November 30, 2008
After being one of the earliest customers back in 1999, I fell off the bandwagon for quite a while. About six months ago I finally got back on board and have really enjoyed it ever sense. I’ve watched movies, entire TV show seasons, and just finally got around to updating my XB0x 360 to enable Netflix’s newest feature, streaming movies.
For select movies and TV shows, you can stream them to your computer or TV through various devices, including the XBox 360. The installation was easy (you get a code from the XBox you type into Netflix’s website, which is much more convent than attempting to ’log in’ via the XBox.) Taking a quick look at the Jericho pilot, the quality seems acceptable. It is ‘good enough’ that it isn’t distracting or noticeable. It is certainly better than I expected.
I had dismissed the streaming feature as undesirable based on my (incorrect) assumptions about the quality, but I’ll certainly give it a shot now.
If only I could get my XBox to be a bit quieter than an airplane taking off.
November 27, 2008
This week brought the Series Finale for The Shield. I’ve been a big fan of The Shield throughout its entire run and while I’m sorry to see it go I also appreciate that the show came to an end. The show had run its course.
There were 7 total seasons, and my favorites were 4 and 5. Season 4 brought Glenn Close to the barn and season 5 introduced Forest Whitaker. In these seasons the show had established its rhythm but there were still new stories to tell.
I was disappointed with much of this final season. It seemed excessively slow and and really dragged out as the end approached. I feel they really could have added a few episodes to season 6 and ended at a totally different pace. I won’t spoil the ending but while I was disappointed with Season 7 in general I was content with how the series finally ended.
It wasn’t a The Soprano’s or Six Feed Under, but it few endings are.
All in all, this is a series well worth watching on DVD.
November 20, 2008
I survived my surgery.
It got started a little late but apparently went very well and I’m hoping for a quick recovery.
I’ve taken the down time to get up to speed on my open source projects and just put out new releases to iTunes Export and SOHT (Telnet over HTTP). Some of these patches have been languishing in my inbox for months, so I’m glad I got caught up.
November 20, 2008
A new version of my iTunes Export utility is available.
iTunes Export exports your iTunes playlists as M3U, WPL, or ZPL files, allowing you to setup playlists in iTunes and use them with other software or devices.
This release adds several fixes and enhancements that have build up in the last few months. They include:
Fixed issue with invalid characters in playlist filenames. Some characters are valid in playlist names (within iTunes), but not valid in filenames for the resulting playlist files. Thanks to Jeff Donnici.
Added Multi-Language support for GUI version. Descriptions now available in English and French. Thanks to Ayack for the translation.
Updated the Library reader and all playlist writers to use UTF-8 encoding to allow for foreign character sets. Thanks to Stephen JANNIN for the patch.
Changed the export routine to include audio streams (files that start with http://). However, it will not attempt to copy them if ‘copy music’ is selected.
Disabled tracks (tracks that are unchecked in iTunes) are now ignored. Thanks to Jeroen Leijen for the suggestion.
http://www.ericdaugherty.com/dev/itunesexport/
Please email me with new features or bug fixes (eric@ericdaugherty.com).
November 19, 2008
I released a new version of the Java client for SOHT today.
The goal of SOHT is to provide a simple tool that enables all types of socket communication through an HTTP Proxy server. This tool is useful for users who are behind a restrictive firewall and wish to access external servers that use protocols other than HTTP.
This release enables HTTPS connections and ignores Certificate warnings. This patch was provided by lowem. The patch has been out there a while but better late than never.
http://www.ericdaugherty.com/dev/soht/
November 18, 2008
The teaser and trailer are out for the new Star Trek prequel. Apparently it will be released next May, but it looks like it was delayed from this Christmas as the teaser on the Apple site says Christmas 2008 but the same one on the official website says Summer 2009.
This is a franchise in serious need of revitalization. I think the idea of going back to explore Kirk’s early years makes sense. He is the defining character of the franchise and certainly a deep well of story possibilities.
JJ Abrams is director and producer, and it will be interesting to see if he can bring new life. He has a solid TV resume (Felicity, Alias, Lost), and one of the writers on my favorite ‘guilty pleasure’ movie, Armageddon (I’m looking at you Ross).
I’m cautiously optimistic. We’ll see.
November 17, 2008
After a year of pain, I’ve decided to get serious. I play soccer regularly and for the last year every time I played I had pain in my heel. As time went on it become more intense, and would flare up with any physical activity. It felt like a big bruise, but a visit to the Orthopedic Surgeon revealed that I had a bone spur on the back of my heel. After trying a series of alternatives, it eventually became clear that surgery was the next step.
I’m scheduled for surgery this week, and I’ll be on crutches for at least the next 6 weeks. After that, it’s at least another 6 weeks of a walking cast and then physical therapy after that. It is a long road back to the field but I’m hoping it will worth it.
Wish me luck.
October 31, 2008
It is easy to forget how different life is with the internet at our fingertips. I was out with my camera today and while I was sitting with it on my lap one of my kids jumped on me and knocked it on to the (concrete) ground. It only fell about 6 inches, but when I picked it up I could not get it to auto focus. I tried everything I could think of, I changed the lenses, took out the battery, looked through the menus, etc. Nothing worked.
10 years ago I would have had to take it into a dealer, or send it in for service. Today, I did one search on Google “Nikon d300 won’t autofocus”. The first link I selected was a post that suggested that I put the camera in Live View (LV) mode, and then switch back to normal. I did that (and took a few shots in LV mode), and switched back. Autofocus is back to working perfectly. It took 30 seconds to fix.
It is an odd solution, and one I would have never figured out on my own, but it worked great. I would have never found this in the age before the internet. This is basic stuff, but it is easy to take it for granted.
October 18, 2008
I’ve been using the BlackRapid RS-1 camera strap for about a month. The idea is a camera strap allows you to carry the camera at your side at waist level. It runs up and down the strap so you can quickly grab it and use it. There is a video on the site that shows it off much better than I can describe it.
I’m a fan, but Scott Bourne from TWIP disagrees. He’s had some bad experiences with it but I’ve never had any of these issues. Your mileage may vary.
October 2, 2008
While most of my photography these days consists of chasing my kids around, I do occasionally get an opportunity to play around. Tonight, after reading more Strobist (Strobe/Ambient Balance) I decided to take some pictures at sunset, using a flash to light the foreground.
I started with a test picture in Aperture priority mode (my default mode) to determine the correct exposure for the sky.
In this case, it was about 1/40 at f/2.8 (ISO 200). From there I moved to manual mode and locked in the settings. I then turned on my flash (SB-800) and set it to remote mode. I set my on-camera flash to Commander mode. I used TTL mode for the remote flash, with the on camera flash simply triggering the SB-800. Using the same exposure settings, I fired a test shot.
The sky retains the same color and light level, but the tree in the foreground is now lit as well. I thought it was a bit too much, so I set the TTL level for the remote flash to -1 in the camera’s menu. All the other settings remained the same.
I like this shot a little better because it provides more contrast in the foreground tree.
This is a very easy setup to pull off. Simply set your exposure for the background, setup your flash for the foreground, and control the relative exposure of each using the Aperture/Shutter for background and TTL Over/Under exposure for the foreground.
I used a Nikon D300 and SB-800 here. The D300 functions in Remote Commander mode for the flash with TTL, so it is very easy. You can achieve the same effect with slightly more effort with a D40 or other cameras that don’t have Remote Commander mode.
Using the D40, I set the on camera flash to manual mode at 1/128 power (or whatever the lowest is). You can then set the SB-800 to Remote using SU-4 mode. You have to control the flash exposure manually on the flash, but with a little trial and error you can pull it off.
