Archive for December 2007
My camera has died :(
I have had a pretty bad Xmas so far. My Canon EOS 5 is dead. It won’t switch on any more and I am absolutely gutted. 
I want to get another film SLR body but right now my finances are so tight.
I’m making a plea of sorts then, if you have been helped out by my Ubuntu tips and other bits on my blog, please consider donating a small amount to my Paypal account (victoria_j_k_lamburn@yahoo.co.uk) — even a few pennies or cents would be most gratefully received.
Make a donation to Vicky if she’s helped you via Paypal
I’m currently about £60 short of what I need. (Approximately £150)
I’m sorry to ask but I really loved my camera and photography and I feel so sad without a camera now. I promise I’ll work double hard on my blog tips and guides if I make the amount with your kind donations. Thank you. x x
List of 2007
I’m heading off to see the folks for Christmas so I shall be away from the computer or rather the Internet for about 2 weeks so things will be quiet here. I haven’t done one of these for some years but I think now at least I have some ‘wisdom’ or steadfast enough opinions on things to be able to pass comment so here goes:
Music
- Interpol “Our Love to Admire” — best album of 2007 for me;
- Chicane “Behind the Sun” — best album from back in the day (1999 I think.) As can be expected the more upbeat songs such as Saltwater have slipped down the list of my favourites to make way for the likes of No Ordinary Morning and Autumn Tactics (the latter which I always liked.)
- Gullemots “Through the Windowpane” — Most enduring personal soundtrack of 2007
- The Editors joint with The Killers — best gigs/sets of 2007 which were both at V Festival
Books
- Biggest surprise: Sylvia Brownrigg “Pages for You” – one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It was that good.
- Enjoyable Read: Will Self “How the Dead Live” — came out in 2000 I think but taken until now to read it after finding it in the Oxfam book shop on Montague St. in Worthing. Excellent yarn, and only Self could manage to mention Lutyens in a novel of this ilk!
- Best re-read: either Jack Kerouac “The Dharma Bums” or JG Ballard “High Rise”
Films
- Best first time watch: “The Hours”
- Most Enduring: “LA Confidential” (I forget how many times I have seen this film)
- Most provocative: “L.I.E.“
Best Moments of 2007
- Completing ‘period.‘
- V Festival overall
- Completing the new Worthing Theatres website
- Lake District weekend in July
- Discovering BarCamps, embracing geek-dom and going to Google in London
- Wandering around for three hours in Manchester taking photos
Worst Moments of 2007
- Read ‘Memoirs of a Time’ when it comes out
Things I’ve Learnt About Myself
- Never ever to pressure myself again — let life trickle and flow like the water down a crystalline stream
- That ultimately I am happiest outside sitting on a windswept hill, the Downs or a fell contemplating everything
- That I have a very worthwhile outlook on life that whilst rather odd and idiosyncratic — it’s one that works for me
- That I can write well and I can take a decent photo
Exciting New Skill
- Learning jQuery and finally working on the possibilities with AJAX (web stuff)
Things I am looking forward in 2008
- Seeing JG Ballard on the 20th February at the Soutbank and then Stephanie Dosen in Shepherd’s Bush the following night.
- V Festival quite possibly depending on line-up
- Going back to the US and setting off with my camera
Virgin Mobile Praise + Ubuntu and iPod Nano 3g
I have nothing but praise for Virgin Mobile. Certainly the best carrier I have been on as they are backed by T-Mobile’s rather good network. (Can’t remember when I was last without signal and I tend to go to remote places.) Anyway remember my post about Virgin Mobile’s recent offer if you take out an 18 month contract at £25 or more a month (new or existing customers) you could choose from an iPod nano, PSP Slim or £100 credit? Well they’ve turned up the goods before Christmas.
Even better is that they rang me on Wednesday to say that it was going to be dispatched and confirm it was the iPod I had chosen. Excellent service.
So yesterday I went over to Newhaven to get it. On the way I understood why Yahoo’s Weather had been telling me on Worthing.gov.uk that the weather was FOG. It seems the whole of Shoreham, much of Brighton & Hove and East Sussex beyond that was covered in some of the worst freezing fog we’ve had in a long time. Couldn’t see bloody 3ft in front of me in the car. Anyway got back safely and have unwrapped it. The packaging is a lot smaller than when I used to work selling Apple gear and iPods in ‘05. I remember iPods coming in big cube shaped boxes (mostly because Apple actually included the accessories you need.. another story) and I was there for the iPod nano’s first generation’s launch and those boxes were in themselves pretty tiny compared to the iPod 4g’s and Minis. Now it’s stupidly tiny!
