Corrupt / Missing Windows Profile

If you think that things are going (relatively) well, they come right back at ya....

This time it's my laptop from work. I used to enjoy my HP NX8220 widescreen laptop. It served its purpose well over the last 3 years. Since it was out of warranty (and noisy), it had to be replaced by a Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook E8310.

Personally, I never liked the Fujitsu Lifebooks. They feel like cheap plastic laptops that might fall apart with every keystroke. Apart from the physical look and feel, there's the 'need' to use hardware which can only be used by installing a gazzilion Fujitsu installers/drivers (on the HP I only needed half the drivers to get a functioning laptop).
The quality of these drivers are questionable. On a default Windows XP Pro SP2 OS with ALL the tools/drivers recommended by Fujitsu the hardware and Windows OS don't seem to get along. Without any reason, the OS seems to hang every once in a while. And lately things have gotten worse....

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PhotoTrackr Pro. Mac Compatible

The GiSTEQ Corporation has released a OSX compatible version of their software for managing the Phototrackr GPS unit.

I hope that more will follow, because there not that many OSX compatible devices out there. The good thing is that e.g. PhotoGPSEditor DOES support RAW photos (at least Nikon's RAW format).

Nokia N95

The Nokia E61i is old. Well, ever since I got a Nokia N95 from my boss. So no longer a privately owned phone (with a company SIM), but a new shiny N95 :).

First impression; plastic fantastic, but a fast plastic fantastic phone. A faster CPU, HSDPA instead of 'regular' UMTS, and a 'normal' keypad instead of a QWERTY keyboard (which is not an improvement!!)

The OS (Symbian S60) is the same as the OS on the E61i, so no real surprises on that part. Even the backup with Nokia Phone Manager restored on the N95. New features were also included;

• upload images to Flickr
• nokia maps
• built-in GPS

The only real bummer is the lame Nokia Phone Manager software. That application just won't work properly (it could also be that the crappy Windows OS is helping a hand).

Laptop Heatstroke

It could have been a regular Monday. My work laptop doesn't feel like working and stopped. Probably caused by overheating. Just when there are deadlines to be kept. Well, it's all in a days work.

Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S Lens

Last Thursday, I received a phone call from my local photography store. At first I thought that my 52mm circular pola filter had arrived, but NO... The long awaited arrival of my Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S lens had come.

First, I noticed that the lens was heavy and large (compared to my 'old' Sigma 28-70mm f/2.8). On the other hand, the Nikon is 4 times more expensive....

Most notable when shooting the the lightning-fast auto-focus. On the D300 is a 3D-tracking mode. I had no problems in tracking a couple of (really) low flying F-16's that day. Normally, I have a hard time tracking birds (which don't fly that fast). So thumbs up for the Silent Wave Auto-Focus (AF-S).

There is a downside to this lens (apart from being heavy)... It makes you wanna upgrade every other lens. Currently the 17-35mm f/2.8D IF-ED AF-S, or the 17-55mm f/2.8 IF-ED AF-S DX, and the 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED AF-S comes to mind :P

Power Failure... Again

As you might have noticed, the server was down the last 24 hours. When I got home last night I found my server dead. The green power LED on the mainboard was still on, but apart from that... nothing. So I tried to switch the server on and off a couple of times. After a few tries, the entire room lit up for about a nanosecond followed by absolute silence, and darkness..... The power supply had short-circuited and took the entire house with it. Byebye power supply. The initial thought was; 'Well, it's gonna be a nice weekend reinstalling the server from scratch', but thankfully, it was only the power supply that had died on me. After replacing it, the server ran as before. This got me thinking about the life-expectancy of computer hardware. Frequent visitors may have read a similar post on my blog last year. So the power supply that died isn't even a year old. I still might have had some warranty on it (if I hadn't pried it open to see the internal damage :) ). If I would like to use the warranty, I'm looking at at least a couple of days downtime, and since a new power supply is relatively inexpensive, I couldn't be bothered. The life expectancy of hardware is obviously shorter than the Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) given by the manufacturer. The new supply has a (theoretical) MTBF of >100.000 hours, This means >4000 days. Well, mine lasted <365 days.

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GPS Travel Recorder on Apple OSX

A while ago I started a search for a GPS Data Logger which I can use for adding GPS coordinates to my photo's. The current status is that most of those devices are Windows only. The few that might be OSX compatible aren't sold in the Netherlands (yet). So I had to find an alternative. There is a sourceforge project called 'MTK GPS Data Logger Device Control' which facilitates certain GPS (chipset) devices to function on multiple platforms. So my best guess would be to buy one of those 'supported' GPS Data Loggers. Due to availability, I bought the Qstarz BT-1000. It's a GPS mouse with navigation and logging capabilities. First I had to make sure that the device was actually working properly, so I installed the driver and software in a Windows XP Virtual Machine. This was quite easy, and the unit seemed to work properly. Next thing was to install the opensource program to allow communication between the GPS unit and OSX Leopard. To get it to work on OSX you need to follow a installation manual. Something I'm not used to :). Needless to say that it took a bit longer than expected. First of all, you'll need the software from the sourceforge website. Second, you need SuperWaba files (free registration is required) [these files seemed to be present in the download package from sourceforge], and the USB driver. After that you need to follow the instructions in the README.txt provided in the sourceforge package. Note that the script information on the forum has been superseded by the README.txt in the downloadfile (use the provided bt747_macosX.command from the sourceforge download package instead). Eventually, you'll end up with a directory structure whick looks something like this:

