I have an iPod and an iPad and wanted to try FaceTime between the devices. The problem was I kept getting a busy signal because they shared the same Apple ID and registered email address. The solution was to create two registered email addresses, then have one unique address on each device.
Create two registered email addresses for your Apple ID:
Then on the first device remove one of the two email addresses:
On the second device remove the email address that appears on the first device:
Moon Over Edmonton
Originally uploaded by Sangudo
A rare photo taken with my “Canon EF 2x II Extender”. I do not use it because my preferred photography style is action. The extender slows the camera down and the images tend to be softer. It’s hard enough getting a sharp action shot.
I was surprised how quickly the moon was rising. After I composed the shot I used the 10-second delay timer and I could literally see the moon drifting across the view finder screen.
Via Flickr:
This was taken on 2012/01/07 and the full-full moon is scheduled for the 2012/01/09. I don’t know, it looks pretty full to me. The lunar calendar says 94% full.
I was recently upgraded to Microsoft Access 2007. I took an old Microsoft Access 2000 database and imported all the queries and reports into the 2007 version.
There were some hurdles but one hurdle that I could not find anything on Google was when I exported a report to a text file, some lines would be chopped off or cut off, basically missing text at the end of the line.
What made this even harder to resolve was:
-it did not appear to be due to the length of the text as some long lines were just fine
-the print preview button showed a complete report
-the design view showed a complete report
-it worked when I exported to Microsoft Word 2007
Here is a sample of the report:
National Sales Report
---------------------
Date: April 9, 2010
Region Sales
------ -----
East 2,000
West 5,000
South 1,500
------ -----
Total 8,500
And when exported to a text file it looked like:
National Sales Re
-----------------
Date: April 9, 2010
Region Sales
------ -----
East 2,000
West 5,000
South 1,500
------ -----
Total 8,500
The fix is this:
-Select your report, right-click, and select “Layout View”
-Drag the yellow/orange box to fit the page
-Save and close
The report should now export to a text file without being chopped off. Layout view??? Who knew? I have been using Access for 12 years and not once looked at a report in layout view.
Others have reported problems with exporting date fields to a text file. The fix for this seems to be converting the dates to strings, but I have not had this problem.
On March 17, 2010 I had another chance to go out and shoot the Edmonton Racewalk Club, when Tim Berrett was the guest instructor.
You can find my pics on the club’s website here.
I almost did not get in as the facility has a strict “no camera” policy but when they realized I was part of a larger group, they allowed it. I’m thinking some person just showing up with a camera would not be allowed to photograph.
I am amazed at how I keep learning more and more about my camera. I have probably read about these tips in the past, but I guess I learn more from doing. You can read my tips then go out there and see for yourselves!
RAW – Noise
First of all I have gradually started photographing everything in RAW format. The added control over the final image is amazing, but the large file size is something I could do without. So I shot this event in RAW and when I went home I was not very happy with the amount of “noise” or graininess of the photos.
I have shot in low-light situations and am used to having noise, but this time around it was quite significant. I did not recall this problem from last year but realized back then I shot in jpg. My Canon 50D must do some extra noise reduction.
RAW – Less Shots
I also noticed my shots per second decreased when shooting in RAW. It must be due to writing the large files to the memory card. I usually start shooting before the action starts so I don’t miss anything, not the best technique, but it works for me. This time around I felt I was missing several key frames.
Lens Filter
One final tip, and probably obvious to everybody but me, is I was getting absolutely NO results with my wide angle lens. Why? I left my circular polarizing filter on the lens. I am already in a low-light situation, and I made it even worse by having the filter block the rest of the light.
I took the filter off and pulled off some shots near the end.
I recently upgraded to Excel 2007. I used to have Excel 2000 and would connect to external data, in this case an Access 2000 database, and embed it in the worksheet using a Microsoft Query.
Well when I converted my spreadsheet AND database to the new 2007 versions, the embedded Microsoft Query stopped working! The fix is more complicated than I thought, but it works.
The hardest part was when I tried to rebuild the query in Excel 2007 with these steps:
-go to the Data tab
-Get External Data from Other Sources
-From Microsoft Query…
And the resulting window has a tab “Databases”, and in the past I typically selected MS Access Database. But now when I selected it, I was only prompted to find files of type *.mdb when an Access 2007 database has a file type of *.accdb.
The fix is this:
-Run the Microsoft ODBC Administrator (C:\Windows\System32\odbcad32.exe)
-On the tab User DSN click on “Add…” and select “Microsoft Access Driver (*mdb, *accdb) from the list
-I gave it a data source name and description of MSACCDB
-Press OK
Now from Excel 2007 you should be able to connect to the MSACCDB datasource, which will allow you to select an Access 2007.accdb database.
FYI, here is the resulting connection string:
strConnect = "ODBC;DSN=CarsInProcess;DBQ=C:\Data\TEST.accdb;DriverId=25;FIL=MS Access;MaxBufferSize=2048;PageTimeout=5;"
At the beginning of 2010 I had an opportunity to photograph some University level volleyball, albeit from the stands, I still had a great time. When I found out the 2010 CIS Women’s Volleyball Championship was coming to town, I immediately bought tickets for the March 5-7th event.
You can checkout the photographs on my Flickr account
here.
Again I had to photograph from the stands, but if possible I moved around to try different angles. Well it was quite different this time around. Even with my Canon 50D and Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L (IS) USM lens, it was hard to take action stopping shots.
