Roger's Blog

Twitter Daftness

Roger — Wed, 12 May 2010 14:33:00 +0100

While mooching around in cyberspace, I stumbled across the two sites making clever use of tweet data: We Feel Fine and Twistori. Twistori credits We Feel Fine for the idea. They both made me smile and maybe that's a good enough for their existence.

There's also a desktop version of Twistori that allows you to customise your own search terms, which can yield some useful material. I added coalition and found a link to this page that sets out the agreement between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to form the new UK government.

Musing on Terry Pratchett

Roger — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 14:29:00 +0100

I am in Amsterdam — trapped, like many thousands are, by the eruption of Eyjafjallajoekull. I'm lucky: I have a hotel room and there are definitely worse places to be forced to spend time than the Dutch capital.

I spent the morning shopping for extra supplies — partly caused by the hotel returning two pairs of knickers that weren't mine. I don't mind too much wearing someone else's (clean) socks, but underwear... urrggh!

I'm now in the Koepelcafé, which is attached to my hotel. I'm reading Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals. I've been a big fan of Pratchett for a long time; the Discworld series has been a repeated source of delight — let's hope that TP can find the motivation and determination to produce more books before Parkinson's Disease finally stops him.

The stories and plot lines in are clever and inventive and filled with all kinds subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) references to add extra layers of enjoyment, but one of the great strengths of the books is the richness and diversity of the characters: Granny Weatherwax (one of my personal favourites), Rincewind, Mustrum Ridcully, Sam Vimes, Captain Carrot, Lord Vetinari, Lu-Tze, Susan Sto Helit... the list goes on and on. It is Terry's attention to detail that brings characters to life. I was struck by this very small example in Unseen Academicals: Lord Vetinari is talking to Glenda Sugarbean (head of the Night Kitchen in UU). Vetinari has referred to Glenda's taking left-over food, which she says is "a perk" and anyway it is (as Vetinari well knows) for the elderly and poor. LV responds:

"Oh, but of course. Every job has its little perks. Why, I don't expect Drumknott here has bought a paperclip in his life, eh, Drumknott?"

This makes sense to the reader; it's a kind of universal truth: the pilfering of office supplies. We smile gently and, perhaps, imagine the discomforture of Drumknott, Vetinari's secretary. TP, however, is not content with this. Several pages later, we've forgotten the incident: Glenda has left and Drumknott dismissed from the office, but before going begs leave to "add something, sir".

"The floor is yours, Drumknott."

"I would not like it thought that I do not buy my own paperclips, sir. I enjoy owning my own paperclips. It means that they are mine. I thought it helpful I should tell you that in a measured and nonconfrontational way."

I laughed out loud when I read this: somehow this very small scene encapsulates the magic of Terry Pratchett.

Is It Good Enough To Put your Name On?

Roger — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 14:51:00 +0100

Last weekend my chum Tony and I flew from Amsterdam to Bordeaux to visit my mother, Nina, and brother, Jeremy. They live in the Médoc region of France, near the small town of Vendays-Montalivet. Lesparre-Médoc is the "county town" and where we go to stock up for the weekend.

First stop is the Eléveurs Girondins where they sell the most wonderful beef from local cattle — Blonde d'Aquitaine, Limousin and Bazadais. The shop only opens a few hours every day and there is always a queue. There are certificates on the counter explaining what's on offer this week — almost a résumé of the animal you are going to be eating. We bought some rump steak and entrecôte (well, actually, rather more than some).

Second stop was Carrefour, the local supermarket, where the cheapness (but goodness) of wine compared to the UK is galling, and the quality of available produce does give an indication why France is supposed to be the best place in the world to live.

As it happened, it was my birthday; so Tony (birthday exactly a week earlier) and Jeremy decided we needed a birthday cake. We went to La Crique, a promising-looking pâtisserie not far from Carrefour. I waited in the car while the other two went in to buy; they returned with a tarte aux fruits and the news that the chef was a fluent English speaker having recently returned to France after 23 years in the UK. He is William Hamelin. I've binged him and discovered that among other things he was Chef Pâtissier at the Connaught Hotel, professor of pâtisserie at Westminster Kingsway College and President of the Association Culinaire Française — this guy is the real deal.

The tarte aux fruits was sublime! None of us could remember ever having eaten better. That meant, gourmands that we are, we had to go back for more on Saturday. We all went into the shop hoping for another tarte aux fruits, but there were none. M. Hamelin explained some of the other delights, which included — surprise, surprise — a bread and butter pudding. I can't recall the elegant French name, but he said that one of things he wanted to do was introduce the French to English puddings. Well, we're English, but we bought some anyway and they were g-o-o-d!

Our other purchase was a tarte tatin, which, our pâtissier said was so good, he put his name on it! This he did with a tasteful little sticker on the box. This phrase resonated with me as a worthwhile addition to a personal manifesto. Next time you deliver a project, Seth Godin might ask "Is it art?" and William Hamelin might ask "Is it good enough to put your name on?". Well, is it?

