Slide Show: Backstage at Obama\'s Election Night Event

News media arrived in Chicago at the McCormick Place Lakeside Center where President Obama's election night event will be held Tuesday.

Q&A: Photos from Camera to iPad

Q.

I want to load photos directly from my camera to my iPad, but I hear the Camera Connector device sold by Apple only fits SD cards and not Compact Flash. Is there another way to copy images directly from the camera?

A.

One model of Apple's iPad Camera Connector adapter is indeed designed to fit the smaller Secure Digital format used by most point-and-shoot cameras. However, the company also sells an adapter with a USB port on one end - for connecting the camera's own USB cable to the iPad to copy photos from the memory card to the tablet.

Most of Apple's camera adapters cost $29, including the iPad Camera Connection Kit (which has both the SD card and USB adapter) for the first three generations of the iPad and the Lighting to USB Camera Adapter for the new fourth-generation iPad and iPad Mini.

If you have an older iPad with the bigger Dock Connector jack on the bottom, you can also find third-party adap ters that fit Compact Flash cards, like the M.I.C. CF Card Reader or those sold at Photojojo.com.

Dead Phone Battery? Just Burn Something

After Hurricane Sandy knocked out power in the Northeast, a New York start-up came up with a good publicity stunt: Light a fire so people could charge their dead cellphones.

BioLite, a 15-person company based in Brooklyn, sells a $130 camp stove that doubles as a power source. You light a fire inside a metal fuel chamber, where a thermoelectric generator converts the heat into electricity to run a fan. The fan blows air into the fire to oxygenate it and create a clean burn. The generator also powers a USB port for charging phones and other electronics.

Erica Rosen, director of marketing at BioLite, said company employees set up a table with the stoves in spots like Washington Square Park in Lower Manhattan, where m any people were still without power. They offered hot drinks to people as they gathered around the stoves to charge their dead phones. The stoves got plenty of attention from passers-by, including the police, who ordered BioLite to stop.

“It was going really well until the cops showed up, and we packed up and made our way back,” Ms. Rosen said. “I can sympathize with them - we're in a disaster emergency, and here come a group of people with literally a table that's on fire.”

Founded by two designers, Jonathan Cedar and Alec Drummond, BioLite received $1.8 million in financing in December from the foundation led by Clayton Christensen, author of “The Innovator's Dilemma.” It sells the stoves in 70 countries with the goal of popularizing a cheaper, cleaner approach for the three billion people around the world who cook on open fires. The company declined to say how many stoves it had sold, but said sales were in the tens of thousands.

It's a bit of an unusual start-up in a time when many entrepreneurs are trying to strike it rich with the next great app for smartphones. “Software is great at making life efficient, but many of life's most basic needs are still served by physical objects,” Mr. Cedar said.

Tip of the Week: An Introduction to Windows 8

Microsoft's just-released Windows 8 operating system has a much different user interface than previous versions of Windows, which may have some people nervous about the learning curve. To help new computer owners see the Windows 8 system in action or give shoppers some idea of what to expect whenever they do upgrade, Microsoft has posted several introductory guides on its site. These guides explain what has changed in Windows 8 and how to do basic tasks on the new system; they can be found here.

The Caucus Click: Costumes and Characters

Damon Winter/The New York Times

A host of costumes and characters punctuated the crowds at campaign events throughout the year. Go to Slide Show '

The Caucus Click: Cellphone Nation

Doug Mills/The New York TimesPeople used cellphones and cameras to snap pictures of President Obama during a campaign event in St. Petersburg College in Florida.

The presence of cellphones has become ubiquitous during the campaign, whether for taking photographs or shoring up support. Go to Slide Show '

Live Coverage of Election Day

Americans went to the polls on Tuesday to decide whether to give President Obama a second term or to replace him with Mitt Romney after a long, hard-fought campaign that centered on who would heal the battered economy and what role government should play in the 21st century. Times reporters around the country will be providing live updates, analysis and results throughout the day.

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In New Hampshire, Romney\'s Last Pre-Election Rally

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Even Mitt Romney looked a little surprised to see a crowd of 13,000 and several thousand more waiting in the below-freezing temperatures to get into the Verizon Wireless Arena here Monday night.

At his final rally before Election Day, Mr. Romney took the stage after 11 p.m. after a brief performance by Kid Rock. The crowd shouted “U-S-A” and waved “Romney-Ryan” and “Women for Mitt” signs. Mr. Romney, the Republican candidate, took it all in.

“These last months of our campaign have seen the gathering of strength of real movement across the country. It's evident in the size of these crowds like this tonight - my goodness,” he said, to applause. “And I understand that there are a few thousand people outdoors who couldn't get in, too.”

It was a homecoming of sorts for Mr. Romney, who kicked off his presidential campaign in New Hampshire, first in the Republican primary and then in the general election. Polls have tightened in the state recently, with Mr. Romney by most measures trailing President Obama by a few percentage points.

