cuil must be better

www.cuil.com must be a better search engine -- when you search for "Miserable Failure" you get both GW Bush's white house page and Jimmy Carter's page as well >>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

AT&T's direct fulfillment deal for iPhone

My wife's iPhone came in this week (Tuesday, infact). We picked it up last nite. I had ordered it from the closest AT&T Store 2 saturday's ago.

The direct fulfillment process was great. No long lines. No BS. When the phone shipped, I received an email notice. When it arrived at the store, they emailed me. We went it with her (now old) sprint phone. The guy ported the number. Tried to sell us accessories. And we were on our way home.

The next time we upgrade iPhones, I'm doing it w/ the fulfillment process. No lines, no bullshit.

So far she seems quite happy with it. Now she wants her own iTunes account, Jotta account, etc. >>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

Everything's a changin'

Of late, I've been geeking out. We are in the midst of changing everything. We've moved from CVS and CVSweb to SVN with Mantis and ViewVC (integrated, of course). We've moved from physical hardware to VM's. And we're moving from Perl and LAMP to Objective-C (Cocoa) and C# (.Net). Obviously I've been doing a lot of reading lately. These are huge changes and often by the end of the week my brain is fried. So far I'm hanging in there. We'll see how well this all works out in a few months. >>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

iPod Touch app bundle solution

A while back I posted about not being able to reinstall my iPod Touch's application bundle.

If found a solution....

Sell the thing on Craigs list and buy an iPhone v2 :)

The trouble is, after seeing the new phone, my wife wants one too.
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iPod Touch application bundle won't reinstall

I bought my IPod Touch 16GB new in Fall 2007. Loved it. When the January Application Bundle became available, I paid up and got the new apps. Loved 'em. Been using it ever since.

This week I needed to wipe all my information off the iPod. So I hit http://www.apple.com/support/ and started reading. I found HT1376 Installing, verifying, or reinstalling the iPod touch January Software Upgrade. Perfect, I can wipe it via a factory-reset and it'll reinstall the new apps. Just what I needed.

Ah but no. The new application bundle doesn't reinstall. I filed a support by clicking 'support' within iTunes itself. No answer.

So I went to the Apple discussions boards and found this thread: Restored iPod, can't get january software update.

Apparently I may not be the only one with this problem.

Since I've yet to receive a response from Apple wrt the support request filed in iTunes, I went ahead and sent email to support@apple.com explaining all this today.

We'll see if Apple's support responds and what they say. I've asked them to either send me the app-bundle, or make my iTunes account show it in the queue or tell me what to do to make the application bundle be reinstalled. That's all I want - the app's that I paid for!!

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iPhone Orig vs iPhone 3G Cost comparison

Erik doesn't like the iPhone 3G Pricing. So I thought I'd compare the numbers...

I put together a quick cost comparison spreadsheet on google docs. The way I see it, the new phone cost $6.00/mo more then the old phone did.

IMHO, If that's a deal breaker, you shouldn't be spending anywhere near $80/mo for a phone.

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Ohio's Strickland is screwing up

Re: State shouldn't limit flexible workweek

Strickland is screwing up (see Strickland takes away flexible hours and State workers back to 8-to-5). He's messing with state worker's schedules. He's making it more difficult for people with kids (single parents even more so), unionized workers and people taking classes to stay employed with the state.

Why does it take Strickland's office to deem such policies down upon management of State Agencies. Can't those whom run each agency not manage their own employees time, schedule and workload? Don't they know their own employees the best to judge how to handle them? Really, is the state going to lose money if an employee leaves for an hour to go to a dentist appointment and then work an hour late to make up the work?

With the brain-drain of higher-educated people leaving the state for jobs why would one create rules that prevent them from shifting schedules to take classes and/or training. That seems counterproductive to keeping a highly educated workforce.

If Strickland's moves are meant to drive people to leave state employment, it's working. Those that can leave, will. Those that can't leave, won't. Let's be realistic, those are the bottom dwellers that private employment would never employ in the first place. He'll claim that his leadership has saved the state vast sums of money. In reality, he's driving away from state employment those that are most wanted. He'll claim up front goals and savings. But just a few short years from now all state agencies will feel the pain two-fold.