Sony, I spit on your Reader Touch Edition

Roger — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 22:30:00 +0000

I have owned an e-book reader for a year or more: first, the BeBook, which got very slow and unreliable (kept having to reset it) and more recently the Sony Reader Touch Edition. Well, I am now on my third e-reader having got totally pissed off at the Sony; there are just too many things that aren't right. Granted it is nicely made, but it is just a bit too heavy and a bit too large for me to hold comfortably in one hand. The screen has far too much glare, making the reading angle very critical. The operation of the touch-screen is inconsistent: the reader does not always respond to page-turning gestures even though there seemed to be little variation in what I did. Battery life is quite variable: sometimes the device would run quite happily for days, but every now and then it would seem to lose the charge very quickly. This happened without warning as the indicator registered what appeared to be a good charge, but the reader just locked up without warning.

Battery life brings me to another stupidity of the Reader Touch: USB charging. The reader only charges when the PC is active. Not only does it not charge, if the computer goes to sleep, the battery is actually drained! What kind of freakin' stupid design decision is that?

The straw that broke the camel's back, however, was the library software. It was pretty obvious from the start that the software was crap and the new version that was released was even worse. I stopped using it in favour of Calibre, but was forced to reinstall to try, unsuccessfully as it turned out, to sort out a problem with the almost equally dreadful Adobe Digital Editions. The Reader Touch was retired!

I popped into my local Waterstone's and bought the Elonex 511EB. It has a smaller screen, but is much easier to read than the Sony, and being made out of plastic is much lighter — perhaps, about half the weight. Battery life is much better — it will even charge using the iPhone charger. One annoyance that I failed to notice in my hurry to replace the Sony: the device is not recognised on Mac OS X, though it will charge through the USB port. This adds an extra step as I use Calibre to save my portable library on a memory stick; I then plug the 511EB and the stick into my wife's laptop and copy files to the reader using Windows Explorer.

At only just over half the cost of the Reader Touch, the 511EB is much better value and much less annoying to use. Curiously, since I have bought it, I've had two people approach me and ask if it was an iPad. They must be psychic because I expect in a few weeks it will be. :) But I'll still be taking the 511EB on my travels because I don't fancy reading an iPad in the bath!

The BBC's Virtual Revolution

Roger — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 12:24:00 +0000

Stephen Fry interviewed for the programme:

Full Body Scanners not a privacy problem for me

Roger — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:48:00 +0000

I travelled home from Tampa Airport yesterday. They have been using full body scanners for a few months. I was rather curious as there has been plenty of comment about potential invasion of privacy here in the UK and, as quoted in the linked article in the Tampa Tribune, by the ACLU in the States.

I was picked for a scan; it might have been a random check or because I failed the normal scan. It was politely explained that the scan was not mandatory, but the alternative would be a pat-down search. I opted for the scan, which took, I would guess, much less than a minute: I had to stand in two positions, once with arms up and after turning through 90º with arms down. There was a short wait while the results were processed. I asked about the image and the guard pointed to a display on the machine — the image I didn't find in any way embarrassing. I suppose that there were larger displays somewhere behind closed doors that were examined, but compared to the last pat-down search (serious groinal grab) to which I was subjected travelling through Schiphol a little while back, the ACLU's comment that "The routine use of body scanners is well on the other side of that line" seems to me to be hyperbole not far short of bullshit.

Pranav Mistry at TED

Roger — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 12:11:00 +0000

I blogged about TED before. This is a a fascinating presentation by Pranav Mistry:

Mac Software: what works for me

Roger — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 15:37:00 +0000

Eighteen months, or so, on from my impulse purchase of a MacBook Air, I now own three Macs: a MacBook Pro and an iMac in addition to the Air: what Mac software makes it to my personal recommendation list?

Blogging: I'm an irregular blogger, but as we're on the subject, I use almost invariably MarsEdit rather than the on-line editor offered by my service provider. It's simple to use, offers an instant preview of the post and works off-line.

Task Management: I posted a while back on this topic. One of the products I'd considered was Things. I rejected it at the time because of the problem I had synching between machines. However, I got round this when I got an iPhone 3Gs. Cultured Code have an iPhone app that integrates well with the desktop; so now I don't both to try to sync between machines. When I'm at home I use Things on the iMac and, when away, I use Things on the iPhone and sync to the iMac on my return.

File Manager: I'm still surprised at how many rough edges there are in Finder. Path Finder is a no-brainer to install as an alternative. A handy add-in for file management is Default Folder X, which makes the file open/save dialogue more flexible and friendly.

Back-up: I have three recommendations here. For local back-up and synching between machines, I use ChronoSync. It does what it says on the tin: easy to set up, easy to use. For on-line back-up for extra peace of mind, I use JungleDisk. This sits in the background and every now and then copies my valuable files to Amazon web servers — AES-256 protection, so stuff is as safe as is reasonably possible, but accessible from other machines that have JungleDisk installed. This has proved useful on the odd occasion when I've forgotten to run ChronoSync before leaving home and had to download the latest version of project documents from JungleDisk to the MacBook.

