Category: Technology

Let’s say that you have a very confidential message or file that you want to share with someone and you absolutely don’t want anyone else to be able to see it. Most people would just share the message via email or some other communication tool, but this isn’t necessarily secure, especially since the tool provider, like Gmail, could access your email communications. When you want to be 100% sure that only your recipient can view your message, the best practice is to encrypt/decrypt it using GPG.

Encryption Variations

Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is a proprietary encryption program that provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication.

OpenPGP is a non-proprietary, open-source version of PGP.

GnuPG (Gnu Privacy Guard / GPG) is a non-proprietary, open-source version of OpenPGP.

GpgFrontend

This post will show you how to share secret messages with a friend by encyrpting/decrypting them using GPG. There are many tools that can encrypt/decrypt messages using GPG, including command line tools. I will use GpgFrontend because it appears to be the easiest for the general public to use. For this tutorial, I will use Windows.

1. Download the GpgFrontend

Both you and your friend will need to perform this step.

You can download the Windows installer or the portable version that doesn’t require installation. For simplicity, I will just download the portable version.

1. Download the portable version from GpgFrontend’s latest releases, labeled GpgFrontend-*******-windows-x86_64-portable.zip.
2. Extract the contents of the downloaded ZIP file.
3. Run GpgFrontend.exe from the extracted Program/bin directory.

2. Generate a Key Pair

Your friend will need to perform this step.

Open GpgFrontend

Click on “Manage Keys”.

Click “New keypair”.

Fill in your details, such as name and email, and choose your desired key type and size. You can also add a comment if you wish. Set an expiration date for the key, or choose ‘Never Expire’ if you prefer. Optionally, create a passphrase for added security. I will click the Non Pass Phrase checkbox for simplicity. Once all details are filled in, click ‘OK’ to generate your key pair. You will then see your key listed in the KeyPair Management window.

3. Share Public Key

Your friend will need to perform this step.

In the KeyPair Management window, select the key you want to export, right-click, and click “Show Key Details”.

Click the “Operations” tab, then click the “Export Public Key” button.

Save the public key somewhere on your computer. For me, the filename generated was David[email protected]_pub.asc. The “pub” stands for “public” because this is your public key that you can share with other people. If you open the public key file, it will look something like this.

Your friend should send you this file so that you can use it to encrypt your message.

4. Import Public Key

You will need to perform this step.

Click “Import Key” -> “File” and browse to the public key file your friend shared with you.

Click the OK button to confirm importing the key.

5. Encrypt a Message

You will need to perform this step.

Write a message in the main text area of GpgFrontend.

Check the public key in the list of keys in the Key Toolbox pane. To do this, click in the leftmost column of the key you want to use, outlined in red in the screenshot below.

Click the “Encrypt” button. You will see that your plaintext message was converted to a PGP message.

6. Share the Encyrpted Message

You will need to perform this step.

Copy the encrypted message and share it with your friend, e.g. via email.

7. Decrypt the Encrypted Message

Your friend will need to perform this step.

Copy the encrypted message into GpgFrontend’s main text area.

Click the “Decrypt” button. You’ll see the encrypted message get converted to plain text.

With GPG, you can do many other things as well, including

• sign and verify text
• sign and verify files
• encrypt/decrypt files

Learn more

After making a number of vacation videos using

• my phone (Google Pixel 8)
• my action camera (Insta360 Ace Pro)
• my two 360 cameras (Insta360 X3)

I’ve found the following works best for depending on the scenario.

Driving

• If HDR is necessary and you only want to film in one direction, mount the Ace Pro on the windshield facing the front of the vehicle (FPV)
• If you want to film both the vehicle occupants and the road, mount the Insta360 X3 on the windshield
• Shoot either a regular video or a Timeshift video

Walking (Daytime)

• Mount one Insta360 X3 on your chest (FPV). The Ace Pro isn’t a 360 camera, so it will not allow you to reframe later on to get subjects that are not directly in front of the camera.
• Hold a second Insta360 X3 or X4 on an extended selfie stick such that the camera is at eye level to film yourself

Walking (Nighttime)

• For good image quality, mount the Ace Pro either on your chest or on a selfie stick and use “Pure Video” mode to get good night shots.
• If you use the Insta360 X3/X4, the image quality will be much worse.

Hotel Room Tour

• Mount the Ace Pro on a selfie stick and film as FPV or film with the screen flipped up so you can film yourself (selfie)
• Use “Pure Video” mode because you will be indoors and with unnatural (low) light.
• I tried using my phone with a gimbal, but I preferred the simplicity and the results of using the Ace Pro.

