Nikon D300

Nikon sent me their publicity for their new D300 camera. I frequently use Nikon cameras and think they are excellent; even the base-line D40 is a very good piece of kit. As the cameras get bigger numbers they get more expensive, except for the ones with only one number which are REALLY expensive.

I think the D300 is really the souped-up D200 with a new wibbulator to shake dust off the sensor when lenses are changed and better waterproofing than the cling-film that I sometimes use on my Nikons. There's some new LiveView preview technology for when the mirror is up, though I'm so used to SLRs that I'm not sure whether this is slightly like a consumer feature. They have also added an HDMI output for links to HD televisions, though I don't think I'd use one of the HDMI slots on my television for an SLR feed.

They also announced an eye-watering D3 (one digit, so pricey), which is really for folk of the press. To be honest, I find the intermediate cameras more useful for my type of photography. The really expensive ones have big built in battery compartments and bulk which equates to weight. Not as easy to wrap up in a T-shirt and chuck into a backpack.

I see that DX and FX are now the designations for the size of the capture areas in SLRs. DX is the smaller size used by most digital and FX is a bigger format like 35mm film. Of course there needs to be a bigger and bulkier lens for the FX format, so I guess thats where the press end of the market is headed.

The dichotomy is that sometimes its better not to look too professional when out with a camera, because it can either put people off or even prevent entry to some things (has happened to me). On other occasions, a super-duper camera is what's needed to 'look the part' like when were hyping the Warhol production in Edinburgh. Big lenses equated to 'press interest'.

I still believe its finding the shot rather than the camera, and there are some excellent people on flickr who prove this time and again.

tags technorati : rashbre D300 D200 D40 D80 D3 D2 Nikon Canon

84.71

Yup, the plan worked. My three year old Powerbook now has a new drive. It was 80GB, its now 160Gb, with more than half free. I copied everything to the new drive using Carbon Copy Clone (2-3 hours, overnight). I then re-booted from the external clone (hold down option key during boot). It still looked like my computer. I tried safari, mail and then Final Cut Studio. All of them worked and still found my files.

So power down, remove battery, unscrew case, flap up the keyboard and track pad, unscrew and wiggle out the disk. Swap them over. Re-assemble, cross fingers. And after 30 minutes, normal service resumed but with more space.

A three year old PC could be limping at this point, but this Mac still runs like new and is ready to edit HD video.

little box holds Powerbook's old drive

tags technorati : rashbre dismantle powerbook apple mac disk replace

gossip

Tonight I'm sitting here IM-ing whilst I wait for the Powerbook disk I mentioned yesterday to copy itself entirely to another drive. I found a spare 160Gb drive in a little enclosure and thought it would be sensible to swap it into the Powerbook. I've no idea whether it will work, involving mechanical derring-do (opening a Powerbook) and software technology - cloning the drive.

So here's my plan of how to dismantle a Powerbook...

I know I may have left out a few details but it looks like a good plan to me. More fainthearted might need this. But that would just put me off.

And all this Instant Messaging reminded me that I use a little program called Adium, which does what Messenger, AIM, Yahoo, Jabber, Bonjour and all of those other little programs do, but in one simple and rather elegant manner. And I'll admit I have it set to play the Tokyo train station notifications when people call me.

(A few more bicycle miles this evening, mainly up and down the nearby friendly hill).

tags technorati : rashbre dismantle powerbook apple mac disk replace

full

A slight problem today, when I noticed that the powerbook I mainly use for blogging has somehow filled up. Its 80GB drive seemed immense when I very first started using it. The easiest culprit to fix seemed to be the Pictures folder which has somehow crept from a few items to about 10 Gigabytes...and I keep my main photos in Aperture on a different machine.

Lazily, I was going to copy them away to another drive over the wi-fi, when it reported it would take well over an hour, so I was forced to hunt around for a disk as an intermediate store. Then it took about 5 minutes to copy and another 5 to shunt to another home.

Of course, that gave me some time back for another run today, although it was only around 1.5 miles because as soon as I stepped outdoors the skies burst open.

run

In addition to my recent bicycling expeditions, I thought it would be good try try a spot of running as a way to help get me to the point where "the hill" nearby seemed less of a cycling effort than it does at present. Not that I can't do it, but the last half hill seems more effort than it really should be.

So, I decided that the best way to do this was to set myself some goals, so that the whole thing has some point and structure. I won't embarrass myself by saying what the goals are; perhaps by the time I set the next wave they will start to sound semi respectable.

At this stage, I'm eschewing the latest running gear and simply finding old T shirts and similar, and the trainers that I use for cycling seem perfectly adequate, even if they do have a bit of paint on them.

I looked around the web for a place to stash timings and so forth and found the nike site that lots of people use. I duly signed up (free) and found that the little gadget to put in shoes seems to be a part of the way that times and suchlike get tracked. As I've already got an iPod, I thought I'd give this basic telemetry a go, and so I acquired one of the tiny transmitters. It sends radio bleeps to the iPod and the iPod records the times as well as saying encouraging things over the (ahem) running music.

Oops. Of course, it is supposed to only work with Nike shoes and special Nike+ shoes at that. Well by good luck my trainers are Nike, but they don't have the little place to put the special pace transmitter.

