tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22125552950588130472024-03-13T10:26:04.621+00:00Will MinersPosts which may or may not interest you...but I'll do it anyway.Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-92139770699097113882009-07-29T14:18:00.001+01:002009-07-29T14:18:57.757+01:00The difference between webapps and “real” apps<p>Much has been made recently of the shift from desktop-based apps into the “cloud”. Many people now rely entirely on webapps, and with the <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html" target="_blank">Google Chrome OS</a> being announced recently, I can only see more and more people converting. In theory, this is a good thing. Platform independent, free, automatically backed up. If your computer dies, you use another, and all your stuff is still there. Brilliant. </p> <p>However, even with all this news, I’m starting to move back to real apps again. I find I can concentrate more when there are separate applications and windows that I can focus on. I’ve gone from using Gmail entirely in the web browser, to using IMAP to connect to it on my iPhone and my Macbook. I’m considering doing the same on my main computer, but that may involve installing the hell that is Outlook. Especially with email, I can just leave Mail open on my laptop, and it pops up when I get a new mail. A browser can’t do that, even if there is much to be argued for having set times of day dedicated to sorting out email.</p> <p>I’ve also been using a simple text editor to write words for articles, and then syncing them between computers using Dropbox. I find this also helps me focus. I can close my web browser completely, and this helps me to focus entirely on the task in hand. When I was using Google Docs, I kept on getting distracted by having the rest of the internet just a Ctrl-T away. I also find it much easier to email .txt files to people for proofing, rather than sending a pdf or doc file, which often don’t work, especially cross-platform. It’s also way easier to just drag and drop attachments into an email, rather than having to use a file dialogue, another benefit of using “real” apps.</p> <p>Overall, I seem to be developing a bastardised hybrid approach to the “cloud”. Currently, though, I seem to have the best of both worlds. The convenience and reliability of desktop apps (with the offline access too, when my internet invariably goes down) combined with the peace of mind and ease of online access/syncing. I’m hoping that Chrome OS is going to go this sort of way, rather than everything being browser based. </p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-44715570928280347802009-06-13T12:26:00.001+01:002009-06-13T12:26:55.548+01:00A day of shooting and planning<p>Went to Manchester yesterday to meet up with <a href="http://nathanchandler.co.uk/" target="_blank">Nathan Chandler</a>. Spent the day planning an upcoming project with him, and just generally chatting. Then we went shooting for a while. Didn’t really spend too much time taking pictures, but here are some of the results:</p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SjOM7cSsR-I/AAAAAAAAAGw/Zg6KVopOMvE/s1600-h/IMG_2647%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_2647" border="0" alt="IMG_2647" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SjOM7_29rbI/AAAAAAAAAG0/pOkIUkze17U/IMG_2647_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="240" height="358" /></a> </p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SjOM8tODYaI/AAAAAAAAAG4/G4DbM9Uvdzw/s1600-h/IMG_2650%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_2650" border="0" alt="IMG_2650" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SjOM9UDZCoI/AAAAAAAAAG8/KuClwHMVhh8/IMG_2650_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="233" height="348" /></a>  </p> <p></p> <p></p> <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SjOM95ldDmI/AAAAAAAAAHA/V-6Q7hb-TvE/s1600-h/IMG_2632%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_2632" border="0" alt="IMG_2632" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SjOM-lQaWsI/AAAAAAAAAHE/m6XOC9FTA18/IMG_2632_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="228" height="383" /></a> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SjOM_Fa7V5I/AAAAAAAAAHI/pPKOqj_r3yA/s1600-h/IMG_2654%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_2654" border="0" alt="IMG_2654" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SjOM_gZ1VVI/AAAAAAAAAHM/O5v1CV0a2fM/IMG_2654_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="236" height="420" /></a> </p> <p><a href="http://flickr.com/willminers" target="_blank">A couple more on my Flickr.</a></p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-58716404651039634042009-05-15T00:48:00.003+01:002009-05-15T00:51:33.898+01:00Despite what I've said<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3EWGdxAzFa0nIJFTzQFMmp9IzJZtmf56IQNIG5E_c6StDIzeScI7il2G5LfgE140AGK8E5nwpz2wn0EALNeAgI5BUtc3aUPqdJUqKwVEDM6wqYWJkR-yfgOLi56igsAViFuUbbTGgroQ/s1600-h/photo.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3EWGdxAzFa0nIJFTzQFMmp9IzJZtmf56IQNIG5E_c6StDIzeScI7il2G5LfgE140AGK8E5nwpz2wn0EALNeAgI5BUtc3aUPqdJUqKwVEDM6wqYWJkR-yfgOLi56igsAViFuUbbTGgroQ/s320/photo.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335831035468646370" /></a><br />It's not about the equipment. Iphone cameras are perfectly good. Planning on doing at least one shot every day. I've said this before, though.