Depending on the Cloud is dangerous

Tech, Thought Provoking, Web

This story in The Guardian got my attention. Imagine having 4 years of work removed at the drop of a hat? That’s what seems to have happened with Google’s decision to shut down some music bloggers. Apparently, they weren’t even give any warning.

In what critics are calling “musicblogocide 2010”, Google has deleted at least six popular music blogs that it claims violated copyright law. These sites, hosted by Google’s Blogger and Blogspot services, received notices only after their sites – and years of archives – were wiped from the internet.

This is not a problem of Google per se. It’s a problem of depending on any third-party to hold your data whether it’s Facebook, Salesforce, Flickr, Hotmail or any other site holding your data. I came across this problem during the initial internet bust when my files were deleted by a data hosting company and I was unable to retrieve them. If it’s important, always make local backups of your data and have workarounds in place so that if one provider kicks you off or goes bust, you have an alternative option to keep functioning. If you blog, get your own domain and hosting provider and backup your files. It’s much easier than remembering what you wrote 4 years ago…

Project 2: focus with a set aperture

Photography

The second project in my photography course was shot way back in September in Munich. The purporse of this project was to shoot the same scene but focusing on different dimensions. This would concentrate attention on different parts of the photograph.


This first image focuses on the closest feature of the scene which was the back of a woman’s head as she watched a street band on Kaufingerstrasse. This photo is not that interesting as the background is too blurry and out of focus while the head is not so interesting from the back.


This is the medium view where the focus is directed at the accordian players in the band. They back of the woman’s head is still visible but out of focus. It is still interesting that it is contained in the image as it gives the impression of a crowd watching the band.


The furthest focus was taken after many attempts to find something interesting to focus on in the passing crowd behind the band. Here, a man comes out of the Kaufhof shop and seems to focus his attention past the band to the camera. This is probably unintentional and was a result of the luck of the shot. Here the accordian player is slightly out of focus but in a much more clear way that in the first photo. In my opinion, this is my preferred photo of the three.

Google Chrome sounds like a nightmare

Tech, Web

John Naughton’s column in the Observer yesterday analyses the impact of the coming Google operating system.

The flip side of all this, of course, is that Chrome netbooks will be the ultimate in tethered devices. You may own the machine, just as you may think you own your Apple iPhone, but in fact Google controls it, just as Apple controls the phone. If, for example, you’ve tinkered with the device overnight, and the Google server detects the change as you hook up to the net, then the operating system may be remotely deleted and a fresh version installed without your knowledge or consent. Google will argue that this is for your own good – that it’s an effective defence against the viruses, trojans and malware that plague current users of Microsoft operating systems.

And so it is. But it’s also a limitation on your freedom. In his 2008 book, The Future of the Internet – and how to stop it, Harvard academic Jonathan Zittrain painted a vivid picture of the dangers of a world in which most people’s access to the internet is via tethered devices controlled by powerful companies. If Chrome OS takes off we will have taken a giant leap into that nightmare. For 1984 read 2010.

Project 1 – focal length and angle of view

Photography


These are the images that I took for the first project in the Art of Photography course. I guess the purpose here was to demonstrate the change in perspective by using prints and using them as a basis for understanding the changes that can be achieved by adjusting the focal length of the lens. I don’t have a printer so I am waiting for that to complete the exercise. One thing that I do need to get is a card reader for my SLR (Olympus E-520) which I started the exercise with. In the meantime, my LX3 will do the job nicely. Tomorrow on to focus with a set aperture.

The Art of Photography

Uncategorized

I have taken a course called The Art of Photography with the Open College of the Arts, a distance learning institution based in the UK. As part of the course, students are required to record their work, thoughts and influences throughout the period of study. I thought that it would be a good idea to incorporate it into my existing blog.
I got the pack on Sunday after they were mistakenly delivered to my apartment in Munich rather than in Berne. Since then I have been reading and re-reading the course information. This is something similar to what I have done with many other books on photography but this time, there are projects and assignments to be done. Tomorrow I will tackle the first project and record the results here.

Canon S90 – Surpassing the LX3?

Photography

It seems the success of the LX3 by Panasonic has produced a reaction from Canon with the introduction of the S90. After years on auto-pilot, it seems that the market is waking up to the demand for better photo quality, especially at low light.

Where the S90 seems to have surpassed the LX3 from looking at the specs is that it seems to be much smaller and there is no need for a lens cap. When I had to get a new lens cap for the LX3, it cost €25. In addition, when an opportunity for a shot arises, taking the lens cap adds another step to the process. It will be interesting to see if Panasonic responds to those advances in the near future.