Roblog

I just resolved a rather worrisome case of spam in my blog. As opposed to unwanted comments showing up in each entry (which is a manageable problem), There were spam links appearing directly in each blog entry! Specifically, every end-of-paragraph on the page had a spam link added to it.

After much searching, I realized that only the actual outputted HTML pages were affected - the database entries and Movable type code was unaffected. So simply rebuilding the pages fixed it.

But that's very troubling, since that means the actual HTML pages were changed on my site! That implies someone gained access to my files on my web host and changed them. Indeed, when I check the other sections of my webpage, they have the same type of spam inserted in their text!

This is going to take some time to correct, and I have no idea how this happened in the first place. Perhaps I need to change my site's password, if indeed it has been compromised. Still, if my site was compromised like that, I wonder why I didn't see entire pages replaced with spam ads, instead of just adding a small link to the end of each paragraph.

Ah well, for now, I'm going to start cleaning up may pages and making sure I have a clean backup. Wish me luck...

My printer died last week, but not from a usual cause. When we put in a fresh cartridge of black ink, an error message appeared on the printer’s screen saying that a part internal to the printer has exceeded its service lifetime and that Epson service must be called. I am not one to cave in to any piece of computer hardware’s demands, so I did some searching online.

Apparently, this (Epson Stylus Photo RX700) and many other models of Epson printers have a waste ink pad that collects the ink that is cleaned off of the print heads. After a pre-determined number of cleanings, the printer is programmed to report an error so that the waste ink pad can be replaced.

This makes some sense. After all, it won’t do any good cleaning print heads if the cleaning pad is full of ink. But as it was, the printer literally would not print anything until this error was cleared. I tried some tricks that were referenced on various sites I found, but no combination of key presses I tried cleared the error. The printer still refused to function at all. Replacing the waste ink pad was apparently something Epson did not intend for the typical user to do, since it’s not easy to get at and requires special software to reset the internal counter to indicate that the waste pad has been replaced.

So I used the online Epson help page, which advised me to call a (non toll-free) number for service. My wife did this, and got a foreign service desk that had a really bad delay in the line, making it very difficult to have a successful conversation. After struggling through the call, the official recommendation she got was to buy a new printer.

What?!?! “Buy a new printer”? The printer decided to stop working, not because anything was really broken, but because something might become broken someday (maybe) with continued use? And the official response was to buy a new printer? That is ridiculous and unacceptable. Certainly, it’s not uncommon in the computer industry to design a product with “planned obsolescence”, but this was not only planned, but pre-programmed into the printer to have it commit suicide after a set amount of use. I’m still flabbergasted by the whole thing.

My wife got a “loyalty code” from the foreign service representative that supposedly would give us a good discount on another Epson printer. I didn’t even check to see what the discount was. After all, how many cleanings would any other Epson printer allow me before it decided I needed to buy a new printer again?

So I did actually take their advice and bought a new printer. But not an Epson. I got a Canon PIXMA MP980. It’s a really nice printer with all the features I liked in my Epson, and it came with a $100 rebate at the Fry’s I bought it from. It’s slightly smaller, can still scan slides and film, and matches the style of my computer better. It actually has some new features, too, like duplex printing and the ability to print borderless prints from my Mac.

I’m happy with my printer purchase, but my previous good will and good experience with Epson products has disappeared. Right now, I’m not sure I will ever buy another Epson product again.

One of the pictures I took at my daughter’s last swim meet had a really interesting splash effect. Most of the pictures that turn out well have a lot of water splashing and you can recognize who the swimmer is. In this case, it appears that two water drops of about the same size collided in midair to produce a “crown”. Look closely in the upper-left area of this picture and you might see a small water drop that looks like a flower.

http://picasaweb.google.com/glenshiregators/Meet3VsAshtonVillage#5350348430115133794

I’ve seen this effect in pictures where people use strobe lights to try to capture water droplets striking a surface, but I never imagined I’d see this shape at the local pool. Neat!

Continue reading "Accidental Water Drop Crown" »

I’m still really enjoying my DSLR camera (Nikon D60), and I use it at the slightest provocation. So I can’t claim to have been too upset when, while at my daughter’s first practice swim meet, two people separately came up to me to ask if I would be the team’s photographer. I suppose I was the parent that had the most serious-looking camera.

Although I wasn’t looking to be out in the heat for all that long, I was eager to test my photography skills at the swim meets. I asked a lot of questions about what they expected of me: what kinds of pictures do you want (action shots, pictures of individuals), what are you going to do with them (ready for printing, or just online viewing), how should I provide them for use, etc. I needn’t have been so concerned. Previous years were just a few snapshots, and in fact last year there were no pictures of the meets at all.

Logistically, I set myself up quickly to manage the pictures. I created a new iPhoto library for Glenshire Gators photos, and I have the Picasa account to which I can upload the photos. I thought about trying to annotate the photos with the people in them, but I don’t know any of the team members currently, and I doubt I will be able to recognize them in their swim goggles and swim caps. So I’ll just upload the pictures without annotation, but after I’ve cropped and otherwise cleaned-up the pictures.

It’s been going quite well. I end up with about 100 pictures at each meet, and I’m getting better about what looks good. I like getting shots of swimmers just entering the water, and timing pictures of front crawl where you can see their faces are very dramatic when it turns out. Closely cropping the picture is best, too, so I often am at maximum zoom (12x).

You can see how I’ve done by checking out the Picasa page:
http://picasaweb.google.com/glenshiregators/
Any picture from 2009 is one I’ve taken.