<div><br /></div>Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-91756917008043917662009-05-13T00:55:00.003+01:002009-05-13T22:25:29.422+01:00From last week<p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SgoMT76Xz1I/AAAAAAAAAFU/6ww5pyMOqwI/s1600-h/IMG_2387%5B8%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_2387" border="0" alt="IMG_2387" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SgoMUGu_FmI/AAAAAAAAAFY/36kBIym7w1A/IMG_2387_thumb%5B6%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="404" height="271" /></a> </p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SgoMU4lwNHI/AAAAAAAAAFc/Dk-FAqAg9bc/s1600-h/IMG_2457%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_2457" border="0" alt="IMG_2457" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SgoMVdaGwuI/AAAAAAAAAFg/1NlkWKh7r8U/IMG_2457_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="404" height="289" /></a> </p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SgoMV1rN_yI/AAAAAAAAAFk/GQMszcGlj70/s1600-h/IMG_2478%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_2478" border="0" alt="IMG_2478" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SgoMWdMuitI/AAAAAAAAAFo/YVg40czYg5A/IMG_2478_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="404" height="271" /></a> </p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SgoMW3odmkI/AAAAAAAAAFs/WdUARmP4U-o/s1600-h/IMG_2436%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="IMG_2436" border="0" alt="IMG_2436" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SgoMXUemKFI/AAAAAAAAAFw/qmtijxMMPJY/IMG_2436_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="404" height="271" /></a> </p> <p>I enjoyed this job. Fun people, an interesting talk, and great food.</p>Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-44920147402618085812009-05-05T13:03:00.001+01:002009-05-05T13:03:33.369+01:00Some things I’ve learnt recently.<p>1) <strong>If you’re doing jobs that require working from home, set yourself a time scale for work</strong>. If you just sit down at your computer and start, you’ll never get things done (or at least I won’t – I get distracted if I’m not specifically focussed on one job).</p> <p>This has dawned on me recently. I’ve had a load of stuff to do online for gig promotion (<a href="http://www.myspace.com/vdwevent" target="_blank">go to these gigs by the way</a>) including stuff on some social networking sites and forums. Ass you can imagine, I get distracted by this easily, especially as they’re sites I regularly visit anyway. Since I started being more focussed, though, I’ve set myself maybe an hour or two do do a few tasks, and I’ve not allowed myself to stray from that specific area until the time is over. Then I give myself a bit of a break, but not too long. I’ve gotten two or three times as much stuff done recently because of this.</p> <p>2) <strong>Email is a great tool, but it can massively decrease productivity</strong>. </p> <p>I only have the one email address right now. Everything goes into it: work emails, personal emails, newsletters, forum subscriptions, notifications, everything. Sometimes really important stuff gets lost in the noise, and you end up spending so much time sorting through it you spend less time working. </p> <p>Using Gmail’s stars and filters is helping me a lot, but I’m still considering setting up some completely separate addresses for other things. One for work, one for personal, and one for newsletters, forums, social networking, etc. I’m trying to decide if this will mean me spending more time signing in/out, checking 3 different accounts, but maybe if I start using something like Outlook instead of webmail, then I’ll be able to do this easily.</p> <p>2b) <strong>Email on the move</strong></p> <p>I thought having an iPhone was great, allowing me to check my email on the move so I could get stuff done while I was on the train, etc. Instead I’ve found that I miss important things now. Because I’m using IMAP on my phone, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to set things as unread, if I check my email and there’s something that I can’t immediately act on, it sits in my inbox until I’m next at a computer, and then gets missed because it isn’t unread. This is exacerbated by the email noise mentioned before, so now I’m resisting the urge to check my mail in bed before I get up, and while I’m out and about. </p> <p> </p> <p>3) <strong>You need personal downtime</strong></p> <p>This is the most important one for me at the minute. Working nonstop and then spending the rest of my time visiting friends, my girlfriend, and trying to cram in even more work just isn’t working anymore. I got so burnt out last week that I was working incredibly slowly. However, when I finally got a proper night’s sleep, and then spent some “me time” washing my car and playing my Xbox, I got much more relaxed, and was able to catch up on my massive todo list (incidentally, Gmail tasks is great for this).</p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-33909126879642810212009-04-10T13:35:00.001+01:002009-04-10T14:30:39.478+01:00Busybusybusy (again)<p>I seem to go in stages of having nothing much to do, and then have stages where I seem to be flat out loads of the time. Recently, I’ve been working a load as the weather has been great, so work has been busy, coupled with stuff like Mothers Day and Easter. Add that on to trying to keep a social life together and some other projects, and I never seem to have time to myself.</p> <p>Sometimes you get so wound up in work and personal projects that you forget about other things going on. There were a few people that I’d barely seen over the past few weeks, so I’m endeavouring to make an effort to have some downtime and relax a little more.