Faking REALJimBob

Tree Stumps, Wimbledon Common | Hasselblad

2009-06-09T10:30:00.003+01:00

Tree Stumps, Wimbledon Common, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

The Ilford Delta 100 is a lovely looking film...

Folkes Lane Community Woodland | Hasselblad

2009-05-21T00:07:00.002+01:00

Folkes Lane Community Woodland, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Another photograph from my day our with my parents. It doesn't really look it, but this photo was taken at mid-afternoon on a fairly bright day. Playing with spot metering allowed a very different look.

Louise and Humbug | Hasselblad

2009-05-19T13:40:00.001+01:00

Louise and Humbug, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

My girl, she's great...

Louise | Polaroid

2009-05-17T20:54:00.001+01:00

Louise, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

My second pack of Polaroid film to come out of my SX-70 seems to have suffered fairly consistently. Out of 10 photos - 2 blank, 2 mostly unexposed and of the remaining 6 all had these odd light leak effects and they all tried to come out from the base of the camera rather than the front...

Dad and mug | Hasselblad

2009-05-13T12:55:00.002+01:00

Dad and mug, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

My dad. People say we look alike, well actually identical apart from the obvious aging differences. I guess I can see it...

I'm still totally loving the Hasselblad, nothing can come between us...

Wimbledon Garden | Hasselblad

2009-05-11T15:02:00.001+01:00

Wimbledon Garden, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

More Ilford and Hasselblad photography goodness.

Triple H @ O2

2009-05-07T11:16:00.001+01:00

Triple H @ O2, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

My tickets for DX Invasion in November turned up. I really enjoyed going to see the taping of SmackDown last month, so another show should be fun too. Hopefully Triple H will be a major player in the show if, as the title suggests, DX will be reforming for this...

Folkes Lane Community Woodland | Hasselblad

2009-05-06T13:28:00.002+01:00

Folkes Lane Community Woodland, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

I finally got my two rolls of 120 film back from IlfordLabs. I say finally, it took them three (yep, 3!) weeks to process, print and scan two rolls of film... Totally outrageous.

Sadly, the quality of the prints is amazing, but I'm too impatient to risk the wait again, so it'll be back to my old lab for the processing and maybe try Ilford again when I need some special prints done with no processing...

Instant Art, London | Instax

2009-04-19T12:35:00.001+01:00

Instant Art, London, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

More instant photography fun. Some display art discovered on a walk through St. Katherine's Dock a few weeks ago...

Wimbledon Blossom | K1000

2009-04-16T00:28:00.002+01:00

Wimbledon Blossom, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

The blossom came to Wimbledon last month, just in time to shoot it with the Pentax K1000 I'd reacquired...

West India Quay | Instax Wide

2009-04-15T16:49:00.001+01:00

West India Quay, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

This was from the end of the first pack of Instax Wide film after a long walk through London. Two things struck me with the results (apart from the usual luck of the exposure draw).

Firstly, I'm damn sure I was straight for this, I remember trying to straighten the view in the viewfinder before hitting the button, and secondly there's a big lot of picture on the left hand side of the frame that wasn't in the viewfinder (this is more apparent in other photographs).

So, either I move - a lot - when I hit that button. Or, hopefully more likely, is that the viewfinder is not really that representative of the photograph that the Instax 200 actually takes. I'll have to be more careful for the next pack.

Entering Leadenhall Market

2009-04-10T17:06:00.001+01:00

Entering Leadenhall Market, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Trying to capture the contrasts between old and new architecture alongside the actual contrast of the dark interior and the bright exterior...

Louise in Pink Wig | SX-70

2009-03-28T13:20:00.002Z

Louise in Pink Wig | SX-70, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Taken back in the summer last year, trying out our wigs before the big Wig Party (not to be confused with a Big-Wig Party).

Crocuses | Hasselblad

2009-03-26T19:29:00.002Z

Crocuses | Hasselblad, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

More Hasselblad photography goodness...

Still loving it | Hasselblad

2009-03-19T23:12:00.003Z

Horse, Wimbledon Common, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

My new Hasselblad that is, not the Horse. Working my way through uploading the first roll of Hassie film. And, I must say, I'm liking the results. I loved shooting with it. Now I've gotta make the next roll better of course, and that's the hard part...

Las Vegas Strip, from Eiffel Tower | Holga

2009-02-20T14:22:00.003Z

Las Vegas Strip, from Eiffel Tower, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Finally, after well over a year, I finished this roll of Holga film and got it processed. Sadly, the back came off the Holga itself in my luggage on the way back from Vegas, so there was a section in the middle of the film that was completely spoiled. Luckily a couple fromt the beginning survived and I managed to wind the film on a bit and shoot a couple of shots from the end too. Now I've got the Hasselblad, I'm expecting a bunch more medium format photography to be forthcoming...

Carthay Circle

2008-12-18T00:20:00.002Z

Carthay Circle, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Dark Alley

2008-11-16T16:32:00.002Z

Dark Alley, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

I love getting my Photojojo Photo Time Capsule every two weeks -- 5 photographs that I took a year ago... On returning from holiday my latest installment was waiting for me.

Nun outside the Basilica

2008-10-21T00:51:00.002+01:00

Nun outside the Basilica, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

We've recently returned from a long weekend in Venice. I've taken hundreds of photographs, hopefully I'll get around to uploading some (if not most) of them sooner rather than later...

