The new MagSafe

Posted on 2 July 2012 by Terry Chay

In nearly every review of the new MacBook Air or MacBook Pro Retina, a big list on the minus column has been the new MagSafe 2 connector.

Mostly because this necessitates the purchase of a $10 part for all ones other’s adapters that is (admittedly) easy to lose.

But overall, I feel this deserves a big plus. Since I’ve had my MacBook Air, I have not once put my USB cable into my MagSafe outlet. This was an almost daily occurrence, so much so that I noticed I unconsciously nurtured a habit of using the right USB port first.

Now if they can only bring back the low profile connector and license MagSafe to third parties. Well that, and create a FindMyMagSafe2Adapter app. Because I seemed to have lost one of mine already.

Nikon D7000 availability

Posted on 25 January 2012 by Terry Chay

When will the d7000 be availible in stores again cant find one anywhere?

The Nikon D7000 is produced in the superfactory in Thailand. This means that production was halted because of the flood in Thailand last year. The supply channel has emptied out during the holidays. Production should be back online this month and you’ll find availability you should find the stores will all have availability by March at the latest.

Try to get onto a waiting list at your local camera store. Due to the way Nikon is regulating prices, other than sales tax, the price should be the same as online. It will be much lower than trying to purchase on eBay today.

Monitor cover for Nikon D5000/D5100?

Posted on 18 January 2012 by Terry Chay

Sometimes I get bored and answer questions on the Nikon USA forum:

Is there a monitor cover which will work with the D5100? I am thinking of a cover similar to the BM-8 that came with my D70.

The 5100 has a flip out LCD, so there is no need for a monitor cover. Instead, just flip out the LCD, rotate it, and flip it back in.

There are third party sites that make “screen protectors” which are thin films designed to protect the LCD from scratching. I don’t know how effective or useful they are since the glass or plastic used to protect the Nikon LCDs has improved over the years and quality varies from model-to-model. Plus, it is simply not very likely that a dSLR camera LCD will get scratched—dSLRs just aren’t often found in your pocket along with your keys a la iPhone

For instance, my Nikon D3 with a glass screen and no plastic protector doesn’t have a scratch even though I’m and outdoor shooter and have tens of thousands of shutter clicks. Similarly, my GF’s Nikon D5000 doesn’t have a scratch because it is easy to rotate the display to a safe position for storage and transportation.

BTW, avoid most “anti-glare” thin film protectors unless you are sure you know what you are doing. They work by frosting the film to scatter the reflection. However the material used in the frosting may be too close to the size of the pixels in the high-density monitors of a camera LCD. When that happens you end up being able to see the individual red, green and blue pixels in the display making it annoying.

Scrivener Ninja

Posted on 28 December 2011 by Terry Chay

I recommend Scrivener as the application for doing long-form writing. But since I’m no longer in academia and I don’t write creatively, I don’t often use the program—unless my blog articles run away from me. (Besides, my vim keybinding addiction is enabled by QuickCursor). Even when I do, it is pretty much limited to its MultiMarkdown export to HTML for notetaking.

The other day, I noticed they added a tutorial document to the application itself. I decided to go through it.

This screenshot shows both normal and “smart” collections, split screens with audio dictation handling, custom templates with custom icons, and that I love my boo

Very cool. I learned a lot that I didn’t get (not) slogging through the complete(ly boring) user manual.

Now if only if I can figure out some reason to actually use the program…

Her phone has more levels

Posted on 26 November 2011 by Terry Chay

In followup to this post

And yes, I had kimchi at Thanksgiving.

Update

Junobi Within Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, South of Market, San Francisco, California Nikon D3, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G 1/320sec @ ƒ2.8, ISO400, 28mm

The Thunderscan story

Posted on 20 November 2011 by Terry Chay

I’m surprised I never got around to mentioned this, when [I promised I would][nans second story]. Since it’s been years, go back and read it, and come back. I’ll wait.

…

In high school, I owned a [Thunderscan][Thunderscan]. For those of you too lazy to click on the link, this was a device that would digitize photos by replacing the ink cartridge of your ImageWriter, [a dot-matrix printer][dot-matrix printer], popular with Macintosh computers of the era.

(For those of you too young to remember what a dot-matrix printer is: in the old days, our printers were slow enough that you could watch an episode of [Cheers][Cheers] waiting for it to print out an article or “graphics” —the latter of which was whatever came out of [Print Shop][theprintshop]. And they were so loud, that a popular accessory was huge muffled box to place the printer in, in order to contain what can only be described as the primal periodical scream of the then nascent personal computer, “Why the f*&k do I have to be tasked for the next half our printing up a sinfully ugly banner for [your terrible P.T.A Yard Sale][review the print shop]?”)

Now imagine something that did the reverse (put print into the computer) by scanning it line by line. And realize that a typical “line” of text back then was actually 24 “lines” to this scanner.

This was a Thunderscan.

Continue reading The Thunderscan story after the jump→

Why Siri

Posted on 20 October 2011 by Terry Chay

From The iPhone Blog:

Equally interesting is what [Siri] portents for Apple. Just like the App Store began the intermediation and exclusion of Google by offering users a better experience interacting with data in apps than via a web search, Siri continues it by theoretically making it easier and more enjoyable to engage in query/response with Siri than with Google. In typical fashion, Apple isn’t building a search engine to compete with Google, they’re building something to obsolete the current conception of search engines. And they’re not doing it by becoming a walled garden — there’s no profit in that. They’re doing it by becoming a walled gate with a multi-directional toll system.

Great observation. Reminds me also of how Apple got out from under the Microsoft Office Sword of Damocles with Safari and iWork.

I like FaceTime (and headphones)

Posted on 19 October 2011 by Terry Chay

I like FaceTime The Richmond, San Francisco, California iMac screencapture View at 100% to see me

As there becomes more integration into the iOS and the Mac, I will be using this more.

Continue reading about headphones after the jump

Gordy’s Camera Straps

Posted on 8 October 2011 by Terry Chay

Somewhere along the way, I ran into Gordy’s Camera Straps.

Gordon Coale is a guy out in Washington state who hand makes leather camera straps. Last year it occurred to me that one of his straps would perfectly match my Hirano case (which you may have seen before). Hand straps are simply a good idea for nearly any camera, because they’re the most minimal safety leash for photography: you don’t really need a one normally; but if something bad happens, you’ll be glad you have one around your wrist. Plus, when you do it right, they look gorgeous:

The food camera and Gordy’s strap Barracuda Sushi, Castro, San Francisco, California Nikon D3, 24mm f/1.4G, SB-900 1/50 sec @ ƒ2, iso 800, 24mm

I bought this Gordy’s strap almost exactly one year ago.

Continue reading about camera straps and cases after the jump→

Office Porn

Posted on 6 October 2011 by Terry Chay

A few weeks ago, there was a thread on on of our internal blogs at work concerning our home office setup for productivity and comfort. One of them mentioned an old blog post of mine, and it occurred to me that it’s been five years since I’ve shared my office.

Here is what it looks like today: