Well I have been trying to re-arrange my desk, I took the monitor from my Linux box, and figured “I’ll do extended desktop on my PC!” so I have this really cool looking desk layout right now, iMac, 2 17inch LCD’s 1 keyboard, however the CATCH to my master plan? The MSI X300SE does NOT support extended monitors, it has 2 plugins for standard VGA and DVI - but - its only 1 feed. So right now I have 2 monitors, showing EXACTLY THE SAME THING. LoL
In other news, a good night tonight, got to join my sis, her hubby and my dad for X3, a excellent follow-up to X2 I thought, never was a HUGE Marvel comic fan, but the Xmen movies are well done I think at least from a entertainment standpoint, who’s to say if that really fits the actual comic book storyline at all, but twas good entertainment for me.
Later today the iBook goes to it’s new home, my cousin sarah - it has been a good laptop for me, still under warranty for another year, so she’s getting a pretty sweet “all in the family” deal, as I am throwing in iWork, iLife, and Tiger, as well as my BT keyboard - so tomorrow she brings her PC over, we yank the drive, then we mount it on the iBook and copy the files she needs and she goes home happy 
Other plans include Lunch/Dinner - and quite very possibly X3 again - as it is new, and I am the only one to of seen it, so “Oh Darn” I’ll have to watch it again (2 buckets of popcorn this time, and I am going to pre-buy skittles from the store!) 
but it should be a restful day.
I am sure there is something else I can ramble on about, but I think I am going to call it a night for sitting in front of a computer - going to make a quick snack (think’n Mac and Cheese) and then try the sleep thing again - shooting for more than 3 1/2 hours … time will tell Night folks.
Well things are progressing well, need to find my USB cables for the CF/SD card reader, so I can get my e-500 photos & A510 photos in quicker, I am currently uploading using the Flickr Uploader - which I missed, just the iBook was running out of space and the E-500 default shots average 5MB and 11+ for the digital negatives, but for now it’s working.
Must say though I really do enjoy Frontrow, really it’s cheezy, but it is nice, I do want to intergrate a TV tuner on this so I can get some love from the large screen and use it as a TV as well, granted a 20inch TV is small in some regards, but larger than nothing! So very happy - I have been having fun with Photobooth… Brace yourself:
Yeah - I’m definately having fun, some early AM work starts in about an hour though, have to start writing a email or two, as my weekend is offically over, but at this rate too my body will be ready to crash in about an hour, so emails may wait till the morning - but it’s going good - if you want to see some random photos taken today here are two sets to view, one outdoors, and one unpacking the iMac - enjoy em! Night!
Well I had been toying with the idea of a MacBook, the MacBook Pro would of been nice too - but then I got to thinking, it’d be nice to have a desktop mac for once, granted the Mac is great on the road, but I wanted a powerhouse on the desk, with the midi keyboard, so I could make music, work on a project I started DVD wise like a year ago, and various other tech type things.
So without further waiting, the new iMac 20inch 2ghz Core Duo is now on my desk (and I am using it to type this) - very excited alone about the Garage band potental, the Audio/Video on this are awesome, so crisp, definately plan to get bigger speakers though for the audio end of things, but so far so good - getting my 17GB iBook profile I backed up off and moved over - the iBook is already sold to my cousin, so she should enjoy that, this will allow me to also have a Mac in-house for support stuff as well as always - so all 3 major operating systems are now once again fully working in my room - very jazzed about this, once things are copied over, iPhoto is up and working and such, I’ll upload the photos of the unpacking, and once I get the desktop cleaned up, some screen shots if this bad boy in action, still need a name though, I have Grace (HP Laptop), BeautyfromPain (Windows Desktop), BigBoy (Linux Desktop) - what to name this though? iMac seems too simple of a name, like naming your Tabby cat “Tabby” So must come up with something clever.
Also got some new organizational tools for projects, and client interaction, very excited about them, considering them as part of my purposal for staying on at CMC, some strict Guidelines for how I interact, and ensuring that EVERYONE is on board vs. me having to play catchup with Brenten when he learns something is going on I don’t know of, or vice versa - lots of restructuring, but it’ll also come in handy for other projects as well.
Anywhoo - back to getting things setup, tweaked, configured, etc. Very very excited, Photobooth should offer some fun:
Man what a whirl-wind week thus far, lots done, more on the plate to be finished up, been toying with CMC’s newsletter system, ick. I love the software, runs awesome on my other servers, but somehow on CMC’s end it kinda sucks lol - had more issues with folks not being able to unsubscribe, server overloading, etc. very odd to say the least - but the upgrade is going to wait another night as something isn’t quite right, and the server keeps running out of drive space (problem I hope to fix tomorrow).
Other news, iPod 5G enroute. Another awesome client who has enjoyed my work, and to say “thanks!” they are giving me an iPod, plus they are working on getting me a “disposable” cell phone, and by that I mean a phone I am not afraid to take with me while tumbling through the hills on my bike, running over with my car, etc. aka not my Treo - so they are working with their T-Mobile Rep to see what they can spring me
3 x 1.5 = 4.5, part 2. Tomorrow afternoon I am going to make yet another attempt to be at the office and let the screwballs Arrival get the new line up and running, I can’t say I honestly miss working with Arrival when it comes to data based lines, I remember my first year of business, as I am sure Jon does too - many late nights online/offline as the line would go up, then down, then up, then down, then up - then offline for a afternoon. Tons of fun - in this case its a “This time for sure” scenario, they believe they have all issues worked out, and should be able to fire me online ASAP - can’t say I see it happening, but here’s to hoping.
