closedsrc.org

For a while now, I have published some of my photos up on Picasa and have been relatively happy with how it presents albums and photos. The workflow that I went through to upload photos to Picasa included exporting pictures through ViewNX to a separate folder, Picasa would index the photos, then I would create and upload albums. I didn't new any other features of Picasa and decided to look for other publishing options.

Recently, Digital Photography Review announced a new section to their site: user galleries. After looking at the user interface and the features available, I decided to switch their gallery service for all new photos and albums. In doing this, it helps simplify the upload, sorting and tagging process. For the time being, there is no way to add comments to photos or albums. I hope that this feature is added in the future, either for free or paid accounts.

The new photos and albums can be viewed by going to: Photo Albums (dpreview).

As mentioned in my last blog post, I have taken a step into the world of manual focus lenses (not only for cost, but also for the capability of both lenses). I have taken it a step further and picked up a Lensbaby Composer for my D300.

I have always been fascinated with macro and architectural photography, even more so by pictures with unique exposures and compositions that focused on only the subject. Of those photos, some were taken with various Lensbaby lenses and optics... so when the opportunity arose, I decided to order the Composer and the Lensbaby Accessory Kit. The Accessory Kit includes a macro kit, a telephoto/wide-angle kit.

I am currently learning how to use the lens and will hopefully have some fruitful pictures that I'll post online. I will hopefully be able to get the Soft Focus Optic and the Lensbaby Optic Kit, once I am comfortable with the Composer.

When I entered the world of digital photography, I started with a Nikon AF-S 18-200mm DX VR lens and a D300 body. Over the course of a year, I've expanded my lens collection to include several more Nikon lenses (AF-S 50mm f/1.4G, AF-S 105mm f/2.8 VR Micro, AF-S 70-300mm VR, AF-S 35mm f/1.8 DX and an AF 85mm f/1.8) and a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8. I also ended up selling the 18-200mm lens, as I decided that I liked the quality, size and simplicity of prime lenses.

As I wrote in a previous post, "Attributions and Plagiarism", someone had ripped of my "HOWTO - Limiting Access to TCP-wrapped Services with hosts.allow" article and posted it on their site. I was trying to find a way to contact the blog owner and got a link to a DMCA takedown form for Blogger.

Even though I do not like how the DMCA came into being, nor do I think it is the way to truly handle copyright infringement and to stop piracy, it was the only method of trying to complain about the blog post. So I submitted a DMCA takedown request to Blogger several weeks ago and, today, received an e-mail stating that Blogger had removed the infringing post.

I just wanted to say that I'm glad that Blogger takes copyright infringement seriously and that I appreciate the action that they took.

As you may know, working with tight budgets can sometimes lead to very interesting solutions. The company that I work for has over 30 retail locations and several branch offices that connect back to the corporate network using point-to-point T1 or broadband connections. The connection speed is a major concern and with the demand of data and network services increases, a need for a branch office server became apparent.

One of the options that had been considered was to use a local Windows XP workstation to be a file/print server, but the restriction of a maximum of 10 concurrent connections was a significant issue. And since the company is primarily a Microsoft shop, the option of deploying Windows Server 2008 at each location would be nice... except it meant spending a lot of money on licenses alone.

The other option that I was thinking about was to load up a system with Ubuntu Server 8.04 LTS and use Samba and CUPS for file and print services. The next piece was trying to choose what type of hardware to deploy as the branch office server. At first, I was looking at a small desktop model from Dell, but power consumption and physical size was a big concern. So I remembered a model that Dell was marketing as a flexible, smart desktop that would fit between a thin client and a normal desktop. The model in question is a Dell OptiPlex 160, which uses an Intel Atom processor (single or dual-core) and can take either a standard hard drive or a flash module. So I decided to get a demo unit from Dell and started the process of loading Ubuntu Server on it and documented the build process. So far, the demo unit has been working perfectly, barely gets warm under heavy load and sips power.

In the meantime, I have cleaned up the document and re-wrote it for public consumption and it is available at: http://static.closedsrc.org/articles/ubuntu-lts-optiplex160.html

Along with the new article, I decided to relocate the existing articles that I wrote for Dæmon News to a new location, http://static.closedsrc.org/articles/.

In the days of blatent copyright infringement and plagiarism, it does not surprise me that people decide to copy content from articles and not include any form of attribution or link back to the original article. Well, I just ran across such a case when going through the Google Webmaster Tools results for my site.

Someone decided to copy and paste the text of my "HOWTO - Limiting Access to TCP-wrapped Services With hosts.allow" article that I wrote for the June 2002 release of Daemon News e-zine. The person decided to not include the original author, much less the copyright text.

It may seem like a victimless crime, but damn... where is the decency in citing your sources?

Here is the link to the plagiarized copy of my article: http://boilinglinux.blogspot.com/2008/05/setting-up-hostsallow.html

Unfortunately, the plagiarizer does not have any direct means of contact, only way is through posting comments.

You may have noticed that the design of the site has changed. I finally upgraded the content management software that powers this website. With a new version comes a new look and several changes to the site's functionality.

The new look is due to the software's new skinning templates and coding requirements, which rendered the last skin unusable. Instead of trying to modify the previous theme, I decided to use a custom theme and modified it even further.

Another change to the site is that the site now uses reCAPTCHA on some of the forms on the site, in hopes to reduce (if not prevent) comment spam or false user registrations.

Over the next several months, I will be looking into building a brand new site. The site may or may not have a conventional blog or the fancy features as this site... or it might. I don't know as I have not decided in which direction to go yet.