Anyway I’m no fan on iTunes on Windows. The last time I used it was on Mac OS X 10.4.8 I would guess and iTunes 7 actually ran perfectly fine on a G4 1.4GHz but on Windows, I have yet to see a PC that bats it around like a little play thing. It’s a dog. Plus I don’t wish to be locked into DRM either. So iTunes is a no go.
Especially when my ThinkPad runs Ubuntu and to top it all; my Dell GX240 runs Windows 2000 now (another thing to write up) and the iPod Classic and Nano 3g require Windows XP SP2 or Vista. Long and short of it is that to remain legal and to keep my Nikon Coolscan LS-30 working I have to stick with Windows 2000.
Easy ways to get iPod Nano 3g/Third Generation and Classics working without iTunes:
Windows:
- MediaMonkey 3 (Currently on RC-5) — very good. Works on Windows 98/ME/2000/XP and Vista. Much more lightweight but very full features. Supports iPod Nano 3g and Classic out of the box. Freeware with paid for version offering all features. Download Version 3 Release Candidate. (Version 2 does not support the new iPods)
Ubuntu / Debian Linux in general
THIS IS ONLY NEEDED FOR iPOD NANO 3rd GENERATION or iPOD CLASSIC MODELS (FALL 2007 MODELS)
- Download from here: ftp://64.22.103.45/packages/ubuntu/gutsy/libgpod/ the following packages:
libgpod-dev_0.5.3+actually0.6.0-0.1_i386.deb
libgpod2_0.5.3+actually0.6.0-0.1_i386.deb - Install them in that order (double click their icons)
- Plug in the new iPod with the supplied USB docking cable
- Open up a shell/terminal
- Enter the command df (press enter) and look for the line that has /media/IPOD/ at the end at the very start of the line should be something that reads /dev/sdb1 or similar. Make a note of this.
- Enter as root user with: sudo bash and enter your password. (Ubuntu)
- Run the following:
/usr/bin/ipod-read-sysinfo-extended [/dev/xxxx] /media/IPOD
Where [dev/xxxx] is the /dev path you made note of in step 5. E.g. my iPod registered on /dev/sdb1 so I would enter:
/usr/bin/ipod-read-sysinfo-extended /dev/sdb1 /media/IPOD
- Eject the iPod (right click on the iPod icon on the desktop and select Eject), close the terminal.
- Plug in the iPod again, Rhythmbox should automatically run and now you should be able to manage your new iPod through Rhythmbox again.
Why and Final Words
You have to do this as Apple added a layer of encryption to lock you into using iTunes which I personally think is wrong. What is wrong Apple with me using a player that I like? Two faced-ness abounds from Apple on such matters considering their rhetoric on Microsoft and the Windows empire.
But the good thing is that both Windows and Linux users now have an alternative to iTunes and also for Linux a way of actually being able to use their new iPod.
Plus you don’t absolutely have to run Windows XP or Vista on the Windows side. I appreciate XP and Vista account for about ~85% of the Windows marketplace these days but Windows 2000 still takes a sizable 8% of that according to web statistics I collect, which is more than the Mac accounts for, so Windows 2000 isn’t too insignificant to ignore yet!
Now I Know What It Feels Like
I’ve only ever had one migraine in my life and that was when I was 11/12 (so about 12 years ago) but last night I woke up and didn’t know what had hit me Head was and still is thumping like a bass drum beating struck (it feels a bit better now not much though.)
Oh and I’m wearing sunglasses to surf the web (I swear I was getting so annoyed in bed) in December with the curtains drawn… Does anyone have any tips for relieving a migraine that doesn’t involve drilling holes in my skull?
This might have been brought on by working under nasty flurorescent strip lighting yesterday…
*whimpers* Being ill sucks. :’-(
Not one of my better days admittedly
Today started off fine. Most days do until you start doing stuff like getting out of bed. To think if I had been ill I would be presently £117 better off.
But I did get out of bed, and I did lock my keys in the car. (I parked in a tight spot at work, had to get out on the passenger side of the car so I locked the driver’s side, slid over to the passenger seat, tidied my hair (when I put the keys down), got out ensuring the passenger side was locked, and bingo. Keys locked inside where I had put them down.
