View on a view

View on a view
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Shot this in the center of Hoofddorp yesterday. I like the lines and colors.

20x30" prints from a D50? Easy!

Well... according to Roman. He was nice enough to share his technique on the dpreview discussion board:




Uprez instructions:

1. Process in ACR at the largest MP size allowed for your camera. 360PPI.

2. Enhance contrast (USM 20/30/0), increase saturation (if needed), sharpen (USM 300/0.3/0) and add noise to reduce the 'watercolor effect' of the next step (0.8% Gaussian monochromatic).

3. Interpolate to 60”x40” at 240 ppi using the Fred Miranda SI Pro 2 plug-in.

4. Down sample it to your desired size (I recommend maximum size of 20”x30” for 6mp….and 30”x45” for 10/12+MP) @ 150 ppi using bicubic sharper.

5. For shots with smoother detail…add noise (3% Gaussian monochromatic) for yet more natural lookif you have a lot of smooth surfaces (No problem with detailed landscapes)

there might be slight variations in the 'usm' and 'add noise' settings …adjust these to taste.

I use smart sharpen for the second piece, but USM works fine.

That’s it.

Now....my stronger reccomendation is to just to PP up to the point just before uprezing.....and send it to a shop that has a LightJet or a quality RIP on a printer like an Epson 9800....they will uprez better than you can even with these technique....(its a small diffrence but it is better)

Roman

His album's here: http://www.pbase.com/romansphotos/

Quick daisy

Daisy 2
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Had taken my camera to the office. Just before my shift was over I strolled out and shot this. Not too shabby!

Disaster recovery

Is an important aspect of managing any IT infrastructure. I just spent the week doing a test at IBM Almere to see if we could get a client's infrastructure up and running there.

I was really impressed by the facilities and the helpful and skilled personnel at IBM Business continuity services. Restoring a backup from a HP system on IBM hardware is very easy using their methods.

What I've learned

• Having a system state backup with NT Backup somewhere on your local drives can help a lot
• If you've restored exchange with HP dataprotector eseutil /cc is an easy way to replay your logs into your store
• The ancient Citrix 1.7 this client uses takes restoring really well
• Restoring DHCP is simply a matter of copying the MDB file from the backup location to the right folder and starting the service.

All in all an intense, tiring and very interesting week.

Hairy behind

Hairy behind
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Digitalis in my garden is attracting bumblebees. Like to see them getting in and out of the flowers.

Bakery demonstration

Bakery demonstration
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Took the kids to an open day at a local bakery. Nice demonstrations, good products. I think it's important that they know where their food comes from. (Although I think I'll postpone the abattoir for a few more years)

cycling pic

DSC_6144
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

I'm very proud of this. A lot of hard work went into it.

Overprocessed?

Bas en Oma
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Perhaps, certainly looks like a lot of PP went into it. I think I like it.

Ducks

Ducks
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Only shot with 50mm and a polarizer that turned out halfway decent.

Windows cannot create the object because the Directory Service was unable to allocate a relative identifier.

Is a message I got on a restored Windows 2003 domain controller. Restore went fine but I could not create a single object in AD.
This happened when we were doing a disaster recovery exercise and part of that exercise was restoring a single domain controller. Now, this is obviously a RID master issue. Most logical course of action would be to seize the FSMO roles. However, according to a netdom /query fsmo I already had all the FSMO roles on that DC.

Bit of a puzzler so I phoned a colleague who told me that seized roles do not become active unless a single successful replication has been made. In my case where I only had a single "surviving" DC the easiest option would be to use sites and services to remove all connections from my DC and let the KCC check the connections. 15 minutes later it had determined that this DC was rather alone and that it would be save to get the RID pool online. And it worked, I could once again create objects in AD.

Another interesting piece of experience I gained was that it can be very useful to have a system state backup made with ntbackup when you're trying to restore a machine on different hardware.

Shrimp molted!

I suspect they've done so earlier but yesterday I discovered the first evidence of a molted shrimp. Unable to take a decent pic because the old shell is lying in a dense patch of plants but it's there. Looks just like a shrimp has taken it's coat of.

I also have two females carrying eggs. Curious to see when they will hatch.

The tetras are still doing fine, only the lone male guppy is feeling a bit alone. He's still trying to impress the gold tetras because they're the closest thing to a female guppy.

Slave free chocolate!

Yes, it exists. The first chocolate bar made of chocolate were no forced labor whatsoever has been involved.
My wife just brought a bar back from the supermarket and it's very, very good, very more-ish. Website on:
http://www.chocolonely.com/

Blossom

Blossom
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Took a trip to the Heijmanshof. Nice photo opportunities there.

The system administrator song

http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=-7193470719293309352&q=system+administrator

Takes me back to the days when I did desktop support.

Pregnant shrimp!

Yes, one of my beeshrimp (Caridina serrata) is pregnant!
Picture isn't that great but you can clearly see about 2 dozen eggs under her belly.

I bought 5 of these lovely little shrimp when I redid my aquarium. I've had 'm for about 6 weeks now and this is the first pregancy I've spotted. According to the experts at petshrimp this species isn't very easy to breed so I must be doing something right.
I'm going to put some mesh in front of the filter intake to try and prevent any young from ending in there. I may add another shell for extra shelter and will feed the fish in my community tank extra, perhaps a few young will make it.

Here's a pic of my tank, a Jewel Rekord 70. at 70 liters or about 18 gallons it's not that big but I like it.

office building
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

And shot this during my lunchbreak. I like it. Some other shots in my flickr album.

As Roel pointed out, K's choice has clever and witty lyrics.

This I really like, it's from the album The Great Subconscious Club

I woke up between dawn and night
Thought I heard the voice of Mommy
Sounds as if my parents have a fight
So I woke up my brother lying next to me

I wonder why she's making all that noise
Better go and check it out
So without trying to breathe only the sound of little feet
We were about to discover what that noise was all about

And as we opened up the door
We saw them lying on the kitchen floor
We were grateful for they both did their best
But we said 'Hey, there must be an easier way to make breakfast'

They both got up real fast
As if they were caught (or something)
And then we understood at last
It was a surprise breakfast they were planning

Mommy stumbled, 'Later, kids, you'll understand'
While Daddy was busy putting on his pants
We said 'We already do, don't worry, we'll do the rest'
So far for our quest, we made coffee, boiled eggs
We made them breakfast

Rhianne drawing
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Since I started it mid-july 2006. This is the latest pic I put there.

I do find the 200 photo limit for free accounts a problem these days. I'm hoping someone will buy me a pro account here:
http://www.flickr.com/gift

Trees start flowering

flowering tree
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

I noticed today during a walk in the "haarlemmermeerse bos".

Here's where I buy my flour

windmolen De eersteling
Originally uploaded by j_wijnands.

Windmill "De Eersteling" is where I usually get my flour. There's a new, young miller in there and he sells absolutely the best flour I've ever used. I hardly need to touch it before the gluten start doing their work.

Every easter I bake a big somewhat flat loaf filled with raisins and almonds.