For the tournament the organizers put a temporary floor over the gymnasium floor. The old shiny hardwood floor was like a mirror which reflected a lot of light. This new floor had a bright yellow court with the sidelines being dark green, all made out of some light-sucking material. As well the yellow floor gave everybody a yellow tint.
To make matters worse, the illuminated billboards totally threw off the camera’s light metering making the shots dark. I had to be careful not to get a billboard in the direct shot.
What worked?
If I went higher into the stands so the yellow court took up most of the photo, it reflected more light, and helped me get action stopping shots.
Getting down right into the first row with my Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM lens also worked. I would not say this is your typical sports photography lens, but it worked great in this light.
A friend lent me his Canon EF 85mm f/1.2 L II USM Lens, which actually gave me the majority of “keeper” shots.
After watching a game, you get to know who the key players are, so I would follow them with the camera. They always get the ball… eventually.
It also gave me a chance to practice my Adobe Photoshop skills. I found a lot of shots had distracting backgrounds so I would de-saturate the background colours to make the players stand out.
Next Time
Keep shooting after the play. I missed a lot of dives across the floor because I stopped shooting. I also missed a lot of emotion shots, when a point was scored and the team and the bench cheers.
It really depends on the gym you are in, but this gym was great for sitting in the first row. I could bring out my big lens without worrying about heads in the way or blocking somebodies view.
Just a quick tip, I was recently working on an Illustrator project and I wanted to convert a line into a dashed line. Illustrator would not let me!!!
You see, if I had a normal line, I could create a dashed line, but I had a line with a brush stroke. You can’t convert a brush stroke to a dashed line.
Yeah, it might seem obvious to most people, but I’m not most people…
I was dabbling with some Flash Actionscript where I would have a program on the web read in a text file. This way all I had to do was change the text file and not worry about the program.
Anyways, I do not have a lot of experience with Actionscript and I swear I did not change anything but now my program was FAILING with these errors:
Error #2044: Unhandled ioError
Error #2032: Stream Error
What happened? I renamed my text file “sample.txt” to “sample.txt.txt” by accident. My computer settings were set to “hide file extension” so when I didn’t see the .txt, I thought I fixed it by adding .txt, but in reality I totally screwed up the file name.
Amazing Cactus and Succulent Facts #28
I was disappointed because I missed the June issue of the Cactus and Succulent Society of Alberta (CASSA) newsletter. What can I say, it was a busy summer and my illustrator skills were not (and still are not) good enough to meet a timely deadline. BUT I was able to get into the September issue!
I know my biggest time waster is not planning enough. So I spent a lot more time planning out this new character, how he would be jumping, and practiced the shading. Then, as always, time ran out so I reused the cactus vector from previous illustrations and quickly threw together a side of a house and a brick patio. Yeah, could be better.
I am definitely spreading myself too thin with trying to learn this adobe suite, .NET, photography, and on the side of all of this house renovations and a new language. Something has got to go, and I think it will be Illustrator. For the amount of hours I spend on it, I am not getting the satisfaction. Not that I will stop using it, but it will be more in the context of helping with my other projects.
I have an xbox 360 and I am not a gamer, I don’t even plug it into the internet. I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with some avid gamers, who RAVED about how they are streaming videos and photos from their computers, through the xbox 360, and onto TV. They made it sound so good I had to try, I mean how hard could it be?
In The Beginning
All the documentation led me to believe I must use Windows Media Center. Okay, I am running VISTA on my computer, it comes with Windows Media Center, this should be easy.
FAIL. It was looking good at first, BUT since I don’t plug in the xbox 360 to the internet it suddenly required about a million updates. I was also suspicious when now my computer is suddenly getting prompted for a Vista Service Pack update.
FAIL. Vista was happy, the xbox 360 gave me some kind of code to connect with, I did that, and the installation aborted.
FAIL. Tried and tried again, got to the point where I didn’t even have time to write down the code, and the installation would fail.
FAIL. Apparently there is some “issues” with non-Vista firewalls. HEY I have a non-Vista firewall!!! Well if you are running a Vista firewall, there is a simple “Allow Xbox360″ setting. If you are an unlucky bastard, Microsoft gives you a whole page of ports and settings to unlock and lock and activate… @#$%@#$^@. Yeah. Good-bye non-Vista firewall, Hello Vista firewall!
SUCCESS. My xbox 360 now recognizes my Vista computer.
FAIL. I maximized the window for Windows Media Center and my mouse disappeared. So what you say? Use the keyboard you say? HA AHA HAAHAH AH AHAAHA HHAaa. Amateur. I have never used Windows Media Center, so as a noob I must traverse the menus to hopefully find some kind of settings tab, yes with a keyboard, BUT not all menus allow a “go back” feature. Yup, on some menus you actually have to click on the tiny green circle in the upper left corner to go back. Try doing that without seeing your mouse.
SUCCESS. I can see my photo and video collection on the xbox 360!!!
FAIL. The xbox 360 does not play DIVX movies. Although it has the ability to show me a thumbnail of the movie, it says the movie is not recognized.
In the END
I discussed this with the gamers and on the Vista computer, I should load windows MEDIA PLAYER (NOT Media Center), and SHARE my library from within MEDIA PLAYER with the xbox 360.
SUCCESS. The xbox 360 prompted me – WOULD YOU LIKE TO INSTALL THE REQUIRED CODEC FOR THIS VIDEO FORMAT? You know what, yes dammit, yes I would.
ugh… somewhat of a fail. My wireless network CHOKES on streaming videos.
ugh… somewhat of a success. I can burn a DVD of DIVX videos and play it in the xbox 360. BUT now I don’t want to…
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