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Portable Ubuntu: working!

Apr 15th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
7 comments

Thanks to a tip from Bryan, portable Ubuntu is now working for me, though not quite in the same way I envisioned it in the beginning.

I assumed that, in the end, I’d boot a real Linux partition with a real Linux boot loader. However, this is not the case. It seems that my laptop, and apparently many others, favor booting only the USB drives that contain certain partition types. Fat16 is one of them.

Booting the long way ’round (not to be confused with the wrong way ’round)
So instead of actually installing Linux, I ended up making a copy of the Ubuntu Live CD into a 750MB Fat16 partition. Then I used SYSLINUX to make that partition bootable. Then I included some Kernel options to overlay an 8GB ext3 partition on top of it at boot time in order to allow for real changes to be made to the working file system. This gives a two layered approach where the initial boot is done from Fat16, and at some point, the files in the ext3 partition are dropped on top of it and, from that point, all changes are reflected on the ext3 partition only. Then I formatted the remainder of the drive as Fat32 in order to allow it to be used as a data partition for multiple operating systems. And viola!

This has a few disadvantages. First, a 5400 Bus Powered USB drive is already pretty slow. This whole shuffle from one to the other makes it even slower. On my aging laptop I’m looking at about 4 to 5 minutes from power up to usable desktop. However, once booted, performance is as expected.

Secondly, upgrading the kernel is no longer an easy operation. Or, rather, I don’t think it will be. I haven’t actually tried it. Since the initial kernel is held on the Fat16 partition and the working system is held in the overlaid ext3 partition, I’m thinking that upgrading the kernel using standard tools would only upgrade files that couldn’t be reached at boot time. I think that, instead, if I need a kernel upgrade, I’ll have to update the kernel in the Fat16 partition, then update the support files on it and the ext3 partition. Probably a very manual process. Or, possibly, I could just recreate my Fat16 partition with a newer Live CD. I’m not sure. Anyone done this before?

Post Installation
The good news is, it’s working! Everything else is standard Linux massage, with which I’m sorely out of practice.

My Wireless PCMCIA card (Linksys WCP54G) was not immediately available. I had to use ndiswrapper and find a Windows XP driver in order to make it work. Not awesome, but it works. It’s nice that this is even an option.

Despite many people telling me otherwise, Java and Debian/Ubuntu have never been an easy thing for me to manage. The JVM that comes with Ubuntu 7.10 is a 1.5 JVM. For a specific application, I need JVM 1.6 or higher. I’m still struggling on how to upgrade this. I seem to be at the latest version available in the default repositories, but that’s using gij. Maybe I need another Java packaging or possibly another repository? Any advice?

I’m also in need of a photograph manager — tagging, sorting, thumbnails, resizing, etc. I’m hoping for something that will actually update the metadata in the file and that will read Nikon RAW (D300 NEFs). This way I can easily resynchronize in Lightroom to pick up these changes. At least that’s why my fingers are crossed. I’m looking at Google’s Picasa2 as well as GPhoto. Any other recommendations?

All in all, despite the migration pains, slow booting, and the search for new applications to fill in some gaps, I’m pleased with the results. Thanks to those who threw in their $0.02.

Portable Ubuntu – Part 2

Apr 6th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
7 comments

As mentioned a few days ago, I’m having problems with Portable Ubuntu. This morning, fed up with my perfectionist ways, I decided to jump through the hoops required to do it the no-brainer way, that Justin suggested. I wish I hadn’t.

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are WordPress Stats and Google Analytics broken?

Apr 6th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
4 comments

Are WordPress Stats and Google Analytics broken? It seems that the stats I get from one service disagree with the other. And both of those services disagree with my raw sever logs.

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seeking: stark raving lunatics

Apr 4th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
9 comments

After reading Where are all the goddam photos, something in my head clicked. Not that photographers need a new way of doing things — I’d figured that out already — but that I wasn’t the only one in this same situation trying to do this same damn thing.

Every day I see Photographers making it big. And every day I see photographers loving the craft, doing what they can, and not even trying to make it. But I didn’t realize how many people there are out there in my exact same situation. And most of them aren’t photographers.

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on separation

Apr 2nd, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

CarpeAqua has hit the nail on the head (thanks for the link, Ryan).

Our data is on dozens of sites and for some it may be hard to keep track of every little thing you do online. [...] We feel some sort of internal need to share every single bit of our lives through every avenue we are afforded to ensure that every single person we’re connected to sees what we do. Rest assured. You are not that important. [...] Your friends will find you on the sites they are interested in joining. You don’t need to spam other sites with crossed data.

