I had a teacher in college (Mr. Clark) that was a great teacher.  He had some interesting outlooks on life, however.  One of his favorite things to say was “It takes a fool to believe that there’s only one way to spell a word.”  Of course, he liked this saying because his spelling was a little…well…creative…and his typing was even worse.  But, as someone who learned to read phonetically, his belief rang true for me.  In fact, I think many words are misspelled, really, what’s the deal with silent letters?  Take,  “psychology”, why isn’t it spelled “sikology”.  Now, that would make sense…

I was also recently reminded about rules in photography.  We are taught that photographs need to be well balanced, sharp, properly exposed, etc.  Is that really the case?  Sure, sometimes, when that’s what you’re looking for.  There are just as many times where adhering to those principles is just plain boring.

Tonight, I was at a meeting.  It’s a large room, minimal lighting.  I had my G10 with me, so the fastest I could get the lens was f/2.8.  Even wide open I was looking at a 1/2 second.  I could have pushed the film speed from 100 to 400, or even 800.  That would take me to a 1/8 or an 1/16 of a second.  Still, perty slow.  Then I remembered…the rules…maybe it’s time to break the rules…

How’s this for an interesting progression of images…

Here is the room

Now, let’s have some fun…

Left-right motion

Spining motion

Shaking Camera

After the meeting, I was still kind of excited about this.  So, I broke a few more rules on my drive home…In this picture, I was shooting at 1/4 second, wide open, top down, holding the camera as high as I could.  This is a picture of a car dealership on Harbor Blvd in Costa Mesa.  I was going about 40 MPH.  It looks like the strip in Las Vegas.  You can’t tell me we’re not having fun now…

Car Dealership - Drive by

Here’s another unexpected result.  This is the Trinity Christian Center in Costa Mesa as viewed from the freeway.  Again, hand out the top of my car like a snorkel, taking a picture without looking.  It came out looking like a carousel, or a UFO…not a building.

Trinity Christian Center - Drive By

One final image.  This, if you can believe it, is a Carl’s Junior Restaurant.  Again, taken from my car while driving.

Carls' Jr - Drive by

So, maybe there is something to the “rules” we’re supposed to follow, maybe there isn’t.  I’m going to start evaluating these rules society gives us.  I may keep some, I may throw others out, I may make some of my own.  I see more fun in my future…

Somehow I managed to miss this last year…have fun with it…

Welcome to Google TiSP

I have been working on a BizTalk project at the office. The learning curve on BizTalk is amazingly large, and continues to surprise me.

For example, I have an orchestration that deals with inventory transactions. One of the output types is a bin-to-bin transfer. In our application we are either transfering goods from inventory to a transit area, or from the transit area to inventory.

The inventory location is included in the location, but depending on the transaction type, it may be used as the source or the destination of the transfer.

I setup a simple functiod script in my map that takes the transaction type and the location. I connect this script to the source bin. The script simply looks at the transaction type and returns either the transit area name, or the location in the transaction. A similar script is used for the destination bin (flipped, of course).

Now, here’s the interesting thing. I copy the code from one functoid to the other and just changed return values. I left the function name alone.

There were no compile errors. No run-time errors. But, it only used one of the scripts. I ended up with my source and destination the same.

Once I changed to have two function names, all was good.

Moral of the story…use unique names in all of your functoid scripts.

I’ve been working with BizTalk, trying to learn it and do a project at the same time…not something I recommend.

One of the big challenges I’ve had in getting started is the Envelope/Document schema relationship. Specifically for reading data from SQL.

Here are some pointers I can offer to others…

1. Create your document first. Then create the envelope. You can then include (not import) the document.
2. When creating the port, make sure to setup the XML Pipeline with the DocumentSpecName and EnvelopeSpecName correctly. These should be the fully type name, not the namespace#schema name.

I was looking at the e-ink website and found a product gallery. In there are most of the products I already knew about that are based on ePaper.

There was one that surprised me. A Chinese company named Jinke. They have two models of readers available. The first, model V8, has a 6″ 800×600 ePaper display and supports WOLF, HTML and text files. There is also a convert to move DOC, PDF, Excel, PPT and various image formats to WOLF. The best part is, it runs $299 and it’s available.

Now, the downside…it’s available in two versions. The first can read Chinese and English documents and has a Chinese interface. The second can read Russian and English documents with a Russian interface. It seems to me that the US/European markets would be much larger than the Chinese/Russian markets.

Jinke also has a model V2 that’s Linux based and is only available to OEMs. It looks to be the same size and specs. With the exception that it supports all western languages and the basic file types without a converter. Hmm…maybe there’s a market here…

These devices are kind of interesting. With the slow refresh of ePaper, user interfaces are kind of clunky at best, so they have added a second display using LCD technology. This allows for a snappy interface where it’s important and the great readability of ePaper where it’s important.

There are a series of soft buttons down the side and an integrated flip cover to protect the display.

Maybe I could help them create an English/English version…

So, I didn’t get the other one…I went to a different store and they had an EF Sabre on sale…how could I pass it up.

Unlike the Blade CX, this is more of a regular heli (I recently learned they are not ‘copters or choppers). So, it is more difficult to fly.

I got an extra batter and an aftermarket charger. I’ve been through three batteries and still can’t hover. But, I did find some notes online describing a process to teach yourself to fly. So, this is where I’m starting.

The heli made it through my initial attempts undamaged. I did have to adjust the rotors several times, but they’re designed to fold when the strike something. This reduces damage.

More on flying later in the weekend.

Some of the guys and I went to the local hobby shop to look at helicopters. We looked at a number of things and talked to both employees and customers. The most likely candidate is the eFlite Blade CX. This is a small helicopter designed for indoor flight.

One of the key differences between this and most others is the counter-rotating main rotor. This avoids the need for a tail rotor and simplifies the flying process.

It’s a cool little design, rotation (turning left and right) is accomplished by changing the speed of the two rotors in relation to each other. There are actually two motors in there, one for each blade. All other controls are done in normal helicopter fashion.

About the only thing I’m told this bird won’t do is some of the acrobatics. But, I think I’m OK with that. Our goal is to get several of these at work and setup obstical courses at work…

I still need to get approval from my finance department, but I’m working on it…I just need a photo gig and I’m set.

So, I’ve been using the Discovery 645 for a little while now. I really like the feel, it took a little getting used to, I was trying to have it point at my mouth, but it seems to work just fine at its resting angle which is more straight down.

The only problem I’ve really had is with the charger. The headset doesn’t firmly snap in and can slide loose. This chance is increased, because the charger doesn’t stand straight up. While laying on the desk, a shift of papers or cords is all it takes to really mess things up.

But, I’ll have to work on that a little over the weekend, I’m thinking about a wooden base that I can stand the charger in.

I received my new headset on Friday. Charged it up and headed for Code Camp. So far, I’m perty happy. The sound quality is very good on my end, but I’ve gotten mixed reviews on the other end.

The device is very small and fits in the ear. I was having problem with ear loops conflicting with my glasses, but this has solved that problem. Since the device is so small, it doesn’t have much of a battery. They quote a 3 hr talk time, but they also quote 9 grams (1/3 of an ounce).

If the talk time is a problem for you, they have a little sleeve you can store the earpiece in and it will charge from a AAA battery. Even this is small and easy to carry. It’s a smaller diameter than a dry-erase marker.

It looks like I’ve got a new headset…