2008-10-19T20:32:00.002+01:00

, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) on a MacBook 4.1 (Santa Rosa)

2008-09-16T22:39:00.020+01:00

Hardy Heron Screenshot, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Specification:

MacBook (Black) 4.1 (aka Santa Rosa)
Core 2 Duo T8300 (@2.40GHz, 800MHz FSB, 3MB L2 Cache)
2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Graphics Card
Widescreen Display (1280x800)
Broadcom Corporation BCM4328 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 03) Wireless Chipset
250GB Hard Disk

A MacBook bought in the US (the exchange rate was fantastic), so I'm stuck with a US keyboard. Unfortunately, I hadn't realised the wireless chipsets had changed and have had trouble getting networking to, well, work.

First run through with Hardy Heron, I made the mistake of installing the 32bit release rather than the 64bit one. I managed to get most things working -- sound, trackpad, compiz, etc. However, Wireless networking always eluded me. I managed to get the drivers loaded and could browse the list of available networks -- I just couldn't connect to the router one metre from me...

Information Sources:

Sadly there is no LaptopTestingPage for the MacBook 4.1. However, the Ubuntu Help Community Documentation site houses three similar but confusing pages:

How to Install Ubuntu on a MacBook - Mostly written towards installing Hardy Heron onto an older MacBook, not specifically intended for the Santa Rosa generations.
MacBook Santa Rosa - Definitely geared towards installing Ubuntu onto a Santa Rosa chipset. However, it's downside is that it's written from the point of view of installing 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) rather than Hardy Heron.
MacBook on Santa Rosa on Hardy - Big plans to be the best of both worlds, installation guide for Hardy Heron on the Santa Rosa chipset. However, it's still very new and only describes the wireless configuration changes.

A combination of these three documents along with whatever I manage to glean from the Internet will hopefully guide me through.

Installation:

First check your MacBook chipset version:

sudo dmidecode -s system-product-name

Ensure you have a backup (obviously), I shouldn't really need to say this.

Boot from the Live Install CD: ubuntu-8.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso -- on startup insert the CD and hold down the C key to select the CDROM boot device.

Install as a normal Ubuntu installation. The options I went with were English Language, London location and timezone, USA keyboard and Guided partitioning using the entire disk. Create the first user for yourself and name your computer. After installation you'll need to let it reboot.

The first thing I'd do after installation is let it run the software update to install all the updates that have been released since the CD was imaged (this is a LTS release after all).

Configuration:

Various bits and bobs need configuring. Ubuntu is grossly unprepared for the MacBook platform. Almost as if the MacBook was designed as a propriatory platform...

Touchpad

The touchpad is probably the first thing to fix. If you can't control the machine it's kinda difficult to configure everything else. The synaptics driver is the key here, and it's extensive (and very configurable) settings are described in the man synaptics page. Default settings of the synaptics driver can be discovered by running synclient -l (assuming that you've already set the SHMConfig option). This will output all the possible settings, both the ones already configured above and the default values that aren't specified. Many of the online guides drive you towards either an overcomplicated configuration, or a Mac OS feel. I reckon that if you want to feel like you're using Mac OS, then use Mac OS, but you need to decide how you wish to emulate the middle and right click buttons that you don't have (I've never understood how you could get away with only one button). I opted to use the synaptics feature of being able to detect the number of fingers that are tapped onto the touchpad. Specifically, if I tap with two fingers I want to right-click, if I tap with three fingers the less common middle-click. Optionally you can emulate the scrolling functions of many modern mouses, but I'm not a massive fan of the function and tend to leave that unconfigured.

Default configuration of the synaptics driver in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf was:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "0"
EndSection

And, my updated Options section ended up as:

Option "SHMConfig" "true"
Option "TapButton2" "3"
Option "TapButton3" "2"
Option "VertEdgeScroll" "false"
Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "false"

The SHMConfig option is important as it allows the use of the synclient tool, as well as being a prerequisite for the syndaemon options that we'll set up below to disable the touchpad while you're typing (to stop those annoying twitches). TapButton1, TapButton2 and TapButton3 specify the actions when that number of fingers are used to tap the touchpad, one finger is unset as the main button below the touchpad is preferred. Two and three fingers are used for the right-click and middle-click respectively. Vertical and Horizontal scrolling actions remain unset as I'm not a huge fan of those actions.

To disable the twitchiness of the touchpad when typing, set up the syndaemon in the Gnome session startup programs. From the menu System -> Preferences -> Sessions, add a new Startup program:

Name: Synaptics Daemon
Command: syndaemon -i 2 -d
Comment: Control Synaptics Settings

This will introduce a 2 second freeze on the touchpad whenever you're typing. The time interval can be changed by setting the i parameter to a lower or higher number. There is also an alternative switch -t which only disables clicks and scrolls on the touchpad, mouse movement is still enabled. Use whichever suits your style of work more -- heavier command line user you probably want to use -i, more of a GUI application user you might want to use -t. Again, man syndaemon explains the various options.

