Kevin Whitworth / Jacurutu

<Insert big grin!!!!!!!>

The University of York Octopush Club has a new site:

http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~socs599/index.html

and they have a group on Facebook (whatever that is):

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2245317522

I tried to find the old site via the Wayback Machine, but it appears that it's not archived due to the york.ac.uk site policy. So I'm now wondering whether I have a copy on floppy disk somewhere. In which case, I'm also wondering whether I've got a working floppy disk drive, and whether the disk will still be readable after 10 years. If I find it, and I can get it working, I'll post it up here for posterity.

There's a new Stobist challenge out, this time on macro photography.

For anyone who doesn't know about Strobist, it's all about getting your flash off the camera to improve how you light photographs. Well, it's about a lot of other things too. In fact the strap-line "Less Gear - More Brain - Better Light" probably sums it up better than I can, but if that doesn't help, then "What is Strobist?" should. There's lots of info in "Lighting 101" and the follow-up, "Lighting Boot Camp". There's also a whole community linked into all this, and actively pushing back the boundaries, in the "Strobist.com" Flickr group.

Which is where the new Strobist challenges come from. These are kind of an unnoffical-but-official (or should that be official-but-unnofficial?) follow up to the bootcamp series. It's something to focus and challenge all those Strobists out there.

Unfortunately, the rules state you must submit a new photograph - so there goes my change to use the Ladybird photos from last month. Still it gives me a chance to try something new instead. I fancy trying to put some of the techniques from the advertising photography workshop I did a little while ago to good use, combined with the stuff I've learnt from Strobist, and see if I can come up with something different (for me at least). I've got a few ideas, but you'll have to wait an see what they are....

Low Morale: Creep is an excellent animation set to Radiohead's "Creep" showing how depressing life can be in an office. Well worth a look if you have 5 minutes to spare.

Onslaught is a slight update on the same theme as the Tower Defense flash game I posted here about in December last year. Variations include the towers/guns being able to cooperate to produce special attacks, and being able to individually upgrade the range, distance and damage.

Whilst having a play with MSN Search (or Live Search or whatever it's called), I stumbled across a forum posting with a link back to my earlier article on the Nisis G3 tablet and problems with the drivers. If you've been read the comments on my article, you'll know that the link to the drivers on Internet Archive no longer works.

Anyway, the forum gives another source for the drivers:

http://list.driverguide.com/list/company1629/index.html

It appears to be free, and appears to have the v3.10 drivers. However, you have to either register or be advertised at to get them.

Better yet, the Aiptek support site now appears to have v3.10 drivers, plus MacOS 9 and 10 drivers available for download. I've not checked them out in detail, but they look pretty similar to the copy I have. There is also a post on the same thread, dated a couple of days ago, claiming a new set of drivers - v3.15 - also on the Aiptek site. However, I've not been able to find them (but it is 3.30 in the morning, so I might try again over the weekend at a more sociable hour).

If none of this works for you, do leave me a comment here and I'll send you the details of another location (which I don't want to make public for various reasons) which doesn't require registration or advertising.

RIght, enough posts about Technorati. It's all working now, so lets get back onto something else...

OK, nothing interesting to add really, so here's another shot from Sunday's walk at Scar House reservoir - spring lambs by the river Nidd. OK, it's not a fantastic photo, but I don't care.

Oh, and if you're of a sensitive nature, you probably ought to ignore my description of the photo on Flickr. (It mentions barbecues.)

I'll try and find something new later in the week. Possibly of my boss playing rounders!

Just checking that this is pinging technorati.

Not entirely sure it's working as planned, but I've updated a few bits and pieces which should help fix stuff.

Fingers crossed...

[Edited]
It worked! Problem solved by linking the Atom feed as per the How do I get indexed? FAQ.

So, Technorati recommended a Nucleus plugin called PingPong to automatically ping them when you post new blog entries. I installed it, but it's not clear whether it's actually working or not.

So I've tweaked it a bit. I've added a new option to enable logging to the action log. If you set it to yes, it will log each ping attempt, including the fault code and message if it fails. I've also added support for the default Weblogs.com service which is included in Nucleus, but you (apparently) have to disable with the PingPong plugin.

All being well, this now works properly. I can't say I've done an elegant job, and I'm sure there's room for improvement*, but it does what I wanted it to do now. If anyone is interested, I'll post the code somewhere - just leave a comment.

* Actually, I wanted to log the blog title, but couldn't work out how to do it. Learning PHP programming and much more about Nucleus would probably help on that front...

In an effort to enjoy the wonderful weather at the weekend, we went for a walk round Nidderdale. Starting at Scar House reservoir, we walked accross the moors and down past How Stean Gorge to Lofthouse (where we had a rather welcome locally made ice cream), and then back up the River Nidd and accross the dam.

Having lugged my DSL and several lenses around the entire walk, I'm afraid the best photos I got were with the point-and-shoot Minolta. I really need to sort something out to let me take the camera walking but make it easily accessible. (I'm thinking either a zoom holster, or perhaps the Lowepro Slinghshot 300.)

All the photos from the walk are in the Scar House Reservoir set.

Nothing exciting really. I've signed up to Technorati.

• My Technorati Profile

Rather than posting the shots of my ugly mug that I used this for, I'll post a shot of my shiny new Elinchrom Skyport trigger.

I'll try and post a more in-depth report later, but for now lets say they seem to do a good job. If only the universal receivers were available on their own (or Elinchrom did a universal set with multiple receivers - the RX set has 2!).

Now I just need to work out how to light portraits properly...

Despite installing the YAASP Nucleus plugin last year to combat spam comments, the spammers seem to have caught up. So, I've now added the Captcha plugin as a further measure. If this doesn't work, then I'll either try one of the comment moderation plugins, or try one of the comment analysis plugins to try and identify spam comments at source.

I've also added Anti Spam Mail to stop harvesting of email addresses for anyone posting comments.

Finally, I've upgraded Nucleus itself to version 3.24.

Everything seems to be working, but please let me know if you find something not quite right.

Having not posted any photos for a couple of weeks, something new is a bit overdue. So, having got hold of a Kood IR filter (to fit the P-size filter holder), and run a few test shots to see how it works. The D200 has a fairly effective IR filter on in front of the sensor, so I've been running 30 second exposures and quite wide appertures to get anything useable.

Also, the lovely blue skies we've had lately vanished this evening, to I've been experimenting with other subjects instead.

Have a look at the other test shots in my Infrared set.

PS Suppose I better to pay Mark for the filter now...

I discovered (partly via the British Octopush mailing list) that there's an Octopush club up and running at York University again! So, fingers crossed, when term starts after their Easter break, I'll be able to start playing again.

For more info, see their page on the University of York Athletic Union site:

http://www.yusu.org/au/club_octopush.html