Re-opening the Mind's Eye

As far back as my high school and college days, I was always an avid photographer. I discovered and leaned to use single lens reflex (SLR) cameras in high school and started accumulating an assortment of manual focus Minolta gear while I was in college and for several years thereafter. Through most of the '80s and early '90s, I used it on an almost daily basis, especially when I worked for a community newspaper. I was hired as a reporter, but when they found out I had a camera and knew my way around a darkroom, I was suddenly pulling double duty, creating both words and images. Not only was it fun, it was job security.

I left the paper in the summer of 1991 to start graduate school and began using my cameras less and less, especially as I developed an interest in computers. There just wasn't time for everything. By the end of the decade, my interest in photography eventually had all but died along with the medium of film in the face of digital photography. A big part of it was that I never could afford the kind of digital camera equipment I really wanted.

Even going back to the film days, I never really warmed to auto-focus, point-n-shoot cameras. I always over-thought their capabilities and was usually frustrated with the results. When it comes to photography, I'm a bona fide control freak. You see, I really like twiddling knobs, adjusting focus, f-stops and shutter speeds and screwing on filters to make the final image match what's in my mind's eye

On several occasions over the years, I borrowed digital SLR cameras from others and quickly realized that was the type of hardware I needed if I wanted to get back into photography. Unfortunately, they commanded prices comparable to a monthly house payment and thus far above my comfort level. One of the nice things about 35mm SLR camera equipment back in the day was the technology had been around for a long time and there was a wealth of excellent second hand equipment available at affordable prices, enabling one to afford the good stuff without making a sacrificial outlay of funds. Fortunately, digital photography has finally matured to the level that the same is beginning to be true for it.

I was recently re-bitten by the digital camera bug when my dad showed me a Nikon D50 DSLR camera he'd gotten on the cheap. I found the the controls of the camera to be a little too fussy--and sometimes just plain counter-intuitive--for my taste, but it planted the idea in my mind that maybe the time had come to re-examine the notion of finding one for myself. After some investigation online, I discovered there is indeed a lively market for used DSLR hardware and some nice bargains to be had.

Eventually, I lucked up on a Samsung GX-1L camera kit that included a nice 18-55mm zoom lens for about the price of a mid-range point-n-shoot. The camera and lens are re-branded Pentax hardware, despite the fact that the lens carries the venerable Schneider-Kreutznach name, which Samsung licensed for the occasion. I rounded the kit out with a nice, used Sigma 70-210mm zoom lens for about the cost of a movie ticket and popcorn, and a dedicated flash module for my Quantaray flash that allows it to be fully compatible with this camera.

What really amazes me about this camera is not its ease of use or the fantastic photos it takes, although both statements are true, but the way it has unlocked a part of my brain--or maybe my soul--that has lain dormant far too long. I'm seeing the world with a photographer's eye again. Even when the camera isn't in my hands, I find myself framing things up as though in a viewfinder and observing the fine details I would want to capture on film, or rather, pixels. For the first time in a good 15 years or so, I find myself wanting to just go out with my camera and see what I can find to shoot.

In short, my mind's eye has been re-opened and it's good to be back in the viewfinder again!

Below are a few of my favorite shots so far:

Two Weekends, Two Operating Systems

I didn't really plan it this way, but I've experienced a whirlwind of technology upgrades in the past couple of weeks. Two Saturdays ago, I upgraded my HP laptop to the just released Xubuntu 12.04 and last week, I acquired a second hand MacBook Pro running the latest Mac OS X 10.7 "Lion".

Two weeks ago, I had no idea either upgrade was in my near future, but I do tend to take things as they come. My aging G5 iMac and G4 Powerbook are both running outdated versions of Mac OS X and aren't capable of upgrading past version 10.5, I'd pretty much written off the idea of moving up until I had enough spare change to invest in one of the newer (well, not that new since they've been around since 2005 or so) Intel-based Macs.