Here’s a comparison of the picture quality from taking a snapshot of a video taken by both the X3 and the Ace Pro. As you can see, the Ace Pro picture quality is way better. Click on each image to open the original files.

Here’s another comparison.

Eating

• Use X3

Airplane Take-off and Landing

When filming a take-off/landing from a window seat of an airplane, the difficult is keeping the horizon level. Also, with HDR technology, the sky can look overexposed, white, and washed out. If you use a 360 camera, you can adjust the horizon in post, but that’s a hassle. Ideally, use a gimbal, like the one integrated with the DJI Osmo Pocket.

There may be times when you want to listen to a popular song, but you just want an instrumental version of it. There are many tools that use AI to remove vocals from a song, but unless you are making a track for karaoke, where you’d provide your own vocals, simply removing the vocals from a song will not result in music you’d care to listen to. For example, if you search YouTube for an instrumental version of a song, you’ll find many where the vocals were simply removed – and with poor quality at that. A better instrumental version of a song is one made by replacing vocals with instrument, e.g. piano, saxophone, etc. Compare the 3 audio clips below.

Audio clip with original vocals

Audio clip with vocals simply removed (somewhat imperfectly)

Audio clip with vocals replaced with Alto Saxophone instrument

Audio clip with vocals replaced with Chill Wave Synth instrument

Here’s how to replace vocals with any instrument.

1. Create a BandLab account

https://bandlab.com

Some features require a subscription.

2. Open the splitter

Click the icon to the right of the BandLab logo, then click on the Splitter link. Or, go to https://www.bandlab.com/splitter.

3. Split a song into tracks

You will have to option to choose how many tracks to split the song into. Since we’re only interested in replacing the vocals, you can choose “4 Tracks”. Then, click the “Split” button.

BandLab will upload the song audio file and take a minute to split the audio.

When it’s done, click “Open in Studio”.

You will see the 4 tracks in the Studio.

4. Convert voice to MIDI

Right-click on the “Vocals” track and click “Audio to MIDI” > “Voice to MIDI”.

5. Change the MIDI track to one of 370+ instruments

You’ll see a new track below the “Vocals” track called “Audio-to-MIDI”.

On the “Vocals” track, click the “M” button to mute that track. The track’s soundwave will gray out.

6. Choose an instrument

1. Click on the “Audio-to-MIDI” track.
2. Click “Studio Grand” (the default instrument” to open the “Browse Instruments” dialog. Click on the play button to the left of an instrument to preview the sound. Search for an instrument by typing the instrument’s name in the search field. I will type “sax” and then click the “Alto Saxophone” instrument.

7. Preview the instrumentalized song

1. On the “Audio-to-MIDI” track, move the vertical playbar to the beginning of some signals in the track.
2. Click the Play button to preview the song.
3. Experiment with different instruments.

Optionally, lower the volume of the “Audio-to-MIDI” track if that produces a better result.

8. Tweak MIDI notes

Some of the MIDI notes probably won’t sound right. You’ll need to tweak them.

1. Click the “Audio-to-MIDI” track.
2. Click the “MIDI Editor” button at the bottom left.
3. Click on a MIDI note (a single blue bar to the right of the vertical piano keys) to hear the note.
4. Left-click and drag the MIDI note up or down to change the sound.

9. Export audio

When you’re satisfied with the preview, download the audio by clicking Project > Download > Mixdown As”

Choose one of the download options.

There are at least 3 major things that affect music audio quality:

1. Speakers
2. Audio source, e.g. mp3 file, FLAC file, etc
3. Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC)

Some people may argue that transmitting audio over Bluetooth degrades sound quality, but the reality is the difference is so small that it’s negligible.

Speakers

Needless to say, quality speakers are necessary to hear music at a higher quality. Don’t expect to hear quality audio from cheap $10 earphones. Since I’m not an audiophile and I’m not interested in spending thousands of dollars just for speakers, I just have what I guess are prosumer speakers. Specifically, I have:

• Sony WH-1000XM4 Wireless Noise Canceling Overhead Headphones ($348)
• Sony WI-1000XM2 Noise Canceling Wireless Behind-Neck in Ear Headset/Headphones ($300)

And since it makes no sense to buy them at full price, I buy them renewed on Amazon for a big discount because even renewed, they look and function exactly like they are brand new.

