Author: Jan Dembowski (page 30 of 96)

April 18, 2010

Nikon 50mm f/1.4G samples

I’ve been playing with my new 50mm. If you liked the f/1.8D version, then you’ll have no complaints with this f/1.4.G new model.

Dim Sum cart

It’s a fun lens and as long as you can move around, you’ll get good shots. Here’s some samples I took today.

We ate at the Jade Asian Restaurant. There are probably some people who could get away with taking photos of strangers in a restaurant, but I’m not one of them. I took shots of my family and the dim sum carts.

I process most of my photos with DxO Optics Pro 6. Anyone who wants to do as little work doing color correction, noise, and distortion adjustments should order this software. With DxO I converted these from Nikon .NEF into Adobe .DNG format, but only because I like to play with the color temperature and blacks. Some quick cropping in PSE and I’m usually fine after that.

I’m a fan of DxO and eventually I’ll just go from RAW to straight JPEG. The software is very fire-and-forget.

April 18, 2010

WordPress 3.0 beta looking good

I’ve been using WordPress 3.0 beta for about 2 weeks and I’ve only run into one odd behavior.

When I upload or upgrade a plugin, the old plugin gets deactivated and the new plugin version gets downloaded. What is not happening is that the page is not loading up the next steps of re-activating the new version (or just recently downloaded) plugin. I did not catch this and was running without the upgraded plugin for a day or two.

I’m keeping my copies current using SVN and I’m convinced it’s my wonky setup. This server is running NGINX and PHP-FPM. I have the NGINX running as www-data and PHP-FPM running as a separate userid (why? because I can). The NGINX and PHP5 are both installed using non-Ubuntu repos.

I don’t mind this situation and I’ll get it sorted out by running the beta on another box running Apache to get an understanding of what’s going on.

Over on Otto’s blog, he discusses the idea of holding off upgrading to 3.0 when it comes out. Given the hysteria on the support forum whenever a new version comes out, I think that’s an excellent idea. What would be fun is when the 3.0 version is released, and the automatic notification does not get triggered across the globe. Instead the blog gets updated and the notification does not get triggered until 3.1 comes out.

It’s wishful thinking on my part because too many people treat their self-hosted WordPress installation as a service and not as something they are responsible for. I think the majority of WordPress.ORG users are pretty savvy but the minority sure is vocal.

While talking about WordPress, the W3 Total Cache plugin is amazing. I’m playing with it while running the beta and it appears to be speeding up my site without using a disk cache. I have used WP Super Cache but this seems approach the problem from a different angle. Instead of creating HTML static pages, it has the option to use PHP’s opcache. I’m using APC and the speed looks like it’s working. It’s a very cool idea and the implementation looks really polished.

Once WordPress 3.0 is officially released, I’ll run two test blogs on two different boxes and compare the output with and without W3 Total Cache. This way I should be able to get almost scientific results for comparison.

April 13, 2010

Yes, but how does Matt really feel?

It reads a little like a rant, but you really can’t blame him.

I’m not even going to link any of the articles because they have so many inaccuracies you become stupider by reading them.

If you’re a web host and you turn a bad file permissions story into a WordPress story, you’re doing something wrong.

via WordPress › Blog » Secure File Permissions Matter.

It’s not rocket science and the real problem is explained in detail elsewhere but can be summarized as “It’s the hosting company, Stupid!”

Which leads me to a posting on another blog. Partial blame is leveled “At WordPress for requiring that the database credentials be stored in clear-text. At WordPress again for not installing itself securely by default.”

The ignorance continues with “I also have to agree with Network Solutions that this problem can happen at any shared host site. Not only for WordPress, but for any CMS out there that store the passwords in clear-text.”

That’s just a stupid thing to say. If you are going to make a statement like that, then you need to back it up with “WordPress should have followed example X for how to store that data securely”. It sure is good to call out from the cheap seats and that’s all that blogger is doing.

The impacted users are on a shared server that’s not setup properly. Users get a pass because, well, they’re users. It’s not really the users responsibility to understand how their self hosted blog works and prevent these compromises from making the neighborhood look bad.

Network Solutions loses any credibility because instead of just saying “Yeah, we screwed up and we’re fixing it” they played the ignorant blame-the-software approach. Network Solutions is not a flash in the pan company and should hire someone who can help them overcome Web Hosting 101 issues.

April 11, 2010

New Nike ad

Like most people (hopefully), I really don’t care about a golfer’s infidelities. I do feel sorry for his wife, just as I felt sorry for Hillary Clinton. But the stupid, selfish, narcissistic, self-destructive behavior of people in their private life is none of my business. I tune in to watch them perform in their sport.

