Category Archives: Uncategorized - Page 2

Stop and think

Posted by on November 12, 2009 No comments

It was an interesting challenge from Stu this week.

Set up your photo of any subject.
Now stop. Think. Make THREE improvements to your photo.
…and finally take it.

I was somewhat lacking in inspiration, but since I’ve recently become interested in how to light scenes properly, this is a perfect opportunity for some experimenting and improving with an off-camera flash. I had a go with portrait lighting a few weeks ago (also a Tuesday Challenge) so this time I’ll try something a little different.

Attempt 1

I set up this relatively uninteresting scene – a picture of my 35mm SLR on a box, in front of a kitchen cupboard. Sorry, it was the best I could think of. It will probably be quite challenging due to the reflective metal areas on the camera.

Attempt 1

Nice camera, but a poor photo. It was lit using only the ambient light in the kitchen, and it’s too dark. Lots of the camera is in shade, and the top metal part is reflecting the light directly into the camera. This is a scene that could definitely benefit from some carefully directed light.

My digital camera was also in full auto mode, and due to the low light, the camera has bumped the ISO right up, causing some graininess.

Attempt 2

I popped up the built-in flash to cast some more light on the scene.

Attempt 2

As built-in flashes always are, it was a disaster. The light is too hard, too cold and probably worst of all, the “nose” of my camera is casting a shadow.

On the plus side, there is now plenty of light. It’s just in the wrong place.

Attempt 3

I put a hotshoe flash on top of my camera. This is further away from the camera lens, so it shouldn’t cast a shadow, and the greater distance between the flash and the lens should mean more interesting shadows, and a less “flat” picture.

Attempt 3

Well, this is the best so far. But the flash is still too close to the scene, and a large part of the image is overexposed. We need to move the flash somewhere else.

Attempt 4

Now I’ve got the flash on its own tripod, triggered wirelessly. This gives me the freedom to move it around and cast the shadows in any direction. I can also move it nearer or further from the scene. I’ve put a white carrier bag over the flash to diffuse its hard light a little.

The keen-eyed among you might also spot that the SLR is “looking up”. I’ve propped it up with the lid from a bottle of Coke to give it a more “sporty” stance.

Attempt 4

Ah! That’s much better. No badly overexposed regions, no hard lighting and no odd shadows. There’s also detail in the shot – you can clearly see the Canon logo now that light isn’t reflecting directly off the camera body.

It’s still a pretty basic shot, but it’s all I’ve got time for this week :(

Oh, and if you wanted to see how I did it…

The setup shot

How couriers should be

Posted by on November 6, 2009 1 comment

As someone who frequently makes online purchases, I am a frequent user of courier services. But on this occasion, the seller that I bought from used a courier that I haven’t experienced before – Interlink Express. And I have to say, they’ve done everything right. I am impressed by their level of service, and I think other couriers should follow suit. It’s not exactly rocket science – it’s taking care of the little things.

Firstly, they sent me an email the day before my parcel was due to arrive. This is really handy, as it gives me time to make arrangements to be at home – rather than the usual scenario where it turns up without warning and oh – I’m at work. Commence long drive at inconvenient time to wherever their depot is.

They also sent me an email on the day to let me know the parcel was on the van.

I was also impressed by their online order tracking. It seems to me that most couriers who offer this service have very vague entries such as “Dispatched” and nobody is quite sure what this means. They also never seem to update their status. City Link are pretty bad at this – once I received a parcel from them and for days afterwards it still claimed it was on the van.

Interlink Express provide detailed information on their tracking page and seems to be updated promptly. Of course there’s no excuse for it not to be, in the age of barcodes, databases and PDAs. But it makes a nice change nonetheless.