Without using the edges of the touchpad for scrolling, it seems important to make as much of the real estate available as possible. Using the values output from the synclient -m 1 command and slowly moving my finger to the edges of the touchpad I reached a set of values for each edge. Comparing those with the original values given by synclient -l shows that considerable edges were being wasted.

synclient -m 1 values for Edges

Option "LeftEdge" "15"
Option "RightEdge" "1210"
Option "TopEdge" "10"
Option "BottomEdge" "380"

synclient -l default values for Edges

Option "LeftEdge" "121"
Option "RightEdge" "1094"
Option "TopEdge" "38"
Option "BottomEdge" "348"

Obviously if you are planning on using edge scrolling, either horizontal or vertical, you'll need to bring in those values for the RightEdge and BottomEdge somewhat. Some of the Ubuntu community documentation suggests some alternate values in this case.

Wireless

The Broadcom Wireless chipset in the MacBook is a bit of a bugger. The standard BMC43* drivers don't recognise it. Having followed the guidelines on the MacBook Santa Rosa on Hardy page, the NDIS WLAN drivers load and recognise the chipset, however, connecting to an actual network still seems to be beyond them. Definitely not yet considered working.

Luckily, six months after the release of Hardy Heron the automatic updates within Ubuntu dropped a new release of the BMC43* proprietary drivers and wireless now works perfectly happily, no configuration was required - it just works. When prompted, all you have to do is accept and enable the 'restricted' (propietary) driver for the Broadcom device.

Sound

According to the MacBook Santa Rosa page sound is fully supported, however it's not detected. To enabled detection add the following line to the /etc/modprobe.d/options file:

options snd_hda_intel model=mbp3

Restart the laptop to enable the detection. However, still no sound -- the speakers have been disabled during installation (as the card wasn't detected). To enable the speakers you need to open the Volume Control panel (right click on the audio icon on the Notification Area)

Then on that panel move to the Switches tab and enable speaker by ensuring that the associated tick box is ticked.

Disused Phone Box

2008-08-28T14:07:00.001+01:00

Disused Phone Box, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Looking Out

2008-07-31T02:06:00.001+01:00

Looking Out, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Brahma Beer

2008-05-13T22:09:00.001+01:00

Brahma II, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

A nice fruity beer for the summer, made to an authentic Brasilian recipe...

2008-05-13T01:03:00.001+01:00

, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Overhead

2008-05-08T21:02:00.001+01:00

Overhead, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

I've discovered PicLens, and I'm loving it... Sadly the love may be short-lived as it doesn't run on Linux (so it's usable in work only), but we'll see...

The Fly

2008-05-07T01:55:00.001+01:00

The Fly, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Slowly getting to grips with the new Macro lens.

Macro I: Near

2008-04-30T00:54:00.001+01:00

Macro I: Near, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Today I got a new Marco lens -- 100mm f/2.8. It's super sharp and yummy, although I think this was a little too close for it.

Westminster Underground Station

2008-04-28T18:51:00.001+01:00

Westminster Underground Station, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Holga Bridge

2008-04-23T19:28:00.001+01:00

Holga Bridge, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

I like my Holga. I like that I have no clue what I'm doing with it. I like that the results are so unpredicable. I like that it generally looks okay. I hate hate hate that it takes so long to process....

[Also a final test from Flickr Blogging, this time a square one.]

Brighton Back Passage

2008-04-23T14:41:00.001+01:00

Brighton Back Passage, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

One of the many corridors in the Lanes area of Brighton.

I said "Back Passage" -- snigger...

Delirium

2008-04-21T23:59:00.003+01:00

Delirium, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Went to see Delirium at the O2 at the weekend. Sadly I found it quite disappointing. Having seen Circque du Soleil's "O" in Las Vegas which I found amazing, this was significantly less on a number of fronts.

The change in format from O's water based acrobatics to Delirium's more musical performance didn't really work for me -- after all, I'm there to see acrobatics, dammit. The venue, the O2, wasn't ideal either. The two side screens for the projections covered up a lot of the performance, and the continual practice of pulling that curtain across the stage every five minutes just confused the already overly surreal 'plot'. I say plot, even after the explanations on Nik's blog I'm still totally stumpted.

2008-03-01T22:17:00.000Z

, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

A year ago...

2008-02-24T20:58:00.000Z

Valentine's Day Sweets, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Photojojo has launched a new email service called Time Capsule. Every two weeks they email you some of your best shots in your stream from approximately a year ago...

Unfortunately, this gem was the only photograph I uploaded this time last year, so it's obviously the best.

DPReview: Lens Reviews

2008-01-29T21:52:00.000Z

Digital Photography Review has finally announced a new section for lens reviews alongside it's existing and excellent camera body reviews and news sections. Not much there so far, a couple of Canon and Pentax kit-style lenses, but with the promise of more to come. Hopefully this explains why the camera review section seemed so slow towards the tail end of last year...

West India Quay

2008-01-29T20:36:00.000Z

, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Rediscovering a whole bunch of photographs I shot on film a while ago. I had ordered myself a Canon EOS 30, and while waiting for it to arrive I was test driving a friend’s. We went for a wander and I managed to get through 2 rolls of film — this colour one and a black and white one too.

The colour shots I was very happy with. I’m constantly pleased with the ratio of good to crap that I get from film compared to that for digital. I suspect that the mental reminder that each shot is costing me real money might help to focus my endeavour, but I think part of it is just the ‘look’ of film that you don’t get with digital.