Upgrades for Linux distributions come so frequently and are usually such a pain to install, that I had decided to wait until support for the version I was running (11.10) had ended. Besides, I had just installed Xubuntu 11.10 when it came out last fall and had just gotten everything where I was happy with it. In my previous experience, upgrading a Linux distribution meant erasing the hard drive and starting over from scratch. This is something I was in no hurry to do.

One thing I've grown quite accustomed to with any Linux distro I've used is the frequent software update notifications. When I was checking my e-mail before going to bed one recent Friday night, I was not at all surprised when one popped up on the menu bar. What I wasn't prepared for was the large button waiting for me when I opened the dialog box, inviting me to click it and upgrade my OS. I was reluctant at first, but eventually, like Alice with the cake that said "eat me" and the bottle that said "drink me," I let curiosity get the better of me and I clicked it.

After clicking through a seemingly endless dialog boxes designed to make absotively, posilutely sure I wanted to go through with the upgrade, the download began and I went to bed. I figured when I woke up in the morning the whole process would be done or I would have to click a couple more 'okay' buttons to make the installation happen.

As it turned out, the latter scenario was more nearly correct, but I had to wait a little longer for the download to finish since it had stopped when the computer went into sleep mode shortly after I did the night before. It took about two hours for the download and the subsequent installation to finish, but once the computer restarted itself, booting into Xutbuntu 10.4, it was almost like nothing had changed. All my settings and accounts were intact, just like I'd left them, but the operating system and most of the software applications had been upgraded to the newest versions available. It was, by far, the smoothest OS upgrade I had experienced on any platform.


The second of my back-to-back upgrades came just a week later when I sold a pair of old military sunglasses on eBay for almost enough to cover the cost of a newer Mac. Although I have always kept a desktop Mac as my primary computer ever since graduate school more than 20 years ago, I have in recent years begun using my laptops almost exclusively with the iMac acting mainly as a print server and disc burning station.

After reading a news report speculating that Apple was on the verge of discontinuing the 17-inch MacBook Pro because of low demand, I decided to price them on eBay and compare them with the 15-inch models. I was amazed to discover that the price difference on used models in the two screen sizes was almost negligible. That was good news for me because while I find my PowerBook's 15-inch screen adequate, I prefer the more spacious 17-inch screen on my iMac. It didn't take me long to find a good deal on a 17-inch model, which could effectively replace both the iMac and the PowerBook as my primary computer. 

But getting used to Lion, as the latest version of Mac OS X is nicknamed, took a little effort. There are a lot of subtle differences that made navigation--at least at first--a little difficult, not the least of which is the lack of arrows on the scroll bars!

Really! No arrows? It seems that Apple, in its infinite wisdom, decided we didn't need them anymore. This seems like the same mindset that for years kept Mac users stuck with a single mouse button and a ctrl-click to mimic a right click. Instead, they've given us a two-fingered mouse gesture on the track pad that will achieve the precise scrolling formerly offered by the arrows. As with single-button mice, there is also the option of a third-party mouse with a scroll wheel.

If that weren't enough, the very act of scrolling was made more difficult by reversing its direction, meaning you have to scroll 'down' in order to go 'up' to the top of the screen and vice versa. Okay, I know Apple's marketing slogan a few years ago was "Think Different" but that doesn't mean you have to think stupid. Fortunately, this little feature, along with the elimination of desktop icons to represented mounted hard drives, flash drives, optical discs, and network drives, were easily remedied by making a few clicks in the System Preferences.

Either way, it's nice having new toys.

I'm a Toolaholic!

So the past few weeks I've been doing a fair amount of work on my car, and last weekend as I was finishing up a project, I managed to break a ratchet from a cheap socket set. It was a $4.00 socket set from Harbor Freight, so no big deal, right?

Now, a rational person would have simply replaced the ratchet and maybe even upgraded from the cheapest Chinese crap Harbor Freight had to offer, but not me, not by a long shot. This was an excuse for an all-out shopping spree!

