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Friday, October 29, 2010
This post is a reproduction of http://ceottaki.com/node/6
Hello!
In April 2005 I was writing this short blog entry I called "The Very First One", to introduce my then newly created blog - which was actually me second attempt at a blog. Although that wasn't my first blog, it was the first created with the intention of being a bit more serious and that post talked a little about me and the projects I was about to start and what my intentions were with that blog. Little did I know that it wouldn't go exactly that way.
I quite liked the blog at geekswithblogs.net, and still do, and being a self-declared geek, it is very appropriate. But it's time to move on and I've made a decision to have my own domain and my own website that will aggregate the contents I produce, including my blog.
I will not close my blog at geekswithblogs.net, at least not for now, until I decide what I will do with it. But I've decided not to import its contents to this new blog, hence this post being the very first one, again. I will, though, re-post some of what I think was my best stuff.
Now, talking a bit about this new website, as you will see there are sections to cover my endeavours in development and photography, as well as a bit of information about myself including other hobbies I have. None of it is necessarily fixed and I will make no promises apart from promising to keep this website changing to fit my needs and possibilities.
Please be patient, it will take some time to have actual contents online, but I will get there; right now ceottaki.com is more of an experimental skeleton than anything else.
Thanks for reading and I'll talk to you soon.
Monday, July 12, 2010
About a month and a half ago I had a good friend visiting us for almost a month. Being also a photograph enthusiast, and one with a nervous finger, he took just over 4 thousand photos with his Nikon D5000. Of course we needed to download the files from his camera and free his SD card often, and we did that on my home computer, which is where I usually do the same with the photos taken with my Nikon D40. At the time he did not have his laptop with him and since I would want a copy of his photos as well, transferring them to my computer seemed only logical, I have a good system, backups in place, the whole shebang. So it became common practice during that month, we would download the files to my computer, deleting the originals from his camera. To do that, instead of using the operating system to simply copy the files, I was using the software that came with my Nikon D40, that is, Nikon Picture Project 1.7 and Nikon Transfer, because of its renaming and auto-rotating option. I had never updated the software to Nikon ViewNX and the newer Nikon Transfer because the older one had always worked quite well. Little did I know that the older software was ruining some of my friend’s photos. Because my friend took so many photos we did not go through a lot of them immediately, we were just downloading them, and only after he had left we found out that all his photos that were supposed to be in portrait orientation were corrupted. The preview was there, the thumbnail was there, but Photoshop Lightroom wouldn’t open them and despite having the latest Nikon RAW Codec installed, none of the viewing software we used, like Picasa Photo Viewer or Windows Photo Gallery would be able to show the files correctly. After trying a couple of things like converting the files to DNG with Adobe DNG Converter and trying to open the files with other software, I had decided to contact Nikon and ask for help, while also asking for help on Photo.Net. I described the problem in detail and to Nikon I actually sent them one of the problematic photos, and the first answer I got from Nikon was that they were able to open the photo with their latest version of ViewNX and that I should download that. I did, and yes, I could view the file, but I could not export the file to anything, therefore I could not process the file or open it with any other software. Fiddling with ViewNX a bit I found out that what I was looking at was the embedded JPEG file inside the NEF file, not the actual RAW data, and selecting the option to view the actual RAW data in ViewNX rendered me a blank photo. I replied that to Nikon and continued with my own investigations. In the meantime I got a lot of replies from Photo.Net but none that really solved the problem, although it was a lot of good advice that will help me in the future. We had a hunch that the problem was not with the image itself, but with its metadata, based on the fact that it is pretty much just metadata that is changes with the auto-rotate option, which was the option that most probably ruined the files since only portrait-oriented files were corrupt. So I started to play with the file’s metadata using a great tool: ExifTool by Phil Harvey. To start I removed all metadata from the file, which didn’t work since RAW files do need some basic metadata to be opened, unlike JPEG files. That gave me another idea, so I asked my friend to take a portrait-oriented photo of a white wall (a gray card would have been better) with his Nikon D5000 and send me the RAW file. With that file in hands, I extracted all the metadata from it and replaced the metadata of one of the corrupt files with that. Voilà, I was able to open the corrupt file with Lightroom, but I still had some problems: the embedded JPEG of the corrupt file was substituted as well, meaning the thumbnail of that file was a white wall, and all other useful metadata, like aperture, shutter speed, ISO, date and time of exposure, etc. was also substituted with that of the white wall photo. I informed these results to Nikon hoping that this would prove to them that the problem was a metadata problem only and that they would be able to narrow down on that and provide me with information on which metadata had the problem and how to correct it. I had also determined that it wasn’t one of the standard metadata (by substituting only that part and trying to open the file, which failed), but one of Nikon’s custom, encrypted, binary information. My hopes were up for a while but Nikon quickly replied just affirming again that Picture Project would have caused the issue with that RAW file, that I should use ViewNX to do that and that to access the original metadata from the corrupt file I should download them from the SD card again using ViewNX. Finally they said, and I quote, “unfortunately if you have deleted the images from your card the data is lost”, so they could not do anything else for the matter. I was quite disappointed with Nikon for that, but I proceeded with my quest, this time writing a script that would do the following: - Extract the embedded JPEG from the corrupt RAW files
- Save the original non-Nikon-specific metadata from the corrupt RAW files to XMP files
- Overwrite all metadata of the corrupt RAW files with metadata from the good, “white wall” file
- Restore the original non-Nikon-specific metadata from the XMP files to the once-corrupt RAW files
- Restore the embedded JPEG to the once-corrupt RAW files
I am pleased to say that this solution worked quite well and both me and my friend are quite happy with it. Something was lost still, like the “as shot” white balance, but nothing that can’t be adjusted with Lightroom afterwards. Download the script here. Use it at your own risk, and please be very careful when using it, it will modify your RAW files, so please back them up first. To run this script you need to have a folder that contains only your corrupt NEF files, a good NEF file with a photo of a white wall or a gray card called GOODFILE.NEF, this script, and the ExifTool executable needs to be on your path. Thank you for everybody at Photo.Net who gave this problem a shot!
