Stimulating Pixels

While planning a trip to photograph the launch of space shuttle Discovery, I decided to it would be fun to try to shoot a little video as well. To accomplish this, I purchased a Sunpak FlexPod Pro Plus. One of those little gripper tripods that are designed to clamp to things and provide a camera mount. The idea was that once my main tripod was positioned, I’d just clamp this thing on to one of the legs, mount my little point and shoot camera on it, flip it to video mode and let it roll.

Nice idea, but as soon as I tried to warp the thing around the tripod leg, one of its legs busted off.

I tried using gaffers tape to reattach, but wasn’t comfortable it would be stable enough to hold the camera still for the several minutes that would be necessary. I ended up using another shorter one that has a similar type of legs, but is only designed to sit on something instead of attach to it. With no platform available to rest it on, the ground was the best I could do. The video turned out better than I expected in that “happy accident” way, but I would have much rather had it taken from above the weeds instead of in them.

When I returned the broken FlexPod, the guy at the camera store asked me if I wanted to swap it out for another one. I suppose it’s possible that I got the one defective one they had, but as far as I’m concerned it’s just a crappy product. Needless to say, I got a refund instead.

Time to get a Magic Arm

If you are a fan of the SEC and own an iPhone or an iPod Touch, you’ll want the free “SEC Football Pocket Schedule” from SilverTree Technology. (They also have a Big 12 one if you’re into that.)

Interestingly, once I move off that page on their site, I can’t see any other links back to it. Whatever the case, the App itself works as a great add for the company. I never would have seen their site if I hadn’t started with the app. The app itself is pretty simple, but it’s really well designed, loads fast and is intuitive. So, not only is it a free ad for them, it lets potential clients know that they do good work.

I’ve only used it a little, but Amazon’s Kindle iPhone app is a much better reading experience than I thought it would be. I’ll let you know if I have the same feeling after reading an entire book, but after a few sessions, I’m pleasantly surprised with how little I consciously think about the fact that there are only a few sentences on the screen at one time and how often I have to flip pages.

One of the best User Interface elements of it is the little lock that pops up for a moment when you trun the device from vertical to horizontal or vice versa. Tapping the lock keeps tells the app to keep the display in that perspective. Without this it would be difficult to read lying down because the app would have a tendency to flip to a vertical display when turn to the side.

One key improvent I’d like to see is a dictionary lookup. In the current version, you can’t even copy a word to paste into another app. Makes a real pain when you come across a tricky word that you are unsure of.

You’ll need an Amazon account (and an iPhone or iPod Touch, of course) but the app is worth checking out. There are some titles that are offered for free. So, you can get a feel for the experince with something like Dracula without having to pay a dime.

If you want to discover some new music, check out KEXP’s Song of the Day. I dig the general style of music they push. Combined with the fact that each “episode” is really an mp3 of a single song, it makes it one of the best podcasts I’ve found.

As a bonus, they have all their old stuff up. If you subscribe in iTunes and then hit get all, you’ll receive hundreds of individual songs.

Awesome.

Inspiration for blog posts can strike at any time. The fact that blogs are by definition on the web, this can make it difficult to post if you aren’t online. In the past, I’ve written a few posts in a text editor and then copied them over to WordPress later, but that process is a pain.

After doing a little looking for an offline blog editor, I saw several references to folks using Windows Live Writer and being quite happy with it. Originally designed to work with "Windows Live", which I don’t use, the Writer component works with other blogging platforms as well. This includes WordPress, which is what I use on my site.

So, I’m trying it out now (literally making this post in it). At first blush, it seems pretty nice. Aside from being able to write posts when not directly connected to the blog, I also like not having to work inside the browser itself. While the editor on the WordPress page is pretty nice and Firefox adds spell checking in the form, it’s still not a very elegant experience to work inside the browser.

One of my biggest annoyances is that you have to scroll down in the browser to see the categories. The desktop app nature of the Writer application allows those categories to always be visible in selection menu at the bottom of the application. I often forget to add categories because they aren’t in view. Not an issue with the desktop Writer. Also, there is an option in it’s preference to trigger a reminder to add categories before you post if you didn’t include any. Very nice.

Now, most of these User Interface issues could be solved in the browser, but overall, it’s MUCH easier to tackle that stuff inside a desktop application.

I did have one issue when trying to install the software. I keep Firefox set as my default browser. After trying to unsuccessfully to install the Windows Live Writer a few times I temporarily set I.E. to be the default browser. After that, the install worked as expected. So, if you want to try it out, keep that in mind.

There are several other tools built into Writer that I haven’t tried out yet, but the top level it seems to do what I want quickly and easily and basically get out of my way and let me create posts. That’s the sign of good design. When it does what you want it to do without really having to think about it.

