Reviews of My Camera: Sony A33

December 13th, 2011 Thomasso

I’m a beginner photographer at heart. This is my first digital SLR camera that have I ever owned. So, naturally, not having a huge budget for the more professional type cameras, I opted for a lower end camera to start off with, and a brand that I have used before. The camera was on sale, 20 percent off, so I made the plunge and bought it. It was calling my name… .

So far after having the camera for two weeks now, I am thoroughly impressed with it. I have snapped over 400 photos with it, and the versatility of a DLSR (or DLST) is still amazing me as each photo session yields new discoveries of what this camera can do. The lens, a 18-55mm, is awesome. The old point-and-shoot is child’s play compared to the field of view that I can now get with this camera. And the ISO options, nice ISO100-12800. I have being deprived for so many years since I hung up my analogue SLR a decade ago.

It is a low end camera, with some great features though. The camera does have some issues that concern me. The big one is that if you shoot video for more than ten minutes, the censor chip starts to over heat, and the camera shuts down. I do not plan on shooting that much video with it, so that feature is not that big of a deal for me. I suspect that this is the reason why Sony has discontinued production of it – according to a armature YouTube video I seen about the camera. It does shoot video in high definition and has a HDMI out on it – this is cool.

The seven shots per second is really cool too, and the auto focus while it is shooting at that speed is pretty wicked too. I cannot wait to try that out when I get some good outdoor shooting weather.

Here is another review of the camera:

So time will tell. I consider this my “starter” camera. My next purchase for it will be a telephoto lens this week, and then a macro lens in the new year. I plan on taking a lots photos in the future. And of course, I will be posting some of them here on the blog. I can’t wait!

Image courtesy of Sony Canada on www.Sony.ca

Here is to happy shooting!

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Life as a Lonely Blogger

August 10th, 2011 Thomasso

Once again I am left with so much to say, but not enough time to regurgitated all down in text form on my very own webpage. I have been focused on work, and it has been focused on me. I am not complaining about work, nor the time that it is consuming in my life, but I am missing, very much, the quiet moments that I have when I am sitting here freely typing away my thoughts. I have hit the evil time monster of public me versus private me and the balance of harmony that I claim I have found. This last week has been busy.

The markets, particular the Gold market, has consumed my free time thoughts for the last three days. With the continuation of the recession, the wild ride of everyone’s wealth has driven Gold up to new heights. Today Gold hit another all time record of $1800.00, which for those who follow the commodity and see it a “hedge against inflation,” then this spells “doom of epic proportions” according to one of my friends who plays the money markets.

I love Gold. I own some Gold, and nothing thrills me to see it climb like it is today. But it also worries me when I see the effect the market economy has on the rest of my friends and people around me. I know that when markets slide, and governments give out bail out money to the corporations, and interest rates will either go up or down, common people are going to get hurt. But the rich and the greedy do not care, and apparently those who own Gold too, according to a co-worker. The question is, can you rest assure that you can pay your rent, or make your mortgage payments for next month?

My lack of time has also meant that I missed out on some really great summer parties with friends this last couple of weeks. As I am single, some of my friends have tried to find me that perfect match, but I really have not been looking. Like my work, over the course of the last decade, my life has been one big goal seeking exercise. When I announced that I was going to University back in 2003, friends and family laughed at me. Some mocked my tenacity at that time. Now I laugh back at them, of course having just graduated, but they all figure that I now need another “commitment” to my already overbooked life.

Well, again I have to cut my typing short, just when I am getting warmed up. Sadly, I cannot say for certain when I will return back to the keyboard and blog for another session. Hopefully I will return soon. Thomasso -signing off now.

Oh, by the way, I used four programs to create the above graphic of the blue tee: Kpovmodeler-PovRay, Inkscape and the GIMP.

Posted in Art, Blog Problems, Criminology, Diatribe, General, Photographs, Social economics | Comments Off

Let the Pie Explain

August 6th, 2011 Thomasso

I am going to use this post as an excuse to try out my Pie Graph (easy chart builder plug-in) and let this visual representation explain how my day went. I did work today, putting in a full 10 hour day. It was necessary becuase we are still having massive server issues at my work, and some of the equipment is still not installed that is needed for us to move into the final phase of the new system.

These are exciting times, for both myself and my employer, but the wear and tear is taking its toll on me.

Here is how my day stacked up:

The promise made by my employer was that If I work this weekend, I can have a long weekend next week. I agreed, and here we are at day 7. I am so tired.