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Those of you who know me a bit better know that I like photography and that I have no fear in calling myself an amateur photographer. Perhaps I should restrain myself from using the word “photographer” associated with me, but I can’t help it, not because of the quality of my photos (sometimes doubtful, but hey, sometimes I manage to get decent ones, like the ones I’m adding to this article just for showing off purposes :D) but because I would love to actually be a photographer, so I try.  When I’m out and about on a holiday, though, I sometimes get lots of complaints (mostly from my wife :D) because I don’t take photos with people in them a lot, and also that there aren’t a lot of photos of me. I do try sometimes to take photos of the people that are on holiday with me, but when I am in a different place looking at the different things there are, I am a lot more prone to try to capture that place then who was there with me (or, for that matter, myself). Also, I am usually the one behind the camera and that makes it pretty hard (but not impossible) to take photos of myself. So, I guess my reasons to photograph are probably different than that of most people.
I was reading an article on creative photography and it got me thinking about all that and the reasons behind people photographing whatever it is they photograph, and I think I can justify the fact that I don’t take a lot of “family photos” or photos with known people in them if I talk about these reasons. So here I am. :)  Photographs can be taken to document things, to represent something (say, when you’re trying to sell something on eBay), to preserve memories, to flatter or indulge someone’s vanity, to embarrass someone, purely to make money (like photos of a gossip magazine… I doubt someone actually enjoys taking them), to tell a story or to try to prove something to someone (by documenting it through photography… I guess that’s the same as “to document things” :P). But, as Harold Davis said in one of his articles, I’m willing to bet that many of your best photos do none of these things. I know, simply from experience, trial and error, and literally thousands of photos, that most of mine don’t. Thinking about it, that is probably the reason why I almost don’t take posed photos with the people that are travelling with me or family photos and things like that. And when I do, they serve as a trip to memory lane but they are never my best photos. Not even my best photos of people! Those sometimes are posed, sometimes not, but they are taken not as family photos but thinking about subject, objective, and maybe the vanity of the subject.
It is also a lot easier for me to take photos without people in it. As a photographer, to create great images of people that are posing for you, you need to give them good instructions and they need to follow them. I am not good at making people feel comfortable, have the patience, and still follow what I would like them to do, like certain photographers are. Damn, I’ll never be a fashion photographer! :D I try to work on it though, when I have a chance, but what ends up happening when I am travelling is that I want to take the best possible photos and, as always when on a holiday, there is limited time, so I end up sticking to my comfort zone most of the time (that is, _no people_).  I take photographs because I enjoy doing it, for that simple fact alone. I enjoy taking photos, even if I wouldn’t look at them later. Of course I do look at them, and treat them, and select, and use them everywhere I can, but still, what I enjoy the most is to actually take a photo. And I believe my best photos were taken because I saw something beautiful that I would like to share with other people, or something unusual that other people wouldn’t see, or perhaps to call attention to a detail that would otherwise go without importance.
Another good point is the relevance of a person in a photo. A person as a subject usually means the background is not the subject itself or it is something that helps compose the photo, but the main subject, the “thing” you are trying to show and to call attention to, is the person. When I am taking photos, although I am totally an amateur, I am thinking about photos that will appeal to other people, to the general public, and not only to my family and friends, which means that there is a limit to what a model subject (i.e. my wife) can bring to holiday photos such as landscapes and other features, which then limits how many photos I want to take with people in them. :) In that sense, photos of unknown people sometimes are better because you’re actually using that unknown person as a subject due to whatever they are doing that is unique. Perhaps spontaneous photos of whoever is travelling with me would work, but they are usually paying attention to what I am doing so that is a hard one. My wife is going to kill me when she reads this. :D  Anyway, I end up with a lot of photos without anyone in them but I still think they are really good photos. Nowadays when I am on a holiday I try to take “my” photos, with no people in them, and then a couple of photos at the same places with people in them. That pleases everybody, but it takes more time. :) That’s ok, I suppose… One other thing that has worked quite well for me in the past was to take two cameras with me, my SLR and a normal point-and-shoot camera, and determine that “family photos” and similar ones will be taken with the point-and-shoot, and the “other” photos will be taken with my SLR. What ends up happening is that whoever is on holiday with me will take over the point-and-shoot at some point because I won’t be using it much, and take the family photos for me. That is the best arrangement ever! Hehehehe. Finally, I decided that the last photo I would add to this article would be a nice photo with a person in it (my wife – who else did you expect?! :D) that is still a really nice photo and that would definitely be within my “selected” collection.