</p> <p>I’m getting one or two photography jobs coming in, which is great. I do need to promote myself more though. Business cards need designing and printing, I should probably get myself a website. People don’t come to you, you have to go to them. I’m seriously thinking about upgrading my camera gear soonish too, at least a new lens in the near future. The Sigma 18-50 f/2.8 and the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 are my best options right now, I just need to find somewhere nearby that has them for me to try out. I’m hoping this will give me a little more versatility in the situations I’ve been thrown into recently, concert and event photography where there isn’t a lot of light to work with and you’re restricted on flash equipment you can use. </p> <p>What else? I’m involved with setting up another two music and art events. Dubbed <a href="http://www.myspace.com/vdwevent" target="_blank">Van Der Waals III,</a> we already have some great acts lined up, and we’re looking for art submissions to be displayed on the night. Contact me if you’re interested. </p> <p>I’ve had so little time recently that I’ve been using my laptop more and more, checking email and browsing around the house, and barely using my desktop PC at all. This has the downside that I can’t get at most of my photos or music as I haven’t been bothered to transfer them to my laptop yet (not to mention it only has a 160gb hard drive, not enough room!) A server would be great, or at least something quick and readily available for when I need to transfer stuff. I already have a 500gb external MyBook, but I need something redundant, really. Maybe I could win something from <a href="http://mydl.me/" target="_blank">MYDL</a> if I’m lucky.</p> <p><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51pNe-wQxIL._SL75_.jpg" /> <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+American+Dollar">The American Dollar</a> - Starscapes (<a href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+American+Dollar/A+Memory+Stream"> A Memory Stream</a>)</p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-15410005930824034652009-03-09T13:39:00.001+00:002009-03-09T13:39:10.350+00:00Photography is a bottomless pit.<p>Photography is a great hobby. For most, it’s pretty accessible. You don’t <strong>need</strong> a DSLR. You don’t <strong>need</strong> lots of megapixels. Within reason, you can get similar results for most types of shot with a normal point-and-shoot with some manual controls, as you can with a £5000 professional DSLR. I say within reason, because many situations are helped a lot by having better manual controls, better performance in low light, and a more versatile selection of lenses and accessories. Plus, unless you are enlarging prints to a poster size, you don’t really need 10MP sensors. In fact, one could argue that more pixels lets you relax your composition a little, as you can crop and still retain a lot of quality. I know I’ve fallen into that trap before.</p> <p>However, no matter how accessible photography is for the hobbyist, once you start to get into paid work, it becomes a lot more difficult. If you’re just shooting for yourself to show online or in a photo album, you can get away with a lot of things you couldn’t in a professional situation.</p> <p>For example: colour calibration. Most people don’t know or care about it. If the picture from the printer turns out slightly different from the one on the screen, then that’s the printers fault, right? Well, no. You have to calibrate your monitor to show the correct colours. You have to profile your printer, so software knows it’s capabilities and can adjust the picture accordingly. You have to be careful when transferring pictures in between programs, as some use different colourspaces. It’s all stuff that’s important for a pro, as you can’t get away with having colours that aren’t accurate. However, for a beginner looking to sort their colours out, it’s overwhelming. Just a glance through <a href="http://www.drycreekphoto.com/index.html" target="_blank">this page</a> reveals how in-depth you can go with it. It’s a lot to read for someone who just wants to print a picture how it’s shown on the screen. </p> <p>There are similar problems when it comes to post-processing. Go onto any photography forum, and there will be multi-page threads discussing the best way to organise and edit photos. Do you use Lightroom, Bridge, or the one that came with your camera? Do you do RAW edits in that program, or Photoshop? How in-depth should you do your editing before switching to something like Photoshop? What’s the best way to go about sharpening a photo?</p> <p>There are multiple ways to achieve the same (or similar) effect in a program like Photoshop. People will constantly argue about the best way to do something, and this is extremely confusing for someone just getting into this sort of thing. I’m still not sure on the best way for what I do.</p> <p>Currently, I import photos from a memory card using Lightroom. Lightroom organises into folders in the naming format “yyyy_mm_dd”. I then add tags to the photos, and maybe make a collection if they’re all the same subject. I then go through them, and flag my favourites, then develop these using the develop module in Lightroom. I do as much as I can using the adjustments in Lightroom, and only export to Photoshop when I need some more control. When I’m done, I usually export to jpeg in a subfolder named “Edited”, with size and output sharpening based on where the photos will end up.</p> <p>I feel this gives me a decent amount of control, but I’m always looking for a better way to do things. I know that I need to learn more about sharpening and masks in Photoshop. My problem is that I am partially colourblind, so things like white balance and tints are very hard to judge. I do my best, though.</p> <p>Don’t even get me started on lighting. That’s another post.</p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-57258889777855178502009-02-26T23:13:00.001+00:002009-02-26T23:13:53.094+00:00Hmm…<p>Windows Live Photo Gallery vs. Picasa?</p> <p>Both seem to be very similar on features. both allow organisation of photos, syncing with online albums, tagging, all that jazz. Windows Live gives you 25gb of storage (although I believe that is shared with whatever else you use on SkyDrive) while Google lets you have a measly 7.5gb (although that’s more than most users need for normal use, and you can purchase more).