So I was at Focus on Imaging 2005 yesturday in Birmingham NEC - it's a yearly photographic show, with a pretty strong emphasis on digital imaging and printing. You can check out my (cool) pictures and show report at digicamreview.co.uk

Using an SLR Camera without a light-meter.

Using an SLR Camera without a light-meter, okay, so I bought a £5 SLR camera from the 60s or 70s, the russian Zenit B - it's the budget version of the Zenit E, the E has a built in light meter, the Zenit B has no such luxury. So I could buy a light-meter, but I'm being a cheap skate, especially when it comes to a cheap £5 film camera (when I've got a digital I can use most of the time), but light meter's are pretty expensive (at least £10! - twice the price of the SLR I bought in the first place!).

So I did a quick search, and found this guy, wrote up a big explanation on how to "guess-timate" the correct shutter/aperture setting based on your general weather condition. You can read it by clicking the read more button... (I would have linked to the original post but it only exists in Google's cache)

(i've hopefully enabled the ability to have really long posts here, but it only display a top section, with a link to the bottom section, as explained here)
...Many times I don't use one ... and just use this method

EV (exposure value) ... An exposure system used on some rangefinder cameras

EV (Exposure Value) based on a number usually from 2 to 18. When the EV is set, one merely has to rotate the coupled aperture/speed ring on the lens to adjust for either the speed or aperture desired, and any setting along that ring will (should) produce the correct exposure . The system is so easy to use that you really don't need the meter to work (they don't work on many vintage rangefinders) ... on my Minolta Hi-Matic 7s for example the scale is on the right side of the viewfinder, the lower the number (5.7 in my case) corrosponds to a low light reading ... It goes to #17 for a bright reading #14 is the reading I might get on an overcast day (#14 is just above the middle of the scale) ... It's pretty easy to guesstimate" your EV (even without the meter) ...

Estimating Exposure (sunny day)

Sometimes an exposure must be estimated due to a camera not having a built-in meter, not having a hand-held meter, or a meter malfunction (e.g., dead batteries/not working). Even if an estimate is not required, at least understanding approximately what an exposure should be is a sanity check of your camera (or hand-held) metering technique. All the sophisticated automated exposure electronics now incorporated into camera bodies does not mean the photographer should leave his brain in the camera bag. The following is a method for estimating exposure. With a little practice and experience one can be fairly accurate with it. Indeed, before meters were built into nearly all camera bodies, this is what nearly all photographers used! A hand-held meter was considered by many to be an expensive, cumbersome extravagance; they didn't need it or want to bother with it. Kodak still publishes outdoor daylight exposure guidelines based on this method in its film data sheets.
Outdoor Daylight

This is commonly known as the "Sunny f/16 Rule." On a bright sunny day with average subject illumination by direct sun (sun not obscured by clouds, trees, etc.) a proper exposure can be made by setting the aperture to f/16 and the shutter speed to 1 /125. Thus, with ISO 100 film under these conditions, f/16 @ 1/125th will get a proper exposure.

@ISO (film speed) =100

f/16 @ 1/125th f/11 @ 1/250th f/8 @ 1/500th f/5.6 @ 1/1000th

@ISO (film speed) =200

f/16 @ 1/250 f/11 @ 1/500 f/8 @ 1/1000

@ISO (film speed) =400

f/16 @ 1/500 f/11 @ 1/1000

Estimating Exposure (various conditions)

Not every day or situation will be under direct, unobscured sun, or the subject may be very bright water, beach sand, or snow. What then? The Sunny f/16 Rule can be adjusted for these situations:

+1 EV:= +1f/stop or +1 shutter speed ... light sand or snow
0 EV:= no change needed .............. bright or strong hazy sun (distinct, sharp shadows)
-1 EV:= -1f/stop or -1 shutter speed ... weak hazy sun (soft shadows; distinct sun outline in clouds)
-2 EV:= -2f/stop or -2 shutter speed ... cloudy bright (no shadows; sun creates bright area in clouds)
-3 EV:= -3f/stop or -3 shutter speed ... heavy overcast, but not "black" (no shadows; sun location cannot be determined)
-3 EV:= -3f/stop or -3 shutter speed ... open shade (in shadow but 60% sky not obscured)
-4 EV:= -4f/stop or -4 shutter speed ... deep shade (in shadow with obscured sky; under forest canopy

Now that you have the formula down ... understand that you can use any combination, of f/stop (aperture) or shutter speed as long as it equals the TOTAL plus or minus number ...

