Schadenfreude

I just took this picture with my new Canon XSI DSLR.  I really like it.  Even though I’m going to have to buy all new lenses, I think this picture, which was shot freehand with my left hand hanging in the air, makes it all worth it.

Geet asked me what inspired me to switch to Canon after my devotion to Nikon and coveting of his D90.  I was intrigued by the D90 and other Nikon offerings, but I preferred to stay in the $500 camera territory (D90 bodies start around $700 used).  True, I would not have had to buy new lenses, but my current lens situation isn’t really to die for (kit lens, 55-200mm VR lens, and 50mm 1.4 manual focus prime lens).  I’ve had the most fun with the prime lens, and I’ll probably spend some real money this time on a Canon version with auto-focus.

The real selling points for me for the Canon XSI over the Nikon D40x were the following:

• Auto-exposure bracketing (for HDR mainly)
• Shot Rate: 3.5 fps vs. the D40x 3fps.  Minor, but still better.
• Image stabilization in the kit lens (a bit gimmicky since it’s a low focal length, but still nice)
• Automatic Sensor cleaning (D40x doesn’t have it)
• More stuff in the viewfinder, like ISO settings.
• Better menu, more features to configure
• Larger screen (I usually use the viewfinder though)
• Live View (very minor advantage, see previous comment).  It will be nice when I’m taking a picture away from my face.
• Weight with the kit lens seems lighter than the D40x (I could be imagining things)
• Auto-focus metering is better, and the up-close performance is better
• Low-light performance seems to be better at ISO 800, but there are so many factors here that it could just be settings away.

The cons exist though:

• The D40x has configurable hardware buttons, which is cool.  I don’t see this on the Canon
• None of my filters will fit the funky 58mm format!  I have quite a few :(
• The SD card slot door isn’t spring loaded – the Nikon’s is.  Very very minor.
• After taking a picture or a set of them, it shows on the screen, but you have to hit the play button to activate review mode before hitting a directional button.  On the Nikon, if you hit a directional button when a picture is showing, you’re magically in review mode.
• The sound!  The squeaky nasty gear-driven shutter sound is rather awful, while the mechanical-sounding Nikon shutter sound is totally awesome.
• The feel of the adjustment wheel is better on the Nikon.  It seems cheaper on the Canon.
• Deleting pictures on the camera is more cumbersome.

Overall, I’m still happy.

awesome, camera, canon, hand, hdr, xsi

I was having the hardest time getting various programs to echo the runtime of m2ts files in Linux, and it turns out someone wrote a parser for the files in the BDMV/PLAYLIST directory, which have all of this information.

• Get bdtools. I got Version 1.4. You can find it here.
• ./configure && make && sudo make install
• Try running mpls_dump. I got this error when running:

  mpls_dump: error while loading shared libraries: libbd-1.0.so.1: cannot open shared object file:
  No such file or directory

• To fix it, do this:

  echo "/usr/local/lib" | sudo tee -a /etc/ld.so.conf
  sudo ldconfig

awesome, bluray, encoding, linux, m2ts, mpls, software, tools, ubuntu, utilities

Actually, I’m not. I’m just making that the title in the hopes that Google will lead people to this post. I saw this today:

James Cameron’s completely immersive spectacle “Avatar” may have been a little too real for some fans who say they have experienced depression and suicidal thoughts after seeing the film because they long to enjoy the beauty of the alien world Pandora.

“…The movie was so beautiful and it showed something we don’t have here on Earth. I think people saw we could be living in a completely different world and that caused them to be depressed.”

Wait, we don’t have native tribes in a jungle living here on Earth? Really? Or maybe you’re talking about the color of their skin… it’s true we don’t have real Smurfs. Yet, I think this is just a case of people being really confused about what they want out of life. Maybe the depressed should go into the wild and live their dream, like Henry David Thoreau did. Just go to South America, which is replete with tribes living in the Jungle fighting the evil environmental antagonists who log the rainforest.