The WH-1000XM4 has a better sound stage, but it’s bulkier and leaks audio a lot. Also, it’s not great for working out because I feel it moves around too much and gets in the way of my workout. The WI-1000XM2 is compact, doesn’t leak audio, and can easily rest on my neck when not in use. The problem is when listening to music on my phone, the volume is often not high enough, especially when at the gym or when traveling by plane. This is where having an amplifier (amp) takes care of volume issues.

Audio source

I’ve dabbled with lossless FLAC files, but when compared to high-bitrate mp3 files, I personally can’t notice a big enough improvement to justify the cost and huge file size. I’m okay with mp3s as long as the bitrate is high enough. I normally just buy mp3s from Amazon Music. Don’t expect to hear quality audio from low-bitrate mp3s, though. The compression is too lossy.

Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC)

Chances are you probably listen to music from your phone and sometimes from your laptop like me. The problem is the converters in them that convert digital audio signals to analog signals are likely of low quality. I have the Google Pixel 4a 5G smartphone. It’s a mid-range phone. But even if you have a high-end phone, the digital-to-analog converter (DAC) is most likely not as good as a dedicated DAC. Fortunately, there are small Bluetooth DACs that are lightweight and can clip onto your shirt. I tested the EarStudio ES100 MK 2 ($60 renewed, $80 new on Amazon).

When comparing the audio quality with and without this DAC, it’s clear that the DAC makes a decent, if not big, difference, depending on the song I’m listening to. The DAC is also an amplifier and can increase the volume to levels higher than I’d ever need it to be. It didn’t come with an aux cable, so I bought a short 4-inch one. The setup might seem complex, but it’s not that bad, especially if you’re just sitting for a long time, like on a long flight.

Instead of pairing your head/earphones to your audio source (phone, laptop, etc), you pair the DAC to it.

Though it has volume controls, I find it easier to adjust the volume from the phone app. It’s recommended to set the source volume (phone or laptop volume) to max and to adjust the analog (DAC) volume. The app has a lot of options and clear explanations, but I find the default settings to be sufficient.

In this tutorial, I will explain how to create an animated travel map route from point A to point B using Pinnacle Studio.

1. Create two map images

We’re going to need to create 2 images.

1. an image without a route
2. an image with a route

This tutorial assumes you know how to create such images. I took a screenshot of Google Maps for the map background and used Photoshop to add balloon markers and location labels and to create the smooth route curves.

2. Add images to video tracks

• Open Pinnacle Studio
• Click the Edit tab
• Click the Library tab
• Drag the two images to the library pane

Then, drag

• the image with the line to AV track 1
• the image without the line to AV track 2

By default, the clips will be 3 seconds long. I prefer to drag them so they are 10 seconds long.

3. Create the animation

• Drag the playhead to the beginning of the image clips

• Double-click on the image on AV track 1
• Click the “Effect” tab
• Click the “2D-3D” tab
• Double-click “2D Editor Advanced”

• For “Select Preset”, choose “No Preset”

Scroll down. Under “Cropping, we’re going to edit the cropping properties as follows:

• if the line will mostly animate toward the bottom, drag the Top % slider until the line first completely disappears.
• if the line will mostly animate toward the top, drag the Bottom % slider until the line first completely disappears.
• if the line will mostly animate toward the right, drag the Left % slider until the line first completely disappears.
• if the line will mostly animate toward the left, drag the Right % slider until the line first completely disappears.

The clip in AV track 1 shows a black mask partially covering the image as you drag the slider.

Drag the slider, you’ll notice the line starts to disappear in the preview window.

Scroll back up in the 2D Editor Advanced pane and click on the diamond icon to turn on keyframing.

• Drag the playhead to the point on the clip where you want the line to be finished. This will also change the speed of the “animation” as the cropping will go quicker if you end it earlier. I just dragged it to near the end of the clip.
• Scroll back down and drag the slider to the left until the line first appears in full

• Preview the animation in the preview window.
• If the animation looks good, you can export it.

One idea is to partially overlay a video clip of you driving while describing your trip.

Another idea is to overlay the map route animation at 50% opacity over a video of the trip.

In the example above, I used the following two images.

To create the composite video, I used Corel VideoStudio and put the route animation video on an overlay track.

Double-clicking the overlay clip opens the clip’s settings. I clicked the “Blending” tab and then set the opacity to 50%.

I then had to slow down the speed of the route animation so its duration would be close to or match that of the airplane clips.

• Right-click on the route animation clip
• Speed > Speed/Time-lapse…

• Change duration (in my case, I chose 20 seconds)

UPDATE

It’s actually easier to create the route animation on a Mac using Keynote. See these video tutorials.

Map Resources

• MapSVG
• Snazzy Maps
  • Atlist