January 5, 2010 by David.

It’s been two years since lived here and had BBQ ribs at Houston’s on Poplar Ave in Memphis. OMG! Every bit as good as I remembered, and then some. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Truly fall-off-the-ribs tender with great sauce. Eve couldn’t have been more pleased with the rib she got from Adam. The wait staff are very polite and were right on filling up my soda.

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December 5, 2009 by David.

We ran into the Dialogue Projectat the Crocker Galleria in San Francisco. Their rendition was to have inspirational quotes by category posted on windows. There are many quotes on a poster, arranged in different fonts and font sizes, making visually appealing art that stimulates thought and conversation. Very cool. I just ordered the book that contains 2000 quotes they’ve assembled.

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November 21, 2009 by David.

Now I realize that some people are a VERY poor judge of another person’s age, but I found this too amusing. Today I was in Safeway and as I checked out the clerk asked my birthday. I was certain I misunderstood, as grocery store clerks just don’t ask such personal questions out of the blue. So so I asked her to repeat. She did. By then I was sure that - in spite of my hearing aids - that I must be really be having a hard time understanding her. She then stated, “What is your birthday for the alcohol you are buying?”

“Oh, that!”

I was last carded when I was 40 years old. And that was 15 years ago.

I think I’ll just take it as a compliment.

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October 26, 2009 by David.

We’ve been in our Lake Mendocino place a month now and have put up a few bird feeders. I was wandering around Walmart and spied some bird food and feeders. I don’t know much about what birds are around here or what they like to eat but figured that what was for sale would be a fairly good indicator, so picked up bag of black sunflower seed and a bag of thistle seed for the “little” birds. Already had a feeder for the sunflower seed so picked up a cylindrical one with smaller openings for the thistle seed.

That all worked ok, but a week later Sharlet saw a sock feeder for thistle seed. It had a picture of something like eight finches on it. I commented that many birds on a feeder must have been Photoshop’d in. Little did I know! After a few days for the “news” to get around, we’ve counted over 20 Finches on the sock with more flying around trying to get on. They eat through the thing in three days! As soon as the sock feeder showed up they ignored the other thistle seed feeder so I’ve converted it to a second sunflower seed feeder. Who’d a thunk?

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September 20, 2009 by David.

Time has a fascinating article on canine intelligence and the effects of dog’s social interaction on their intelligence. In particular, how their ability to interpret pointing, whether a finger or a foot, appears to have developed through social skills. This human skill is not shared with any other animals, not even chimpanzees.

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September 1, 2009 by David.

Today Canon announced the 7D, replacement for the 50D. Looks DANG GOOD! Some thought it would come with a full frame sensor, but it has a .63x sensor (slightly larger than the .59x 50D and virtually the same as the Nikon D300). I’m a bit relieved as this means I can update and still keep using my existing lenses. Although when I go to a full-frame it is most likely going to be a Nikon D700 (or whatever follows), the 7D sets a new standard for DSLRs that aren’t full frame. I’m beyond impressed. This is substantially more than I expected to see replacing the 50D. Cannon is going to keep me in the fold a while longer.

Key features

• 18MP APS-C CMOS sensor
• 8 frames per second continuous shooting
• 1080p HD video recording with manual controls
• 3.0 inch Clear View II LCD screen with 920,000 dots
• 19-point AF system (all cross-type)
• 1.0x magnification and 100% coverage viewfinder
• Wireless flash control
• Environmental sealing

Take a look at what my favorite camera review site has to say:

Press Release coverage
Hands-on Preview

For the last couple years I’ve bought nearly all my still and video gear from Adorama.com, but recently I’ve been ordering mostly from Amazon (although places like Adorama and B&H have a much wider and deeper selection). They’ve added a section dedicated to cameras (amazon.com/camera) and their prices are very aggressive. They are also taking pre-orders of the Canon EOS 7D but haven’t announced pricing as of the date of this writing.

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August 27, 2009 by David.

Interesting NaturalNews article on batteries, their life & capacity, and how some manufacturers actually put an AA battery inside a D battery!

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August 22, 2009 by David.

Good green or blue chroma keying isn’t easily done if you want really clean edges, retain all the strands of a person’s hair, and things like that. I just ran into PhotoKey on TubeTape.net, thanks to a YouTube video by IceflowStudio. Although I haven’t used it personally yet, it looks very promising (read: better than what is in Adobe’s products).

Check it out if you are in the market for chroma products.

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August 22, 2009 by David.

We may be moving into a place that doesn’t have broadband availability from any land sources so I’ve started checking out satellite and all satellite providers have comparatively low bandwidth caps, so I thought I should start monitoring my usage. I came across Net Meter by Hoo Technology on CNet’s site. It is $20 after a 30 day free trial. I am finding it simple to install and use and it has very informative reports - just what I was looking for. Here’s how CNet describes it:

“Net Meter monitors network traffic through all network connections on the computer it’s installed on, and displays real-time graphical and numerical downloading and uploading speeds. The software supports to display transfer rates of multiple network connections at the same time. It also logs network traffic and provides daily, weekly, monthly, and summary traffic reports. And start days of week and month are customizable. The program allows you to setup a notification to get an alert when you exceed a certain amount of bandwidth usage. And, traffic stopwatch enables you to test bandwidth speed of connections. You can also record transfer rates of connections. Net Meter works with the majority network connections including phone modems, DSL, cable modem, LAN, satellite, wireless, and VPN.”

