Archive for May, 2010
Swan Lake – The Next Generation
Posted by gavomatic57 in Photography on May 31, 2010
It has been a couple of days since I have blogged…but I have been shooting, honest! Here’s a couple of Cygnets who were being ferried around Cosmeston lakes by their parents last weekend.
Puerto de Santiago – Tenerife
Posted by gavomatic57 in Places, Tenerife on May 26, 2010
Frequently ignored by the package holidaymakers from the UK, Puerto de Santiago offers something different to the overly Anglicised towns further south such as Playa de Las Americas and Los Christianos. It’s ideal for couples who are happy to stroll around, enjoy walks around the coast and embark on excursions operated by the various tour operators on the island.
Daisies
Posted by gavomatic57 in Photography on May 26, 2010
Daisies, originally uploaded by Gavin Lewis. The weather is finally starting to take a turn for the better and it feels like summer for the first time in what feels like forever. It has been a long cold winter. With the global economic crisis and the tragic election of the Conservative party, it has been [...]
Red Dead Redemption – Rockstar Games
Posted by gavomatic57 in Games, Playstation 3 on May 25, 2010
I like Westerns…I like Wild West movies, I love the gritty, harsh realities of the time and the way stars like Clint Eastwood and John Wayne exuded style, power and an unmistakeable swagger. Despite the apparent reliance on guns to settle arguments in the movies, the Wild West has been sadly under-represented in the gaming world.
Aperture 3
Posted by gavomatic57 in Mac OSX, Photography on May 21, 2010
Before I’d put any money in Apple’s pockets, way back in the days when I was firmly in the Windows camp (for my sins), I was always told that one of the best things about the Mac is the software. After trying out iWork and the iLife suite I can safely say there is some truth to that. OSX divides opinions, some like the way it works, others don’t, but the Apple applications are quite special.
I like my photography, I’m not the best at it, but it provides me with a lot of enjoyment and I’m building up quite a stack of photo’s. iPhoto has been invaluable up until now. It is handy for making minor adjustments, organising photo’s into sets and sharing with Flickr & Facebook. However, there was always that nagging feeling that I needed more. More organisation tools, more adjustments, better RAW tweaking etc. I have tried Photoshop Elements 8 for the adjustments and organisation (on the PC – the mac version comes with Adobe Bridge, which I don’t get on with), but PSE8 is just an overweight version of the GIMP in my opinion and is a chore to use. The organiser on the Windows version runs like an arthritic dog and the mac version is not as useful to me. So, at £160, Aperture 3 may be worth a shot.
WebM – VP8 open sourced for freshness!
Posted by gavomatic57 in Internet on May 20, 2010
I previously mentioned that Google had bought On2. Well, as many commentators had predicted and the Free Software Foundation had urged, VP8 has been released under a BSD open source license for use with HTML5.
Announced at the 2010 Google I/O conference, WebM consists of VP8 video and Vorbis audio and looks set to clear up this sorry mess of HTML5 video codecs that attract heavy royalty fees.
Coffee
Posted by gavomatic57 in Mac OSX on May 18, 2010
More from the Aperture 3 trial… By the way, in case you missed it, I have a Dropbox code for you in case you haven’t signed up for one yet Get Dropbox We both get 250mb out of the deal. Gavin Posted via email from Gavin Lewis’ posterous
Delicious Library 2
Posted by gavomatic57 in Mac OSX on May 16, 2010
If you are like me you’ve probably managed to accumulate a whole load of CD’s, DVD’s, books and gadgets over the last decade or two. You may have acquired an Apple Mac in the process so you may want to look at Delicious Library 2.
Teide
Posted by gavomatic57 in Photography, Places, Tenerife on May 16, 2010
I’m still going through my honeymoon photo’s, but now I have added an Aperture 3 trial to my arsenal.
Aperture 3 is like iPhoto on steroids and so far I’m really impressed with it.
I need to spend a bit more time fiddling with it, but I’ll work on a review shortly.
