Category Archives: Geek-Speak

Geeky spaces lie within — be careful where you step!

Geek-Speak, Photography

New Gear : Transcend 600X 16GB CompactFlash Card

Transcend 600x CF
Transcend 600x CF

B&H Photography has graced me with some new CF cards — a pair of Transcend 16GB 600X cards!

I’ve been pining for new cards for a while. My largest card — a Sandisk 16GB Extreme III — was plenty fast enough in my 40D, but was lacking on the 7D. When I shot the Three State Three Mountain Challenge from Mom’s driveway a few weeks ago, I kept having to pause to let the buffer on the camera clear. Admittedly, I was shooting RAW (probably shoulda been shooting JPEG), and was shooting big bursts as the cyclists went by… but still… waiting for the buffer to clear was painful. Since it was just an experimental shoot for me, there was nothing lost by having to wait occasionally. Doesn’t mean I enjoyed waiting!

I’ve been looking at faster CFs since I bought my 7D over a year ago. I don’t often need speed, so I haven’t really pursued it real hard. I’d seen a tweet from someone extolling the virtues of the relatively new Transcend cards, and that piqued my interest again. When I was at the Canon EOS Immersion Seminar last weekend, Transcend’s name came up again, alongside Lexar and Sandisk. My fate was cast. If the folks representing Canon, who told us to use good cards and beware the cheap stuff, still had Transcend up on the big screen with the big kids of flash cards, then that was good enough for me.

The cool thing about these cards is the price. B&H has ’em for about $75/ea for 16GB cards. At 32GB, they’re more than twice the price of the 16GB’s. The good news is that at $75 for 16GB, they are way under half the price of their Sandisk counterparts.

And BTW, for me, going to 32GB cards sounds attractive, but if I lose a card — which in nine years of shooting has never happened (except for the old microdrive cards, which were disastrous for me) — I simply lose too much at 32GB. And frankly, it’s rare that I can’t take the time to change cards. My subjects just ain’t that dynamic typically!

So, how’s the performance?

In camera, they seem pretty dang fast. Compared to my Sandisk 16GB card, I overran the buffer after about 23 shots and started pausing between images. However, the buffer seemed to clear much more quickly with the Transcend than the Sandisk. Shooting JPEG, the difference was much more pronounced.

Shooting large JPEG, the Sandisk card gave me about 28 seconds of shooting (approx 200 images) before there was a pause. The Transcend card? Well, let’s just say that I stopped after 40 seconds (approx 280 images). I mean, when am I gonna shoot 40 seconds solid of something?!

I’m pleased so far, and can’t wait to get this little guys out in the field. If they pan out like they appear they could, I’m pretty sure there’ll be more of ’em in my bag, replacing some cards that are long-in-the-tooth.

Geek-Speak

New Gear : Whirley-Pop

5 Comments

I’ve been on a quest for a popcorn popper. I mean, the little microwave bags are fine, but I’m a fan of process, and I wanted to pop real corn.

Hands down, the most popular popper out there seems to be the Whirley Pop from the folks at Wabash Valley Farms. Bed, Bath and Beyond carries ’em, so I braved Manchester Road, and picked up a popper today.

After seasoning the pan, I put it to the test tonight. It was easy to set up, and start popping. Frankly, it was as fast as microwave popcorn — about three minutes — but with a lot more corn, somewhere in the neighborhood of six quarts. And it’s fun and easy. Crank the handle, listen for the corn popping to slow down, and dump it out. Pretty basic.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that it’s pretty easy for me to fall down the rabbit hole when it comes to devices. This looks like it could be the same. Different kernels, oils and recipes all seem like they’re likely to start crossing my sights. The Whirley Pop folks make that even more likely with a recipe exchange site, kinda like the Big Green Egg folks, and I’m pretty dang certain I’ll end up trying out some of those recipes.

Let the popping begin!

Apple Existence, Geek-Speak, Photography

New Gear : MacBook Air

I’ve been thinking recently about a move to lighter weight laptop. My 15″ MacBook Pro has been a solid machine, but it was getting long in the tooth (a late 2008 model), and seemed to be gaining weight as it got older. Don’t we all. 🙂

The question was MacBook Air or MacBook Pro. The first-gen MacBook Air was released a while back. The rub on that machine was that it was pretty dang slow, and I never really was interested in it. You’d think that’d point me toward the MacBook Pro.

However, as I started looking to get a bit more current on my road machine, I started looking at the recently upgraded MacBook Air. The new models had better graphics cards installed, and were all SSD-based. This flash-based drive really made a convenient, “no moving parts” laptop, and consequently, made it really, really light. And, it’s simply beautiful, with typically well-thought out Apple esthetics.

Apple introduced two screen sizes, 11.6″ and 13.3″. For folks that loved the ancient 12″ iBook, that 11.6″ screen was attractive. The memory sizes were fixed at either 2GB or 4GB, and weren’t user upgradable, with the RAM being soldered to the motherboard.