It started innocently enough with a quick check of eBay to see what a used Craftsman 3/8-inch drive ratchet could be had for. I ended up getting one for $6 plus shipping. Not bad and definitely better than what it was replacing. Mission accomplished? Nah, my watch list was filled with too many other good deals like that 37-piece socket set with two ratchets in different sizes for a mere $5 plus shipping. Had to have it. You can never have too many sockets, right?

With that in mind, I turned around and bought a 1/4-inch drive Craftsman ratchet and a set of 10 deep wall sockets to go with the 3/8 ratchet I'd already gotten. And then there was that little trip to Lowe's that turned up a 42-piece Kobalt socket set on sale for $24.98. That was too good to pass up when the whole set was the same price as the ratchet alone. I'm still trying to figure that one out. I think it comes down to high markup on the ratchet.

A note on Kobalt tools: Lowe's introduced the Kobalt brand in 1998 to compete with Craftsman. Initially produced by J.H. Williams, maker of Snap-On tools, Production was shifted to Danaher, which also produced Craftsman, in 2005. Today's Kobalt tools, while still of good quality, are sourced from a Taiwanese manufacturer.

So by the end of the week, my eBay tool purchases started rolling in. The 37-piece socket set was great. It was an older, no-name set that would be name-brand quality by today's standards. Quite serviceable and a good value for what I had paid. If this was the only thing I had gotten, my needs would have been satisfied.

That Craftsman ratchet that started this whole buying spree off was another story. The mechanism was frozen up. Useless. Fortunately, Sears guarantees their hand tools for life, so a quick exchange netted me a rebuilt ratchet that was better than brand new. I say better because Craftsman has recently begun sourcing most of their hand tools from China and the quality is visibly less than the older models. The handles are thinner, the steel is likely weaker, and the little directional switch is made of plastic. My refurbished ratchet was made in the USA and had a metal directional switch. Better than new. The other Craftsman tools I bought, being 'new old stock' were also made in USA.

So all told, the loss of a ratchet from a $4.00 socket set prompted me to spend about $90.00 on five ratchets, three nut driver handles, more than 100 sockets and accessories, and a tool box to put it all in. Is it overkill or an overdue upgrade? Do you think I may need a 12-step program or a project on which to put these tools to use?

Smart Phone: a couple of weeks Later...

Okay, so I've had this Motorola Atrix 4G smart phone for a couple of weeks now and all I can say is I'm glad I only paid a penny for it. Yeah, it's a cool gadget and all, but I'm on my laptops so much I really find its computing function to be superfluous.

When the late Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone and with it the era of the touch screen smart phone, he characterized it as three new devices in one: a new iPod with a touch screen, a phone, and a mobile computing device. That's a pretty fair assessment of not only the iPhone's functionality but that of every touch screen smart phone out there, regardless of manufacturer or operating system. So let's see how the Atrix stacks up in these three areas:

Music player--To be honest, I really haven't yet had the opportunity to do much testing in this area. There was one mp3 file on the 512 megabyte micro SD card that I transferred over from the RAZR and that played just fine. I just bought a 32 gigabyte card online, so I'm looking to do a bit more testing when it arrives. Since I have Macs and a Linux laptop, the only way to get music onto the phone seems to be download it over the Internet on the phone itself or plug the micro SD card into a USB adapter and copy files over from my computer as if it were a flash drive. That's simple enough except for having to remove and replace the fingernail-sized memory card.

Phone--As I mentioned before, the sound quality on the Atrix is every bit as good as that of the RAZR, but there are two areas where it doesn't stack up so well. First is the user interface. Making and answering calls is simply a more complex task. I miss being able to answer the phone with the Captain Kirk 'whip-n-flip' maneuver--whipping out the phone and flipping open the cover with one hand in a single, fluid motion and hanging up simply by flipping the phone closed again, also with one hand. On the Atrix--or any smart phone for that matter--it's a two-handed, multi-step operation. This burying of the phone function is yet further reinforcement of the idea that a smart phone is not primarily a voice communication device but a mobile computing device, a touch-screen PDA with integrated telephony.