Run the bt747_macosX.command file to start the application. One thing I must mention is that somewhere along the lines is the mention of using TextEdit to alter (script)files. Do NOT forget to remove the formatting on the files before saving. You might end up with scriptsfiles containing some markup stuff.... And this means that you might be getting some weird error messages.

Anyway, the interface is still very simple, but you have access to lots of features. The actual manual for the application is available on Google Docs.

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GPS Loggers and Macs

I've been looking for a GPS logger for a couple of months. A GPS logger can be used for attaching GPS information to your digital photos. This way, you can display your photos on publicly accessible maps in Flickr or Google Earth. More and more of those GPS loggers are surfacing on the market [Sony GPS-CS1 / GPS-CS1KA, Globalsat DG-100, Qstarz BT Q-1000, GiSTEQ PhotoTrackr, WBT-201]. But they all have one problem; None of them seem to work (natively) with an Intel Mac running Leopard (source). Some of them require open-source drivers to function. The downside of that is that an update from Apple or an updated firmware in the GPS logger might cripple the functionality. Why is it that GPS manufacturers won't create a GPS (logger) device that simply works on both platforms. It couldn't be that hard. Just create a GPS device that is also recognized as a external drive, containing the raw GPS data in the most common format (e.g. NMEA). This way even the Linux users are not left out.

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New iMac 24" :-P

My new iMac 24" arrived this week. Unfortunately, I didn't have much time in setting it up (business and social obligations), so I had to wait a bit... Very annoying. Anyway, in the mean time it's up and running, and man.... it is fast. I ordered the basic 24" version (2.4Ghz, 1GB RAM, 320GB HD) with the wired UK keyboard. On it's arrival I immediately bought 2 * 2GB RAM to upgrade the memory to 4GB. I bought it later (and not from Apple) because of the big price difference. The iMac with 4GB pre-configured was hundreds of euros more expensive, and 2 Kingston DDR2 667 (PC2-5300) SODIMM were around 80 euros a piece. That saved me some money. Money I can use to buy me a larger FW800 or NAS unit for backup. Hooking up the iMac was easy (as you expect from Apple). Downside was that Leopard wasn't installed, so I had to install it myself (original Leopard DVD was included in the package). In the mean time I could setup the other devices around my iMac (audio, 12km of cables, and my 24" Dell TFT). After Leopard was installed I had two 24" displays on my desk.... SWEET :-P . There is one small problem with the two displays... They don't align (vertically) very well, so I have to raise the Dell 24" about an inch with something :-( . The purchase of the iMac would also be my first experience with the new aluminum keyboard and the Apple Mighty mouse. I choose the wired keyboard, because I can't be bothered with replacing the batteries. They always die on a Sunday evening when there's no way on getting new batteries in time. The experience with the mouse was kinda disapointing. It just didn't feel right (I tried it for a couple of hours). So I replaced it for my old Logitech MX510. The keyboard however is awesome. It's small, but with all the features you expect from Apple. The keyboard requires a little getting used to (about 5 minutes). The next thing is migrating data from my old Windows PC to the iMac, and figuring out Boot Camp. This still allows me to install Windows XP and run some games or Windows specific software on the iMac hardware.

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iMac on it's Way

A couple of weeks ago, my Windows PC was starting to crash. Hard disks were going; 'plonk, plonk, rrrrrrr, tac tac, rrrrr '. Most of the times this resulted in system freezes or blue screens. So ever since that weekend, I've been looking into an iMac 24". Last weekend I ordered my iMac in the online Apple Store. It's the standard 24" with 320GB drive and 1GB of RAM. My current PC also has only 320GB of diskspace, and I'm not even close on filling that up. I will upgrade the 1GB of RAM myself. If I buy the memory at my 'local' computershop it saves me around 600 euro's on 4GB. The Apple prices for memory are just ridiculous. Another point of frustration is the keyboard layout. Every PC sold in the Netherlands (wel, almost every PC) has a English-US keyboard. Why isn't that layout available as an option. I hate the vertical 'enter', and the small 'left-shift' on the NL, and UK keyboards. Too bad, that you can't order an iMac without keyboard and mouse. So, anyone interested in a new (thin aluminum) Apple keyboard and MightyMouse (both on a wire). This only leaves me with my Windows server at the moment. It would be nice to replace that one with a Mac Mini.

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