EXAMPLE...

Lets say it's an overcast day, and you have 400 ISO (speed) film, the "Sunny f/16 Rule" would have you set the exposure at f/16 @ 1/500 ... But you "guesstimate" that you need a TOTAL of minus 3 (to adjust to the light conditions)... on either the f/stop or shutter speed ... You could drop 2 f/stops and 1 shutter speed (the 2 and 1 equals 3) ... so your setting would be f/8 with a shutter speed of 250. The TOTAL is -3 ... IF you were using the EV method on an old rangefinder camera f/16 @ 1/500 is 17 on the EV scale ... f/8 @1/250 is 14 on the EV scale ... or minus 3.

ebay bad peepay good

ebay bad peepay* good: "Ebay's automated bidding system can pit bidders against themselves, a class action suit claims. As a result of its improper bidding arrangement, eBay buyers pay inflated prices for their goods, eBay receives larger transaction fees and eBay's financial subsidiary PayPal gets extra revenues, according to the suit filed in California Superior Court in Santa Clara, Calif., on behalf of lead plaintiff Glenn Block."

*peepay's this imaginary thing i just made up, it's like ebay, but with much lower comission, like 1% comission which all goes to me. (sounds like nochex classifieds, except the money goes to nochex instead)

HP are also bad. some woman's suing them for making their cartridges die before they're actually dead.

potential digital camera bargains on ebay: Casio QV2900 ux digital camera (2mp, 8x optical) damaged nikon (2mp, 3x optical) damaged olympus (3mp, 3x optical)

mac mentalists at work macking mental looking macs

Birthday Social

Birthday Social
When? Thursday 3rd March
Where? Alton Towers!
Basically arrival time should be 10.30am according to Multi-Map.
You can keep up to date here.

DIY Home Security

DIY Home Security - a handy guide on how to setup your webcam as a home security system that will detect motion and can email/ftp the images to some other place (so that if your webcam got nicked, you'd have a copy of the images someplace safe).

(further to this: why is windows 2000 so crap when it comes to usb devices, for example, i plug my webcam into the front usb socket, it wants the drivers to be reinstalled, i point it to where it's already got the drivers installed (because i've installed it previously), and it installs, then i decide i actually want to plug the thing into the back usb sockets - and it asks for the drivers AGAIN!!! they are already there!!! GRRR!!!)

"In Mexico a US company was forced out of business after setting up a “sweatshop” in which peasants played games around the clock, earning in-game credits that were auctioned at a profit on eBay."

Poor little mexicans having to play games all day. Some people dream of that job.

EmpireDirect.co.uk Electrical Goods - Sin SX511 Digital Camera 5m Pix 3x Optical Zoom

5megapixel, 3x optical zoom. price: £70. don't know if it's real 5mp or interpolated, but that's flippin cheap, even if it is only a real 3mp cam. dunno. EmpireDirect.co.uk Electrical Goods - Sin SX511 Digital Camera 5m Pix 3x Optical Zoom

top 100 gadgets - again.
(comments didn't work on my browser)
so just to spoil the top 100 gadgets for you, the top 5 were
mobile phone, remote control, laptop, walkman and a mouse.
- but I guess that there are loads of interesting devices in the list, and more than one laptop gets a mention, so yeah, intersting, you don't realise when / how recently things have been invented.

top 100 gadgets of all time

http://www.mobilepcmag.com/features/2005_03/top100gadgets.html

ebay - carrier bags:
Asda, cheap
tesco, 1998
sainsburys, cheap
asda, expensive! (but nice marketing)
gateway, possibly rare
brown, paper, quality