– CarpeAqua // Your Twitter is not your Blog is not your Tumblr is not your FriendFeed

Many of you think I’m a bit nuts for obsessing about separation like I do. Well, this is it! This is exactly why! Let’s say that, by chance, Mr. CarpeAqua finds my photography absolutely amazing but, despite that, he has no interest in knowing that I had no water this morning when I woke up. Maybe he could care less about my troubles with Portable Ubuntu, but finds my writing regarding my own internal struggles coping with a hectic life an an overactive brain (unlocked just to link here) incredibly interesting and enlightening. I’d rather know that he is uninterested in some aspects of me and that he is taking the bits and pieces of me that he enjoys and engaging himself fully in that than to know that he is so overwhelmed with information from me that he has no choice but to ignore it all.

I understand the need to cross-post data in cases where two services overlap and you want to participate in both. For instance, I want to share my photography with the Flickr community, the VFXY community, and with the LiveJournal community. So I post in my photoblog, and cross post to accounts on each of those services. But I try to do so in a way that separates content, either with communities, or with separate accounts entirely.

I’ve seen people doing this between Pownce and Twitter or between their blog and their LiveJournal account. This makes sense. In each of these cases the syndicated content is either a copy of the original, excerpts linking back to the original, or a subset of the original. It’s not a situation where multiple sites and multiple services are dumping all manner of content into one pile of madness. Imagine if my LiveJournal updated every time I posted a Tweet?

For those places where the lines are a little blurry I like digest posts. If I have a blog about my life, and I also happen to use Twitter to account for a very detailed breakdown of my life, making a digest of Twitter posts in the blog about my Life just makes sense. If I happen to use Tumblr to post interesting tidbits of interest to Technically minded people, then a digest of that finding its way to my Technical blog makes sense.

Having all of your content in every place all of the time is just silly, wasteful, complicated, and annoying. But, if that’s what you want, there are services that do this and do it well, like FriendFeed. Taking a look at my FriendFeed, you can see how annoying having everything in one place might be for someone who was only interested in black and white photography of the female form. But, of course, if you want EVERYTHING, then FriendFeed works for you.

So yeah. Reading the thoughts of others on this has encouraged me to separate even more. If you can’t handle a few more adds to your LiveJournal friends list or a few more notches in your Google Reader, then maybe you aren’t all that interested in the first place.

Portable Ubuntu Problems

Apr 1st, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
10 comments

I’ve tried three times now and just can’t seem to figure out how to get a portable USB Hard Drive set up in such a way that my PC will boot Ubuntu from it when it is plugged in. I’m a fairly competent guy when it comes to Linux and technology in general. So the fact that I can’t figure out what the entire Ubuntu eating world seems to understand is driving me nuts!! If you think you can help, read on.

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help: portable bus-powered USB hard drives

Mar 28th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
8 comments

The last time I looked into Portable USB hard drives, in the end, I simply gave up. I ended up purchasing a 160GB Acomdata drive unknowning what a nightmare connecting it to two USB ports would be. This particular drive requires either an external power connection, or two USB ports to be occupied in order to supply it enough power to operate. The fact that my (old, terrible, crappy) work laptop only has two USB ports, means it’s basically unusable.

At that time, Justin clued me in to bus-powered USB drives that are capable of working when only occupying one USB port. However, he also warned me that they were a bit expensive and can be problematic and unreliable because USB power isn’t always reliable. I poked around here and there, and the prices were enough to scare me away, let alone the worry that, when I needed it most, it wouldn’t work.

So I dropped it.

Until yesterday.

Sheridan pointed out that bus-powered drives are affordable and work well enough that his employer relies on them in heavy use by multiple developers. A couple of links later and I had several very affordable, seemingly reliable options for moderate capacity, portable, USB powered hard drives that didn’t occupy more than one USB port.

But there is a catch. First of all, it has to be a USB 2.0 port. Secondly, if it’s a port from a non-powered hub, if your USB cable is too long, or isn’t up to the standards required, it may not work at all, or may only work for small files and fail on larger files or during extended use. Finally, even if your USB hub is powered, if it isn’t built and operating in a certain fashion, it may still fail. On top of that, not all laptops are created equal. Some laptops don’t supply the right amount of power the right way so even using one of the built-in USB ports and the USB cable supplied with the drive, you can end up with a drive that just can’t get enough power.