Just one thing to finish: I would appreciate other people’s opinions to this matter, so please leave your comments or email me!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
That is the question really, isn’t it? It has been more than a couple of days that Apple has released its 3.0 update for the iPhone / iPod touch OS, and I haven’t updated my iPod touch (1st gen) yet. Why? Well, because I’m not sure it is worth the £5.99 I will have to part with (US$ 9.95 if you are in the US). I know that eventually I will end up updating it because I like having the most updated software and I don’t like being left behind, and also because £5.99 is an amount I allow myself to spend on totally unnecessary things. The update is only paid for iPod touch users, not for iPhone users, and I don’t really understand that choice. People that have an iPhone 3G will get the most of the update, while people with an iPod touch 2nd gen will get a little less or perhaps the same, and people with an iPod touch 1st gen like me will get a lot less. So really, I don’t think I should pay the same £5.99 that people with an iPod touch 2nd gen will. If I had an iPhone 3G or an iPod touch 2nd gen I wouldn’t be thinking about this, I would have updated it the same day the update came out. So, what will I get with the update? I’m going to be able to buy audio books and movies using the wi-fi connection of my iPod. I didn’t even know I couldn’t do that before, I knew I could buy music and podcasts, because I do do that, but unfortunately audio books don’t work for me, I’d rather read, and I don’t watch movies on my iPod screen, which I find to small for that, if great for other things. I should really get the cables to connect it to the TV, but I haven’t done that yet. So far, the new feature I mentioned is, then, nothing. Not for me, anyway. I will also get the landscape keyboard on my emails and notes, which is a nice feature and I would pay £0.39 to have. :) Spotlight Search is the feature I would enjoy the most, and that is worth the price of a good application, say, £1.99. Finally, the copy, cut and paste, which is something that should have been there since the beginning and that I will also appreciate, and would also pay another £0.39 to have. So I would pay £2.77, or, rounding up, £2.99 for the update, gladly. Those are the main features advertised that are compatible with the first generation of the iPod touch, while Stereo Bluetooth and Peer to Peer Gaming will be available for the second generation and those are really new and cool features, for which I would gladly add the rest of the money (£3.00), but since I’m not getting them, why should I pay for it? Other features included are parental control, which for now doesn’t do me any good but I get why it is there, automatic wi-fi login which is also really nice although there were (mostly free) applications that did that already, creation of iTunes accounts from the iPod, which is really not something that I will use, now that I already have an account, new languages which are also not a big use for me because the languages I speak and write were already there, push notifications, which is also really nice, third-party game accessories, which once gets into the market could be very cool, although I’m not sure the iPod touch 1st gen will get that. Also, there will be improvements to Safari, like auto-fill and faster performance, syncing of Notes, which I hope works over Exchange because if it doesn’t will be useless to me too, and the “Shake to Shuffle”, which is something the latest iPod nano already had and although it is cute, it’s no big deal, I don’t see myself using it that much or appreciating it more than touching a button on the screen to do the same. So, yeah, at the end of the day, I will end up updating my iPod to the new version, but still, I have paid already for the 2.0 update before, which was worth the money because of the Genius and the App Store (without which I would never have bought the iPod touch), and I really would not like to pay again for an update that will get me some new and nice features, but not as many as it really has, and especially, I wouldn’t like to pay the same as the other people who are getting more for it, it just doesn’t sound fair, don’t you think?
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
I'm going to be brief here, but I have to say that 2008 has not been a good year for science fiction. No, I'm not talking about bad movies or lack of good books or anything like that, I'm talking about much greater losses: in March we lost Sir Arthur C. Clarke, one of the greatest writers in the genre, and now, in November, we lost Michael Crichton. It's so weird, Michael Crichton was young (66 years old), looked a lot younger than that and seemed to be well and fit, but unfortunately what nobody knew is that he had cancer and was fighting a private fight with it, which he has lost. I remember reading The Andromeda Strain when I was a kid, it was the second book of sci-fi that I remember reading, right after Isaac Azimov's I, Robot, and those two books got me hooked. And I don't even consider him "just" a sci-fi writer, because he had so many other great novels that escaped this genre, like Rising Sun and The Great Train Robbery, and I liked them all. I would like to pay my respects to him and to say that I am very sad for this loss, the second great loss to sci-fi and to good literature this year.