In the past, Apple had delivered recovery DVDs with their laptops and desktops. With the new MacBook Air machines, they supplied the recovery code on a teency USB thumbdrive. What a stroke of genius! And, of course, without there being an optical drive in the MacBook Air, it just makes a whole more sense when trying to recover the machine while on the road. Hopefully, this is a hint of what’s to come in the future.

With all that new coolness, neither of these machines weighed more that three pounds. Three pounds?! Yep, and it still ran regular ol’ Snow Leopard, not iOS. That means that anything you use on your “big machine” at home, you can — in theory — run on the MacBook Air.

That’s assuming there was enough umph to run “real” code, and that’s what I’ve spent most of the last two weeks trying to understand.

Everything I’ve read has led me to believe that the slower processors in the 11.6″ model will run Aperture, Lightroom or Photoshop, assuming you weren’t trying to conquer the world with big editing projects, nor cataloging tens of thousands of photos. It appears that the SSD drive is helping enhance the throughput, somewhat offsetting the slower processor architecture.

As you’ve probably figured out by both the headline, and this lead-up, I bought a MacBook Air on Friday. I opted for the 2.3 pound, 11.6″ model, upgraded the processor to a 1.6GHz C2D, upgraded the SSD drive to 128GB, and got the upgraded 4GB memory option.

This was a hard call for me, as while I was doing my research, I discovered that the new generation of MacBook Pro laptops had enough power that could even replace my iMac if I wanted. After a lot of soul-searching, I opted for portability, leaving the heavy lifting to be done at the house. Very tough call for me.

So how’s the machine?

Well, so far, pretty dang good. I haven’t really tried doing anything crazy with the thing — no big photo imports, or big edits — but it’s done everything I could possibly want to do. Surfing, social networking, and other Mac-centric things I do seem to run well, and I’ve got no reason to believe that it won’t do what I need in the field, and do it with a lightweight footprint.

As part of my purchase, I also bought into Apple’s One-to-One program. I’d picked up Aperture during the App Store launch a month or so ago, but hadn’t really spent much time working with it, being pretty Lightroom-centric in my work. However, I’d really wanted to get started moving to Aperture, and knew this might force me to start moving down that path. I don’t know that I’ve got any great reasons for moving to Aperture, outside of Faces and Places, neither of which Lightroom does natively. If you haven’t looked at those features, take a gander, and you’ll see why I kinda like ’em.

The One-to-One program allows you to attend seminars, set up one-on-one sessions, along with project work with the trained instructors at the local Apple store for a year. And it’s all you can eat during that year, including online training. The cost of all that is $99, which is about the cost of two Aperture books, and I figured I could get more out of face-to-face training rather than reading a couple of books. My first “Intro to Aperture” seminar is Wednesday, and I expect that’ll just be the beginning.

Big changes in the ol’ Deauxmayne, I suppose, but it’s time to shake things up a bit, and get a little more fleet of foot. Watch this space — I’m sure there’ll be other changes to come!

Apple Existence, Geek-Speak

Mac OS X Lion

OK, so change comes, and there’s loads o’ buzz about the new version of OS X — Lion — coming soon to a Mac near you.

However…

It appears that Rosetta will be dropped. That’s the handy little widget that allows you to emulate a PowerPC Mac, and run all that crusty old software that you rely on daily. Ya know the stuff I’m talking about.

For me, that would be Quicken 2007. It’s not a Universal Binary, which means with Lion, it’s a no-go. Quicken does have a new product called Quicken Essentials for Mac that will do what I do with Quicken, but won’t do everything that Quicken 2007 does. Quicken’s solution for those folks? Use Quicken 2007 for Mac. But… wait… that won’t run under Lion.

Take a look at Quicken Essentials for Mac on Amazon. Go ahead, I’ll wait… Back? Notice that about 75% of the reviews are “one star”? Folks are howling, to say the least.

So, I guess my upgrade to Lion may come with some additional expense, at least for Quicken or another tool that will allow me to work some financial management. Who knows if there’ll be more things hiding out there!

Apple Existence, Geek-Speak

And We’re Whole Again

This morning, the Apple Store called to let me know that my iMac had been repaired. And a great cheer was heard from the crowd!

So what was wrong?

As expected, they replaced the video card — that wasn’t hard to predict given what I saw, and all the testing I did. However, they also replaced an IR board. Now, I was unaware that the iMac had IR, so that acronym may stand for something else.

And, it was all covered under warranty, which is terrific. However, had I had to play for it, the repairs were just under $250, which I don’t consider bad at all considering the complexity of this machine. I would’ve guessed that it could’ve easily been upwards of half a grand.

So… I guess now AppleCare is on my list before my warranty expires in May!

Apple Existence, Geek-Speak

Imagine a World Without an iMac

For me, that day is today.

Friday morning, I found my iMac i7 locked up, and hot enough to fry an egg atop it. It was hot, hot, hot. From there, it was pretty well downhill — I couldn’t boot it, from the internal drive or the DVD, and eventually, it just died.

