Brilliant executed review of StarWars the Phantom Menance

Just found this video review of the Phantom Menace and it's absolutely brilliant. I'm a bit of a StarWars fan myself but this is just to good and true to miss! Sure the review is almost as long as the movie but the review might actually be better then the movie, so if you only plan to see one of them, consider watching this review then.

Part 1 of 7:


Part 2 of 7:


Part 3 of 7:


Part 4 of 7:


Part 5 of 7:



Part 6 of 7:


Part 7 of 7:

Video of Anti-Glare film application

Video done with the Canon 7D showing how to apply an Anti-Glare film to the MacBook, music by Kate and After (http://www.kateandafter.com). Max time of filming in 24fps full HD is about 12 minutes which results in a 4GB file.

Bye bye glare, welcome sunshine...

From first being very pleased with my glossy screen on my MacBook I soon realized that even if it was great inside it didn't matter how strong the LED backlight was, it would still not be readable outside on a sunny day.

For a while I have been considering changing my MacBook for no other apparent reason than to get a non glossy screen. But once I say http://www.tuaw.com/2009/10/12/swap-a-macbooks-glossy-display-for-matte/ this week I decided that I should solve the glossy issue and save myself over 1000 Euro. I didn't go for the exchange of screens but went for an even cheaper and quicker solution, I ordered an anti-glare protection film from RadTech (https://www.radtech.us/Products/ClearCal-Displays.aspx). The Fedex package arrived from the States today and I'm happy to announce that I no longer have a glossy screen.

First impressions is that it's obviously not as good as getting a non-glossy screen from the beginning but it feels like a really good alternative when you can not get a non glossy screen or as in my case when you already has a glossy screen. The only real drawback that I have noticed yet is a slight shimmering effect from the film, it might be something that goes away when the film has cured properly but I guess not. But the main thing to mention is that the difference between before and after is much greater than I had hopped for and I'm looking forward to try out the "new" screen in the sun tomorrow.

The film is suppose to been specially sized for the 13.3 inch MacBook, I would however have preferred it to fill out the whole screen area to the outer edges and not just the display area. Maybe not a major thing for many people but if it would have gone all the way to the edges it would be hard to see that there are a film on the screen while now you now clearly can see the edge where the film is starting.

I took some video while applying the film and will see if I can manage to upload it for everyone to see and make their own judgment. The whole procedure took well under 30 minutes, but will require a bit of patience to ensure that no or minimum amount of particles get trapped behind the film.

500kr Ryanair

Comedian Niklas Andersson compare buying Ryanair tickets with buying candy in the 80:ies. (In Swedish)

Canon 7D is alive

Got my Canon 7D today. See it coming alive below.



My first impressions are very positive, the camera feels solid and the controls are well layed out. That you can customize most functions to some degree is a big plus aswell. I'm looking forward to push the video posibilities with this one, but the most noticeble from a photographing point of view is the view finder, reminds me of when I first holded a 5D and realized that you actually could see details in the view finder.

The only disappointment so far doesn't have to do with the camera but with Canons "wireless" flash system. I didn't realize that it used light pulses for the communication which feels outdated. If I like to use light I should be able to use any primary flash, idiotic. The function seems to work but I was expecting something similar to the pocket wizards so got a bit disappointed on their technology.

100th

At last I made my 100th skydive. Will try to get some training in the wind tunnel shortly as well, one hour in the tunnel should be almost as much training as all my previous 100 jumps.

Canon 7D is official

Canon just released the details for Canon 7D looks really promising even if only has a APS-C sensor instead of a full frame. The main news is 1080p movie mode in 24 and 30 fps. Completely new AF system etc etc. Read all the glorious details at: http://www.dpreview.com/previews/canoneos7d/.

And it should be available this month for $1699 for the body only.

All the ways Murphy can interfere with RJ45 termination...

I been terminating a fair amount of network cables with RJ45 connectors during the years and I have had a good track record, until now...

I have pulled wires in my apartment and was terminating them to RJ45 for computer usage as well as extensions for USB and control signals.



From experience here are the things that I know Murphy could do prior to today:

1) All the wires are not pushed in enough into the connector, resulting in no connectivity on that pin. Start over and ensure the cables have an even length when arranged in the right order.

2) One or multiple wires didn't get the right position. Make sure to check the wires properly before punching them down. Just try again until you get it right, it might help to strip a bit extra of the wires and then cut the excess once the order has been arranged.

3) One or multiple pins is not pushed down properly. Try to crimp it again and if that doesn't help it's time to get a new crimp tool.

4) Cutting through the inner wires while removing the shielding. This is easily done, and I would require anyone to redo a cable if the inner core of any wire can be seen. Having damaged wires could lead to intermittent faults which you don't want to risk!

5) Placing the cables the wrong way around. Easily done if you stick the cable on the opposite way from what you are used to. If not a critical cable you might get away with doing the same on the other side since the pairs are still intact but preferably the cable should be redone.

