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Southampton Common
Another walk across Southampton Common, camera in hand
Journal
This area is reserved for my occasional ramblings and musings.
FAQ | Journal | Linux | Technology
Setting file and directory properties separately and recursively
Sometimes in GNU/Linux one needs to set file and directory permissions separately and recursively. This is a way to do it. Set file permissions:- find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 644 ; Set directory permissions- find . -type d -exec chmod 755 \{\} \; Note these are powerful commands with which you…
Journal | Linux | Technology
GNUCash – serious open source accounting software
Nowadays, one reads a lot about open source equivalents of proprietary software. Often these are described as poor substitutes for the real thing. However, some open source apps are starting seriously to outperform their proprietary counterparts. Mozilla Firefox is a classic example of this phenomenon. GNUCash is another. GNUCash vs Microsoft Money I was a…
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New Forest
Just taken the MX5 for a little spin across the New Forest. Naturally, we made plenty of stops for photos.
Digital Images | FAQ | Journal | Linux | Photography | Technology
I can’t open raw files from my digital camera
Usually the camera manufacturer will provide software that handles raw files from your camera. However, several problems can arise:– You change computer and loose the original software. You have several cameras made by different manufacturers but want to use the same application to deal with their raw files. You don’t use Micro$oft Windows. So what…
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A few snaps in the garden
Garden looks unusually pretty this year. Especially considering I have no gardening skills or inclination whatsoever. But I do quite enjoy taking photos.
General | Journal | Politics | Technology
Britain’s metrication fiasco
Britain has made a complete hash of metrication whilst failing to teach its young the basic numeracy skills to deal with the ridiculous anomalies that have arisen as a result. E.g… People who think 7.5 lbs is the same as 7 lb 5 oz. People who think of 0 as freezing 0 as boiling and…
Southampton Common Funfair
I’m far too tight-fisted ever to pay to go on a fairground ride. But I do rather enjoy photographing them. So I wandered across the common today with my Olympus C2500L to grab some snaps of the Southampton Common Funfair.
Digital Images | General | Journal | Nature | Photography | Road Trip | Travelogue
New Forest Otter Sanctuary
Today we took a road trip to the Otter Sanctuary near Longdown in the New Forest.
Digital Images | Electronics | General | Journal | Photography | Radio | Studio | Vintage Radio Equipment
Radios
I had a lovely model called Onna come down from London today for a retro technology photo shoot. While she was here, she posed with some of my favourite radios, including my Icom IC-R20 and my AOR AR 8200 handheld communications receivers. Which I continued to photograph long after she had gone home. Here are…
Digital Images | General | Journal | Photography | Road Trip | Travelogue
Road trip to Shoreham
I arranged to meet up with an on-line photographer friend in Shoreham, in Sussex. I had arrange to collect a pair of fluorescent plat-panel continuous studio lights from him. I decided to make a few stops en route and grab a few snaps. For some strange reason, large, out-of-place structures always seem to interest me….
Digital Images | FAQ | Journal | Linux | Photography | Technology | Windows
My camera cards keep getting corrupted. Can I prevent this?
I’ve had cheapo cards that I dropped, kicked, trod on, used a squillion times, paid the proverbial tuppence ha’penny for and they are still going. Others, even the expensive ones have failed or become flaky within a few months – or worse, clapped out just outside the warranty. Similarly hard disks can fail in the…
Digital Images | FAQ | Journal | Linux | Photography | Technology | Windows
Windows can’t read from my camera’s memory card
Editor’s note: since writing this article, I have had huge problems with RTools spamming me. I have asked them many times to stop, yet still they persist. My advice is do not use any RTools product. Or that if you must use RTools, do NOT register, otherwise they will pester you forever. Using the free…
Journal | Linux | Technology
gOS – has the Google vs M$ war just “gone nuclear”?
