13 Nov

Almost, But Not Quite There…

Posted by lukeintas in Apple, Tech. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

My work is doing the unimaginable (to me at least). It is transitioning from HP machines and Windows on the desktop to Macs and OS X. What’s more, my particular section is one of the first to get the new machines, and earlier this week I received a shiny new MacBook Pro and accompanying 27″ LED Cinema Display!

Unfortunately, being one of the first areas to receive a Mac means that we also get to be an area that faces any implementation teething problems. And unfortunately for me, I had a few.

I should point out that these teething issues weren’t so much to do with the Mac, but rather with integrating the Mac into a legacy Windows network that hadn’t been designed to accommodate them. They included problems accessing network shares and services that currently appear to be blocked on segments of our network, plus the frustration of being unable to resolve some simple issues myself because the new machines are centrally administered and many settings are consequently locked down (as they should be on a corporate network).

On top of this my particular Mac appears to have some additional issues, with repeated application crashing. I’m hoping this is simply a corrupt system image. Our IT guys were pushing a fresh image out over the network to my Mac yesterday afternoon, so hopefully things will be a bit more stable on Monday morning. Being a bit pessimistic I doubt it will be that easy, and I’m betting dodgy RAM is more likely the culprit (our IT guys kindly upgraded me to 8GB—but Macs are notoriously picky about what brands of RAM they like).

The end result was that what I expected to be a very exciting week ended up being bit of a let down. I’m not too disillusioned though. I’m still excited about the prospect of having a work Mac, and appreciate that teething problems in these circumstances are inevitable. These will no doubt be worked out in time, and in the interim the coinciding move from Lotus Notes/Domino to Microsoft Exchange has meant I can currently do 80% of my work from my personal MacBook Air (and iPhone and iPad!). I just hope the teething issues get sorted before widespread deployment so that new Mac users don’t form a bad impression about the Mac or what will ultimately be an amazing new work network.

13 Jun

Wishing for an Apple Media Server

Posted by lukeintas in Apple, Tech. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

One of the highlights of Apple’s computer systems is the power they give with ease of use simplicity. Programs like iPhoto make what could otherwise be complex tasks straightforward for non-technical people. But to date Apple’s consumer focus appears to have been on individuals, with iPhoto, Aperture and iTunes all being implemented on an individual user basis (although each has some basic sharing capabilities).

What Apple seem to have missed is that couples (and I presume families) sometimes want to have separate accounts (or computers) for individuals, but still have shared media libraries.

For example, my wife and I have separate user accounts on a shared iMac so that we can each maintain our own files, email, calendar, etc. But our music and photo libraries are something we want to share. Out of the box Apple doesn’t seem to have a great solution to this problem.

In the past I’ve placed our iTunes and iPhoto (and later Aperture) libraries in the shared user folder and pointed the applications in each account to this location. This hasn’t been without problems though. File permission issues have on occasions caused hiccups, and with the release of Aperture 3 this workaround seems to have broken altogether. In addition our iTunes library outgrew the space on the internal drive on our last Mac and had to be moved to an external drive, which now isn’t backed up by Time Machine. On top of this, for all of our media to be available on our AppleTV the iMac has to be turned on, logged into my account, and have iTunes running.

To overcome these issues I wish Apple would make a home media server—something like a cross between their Time Capsule and a Drobo. Such a device would provide data redundancy to make sure all our valuable media is safe and also allow individual accounts (on both single and multiple home computers) access to that shared media pool. With the proliferation of other media consuming devices, such as AppleTVs, iPhones, and iPads, a home media server could also provide an always-on streaming source for them.

There not currently being an Apple home media server, I’ve tried to come up with another solution to my problem. Because I like to play with techo toys I have a Mac mini server, but although I could either use it as a shared storage location or to serve the content it still wasn’t a great solution. It is an expensive way to add shared storage that doesn’t provide data redundancy and as a media server runs into the problem of being the device things like iPhones and iPads must be synchronised with, which is a problem if you want to sync other content from your regular user account. Devices like HP’s MediaSmart Server are nearly there, but still appear to have the same synchronisation issues and don’t guarantee long term Apple compatability.

So in the end the best solution I’ve been able to come up with is a Drobo (which is currently on order):

The Drobo will give me an expandable data storage bucket with data redundancy, and being an external drive won’t pose the file permission issues of sharing on the internal Mac drive. But although it will allow me to share my iTunes and Aperture libraries between multiple accounts it still doesn’t overcome the problem of sharing with my laptop or providing always-on streaming to my AppleTV, iPhone or iPad. Hopefully this is something that Apple will one day address.

