Rain. And not even a downpour but one of those steady persistent types that can last hours and hours. Hardly any colour difference in the sky, mostly solid grey. Missed a herd of male deer by about 150 meters or 3 minutes..
Now...do sheep shrink when they get wet?
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Borough Market black & white
Shot this at London's borough market. One of the few really nice spots I found in my weekend visit.
I tried to get something contrasty here and ended up with something I like but isn't likely to draw in the flickr crowds.
I tried to get something contrasty here and ended up with something I like but isn't likely to draw in the flickr crowds.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Synology DS110j review, part 2
Part 1 is here.
A little more than a month after I started using the Synology DS110j NAS I think it's time to share the experiences.
Web interface
It works, it works well. Only thing I had to get used to is that you need to grant access to the various applications on a different tab than where you create and manage user accounts. I do expect some changes in the 2.3 firmware which is in beta now.
Speed
A lot of question I see are things like "is 800mhz enough" and "is 128mb RAM enough?" My experience up until now is that yes it is. OK, granted, you can really stress that little box. I did so just last night by running a backup from an EXT3 volume to an NTFS volume, that conversion takes some power.
Downloading
What can I say. It works, it works ok out of the box and with SABNZBD on it it works like a dream!
Hooking up an additional drive
It works. On all three USB ports. A drive shows up in the file manager tree and you can use it, that's all there is to it. Speed is decent enough although copying 45 gb of DVD images took about 50 minutes.
What doesn't work?
Well, my main problems are with audio. OK, it can share my mp3 collection, that part works. There's a web player interface that works sort of but is cumbersome to create a playlist on the fly.
Squeezebox server is installable as a service on the device. And it may work if you have any squeezebox devices but it is not a viable solution as a web player. There are various other web solutions but most of them start the installation instructions by letting your PHP and webserver out of the webroot, not something that sounds very secure to me.
The web player is supposed to get a major overhaul in the 2.3 firmware and squeezebox server may work very well in conjunction with a Squeezebox touch which should be released this spring.
Should I buy this or a bigger unit?
Well, that really is up to you. I think 120 euros for what is basically a 800mhz miniature linux system is very reasonable. It does what I want it to do. Performance is OK for my needs. Yes you can have your backup disk in the same enclosure and if you don't already own a USB disk that would make sense. Yes you can buy a DS109+ and get more CPU power. But do you need that? With 3Tb disks scheduled to be released this year and 2Tb disks rapidly dropping in price ask yourself what you really need.
Any questions, feel free to contact me.
Part 1 is here.
A little more than a month after I started using the Synology DS110j NAS I think it's time to share the experiences.
Web interface
It works, it works well. Only thing I had to get used to is that you need to grant access to the various applications on a different tab than where you create and manage user accounts. I do expect some changes in the 2.3 firmware which is in beta now.
Speed
A lot of question I see are things like "is 800mhz enough" and "is 128mb RAM enough?" My experience up until now is that yes it is. OK, granted, you can really stress that little box. I did so just last night by running a backup from an EXT3 volume to an NTFS volume, that conversion takes some power.
Downloading
What can I say. It works, it works ok out of the box and with SABNZBD on it it works like a dream!
Hooking up an additional drive
It works. On all three USB ports. A drive shows up in the file manager tree and you can use it, that's all there is to it. Speed is decent enough although copying 45 gb of DVD images took about 50 minutes.
What doesn't work?
Well, my main problems are with audio. OK, it can share my mp3 collection, that part works. There's a web player interface that works sort of but is cumbersome to create a playlist on the fly.
Squeezebox server is installable as a service on the device. And it may work if you have any squeezebox devices but it is not a viable solution as a web player. There are various other web solutions but most of them start the installation instructions by letting your PHP and webserver out of the webroot, not something that sounds very secure to me.
The web player is supposed to get a major overhaul in the 2.3 firmware and squeezebox server may work very well in conjunction with a Squeezebox touch which should be released this spring.
Should I buy this or a bigger unit?