I’ll have to watch the movie when it comes out on video.

avatar, environmentalism, movie, people, silly, suicide

I have no idea why this package isn’t in the default community repositories. I highly recommend they add it. Use the following commands to add the repository and install the package:

sudo zypper ar ftp://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/repositories/home:/mkng:/science/openSUSE_11.1/ PARI
sudo zypper in pari-gp

gp, linux, opensuse, pari, software, zypper

Calibre is about the best thing since sliced bread. It is able to convert basically any type of Ebook format into EPUB, which is what my Nook reads natively. It seamlessly syncs with the Nook as well, which is a huge plus, and all of this happens in Linux. I highly recommend this software. Just make sure not to queue up too many jobs, or it might DOS your computer for a bit. The PDF conversion is especially intensive. It makes quick work of short documents (hundreds of pages), but documents that are thousands of pages take much, much longer. The only capability I’m missing currently is conversion of DOC to EPUB, but I can use OpenOffice to convert a DOC to HTML, and then import that into Calibre and convert it, so that works.

awesome, Calibre, ebooks, linux, nook, reading, software, ubuntu

I converted an ebook from TXT to EPUB today using Calibre, and found that the italics (which in the TXT file are annotated /like this/) are not converted into the HTML equivalent.  I did the following to fix this:

1. unzip ebook.epub -d tmpbook
2. cd tmpbook
3. perl -i.bak -pe 's/([\s-,.;\'?:]+)\/(.+?)\/([\s-,.;\'?:]+)/$1<i>$2<\/i>$3/sg;' *html
4. That will create.bak files just in case anything went wrong.  To revert the changes, do this:
   for i in *.bak; do mv $i ${i%.bak}; done
5. zip -r ebook.zip * && mv ebook.zip ebook.epub

Then, I found out Calibre works beautifully with the Nook, so I just popped it on there and it worked.

awesome, Calibre, ebooks, linux, nook, software

So, ConvertLit seems to be a good solution for those looking to convert LIT ebooks into EPUB (well, into HTML, but then into EPUB…).  Unfortunately, the developers seem to be unable to properly make a good source tarball for version 1.8.  Here’s what I did:

1. Download Version 1.8 source from here.
2. unzip clit18src.zip -d convertlit
3. sudo apt-get install libtommath-dev
4. Download this to the convertlit directory.
5. patch -p1 -i clit18.source.patch
6. You should see the clit18/Makefile was patched
7. cd lib && make && cd ../clit18 && make
8. the clit binary should be available in the clit18 directory
9. sudo cp clit18/clit /usr/local/bin/
10. Use it!

Now I just have to figure out how to convert it to epub.

awesome, converlit, convert, ebooks, epub, linux, lit, ubuntu

I’m very happy with my new CD player.It came with an older firmware on it, and supposedly the new ones will play OGGs, so I decided to upgrade.

Read more…

devices, electronics, firmware, music, reviews, upgrade

I’ve been using Kopete on my quest to convert to KDE, and I’ve been extremely annoyed by previous conversions showing up in my chat windows. The option to disable it didn’t seem to be anywhere, but I found a forum post that pointed me to the Plugins section of the configuration.

Just disable the plugin entirely or open it and mess with the configuration. Things like that shouldn’t be on by default, along with chat window tabs (when did this become common?) and annoying buttons for fonts and emoticons. But, maybe I’m more minimalistic than many.

chat, fix, kde, kopete, linux

So, recently, I installed Ubuntu karmic cleanly on my main desktop machine here at home, and I have really liked it. I even switched to KDE, and everything has been working better than it had been in GNOME. I tried setting up Skype the other day, and ran into an issue with the microphone. It turns out that since the new Skype uses PulseAudio, there’s a further configuration step that’s not so obvious. I found out here that you have to do the following:

sudo apt-get install pavucontrol
pavucontrol

Then, go to the Input Devices tab, and unmute the sound (click the little speaker with a red X until the controls at the bottom are enabled). Then, change the Port setting until you can see the bars move when you tap the microphone. Then try Skype. This worked perfectly for me – it’s too bad it’s not connected to the KDE sound mixer, but oh well. Maybe in the future that will happen.

audio, karmic, kde, linux, microphone, pulseaudio, skype, sound, ubuntu