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newbienet2008-12-28.mp3

This week, Paul K2FX holds the usual holliday weekend open forum.  Mike N2QDK asks the net if other folks have noticed National Weather Service's All Hazards Weather Radio not SAME-encoding weather watches.  Brad KB2CHY and others discuss the recent high wind gusts and associated power outages in the Rochester area.

Audio File: 

newbienet2008-12-21.mp3

This week, Paul K2FX takes a trip around the world in 30 minutes, by disucssing everything world-band (shortwave) broadcast radio has to offer.

As the entire Northeastern United States is getting blanketed by upwards of a foot of snow today and tonight, then another 7+ inches from a different storm tomorrow night, my dad made an interesting observation:  He's not receiving any Severe Weather Watches via NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) VHF weather radio.

I only realized it after he mentioned it, but even through the ice storm last week and the snow this week, I haven't received any watches or warnings either.  However my wife has been thrilled not to be woken up by the shrill alerts.

My dad called the NWS field office in Buffalo, where an unnamed meteorologist told him they were under a directive not to issue watches via the weather radio.  We both remember receiving watches during the summer thunderstorm season, but it's been very quiet the past few months.  Too quiet.

I emailed Raymond O'Keefe with the NWS Albany field office about this, and confirmed that while they do issue watches via weather service radio (as in, they announce them via voice), they do not SAME encode them.  He also said this isn't a new policy for them.

This weekend I will be digging into this issue while digging out from the snow while we impatiently await for our new arrival.

A big bug in Vista Media Center that I have encountered twice in the past two months, which required me to completely wipe and reconfigure my channel list guide and scheduled recordings has been fixed.  But only in Windows7, according to mikehayton, a Microsoft MCE Team Member:

"This is a known bug fixed in Win7. At this stage there are not sufficient instances of it reported to warrant backporting the fix (and then doing the full test pass to ensure that in this version of the code that it hasnt broken something else)."

Seriously? Is Microsoft even supporting Windows Vista with bug fixes these days or what?  When I purchased Vista Ultimate two months ago, I didn't realize that I was buying into an end-of-life product.  (I know, I'm not even supposed to have TV Pack 2008, but it was applied to a fresh Vista install, per Microsoft's instruction to OEM's).  But seriously, this really can't bode well for users of Vista hoping for fixes to their documented bugs. 

How many other issues will only fixed in Windows7?  For me, it doesn't matter... For my last remaining home Windows OS, Media Center, Mac/AppleTV can't come soon enough.

This is just one more, and likely the last, nail in the coffin for Microsoft operating systems for me.  Since buying a MacBook last week, I've only needed to boot into XP once, and that was to Remote Desktop into a client's workstation.

EDIT: After a quick Google search, I've eliminated my last reason to boot into XP.  Thanks Microsoft!

Full text of the error log, for search engine indexing is below:

With my wife and my expected addition (T minus 6 days!), we needed to procure a portable video capture device (video camera) with video quality at least better than our Canon SD800 point & shoot. 

In phototography as in life, timing is everything.  Very recently, the pocket high-def (HD) camcorder market started heating up, most recently with Creative Labs' VadoHD.

I ordered on Monday, 12/8/2008, the day they were offered on Creative's website... 720p for $200 delivered, and in a form factor that's about the size of my iPhone?!?  Sure, don't mind if I do!

So by Friday, 12/12 when I didn't recive any shipping notice, I emailed customer service. 

"We were expecting to have the Vado HD's in our warehouse on the 8th, however, there was a delay in the delivery. We received them yesterday and immediately shipped out the orders."

OK, no sweat.  I received the VadoHD tonight, and immediately put it to use with the requisite cat snaps.  Luckly, Chairman Meow (aka Evil Kenny) was feeling camera happy.  However the results were less than encouraging upon reviewing via included HDMI cable to my 1080p 40" Bravia: Two dead/stuck pixels, about two pixels apart, near the center of the screen.  Stuck on green.  I hate green.

Of course, you can't see the dead pixels on the YouTube vid:

I am a digital photographer and archivist.  At work, my digital photography workflow is largely dictated by a multi-user networked environment. In addition to myself, I have at least one (sometimes as many as three) people adding and editing metadata on a collection of over 45,000 images, growing at a rate of 1,000 images weekly.

Adobe Lightroom won't work because it cannot handle more than one person editing photos and metadata at a time.  Lightroom also doesn't particularly play nice with networked volumes, either.  Our tool of choice was iView Media Pro (IVMP), but that puked once our collection reached around 30,000 images (it cannot handle a database larger than 2GB, including thumbnails).  IVMP also isn't really a multiuser editor, we used it via Remote Desktop (RDP) on the server, allowing one person at a time to do work.  It was really kludgy and I was rather happy when it broke.