This morning, I took it to the Genius Bar at the West County Apple Store, preparing for the worst. Chris took good care of me, and apparently, I’d done all the right things — safe boot, Carbon Copy Cloner to get a copy of the drive, replicated the problem on a screen sharing session back to the iMac. From what he tells me, it sounds like the video card has gone kaput.

They have one in-stock at the store, and he thought they might be able to get it installed tonight. That would totally rock. With the winter storm coming in, I’m gonna need my Mac to process photos.

Wait… winter storm? Yep… there’s another coming. Read on…

Apple Existence, Geek-Speak

Mac App Store

2 Comments

So… yesterday, the blogosphere was all a-twitter (and a-facebook and a-wordpress and… well, you get the point) about the new Mac App Store that Uncle Steve promised last year finally opening up. Overall, I think this is a good thing, and kinda makes part of the application ecosystem on the Macs run like the music ecosystem on iTunes — buy once, use on any device managed with that same Apple ID. Cool.

While there are several bargains on the store (iLife ’11 and iWork ’11 are not among them, sadly, although their prices are a good bit cheaper as compared to the multi-license physical versions), the big screamer is Aperture 3. It’s out there for $79, while the physical copy is $199. That’s a huge discount. Sounds great, eh?

Well, maybe…

Folks are really tripping over the licensing. You see, the new license agreement (at least the part for the new App Store) indicates that things you buy there are “for personal, non-commercial use on any Apple-branded products running Mac OS X that you own or control.” Many, many, many folks that run Aperture don’t fit that definition — although there’s likely to be more hobbyists jumping on the bandwagon at that price.

Most places I’ve seen discussing this new licensing agreement leave it there. But to my eyes, there’s a piece that’s being left out. In the next section, it seems that the restrictions against commercial (or educational use) are eased a bit:

“If you are a commercial enterprise or educational institution, you may download a Mac App Store Product for use either (a) by a single individual on each of the Mac Product(s) that you own or control, or (b) by multiple individuals on a single shared Mac Product that you own or control.”

The way I read that, I can use Aperture on any of my Macs in the pursuit of the perfect photograph, although Becky would not be allowed to use it. Or, in the case of an educational locale, a shared computer lab machine could be loaded with Aperture for the students to use — one license per machine.

I guess for home users, it’s anyone at home, on any Mac you own.

So….

Home use – anyone, anywhere (multi-multi)
Business use – just me, but anywhere (single-multi)
Educational use – anyone, but only on one machine (multi-single)

Of course, IANAL, and I don’t play one on TV. YMMV. No warranties implied. Batteries not included.

And those of you that have read my nattering for a while know that I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Lightroom junkie. However, Aperture has two things that I wish LR also had: face recognition, and actual use of geocoding data. LR can manage the geocoded data, but it’s just another metadata field to it — no mapping, etc., is available with that data. Bummer.

At the App Store price of Aperture, it’s not hard to rationalize pulling it down to play with. Perhaps some hodgepodge of LR for edits (along with PS CS5 for heavy lifting) and Aperture for cataloging, with some possibility of moving completely over to Aperture at some point.

I just dunno…

Apple Existence, Geek-Speak, Photography

2010 and My Tech

Braddog has a yearly tradition of reviewing the tech that has shaped his year just passed. I was inspired to do the same!

#1, iPad. I had no idea that it would become so pervasive in my life when I bought it.

#2, DVR. I snuck into the late 90s this year by switching to UVerse, and gaining use of their DVR technology. Again, I had no idea just how much I’d be using it!

#3, AppleTV. A new addition this year, and one that has not only entertained my not-so-techhy wife during her recovery from foot surgery, but has also converged a lot of varied and entertaining content in a room that had none.

#4, iMac i7. This new machine could’ve been ranked higher, as I use it daily for so much of my online life. But the real gain here was real estate. I displaced a eight-core MacPro, gained a bigger screen, and lost almost no processing power.

#5, Lightroom 3. This software jewel has become my electronic shoe box of photos. I keep a personal library of just over 100k photos (yeah, I’m a pack rat), along with an archive of old family photos from both sides of the family. Lightroom makes it just flat easy to maintain all this, and keep some sanity around finding images that I’ve shot, along with history that others in my family have captured.

And yes, you could put guitars on the list, but my guitars are acoustic, and despite having some electronics in them, and occasionally being pumped through my Marshall amp, I didn’t feel like they fit in the list.

It’ll be cool to see what 2011 holds for me. Will there be any fundamental shift as big as the iPad in the cards for this year? Who knows, but I can’t wait to see!

Geek-Speak

Last Gasp of 2010

With the closing of 2010 comes our first real UVerse outage. From a chat session with a UVerse technical support rep, it appears that out UVerse voice service is “currently being affected by a system outage.” When asked if that was system-wide, I was told “this is a not nationwide but your area is affected.”

Bummer.

Between family in town and a gravely ill friend in the hospital, I don’t think a voice outage could’ve come at a worse time. Ugh.

UPDATE: Near as we can figure, our outage was about four hours. Still dunno how widespread it was, but at least it wasn’t something requiring a service visit.