So how does it stack up as a computing device? For me, it's not that great. I went through a PDA phase back in the early 2000s with a couple of Palm devices and a PocketPC device and right now, I'm feeling a great sense of deja vu. It's a neat gadget, and it's pretty cool to be able to check my e-mail or Google something while I'm in the grocery store or wherever, but at the end of the day, it has little real utility for me. As I said earlier, I'm at my computers for so much of any given day that adding an additional means of data access just isn't a life changer for me. But then again, maybe I just haven't found that killer app yet. For now, when it comes to computing, I'll just stick to my computers.

One final note is on battery life, which seems to be a real problem for many smart phones. When I'm teaching, especially afternoon and evening classes, I see students scrambling for seats closest to the walls so they can plug in their smart phones to charge them. I have been pleasantly surprised to find that is not the case with my Atrix. Granted, it's not as good as the RAZR, but it's definitely acceptable. While I could go two or three days between charges on the RAZR, unless I had a marathon phone conversation, the Atrix's battery lasts between one and two days.

I have invested in a second battery and an external cradle charger for the Atrix, as I did for the RAZR. This allows me to have a fully charged battery ready to go whenever the one in the phone becomes depleted. Charging time is only a few hours, so the odds of having both batteries drained at once are pretty slim. This is something I would not be able to do with an iPhone, which has a sealed case.

So, do I regret replacing my trusty, if aging, RAZR with a newfangled smartphone? Not really. I needed to learn about touch screens and such, and I'm sure I'll occasionally find a use for some of the phone's advanced functions, but it really isn't a life changer, nor did I expect it to be. The interesting thing is that while I no longer find myself envious of folks with smart phones, I still don't understand why they're such a big deal.

Once again, Mr. Spock's parting words to his rival, Stonn, in the Star Trek episode "Amok Time" ring true: "After a time, you may find that to have is not nearly so great a thing as to want."

Smart Phone--A Smart Decision?

Yesterday, I joined the ranks of the smart phone users. I've wanted an iPhone since they first came out, but I never could justify the expense, even though I qualified for an upgrade. It also didn't help that the iPhone didn't qualify for the discount I get through my employer, so I've just contented myself with a Motorola RAZR.

The good thing is, if you've got to content yourself with a phone, the RAZR is a great one to settle for. I've been using one since 2006 and it's given flawless service. I was actually kind of sad yesterday when I shut it down and pulled out the SIM card for the last time.

The decision to make the jump to a smart phone was kind of an impulse. I was on AT&T's Web site late last week, making an adjustment to my account that would save me a few bucks a month, and I decided to see what phone upgrades might be available.  I looked at several Android smart phones and read some scary user reviews, then I spied the Motorola Atrix 4G. There were no user reviews, but when I brought up reviews from respected publications like PC Magazine, C-NET, and Endgadget, the consensus I read was that it was a pretty good piece of hardware. It even compared favorably with the iPhone 4. As if the reviews weren't a good enough enticement, AT&T was offering the Atrix 4G for a penny. It's sort of hard to argue with that kind of a price tag.

Placing an order for the phone on AT&T's seemed like it would be an easy thing, but I couldn't have been more wrong. A malfunction on the site prevented it from processing the instant rebate of $199.98 and thus was attempting to charge me $199.99 instead of one cent. Repeated online chat sessions with a supposed customer support representative didn't solve the problem. I'm nearly convinced there wasn't actually a real person there. The responses were too formal and too formulaic.

The last chat session ended with the suggestion that I call the customer service number, which I did--and got transferred a total of three times--before I ended up talking with someone who was empowered to process the order and apply the discount. The individual even waived the $18 upgrade fee to compensate me for my inconvenience It only took me three hours to make all that happen, and three days later, the phone was in my hands.

Since I've never owned or used any other smart phone, I have nothing with which to compare it except the other mobile phones I've owned. All but one of those phones has been a Motorola and all but one of those has been of excellent quality, so with the good reviews I read, I had few qualms about going with a Motorola smart phone.

