Flickr: Popular cameras

Flickr: Camera Finder: "Most Popular Cameras in the Flickr Community
% of members

* Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT
* Nikon D50
* Canon EOS 20D
* Nikon D70
* Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi"




Flickr shows this graphics on their site in the popular cameras section. I think it is in particular interesting to observe the trends of the XT compared to the XTi. When XTi first is out, the curves for XT and XTi continue increasing - XT owners keep their XT and discusses with spouse about switching gears. Flickr attract a few of the new XTi owners. Then suddenly the XT curve starts dropping almost with the same rate as XTi increases; XT owners have made up their mind, or convinced the spouse - lets go for the new stuff. The decrease in XT isn't as fast as the increase in XTi in this period, as some of the new XTi flickr memebers keeps the XT around because it still works, and they are more familiar with it. After a while, this stabilize - some XT owners think XT is good enough, some thinks the new XTi isn't good enough and decide to wait for the next one, some keeps both, etc...

It is also interesting to see that this whole story is completely decoupled from the other cameras, like the Nicons and Canon 2oD/30D. Different camps.

Now, what about me? I (or my wallet (or my spouse)) have decided that I wait until the next one. Really, I want the 40D i guess, whatever that will be. I presume EF-S mount (x1.6 crop), DigicIII, better high-iso/noise ratio, etc. But I'm not sure what my wallet (or my spouse) decide.

That's enough for todays observation. Take care, folks!

New version of qtpfsgui!

Hi there,

Giuseppe Rota has released a new version of qtpfsgui over at sourceforge, it's now at version 1.8.2. I have compiled an universal binary, but have not packaged it up yet. Stay tuned, it will appear here, and hopefully at sourceforge as well, tomorrow. For now, adventurous people can grab a zip-file with the app.

The problems with my 1.8.1 on PowerPC was presumable due to some alignment problem, and should be fixed in this version. For those of you who know what I'm taking about, I'm happy to get some reports!

Update 19.03: One user reports that the colorproblem on PowerPC with the 1.8.1 version is fixed (by upstream maintainer, Guiseppe Rota) in this version.

Second update 19.03: The dmg for v.1.8.2 is now up at one of my other places. There seems to be a problem with sourceforge tonight, but as soon as that is sorted out I will make this as a release there. Future releases of the MacOSX version of qtpfsgui will probably only be at sourceforge, but I will continue to comment on it here.

Python, flickr, and Unicode

I found a script the other day, for generating a wallpaper based on images from flickr. In its original form, the script expected one or more tags as argument and get a number of random pictures from flickr that have these tags. I wanted to make it a bit more interesting, so I looked at API at flickr to see what is available, and discovered the getHotList method. I added this method to the python wrapper of the flickr api I am using (one of those listed under Python at the site), and changed the logic slightly to fetch the 3 most popular tags during the last day if no tags are given as argument.

And now comes the interesting thing. The getHotList gives you tags in unicode, looking like u'mus\xe9edelelys\xe9e' (one of the popular tags today). But when this tag is fed into flickr.photos.search to retrive urls for some images, an exception is thrown, as the method can not use this tag format. More or less obviously, it needs to be on an urlencoded form, as we are communicating through http. Reading documentation here and there, I figured out that unicode was expected, but more on an ascii form. The tag mentioned here should look like 'mus%C3%A9edelelys%C3%A9e'. After quite a few minutes with google, I figured out a possible solution:

tag = urllib.quote(tag.encode('utf-8'))

Looks kind of funny to me, but it works.

Lesson learned: Unicode is not unicode is not unicode.

Maybe I should reconsider

I haven't bother to look very close into the 802.11n topic. As all of you know, we have for some time now been able go to our store and buy Draft-n equipment. That is supposed to be hardware implementing what is now know as the draft 802.11n specification; the new fast Wireless network. And further supposed to be easy upgradeable or cooperative with final Draft-n (or just -n) hardware.