My third recommendation is SuperDuper! This makes it very simple to take bootable snapshots of the entire system, either for back-up or testing.

E-Book Manager: I'm on my second e-book reader. My first was the BeBook. I enjoyed the BeBook, but it has sufficient shortcomings that I didn't hesitate to buy the Sony Reader Touch Edition when it first appeared. It doesn't get an unqualified recommendation: it is well-made, but a tiny bit too heavy and a screen that has too much glare. What gets complete condemnation is the appalling software that ships with the Sony Reader. It is dreadful: slow, convoluted in design — altogether awful. The final straw came when the installation of the latest upgrade wiped out the contents of my library. I now use Calibre. It's an open source application that has Windows and Linux versions as well as Mac. It is free, but donations can be made to support the product.

Uninstall Utility: One of things I've enjoyed about changing from Windows to Mac OS X has been the search for useful software. Of course, this means that quite often stuff is installed that turns out to be not what's needed. This is where AppZapper comes in: a simple and painless way to remove the programs that didn't make the cut.

Up-and-coming

These products I also like, but can't put them on the unqualified recommendation list simply because I haven't used them enough.

iCombiner: merges multiple documents into a single PDF.

Cyberduck: an open source FTP, sFTP, etc. browser.

Finally, in this section I should mention several products from The Omni Group. I own use use regularly (just not every day): OmniGraffle (for diagrams), OmniOutliner (for outlining) and OmniPlan (project planning).

Honourable Mentions

Two products that I like and gave a real work-out to, but ultimately stopped using because they didn't quite fit my modus operandi: Curio and VoodooPad.

rogercavanagh.com has migrated to RapidWeaver

Roger — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:49:00 +0000

For the last few months, I've been trying move the content of my website from DreamWeaver to RapidWeaver, but I have given up try to make it a seamless transition — it would have taken too long. The main problem was that it's not possible to import existing HTML pages into RapidWeaver, so anything I wanted to include had to been cut-and-pasted and reformatted. Big chunks have stuff have been moved over; other material will moved as and when, and some things might never make it across.

Variations Suite is now freeware!

One the the biggest changes is that I have decided to make these scripts available without charge. I haven't been able to find the time to maintain them for the latest versions of Adobe Photoshop. Some of the scripts are already available for download here; others will be added over time and I'll move some of the documentation. But essentially, you're on you're own to download and play — I might answer email questions, but don't expect a response.

Seasons Greetings!

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I was farting about yesterday and made my own e-card using the excellent ScreenBeans and a song ripped off from Robert Earl Keen.

Travels With My Pen

Roger — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:19:00 +0100

Of course, I'm referring to the Olympus EP-1 rather than a quill. I bought it to take on a trip to China because I knew that there would be some serious walking. Apologies to anyone out there who really is a serious walker — when I say serious walking, I mean for an overweight, underfit, maturing chap like me. You can read about one afternoon's walk here.

Weight-wise the Pen did fit the bill. In addition, to the camera I took a 7-14mm wide-angle zoom and a 14-140mm telephoto zoom — both Micro 4/3rds format from Panasonic. The whole lot together was about the same weight as the 1Ds MkIII body alone. I also took the 17mm pancake that came with the camera, but that's so small and light that it hardly counts and, in the event, I rarely used it.

Using the camera, almost the first thing I noticed was that I had to get away from thinking this was one of my DSLRs. The Pen needs more light, which I suppose is pretty obvious when you think about it: the bits of glass on the front are much smaller. Still, it took me a while to really catch on. I spent too much time trying to keep ISO lower and took a lot of under-exposed, blurry pictures before it sunk in.

The little control wheel on the back was the expected nuisance: it just too easy to change settings inadvertently. Altering the ISO or the white balance seemed to be the most prevalent adjustments. A wrong WB isn't really a problem when you're shooting raw as I do exclusively. After a while I got into the habit of checking the settings before starting another series of shots. I think that, with more practice, it would be possible to reduce the impact of the twitchy wheel. Still, it would be nice to have an easy way to disable (and re-enable) the wheel.

Paparazzi's weapon, this camera is not! Between the shutter lag and the live display delay, decisive moments are hard to capture. I'm not sure that HCB would have been too impressed. :) But it was good enough for me and my travel pics. The shutter is quiet and not at all intrusive.

Battery life was unsurprisingly not as good as the advertised 300 shots. The battery level indicator turned red somewhere between 150 and 200 shots, but to be fair I never tried to continue shooting until the battery died and quite often I was using the image stabilisation on the Panasonic 14-140 zoom, which I'm guessing took more juice than the in-camera IS. Since a spare battery is small and light, this wasn't really a major issue, so long as I took care to recharge batteries every night.

I've read some criticisms of the quality of the LCD viewing screen. Some of it seemed to be from people who wanted to make sure the picture was perfectly framed and in focus before they pressed the shutter. I didn't worry too much about it. After all what's the delete button for? :) Anyway I need to use reading glasses to see the screen clearly. It's not very convenient to wear them all the time when shooting with the EP-1; so I often just used a fuzzy view of the LCD to confirm that framing was about right — checking details carefully would have been a hassle and not worth the effort.

