Only in Australia, can you make terrorist jokes in public with the taxpayers’ money and get away with it.

A late night comedy show on a public TV station called “The Chaser’s War on Everything” recently hosted a prank on a local domestic airline concerning the recent airline terrorism scares. They booked two e-tickets under the suspicious names of “Al Kyder” and “Terry Wrist” (which sounds surprisingly like Al Qaeda and Terrorist for those slow people) and checked-in to board. Of course, they wanted the names read out over the speakers so they failed to board the plane. The look on the women reading the names is priceless.

Adapted from The Age’s article.

If you need any convincing that DirectX 10 is worth it or not, then this will blow you away. Throw away OpenGL, trash your DirectX 9 graphics card, it’s time to upgrade to cinematic-quality real-time computer generated graphics!

Hover over the image to load hover image. Please wait patiently.

From the DirectX 10 Whitepaper on the Windows Vista Team Blog.

As you can see from the comparison between the two screenshots, this is not fake. There is no structural changes between the two images; except only lighting, weather effects and the water. Infact, the reflection and refraction of mountains in the water didn’t even change, just the water texture! But the difference is nothing short of amazing.

These renders come from the Microsoft Flight Simulator X game. If infact, and only if, the DirectX 10 version is a real-time rendered screenshot straight from the game, then it gets me thinking, why not a virtual wallpaper? In the early betas of Windows Longhorn, there were hints of a 3D rendered wallpaper called “Aurora” which showcased moving light auras. If Microsoft can leverage the power of DirectX 10 to the desktop, literally, then the possibilities of 3D wallpapers are endless.

Edit: Some people say the DX10 version is purely a pre-rendered concept screenshot. However, the Windows Vista Team Blog claims it was “created using Microsoft Flight Simulator X in DirectX 10”. Regardless if it was pre-rendered or live-rendered, it would have used the capabilities in DirectX 10.

Updated: Changed face model to F.E.A.R.’s game model to better reflect the capabilities of DirectX 9. This is not a direct comparison and should be taken as a guide.

Does your photos look a little dead? How do you turn a dull and lifeless picture into a snapshot of warmness and contrast. Sure you can find the perfect day with the perfect setting, but not everyone has the opportunity to spend their time waiting for the sun to come down at the right angle. But Photoshop can help. Using the color balance tool, you can do more than just changing colors. Here’s a quick 1min way of boosting the life of your photos.

Turning this into this

Watch the screencast/video of how to do this.

Click image to play video. (Quicktime H.264, 1:19min)

Here are the steps:

1. Open your photo in Photoshop. Duh.
2. Go to Edit > Adjustments and > Color Balance
3. I prefer to start with the “Shadows” properties. But you can also start with the “Highlights” properties.
4. There is no rule to this. Grab a slider and pull it. Experiment with each slider to find the effect that you like. Once you’re finished with a slider, move on to the next one.
5. Then move on to to the opposite tone balance. “Highlights” in this case.
6. TIP: You should notice here that the “Yellow” slider has a significant effect on the brightness of the photo. Even though you are only changing the color, it can also have a strong impact on the luminosity of the photo.
7. Then move on to “Midtones”, and experiment again.
8. Feel free to go back to the “Shadows” or “Highlights” to make adjustments so you get the result you want.
9. Okay and you’re done.

Happy color-balancing!

I’ve received 67 71 81 entries to the Camtasia Studio prize draw in just 24 hours since the competition was announced. 109 entries so far! It’s been a fantastic response.

I’ve already extended the offer from 1 copy to 2 copies of Camtasia Studio to accomodate to the overwhelming demand. I’d like to thank the very generous Betsy from TechSmith in cooperation to host this competition.

Some of the ‘one-word-essay’ entries I’ve received so far are hilarious. Some people found ways to avoid the one-word ‘rule’, and others simply ignored the ‘rule’ all together. Regardless, it’s all good fun. Maybe I’ll even post a compliation of all the fun entries I would have received one the competition has closed.

I know everyone is a little skeptical about sharing good things, because good things never last. But please do share the link around. The more entries I receive, the more prizes I may be able to give away. There’s nothing to lose and absolutely everything to gain.

Tell you mum. Tell your grandpa. Tell your dog. Tell your doll. Tell everyone!

Have you ever wanted to show the world what your desktop looks like? Have you ever felt depressed? Did you suddenly have the urge to screencast? Did you ever want to teach someone the tips and tricks of Solitaire or Minesweeper? Did you ever have trouble selling a piece of software to a client that couldn’t tell apart Word from Notepad? Have you ever won anything useful?

If you answered yes or no to any of the questions above, then you need to enter this draw to win your own copy of Camtasia Studio, the award-winning screen recording software by TechSmith!

Camtasia Studio lets you easily create compelling training and presentations for Web and CD-ROM delivery, and you can do it without ever leaving your office. It is the only product versatile enough to record live PowerPoint presentations, personalized technical training sessions, and rich software demonstrations.

I agree!

With the power of interactive Camtasia Studio videos, you can deliver the same high-quality information time and time again, to even your most remote client or student. This means that you can share your professional expertise with more of your audience. And, you can reclaim the time and expense of conducting in-person presentations to increase productivity in other areas of your professional life.

Yes!

To create a video using Camtasia Studio, you don’t need multimedia expertise. Simply click the Record the screen button, and follow the steps in the New Recording Wizard to complete the recording. Using Camtasia Studio’s timeline and storyboard, you can then assemble your video, add and edit the audio and video tracks, and add callouts.

As easy as reading my writing!

Confused by all the technical jargon? Well, as this illustration on the Camtasia website demonstrates, you can point an arrow to the world with Camtasia Studio! What are you waiting for? Global warming? World peace?

Enter the draw to win your own free copy of Camtasia Studio today!

Text-to-speech is now officially creepy.

Apple introduced this week their new speech synthesizer in Leopard called Alex. It’s better than what they had before, and hell of a lot better than Microsoft Sam. This is what it sounds like.

Now you may be thinking that Microsoft is kind of in the dark in terms of speech synthesizers. Microsoft is introducing a new synthesizer called Anna in Windows Vista, which improved drastically over Sam, but not better than Alex.

Where the spotlight shines is on Microsoft’s partners. Oliver from the Microsoft Speech team pointed me to NextUp.com, a site dedicated to Windows TTS compatible speech synthesizer engines. Most of which were considerably better than Microsoft Sam, but one stood out so much above the rest that I just had to write about it. This is Lee, an Australian voice from the RealSpeak Solo made by Nuance, who also makes Dragon Naturally Speaking.

Compare that to Long Zheng TTS, me with my crappy microphone.

Lee almost sounded like a real newsreader besides from a few quirks at the end.

Also, my friend Andy wants some attention.