28 Apr

African Photography

Posted by lukeintas in Photography, Travel, video. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

LionFor Deearne’s 40th birthday this year we went to Africa so she could play with lions! She is cat mad and it had been a dream of hers for a long time, so it was a great experience for her, and one I really enjoyed as well.

While we were there I of course took a stack of photos, some of which I’m really happy with. As a consequence I thought I’d cover the gear I took with me, and what my wish list would be if I had it to do again.

Primarily for my still photography I used my Canon EOS 400D DSLR, but we also took a Canon Digital IXUS 80 IS point-and-shoot camera with us, which Deearne used, or that we took with us to dinner and other places I didn’t want to lug the SLR. On top of that there were a couple of ‘keeper’ photos I ended up taking with my iPhone, simply because it was the easiest camera I had access to in a particular spot.

For video we used a Canon Legria FS200 video camera, but again on occasions where it wasn’t convenient to bring out we used the IXUS 80 IS to capture video we otherwise wouldn’t have gotten.

By far the highlight of the trip was the time we spent in the Chobe National Park in Botswana. It is hard to describe the feeling of seeing wild lions, elephant and giraffe roaming free, and here we got to see lots. We did two game drives through the park and a cruise on the Chobe River, and on these I used the ‘kit’ Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III lens on my 400D. I got this lens bundled with my camera, and had never really used it much before, but the focal length was absolutely necessary for this trip.

Family of elephant

When I didn’t have the 75-300 attached I used the other ‘kit’ lens I got with my camera: the Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II.

Sunset Over the Chobe River

I had decided just to take these two lenses before I left as between them they gave me a bit of versatility, and I decided I didn’t want to carry any others given the extra weight and the risk of losing all my lenses if we encountered some misadventure.

Given the number of photos we expected to take, I also took my laptop with me so I could empty out my memory cards each day (necessary when you are shooting in RAW), and an external hard drive to make sure they were backed up.

GiSTEQ PhotoTrackr miniIn addition, for this trip I also got myself a GPS tracker—a device that records GPS location data and time, which I later matched up with the time stamps in the photos so I could see where they were taken. Being a last minute purchase I ended up getting a GiZTEQ PhotoTrackr mini, as it was the only device I found that I could get delivered in time. I then used the bundled software to extract .gpx track files from the device, and subsequently imported them into Aperture to tag my photos.

As to what I would take if I had it to do over, and presuming I had a bit of time to save? Well, assuming I would still be using a crop sensor camera like my 400D (which effectively gives a 1.6 x magnification in comparison to a full frame camera), I think I’d replace the 18-55mm with the Canon EF-S 18-200 f/3.5-5.6 IS (for general outings). For most outings, other than the safari drives, I needed a lens that could do reasonably wide angles, but using the 18-55mm I was limited in not being able to zoom very far. Consequently the 18-200mm would have given me a lot more flexibility.

For the safari drives the focal length of the 75-300mm was about right, but I would have liked a lens that was a bit faster to assist in the low light of the early mornings, and to maintain a shallow depth of field for what were effectively animal portraits. But checking Canon’s website, they don’t appear to make a faster 300mm zoom. That being the case it seems hard to justify replacing my ‘kit’ lens with a more expensive IS lens, especially given I haven’t had much need for a lens of that focal length (other than this trip).

A woman who was with us on one of the safari drives and the  cruise had a Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM on a Canon EOS 450D, and I must say I was a bit envious of it, but again, given how often I’d want that sort of focal length, I don’t know how I could justify paying the $2K+ price tag for it.

On the camera side though, the one thing I really wish I had had was a DSLR with video. For stills the 400D was fine, but having a separate video camera was a pain. I had to carry it in addition to the DSLR, take a separate charger and memory cards, and at any given time pick which camera I wanted to use, as it simply wasn’t feasible to have both ready to go at a moment’s notice. On top of that my Legria FS200 is standard definition only, while most of the newer video-capable DSLRs do HD. So if I had it to do over again, I would probably pick something like a Canon 550D or 7D for my body (more likely the 550D given my budget!).

I’d also make sure to take a point-and-shoot again as a backup, and to take to places where I didn’t want to cart the DSLR.

I haven’t started editing the video I took on the trip yet, but will post it once I have. In the mean time, if you are interested in the photos, they are available in these two albums on Facebook: Album 1 | Album 2 (I’ve only put a few of the photos up on Flickr).