The Mill Colour
Posted by gavomatic57 in iOS, Photography on May 15, 2010
If you don’t feel like paying for an app like Camerabag to give you a few distinctive looks to your iPhone snaps, try the Mill – it’s free and gives you 10 different looks: golden, print, cross-processed, chocolate, noir, instant, 70′s, milky, promo and bleached. The shot above uses “promo”, noir is just monochrome and bleached just washes out the colour, but it’s amusing playing around with it, depending on what you want the end result to be.
Horse & Cart on the Markt (2001-ish)
Posted by gavomatic57 in Photography on May 15, 2010
More Bruges scans from a trip a few years ago.
Bruges train station
Posted by gavomatic57 in Photography on May 15, 2010
I took two trips to Bruges with a girlfriend years ago and loved the place. It was back in the days before Digital Camera’s were commonplace, so I’ve only got a collection of 35mm and Kodak Advantix scans to share. I’m hoping I’ll go back there with my wife at some point and get some new memories – and some new photo’s.
Teide
Posted by gavomatic57 in Photography, Places, Tenerife on May 14, 2010
Mount Teide – or Pico del Teide – all 12,198ft of it.
This shot has had the antique treatment from iPhoto.
VP8
Posted by gavomatic57 in Internet on May 14, 2010
Until news broke that Google had bought the video compression company On2, I doubt many people had heard of them. Despite this, back in 2001 they “open-sourced” their VP3 compression technology to the open source community, along with the patents to go with it. It later went on to become Ogg Theora after it was donated to the Xiph.org foundation under a BSD-like OSS license.
Referral Links
Posted by gavomatic57 in Internet on May 13, 2010
I’ve added a referral links page to my blog here for easy reference. Some sites and services that I use have referral programmes that offer rewards for people who recommend them. Some of them are of mutual benefit to the referer and the person clicking on the link – Dropbox for example gives both you and I some extra space for free.
MS Office 2008 – Mac
Posted by gavomatic57 in Mac OSX on May 12, 2010
I’m still not set on a productivity suite for my Mac yet, so I thought that rather than put my money on iWork straight away, I’d give the MS Office 2008 trial a go first.
It’s a 560mb download that offers 30 days of Office use. When it had finished downloading I started installing it. It seems to take quite a bit longer than the iWork installation and when it is finished it asks for the trial key twice, which strikes me as rather odd and annoying to boot. That aside, the auto-updater gives you another 200mb to download to cover up vulnerabilities that have been identified since launch. The patch itself was issued in November 2009 – it would have been nice if they had rolled up the patch into the installer at some point in the last 6 months. Anyway…
Steam for Linux – it’s official
Posted by gavomatic57 in Mac OSX, Ubuntu on May 12, 2010
It’s official! With the release of Steam on the Mac, Valve have confirmed via the Telegraph that Steam is coming for Linux and is likely to also be a “Tier 1″ platform along with Windows and the Mac for Valve’s own games running on the Source engine.
MobileMe Update
Posted by gavomatic57 in iOS, Mac OSX, Windows on May 12, 2010
Well, my two month free trial is coming to an end soon and I thought I’d best tell you how I got on. I’ve been using it with my usual three platforms – OSX, Windows and Linux for a few weeks now and I’ve had vastly different experiences with all three
Ash tray
Posted by gavomatic57 in Photography on May 9, 2010
This was taken in Tenerife with my trusty 50mm F1.8. I didn’t like it at first but it is growing on me. I particularly like the reflection on the shiny plastic table and the very shallow depth of field. Enjoy! Gavin www.techbeast.net Posted via email from Gavin Lewis’ posterous
Spaghetti Western
Posted by gavomatic57 in Photography, Places, Tenerife on May 8, 2010
As a bit of a change from my black & white squares, I thought this time I’d try something different.
This is a shot taken in Tenerife from within the Teide National Park. I looked at the scrub, the lonely buildings and the Monument Valley-esque rock formations and instantly thought “The Wild West”. So here I’ve gone for a slightly aged and yellowed out look. In hindsight I wished I’d got closer to the buildings in the distance, but we were on a coach tour and at that altitude I didn’t really feel like running!
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