Well, that really is up to you. I think 120 euros for what is basically a 800mhz miniature linux system is very reasonable. It does what I want it to do. Performance is OK for my needs. Yes you can have your backup disk in the same enclosure and if you don't already own a USB disk that would make sense. Yes you can buy a DS109+ and get more CPU power. But do you need that? With 3Tb disks scheduled to be released this year and 2Tb disks rapidly dropping in price ask yourself what you really need.
Any questions, feel free to contact me.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
canonian in the snow
I wouldn't put such an expensive telezoom down without any tripods. Nice guy though, tipped me that he'd spotted a fox a bit further.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Alanis Morissette - Flavors of Entanglement
I remember the first time I head Alanis, back in 1995 with the monster hit "Ironic". At that time she was a very interesting new artist (good looking too!). After the first album "Jagged Little Pill" ,which I really liked, I also enjoyed her live album which she released late 1999. After that she got a bit soft and I more or less lost interest.
Yesterday I got my hands on her latest album, Flavors of Entanglement, and my first impression was "And she back, back with a vengeance!" This is the Alanis I've come to know and love, full of piss and vinager, anger and some things and saddned by others. She's grown up and found herself again.
The instrumentals have progressed with the years, there's very interesting sounds and effects going on on a lot of the tracks. The sound itself is typical Alanis with some influences that remind me of Madonna's ray of light period and even late Björk albums. It seems that she has avoided the current fashion of really heavy and "in your face" bass for which I'm grateful.
All in all an interesting album, highly recommend!
Monday, January 11, 2010
I'm not the only one that can kill a sonim. A british reporter killed one during a demo.
I've had two of these die on me in two years, then I gave up and bought a nokia.
Sonim, nice ideas if only they could get the quality control sorted out.
I've had two of these die on me in two years, then I gave up and bought a nokia.
Sonim, nice ideas if only they could get the quality control sorted out.
Friday, January 08, 2010
Synology DS110j review
Synology's latest 1 disk NAS, is it any good?
To create some order in the chaos of data scattered around my home I had to do something. On one PC there was my photo collection, 60gb and growing fast, on another was a large collection of mp3 files and everywhere where video files.
After a bit of market research I decided that the synology DS110j with a 1.5 Tb samsung disk was a good and affordable way to solve this problem.
I ordered it from mobile-harddisk.nl which, at no charge, installed the drive for me.
First impression
The unit arrives in a small, brown cardbord box with some black printing on it and a white sticker with key specs on the side. Bit understated when you compare it with the visual extravaganza some motherboard manufacturers use these days. Everything is well protected. The unit comes with a seperate power supply that uses the same kind of mains cable as your PC and monitor does. Also included is a short ethernet cable and the necessary screws to mount the harddisk.
The unit itself is white with a grey front and a bare metal back. On the front you will find three status indicator leds and a usb port. 2 more ports, a RJ45 gigabit port and the power connector are on the back. The unit stands on four black rubber suports.
First use
Connect power and network and press the button. While the disk station boots put the CD that you found in the package into your computer and fireup the installation software. This scans your local network and helps you connect to the web interface on port 5000 of your disk station. Logon (no password set on the admin account) and you will find a well thought out web interface where you can manage all aspects of your disk station. I would strongly advice you to set at least a password on the admin account and preferably a fixed ip address.
Basic functions such as creating shares and adding users are intuitive, quick and well documented. Some of the more advanced features are not documented extensively and will require some googling and/or some experience in handling servers. Despite writing that I think anyone who has some experience with computers and who can read a manual can setup basic functionality in 30 minutes.
In use
Both on my 100mb wired network and on my 54G network the network is clearly the limiting factor in read and write speed. I need to do some more detailed testing to determine exact speeds so I will update this information. Shares appear on your network moments after you have created them. The unit can be joined to a domain or you can make it the master browser for your home network. There doesn't (yet) seems to be windows homegroup support.
The built in fan works well, it keeps the unit at room temperature with slightly less noise than a modern desktop pc. I will keep this unit in the same closet that also houses my ADSL modem and some other utilities so noise won't be an issue. If you keep it in your bedroom you may want to use the unit's scheduled power down/up functionality.
This is a single disk unit so the single disk in there is a single point of failure. To work around that I intend to hookup a USB harddisk to it and use the built-in functionality to backup at least the essentials to that second drive.