I'm beginning to regret having voted for him. And that's saying a lot, because Taft's administration was a total flop. And they mention this guy from Vice President with Obama? The thought makes me want to scream!

Also related: Ohio State Workers Are Coping: It’s Now 8 to 5, With a 5-Day Week and Strickland Diet to Slim Down Government, Gambling Machine Expansion to Fatten Coffers


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Why is China still a 'developing country'?

So why is China still referred to as a "currently developing country"? (1/4 way down ) when they manufacture most of the goods that are purchased in the US? I mean, really, if a country has the infrastructure to produce that much, and the people enough to produce that much, and the infrastructure to keep all those people alive, they're no longer developing.

You can't argue that "the country is so vast that populations/parts don't have running water and electricity. Well, technically you can argue whatever you'd like. But the US has parts where there is no running water, and no electricity.

You can't use Government as a factor. They have one. It's stable. There are many countries that wish they had this.

If it's because parts of their population are uneducated (the same can be said about the US, honestly) - that's by choice of their government. Their government's making fistfulls of money yet they chose to only spend $19/student on textbooks. Does that make them a developing country?

So why is this? Will someone from the lazyweb please explain this to me? >>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

You've got friends!

Recall, from the sys-admin days of ol' (yes, we know you did your due and did the peon job years ago) the AOL sound "You've got mail!" that you'd hear buzzing from people's machines?

I saw the following picture in my email inbox. It made me think of that damned annoying "You've got mail" sound, but instead "You've got Friends". It seems in Ohio, once the weather gets a bit warmer everyone gets their camera out.



I guess on one hand it's "nice to have friends". The funny thing is, look at the dates. That second weekend in may there were a lot of shutters 'a clickin' :)
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Lessons learned from a Nature Photography Newbie

This past winter marks the second season which I have ventured out into the wilderness to photograph turkeys. This year, I made the trip out to the woods a number of times yet I had success on only three of those trips. Here are a few things I've learned which I think are the most important when attempting something like this.

Timing

Based upon my analysis, some of the trips were too soon - they weren't close enough to their mating season crazyness. In Ohio, March seems to be the month. January and February are too soon. You might see some then. But you won't see 50 birds at a time. April's no good too, the spring turkey hunting season starts. Depending on your location, these times will vary.

Competition

I also found evidence that someone's poaching on our land. We found black shotgun shells on our land near the house where the turkeys come up to. These shells are not our "color" nor our "brand" that we typically use. If I hit the lottery I would love to invest in some cameras to catch this person or these people!

Then there's the coyotes and the cats. Yes, I mean bobcats. Yes, they're in Ohio. Get over it. (so are small bears, for that matter). Apparently they enjoy a good turkey dinner as well. We've found a number of carcasses leftover in the woods nearby. Not much was ever left except feathers and claws. Nearly all were hens, for the curious.

Tips

So after sitting through sun, sleet, rain and snow, here are the top few things I learned while trying to photograph wildlife this year:

1. Always use a tripod. Don't leave home without it. If you do, drive back and get it. Just because your eyes think there's enough light outside that morning doesn't mean your lenses, filters and magnifiers will. Add in possible low-light and motion from the animals and you've got one thing - blur if you don't have a tripod.
   


2. Bundle up! It's far colder sitting in a metal chair outside in a blind then it is standing outside the house. The longer you are out there before the sun comes up (you are out there before the sun comes up, yes?) the colder it becomes, quickly! Like everyone says, wear layers. I found bringing different hats helps; as it becomes warmer I can ditch the thicker ones for thinner ones.
   


3. Valley's are cold! If you start at the top of a hill when you get to the bottom and setup your blind and equipment it's going to be colder down there!


4. Condensation kills! Be careful about condensation from your heat, your breath, the sunshine coming in and your camera. Especially if there's a frost and/or dew. If the tip of your lens is outside the blind, or near the opening and it's temperature is different from the rest of the camera you can end up with water where you don't want water.
   


5. Cold kills batteries! If you hadn't heard this before, then you've not been doing photography long or you live where it's not cold. Either way, the cold will suck the energy from your batteries like you cannot believe. Bring extra's. During the long lulls where you aren't seeing much action of your blind, don't hesitate to pull the camera from the tripod mount and stuff the body in your jacket.
   


