jay tech info
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Civil War Era Grips Tintype Rebel
Wired News: "Photographer John Coffer lives in a hand-built cabin in rural New York and makes a living taking old-fashioned metal-plate photographs.
For years, he's eked out a living taking portraits of Civil War re-enactors from the back of a horse-drawn wagon. Now, his distinctive pictures are becoming popular on the chic New York art scene.
...Tintype, or ferrotype, photography employs a thin piece of black enameled iron -- not tin. The technique creates a negative image, but when an underexposed negative is displayed against a shiny black background, a positive image shines through.
Coffer's chosen technique is called wet plate because the photographic plate must stay wet throughout the process of shooting and developing. The plate is coated with collodion -- a flammable, light-sensitive potion historically used to seal wounds -- and then dipped in silver nitrate solution.
While it's still wet, Coffer slips the plate into a lightproof plate holder. He carries the plate to the camera, removes the dark slide protecting the plate from light, and shoots the photo by removing the lens cap for about five seconds. The scene and focus must be determined before the plate is brought to the camera. No last-minute adjustments are possible.
Coffer often uses a vintage French Jamin-Darlot lens, with a camera body he hammered together out of scrap wood.
Coffer fashions his own iron plates. He carefully paints them with a home-brewed paint that contains asphaltum, a form of bitumen, and then bakes the plates in a big metal box over an open fire. Coffer maintained this must be done for at least three coats to give an even, jet-black finish that won't react in the collodion.
Coffer is known for his large-format 11- by 14-inch and 20- by 24-inch tintypes."
Ed Bott - Windows (and Office) Expertise
Ed Bott - Windows (and Office) Expertise: "Brian Krebs writes about his experience trying to clean up a PC that was infested with malware:
I just spent nearly seven hours doing emergency surgery on a Windows PC that belongs to a dear, longtime friend. The experience was so harrowing that I decided to blog it.
Been there, done that. And never again. Here's a partial list of what Brian found:
The user had not installed any Windows updates since mid-2003 (so, obviously, no Service Pack 2).
Antivirus software was installed but hadn't been updated for months.
An Ad-Aware scan found three pages of 'scary-looking toolbars, start-page hijackers and pop-up generators.'
Spybot S&D refused to download updates.
The machine was infected with CoolWebSearch.
EZ Anti-Virus found 38 threats, 'including several very serious computer worms and viruses.'
And so on and on and on...
Brian could have spent seven days trying to clean up this computer and not been successful. I can practically guarantee that despite his well-intentioned efforts, this computer is still compromised. If you ever encounter a PC with even a fraction of the symptoms displayed in this case, the solution is simple:
Back up as much data as you can.
Reformat the hard drive.
Reinstall Windows with all current security patches.
Reinstall all software.
It would have taken much less than seven hours, and he would have been certain that the effort was worth it. Trying to clean up a machine that is 'owned' by someone else - in this case, by many others - is an exercise in futility. Don't bother."
Monday, June 13, 2005
jwz - wireless bridging?
jwz - wireless bridging?: "Also, the average Joe doesn't understand that the wifi channel needs to be tweaked based upon the locale -- if you choose a channel already in use by your neighbor, you've already lost bandwidth. You have to survey the existing nets in use, then choose channel 1-6-11 to get full channel separation (all the other channels have cross-over, thus reduced capacity).
I've deployed over 50 APs and it's not all hearts and flowers. I'm gravitating towards the newer netgear stuff as linksys has burned me with too many flakey units."
Sunday, June 05, 2005
www.weepingwings.com
Aerospace Systems & Technologies, Inc.
Porous, laser drilled titanium panels are installed on the leading edges of the wings, and horizontal and vertical stabilizers. A slinger ring is installed on the propeller and a spray bar is positioned on the windshield for protection. A glycol based fluid is exuded through the panels and flows over these surfaces keeping the aircraft virtually ice free.
Q: What do I clean the panel with?
A: Water (with soaps or detergents) De-icing fluids (As specified in Limitations) Aircraft fuels (Gasoline or Kerosene) Isopropyl or Ethyl alcohol As a general rule, if you would not put it on your Plexiglas windshield, don't put it on your TKS panel.
Q: What will happen if I clean the panels with MEK or something similar?
A: You will get to pay us large amounts of money for replacement panels. TKS panels have a porous PVC membrane. Anything that will affect PVC will ruin your panels.
Saturday, June 04, 2005
NTI Software - Best Ultimate CD & DVD Burning software
NTI Software - Best Ultimate CD & DVD Burning software: "IRVINE - June 2, 2005 – NewTech Infosystems, Inc. (NTI), a pioneer in advancing backup and recovery solutions, announced today NTI Shadow™, the industry’s most convenient, always-on, data backup solution for PC and Mac users. With NTI Shadow, users can set the program to automatically back up their important files in native format every time a change occurs. The backup data is always in sync with the original.
The step-by-step wizard included with NTI Shadow simplifies setup and scheduling, making it easy to maintain real-time, continuous backup of all changed files or just specific file types. You can even archive multiple revisions of important files.
Working transparently in the background, NTI Shadow helps users move one giant step closer to prevent data loss. NTI Shadow’s real-time, and continuous backup scheme puts an end to losing data that was added or modified in between scheduled backups without having to stop virus or spyware scanning programs. NTI Shadow can also be used to synchronize digital content stored on USB pen drives or USB MP3 players.
"
MacInTouch Home Page
MacInTouch Home Page: "[Don Burnstein] How is it possible that 10.4.1 can't boot or be installed into a USB Drive? I can do that with any PC. Is there any reasonable answer for this as I order a [...] Firewire Box?
Mac OS X is fine until you have a problem, then it's every bit as difficult - if not more - to troubleshoot than any PC O/S. Small User base = Small Knowledge Base = High Maintenance cost.
[Davde Howe] While Macs can't boot from USB 2.0 drives, PC's can't boot from FireWire drives... most likely where in the startup cycle the support for the port loads... e.g. FireWire target mode requires an early load/support for FireWire... clue if you can do the same for a PC with USB 2.0.
[Duane Murphy] As I understand it, from other forums that I frequent, the problem is that the USB address that a drive starts up on is not fixed. Where as with FireWire the device identification is unique.
If the order of the USB devices on USB where to change or be booted in a different order, the device identifier for the drive would likely change. It would then not be possible to identify which drive is the boot drive.
This is why the Installer will not let you install onto a USB device. That said, if you can get the system onto the device you might be able to get it to boot, even though sometimes it might fail to locate the device.
You might be able to use Apple System Restore (ASR) to build a boot volume for OS X. There may be other third party applications that might work as well."