Multimedia
The DS110j offers a lot of options here, most of them not very well documented in the manuals. It is supposed to be fully DLNA compliant something which I intend to test next week.
Downloading
If you are so inclined you can use the Disk Station to download from torrents, emule or newsgroups (using nzb files). This could very well be illegal where you live so be careful there. In the interest of this review I tested the NZB option and found it works well, it downloads and puts the material where you told it to. There is a ready made package available to install SABNZB on your diskstation which gives you options like par2 verification, automatic extraction of RAR files and bandwidth throttling.
Modification and further use.
Even though this Disk Station is marketed as an entry-level appliance you are buying a small computer running on an 800mhz ARM processor with Busybox linux as the operating system. Busybox is a basic linux version but it is linux enough that clever people have ported some interesting applications to it.
Synology itself delivers mail station which adds mail server functionality to your Disk station. It's based on postfix. Unfortunately the package installs a very basic postfix without the niceties like DNSBL spam filtering. It's there, it's possible but it does require some mucking on the command line.
Another option is to turn this Disk Station into a web server. There's apache and power enough to add PHP and Mysql so you can run any of the popular CMS packages. Synology has a list of tested applications but I'm sure any linux-savvy person can add to that list. As actual installation instructions Synology offers just this.
Conclusion
With the caveat that I have hardly touched the multimedia and streaming functionality this Disk Station does seem to be a very attractive product. It offers an impressive amount of bang for not that many bucks. The product is well thought out and there's an active community using Synology products, discovering new uses and adapting software to them. Synology keeps an eye on that community and occasionally adapts their work into supported addons and features.
So if you are looking for a simple home server or a simple but very good appliance to store your data in just one place the DS110j is a very interesting product that deserves your consideration.
I also wrote a part two to this review.
Synology's latest 1 disk NAS, is it any good?
To create some order in the chaos of data scattered around my home I had to do something. On one PC there was my photo collection, 60gb and growing fast, on another was a large collection of mp3 files and everywhere where video files.
After a bit of market research I decided that the synology DS110j with a 1.5 Tb samsung disk was a good and affordable way to solve this problem.
I ordered it from mobile-harddisk.nl which, at no charge, installed the drive for me.
First impression
The unit arrives in a small, brown cardbord box with some black printing on it and a white sticker with key specs on the side. Bit understated when you compare it with the visual extravaganza some motherboard manufacturers use these days. Everything is well protected. The unit comes with a seperate power supply that uses the same kind of mains cable as your PC and monitor does. Also included is a short ethernet cable and the necessary screws to mount the harddisk.
The unit itself is white with a grey front and a bare metal back. On the front you will find three status indicator leds and a usb port. 2 more ports, a RJ45 gigabit port and the power connector are on the back. The unit stands on four black rubber suports.
First use
Connect power and network and press the button. While the disk station boots put the CD that you found in the package into your computer and fireup the installation software. This scans your local network and helps you connect to the web interface on port 5000 of your disk station. Logon (no password set on the admin account) and you will find a well thought out web interface where you can manage all aspects of your disk station. I would strongly advice you to set at least a password on the admin account and preferably a fixed ip address.
Basic functions such as creating shares and adding users are intuitive, quick and well documented. Some of the more advanced features are not documented extensively and will require some googling and/or some experience in handling servers. Despite writing that I think anyone who has some experience with computers and who can read a manual can setup basic functionality in 30 minutes.
In use
Both on my 100mb wired network and on my 54G network the network is clearly the limiting factor in read and write speed. I need to do some more detailed testing to determine exact speeds so I will update this information. Shares appear on your network moments after you have created them. The unit can be joined to a domain or you can make it the master browser for your home network. There doesn't (yet) seems to be windows homegroup support.
The built in fan works well, it keeps the unit at room temperature with slightly less noise than a modern desktop pc. I will keep this unit in the same closet that also houses my ADSL modem and some other utilities so noise won't be an issue. If you keep it in your bedroom you may want to use the unit's scheduled power down/up functionality.
This is a single disk unit so the single disk in there is a single point of failure. To work around that I intend to hookup a USB harddisk to it and use the built-in functionality to backup at least the essentials to that second drive.
