Rollei, perhaps most famous for its twin lens reflex (TLR) range of Rolleiflex medium format cameras made famous by the likes of David Bailey, is back with the Rolleiflex Instant Kamera.
Sharing the same iconic and instantly recognizable design as its forebears, the new Rolleiflex Instant Kamera is a TLR camera that shoots Fujifilm Instax Mini film.
When using a TLR camera you frame shots with the camera at your waist, perfect for street photography while on the move – just look down to compose your shot and fire.
The large Fresnel anti-glare coated viewfinder on the Instant Kamera delivers a 1:1 preview of your image, while there's also a magnifier that flips up so you can take a closer look at the image you're capturing, just like on a traditional Rolleiflex camera.
The magnifier will be especially handy as focusing is adjusted manually, with a focus range of 48cm to infinity. The focal length of the lens hasn't been revealed, but you can control the aperture range (which runs from f/5.6 to f/22), while exposure is taken care of for you by a built-in ambient light meter Ambient Light Meter. To check if a shot will be exposed correctly you'll need to check the green/orange light before triggering the shutter button.
If you fancy getting your hands on a Rollei Instant Kamera, Rollei is seeking funding on Kickstarter, where backers can pledge $395 (about £290) to secure one for themselves, with shipping included. Deliveries are expected to start for Kickstarter backers in October.
If you are planning to roll out numerous Ubuntu-based servers, you can download the default ISO, install the operating system on each machine, and then install the necessary software. But what if each of those servers will need the same list of software packages installed? Why go through the hassle of manually adding those packages after you've installed the OS? If there were a way you could create a custom Ubuntu ISO, which includes all the necessary software, wouldn't that be the most efficient means of handling this task?
Cubic is a custom Ubuntu ISO creator. With it you can take a standard Ubuntu ISO image, install all the third-party software you need, and then create a custom, bootable (and installable) image from that. In the end, you'll have a Ubuntu platform that includes all the software you need, without having to add everything post-install.
I'm going to walk you through the process of installing and using Cubic. Once you know this tool, you won't want to work without it.
I'll be installing on Elementary OS, but the tool will install on any modern Debian-based distribution (so long as said platform has a GUI desktop). Open a terminal window and issue the following commands to install Cubic:
That's all there is to the installation. You should find an entry for Cubic in your desktop menu. Click to start it and you'll be prompted for your sudo password.
The first screen requires you select a project directory (Figure A). You can have only one project per directory, so make sure you are using a new directory for each custom ISO (or delete all project files when the task is complete).
In the next window, you must select the original ISO image to be used for the creation of the custom image (Figure B). I'm going to use Ubuntu 16.04 and add Kubernetes to that image. Once you select the image, the rest of the information will automatically fill in. Do not change anything in the Original ISO section. You can, however, change information in the Custom ISO section.
Click Next and you will eventually find yourself in a terminal window indicating you are in a chroot environment (Figure C).
From this terminal window, install all the applications you need in the standard fashion (via apt or apt-get). Once you've completed this task, click Next. You will then see the kernel image being used for the ISO. You can't change this, so click Next again. At this point Cubic will begin building your custom ISO (Figure D). When it completes, click the Finish and your new disk image is ready and can be found in your project directory.
The final screen does allow you to delete all project files (minus the generated disk image). Unless you have a need for the files, I'd recommend you do this. Burn your ISO image onto a CD/DVD or USB drive (or use it for a VirtualBox VM) and you're ready to install your custom platform.
That's all there is to creating a custom, installable ISO image based on an original Ubuntu disk image. If you're looking at deploying numerous Linux servers (each of which will be based on the same collection of software), I highly recommend you giving Cubic a try. This easy-to-use software will save you time, especially when rolling out a data center filled with Ubuntu servers.
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TechRepublic's news podcast featuring headlines, trends, and stories. This week we discuss stories about the Kentucky Derby, new research about UX in the enterprise, and the Silicon Valley VR Expo.
This week on TechRepublic's Business Technology Weekly podcast, hosts Dan Patterson and Bill Detwiler discuss enterprise software best practices, the frustrations of Linux, and how the Internet of Things is changing events like the Kentucky Derby.
Fast-paced tech upgrades at the Kentucky Derby | Teena Maddox It's the week of the Kentucky Derby, the biggest annual event in horse racing. Each year, the demand for data usage at Churchill Downs in Louisville doubles, and the 2016 upgrades have added 50% more LTE capacity to the wireless network, with over 1 million feet of fiber optical cable and 290 antennas in place. Churchill Downs is also using an app to collect data on Derby-goers to find out more about their preferences.
Internet of horses: How Trakus sensors make the Kentucky Derby digital | Erin Carson Trakus is putting sensors in horses' saddle cloths to collect real-time data on the Kentucky Derby. That information gets turned into graphics using a broadcast interface, and then it goes to a variety of places, like the Trakus iPad app. The company says the idea behind this is to use tech to help younger generations get into the sport.
Why excellent customer service should be a corporate growth strategy | Mary Shacklett Customer support is essential for all service-based companies, but customer-facing operations sometimes don't get the attention they deserve. Treating customer support as a second-class citizen could mean increased customer churn, lost revenue, and damage to the company's reputation.
