links for 2008-12-14
Posted on by PatrickNew Camera
Posted on by PatrickAbout 2 months or so ago, I was able to pickup what I consider to be my first “real” camera: a used Canon Rebel XTi with a 1.4 50mm fixed lens. So far, I’ve been blown away by how awesome it is. One of the things that had been driving us crazy was how slow the point and shoot we had was. Trying to catch Brenden or any other toddler doing something wasn’t possible. They just moved too fast.
Enter the XTi. It’s super fast and can take photos as fast as I can hit the button or in bursts of 3 a second or so. I can easily catch Brenden doing what he does and not worry that I’m going to miss the opportunity for the shot.
The camera shoots in RAW format at 10 Megapixels. These are big files coming off the camera. To compare, our P&S has a 2 GB card in it, at it’s highest quality ( 7 Megapixel ), the card holds almost 800 pictures. The XTi in RAW can only put 200 pictures on the same card.
I have two examples of some shots I’ve gotten that I really like and I think show off the camera and lens some.
This is a shot of Brenden staring off at the TV. I really like how the picture captures the light from the TV hitting off his eyes.
This shot is an example of how quickly the camera can get itself together. This was at a birthday party for one of our friend’s kids. I was sitting on the sidewalk when this baby runs up to me. I wanted to get a shot of him because I loved the color of his eyes, so I brought the camera up and shot as fast as it would go and this is what turned out. I really like it.
I’ve already found myself taking more and more pictures that I used to. The trick now is to delete the ones that aren’t so good and only keep the ones that are worth it. I should be posting more photos now since there will hopefully be a lot better selection for me to choose from.
Cheese Ball Recipe
Posted on by PatrickEvery year for the holidays I make my favorite appetizer: a ham and onion cheese ball. I learned the recipe from my dad and I’m going to share it with you.
You will need:
3-4 packages of Philadelphia Cream Cheese ( I do not recommend the fat free version for this )
8-16 oz deli shaved ham
1 bunch green onions
Garlic Salt ( optional )
How to make it:
Chop green onion
Chop ham
Thoroughly mix cream cheese, onion and ham in bowl. ( Optionally sprinkle with garlic salt )
Place mixture on serving platter
At this point you can use a flipper to smooth over the outside of the ball to remove finger and hand prints.
Once complete, it should look something like this:
I recommend serving with Ritz. Enjoy!
Reason #41235 the American car industry is dying
Posted on by PatrickCraptactular (that’s a technical term) internal design! Case in point: Replacing the car battery on our 2006 Saturn VUE.
The battery in our VUE has recently been put under some stress ( think 2 year old and leaving headlights on ). It finally gave up yesterday, so I went to Sears and bought the replacement. Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Just trying to give the VUE a jump is an exercise requiring tools other than a set of jumper cables. That’s right, you need a phillips screwdriver. Why you ask? To remove the battery cover that’s held down by 3 screws. Even after you remove the screws it’s a pain to remove the thing because you have to angle it out from underneath the radiator cover. Grrrrr.
With the battery cover off, I went to work on removing the cables from the battery. Instead of using a battery with terminals on the top, the VUE uses a battery with terminals that screw into the battery on the side. Here I could have used a ratchet, which I expected, but my ratchet setup was too long, so I went with a wrench. With the terminals being on the side of the battery, if one’s hand were to slip and drop the wrench it was holding, it falls deep into the recesses of the engine compartment ( or so I’ve heard ).
Once I got the terminals off, I grabbed the battery to remove it. It wouldn’t budge. I grabbed again, and still the battery would not come. I looked down behind the battery and I’m pretty sure I cursed out loud. The battery is held in by a clip at the bottom of the battery. And instead of a phillips head screw, it’s held there by a bolt, which of course is a different size than the ones of the battery terminals. Not having a 6 in ratchet extension handy, I had to improvise with a crescent wrench and some reaching.
To recap, to replace a battery in the VUE you need the following tools:
- Philips Screw Driver
- 2 different socket sizes
- At least a 6 in socket extension ( and ratchet )
I generally carry a screw driver and a crescent wrench in the car. Needing a fairly decent ratchet set in the car just to replace the battery is ridiculous. It’s as if they designed the thing to make it where you must take it to a mechanic to get anything done to the engine compartment.
Contrast to our 2006 Honda Accord ( which has been providing the jumps ):
- Battery terminals are on top and the only cover is a flip cap on the positive terminal.
- After terminal removal: battery lifts out.