Posted in Blog and Web Tech, Diatribe, General, Humour, Nifty Plug-ins, Software | Comments Off

New Poll, New Plug-in

August 5th, 2011 Thomasso

I did a little house cleaning here on the blog. I got rid of many old files and plug-ins from Word Press becuase I noticed that over half of them were no longer supported. Doing a little house cleaning on the blog seems like the best thing to do while having some free time at the personal computer, so I seize the opportunity this time and really went at it.

I had plug-ins dating from as far back as 2004! Imagine the possible security risks? Shocking!

Anyway, all is clean and mostly up to date with some fresh plug-ins to replace the old, and the complete deletion of unwanted and unsupported files.

One plug-in I replaced was my Poll plug-in. It was one of those early 2004 plug-ins that had a lot of staying power. It looked good, but was fraught with many limitations. So, off to the deletion chamber it went, and is replaced with a plug-in called UPM Poll, something that I will give a few days to try and see how well it works.

The poll is up, along the side bar, at the right for this post, at the very top of the page. Please have a go at it, and cast your vote. I would really like to see how it works, and see how it looks too, and see if it holds up to the previous poll plug-in I had before. I know, another weather poll.

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Just testing a new Plug-in

August 1st, 2011 Thomasso

OK, I am testing out this new plug-in that I installed on my  blog, on WordPress called “Easy Chart Builder.”  I want to start using more charts on my blog. Doing it through SPSS, and R, and then copying the images over, is getting too cumbersome, so I am hoping that I found an easer way.

OK, lets see if this work?

ADDED: August 2nd, 2011. I have taken out the test graph.

It looks like I am limited with scaling on each graph I do. According to the creator of the plug-in, this graph will resize to fit into an iphone, or touch pad’s screen. The graph looks great, but I wonder if it will be too much work to code the data into it, rather then just pasting an image in from R, or SPSS? The Statistician’s conundrum.

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Ad Blocking While Surfing the Net

July 8th, 2011 Thomasso

I am sort of a rebel when it comes to what I allow into my home. When watching TV, I see very few commercials as my home-made PVR simply allows me to fast forward through them. I only listen to ad free radio content, preferably, CBC Radio One from Vancouver, and when I am surfing the net, I try to cut out as many ads as I can.

In my quest to rid ads altogether from my Intranet experience, I am finding this battle more and more challenging to do. For example, on two of the most visited places I go while using my browser, ads are like the plague there, and when I block the ads on those sites, the ad companies seem to try harder to circumvent the code that blocks them from the programs that I am using to block them altogether. Now it has gotten to the point that when I block URLs that contain adds from within my browser I might as well not look at them becuase they are void of any useful information. I know this sounds drastic, but when I am doing research, I brows hundreds of websites in one sitting, and I can have several very clever pieces of code do some very funny things to my browser that try and grab my attention in those sittings.

I have had a site that had some web code that tried to shut down my browser. One site that tried to open several pop-up windows, even with the pop-up blocker on. And even one web site that had a scrip that tried to open my email program and send out an email to that company!

I never bothered to report these website becuase there is no one really worthwhile to report to except for the web hosting company and domain name companies that are suppose to regulate what these people/organisation do online. So, it is really a free for all world out there, with law enforcement agencies overwhelmed, and with very little powers in the first place, why bother. Could they really combat this problem anyway?

So this is what I do to cut out most of the ads. Now, I target the legitimate ads. The illegitimate ads are much tougher to cut becuase, well, they are illegitimate. So, the first thing you need to do is down load the FireFox web browser. I am sorry if your running Window$, OK, I am. These fixes are not going to fully help you out becuase of the nature of your operating system. It is proprietary, and as such, it needs to send advertising to you–because that is what you paid for. That is capitalism, so deal with it. However, if you want a good chunk of these ads stopped, and you value your on-line time, then use LINUX. There, my plug!

Here is a really good website to get you started blocking ads, especially those Google ads. You can use it on Window$ too.

How to Get Rid of Google Ads!

The plug-in for FireFox is here: Adblock Plus — for annoyance-free web surfing. Adblock plus 1.3.9

So, give it a shot. I think you will be happy with the results, and how much faster some of the web sites load up too!

Added, July 10, 2011: Now that I have lived with the ad blocker for a few days now, I can safely say that it is working out great. It does not wreck any the off web pages that have mass amounts of advertising on them, and so far, it seems to be catching all the scrips that sneak ads onto your browser. I’m giving it 8 out of 10.