If you’ve got any thoughts on the gear I took, or what I should have taken, let me know.

20 Apr

Hobart Internet Radio Applet

Posted by lukeintas in Apple, Tech. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

I’ve recently had need to stream local radio over the Internet. In the course of doing so I discovered many of my local stations in Hobart stream their content, but unfortunately they don’t all do so in Mac-friendly style. You see, instead of using an iTunes-friendly format, several of them have elected to use the Windows Media Format.

This doesn’t prevent the stream been played on a Mac, as it is still possible to play the stream in QuickTime with the Flip4Mac Windows Media plug-in installed. But it does mean that it’s hard to keep shortcuts to them all in the one place (generally you’d do this in iTunes, which as I’ve already noted isn’t possible for the Windows Media steams).

To over come this (and practicing the fine art of procrastination—I’ve got lots of other things I should be doing) I’ve brushed up on my AppleScript and written an applet that displays a list of Hobart radio stations that stream over the Internet and then connects to the station the user selects. The applet can be downloaded below:

Hobart Radio Applet

The applet functions just like a regular application, so you can drop it on your desktop, or place it in your Applications folder, and then double-click it to run. You can even place a shortcut in your dock.

As previously mentioned, for it to work you will need to have the Flip4Mac plug-in installed. I have also only tested it on a Snow Leopard system (using Quicktime X), so it’s possible it may not function correctly with older systems. Should you run into any problems, or have any suggestions, please feel free to let me know in the comments (although as an extremely infrequent AppleScripter I can’t promise I’ll be able to fix any problems!).

18 Apr

Zoo Doo Lion Encounter

Posted by lukeintas in Uncategorized. Tagged: , .

In March we went to Africa so Deearne could play with lions for her 40th birthday. But, just before we departed a local wildlife park in Hobart got themselves some lions, to which (for a short time) they allowed access for personal lion encounters. Of course, this was after we had already paid for Africa, but we decided to have a pre-trip lion encounter in any event:

(A real Africa post will be coming soon.)

18 Apr

First Decent Strobist Shoot

Posted by lukeintas in Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

One of the things I’ve wanted to explore for a while now with my (infrequent) photography is off-camera flash. Well, just before we headed off to Africa (which is partly the reason I haven’t posted till now) I had my first decent shoot with my god son, Henry:

Henry

To get this shot (and others similar) I used a large piece of blue matt board for the background. This was lit with a bare Canon 580EX II speedlite at 1/64th power. For the main light I used a Canon 430EX at 1/2 power through a 43″ shoot-through umbrella (with a silver reflector opposite). Both speedlites fired wirelessly using the AlienBee CyberSync trigger system (this was my first real go with the AlienBees; previously I had been using a Gadget Infinity Cactus V2 remote trigger, which just wasn’t very reliable):

Lighting Diagram

I’m really happy with how the shots came out, although there was some minor post-production in Aperture 3 (minor overall exposure adjustment and skin smoothing). Using the Canon EF-S 60mm f 2.8 macro lens also contributed to the overall result, as it produces much sharper images than the kit lenses I got with 400D.

For those interested in seeing some more photos from the shoot (not all of which were lit with flash), check out this set on Flickr, or the below video produced after a brief play with the new slideshow tools in Aperture 3:

17 Apr

Looking Forward to iPad Magazines

Posted by lukeintas in Apple. Tagged: , , , .

A while ago I blogged about newspapers being the killer app for the iPad. I still believe that, but doubting I’ll see a full version of my local paper on the iPad any time soon, I’m currently more excited about the possibility of magazines. Several magazine publishers have already produced magazine apps for the iPad or demoed planned applications  (e.g. Time, Wired, Sports Illustrated, and Zinio who publish a range magazines electronically).

I’ve recently been checking out Zinio on my desktop computer (the interactive version of National Geographic is very nice), and one of the greatest benefits of the iPad obviously is that it can be comfortably hand held for reading, something that can’t be done with a more traditional computer—even a laptop. The larger screen also means it will also provide a much better experience than an iPhone, iPod touch, or other handheld device. But the feature that excites me the most is that publishers are now offering to provide the full content of their print publications in an electronic format. This is something that has been pretty rare in the past, and is my biggest complaint regarding most news/magazine web sites. Of course they will be charging for access to this content, but on a comfortable reading device like an iPad I’d have no hesitation in paying for content I wanted. Plus, with content being downloadable I can get what I’m interested in whenever, and wherever, I am.