So I’ve got two questions for you.

1) Do any of you use bus-powered USB drives? If so, do you have any problems with them? Are you using the cables supplied with them? Do you use them with a laptop or a desktop?

2) Does anyone have any use for a 160GB portable USB drive that requires two USB ports to operate? It even comes with a special cable that connects to two ports on your computer and leads into one port on the drive.

help: portable, internet capable devices

Mar 26th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
23 comments

Long story short, my day-job is locking down our company laptops leaving me with no computer for personal use when on business trips. Not really eager to carry two laptops on a business trip and already having one laptop in the family,  I’m not really considering buying another full-blown laptop. However, I am potentially in the market for a small, portable, Internet capable device or an alternative. Here are my options.

Nokia N800. This ultra portable device can be had for $220. It has built in WIFI, Bluetooth, and webcam. It has a touch screen and an onscreen keyboard and is also compatible with a bluetooth keyboard which can be had for about $50. It has upgradable SD Card storage and features two slots to make using only one of them as removable storage a breeze. There is a huge user community and lots of available applications as well. Plus, it’s linux based, so it’s a hackers dream come true. Assuming the audio on it is decent, it could also potentialy replace my iPod and maybe even let me trade my smartphone (currently a Blackberry) in for a tetherable dumbphone. To be fair, however, I’m going to need a few SD Cards for storage. 8GB SDHC cards run $40 right now.

Nokia N810. Very similar to the N800, this device includes a slide-out keyboard, a GPS receiver, and 2GB of internal flash ram. On the down side, the webcam is in a fixed position, it looses one of the card slots, and only accepts MicroSD. Additionally, the keyboard is very small and would be difficult to use for any real typing. I already have a Bluetooth GPS receiver if I need that functionality. And, at $400, it’s almost double the price of the N800.

Asus EeePC. On the surface, this appears to have a similar feature set to the N800 and N810. However, unlike the handheld, pocket-sized N800, this device is quite clearly a laptop, although a very small one. It has a larger screen (though the same resolution), a faster processor, a full (though small) keyboard, and a built in wired ethernet port. It looses the touchscreen in trade for a touchpad and also loses bluetooth connectivity. With a more laptop-like stance, this device comes with more offline style applications and the processing power to handle running them. Like the N810, I can pick one up for $400, if I’m willing to go with Pink.

Linux bootable flash drive and my work laptop. I would have to have a fairly large card and a VERY paired down Linux distribution. Storing data on the laptop’s hard-drive is not an option due to part of the lock down. Additionally, a full-blown portable hard-drive is not an option because it takes up both of my USB ports and is far more wires than I’d care to deal with. The plus side is that this would be fairly inexpensive. At average prices, I can probably find a 16GB card and small card reader for $80-140. The downside is that I’d have to roll my own when it comes to fine tuning the Linux installation. My work laptop is a bit lacking in features so this would mean I’d have to find PCMCIA wireless drivers, and the bootable flashdrive would take up one of my two available USB ports.

iTouch.  For $300, an 8GB version of the iTouch can be had. This has the apple seal of approval, which all of the apple kids say is a good thing. I’m not too familiar with anything other than my iPod which I find acceptable but not exceptionally so. While there are very few 3rd party applications available, Apple’s recent release of the SDK means there is likely to be many more on the way. With what little time I’ve spent with the iPhone I can say that the user-experience is quite simple, intuitive, and fluid.  I have no doubt that the applications that come with the phone will be easy to use and perform as expected, if not better. The touch-screen keyboard isn’t the easiest thing to use from the get-go, but iPhone users say you get used to it pretty quickly. I lose the Bluetooth connectivity offered by the N800 which means that a fullish-sized keyboard is not possible and neither is a mobile, tethered network connection. Additionally, I lose the ability to expand my available memory or swap out my storage by using SD Cards. To counteract this, a 32GB iTouch can be purchased, but the price goes up another $200. While this is the “coolest” option, it is also most likely the least flexible, least future proof, and most expensive option of the bunch.

So, what are your thoughts? Is there an option I left off? Which of these makes the most sense?

Radio Popper

Mar 19th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
10 comments

Radio Popper is the new kid on the block when it comes to wireless radio strobe triggers. In fact, they are so new you can’t even buy the product just yet. But, when you can, the promise the difference will worth the wait. And I, for one, believe them.