Monday, November 03, 2008
I have just bought a Dell Vostro 1510 laptop at work for my own use and I thought it would be interesting to write a review about it now that I have used it for a week or so, although my "thing" is not really reviewing equipment. Since I consider myself quite an advanced user, I think I can do this. :) You should know that I'm moving from a Sony Vaio VGN-A215Z, so that's what I'll be comparing it to. First of all, let me say that I prefer Dell to Sony when it comes to laptops and computers in general, for simple reasons: I can change and tweak the hardware configuration of a Dell computer when buying it a lot more than with Sony, and I can get better configurations with Dell for a lot less than Sony. Although Sony laptops do look cool, Dell now has a line of computers that also look cool (the XPS line), and I wouldn't spend £200 more with Sony just so my laptop looks cool. If I really wanted to look cool, I would buy a Mac. :D I had a really old Dell laptop before that Vaio, and it worked great for a long time. Actually, it's still working, although pretty slow (it's a Pentium III), but for basic operation it works just fine, although it is quite heavy (it weights more than 3 kilos). This new one is obviously a much better machine, a lot better than the Vaio as well and it has been working quite well so far. Its design is somewhat simple and not too fashionable, except for the top (which you'll really only see when it's closed) that is glossy black and it does look nice. But, hey, it's a Vostro and the same configuration with an XPS would cost me almost an extra £100 (and it would have longer battery life and less weight, but...), and since the company I work for is paying for it, I'm not spending on looks. It is a little lighter than my "old" Vaio, but like I mentioned, for a little more I could get a lighter laptop, but I don't carry it around that much, only when I travel and it's not a heavy weight for that. It is running Windows Vista Business SP1, and it's doing it quite well, not freezing, running everything smoothly and quickly, multi-tasking like the Vaio's Centrino never really could, so no complaints there. My current complaints are about design. Although I'm not wanting to look cool or fashionable or anything like that with my laptop, I do want practicability and efficiency, and I can already spot some problems there. First, the speakers are on the sides, beside the keyboard, which looks odd but mainly takes space from the keyboard. And there lies my main problem with this laptop. Although the keys are regular sized, there are less keys due to the keyboard being narrower because of the speakers, but I guess that with some time I'll get used to the small Ctrl and the placement of the Shifts and all that, but I'll never forgive them for taking out the Home and End keys. Oh, yes, you do have that functionality, by pressing Fn + Left Arrow (Home) or Fn + Right Arrow (End), but that means using two hands (the Fn key is on the other side of the keyboard) and pressing two keys for these simple but very useful operations. I catch myself having problem with that every 2 minutes. I do love the DVD drive not having a tray. It works like a charm and it's one less part to brake or to take space, although when Windows hangs and don't eject your CD, you'll need a reboot to get it out of there, and I suppose that if your laptop fails completely you'll have to open it to get your CD or DVD back, but how many times has that happened to you? It also has plenty of USB ports (4) and cool touch-buttons for music, and also a SD card reader. I don't like that, if setup to sleep when you close the lid, it sleeps when the lid still has some 20 degrees to finish closing. I guess that's all I have to say about it so far. It's a good machine, specially if you want good performance but you don't want to spend a lot of money. If you have a little more to spend, I would suggest going for the XPS line before even looking to buy a Sony Vaio, and if you still have more money and you want to look really cool, buy a MacBook Air. :) I bought a 15.4" screen because I didn't care for the weight, but there are lighter 13" versions (the Dell Vostro 1310), and the 13" XPS is absolutely great as well.