Editors note: gOS was very shortlived. By 2011 it was gone. The new gOS operating system certainly would appear to up the ante in the ongoing war between the mighty Micro$haft and that pesky upstart Google. But is it any good and is it really Google? To find out, I just booted from the gOS…
Journal | Technology | Windows
Marriage of minds or just a shotgun wedding
Microsoft has been in trouble for some time – but has taken its executives quite a while to realise it. Vista has been a massive flop. And M$ is becoming increasingly perceived as a company that has ruthlessly exploited its monopoly – fleecing its customers for vast sums of money whilst providing poor quality, insecure…
FAQ | Journal | Linux | Technology
How to make (K)Ubuntu play copy-protected DVD’s, and…
…and Windows Media, Skype and GoogleEarth One of the problems with (K)Ubuntu (and many other Linux distributions) is that it will not play commercial, copy-protected DVD’s and a number of other proprietary file formats, out-of-the-box. There are complex legal and ethical reasons for this. However, many users just want to play their files and watch…
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How to upgrade to “Goosebuntu” – a fully loaded (K)ubuntu 7.xx (Gutsy) system
Note this applies to Ubuntu 7.xx and may be out of date. For Ubuntu 8.xx please visit:- http://www.garfnet.org.uk/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=136&Itemid=58 These are my favourite (K)ubuntu applications. The name “Goosebuntu” is not entirely serious – it is just a name we coined in the office. However the following apps will turn a standard Kubuntu installation into something really…
FAQ | Journal | Linux | Technology
How to upgrade from Ubuntu to Kubuntu (version 7.xx – Gutsy)
Firstly please back up anything that is important – as you would with any major upgrade on any computer system! Then you can either use the Synaptic package manager or in this instance it is probably quicker to install from a Terminal window. First we make sure the system is fully up to date. Simply…
FAQ | Journal | Linux | Technology
What is the difference between Ubuntu and Kubuntu?
Ubuntu Ubuntu uses the Gnome desktop. This is a very clean, simple environment and is well suited to Linux beginners. In many respects it is much easier to use than any version of MS Windows – though its layout is a little different from Windows. For example, its application menus are at the top of…
FAQ | Journal | Linux | Technology
Coppermine “batch-add” hangs
Just occasionally one stumbles across a small but very annoying problem, that takes ages to hunt down a fix. However, when you do stumble across the solution, you find it was just one tiny mistake – that should never have been made in the first place. On our site http://www.garfnet.org.uk/coppermine we use a special Coppermine…
A few of my favourite things
Well it’s a cold bleak miserable Southampton winter’s day outside. Decided to take a few “library” snaps of some current favourite bits of kit, including a rather nice pair of wideband communications receivers.
Hungarian rebels against the “Microsoft Tax”
[Reproduced from DEOSS ] Seems that Micro$haft’s corporate enslavement permeates far beyond the English-speaking world. A long and complex legal battle is currently raging in the former Eastern Bloc state of Hungary. APEH (the Hungarian Tax Office) has decided that all Hungarian businesses now have to submit their tax returns on-line. This would not be…
A few more winter snaps of Pécs
Been working on the computer and experimenting with my Icom IC-R20 radio scanner for a couple of days. So I thought it was time to get some fresh air, and perhaps take some more pictures of a snow-covered Pécs, Hungary.
How to install CS-R20 software for Icom IC-R20 on Linux
It seems that with a little determination, the CS-R20 for the Icom IC-R20 software can be persuaded to run on Linux. I eventually made the CS-R20 software load under Kubuntu Linux using Crossover (a commercial implementation of WINE). The method in this article should work with many other Debian-derived Linuxes too, perhaps with a little…
Journal | Linux | Radio | Technology
Icom IC-R20 radio scanner
Being a geeky type of chap, I generally find that the best way to guarantee that Santa puts a decent geek-friendly Christmas present in my stocking is to buy it myself! So this year I treated myself to an Icom IC-R20 hand-held, all-band communications receiver/scanner. I have always had a penchant for small communications receivers….