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A Photoblog Comment

As posted on Twitter: "you're photos suck.. no offense, you just throw them out there as if there is any content at all and you fail miserably."

I responded via email just to say "Your comment sucks. Guess we're even?" I couldn't resist. But that's beside the point…

Criticism like this doesn't bother me at all, and not just because the commenter can't use the word "your" properly. It's because it's nowhere near specific nor even really legitimate: what the heck does "no content" mean? No subject? Whatever…

Like most people who dabble in photography, I'm incredibly hard on myself. If I ever thought I'd mastered the art of photography, I'd probably give up. As it stands, my personal opinion of myself resides somewhere between "you suck" and "thank goodness you've got good equipment, because any fool could use it to get at least a half decent shot." The latter isn't true at all, and the former isn't either, but suffice to say I rarely think highly of any of my photographs, and when I do it's never "I should print that and sell it to people!"

Photo Blog Ratings

Hey, if you've got a moment, do me a favor and stop by the Ratings page at my photoblog, click a few of the "5 Least Rated Images," and rate them by clicking the stars.

Thanks.

V Day

{democracy:48}

Carey and I don't. We both think it's an over-sensationalized, over-commercialized holiday. We don't think you should need a calendar to remind you to love someone ((And no, I'm not saying that those who do something for VDay do.)) We do things with/for the kiddo, though. That's different, somehow.

Scorecard UI Problem

One of Scorecard 1.x's weaker points is nine-hole support. We're beefing this up tremendously with our 2.0 release, but are facing some crucial decisions when it comes to data entry and the user interface for such.

Below are two windows. The left is version 1.x, the right something I mocked up for version 2.0. Both windows appears as sheets (on Mac OS X, anyway) above Scorecard's main window.

Old VersionNew Version

2009 PMA Canon Rumors

Canon Rumors lists a few things that would interest me (in order of importance):

  • EF 24-70 f/2.7L II IS - I have the current 24-70 and it may be a little soft, and the addition of IS would be handy. More handy than without it, anyway.
  • EF 100-400 f/4-5.6L II IS - I have the 300 f/2.8L IS and the 70-200 f/2.8L IS, but a general purpose zoom would be great when my 70-200 isn't long enough and I need a little zoom (ruling out the 300).
  • EF 50 f/1.4 II - I have the current one. It works but there are some small things that could be improved upon.
  • TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II - I'm mildly interested in a T-S lens as well, and there are rumors a new 24mm and/or another focal length will be announced.

All but the TS-E are listed as "Possible" (with the TS-E as "Most Likely"), but I don't know if I'd even rank them that high. People have been waiting for those lenses for quite awhile now, and 90% of "rumors" are actually just people letting their wishful thinking color some snippet of info to mean that what they want is coming true.

iTunes App Store: Improvement Necessary

Scorecard has been a relatively successful application. It's sold well and been well liked by customers. It's even cross-platform, with full license and data file compatibility between Windows and Mac OS X.

When the iTunes App Store was announced, it seemed only natural that we'd build an iPhone ((I'll use the term iPhone here, but of course I also mean the iPod Touch.)) application to allow the geek golfers to enter their stats right on the golf course and sync them back to their computers.

Initially we delayed building this app because we held out hope that Apple would allow syncing over the wire. They didn't, and enough people began asking for the app that we finally built it. It requires syncing via WiFi - not a 100% solution - but good enough.

Canon’s TC-80N3 Timer Remote

Canon's TC-80N3 is a "Timer Remote Controller" with four features, all of which can be used in any combination: alone or with any two, three, or four settings combined.

The features are:

  1. Self Timer - Delay before taking an image.
  2. Interval Timer - Delay between images.
  3. Long Exposure Timer - Set the shutter speed for long exposures accurately.
  4. Exposure Count - Choose between 1 and 99 images.

Each of the timer modes can be set for anywhere between 1 second and 99:59:59.

Proffesional

Someone needs to hire a "proffesional" spell-checker.

Proffesional

The Falsity of Amazon’s Shipping

The timeline goes something like this…

February 6, 2009: At about noon, I make a $676 purchase. Not needing the items all that quickly, I opt for the "free" 7-10 day Super Saver shipping. The only shipping estimates on the order pages are "order in the next 13 hours to have it by tomorrow!"

February 8, 2009: Puzzled by the fact that I didn't get a shipping notification, I check the order status and Amazon tells me that my order will ship on February 11, most likely. It lists the delivery dates as February 19 - 25 - a full 13 to 19 days after the order date.

That's not even 7-10 days if you subtract the five days it's taking them to put my stuff in a box. And why's it taking Amazon five days to put my stuff in a box? You can order the same exact things I've ordered and they'll be delivered to you (or me) tomorrow if pay more money - the products are in stock. Delaying putting the items in a box probably takes more time and effort than if they just packed up the products immediately like every other order. It's apparently a custom feature to "delay" shipment to cheap customers.

Super Bowl XLIII: A Week Later

Steeler's HelmetSome random thoughts about the Super Bowl that was…

Dashboard Widget Sync

For the most part, MobileMe's (née .Mac) "sync" features work well. They keep my calendars, my contacts, my preferences, and more just as I like them on multiple machines ((About the only additional thing I wish it could do is to synchronize folders (like ~/Library/Scripts/) across machines.)).

Unfortunately, the Dashboard sync is seemingly hopelessly broken. For two weeks I've been battling this dialog box:

Dashboard Sync

On my Mac Pro, I created four "Delivery Status" widgets to track four packages I was expecting. I'm on my Mac Pro 90+% of the time and on my MacBook Pro the remainder of the time, and things worked fine until I closed the widgets on the Mac Pro.

Quick Thoughts on Kindle 2.0

In November, 2007 I asked if anyone thought the Kindle was a good idea.

Recently, after seeing how truly small the Kindle is, I started to wonder if perhaps it wasn't a good idea - or to be more precise, if perhaps the next version rumored to be introduced on February 9, wasn't going to be a good idea.

The price is still a bit high: $359 ((Unlikely version 2 would be cheaper, right?)) isn't chump change. I don't care for the data fee either - I'd just load the darn thing up from my home WiFi. And I still like physical books, for loaning out and other things, so I think I'd only be interested if you could purchase, for a little bit more, both a physical and electronic copy of things from amazon.com.

So that's my wishlist, I suppose, for version 2: $299 or less, ditching of the extraneous data fees, and inexpensive "electronic + physical" books. If the Kindle 2 has those things, I'll consider it. Otherwise, there's still little wrong with paperback…

Prompted to post this by this Ars article, which I've yet to read (but plan to).

50% Savings Ends Today

The 50% savings we're offering at Cynical Peak ends today.

Awesome FlipBook Video

Josh, creator of FlipBook, sent this to me: "Get Well, Bob" - Extended Edition by furbawl

The Case Against Gmail?

I concur. Of course, there's more to it than that…

And I still use Entourage. I like the colored labels and I like the unified inbox. Screw Mail.