Friday, August 29, 2008
I was reading this article on BBC today, online maps 'wiping out history', and I couldn't believe what I was reading. For me, this is just another example of someone who cannot cope with the fact that the Internet is changing their jobs, just like the librarian I wrote about in this other article. This article now is about the president of the British Cartographic Society, Ms Mary Spencer, saying that the Internet maps are leaving important landmarks that are part of History out, and that people will miss that, but that is so not true! Online maps probably have a lot more landmarks than regular paper maps, and they do have the historic landmarks such as churches, museums and others, and also the restaurants, pubs, and much more. They're just not displayed all at the same time due to a nice resource that is the dynamic way they are presented (and because that would be impossible to read), contrary to the static way a paper has to be. This has a disadvantage, I guess most people would say: the person using the map has to ask for it, but at least Google Maps and Google Earth have presented the users with several options to even show whatever has been marked in a certain area, even if you haven't asked for something in specific. I'm going to talk more about Google Maps than Live Maps and the others because it's what I'm used to use more. So, if you search for the Royal Albert Hall in Google Maps, it will tell you where it is (check it here), and or course, it will show you a photo of the place, its address, telephone number, web site, and a lot of information a regular map wouldn't. But I get the point, if I wasn't looking for the Royal Albert Hall specifically I wouldn't see it in the map straight away as a point of interest... that is, if I'm not looking at the satellite view, since this case in particular would show me a big and interesting ceiling in that area which would make me wonder what it was, and Google Maps would have told me. But that's easily solved, let me explain how. If you're in Google Maps and you don't know what you're looking for in a certain area, you can do the widest and wildest searches possible, for example, you could search for places of interest, South Kensington, London. That search would come up with the Royal Albert Hall, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum that Ms Spencer said that were missing, plus Harrods, and a lot of other points in the surrounding areas which a regular map wouldn't even think about showing. Another missing landmarks pointed by Ms Spence were some churches, like the Worcester Cathedral. Well... I searched for churches, Worcestershire and there you go... Google Maps came with a list of 1580 churches near Worcestershire, UK, including the first in the list, the Worcester Cathedral. My point is: don't tell me the information is missing from those maps, because it isn't. It takes some getting used to, such as everything else. Just like looking at a paper map, you need to learn some conventions, such as that a cross symbol represents a church, and several others, and I would say that our modern online maps are easier to learn. Ms Spencer said that "[online maps are] diluting the quality of the graphic image that we call a map", but I say it is actually increasing a lot the quality, presenting us with simultaneous street maps, satellite image, and even geographical and geological information. She also mentions that "the consequence will be long-term damage to future generations of map readers, because this skill is not being taught in schools" but I believe that the only thing happening is that the skills are changing and perhaps that is not being grasped by the cartographic society, because online mapping and specially the easy access to satellite images are definitely a threat to their profession as it is, in a certain way, and it is causing changes to it, and almost everybody is resistant to changes. I always liked maps as a child and I played a lot with my Atlas, "travelling" around the world, and I remember downloading the first version of Google Earth, and how many hours I spent "travelling" to different places and finding interesting information, and a lot more information than I could find in my Atlas. I still do that today, and although I had fun and learned with "regular" maps, I think I learned a lot more with the modern online maps. Although the mentioned Open Street Map is a very interesting initiative, I don't see it as something different from Google Maps, since Google Maps (and a lot of the others) let you share your information as well, adding places and all, and having corporations behind these maps is not necessarily something bad.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Once upon a time there was a little girl called Privacy. Privacy had a rough childhood, having suffered a lot while trying to grow up, and being invaded and broken several times. Her mother, Civil Liberty, tried to create a better environment for her whenever it was possible, but Government, a man hungry for power, was always trying tear little Privacy into pieces. The thing was that Privacy had the keys to several places that Government wanted to go to but Privacy wouldn't open the doors all the time. Whenever Government got too close to forcing Privacy to open doors she didn't want to, Civil Liberty would be called and came to protect Privacy, although it wasn't always possible for Civil Liberty to be there and Privacy ended up giving away some keys, sometimes, but that's life. Then the Internet was bourn, and the Internet gave a big boost to Liberty's cousin, Anonymity, which was then able to provide easier ways for Privacy to live and keep her keys, and everything was beautiful for a while. But nothing goes unchanged in life. Nice little tail, isn't it? I wish I could say that Privacy lived happily ever after, but we're not there yet so I can't say it, and from the way things look right now, that is definitely not the end of it. Unless we do something to stop all this nonsense. I'm talking about the brilliant idea (insert sarcastic laugh here) detailed in this BBC article of some ministers of the UK to hold information of every phone call made and e-mail sent in the UK. I've been meaning to write about this for a while now but it is such an important issue that I've been postponing it to try to write well about it. As mentioned by a Home Office spokesman, data is really a crucial tool for protecting national security and preventing crime. What he fails to mention is that its privacy is also crucial for the people's freedom, and although the Government can make promises about how this data will be used, once it is in their hands they can change their promises and History tells us that they will always change their promises over time. Another concern is how this can fall into the wrong hands, even while the Government is still just trying to do good with it (in theory), and the recent leaks of data that happened from within the Government don't help. There has been some criticism already about how secure this data will be when held, and that it "should only be held if - and only if - it can be demonstrated that an appropriate system of checks and balances is in place and the security of the information being stored is of paramount concern", but I say it should not be held at all! One thing that is a common place for whoever works with data security is that nothing is ever 100% secure. An unplugged computer, turned off and held inside a safe is still subject to a security break. The possibilities might be slim, but they are never zero. The data about phone calls and emails today are virtually secure because it is scattered between companies that unless presented with a court order, can't provide them to anyone. If we continue down this path, we will soon be in a society that is much like the one in George Orwell's 1984, or, to quote something more recent, Alan Moore's V for Vendetta. Put together this hit against privacy with the path they are taking towards censorship with movies and games, and what you have is a nice recipe for a huge Big Brother Awards. It is incredible that this is happening in a country like the UK, where because of its culture, size, geographic location and history, people are used to freedom, and this is very noticeable: it was one of the first things I came to appreciate when I first moved to London, and I don't even come from a place with freedom problems! Because the people from here are used to freedom I trust that they will not let this happen. The ministers and MPs must remember that they are there to represent the people and that the people can take them out of their positions if not happy with their actions. And I hope that people also remember that.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
I just can't believe that Nintendo did this mistake. It's just unbelievable that such a great company, in days like today with all these discussions about how games affect our lives and how they should be regulated, especially with children, did not take into consideration the possibility of a child getting a wrong BMI evaluation from its Wii Fit. But as unbelievable as it sounds, that is exactly what happened, like reported by BBC in its "Parents' anger at keep fit game" article: a kid got a wrong BMI evaluation by Wii Fit, saying that she was over weight and needed to loose 4 pounds. Nintendo should know better. Wii Fit got rated by PEGI as 3+ (except for Portugal, where it is 4+), so basically anybody that can talk can play it, so this should have been taken into consideration within the game, either adjusting the BMI calculations to fit kids, or at least by telling the players under a certain age that the results might not be accurate for them, or that they should talk to their parents before doing anything. And that game in particular can tell the player's age because it asks for it! So the statement of the company saying that "the resulting figures may not be entirely accurate for younger age groups due to varying levels of development" should be in the game! Making this comment afterwards makes them look even worse because then they know about it but didn't make the game react accordingly. Although I do think that this mother is right with her complaint and that Nintendo did make a mistake, this will give ammunition to people that want to censor games and give them ratings that are not appropriate. I've written two articles already about all this "game rating" discussion and I'm sure I'll write many more because it doesn't look like this will get sorted out soon, if ever, but I just wish it would and Nintendo might has just made it harder.