Now that that’s out-of-the-way, let’s talk about Nike’s new ad. I saw the spot on TV and listened to the voice over of their star’s late father and I had only one reaction. Read more

April 10, 2010

Team Fortress 2 was never this cool

I saw this on Twitter this morning. This is an amazing editing job.

You can see the non-split screen version here.

April 5, 2010

Yes, it blends

Wow. With some work the iPad did get into the blender.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAl28d6tbko

You knew this was going to happen to an iPad.

April 3, 2010

Playing with WordPress 3.0, Beta 1

As I usually do, I switched this blog from WordPress 2.9.2 to the current 3.0 beta. I always run the beta versions and I have not yet gotten myself into a hole. It also helps that I have very good backups for the last 30 days.

I re-ran my overnight backup job one more time to make sure I’m up to date and used SVN to perform the switch.

$ cd /my/wordpress/web/directory
$ svn sw http://core.svn.wordpress.org/trunk/

When I went to the login page I had to upgrade my database. And that’s all there was to it. I’ll do a regular “svn up” and keep my install current with the beta.

I have been kicking around the idea of taking the sites I manage and making them one multi-site WordPress 3.0 install but that will be down the road for a while. For now I’ll continue to maintain them separately with the released version (2.9.2 as of right now).

As for the beta, there are not many visual differences (the color scheme is lighter and less “harsh”) and each of my plugins check out. I am hoping that when 3.0 is released, the usual forum drama will not happen. But I also know somewhere someone will upgrade without doing the work of a full backup.

March 30, 2010

Browsing the web like it’s 2002

I’ve re-acquainted myself with StumbleUpon and finding out it’s a much better time waster than Reddit. It’s like Reddit without the witty comments. I pressed the Stumble! button and went to the Stellarium web site.

Stellarium was a fantastic find. I installed it and was explaining to my kids that this is how the start are laid out in the sky right now. I had no idea this was freely available and here’s the best part: this is GPL’ed software too.

When you visit a website you can give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. Or you can ignore it. Mostly I press the Stumble! button and get sent to web sites that are in my chose categories. With your account you get to select those subjects that interest you, and can add or subtract later on.

It’s very addictive. I have narrowed down to astronomy and photography (not at the same time) and I get some really good websites. StumbleUpon has been around for many years and I’m glad that I’m using it now.

March 27, 2010

Strangely enough, I don’t watch enough TV

I have been busy at work these past two weeks and I normally don’t watch much TV. But this episode of The Daily Show from March 18th makes me wish I’d at least DVR’ed this show.

Jon Stewart is not really a political hack and he does make fun of everyone. That’s his job and calling him a liberal operator is really funny since his show is on Comedy Central. He’s a comedian for crying out loud.

I don’t watch Glenn Beck because I don’t agree with him and I don’t like his Morton Downey, Jr. shtick. The few times I have seen clips of that clown on other shows, it’s really obvious that he’s afraid that someone will call him out on his ignorance. Even on Bill O’Reilly he tries to out “intellectualize” other people. The interview video clip with is great; he’s explaining to O’Reilly what a liberal is?

I don’t like O’Reilly either (he was rude to someone who I grew up admiring in an interview) but I do respect him in the sense that he does the math and understands what he’s talking about. Bill O’Reilly just makes the decision to skew the facts for his point of view. That’s fine and it’s just political commentary. While many people won’t like the comparison, Rachel Maddow does the same thing. In my opinion, she’s just more polite, rational, and reasonable.

Glenn Beck is a shrieking maniac. He is just an entertainer that deluded people into believing that he’s a savvy political commentator. He’s honest enough to tell people that he’s doing it just for the money, but once the roller coaster ride is over, he ends up in the dust bin with all the other flash in the pans. The fact that people mistake him for a political leader is scary.

He’s as smart as an 80’s talk show/variety host desperate for ratings and Jon Stewart, whose job is just to be funny, does great work making fun of him.

March 25, 2010

Nikon 50mm f/1.4G

New 50mm

After using my brother’s Nikon 50mm f/1.8D lens for a few weeks, I broke down and picked up a new AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G lens. From all the reviews I’ve read, it’s an improvement over the older f/1.4D version being more sharper while still having a good DOF.

Here are some samples of what I took with the older f/1.8D lens. I like 50mm on my camera because I can get good photos without being in people’s faces.

I’ve really enjoyed using the 50mm f/1.8D and have taken some good photos with it. But it is on loan and I wanted my own. The new one is a better and more modern lens so getting that version should work out for me.

My initial test shots with the 50mm f/1.4G lens shows that the depth of field is really good. The object I focused on is sharp but the background is nice and soft.

This weekend I’ll use it a lot and post some of the results.