Multimedia
The DS110j offers a lot of options here, most of them not very well documented in the manuals. It is supposed to be fully DLNA compliant something which I intend to test next week.
Downloading
If you are so inclined you can use the Disk Station to download from torrents, emule or newsgroups (using nzb files). This could very well be illegal where you live so be careful there. In the interest of this review I tested the NZB option and found it works well, it downloads and puts the material where you told it to. There is a ready made package available to install SABNZB on your diskstation which gives you options like par2 verification, automatic extraction of RAR files and bandwidth throttling.
Modification and further use.
Even though this Disk Station is marketed as an entry-level appliance you are buying a small computer running on an 800mhz ARM processor with Busybox linux as the operating system. Busybox is a basic linux version but it is linux enough that clever people have ported some interesting applications to it.
Synology itself delivers mail station which adds mail server functionality to your Disk station. It's based on postfix. Unfortunately the package installs a very basic postfix without the niceties like DNSBL spam filtering. It's there, it's possible but it does require some mucking on the command line.
Another option is to turn this Disk Station into a web server. There's apache and power enough to add PHP and Mysql so you can run any of the popular CMS packages. Synology has a list of tested applications but I'm sure any linux-savvy person can add to that list. As actual installation instructions Synology offers just this.
Conclusion
With the caveat that I have hardly touched the multimedia and streaming functionality this Disk Station does seem to be a very attractive product. It offers an impressive amount of bang for not that many bucks. The product is well thought out and there's an active community using Synology products, discovering new uses and adapting software to them. Synology keeps an eye on that community and occasionally adapts their work into supported addons and features.
So if you are looking for a simple home server or a simple but very good appliance to store your data in just one place the DS110j is a very interesting product that deserves your consideration.
I also wrote a part two to this review.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Incompetence = Air France?
Last week I was in France from wednesday afternoon until friday as a guest of IBM at their Product & Solutions Support Center in Montpellier. A day and a half to get me up to speed on Aix, Power and storage. Load of interesting information with the juicy bits under a NDA so don't ask me to blog about that.
I only mention this event because it explains what I was doing there and why I was flying back. I don't consider IBM responsible in any way. In fact I was impressed by the hospitality and knowledge of everyone involved. The only fault I could find there was that they expected the group to eat a mountain of delicious pastries with our morning coffee.
No, the interesting bit of this trip started when I entrusted Air France with my save return to Schiphol airport.
Friday morning: We'd all checked in via the Air France website and had our boarding cards printed out.
Friday 12.00: Bus left for the airport. Arrival at 12.15. Our return flight to Amsterdam, AF 7683, was shown as "delayed". The scheduled departure time of 13.30 came and went with no change in status. Now the airport has a PA system which warned us every 10 minutes not to leave our luggage unattended but apparantly was not suiteable for flight information.
At 13.15 I went to the Air France information counter where they assured me that the plane would arrive any minute and that, despite a slight delay, there would be no problem in getting onto the connection flight which would leave at 15.45.
14.00 The lady behind the Air France counter could tell me that the plane would land at around 1500 and would be serviced as soon as possible. I just might not make my flight but they could handle all that at Paris since the local facilities to change flights were a bit strained.
During this time the area behind the security check kept filling up and no flights left.
Friday 15.04: The plane had landed!! Soon it was at the gate (a different gate which we just happened to notice but hey, there was a plane and I wasn't complaining).
15.30 boarding started. Now Air France flies these routes with an Airbus A319 in an all economy configuration which is really a cattle car. Loads of hand luggage, a seat pitch so small that I was litteraly jammed between seats. Boarding one of these takes time so the 3/4 full flight left at 1600.
Friday 17.15: Flight landed at Charles de Gaulle terminal 2D. By now we'd realized we needed to be transfered to another flights. The terminal was a bit busy and we noticed some flights had been cancelled. But hey, there's a transfer desk with only about 15 people queing, they should be able to help us since they were working the counter with 4 people.
What exactly those 4 were doing I don't know but it envolved staring at their screen intently, ocassionaly typing something and very rarely printing something out and tearing up the printout immediately.
