Playing with Fire

Juggling with fire torches at the first Turku christmas market weekend 2010.









All photos shot with Canon 7D and EF 50mm f/1.4 USM

A Crown of Candles

Saint Lucy's Day celebration in Turku 2010 with Annica Sigfrids as St. Lucy.







All photos shot with Canon 7D and CANON EF 70-200/2.8 L IS USM II

Read-only directory in Windows XP

Yesterday I had to make a read-only directory in Windows XP. Surprisingly this was the apparently the first time. As Windows has for a long time been marketed as easy to use, compared to e.g. Linux, because the user does not need to write cryptic commands on the command-line but use graphical tools I assumed this to be an easy task.
So, how to make a read-only directory/folder in Windows XP?

Well, not like this:


But like this (Using PowerShell as Command Prompt is not powerful enough):

$acl = get-acl .\readonlyDir
$rule=new-object System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemAccessRule("MY-DESKTOP\username","CreateDirectories","Deny")
$acl.SetAccessRule($rule)
$rule=new-object System.Security.AccessControl.FileSystemAccessRule("MY-DESKTOP\username","CreateFiles","Deny")
$acl.AddAccessRule($rule)
set-acl .\readonlyDir $acl

Since I'm not a Windows expert my solution is probably not optimal so I gladly accept easier ways to make a read-only directory.

Autumn Rain

Squirrel - Ekorre - Orava

Nyckelpiga - Leppäkerttu - Ladybug

View from a window in HDR

View from a window in HDR

Dandelions - Maskrosor - Voikukkia

Dandelions - Maskrosor - Voikukkia

Light, Dark, Thorny, Fragile

Memorial day - De stupades dag - Kaatuneiden päivä 2010

Ubuntu 10.04, Thunderbird and a 24-hour clock

I'll cut straight to the point and spare the philosophical pondering to the end.

To make Thunderbird in Ubuntu display dates (and time) in ISO 8601 you need to do is:

sudo nano /etc/default/locale

on the command line and add the following line to the file:

LC_TIME="en_DK.utf8"

That's it.

Now to my rant.
Why is this so difficult, it shouldn't be needed to touch the command line to make this change?
Why can't the locale en_DK.utf8 (English as they speak in Denmark) be named something better?
Why can't you Americans use a 24 hour day(and night)? You don't even have a word for it like e.g. Swedish dygn or Finnish vuorokausi which both mean a 24-hour period.
Don't even get me started on the dates, 4/5/2010 and 4/5/2010 is it April 5:th or May 4:th, how about trying to update the date Blogger displayed, 5/5/10, from the fifth to the seventh!?

And don't forget Letter vs. A4, but I'll save that for another time.

Voddler - Ambitious but disappointing

I was pleasantly surprised when a Voddler invitation arrived to my inbox. After trying it out I had some mixed feelings about the service and decided to write this review. Voddler is a commercial VOD (video-on-demand) service (still in beta) with a similar concept as Spotify, but with the difference that Spotify does music while Voddler does movies/video.

After a short registration process I was given the opportunity to download the client. Sadly there were only versions for Windows and OSX. The installation went smoothly with the 15.5MB windows installer, but I found it bit annoying that during the installation process the installer started to download an additional 15MB package, apparently it was the Adobe AIR installer. The only way to start the player is by choosing a movie from the Voddler webpage, this even if the player is installed locally and the movies are cached on disk.

Sadly this is the point where things start to go downhill.

At the time of writing there were only 45 movies available, 20 free and the rest 25 costing between 2 to 4 euros. I understand that Voddler is still in beta, but this is a huge problem. People have more then 45 DVD:s at home and this is supposed to be a VOD service. It will also be interesting to know if the users are actually willing to pay for the movies or just watch the free ones. I doubt that the current model will work. To succeed Voddler needs to make all the content free, sponsored with commercials, and to have a premium service with a (monthly) subscription fee, just like Spotify.

It's interesting that the Voddler front page has an ad that state they have both Toy Story and Toy Story 2 available, well I didn't find them. I chose to watch, a for me totally unknown movie as most of them were, Wolfhound.

Besides the company related information the Voddler web pages only contain the content list and the possibility to edit your user account. This is good because it is all that is really needed. Please keep it that way. The user account page includes the payment settings to pay for content with credit cards. The web pages work fine except for some strange lag/glitch in the movie list filtering (Premium/Free checkboxes).