Now I just need an iPad. Unfortunately Apple have just released that their international (including Australia) release date has been pushed back from late April to late May. So for the time being I’ll just have to envy those in the US who are already getting to experience the amazing change in publishing.

2 Mar

Graduated Neutral Density Filter?

Posted by lukeintas in Photography. Tagged: , , , .

I’ve been playing around a bit more with some long exposure photography, and after reading this post by Alex Wise am wondering if I should invest in a graduated neutral density filter?

So far, for waterscapes,  I’ve instead been relying on combining multiple images to balance the exposure for the sky and the foreground, like in this image:

In the above shot I used two images, one with a 30 second exposure for the sky, and another with a 1 minute exposure for the foreground. This takes a little bit of messing about, as it requires at least two good exposures, and then round-tripping out of Aperture into Photoshop to combine the images, which is another fiddly exercise (although I could possibly try out some of the automated HDR apps or plugins for Aperture).

Alternatively, where the exposure difference between the sky and the foreground isn’t too great it is possible, using a RAW image, to adjust the exposure of one element without affecting the other, a task that is now substantially easier with the new brushes in Aperture 3 (which includes edge detection). The following image is an example of this where the shot was exposed for the foreground and the sky darkened in post using the ‘burn’ brush:

So, although it looks like many people turning out great waterscape / long exposure shots using graduated neutral density filters, my question is, is it worth the outlay of another several hundred dollars, or should I persevere with software solutions? If anyone has any thoughts on this I’d be interested to hear.

1 Feb

Long Exposure Photography

Posted by lukeintas in Photography. Tagged: , , , .

After seeing some of the excellent long exposure photographs taken by a fellow Tasmanian (well, I’m sort of Tasmanian after 16 years here), Alex Wise, I was inspired to give it a go myself.

Long exposure photographs involve using a neutral density filter on the front of the camera lens. This cuts down on the amount of light entering the lens, but without affecting the colour of the image. As a consequence the camera’s shutter must be left open longer to capture the same amount of light as it would have without the filter. This in turn results in photographs with blurred motion for elements that move (e.g. water, clouds, etc) and the resulting photographs have a markedly different look to those taken with fast shutter speeds.

My first step on this journey was to get myself a B+W #110 neutral density filter. This particular filter cuts the amount of light entering the lens by 10 f-stops. Possessing the filter I then went off to take my first test shot:

Although it may not be obvious at first, the water in this shot appears smooth as a consequence of the longer shutter speed capturing the motion of the water of the period of the longer exposure (30 seconds in this case). To see what the scene really looked like, checkout the below photograph, which was taken without the filter, and a consequently faster shutter speed of 1/60th of a second:

With the filter having only just arrived this week I haven’t had any more of a chance to play with it, but I’m looking forward to getting some more practice. I’m also considering whether I also need to get a graduated filter to go with it—that is, one that is dark at the top and fades out to clear at the bottom. The advantage of such a filter is that it would allow for better overall exposure of sunset/sunrise photographs, where the sky is often brighter than the foreground. In the mean time I might have to try my hand at some HDR, like in the following (knocked-up) effort, combining two images with different exposures to get a correctly exposed sky and foreground:

31 Jan

Newspapers a Killer App for iPad

Posted by lukeintas in Apple, Photography. Tagged: , , , .

I re-watched the iPad keynote today with Deearne, and it struck me that newspapers (and magazines) really are a killer app for the iPad.

During the keynote an app for viewing the New York Times was demoed. While watching this is struck me how frustrated I get with buying/reading the newspaper where I live. If I get the newspaper delivered, half the time it arrives after I leave for work. If I buy it on my way to work it can sometimes be painful if I don’t have the right change, and lining up when I might be running late is annoying. Not to mention that if I get the paper on my way to the office, it often occurs that I get too busy there to read it. And although newspapers these days all have web sites, they are usually a cut-down version of what you get in the printed edition.

What I’d love is a full version of my local newspaper that I could download to the iPad when I want to read it. If I could get this I’d buy an iPad, despite my comments yesterday, and would buy the downloadable content from the newspaper publishers as well (are you listening newspaper publishers—I don’t reckon I’m alone in being prepared to pay for an electronic copy of the full paper).

I’d guess the situation is similar for many magazine purchasers. The form factor of the iPad would appear to make it an excellent reading device, something which most desktop and laptop computers aren’t. The ability to download content whenever you want, and wherever you are, also makes it much more compelling than the printed editions.

For now I guess I’ll just have to wait, but to me devices like the iPad would appear to be the future of periodical publishing.

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