Tools needed:
- Crescent wrench
Final note: It’s impossible to change the oil filter in a VUE without getting oil on the engine block. I haven’t done this, but watching the guys at the oil change place, I saw that the filter sits above the engine and screws on there. When they take it off, oil spills out. What an amazing design.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted on by PatrickI wanted to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow American readers. To the rest of the world, have a nice day.
Netflix Pricing
Posted on by PatrickSomething funny I noticed the other day about Netflix’s pricing when I was considering us upgrading to the 4 disk a month plan: After you reach the 3 disks at a time plan, the incremental cost per disk stays the same. I would think it would continue to go down.
Here’s the breakdown:
| Disks | Cost per disk |
|---|---|
| 1 | 8.99 |
| 2 | 6.995 |
| 3 | 5.66333333333333 |
| 4 | 5.9975 |
| 5 | 5.998 |
| 6 | 5.99833333333333 |
| 7 | 5.99857142857143 |
| 8 | 5.99875 |
As you can see, the price per disk actually goes up at disk 4 and then stays the same. To me the best deal would continue to be the 3 disk deal.
I can understand they have more postage handling at those higher levels, but this would appear to be against the normal “lower cost in higher quantities” logic you normally apply to bulk purchasing.
Just a small quirk I noticed.
Airplanes!
Posted on by PatrickThis is not exactly the post for those of you afraid of flying. I’ve had this links and videos sitting in a text file on my computer since February when I found them. I was supposed to blog about them a long time ago, but I never could seem to find the time. Today, I made that time.
It all started when I saw this photo:
Then I started searching around for crazy places to land and found the following.
Low Landings
This is a series of YouTube videos of various low landing approaches in St. Maarten.
Next up is anding at Culebra Airport in San Juan.
This last one is a link because YouTube won’t allow me to embed it:
Hong Kong
This is a representative clip I found of the landings at the now retired Kai-Tak Airport in Hong Kong.
Finally, I leave you with a link to a story about the most dangerous places to land. Enjoy!
links for 2008-11-13
Posted on by Patrick-
Epic thread about how to deal with Cocoa's learning curve
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Great programming font
links for 2008-11-12
Posted on by Patricklinks for 2008-11-11
Posted on by Patrick-
ARS Technica write up about the iPhone SDK
links for 2008-10-31
Posted on by Patrick-
A tool to determine how hackable your password is.
links for 2008-10-16
Posted on by Patrick-
Tips for installing Postgresql on leopard
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When Windows Updates start failing after XP SP 3
links for 2008-10-12
Posted on by Patricklinks for 2008-10-06
Posted on by Patrick-
Greate XCode tips
Owens Country Farm
Posted on by PatrickToday we took Brenden to the Owens Country Farm in Richardson. That’s the same Owens as the sausage. There they have animals to feed and a hay ride. During the Fall, they also have pumpkins. Brenden had a really good time and got to see a lot of animals and rode like a big boy on a little tractor ride. He even picked out a pumpkin to take home.
Today: A Companion For iCal
Posted on by PatrickHave you ever wanted to quickly add an event to iCal but didn’t actually want to either launch it or bring it forward? Or you wanted to take a quick look at your schedule for today? Well, earlier this year Second Gear Software released a new utility for OS X called Today that does just that and more.
What Today does is provide a very quick and easy interface to iCal that shows you what’s going on “today”. In the top part of their window are the day’s events and appointments. The bottom half is your to-do list from iCal. All the events and to-dos are in the color of the calendar they are assigned to, which makes for some quick browsing.
One of the best features of Today for me is that you can assign a global keyboard shortcut that will bring up the Today window for quick adding of events or viewing of your calendar. This has been a godsend since I don’t have to have iCal open and Today is super fast and responsive.
Lastly, I wanted to comment about the support I have received from Second Gear Software. I had a couple of issues while I was checking out Today, so I went to the support site. Second Gear is using Get Satisfaction, a sort of “social” support service. Users and Companies helping each other to solve issues with products. The developer of Today responded very quickly to my issues. This level of support is fantastic and I believe helps set apart these smaller Mac Software companies.
To keep on top of your busy schedule, I’d highly recommend Today as it provides very quick and convenient access to your iCal calendars. Today is $15 and can be purchased at Second Gear’s website.
links for 2008-09-22
Posted on by Patrick-
New Blog spam prevention service
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Awesome VMWare Fusion tips
links for 2008-09-02
Posted on by Patrick-
Good example of how to handle all file sizes with Rails file upload