Entries from February 1, 2008 - February 29, 2008
Power Failure... Again
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As you might have noticed, the server was down the last 24 hours. When I got home last night I found my server dead. The green power LED on the mainboard was still on, but apart from that... nothing. So I tried to switch the server on and off a couple of times. After a few tries, the entire room lit up for about a nanosecond followed by absolute silence, and darkness..... The power supply had short-circuited and took the entire house with it. Byebye power supply. The initial thought was; 'Well, it's gonna be a nice weekend reinstalling the server from scratch', but thankfully, it was only the power supply that had died on me. After replacing it, the server ran as before. This got me thinking about the life-expectancy of computer hardware. Frequent visitors may have read a similar post on my blog last year. So the power supply that died isn't even a year old. I still might have had some warranty on it (if I hadn't pried it open to see the internal damage :) ). If I would like to use the warranty, I'm looking at at least a couple of days downtime, and since a new power supply is relatively inexpensive, I couldn't be bothered. The life expectancy of hardware is obviously shorter than the Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) given by the manufacturer. The new supply has a (theoretical) MTBF of >100.000 hours, This means >4000 days. Well, mine lasted <365 days.
GPS Logger Put to the Test
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We went to the Hoge Veluwe in Gelderland last weekend for some 'serious' photography. This would be the first real trail for my GPS Logger (Qstarz BT1000).
At the 'start' I switched the logger to 'Log', and forgot about it completely during the day. The device did its work during the day. The real challenge came at home. Linking the GPS info to the photo's.....
The software for adding the GPS data to the photo's was 'GPSPhotoLinker' (remember that I use a Mac). Unfortunately, the software kept crashing when I tried to combine GPS data and the images. Possible reason could be the large NEF (Nikon RAW) files, because the crash happened every third image.
So the search for an alternative started, and I quickly found 'PhotoGPSEditor' (also DonationWare). This tool could also manipulate NEF files.
Adding the GPS info was relatively easy with this software (GPSPhotoLinker is more intuitive IMO). After that I imported the photo's in Adobe Lightroom, which showed the GPS data in the Metadata section of Lightroom (you can see the map location when you click on the arrow behind the GPS coordinates.
Just click on the following picture, to see when and where it was taken.
The complete set can be seen here.
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Google Maps and Nokia e61i
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A couple of weeks ago, I was pointed towards Google Maps on my Nokia e61i (I got a download link when I visited google.com on my mobile). After downloading and installing it (which was very easy), I started the application (which was hiding under Menu -> Installations -> Google Maps). Most basic features are available on the phone app (directions, searching for restaurants etc., Zoom in and out), and there's the possibility of positioning yourself on the map by using cellular positioning. Thankfully, this is done for you by the application. Downside is that it's not that accurate. In my case, I could be anywhere in a 1.7 mile radius circle. It's also possible to use a GPS mouse (which I recently bought) for your location. The neat thing is that you can see yourself walk across the map (or drive if you're by car). This is an excellent application. These is one downside... Google Maps is using a constant Internet connection to update the maps, so make sure you have some sort of flat fee data service (or use wifi when available). Otherwise you might be in for a surprise when you receive your phone bill.
GPS Travel Recorder on Apple OSX
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A while ago I started a search for a GPS Data Logger which I can use for adding GPS coordinates to my photo's. The current status is that most of those devices are Windows only. The few that might be OSX compatible aren't sold in the Netherlands (yet).
So I had to find an alternative. There is a sourceforge project called 'MTK GPS Data Logger Device Control' which facilitates certain GPS (chipset) devices to function on multiple platforms. So my best guess would be to buy one of those 'supported' GPS Data Loggers. Due to availability, I bought the Qstarz BT-1000. It's a GPS mouse with navigation and logging capabilities.
First I had to make sure that the device was actually working properly, so I installed the driver and software in a Windows XP Virtual Machine. This was quite easy, and the unit seemed to work properly.
Next thing was to install the opensource program to allow communication between the GPS unit and OSX Leopard.
To get it to work on OSX you need to follow a installation manual. Something I'm not used to :). Needless to say that it took a bit longer than expected.
First of all, you'll need the software from the sourceforge website. Second, you need SuperWaba files (free registration is required) [these files seemed to be present in the download package from sourceforge], and the USB driver. After that you need to follow the instructions in the README.txt provided in the sourceforge package. Note that the script information on the forum has been superseded by the README.txt in the downloadfile (use the provided bt747_macosX.command from the sourceforge download package instead).
Eventually, you'll end up with a directory structure whick looks something like this:
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