Friday 19.50: Hey, it's our turn. By now we'd grown into a loose group of 9 dutchmen stranded by the same problem. So we more or less mobbed the guy behind the counter who quickly admitted that we could forget getting home tonight but that Air France would get us into hotels. Only he couldn't get us all into the same hotel. For 7 of us there was a place in a hotel near Disneyland (33km away!). Air France would arrange for bus transportation and would get us vouchers for the hotel and meals. 2 of us couldn't be fitted there anymore and would get a hotel elsewhere. By then we'd been standing for almost 3 hours, were thirsty and hungry so we quickly accepted.
Friday 20.30: Found the bus at another part of Terminal 2.
Friday 20.53: the bus was full with stranded passangers and would go to the Dream Castle hotel and the Magic Circle, 2 hotels near Disneyland.
All this time I'd seen snow on the ground but nothing coming down, in fact it had been clear from at least 17.00.
Friday 21.20 the bus driver gets on the PA system to announce that he's a bit lost.
Friday 21.40 The bus driver almost manages to get himself stuck on a very snowed under part of the Disneyland parking lot. I suggest to the belgian sitting next to me that he's the right guy to introduce the concept of asking for directions to the bus driver since he speaks french and I don't.
Friday 21.58: Checked in at the hotel. The very nice lady at the front desk informs me that the restaurant closes in 2 minutes. We run down to the restaurant and wolf down some leftovers.
No firm information on coaches to the airport back the next morning in order to make our 0715 flight so with 4 guys together we order a taxi for 0515 next morning and we quickly head to our beds. We did notice yet another coach loaded of stranded Air France victims being unloaded and feel sorry for them.
Saturday 0515: In the lobby there's a hand written sign announcing that there will be several coaches to the airport this morning. Our taxi driver is waiting for us, so are 90 passengers hoping to get onto a half full coach.
Saturday 0540: Turns out we are not in a metered taxi but some shuttle service that charges 20 euros/person. Feels like easy money with 6 people in his fan but he's gotten us to the airport in plenty of time trough the snow and I don't want to miss my flight.
Saturday 0610: We clear security and go hunting for some coffee since breakfast at the hotel didn't start until 0700 we were hungry. There's a shop selling fresh pastry and for a mere 6 euros I get two remarkably good pieces of pastry and some really strong coffee.
Saturday 0646: Boarding starts at the announced time and continues at a glacial pace until 0720. We should have left by now. The plane taxis and taxis.
Saturday 0750: The captain announces that we are number 2 in line for decing.
Saturday 0850: After an uneventful flight we manage to reach Schiphol airport.
Now I know I've said some unkind things about KLM in the past but I take those all back. Air France is were the real evil is. I am seriously considering filing for the 250 euros damages that EU law grants passangers. Yes the weather couldn't be helped but the incredible lack of information could have as could the piss poor treatment at CDG.
Last week I was in France from wednesday afternoon until friday as a guest of IBM at their Product & Solutions Support Center in Montpellier. A day and a half to get me up to speed on Aix, Power and storage. Load of interesting information with the juicy bits under a NDA so don't ask me to blog about that.
I only mention this event because it explains what I was doing there and why I was flying back. I don't consider IBM responsible in any way. In fact I was impressed by the hospitality and knowledge of everyone involved. The only fault I could find there was that they expected the group to eat a mountain of delicious pastries with our morning coffee.
No, the interesting bit of this trip started when I entrusted Air France with my save return to Schiphol airport.
Friday morning: We'd all checked in via the Air France website and had our boarding cards printed out.
Friday 12.00: Bus left for the airport. Arrival at 12.15. Our return flight to Amsterdam, AF 7683, was shown as "delayed". The scheduled departure time of 13.30 came and went with no change in status. Now the airport has a PA system which warned us every 10 minutes not to leave our luggage unattended but apparantly was not suiteable for flight information.
At 13.15 I went to the Air France information counter where they assured me that the plane would arrive any minute and that, despite a slight delay, there would be no problem in getting onto the connection flight which would leave at 15.45.
14.00 The lady behind the Air France counter could tell me that the plane would land at around 1500 and would be serviced as soon as possible. I just might not make my flight but they could handle all that at Paris since the local facilities to change flights were a bit strained.