Now, we are using IDImager, a very reasonably-priced photo metadata editing and import/export package that is truely multi-user, via a database backend.  It feels slightly laggy at times, but it is fantastically aware of external metadata changes (made via Bridge, for example).
 
Anyway, back to my personal digital photography workflow, which I have largely ignored over the past year as we refine things at work. It should be much easier to deal with, at least in theory.  With my recent purchase of a MacBook, I am taking a fresh look at my own personal work habits.

Goals:

It looks like I'll have to add a new tagging keyword for blog posts:  Mac.

Last Thursday, after years of frustration with the state of Windows operating systems and the poor build quality and support of laptop hardware, I decided to give Apple a shot.

Increasingly, Windows XP has felt like the wrong tool in my digital photo arsenal. From the lack of real DNG thumbnail and metadata editing in Windows Explorer, to kludgy network fileshare support in Lightroom and iViewMediaPro (now Expression Media), I wanted something new. Something easier.  Vista, the current upgrade path offered by Redmond, is what I have been trying out on my Home Theater PC (HTPC) media center. The 10 foot interface in Vista Media Center is arguably the best user interface (UI) Microsoft has ever released, but the desktop feels like a new wrapper on the same old backend that will invariably become more laggy as it ages.

Steve Jobs' strategy of getting iPods and iPhones into the hands of Windows users as an evil gateway drug was a success for me.  I'm drinking the Kool-aid, smelling the coffee, or whatever mixed metaphor you want to use.  After four days and probably 20 hours of use, I completely get it.  OS X's layout is logical, and it makes sense, once you know where to look for stuff, and once you learn the basic operating system and application shortcut keys.

I pitty my wife, pets, friends and family who will now be subjected to those "a-ha" moments and the overall evangelism that will undoubtedly occur over the next few months.  I apologize in advance.

Thanks to my MacGeek friends for helping me on this journey, including MrLint and PJP.  I'm archiving links to the software tools and general infos which I found most useful, in the hope it will help others along the way:

Audio File: 

newbienet2008-12-14.mp3

This week, Paul K2FX talks about Morse Code (CW) operation and best practices.

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newbienet2008-12-07.mp3

This week, Paul K2FX discusses the importance of keeping accurate stations records, including written documentation of your on-air station.

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newbienet2008-11-30.mp3

Paul K2FX talks about RF environmental safety practices.

In 2006, after five years with my venerable first-generation TiVo (HDR112), the hard disk died. Thanks to the efforts of the very active TiVo hacker/cracker community, it would be short work to reinstall the TiVo operating system to a new disk. But it's been five years, surely there was a better DVR experience out there. Better graphics and user interface, multiple tuners, ability to recompress/stream recorded content on the fly; All things my old TiVo hardware sadly could never do.

After a few nights of research and an install of MythTV on a spare PC, and after dismissing BeyondTV, I was shocked when I read about Windows XP Media Center Edition. 10' interface, driven by a remote control?!? DVR functionality built on top of a Windows XP operating system! Now we're talking!

Two years later, I decided to finally upgrade to Vista, not for the (terrible) desktop user interface, but for the very elegant Media Center features. More importantly, the ability to receive the non-encrypted digital signals that Time Warner Cable sends for free to its customers, also known as clear QAM.  Of course, installing the Vista 2008 TV Pack (Fiji) broke Orb and DVRMSToolbox, but hopefully they will update their software.

Audio File: 

newbienet2008-11-23.mp3

This week, Paul K2FX discusses the importance of choosing the correct antenna system for an amateur radio station. Also, Lynn KC2PCD announces that the Rochester Hamfest has not been canceled, but has been moved to a new location. The 2009 RARA Rochester Hamfest will be held on Saturday, May 30, 2009 at the Barnard Fireman's Field.

Audio File: 

newbienet2008-11-16.mp3

Paul K2FX introduces the newest of the newbies to the world of Amateur Radio. He covers the origins of ham radio, who is the "typical" ham operator, the modes of operation, and the appeal of operating. It's the "getting back to basics" edition of the Newbie Net.

The week the N3FE repeater system in Tioga County, Pennsylvania joined the net for the first time, along with the N2HLT repeater group joining the net for the second week.

The Ray Pickens Memorial Newbie Net podcast has been accepted by Apple's iTunes Music Store! Ham and non-hams can find and subscribe to the Newbie Net podcast in iTunes by browsing the Technology podcast category, or by searching "Newbie Net", "Ham Radio", "Amateur Radio", etc.

Alternatively, folks with iTunes installed may subscribe to the podcast by hitting this link.

Thanks to Paul K2FX for his weekly efforts in discussing topics of interest to both new and old hams alike, and Brad KB2CHY / RRRA for use of the flagship repeater, K2RRA 146.880 MHz in Rochester.