6. Cold messes with LCD's. The LCD in the viewfinder on mine started acting up. Instead of f4.5 it looked more like f4.L. I've not figured out yet whether this is a flaw, or it was from the cold, or both. Nor have I decided whether or not to send the body to Canon for a fix. When the camera body's temperature was raised, the problem went away - that's why I suggested putting the camera body in your jacket (someplace warmer) when not being used. (If I knew of a way to get a picture of the LCD in the viewfinder, I'd be able to show this to you).
   


7. Diet. Don't eat that huge steak and potato meal the night before. And stay away from a lot of beer. Oh, and beans too. The next day in a small blind isn't pleasant. It can be extreme in a two person blind with two people! The point I'm getting at is you may have to adjust the size of your urin bottle and other necessary equipment to handle the fallout of the previous night's festivities. Use your best judgement here.
   


8. Stretch before you go out to the woods. You will be cramped in a blind for at-least half a day, maybe an entire day. If your body is nice and stretched out you won't cramp up being stuck in a chair in a small blind in a tiny space for hours on end. During the day try to stretch your limbs too. If you google on "office stretches" that people do in their office chairs, the premise for your situation in your blind is the same. Stretch as much as possible. You will be thankful you did it once you finally stand up and have to walk your gear back out of the woods.
   


9. Bring a watch, pen and paper. When you start seeing eyes and heads popping out of the brush, note the date and the times. Animals tend to be cyclical, especially if you are routinely spreading food out for them to eat. They'll come back and make your location part of their routine. Over time, adjust your estimated times based on sunrise and sunset. Some magazines, like Field & Stream will publish sun tables Solunar Tables that you can analyze and possibly use. (see Field & Stream Interactive Weather and Wildlife Best Times to Hunt & Fish as well as Sunshine Applet)


10. Lens cleaning equipment. You're bound to drag your nose across your lcd screen. You're bound to breath towards the camera thereby fogging up the lcd screen and viewfinder (note that this is the exact time the animals will pop out of the woods on you, when you can't see squat). If you'll be changing lenses you're bound to drop one on the ground it'll roll through the grass, weeds and snow. So bring a towel. Bring the normal lens cloth and other misc gear to clean them. Nothing kills the spirit worse then going back to camp, looking at your pictures and finding out there was dirt somewhere that's in every single frame you snapped.
    


11. Know when to leave. If you've walked in with all your gear, don't wait until you are bone tired to packup and leave. Leave sooner. There's no reason to be that tired when you've still got to packup and haul all your gear out of the woods. My gear isn't light, I can't afford those sweet lightweight tripods in the B&H catalog, mine's from eBay. So don't wait. Leave while you are ahead, especially if the walk is long and up hill.
    

The main thing is have fun. If you are lucky enough to have picked a good spot, you'll capture what you came for. If not, well then there's always everything else out in the wild.



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America Celebrates Tax Freedom Day

It seems today is Tax Freedom day.
I'd settle for it being a national holiday so we all get the day off from work. That'd make it something meaningful for me. >>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

Blackberry server names

The person at work responsible for ditching these Godforsaken Motorola-Q's did a trial period with an iPhone. But couldn't get iMap to work. And since it doesn't do native Microsoft Exchange (yet), it's been deemed we should all switch to something that does - so we are to have Blackberry's. Needless to say, this has had some in the IT department jabber channel bemoaning a bit. Consequently, being the good selfless IT staff that we are, we were helping our server minion setup the required-in-house-blackberry-server. (No, we didn't do any physical work, not even any clicking on 'install.exe', that's his job!) Here's what we came up with:

• Elderberry


• Shrubbery


• ElderBerryShrubbery


• wishiwasaniphone


• whenIgrowupIwannabeaniphone

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I don't understand Twitter

There, I said it. I don't understand Twitter. Or more accurately, I don't understand the need for Twitter.