During this time the area behind the security check kept filling up and no flights left.
Friday 15.04: The plane had landed!! Soon it was at the gate (a different gate which we just happened to notice but hey, there was a plane and I wasn't complaining).
15.30 boarding started. Now Air France flies these routes with an Airbus A319 in an all economy configuration which is really a cattle car. Loads of hand luggage, a seat pitch so small that I was litteraly jammed between seats. Boarding one of these takes time so the 3/4 full flight left at 1600.
Friday 17.15: Flight landed at Charles de Gaulle terminal 2D. By now we'd realized we needed to be transfered to another flights. The terminal was a bit busy and we noticed some flights had been cancelled. But hey, there's a transfer desk with only about 15 people queing, they should be able to help us since they were working the counter with 4 people.
What exactly those 4 were doing I don't know but it envolved staring at their screen intently, ocassionaly typing something and very rarely printing something out and tearing up the printout immediately.
Friday 19.50: Hey, it's our turn. By now we'd grown into a loose group of 9 dutchmen stranded by the same problem. So we more or less mobbed the guy behind the counter who quickly admitted that we could forget getting home tonight but that Air France would get us into hotels. Only he couldn't get us all into the same hotel. For 7 of us there was a place in a hotel near Disneyland (33km away!). Air France would arrange for bus transportation and would get us vouchers for the hotel and meals. 2 of us couldn't be fitted there anymore and would get a hotel elsewhere. By then we'd been standing for almost 3 hours, were thirsty and hungry so we quickly accepted.
Friday 20.30: Found the bus at another part of Terminal 2.
Friday 20.53: the bus was full with stranded passangers and would go to the Dream Castle hotel and the Magic Circle, 2 hotels near Disneyland.
All this time I'd seen snow on the ground but nothing coming down, in fact it had been clear from at least 17.00.
Friday 21.20 the bus driver gets on the PA system to announce that he's a bit lost.
Friday 21.40 The bus driver almost manages to get himself stuck on a very snowed under part of the Disneyland parking lot. I suggest to the belgian sitting next to me that he's the right guy to introduce the concept of asking for directions to the bus driver since he speaks french and I don't.
Friday 21.58: Checked in at the hotel. The very nice lady at the front desk informs me that the restaurant closes in 2 minutes. We run down to the restaurant and wolf down some leftovers.
No firm information on coaches to the airport back the next morning in order to make our 0715 flight so with 4 guys together we order a taxi for 0515 next morning and we quickly head to our beds. We did notice yet another coach loaded of stranded Air France victims being unloaded and feel sorry for them.
Saturday 0515: In the lobby there's a hand written sign announcing that there will be several coaches to the airport this morning. Our taxi driver is waiting for us, so are 90 passengers hoping to get onto a half full coach.
Saturday 0540: Turns out we are not in a metered taxi but some shuttle service that charges 20 euros/person. Feels like easy money with 6 people in his fan but he's gotten us to the airport in plenty of time trough the snow and I don't want to miss my flight.
Saturday 0610: We clear security and go hunting for some coffee since breakfast at the hotel didn't start until 0700 we were hungry. There's a shop selling fresh pastry and for a mere 6 euros I get two remarkably good pieces of pastry and some really strong coffee.
Saturday 0646: Boarding starts at the announced time and continues at a glacial pace until 0720. We should have left by now. The plane taxis and taxis.
Saturday 0750: The captain announces that we are number 2 in line for decing.
Saturday 0850: After an uneventful flight we manage to reach Schiphol airport.
Now I know I've said some unkind things about KLM in the past but I take those all back. Air France is were the real evil is. I am seriously considering filing for the 250 euros damages that EU law grants passangers. Yes the weather couldn't be helped but the incredible lack of information could have as could the piss poor treatment at CDG.
christmas deer
Last sunday. It was snowing quite heavily which had disrupted most normal deer patterns. I found this flock late and incomplete and 50 meters west of where they'd normally be.
This one turned out nice, quite a bit of work on the curves to get anything approaching what I'd seen.
