How to clean up memory on your Android phone
Yesterday my Android phone started complaining about low memory. A quick check gave me Navigon of course as a main consumer of space. 26mb and it refuses to shift to the SD card. It wasn't the top scorer though, that was contacts storage.
Some further investigation gave me http://android.appstorm.net/how-to/clear-space-without-rooting/ with some good step by step information on how to handle that.
While creating a backup of my gmail contacts I noticed that there were 2100 of them. Now I don't even know 210 people let alone 2100. So I dug into gmail and it seems it's added everyone I ever mailed to my contacts.
Anyway, using the instructions above I managed to shrink my contacts storage to 424 kb.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
How to save battery life on an HTC Desire
Early this year I bought an HTC Desire to replace the horrible Nokia 5800 I had. Nifty little phone, I like it a lot but it eats trough a battery charge in a day or so. I finally got to grips with that. Here's my tips
Now I get three days out of a single charge instead of just one day.
Early this year I bought an HTC Desire to replace the horrible Nokia 5800 I had. Nifty little phone, I like it a lot but it eats trough a battery charge in a day or so. I finally got to grips with that. Here's my tips
- Disable dynamic wallpaper
- Disable any radios you do not use (bluetooth and wifi especially)
- Disable Wifi positioning (settings- location- use wireless networks)
- Set phone to GSM only if you don't need data (settings-wireless & networks -Mobile Networks -Network mode)
Now I get three days out of a single charge instead of just one day.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Gray Heron catching a fish
I'm on a rather busy and intense project at the moment so whenever I can I take the camera with me to the office and go for a walk in my lunch break. Lovely way to keep the stress under control.
Today was decent weather as well for a change. Barely out of the office I spotted my very first Green Woodpecker! Not a good picture unfortunately.
A little further I spotted a grey heron against some dried out reeds. Now these birds are a common feature of the water rich parts of our country (which is most of it really) but despite being common I like them. Big enough that even a 300mm will do if you apprach with care. Colourful enough to make a nice shot most of the time.
I'd just shot a frame thinking I'd get a nice portait out of it when suddenly it struck and caught a fish.
I'm on a rather busy and intense project at the moment so whenever I can I take the camera with me to the office and go for a walk in my lunch break. Lovely way to keep the stress under control.
Today was decent weather as well for a change. Barely out of the office I spotted my very first Green Woodpecker! Not a good picture unfortunately.
A little further I spotted a grey heron against some dried out reeds. Now these birds are a common feature of the water rich parts of our country (which is most of it really) but despite being common I like them. Big enough that even a 300mm will do if you apprach with care. Colourful enough to make a nice shot most of the time.
I'd just shot a frame thinking I'd get a nice portait out of it when suddenly it struck and caught a fish.
I was set for a portrait, barely set in fact so the shutter speed was slower than it should have been but because these birds are big and stationary hunters I could get away with it.
Timing from the first splash, which I excluded thinking it's not that interesting, to the fish swallowed took about 5 seconds.
All pics are clickable for the bigger versions
Monday, March 07, 2011
A simple landscape
This was originally part of a panorama when I noticed this would make a fine B&W. I ran it trough Nik's silver efex and accidently slided the layer opacity back a bit and was surprised on how nice that turned out.
This will not draw in the crowds on flickr but I really like it, the lack of colour somehow emphasizes the emptiness of the landscape.
This will not draw in the crowds on flickr but I really like it, the lack of colour somehow emphasizes the emptiness of the landscape.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Masterchef 2011 is all messed up.
I liked Masterchef in most of it's incarnations. The celeb edition didn't do all that much for me but on the whole I found it nice to watch. The format works and the English edition was shot very well. Attractive lighting, nice colours, it looked like the motion version of a high end cookbook.
As an example, check this clip.
And now this:
Which looks to me like they got a set designed by Gordon Ramsey, sacked the old crew and hired camera and light people that are used to doing gameshows.
I don't know, perhaps it gets better after the first round but this is no longer on my list of excellent food shows. Too bad!
I liked Masterchef in most of it's incarnations. The celeb edition didn't do all that much for me but on the whole I found it nice to watch. The format works and the English edition was shot very well. Attractive lighting, nice colours, it looked like the motion version of a high end cookbook.
As an example, check this clip.
And now this:
Which looks to me like they got a set designed by Gordon Ramsey, sacked the old crew and hired camera and light people that are used to doing gameshows.
I don't know, perhaps it gets better after the first round but this is no longer on my list of excellent food shows. Too bad!