My position on this up to now has been to not buy Draft-n stuff, because of 1) can I be sure it will actually work with final-stuff, 2) there isn't much of client support yet, and 3) I expect the final stuff to be just around the corner. I truly belived that, until I read over at extremetech today:

Draft 2 of 802.11n Standard Sails Through: "Following those changes, Draft 3.0 is expected to emerge in late 2007 and gain approval by early 2008. The IEEE says Draft 3.0 will, for all intents and purposes, be the 'final 802.11n' in all but name, and that the final spec is now expected in April 2009."

April 2009! That's not just around the corner. I'm not sure I can wait that long. At least that is a problem if we want to go for VoIP on WiFi at work. Not that we are seriously considering that at the moment, but it is really something I like to be able to do not very far into the future. I probably have to go back to the place, which I do not know where are, where I can think long and uninterrupted thoughts, figuring out what is the best thing to do. Should we go draft-n now? Should we go draft-n when it is really Draft-2.0-n or is it best just waiting.

Besides, draft-n is popping in on clients all over the place now. Apple have it, thinkpad-which-we-dont-like-after-lenovo-takeover seems to have some new models with it in the pipe, Dell have cards, Engadget have reported on Asus laptops with it, which we do love more than lenovo these days. And the list will go on and on, and I do not want to be left out in the slow and cold dark.

That was just a few thoughts an evening in the middle of march.

Take care, folks!

Updated version of the qtpfsgui

Today, I finally manage to build an universal binary qtpfsgui for MacOSX. This time the only external dependency is Qt, at least should be. The program works for me on intel-mac, but I have to test it tomorrow at work where I have access to a power-mac. Also, I have to verify that I actually have removed the external dependencies as much as possible. If you don't have Qt installed, get it from trolltech. The download link to the MacOSX binary may be a bit hard to find, this is a direct link!

Please, if you like to try the program, go grab it here. And if it works for you, I very much like to hear about it!

I will probably write up a bit more on the process of creating all the components as universal binaries, and then some issues on qmake. But now I have to make some dinner for me and the kids.

Update: I have now verified that this binary also run on PowerPC, MacOSX Tiger.

Update on qtpfsgui

In addition to the fink-packages mentioned in my prefious post on the qtpfsgui DMG image I have created, you also need to install the package libexiv2-0.12-shlibs from fink, since I link qtpfsgui dynamically against this lib. If you get exiv2 from some other source, make sure that you enable shared libs.

My First DMG Image

After playing with MacOSX for quite some time now, I finally created my first dmg image today. I am working on creating a universal binary of qtpfsgui, a program for creating HDR images. I have not manage to create the universal binary yet, but I have at least compiled a version that can be used on intel macs.

I will guess more fancy tools for creating dmg's exist these days, but I found a step-by-step walkthrough on the net which did the trick for me. For future reference for myself, and for others stopping by, I
provide the steps here. Most of this is taking place in a terminal window:

# create a dmg image of some suitable size
1>hdiutil create -megabytes 10 qtpfsgui.dmg -layout NONE

# mount, but don't mount!
2>hdid -nomount qtpfsgui.dmg
# record det /dev/disk returned from that command

# create filesystem
3>sudo newfs_hfs -v QTPfsGUI /dev/disk1 #insert correct device

# eject the unmounted image, and re-mount for real
4>hdiutil eject /dev/disk1
5>hdid qtpfsgui.dmg

# Now, use e.g. finder to put some files into the image, and eject it when ok
# then convert to a readonly compressed image (suitable for 10.1+)
6>hdiutil convert -format UDZO qtpfsgui.dmg -o qtpfsgui.1.8.1.dmg

# mount to check that everything is ok
7>hdid qtpfsgui.1.8.1.dmg

That's all it takes to create the image. If you want to test the program for your self, you are free to grab the image. Beware that before you can use the application you have to install some prerequisites: QT4, libexiv2, libfftw3 and libjpeg. QT4 can you get from Trolltech, the creators of QT4, while the easiest way to get the rest is probably from the fink project. Install the fink packages exiv2, fftw3, and libjpeg. After that you should be abel to use qtpfsgui on your intel mac. If not, bug me!