</p> <p>I haven’t actually installed Picasa yet, but I’ll give it a try later on. The problem with both of these, though, is neither will recognise my RAW files from my camera, as Canon don’t seem to recognise that there are many users using 64-bit OSes. So for now, my RAW support is limited to Photoshop and Lightroom. Not a bad thing, however, as it’s let me have a much reduced selection to view and tinker with, with only my edited and completed pictures, and other general snaps from my phone, and other people’s cameras. This is quite handy as it lets me sift through my better photos, while the ones I disliked and didn’t bother to edit don’t show up in the gallery (I <strong>never</strong> delete them).</p> <p>So where does Flickr come in? I’ve used it for a while just as a sort of portfolio of my favourite pictures. I can remember the URL easily, so it’s easy to show people work, and it gives you a decent amount of space, although resolution is limited unless you get a pro account. However, aside from the “Flickr Uploadr”, they don’t have an organisation tool, with all the organisation expected to be performed on the actual site. This is fine, but if you have your edited photos around various organised-by-date folders, then you can forget to upload stuff after you’re finished post-processing. I believe there is a plugin for Lightroom, though, which might do the job. I also see that Live Photo Gallery has an option to upload to Flickr, so it may turn out that that is the best option.</p> <p>I shall download Picasa and have a play now. From what I can see right now though, it may be that Microsoft will win this one. Shocker! </p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-13489887119999945932009-02-26T14:31:00.001+00:002009-02-26T14:31:29.655+00:00Something to do on a Saturday night…<p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SaanvtCYmyI/AAAAAAAAAEc/dPKwtHjPpLg/s1600-h/vdwnwe6%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="vdwnwe6" border="0" alt="vdwnwe6" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SaanwW-dX2I/AAAAAAAAAEg/nm3ISX_ObQ4/vdwnwe6_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="375" height="375" /></a></p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-72839301752871459772009-02-09T20:31:00.001+00:002009-02-09T20:31:46.150+00:00ISPs suck, mostly.<p>So it appears I’m being speed limited in the evenings now. I went from fairly fast speeds in the day (although not massively fast for what' we’re paying) to godawful speeds in the evening. Just speedtested, and here are the results:</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SZCSru8r2KI/AAAAAAAAAD0/mpDZhnZJRys/s1600-h/407696029%5B2%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="407696029" border="0" alt="407696029" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SZCSsdBVc-I/AAAAAAAAAD4/2T2yYDL2o7c/407696029_thumb.png?imgmax=800" width="244" height="112" /></a> </p> <p>And we’re paying for “up to 8 meg”. I understand I’ll never get 8 meg due to the limits of our phone line, but we can normally get 5-6 on a good day. </p> <p>I looked into <a href="http://help.aol.co.uk/fair-use-policy-for-aol-broadband/article/20070129054109990002">AOL’s fair usage policy</a>, and it seems to be deliberately vague. </p> <p>“<em>If a Member's usage exceeds what AOL Broadband deems fair and reasonable for a residential broadband service, speed-limiting restrictions may be applied during peak hours (typically evenings) in the first instance.</em>”</p> <p>The rest of it is like that too, if you care to read it. It just seems so unclear. There are no hard limits on how much you can download, and it doesn’t tell you how long you’ll be limited for. I have been downloading a fair bit recently, but a lot of it has been things like Windows 7, and Linux installs to test on my laptop. It’s not like I’ve been downloading 24/7, and I still ran into the limit. </p> <p>Now this policy wasn’t in effect when we signed up to the contract, so they must have changed it. Maybe this allows us to cancel the contract without a fee, but I don’t know. What annoys me is, they are advertising a service with “unlimited downloads”, yet this seems very much a limit on what you can download. It’s just hidden, as they must have realised how many customers they would push away with a download cap on their product. </p> <p>This seems to be a problem with a lot of ISPs. They advertise a product, and when they cannot deliver to the demands of the customer, they blame it on the customers themselves. However it is <strong>their own fault.</strong> They failed to plan ahead for the amount of load they would receive, and refuse to invest in new equipment to help them deal with the traffic. Even worse, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webwise">some ISPs are spending the money on Phorm.</a> This is a way to deliver targeted advertising to customers, based on their browsing habits. Not only does this infringe on the users’ privacy, it may damage income from sites and online shops. Surely ISPs should be spending money on enhancing their service, not something which I’m sure the majority of users do not want.</p> <p>I’m planning on switching to O2 Broadband, as they offer a nice discount to users who already have a mobile contract. However, my family do not want to lose their email addresses, which are provided by AOL. Another reason <a href="http://willminers.blogspot.com/2008/10/email-addresses-are-pretty-important.html">to sort out your email addresses</a>. Use an address not tied to an ISP, or even better, pay for your own domain name, which can be switched between providers easily!</p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-34075116584057455782009-01-13T17:05:00.002+00:002009-01-13T17:15:27.945+00:00First Thoughts<p>Finally got it installed! Was a pretty easy process, once I had the partitioning sorted. </p> <p>Setup was really simple, and after a short time, you’re able to create an account and log in. I’m greeted with a really nice, clean desktop. No icons apart from “Send Feedback” and the Recycle Bin. If it were up to me, I’d hide the Recycle Bin by default, as it tends to lead to people storing their documents in there, but that’s a different post.