Recently in Technical Category

The Exchangable Image-file Format is a nice little thing that keeps up with information relating to how a picture was taken, where it was taken, who took it and what is in the picture (as vague as how far from the camera the subject, or even detailed information about the subject). The use of ExIf is primarily linked to digital photography, but there are some instances when it doesn't have to be. The options for storing the type of sensor method used to capture the image is certainly a digital-only field, however, there are things such as "DTDigitized", which is "Date/Time Digitized" that would indicate that the moment the image was captured and the moment it was digitized might be more than a second apart (such as in film photography).

I am horrible at keeping up with notes, so I am attempting to write software that will store all of my relevant information for me. The software for storing the actual notes was not a big deal, it is just a form that writes everything to a giant XML file, no complication there. Where things get tricky is the writing of data to the files themselves. First of all, with as common as ExIf information is, I assumed that there was some type of text-based value used to identify the properties, that isn't the case, they are large integers (such as 0x8827 for "ISO Speed"). Those integers map to a specific property. The information itself is stored as individual arrays of bytes, no strings at all, everything is stored numerically. Things have to be written in a very particular way or else when the bytes are converted back to strings for reading, things don't match up and you get off the wall values.

Now I am fighting with C# and the .NET System.Drawing.Imaging library (specifically the PropertyValue class) in an attempt to make everything work out. I have to set like 4 values for each one ExIf property I want to use. It is going to be a very long night before this application is ready for use.

In the past several months I have spent a lot of time hanging out in UNC-Charlotte's Atkins Library, and I have noticed an odd trend among students who take computers with them to the library... a lot of them plug in. When I began college, only a few people brought laptops to class or even to the library, and almost no one brought their power packs. In general, back then, laptops had enough power to run for a few hours without needing to be plugged in. Now software applications are more power hungry and CPUs just sort of let them have at what they want to use. When I was researching what computer I wanted to buy for the purpose of having a mobile computer for taking with me when I go places, the first thing I looked at was battery life. I was less concerned about overall computing power than battery life. It may be hard to do things with an underpowered CPU at times, but it is even more difficult to do things when you have no power for the CPU to use at all. So why is it in this age of everything mobile and social that laptops are built in such a way that they require the power adapter leash? Personally, I am sitting here with 94% and 13 hours of battery life available to me, and even though I plan to be here until about 9:30 this evening, I know that I will have more than enough power. On this laptop I have Windows 7, Office, Visual Studio and a few image applications (everything short of PhotoShop), and the "low power" CPU I have doesn't seem to struggle at all with them. I suppose having two cores is better than one, no matter what voltage those cores consume.

Last night after becoming somewhat bored, I decided I really wanted to play "Rodent's Revenge". It's not at all a fancy game, so I thought I would give it a shot on CMK7-M. Somewhere along the way I forgot that the game was originally for Windows 3.1 and would not run on a 64-bit operating system. It makes sense, after a while, things need to be left behind and not be emulated, so that the rest of the world can do things more efficiently. I considered letting go of the idea of playing the game before I remembered that I have VMWare installed on my laptop. It is there because I considered creating a dual boot machine with Ubuntu before the system was obtained (and I really hate rebooting). Anyway, for some reason I can't explain, instead of installing a Windows XP VM, or even 2000 or Me, I decided I would go for the most archaic thing I have access to, Windows 3.1.

I had forgotten how much of a pain Windows 3.1 was to install, especially without a floppy drive. I ended up having to a bootable DOS 6.0 image, then installing DOS 6.22 (because all I have is an upgrade copy), and finally installing Windows 3.1. Installing Windows 3.1 was pretty easy in itself though, once the pre-reqs were in place.

Here is my new laptop's report so far on its usage of electricity and how much power it thinks it saves by utilizing the Toshiba "eco" power plan. Blue is usage, and green is the amount of power it thinks it has conserved. Since at full power the laptop draws about 15W (vs the lightbulb in a fixture at 60W), I am not much too concerned about the amount of power that my computer is drawing. The system runs pretty cool, uses little power, but still manages to handle all of the tasks I throw at it, although, I haven't tried running PhotoShop yet.

