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Back in the day, when the first LED TV’s appeared, Philips came with a great feature: Ambient TV lighting.

Ambient TV lighting consisted out of lights that would project to the wall behind your TV, one or more colors matching the content on your TV. So if the majority of the screen would be red, then the light emitted would be red, if the majority of the screen is green, then green light would be emitted, etc.

Over the years this has been refined to multiple colors, matching small parts of the screen. Unfortunately though, this wonderful feature is not something you can simply add to your TV. You will have to buy a Philips TV with this feature, …

Until now though, and only for XBMC (Kobi) users. Some smart guy(s) created Boblight, which is opensource and can run (for example) on your XBMC computer. The computer analyzes the video content and “converts” it to signals for LED strands, so you can attach these strands behind your TV and have a DYI Ambient TV lighting effect.

Note : This will only work for content played through your XBMC Media player (I used OpenElec)! So your regular TV shows, your XBox or PlayStation, none of these will have an influence on the “Ambient TV lighting” we will be discussing in this article.

I just installed a WiFi card in a Mac Pro and thought I’d share the ease of installation on my website. In my case, I installed it in my pride and joy, a 8-core Mac Pro 2008 model (Mac Pro 3,1) which kicks ass, but it works on newer models as well. As long as it’s a a model before the new late 2013 model (the fancy trash bin).

For this WiFi upgrade I used the Apple MB363Z/A Airport Extreme Wireless Upgrade Kit, found at Amazon new for $25, which MacOS X recognizes instantly – so no need for crazy drivers and weird WiFi apps. The Mac Pro, made out a metal alloy, has two build in WiFi antenna’s and this setup will pick up on 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz WiFi (if the same card is being used).

When I started building my own “AmbiLight” project, based on OpenElec (XBMC) and Boblight, the first problem I ran into is finding a tool to create a Boblight config files for use under MacOS X. Naturally, there are quite a few great tools out there that do a good job, but it’s either a script, web-based or limited to Windows users (Boblight Config Tool), and again … not for MacOS X …

Creating a config file for Boblight can be quite tedious when you have a large amount of LEDs (I had 290 LEDs), when you mix up the orientation of your LEDs (pretty common issue), or when you do not have your LEDs spread out evenly.

So here is my tool, for Windows, MacOS X and Linux, written in Lazarus Pascal – enjoy!
UPDATE: Another minor bug fixed, added test video and Boblight Config Maker can now also be found at Alternativeto.net.

For those of us coming from the Windows platform, that have used the Image Resizer PowerToys for Windows XP (yeah I know: from way back in the day), here a free application for MacOS X users to have that same functionality as well.

Simply right click an image, choose the desired size and your images will be resized automatically without modifying the original file.

I’ve expanded the functionality a little bit, by adding the option to convert a Retina image straight to “classic” (50% size reduction) and after resizing the option to automatically attach the resized images to an email, ready to be send to friends and family …

Boxee Box, a Linux box from D-Link that runs a fork of XBMC called Boxee, is dead … maybe we will see some of it return in a re-incarnation with Samsung, but I wouldn’t hold my breath … I’m sure others agree with me that Boxee went the wrong direction and I’m sure quite a few of us Boxee owners have returned to XBMC, or a XBMC variation like OpenElec.

So what are we doing with the old Boxee Box? Trying to sell it, toss it in the garbage, or … run XBMC on Boxee Box as if it’s a regular HTPC …? I gave the later a try and to my surprise it works pretty well …

iPhones have a vibrate function as an alternative for a ringtone – which is handy in environments where you’d rather not hear a loud song playing.

Back in the day, when I played with the first color cellphone from Ericsson (T68i), some goofballs created a vibrate pattern which make your Ericsson phone “dance” … I haven’t been able to make my iPhone do such a cool little dance, but you can customize the vibrate pattern of you iPhone.

In this day and age, quite a lot of documents can be found in PDF format. But how do you transfer a PDF (or ePUB) file to your iPad or iPhone so you can read them with form example iBooks?

In this article I will show you how to get your PDF or ePUB files on your iPhone or iPad without any effort.

Most mobile devices can display PDF documents just fine. Some mobile devices, or at least the apps on these devices, show things just tad nicer when the document is formatted in the ePUB format.

In this article, for Windows, MacOS X and Linux, we will show you how to easily convert a PDF document to a ePUB document for use with your mobile device (Android, iPhone, iPad, etc) or computer.

Note : The tools used in this article also support other formats (Kindle, Doc, TXT, HTML, MOBI, etc.).

ApplePi-Baker, the application I developed for Mac OS X user that like to work with the Raspberry Pi, is now available in version 1.3.
With ApplePi-Baker, you can write an IMG file to an SD-Card, prepare an SD-Card for NOOBS use, and make a backup of an SD-Card.

The changes are mostly cosmetic. Wider window, more aligning with your average screen, removal of the resize icon, and the application is now more Retinizer compatible.

Also a minor bug in SD-Card and SD-Card reader detection has been fixed.
See the ApplePi-Baker article or the Downloads Page for download and details.

As part of a small series of iPhone and iPad tricks: An article on how to increase battery life (time before you need to recharge) and battery lifespan (time before you need to replace a battery) for iPhone, iPad and iPod users.

Some of these tricks can be applied to Android phones and other battery operated devices as well.

As part of a small series of iPad/iPhone tips and tricks, an article that covers some tips and tricks related taking pictures including remote camera control for selfies, Copy and Paste pictures, iPad as Photo-frame, Ringtones, Home-Sharing, screenshots, AirPlay, iTunes Radio, etc. … features we all might overlook!

Please note that some of these features are just cool, and others are really helpful,…

I’ve used iPhones and iPads since the day they have become available, and I have to admit that I did get stuck in my old habits and sometimes forget to look at new features and functionality … specially when it comes to entering text …

In this article, part of a small series of iPad/iPhone tips and tricks articles, I compiled a list of interesting text and keyboard tricks you should look at as an iPhone or iPad user …

Most of us have heard the phrase “Bitcoin“, as it appeared in numerous news articles and tech blogs. I’m also pretty sure that most of us know that “Bitcoins” is seen as some sorts of “online currency”.

Trying to figure out how it all works on the other hand is a totally different story, as I’ve found out myself when I was trying to get started. Most articles out there are very technical, and often very confusing.

That’s why I wrote this article, a Bitcoins Introduction, to tell you more about what bitcoins are, how to use them …

After a long time of waiting, I finally managed to update “Name My TV Series” to version 1.4.1 for Windows, Linux (32-bit) and Mac OS X.

Some of the most important bugs that have been resolved, based on user feedback:

– File renaming under Windows with special characters (accent, etc) has finally been resolved.
– Under Windows and Linux, the use of special characters in the show description works now as well (still show “?” under MacOS X).
– Support for .rmvb video files has been added.

Download it from the downloads page or from the original article.

In this article I’ll show you how I connected a SainSmart 1.8″ Color display to my Arduino Uno and I’ll show you how to get some basic things to work.

The Arduino does not come with a display, and that’s perfectly fine as it’s intended to be used as a micro-controller and not a micro-computer.
Adding a display however, may be needed at times though to provide user feedback for when a user is using your marvelous Arduino invention.

User feedback can be done in several ways of course: a simple beep, a simple LED, a simple LCD screen, or like in this case, a more advanced Color Display.
Considering the price I decided to get one ($20 at Amazon, $13 at SainSmart, starting at $13 on eBay, or an Arduino version at AdaFruit for $20) and experiment with it.