Friday, February 11, 2011
I've started to blog in Dutch as well as in English. My Dutch blog can be found here: http://wijnands.tweakblogs.net/blog/ Apparantly I'm more succesful there, my two posts are rapidly moving towards a 1000 pageviews.
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Am I too hard on myself?
Spent sunday morning walking, not the greatest weather. On my way back I decided to take a slight detour and see if there was anything interesting in the canal. Goosanders, a load of them and obviously feeling the spring in their wings already.
I spent at least 15 minutes watching this, started out with 5 males, 3 females but the group got larger.
I like this shot for the composition, the exposure is decent but I see also what's wrong with it, mainly the noise.
Now I wondering.. am I being too hard on myself? Birding is tricky enough and this is as good as it's going to get in a somewhat shaded canal with a solid overcast sky.
I spent at least 15 minutes watching this, started out with 5 males, 3 females but the group got larger.
I like this shot for the composition, the exposure is decent but I see also what's wrong with it, mainly the noise.
Now I wondering.. am I being too hard on myself? Birding is tricky enough and this is as good as it's going to get in a somewhat shaded canal with a solid overcast sky.
Monday, January 31, 2011
It's going to be an interesting Nikon year
Thom Hogan published this on the 26th of january.
Interesting for the foreseeable future:
D5000: Bit of an outsider in the current lineup. The D3100 is an impressive competitor for this camera, only real thing the D5000 has going for it over the D3100 is the foldout screen. If this is sold out that leaves a big gap between the D3100 and the D7000. Will Nikon fill that gap? Everyone expects them to but I still have doubts.
D300s: The workhorse for the serious amateur and a good backup body for a lot of pros. The D7000 rivals it on a lot of features except build and AF. When a camera in this class is due for replacement we tend to get rumours fairly early on. I've not heard anything credible yet. So either Nikon is keeping it close to the chest and there's a lot of them still in channels or they expect the D7000 to keep that niche for a little while.
D700: Rumours of a successor have been going around for at least a year. Not the volume product the D300s was but a very vocal minority is yelling for a replacement. My instict is that this is the next camera we will see.
Lenses
Tricky to predict.
With the SB-700 and SB-900 in the lineup I don't expect anything new there.
Thom Hogan published this on the 26th of january.
- D3100. Nikon's entry DSLR until late 2011 or more probably early 2012.
- D5000. No longer in production, some still in the sales channel. A strong candidate for replacement in the first half of the year.
- D7000. Still in short supply and should remain Nikon's top consumer DSLR until at least summer of 2012.
- D300s. No longer in production, many still in the sales channel. A strong candidate for replacement between now and September.
- D700. Approaching three years old. A strong candidate for replacement in the first half of the year.
- D3s. Will be replaced by the D4 in August.
- D3x. Probably obsoleted by the D4 in August, but not certain.
Interesting for the foreseeable future:
D5000: Bit of an outsider in the current lineup. The D3100 is an impressive competitor for this camera, only real thing the D5000 has going for it over the D3100 is the foldout screen. If this is sold out that leaves a big gap between the D3100 and the D7000. Will Nikon fill that gap? Everyone expects them to but I still have doubts.
D300s: The workhorse for the serious amateur and a good backup body for a lot of pros. The D7000 rivals it on a lot of features except build and AF. When a camera in this class is due for replacement we tend to get rumours fairly early on. I've not heard anything credible yet. So either Nikon is keeping it close to the chest and there's a lot of them still in channels or they expect the D7000 to keep that niche for a little while.
D700: Rumours of a successor have been going around for at least a year. Not the volume product the D300s was but a very vocal minority is yelling for a replacement. My instict is that this is the next camera we will see.
Lenses
Tricky to predict.
- some sort of 80-400 replacement, likely to be just a bit different and featuring AF-S and VR and a hefty pricetag.
- Probably another high-end expensive prime or two.
- A 300mm f4 AF-S with VR is almost a certainty, I've had a Nikon rep admit as much to me personally.
- A DX budget priced surprise. The 35mm f1.8 did extremely well, the 85mm f3.5 micro sells decently. One of the most common complaints from the first time buyer is that the 50mm f1.8 lacks autofocus on the baby Nikons.
With the SB-700 and SB-900 in the lineup I don't expect anything new there.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
business park pheasant
Sometimes it still amazes me what you can find on the edges of a business park. This male pheasant I've seen around a few times before. It spotted me, got up and made a show of pecking at the ground. When he thought I'd gone he resumed a position on a piece of fallen wood and got back to relaxing.
