Archive for November, 2006

I had recently a significant problem while trying to upgrade a Windows 98 installation to Windows 2000 pro. Everything turn ugly (I clicked to fast on a button and could not provide drivers for my motherboard, the installation went bad in the middle of the update of system parameters), leaving the system in a very bad situation: Impossible to finish the installation, impossible to come back to the previous OS (it was already partly replaced) and the backup I had was so partial that I was not sure I could be confident.

That is when I decided to apply a solution that I knew existed but I did not try before. Knoppix is a GNU/Linux distribution that does not need to be installed to start on a computer. Actually, what they call a LiveCD is a CD-ROM that holds a full OS ready to start from the CD-ROM without any installation. Exactly what I needed!

A simple boot on the CD drive allowed to access to my hard drives, do the adequate backup, check the exact status of the installation and be confident enough to start a full Windows 2000 installation from scratch knowing that everything was fine.

Knoppix is recommended as a kind of insurance: Get yourself a copy on a CD-ROM. You never know when it will come handy.

Interestingly, even in the default distribution that I advise to use as a system toolbox, there is enough software to just play with multimedia files (I tried successfully to play MP3 audio and DivX video files). And there are also very useful applications like the OpenOffice desktop suite, Internet web browsers, a few games, a GDB debugger for those using the GNU development suites, etc.

We all noticed that our digital cameras offer a button (or a menu) to choose different sensitivity ISO settings. The casual user would note that the higher this value (let’s say 800 or 1600 ISO), the easier it is to snap a photo in a dimly-lit room or to stop the motion of a fast moving model (like kids, for example).

So, why not always set the higher possible ISO?

Actually, there is a big disadvantage to it. The higher the ISO setting, the worse image you get. Like for analog film cameras, high ISOs mean that the technology has to grab more information out of less light. The digital camera sensor needs as much light as possible and setting a high ISO just means that the sensor has to amplify the image more. Just like a relatively bad HiFi equipment, the higher the volume the more noise you’ll get. In film cameras, it meant grainy pictures.

In digital images, noise is this grainy slightly colored spots that appear all over the image and most spectacularly in the dark areas. In small compact cameras, 800 ISO may be much more than what we would accept as reasonable. Often, 200 ISO is a maximum acceptable level. In most Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras, 800 ISO is nearly always Ok. 1600 ISO may be usable but it’s not sure you’ll appreciate fully the resulting images.

So, I keep my camera locked to the lowest ISO setting (100 ISO for my Konica-Minolta Dynax-Maxxum 7D camera). I only go higher if the image cannot be shot any other way and I know for sure that the noise will only be a small inconvenience (small size prints, not trying to do artsy photos).

It’s your choice, now.

The dontclickit.com web site is an experience definitely interesting for all who (like you and me, no doubt) are used to intereact with a web site using the click of our mouse. This special web site – it is a research experiment about man-machine interfaces – is 100% usable without ever clicking on anything.

It’s really worth a try to learn how much we are now trained to use this simple tool. Just try it. But don’t click it!

Plenty of web sites try to attract you with free fonts (or other free items) and fail to deliver this. If you are lucky you will find a couple of ugly (but still free) fonts. Now, it is quite exceptional to find true top-quality fonts on the web. Vitaly Friedman just did this on his notebook with his 25 Best Free Quality Fonts.

According to my tastes, one of the best is Cardo. Have a look.

You certainly remember the (somewhat ephemereal) success of the many cultural CD-ROMs that appeared on the shelves five years ago to offer quality presentations of painters, museums, cities or historical periods (they were flourishing just before Christmas of course). Even if it did not disappear completely, this market seems to have been overwhelmed by the Internet and its nearly endless source of information.

Today, this is a 100% digital museum that you can find on the Internet: The musée Achéménide (the Achaemenid Museum). But if you no longer have to queue up in the entrance, the presentation of these museums is not always perfect. This is exactly what attracted me here: The excellent quality of the presentation of the web site of Collège de France where Pierre Briant, professor of “Histoire et civilisation du monde achéménide et de l’Empire d’Alexandre”, opened an exceptionnal set around the Achaemenid Persian Empire.

Here, you will find 8000 objects, including coins, seals, photographs and no less than 32,000 text documents or comments. The enormous data comes from the best scientific institutions (Le Louvre, British Museum, Bibliothèque Nationale de France and many others). This makes it a powerful tool for the scientific researcher and a very pleasant visit for the common tourist.

Another good web site about the Persian Empire: Persia.

Some time ago, I had noticed a technique to present and organize ideas whose name is Mind Mapping. I’m sure that specialist will say that I over-simplify things (an may want to add comments to complement this), but I got the feeling that it is merely a hierarchical organisation of ideas insisting on easy re-organisation (more a technique for managing ideas than a theory of idea organisation, but this is secondary).

For a long time, I kept the intent of verifying what tools could support such a promising approach and I recently found the opportunity to evaluate FreeMind, an Open Source Mind Mapping software for Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.

As a matter of fact, FreeMind behaves as well as could be expected for a small software application that must mix graphical and textual data, user-friendly interface (when you are trying to think straight about your important problem, you don’t want a klunky Man-Machine Interface to fight against you), and speed of execution. It is a real pleasure to entre ideas, modify them, re-organize them, browse them. What looks – at first – like a small application appears to be a very well-thought tool. A real success.

