Snow in Trees

Taken by Steven L Fournier 2010

This photograph was taken by me on a cold January morning in 2010. The sun was just coming up and backlit the scene for only about 15 minutes. I had just enough time for two shots of this scene. This photograph was captured using a Mamiya 645 6×6 camera on Velvia 50 ASA film. The exposure was F/22 at 3 seconds with a polarizer filter. This is a scan of the original print.

 

My Christmas gift.

Drawn by Emly C. Fournier 2011

This is my Christmas Gift from my daughter. She drew this using a micron pen with a tip of only .005mm. This depicts a scene from my first completed screenplay: “Eden Field”.

Linux Mint 12 – Not quite yet.

Linux Mint 12

As a long time Linux aficionado, I switched to Mint a couple of years ago and quite honestly I prefer it over most any other distro. But when I switched to Mint 12 back before Christmas, I was not thrilled.

I think the developers at Mint knew they had to do something to incorporate Gnome 3 and they’ve done about as good a job as you could ask. the problem is the release the version is simply still too buggy for a production machine like my personal laptop. The install and everything went as planned. Since Mint doesn’t do rolling distributions except with Debian , you have to backup your home folder first. But don’t use the backup tool. Use an imaging program instead. I found this out the hard way. The Mint 12 version tool didn’t resolve my relative paths 100% and I had to correct a bunch of things once I got the backup restored. This was problem number one – but more my fault than Mint’s.

So I got everything fired up and ready to use and at first things seemed okay. Gnome 3 is hideous but I already knew that and didn’t really plan on spending too much time in that environment anyway. So off I go into the land MATE and back to my comfort zone of Gnome 2. Only problem is it didn’t work – at least on my Dell Studio 1737.

The first problem was intermittent shell lock-down tied to the Gnome 3 extension for media player. So I disabled it and everything was good for about 4 hours. then it happened again. And again. And again. This was no shell problem where you pop out and restart. this was a full kernel crash requiring a cold boot – not good. So I disabled ALL Gnome 3 extensions and again everything seemed fine until my laptop went to sleep and wouldn’t wake up. Again cold boot to resolve. Plus by this time my unit had developed the nasty habit of simply terminating whatever program I was using at the time. I’d be in the middle of writing a letter in Openoffice, turn my back and go back and nothing. Oh and no auto-saved file either even though OO was setup to do so every 5 minutes. This is when I began to get really concerned.

So I slogged through forum after forum trying to gather information and i found a few helpful articles. but Mint 12 is so new the forums were more heavily populated with questions than answers. This was three weeks ago so by now I am sure there are better solutions but I had to have a working unit. So last week I stripped off 12 and re-installed 11 and set EVERYTHING back up again. And now all is well.

I broke my own rule in this and learned yet again not to jump too quickly on a distro. I believe Mint 12 will in fact improve over time to the point of a solid OS but as of right now it still has a ways to go. MATE will be really cool once it evolves and I believe Mint will stay on top of the Distrowatch list as it is now. Unity in Ubuntu is putrid and since Gnome 3 is here to stay, Mint certainly has the upper hand with the MATE fork to Gnome 2. But for me, it will have to wait.

Now these are the results of my experience with Mint 12. Your results may differ. If so, I’d like to hear from you.

My personal review of the Blackberry Playbook

When I first heard the rumors in 2010 that RIM (Research In Motion) was developing a tablet computer (code named “Blackpad”) , I knew I must eventually own one. I’ve been an avid Blackberry phone user since ’01 and really liked their security features and the ability to properly interface with Enterprise. I had higher hopes for the Ipad but was very disappointed when Apple finally introduced the model. It seemed to me no more than a glorified Iphone without Flash capability. But through Apple’s design and marketing of Apps, I knew it would be a an instant hit to most people – as it is. I seriously considered an Ipad anyway, but I was very turned-off by Steve Jobs’ comment insinuating he wanted to crush the Android. I am a confirmed Open-Source kind of guy and the comment didn’t sit well. So I waited until RIM would bring out their own tablet to maybe try it instead.