What also amazes me is the lack of light we have in this time of year. Solid overcast and you're shooting high iso and struggling for a decent shutter speed.
Something else that's clear here is one of the negative effects of using an optically stabilized lens, the Sigma 150-500 OS to be exact. The subject is reasonably sharp but the background looks very restless.
What also amazes me is the lack of light we have in this time of year. Solid overcast and you're shooting high iso and struggling for a decent shutter speed.
Something else that's clear here is one of the negative effects of using an optically stabilized lens, the Sigma 150-500 OS to be exact. The subject is reasonably sharp but the background looks very restless.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
I just won an Ipad, now what?
In a lottery at work I was one of the lucky few to win an iPad. The basic model with 16gb and WiFi but still... I almost never win things so I was glad.
Then I got thinking.. what the **** am I going to do with it? I've got a decent PC in the living room for the family. I got the standard issue laptop from my employer which is good enough for a bit of internet access from the couch. I've got a basic nokia series 40 phone with a private SIM and a Nokia 5800 with a SIM provided by my employer.
I access the internet mainly from my laptop, occasionally from the Nokia 5800 if there's wifi access. I don't travel via public transport.
So... should I sell the iPad? Or keep it?
In a lottery at work I was one of the lucky few to win an iPad. The basic model with 16gb and WiFi but still... I almost never win things so I was glad.
Then I got thinking.. what the **** am I going to do with it? I've got a decent PC in the living room for the family. I got the standard issue laptop from my employer which is good enough for a bit of internet access from the couch. I've got a basic nokia series 40 phone with a private SIM and a Nokia 5800 with a SIM provided by my employer.
I access the internet mainly from my laptop, occasionally from the Nokia 5800 if there's wifi access. I don't travel via public transport.
So... should I sell the iPad? Or keep it?
Monday, January 10, 2011
Yes, I know, now the quality I like to publish. But I was just so thrilled to get this shot.
When I was a kid in the 1970s these were extremely rare (as was the cormorant) but with the cleaner waters from the mid 80s onwards they made a comeback. Harsh winters like 2009/2010 hit these little birds hard but not as hard as some people feared.
I found this little fellow during my lunchtime walk not far from the office where I work.
Normally these have two speeds, creating a blue blur over the water at a 150km/h (or so it seems) or sitting like this. They are easily scared and hard to approach. This was at 15 meters at the very least through a lot of small branches. Lousy shot but I was so happy to finally get it!
Now, to make up for the quality of this:
When I was a kid in the 1970s these were extremely rare (as was the cormorant) but with the cleaner waters from the mid 80s onwards they made a comeback. Harsh winters like 2009/2010 hit these little birds hard but not as hard as some people feared.
I found this little fellow during my lunchtime walk not far from the office where I work.
Normally these have two speeds, creating a blue blur over the water at a 150km/h (or so it seems) or sitting like this. They are easily scared and hard to approach. This was at 15 meters at the very least through a lot of small branches. Lousy shot but I was so happy to finally get it!
Now, to make up for the quality of this:
Geotagging with a Nokia 5800
After earlier attempts with Nokia's sports tracker proved to be a bit of a challenge I decided to see if I could use my Nokia 5800, a Series 60 symbian phone with build-in GPS as a GPS logger.
Nokia's sports tracker works, sort of. It can log a route but persists in using local time in your logs. It's also typical Nokia software aimed at the technologically challenged people Nokia loves to have as a customer.
Briefly I looked at dedicated GPS solutions for cameras like Nikon's GP-1, which is rather expensive at more than 200 euros. I found that Nikon allows you to connect your own GPS setup, they even make a cable for it, MC-35, which is almost as expensive as the GPS receiver you need in addition to it. There's instructions on how to make that cable or how to make your own GPS receiver for your Nikon like this, this, this and this work of art. All of these require a basic skill in electronics and some parts adding up to about $100. A lot better than what Nikon charges you. Then it hit me, I got a cellphone which I carry a lot of the time which is a so called "smartphone" (although calling a symbian phone smart is stretching the meaning of the word to breaking point in my opinion) and which has a GPS built in. Despite the earlier fail with that Nokia app there must be something useable out there.
So, googling a bit and I found TTGPSlogger. It's freeware, in 0.4 and available for most flavours of symbian. It also seems to have been abandonned, no recent updates. It does include good installation instructions (do read the bit about signing your download!)
Once installed it will be on your applications list. Start it up, go to settings and on the tab "output" set memory in use to your storage card.