After three years of Linux, Munich reveals draft of crunch report that could decide its open source future | Nick Heath The German city that underwent one of the world's largest shifts from Windows to Linux is struggling with buggy and outdated software. A survey cited that 85 percent of city employees said software problems interfered with their work at least once per month. It may not be the end of Linux in Munich, though. It's unclear whether computers running Linux or the four thousand Windows machines running software as old as Windows 2000 are to blame.
How UX is Transforming Enterprise Software | Bill Detwiler TechRepublic teamed up with ZDNet for a special feature on user experience and enterprise software. We looked at best practices for building software that users like, and how to avoid getting stuck with software that employees hate. All this was based a survey done by TechRepublic's sister site, Tech Pro Research, where 44% of respondents had negative opinions about the software they use for work. Their biggest frustrations were slow, clunky interfaces that aren't easy to figure out how to use.
How the 'PayPal Mafia' redefined success in Silicon Valley | Conner Forrest A decade ago, the PayPal Mafia played a major role in revitalizing the tech industry in Silicon Valley. Conner Forrest's cover story is the story behind a group of leaders, how how they prove that their success is more than just luck
Erin Carson recently attended the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Expo and dialed- n with an audio report about 10 of most important, emerging AR and VR companies.
TechRepublic and Tech Pro Research publish a number of free and useful business technology newsletters. Each week we spotlight a newsletter that summarizes the week's most interesting stories. The Election Tech 2016 newsletter is focused on what business can learn by watching how campaigns use big data technology.
Microsoft Sway taps into the multimedia-savvy younger workforce by offering better tools than PowerPoint.
On August 5, 2015, Microsoft announced that Sway had been moved from Preview status to Generally Available status for all Office 365 users. Microsoft describes Sway as a digital storytelling app, which is a fancy way of saying publication software with multimedia features.
Sway tries to tap into the more multimedia-savvy and younger enterprise workforce by offering them communication tools beyond the basic PowerPoint presentation. Only time will tell if this is good news for enterprise communication or if it is simply more bad news.
I'm not going to go through the mechanics of how to create a Sway story, but I can say the tool is fairly easy to use, even for an old guy like me. Sway combines features from PowerPoint, Movie Maker, and WordPress, among others, so that a person with limited multimedia skill can put together a storyboard in very little time.
If you have an Office 365 subscription, then you already have Sway. If you don't have Office 365, but you have Windows 10, you can get Sway for free from the Windows Store. Microsoft provides tutorials and examples to get you started, so Sway may be worth a try for your next presentation or report.
Sway is another example of Microsoft's fundamental market strategy of providing the modern enterprise workforce with powerful collaboration tools through Office 365. In Microsoft's vision, the modern worker will be communicating with other workers through digital technology. This ability to effectively collaborate and communicate is vital, because the modern workforce is mobile and spread out.
For the most part, I agree with Microsoft's assessment of modern workforce collaboration and communication. For many, collaboration over distance has been an important part of enterprise communication for years now, and it will only increase in importance as a younger, digitally-raised workforce start their careers.
By positioning Office 365 as the hub that makes all of this enterprise collaboration possible, Microsoft is inserting itself into the very fabric of corporate culture. It's a strategy designed to create a brand and an ecosystem that's synonymous with enterprise communication. I think it's a solid strategy, and I commend them for the effort.
However, with all that being said, I'm not convinced that Sway is going to play an integral part of this enterprise collaboration ideal. The problem is a key word used throughout Microsoft's announcement—creativity. Effective storytelling with a tool like Sway requires some creative skill, and that's a limited commodity in most enterprises.
After attending thousands of meetings and witnessing hundreds of feeble PowerPoint presentations, I've come to the conclusion that most of us are not that creative.
Perhaps that's too harsh. Maybe it's not that we aren't creative, but rather, we're not allowed to be creative. Perhaps it's a corporate culture self-fulfilling problem—PowerPoint presentations are bad, because PowerPoint presentations are always bad. That's just the way it is.
Sway tries to break this vicious cycle by providing tools for adding images and videos to the storytelling process, but that doesn't mean workers will be able, or allowed, to tell the story much differently than they have before using PowerPoint.
Whatever the reason, PowerPoint presentations, in my experience, are seldom an effective form of enterprise communication. Some better tools are welcome. The question is, will an app like Sway make a difference? Perhaps we are just doomed to bad presentations, no matter what tool we use. With time, the younger generation may have some ideas that can save us from ourselves.
When was the last time you attended a meeting with a good presentation? Do you think new apps like Sway can improve the presentation experience, or do we remain doomed? Will the interjection of some younger workers into the enterprise environment change the presentation format for the better? Let us know your thoughts in the discussion thread below.
While I doubt this will change their actual hardware lineup, it was interesting to see today that Dell has decided to retire their Dimension desktop line. The name, which has been around for 15 years, has helped make Dell one of the largest PC retailers in the world. Now, with no announcements or fanfare they are silently dropping the name.
In its place, Dell's Inspiron tag which has traditionally been for laptops only will now also be used for their desktop models. It isn't just a change in name, though, with the Inspiron desktops also bringing a newer chassis style that is smaller than the Dimension. Given that they have changed a lot about their lineups in the past few years, including offering AMD processors and offering Linux as a stock option (though only on a few models), they are looking to change their image in the desktop world.