Ya see, I don't want everyone on the earth knowing what I do 24/7. I sure as hell don't want to have to go and type what I'm doing, in, all the time, either.
And honestly, I'm not sure that I want, nor need, to know what all my friends are doing all the time, either. I'd much rather be sitting down having a beer with them, or chatting on IM/IRC with them. I'd even settle for talking on the phone, which I thoroughly loath talking on the phone. But it'd be better then getting tweets from all of them.
Am I becoming an old curmudgeon? Or lazy? Or am I just being a realistic non-geek who has better things to do with my time?
Update: apparently I'm not the only one: Twitter Away Your Life With Social Networking.
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Printing a photograph for above-the-mantel

I have only "professionaly" printed one of my photographs. I think the term to use is "Large Format Printing". I think the final size was 30x20. It was a request from someone who wanted it above their mantel. For this article's sake, let's assume it was similar to this one:




My problem was I knew next to nothing about printers. In fact, we have multiple color laser printers at work that do 8.5x11 normal sheet prints. Every single time I've attempted to use them, I had different results. Whether it was printing from driver version X, Y, Z, or color detail "high" or "photo" or printing straight from Photoshop or from Photoshop through Aperture. It all frustrated me enough that I've always tried desperately not to print anything. It's easier to email, post to flickr, .mac or just make a website/webpage to share the photos.

Then it just so happened that I went to a The Columbus Digital Photography and Photoshop Meetup Group meeting at a coffee house one evening and found out the organizer prints out many different photographs, some in very, very large sizes. I thought I'd hit the jackpot of knowledge! He recommended Signway Graphics . After much procrastination and surfing trying to figure out color spaces, bleeds, dimensions, pixel rules, etc, I relented and contacted Signway to have my print made.

And it turned out fantastic! Signway was great. The cost was very reasonable. You can take your photo(s) in on a USB drive/CD or email them. The owners are very, very, patient. I didn't know that much about how all this "print stuff" works.

Here are some of the things I learned through the process:

• Just because an image looks good on a screen, doesn't mean it'll make a good print


• Dark things on a photo on the screen will probably look even darker when printed. And unless that is the affect you are going for, lighten it up in Photoshop


• color calibration with your computer screen(s) is imporant. If you find yourself saying "but at home it didn't look like that" you need to be calibrated!


• Don't shoot JPG, Shoot RAW. When you shoot in-camera JPG's, the camera lets you choose the "quality", meaning it lets you choose the level of compression. Resizing, or up-sizing, a compressed JPG isn't all that much fun. Maybe if you know Photoshop better then I do. But the quality you'll get resizing a JPG versus resizing a RAW is not comparable. Use RAW!


• Color mode: Always use sRGb color space, since that's what most printers use


• Delivering the file: If you give a printer a PSD they seem to like that. Always save yours in compatibility mode incase you have a higher version of Photoshop then they do.


• Resolution (Pixels/inch) versus print-size, you generally want 300, however, for a big print that you won't be physically close to you can go lower because the detail in the print doesn't need to be as clear. Your printer will be able to tell you what Resolution you should really be using.
  


• The pixel-depth of your camera directly affects the maximum size you can print. (If you Google it you can find many charts that show estimates). The guyst of it is something like this:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Megapixels	File Resolution	Print Size
  		High Quality (300dpi)	Max(150dpi)
  4	2664x1632	8"x5.5"	16.5"x11"
  8	3264x2448	11"x8"	22"x16"
  10	4290x2800	13"x8.5"	26"x17"

  
  

So, when I compare my Canon 40D I get 3892 × 2586 (or 3888x2592). Which if you take a Pixels-per-Inch (PPI) of 300 that's 3888/300 = 12.96 inches wide by 2492/300 = 8.64 inches tall.

Whether I alter the PPI, downsize the photo, upsize it, or any combination thereof depends on the physical printing device that's being used.

You can use Photoshop or any image editting program to resize your digital file so you can print it bigger. Here is a link to a free how-to (using Photoshop). If you don't have photoshop, you can probably very easily adapt it to whatever image editting application you are using:

Resizing Practice Exercises for Photoshop CS2 Basics Lesson 2

This resizing seems to be an art in and of itself (like everything with this digital photgraphy stuff eh?)

I hope this helps someone. I'm definitely not an expert regarding any of this. But I spent a good bit of time surfing and skimming books at the library and Borders (and drinking coffee with the group!) trying to make heads or tails of it all. Hopefully this saved you some time.

One last prop: Signway Graphics.

