Ok so I get out from in front of the computer on the weekends I have decided to start a little project, ok maybe not so little. I am going to convert a Suzuki RG250 motorcycle into an electric bike for commuting.
Web Designer, Me?
Ok I have had my first website design published. About a year ago friends of mine asked if I could help update their business website. They were expecting increased focus on the business and realised that the site was not “up to scratch”. Well it was pretty bad, you know the type, put together by someone with little experience using Microsoft Frontpage like a notepad.
Well me being a little particular wanted to do a liquid layout, using XHTML and CSS only. They did not require an active site, just the company information so this should be easy. After talking to my friends I got some great ideas and directions. I did all the graphics (hardest part for me), layout and hand coding. The site layout and navigation was accepted nearly 8 months ago but a new addition to their family delayed the deployment.
So earlier this week we published what we had and put “placeholders” for the infromation yet to come.
Arrgh! Computers!
Well the other day the house’s second computer decided to stop working. The thing would not stay turned on, it would just shutdown, if you were lucky it would run for 10 minutes then stop. So I had a look and figured out the power supply was not working right. The repairs will have to wait a week or too so I have time and money to fix.
Today however my computer decided to die. Freezing within minutes of turning on! I think it is memory or CPU related, so those repairs will have to wait as well.
So in the space of days we have gone from two working computers down to none. I could not even salvage enough common parts to make any hybrid work (one is an old celeron the other an AMD, different memory everything).
So I have set up my work laptop, we have no access to our photos, email or games. Looks like a computer spend is on the cards 😥
Pentax *ist Ds Review
Ok a little while back I told you all that I had got a new camera. A very nice new digital SLR from Pentax. Now for all you out there that don’t know what SLR means I found this great definition:
An SLR or single-lens reflex is really designed for the enthusiast photographer or the person who can put up with a larger camera in return for increased accuracy and greater versatility. This type of camera has through the lens viewing with a mirror behind the lens and a pentaprism to direct the light passing through the lens to the optical finder. The mirror lifts up out of the way as a photograph is taken. As you look through the lens that takes the picture the composition can be more accurate and the lens often removes giving you a wider scope of options. The metering and focusing systems are usually more accurate too. Despite all this creativity it’s still possible to stick most SLRs on a full auto point & shoot mode so anyone could use one with ease, but don’t expect to fit one in a pocket! They are much bigger. Ephotozine
So you got it, this is not a compact camera, it won’t fit in your pocket, but it will allow you to be much more creative then a compact point and shoot camera.
Ok so this is my new Camera 
small (for a SLR), light and solid. This thing feels much sturdier than the Canon 300D that it competes with, but is smaller and lighter. It has a steel frame with a plastic body.
The main reason I looked at this camera was twofold.
Firstly it was cheaper than the rest, being a good $200AU cheaper than the Canon and $400 cheaper than the Nikon D70.
Secondly my three existing lenses would just work with it. Unfortunatly my old flash however is another story.
Features include:
- 6.1 Megapixel sensor
- 2 inch display screen
- 11 point autofocus
- Multi mode metering
- SD Memory card for storage (faster and smaller than a Compact flash)
- Multiple auto-exposure modes, including Macro, Portrait and landscape
- Apeture and speed priority settings
- Full manual (good for my older manual lenses) and bulb settings
- ISO settings from 200 – 3200 with very low noise up to 800
- Shutter speeds from 30 seconds up to 1/4000 of second
Overall it has the features required by a beginner and the flexibility for more professional work.
If you want to read a comprehensive review that I agree with hop over too Steve’s Digicams.
Here are a few shots from the Camera to show you what it can do. Remember to look at the Exif data to see the settings.
New Camera
Ok it’s offical I am SPOILT!
Today I bought a new camera, one I have been eyeing for a while. So I am the proud new owner of a Pentax *ist Ds Digital SLR. This is a wonderful camera and I will soon figure out how to take a photo so you can all see 🙂
Why Firefox?
To assist a friend of mine and to restate the reasons why I recommend and only use Firefox, I will explain my position below.
Firefox is the a web browser from the same organisation that makes Mozilla. It is designed to provide basic browsing functionality with extendable plugin capabilities.
Firefox is:
- Easy to use
- Provides tabbed browsing
- Is themable to change the look to match you preferences
- Is more standard complient that IE, allowing for a richer web.
- and most importantly, more secure!
The last point is what I want to focus on here, as over the last 2 months or so I have had to rebuild/recover computers that belong to a couple of friends of mine. Both of these machines were so ridden with virus’s and spyware that they were basically unusable, one was rebooting everytime it went on the internet and the other was slower than a slug running anything. I spent more than 2 days on each computer removing software that had been unintentionally installed by these people. Now before you say it, these are not dumb people, they are cautious, read and understand most of the prompts Windows gives them, they do not click on attachments unless they are from people they know, generally your average user.
Due to the lack of security in IE and Outlook Express however these people are fighting a loosing battle, incorrect displays of filetypes, automatic running of code from a remote server, popup adds all just confuse the hell out of everyone.
Now Firefox like all software is NOT PERFECT, however it has been designed with the modern corrupt and insecure Internet in mind. It will not autorun code, it insists on saving executables so your virus scanner has a chance of checking it. It does not support Active-X controls that can run with all your permissions on your local machine.
References:
C-NET Review and award.
The Age says:
The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) has warned users to stop using Microsoft Internet Explorer after a bug which Microsoft had previously claimed to have fixed has resurfaced.
The US Cert Warning says:
There are a number of significant vulnerabilities in technologies relating to the IE domain/zone security model, local file system (Local Machine Zone) trust, the Dynamic HTML (DHTML) document object model (in particular, proprietary DHTML features), the HTML Help system, MIME type determination, the graphical user interface (GUI), and ActiveX. These technologies are implemented in operating system libraries that are used by IE and many other programs to provide web browser functionality. IE is integrated into Windows to such an extent that vulnerabilities in IE frequently provide an attacker significant access to the operating system.
Firefox 1.0 is OUT!
Ok so the first full version of Firefox is out.
Get it now…
Spyware
Ok it is now one of the biggest problems in desktop systems. According to Dell and The Financial Express approx 90% of all [Desktop] computers are infected by spyware.
A new site GetNetWise gives some basic pointers on how to avoid and remove spyware.
My basic advice:
- Install a personal firewall that detects outgoing connections (ZoneAlarm, Norton Security, etc)
- Install and run a virus scanner – any one is fine
- Avoid using Internet Explorer and Outlook whereever possible
- Turn off all services you don’t require, sharing, IIS etc.
- Get and run a good spyware removal tool (Adaware, Spybot, etc) – DON’T get a spyware tool from an embedded webpage add! Most of these are fake and will install Spyware.