Fork Experiment

An assignment from the local camera club.... No idea if this is gonna be the final result. We'll see. I've got till March for this assignment.

More photos on my flickr page.

Move To Hosting Provider

When you're reading this it will mean that I've moved my website to an external hosting service. This has some drawbacks:

• The SymCAImport tool will be available through another URL (http://symcaimport.redelijkheid.com /symcaimport/). I also editted all previous posts with the old SymCAImport URL.
• Some other services will also be moved to other locations. More on that when they are up and running.

The advantages are a more reliable uptime, and faster up- and download speeds.

There might be some things I might have missed in the transfer. Leave a comment if you find errors or strange behaviour on the website.

UPDATE: I forgot the MIME type settings on the SymCAImport tool. If you did encounter problems importing, you might wanna try again. Sorry for the inconvenience.

X-Mas Snail Mail Spam

Even in real life (IRL) I get spam. X-mas cards from people I don't know (and don't want to know), and to make it even more real; even the recipients address (mine) is wrong (most of the time)....

This could mean three things;

1. The Internet is adapting to the real life
2. People sending X-mas cards are just plain stupid....
3. The mailman is drunk

Anyway, I treat it the same as the Internet spam.... Straight to /dev/null (a.k.a. the trashcan). Because I can't be bothered playing a mailman. It's not really a (sexual) fantasy of mine.

So, if you're missing out on some x-mas cards..... ;-)

New MacBook Impressions

The new aluminum MacBook arrived this week. This time no Pro verion but the cheaper (and smaller) MacBook. Initial impressions are good... really good.

The only drawbacks are directly related to the fact that I was too cheap to buy the more expensive version. The keyboard color is white letters on black keys (this was black letter on 'silver' or white keys). This makes it harder to read them in low light conditions. So not having the backlit keyboard is a bit annoying.

Also, the lack of an USB port on the right-side of the MacBook is annoying. The cable of my mighty mouse is too short to get from the left-side USB port to the right-side where I use it.

MacBook for LeftiesBest (free) configuration option is the US keyboard. Finally a 'normal' keyboard on the MacBooks.

Panasonic Lumix LX3

Panasonic Lumix LX3After a long and extensive search for an additional point and shoot camera (P&S) I bought the Panasonic Lumix LX3.

The reason for buying the camera were:

• Image quality
• RAW capabilities
  (RAW format not yet supported by the normal Adobe product)
• Relative large sensor with only 10 MPixels
• Size (not too small)
• Extensive control over the settings in the camera
• Hotshoe (for an external flash or a 200 euro ViewFinder.....)
  The LX3 with a Nikon SB-600 flash... not that well balanced :)
• 24mm (35mm equivalent) wide angle lens.
• Macro setting
• Good quality movies (in 720p HD format)
• And not to forget; the design of the camera.

Panasonic Lumix LX3 test imageWhen you're used to a semi-pro dSLR it takes a while getting used to. Most of the camera functions are hidden in menu's.

One question for Panasonic-crew; Why the absurd prices on the optional accessories? The optional ViewFinder is HALF the price of the camera.
Guess I'll be waiting for the cheap Asian knock-offs.

Low Cost MacBook

We'll see a new MacBook (Pro) tomorrow if all the rumors are right. My current MacBook Pro (MBP) is one of the first releases (the Intel 1.0 version so to say), and is working just fine. I even used it to view HD content on my TV (720p max, but without DTS decoding).

The last year I was having this idea of upgrading my MBP so that I'm able of watching full HD content on my TV. But now with the arrival of the Popcorn Hour that necessity is gone. Now I can 'upgrade' my MBP to a new (sub $1000 ??) MacBook when the time comes. All I do on the laptop is a bit of;

• browsing
• e-mail
• basic photo editting
• webdev

No need to spend extra for watching HD content. It's like 'spending money to save money'.

Original DVD's.....

Band of BrothersWhy buy them? I bought a couple of movies in the last couple of weeks. Including the 'Band of Brothers' DVD-box (probably the best TV-miniseries ever). Just to be reminded (again) that the original product (in general) is annoying as hell.

I started the DVD, and the first thing that I saw were some crappy trailers of crappy movies. The menu appeared only after I had FFWD'ed every single one of them.
After watching the first episode I wanted to quickly skip to the second.... No way of doing that besides stopping and starting the DVD from scratch. Which results in trailers etc. of the same (crappy) movies I have no interest in..... Every f*cking button, which might guide me to the menu, on my remote was unresponsive.

First thing on my list when I wake up tomorrow; rip the DVD's, remove every piece of DRM crap and enjoy the remaining episodes my way.
Honest people are hijacked by the MPAA (and associates) by forcing all this DRM crap upon those who buy legitimate DVD's. No wonder people are ripping and copying DRM protected content.

Every now-and-then you try to do the good thing, only to be reminded why you were ripping DVD's in the first place......