Sharpness isn't great, this was trough 20 meters of snow filled air in very marginal lighting conditions. And the framing could have been way better. Still... I like it, as a pic it's not bad and it reminds me of a magical sunday morning.
This one turned out nice, quite a bit of work on the curves to get anything approaching what I'd seen.
Sharpness isn't great, this was trough 20 meters of snow filled air in very marginal lighting conditions. And the framing could have been way better. Still... I like it, as a pic it's not bad and it reminds me of a magical sunday morning.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
seagull in lowlevel flight
This is a shot I would have liked to have made much earlier. With my Sigma 70-300 I tried and tried but it was just too slow to focus. With the Nikon 70-300 VR it's just a matter of getting the framing right.
I like this, especially with the wings down you can see how close they fly to the ground.
I like this, especially with the wings down you can see how close they fly to the ground.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
here's something you don't see every day
I noticed this fallow deer buck and a magpie sitting next to it staring intently at the deer's penis. I tried to move into a better position, figuring I'd get a funny shot out of it when I noticed the magpie jumping on the deers back. It moved a few steps forward. Right after this shot I spooked the deer.
Strange behaviour, I've never seen this before. Reminds me of those birds that feed of the insects of african buffalo.
Strange behaviour, I've never seen this before. Reminds me of those birds that feed of the insects of african buffalo.
Friday, November 06, 2009
Nokia 3720 classic
Or should I title this post “from one ruggedized phone to the next”? Ruggedized means more or less that it’s designed for use in harsh environments.
I don’t consider myself hard on my phones. My first few cell phones were all Nokia. I started on a 8110 and have used the 5110, 6110, 6150 and all of these spend a lot of time in my pocket or on my belt. They all suffered the occasional drop and handled it well. In the early years of this decade I switched to Siemens for an S55, lovely little phone but after a year or so it distinctly showed signs of wear and tear. The Motorola V3 I bought after that died a little under two years.
So, when I was due for a new phone in early 2008 I decided to buy something that was durable and loud enough to use in the noisy server rooms where I spent some of my time. At that time there wasn’t much to choose from on the European market. Nokia had withdrawn the 5210 years ago and had not released anything else. Siemens had tried a few models such as the M65 but Siemens sold the GSM division and that died soon after.
The only serious player at that time was Sonim. A company almost unknown in Europe if you didn’t work in the building industry. In early 2008 they had just introduced their first cell phone, the XP1 and the Xp1BT (With bluetooth). My review of the XP1BT is still the most popular page on my website.
After a little over a year I got tired of the constant echo of the phone and the fact that it couldn’t be without battery power for a second without losing it’s internal clock settings so I mailed sonim support and after some weeks they send me a replacement. That developed some sort of phone altzheimer’s in september. It would miss calls without letting me know. By then I was thoroughly sick of the 1990s user interface, the short battery life and the call quality which could range from abysmal to ok in 5 minutes. So I started looking for a replacement. Of course the new sonim xp3 came up but I found it a bit expensive and I didn’t have much faith left in the Sonim designers. Unlike the american market where several companies offer ruggedized and mil-spec phones there is not that much on the European market. Samsung has the B2100 and B2700. And then came nokia with it’s 3720 classic. Now my wife had bought a 2330 a few weeks early and I was impressed with the Series 40 user interface and the call quality. So I ordered a 3720.
![Nokia3720classic_yellow_lean_lowres[1]](http://lh6.ggpht.com/_iyRPxDq7L-g/SvQ1Kr_fflI/AAAAAAAAARc/NHZrLhhzCco/s1600-h/Nokia3720classic_yellow_lean_lowres%5B1%5D%5B2%5D.jpg "Nokia3720classic_yellow_lean_lowres[1]")
It’s a basic candy bar with a charger port at the bottom. Nice, big 2.2” TFT with 320x240 resolution which makes for a nice crispy image. Comes complete with charger, 1gb memory card, earbuds and a 25 euros coupon for the german nokia music store. All that for 136 euros including shipping.
First impressions: nice screen, fits the hand well, easy buttons. It does not come across as a very sturdy phone unlike the Sonim which felt like you could use it to drive nails with. Well, that’s not all you could do with it, there’s a load of clips on youtube of people trying to kill a sonim, This one is my favorite:
Now breaking stuff is fun to the people doing gadget
tests for a living and so the guys from phonearena tried to break a 3720:
and it can also swim.
