Cricalix.Net

Work paid a bonus this month, and I decided to finally get myself a portable photo wallet for when I’m at events like RIAT, without Mum’s jukebox to offload on to. I’ve been eyeing up things like the Epson P-2000 and P-4000, as well as various HD based MP3 players, trying to find a device that made me happy (the requirements were large capacity, card reader and optionally display of the photos). While browsing Warehouse Express a few days ago, I came across the Smartdisk Digital Photobank – a 20 or 40 GB hard drive mated to multiple card readers, a battery and a USB 2 connector – at a decent price of £99 plus shipping (which was under 4 quid for next day).

So, what’s in the box?

• Photobank
• Two power adapters, one for the UK market, one for the EU market.
• Lightweight, 80 cm, braided USB cable.
• Carrying case
• Manual in 6 languages – 11 pages per language

The unit weighs about 270g, and measures 11.5 cm by 7.5 cm by 2 cm. It’s not quite pocket sized, but would fit in a jacket pocket quite easily, and possibly larger pockets found on some pairs of slacks or shorts. Based on the weight, I’ll be keeping it in the back or top pocket of my Lowepro Slingshot bag. It came partially charged, and powered up completely in about 4 seconds. The screen powers up first displaying the battery state and then the hard drive spins up to determine the free capacity.

After a minute of inactivity (the manual claims 30 seconds), the unit powers down, which should lend towards a longer battery life. The power switch is slightly raised above the casing, so being in a bag with knobbly bits might continually power it up and down. Unfortunately, the carrying case only has a stiff back, and soft fabric sides, so even in the casing the switch can be activated.

In a comment on my last book review, Dave suggested that I might like Vernor Vinge’s A Fire Upon The Deep.  I finally got around to logging in to the Staffordshire Library system, and put in an inter-library loan request for it.  About a week later, I receive a letter from the library system – the book was waiting for me at my local library.  40 pence later (a trivial fee really), I had Fire in my hands.  Two days later, somewhat slow for my normal reading appetite, I had finished it.  Dave was right, I do like it :)

Fire introduces the reader to our own galaxy, with Pham Nuwen of the Qeng Ho showing up in the most unlikely of manners, many thousands of years after Deepness.  A tale is deftly woven of a galaxy split into three zones, the release of an ancient Blight, the destruction and subversion of numerous races (including transcended Powers), and a race against time to reach a medieval society to save the day. The opening pages of the book lay out the general premise – ‘humanity’ sticks its nose into an ancient archive and unleashes an Evil, and also unleashes the weapon to defeat the Evil.  The first chapter introduces the primary ‘alien’ race in such detail that you almost think they’re human, and the story is off to a racing start.
There are no major twists like the ones that feature in Deepness, but the story is well paced, and the fleshing out of the major and minor characters is impressive.  Well worth picking up and reading – ISBN 1-85798-127-8.

I figured that I’d upgrade my work PC to Ubuntu Dapper this morning. In retrospect, considering that my heating and hot water pump died this morning, and dropped water all over my floor, I really shouldn’t have done this upgrade.

Things that broke:

• GUI
• KDE
• Sound
• Networking
• Who knows what else

The GUI required a full reinstall of the ATI proprietary driver, and the removal of xcompmgr from my .xinitrc. However, by blanking .xinitrc, I managed to cause X to fall over in a big heap! It looks like an empty, but present, .xinitrc causes X to try to exec nothing, and it just exits. Not even a ‘.xinitrc specified nothing to execute’! *twitch*

apt-get dist-upgrade decided to remove all of my KDE packages. I don’t know why, it just did. Had to reinstall KDE by hand. Installing KDE didn’t install KDM (GUI login manager), but KDM got removed when KDE got removed. Moreover, KDE’s bottom (for me) panel showed up blank.  All my configuration was gone, and I have to re-create it. *twitch* *twitch*

apt-get dist-upgrade didn’t upgrade the kernel, and this broke ALSA (sound) in mysterious ways. The driver for the sound card refused to load (it turns out), which meant everything sound related didn’t work. A quick browse of the Ubuntu Forums indicated that people had experienced all sorts of weird issues with the Dapper upgrade and sound, and I finally found mention of ‘upgrade the kernel, it should be 2.6.15′. *twitch* *twitch* *twitch*

Next up, after installing the kernel and rebooting, I find that I have no network connectivity. dmesg indicates that tg3 has found eth0, but by the time the OS is up and running, ip addr, ifconfig and pals all tell me that there is no such hardware device as eth0. It’s now eth1! *TWITCH*

I’m afraid to see what else doesn’t work now.

One of the nice things about living 1 mile from the center of town is that it’s easy to meander in on a Saturday, pop into the library, grab a few books and meander home again (possibly stopping at a bakery on the way for a snack). This Saturday gone was no different, save that I was at work cleaning up code.

I happened to pick up Vernor Vinge’s A Deepness In The Sky, and I’m glad I did. The book is about 600 pages long (largeish print version, not small paperback), and tells the tale of humankind as a space trading race, and the tale of a spider-like race who happen to live on a very strange planet with an even stranger star. The book jumps back and forth between the two human factions, and the spider-like race, but at no point do the jumps seem random – the threads are deftly woven by the author.