The two lesson learned though, were… Firstly, the flashing number in the viewfinder means something. When you’re shooting ISO 400 film and have fixed the aperture at f/1.8 you’re not going to get a fast enough shutter speed to avoid blowing the shots. And, secondly, a lesson I’m relearning at the moment, Jessops are shite for developing anything out of the ordinary — colour 35mm a day or so, black and white a week or so, my current roll of black and white 120mm film has been a month and a half (and still waiting)…

Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) on a Dell Inspiron 6400

2007-06-21T00:17:00.000+01:00

My new laptop
Originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Specification:

Dell Inspiron 6400
Core 2 Duo Processor T7200 (2.0GHz, 667MHz FSB, 4MB L2 Cache)
2048MB Dual Channel 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 256MB
15.4" Widescreen Display WXGA+ (1440x900)
Intel Pro Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g Mini-PCI Card
160GB (5,400rpm) SATA Hard Drive

A 'reasonably' middle of the road Dell Inspiron model. Maxed out the CPU and RAM, the Hard Disk too although the HD choice was a disappointment, I would have preferred something faster/larger. Kept the screen small enough while still being usable.

Information Sources:

The Ubuntu website itself lists test results for the specific model, however it had only tested against the Herd 5 version of Feisty Fawn rather than the final release and the ATI driver installation instructions contained some errors where following the 6.10 (Edgy Eft) instructions fared better than the 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) advice.

Linux on Laptops linked to an article by Cedric Lagneau which also contained some specific advice on getting the ATI graphics subsystems to work correctly.

A combination of these instructions led to a successful installation...

Installing Feisty Fawn from the Live CD:

The Live CD won't start X correctly as the ATI card/screen resolution won't fly. Once the attempt fails it drops you back to a normal command prompt. You'll need an active network connection to perform the driver installation, and the commands are as follows:

$sudo apt-get update
$sudo apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrx

Reset the kernel dependencies to ensure the new drivers load correctly:

$sudo depmod -a

Configure Xorg to use the new driver correctly:

$sudo aticonfig --initial
$sudo aticonfig --overlay-type=Xv

And finally, restart the GDM server:

$sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

X should now start correctly and allow you to start the installation procedure. I followed the obvious defaults for my configuration -- UK keyboards and language, and allowed the installation to completely overwrite my existing partitions (you do have install CDs don't you?). Upon restarting I ended up with the following partitions:

/dev/sda1 * 1 18701 150215751 83 Linux (142GB)
/dev/sda2 18702 19457 6072570 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 18702 19457 6072538+ 82 Linux Swap

X again, fails to start, so repeat the same commands again, but this time reboot instead of restarting GDM:

$sudo apt-get update
$sudo apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrx
$sudo depmod -a
$sudo aticonfig --initial
$sudo aticonfig --overlay-type=Xv
$sudo reboot

Once the system comes back up, it's as good a time as any to do a System Update (I'll wait here).

Back again? The wireless connection pretty much configured itself. I had to drop my router back from WPA to 128bit WEP encryption (as Gnome doesn't seem to know about WPA), but the ESSID appears in a drop-down list - select it, type in your passcodes (you may need to create an encrypted keyring as part of this). But it 'just works'...

The SD/MMC card reader was a total breeze. Plugged a card in and straight away Ubuntu asked me if I wanted to import my photographs.

Still to test:

DVD re-Writer
USB outputs -- all work, although some USB block devices don't seem to unmount from the desktop.
Additional graphics functionality (external monitors, TV out)
Audio (beyond basic beep) -- all works

Also, still need to transfer remaining personal files, applications and configuration from my 'work' laptop and Ubuntu desktop to the shiny new girl.

Update 30th July 2007:

Upgraded to Gutsy Gibbon last night, I'd manually compiled development versions of GIMP and UFRaw which caused it some confusion, but after removing all GIMP/UFRaw packages, deleting the compiled versions and reinstalling the packages everything worked a treat.

Desktop eye-candy (compiz) still doesn't work, I assume this is a limitation of the ATI graphics drivers rather than Ubuntu itself as other people have reported it working on other hardware.

More Flickr Faves

2007-06-13T14:48:00.001+01:00

Flickr Faves
Originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

More and more I'm liking my Flickr favourites, some make me laugh, some just impress me. But I think I'm fave'ing more often now and getting a wider selection as well:

Fe em Brasil: 4, Big Al Davies: 3, curlsdiva: 2, Patrick T Power: 2, jody9: 2, nic_sinnot: 2, p.bo: 1, Linda's Manymuses: 1, alterednate: 1, Thomas Hawk: 1, phoneyman: 1, It'sGreg: 1, digimatized: 1, beebo wallace: 1, wvs: 1, moosehd2: 1, scribeoflight: 1, Linda B (Wine Diva): 1, Sazzle Dazzle: 1, Supercapacity: 1, dopiaza: 1, eshu: 1, emdot: 1, popescool: 1, ♥ shhexycorin ♥: 1, Muffet: 1 and VORFAS: 1

A total of 27 different users for 36 favourites, they say variety is the spice of life... Go check 'em out and maybe find some favourites for yourself.

My first roll of Holga film

2007-04-26T12:48:00.002+01:00

Holga Tree, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Finally I've had my first roll of Holga film developed and managed to get them scanned in for uploading. This was one of the better ones from the set, hopefully I'll get around to the rest later on. But this one hasn't garnered the love I was hoping for... :(

He did it...

2007-04-24T10:12:00.001+01:00

After the marathon
Originally uploaded by Doc Lem.

3 hours and 22 minutes, not a bad time for a first Marathon. And no, he isn't going to talk me into doing it next year...

Marathon Day

2007-04-22T10:08:00.001+01:00

WP duathlon champs, 19 Nov 06
Originally uploaded by Doc Lem.

Getting ready for my sister's arrival. Her husband (pictured) is running the Whatever-Brand-This-Year London Marathon and as it goes right past the back of my flat she's popping so we can both try and pick him out of the passing throng...

Camera battery is charged (I say battery, I had two, I know I did, I bought a spare for Brasil, can I find it?, no I **** can't!!) so I might actually take some snaps.

(and no, this isn't Stuart actually doing a Marathon, it's a Duathlon, but it's the closest I could find).

Happy Easter

2007-04-10T19:57:00.001+01:00

March of the Easter Bunnies
Originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Happy Easter to everybody, hope you over indulged in chocolate (and cake for those that don't dig the chocolate) and had plenty, plenty fun...

Something must be wrong...

2007-04-01T19:21:00.001+01:00

Something must be wrong...
Originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Definitely messed up. Suddenly explore is telling me (and others) that we have a lot more pictures in explore than we were expecting... My sister suddenly has 432 listed. I had 650 this morning and now Scout's reporting that I have 738. Presumably the madness ends when all my photos are listed as being in Explore?

Before

2007-03-27T10:56:00.001+01:00

Before
Originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

At the weekend, to celebrate the move to British Summer Time (BST) as well as, coincidentally, Utata's 2nd Birthday. The beard came off. I've had the face fungus since 12th December and I've grown (hahah) to love it, but it's time for a change...

Flickr and the Nokia N73

2007-03-15T14:38:00.000Z

The integration between Flickr and the Nokia N73 is pretty sweet. You take a picture and it offers to upload it straight to Flickr for you, titles and descriptions can all be set (no tags or sets yet). But I'm finding more and more that since my work laptop has starting restricting USB access to external storage devices I'm uploading pretty much every photo I take as a viewing method rather than a presentation method. The N73 is capable of taking photos that the screen on it just can't do justice to, so I'm uploading them to Flickr just so I can see them on the 'big screen'. Of course that's starting to turn my Flickr stream into a photoblog which was never really the point...

Flickr Goodness

2007-03-14T07:23:00.000Z

On the down side I've worked through the night (people are turning up for the next day atm) trying to rebuild a production directory server. On the plus side, it seemed to co-incide with Flickr announcing Collections and a choice of layouts. So I've spent the time waiting for the 3rd attempt to rebuild juggling my sets into Collections and jazzing up my page a little. Also, finally uploaded some Utata Thursday Walk pics from a month ago (it's not a great excuse, but I do have one).

Google Gripes

2006-03-08T09:58:00.000Z

Web Clips, built in Google Chat, contacts exporting, Vacation responder. Just some of the cool features that are only available to US GMail customers. Switching your GMail preferences from English (UK) to English (US) enables them for me, switching my locale back turns them off again... grrrrr!

GMFF: Get My Favourites From

2006-03-07T11:40:00.000Z

GMFF allows you to view all the Flickr favourites that a named user has that are your photos, then you can even make a set out of those photos... quite cool, although I'm struggling to find somebody with enough of my favourites to make a worthwhile set from.

Free software? You can't just give it away

2006-02-23T17:02:00.000Z

Gervase Markham's article in the Times Online: Free software? You can't just give it away provides an amusing anecdote about an extended conversation between him (representing the Mozilla Foundation) and a UK Trading Standards officer who was investigating a UK business selling Firefox CDs.

Unfortunately, this was not well received. Her reply was incredulous:

"I can't believe that your company would allow people to make money from something that you allow people to have free access to. Is this really the case?" she asked.

"If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation, as it is difficult for us to give general advice to businesses over what is/is not permitted."

JPG Magazine - Issue 5: Photography is Not a Crime

2006-02-23T12:34:00.000Z

The latest JPG Magazine - Issue 5: Photography is Not a Crime intends to provide a rallying cry to amateur photographers. Submissions are closed, but the issue should be released later this month.

Schneier on Security: Photographing Airports

2006-02-23T12:29:00.000Z

Bruce links to a Salon article about being questioned while photographing in airports: Schneier on Security: Photographing Airports.

This seems to be frustrating photographers everywhere at the moment, the apparent 'crack down' on photography in seemingly random places, the heavy handed tactics - questioned, made to prove identity and intent, forced to delete images, etc. Yet, when pushed back, these 'security' individuals always fall back on the implication that "we live in a different world now" and vague suggestions of illegality which don't stand up well to further scrutiny.

Obviously the rules are different in the US and the UK (we don't have their crazy privacy laws for example), UK photographers can get a taste of their rights from the UK Photographers Rights Guide.

YouTube - Herbie Hancock: Rockit

2006-02-23T10:56:00.000Z

Ben points you to a synth medley from Herbie Hancock, Howard Jones, Thomas Dolby and Stevie Wonder, but I prefer this blast from the past - YouTube: Herbie Hancock - RockIt.

I still can't quite imagine how they got away with the dummy in the bed shots - outrageous!

Formatting large FAT32 partitions

2006-02-21T14:53:00.000Z

Bought a case for my old laptop's 40GB hard disk, so now I can use it like an external USB device. However, formatting the disk as FAT32 proves somewhat problematic. Microsoft's own support site says: "You cannot format a volume larger than 32 GB in size using the FAT32 file system in Windows 2000. ... This behaviour is by design. ... use the NTFS file system instead". NTFS is fine if you're a Windows only user, but if you want to be able to read/write from other operating systems FAT32 is a must. Enter Linux mkdosfs for Windows NT/2K/XP. A Win32 port of the Linux command mkdosfs. It doesn't seem to have any dependencies on Cygwin or related stuff so should be useful anywhere...

