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Saturday, October 20th, 2007

Flickr is my new favourite toy

Until recently I hadn’t been taking that many shots, and had just been uploading the odd photo to deviantArt. This is all good and well, but it isn’t really suited to making proper sets of images, say from a shoot at a gig, or other event.

This is when I decided to give Flickr a try. So far I have been super impressed with the ability to tag photos, store images in albums and collections together, and the huge user base also means there are lots of scripts and website applications that are available to help you make the most out of your Flickr experience!

Now, I don’t post much to wordpress because I don’t usually have anything that I feel may be read worthy, but decided to have a play about anyway with some of the worpdress plugins available that let you use your Flickr photostreams with your wordpress blog. The best one I found so far I must say is one from http://tantannoodles.com/toolkit/photo-album/ which lets you add a sidebar widget and also basically embed your Flickr photostreams into a page (see here for an example).

There were only a couple of things I needed to do (edit a couple of bits of html to make it fit in a bit more with the current style I’ve adopted for wordpress) and it does seem to look pretty smart.

Uploading images to Flickr is super easy as well, personally I use “uploadr” which you can get off their website, it lets you just drag and drop images from explorer, and then you have the option to resize images, and to create a new album to put them in as well as being able to add common tags.

Anyway, the big thing is that Flickr is awesome, tagging photos is a great way to help you organise your images and search them later for recurring themes, as are collections and albums. I do highly suggest giving it a try, you can get free accounts where you are limited to a small upload limit daily, or for a small fee you can have an unlimited upload account.

Friday, October 19th, 2007

WPBN - The Firkin

IMG_2821

Originally uploaded by mobocracy

So yeah, Last Saturday was a blast …

I was kind enough to give the guys who make up “When People Become Numbers” A lift to a gig in Stafford they had booked.

The Venue was kind of strange, it was only a small pub like, but there were some pretty cool bands there and the crowd seemed pretty happy.

Anyway, check out the pictures!

Friday, July 6th, 2007

Berlin ist schöne

So Berlin was awesome. I was only there for a week, but it really is one of the best places I have ever visited. So much so that it has strengthened my want to move over to Germany in the next few years.

I wish I had bothered to write a diary of some sorts, but here’s a little taster of what I did:

• walked lots and lots. So much to see in Berlin, and what better way to walk around the city getting a feeling not for the normal tourist haunts, but what the suburbs are like too.
• took lots of pictures of random things [1]
• visited the Jewish history museum (stunning architecture, as well as an incredible insight to the torments the followers of this faith have had in the past few thousand years in Europe)
• visited the communications museum
• visited the old point where checkpoint Charlie stood, and the museum that overlooks it
• visited countless other museums giving quite an extensive history into what Berlin and Germany as a whole has looked like in the past, the present and plans for the future.
• more walking
• Drank beer (Berlin wießbier is now my favourite beer, lets see what I think when I get round to visiting Bavaria

I didn’t really get chance to see everything I wanted to in one short week, so probably will want to go back some time in the future (probably a few times) and try and plan more constructive plans to actually do things. What will prove invaluable in this endeavour will definitely be my “rough guide to Berlin” which proved to be a brilliant source of information whilst I was out there, along with my handy map of Berlin, purchased from WH Smiths, and my BVG rail system map).

Not being a travel writer, or writer of any kind, it is difficult for me to attempt to put into words how good I thought Berlin was, the German people and just how polite and helpful they are (as long as you at least attempt to be polite yourself!) the excellent public transport in Berlin, basically the entire city is great!!

Anyway, expect more posts when I have time, going into specifics

[1] http://thefraggle.com/germany/

Thursday, June 21st, 2007

cheap portable hard disks a go go

I decided to buy a portable hard disk this week for my trip to germany, so that I can ensure I don’t run out of CF space.

It’s a vosonic vp2160, and at £109 for a 60gb model I’m pretty happy. It happily reads my CF card fresh from the camera, and copies over all the images pretty speedily.

The interface is super simple and easy to use, it doesn’t play music or anything like that, but all I wanted it for was to store pictures on till I get home and can process the images.

The USB2.0 interface is speedy enough to copy over files i’ve copied to the disk, and also allows you to use the device as a CF/MMC/whatever reader for your PC, which is handy. It’s pretty handy too how you can charge the Li-ion battery via USB too (you have to plug two usb connectors into your pc, but that’s no biggie really)

What really impressed me the most, however, is how it actually seems to suggest you should be fine upgrading the hard disk at some point. They include (amongst the power adapter to charge it up and the install cd for win98 drivers etc) a mini screwdriver to uncouple the back off it, which reveals a bog standard fujitsu 2.5″ hard disk. So if I decide 60gb isn’t enough in this little device I will be able to have a good go at upgrading the hard disk!.

I also purchased a Creative Zen Vision:M 30gb today too today to tide me for my trip to germany, but will druel more at that when it arrives tomorrow

Friday, April 6th, 2007

shiney new toys

Roll on payday, I say.

I’ve been looking at what kit I fancy for my camera when I finally get paid at the end of the month. So far it’s boiled down to two important items:

Canon EF 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM MKIII
Tripod (I’m not yet sure what to get )

I really fancy a prime telephoto and attempting to do some portrait work, but that will have to wait:

Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM

It’s only about £250, however, if I’m not careful I’ll end up spending all my wages on kit!!