Twitterfied

I've given in. I've now joined Twitter.

More and more people in the software testing industry are using Twitter to start discussions and thought processes (most recent exhibit A).This is something I want to get in on, hence the twitter account.

Hopefully anything I post will be insightful, fully or informative but I make no guarantees. I'll try not to be too much of a hipster.

I'm @RichardSiemens. If you twitter you can follow me here.

A little Christmas gift for myself

Three years ago I bought my first digital SLR. The d70s is a great camera; it's rugged, reliable (a couple of trips to Nikon notwithstanding) and it produces fine image files. However, it is getting a little long in the tooth. It was 3 years old when I bought it. In DSLR years, that's a couple of generations.

When I first got my d70s, it was more than I could handle. It provided more control inputs than I could manage at once. It could handle any situation I could throw at it with few exceptions. And at 6MP, I could comfortably print up 11x14 without issue.

However, as I have and learned and grown as a hobbyist photographer I've wanted a bit more out of the camera than it could give. Most notably with respect to print size and high-ISO performance. I've made a couple of prints larger than 11x14 but I had to stitch separate photos together. Additionally, I've been unable to photograph Tara and Lego when she is riding in the arena at the barn due to lack of light.

Work added a little bit to my last paycheque as a Christmas bonus so I decided to upgrade.  I picked up Nikon's new d7000 a couple of weeks ago.

I've only really taken it out a couple of times; between unpacking from Christmas travelling, house work, and taking care of a flu-ridden wife, I haven't had the time. The sun setting at 5:30 doesn't help either. A few of the photos I've taken are below. It's going to take a little while to get used to my new toy; keep an eye on this space for more photos shortly.

For better and worse the new camera comes with a larger file size. At 16MP (14 bit), my current computer is having a hard time keeping up. Changing exposure of RAW files in Nikon's ViewNX takes 60-67 seconds. Exporting the photos to JPGs can take up to 4 minutes each. I'm afraid I'm going to have to shoot in both RAW and JPG for the time being until I can scrape together some more cash to upgrade my 5 year old home computer.

Two, two, two videos in one

Saw these today and thought I'd share.

That is all.



(via my wife via her dad)



(via Neatorama)

Richard the spam king

If I have ever sent you an email, you probably got some spam in your inbox this weekend from me. Somehow my gmail account got compromised and somebody from China sent out email hawking fake electronics. I believe I've rectified the issue; please let me know if you get any more suspicious emails from me.


As for how it happened, I don't' have a good answer. My local machine is clean, so it's not a virus. I haven't been super vigilant about keeping strong separate passwords online so maybe somebody at another site sold my password and it was close enough to guess my gmail password. However, last weekend we sent Tara's Dell back to Dell to get it repaired. It seems like a awfully strange coincidence. I'm not saying, I'm just saying.....

Thank you all who let me know something was amiss.

Long time no post

A few unimportant updates from the past couple of months.

For the past few half a year our washer was telling us it wanted to die. After every load a little more grease, oil and water was leaking out from under it. Our dryer was also taking longer and longer to dry clothes. So we bought a new pair a couple of weeks ago. Cool new frontload, electronic, LG appliances. I've never had new a new washer or dryer; it almost makes doing laundry fun. Both the washer and dryer play a little ditty when they start up and when they shut down. Plus they have cool LED lights. I'm not convinced that the washer takes any less time but it definitely uses less water.

I went up to Lake Memesagamasing for the deer hunt in November. It was the first time that I have been hunting with a rifle. I'm not use to walking through the bush with a 8lb rifle on my back; I fell over more than a few times. The hunting party was a little smaller this year and we only bagged one deer (a joint effort between my brother-in-law Tim and the cottage neighbour and all-round awesome guy Mr. Mathews). The deer were scarce this year - I didn't even take my safety off. But as always a great time was had by all. Plus I only got lost once this year (and technically I wasn't "lost"; I knew where I was I just didn't know where I needed to go).

My parents came down for a quick visit in October. It's been a while since we had some time to just visit together. We hit the farmers market Saturday morning and just relaxed in the afternoon. It was good to spend time with them.

I haven't been taking hardly any photos lately. It's been a combination being busy and not making the effort to get out and shoot. I want to get out and shoot more, I just need to make the time. I'd like to get more into portraits and have been considering making a concerted effort to find subjects to practice on. Let me know if you want to be such a subject.

We got one of our retaining walls redone in October. It was built by the previous owner of our house and was basically stacked flagstone. That might be good enough for a fence but not for a retaining wall. The new wall  was done by Black Diamond Landscaping (email address - no website). It was built in less than 5 hours and looks really solid. If you use them, let them know I sent you.

We got a small amount of snow yesterday. Seamus couldn't get enough of the stuff. He ran and ran and rolled and rolled. He even started digging in it (which quickly turned into digging into our grass - that behaviour won't be tolerated). Here's a quick pic of the dog in all his snowy glory.

I think that's all the important stuff. I'll do my best to keep this blog thing more up-to-date.