The player itself seemed to work surprisingly well. The UI was clean and simplistic. Jumping to an arbitrary location was slow by this was not Voddlers fault (see below). Stopping the player and then restarting it, made the player ask me if I wish to resume from the previous location, how nice of it. The player defaults to full-screen, but works in windowed mode too. Subtitles work and the language can be changed during playback. The player includes the ability to play video at a lower resolution, this is useful on slower hardware.

Sadly my slow Intel Atom N280 based laptop and slow internet connection made the movie unwatchable. This because of lots of lagging and buffering, but that is definitely not Voddlers fault. Also to be honest, the movie seemed quite boring.

Voddler doesn't seem technically too bad (except for the missing Linux client), but they need content, content and more content.

So, just to summarize, Voddler - Ambitious but disappointing.

In the right place at the right time with the wrong lens

Well, almost. I was going to shoot the annual TS-kortteliajot bicycle race in Turku but missed the start and chose the wrong lenses. I really could have used my 10-22 or fisheye lens to get some low ultrawide shots. Luckily my Canon EF-s 17-85 is pretty versatile in bright conditions. However what I really missed and doesn't have was a fast fast-focusing tele zoom lens. I'm thinking of a 70-200 2.8 USM lens. The race took place over a week ago but I only now got time to write a blog entry.

Anyway below are a few shots, and the Picasaweb gallery with the all the shots is here.

Springtime

Some classic/typical spring shots.

Fascination with death

Even if most people nowadays have been somewhat alienated from death we are every now and then reminded of it. People seem to have an strange fascination with death, humans always have. People in the pictures seem strangely curios but at the same time indifferent. I apparently belong to this group of people since I took photographs of the event.



The photos display a, at the time of writing, Jane Doe drowning victim found in the Aura River in Turku Finland 10 Apr 2010. A sad end to an otherwise nice spring day.

Sometimes things take an unexpected turn. This event led me to an really strange but interesting journey.

Uusi Myllysilta avoimella lähdekoodilla

Turun Myllysillan notkahtaminen on tuonut Turussa ja muualla Suomessa esille ennennäkemättömän määrän silta-asiantuntijoita. Valtaosa näistä asiantuntijoista voidaan jakaa kahteen ryhmään, uuden sillan kannattajiin ja vastustajiin. Vastustajat käsittääkseni haluavat korjata vanhan sillan. Puhe on halpaa ja teot ratkaisevat joten nyt olisi hyvä hetki jokaisen asiantuntijan tehdä omat konkreettiset suunnitelmat. Itse kuulen uuden sillan kannattajiin joten oli luonnollista tarttua tuumasta toimeen ja yrittää saada uudesta sillasta jokin hahmotelma.

Maantiesillan suunnittelu onnistuu helposti esim. PGSuper ohjelmalla. Ohjelma perustuu tietysti avoimen lähdekoodin ja on ilmainen. Neuvoja ohjelman käytöstä löytyy tältä sivulta, ja ohjelman saa haettua taas tältä sivulta. Ikävä kyllä ohjelmasta löytyy vain Windows versio.

Kyseisellä ohjelmalla ei kylläkään suunnitella mitään arkkitektonista taideteosta, mutta yksinkertaisen betonisen palkkisillan maanpäällisten osuuksien suunnittelu ja lujuuslaskenta onnistuu ohjelmalla erinomaisesti. Kaikkeen se oss pystyykin :)

Myllysillan esim. Wikipediasta löytyvät nykyiset mitat ja liikennemäärät kannattaa käyttää lähtökohtana.

P.S. Kuvassa Myllysilta 3.4.2010. Lisää kuvia löytyy seuraavista gallerioista: uudemmat ja vanhemmat kuvat.

Ice breakup in moving pictures

My first short film shot with the Canon 7D and Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 USM IS. For editing I used Kdenlive. The picture is a bit shaky because of the lack of a tripod, also the focus might be a bit off. But all in all I'm quite happy with the 7D video capabilities. More videos to come.

Ice Breakup, Daffodils and a Bending Bridge

Some easter photos taken by the river Aura.







More photos here.

Spotify, Wine and a Karmic Koala

I finally took the time to investigate the choppy sound problems with Spotify running under Wine on Ubuntu 9.10 (2.6.31-20-generic). A numerous different explanations and solutions to the problem can be found online, but the only one that worked for me was the following.


