Do you think of your camera as a mechanical device, or a computer? The answer to this question should be a computer. Although your camera may have mechanical components and mirrors for the actual process of taking a picture, what drives your device is software.

• Better software yields better photographs
• Low quality software means bad pictures

In the computing world, we techies / nerds often create "dual boot" systems with multiple operating systems. Is it a surprise that cameras now have the same capabilities? By performing a hack on your camera, the end result will be a device with many more features (for less money) than the manufacturer had intended!

Surprisingly, performing the hack is not too difficult for Canon cameras. Better yet, unlike the world of PC hacks where your changes often mean you enter the world of no return (i.e. mistakes could mean an unresponsive computer), with CHDK (Canon Hack Development Kit) your hack is installed on your SD card. Thus, the hack runs off the SD card, and by performing a normal camera power on process, you boot to the factory operating system / defaults!

My camera is a Canon SX40. By performing the hack I acquired some of these benefits:

• Extended the shutter time for 15 seconds to 32 minutes
• Acquired the ability to perform time lapse photography
• Acquired the ability to take motion triggered pictures of lightning strikes
• Extended the aperture, exposure, ISO options (useful for night time photos)

Normally I would have to purchase a much more expensive camera to acquire these options. If you have a Canon camera, explore this web site (CHDK Downloads) to determine if a hack exists for your specific model. Finally watch this YouTube video from BigNate84 on how to install the CHDK hack. I would also recommend this YouTube playlist from Fatdragon100 which has additional information about the Canon sx40 hack process.

I would recommend watching BigNate's video twice. The first time you view the video, just absorb the content without performing your hack. When you watch the second time, use pause and play and perform your hack. In total, if you are cautious like me, the process should take you about two hours. The hack in terms of commands invoked is very short, but it's always best to work through content like this slowly!

Happy hacking, and remember … your camera is a computer!

Retiring from Honeywell means I get to change my LinkedIn profile for the first time! Thus, I have promoted myself to Chief Nerd of NorthStarNerd.Org.

Here is my new LinkedIn profile:

Chief Nerd
NorthStarNerd.Org - Duluth, Minnesota  

Trying new roads in life revolving around web development and bike touring! After 28+ years with Honeywell in Corporate I.T. and Engineering, at the relatively young age of 57, decided it was time to take an early retirement and explore new ideas and perspectives. In addition to seeing America at 13 mph on a bike, am taking consulting roles that help companies optimize their web presence via the use of cost effective web 2.0 tools.

• View via LinkedIn (including Honeywell experience)
• View recent projects & examples

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Earlier this afternoon I installed a super new cool app on my Google Nexus 10, Look to the Future. The app allows me to examine the future and understand the collective net effect of my actions taken as a Honeywell senior technologist.

Given I'm only 8 days short of my retirement, imagine my horror to learn the result of all the collaboration and web development projects I've led over my 28+ years with the company. My co-employees, please accept my apologies. It's obvious that I should be ashamed, perhaps even fearful of retribution!

I used the Look to the Future app and watched the trailer for a History TV documentary from the year 2068 entitled: "The Internet: A Warning From History". I truly had no idea my actions would lead to these problems. Thus, for each of these projects … and more … I'm sorry. (projects listed below the History TV trailer).

At age 56, you might not expect the NorthStarNerd to be a leader in terms of social media. Obviously, I am too old! However, if my younger peers make that assumption, you would be wildly mistaken.

I just received an email stating that my LinkedIn profile was one of the top 5% most viewed profiles in 2012. This is an amazing stat. You might be curious where I hang out online. What is generating all these views?

• First, while I do have a Facebook account, it is very private … friends and family only. My security / privacy settings are very locked down. I rarely "like" Facebook services because I am not willimg to give my private information to these organizations. Thus Facebook is not generating many views of my LinkedIn profile.
• While I have a Twitter account, I am not real active. Twitter is mainly a one way conversation which I don't find real useful from a collaboration vantage point. Once again, I doubt Twitter is generating many views.
• Most people do not blog anymore. This fact is a shame. My blog is a personal R&D site for both me and experiments I run for my Fortune 100 employer. My blog now has over 500,000+ views. Given I display the link to my LinkedIn profile near the top of my blog, I suspect my blog does quite well in terms of views. Please understand, I've built of the following to this blog slowly over many years. No pain, no gain.
• Private Yammer networks outside of my company's own microblog are a favorite for me. Did I mention I like two way conversation and collaboration?!
• Finally, I am a huge, but selective user of LinkedIn. The demographics and connections which may be found and utilized are downright amazing.