Duck Tape.

Yes, I discovered that a small amount of Duck tape on the tongue of one of the trainers was a very simple way to secure the transmitter, whilst limbering up for the undoubtedly sporting prices of the special running shoes.

So today, in a spare moment or two (okay or three or four), I assembled the clothes, shoes, iPod and gadget and made my first run. Not spectacular, but I can say that I ran 4.95miles and burned 825 calories without damage (according to the iPod).

And then, joy joy, the replacement pedal for the bicycle had already arrived, so I zinged a few miles on the bicycle, mainly to see whether the new pedals (I had to buy a pair) would work without falling off.

The pictures are from today's central London route in Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens and the Serpentine with more at the point where my pace slowed(!) I think they show Central London has some nice green bits quite well.

So far so good.

137 - bus of champions

Meetings in central London today, with Oyster card to the fore.

Main journey was on the bus of champions, the 137. Lets face it, the number 25 and the number 10 get lots of press for the areas they visit and are part of prime tourist London, but the 137 knows a thing or two also. From crossing the River Thames, to meandering through Sloane Square, past King's Road and all along Sloane Street, through Knightsbridge, Park Lane, Mayfair and finally to Oxford Street, it can show a sight or two.

And some of them seem to be new generation buses, too. Extra wide-windows and most of the cameras and general high-tech pieces look as if they were designed in, rather than added as afterthoughts. And they seem to be called Enviro, which presumably means they are good for the smog.

And the windows make it easier to take pictures, too. Here's a few snaps from the journey.

Older version of the same bus

Oxford Street specializes in buses and taxis.

and tourist shoppers

mainly buying Man U and Arsenal soccer shirts

Sometimes its best to know when to leave

furnishings with surrogate chicken

This afternoon I've been in North West London. Pinner and Colindale to be exact.

Visiting large furniture stores that may have interesting bibs and bobs to hide away the hi-fi and other miscellaneous gadgets.

But oh! The traffic today was mad. Both aggressive and stop-start. I'm used to London traffic and drive around in it quite a lot. Today, there were a lot of undertakers cutting up to make about a one car advantage in what were mainly gridlock style traffic jams.

So above is a picture of Colindale in the rain featuring a fried chicken shop pretending to look like an American KFC.

itsy not so bitsy?

I'm sure that little spider outside the window is getting bigger. I normally expect to see spiders indoors from around September, so if this one is thinking about it, then I may need to move.

clicky pedal

The damp weather today didn't deter me from taking a bicycle ride this morning. Instead of my springy mountain bike, I decided to take out my road bike, which is quite like an unsprung mountain bike with thin tyres and road style gears.

Neither of my bikes are very expensive although both are a joy to use. When new, they both had a wide range of "street credible" stickers on them to make them look like the price I paid. I peeled most of them off and the bikes then looked much sleeker and less gimmicky. My only challenge before today's run was that one of the pedals is making a clicking sound. I took a look and there's something wrong with the thread. So I've swapped it temporarily with the pedal from a smaller bicycle. It works fine, but does look a little odd until I can get a proper replacement.

vinyl

A background sub-project is taking some old vinyls and moving them across into digital. Purists may scorn this loss of the warmth of analogue recordings for the harshness of digital sound, but I'm rather more relaxed. With modern sound systems, adding back some dynamic range or squishing annoying clicks and suchlike is fairly easy.

I'm not going to be fanatical about converting everything, but there are some well played albums which are not even always available in digital. My dilemma is whether to record them 'as-is' (scratches, sometimes arcane equalization) or whether to clean them up in the process. I've decided to just use a basic recording program like GarageBand to transfer them because it will keep me focused on getting them converted rather than prettying up the sounds, and I may leave a few 'end of side clicks' as a concession to analogue.

rain

I missed most of the UK's rain a couple of weeks ago because I was mainly abroad. However, today is somewhat inconvenient because, like last weekend, I was planning some cycling excursions and awoke to several different varieties of bad weather.

To be honest, last weekend I cycled myself into the ground somewhat, having selected a particularly muddy and bumpy route requiring a camelback refreshment break before returning.

So this weekend the plan is for tarmac, but ideally with some moderate weather, because I consider cycling a leisure activity rather than a test of endurance. So I'm doing other things at the moment whilst waiting for the dark black above me to become at least a fluffy grey colour.

maximum exposure

I was reading Maximum Bob's adventures after he added a snake picture to his site which created a stir of extra hits a couple of days ago.

"Johanna Cardona!", I thought, "I'd better Skype a few myspace and facebook friends in case they've had similar experiences on google when talking about Ron Paul, Galilea Montijo from Big Brother in Mexico or any UK soccer WAG scandals and gossip.

I suppose my previous posts about Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and even the occasional references I make to YouTube inadvertantly add to search hits of dreamhost viewers everywhere. But then I noticed the "skype down" message and as I don't have an iPhone, blogging about it became the solution.

tags technorati : noelia eviction scandal video snake facebook youtube ron paul johanna cardona galilea montijo utube gerry skype down technorati google microsoft apple paris hilton myspace britney spears dreamhost iphone