I also tried a free bandwidth monitor from CNet on my laptop but it is like a toy compared to Net Meter.

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August 12, 2009 by David.

For $3.00/user/month myOneLogin will allow others to sign into many applications using your password but not seeing what it is. When you want to end their access, you just delete their myOneLogin account and access is immediately removed from all programs you set them up to access. By extension, this means you can set up “single sign-on” so each person only has one password to remember. Pretty slick. There is a free trial too. 

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August 12, 2009 by David.

Recently I dropped AccessLine eFax service because of on-going phone line connection difficulties and signed up for MyFax instead. So far they are working fine.

MyFax offers a free eFaxing service. I am using the paid service as I need a consistent FAX number to give people, but for some the free computer-based service will be all they need. Max of two faxes per day up to 10 pages each without even setting up an account. You can also send MS Word, PDFs and 175 other file formats.

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August 3, 2009 by David.

Then try what Trina Thompson did - sue the college for the tuition costs because three months later in a down economy and barely adequate grades you haven’t landed a job! Let’s see, IF an employer actually looked seriously at you, most will do an Internet search and guess what pops up for Trina Thompson - a suit against her alma mater. Hello? What better way to say, “Run the other way as fast as you can” to a potential employer.

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July 22, 2009 by David.

Last year I finally had to get the sensor on my digital SLR camera cleaned. At the time I thought it could only be done by a professional. I don’t change lenses in an environment that isn’t clean very often, but again recently spots started showing up on my pictures - and I’ve learned through research that they show up more “fully stopped down” when you have the lens with as small of an aperture as you can.

Well, this time I decided to do some Internet research and found a fabulous site CleaningDigitalCameras.com. This site had just the information I had been searching for. The progressive steps are visual examination, blowing it clean, dry cleaning, and wet cleaning. The last step is the most likely to damage your sensor if you don’t do it right, but usually you don’t have to go that far down the chain to get the results you need. Curt Fargo explains different products to use and why you might choose one product over another.

This site is sponsored by Curt Fargo of Micro-Tools.com which, naturally, sells sensor cleaning supplies. He is a very nice guy - I talked to him on the phone - and if you’d like he will show you in person how to clean your camera’s sensor if you are near enough to his shop to come by (Vacaville, CA - actually 25 miles for me but I’d read thoroughly enough that I went ahead without tutoring). If you choose your products right, you can clean your sensor for pennies in supplies instead of 75 bucks or more. In fact, I bought one of his “kits” (the one with Pec-Pads) for less than the price of my last sensor cleaning and it will last for many, many more cleanings. There are places trying to hawk sensor cleaning supplies so expensive that it costs as much as having it professionally cleaned.

I am glad to report that, while my sensor was quited dirty and took extra time and effort to clean, it is now clean as a whistle and I’m a happy camper and my Canon 20D is back in business. However, I think I’m going to order the magnifying glass with internal lights and a cutout to reach in and clean with the magnifier in place. It would definitely make the job easier.

Now, all that said, you’ve got to consider yourself pretty handy to take this on as the consequences are expensive if you damage the sensor or the sensor cover. But if you have a steady hand and are used to being a careful do-it-yourselfer, you will save a lot of money and not have to give your camera laid up for weeks to get it cleaned.

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June 25, 2009 by David.

The last two weeks I’ve been house sitting (read: pet sitting) at a Lake Tahoe cabin. Knowing I would have to drive at least ten miles just to get internet access, I ordered a bunch of books from Amazon to read while here plus brought along my studio lights and table top unit to do some still life photography. Tomorrow I head home. It’s been  a wonderful two weeks. I hiked some trails and took tons of pictures, experimented with table top photography, and read three photography books cover to cover. Lots of fun, say I.

I posted the list of photography books I’ve found excellent on my reading list page.

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May 27, 2009 by David.

Who knew? There are toilets made that actually flush quickly, quietly, and efficiently. In spite of the fact that Toto is the world’s largest toilet manufacturer, I hadn’t heard of them until a year or two ago when we did a house sitting job. As the home owner showed us around their place, he seemed, well, a little too proud of his Toto toilet in his new bathroom remodel. A toilet is a toilet, I was thinking in my pre-enlightened frame of reference. Once we were there house sitting, I quickly found out why he was so pleased with his toilet. Welcome to the world where ordinary everyday appliances just unobtrusively go about the business of what they were designed to do.

About two months ago a friend replaced both of her toilets with Toto’s and I was reacquainted with just how trouble free Toto’s are. Then, in the last week I’ve installed two Toto toilets for the bathroom remodel I’m doing. I bought the taller ADA compliant toilets with the sanagloss finish (more dense ceramic finish and thus easier to keep clean) and a mere 1.28 gallons per flush (current code requirement is 1.6 GPF) model #CST454CEFG.

After a lifetime of thinking that toilets were just something that were noisy, slow and “troublesome,” discovering something as functional as a toilet that just does its job without muss or fuss is truly pleasant.

If you are tired of unclogging toilets, the amount of water they use, and/or how slowly they flush, just get a Toto! You won’t believe the difference, I promise you.

I found the prices at National Builder Supply to be excellent at about a third off with no shipping or tax (except for Georgia) and now, having processed several orders through them, can highly recommend them.

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