</p> <p>Still a bit worried about using Windows Media Player after hearing of it corrupting mp3 files, so I installed foobar2000. Once set up, that works perfectly. </p> <p>I just also installed Live Essentials from the link in the Start Menu (which, incidentally, is nice and empty. I’m not sure if that’s because I’m used to an old install of Vista, or whether Vista came with a lot more stuff preinstalled). After downloading the file, I chose to install Writer (which I’m using to write this post) and Messenger. They both work fine, but I feel as if Messenger needs a redesign. It doesn’t really fit in with the aesthetic of 7, being quite cluttered.</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SWzJxlgchfI/AAAAAAAAADc/xFt8bFDKcSM/s1600-h/Capture%5B2%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Capture" border="0" alt="Capture" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SWzJzc_ov8I/AAAAAAAAADg/BXtl1yRbmW8/Capture_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="109" height="244" /></a> </p> <p>I feel like they should get rid of the buttons at the bottom, the adverts at the bottom, the “What’s New” section, and streamline the top part, too. As it is, I’ll probably go back to <a href="http://www.miranda-im.org/">Miranda</a>. </p> <p>Some of the new features seem quite handy. I love the new taskbar. It only shows the icon of each program, and will show a preview of the window as you hover over it. Great for when you have multiple windows of the same program running, and it looks a lot cleaner. There’s also a new feature – I forget the name of it – where it you grab a windows titlebar, and shake it, it will minimise all other windows. This also looks really handy for looking at things on the desktop, and also stopping me from getting distracted. The “Show Desktop” area won’t be used much by me, as I don’t store stuff on the desktop really, but it’s pretty well implemented. Hover over or click on a small area at the far right of the taskbar, and open windows will go transparent, allowing you to see the desktop. It would be a lot more usable for me if it allowed you to extend the taskbar over two monitors, as currently you have to aim for the small button, rather than just dragging your mouse down to the far bottom right. That’s an issue with my setup though, but I’ve always wished Windows would include better support for dual monitor setups. </p> <p>What have I missed?</p> <p>Oh, libraries. Now by defauly, your user folder contains “Libraries”. These are Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos. From what I can tell, they appear to be virtual folders where you can add multiple sources of documents. For example, if you have a music collection split over multiple folders or drives, you only need to go into the Library folder for Music, and they will all be in one place. Seems quite handy, but I do like having all my stuff organised properly, and together in one actual folder. </p> <p>Jumplists also seem really handy if you’re doing repetitive tasks. </p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SWzJzyWIpmI/AAAAAAAAADk/1mSmEXS6uQw/s1600-h/jumplist%5B2%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="jumplist" border="0" alt="jumplist" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/__zejtH9QPgw/SWzJ0YtvrjI/AAAAAAAAADo/Enk-VdZmn2k/jumplist_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="228" height="244" /></a> </p> <p>For example here, I hovered over the Paint entry in the start menu, and it came up with recently opened files using paint. I can see this becoming way more useful as I use things more. Right now, it isn’t doing much. </p> <p>One last thought, going back to the Libraries. I’m not sure I like how the “Will” button on the Start menu takes me to Libraries, rather than my actual user folder. I’ll have to see what I can do about that.</p><p>Edit: I forgot to add something while I was talking about the options with the window movement. None of it comes close to the similar things on OSX. Windows Flip just seems like a pointless add-on, it's not actually useful at all as you can barely see the content of the windows. Alt-tab is slightly better, but still nowhere near as useful as Expose on OSX. </p>Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-22765136911251986892009-01-13T13:05:00.002+00:002009-01-13T15:27:31.879+00:00Here we goGparted is doing its thing as I type. Hopefully this will all work out. Just using Gparted has kinda made me want to go back to Linux again, it's just a really nice experience. And I love fluxbox!<div>I'll update as I progress.</div><div><br /></div><div>Edit: Gparted broke Vista, but I think a repair of it is fixing it. Doing CHKDSK now. </div>Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-36099432513151066432009-01-13T01:23:00.004+00:002009-01-13T02:31:37.452+00:00Nearly there...Decided to do a full backup before I messed around with partitions for installing Windows 7. Didn't realise it'd take so long. I've got 5 minutes left on my music collection, which has been going for over 2 hours! Just my pictures to backup now, which shouldn't take too long. <div>I'd forgotten that I had Synctoy setup to just copy new and updated files, which would have saved so much time. But instead, I just copied the whole directory. Stupid.</div><div>It's given me a bit of time to do some tidying though, done a bit of cable organising behind my desk. On the cheap, too - I didn't want to pay for cable trays and stuff, so I stapled wire twists to the underside of my desk and used that. Seems to be working quite well so far. </div><div><br /></div><div>Might be a long night if I want 7 installed by tomorrow...</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Edit: seems Vista doesn't want to let me shrink my partition by more than 98mb. Going to bed, I'll sort it out tomorrow. </div>Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-3944562366835668902009-01-10T20:01:00.001+00:002009-01-10T20:01:24.600+00:00Dear Microsoft<p>When planning to let 2.5million people download a 3.5gb file, maybe invest in some better infrastructure. Or, use torrents. They have been proven to work!