So, despite it’s elegance I should be ok. For the moment I’m enjoying that wonderful screen, nice call quality and the fact that I can have it talk to my pc quick and easy with the standard Nokia tools.
I’ll let you know first time it needs charging.
Technorati Tags: nokia 3720 classic,nokia,3720,classic,review,sonim xp1,sonim xp1bt,sonim,xp1,ruggedized phone
Sunday, November 01, 2009
I think I'm in love!
And no, not with this lady but with the lens I used for this shot. The Tokina 50-135mm f/2.8 AT-X 535 PRO DX. Very, very nice piece of glass. Handles fine, built quality is on par with what you'd expect from a Tokina AT-X pro lens. Focussing is very fast and very quiet. The colors are very neutral with a tiny amount of cool.
My compliments to the model as well, don't know her name but there she was on the tokina stand continuously striking nice poses!
My compliments to the model as well, don't know her name but there she was on the tokina stand continuously striking nice poses!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Beware of photography competitions!
I was just reading on dpreview about the lumix awards (http://www.lumixaward.com/). Nice website, nice theme, I'd expected to have some chance with this picture.
But then I read the terms and conditions.
16. Entrants agree that, in relation to any photographs selected as winning photographs, they grant Panasonic Marketing Europe GmbH and Panasonic Corporation companies and other members of the Panasonic Group an exclusive licence to use images for 5 years at no charge for their marketing and promotional activities. Winners will be given an authorship credit in respect of any published reproductions of their photographs made by Panasonic or its agents.
Come on! 5 years exclusive license? Get real!
I was just reading on dpreview about the lumix awards (http://www.lumixaward.com/). Nice website, nice theme, I'd expected to have some chance with this picture.
But then I read the terms and conditions.
16. Entrants agree that, in relation to any photographs selected as winning photographs, they grant Panasonic Marketing Europe GmbH and Panasonic Corporation companies and other members of the Panasonic Group an exclusive licence to use images for 5 years at no charge for their marketing and promotional activities. Winners will be given an authorship credit in respect of any published reproductions of their photographs made by Panasonic or its agents.
Come on! 5 years exclusive license? Get real!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
buzzard in flight
Quite proud of this one actually. A slight crop from the original. With the 70-300VR this is relatively easy to do. Of course you still have to be close enough to the flight path. Nonentheless, I am quite pleased with this shot.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Nikon AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor ED 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF
I bought this gem friday. It's replacing the weakest lens in my bag, a Sigma 70-300 APO. Haven't had the chance to test it properly yet but the first impressions are good. It looks bigger but is almost the same size as the sigma. It feels heavier and sturdier. AF is very quiet, quick and spot on. VR seems to do what it should do and quite discretely.
First test results:
I bought this gem friday. It's replacing the weakest lens in my bag, a Sigma 70-300 APO. Haven't had the chance to test it properly yet but the first impressions are good. It looks bigger but is almost the same size as the sigma. It feels heavier and sturdier. AF is very quiet, quick and spot on. VR seems to do what it should do and quite discretely.
First test results:
And a crop:
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Best airline safety briefing ever
Found this via an article in "El Reg" about IBM failing quite miserably as an outsourcing partner. It gets the message across in the right tempo with attention to details. The fact that the whole "crew" only wears body paint is to me secondary.
Found this via an article in "El Reg" about IBM failing quite miserably as an outsourcing partner. It gets the message across in the right tempo with attention to details. The fact that the whole "crew" only wears body paint is to me secondary.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Esther in the woods
Just a portrait. Shot in the dark under the trees so I used a sb-600 on camera for a bit of extra light.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
how did a deer cross the stream?
Or why do I always carry my camera setup for a snapshot?
It's mating season now, all the fallow deer act weird. Normally this guy would have discretely disappeard. Now he heard another male burling and decided to go and take a look.
It's mating season now, all the fallow deer act weird. Normally this guy would have discretely disappeard. Now he heard another male burling and decided to go and take a look.
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