Remark: I am not in any way resonsible for the qtpfsgui program itself, I am just trying to package it up for the Mac. The program itself is the creation of Giuseppe Rota.

Bye bye, Valla

I følge aftenposten har Valla trukket seg som LO leder. Det er en trist dag for norsk presse og kringkasting, for Hallo i uken og Nytt på nytt, og mange, mange andre som kommer til å savne den mest mandige LO lederen vi har hatt på lang, lang tid.

Alle vi andre? Tja, vi bryr oss kanskje ikke så mye. Ihvertfall vi som ikke er medlemmer. Men alle ledere der ut: Behandle dine medarbeidere rettferdig og riktig. Ikke vals over dem. De må merke at du bryr deg om dem og deres meninger. Så kan du til slutt være sjef og bestemme. Og aner jeg hva Yssen/Valla saken egentlig handler om? Nei, jeg har ikke fulgt med så mye...

Update on the vim-blogger plugin

Today I wanted to install the vim-blogger plugin I mentioned in an earlier post, on another computer. I couldn't remember exactly where I found it, so I just went to google and searched. And figured out it was hard to find - first this very page was the only relevant thing I managed to dig up.

After a while I found what I was looking for, and figured out that proper attribution should have been given the first time I mentioned the plugin. It is "the geek wannabe" over at http://djcraven.blogspot.com who has created the plugin. The plugin can be downloaded here, and djcraven provide some documentation in this post in his blog

Thansk, geek wannabe for the great tool!

Take care

A new place on earth

There is a new fully buzzword compliant place for bloggers available, tumblr. The idea seems to be that it should be really easy to blog, even if you have very little to blog about. Of course, I have to test it out! You can check out my entry into that thing. My review goes like this:

1. Signing up at tumblr is very easy. Go to tumblr.com, hit Sign Up, type in email and a password, and pick a url (the part in front of tumblr.com), and you're halfway there. Wait for a confirmation email, confirm, and you're in.

2. If you're like my, you want to configure template and stuff right away. Up in the right corner you have a link saying "Change settings" once you are logged in.Hit it, and a nice interactive web2.0ish page is loaded, where you can pick a template, and adjust colors, and see a more or less live preview as you test away. On the settings-page you can also adjust what the url of you blog should be. You may even choose a custom domain name which probably mean you can have tumblr on your own domain. I haven't tested that out yet. Finish by saving changes. This should take you back to the front page. If you don't like the templates, you can go custom as well, which brings up the template for you to edit in a simple textarea. You can update the preview by pressing a button. Beware, you should now change colors inside the textare, not using the color-edit-section. You figure out why if you try!

3. Start creating posts. There are shortcuts for regular posts, photos, quotes, links, conversations and videos on your tumblr dashboard. You can also grab a button for your bookmarks bar for quick access to creating link-posts. I have only tested the regular post and the link thing so far, but those seems to work ok.

4. Will I use this? I don't know yet, we will see in the future!

Vi elsker ministere med gode matteegenskaper!

Festministeren, eller idrettsminister som han kalles for anledningen, Trond Giske uttaler i Aftenposten følgende etter Petter Northugs rykk i ski-vm:

Det som skjedde var helt mirakuløst, Petter fikk jo 80 meters forsprang på 50 meter. Det er ikke så verst å være trønder på en slik dag.

Mirakuløst er nok helt riktig ord - Selv den godeste Einstein ville ha problemer med å forklaret et rykk på 80 meter i løpet av en distanse på 50 meter, gitt at konkurrentene ikke beveget seg bakover. Gratulerer Giske.

Og gratulerer til de norske gutta i VM selvsagt. Jeg aner ikke noe om deres ferdigheter i matematikk, men gå på ski kan de ihvertfall. Og det er alt vi forventer fra den kanten.