Utata Goes to the Movies

2006-02-19T20:31:00.000Z

I'm thinking, I'm thinking... But I haven't thought of anything yet - Utata.

2006-02-19T16:48:00.000Z

Apprently CC is now living in the UK, thus cementing her (already assured) place on the list...

I've got a small problem

2006-02-19T10:44:00.000Z

Claudia Christian's latest short film: I've got a small problem. Absolutely hilarious, although the plummy English accent may need some work (I'm available for some 1-2-1 coaching if you need it Claudia).

More CC goodness here.

Warning, Ugly blog ahead...

2006-02-16T10:22:00.000Z

This blog is about to become the ugliest blog in existence as I strip out all the CSS. I'm aiming to put it back in later in a more structured manner as I update my HTML/CSS knowledge. Feel free to leave the ugly kid alone in the corner and go elsewhere...

Top 5 Laminated List

2006-02-15T16:15:00.000Z

Had a long conversation with my sister-in-law the other week over a curry. Trying to piece together our "top 5"s. I won't embarrass her by revealing her answers (or my wife's come to that), but I realised that I have real trouble reaching five entries. Three I can manage:

Drew Barrymore
Claudia Christian
Kate Moss

but filling out the last two slots poses too many dilemas. I was given advice to include as many residents of London as possible (as that should increase my chances of striking lucky), but that seems a little too calculating. So I seem to have a reserve list -- people that have 'top 5' potential, but I can't really decide about yet. Obviously, I'm being a bet hedger here and I have trouble committing to a definite list (even a meaningless one like this).

What was I thinking?

2006-02-15T10:42:00.000Z

What was I thinking?, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Self Portraits are always a risky venture, but finally seeing one from 12 years ago is quite a shock. What on earth is going on with those Coco the Clown-esque tufts...

About the Firefox "memory leak"

2006-02-15T09:49:00.000Z

Ben Goodger discusses why Firefox seems to take up so much darn RAM and more importantly how to tune it manually. I've set my desktop to "0" and left my laptop on 'automatic' to see if I can notice the difference. Honestly, with tabs being so useful, I don't find myself going back that often (or if I do it's by a lot more than 8 pages) so I'm hoping this will actually make Firefox a bit more spritely for me.

Happy Valentine's day!

2006-02-14T10:05:00.000Z

Happy Valentine's day!, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

The realistic anatomical version struck me as much more amusing than the obvious heart shaped one...

Google Reader Labels, Not Quite My Way (Yet)

2006-02-14T09:58:00.000Z

I've just found the 'official' Google Reader Blog, and the latest post explains one of the things that I really don't like about Googe Reader. Labels. Don't get me wrong, I like labels, they are a great way of allowing me to view related posts from possibly disparate feeds all together. However, the way I've used labels has changed as I've been using Google Reader, but the system doesn't clean up the old unused labels. So unless I'm missing a button to delete a label or something I'm stuck with a long list of labels, only about a quarter of which I'm actually using...

Pentax Tags

2006-02-08T21:38:00.000Z

More information on the hidden Pentax Maker Tags. Including the hard to come by ISO codes. The codes appear in the Flickr More properties pages, but only now do I know that an ISO code of 9 actually corresponds to ISO 200.

Utata Draws Lines

2006-02-08T18:14:00.000Z

Utata Draws Lines, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

The weekend project Utata Draws Lines is up and running. Created from all the Utatan's photographs tagged for the project, a simple refresh shows a different set of images each time.

See my submissions to the project or see all the submissions to the project.

Lack of EXIF information from Pentax Digicams

2006-02-08T18:10:00.000Z

My Pentax Optio 550 doesn't seem to record the ISO setting in the EXIF data (I can't believe it's taken me two and a half years to notice this omission). Which is a pain when you want to run Neat Image on your photos to remove the noise as knowing the ISO value is a pre-requisite to picking the right noise profile.

Enter the perl module Image-ExifTool by Phil Harvey. I've now downloaded and installed my first ever perl module from CPAN - and into Cygwin no less. Hopefully this will be good enough that I can ditch my Bash script that renames my photos based on the date information in the JPGs, now I can extend it and learn perl in the process...

IMG_0001

2006-01-30T17:03:00.000Z

IMG_0001, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

First photo from the new camera. Finally I've uploaded a photo from the new Canon EOS 350D. I must say I'm loving the feel of this camera, so much easier to keep steady than the smaller Optio 550. Hopefully, lots more (and more interesting) photos to come from this bad boy...

New Toy

2006-01-30T09:43:00.000Z

Got me a new toy yesterday. Finally snapped up the new camera I'd been drooling over for so long. Once I work out what all the buttons do, I just have to wait for the talent to kick in...

Dilbert does sauce

2006-01-27T15:16:00.000Z

I don't think I've ever seen a saucy dilbert strip before, this one really made me snigger though, in that way that only schoolboy humour can...

Toogle for REALJimBob

2006-01-24T10:23:00.000Z

Toogle for REALJimBob, originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

After a discovery care of Doc Searls, the Toogle website makes interesting ASCII art versions of whatever a search of Google Images would have returned. In my case, this hazy rendition of my Magnolia Bakery Cupcakes photograph.