Friday, May 16, 2008
I, together with the majority of the 60 million people living in the UK, watch TV on a regular basis, and I am not here to complain about the declining quality of TV over the years or the general quality of TV ads, as you might think due to the title of this article. I actually think that we do have good TV ads in place today, together with some bad ones as there will always be, and today's TV experience can be pretty selective, with satellite and on demand content, which makes watching good TV a possible choice. I am here to ask a question: do the TV networks think we get deaf when the ads kick in???
I am asking this because most of the channels I watch, if not all, put the volume up so much when there's an interval for ads that I have to keep putting the volume down whenever the show I'm watching goes to the interval, and back up when it comes back, and that is really really annoying. I guess they think most people will get up and go do something else during the intervals and they need to listen to the advertisements from farther, which I don't know if it is true but it is certainly not the case for me. What ends up happening is that I turn the volume down so much during the intervals that I don't get to watch the ads at all, therefore ruining the purpose of the whole thing for the network and the sponsors of the shows. And also managing to keep me annoyed, which also ruins the purpose of watching TV (but I keep watching it anyway...).
So I guess that as with many other means of trying to enforce something that people have not asked for, this one is not only annoying but also a failed one, and the only ones who can't see that are the TV networks. Actually, I'm making a big leap here assuming it is really a failed one and that most people don't get up during the adverts. So, to add at least some facts to this article, I'm stopping now and asking people in my office what they do. Pause here.
Ok, so I've asked people around here (not many people, and definitely not a statistically reliable sample, but who cares?) and 71% of them wait for their show to start again (unless they need to go to the toilet), and 29% will definitely get up. Of the people who wait in front of the TV, more than half change channels quickly because the adverts are too annoying, and I'm suspecting here that part of that annoyance is because of the unbearable loudness. So my theory might as well be correct, that turning the volume up during the adverts is just making people annoyed and it's not being effective in getting the commercial message to people.
Hey, I'm not saying that we should get the commercial message, I don't want people to go buying things they don't need. It would be much better if we could watch TV without any ads, but since we can't, we might as well try to get them to be less annoying! But this is exactly where TV differs more from the Internet: even if all of you (three people - hi mom! hi dad!) who are reading this agree with me, there is no easy way to get the message to the TV networks and try to make them change. But if by any chance you have a contact with the guy with the hand on the volume button there, please, put some sense into him. :D
And, by the way, what's with adverts for dental products? Do they have to be so bad all the time???
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Today I read the news that Sir Arthur C. Clarke died yesterday, aged 90. I can't begin to say how sad that makes me, and I decided to write a little about it here, my way of showing my respects to him.
From the great Science Fiction authors that had a big influence in my childhood and my teenage years and that helped shape the geek I am, he was the last one alive. I can't help thinking that from now on there won't be new books by him, that his production of amazing stories that would bring me not only a lot of entertainment but also a lot of knowledge, is no more.
Also, I can't think of anyone that is still writing and that is as good as these writers that I've always praised, and that makes me even more sad. Good Science Fiction is really hard to come across, and these authors that I'm talking about are Philip K. Dick, which died when I was 2, Robert Heinlein, which died when I was 8, Isaac Azimov, died when I was 12, and now Arthur Clarke.
No more new books by these guys, and actually, except of Arthur Clarke, there hasn't been new books by these guys since I started reading them, so, whenever I thought about all that, I always thought "well, there's still Arthur Clarke to create a lot". And he did create a lot, over 100 books. But, again, it is sad that there will be no more. And now I don't have a backbone to guarantee me good Science Fiction books to come anymore.
Of course, William Gibson is still alive and many others, and I count on them to be this good and keep writing, but Sir Arthur Charles Clarke will certainly be missed by me.
