Looking back via Flickr

One of the useful things that Flickr provides is that you can have it show you your tags, and use the size of the tag to give you a sense of how often you use it. Since I always tag the year, that means I can get a sense for what years I've done what.

Most surprising, to me, is that my first year of digital photography - 2000 - still is far and away the one I have the most photos from. Then follows 2004, 2005, 2003, 2002, and 2001 in last place. Will be interesting to see how 2006 stacks up :-)

A Timely Reminder

Headed into a three-day weekend where I suspect I'll be doing some more shots with the new camera. But it doesn't hurt to be reminded that the Camera Does Not Matter as much as the brain using it to figure out what to take a picture of in the first place.

I think he raises some valid points, but I also think there's something to be said for needing to have a level of equipment that is at least capable of capturing the vision you have. Otherwise I suspect a lot of us would still be in Pinhole Camera territory :-)

Hope you have plans for a Happy New Year. Goodness knows there are a lot of people who could use a happier 2006.

In Wait Mode for Software

At the moment, I'm kind of in a "wait" mode for two pieces of software to be updated.

First off, am hoping that the 1.9.3 release of Galleon will be out soon as the author of the software has indicated this version will support folders. that will make it much (!) easier to find a particular program that is backed up on the computer than the current scrolling through one folder of 600 files provides.

Then, I'm also waiting for the next release of TVHarmony's AutoPilot which is supposed to support coversions from MPEG-2 to MPEG-2. Which doesn't sound useful, but actually will be since I can then use the autoskip function on about 70 files that I converted to MPEG-2 before the latest version of the software with working ComSkip came out. Otherwise I have to hand edit those files, and I'm not really up to doing that if I can avoid it.

Finally, am waiting on a lens hood and adapter for the Canon S2 IS. That, at least, I know will arrive on Friday.

Gourmet Hot Chocolate

CNN Money had an article on new gourmet cocoas - or hot chocolates - depending on the level of snob you're trying to appeal to.

The one that caught my eye was "Wicked Hot Chocolate" from a place back east that understands that there's nothing wrong with adding chopped hot peppers to your cocoa.

Wonder if adding the Crushed Red Peppers you get from Pizza Hut to some Swiss Miss cocoa works as well? :-)

Video Blogs are Proven to be Borign

Slashdot has an article covering some studies that "prove" that Video Blogs don't give a very good user experience.

To counter that, some of the commenters mentioned video blogs they frequented, many of an erotic nature. To be honest, the examples given seemed to prove the article's point. If you can manage to make sex boring, you have to wonder if there isn't something you're doing wrong.

On the other hand, Rocketboom continues to entertain using above-average production values, and probably having already learned some of the lessons from the study mentioned.

Of course, to be fair, most non-video blogs aren't all that interesting either. :-)

And the Winner Is - The Canon S2 IS

Got a gift card from the parents for Best Buy - which carries the Canon and not the Sanyo. In addition, I decided that the longer optical zoom and the lens-based stabilization were going to be more important to me anyway.

So yesterday we got the camera, and made the trek down to the Riverwalk where I took about 70 pictures, of which about 55 were good enough to post at my flickr account.

Corwin also got his PS/2 for Christmas, and so his gift card ended up being spent on the DVD of Ed Wood, the two Katamari titles, and Shadows of the Colossus. I'm hoping to have some time to play with rolling balls myself over the next few days.

SD Card "Fix" for VuGo

Savvy has been having a great time with her VuGo, but I had a less than great time with it yesterday. While the VuGo Desktop Application would support showing that files could be transferred to the SD card, as soon as I connected the VuGo to the computer it would forget the SD card was there.

What I finally figured out that the "fix" wasn't to use the Desktop App. Instead, you "translate" the video and other files into the VuGo format using the Desktop App, and then just copy them to the appropriate folder on the SD card using Windows Explorer. Which seems a lot simpler in the first place, and makes me wonder why they even bother with the transfer option on the Desktop App in the first place.

As for Savvy, she has already gone through two sets of AAA batteries on the item - which came from over 6 hours of almost continuous use...

Hope you and yours had a happy holiday.

Would you believe - Canon S2 IS

OK, have now spent every break I've had the last couple of days while I've been looking for "THE" camera, and it looks like the one I'm most likely going to get is the Canon S2 IS. It has a VERY nice 12x optical zoom, image stabilization, high quality "movie" mode, and can use a 2GB SD card. Even the price is fairly reasonable.