Along the way, you learn of the founding of the Qeng Ho (one of the human factions), great betrayals, nifty technology and an interesting philosophical view on modern technology. There are several characters who appear to be protagonists, but in the end, there can only be one – the core characters are well fleshed, as are the supporting characters. Indeed, it’s only as I write this article that I realise who the protagonist really is. There are also several twists in the story – ones that make you go ‘hmmm’ – that reveal that everything is not what it seems. Indeed, one of the best twists shows up at the very end of the story, and ties together several smaller arcs from earlier on.

To know what that twist is though, you’ll have to read the book :) If you like science-fiction, and books that don’t lay everything out immediately, but reveal clues as you get further in to the story, A Deepness In The Sky is probably something you want to read.

Top Gun Ship Reviews – Caldari Caracal

Hello, and welcome to Top Gun with me, Shailo Koljas. Tonight we’ll be looking at the Caracal, a cruiser class ship for the Caldari State.

Traditionally, the Caldari have favoured function over form, and it shows in the bare-bones, no-nonsense lines of the Caracal. From the long hull, to the stubby stabilising ‘wings’, to the 5 launcher mounts, the Caracal is all about one thing – raining death on your enemies, such as the Gallente. After all, who can resist blowing the Gallente out of space when they come prancing by in their latest creation?

Four million ISK gets you a basic Caracal – top speed of 187 m/s, five high slots, four medium slots and two low slots. The interior on a from-the-dealer Caracal isn’t really that special, the designers have gone for the traditional cold-forged steel look, with the occasional touch of fake wood. The dials, however, are very retro, and fit the cockpit space quite well.

Rumour has it that you can contact Pimp My Ship on Sobaseki XIX, and they’ll give you a complete overhaul for about 2 million ISK. This includes chroming your exhaust ports and launcher barrels, tinting the cameras, adding alloy rims to your afterburner, and installing a 4000W stereo system with external speakers for demonstrating your love of classical music to the Guristas. Sadly, your insurance won’t cover these upgrades, so if you get blown up, you’ll have to have it all done again.

Zero to 187 takes about four seconds, which really isn’t too bad for a ship the size of a Caracal. Don’t try pink slipping your local Merlin though, unless you’re sporting a stealth micro warp drive, as you’ll lose before you can say ‘corners like a pig’.

We gave our new Caracal over to our trusty driver, the Stag. Some say he eats nuclear warheads for breakfast, others say he’s a ghost. We know he’s a damn fine ship driver. He’ll be doing our standard 40 AU track, complete with chicanes, Gallente sentry guns and interceptors.

[ video elided ]

Well, as you can see, the Caracal is a fine ship, though you have to watch out for that under steer on sharp turns, and be prepared to warp when you see your armour depleting.

Thank-you and good night!

My journey to the Netherlands on Saturday the 8th did not begin fortuitously – for a start, I mixed up my tickets for the train journey from Stoke-on-Trent, and thought I had to catch a noon train, not a 2 PM train. This however, had a bright side, for as I was standing on the platform, pondering the trains, I realised that I had left the Archos jukebox back in my house on the bed. Quick time, across the station, hail a taxi and make a very quick round-trip to pick it up from home. I then found out that my ticket allowed me to catch any train that was going in the approximate direction that I was going. This makes me wonder if I can travel to Manchester via London on a standard saver :) If I can, it’ll be a very cheap way to get around on the rail network.

The check-in for Jet2 was painless, if a bit tedious. They’ll only start checking-in for a flight 2 hours before the flight, and no earlier, even if the desk is open. So I had a pleasant stay in the line, waiting for them to close the Alicante flight and open the Amsterdam flight. Painless check-in though – present the booking ID and my passport, tag my carry-on and wander off to find lunch – which is how checking in should be.

If you ever travel out of Manchester Airport, and don’t mind spending a few quid over and above for lunch, find a seat at the Lancaster Brasserie in Terminal 1. The food is fantastic (especially for airport fare), the garlic bread was divine and the view is pretty darn good (right out onto the tarmac). The food quality was something I’d expect landside at a good restaurant in town, so 4 stars to the Brasserie.

While meandering around the ‘net today, I stumbled across a bit of software called RawShooter essentials 2006.  It claimed to have a nice workflow, and some other handy features, and even better, it was free.  Windows only by the looks, but free.  I queued it for download on my home server, and played with it when I got home.

To say it’s a nice bit of software would be a bit of an understatement.  The real-time previewing of any and all changes rocks, and the fact that the changes aren’t made to the RAW file, but are recorded externally (like Bibble) is very nice.  1 RAW file + 1 meta file = 1 TIFF output.  It’s generating 16-bit TIFFs for me, complete with EXIF data, so I’m pleased as punch.

I’m taking the exports from RSE, and feeding them back into digiKam for my final work.  It’s nice to know that even though I can’t work properly on my RAW files yet in digiKam, I can still use it for the final conversion to JPEG/PNG, and for tracking things like location, rating and categories.  I’m also starting to understand the sheer beauty of the RAW format, as proprietary as it may be at the moment.  Being able to change the exposure compensation, saturation, detail and more, without causing any artifacts or aberrations just rocks.
My writeup on Amsterdam is mostly complete, so it’s just down to the processing of the 1000+ pictures (which RSE is making a breeze with the queued conversions feature), posting them into my gallery and uploading the data to my mirror server.  I can then link a few images into the posting, and make it public :)