Lastly, I may of killed a job I have today by a post I made, not sure, time will tell. Basically had some things I needed to get off my chest, and did so. Granted by no means what I had down in email, but none-the-less, I hope it’s taken as constructive advice and not me complaining, just 9/10 anymore I feel left out of the loop, then someone comes down on me about XYZ which I knew nothing about, or another person gives me the “Good Soldier” speech and tells me my every waking moment, my every desire, my every waking moment, should be for SiteX - so who knows, they may say “See ya!” - sad to leave, but may just be time…. oi. what a world.
That’s all I got. I need to put up a pop-up on HaF - and then it’s off to bed, hopefully before 5am. (riiiight) - Anywhoo, night all.
I have been looking for the best way to manage my photo’s:
MAC METHOD
While the iBook and iPhoto give me some good organization and a great flickr plugin the downside is the average file size is 5MB for the E-500, and the iBook has a small drive, so throw in the fact I had a thousand or so already in there, it was filling up fast - secondly, the E-500’s RAW format (ORF) is not supported, so iPhoto was confused as to what the other files were on the camera, iPhoto can support AVI/MOV now from cameras, however the E-500 is video free, just stills.
Lastly as the camera is USB 1.1 speeds, 5MB takes a LONG time to import, but solved that with a card reader (which I now use on all systems).
So that left me leaning away from the Mac - maybe if you guys get me that Quad G5 for my Birthday… well a guy can dream can’t he?
WINDOWS METHOD
Windows aka one of my main workstations, a collective 450GB on a single setup - lots of space, but again, the same issue as iPhoto, lack of RAW support in Picasa - again while great tools to manage the photos, in the end I can’t keep my digital negatives, there is an app that came with the camera, but it was slow, felt like a poorly written Java application - but it just wasn’t doing it.
So scratch windows, lots of storage, but no bang for my buck, the only thing it had going for it was Flickr Upload (similar to the iBook) but there was a catch, the reason it uploads so quickly, it scales my photos down some - hince leading me to the last method, which I half use.
UBUNTU LINUX METHOD
Ah yes, F-Spot your truly a beautiful program - iPhoto-ish workings, linux greatness all in all it works great to organize, the thing that scared me was the Flickr export from within it, slow slow slow, well after comparing some photos uploaded with Flickr upload (which uploads MUCH quicker) the Export function from within F-Spot by default leaves re-size unchecked, thus a 8MP original is uploaded, but in the case of the photos I just put up, that’d of been 168MB of uploading later! But in the final run, F-Spot (and assorted other Linux apps) understand the E-500’s RAW format! So I can do quick-re-touches, and plus use Photoshop (as needed) to re-touch things as well - very lovely setup.
All in all for me it really boils down to Windows vs Linux, however I find myself on my linux console more and more, while I still turn my chair towards this monitor (aka the Windows rig) - the tasks I can do more and more on the linux box are becoming more and more enjoyable - now I just need 1-2Mbps upload speeds and I am set.
The E-500 showed up today around 3pm, charged it for 3hrs (though they say 5hrs for a full charge) - I took a bit of a nap seeing as I had been up since about this time last night, and headed outdoors to play with a very inviting moon!
Needless to say, very excited! As the photo notes if you click it - I have been wanting to take shots of the moon for some time, still need to figure out a few more tricks on this camera, but all in all - awesome and then some! If I am still awake in 4 hours, and it’s not packed in with FOG, I am heading to the lake for starters, just need to remember to set the camera settings off of RAW+SHQ - as 13.5+~5MB adds up quickly on a 1GB CF
More photos through the week I am sure, watch
my flickr as it’ll be the most updated in just random bursts I am sure - plus one of my reasons for buying this besides that of personal relaxing was for work on ocasion, so maybe some shots from the gym, as they want some photos added to their website.
Busy week ahead, but hopefully this will provide a nice relaxing distraction for a few hours each day
Well one night while browsing at the geeks I saw a great deal on a CompactFlash card - so while ordering a Modem for Rosie’s Brother & Sister-In-Law, I snagged the 1GB card thinking “Awesome, this will be a great starter card on the E-500, and once I get used to the camera, I’ll save up and get a 2GB card” - of course now my budget is pushed more towards a car, didn’t goto the lot today to check any out, just had a semi-latenight/early morning - so much going on right now it seems, and nothing wants to get marked as “DONE” 
Times like this I would love to have the new camera and use it two fold as a “new” toy it’d definately need some time outside, so I’d for sure have to go out a drive to get some quality test shots out and about.. but sadly my time lately has been either debugging, sneaking in a quick nap, dealing with billing issues, or working on projects. Good news is Awaken-Apparel is doing good got $100 in orders in 1 night! Matt was definately pumped, however small glitch with PayPal’s IPN system caused some glitches with orders, but all in all now they are worked out, and the system should handle all future orders with no issue!
So things are getting there I guess, if anyone wants to get me a late Christmas present though, maybe team up on this post’s comments, and pool together your funds for a E-500 dual lens kit (you know you wannna) or you all could always purchase me a mini-cooper… the choice is yours