Which means I can now relax a bit and move from trying to decide which camera to get and start to "focus" on where to get it :-)

Shopping for a Sanyo Xacti VPC-C6?

More research leads me to this as a possible "better" option. The C5 version of this camera got a pretty good review from Steve's Digicams, which makes me think the C6 might have improved things to a usable point. Of course the fact I can only find one place on this side of the pond (Plemix.com) makes me a little nervous. Not that I have a problem with them - just that it makes me wonder if ANYONE has actually bought this and found it ok? Feel free to let me know...

Time for another look at TVHarmony and the Panasonic

The latest version of TVHarmony's AutoPilot software has addressed one of the main problems I had with it when I last looked at it - if you used it to do the auto-translation to MPEG-2, especially if you used it's ComSkip feature, then the audio sync would get messed up. And if you couldn't do the translation, then you really weren't saving yourself that much time over using TivoDesktop and TMPGEnc.

So, I am going to start using it for a couple weeks to see if it works well enough for me to go from trying it to using it. I'll be sure to let you know.

In terms of the Panasonic camera I posted about yesterday, I found out that it has a little problem that puts me back in search mode. It seems that if you are using it in video mode, you can't use the optical zoom without stopping, zooming, and then restarting the video. While doing a lot of zooming and panning is "bad", not being able to do it at all is a little bit of a problem. Maybe the Everios aren't so bad after all :-)

They Can't be THAT Dumb, Can They?

Well, I was pleasantly surprised to see Rocketboom show up on my TiVo yesterday. Yay!

So then I went into TiVo Desktop to copy it to my PC so I could watch it there later on and was more than a little surprised to see the little No Access sign next to the episode.

Evidently, the only way I can get Rocketboom onto my PC is to download it directly - which is essentially downloading it a second time. I can't believe Rocketboom asked for this restriction, and I can't believe TiVo thinks this is a good idea.

So, which party is disappointing me so I know who to complain to?

In the market for a camera again

Yup, the technology is getting to a point where the ol' Canon 3MP just is not up to what I want to be able to do with a camera. Particularly since there is getting to be such a major crossover between still cameras and video cameras in the amateur market.

I started by looking at the JVC Everio series, where they start with a video camera and also provide still pictures. But the still pictures are pretty low res, and don't provide much functionality.

Instead I'm now looking more at the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1K 8MP Digital Camera with 4x Image Stabilized Optical Zoom. Which has a very nice video mode, and supposedly takes pretty good pictures including some good macro capabilities. I also like that this one has a form factor that makes it portable enough that I can continue to carry it with me - increasing the likelihood of having it when I need to capture a shot.

Only problem with the Panasonic is that it doesn't have the built-in hard drive that the Everio series offers. So the amount I can capture at one time is a little constrained. Still, I can always buy a few more cards...

Slashdot takes a page from Salon

Just finished visiting Slashdot, where I noticed a new option at the top "Next article available for Day Pass Visitors".

As with Salon, you can now get the same breaks as subscribers in return for watching an ad. Unlike Salon, this seems to still be a work in progress as no actual ad showed up on my screen, but the link to get credit did.

Personally, even if I'd had to watch the ad, I would have found that to be a fair trade, much as I find the Salon day pass to be a good deal. If the advertising really rankled me, I could pay for a premium account. But if I want to help the site stay afloat, I can subject my browser (and possibly myself if I don't take an ad break as with my TV viewing - when I'm not fast forwarding the TiVo) to an ad that gives them revenue, and me a chance to access some stuff sooner.

Del.icio.us down but not out

The only thing more interesting than seeing how long Del.icio.us has been down has been reading all the comments on their blog about the outage. It seems to me that they got the infusion of funds from Yahoo just in time if there really was a problem with a power outage that caused the initial outage. It also sounds like they had an unstable RAID configuration that preceeded the outage, and that is making bringing everything up pretty difficult. Which is why the Linux RAID guys insist you use mdadm --monitor if you're going to rely on your RAID being in good shape.

Personally, given that I never paid them a dime, I would suggest that they cut their losses, and rather than try to rebuild something that was likely in a questionable state anyway, that they find a known good backup, and chalk the lost data up to experience. I can't imagine that they'd take more of a loss of reputation from that than they're getting right now for the extended outage.

Good luck guys!