Well, we've had our 24" iMac for about 2 weeks, and I'm quite happy with it. The screen is a little larger than our previous 20" model and quite a bit crisper, and it is definitely snappier. We've enjoyed using the built-in iSight camera for cross-country video calls via Skype (although why Skype works and iChat doesn't is still a source of annoyance), and the new slim keyboard is really comfortable to use.

The biggest change, however, is the iLife 09 software that came with it, which is an upgrade from iLife 08 on my previous computer. I'm having a blast with the new Faces and Places features of iPhoto. It also helps that I'm able to use it with pictures taken from my new DSLR (Nikon D60). All my pictures are better with the new camera.

The only challenges I've had with the new system are minor:

• There is only 1 Firewire port, and it's Firewire 800. I had to get an adapter cable to allow it to work with my eyeTV 200.
• iMovie 09 would not launch. I eventually figured out it was an old version of Perian (a Quicktime plug-in) that was causing the problem.

In some ways, my upgrade to this new computer feels less dramatic than the other computer upgrades I've done. After thinking about it for a while I think I've decided it's because the upgrade was so seamless and easy. I was able to plug in my Time Machine backup drive into the new computer, which it used to restore everything from my old computer. This included applications, documents, email messages and settings, even bookmarks. That process took a good 3 hours (even though the last 2 hours of that time the computer displayed "less than a minute remaining"), but it was all hands-free and I had no problems with any of that transfer after it was completed. Wonderful, but maybe a little anticlimactic for the computer nerd in me.

Well, my first 140 pictures with my new Nikon D60 was a rousing success. Although I was initially shocked that the D60 had no live preview, that didn't matter much when I started using the camera. With it, I was able to take pictures with great depth-of-field, some where the timing of the shot was critical (using the low shutter lag of the D60), and where a long optical zoom was helpful. There was one picture where not having the live preview was awkward (taking a close-up picture of a flower), but I didn't miss it any other times.

So the current verdict is that it's a great camera. I'm looking forward to taking many more pictures with my new fancy Nikon D60.

I got my much-anticipated Nikon D60 DSLR yesterday. I was very excited to get it and relished the unboxing and assembly of all the parts: body, lens, camera strap, little viewfinder cover when taking timer or remote shots. Holding it in my hand and just operating the zoom on the lens feels wonderful. I’m really happy that it was delivered to our house in time for my mother-in-law’s 80th birthday get together this weekend. I’m looking forward to getting to learn its many controls and taking some fabulous pictures in Richardson.

The back display was particularly striking. It had a full-screen dashboard of the various settings of the camera, including a visual representation of the aperture and shutter speed. It looks really nifty. But I then quickly realized why those graphics were so impressive, taking up the entire display: the D60 has no live preview, so that I have to look through the viewfinder to frame the shot.

I was dumbfounded. What digital camera doesn’t have a live preview? Isn’t that one of the great advantages of a digital camera – being able to view the picture you are about to take without having to hold the camera up to your eye? Surely the most expensive digital camera I’d ever purchased would have such a basic feature, wouldn’t it?

After some research, the answer is decidedly “no”. Apparently, there are rather tricky technical issues with providing a live-preview in a DSLR that are only recently being overcome, not to mention that it drains the battery very quickly. My father’s Nikon D90 (which is the only DSLR I’ve used for any length of time) is the cheapest Nikon DSLR to offer it, and it is twice the price of the Nikon D60. There are other DSLRs to offer live-preview, but it’s by no means a standard feature.

So I’m working on getting over that shock. I have to get back in the mindset of my old film-based SLR, which obviously had no live preview. Compared to that, this DSLR is exquisite. I’m sure it will help once I start getting some results out of the new camera. I’m fully expecting the pictures it takes to be wonderful. I need to get over it - with a computer purchase looming in our near future, I don’t see upgrading to a D90 just yet. Maybe someday. Of course, by the time that “someday” comes around, I suspect there will be other options that will make both the D60 and D90 look rather outdated.

It looks like the "shutdown bug" that has plagued my iMac in the past has returned. I suspect we won't be as lucky as we have been in getting it repaired for free, so the only way to fix it for good would be to get it replaced. Quite frankly, after almost 5 years, it's about time to get an upgrade anyway.

We looked into the available iMacs (which are pretty sweet, by the way), but we just can't afford one right at this moment. Once our 2008 tax refund gets here, we'll be in better position to get one (with Donna's U of H student discount!), but right now, it's not possible.

I have a theory, though, that keeping the iMac cool will help reduce the sudden shutdown problem. So this weekend, I experimented with keeping an ice pack just under the air intake of the iMac. It did indeed slow the fan down (the speed varies depending on the internal temperature), but it's hard to say if that prevented a sudden shutdown. So far, it's happened twice since Friday, but not at all since I started using the ice-cooling method.

I just placed my order for my first digital SLR camera. I am really excited! My budget was $1500, and for that I got:
- Nikon D60 body
- Nikon AF-S 18-200mm lens
- Wireless remote shutter release
- Extra battery
- UV filter (to protect the lens)
- Video cable

This is shortly after my Dad's visit, during which he let me play with his ultra-fancy Nikon D90 (with multiple copies of most accessories). I took some pictures just during the 4 days I got to use it that I could not have taken with my existing digital camera (which is held together with rubber bands):
- Using low shutter lag to take pictures exactly when I want to: Elena twirling, Amanda twirling
- Using the optic of the zoom lens to get a nice depth-of-field: Amanda hunting Easter eggs

So hopefully, next week, I'll be enjoying my new Nikon D60. I can't wait!

Today marks the end of the two days off I took between projects.

Continue reading "Two Days Off" »