6) Mixing EIA-568-A and EIA-568-B. For resons which I don't know there are two standards for how the pairs should be connected, EIA-568-A and EIA-568-B. For some reason USA only recognize the A standard resulting in patch panels and other equipment to only be marked with the A standard sometimes. The B standard is supposed to be an improvement and is recommended in Europe. The important thing is to follow the same standard on both end of the cable, if in doubt I would suggest EIA-568-A since that's supported by everyone. If the standards get twisted, just redo one side to correspond to the other.

As you understand the connectors do go wrong sometimes. But if you are careful and inspect the connector properly before terminating it most of the problems can easily be avoided.

So when I terminated the wires at home I did as I always have done and ensured the wires was in the right order roughly the same length and that I managed to push them all the way into the connector. After I finished all of the wires and started testing them I found out that I had a short on the first cable. I thought I had been quite gently when I pulled the wires and started to trace the cause of the problem. Using a standard multimeter I could see that the fault must be in or near the connector because of the minimal resistance to the fault.

I cut of the connector to validate that the problem was on the connector end. I continued to strip of the shielding from the cable completely to ensure I hadn't damaged the inner cores. Everything looked fine, I then cut the connector in pieces to ensure that the cables wasn't touching each other. I _STILL_ had the short on the cables, I could not believe it! I checked and double checked and finally I found the cause. The tubes that the wires are pushed in to ensure they get to the right location didn't go all the way to the end of the connector, at the very front of the connector the conductor of the stranded cables that I had used had been pushed towards the front wall and made a connection with the neighboring wire.



After finding the problem on the first wire I checked all my connections and all of them had at least two wires short circuited one of them had 4 out of 8 shorted but non of the cables that I done with the Cat5e cable was without a fault.

So I can now add a 7th possible problem when terminating RJ45 connectors, pushing in the cable to far. The fact is that even after knowing of the problem I could still not ensure a proper termination.

7) Short circuit by pushing in the wires to far into the jack. Solution: get other jacks! The plugs

This whole story has convinced me to start using Platinum tools EZ-RJ45 (http://www.platinumtools.com/index.html) connectors istead. The wires are pulled through the connector and their crimp tool then cut of the excess, should be both quicker and more secure and most important Murphy can try to put a number 7 on me then!

Low fares big surcharges

Just booked some flights for two person with Ryanair and their price model is just ridiculous.

The actual cost of the tickets are four times as high as the marketed "fare" price. And there isn't possible to remove the extra charges for wheelchare insurance which is part of the taxes, web check-in or the handling fee for paying with a credit card.

618.00 SEK Total Fare
1021.62 SEK Taxes, Fees & Charges
220.00 SEK Passenger Fee: Web Check in
220.00 SEK Passenger Fee: Handling Fee
-----------------------
2079.62 SEK Total Paid


Unfortunately the same trip with any of the other airlines would have been around 8000 SEK which was to much for me to give the finger to Ryanair. Lets hope they get broke so we can't be tempted by their unfriendly business methods any more.

10 000 meters almost barefeeted

Back home after Midnattsloppet in Göteborg.

So it was time again this evening, for those how haven't followed the blog I could recommend to take a look at my previous post http://tansaki.blogspot.com/2009/06/no-pain-no-gain-or-no-shoes-running.html first.

As you all should know now (if your did read the previous blog post) I have experimented with running bare feeted. Unfortiently it does take some getting used to so since I needed some new running shoes and a friend recommended the Vibrant 5 fingers I thought it would be a great thing to try. On Wednesday I registered to the Midnight 10 000 meters race in central Gothenburg, on Thursday I bought the 5 fingers shoes and run 2300 meters. Maybe not the best of preparations but the more interesting to see how it would work out.

Normally when you buy new running shoes you need to run with them for a while to get them to fit your feet and minimize the risk of blizzards. I didn't really have time for that. After the test run of 2300 meters I did however noticed that I got a small blizzard on the Achilles' tendon on my left foot from the new shoes. With hope that there wouldn't be any more blizzards I got changed and put a piece of Compete over the blizard on the Achilles' tendon an hour before the race and went down to the start.

The race went fine and I'm quite pleased with the time of 42 minutes and 25 seconds, slightly more then 4 minutes over my personal best but with my preparations I'm pleased it wasn't more.

So how did the shoes perform? Remarkable well I would say, I did get a small blizzard on the inside of each foot. Considering how my feet looked after running without any shoes at all I was almost "disappointed" that my feets looked so good after the race. The biggest blizzards that I got was not from the shoes themselves but from the timing chip and my foot pod that I use to get the speed while running. Since the foot pod doesn't work if it's not positioned horizontally on the foot I strapped the chip and foot pod around the foot instead of around the ankle. On normal shoes and also on different models of the 5 fingers you do have straps or strings to put the foot pod on but that's not available on my shoes as you will see on the pictures below.

So if you like to give bare feet running a try without massive blizzards I can highly recommend the 5 fingers shoes from Vibrant, you can find them at http://www.kettlebellcenter.com/en/art/fivefingers-classic-m-walmut-brown.php among other places. And if you don't want to take my word for the benefits you can also hear it from Tim Ferries at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdluEiApUtQ


My feet and the 5 fingers back home after the race, the blizzards on the left foot is from the chip and the foot pod and not the shoe.