In the winecfg tool Audio tab select EsounD Driver and for the DirectSound Hardware Acceleration select Emulation.

That's it, no more choppy sound.

You can fly or sail, but you can't hide

Have you seen a plane high up in the sky or a ship far away at the horizon and wondered where it might be heading? I recently stumbled on two websites that make it possible to find out.

Real-time tracking of airplanes is provided by http://www.flightradar24.com/ and a similar service for ships is provided by http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/.

Both services project tracking data on Google maps. The flight tracker utilizes ADS-B data while the ship tracker uses AIS data.

Fisheye landscapes or: How I broke the rule.

Two landscape HDR photos shot with the 8mm Samyang fisheye. The key to somewhat distortion free landscape shots with a fisheye lens, without post processing, is to place the horizon dead center in the middle of the frame.

Sun still obeying the rule
(Canon 7D, Samyang 8mm, HDR)

Complete disregard of the rule
(Canon 7D, Samyang 8mm, HDR)

Photos from a fisheye perspective

First publishable shots taken with my new Samyang 8mm 3.5 fisheye lens.
Lets start with a self portrait:

Me at the fridge
(Canon 7D, Samyang 8mm)

Wide
(Canon 7D, Samyang 8mm, HDR)

Cropped bridge shot
(Canon 7D, Samyang 8mm)

Backup, Wipe, Reinstall...

and bang your head against the wall when you notice what you forgot to backup important data.

Backup, Wipe, Reinstall is a procedure that I have come accustomed to at every new project I start with. Also I'm slowly learning what to backup and what not. But however careful I am, I usually forget to back up something.

Normally a full backup is the best solution, but in a work environment the point of the reinstall is to destroy sensitive customer data. The important thing is to separate the customer data from your personal/company data. The checklist below should be helpful, or at least it should give some kind of direction to what kind of data is worth to save. The size of the data listed below is very small and can easily be stored on e.g. a USB memory. But please remember to store the backup safely and preferably encrypt it. For easy and safe encryption I personally use TrueCrypt.

Backup checklist:

• Web browser bookmarks. Remember, you might using more then one browser.
  
• Mail address book.
• Mailbox settings.
  
• PGP keys, both your private and the keys you have collected.
• VPN keys.
• All non project related documents.
  

Something blue at the bottom

The chocolate bar at the bottom of the package was a really nice surprise. Keep up the good work CyberPhoto.

Something blue at the bottom.
(Photo taken with Canon 7D + Samyang 8mm Fish-eye lens )

Posten mot / vastaan Matkahuolto

Ett paket från Umeå till Åbo med svenska Posten och finska Matkahuolto.
Yksi paketti Uumajasta Turkuun ruotsin Postin sekä suomen Matkahuollon kanssa.

Matkahuoltos bild av paketets händelser / Matkahuollon kuva paketin tapahtumista:


Svenska postens bild av paketets händelser / Ruotsin postin kuva paketin tapahtumista:


Slutsats / Johtopäätös: Svenska posten vet bättre om vad matkahuolto sysslar med än vad matkahuolto själv gör. / Ruotsin posti tietää paremmin matkahuollon toiminnasta kuin mitä matkahuolto itse.

P.s. Det kan bero på att matkahuoltos websidor och informations-system kunde vara i behov av en updatering. / Saattaa myös johtua matkahuollon websivujen sekä tietojärjestelmien päivityksen tarpeesta.

P.p.s. Jag är inte arg, jag vill bara ha mitt Samyang 8 mm f/3.5 Aspherical IF MC Fish-eye objektiv och börja fotografera. / En ole vihainen, haluan vain saada tilaamani Samyang 8 mm f/3.5 Aspherical IF MC Fish-eye objektiivin ja alkaa kuvamaan sillä.

Snow, Sun and Planes

Brought to you in HDR

Winter Panorama

Panorama taken In Åbo/Turku 11.1.2010.



P.S. Note the other photographers in the picture.

More HDR

B&W Winter

Canon 7D Winter Landscape

First HDR images taken with my Canon 7D.

Photo-blogging

Let's try some photo-blogging.
These are two autumn HDR images taken with a Canon 400D and processed with Qtpfsgui.

Autumn Water

Autumn Leaves