</p> <p>Finally got a download, it’s going about 500kB/s (off the Microsoft site, using the download client, which incidentally works quite well). I’ll post later on once I’ve got it installed, probably tomorrow.</p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-65747574186769895022009-01-04T16:23:00.001+00:002009-01-04T16:23:40.511+00:00Belated Christmas/New Years Post<p>Merry Christmas/Happy New Years, everyone!</p> <p>I’ve been a bit busy, not really had time/inclination to update recently. But I have a little bit of free time, so I may as well now. </p> <p>Christmas went well, not white as was planned, but still really nice. I got some awesome gifts, and people seemed to like what I got them. I highly recommend <a href="http://photobox.com" target="_blank">Photobox</a> and <a href="http://mpix.com" target="_blank">Mpix</a> if you want to get prints of photos ordered. I ordered a poster of <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/willminers/2278327484/" target="_blank">one of my NYC pictures</a> from each of these companies, based in the UK and US respectively, and the service was great! Fast delivery, even close to Christmas, and the quality turned out brilliant. Photobox seemed to have a slightly better system for uploading photos, and telling you how big you could enlarge them, but they both turned out great anyway. Decent pricing, too. I now have 40 free standard prints from Photobox that I have to use by tomorrow…</p> <p>I got a cordless mouse that I’m having a couple of issues with. I’m an idiot and threw away the packaging in the states, but I think it’s a Logitech LX8. It seems to be lagging a bit shortly after I plug it in, but seems to sort itself out after a while. Made it annoying when I was playing Left4Dead with some friends and couldn’t control myself though! It may be a driver issue, but the only download the Logitech site seems to have is 55mb! I’m not sure I need that much just for a mouse!</p> <p>When it works though, it works great. Nice and comfy, and really precise. Now I need to get a wireless keyboard, and I’ll have a much cleaner desk.</p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-16157622776086770292008-12-10T01:12:00.001+00:002008-12-10T01:12:33.225+00:00Christmas<p>I can’t be dealing with all this Christmas malarkey at the minute. I don’t know whether it’s just me, but it seems to be getting harder and harder to find decent presents. I know people would be happy with a lot of things, but I like to get stuff that is nice, or individual. Seems like the big companies like <em>I Want One Of Those</em> and <em>Firebox<strong> </strong></em>seem to not only be selling the generic crap that you could get anybody, but the cool stuff that was new/hard to find last year. </p> <p>On another note, I’ve been playing Gears of War 2 pretty much all afternoon, after spending some time putting Christmas trees and lights up. I have a thing for co-op games, some things are so much more fun when you’re playing with a friend, and you get some decent teamplay going on. It’s nice to have a change from all the competitiveness of most other multiplayer games, and it seems to keep my interest a lot longer. Having said that, I’ll probably buy a 360 and Gears 2 soon anyway, and play through on my own. Chainsawing baddies never gets old!</p> <p> </p> <p>The search for presents continues…(I’d disclose what I’ve got people, but you never know who’s reading)</p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-58144877493597083212008-12-07T16:06:00.001+00:002008-12-07T16:06:12.746+00:00Games on a mac…<p>Yes, I know it’s wrong, and that I should be using Boot Camp to boot into Windows. But, I can’t, because I don’t have Leopard.</p> <p>I got a free copy of <a href="http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxgames/" target="_blank">Crossover Games</a> from their giveaway last month, and I’ve only just got around to using it. Or, trying to use it. I’ve successfully installed Steam, and downloaded and installed Counter-Strike. I can’t seem to get it working properly though, it will just show a black screen when I try and join a game. I’ll have another tweak with it, and have a go with some other games. Otherwise, I’ll have to shell out for Leopard and make myself an nLited install of XP. </p> <p>I’m running short of hard drive space, too. My Macbook Pro is pretty much out of space, and my main PC is running short. Have to get some more drives pretty soon. </p> <p>While I’m on the subject of games…you have to have been living under a rock if you haven’t heard of <a href="http://www.l4d.com/" target="_blank">Left4Dead</a>. I haven’t got around to buying the full game yet, but the demo had me sold within 10 minutes. The gameplay is so addictive, and it seems to have a really high replay value too. </p> <p>Just as I was writing this post, I managed to get Audiosurf working under Crossover, so maybe not all hope is lost.</p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-84212765436794289352008-12-04T14:28:00.001+00:002008-12-04T14:28:16.130+00:00Long time, no see<p>Yeah, I haven’t updated this in a while. Sorry. I’ve been busy!</p> <p>I finally got a job! Working in a local pub, in the restaurant and behind the bar. It’s enjoyable: nice to get out of the house, and you meet some great people. I’m hoping to get something more after the Christmas season though, I need something else to do during the day!</p> <p>Flying to the US in around two weeks, spending Christmas there with my family. Been trying to get presents sorted, but I’m stuck for a few people. Any ideas?