The Atrix 4G seems to be built to Motorola's usual high standards, although the plastic back panel is a bit of a disappointment after five years of the RAZR's machined aluminum outer shell. While it doesn't exactly feel cheap, the panel's satin finish makes it somewhat slippery and hard to hold onto. It's also a bit difficult to remove. This design was improved somewhat with the Atrix 2, which has a rubberized back panel. Too bad they aren't swappable.

As a phone, the Atrix seems to function acceptably with excellent sound quality. I actually got rid of my landline a few years ago because my RAZR's sound quality was so superior to that of the house phone that I tended not to use the latter if I could avoid it. But the phone function is also where this device begins to differentiate itself from the RAZR. Whereas the RAZR was primarily a phone with a few PDA-like features thrown in for good measure, the Atrix 4G--probably like all smart phones--is a handheld mobile computing device that also happens to function as a phone. As it turns out, this is an important distinction because the Atrix takes an extra step or two just to access the phone to make a call. It's actually little wonder that so many people who have smart phones tend to text more than they talk.

So right now, I'm on a learning curve with this phone. Some features are more intuitive than others, and dialing on a slick glass surface takes some getting used to. I'll check back in when I've had more of an opportunity to live with it and let you know whether I'm a convert.

Farewell, Fedora 14...

As promised, here is the follow-up to my previous post, "Looking for a New Linux".

Fedora 16 was released three days ago and I've been experimenting with it in both the GNOME 3.2 interface and the XFCE interface. While GNOME is definitely pretty, it leaves a lot to be desired. The desktop, for instance, is a massive no-man's land where you can't put a icon. To do anything at all, you have to click the "Activities" button at the upper left corner of the screen, which activates a side bar reminiscent of Mac OS X's Dock. I have to agree with its many critics, including Linus Torvalds himself, who characterized it as an "unholy mess". In my opinion, the interface places form over function to such an extent that it's practically useless. This problem is only exacerbated by the fact that you can't customize the interface at all. It's even more locked down that Mac OS X and not nearly as user friendly.

The XFCE interface, on the other hand, is a lot better. I first experimented with Fedora 16 with XFCE and felt immediately at home, both because it bears a close resemblence to GNOME 2.x, but it also felt a little Mac-like at the same time.

Fedora 16 XFCE had a sort of glitchy startup, which required my intervention to solve, so I found myself thinking toward Ubuntu, but I wasn't completely sold on the Unity interface. Eventually, I realized I could have the best of both worlds with Xubuntu 11.10, which is the latest Ubuntu with XFCE. 

Pronounced "zoo-BOON-too," Xubuntu offers the a highly customizable, yet user friendly interface that's light on system resources, yet retains the best of Ubuntu's user friendly features. And with just a few mouse clicks, I was able to make it look a lot like Mac OS X. All I can say is "Honey, I'm home!"

Now here's the crazy part: This system is so user friendly, the installer gives you access to the Web while the operating system is installing. Believe it or not, I'm actually typing this on my HP laptop as the operating system installs!

Update: 11/16/2011
So I've had Xubuntu installed on my HP laptop for almost a week now and all I can say is I love it. I've never felt as at home with any Linux distribution. I've always found Linux to be usable but it often took an effort to enjoy it. This time, it's different. Granted, it's not as slick as Mac OS X, but it also isn't nearly as frustrating as Windows. I feel like I have control and that's a good thing. The important part is I can use it without thinking about what operating system I'm on. I just do what feels natural and intuitive and most of the time it just works. I've always believed alternatives are a good thing, and this is definitely a good alternative; in fact, this is as close as I've found to what I've envisioned as my ideal Linux. It's not perfect by any means, but then what system is? The bottom line is when I'm using it, I'm focusing on the task at hand and not some quirk of the operating system.

Looking for a new Linux

For the record, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Mac person, but for some perverse reason, I've had a continuing fascination with the GNU/Linux operating systems for the past few years. I've long been a fan of free and open source software (FOSS). I've used Mozilla and later Firefox as my browser of choice, and although I use M$ Office in my work out of necessity, my preferred productivity suite for the past decade has been OpenOffice.org, although lately I've switched my allegiance to its progeny, LibreOffice.