Credits:

  Canon 40d photo
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Single parents cost taxpayers bazillions

CNN posted an article from the AP titled Study: Single parents cost taxpayers $112 billion. The gist of it sponsors of the study are recommending lawmakers invest more money in programs aimed at strengthening marriages. Others, not associated with the study, question whether that's a good idea and instead recommend investing resources into programs for things such as job creation.

Such a program [bolster(ing) marriages] has been in place in Oklahoma since 2001; Texas last year earmarked about $15 million in federal funds for marriage education.

Let's see, what does a single parent need? Money? Yep, a job would help that (ignore child support). What about... oh... day care?!?. These states spending money on marriage-programs are fools. I wonder if those programs are being pushed by the religious right. The two states they mention, Oklahoma and Texas sure aren't known for their bible-beltedness.

Let me say it again - day care. A big third is education. And they can't take courses if they don't have day care. And most of them can't have day care without money.

Well, in Ohio single women used to have dirt-cheap near-free daycare if they were in school too. But our recent block-head governor got rid of that.
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But what about Vermont?!?

I have not seen a single poll regarding tommorrow's primary in Vermont. As an Ohioan, I am truly concerned about what's happening in Vermont. Obviously, their results are going to influence so much of our future.

heh >>Keep Reading: Full Post and Comments

I was kicked out of the Arnold Classic...

I was kicked out of the 2008 Arnold Classic's Amateur IFBB International Female Bodybuilding competition because I didn't have a "pitpass".



Now, minutes before I had sat in the press area (for about an hour or 2) taking photographs of the Men's and Women's Arm Wrestling championships. I was watching the 2008 Arnold Classic Armwrestling Challenge (ACAC). I'd never been that close to something like that in my life. It was also my first time ever seeing true arm wrestling "done properly". Here's one of my frames:



I was right smack at the front of the stage. It was sweet!! (btw, the bearded man on the left side of the picture, George Iszakouits, has won the competition for six straight years now).

Then it was over and they started gearing up for the
female competition. And that's when they started asking for these damn passes.

Which ironically I didn't happen to have ;) Arg!

See more of my Arnold Classic 2008 pictures in my Arnold Classic 2008 Flickr set.
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Easy Rider Bike Expo and Concert

This weekend I went with Croz to the Easyrider Bike Show at Vet's in downtown Columbus. This was my first time at the show. I don't recall ever hearing about it in the past.

It turns out a friend of mine had his bike in the show and it took 2nd place in the Spectator's Class!



Here's a picture of just-the-bike:




Then we caught a concert by a band called Toyz. They

played some good ol classic rock tunes and were quite good.

Of course, we snapped some pictures :) I'll be putting them up on Flickr as soon as I get done editting them. I didn't realize they had concerts and events and stuff at a show like this - so I didn't bring the 70-200 lens :( Croz had his and was getting some sweet photo's of the band. My 17-55 just didn't have enough range to get in close :( I'll have to bring it with me next year! But it was the first time I'd ever sat in the front row for a concert!

Flickr Meet - CMH Bike Show Discussion
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Photography Blind

This weekend I did some "prep-work" to prepare for Turkey pictures this spring. I wanted to see how the Canon 40D would do w/ the Sigma 70-200 and the 2x converter. Here's a picture of the blind:



What I found out was the range I have w/ this camera and lens isn't much better then the 300D w/ the 70-300 Sigma lens (which I gave to my mom). However, since the 70-200 is a quicker lens it did better in low-light.

Oh, and watch out for condensation dripping off the top of the blind onto the lens, camera and yourself. Not fun. Very cold. And mice seem to like blinds that aren't used all that often :(

For the interested - some of my prior turkey pictures.
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Flickr Meetup - Ohio Theatre Statistics

Apparently a few of you liked the Flickr group meetup stats I posted yesterday (see prior article). So much so that it was requested I run the stat-beast against the second tour, the tour of the Ohio Theatre.

Here's the nitty gritty:

There is a total of 210 images tagged with
flickr tag 'cmhflickrmeet092207', posted by
20 different people (ie flickr accounts). Average ISO Speed was 390.

The distribution of make of Cameras:



What modes were their cameras in?



Was Exposure Bias used?



And the top few Exposures used:



And the top few Apertures used:


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