</p> <p>I should probably update about some tech stuff that has me interested. The main thing I can think of is the new <a href="http://www.red.com/" target="_blank">RED Cameras</a>. Well, I say cameras – camera system. Details haven’t been finalised yet, but the idea of it being a completely modular system has me really interested. The idea is that you buy a “brain” which has all the camera sensor and processing inside, and then attach accessories to it depending on what you are using it for. There are millions of combinations. If you’re shooting a movie, you choose a configuration that’ll let you shoot film steadily. If you are shooting stills, you swap the components out and you have a DSLR. The beauty of it is, once they come out with a better sensor, in theory you just swap out the “brain” and keep the accessories, saving you money in the long run. The EPIC will obviously be out of most people’s reach, but the Scarlet is apparently within rage of the Canon 5DII (according to <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/03/reds-big-change-announcement-is-big-for-pros-disappointing-f/" target="_blank">Engadget</a>). If this is true, with the RED accepting Canon <em>and</em> Nikon lenses, then the fight for the prosumer’s money could become very interesting indeed. Personally, I can’t afford either, and I’d be waiting to see image results from the RED, but I’ll be following the battle closely. </p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-13273730824238758522008-10-16T13:54:00.003+01:002008-10-16T13:56:36.439+01:00G1Somebody get me a Google phone, please. I want to try one and compare it with my iPhone. Although, after having <a href="http://willminers.blogspot.com/2008/10/email-addresses-are-pretty-important.html">issues with gmail</a> recently, I have doubts over basing my whole phone on my Google account. Looks like it'd be nice with contact and calendar syncing, etc. <div><br /></div>Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-57770307403016673582008-10-13T14:34:00.001+01:002008-10-13T14:34:34.817+01:00Email addresses are pretty important<p>I only just realised how important my email address is to me. It is pretty much my identity online. </p> <p>I was messing around with setting up IMAP in Outlook. I have no idea what I did, but I ended up getting a chunk of spam, and some undelivered message notifications. It seems that I somehow triggered something, and a spammer started using my email address to spam people, using a spoofed “from” field. Then people think it’s me sending the spam, and I have a chance of getting my account disabled, as all the undelivered messages get bounced back to me. </p> <p>I’m hoping right now that there won’t be much of a problem. Apart from the first lot of stuff, nothing further has come through. It would hurt to have to change my email address, as everything is tied to it. As I said, it is my online ID. </p> <ul> <li>Various Accounts with online stores, forums, etc</li> <li>This blog</li> <li>My Google Documents, and calendar etc</li> <li>All my contacts</li> <li>Job Applications</li> </ul> <p>Everything would be lost if I lost this address. I’m starting to build a backup plan incase it gets lost, but I really like my address. It would be a massive pain to have to contact everybody with a new address.</p> <p>I guess I shouldn’t use a free account as my main point of contact, and split things across various accounts. I’m thinking of setting up a domain with a few different accounts for different things. </p> <p>Back to damage limitation!</p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-70202881924848578382008-10-02T21:10:00.001+01:002008-10-02T21:10:51.614+01:00iPhone<p>So, I got an iPhone today. Easrly birthday present off my parents. This one I’m using now is actually my second one, as the first one we bought, I got home, turned it on, and realised it had a dead pixel right in the middle of the screen. They just did a direct replacement though, so all was good.</p> <p>So far, I’m quite liking it. The signal quality isn’t that great, but then again I live in the middle of nowhere. I currently have 1 bar of signal at my desk, and it keeps disappearing. It gets better when I put it by my window, though. Strangely enough, the signal seemed to get better when I turned 3G off. I’ll do a proper test tomorrow though, when I’ve got the new firmware update.</p> <p>Brings me to another thing…iTunes updates. I went to download the new firmware, which is a 237MB file. I’m now on my third attempt at downloading it, because itunes doesn’t seem to have any form of download management, so if the transfer gets interrupted, it has to start again. Maybe it’s just with this file, I haven’t tried with any other files. But if I had to start again when a connection was interrupted, it’d get very annoying, very fast. Especially if I was downloading a movie or something. My connection seems to be a bit unstable at the moment. Maybe it’s the weather. </p> <p>Waiting for iTunes to finish syncing my music to the phone, then I’ll go have another play with it. I’ve already downloaded the remote app, and the Facebook app. Remote is awesome, lets you control itunes from the phone. The facebook app I couldn’t get to work, it wouldn’t let me sign in. After reading up a bit on it, I decided just to stick with the mobile version of the site (<a href="http://m.facebook.com">http://m.facebook.com</a>). The browser seems to handle it all very well, it’s all very intuitive.</p> <p>All in all, the whole thing just seems like a nice package, and very intuitive. I haven’t actually used it as a phone yet though, apart from sending 2 texts. Will try that out a bit more when my old Orange number gets ported over.</p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-55959897375064633242008-09-30T20:09:00.001+01:002008-09-30T20:09:43.695+01:00Itunes….<p>I know I was raving about Apple products in my last post, but iTunes is now pissing me off no end. All I want to do is add album artwork, but it won’t see my art as folder.jpg in the music folder!