I can't really comment on the accuracy of the metering. I hadn't used the camera enough before going to China to work out what to do for the best and it was too late by the time we were there. I found myself setting the info' display most often to give warnings of shadows and highlights, and swapping between shutter priority and manual and taking extra shots.

What about image quality?

In no way have I systematically assessed this. But I've managed to get sufficient pictures that I'm happy with to conclude that IQ is fine — any problems are with the user, not the camera. I've posted a bunch of stuff in my new galleries: go to Gallery Two>China. The Pen pictures started with the Lotus album on page two of the menu. I've done a few A4 and A3 prints and the results are perfectly acceptable.

Taking everything into consideration, I'm more than happy with my decision to get the EP-1. I've got some good pictures and I'm quite sure that I would have suffered badly around the Yellow Mountain with the extra weight of the 1Ds. I've already added to my Micro 4/3rds lens collection with the Panasonic 20/1.7, which is a much nicer lens than the Olympus 17/2.8 that I got with the camera.

Although it is small, the EP-1 is recognisable: I was approached on our first afternoon in Shanghai by a Chinese chap who'd seen it and wanted a closer look. This happened several times during the trip. I noticed today in the BA Business Life magazine that the EP-1 is listed in "gear to lust after" section.

New home for my photos

Roger — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:22:00 +0100

I'm working on restructuring rogercavanagh.com. I've chosen to do this in RapidWeaver, which is one of the most popular website applications for Mac OS X. I decided not to change to a Mac version of DreamWeaver — too expensive and too complex for what I really need. The downside, however, is that I cannot just import the existing pages, but have to rebuild everything from scratch.

The gallery pages are the first section to receive this treatment. I've created a new subdomain. Over the past few weeks, I've been moving the older photos into the new format galleries as well as creating new galleries from our cruise and recent trip to The Yellow Mountain in China.

I'm using Adobe Lightroom with the SlideShowPro plug-in, which gives a great presentation. I'm also using SlideShowPro Director to serve the images. I installed and ran their server compatibility test on rogercavanagh.com, but fasthosts didn't pass all the tests; so I've taken out a hosting subscription. This seems to be working very well and was only 80 bucks for a two-year period.

I'm still doing some testing, but everything is apparently working correctly, so the existing gallery pages on the rogercavanagh.com are now longer being updated.

One side effect of using a subdomain on fasthosts is that all the pages act as frames for some reason, which means (as far as I can tell) that direct page links don't work.

Check out the latest pictures from China in Gallery Two>China.

Extra Juice for Your iPhone

Roger — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:16:00 +0100

A little while ago, I made Steve Jobs a tiny bit richer by changing my mobile phone to the iPhone 3Gs. I love it, but the battery life is pretty dismal...

These flip-flops took me up Tian Du Feng

Roger — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 15:48:00 +0100

Yes, they did! The Celestial Peak (the commonly-used translation for Tian du Feng) is one of the tallest peaks in Huangshan — the Yellow Mountain in China — reaching 1,810 metres above sea-level. We were there because we'd accepted an invitation to join a group organised by Patrick, who is one of the two brothers of my brother-in-law. I couldn't find a convincing explanation of how that relationship should be described: brother-in-law-in-law? Brother-in-law once removed?

The 6-night stay (in three different hotels) in Huangshan was to be the highlight of the trip. We'd stopped the night before in a very nice hotel (the Xiangming) in Huangshan City. We were obliged to leave suitcases behind and pack sufficient for the next week in rucksacks, which we would be expected to carry, plus one holdall that would be transported by porter — more on the porters another time. After lunch our coach dropped us off at the cable car, which took us part way up the mountain. The remaining half a km or so was on foot up some pretty steep steps. That should have been a clue about what was to come!

The following day came the trek to Tian Du Feng.

To be honest, I had no idea of what to expect before coming on the trip. I'd been too busy to do much investigation of my own and I figured "how hard could it could be?". I knew that most of the others in the group (25 in all) would be older than me, some by a considerable margin; so I reckoned that actual rock-climbing would not be on the itinerary and the purchase of proper hiking boots an expensive over-kill. Flip-flops are light, don't require socks and are easy to dry. I knew from past experience that they're good at keeping my feet warm in the rain: once feet are wet it only takes few seconds for the water between the foot and the rubber to warm up. I've found this to be true even in heavy rain, whereas normal shoes or trainers can become soaked and result in very, very cold feet.

The weather at the start of the journey to Tian Du Feng was not promising, but not actually raining. The first part of the journey was mainly downhill from the top of Yuping Peak (where our hotel was) to a sort of half-way area: a combination viewing platform with a small kiosk and paths further down the mountain as well as being the start of the ascent to Tian Du Feng. We'd seen this as we were coming down the opposite peak:

By the time we reached the kiosk, which you can see in in the bottom-left corner of the picture, it was raining, but not very hard. Gia and I both had jackets (supposed to be waterproof) and we had plastic ponchos that we pinched from the Xiangming in our packs; so we decided to go on. Before too much longer the rain became harder and I decided to leave the camera (I'd taken the Olympus EP-1) in my rucksack so it didn't get wet, hence, no pictures from the top. You can see a few more shots here — choose Gallery Two>China and you'll find Climbing Tian Du Feng in the list of albums.