Back in October, I wrote an entry about better rechargeable batteries I had recently discovered. At that time, I hadn’t bought any, but I finally got some before the wedding I shot back at the start of March. There are a few different brands out there. The ones I got are from Sanyo. The brand name is Eneloop, and they rock.

After living with them for a few months, I’m happy to report that they work as advertised. The key feature that makes them valuable is their low “self-discharge” rate. The previous sets of rechargeable batteries I’ve used apparently had a much higher rate.

Basically, what this meant is that if you charged the old type batteries and then didn’t use the for a little while (say a week or two), they would have lost a lot of their juice. When you put them in, say, a flash to do some photography, you could easily be in trouble. So, in order to make sure they were ready to work with, you effectively have to charge them the night before you want to use them to make sure they were topped off.

These newer versions with their low/slow self-discharge hold onto their power much longer. Their marketing state that if you are simply storing them, they will maintain 90% of their charge for 6 months and 85% over a year. I haven’t had them long enough to figure that out, and frankly I’m not really going to try to test it. What I’m interested in is if they ready to go when I need them.

I can deal with charging them if I know I’ve got a lot of shotting to do the next day, but it’s when I haven’t shot for a few weeks and I just want to fire off a few shots that is the real test. I just put a set that was charged three or four weeks ago in a strobe and it charged as if a completely fresh set was in them.

I highly recommend these for everything except smoke alarms (just in case). The more batteries we can keep out of land fills the better off we’ll all be. You can purchase them from Amazon (link) and I’m sure other places have them as well.

The batteries come in at least two flavors: “800 mAh” and “2,000 mAh”. Make sure when you’re getting yours you get the highest “mAh” available at the time (currently the 2,000 version). Especially if you are going to use them in a flash or digital camera. While this rating isn’t as high as some of the other rechargeable batteries out there, the fact that they hang onto that charge for a long time is more than an even trade off.

You don’t have to worry about the mAh difference that much unless you are really an intense user. For example, I shot an entire wedding (roughly 1,500 frames) and only used two sets of the eneloops in my main flash which was shooting into a lumiQuest most of the time. So, they work great from that perspective as well.

As a final note, if you want to get a better charger than one of the basic ones, the La Crosse Technology BC-900 is expensive, but very nice. Advantages include the fact that it allows you to charge batteries at different rates (to help them last longer), “recondition” them if they are behaving badly, and also reports when the batteries are fully charged so you don’t have to guess. Most folks probably don’t need those features, but it’s certainly handy.

In college, I took a seminar course on environmental studies. In addition to the overall theoretical education, a fair amount of practical advice was provided as well. One key point that always stuck with me was that we should reuse bags when we shop instead of carrying stuff home in the store provided bags only to thrown them away after they are unpacked.

The specific recommendation from the course was to use one bigger cloth bag, like a small laundry bag, for transport. I’ve tried this a few times and it never really worked out. The volume was simply to big for the job at hand. The bag could get too heavy very quickly and without some ability to separate things, it was inevitable that a 2 liter bottle would crush any loafs of bread.

Enter reusablebags.com.

I heard about these guys a few months back and was excited to check them out. They sell a wide variety of bags for reuse. Most of them are geared toward women with various designs and images on them, but thankfully there is at least one that won’t make guys fell uncomfortable: the ACME Bags – Workhorse Style 1500.

The base price is about $8 per, but if you get 4 or more that price drops to $7 per. Also, the have a buy 3 get one free special right now. The price is a little higher than I really like. Especially when I’ve seen some similar type bags for sale in grocery stores for just a few dollars each. What sold me on the ACME bags was the fact that they were a little bigger and didn’t have logos all over them. Since I plan on having these for a long time, I’m willing to pay a premium to not have company logos and slogans on them.

Originally, I got 4 bags, but I’m happy to report that after using them for a little while, I’m getting four more. Each bag holds probably twice as much as a standard plastic shopping bag. I know they will hold four 2-liter soda bottles easily. I don’t necessarily recommend having them packed like that. The bag doesn’t have a problem with the weight, but it’s a bit heavy leaning over to pull them out of the car.

I’m pretty sure that I’m currently one of a very few people using these type bags in my area. Every time I had them to a bagger and explain I want to use them in lieu of their standard ones, the have that look like they aren’t really sure what’s going on. It still takes me some getting used to as well. I’ve taken to always throwing them back in my car when I unpack them so they are always there. Much easier for me than trying to remember to grab them before I make a run to the store.

I hope that other folks who see me using these bags decided to get a set for themselves. I encourage everyone do to the same. To add one more note about the cost, the good feeling that I get every time I use them makes the price seem even more reasonable.