Out in the field, start the program, allow it to get a fix
. As you can see in this screenshot it also displays sat time and system time. It's very important that you ensure your camera is set as close as possible to the sat time. Any difference here will result in inaccuracy in the tagging of the images.Once you've confirmed that, hit "start". It will prompt you which format you want to record, I choose gpx because that's the most widely recognized format. Once you finished your walk hit stop.
Now, when you get home you have a few options, merge the tags before you edit or afterwards. I prefer to do it afterwards because it leaves me with fewer images to tag. I choose geosetter to do the job for me since it's free and very actively maintained. Download, install with default settings.
Next get the .gpx file that you recorded and put it in the same folder as the images you want to tag. Hit CTRL+G and confirm the defaults. Let the program run. Press ctrl+S to save your action and that's it!
Sunday, January 09, 2011
10km and all I got to show for it...
Is this and a couple of Whooper Swans.
Ah well, at least I had some exercise and fresh air. Oh, and my new geotagging setup works, more about that later.
Ah well, at least I had some exercise and fresh air. Oh, and my new geotagging setup works, more about that later.
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
A long sunday walk
Sunday January 2nd my wife took the kids to a musical leaving me with 6 hours to myself. And what better to spend that time than to put on my hiking boots and take a long stroll trough my favourite nature reserve, the Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen.
Another accidental blue tit. If you happen to be in their way while they are on a fouraging route and you're really careful not to make any sudden moves you can get shots like this. A very common bird but I do like them a lot, rather colourful and great fun to watch.
I took this unusual amount of time to explore an area where I'd never been before and could not resist this:
I opted for an HDR for this scene and ended up keeping it a bit dark, it does more justice to the scene somehow.
After this shot I left the paths and went cross country for a bit and was lucky enough to capture a buzzard and a jay in flight. Birds in flight is definitely something I need to practice more.
Not at all bad but I'm nowhere near satisfied either. Of course what doesn't help is that even with a 500mm you still got a considerable working distance, you end up cropping so any mistake is magnified.
Next up some water birds. With a lot of the main bodies of water still mostly frozen a lot of birds take to the smaller but faster flowing bodies of water. Challenge there is that you have little or no shelter.
A female tufted duck.
A little grebe. Scruffy looking fish eating bird.
Now the goosanders have been giving me trouble ever since I got the big sigma. The female is a bit skittish but not that challenging. The male is. Just before I shot these two males got spooked and lifted off. I got half a dozen shots in but my camera on shutter priority either blows the body or makes the head loose all detail. I need to really rethink my way of shooting these birds.
I also got a few panorama shots but still need to finish processing those.
Sunday January 2nd my wife took the kids to a musical leaving me with 6 hours to myself. And what better to spend that time than to put on my hiking boots and take a long stroll trough my favourite nature reserve, the Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen.
Another accidental blue tit. If you happen to be in their way while they are on a fouraging route and you're really careful not to make any sudden moves you can get shots like this. A very common bird but I do like them a lot, rather colourful and great fun to watch.
I took this unusual amount of time to explore an area where I'd never been before and could not resist this:
I opted for an HDR for this scene and ended up keeping it a bit dark, it does more justice to the scene somehow.
After this shot I left the paths and went cross country for a bit and was lucky enough to capture a buzzard and a jay in flight. Birds in flight is definitely something I need to practice more.
Not at all bad but I'm nowhere near satisfied either. Of course what doesn't help is that even with a 500mm you still got a considerable working distance, you end up cropping so any mistake is magnified.
Next up some water birds. With a lot of the main bodies of water still mostly frozen a lot of birds take to the smaller but faster flowing bodies of water. Challenge there is that you have little or no shelter.
A female tufted duck.
A little grebe. Scruffy looking fish eating bird.
Now the goosanders have been giving me trouble ever since I got the big sigma. The female is a bit skittish but not that challenging. The male is. Just before I shot these two males got spooked and lifted off. I got half a dozen shots in but my camera on shutter priority either blows the body or makes the head loose all detail. I need to really rethink my way of shooting these birds.
I also got a few panorama shots but still need to finish processing those.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Kodachrome is well and truly over now
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/us/30film.htm
http://www.overoll.com/Content/Kodachrome-slide-film-rolls-into-history-/2010/12/31/437062.news
I sometimes wonder if this would have gotten as much attention as it did if Paul Simon had not had his hit "Kodachrome" in the early 1970s. OK, granted, it had a unique look and yes, it was just about the first colour film available to the masses in the western world. But honestly, by the mid 1970s there were a lot of other films in the E-6 process available. I've always prefered the look of Fuji slide film over the somewhat alien look of the Kodachrome K-14 process.
