Ken's dashboard

Ken started following the question "RescueTime on Multiple Computers" in RescueTime.

Ken asked a question in Apple on November 25, 2008 17:54:

How do I use the 9400m graphics card while in Windows?

When running Windows on my MacBook Pro it always reports that it's using the beefier 9600M. Since battery life is already pretty limited I want to switch to the slower but less power hungry 9400m but I can't figure out how. Can anyone help?

Ken replied on November 24, 2008 16:56 to the problem "Missing synths." in Microsoft Live Labs:

Thanks Mike, it looks like one of our servers had a hiccup last night. As of this morning we've rolled over to a backup server and we are investigating the cause of the problem. Everything should be working now.

Ken replied on November 03, 2008 16:38 to the question "Will PhotoSynth be available for Windows soon?" in Microsoft Live Labs:

I'm not sure I understand your question, can you elaborate? We recommend Windows XP or Windows Vista for Photosynth, are you asking about another version?

Ken set one of Ken's replies as an official response to "After Successful Synthing from Game Screenshots..." in Microsoft Live Labs

Ken replied on October 30, 2008 15:59 to the question "After Successful Synthing from Game Screenshots..." in Microsoft Live Labs:

If you hit 'P' you can do this. Hit again to show just the photos, a 3rd time to show both photos and points. You can also hold down Ctrl at any time to temporarily hide the photos (this is awesome when you're looking at a halo).

You can find more info about keyboard shortcuts in this post: http://gsfn.us/t/mp1

Ken set one of Ken's replies as an official response to "I have a cool idea for Photosynth, how can I suggest it so that it will get attention from the Photosynth team?" in Microsoft Live Labs

Ken replied on October 24, 2008 18:41 to the question "I have a cool idea for Photosynth, how can I suggest it so that it will get attention from the Photosynth team?" in Microsoft Live Labs:

That’s a great question Ken <g> GetSatisfaction makes it easy to suggest new ideas or to add your vote to ideas that others have suggested. Here’s a quick overview of how to submit your ideas to make sure they get noticed.

1. Submit your thoughts as an idea. Get Satisfaction allows you to ask questions, report problems, heap praise and suggest ideas. Putting your comments into an idea maximizes the chances that we’ll see it.
2. Search for existing ideas first. If someone else has already submitted your idea then it’s more effective to click the “I like this idea!” button. That will raise the rank of the idea and cause it to bubble to the top when you sort ideas by popularity. You can add your own thoughts to the comment and when the team reviews popular ideas we’ll see all the comments along with the original post.
3. Break your suggestions into logical chunks. Your kitchen sink post with 25 bullet point suggestions is less likely to get “me too” responses than something simple like “Provide me a way to mark my favorite synths”
4. Give your idea a descriptive title. Remember, you’re trying to attract the attention of other synthers as well as the employees.
5. Fill in all the details. I’d recommend writing the basic idea in the description and if you have extended thoughts add a comment.

That’s it! Get Satisfaction makes it easy to view the ideas by popularity or by by recent activity if you’re curious what others are suggesting.

Good synthing!

- ken</g>

Ken asked a question in Microsoft Live Labs on October 24, 2008 18:39:

I have a cool idea for Photosynth, how can I suggest it so that it will get attention from the Photosynth team?

I have a cool idea for Photosynth, how can I suggest it so that it will get attention from the Photosynth team?

Ken replied on October 24, 2008 17:46 to the question "can I use my synth as a screensaver" in Microsoft Live Labs:

That's a great idea but no, we don't support that yet. Feel free to submit it to the ideas category, the team reviews those when making future plans.

Ken replied on October 20, 2008 18:18 to the question "How do I start a new discussion?" in Get Satisfaction:

Thanks for the quick response! I'm happy to see the new company update type, we'll definitely use that.

Ken marked one of Lane Becker's replies in Get Satisfaction as useful. Lane Becker replied to the question "How do I start a new discussion?".

Ken asked a question in Get Satisfaction on October 20, 2008 17:33:

How do I start a new discussion?

I see how to ask a question, share an idea, report a problem and give praise but how do I start a discussion? I see discussions on the product pages but don't know how to create them.

Ken replied on October 17, 2008 14:27 to the problem "Incorrect point clouds when two images are taken from the same location." in Microsoft Live Labs:

Bitplay I couldn't find the specific flat walls in your synths. I'll confirm with our scientists but I believe the issue occurs when there are two photos where a) there isn't much movement between the camera positions and b) there isn't any 3rd photo of the same area. The rule of thumb is that all the points in your photos need to appear in 3 photos, in this case without that 3rd photo the synther doesn't have enough info to compute good depth information so it just puts the points on a plane. If you navigate the viewer to either of the original 2 images it will look correct from those perspectives but looks odd from other angles.

The synth below made from Mars rover images has a similar problem. The rovers take images with very little overlap and you can see dense points in those regions. You can see the effects of too little overlap too, the model isn't very accurate.

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=a...

It's not a bug & won't cause any problems for your synth other than an odd spot in your point cloud from some views. The solution is to include more images of the impacted region so Photosynth can accurately compute depth values.

Hope that helps,

- ken

Ken replied on October 15, 2008 21:38 to the question "Synths focusing too much on clouds" in Microsoft Live Labs:

I've never heard of this before, can you share a link to your synths?

Ken replied on September 10, 2008 23:05 to the question "Has anyone tried a multi-room synth?" in Microsoft Live Labs:

Sure, lots of people have! David's Afternoon with Vase and Guitar is a good example. It's one that we used for testing throughout the development of Photosynth.

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=f...

Ken replied on September 05, 2008 16:01 to the question "One email addres two accounts, can log in on one and synths stored in the other!" in Microsoft Live Labs:

The website and the synther store their credentials separately. My guess is that you had "remember my password" checked so the synther just logs you in automatically with your old account. Try logging out of the synther by clicking the signout link and when you log back in specify the new account. That should work.

Ken replied on September 05, 2008 00:26 to the question "How can I upload multiple photos" in Microsoft Live Labs:

Sure, just select multiple photos in Explorer, Windows Live Photo Gallery or other photo browser and drag and drop them into the add files dialog. You can also drag straight to the green area at the top of the synther window. I create all my synths by dragging, I find it really fast.

To select multiple files within the file dialog select a file, then hold Shift down and select another and all of the files in between will be selected. You can hold Ctrl down while selecting individual files as well.

Ken replied on September 02, 2008 07:11 to the question "Working with large photo sets." in Microsoft Live Labs:

I took the question as more aimed at the creation of synthetic views. Something like "If I followed all these complex steps could Photosynth create new views of the diagonal path?". The answer is no, it would not create a synthetic diagonal view.

Remember that at the center of the screen Photosynth is always displaying an image that you took. We use other images for transitions and to provide context but we always move from image to image.

Ken replied on September 02, 2008 06:57 to the question "can underwater photographs be used in Photosynth?" in Microsoft Live Labs:

It should work underwater, I have seen a few underwater synths. I'm not an UW photographer so I can't speak to the specific challenges you'll face but it should work. Give it a try and let us know!

Photosynth tends to ignore moving objects so it shouldn't be a problem unless the fish are completely obscuring the background.