Randomrants

So it is finally time to build a new pc here in the Wolfcat household… after 5 years the old one after having most of its internals replaced over the years is about to be made history….

And Final Configuration I have gone with… ( 30th July 09)

• Intel Core i7-920 2.66GHz
• GA-EX58-UD4P (decided to go up a model for the extra ram and sata ports)
• Western Digital Caviar Green Power 1.0TB 7200RPM 32MB SATA 3Gbs (didn’t need the extra expense of the 500meg as I already have a 1tb drive as well… 2tb will be enough to start with :-))
• LG SATA Blu-Ray Writer (Bugger it…. only $50 more for the writer and faster DVD burning as well + Lightscribe)
• Kingston DDR3 6GB PC-10600/1333 (3x2GB) x2 (bugger it … going for the 12gig of ram option… read that ddr3 ram likes to be in lots of 3 🙂
• Coolermaster HAF 922 + Antec 850w PSU
• HIS H487F1GP Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 (worked out better than getting 2 sli 9800gt’s)
• Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate (to be replaced with 64bit Windows 7)
• Samsung 23.6″ 2492 HS

The Old Computer

… what I am upgrading from…  oh this will be a change…

• Pentium 4 2.4Ghz
• Western Digital 1.0TB 7200RPM 32MB SATA 3Gbs (motherboard only supports 1.5gbps) + 250gb and 320gb Hd’s (1tb and 320gb to be migrated)
• LEG DVD 16x Dvd Burner +Pioneer DVD/CDRW (Burner to be migrated)
  
• 2 Gig DDr2 Ram
• Creative SB Live Sound Card
  
• No name 300 Power supply as the last one blew over a year ago.
  
• No name case which hasn’t had the side on it for many years (see photo)
• Geforce FX 5600
• Windows XP Sp3
• Chimei 22″ LCD (Currently in VGA mode as old video card doesn’t support dvi at panels’ native resolution) (to become second monitor)

Tags: General by Me
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Driving video from the weekend trip to Lake Mountain.

This is the drive home… this time coming via the back road via Warburton through Yarra Junction.  (Where the police pull me over… his question… what was the thing on the windscreen in my car.  The R2H setup I have didn’t look like a GPS.  Poor officer he asked me what it was… didn’t take long for his eyes to glaze over and for him to let me on my way :-). (The standard clip format… R2H video via a webcam under the passengers front visor)

And don’t say I didn’t warn you about the road.  It has the advantage of little or no traffic and is a fun drive and is about the same time and distance as the Black Spur trip as well.

(And the KML)

View Larger Map

And the obligatory shot from the location as well.

Tags: General, gps, n95, Nikon D90, nokia, Photos, video by Me
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This is a quick post about what the EXIF data actually is and how to use it for your own benefit and to help others.

EXIF stands for Exchangeable image file format.

When it comes to digital photos it means the metadata for that photo…  the shutter speed, ISO, Aperture and everything else about the shot.  Even depending on the lens that was used the lens specifications and model as well.  When you press play back on your camera and see the shot information, that has come from the EXIF info embedded in each shot.

Now this is where it gets really handy.  Because (and I will use Flickr as my example, but other sites use it as well) on Flickr you can see if enabled all the technical specifications of a shot.  It may be a clever shot of the moon that you can’t quite get right, or a long exposure you want to find out about.  With Flickr click on the Taken with a Nikon D90. More properties in the right hand column. This will lead you to a page that looks like this…. (cut back version)

Of course all of this can seem rather intimidating to begin with (and more so once you do a bit of tweaking of the image in photoshop).

But with the above sample EXIF data you can see all you need to see about how the shot was done. For example
Exposure Program: Manual, tells me the camera was in manual mode… but
Focus Mode: AF-A, tells me the camera was in auto focus mode.

(This is for the above shot of the Side show ride at Semaphore Beach taken Dec 26 08)

So just from these two bits of information I can see how the photographer (in this case me :-)) has done key aspects of the shot.

Now like the earlier post on using Auto Mode to dial in Manual Settings… you can use this information to dial in a set up for a manual shot based on someone else working out the basic configuration.

This is not going to teach you how to do composition and the more ethereal aspects of photography, but it can give you a leg up on getting the camera set up.  The rest is up to you.

Now… you will see all my shots have EXIF showing… some people get fussy about that.. me I am not one of those…  for the following reason..  a good photographer will be able to look at any shot that you have put on flickr and work it out.. just by looking at the shot, so what is the point.  The other reason is that you can use your own flickr images and EXIF data to see how you did a shot.  The shots of the moon I have… I can never remember the settings… so I just search my own flickr stream look up the EXIF data and there is how I did the shot 🙂

In Flickr.. in account settings “Hide your EXIF data” is what you are looking for.