There are basically two product types Radio Popper is offering. The first provides wireless TTL flash. Yes, you probably already have this if you have modern equipment and mated flashes. However, you don’t have it like this. With the exception of 1 or 2 very expensive 3rd party options, to my knowledge, all of the big names in camera technology handle wireless TTL flash using IR. This works great if all of your flashes are close by and you have a line of sight to each of them. When you don’t, or if things change, this fails drastically. Radio Popper is changing that. You’ll still need your modern equipment and mated flashes. Radio Popper will sit in between your camera and those flashes and retransmit those IR signals over RF. This means that, suddenly, they’ll work through walls, behind your subjects, when not visible to the camera, and from very far away — up to 500 feet away. To my knowledge there is currently no other product that does this in this way and, when considering all options, no product that does this in such an inexpensive way. The cost is $175-$225 per transmitter or receiver. You’ll need one transmitter for the camera and a receiver for every flash you intend to use.

The second product being offered by Radio Popper has been on the market for quite some time. Radio Popper is just doing it cheaper and better. For photographers looking for wireless flash triggers who don’t need the TTL features, there have been three options on the market before now.

First, the expensive PocketWizard. They can fire both strobes and camera, work from a great distance, and fire every time. These are standard equipment for many photographers. They run $180-$300 per transmitter or receiver.

Second, is the dirt cheap eBay and Gadget Infinity Radio Slaves. They fire strobes, work for about 300-500 feet, and fire about 80-90% of the time depending on closeness and batteries. These are standard equipment for most amateur photographers and those who aren’t willing to plunk down the PocketWizard cash. They run $15-$25 per transmitter or receiver.

Third, is the middle ground. Lots of manufacturers have made products ranging from $50-$150 per transmitter or receiver that falls somewhere in between the functionality and the reliability of the above two options. I know of very few people actually using them, however.

Piggybacking off the requirements and research for the Wireless TTL model above, Radio Popper will be offering a non TTL variety capable of a 2000 ft range and promising much fewer misses than that “eBay Radio Slaves” for $25 per transmitter or receiver. With this, the usability, affordability, and reliability of this product will have all jumped leaps and bounds.

Finally, even if you aren’t a fan of wireless TTL, the wireless TTL version will be capable of syncing at very high shutter speeds which means that overpowering the sun just got a lot more possible.

Products are slated for release in the Summer of 2008. I’m counting the days.

not a good day

Mar 17th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

I took today off as well knowing I would want to spend some time with Jess and Celeste to make up for the weekend as well as getting my bags unpacked, all my equipment cleaned, and my images at least mostly processed.  It’s not starting off well.

First, I realized that my mobile blogging method wasn’t working and, what’s worse, that it was leaving HUGE posts filled with gibberish in my journal. I still haven’t figured out why it broke or what it’s trying to do. I think I’m giving up.

I’m also fighting with metadata between the 3 different applications involved with managing my large photograph collection. Lightroom isn’t always updating the XMP on disk, my other applications are expecting that it will, there’s constant conflict between the two, and everything is just not fun.

On top of that, I think my data/backup drive enclosures are screwy. I’m regularly having to unmount them, power cycle the enclosures, and then remount the drives to get them to be responsive. I’ve also seen a few bits of corrupted data here and there. Not good.

Once these problems start to weigh on me, all the problems I’ve already pushed aside start to show their face in my mind again.

I need to get to Wolf and get my long lens repaired. Without it, I don’t have one.

Somehow, another of my commonly used lenses managed to break yesterday as well. The zoom ring no longer functions. Thankfully, I have two prime lenses and a wide angle zoom that I can use in place of this lens, though it isn’t as convenient. I need to contact Sigma/Competitive Camera and see if it’s still under warranty from Sigma and, if so, see if this damage is covered. I can’t think of anything I could have done to it to cause this. It must just be bad luck.

While I really like the backpack I bought for this past weekend, it’s too large and too rigid for my uses as a daypack/travel pack. I end up keeping 80% of my gear attached to the straps and belt of the backpack and the actual pack itself remains mostly empty. Lugging around a huge backpack that’s mostly empty is just silly. It’d be great for a warm weather overnighter, so it might be worth holding on to. I’m just not sure. I might have to go back to REI and see if I can find something else I’d prefer.

Jess and I were supposed to take Celeste for a nice walk by the lake early this morning, but Jess isn’t awake yet and I don’t have the heart to wake her myself. Even if she was awake, I don’t know if I could pull myself from this data nightmare knowing it was left in this very vulnerable state.

I hate it when all these little things just stack up until I feel like I’m going to collapse.

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