Privacy seems to be something that a lot of individuals are worried about, but organizations seem to have no care for their constituents to have it. Facebook and Google lure users into their services with promises of secure communication and access to some special attribute that only that service can offer. With Buzz, Google violated the trust that users had placed in them, but of course, this was not the first time. Google has always had somewhat shady policies regarding information storage and use. With Google, there is an expectation of privacy on the part of the user, but an expectation of complete ownership of all information that passes through its network on the part of Google themselves. These are perhaps conflicting expectations. Facebook on the other hand, is just badly designed. There is now an open-door policy on a service that was once a protected place for university students to communicate with each other and for friends who went to different schools to stay in contact with each other. Now, there is a creepy factor since things have been opened up to allow any strange person in the world to sign up. It is a bit concerning, especially for anyone who may have had an account when the service was safe, and has since abandoned it. At this point Facebook is just careless, allowing any and all types of applications access to their API and making simple mistakes that cause email notifications to be mis-delivered, which is a severe breach of privacy. Twitter, on the other hand, is a gaping privacy hole, but that's perfectly fine, since Twitter users have absolutely no expectation of privacy.

I personally do not have much worry about privacy, because in general I don't really have anything to hide, but I do not like the idea of my information being released without my consent. I do not want to be added to services that I have not signed up for, and I especially do not want things that I write or create to become the property of Google, it just isn't right.

Why 140 characters? Why not 150, or 130? I have recently begun experimentally using Twitter. I still hold my previous opinions of it as being a gross social devolution, but I do find it to be somewhat amusing and even interesting in other contexts. I presently have my GITI statuses post to Twitter just for the purpose of because I can, I can get GITI to do it and it doesn't force any extra effort on me. I still do not believe that Twitter is a useful service by itself, but with the addition of various readers and other tools that can integrate it into other things, it becomes the quite essential personal QOTD utility. I suppose in some ways, short messages are essential in technology, but not in human communication, that's why we have e-mail, IM and a variety of other things that allow us to communicate without being stuck into a 140 character bubble. Sometimes writing for Twitter feels more like a game invented by an English professor, forcing the efficient use of the language. Can every thought someone would want to express be done in 140 characters? I don't know, but it sounds like a great experiment for a PSYC major.

I am trying to find ways to shorten my GPS workflow by a bit. I use a GisTeq CD-110B tracklog recorder, and it writes a new log every time it powers up or down, which can create a lot of logs since the thing powers down after 15 minutes of inactivity and powers up when it's in motion.

The present flow of things is a bit like this:

There is a good amount of manual stuff that I want to cut out. I have already shrunk the file conversion from GPS => GPX a bit, but coding a quick way to pass the files to the conversion software, but I would still like to reduce my involvement a lot more. I recognize that between Nikon Transfer and my varying geotag apps, I can't shorten the photo involvement process, but I'm hoping to be able to shorten a lot of the file handling, but I'm not quite sure how to go about that just yet.

I am so sick of dealing with bags. I used to just think that my needs simply didn't represent the majority of people, so therefore, I was having trouble picking a bag. Now, I am starting to think that the majority of bags just suck. I received my LowePro FastPack 250 this morning and at the moment I can't say for certain that it will be around for another few days, because I am having trouble finding any redeeming qualities about it. Even though it was described in a way that made it sound like the perfect bag for me. I should state that other than my reservations about the bag, I think it is well made and could be a quality addition to any photographer's bag collection.

The problems however are too great to ignore, at least for me.

• First, the bag's visual appearance is HUGE. It is much bigger than I feel that a bag like this should be (in depth).
• Second, I tried putting in the Nikkor 70-300 lens, it didn't fit. It fits in the camera area, but what if I am shooting with a lens other than it? Where does it go?
• Third, I was told this bag had the LowePro SlipLock system… uh… yeah, kinda. It has ONE connector, on the right strap. A very bad spot in my opinion, unless you are sniper needing easy access to your ammo in that area. I cannot see strapping the 70-300's Lens Case 3 to that position and still feeling comfortable walking around in public. My shoulder holster has 2 connectors, one on each side. This bag has a side with no zippers or other things blocking a connector from being there. If there were a slip lock connector on the side of the bag, it would resolve #2, and make #1 less annoying (a bag this fucking huge has to be able to handle a large lens).