Farewell, and I hope that when you got to wherever you are now, you could have said "Oh my God, it's full of stars!"
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
I'm always paying attention to news related to electronic games since it is not only something I like but something I intend to get more and more involved as time passes. After writing an article about Game Violence, today I read this other article on BBC about a survey with parents (Games content 'concern parents') and I had an idea from it.
The article, as you can read, shows that the survey demonstrated that kids play videogames on their own most of the time and that the parents are the ones that usually choose what games are suitable for their children. It also shows that 43% of the parents are not aware of the ratings systems that exist for games, to determine the suitability of them.
So my conclusion from this survey is that it is the parents' fault that children are playing games with unsuitable contents for them, because they are choosing games without the proper knowledge about the ratings. Like films, games have their own rating and the industry has been doing a pretty good job with it, which takes us nowhere if whoever is choosing the games don’t know about them.
What is it about games that the parents don't get the knowledge about them that fast? This generation of games is also focused on adults, and videogames have been around for quite some time now, so I would think that parents would know them and know what to do with them for their kids. Even if you're new to it, being a parent is having the responsibility of checking and learning about the things your kids are doing and want to do. I hope that when I'm a parent I will be able to select properly the games for my kids and also play with them, to have some fun and also to check what they're playing.
There is a good website about ratings for games, created and maintained by the games industry, at www.askaboutgames.com, where parents can learn about the ratings systems for games, and it's not rocket science; whoever is used to film ratings will see right through it too.
So, let's not blame the games or the game industry for games with violent contents. We don't blame the film industry for violent films; we just don't let the children watch them so why not do the same for videogames? Eliminating violent games is not the solution. I'm not advocating violence or anything like that, but I'm an adult who likes to play games and I don't want the industry to be limited to create games for adults with good and realistic contents. I enjoy the games for kids too, but not only, and I believe in choice, which is what the parents should be making.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
According to this article from The Seattle Times a librarian from The Great Meadows (N.J.) Middle School blocked the students from accessing Wikipedia and put signs over the computers saying "Just Say 'No' to Wikipedia". I'm writing here to express my indignation to this attitude, which is very radical in my opinion and reflects a wrong way of educating kids that is often repeated by parents.
Is Wikipedia a reliable source? Should students be allowed to cite it in their papers? In one word, I would say NO. Because everybody is allowed to edit Wikipedia, it might reflect opinions instead of just facts and even these might be wrong, so it can't be used as a reliable source. But - and this is a big but - it is a great place to get a general picture of things and to find the actual reliable sources since there is an effort in Wikipedia to give the sources of what is written there, and those can be cited in the students' papers.
Let's take the Vietnam War article, for example. It has 148 notes and several references, all of them referring to books or sites other than Wikipedia. What is the problem in getting to Wikipedia, getting a general picture of the Vietnam War, getting ideas from what is written there and then going to the real sources cited there to check the facts and get other ideas?
Ok, so, for this Wikipedia is a great source, a source of sources if you will, but the librarian (and, from what I recon, teachers too) is saying that the kids will not do that, they will take what Wikipedia is saying for the final truth and that's it, which I believe. Now here comes what I think it's the mistake: because the kids are doing that, they blocked Wikipedia. This is, for me, the same as forbidding your kid to go out of the house because he or she will cross the streets without looking for cars. Kids do that at first, but then you teach them how to do it correctly. My parents never forbade me of using electronic equipments (the stereo, TV, VCR, etc.), for example, something that was usual for other parents to do when I was a kid; instead, they always took the time to teach me how to use the equipment properly.
I think that is the attitude that should be adopted here. Why not teach the students how great Wikipedia may be and what they can and cannot do with it? Teach them that they can search Wikipedia to have an overall view, some ideas, and also to get reliable sources for their papers. That's the attitude that a school should have towards the students and that parents should have towards their children.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
I've just bought a new digital camera, a SLR, which is very nice. I used to have a film SLR and I basically bought a similar one, but digital. One of the first questions people make me when they find out that I have a new camera is (after asking how many Megapixels it has) how much optical and digital zoom the camera has. This is a much more difficult subject that people would imagine, so I have decided to write a little article on it.
First, let me start by making a strong statement: there is no such thing as digital zoom. Digital zoom is a simulation of zoom done by cropping the image. Look at the image below to get an idea of how it is done. Image 01 on the left is the actual image without any "digital zoom". Image 02 shows the part where we will zoom in, using digital zoom, and finally image 03 is the final "zoomed" image, which is basically the square selected in image 02 stretched to meet the correct size. This stretching is something that most digital cameras don't even do, they just save the little square from image 02 in that small size, which is a basic cropping. When you print your photo it will be stretched to meet the paper size, and that stretching means loosing quality as it is clear on image 03.
So, I can't call that "zoom", for me that is "cropping". Agreed? I always recommend people not to use it. Take the whole photo and crop it later in your computer using Photoshop or something else, which will crop it much better than your regular point-and-shoot camera. SLR cameras usually don't have "digital zoom", I think. At least mine doesn't.