“This is a special moment for Ann and for me because this is where our campaign began,” Mr. Romney said. “Your primary vote put me on the path to win the Republican nomination. And tomorrow your votes and your work right here in New Hampshire will help me become the next president of the United States!”

Standing in front of a giant blue sign that read “Real Change on Day One,” Mr. Romney accused Mr. Obama of worsening the partisan divide in Washington and caring “more about a liberal agenda” than the economy. “I won't waste any time complaining about my predecessor,” he said. The crowd roared.

That sentiment struck a particular chord with Stefan Skalinski, an 18-year-old high school senior who said he planned to vote for Mr. Romney on Tuesday. Mr. Skalinski, bedazzled in Romney-Ryan buttons a nd bumper stickers stuck on his sweatshirt, hovered by a heat lamp waiting to get into the Verizon arena.

“After the past four years Obama keeps blaming Bush, but he's done nothing,” Mr. Skalinksi said. He shook his head, “He promised us so much change in 2008.”

Martha Garron, 52, held a homemade sign that said, “Hope is not a plan.” She shivered outside the arena waiting to clear security and get inside.

“We wanted to see Romney before he becomes president,” Ms. Garon said. She said the economy was the most important issue, but that Mr. Obama had let her down on other counts. “It's everything,” she said. “And Libya to boot.”

As a former governor of Massachusetts, Mr. Romney feels a particular closeness to neighboring New Hampshire, which only carries four electoral votes but has a particularly high voter turnout and a large number of independent voters who can sway the state's electoral votes. His final campaign rally carried a mix of exhaustion (particularly by the traveling press corps who had an hourlong bus ride to Boston ahead of them when the event ended), nostalgia for previous victories in New Hampshire and anxiousness to see what Tuesday's vote brings.

“We're one day away from a fresh start, one day away from the first day of a new beginning,” Mr. Romney said. “My conviction is that better days are ahead.”

The size of the crowd at the Romney rally might not translate to voters. Many of the attendants said they had driven in from nearby states - Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey - to see the event.

David Perry, a 60-year-old director of development at the Boy Scouts of America, and his wife drove two-and-a-half hours from their home in Windham, Conn., to attend the Romney rally. “I've got five grandchildren and I don't want to leave an enormous debt for them,” Mr. Parry said. “I think there's a real crisis going on in America.”

Amanda Fiedl er, a 21-year-old senior at Gordon College, a Christian school in Wenham, Mass., drove to Manchester with a few friends because she said they are scared they will not find jobs when they graduate. “Obama has had four years to improve the unemployment rate,” she said. “We're all worried about getting jobs.”

The Caucus Click: Stars and Stripes From the Campaign Trail

Damon Winter/The New York Times

The versatility of the American flag as seen at campaign events. Go to Slide Show '

Q&A: Animating Your Own GIF

Q.

In an earlier post you said: “In case you want to give GIF-animating a try, several sites and programs available around the Web have tutorials or software to convert regular video clips (or a collection of images) into animated GIF files.” How exactly do I do it?

A.

An animated GIF is a special image file created from multiple frames that appear to be moving in a constant loop. You can make them from your own photos with photo-editing software on your computer, a smartphone app or a Web site that converts your uploaded pictures.

Before you decide how you want to make your animated GIF file, you should select the images to use for the project, like a sequence of pictures of a puppy jumping around. All the images used should be sized to the same dimensions.

The fewer pictures used, the faster and choppier the animation will be in the final GIF file. Some basic animated GIF files just use four images. For more fluid, video-like motion, use more images in the sequence.

Recent versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements, a popular photo-editing program designed for home users, can make animated GIFs in about five steps using the Layers feature of the program. Adobe's site has instructions here.
The open-source GIMP photo-editing software can also make animated GIF files.

Several Web sites let you upload your photos or video clips for automatic animated-GIF conversion. Some of these include Gifninja, Gickr, MakeaGIF and Picasion.

If you want to convert a few frames of a video clip from YouTube, you can find step-by-step tutorials online that explain how to create an animated GIF with Adobe Photoshop. Another tutorial has steps using free software for Windows. If you want to make your GIF animations on the go, search your mobile app store for suitable software; Gifboom is one such mobile app with iOS and Android versions available.

The Early Word: Finally

Today's Times

• Consider yourself an armchair pundit? Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg have composed a guide on what to look for as election night unfolds.

• The ads may stop running and the rallies will cease, but Ohio's choice for president may not be known until December, John M. Broder reports. The all-important swing state has a labyrinthine recount procedure that ensures weeks of delay and the likelihood that campaign lawyers will be busy for quite some time.

• As the campaigning comes to an end, the gulf between cable news channels is expanding, especially when it comes to coverage of a particular party and candidate. Jeremy W. Peters looks at how MSNBC and FOX News have pushed their partisan stridency to new levels.

 Around the Web

• Rapper Jay-Z made the line famous, but Mayor Cory Booker of Newark made it viral, The Huffington Post reports.