHardware.com – if you want to pick and choose, check out the list below.

If you prefer to look at pictures, you can check out our daily image galleries here.

I hope you find something interesting! We sure had a good time and a lot of fun bringing you some great CES 2012 coverage!

Nikon D4 Launch

Benjamin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:27:30 +0000

If you have a bit of time this morning (January 24), you can head on over to Kelby TV and watch the big unveiling and demo of the new Nikon D4. I’m pretty excited about the technology although I won’t ever be able to afford this. The interesting thing is that that it features a full webserver, Cat 5 network and a lot more.

More info about the D4 of course over at Nikon.

CES 2012 In The Bag

Benjamin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:52:44 +0000

Once again, I was blessed to be able to attend CES in Las Vegas this January. The company I own – BCCHardware.com, managed to scrape together enough money to secure a house where a total of five of us stayed and took in North America’s largest tech show.

This year marked Microsoft’s last keynote and I believe, the start of some new things in technology. We saw innovation this year as well as a lot of major improvements to the technology that we’re using. For me, it was exciting to see and to be a part of. Please check out our Eye-Fi enabled Flickr Gallery here.

For all of the CES 2012 coverage done by the BCCHardware team, please go here. If all you want is pictures, you may go here and enjoy six days of pictures from around Las Vegas – and the trip getting there.

6 Great New Year’s Resolutions for Photographers

Benjamin — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 01:47:04 +0000

Lisa Bettany over at MostlyLisa has put together a great article covering six things that every photographer (budding or professional) consider when taking photos this year.

Her 6 picks are:

I will learn how to use my gear.
I will practice my technical skills.
I will take more pictures.
I will not be limited by the gear I own.
I will learn to edit my photos and critique my own photos.
I will not give up on a potentially great shot.

Epic clouds at Disneyland shot with an iPhone 4 & Camera+.

This young lady is an inspiring Canadian as she does a lot of work with a great Canon 5D Mark II, but also uses her iPhone extensively as well the Camera+ app. Take a look at her work over here.

New Years Resolution – My Only One

Benjamin — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 07:36:44 +0000

Well, it has been way too long since I’ve updated this site, and I only have one resolution this year, and that’s to make this site more inhabitable to those of you that decide to spend your precious time checking out all of the projects that I do.

This year has actually been a banner year for me as we’ve seen some pretty massive growth over at BCCHardware.com

Also, our podcast – WeeklyTechUpdate has grown like a weed and we are currently sitting at 136 episodes and will be broadcasting from CES 2012 in Las Vegas running from January 10 – 13. Our coverage will start as early as January 7th with our LAN Party Road Trip (stay tuned. It will be epic). Make sure you listen and watch for live coverage coming to you all through the week.

The amazing thing about our Podcast is how much bandwidth we suck from our host. We’ve upgraded dedicated servers twice this past year and there’s still no slowing down or looking back. Recently I bought WTUFiles.com in order to keep our podcasts rolling without crashing our site. Here’s hoping that works out.

There is a lot more to come, so make sure you keep BenHeide.com on your radar!

HDR – Video? Yes Indeed.

Benjamin — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 02:44:27 +0000

Online galleries are fully of over saturated HDR pictures that consists more of exposure blending that actual “High Dynamic Range” processing. Still, the effect is pretty interesting and if done properly – doesn’t look horrible and can enhance a photo. The downside is that many people overuse HDR and saturate too much for an unrealistic photo effect. While this is certainly good for illustration purposes – it isn’t always indicative of true “photography” – IMHO.

That being said – video has been left out of the loop – until now. Soviet Montage Productions has posted up some HDR video that they achieved by shooting with two Canon 5D Mk II cameras. In order to shoot the exact same image, they used a beam splitter to send the exact same image to each camera. The end result is pretty interesting.

HDR Video Demonstration Using Two Canon 5D mark II’s from Soviet Montage on Vimeo.

Although the effect on buildings, traffic and scenery looks pretty natural – the effect on people is a little different.

YC – 2010 Tenth Avenue North Keeps it Real

Benjamin — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 05:03:40 +0000

I find that in my travels, many people – including myself at times – put on a mask that disguises what they are feeling. Often we act socially acceptable instead of how we feel like acting, and while this is a good thing if it prevents violence, it is still a mask. Honestly, I find that religious people are some of the worst – and that is why I believe that Christians should be different. Christianity is not merely a religion, but a relationship and sometimes relationships aren’t easy and fun every day.

I had the opportunity to interview 10th Avenue North and I found them to be one of the most refreshing, honest bands that I’ve ever talked with. Jeff, Mike, Rueben, Brenden and Jason were kind enough to hang out with me even though they were exhausted as they were a last-minute fill in. Take a listen and find what our Christian duty is, and how life can get ahead of us. There is no defeat, only a chance for a better tomorrow.

Listen to the interview here.