What Up with Tivo and Rocketboom

Going to the Tivo link for the daily Rocketboom transmission sometimes takes you to a page where you can signup to receive it as a daily download on your TiVo, and sometimes takes you to a page saying they aren't allowing any more signups. Which if there were a bandwidth or server issue would make some sense.

However, I am not aware of anyone who has signed up (including yours truly) that has yet received a single episode on their TiVo. Given that the New York Times even did an article on how this is "the future of independent TV production", I'm kind of wondering what is going on.

I'll let you know when I do :-)

"Fourth" Season of Trek?

Wired has an interesting article in this month's issue (and online) about the folks who have been working on the Fourth Season of the Original Star Trek series.

What's up with the Moon?

Turns out there may be some things we know about the moon that we're just now realizing as some of the old Apollo data is reexamined in light of the possible new station there. NASA has an article on this titled "Moon Storms".

Apple has more shows coming

Reported in several places, but most accurately at ArsTechnica, Apple has expanded the series you can get via iTunes. Which seems to further back up the idea that the next Apple Mini probably WON'T have PVR capabilites. Rather you would expect it to have the TV Out and other features necessary to show these on your TV with the Mini performing the Media Server duties. Of course it will be interesting to see if at the point Apple will offer different resolutions of these videos, and whether you will pay once for all resolutions, or different costs based on the resolution being purchased.

Much Needed Tool Now Available

One of the problems I've had with my flickr account is that flickr doesn't have any online editing tools. If I had the time and patience to edit all my photos before uploading, that probably wouldn't be a problem. But I didn't.

Lo and behold, I must not have been the only person with this problem. Because there is a new online photo editor called PXN8 that will allow you to edit your flickr photos in place, and then replace the old photo with the edited version.

So, who's betting on Yahoo buying these folks out soon? ;-)

Similarly, with all the talk about TiVo and Apple or TiVo and Google, I'm surprised that folks aren't looking at how much TiVo and Yahoo are already doing. Seems like that is the most likely scenario at this point.

What I've Been Up To

Been busy the last few days, in part working up some information about the folks I work for. Since that involved some writing, I'm also posting it here for any of y'all who might be interested.

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, is one of the oldest and largest independent, not-for-profit, applied research and development (R&D) organizations in the United States. Founded in 1947, SwRI provides contract research and development services to industrial and government clients. The Institute is governed by a board of directors, which is advised by approximately 100 trustees.

SwRI initiates contracts with clients based on consultations and prepares a formal proposal outlining the scope of work. Subject to client wishes, programs are kept confidential. As part of a long-held tradition, patent rights arising from sponsored research are often assigned to the client. Similarly, software written by SwRI is almost always turned over to the sponsoring agency or company - which means high-quality software without recurring license fees. (Editor Note - Sounds kind of like the Open Source concept, yes? And we've been doing this since the 1980s).

SwRI consists of 11 technical divisions that offer multidisciplinary, problem-solving services in a variety of areas in engineering and the physical sciences. Historically, nearly 2,000 projects are open at the Institute at any one time. These projects are funded almost equally between the government and commercial sectors. SwRI’s headquarters occupy almost two million square feet of office and laboratory space on a 1,200-acre site in San Antonio. The Institute serves clients from more than 20 locations worldwide.

The Institute holds more than 750 patents awarded to its staff members, has earned 28 R&D 100 awards, and has been inducted in the U.S. Space Foundation’s Space Technology Hall of Fame. The Institute has received two Department of Defense James S. Cogswell Outstanding Industrial Security Achievement Awards. In 2003, SwRI received NASA's Software of the Year Award in recognition of the Institute's role in developing NASGRO, a suite of fracture mechanics analysis software. Several divisions within SwRI have achieved ISO 9001 or ISO 14001 certification and ISO/IEC Guide 25 accreditation. The Automation and Data Systems Division has been assessed as an SEI-CMM Level 3 organization.

The Medical Systems Organization (MSO) in the Automation and Data Systems Division develops customized solutions for medical systems. MSO provides a full range of information systems and software engineering services including the development, interfacing, testing, and certification of a variety of medical devices. MSO's medical devices are developed under the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) GMP (good manufacturing practices)-register. MSO staff has developed many systems including:

* Automated recording from medical devices
* Digital radiography
* Electronic patient records
* Immunization tracking
* Medical scheduling
* Medical surveillance systems
* Medical system architecture development
* Telemedicine

Click for more information on the Medical Systems Organization.