Short time out from my computers...

Been busy playing with 2 new computers, 3 new operating systems, dual booting the PC with Windows 7, Linux, plus the Snow Leopard on the new iMac.

I skipped the entire Vista experience, and jumped from XP to Windows 7 directly. It's different, but familiar enough that it's not too difficult. Going from XP, I had to do a fresh install. The installation didn't take too long, it's copying the large quantity of files that take the longest amount of time. It crashed once, but that's when I was running a benchmark software (Sandra), and that was the only time. No problem with drivers, but the machine is fairly new.

Second Partition on the same PC, I installed Ubuntu 9.04 workstation, also 64-bit. I am very impressed by the maturity of this distribution (I am sure it's the same for other distros).

I have to say that the installation process might be the most intimidating, but only because I have to deal with dual booting the system; if I am installing only Ubuntu on a dedicated PC, then I have to say the installation process is a lot simpler. You have to partition the drive with the partition utility that comes with Ubuntu first, then Install Window 7, then install Ubuntu. If I have to reinstall, I'll have to read up on it again, it's not something I'd like to commit to memory. The workflow of Gnome desktop is very similar to Windows (much more so than OS X). Many utilities and productivity software are included, which I can get up and run with it right away. Nice.

Without my prompting, it even recognized my network printer, which was cool. It didn't have the right driver from the install, but it wasn't hard to download the right driver from Brother's web site. Installing updates is also an easy process, it works just like Windows, only difference is that it installed 300+ updates, not a process for dial up connection, :).

I didn't plan on purchasing the Mac this past weekend, but when my wife said go for it, heck yeah, ;). The hardware is pure elegance, and super quite, I really enjoy the silent operation.

I haven't been a big fan of all in one systems, but after messing with my new PC a week earlier, with cables everywhere, I decided to go for the iMac. I was thinking of the 21.5 inch model, but she insisted on the 27 inch model, hell yeah! And they always say that size doesn't matter, :). I could operate the system with 1 cord (power), with the use of blue tooth keyboard and mouse, and wireless network. In real world scenario, I have to add cable to attach my external drive, cables for my card reader, and iPod, still a cleaner work space though. Oh, speaking of the mouse, the new Magic Mouse is really cool, but it is a little too "flat" for me; I am used to mouse that I can wrap my hand around it, using the magic mouse a few hours, I find my wrist started to hurt; also, the buttons, I still like a mouse with 2 physical left and right buttons.

Very different world this OS X is. Have to learn a new work flow, I think that's my first challenge.

Next, a few surprised when I was transferring my photos to the Mac. Using existing external drive, I can read files from a drive formatted in NTFS, but can't write to it; I decided to format a second external drive to native Mac OS, so I can use it for my back ups. As for photo software, for now, I will use Picasa 3, which works really well, and available in all 3 OSs. Eventually, my goal is to switch all my personal work to Mac, not sure how long it will take, but it's too much work to try to maintain different platforms.

To keep it on-topic, I have to upload a couple of pictures while learning on the Mac.....

A view from the Little Colorado River Gorge. Near Cameron, AZ.

East Rim look out spots - People love to stand on top , near the edge, why is that?

Merging 2 pictures.

From the collection of pictures I obtained from recent photo club day trip, I found a few that're more dramatic if I cropped them to be "panoramic". But when I tried to print them, no matter what I tried, it only prints in the middle of my 8x10 paper, one picture at a time, too wasteful. A quick search on-line on "merging photos", I found using one of my all time photo viewer can solve this problem: IrfanView - http://www.irfanview.com/. Irfanview is donation based product. If you find it useful, please feel free to make a donation.

A sample of my cropped pictures.


Firing up Irfanview by itself. To create this merged picture, select Image, then Create Parorama Image, that will bring up the following window.


Since the pictures I want to merge is horizontal/landscape, I want the merged pictures to be vertical, so new image is below the previous ones. Click on Add images, select the images you want to merge, then click Create image, then you are done.

I rotated one of the image so it is upside down, while the other one is in normal orientation. Make sure to save this image!
Now, when I print these images, I have the white space (if any) at the bottom of each image, so I have a place to write down any info, signature, etc, but the main goal of not wasting any photo paper will be accomplished.
I am sure there are other products that can do this. If you know of one, please feel free to share with us!

SDHC Memory Card Alert

Sunday's BestBuy ad had a great price on a PNY 4GB SDHC memory card at $29.99. I checked my camera, a simple firmware upgrade can get my Pentax DL handle the SDHC memory cards. The upgrade was easy, and off I went to buy the memory card.

Plugged it in the camera, a quick format, not a problem. Switched to raw (JPEG mode only shows 999, no higher), it went from 94 (1 gb card) to 376 pictures! Hey, I like it.