I really liked the idea that RIM was building the Playbook on the QNX platform. QNX is 30 years old but as an embedded micro-kernel type system, I figured the unit would probably be able to do multi-tasking quite well – something Ipads can’t do. So I waited some more. And finally RIM brought the Playbook to the market last Spring. However, I am not the kind of person to rush right out and buy the revision of anything so I sat back to do a more thorough research on the unit and track various websites concerning user reactions.

At first the reactions were extremely positive. The unit did indeed perform faster in graphics rendering and integrated true multitasking into its environment. The first few months, sales were brisk and all seemed good. Then things started to slip. Most informed people knew the unit did not have a native e-mail client and only connected using wi-fi, and for the most part they were happy being able to bridge the unit to their existing Blackberries. But problems began arising as soon as the unit crossed over from dedicated BB users to the general public. And I must lay the blame at RIM’s doorstep because of their lack of a clear marketing campaign and poor planning by rushing the unit to the market.

Many people bought the Playbook thinking it had all the features installed akin to the Ipad and it didn’t. Now personally I believe that most consumers are truly like sheep and will blindly follow each other to the slaughter pen only to realize they screwed up when they get there. And if you are a manufacturer who clearly understands this concept, like Apple, you design your products to appeal to the least common denominator and everybody is happy. RIM wanted to elevate above this level with the Playbook yet didn’t forewarn people that “our product isn’t for everybody”. Then last Summer, RIM announced there would be major changes to the device allowing the installation of Android apps, a native e-mail and contact list, and other improvements included with a new software patch to the kernel. People waited with baited breath, yet there was never a patch. Now that patch is scheduled for February 2012. Oops. Big problem now becomes major problem and there are a lot of pissed-off people out there who hate your guts. But what about the device itself?

It is far superior than most would imagine.

QNX, unlike Apple IOS, spreads input and output to segmented sections of the CPU. Instead of going to the central kernel and fetching requests and then being granted time, QNX distributes these requests from smaller sections of the kernel. This enables the CPU to carry out parallel command sets in a more non-linear fashion. Apple IOS must make these requests one by one in a linear scale which is why the Ipad is so slow in rendering graphics and why it cannot effectively multi-task. I’ve loaded up to eight running apps on my Playbook in the background and only then begin to notice degradation in graphics. Also, since the Playbook’s CPU isn’t needing to spread itself thin with an interface layer for cellphone communication like G3 or G4, the unit is much more free to process data at a higher rate.

The Playbook was designed with no native email or calendar or contacts because all that is a security risk. The Ipad is well known in hacker circles to be easily penetrated by nefarious exploits unbeknown to the user. The transfer of information using email, calendar and contacts using the bridge between the Blackberry phone and Playbook is RSA encrypted. Which makes the Playbook the only tablet computer approved by use in the United States, Australian, and Russian governments.

I’ve owned my Playbook for a couple of months now and find it to be an incredibly versatile device. I have no major complaints with the unit at all. I look forward to the arrival of the updated OS in February and if RIM can get this one right, then they’ll be back in the saddle. However, I doubt they will re-capture the love lost with the average tablet buyer – but this unit isn’t made for them anyway.

Fisher Price PXL-2000

Remember this video camera?

This is the Fisher Price PXL-2000 black and white video camera which was introduced  Christmas of 1988 for $100. It used a small CCD with a whopping 192,000 pixels. It recorded on a standard Chromium Dioxide audio cassette which moved at 16 and 7/8 inches per second. This high speed allowed enough bandwidth (just enough) to lay down 15 frames of video every second (instead of 30). It incorporated an ASIC which is an application specific integrated circuit that generated base timing signals for the CCD. The unit had an aspherical lens and actually had an optical pre-filter behind it. It frequency modulated the signal to lay it down to tape just like a VCR. These things have become very popular in the collector market sometimes fetching up to $800 on Ebay for a pristine unit.

Macs get sick too (Or they can).

Most people believe Mac OSX is impervious to malware, viruses,  and worms but the reality is that no computer is completely 100% safe. OSX is based on Unix so it is inherently much more secure than any version of Windows. However, it is possible for your Mac to become infected with one really baddie called a “rootkit”.