Now let's talk about the optical zoom. When you buy zoom lenses for a SLR camera, what you get in the specs, among other things, is usually the focal length, i.e. 70-300mm. Usually, when you buy a point-and-shoot camera the optical zoom is referred as an "X" value: 12X, 3X, etc. Now that is a very tricky value, let me explain why.
The "X" value is easy to think about because most of us are used to multiply which is what the X stands for. The problem is that the multiplication is not to what we think it will be. When you read on a camera specs that it has 12X optical zoom you think that it will increase the image you can see 12 times, don't you? That's the thing, it might not, and most of the times it doesn't. It does increase the smaller image that those lenses can take by 12 times, but the smaller image is usually smaller than what you see with the naked eye.
For example, the Canon PowerShot S5 IS (great camera, by the way) says that it has a 12X zoom, which is ok because it does increase its farthest image 12 times, but the farthest image has an approximate zoom of 0.72 times relative to the naked eye in that camera which means that its maximum zoom is of 8.64 times (0.72 x 12), again, when comparing to the naked eye. It is still a great zoom, but the number doesn't mean what most people think it would mean.
The problem with this "X" measure is that the base can be different. We can see above that the Canon PowerShot S5 IS has a "starting point" of 0.72 times relative to the naked eye. The Canon Digital IXUS 860 IS on the other hand is advertised having a 3.8X zoom but its "starting point" is of 0.56 times approximately which means that its "real" zoom is of 2.13 times (to the naked eye, always). So if you set your PowerShot S5 IS to 3.8X it will increase the actual image by 2.74 times but your IXUS 860 IS will increase the actual image by 2.13 times when set to the same 3.8X.
That is why when you buy a SLR you usually don't find the "X" in the lenses specs, only the focal length. The "X" figure is useful though, when related to the naked eye image, because we can relate to it better, so here is how you calculate it from the focal length. On a 35mm camera (the usual film camera) a 50mm focal length gives roughly a 1X image, so all you need to do is divide the focal length of your lenses by 50 to have the "X" number, meaning that a 200mm focal length gives a 4X image. The problem with digital cameras is that the image sensor (CCD) has a different size than the film; it is usually smaller than 35mm, meaning that 50mm will not provide a 1X image anymore, it will be bigger. The smaller the CCD, the bigger the image a 50mm will make. To find out the "X" number for your lenses in your digital camera the equation is: X = (35 / CCD) x (FL / 50), where CCD is the size of the CCD in mm and FL is the focal length of your lenses in mm.
SLRs will usually have a bigger CCD because bigger CCDs will give you a better quality of image. On the other hand, to have a big zoom you will need lenses with bigger focal lengths, meaning these lenses will be more expensive. For example, a Nikon D40 has a CCD size of 23.7mm while the Canon PowerShot S5 IS has a CCD size of approximately 5.83mm. The lenses that come with the PowerShot S5 IS are 06-72mm and those 72mm will give a real zoom of 8.64X ((35 / 5.83) * (72 / 50)) and the 06mm will pull up to 0.72X. If you put the same lenses on the Nikon D40, you will get a real zoom of about 2.13X with the 72mm but your image will have a much better quality. To have the same zoom as a PowerShot S5 IS you would need lenses with a focal length of 292.53mm, that is, a 300mm to round it up, and that is going to cost you much more than that 72mm of the PowerShot.
So everything is a trade off, of course, meaning that if you want top quality combined with a big zoom you will need top lenses and you will pay top money for them. On the other hand, most people will find that the Canon I used as an example here (the PowerShot S5 IS) will give them quality enough and a big zoom. Canon also compensates its smaller CCD with more pixels (8MP) to improve the quality of the photo, while the Nikon D40 will give you a really nice quality for its photos but it has fewer pixels (6.1MP) to keep its price lower, basically. Note that in my opinion 6.1MP is more than enough for people printing photos up to 8x6" which is bigger than most people will usually print.
That's it, I hope I've helped. Keep in mind that the number of Megapixels isn't always the most important thing in a digital camera, especially when you're over 5MP and that digital zoom doesn't exist and finally that if you really want to get into it you should also know what kind of lenses your camera has and what kind of CCD sensor it has. If you don't want to get into it, take the camera for a trial and shoot some photos, some inside, some outside, some of people and some of close objects, to give it a good try and see if that's the camera you want. Print the photos in a shop to see the real quality of them, and then buy your camera. :)
Oh yeah, and my new camera is a Nikon D40. Brilliant!
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Hi there everyone.
I'm just writing to let everybody know that I am consolidating my blog with my fotolog and my YouTube into one place alone, where I will also post small things, links and news. This is my Tumblr, which you can access in http://fceotto.tumblr.com. All of these will remain being updated for the moment at least, but the consolidated results will be presented there.
The RSS feed for this one can be accessed here: http://fceotto.tumblr.com/rss
See you there!
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