Here’s what their tracking page says about my order:

Date Time Location Event Status
06 Nov 2009 13:24 Bristol Delivered, signed for by GAZELYS, using Saturn
06 Nov 2009 08:22 Bristol Delivery note printed
06 Nov 2009 08:21 Bristol On vehicle for delivery
Out For Delivery e-mail response notification sent
06 Nov 2009 05:31 Bristol Confirmed at depot
05 Nov 2009 21:47 Hub 1 Forwarded to Bristol depot
05 Nov 2009 21:40 Hub 1 Confirmed at Hub
05 Nov 2009 21:37 Hub 1 Confirmed at Hub
05 Nov 2009 16:17 Alton Customer data received
Consignment Shipped e-mail notification sent
05 Nov 2009 16:15 Alton Collected from self-labeller

When it arrived, I was asked to sign on a touchscreen PDA, and was delighted to find that within a couple of minutes the tracking information had been updated. This is how it’s supposed to work :)

On the security and longevity of data

Posted by on November 4, 2009 2 comments

I was musing today about the lifetime of my data, and what might happen to it after I die. I’m a jolly character, aren’t I?

But there are two questions here. First there’s the question of my private data – e.g. online banking stuff and other personal documents that I want to keep to myself for now, but may well have to be released to the executor of my will or whatever.

Then there’s the question of the data I’d love to share. For example my photographs and musical recordings – I’d like to think that they will persist long after I’ve gone. Maybe even wind up in a futuristic museum so people can marvel at how we used to live. Perhaps.

Private data

If I died tomorrow, would my family be able to get at my private files? It’s a bit more involved than looking in a box-file on top of my wardrobe. Nobody has an account on my home server and PC except me, and nobody else knows my root password (I hope).

But I don’t want to give anyone access to my data today. I don’t want to create accounts for other people that can access my stuff, and I don’t want to tell anyone my password. Can you imagine telling somebody all your passwords and saying they weren’t allowed to use them until your death?

That’s not to say that my data is totally inaccessible. My disks are not encrypted so booting from a live CD would be an easy way to read the data without having to log on as me. This would be an easy job for most of my geeky friends, but I don’t think my parents, brothers or girlfriend would be able to do it. Would my next-of-kin have the initiative to ask one of my colleagues or friends to “hack” my systems in the event of my untimely death?

I expect if the circumstances of my death were suspicious, police would confiscate my computers anyway and examine them. A police computer expert would have no problem in extracting the data, but whether or not they would hand it over to my family is a different question.

Of course for accounts I hold with third parties, such as online banking, email companies and of course my employers, it is usually possible to present a death certificate and the account will be opened for the executor.[1, 2] But this doesn’t apply to my systems.

The flip-side of allowing access to my data is that the executor or next-of-kin gets access to all of my data. After I die, I may well be happy for the executor of the will to browse my financial and legal documents, but what if I don’t want him or her to know about my plans to take over the world, or my illegal downloads? What if I have some embarrassing secrets that I don’t want my family to find out about?

The only two approaches here are to specify in my will which files should be deleted and which should be kept[3], or to encrypt everything that I do not wish to be read. Bear in mind that if you wish to make the encryption effective, you will also need to encrypt the backups.

Maybe the best idea would be to write down my password and some brief instructions for accessing my data if necessary, and then seal this in an envelope to be kept in a safe place with my will. Anything I don’t want seen, ever, can be encrypted. Then it should be straightforward for the relevant people to get access to my private documents, with minimal risk of abuse.

Public data

As I touched upon in the introduction, the second section is to do with the longevity of my created data. A large part of this is to do with choosing an appropriate format, and ensuring that the format stays current.

For example, my photos are currently stored on a hard disk, formatted with the ext4 filesystem, and saved as TIFF images. They are backed up, but that’s mainly irrelevant here. The point is that I don’t expect my hard disks to still be working in ten years’ time, and there’s a fair chance that today’s popular filesystems won’t be in widespread use after a decade either.

While I’m alive, it’s easy for me to move my things around. Let’s suppose next year hard disks start to become obsolete and a new type of memory card becomes commonplace. It will be easy for me to copy my photos from my hard disk onto this new memory card. I can also convert my images from their TIFF format to tomorrow’s shiny new format if necessary.

But who will do this after I’m dead?

It was easy for me. After my grandad died, I inherited a box of 35mm slides, as well as some 35mm negatives and some 6″×4″ prints. Things you can see with your eyes don’t tend to go obsolete in a decade. Provided I look after these physical photos and protect them from heat, light and moisture, they are likely to last for decades or centuries.

I’ve also scanned them in and archived them on disk – where they are safe from paper-curling humidity, but still prone to obsolescence as I mentioned above.