We've all been on the other end of this haven't we?

2006-01-22T20:57:00.000Z

The Scanner Photography Project

2006-01-19T11:53:00.000Z

The Scanner Photography Project, where Michael Golembewski built himself a 115 MP camera using a Canon scanner as a sensor and making the rest from antique parts and gaffer tape. Some spectacular effects as the scanner doesn't expose the entire frame in a single instant, but instead moves across the frame (either side to side or vertically), but it does produce some stunning photos:

When a bike is stolen a fairy dies

2006-01-12T10:06:00.000Z

when a bike is stolen a fairy dies, originally uploaded by knautia.

I hope this isn't true...

Thunderbird 1.5 Released

2006-01-12T09:56:00.000Z

New version of Thunderbird is available. This brings it inline with the Firefox version. I haven't played with any of the intermediate releases since v1.0 so I might have to have a play with this and see if it carries any notable improvements...

del.icio.us differences

2006-01-10T15:59:00.000Z

I'd never noticed it before, but if you load up del.icio.us in the Firefox or IE browsers you get slightly different menu offerings. Firefox offers you a link to view your own bookmarks:

whereas, IE offers you your favourites:

More Google Pack

2006-01-08T16:57:00.000Z

2006ces_121.JPG, originally uploaded by dsearls.

Doc Searls is photo blogging from CES as Google announce their new pack bundle...

Maryamie: In Defense of Geeks or Ten Reasons Why You Should Date a Geek

2006-01-08T00:31:00.000Z

Maryamie Scoble writes In Defense of Geeks or Ten Reasons Why You Should Date a Geek. Sadly, three of them involve getting your computer fixed, three of them revolve around other techie gadgets and the remaining four are how much better you'll feel about yourself having such a riduculous creature next to you for comparison (the old theory about okay looking girls hanging out with ugly girls to make themselves look hotter). I mean, obviously it's meant to be a joke but.... yaaaaawn...

Google Pack Launched

2006-01-07T21:24:00.000Z

Google launches their new Google Pack, a software delivery vehicle providing all the usual Google software (Google Desktop, Google Earth, Picasa, Google Toolbar, Google Talk and the new Google Screensaver) as well as selected third party software: Firefox, Ad-Aware, Norton AntiVirus, Trillian, Acrobat Reader, RealPlayer and some GalleryPlayer Images. Nothing you couldn't get for yourself independently, but then I guess that's the point of the bundle - it encourages you to try more than you would have normally.

Strangely for me, the Google Updater actually provided a better way of managing my Google software. In came Ad-Aware (possibly to replace my existing Microsoft download) and out went Google Talk - there's only so many times you can load that up just to find you don't know anybody else on it...

Google Screensaver provides a quite nice way of viewing your images in a screensaver, but I think I still prefer the default one that comes with Windows. But the big problem with this is one that afflicts all of Google's downloadable products - if you aren't running Windows you can't play the game...

Aargh and Hmmm

2006-01-06T15:53:00.000Z

What (according to Google) are the most common spellings of the words Aargh and Hmmm? Apparently, it's all in the numbers of As, Rs, Hs and Ms...

More importantly, how many references to the two pages above does it take to significantly skew the results towards those two spellings?

Utata Weekend Project: The Nocturnal Photographer

2006-01-05T11:53:00.000Z

The Daily Ink: "Weekend Project: The Nocturnal Photographer. If only I had a camera capable of an exposure longer than 4 seconds I could have some fun...

But is it interesting?

2006-01-05T09:10:00.000Z

Which set applies to me?
Originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

Shockingly, my most "interesting" photograph uploaded to Flickr so far is also the second most "interesting" photo uploaded that day (22nd December 2005) according to the explore pages for that day.

Edit: Apparently it's now the most interesting shot for that day...

My Top 20 Favourited photos of 2005

2006-01-04T11:19:00.000Z

My Top 20 Favourited photos of 2005
Originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

As instructed, I present my 20 most favourited pictures (one of them isn't really a photo) of 2005. Only pictures taken (or created) during 2005 qualified. The set and slideshow are also available.

We do stuff.

2006-01-04T10:40:00.000Z

I am so gonna hire these guys if I ever need some marketing, design or consulting stuff doing...

Political Compass

2006-01-03T17:24:00.000Z

Where do you sit on the Political Compass?

I came out with a rating of:

Economic Left/Right: -4.63
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.38

Which seems to put me about on top of Ghandi... I had no idea I was such a namby-pamby bleeding heart.

BRUSSELS SPROUT cooked, unwanted Christmas Dinner item!

2006-01-03T16:53:00.000Z

Apparently, you really can sell anything on eBay. Currently going for 51 quid is a unwanted, cooked brussel sprout.

Edit: Apparently it went for £99.50 in the end, with all proceeds going to TEAR FUND.

New Year's Resolutions

2006-01-02T13:42:00.000Z

This year I promise (well, when I say promise I mean I have warm fuzzy intentions to do all of this stuff, but I wouldn't wanna go out on a limb and actually promise I'll do them all in 2006 - I mean, I've only got a year) to do the following:

Take more photographs. I mean a lot more, if I'm going to deserve the DSLR I've been promising myself, I need to be worth it.
Buy myself a DSLR.
Drink more water !
Implement the 6 month plan I had 2 years ago to sort myself out.
Not get any more unfit (maybe get a little more fit).
Try some GTD stuff.
Make Manager Grade.
See if this blogging thing will work out...

