Hacking the Canon

I just came across a series of pages in Lifehacker which talked about downloading some software onto my Canon S3 Powershot to allow it to do all sorts of wonderous things, most of which I don't care about. One that I did, and the reason I did it, was that you can have the camera tell you how much battery power is left. I've always thought it silly that the camera knows this, but it wouldn't tell you. Now it does.

I found the FAQ more than a little confusing, as it kept saying 'just do this', without saying How. I know, noob question.... One of the things that confused me was whether or not the 'lock' switch on the camera's memory card needed to be set in order for it to work. For one thing, I didn't even know the card had a lock switch; for another, it wasn't clear if 'for it to work' meant 'get this software onto the memory card' or 'use this software, once it was on the memory card' or something else entirely. I found one place in the FAQ that clearly said you must lock it; another that clearly said you must unlock it.... argh. I also couldn't get the file that I created to move over to the camera -- which I didn't know, prior to today, was even addressable by the Windows file system. It'd show up, but when I tried to drag-and-drop, it wouldn't let me do it. Fortunately for me, I found a casual comment about '..or you can use your laptop's memory card reader', and I thought 'Yeah, like I have one' -- only it turned out, I did. How about that.

So this is pretty cool. Now all I have to do is figure out how to use it. Maybe, before I try, I'll make this cake....