Sony 'Cell' processor - 4Ghz

Sony 'Cell' processor - 4Ghz

slashdot
ehomeupgrade
There have been some news stories based on the announcement by IBM and Sony of the plans for the Cell processor. It was suggested that this thing would run at 4ghz and be the sort of processor that is included in TVs and other systems that need to deal with streams of video data / and games consoles. (hey why else do average homes need such power? - hence its aimed at the mass market)
There have been some suggestions that it would do serious damage to the intel / microsoft monopoly, but I guess I'd ignore such foolish talk.
I was just wondering though.. 4ghz sounds really incredibly quick. I wonder whether IBM are overhyping their product, as 0.6nm doesn't really exist yet as a fabrication process.. and the schedule for release is probably going to slip..
So:
1. Will the first cell processors released (ie; IBM workstation for sub $1000 / or sony ps3 ) really run at over 2.5ghz?
2. Will this happen before the release of windows 'longhorn'
3. Will it happen before 2006?
4. As ms are good at producing editions for 'other' processors eg; itanium, alpha, powerpc (under virtual pc for mac), will MS produce a WINdows Cell Edition? (WINCE)

Anyone got any thoughts?
- Seems the manufacturers are pretty confident of 4ghz and upward speeds.. Sounds alot like a powerpc (g3 ish) with 8 slightly more independant floaty point units (similar to a very efficient DSP), so you could set 4 processors doing RGB transparency mixing on multiple streams of signal and then use another 4 processors for surround sound FX processing and then the main processor to wait for remote control interrupts.

Here comes Internet Explorer Version 7

Keralanext.com: "Microsoft Corp. will release a new version of Internet Explorer (IE7), the world's most widely used Web browsing software, with stronger, built-in security features, chairman Bill Gates said on Tuesday." Expected in Summer. Google are also rumoured to be thinking about released their own browser based on Mozilla FireFox.

Serial burglar caught on webcam

Serial burglar caught on webcam: "Park kindly provided a clear image of his face during the burglary. A house burglar was caught after a webcam on the owner's computer recorded images of him carrying out the raid."

BBC NEWS | Technology | Apple attacked over sources row

BBC NEWS | Technology | Apple attacked over sources row: "Apple attacked over sources row. Apple is angry about alleged product leaks. Civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has joined a legal fight between three US online journalists and Apple." Lots of aggressive words in this article, such as 'attacked', 'angry', and 'fight'.

37% of spyware not detected.

37% of spyware not detected. - giant (MS) antispyware, will detect 63% of spyware, ad-aware se will detect 47% of spyware, spybot will detect only 33% of spyware!

"The fact that anti-adware products fail to remove all or even most adware components has been an open secret among security professionals for some time. For this reason, tech writers often say, "You should install two different programs and run both of them for maximum protection.""

they go on to say that you should "Use Giant AntiSpyware (or install the MS beta), Webroot Spy Sweeper, and CWShredder." and "For prevention, install IE-SPYAD and Spyware Blaster."

and that generally: "Every PC needs the following six components for protection against hacker attacks, both from the Internet and from within your company or home."

1. Hardware firewall
2. Software firewall (eg zonealarm)
3. Antivirus (eg mcafee, avg, panda etc)
4. Antispam (eg Cloudmark Safetybar)
5. Antiadware (eg Giant AntiSpyware or Microsoft AntiSpyware beta, Webroot Spy Sweeper, CWShredder (use all))
6. Update management*

(*basically patch windows, and other stuff, although the article they linked to didn't explain what you should / shouldn't do and wasn't very helpful really)

I've setup a poll here asking 'how secure is your pc?'

Apple like to still make computers that contain G4 processors. Surprisingly, the performance of these is not too bad - link
- Its been said that a same speed G4 can out-perform a G5. Luckily G5 goes from 1.6ghz to 2.4ish, but it does explain why the powerbook g4 1.67 exists. Anyway, you can overclock your mini if you like (and apple could one day release a dual processor 1.6 machine)

lots of cool stuff

LOTS of cool stuff:
self-stirring cup. link.
3d atari cosmos game. expensive
3d video camcorder. it's big.
small pcs like mini macs. multi-coloured.
very cool touch screen 21" draw on it.
24" tft by dell with built in card reader widescreen.
lots of polygons games mobile phone from LG.

plus these built in comments can be made into pop-up comments. details

who are hi5? and sms.ac?

who are hi5 and sms.ac? hi5 appear to be good at sending multiple emails to people who don't want them*, and sms.ac also seem to be very good at sending multiple emails inviting you to join their network, from people that you know and also people that you don't know. (for example, I've recieved 3 invites from one person I don't know, and 3 from someone I do know).