Happy New Year

2006-01-01T00:01:00.000Z

Happy New Year
Originally uploaded by REALJimBob.

To you all...

Feeling my age (and not much else)

2004-09-25T03:37:00.000+01:00

It's been a long time coming... too long in fact. Eight months and fourteen days to be more precise. Sadly, suprisingly little has changed though - same job (although many of the people around me have changed), same house, same wife, same car, same yada-yada-yada...

The nine months have been a reasonably miserable drag but maybe starting this thing up again will have a cathartic effect, let's hope so! People seem to be going out of their way to have birthdays at the moment: Nik has apparently turned 31 in the last couple of days, Betty-at-work's boyfriend had his birthday (of undisclosed value) yesterday and Sarah (formerly of work but one of the people referred to above as having moved on) turns 29 today! Man these people make me feel old...

Lost in Translation

2004-01-11T13:36:00.000Z

Went to see the movie Lost in Translation yesterday. Frankly, I didn't know much about it and it looked at first glance like a bit of chick-flick but the wife is a Bill Murray fan so we went anyway.

Not a fantastic amount happens in the film, but it's a very well made people story. Yes, that's right a story - what so many films these days are lacking. It's not a feel good movie (neither character really gets what they want or need) and it's not just a chick flick (although the wife did cry almost the entire way through) but it is a touching observation of two unhappy people who have lost their purpose in life crossing paths in a foreign country, culture and language.

Happy Christmas

2003-12-26T18:06:00.000Z

A very happy Christmas to you, one and all! It's that time of year again, eating too much, watching too much TV, drinking far too much and thinking about those unkeepable promises that you are going to make in a couple of days.

2003-12-20T20:51:00.000Z

Finally got around to uploading the photos from the Spanswick Family Christmas Gathering 2003. I'd completely forgotten the set until the missus reminded me while we were going through some of the other sets yesterday... dolt!

Edit: changed the URL to the new Flickr one.

Hartley's Christmas Party 2003

2003-12-19T20:08:00.000Z

More pictures for the collection. An excellent evening spent in the company of Vicky's work colleagues and a couple of bottles of Rioja -- mmmmm.

Edit: specific link now defunct - removed.

Armed and Dangerous

2003-11-27T22:31:00.000Z

Eric Raymond has moved his Armed and Dangerous Blog to a new address -- update your bookmarks. More amazingly, he appears to have finished his book, The Art of UNIX Programming, and come out of Blog-bernation...

Mr and Mrs Smith

2003-11-27T22:25:00.000Z

What is the fucking point of a web site like Mr and Mrs Smith, if you haven't actually got the Flash plugin that is. I mean not even a skip this link, not even a sorry were snobs banner, not even a blurb about upgrading my browser - like a browser built on the 30th of October 2003 isn't quite cutting edge enough?

Please this is supposed to be the World Wide Web, not the fucking World Wide Macromedia Flash Plugin!

Precious Moments outfits

2003-10-06T16:03:00.001+01:00

Precious Moments outfits
Originally uploaded by REALJimBob.
Photo of my and the missus in our outfits...

2003-10-06T15:58:00.000+01:00

On the plus side, the event did raise 10k for the charity which can only be a good thing...

2003-10-06T15:01:00.000+01:00

An interesting weekend. I was 'promised' a fun evening at my wife's school reunion, which on arrival turned out to be a fundraising social for the Derian House Children's Hospice. Of about 300ish people there (32 tables of between 8 and 10 people) only about 80 were actually either old school chums or their partners or friends, so it wasn't really the huge reunion that I was fearing... still I knew nobody, managed to splash the starter over the hired outfit and couldn't get totally smashed as I was driving back to the outlaws afterwards.

Les Triplettes de Belleville

2003-09-25T11:20:00.000+01:00

Went to see Les Triplettes de Belleville last night with a friend from work. We went because the film is nominally about cycling -- a cyclist in the Tour de France is kidnapped by the French Mafia, but instead we were treated to possibly the wittiest, most entertaining and most charming film we had ever seen in our lives. We were both laughing out loud throughout the entire film, where there are so many funny little touches, little digs at American and French culture (and at French cars), it is impossible not to love this film. Don't let the fact that it is listed as a French language film with no subtitles put you off, between the two of us we probably had about four words of French (and most of those were rude), there is so little dialogue in the film that you won't miss a beat...

Find out where you can see this film as soon as possible and then go and see it, you will not regret the 80 minutes of your life spent in this quirky little French world.

2003-09-22T21:17:00.000+01:00

I'm the 43,187,565 richest person on earth!

Discover how rich you are! >>

2003-09-22T09:40:00.000+01:00

It's so overcomplicated... not satisfied with an email conversation with me (I'm either a 'real' person or a damm clever AI), they are going to phone me this afternoon - what will that prove over and above the email - unless I'm a damm clever AI with a voice processor...

2003-09-21T22:52:00.000+01:00

Why do they have to make tax returns such complete fun... I mean, they've already deducted the bloody tax before I even get to see any of the money, why do they then have to rub my face in it by forcing me to spend hours of my life researching and completing an enormous form just to tell them how much tax they've already bloody well had off me!!!!

It really really really sucks! Another part of my life to add to the list!