Ikke min oppgave, men noe må da lagres...

For de som ikke aner hva nam er, og heller ikke kjører mc, les videre eller gå et annet sted. Av og til faller noen utsagn i baren som bare bør tas vare på. Jeg er vel kjent med at dette er en oppgave som egentlig tilligger andre, og jeg er stort sett bare en lurker i baren. Men allikevel, følgende utsagn må jeg bare lagre. Noen (Herr Bang) spør i en tråd (sitat):

Hvor ble de av alle sammen, alle de gamle heltene?

Gikk de hjem?

Hvorpå "mac" svarer følgende bevingede ord:

Det hviskes fortsatt om heltedåder og bragder, om DoD'eres overdådige treff i De Dype Skoger, om DAMN og 900 cc bæplukkere og ovloV, om buddhister fra Flatlands, fartsmonstre fra Finland og besøkende brødre fra Sveariket med uendelige powernaps etter tusener av mil forkledt som arkeolog på italiensk stål. Det ryktes om en velformet hekk innpakket i italiensk skinn som nesten forårsaket en ulykke, en figur med raket skalle, bukkeskjegg og balluminium, en annen med seilersko som motorsykkelstøvler. Det mumles om brorskap, dårskap, barskap og farskap. Om telt og hotellrom, om Baren(tm), om Bjørnepalasset, om Grava, om EBS(tm) og EBB(tm). Om MacAllan og Aass. Om slosskamper med laservåpen, Jägermeister og gocarts. Om vinterlagring av Ducatier i blokkleiligheter, om scottoilere og katter.

Noen gikk sin vei, noen ble, og noen gikk og kom tilbake igjen. Og nye kom til - alle på to hjul, på evig jakt etter neste sving, neste bakketopp, neste vannhull. På nye sykler og på gamle sykler. I bunnløs vinterdepresjon og på jakt etter våren.

Sånn kan de sies. Snart kommer våren, og vi kan atter plukke frem redskapen folkens. Jeg føler snøen smelter allerede.

Will there ever be a new PictureBook?

I guess you wonder what this post will be all about? With good reason, as most of you may never have heard about the Sony PictureBook laptop. Go search for it on google (just use the search box over there at the right) - it was a great ultratiny laptop in its time (think 2000ish). In some respects it is flat out the best notebook I ever had. The list of laptops I have had the pleasure of using in the past currently contains:

• IBM ThinkPad 570
• Sony PictureBook C1VFK
• Fujitsu P2120
• IBM ThinkPad T41p
• Fujitsu Siemens P1510D
• Apple MacBook Pro 17"

These are computers I have used from 1998 until today.

All these was or is great computers, but also very different. Adding Sharp Zaurus C860 and HTC TyTN, which are more PDAs than laptops, and you have my complete list of carryable computers. But as a system administrator I have also been involved in setting up a lot of other models as well, including most X and T models from IBM, different Dells, Fujitsu Siemens, Acer and Asus. So I have quite some background here. When I say that the PictureBook is the best, of course I have to define in what sense it's the best. Sure, it is not a good desktop replacement because it is slow. But I don't need a desktop replacement as I want to keep the desktop computer. The PictureBook is the best notetaking, travel, meeting, watching-tv, sitting-in-the-livingroom-with-the-computer-on-the-lap computer.
The most important thing with the PictureBook is not the size or weight, but the formfactor. Smaller computers exist, and lighter as well. Sony did the smart thing making a small computer that is somewhat wide, but not very deep. By fitting a display with the unusual resolution 1024x480, the display is wide enough for all applications, but you need to scroll vertically. To make that easy, a jog-wheel was put on the right edge, very easy accessible. The width cater for a good keyboard - to this day the keyboard on the PictureBook C1VFK is one of the best I have ever used; on par with the IBM 570. So even though the computer is not tiny to the extreem, it is easy to carry around, weight is just 1kg and because of the short depth, it is very easy to stick into some bag or under your arm or just hold with one hand. Again because of the short depth, you can always use it on plane or bus, even in the cheapest seats. And because of the good keyboard, you can keep typing for hours.
My wish is therefore: Look at the Sony PictureBook, you guys out there creating notebooks. Make something similar, maybe with a 1280x600 display or something like that. Stick a Core duo cpu into it as well as the connectivity, disk and memory of today. Computers like the Oqo O2 are too small to be useable and too big to carry everywhere (we have cellphones/pdas for that). The keyboard on the new small Sony thing, UX50/90/180, is just terrible and highly unusable (yes, I have tested one). Computers like the Fujitsu Siemens P1610D does not have a keyboard in the same league, and the bigger irons we can save for the desktop. Please, give me a good carry-around computer! 1kg is ok, the cellphone is what I carry everywhere. And the size of the PictureBook is also ok. Give us tools we can actually feel good with!