On a Mac you must enter your password to install any application right? Right. And sometimes we like to go to the web and download programs to try out (shareware) and or (freeware). So you get your program and open the disk image to install, OSX asks for your password and off you go. BUT, I bet you didn’t cross your MD5 hash file against the download did you? If you answer, “What’s an MD5 hash file?”, then I know you didn’t. But here is where disaster can strike.

A “Man in the Middle” attack or exploit can happen at this point. What’s that? Well, when people write programs they upload them to the Internet to be disseminated to users through various portholes like Tucows, C/net, Download.com, and on and on and on. Many times from Mac authors, you download from their own website and the vast majority of these guys are okay. After they are trying to sell something and don’t want any bad rap. But, their programs can be downloaded from other sites and edited by a bad guy and then re-uploaded or “mirrored”. then when you download the program and give it your administrator password when you install it – you’re screwed! Because now you have a rootkit installed with the superuser password and it can do whatever it was designed to do, and you never know it is running.

But there is hope and a way to check your OSX install easily. It’s called “Rootkit Hunter” and it is free.

Mac OSX 10.5 running on my system

This is a screenie of Rootkit hunter running on my Mac. It searches the most common Mac rootkit trace files and then checks to make sure all your running processes have the correct hash codes. If it finds something wrong it will inform you so you can take steps to correct it. Now it does NOT remove a rootkit should it find one. Know why? Because most experts will tell you that if you get one, the only thing you can do is wipe your hard drive and reinstall the system. That’s why you don’t want a rootkit. But this program will inform you if your system is compromised and I run mine at least once every couple of months.

You can safely download the program here via verified C/NET link from the guy who wrote it in Denmark: Rootkit Hunter

The JBL-4312 Studio Monitor

This is my JBL-4312 I use in my home system. I was first introduced to this near field studio monitor when I was working at WTBS in 1983. We used these in Master Control and two production control rooms and when I heard them, it was love at first sight. The 4312 has been mostly superseded by newer models in recording studios, but is still used in broadcast facilities even after 30 years.

I run a tube system with a full analog chain (vinyl to tube preamp to tube amp) so I selected the 4312 for its modest 45hz bass rolloff into 500hz. I had tried a couple of different off the shelf Polk units in the 10 inch range but found them to be much to warbly down in the nether regions. When I switched to the full analog chain in ’03, I bought a pair of 4308’s but they didn’t have the response curve or power matching for my 40 watt system. But when i plugged these babies up, I realized that mama was home.

The bass driver utilizes JBL’s ribbon philosophy integrated into a massive 11 pound magnet delivering 10,000 gauss. Coupled with a 3 inch voice coil , the driver is capable of +98db but with very little transient distortion. The coil does become very active unless the enclosure is properly isolated, so be careful going above 5 watts with your contour control activated. And remember this is not a sub-woofer, so don’t expect ‘thumping’ because you won’t get it.

The midrange is driven with a 5 inch, 1.7 pound, .8 inch voice coil and delivers 13,500 gauss at 98db. Personally the mid is a bit dull between 2000 and 5000hz, but that is where the EQ circuit comes in, which is described below.

The high end driver is simply amazing. It’s a 5/8 inch, .7 pound magnet delivering 92db and it will part your hair without EQ. The voice coil is .8 inches and I have never blown one even overdriving to peak distortion.

The really cool thing about this speaker is the integrated control of the crossover frequencies between mid and high. You can set the unit to the room acoustics and fine tune by varying the input curves to each driver. This allows you to fine tune the unit for each genre music you play. Or just “on the fly”. 

The speaker will handle 200 watts of peak but the age of the coils I would be careful exceeding 100 even in transient and especially with digital music. But if you want quality reproduction in a vintage speaker pick up a pair of these. These puppies were very expensive in the day, but a decent pair can be had for around 300 in great shape. They weigh 50 pound each so shipping won’t be cheap. Also these units were to be sold as “mirrored pairs” for proper imaging, so make sure you aren’t buying like two lefts, or two rights. They are 8 ohm inputs, but I run 4 to them and they handle it fine.