Barry Lodge 21/8/09 Barry Lodge 21/8/09

WRX Evo 4 Decal

As I have only had the one comment posted to my blog since I cranked it up (which, I guess, is a whole lot better than none) I feel that I should respond to it. Rather than respond with a 'buried' reply to her comment I thought I might as well respond with a blog post. Her comment related to the Subaru WRX logo in the middle of my heading banner. In case I have changed the banner graphic by the time others get to read this—and they wonder what I am rabbiting on about—following is a reduced-size reduced-depth version of the heading banner graphic I am talking about.

The comment contained the question: Where did the middle picture come from? They reason this question was asked is that the reader is familiar with this particular Subaru Impreza decal but had not seen a coloured version of it like this. This is because the original photograph that I took did not look like the one in my banner graphic. Following is the original photograph before doing some cropping and simple colour changes using PhotoShop Elements. WRX-Small

This picture was cropped down to just the decal part, brightened by setting the levels (or setting the "black and whites" as some people refer to it), and then I used the PhotoShop Elements magic wand to select the WRX and fill it in with a bright blue, select the inside of the "evo" and fill it with yellow, and finally select the inside of the 4 and fill it with a darker blue.

So that solves that mystery. I don't have a specially coloured decal on the Evo 4, I just improved the picture I took of the dull grey one that is on it.

Barry.

Barry Lodge 21/8/09 Barry Lodge 21/8/09

TWiT

Some time ago, when podcasts were just starting off, circa 2005-ish, a workmate introduced me to This Week in Tech (TWiT) with Leo Laporte. So, just out of interest, I downloaded an episode of TWiT. It was excellent. I also discovered that John C. Dvorak was involved in TWiT and I have been a long time follower of John C. Dvorak. I feel that one must always write the full name for John C. Dvorak as there seems to be no suitable shortening that conveys the appropriate meaning or weight. To me John C. Dvorak comes across as a realist (just like me). Generally what he comes up with turns out, in the fullness of time, to be the final outcome even though his forecasts might be initially misconstrued as negative.

Anyway, back to TWiT. The TWiT stable has grown significantly since I downloaded my first episode. TWiT now includes the following regular podcasts (this is not a complete list):

The original TWiT podcast.
Windows Weekly (with Paul Thurrott from the WinSuperSite).
Radio Leo.
Security Now.

For a list of all the TWiT podcasts go to the main TWiT Web site at www.twit.tv.

Some TWiT podcasts have complimentary vodcasts however I am more into just the podcasts. I have found that two of the best places to listen to podcasts are when travelling in the car or trying to get to sleep. It typically takes me about an hour to go from lying down in bed to snoozing off. The trick with the second approach is to know where to start up listening to the podcast again because you fell asleep. Another option is to put a podcast on when working from home—rather than listening to the radio in the background. There is a small problem with this working-from-home approach in that, I find, when I am deep into work I tend to tune out from the podcast.

I find that with listening to the various TWiT podcasts, the ones that I prefer, I get little hints and tips of things that are extremely useful for both my work (I am an IT Consultant) and my personal computing enjoyment. I can then go and research them further as required if needed.

I recommend that anyone interested in computing (IT) try one or two TWiT podcasts to see if they think there is anything in it for them. I suggest starting with the original TWiT podcast involving the regular TWiT team or a Windows Weekly podcast.

Barry.

Barry Lodge 20/8/09 Barry Lodge 20/8/09

Getting Into Digital Photography

	I am a mad keen photographer and have been since I was about 12 when I was given a Kodak Box Brownie camera; which was something like 44 years ago.Since the Box Brownie I have owned: a PENTAX Spotmatic II, PENTAX ME Super, PENTAX Program A, PENTAX Super A, and then a departure to a Nikon F801—which I never really liked—then back to a PENTAX Z-1. The PENTAX Z-1 was basically the end of my film cameras. There was a long gap until I finally made the jump to digital with a Minolta 7i, followed by a Minolta A1, then a Sony R1. I still have the Minolta and the Sony but never use them. I went back to PENTAX with the K10D DSLR which I just recently updated to the amazing PENTAX K-7 DSLR.

I am in the computer industry and had about three computers in the house at the time so moving across to digital photography was somewhat easier for me than it has been for other film photographers I know. I was already very familiar with PhotoShop, Corel Paint, and Paint Shop Pro; and the finer points relating to editing raster images. Whilst I had some reservations at the beginning I have no doubts now that digital photography is significantly more fun that film photography. There are lots of reasons for this, but a few that come quickly to mind are:

There is no 12, 24, or 36 limitation on the number of frames you can take. A 14MP camera with a 4GB removable memory stick can take over 550 shots at the best JPG quality. Even when taking digital negatives (RAW) a 4GB stick will hold about 250 shots.
You can adjust the ASA/ISO ('film' sensitivity) up and down with each or any shot, unlike with film where it is set for the whole roll.
If you take digital negatives (RAW images) then you can play around with the exposure and white balance even after the picture has been taken.
Cataloguing and storing digital photographs is so much better than trying to store film negatives or slides. Most good digital photo management tools allow you to add notes and comments to each picture, and you can sort and organise them in as many different ways as you like.
Going back and looking at 'old' digital pictures on a computer is significantly easier than any method I know of for doing the same with negatives or slides.

Anyway, enough for this post—the shorter the better. I am using Word 2007 to author and post this entry so I should be able to set a word limit. I notice that this posting has 489 words to this point, which hardly seems possible when I look back, but presumably Word cannot be wrong about this. So maybe a 500 word maximum is a good limit. Barry.

Barry Lodge 18/8/09 Barry Lodge 18/8/09

First blog post

I thought I might as well commence a blog. Everyone else seems to be doing it. I suppose if nobody seems to be interested in it then I will stop blogging. There must be thousands—if not tens of thousands—of blogs around the Web that nobody reads or that have become orphaned (where even the originator/author no longer checks or updates them). I started a blog once before a couple of years ago. It was orphaned after the first post, so let's hope I do a little better this time around. From reading other blogs I think one of the main things is to be as short as possible but to get all the juicy stuff in. So a short full-fruit blog post seems to be the best way to go. This will be a bit of a challenge for me as I tend to waffle on; especially since I mastered the art of touch-typing and can type a lot more a lot faster. My two primary non-family interests are IT (computers and software) and photography. I have been into photography since I was about 12 with a Kodak box brownie. I keep complaining to my family and friends (friends=about 2, but don't hold that against me) that Iam really starting to hate IT because it chews you up and spits you out—it is so draining. And you can never really be up-to-date. Just as you approach being somewhat up-to-date then IT shifts a gear, or engages boost (for those of you who are lucky enough to own a turbo boosted car), and zooms ahead of you again. Photography is something I plan to do more of in the future. Over the last 20 years or so I have been much less active in photography than I was in my earlier years. I find that it is one of the perverse things about life that when you are able to afford the really good gear (in this case cameras and lenses) you have either less time or less inclination to do whatever it is you really should be doing (but you still buy the really good geat just in case you do). Anyway, what was it I said: short fruit-filled blog posts! So I should finish this one now and work out what fruit to put into my next one, which will really be my first actual blog post as this is really the "Hello World" post—as us IT types call it. Barry.