So long as I have backups and I keep with the times and convert my photos to whatever format is appropriate and save them on whatever media is current, I can’t see a problem. I could even make prints of all my photos and store them securely.

The snag comes when I die, and I will have to entrust my photos to a descendant. Hopefully they will treasure the photos and look after them, as I am doing with my late grandfather’s work – but there’s no guarantee. If I didn’t have an interest in photography myself, it’s entirely plausible that I might have declined my grandad’s slides.

It seems here that the best approach is to preserve my data while I’m still alive and kicking, and make it known to my family that I wish my photos to be looked after when I’m gone. Hopefully they will take heed!

Perhaps undermining the tone of this whole article, I might add that I’ll be dead so why should I care! :)

References

  1. https://windowslivehelp.com/community/t/150085.aspx
  2. http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,26303927-5014239,00.html
  3. Maybe this could be automated, and my will could specify the path to a script that deletes some things and preserves others.

How times have changed

Posted by on November 1, 2009 No comments

I was flicking through the user manual for my 1981 Canon AE-1 Program. Some of the pages are illustrated with sketches of two characters–a man and a woman–having discussions. In every case, the “stupid” woman is confused, has made a mistake, or doesn’t know what to do.

Her hero, a dashing young man, always comes up with the answer.

What's a woman to do?

What's a woman to do?

I don’t know about you, but I’m glad that today’s user manuals have simple labelled diagrams and bulleted lists of instructions.

Halifax

Posted by on October 16, 2009 No comments

I have a secondary current account with Halifax, which I use for paying bills and rent.Today I received a letter from them. Here’s an extract:

From 6th December 2009 we’ll no longer be paying the 0.1% AER/gross interest we pay you on the balance in your account, or charging you debit interest on any overdraft you use. Instead, we’re introducing new, simple and easy-to-manage overdraft fees.

  • If you use an arranged overdraft up to £2,500, we’ll charge you £1 a day
  • If you use an arranged overdraft over £2,500, we’ll charge you £2 a day
  • If you use an unarranged overdraft, we’ll charge you £5 a day
  • We won’t charge you any interest on an overdraft, whether it’s arranged or unarranged.

I’m no financial expert and I’m sure Halifax have their reasons for implementing this policy. But to your man off the street, the expected way that banking works is quite simple.

  • You are rewarded for saving with a bank
  • You are penalised for borrowing from a bank

By these rules, it seems that Halifax have increased their penalties and totally stopped their reward. So there is now no incentive to have a current account with Halifax. My account is almost never in overdraft but I don’t wish to be charged £5 every time my broadband company sends a larger-than-expected bill. I also don’t wish to go without my 0.1% interest, as a matter of principle.

Surely they realise that people will flock away from such a proposal? I for one plan to close my account immediately and move it to a different bank. No doubt a run on the bank will cause them to collapse, and demand a bail-out from the government, but oh well.

Various Nagios plugins

Posted by on October 15, 2009 No comments

I’ve now written several Nagios plugins and submitted them all to MonitoringExchange.

Here’s a quick summary:

  • check_temper for monitoring the temperature with a TEMPer USB thermometer
  • check_kernel for checking that the currently running kernel on an RPM-based system is the most recent installed kernel (not necessarily the latest available kernel in the repository)
  • check_aql_balance for monitoring the number of SMS text message credits on your AQL account[1]
  • check_k8temp for monitoring the temperature of an AMD K8 (e.g. Athlon or Sempron) CPU
[1] See my blog post if you are interested in setting up SMS alerts with Nagios

Information overload

Posted by on September 23, 2009 1 comment

They are always talking about information overload when working in IT.

So imagine the explosion that nearly occurred in my head when I took a break from writing perl, stepped out of my office, and saw this…

Too many signs

Too many signs

Post Office woes

Posted by on September 22, 2009 No comments

The Post Office really is an inconvenient organisation.

Last night I sold two items on eBay and consequently had two (fairly large) parcels to post. This was around 9pm so I put the parcels to one side, and decided to post them on my way to work in the morning – pushing my bike and carrying the parcels to the post office on Lodge Causeway – around half a mile away from my home.

When I got there, the post office was shut and there was no visible sign with the opening hours, because the shutters were opaque. Useless.