Do I have to change phone already?

According to this post in engadget, there is a new device comming up from HTC:



While my HTC TyTN still does a fine job, there are certain things with this device that seems to be particularly interesting. First the display of course; 5 inch and more resolution than the TyTN. Next better cpu. A camera with higher resolution and built in GPS is always nice to have.



I have to follow this closely. Maybe I can have this while I wait for the iPhone. This device is probably to large to be the only phone in the pocket as well, so I can still keep the iPhone when it appears as my phone. Hmm, though decisions to make!

Do I want the iPhone?

I will not add much to all the buzz about Apple's iphone, there is already way
to much said about it as it's still months out in the future. For us living in
Norway, I guess it will take almost a year before we can get our hands on it,
unfortunately.

What I will say is: First, I want one! Second, as it is clear now that the
operating system is MacOSX, I really hope that Apple is clever enough to add a
terminal, a bash shell and a ssh client as optional install items on a dvd that
will follow the phone. That will make it so much more interesting! If we even
can get a python interpreter and some GUI toolkit to do programming right on
the phone, we will be happy!

The vim blogger plugin

The other day I found a plugin that make it possible to post to blogger directly from the editor Vim. As you see I don't blog a lot, and an important reason for that is that the interface for actually posting something to my blog is so awkward.

The other reason is of course that I do not have interesting things to say all the time. That is not likely to change, but with this plugin I hope I can do at least some more posting.

Velkommen til steinalderen

Forleden dag tok jeg den eneste fornuftige bussen jeg kan benytte til
arbeidet. Jeg bor langs E18 i Ås, og jobber på Fornebu. De aller fleste
offentlige kommunikasjonsmidler jeg kan benytte vil forutsette at jeg bytter i
Oslo. Men Timeekspressen kjører en rute fra Mysen/Ørje som går direkte til
Fornebu. Riktig nok går bussen innom bussterminalen på Grønland i Oslo, og den
bruker lang tid. Men jeg kan sitte på samme buss hele veien, og gjøe noe
fornuftig. Altså et bra tilbud som kan få folk som meg over fra privatbil til
kollektiv transport.

Denne spesielle ruten, linje 9 i Timeekspress systemet, har ganske få avganger
som kjører gjennom Oslo og videre til Fornebu. Faktisk bare 2 om morgenen og 2
om ettermiddagen. Siden dette er en så bra tjeneste med potensiale til å bli
benyttet av en del mennesker skulle man tro at om man gjorde endringer så
ville det bli for eksempel ved å utvide med flere avganger. Men hold dere fast
folkens. Et eller annet supperåd i Oslo har bestemt at slike gjennomgående
ruter - det skal man ikke ha noe av. Buss får gå til Grønland og snu der. Man
kan ikke bare komme her og kommer her liksom, sitte på ut av Oslo igjen på
andre siden. Så fra nyttår avsluttes dette tilbudet.

