Andrew Taylor

Taken in France – the first of hopefully many!

Classic!

Once again I’ve been extremely lax in updating this blog. Unfortunately between work, St John, personal life (and driving my new car…!) I’ve not had a lot of time to get my thoughts and findings down on paper online as I was planning to with this site.

Anyway, hopefully I might kick myself back into blogging more frequently with this post. The title is the two things I bought this weekend – one somewhat more exciting than the other! My new car bought back in November last year came with the usual standard windscreen wiper, something like this. Continue Reading »

I have been using this very useful tip from Keyboard Face to provide WordPress permalinks on IIS without having to worry about an URL rewrite filter. I didn’t even have this option with my previous host, but I’ve stuck with it now I’ve moved this site.

However, as you’ll see in the comments, this doesn’t pass through the querystring parameters (e.g. ?page=2). I’ve added in a section of code to cater for this:
Continue Reading »

I’m in the process of revamping my photo gallery sections as the SimpleViewer Flash -powered gallery isn’t quite doing the job for me (although I haven’t ruled it out yet, it might just need a change of layout).

One option that many people use is Lightbox – or one of the many variants that have cropped up. This is a Javascript overlay technique that allows you to display thumbnails of your photographs and then when the visitor clicks on the thumbnail, causes it to pop-up in the centre of the screen (without a new window though) and darkens the background.

Look at this for an example:

I haven’t yet decided which Lightbox variant is best for my needs – I’m currently going through this list which is a very useful summary review of the options: Which Lightbox is Right for You?

Edit: Looks like Slimbox may have won the competition.

This is a recipe that I recently made up after trying to put together a number of ingredients we had in stock! Completely experimental first time round, but I’ve made it again several times and seems to always come out very tasty. This recipe serves 4.

Ingredients:

500g sieved/pureed tomatoes
8 thick sausages
Handful of puy lentils
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp mixed herbs
250g Japenese style noodles or rice noodles (which are gluten-free)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.
Cut up the sausages into 4 pieces per sausage and put in a suitable, reasonably large, bakeware tray.
Cook sausages in oven for 20 mins whilst you prepare the sauce.
Put the puy lentils into another saucepan, cover with water and bring to the boil for 5-7 minutes until the lentils are soft.
Pour the sieved tomatoes into a large saucepan.
Heat the sauce through slowly while the lentils are boiling.
When the lentils are soft, add to the tomatoes.
Add the cayenne pepper and paprika to the sauce and mix thoroughly.
When the sausages have cooked for 20 mins, remove from the over, cover with the sauce and return to the oven for a further 10 minutes, or until the sausages are cooked through.
Cook the noodles as per the instructions on the packet.
Serve noodles on a plate and then place the sausages and sauce over the top.

I think I’m going to start a theme on here – regulation, political correctness, red tape and health & safety people who decide things that just ruin interesting and exciting events etc.

Here’s one to kick off: Regulations flatten pancake race.

Bob Atkins has a very interesting post on Canon’s image stabilisation technology in their DSLRs:

http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/digital/image_stabilization.html

Canon have recently released an addition to their entry level range of Digital SLRs. I own the 350D (Digital Rebel XT) which is the successor of the 300D (the original Digital Rebel – now discontinued). The 400D (XTi) was until a few days ago the top model in this range.

The Canon EOS 450D (XSi) is an enhancement on the 400D with a range of new features, including live preview allowing you to use the LCD screen to frame your shot instead of the viewfinder. This includes an optional contrast detection auto focus method, which apparently is slow but potentially very accurate. Using the default phase detect AF causes the mirror to flip down every time you refocus, thus blacking out the LCD temporarily. The live histogram function the former AF mode offers could assist in preventing over- or under-exposed shots before you actually press the shutter release. Having to check the histogram after taking a photo and adjusting the exposure can be tedious so this is a useful feature. One disadvatage of live preview is that the sensor gets warm if used for this for a long period of time, which can introduce noise into your resultant shot.

DPReview have three very interesting and informative (the usual high standard) articles on the new 450D:

• Press release and specs
• Brief hands-on
• What’s new and changed

Bob Atkins also has a comparison of the 400D, 450D and 40D. Looking at the photographs of the new model, it appears to be larger than the 400D, which in turn is quite a bit larger than the 350D. I think I would still prefer the 350D given the choice, due the small size which fits my hands better. Though obviously the quality, features and resolution of the 400D and 450D are tempting!

The 350D also has a seperate mono LCD screen for the indicators such as exposure, timer mode, remaining shots, flash, AF mode, metering etc. This has a orange backlight enabled by a button for night-time shots. I prefer this to the single (though larger) screen on the 400D and 450D which displays these setting when preparing for your shot, and shows the resultant photo after the shutter release has been pressed.

It’s interesting that Canon have released the 450D which appears to be closer to the more pro models that Canon produce (40D, 30D, 5D, 1D). Looks like they’re providing a stepping stone for users who want to upgrade their models to the higher end of the range, given that the 450D contains a number of features already found in the 40D.

Update: Digital Photography Review have posted a full review of the 450D

… and I haven’t even changed jobs!

I’m now known as a Systems Analyst. Previously a Technical Architect and before that a Technical Developer. In three years I’ve not really changed what I do, although of course the projects that we undertake have evolved.