1. Cost of film
2. Limited number of pictures per film
3. Cost of developing pictures
4. The wait for picture development
5. The complexity of developing your own pictures
6. The management of all the developed pictures (photo albums, shoe boxes full of pictures)
7. Storage of original film

So my interest in photography was overcome by it complexity and cost.

At the dawn of the consumer digital camera era my interest returned but never had enough cash for a good camera I always had access to a “OK” digital camera. The first one I got to use was a AGFA 2.0 mega pixel (MP) camera. The pictures where not worth crap and the batteries lasted about 10 minutes. Yup, it would go through a 4 set of AA batteries in 10 minutes. Ug. Then I got a free 3.2 MP HP when I bought a color laser printer for work. It was OK, pictures where OK and the battery life was OK, but nothing to inspire the inner photographer, I found the press of the “take picture button” and the 5 second delay until the picture was taken was painful taking pictures, especially when taking pics of the kids. While we had lesser digital cameras Kristy had a decent film camera which was still capturing the “moments” but I never seemed to use it much.

Next up was Kristy’s new 5.0 MP Sony Cybershot. The pictures where good and the battery life was great. Armed with a 512 MB Memory Stick this is what I was waiting for. I starting taking good pictures, but not great pictures. But the one thing I did notice it that I was enjoying carrying the camera and trying to capture the events and taking some interesting shots. This all changed when Sean showed me his pictures and introduced me to DSLR. Wow. His shots where fantastic and the quality of the shots where a cut above mine (pinto vs. ferrari). What I learned is it is not all about the massive MP but also the lenses, image stabilization, and of course good lighting.

So this year one of my 2009 New Year’s Resolutions is to unlock the inner photographer. I picked up a Canon XS Rebel DSLR from the Boxing Day sale of Future Shop (got to love those 6 AM crowds).

One thing about taking all these pictures is about managing them. So I have set out to explore how I can mange these pictures. I am been playing with Microsoft Expression Media 2 and Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 and I will blogging about that discovery later. Also there is a collection of Dummies books on the Canon XS Rebel and using Photoshop of digital photographers which I will be reviewing in upcoming months.

Happy New Year everyone.

Days I decide to shut off email, IM, and the phone are days code flows from the brain to the fingers and into the computer. Those are the days I don’t have to look up as many examples of code because my brain is working the way it should when writing software. I think I am going to start two days a week only checking all the digital gizmos for request of contact/response once every two hours. This way I can do a “normal” week’s work in two days. Hey, who else is in!?!
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What prompted my rant was this article I read called “Why You Can’t Pay Attention“. It is worth the read.

Before OMAOG my favorite project was the CETS project with Microsoft Canada and Toronto Police Services. CyberSecure (an old company of mine) got engaged by Microsoft to secure the infrastructure (which resides in the RCMP data center) that helped police officers track down child exploit offenders.

Now with GreenNexxus being one of the core components of the CBC green website is very exciting, plus getting photos on the set of “The Hour” was pretty cool.

Go directly to the iTunes Store and take a look at Red Delicious.

What you do is set it up and a “master” computer with the keyboard and mouse then set it up on your other computers. I set it up on my Tablet PC, I placed my Tablet PC with the screen swiveled around so it looked like the Tablet PC was just another screen. See the pic below.

What I really like is I can put the Tablet PC to sleep and it does not effect the master computer and when it wakes up I don’t even have to reconnect, it just works. Oh yeah, it allows copy, copy and paste between computers!

Tablet PC Spun Around

What happened is I used the same external hard drive to backup my Vista machines and my Windows 2008 Server. When I went to restore my Vista machine, the restore software only could see that I had backuped the Windows 2008 Server and would not pickup my Vista computer backup, even though it was still there on the hard disk. Unlike the backup software in Windows XP, the Vista/Windows 2008 Server backup will not backup to a network share, so I decided to find an alternative solution. BTW: Tried the backup in Microsoft OneCare as well (which I use for AV and other features) but it does not make computer images but does allow to backup to a network share. If Microsoft would combine the features of Windows Backup and backup in OneCare it would be actually pretty good for home users.

What I found was Acronis TrueImage 11 Home. It is $49 per computer and well worth it. Even if you only have one computer at home I would pay the money. The installation is painless. After I installed Acronis I quickly made a full system backup to a network share. When Acronis backs up you can set the size of the backup files, so I selected 4.7 GIG so I could then burn a copy of the backup from the network drive to DVDs. After you make a full system backup you can then schedule incremental backups of the image, plus you can set it to backup just Application Setting and/or just data a few times a week. Acronis also makes a boot disk so if you computer dies and you need to re-install you boot from the CD/DVD and then feed it the backup discs.

I recommend after a fresh OS install and installing any programs purchased that needs activation (MS Office for example), make a base backup image. This way when you restore you don’t have to worry about Vista or Office needing to be activated as it already is already in the backup.

Having various computer at home backing up systems is very important. So no data on the desktops so I can re-image them quickly if I need to, all systems backup to a central spot on the network and I and offload the backups to DVD when I need to.

In summary, after anti-virus software I would recommend a good backup software, and for me that is Acronis, it will save your data and many hours of frustration.

[I do not work for or know anyone at Acronis, they just make good stuff.]

I know many people say leave your laptop and phone behind on vacation but it was more relaxing being able to check email before breakfast and before supper (yes only twice a day) and make sure things were running smoothly back home.

As I drove though New Hampshire I found all the outlet malls, the “bed and breakfast”s, small and large motels/hotels all had free wireless Internet. I hope Maine, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia tourist destinations follow suit. I bet it is because New Hampshire has a large influx of people of Massachusetts and free wireless Internet is a requirement.

Here are some pics of the Lost River in New Hampshire.

Please visit Ryan’s Mac Site

From time to time I will write about some things that either interest me or annoy me. That is what blogging is all about.