I didn’t know the whereabouts of any other post offices in the area, so I decided to proceed onwards on my bike, and post the parcels in Broadmead – which is on my route to work, although around 5 miles away.

So I cycled cautiously and slowly, and eventually arrived at Broadmead, thankfully not having dropped either of the parcels. I got to the post office around 9am, but according to the sign, it doesn’t open until 9:30am. Useless!

Of course these post offices both shut at the end of the working day too, so I have no way of posting anything unless I take time out of my working day – and since the Queens Road post office was closed last year, that involves a decent walk from my office. It also means taking all my parcels to work in the first place.

And while I’m on the topic, how about the opening hours of the Royal Mail parcel collection depots? Usually something like 8am until 12 noon. How come these open so early? Why can’t they open normal post offices at this time?

Why can’t they have any services open in the evening, when people actually want to use them? Because they’re useless.

</rant>

Baltic cruise: In summary

Posted by on August 16, 2009 No comments

Well, I’ve now finished posting photos from my Baltic cruise – one destination each day.

If you would like to see the whole lot, have a look at these:

And last but not least, some pictures of the ship.

Baltic cruise: Oslo

Posted by on August 16, 2009 1 comment

Our final port of call was Oslo in Norway.

The port of Oslo is reached by travelling up some 60 miles of the narrow Oslofjord. Of course the ship has to slow down as it passes through the narrow channel, giving everyone on deck a stunning view. Here are my photographs of the approach to Oslo.

First we were met by a pilot boat to help guide along the fjord. The pilot boat drew up along one side of our ship then suddenly U-turned and crossed the water directly behind us, in our churning wake, before drawing up on the other side of us. I presume the captain of the boat knew what he was doing, but I wouldn’t fancy crossing only metres behind a huge ship with 20 megawatts of power!

The pilot boat

Oslofjord

Passengers stand on our ship and watch both sides of the fjord pass by.

Passengers watch the Oslofjord pass by

Houses by the fjord

Oslofjord

It really is a strange experience, standing at the top of the front of a 90,000 tonne ship, gliding silently through a narrow fjord. Fortunately the cocktail waitress was waiting at the ready (at 9:30am).

Gliding through the fjord

We were treated to another day of fine weather. You can see from this photo how bright the sun is, and how little the wind is disturbing the Norwegian flag that was flown with pride on the Jewel.

The mast of the Jewel

And finally, the port was in sight.

The city of Oslo

Right beside the dock stands the Akershus Fortress. Once the ship was in dock, it was too close to get a good view of the fortress, but luckily I took this shot minutes before the ship docked.

Akershus Fortress

Once docked, the first attraction we visited was the Akershus Fortress – a leisurely twenty paces from the ship’s gangway. Here are some of the family at the top of fortress, inspecting the ship.

My family in Akershus Fortress

The fortress also afforded nice views of the sailing boats tied up in the dock.

Oslo dock

I saw an unusual sculpture a bit further into the town. When viewed straight on, it appears to be a standard sculpture of a face. It’s not until you see it from the side that you realise it’s carved into the stone, in a concave shape.

A sculpture in Oslo

Perhaps not very typically Norwegian – we saw a huge bronze tiger which bit Oliver!

A tiger in Oslo

We went to see Oslo Cathedral but unfortunately it was closed for refurbishment. If you compare my photo with the one on the Wikipedia page, you can see how clean and shiny the spire is now – so they must be doing a good job.

Oslo cathedral

Oslo cathedral

The pedestrian crossing lights in Oslo have two red men and one green man. I couldn’t work out the purpose of the second red man, as you never see one without the other – only both at the same time.

Norwegian traffic lights

The Oslo City Hall is a bit of an ugly building, and it also has too many architectural styles crammed into one build. It has brown brick, grey stone, classical carvings, modern carvings and a rather unusual carillon on the top.

The City Hall

This is a photo of one of the more modern carvings on the side of the building.

Carvings on the City Hall

As the afternoon wore on we returned to the ship, but not before I’d taken some photos of the sailing boats in the dock.

Oslo dock

We were due to sail out of Oslo at 8pm (before it was dark). However, one of the lifeboats failed a routine safety check so the ship was unable to set sail until it had been repaired. It grew darker, and I went up on deck with my tripod and took some night shots of the cityscape.

Oslo by night

Oslo by night