Thus, do you manage your social media reputation, or does it manage you?

All great things must come to an end, and my career at Honeywell has been fantastic! However, after 28 years in various technology roles, I have decided to retire early from Honeywell at the relatively young age of 57 and discover new horizons. My last day at Honeywell will be Friday, April 26th. Thus, I ask all of you … my friends, social connections and web site readers to help me write the next chapter in life.

Given Honeywell’s generosity over the years, and my frugality, money is NOT the driving factor in this research. For instance, in the short term, I plan upon helping a number of charitable organizations with their web development and collaboration efforts. Other than covering my direct expenses, my work will be unpaid and is a donation.

Before making any longer term decisions, I plan to rectify a mistake I made years ago upon college graduation. Within 2 days of obtaining my degree from Dartmouth College I started my work career, and only once over the intervening years did I take two consecutive weeks of vacation. By contrast upon that June day in 1978, two college buddies delayed their entry into the “real world”, purchased an old car and saw America. Over the next few months they would surface in unexpected places as they worked their way across the USA with no particular destination in mind. Their main hope was that the old car would make it to the West Coast. It did!

I don’t intend to make the same error twice. No matter what the next chapter may hold, the next few pages will read “epic bike” ride with my wife. After my last day at work, the first steps will be to start training with Molly in preparation for the Great Gaspé Tour! … a 2,000 mile bicycle trip through the Maine, New Brunswick, Quebec and New Hampshire. (Wikipedia: Gaspé Peninsula) (Learn more about my bike touring plans)

Watch out, North America! (post continued below)

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After this ride, the next chapter begins. Help me define how this book might read. Should I continue web development project work for charities? use my experience for a start up? work as a project manager for a consulting firm while taking liberal amounts of time off between assignments to satisfy both my wanderlust and charitable urges? I don’t know the answer to these questions, but the search will both interesting and fun. All I do know is that a new fabulous journey awaits me. (learn about my building schools and dorms in rural China | Video or Project Background)

Over my Honeywell career I’ve had the good fortune to be the lead person on many ground breaking exciting technology projects. Most of these services were ideas I proposed and introduced to Honeywell. While some of these items may not seem advanced in the year 2013, most were trend setting ideas in their own time.

For obvious reasons of confidentiality, I cannot link my Honeywell work. However, over the years I have used NorthStarNerd.Org as my personal R&D platform. When possible I’ve linked related blog posts from the past. Here are just a few of the projects I’ve led.

• Category: 
  • Work Project | Start Date | Related Blog Example
• Web Design, Development, Social Media and Video
  • Web Design | 1997 | Honeywell Technology Center via Internet Archive
  • Web Analytics | 2008 | WebTrends
  • Social Media Monitoring | 2009 | Twitter and more – Dilbert!
  • Web Analytics | 2010 | Google Analytics | Google Campaign Builder
  • Search | 2010 | Google Site Search | Noble Prize Winner Seminars / Videos
  • SEO | 2010 | Google Webmaster Tools and much, much more | Marvin the Martian SEO
  • LinkedIn | 2010 | Honeywell LinkedIn Channel – My Research
  • YouTube | 2011 | Honeywell YouTube Channels
• Internal Collaboration, Learning & Knowledge Management
  • IBM Compatible PC Training | 1985 | n/a
  • eLearning | 1990 | NETg – NTU – SkillSoft – Stanford Online
  • Virtual Meetings | 1999 | Placeware, now Live Meeting from Microsoft
  • Virtual Library | 2000 | Online access to research, magazines, manuals and more
  • Internal Wikis | 2000 | Wikipedia drives first Honeywell wikis –  Wikimania
  • Search Engine Tagging | 2007 | Connectbeam
  • Microblogging Portal | 2008 | Cat 2.o or Cyrus Joins Our Yammer Network
  • Video Sharing Portal | 2012 | Brightcove

Please help me discover the next chapter. I can be reached via email: RichardHoeg@GMail.Com or Google Voice: 218-461-9105. You may also wish to view my LinkedIn Profile: Rich Hoeg.