(See this blog post for dealing with geodata privacy)This will hide or show a link to view EXIF data about each of your photos. The link shows on all your individual photo pages, and displays the make & model of the camera you used to take the shot.

Final Pro Tip: Adding your name to every shot on the Nikon D90

You will also see that every shot of mine also says

User Comment: (c)wolf(@)wolfcat.com.au  (the brackets around the (@) do help to stop spammers getting your email address!)

which means every shot of mine has a copyright info embedded into it.  Sure some one can delete it if they want to… but.. if for example your camera was stolen.. you can show the cops that the shots are yours very quickly.  (I have seen this happen!)

To set this …  on your D90

Press  MENU > Set Up Menu > Image Comment > Input Comment > (then like old school style scroll letters to get what you want.  For some annoying reason Nikon’s don’t have the © symbol so (c) is a close as you can get.) > Enter.

You must hit ENTER or it will forget everything you just did, (took me 3 goes to get it right!)

P.S… the Moon Image… guess what I couldn’t get it right… 2 min later on Flickr and I had the settings I was looking for 🙂

Tags: General, Nikon D90, Photos by Me
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The Video

175K from home to the Bendigo Art Gallery… Video c/o Logitech Webcam and Asus R2H running at 640×480 10fps

The Route as KMZ File

The KMZ File is made via Sports Tracker on the Nokia 95-8gb exported as KML then quick edit it google earth then uploaded to wolfcat.com.au…. you will also find it on the KML Page

View Larger Map

Tags: General, google, gps, Mobile, n95, video by Me
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Now… this is more for those in a hurry… and for those just starting out. All your professional photographers will find nothing here… But then chances are you aren’t even reading my blog anyway…

The reason for using Auto mode is to learn… I used it when I first got my Nikon D90 last year… most of the shots I took were in Auto, or in one of the programme modes, like sport or macro. But not any more…. most of the shots I take are in either A (Aperture Priority – Depth of Field), S(Shutter Priority – Shutter Speed) or more and more still in M(Full Manual Mode). But that is not to say you can’t learn a lot from auto mode.

These two shots show what the Camera does. On the D90 press the Play Button, then the Up Arrow on the Multi Selector (the round button with the O.K button). this will give you all the main settings for Manual Mode. From here you can see in order, Metering Mode, Camera Mode, Shutter, Aperture, ISO and Lens Length. If you press up 4 times you get all this information presented over the top of the image. But for a quick check it and to still see a thumb nail of the image this works just as well.

So here is the Auto Shot settings..

Now what I could do from the Auto shot to the Manual shot, was simply take the settings along that top line… remember them, then spin the Mode Dial around to M.  Then using the Main command dial (which controls shutter speed) and the Sub Command Dial (the wheel at the front of the right hand side of the camera, which controls Apeture) to the same values.  You can see the values change in the top display panel.

Now you are shooting like a pro…. you are in manual mode.  Now the fun begins…

Play with shutter speed… just wind the dial to new values, does this give you a clearer shot, or perhaps some motion blur is what you are after.   The advantage of digital is that it wont cost you anything to take those shots…  and sometimes even accidental shots look great.

Oh yeah and point 2… always leave your camera on auto… (I leave my D90 on Auto No Flash) after you have been playing with manual.  The reason… if you have been doing long exposures for example, when you see something the next day and you want a shot, there is nothing worse than the camera trying to take a 30second exposure. (I’ve done it!)

With Auto you may get a shot that you wont have time to dial in until you are a pro and no longer read ing my random rants 🙂

and here is an image done in Manual Mode… Click for bigger version.

Tags: General, Nikon D90, Photos by Me
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I will start this post with a big fat disclaimer… well a couple of them…

Firstly yes I do work for the ABC in the new media department, yes I did have involvement with the broadcasting of the 774melbourne twitter updates during the height of Black Saturday and I am not a lawyer of a media and finally the Royal Commission has not handed down even its interim recommendations…  so bearing all of that in mind… this is what I think.. and it may well change over the next few months….  Also this is my first and most probably only comment on the bushfires as well.  (the paraphrase of what I am trying to say below is… yes others can.. but they need to step up to the plate big time to do it well!)

From the Herald Sun – ABC set to lose role as sole bushfire broadcaster

“It comes amid criticism that the existing arrangement locked out commercial radio stations who could reach tens or even hundreds of thousands of extra people. Under the new plan, detailed in a Government submission to the Royal Commission, private sector stations will also be able to become emergency broadcasters.”

Now here begin the rant which is my opinion only…!!!!