A couple of co-workers and I decided to tackle Salvador Molly's Great Balls of Fire challenge. The challenge is to eat five habanero fritters and a small bowl of habanero salsa. I tried a mini version of the challenge two weeks ago (tried three fritters and salsa) and finished it in under three minutes.

Out of the five guys that wanted to try the challenge, four manned up to the challenge and completed it (including myself). I decided to chug the salsa at the beginning to get it out of the way, and chowed down on the five fritters in about three minutes. I had a mango smoothee to quell some of the heat afterwards.

So, if you are ever by Hillsdale and stop by Salvador Molly's, you can check out my picture on the right wall, to the left of the kitchen door.

Being a fan of the NPR program, Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, and knowing that one of their live tapings would fall on my birthday (this past Thursday), I sent an e-mail to NPR trying to be picked as a listener that could get Carl Kasell's voice on my voice mail.

Well, I was one of the listeners that was selected, but instead of answering at least two of three news questions or limericks correctly, or to try to find the true story in the Bluff the Listener round... I was selected for the Not My Job segment (of which the chances of winning isn't very good) with tennis legend Monica Seles. Unfortunately, Monica came up with goose eggs when trying to answer questions about the Guinness Brewing Company.

So... I won't be getting Carl Kasell's voice on my voice mail this time (which would have been great as a birthday present, of sorts). Instead, for the consolation prize, I get my name mentioned on the show by both Carl and Monica.

My adventure into the world of digital SLR photography officially kicked off around four weeks ago when I placed an order for a Nikon D300 digital SLR camera with a Nikkor 18-200mm DX VR lens; of which came from a couple of months of pondering and researching cameras, such as: a Canon 450D, 40D and 50D cameras and Nikon D90 and D300.

Ever since getting the camera, I have been learning as much as I can about photography in general and taking many, many pictures. Many didn't turn out too well, many were blurred due to not keeping the camera still enough (I don't have a tripod or monopod for it yet, that will be my next investment), and there were the random gems.

Then... there are those photos that were born out of pure curiosity and experimentation. I have posted some of those photos on Picasa. More successful (and several failed) experiments will be uploaded over time. I will also be posting additional albums as they seem fit.

Speaking of Picasa, while I use Picasa 3.0 to caption and sync photos with my web albums, I use the included Nikon ViewNX to tweak and export the photos as JPEG or TIFF files. It is nice that Picasa 3.0 supports the Nikon NEF format (which is the only format that I currently shoot, uncompressed at 12-bit), but it just does not provide the same level as photo tweaking compared to ViewNX.

As with any hobby in photography, a camera body and one lens is not enough. Over time, I plan on adding new lenses to my collection. I have posted the lenses that I am considering on one of my Amazon wish lists.

Just wanted to post up a short update to the list of depressing songs.

While listening through my collection of Dan Wilson and Semisonic albums and singles, the song "I Wish" from "All About Chemistry" hit me pretty hard. The following part of the song tends to make me feel like I'm imploding:

I wish I could turn into somebody far, far away
I wish I could make myself satisfactory in every way
I wish I could know whether you really know what you need
If I could only be somebody else
I wouldn't be myself
And maybe you'd want me

The other song comes from the first soundtrack from the new series of Doctor Who called "Madame de Pompadour". The instrumental plays very well towards the end of the episode in which the Doctor tries to return for the Madame, but she passed away between visits.

That's about it for now...

Yeah, it has been a while since I have posted an update on the site.

Recently, I decided to learn how to write documentation using the LaTeX typesetting system in order to avoid the hassles of word processing systems or dealing with minute styles and formatting. Instead, I get to focus on writing and structuring documents.

Even though I have not used LaTeX to typeset technical documents yet, I decided to use it to typeset a short, introspective story that I am writing about the enigma that has been my life. So far, LaTeX has been quite simple to use and has given me a chance to think more of what to write and remember (or not want to remember in some cases).

As far as the story, it is a long-term project which I will post portions and/or drafts regularly. The resultant story will be released under an appropriate Creative Commons license (I have yet to decide on which one to use).

More updates to follow.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I purchased a Slim Devices Squeezebox (version 3) a couple of weeks ago as a way to get music from my file server out to my living room. Before purchasing the Squeezebox, I connected an iPod dock to my receiver and used one of my iPods to play music. The three biggest problems with that setup is that I had to walk over to the iPod to skip or repeat songs or change playlists (the cost of a newer dock and a remote was not worth the cost), it was impossible to see what song was playing from any other spot than standing in front of it, and the iPod does not natively play Ogg Vorbis or FLAC audio tracks.

Having been blue over the past several days, it gave me a chance to expand the list of depressing songs and why I find them depressing. The new additions include:

• Matchbox Twenty: Unwell and Bed of Lies
• Lifehouse: Everything

As well as a couple of songs by Barenaked Ladies.

Now that I have a Squeezebox in the living room, it is much easier to queue up depressing songs on-demand. At this point, I do not know if that is a blessing or a curse. (by the way, a brief review of the device is coming up in the next week or two.)

Ever since I was a kid, I love watching PBS on the local station, OPB. I can remember watching everything from Square One, 3-2-1 Contact, Hometime, various high-school and college math courses (which would explain my elementary school years), and Doctor Who.

But, if there was one thing that would always spook me out was at the end of several shows. It all starts off with a black screen, then came a flash of orange and some odd, loud and electric sound that fluctuated... it was the WGBH identification and stinger. Not only that, but the next thing I would see is a picture of some forest with the words "Portland Nursery". For a long time, I would immediately switch channels when either would come up, mostly when it lead to the introduction sequence for "Mystery!"

Back to the present, I now am anxious and sometimes excited to see and hear the WGBH identification and stinger, mostly after watching "Frontline". The experience is even better on a large screen with the speakers turned up.