Saw Ironman last weekend. Even at $9.50 FL movie prices, it’s worth seeing on the big screen.

Saw a preview for the new Indian Jones too. Gotta say, the trailer actually made it look pretty good. Of course, that doesn’t mean anything, but I’m at least hopeful.

Also saw a preview for The Dark Knight. Totally looking forward to that one. High probability I’ll be seeing that one opening weekend.

… and the rest of the crew on The Wire.

I’m bad about doing the “What’s your favorite Movie/Song/Album/Show” game, but the Wire would easily be in the top list of shows. If you haven’t watched it go rent the DVDs starting with season 1. It’s paced and told differently and has a more amorphous scope than most shows. So, if you don’t like it at first, give it at least 5-6 episodes before you bail.

A key element that drives my liking of the show is that there the line between good and bad can get really fuzzy. In the fifth and last season, there were several times I was worried that they were taking this a little too far. That they were getting so far out there, that they wouldn’t be able to get back. I’m happy to report that, for the most part, this wasn’t the case. While by no means at the top, the final episode was pretty high up there on the awesome scale. There were some thing in the story line that I didn’t like in terms of where they ended up, but they all kept to the tone of the show. It was more about the characters and feeling like you wished that things turned out better for them. So, empathy for the characters inside the story and not feeling short changed by the creators of the story.

That’s a tough thing to pull off.

I didn’t notice the title of the episode till I was looking up the spelling of a name on the HBO web site. The last one was called “—30—” which is a great node to the newspaper industry (which the last season has a heavy focu on) where articles and press releases often end with that string. Here’s a fun little page about ending with that. Apparently no one is sure where the origin is, but the one I heard was alway to signify the end of a story over a transmission. In that light, it’s a perfect title for a damn fine ending.

P.S. one thing that I really didn’t like about the last season was the episode count.

• Season 1 – 13 Episodes
• Season 2 – 12 Episodes
• Season 3 – 12 Episodes
• Season 4 – 13 Episodes
• Season 5 – 10 Episodes

Not cool with the shorter. Might have been the writer’s strike, but I don’t care. I want those 2-3 episodes back.

A few months ago when it seemed like I was on the road more than I was at my house my several year old MP3 player finally gave up it’s digital ghost. I hadn’t really looked at MP3 players in long time so I checked out some reviews and was just going to get a relatively basic one that could also play some video. While checking our reviews I saw one for the iPod Touch. It wasn’t really on my list for consideration because of its price, but there’s an apple store pretty close and I wanted to at least check it out.

I’m not a big name brand guy. I’d prefer to have something that does a good job than has a good name. And, if all things are equal, I’d rather not pay a premium if all that gets me is a name. Since MP3 players are almost a commodity good at this point, I really didn’t think I’d end up being sucked in to the purchase. That was until about 10 seconds after I picked the thing up.

Apple is so very good at Industrial Design. The iPod Touch is an excellent example of their expertise in the field. If it was just an MP3 player, I probably wouldn’t have made the jump, but the screen on it is huge for a hand held which makes watching video on it quite nice. A bonus is the fact that a photographer can carry around a pretty high quality portfolio of as many images as they are likely to want. Obviously not as good as an actual book, but something like the touch is way more portable and therefore likely to actually be with you most of the time.

Of course, you could step up to the iPhone as well and get all this along with cell phone stuff. I’ll admit I was pretty tempted on this front, but the contract requirement for the iPhone was more than I wanted to get into at this point. In the mean time, I’ll settle for carrying the Touch and my cell.

I’ve got a few minor gripes about the iPod Touch though.

1) There is no external speaker like there is on the iPhone. Most of the time, this is no big deal, but it would be nice to play a video that multiple people could watch and listen to at the same time.

2) There should be physical buttons to control the volume. Same probably goes for skipping tunes, but definitely the volume control. If you have the thing in your pocket, you have to take it out, punch one of the physical buttons to wake the display up and then unlock the touch screen by sliding your finger across it before you can finally see the volume up/down options.

3) They want $20 for a software update. Are you kidding me? The thing is only a couple of months old and I spent a pretty penny on it and you want to up-sell me for $20 to get the latest features that have nothing to do with the hardware and are just new software that you’ve added in. And by the way, people who today pay the same price that I did a couple months ago get it without the additional fee. I hate it when companies pull this shit.

Still, they thing is a bit of a marvel. When I was traveling around the holidays I was in the air on a flight watching a tv show I recorded with my DVR and then transfered over the personal screen of my iPod Touch. Thinking about this along with the fact that my grandmother was born before there was either television or commercial flight and fun to think about what the future has in store if we manage not to blow ourselves out of existence.