My plan at the moment is to continue to tinker with the bag's interior configuration a bit and see if I can come up with some workable solution, and/or find a good way to use the alternative connectors on the Lens Case 3 to attach the 70-300 to the bag. Other than those problems noted, I do like the bag, and feel that my equipment would be well protected and more accessible than in my holster (little compartments, so less lens cases hanging). The compartment for the laptop is perfectly sized. Its for a 15.4" laptop, which I don't think it can comfortably hold, but its absolutely perfect for my 13.3. I also like that the bag stands up by itself.

At the moment I am carrying the D90 with the 18-105mm inside of a Targus laptop backpack, its not very secure in there, and there isn't much padding, but it kind of works. There isn't room for the 70-300mm in or on this bag either, but that doesn't bother me cause the bag is thinner, narrower and shorter than the LowePro bag, and I have space for the Lens Case 1, containing the Nikkor 35m f/1.8, to attach to the back of the bag (horizontally).

While I have been amused by the completely unrealistic battery expectations of the T135 I am becoming less amused when it throws things in the other direction. I was beginning to worry a few minutes ago as I was told that I had 60% remaining on the primary battery, and that meant that I had 2.5 hours left…. WTF? I wasn't doing anything, the hard drive was inactive and the fans were quiet. I decide to ignore the battery situation and just let the thing go about its business… check on the battery level again after a few minutes and then I'm told I have over 6 hours of battery remaining. I really wish this thing could calculate based on the amount of battery that I use on average to determine how much time to put on the clock. So far this system is performing well and I haven't felt like I will be needing a longer lasting battery, but the jumping around bit gets to me. I prefer feeling secure in the availability of power on my system.

I have taken CMK7-M out into the world for the first time. I am in the UNC-Charlotte library, on the south side, near the windows and directly underneath an access point. I am enjoying having access to my own system while here. I could have never brought CMK5-M out like this, it was way too heavy to carry and in general not that useful (4 hours of battery is disappointing). The machine is overall lightweight and easy to carry. My only real problem with the machine at this point is its highly reflective screen, which doesn't do well with natural light or with high powered florescent bulbs buzzing overhead.

I do have a problem with bag selection though. I bought a bag right before I bought the system just because I was running out of time and needed a way to carry it. I bought a fairly inexpensive Targus bag and am overall happy with it. Its thin, and quite nice for carrying just the laptop, but the whole configuration is a bit much to handle when I try to carry the laptop in the backpack and the D90 in the shoulder bag. It so does not work for me. I feel too much like I'm being strangled and I feel like I look like a packmule, not the level of hotness I'm going for in general when it comes to my appearance. I have located a bag that I kind of like, now that it has become a necessity type of situation. It's a Lowepro FastPack 250. It's not a jumbo bag, but at the same time it will carry everything I need it to carry for an outing, and also will hold things on the side with Lowepro's sliplock technology. I do not love that the bag costs $80, but its one of those things where if I am backed into a corner and have to, I will. I love having the laptop with me, but I also want to have access to my camera. I can't choose between them, but $80 is a lot to consider paying for a bag… or is it? I dunno. Someone help me here, I'm rambling because I'm confused. I sort of like that the whole thing is side accessible, while at the same time, not being a weird annoying Lowepro Slingpack.

Other than the bag issue, everything else is great. The battery I think will hold out for as long as I need it to, but that doesn't mean that I feel comfortable at the moment with the thing telling me I only have 5 hours of battery power left. I guess in general I am just the nervous type, which is something I need to get over before I manage to hurt myself with it. With a 6 cell battery this thing seems like it will hold out for my normal use for around 6-7 hours, which is good. Maybe wanting the 12 cell battery is just me being nervous, or maybe once the battery gets used a bit it won't be good enough anymore and I will need the 12 cell. I guess only time will tell on that one. For now, no additional battery, but its still on the list of potential upgrades over the life of this little system.