AA membership doesn’t cover you if you have a card under family membership but you live at a different address, Ok fine. How come I haven’t heard a dickie bird of a problem about this in the past six years then? So in all to get them out and join up as a member in my own right it cost me £117.
I also wish that I had got that spare key cut for my flat.
I am a stupid sod. *sniff* *cries* I would gladly have joined the AA but it was the £69 call out charge for just getting my keys. *sniffles like a field mouse again, whatever they sniffle like*
Packed
Packed, originally uploaded by DCE.
This is just a fantastic photograph from DCE on Flickr. Mass transit in the USA on the train, but it’s much the same in the UK, everyone in their own little world doing mostly anything to avoid eye contact as we are accutely aware of the paper thin boundaries of our personal space being within tenths of an inch of being invaded.
I think that’s why I’m thought of as mad, because I will go up to people and start yapping. Sure it’s not very brainy intelligent stuff mostly complete rubbish.
Case in point is the cab driver in Salford this week on Tuesday evening, flitting between the back streets of Salford and Manchester to get to Piccadilly Station, we yammered on about everything. He talked about his childhood and the regeneration of Salford Quays, and life in general. Typical ‘if I ran the country’ cabbie, but I know many more cabbies who don’t talk to you now.
I really do think that it’s bitterly sad we live in a world of e-mail, mobile phones, land/fixed lines, fax, web, social networking, instant messenger, IRC, text message, VoIP and so much more–but we seem to talk less, and less, and look at the floor. What’s on the floor — sweet chewing gum stuck to my sole? and look at the fabric of the worn and pressed in seat – that grimy black dust papering over the slight gaps in the window’s rubber seals – did they look at me, I’m not sure…
There By the Grace of Concrete Go I
There By the Grace of Concrete Go I
More photos of this ilk and from this particular shoot will be on my Flickr account. These photos were taken on my recent trip to Manchester (a very brief one) in North West England. They were all taken with my Canon EOS 5 (35mm film SLR!) with a 24mm prime lens.
The whole shoot was taken using Ilford Black and White C41 process 400 ISO film which I tend to get great results from (better than Kodak’s C41 process black and white, and on par mostly with Fujifilm when that’s unavailable.)
The series is about urbanity, decay and sheer grit.
Memoirs of a Time
Memoirs of a Time
These photos have been ‘recaptured’ using my SE K800i but were originally taken using my Canon EOS-5 with my 28-135mm Sigma lens. I am hoping to get them scanned in properly soon but laying them on the floor and arranging them into some kind of story and capturing it on my mobile phone was pretty cool as well. They were originally taken using Fujifilm Neopan 400CN C41 process film and the results were fantastic.
These photos were taken at the Black Rabbit, Arundel, W. Sussex in April 2007.
Zombie
Another head hangs lowly,
Child is slowly taken.
And the violence caused such silence,
Who are we mistaken?“Zombie” — The Cranberries
On the way back from London taking a look out to the desolate Sussex countryside at night, eyes weary and brain working through its avenues of moonlight and cyclic thoughts of representation, semantics of the world and how this all figures with everything... A rare photo of myself up close that I like.
This Joy
Friday night is one of the better nights for telly at the moment, well–if you include Have I Got News For You, Newsnight Review and Later with Jools Holland and that’s about it. Anyway one of my little gems from this year is Stephanie Dosen of whom I missed out on getting tickets to see in Brighton a month or two ago. Well hey she was on Later last night I’ve just checked and she has another gig in London in February so I have now booked tickets. She is wonderful though!
LaTeX goes AJAX
I find quite a lot of cool stuff on my travels around the ‘net and this is one of them. I have been a fan of LaTeX for a couple of years now. Admittedly for quick documentation and work I either use Word or preferably OpenOffice.org’s Writer. At home, particularly for my self published material I prefer LaTeX although these days I rarely write it by ‘hand’. In so far as I don’t enter the command manually, or not all of them anyway.
Instead I use LyX which I still recommend for anybody and will continue to use.
But at http://www.latexlab.org there is a very cool LaTeX online application using AJAX tecnniques to create something not too dissimilar to what Zoho Office or Google Docs offer but for LaTeX. It even exports to PDF, Postscript, PNG and DVI.
I’ll stick with LyX but this could be a good way to work on the move if I don’t have LyX available.