The walk turned into something out of Lord Of The Rings: the "straight stair" followed by the "winding stair". What you can see in the picture is no more than half the route as the path winds to the left and out of view.

There were a few people coming down the peak; they kept encouraging us that it wasn't much further. They lied!

I have no idea how long it took, but we eventually reached the top and ritually stood on the bit of rock that proclaimed itself to be 1810m high. The rain was coming down in sheets. But this was not sufficient to dampen the spirit of Chinese enterprise: two men were up there selling drinks (which we didn't need) and commemorative medallions, which were engraved on the spot:

We were cheap and bought one medallion between two.

Rain continued to pour as we made our way down. Water streamed down the steps and we were as wet as drowned rats by the time we reached the halfway house, where I insisted on a beer to celebrate before commencing the climb back up Yuping Peak to our hotel.

Adobe Customer Service: how bad can you get?

Roger — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:22:00 +0100

A few weeks ago, I finally decided to get Adobe Photoshop on my Mac...

Snow Leopard

Roger — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 15:59:00 +0100

I've spent the last couple of days preparing for and installing Snow Leopard...

There's a New Toy in Town

Roger — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 20:27:00 +0100

Not long after we arrived home from the cruise, we got a phone call from Gia's big sister, Monica, asking us whether we were interested in joining a tour to the Yellow Mountain in China. Naturally, we said yes. Apparently, there'll be some walking (carrying luggage), which has me concerned about carrying the heavy artillery that is the 1Ds MkIII with two or three L lenses not to mention chargers, batteries, back-up devices, etc., etc. So I've allowed myself to be swept up by the hype for the Olympus PEN EP-1. The EP-1 is Micro Four Thirds format and weighs only 335g (less than 12oz) — without a lens, of course, because it has interchangeable lenses.

I checked around and, in the end, bought from Amazon (USlink, UK link). I decided to get the bundle with the 17mm pancake lenses and external viewfinder. It's produces a nice, compact package to carry around, but I soon decided that one lens would not be enough. The first addition of the MMF-1 4/3rds to μ4/3rds (MMF-1 US, MMF-1 UK). To this I added the Zuiko 50/2 macro (US link, UK link).

That's another 383g added to the total!

Of course, I kept looking to see what other lenses are around. I found this: the Panasonic 7-14/4, which is also μ4/3rds fit. This is apparently a new lens announced at PMA 2009 — it's quite expensive, but has been well-received in the few reviews that I've seen (here's one). This is a shot at 7mm:

This one is at 13mm (square crop to about 50%):

So my weight total is now 1018g, which is still 100g shy of the 1DsIII without a lens. :) Mind you, temptation is still out there!

My biggest problem so far has been the Olympus Master raw conversion software, which is pretty dreadful, but luckily beta versions of Camera Raw and DNG Converter have just become available. I converted all my ORF files to DNG and started to reprocess using Lightroom.

So far, I'm pretty happy with the PEN; it's solid and well-made. Everything is so much smaller than my Canons, consequently, the controls are taking a while to get used to. I've seen a lot of moans about the quality of the LCD screen, but it's good enough for me to see what's in the picture — I'm not try to judge depth of field or sharpness like some people seem to want to do — "Am I pointing it the right way?" that's what I want to know. I'll add a spare battery and some extra memory cards (in lieu of a portable back-up option) for the trip and we'll see how it goes.

Rights Grab Petition

Roger — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:34:00 +0100

I don't see that this petition is likely to help that much. On the other hand, I guess it can't hurt, but a lot more names are needed before the closing deadline of 22 October 2009.

The petition objects to the terms and conditions of photo competitions that transfer the rights to the entries from the photographer to the competition owner/sponsor.

Magic with Glasses

Roger — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 17:56:00 +0100

One of the characteristic things about cruises is the "sea days"...

Grumpy Old Man

Roger — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:32:00 +0100

We've been on a cruise!

It's been a while

Roger — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:30:00 +0100

I haven't posted in a while...

More on Not Getting Things Done

Roger — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:02:00 +0100

A few weeks back, I posted about my search for a Mac replacement for managing tasks on Windows...

Travels with an E-Book Reader

Roger — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 11:28:00 +0100

I read a lot, which means taking more than one book when I'm away from home for more than 2-3 days. This can be a nuisance...

Getting Things Done, or not...

Roger — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:03:00 +0000

In the fairly recent past, when all my systems were Windows-based, one of the main tools I used was MindManager with the very excellent ResultsManager...

TED: check it out

Roger — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:36:00 +0000

If you haven't already discovered TED, I urge you to check it out...

Yet Another Mac

Roger — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 15:18:00 +0000

Just over a week ago, I took delivery of another Mac...