Whilst I agree that other stations and other networks should broadcast emergency information and be able to do so without fear of favour there are underlying risks with this strategy.  Firstly, the ABC does not have commercial imperatives driving its broadcasts.  Secondly the ABC has a vast local network that is on the ground often in many of the regional areas that were impacted by say the Black Saturday events…

In its role as the Emergency Broadcaster it is able to switch between metro and regional broadcasting on a number of frequencies to address local needs.  This is something that many commercial broadcasters could not do. (I do accept that there are many stations that could however). This was done in both the metro, Ballarat and Sale regions this previous summer.

Now the ABC is able to drop current programming for detailed centralised information as situations arise, many of the other radio stations simply are not geared up for this role.  This is where the main problem arises.

If someone is listening to a given network and is aware that they “CAN” if they choose broadcast emergency information but they choose not to… will the listener simply feel that nothing is wrong because they have not been warned.

One of the major issues with Black Saturday was the warnings or lack there of.  If a radio station is broadcasting a sports broadcast from Sydney will they all be willing to interrupt the broadcast to bring CFA threat updates every 15 min?  The expectation of an Emergency Broadcaster goes beyond the audience listening but also to the station broadcasting.

Television was found seriously wanting during the Black Saturday event with no real information broadcast until the evening news cycle began.  And whilst we have had round the clock coverage of the death of Michael Jackson and the events of 9/11 for example we did not get this kind of coverage when the tragedy was unfolding on our very door step.

If others are to be seen as and Official Emergency Broadcaster, they will need to ensure that they do interrupt programming, they do go local, and they do broadcast until the crisis is over.  If not they need to let there listeners know where to go, be that the ABC or another commercial provider.  The time is now to get these plans in order… the coming El-Nino event does ensure we are in for another record dry year… lets just hope it is not as hot a summer.

P.s

Now read the disclaimer again!

Tags: General by Me
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So it is finally time to build a new pc here in the Wolfcat household… after 5 years the old one after having most of its internals replaced over the years is about to be made history….

I thought I might as well crowd source what I want… yes I have a budget in mind…. which you can ball park anyway from the stuff below…. yes it has to be a PC not a Mac… and it does have to last me a while… so keeping in budget but getting the best I can….

what would you change from below…

• Intel Core i7-920 2.66GHz
• Gigabyte GA-EP45T-UD3R Intel Mainboard
• GA-EX58-UD4P (decided to go up a model for the extra ram and sata ports)
• Western Digital Caviar Green Power 1.5TB 7200RPM 32MB SATA 3Gbs
• Western Digital Caviar Green Power 1.0TB 7200RPM 32MB SATA 3Gbs (didn’t need the extra expense of the 500meg as I already have a 1tb drive as well… 2tb will be enough to start with :-))
• Pioneer Blu-ray (BDR203) Writer DVD
• Pioneer Blu-Ray BDC-S02 Combo Drive (Opps I really don’t need a blue ray writer… so money saved here goes the on the motherboard upgrade and extra ram)
• Kingston DDR3 6GB PC-8500/1066 (2x2GB) CL7 Value Ram x2
  
• Kingston DDR3 6GB PC-10600/1333 (3x2GB) x2 (bugger it … going for the 12gig of ram option… read that ddr3 ram likes to be in lots of 3 🙂
• Cooler Master RC-690 – Black ATX Tower Case – Top I/O Ports (460W)
• Thermaltake M9 – Black ATX Midi Tower Case (430W)
• Gigabyte GF9800GT, 1G, DDR3
• Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate (to be replaced with 64bit Windows 7)
• Leadtek WinFast PxDVR3200H PCIEx1 – Hybrid, FM (whilst a tv tuner would be nice… I might be able to get my old one to work.. and if not meh :-))
• Benq 23.6″ G2412HD BLACK LCD – 2MS / WUXGA 1920×1080 / D-SUB / DVI / HDMI

The Old Computer

… what I am upgradign from…  oh this will be a change…

• Pentium 4 2.4Ghz
• Western Digital 1.0TB 7200RPM 32MB SATA 3Gbs (motherboard only supports 1.5gbps) + 250gb and 320gb Hd’s (1tb and 320gb to be migrated)
• LEG DVD 16x Dvd Burner +Pioneer DVD/CDRW (Burner to be migrated)
  
• 2 Gig DDr2 Ram
• Creative SB Live Sound Card
  
• No name 300 Power supply as the last one blew over a year ago.
  
• No name case which hasn’t had the side on it for many years (see photo)
• Geforce FX 5600
• Windows XP Sp3
• Chimei 22″ LCD (Currently in VGA mode as old video card doesn’t support dvi at panels’ native resolution) (to become second monitor)

Tags: General, twitter by Me
2 Comments »