Så hva er alternativene? Timeekspressen har ingen annen rute som passer, så å
gå av på Grønland blir bare tull - derfra kommer jeg meg ikke videre. Jeg må
nok heller bytte til sporveiens rute 31 på Oslo S. Da får jeg ikke overgang
selvsagt, og må betale full pris, så det blir dyrere. Dessuten er det en
melkerute, selv når den kjører ekspress. Så lang tid vil det ta. Men det er en
fin bonus da. Jeg må vel vente mellom 5 og 35 minutter før 31-bussen dukker
opp, så da kan jeg slurpe inn deilig 20-minusgraders januar luft mens jeg
venter. De har tenkt på alt disse folka. For å ikke glemme all mosjonen. Inn
på buss, av med skjerf og stor jakke (som jeg trenge når jeg skal vente på
31-bussen), opp med arbeidssakene. Oopps, fremme på Oslo S snart, ned med
tingene, på med jakke, skjerf og hansker, ut av buss, vente, hutre, vente. Inn
på overfylt 31-melkerute-buss, glem å jobbe for det er det ikke plass til her.
Setene er vonde også. Dessuten må jeg uansett stå og svette med den store
jakka på. Og skjer. Og hansker.

Nei, takk skal du jammen meg ha. Jeg tror jeg tar bilen isteden. Lenge leve
det kollektive Norge. Og det flotte supperådet som har bestemt dette.

Ha en fin dag da dere!

What to do in a Lisa tutorial

You are sitting there in a training class at Usenix/Lisa06, or any other lisa for that matter. It supposed to be really good. The most knowledgeable person in the world on the target. Ok, that's a bit over the top, but at least hi should be good. Then you just realize that he is a very lousy speaker. You have paid good money to be here, so what should you do? You should not leave, that's not polite. But, see, stuff is happen right there behind your back:

1. Bring up your laptop
2. Pull up your irc-client. Sure you have one, right?
3. Connect to irc.sage.org
4. join #lisa??, insert the current year.
5. have Fun!

It is as simple as that. A large crowd, with all the knowledge and great humor, can make event the most boring lecture quite fun.

I don't know. I'm probably just a bit bored. I think rehearsels should be mandatory for instructors people have to pay that much to get to listen to. Rehearsel in front of a board of referees, that is.

That's my idea for the future!

Take care, and be nice to bad instructors. And tell the organizers what you think!

The nerds are gathered!

With the usual buzz and fuzz, Lisa'06 kicked off tonigth with a beginners BOF (with some oldtimers and not-so-oldtimers sitting in the back). The training chair Dan Klein delivered the goods as usual, with a lot of humor. Everyone feel welcome, there is plenty of sodas around, the wiki and irc-channel (#lisa06@irc.sage.org) is up - everything is in order. Quite a few of the crowd are heading over to a nearby place for something stronger than soda... others just go out for dinner. By the way, there seems to be about 1200 attendees this year. Not bad consider the topics!

Tomorrow morning, at 9:00, the real thing starts, with tutorial and training on lots of interesting topics, by fine lectures. I will start out with a light topic, on distributed source code management systems. We have converted from CVS to subversion, but folks are not satisfied, and have started looking into mercurial (Hg). I have to figure out what is the best option, and what this really is all about. Theo Ts'o (of linux kernel fame) will be the lecturer, so this should be really good.

After lunch I will attend intermediate topics in DNS admin. This is something I don't know much about, and want to look into. Maybe I have time for some reports tomorrow night.

Take care, folks.

From 35000 feets

Wow - internet up in the sky; that is quite cool! Right now I am on a SAS flight to Washington DC (to Lisa'06), cruising away in some 850km/h. As Connexion is shutting down the service, the service is also free. It's maybe not extremely fast, but decent enough to read email and browse the web. And making blogposts as this.

Hopefully, SAS and Star Alliance can find a new partner such that we can keep this great service. If we can get poweroutlets in the cheap seats as well it will be very good.

See you at Lisa, folks, and take care!