Monitor Calibration with the Pantone Huey

Roger — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 14:55:00 +0000

A while ago, mooching in the Apple Store in Bluewater I bought the Huey Pro...

Buying Apple is a religious experience

Roger — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:19:00 +0000

The latest issue of ChangeThis contains an interesting article by Martin Lindstrom...

Changing My Wifi Network Part 2: Adding Network Disks

Roger — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:21:00 +0000

About this time last year...

Changing My Wifi Network

Roger — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 04:45:00 +0000

Since I've got some spare time, I decided to sort out my wireless network at home...

Coming Home

Roger — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:46:00 +0000

I'm writing this at 38,000 feet...

Merry Christmas

Roger — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 19:26:00 +0000

It's Christmas Eve...

Days With My Father

Roger — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:58:00 +0000

My friend, Craig, sent me the link to this beautiful and very moving website.

Software for Mac OS X

Roger — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:37:00 +0000

I was a complete Mac neophyte when I bought my MacBook Air...

Watermark Variations and Photoshop CS4

Roger — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 07:10:00 +0100

A user reports experience with Watermark Variations and Photoshop CS4

More Eating Places Round Newbury

Roger — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 09:26:00 +0100

The current project has been keeping me extremely busy; so I haven't had much time to add new posts or ...

Thumbs Down for VIPRE

Roger — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:59:00 +0100

Any knowledgeable Windows user will be aware of the importance of having good protection against viruses...

New Toys

Roger — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:56:00 +0100

A week or so back, two of my MyBook drives unexpectedly died...

A Propos of Nothing in Particular

Roger — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:29:00 +0100

It's a reasonably pleasant summer evening...

Parakeets and Pixels

Roger — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:45:00 +0100

I was watching something or other on TV last night around 8 pm when the sound of the Kelsey Park parakeets' chattering burst through the open window. I went out on the balcony to take a look and found that the sun, just disappearing behind the trees in the park, was creating a lovely golden glow. I grabbed a camera and with a 300 mil lens took a few shots.

Later I loaded the raw files into Lightroom, one of which I cropped to isolate this bird sitting on a slender branch. Now there isn't per se any great intrinsic merit in this picture; the reason I'm posting it is that, later in the edit session, I noticed that the crop size was 1516 x 2273 pixels. It occurred to me that this crop was larger than the full image on my first DSLR — the Canon D30 — that I bought back in March, 2001. The resolution on the D30 was 1440 x 2160 pixels; the crop from this picture is only just over 16% of the full-frame available (5616 x 3744 px) on my current 1Ds Mk III! I printed the crop on a sheet of A4 premium semi-gloss and it looks great. This is a full-frame shot of the same bird (with friend) taken a few minutes earlier that underlines just how much improvement in sensor resolution there has been in a few years.

Connections

Roger — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:28:00 +0100

A copuple of weeks ago, I downloaded a copy of PersonalBrain...

ChangeThis

Roger — Sun, 18 May 2008 11:08:00 +0100

ChangeThis is an interesting site...

I Love This Doctor

Roger — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 18:10:00 +0100

This really did make me laugh...

First Impressions of a New Gadget: the ASUS Eee PC

Roger — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 16:47:00 +0100

On Tuesday last week, I started a new project that will take me to Manchester for a few weeks...

Variations Suite and Adobe Photoshop CS3

Roger — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:25:00 +0100

Regular visitors to rogercavanagh.com may know of the Variations Suite

Home-building

Roger — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:43:00 +0100

I haven't posted a picture for a few days; so here's something seasonal:

Pisco Sours and Other Good Stuff

Roger — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:16:00 +0100

You might think that, just a month away from the first anniversary of moving in;here, that the process would be complete...

The parakeets are back!

Roger — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:47:00 +0100

Well, at least one...

Kelsey Park has a flock of green parakeets — perhaps, 40 or 50, hard to tell as they never stop still long enough to be counted. When we moved in last year, we were sleeping in the living room that overlooks the park; the parakeets used to wake us up very early in the morning with their chattering. I don't know where they spent the winter, but the odd one or two have just returned. This little fellow obliging perched on a tree near our balcony long enough for me to grab a camera. (This is quite a tight crop, but, oh, the beauty of 21 megapixels!)

Do you want to conPhorm?

Roger — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 13:52:00 +0100

Sorry about the bad pun — couldn't resist it. There's been a (surprisingly) small fuss recently about plans for three ISPs in the UK — BT, Virgin Media and the Carphone Warehouse — to sell data about their users' browsing habits...

Madonna Made Me Do It

Roger — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:34:00 +0000

I confess that I have plagiarised this subject line...

What Size Should You Print?

Roger — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:02:00 +0000

Like many people, I keep a selection of reading material in the loo...

Over-saturated Lightroom Previews

Roger — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 11:27:00 +0000

I've come across an issue with previews in Lightroom...

Farting With Flowers

Roger — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 20:57:00 +0000

At 0700 last Friday, Ikea delivered some shelving — for books and wine — that I have spent the best part of the last five days assembling in our garage and store-room and, subsequently, filling the shelves from the many boxes untouched since our move (now almost 10 months ago). It's been a while since I did anything like this: if it involves manual labour, my preference is to pay someone else to do it. I have had complaints from muscles I didn't know I had. I had a brief respite on Monday morning. We've got decorators (Polish, unsurprisingly) repainting the common areas of the apartment block. This includes the frontdoor to each apartment; so I was obliged to sit in until the undercoat was sufficiently dry to allow the door to be closed.

While waiting, I continued my image cataloging in Lightroom and found this picture from April, 2004.

Heaven knows why I kept this hugely under-exposed picture, but I did. As an exercise, I decided to see what I could make of it; this is the end result.

I rather like it. I tried to think of something clever to say about tones, and textures and forms, but I couldn't.

Juggling Balls

Roger — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:14:00 +0000

Officially, Sam Reynolds is my godson...

A Chance Gallery

Roger — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 10:08:00 +0000

I am still loading my image files to Lightroom for cataloguing...

The Wondrous Bumblebee

Roger — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:52:00 +0000

I came across this fascinating little article on the BBC website. It describes how a team of scientists have attached RFID tags to bumblebees. The tags are so tiny that they don't impede the bees at all:

"These tags allow us to collect data from the bees without disturbing them and they help us to monitor a lot of bees simultaneously."

The story also gives me an excuse to pull this picture from 2003:

Keywords — Foxy Lady

Roger — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:14:00 +0000

Sorry for the terrible pun in the subject line.

I'm still working on loading and keywording my image files into Lightroom. I invested some money and licensed a copy of the Controlled Vocabulary Keyword Catalog to help get me started. I've never really made a serious effort to catalogue the images before. I've dabbled with ThumbsPlus, which is a decent piece of software, but keeping the T+ database up to date was always an extra process that it was too easy not to do. The combination (that Lightroom offers) of library and develop function in the same tool seems to reduce the avoidance tendency. Over the last couple of days I've loaded several thousand images from 2002 and I decided to take the time to weed out some of the enormous amount of crap that I was insufficiently ruthless to ditch before. I read somewhere (can't recall the author) that amateur photographers (like me) are very poor at filtering the dross from the gold — we keep too many pictures that are almost OK. I know that's true for me. I'm never going to be as ruthless as a pro; after all some of the pictures are digital souvenirs to be kept even if they aren't perfectly framed or focused.

Anyway while working on my digital weeding, I came across this shot of Charlie the Fox (actually she's a vixen, but we didn't know that when we christened her):

We first met Charlie when we were clearing out a patch of overgrown shrubbery in the back garden of our old house: she was sleeping underneath a bush and there were clear signs of a den, which we rather wrecked in our clear-up. Amazingly, Charlie didn't seem at all perturbed by our presence and was quite happy to lie in the sun, so long as we didn't go too close. She was such a beautiful animal that we started putting out the left-overs for Charlie instead of in the garbage or down the waste disposal. After a while — sentimental suckers as we are — we bought dog biscuits (that's what Charlie's eating here, she's not doing a Winston Churchill impression ) and even doggy chocs. Girls like chocolate more than boys, and Charlie was no exception: while we never attempted to pet Charlie or touch her in any way, she would come and sit no more than 1m (3ft) away as I tossed doggy chocs to her.

Charlie (and some of her friends and family) visited almost daily for many months; I took loads of pictures — there are some more on my website: here and here. Sadly, one day they all just stopped coming. We suspected foul play (official or unofficial), but never found out what happened to them.

Downloader Pro

Roger — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 12:25:00 +0000

I've just noticed that Chris Breeze has released an update to his excellent Downloader Pro. Anyone who takes digital photographs and works on Windows should consider this program for downloading, organising and renaming images files. I've been using DL Pro since version 1, this release is 2.1.

Downloader Pro is highly recommended and not only by me.

Today's picture from the archives was taken back in April 2002 with my old D30:

Project Honeypot

Roger — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:51:00 +0000

My friend Steve recommended Project Honeypot. The website claims that it is a distributed system for identifying spammers and the spambots. Steve is a card-carrying geek and has installed the software on his own site. My modest technical expertise doesn't qualify me for geekdom and Fasthosts looks after my website and blog; so I have used the quicklink method. This involves inserting a link to a web address unique to my PH account that cannot be seen by a human browser, but can be picked up by a spambot. If spam results from this visit to the honeypot, it can be tracked to the IP address that originally visited the hidden link. What happens after that is a bit vague:

We collate, process, and share the data generated by your site with you. We also work with law enforcement authorities to track down and prosecute spammers.

Still, all in all, this seems like a good thing and the more people who participate the better.

One of the ongoing tasks I have set myself is to catalogue all my images using Lightroom. I've also noticed that the page looks a little boring without any pictures; so to close this post, I'm displaying one of the earliest pictures I made with a digital SLR. This was taken in San Francisco before I'd even discovered the benefits of shooting raw format:

The New Printer Arrives!

Roger — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:36:00 +0000

Excitement as the latest gadget arrives! A new photo printer...