Posted in Blog and Web Tech, Diatribe, Featured Software, General, Nifty Plug-ins, Socail Media, Social Justice | Comments Off

Mother’s Day and Beyond

May 8th, 2011 Thomasso

It has been a good morning, a good start to the day because I finally talked to Mom after doubting that I would connect with her over Skype. It was nice to talk to her. We talked for just under an hour. We started making preparations for my graduation ceremony that is coming up in less than a month. So many details, so little money and time to work with, but we will make this happen. It is still four weeks away.

Preparations for the ceremonies are coming up very soon. My (probable) last  association with Kwantlen Polytechnic University will occur then. Once that event is over, then I may never set foot on the campus again as I venture out into the world, but who knows. If the money holds up, I may be able to share the graduation with as many people as I can. I am also prepared to let it go too if it starts to cost too much.

My mother is doing really well. I think health wise, she is doing very good. She is living very good too as she is still working, and drawing on her pension, at the same time now. I am so happy for her. If it were not for the extra money coming in, I am sure life would be tough.

So the plan is to keep the original plan (of my graduation) going in motion and hope that work, government and nature does not wreck any of it. We will be doing this on a tight budget and tight time line.

Posted in Blog and Web Tech, Events, Family, Graduation, University classes | Comments Off

Post Number 2000

April 22nd, 2011 Thomasso

I almost forgot that this is post number 2000 here at Thomasso.com! I was just about to add some other prepared texts when I checked the counter on my dashboard, and it indicated I was at post number 1999. I was watching for this a number of days ago, but you know how things go when your mind in running a million things through it?

Just to mention some other stats too: this website is now almost Ten years old, and this blog is just over the Seven year mark. I have had over 4000 none-spam comments posted and over 7000 links in this time.

The blog part of the website had changed numerous times with very simple stick themes up to some very complex themes that made the site look like a ad board off the Trans-Canada Highway. Now I try to keep it both ad free and simple. When I started, WordPress had just branched off from B2, I think it was called, and became what it is today. I have being a faithful WordPress user ever since. I also support a number of other items on my website too, but this blog is the main and most active part of my usage on the website.

So happy 2000th post Thomasso.com! Yay!

Same image as above, but from a different view, and with a more funkier surface colour. This now reminded me of Ice-Cream, Vanilla with Chocolate swirls in it. Mmmmm

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Time-Laps

March 25th, 2011 Thomasso

I was going through some of my archive disks, as I got so many now, and I came upon this little video. Actually there are about 2GBs of these little videos, and I forgot that made so many over a one year term. The significance of this video was that I made it on March 25th, of 2007, so it is sort of an anniversary video, slash, post.

Hope you enjoy it.

To make a time-laps video is fairly simple. You need a webcam, of course the computer, or laptop, and some software that will capture the  images from the webcam and store them on your hard disk in a sequential manor. Then one more program that will convert the images into your favourite video format. Lastly, you will need lots of patients. This video was done over eight hours, at 1 min interval, at twenty-four frames per second.

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Super Moon Over Fort Langley: the Video

March 23rd, 2011 Thomasso

I almost gave up on this video. I had never had so much trouble with grabbing a video from a digital camera before.

I have a little Samsung mini Digital video camera that I have had for a long time. I think the camera is over six years old now, and just barely works. I think the battery has had it?

Anyway, my problem was first setting up the camera so that it would fit on my new tripod. Then came the three hours of figuring out how to kick-start my firewire or IEEE1394 connection because the camera seems to only want to work with legacy drivers. This is the story of my life. Oh, but it does not stop there. I had to download a whole new set of CODECs for it becuase I never used DV CODECs in so long, my stuff was outdated compared to the latest greatest. Well, the whole process took a long time.

Then there was the task of getting it uploaded to YouTube. For whatever reason, I had to compromise on the shittiest video CODEC I had becuase with my top-of-the-line video drivers, all I could see was video-noise. So that took about two hours to figure out, including the time it took to re-edit it on my Desktop. Just to put things into perspective for you, the raw DV was 1.5GB at about twelve mins long, and the finished product was a crappy MS, AVI file that was less than thirteen MB in size at two mins long.

So here it is on Youtube, the Super Moon from last Sunday, March 20th, 2011 just as the Moon was rising.

Posted in Astronomy, Blog and Web Tech, Diatribe, Events, General, Socail Media, Video | Comments Off