I took some test shots, and then plugged it into my memory card reader. Hmmm, what happened to my removable drives? They will not open up, rebooted the PC (that should fix everything, right?), still no go.

Quick on-line search showed my card reader (SanDisk ImageMate 12-in-1), with part # of 20-90-00136, does not support, and firmware upgrade to support SDHC is not available for this particular model! Bummer! I forgot to check if memory card reader has to be SDHC aware or not. Darn.

Now, if you have SanDisk's multi-card reader, the following model and part #'s will work:
SanDisk ImageMate 12-in-1 (SDDR-89)
Part #: Firmware Version:
20-90-00136 SOL
20-90-00163 SOL
20-90-03066 9339 -> 9346
20-90-03103 9339 -> 9346

and their ImageMate 5-in-1 (SDDR-99)
Part #: Firmware Version:
20-90-00135 SOL
20-90-00162 9312 -> 9347
20-90-03028 9321 -> 9347
20-90-03067 9335 -> 9347
20-90-03105 9335 -> 9347

I am keeping the card, since I can hook up my camera to my PC, but eventually, I'll get a new card reader.

So be careful about this gotcha!

Printing Contact Sheet in Picasa 2

I have to admit, I have never figured out how to use PhotoShop. I tried it a few times at work, but just never could remember those commands. Because of my handicap, I use Picasa 2 about 85% of the time, it does what I need to do, easily, and handles the printing fairly well. The other 15 %, just Windows viewer and IrfanView for quick sizing of files.

I had a need to print out a catelog of pictures, so using Picasa, there's a fairly easy way to print contact sheets. On a 8.5 x 11 photo paper, you can print 42 images on a single sheet (6 x 7). The final print out includes date, time, and file name under each picture.

The Process is fairly simple. If the pictures are all in the same folder, just select the pictures you wish to print, either by pressing the CTRL key and then click on the picture, or click each image you'd like, and press HOLD on the bottom of the screen, then click another image, just remember to press HOLD. This will work well if you have to go to another folder to select the image.

Once you have selected all of the pictures you wish to print, click on Folder option (pull down menu option), then select Print Contact Sheet option. You can also use keyboard short cut by pressing CTRL-Shift-P.

This is a nice way to catelog your photos.

Noise Reduction Software

Forum

I took the picture in Vegas, in Forum shops, it's like an in-door mall by Caesar's Palace.

The original photo was taken with high iso setting, then converted to B&W. The darker part of the picture shows a lot of noise, as I don't have any noise reduction software, I did a quick search and found the Imagenomic's Noiseware Standalone Community Edition (Free).

I like the result afterwards. Some details were lost due to noise reduction, which is typical, but the final output is fairly nice, I can definitely use it.

You can download a copy of this from http://www.imagenomic.com/index.aspx.

Standard and Professional versions are also available, and it also comes as a plugin for:
Adobe Photoshop 7.0, CS, CS2 and CS3
Adobe Photoshop Elements 2/3/4/5
Corel Paint Shop Pro 9 and X
Corel Draw 10, 11 and 12
Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006
Ulead PhotoImpact XL, 10 and 11

Final Result, Not bad.

Ink refill

I hate buying inkjet cartridges, they are expensive, and I always get the feeling that I am getting ripped off.


I am never sure about ink refill services, I have heard stories that can be kind of scary. But when Walgreens had a free ink refill promotion yesterday, I took my HP 57 ink cartridge there to give it a shot. I figure it doesn't cost me anything to give it a try.


Below is a link to Walgreens' info page on their refill program/cost.

http://www.walgreens.com/printercartridge/


It costs about $19.99 for the #56 black cartridge, and refill for $10.
It costs about $34.99 for the #57 color cartridge, and refill for $15.

The savings for color cartridge would be significant, if it works.

After I got the refilled cartridge, I printed a test page, and it shows the color looked pretty good, but after it sat overnight, I printed another test page (a google map), the red is no longer showing up properly (more purple), and the highlighted route that appears yellow-orange on the screen, looks yellow-green printed on paper.

For additional test:
I ran a clean cartridge function, printed a test page, then performed the same function with a genuine HP cartridge.

Comparing the colors:
Cyan is good.
Magenta is off with the refill, it looks has too much blue.
Yellow looks puke green.
Purple is good.
Green is good
Red appears purple/brown.

Also, the colors from the refill has lines across (not solid).

Here's a scan for comparison:

The top row is using genuine HP cartridge, and the bottom row is from refill.

This is disappointing, I am not sure if they just filled wrong color in the cartridge or not, it is hard to tell, and I am not sure if I want to bother to go back to that store to find out. For general printing of records and such, I am probably just going to use up this cartridge, but for sure not going to use this for photo printing, :)

dave