Windows Vista SP1: A Cautionary Tale

Roger — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 00:04:00 +0000

I've wasted a lot of time over the past three days...

From Adams to Steiglitz

Roger — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:33:00 +0000

I found this delightful little book...

There's a First Time For Everything

Roger — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:09:00 +0000

This past week Gia and I have been in Florida...

Party in the Park

Roger — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:31:00 +0000

I'm using the word party in the loosest possible sense...

Experimenting with B&W in Lightroom

Roger — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:20:00 +0000

I've been continuing to work with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom...

B&W Conversion in Lightroom: Two Techniques

Roger — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:25:00 +0000

Two methods for B&W conversion in Lightroom

Kelsey Park: A Lens Testing Ground

Roger — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:53:00 +0000

I took a wander round my local park...

New Network Storage and A Moan About Software Bundling

Roger — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:33:00 +0000

How often do you buy a piece of hardware that comes bundled with one or more packages that turn out to have marginal value...

Route 66: the story continues... finally..

Roger — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:25:00 +0000

Reynolds has finally got his act together...

Route 66 Sights and Signposts

Roger — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:49:00 +0000

I've added another gallery of pictures from Tony's trip...

Route 66 First Photos

Roger — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:30:00 +0000

I have been nagging Tony Reynolds...

Calibrize: A Free Utility for Simple Colour Management

Roger — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 11:53:00 +0000

Because photography is a hobby not a profession, I've never bothered...

Back to work - more galleries - and a plug

Roger — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 20:47:00 +0000

Well, after three weeks at home...

Happy New Year, another Hangzhou Gallery update and Wikipedia

Roger — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 12:10:00 +0000

I've added a third album...

New Album in Hangzhou Gallery

Roger — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 19:19:00 +0000

I've added a second album...

Hangzhou: new gallery on rogercavanagh.com

Roger — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 18:25:00 +0000

Still catching up with unprocessed raw files...

Adobe LightRoom: starting with a new raw converter

Roger — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 14:58:00 +0000

For the first time in a while, I've had several continuous days with spare time...

Merry Christmas

Roger — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 22:10:00 +0000

Christmas spirit means...

Touring China 7: A New Gallery at rogercavanagh.com

Roger — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 11:35:00 +0000

The Leshan Buddha is a new gallery...

China: World Heritage Sites Review

Roger — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 23:55:00 +0000

This is a beautifully produced book...

Mackerel Dawn in Dublin

Roger — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:31:00 +0000

Walking to the client's office on Tuesday morning, I took this shot with a Canon Digital Ixus 70.

Touring China 6: Gudong Waterfalls

Roger — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:40:00 +0000

This site was another place we visited on the trip that left me somewhat annoyed...

Update on www.rogercavanagh.com

Roger — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 23:47:00 +0000

For some time now my photography site rogercavanagh.com has not been updated...

On Oysters and Poncey Chefs

Roger — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 10:30:00 +0000

This week might have been our last on the Dublin project...

Microsoft and Colour Spaces

Roger — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 10:13:00 +0000

I consider myself a bit of an expert in digital photography...

Eating Out Again in Dublin

Roger — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 21:57:00 +0100

When you are working away from home living in a hotel three or four nights a week...

Touring China 5: The Silver Cave

Roger — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 23:34:00 +0100

The Silver Cave is an amazing and fantastical place, but I was disappointed...

Old Places and Old Faces

Roger — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 23:52:00 +0100

I have just started a new project that took me back to Dublin -- the original one in Ireland, not the one in Ohio...

Day 1 - let's get out of LA

Tony_R — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 21:15:00 +0100

Day 1 begins in the usual 'Reynolds in the USA' way...

D-Day Journey to America

Tony_R — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 19:25:00 +0100

Day 1 - Adventures of a middle aged biker!

D-1 The dream fulfilment starts tomorrow

Tony_R — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 09:11:00 +0100

Before we start the journey of a life time

Living the Dream

Roger — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 19:55:00 +0100

My friend Tony is fulfilling a long-standing ambition over the next two weeks: riding a Harley the length of Route 66.

Review: Canon Media Storage M80

Roger — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 22:54:00 +0100

I knew I would not be able to take a laptop with me to China. I'd been hoping ...

Touring China 4: Pearl Shoal Falls

Roger — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 20:44:00 +0100

Pearl Shoal Falls is one of the jewels in the crown of Jiuzhaigou Valley. It takes its name from the ...

Touring China 3: Jiuzhaigou Valley

Roger — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 10:12:00 +0100

One of the early highlights of our trip was, without doubt, the trip to Jiuzhaigou Valley.

Touring China 2: Toilets

Roger — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 11:02:00 +0100

Although bathroom facilities in the hotels in which we stayed were, for the most part, perfectly acceptable, the same cannot be said for toilets in...

Touring China 1

Roger — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 00:01:00 +0100

My wife is called Giacinta, usually shortened to Gia. We recently visited China, where Gia was born...

The First Post: Hello and Welcome

Roger — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 18:39:00 +0100

Congratulations on finding your way here and welcome!