</p> <p>Argh. </p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-71543462437595684162008-09-30T13:40:00.001+01:002008-09-30T13:40:51.746+01:00Apple Stuff<p>I love it. I may sounds like a fanboy, but I’m really not. I realise they have downsides, and features missing. But no other company does things quite like them. Ease of use, packaging, design. It’s all brilliant.</p> <p>I just got an iPod Shuffle today. Comes in this cool little pack with it on display. I take it out of the pack, plug it into the included dock, plug it into my mac, and it just loads stuff on automagically. People complain about how they want to be able to drag and drop, or have more control. I’ve had players before that did that, and I just never ended up updating it, because it took too long to figure out what was already on there, and I couldn’t just drag my entire collection across. iTunes, for all its shortcomings, just does it for me. There were some things I wish it would do, like proper ID3 tag editing, but its work-around-able. </p> <p>I might try some of the other ipod syncing solutions, just to see how they are. Foobar2000 and Mediamonkey seem to, along with Winamp. Might give Amarok a try too, when I get around to installing Ubuntu again. </p> <p>But…back to Apple. I’m also getting an iPhone this week. I know it has its problems, but it seems one of the best phones on the market still. There are better specced phones (Like the N95) but they will not come close to the iPhone GUI in terms of usability and coherence between features (something which I always talk about). I looked at getting a HTC Touch Diamond, but I really cannot be bothered with Windows Mobile anymore. I’ve had it on my last two phones, and it’s awful. Unresponsive, features missing (I had to install a program to send files via Bluetooth) and everything just seemed…tacked on. It’s like Windows on PCs, actually. </p> <p>For example: the calendar app and todo list seem to be entirely seperate. You can’t add tasks to one from the other. Things like birthdays randomly show up twice in the calendar. It doesn’t seem to sync properly with other calendars (although, admittedly, I haven’t really dug into that). The software to sync is awful (although in Vista it is marginally better). It just feels like an unfinished, beta product. But it’s been out for years. Even Android looks years ahead of it, and that’s not even out yet! </p> <p>I was considering waiting until an Android phone was released in the UK, but after seeing the first phone, I decided against it. It looks massive and a bit ugly. Hopefully they’ll come up with some better phones soon though, because Android looks to be the future. </p> <p>I’m sure I was going to add something else to this, but that’s it for now. Will update when I get the phone. </p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-81384559298175356942008-09-26T19:28:00.001+01:002008-09-26T19:28:57.199+01:00Stuff<p>The <a href="http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eosd/eos5dm2/index.html" target="_blank">New Canon 5D</a> looks amazing. Crazy resolution, brilliant low light shooting, full-frame. What’s got me looking at it more though, is the video functionality. <a href="http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/" target="_blank">Vincent Laforet</a> seems really excited about it, and I can see why. <a href="http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2008/09/22/without-further-ado-reverie/" target="_blank">Just check out what it can do.</a> </p> <p>Related to that, some photographers and video shooters have a ridiculous amount of equipment. It makes me jealous. </p> <p>Here’s hoping I can afford a 5DII at some point.</p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2212555295058813047.post-9498931291346062162008-09-24T17:39:00.001+01:002008-09-24T17:59:38.042+01:00Microsoft…<p>Mentioned this briefly in my previous post, but I’m going to make a self-contained post too.</p> <p>Microsoft seem to have no focus with what they’re doing. They have too many products on the go at once, a lot of which do similar things. I know this may be a transition period, as they are apparently removing the built in programs in Windows 7, but still, it’s confusing to end users.</p> <p>Here’s an example. I have Windows Mail preinstalled with Vista. When I install Office 2007, I get Outlook installed too. Now, with these Live betas, I get another mail client! (Windows Live Mail). The same is true for calendar apps (except outlook does calendar too). </p> <p>They also have Office live, which seems to provide online document storage, but then they also have Skydrive, which also seems to do a similar thing. Then they have Live Mesh, which also offers online storage. Live mesh also offers remote desktop features, when there is already a client built into Vista (although the Mesh one is different in that it’s better for accessing a computer over the internet). </p> <p>Maybe I’m just not understanding their system. Maybe each product is designed for a different type of user (I know that Outlook etc is definitely designed for the business user). But it still seems very complicated, when they could be focusing on one product line that does it all. </p> <p>A lot of the products seem to be in response to Google products. They have updated Hotmail and the Calendar to compete with Gmail and Google Calendar. As far as I can see though, they have 2 or 3 different Calendar apps, which seem to be seperate from each other! I don’t want to be adding something to one, and it not appear on others.</p> <p>Maybe they’re also trying to compete with Apple and the MobileMe service. I’ll look into that a bit more, as I’m not 100% sure on what both services offer. </p> <p>Chances are, I’ll start to understand each program a bit more when I’ve played with them a bit, and I might do a comparison between them all. But for now, it just all seems very confusing and decentralised. </p> <p>I’m sure I’ve missed some other products, too.</p> Will Minershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00193354042393929190noreply@blogger.com0