* hi5 asked heather for her hotmail password!! presumably so that hi5 could get access to all her msn/hotmail contacts to spam!

"I was going to do more research before I posted this, but since it appears that I've created a minor epidemic in my local community, I'm posting this a bit uninformed. I received an email inviting me to SMS.ac, which I would normally ignore, but it was from someone who's judgment I trust. I clicked through the signup process without finally completing it, but unwittingly gave the service access to my MSN IM information. This spammed my whole buddy list with invitations." from here

new nelsoncolne.blogspot.com forum

Hello there, mr. t. suggested that I setup a forum for nelsoncolne.blogspot.com people. So I have. You'll find it here. Let me know if you have any problems. (currently my webserver is limited to a certain number of connections, so if you get a white 'page cannot be displayed' that's fairly normal and something i'll probably fix in the future using apache).

Project C-90

Project C-90

BBC NEWS | England | Cumbria | Underwater gnome threat 'returns'

BBC NEWS | England | Cumbria | Underwater gnome threat 'returns' "A secret underwater attraction that lured several divers to their deaths could have returned, police say."

keanu reeves, constantine

Reuters News Story Link. I saw the trailer for 'constantine' a new film where keanu reeves, fights evil in a film where he's able to see the spiritual side of life (all the demons etc), the trailer has rock music and loads of special effects, so obviously the film looks freakin awesome! It's out on the 18th in the UK.

"Based on the DC-Vertigo comic book 'Hellblazer', Renegade occultist John Constantine, who has literally been to hell and back, teams up with skeptical policewoman..."

Google entrtainment news
Lawyers Seeking Fairness in Jackson Jury followed by
Cheech and Chong Working on New Movie

filum review

film review: assualt on precinct 13 (2005), is a remake of the 1976 'assualt on precinct 13' - the new one we watched last night at t' cinema. it was violent, with some slight horror elements, and it seemed a bit 'disjointed' - almost like it was confused about what kind of film it was trying to be. it had some neat twists in it (but they were a bit predictable, and you wonder why the people in the film didn't see em, especially morpheus, he's flippin clever he should have seen it coming). i think it's worth watching just coz 'bishop' (morpheus) is well 'ard in it. (on dvd though).

movie review

movie review before sunset (imdb: 8.4/10, 2004) is a 9 years later sequel to before sunrise (imdb: 7.7/10, 1995). in before sunset, 2 people who met in 'before sunrise' meet up with each other 9 years later, after the bloke writes a book about their 1 day romance in 'before sunrise' - in the meantime they've never been in contact and never seen each other and basically got on with their lives, bloke got married had kid(s?) etc - so they meet up with each other and talk to each other basically all the way through the film, it's them talking to each other. the tagline is 'What if you had a second chance with the one that got away?' and it's basically about them, how they both thought each other was "the one". it's kinda boring but i like the concept of the sequel 9 years later, and it's them 9 years later. i guess if i'd seen the original i would probably be more enthusiastic about this film - but it's fairly boring, but it's also quite different to your average film, so could be worth a watch if you're a bit bored.

link if image doesn't work

neato webo

sourflash.co.uk a funky lemon jelly fan site.

toastabags

toastabags - you put your cheese in your bread, you put your cheese sandwich in this bag, you put the bag into the toaster and then it pops out as a toasted sarnie. 2 for £7. (reusable)

icWales - Welsh rugby fan cuts off own testicles

Wales won the rugby, so logically a Welsh rugby fan cuts off own testicles. I mean it's the obvious thing to do.

tags. the hip alternative to folders / hierarchical organisation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/salon/story/0,14752,1408451,00.html

lots of new digital cameras

5 new digital cameras from Panasonic, ALL of them with optical image stabilisation (this rocks!), and Leica lenses, plus 2 new compact digicams with 6x optical zoom lens! A budget one (LS1: 4mp, 3x optical zoom, 2" screen), 4mp (LZ1), and 5mp (LZ2) with 6x optical zoom lens, 2" screen (the perfect digicam?), and 4mp (FZ4), and 5mp (FZ5) with 12x optical zoom lens (upgrades to the FZ3).