But, let's honor this film with what I think is the best pic ever shot on it:
Steve McCurry's shot of an Afghan girl.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/us/30film.htm
http://www.overoll.com/Content/Kodachrome-slide-film-rolls-into-history-/2010/12/31/437062.news
I sometimes wonder if this would have gotten as much attention as it did if Paul Simon had not had his hit "Kodachrome" in the early 1970s. OK, granted, it had a unique look and yes, it was just about the first colour film available to the masses in the western world. But honestly, by the mid 1970s there were a lot of other films in the E-6 process available. I've always prefered the look of Fuji slide film over the somewhat alien look of the Kodachrome K-14 process.
But, let's honor this film with what I think is the best pic ever shot on it:
Steve McCurry's shot of an Afghan girl.
Black and White as a sign of weakness
Sometimes it feels that way. This was shot under a heating lamp with a tremendous red/orange colour cast, so much that it dominated the whole scene. Even with the channel mixer and adjusting the white balance I just could get something nice.
So... in the end I gave up and converted to B&W
So... in the end I gave up and converted to B&W
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
my buns
200 grams of wholemeal flour, 200 grams of plain flower
2 tea spoons salt, 15 grams of yeast, 1 teaspoon of honey.
Sieve the flower in a bowl, add yeast, salt and honey. Add about a 100ml of lukewarm water and start kneading. Add water as needed. It's done and ready for proving if you can pull it out quite a way without it tearing.
Prove for 60 minutes in a bowl, bash and divide into buns, dust with some flour, prove for another 60 minutes. Bake in a 200 degree oven. Turn oven down to 180 after 10 minutes.
2 tea spoons salt, 15 grams of yeast, 1 teaspoon of honey.
Sieve the flower in a bowl, add yeast, salt and honey. Add about a 100ml of lukewarm water and start kneading. Add water as needed. It's done and ready for proving if you can pull it out quite a way without it tearing.
Prove for 60 minutes in a bowl, bash and divide into buns, dust with some flour, prove for another 60 minutes. Bake in a 200 degree oven. Turn oven down to 180 after 10 minutes.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
unexpected bonus
I was shooting a very lively nuthatch when I noticed this little fellow at not even 4 meters. Slowly moved the lens and got him just like that.
Slight crop, bit of exposure correction and that's all.
Slight crop, bit of exposure correction and that's all.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Yes, 17th of December we had about 15 centimeters of snow in a day.
I went out around lunchtime to do some shooting. It was snowing so hard this quickly became a major challenge.
Near the end of my walk I found this family of swans. Yes, lousy angle but I was cold and could not see a way to get to eye level and don't fall into the water. I was attracted to the way these birds where slowly getting snowed in.
Of course this got us the usual traffic chaos again. Taken at 1430 on a friday afternoon, a time where's theres 2, maybe three traffic jams due to accidents.
All in all I like winter, even though it took me an extra hour to get home.
I went out around lunchtime to do some shooting. It was snowing so hard this quickly became a major challenge.
Near the end of my walk I found this family of swans. Yes, lousy angle but I was cold and could not see a way to get to eye level and don't fall into the water. I was attracted to the way these birds where slowly getting snowed in.
Of course this got us the usual traffic chaos again. Taken at 1430 on a friday afternoon, a time where's theres 2, maybe three traffic jams due to accidents.
All in all I like winter, even though it took me an extra hour to get home.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Lost the bad bird pic mojo
After the disastrous shots from this weekend I think I've shaken off the bad bird pic mojo.
A few of the ladies at the office decided they wanted to have something to look at from their window so they got some bird feed and hung it in a tree. Took a few days but now the blue tits and great tits have discovered it.
This time of the year these little fellows are quite tame, especially if you bribe them with food.
Shot with the new sigma, cleaned up with dfine because it was shot at iso 1600. Added a bit of local color with viveza.
The background colors were from the building on the other side and a parked car, works nice here I think.
A few of the ladies at the office decided they wanted to have something to look at from their window so they got some bird feed and hung it in a tree. Took a few days but now the blue tits and great tits have discovered it.
This time of the year these little fellows are quite tame, especially if you bribe them with food.
Shot with the new sigma, cleaned up with dfine because it was shot at iso 1600. Added a bit of local color with viveza.
The background colors were from the building on the other side and a parked car, works nice here I think.
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