I first encountered Linux up close and personal early in 2009 when I helped a buddy of mine install Ubuntu Linux on another friend's laptop. His WindowsXP installation had a terminal case of "Windows Rot" and he had lost the installation and recovery discs, so the only alternative was a "nuclear" option of reformatting the hard drive and installing Linux. Once we got it up and running, I was sufficiently impressed to obtain a cheap used laptop on eBay, install Linux on it, and write an article about the experience for PCSolutions magazine.

I installed OpenSUSE Linux on that laptop because it had relatively modest graphics requirements and although I'm not a Windows fan, the modified GNOME interface, which mimicked WindowsXP in many respects, made the transition to Linux fairly intuitive. Most amazingly, the computer ran much faster on Linux than it did on Windows.

I made good use of that computer for about three years, periodically updating the OS as new versions of OpenSUSE came out. Each new version ran a little better on that machine, except for the one time I decided to try the KDE interface. It finally died in a horrible hard drive crash a few weeks ago, and because the hardware was so outdated, I just couldn't justify replacing the drive. Instead, I went back to eBay to see what might be available in a used laptop on which to further my Linux experimentations.

The replacement was an HP nc6000 laptop. Although it's five years old, it was a high-end piece of hardware when it was new, so it has aged relatively gracefully. I got the thing for a paltry sum, partially because it was loaded with Fedora Linux instead of WindowsXP. That suited me just fine, except the computer is running version 14 of Fedora, for which support will end in a few weeks when the final release version of Fedora 16 comes out.

For that reason, I've been shopping for a new Linux distribution to replace Fedora 14. My front runners are Fedora 16 (now in beta release), OpenSUSE 12.1 (now in beta release), and Ubuntu 10.10 (now in full release). All three of these releases will take some getting used to as they all sport revised user interfaces. Fedora and OpenSUSE will have GNOME 3.2 and Ubuntu will have Ubuntu's proprietary Unity interface.

I recently downloaded a live CD of Fedora 15, which also uses GNOME 3.x, and I was less than impressed. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but much of the way it worked seemed counter intuitive. For this reason, I'm shying away from Fedora 16, although I am willing to load up a live CD and take it around the block. One mark against Fedora is it contains no proprietary software like Adobe Flash Player or even codecs for playing mp3 files or DVDs. It's taken me a while to get that stuff working under Fedora 14 and I still can't play a DVD.

I have not yet run OpenSUSE 12 from a live CD and will probably wait at least until it comes out in a release candidate version. I have read that its interface is virtually identical to that of Fedora 16. The big difference, in my experience, is OpenSUSE makes it a bit easier to install proprietary software when needed.

Although I've spent a lot of time with the 11.x releases of OpenSUSE, I'm somewhat inclined to let this one go because I have had difficulty getting wireless networking up and running on other machines I've loaded OpenSUSE onto. By contrast, wireless networking on Fedora and Ubuntu have been up and running from the proverbial git-go. All I've had to do is enter my WEP key and I'm off to the races, even running from a live CD.

Right now, Ubuntu 10.10 is my favorite of the three. Although its Unity interface has GNOME 3 underpinnings, it is much more refined and somehow more intuitive despite the fact that it's quite different from more conventional Windows and Mac OS  X interfaces. The other big selling point for me is that everything works from the first start-up and the aforementioned proprietary pieces can be downloaded and installed when you're installing the operating system, provided you have a working Internet connection. That's all good stuff in my book.

The only reservation I have about Ubuntu is it seems to run a little sluggishly at times. I'm sure this will improve when I'm running it from the internal hard drive, but it does give me pause. Fedora 14 is lightning quick by comparison.

Another option that I have not yet explored is to install Fedora 16 with the xfce interface. It's more basic, more Windows like, but it should run well since it's designed to take up minimal system resources. I read not too long ago that Linus Torvalds, who invented Linux, has switched over to xfce from GNOME as his interface of choice since the introduction of GNOME 3.x.

When it comes to choices for this little Linux box, it seems I've got an embarrassment of riches. When I make a final decision, I'll let you know.