SymCAImport ported to PHP

and moved off-site.

It's been a while, but I finally found some time to convert the SymCAImport service from Coldfusion to php. This means that the service run @ Dreamhost. The only thing that remains is migrating my mail to a hosting service. After that, the servers I've got running at home will be obsolete.

The new SymCAImport URL is http://symcaimport.redelijkheid.com/. The CA certificates which were uploaded to the old service (symcaimport.redelijkheid.com) will remain there for the maximum of 7 days, but they are also accessible under the new service (/symcaimport/ca/<certificate>.der). An automatic forwarder will be used after 7 days to redirect everyone to the new location.

New uploads can be done by using the new URL.

Errors, warning, or other questions can be placed in the comments.

UPDATE: permissions on the download location were incorrect. Should be working correctly from now on....

Off Camera Flashing

Ordered a Phottix remote trigger set Tetra 1 x triger 2 x reciever kit last night for a couple of bucks (due tomorrow from Arend Handelsonderneming). About time that I started to get more familiar with creative off-camera flashing..... Did I say 'creative' and 'I'?

A good time to start with some self portraits to get used to the lighting..... So expect som creepy pictures here and on my flickr page. :)

Website Downtime

It seems that my hoster Dreamhost ran into some problems yesterday. Lot's of websites returned 'Internal Service Errors' or ' Service Temporarily Unavailable'. These errors only occurred when addressing php content and not while accessing static html-files. So most likely a PHP (config) 'feature'.

The thing that annoys me the most about this downtime is not that it lasted almost a day, but the lack of communication. No mention of problems on their status page, and support-feedback was also thin.

I rather have a couple of days downtime, and knowing what the problem is (hard disk crash, power failure, human error), than 1 hour and not (ever) knowing what happened.

Anyway, the problem seems to be solved (for now), but I'm keeping my fingers crossed on the feedback issue.

UPDATE: Got feedback from Dreamhost.com that everything should be working. No feedback (yet) on the cause of the problem though.

How Average Is Your Life?

Or great, of even f*cked up?

Read about the things that are not making it to Twitter. The real things in life.

Starting for the 'average Joe' there's this MyLifeIsAverage website. For those who do (a lot) better, there's this MyLifeIsG(reat). And finally, for those whose life went completely down the drain a FMyLife ('F' as in F*ck :) ).

It's like Twitter; addictive, but different and a whole lot funnier.

(Is there an iPhone app yet for these services?)...

(Not that I really care, since I don't own one)

New Nikon 70-200 f/1.2 VR

for sale at the Media Markt in Groningen (NL) for a lousy €3499,- A real bargain if you ask me (or just an enormous blunder....)

New Nikon 70-200 f/1.2 VR? (click image for the original pdf)Since the ad runs till May 17th, you need to be quick.... very quick :)

Nik Sharpener Pro for Lightroom

Sharpener Pro is a piece of software to sharpen the photos just before printing/publishing. Different formats require different types or levels of sharpening. As you can imagine a 4x6 image requires different sharpening parameters than a life size poster.

Nik Software provides the tool for doing this relatively easy. Custom user pre-sets can be made. So you've got easy access to the settings you use most.

After making Nik Color Efex Pro and Siver Efex Pro Lightroom compatible, Nik Software released an Adobe Lightroom compatible version of Nik Sharpener Pro (which also works like the 'old' Photoshop plugin). Just as the other two pieces of software this one is also an update which can be downloaded from the Nik website.

After installing the software, a name and serial number are required. Just use the serial number of your original (v3.0) software to register the software.

Screengrabbing in FireFox

On Windows PC's I use SnagIt from TechSmith for screencaptures etc. On OSX I use the built-in capabilities of OSX for capturing screens, windows, or areas, but there was something missing...

SnagIt can capture large windows within *cough*Internet Explorer*cough* or Firefox as one image. So no need for a capture, scroll down, capture again etc. This feature isn't available in OSX, or any (commercial) capturing software I could get my hands on. Until I ran into Screengrab.

Screengrab is a FireFox extension which allows you to save an entire webpage as an image (jpg or png). Excellent extension if I may say so.