4 new digital cameras from Fuji - fairly boring in comparison to the Panasonics: 6mp, 3x optical zoom, 2.5" screen, etc etc. Ultra compact 5mp, 2.5" screen, 3x optical zoom Z1, 6mp, 2.5" screen, 3x optical zoom F10, and the 4mp, and 5mp, 3x optical zoom, 1.7" screen: a345, and a350.

Controlling your Mac mini from your Newton - Engadget - www.engadget.com

Controlling your Mac mini from your Newton - Engadget - www.engadget.com

Foxton in the news again. "Intel boffins will this week discuss the creation of the 90nm dual-core Itanium 2 processor and detail 'Foxton', the chip maker's energy conservation system for server processors."

"Foxton is in the Horowhenua region, 30 kilometres southwest of Palmerston North and 15 kilometres north of Levin."

lots of random stuff

sub $100 pc/laptop/build yourself thing. bbc news.
cool looking robot responds to stuff. engadget.
apple itunes lots of money, napster cheap. gizmodo.

setispy man dead.

setispy man dead.
I still thought he was alive. I don't think anyone had mentioned it on NelsonColne.
From the Seti web pages:
November 21, 2004
Roelof J. Engelbrecht, a long-time SETI@home supporter and author of the SETI Spy utility, passed away on Nov. 16.
here's his weblog.
You can probably learn alot about Delphi programming by downloading the source code too.

Guy in Wales sends text messages in his sleep

Guy in Wales sends text messages in his sleep - Engadget - www.engadget.com, plus Mozilla Sunbird is out, the new calendar alternative from mozilla. link, sweet, will have to try this out tonight.

marketing

wowee check out this mouse - inmac catalogue say: "The Labtec Optical mouse Pro is designed to be expressive and powerful." oooh wow, an expressive, and powerful mouse. !???! what!?!??

Labtec have a different take on it, Labtec Optical Mouse Pro: "The Labtec® Optical Mouse Pro delivers precise optical tracking, a comfortable shape, expressive design, and an innovation in mouse performance that will surprise you: four-way scrolling."

oooh how surprising, it does 4 way scrolling. just like microsoft's mice. i suppose if you are in the marketing department of a mouse manufacturer you've got to try and make a fairly basic budget (£9) mouse sound exciting to try and boost sales.

blue peter style fun: print out, cut out, stick together optical illusion dragon.

Gizmodo : Arcade Machine Self Test

Gizmodo : Arcade Machine Self Test

iEmulator PC Emulator for MAC OS X

iEmulator PC Emulator for MAC OS X a cheap ($23) pc emulator for the mac.

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Row over Delhi's errant monkeys

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Row over Delhi's errant monkeys: "The monkeys who have moved into residential areas and official enclaves due to Delhi's shrinking forests, are said to have become a 'security threat'. Last year, the ministry of defence found some of its top secret documents scattered all over the place one morning. It was blamed on the many rhesus monkeys which flock around the colonial-era building. "

this is funny "The presidential palace too has been targeted and staff their have been forced to employ a dark-faced langur monkey to scare away the rhesus monkeys." - last year they sent the monkeys somewhere else, unsurprisingly the place they sent them to doesn't want any more! they should sell them to rich europeans and americans :)

kevin rose dot com

kevin rose dot com - kevin buys a mini mac, and puts a 1ghz via nano-itx board/system in it (pictures on his site) the via system only fits if he takes the optical drive out, so well done apple, pc people can't seem to make something as small and functional with off-the-shelf parts. there's a video here

BBC news article says that over-use of a Blackberry can cause damage to the thumb - because you use your thumbs to type on the keyboard. Similarly, this could mean that overuse of the thumb when using trackball mice like this and this (with the ball on the left) could actually be bad for you rather than good for you.