Then, it is up to you to decide whether or not the hierarchical organisation (or rather the spider-like or octopus-like organisation) fits your way of thinking, but I admit I was quickly won to the approach. The example I provide along this post may not be the best (the upcoming (?) availability of Windows Vista obviously infuenced my choice, I did not find the time or the mind to to do better and I could not decently present the mind map I worked upon at my job), but my feedback is very positive and I urge you to try it.

Side note: The wiki help web site is extensive and it also contains other examples and screenshots.

Slackware is a GNU/Linux distribution known for its simplicity, stability, and security. They announced the release of their latest production in terms of Linux installation CDs, so I decided to test-run it on one of my machines. Here is my experience with it. I hope it can help some people.

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Alaska senator Ted Stevens has become the epitome of I-have-no-clue-about-technology US Senators after his describing Internet as “series of tubes” (and don’t dare sentence them to ignominy if you’re -like me- from France, a country where President Jacques Chirac failed to remember a few years ago the name of this little rodent we use with our computer and christened it “mulot” (vole) instead of “souris” (mouse). However, some wonder about the real positions these US Senators take when voting on real laws. This is why C|net decided to rank the US Senators and some surprises are to be found.

Those appearing at the top of the list are modestly satisfied of course. Top score goes to “George Allen, a first-term Virginia Republican who won the top score in the Senate, at 78 percent, after becoming chairman of the Senate High Tech Task Force five years ago.” Rep. Ron Paul, Texas-R topped the House with 80%.

But “Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, voted in the pro-tech direction in only 2 of 13 votes. That put in him second-to-last place in the Senate, with a score of just 15 percent.” The Senate bottom seems to be Democrat Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, with just 14 percent (Akaka scored well on just 2 of 14 votes).

Of course, the loosers do complain about the quality of the rating.

Version 1.0.5 fixes a bug around wrongly displaying the number of continuous shots which can be taken and adds a semi-gloss paper option for direct printing (on PIXMA Pro9000 and other PictBridge-compatible printers).

Download the new firmware, copy it on a memory card and the Canon EOS 30D will update itself on startup.

After the rumour of the D60 digital single lens reflex camera from Nikon, it appears that the name was wrong. and we start to know a little more.

A very reasonable German online shop (Neckermann.de) seems to have leaked the data by accident earlier today (it as been removed now). This gives a lot of insight about the product. First, the name should be Nikon D40. And it seems that this comes from a very low-end target (lower than the D50).

• Still 6.1 mega-pixel
• No status LCD, but a 2.5″ 230K pixel one on the back
• 3D Color Matrix Metering II (420 Pixel Metering)
• Center-weighted metering (75% of center field), 8mm spot
• 3 point auto-focusing
• Probably no AF motor
• Iso 3200 (Hi-1).
• 1/500 Flash Sync
• i-TTL compatible
• USB 2.0
• SD, SD-HC memory cards
• Lithium-Ion battery EN-EL9
• Obviously smaller body (BxHxT: 94×126x64 mm ) with the same look as the D50
• 475 grams without battery, memory card

The price point is unknown but this set of features should put it at the lowest possible target (it has to cover the market that others are leaving when moving up to 10MP). It should be a real price crusher.

The blogs of Le Monde (French major newspaper) just moved to a new level. From their previous TypePad-supported architecture, they are now using WordPress.

Good confirmation of the world-class quality of WordPress as a blogging software.

Source: Toni’s Garage.

Today, November 3rd, Sony officially accepts the first pre-orders for its best telephoto lens: The SAL-300F28G – 300mm f/2.8 G-Series with high-speed SSM motorization. It is supposed to be as exceptional as the original Konica-Minolta issue.

Unfortunately, the retail price is expected to be around 6000 USD.

This lens is evaluated on:

• Karlsen photography
• La photo selon HH (in French)

Nikon is supposed to announce tomorrow (2nd November) its new D60 digital single lens reflex camera (a replacement for the D50 and a complement for the recent D80). Not much is known except the information collected from Ken Rockwell:

• Moving downmarket, it will come in silver paint as well as professional black. Please get the black.
• It will replace the D50. It’s got a somewhat newer, cleaner looking body and weighs even less.
• I expect the D60 to sell for about $599 for the body alone.
• It uses the modern EN-EL3e battery.
• The monitor is a new 2.7″ LCD.
• I expect it to the same 10MP sensor as the D80 (standard DX sensor size) and 2.5 FPS. Image quality will match the D80 and D200, with a lower price and a few less features.

Personally, I am unsure about the details (really nobody else seems to have precise data – the NDAs must be very strict and the Nikon lawyers are pobably hunting anybody willing to show some precise information).

Yes! It has already been 10 years since the inception of SpamAnti.net. It started on Compuserve then migrated to various hosting solutions. The name changed several times (from Spam Anti to Spam.Anti to SpamAnti! to SpamAnti.net), but I kept the same will to find easy practical solutions to the permanent flooding of our mail boxes and some adequate information/news.

Original image by Josef Stuefer

Happy Birthday SpamAnti.net!

This is the title of an article from Scientific American (October 2006 issue, “Working knowledge”) that describes with clear and simple details the various techniques used to stabilize images in today’s photo cameras and video cameras:

• moving an optical element
• deforming an optical element
• moving the sensor
• digital or software stabilization

Source: Scientific American newspaper magazine or the article introduction on their web site.