Maybe not the best shoe if you don't like to be noticed.


Underside of the shoes.

Voddler - A free movie library on the net

First I must admit that I had missed all the fuzz about Voddler, guess that is what happens when you spend 10 weeks at sea.

The story really started this spring when I signed up as beta tester for a service called Galaxter. At the time it was only providing previews of movies but I knew that the idea was to stream full length movies. Let me return to this soon...

A few weeks ago I started to get e-mails from a company called Voddler, if it wasn't for the fact that it was based in Sweden I would probably considered it to be spam. The first e-mail message was wishing me a "filmtastic summer" a bit currious I went to www.voddler.com only to be greated with the question if I was a Voddler. A What? I didn't quite feel like signing up for yet another service which I didn't know what it was and probably didn't need. That was the end of my Voddle experience I thought. I got a few more e-mails regarding updates and actually replied back and told them that I wasn't interested in any more updates.

Less than two days after I had been taken of from the e-mail list I wanted to see what had happened with Galaxter while I had been away. Judge of my surprise when I was redirected to the Voddler home page. Finally things started to make sense to me.

After a quick research I realized that Voddler was what Galaxter was supposed to become, the answer for legal movie downloads from the net. Before I give you my first impression and run through of the Voddler client let me tell you a little bit about Galaxter and what I think the Voddler webpage is going to be if they continue where Galaxter was six months ago. Galaxter was in many respect what the Voddler client is today but without full length movies. You could play trailers etc directly from the site in HD and just as with the Voddle client the delay was minimal.

Enought about the history, Voddler has been called to be the future for online movie distribution and yes the future is looking bright.



The first thing that you get when you start the client is the profile window, I suppose that the idea is that the whole family can have their own profile and their own favorite movies etc. This functionality is however not part of the beta yet.



Once logged in you have three options, Movies, TV-series and settings. So far there is no TV-series available. The settings page is just to adjust the video window and subtitles position, so lets focus on the movies, that's the reason you are still reading isn't it.



The default view is the wall, where movie covers are stacked together. Once the selection is moved over a movie some more informaion is displayed and when selected a new subpage with the different options is shown. Besides the wall there is also a list view with the benefit of showing the details and options directly as the selection moves. See below.







Once a movie is selected it can be played and depending on how much info that has been filled into the database their trailer and list of cast can also be shown.



Trailers start playing straight away while you have to watch a short commercial before watching the selected movie. I hope that they will keep the commercials to a minimum, while I been testing the client I have ony had to watch a single commercial before the selected movie started.





All interaction is done by 7 keys, left, right, up, down, space, enter and escape, all to make it easy to use the system with a normal remote. During playback you can pause the movie by pressing space or get the menu with alternatives by pressing enter.

There is also a settings page which can be accessed from the menu during playback to change the language subtitles and audio settings. See below.



---

So after that rundown of the basic interface what is my impression?

First of all there is no hiding it, this is a beta, and there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to ensure that the client will work for everyone. For example wouldn't the playback work with the graphics card in my PC but to my surprise everything worked relatively smoothly under Parallels on my Mac, a true Mac client has been announced once the beta phase is over.

But the most important thing is ofcause the movie quality and the availability. The movie quality is really good, I have attached screenshots so you all can judge for yourselves but I would guess that the video quality is as good as the source it been taken from.

How about the availability then? Unfortunately at the moment there is some occasional problems with getting the movies to start and on my PC I didn't manage to get any movie to play properly. On the Mac however the movies starts as expected most of the time. My main concern regarding the availability is however the fact that this is streamed video, it will require a reasonable bandwidth for the normal movies and around 10 MBit or more for HD content. So for movies on the run I suppose we have to look elsewhere still. But hopefully they will provide us with a solution that enables predownloaded movies to be watched.

I hope you enjoyed the introduction and let me finish by wishing that you also will get a filmtastic summer.

No pain no gain, or no shoes running...

A friend of mine told me that the Africans and the Jamaicans all are brought up running without shoes. The problem with running with shoes is that your feet gets to much support and comfort. Since the shoes is handling a lot of the stress you are not using the body as it's designed. Instead of handling the load by a proper stance the stress is transferred up to the knees and hips which is that most "modern" people today get their problems. The other benefit is that you should be able to run faster as well and that isn't bad is it.

So I had to try running without any shoes and it went better then I expected, run for about 40 min and it felt good while I was running. As expected however I now have blood blissards on almost all my toes and heals.

So what have we learned from this first try of no shoes running? Blizzards are not only made by bad shoes; you can get them from no shoes as well :-). My tip for others that don't like to get blizzards is to use thin shoes without any damping, that should theoretically give the same benefits for your stance and technique while saving your feet from the rough surfaces.

Russian iron, I'm hooked

I was formally introduced to Kettlebells yesterday and now I keep finding myself wanting to pick up my new piece of iron constantly... I usually don't like to train with weights but the simplicity of the Kettlebell and the fact that a single weight can be used to exercise the whole body got me interested. The fact that you can do endurance training was also something I found very interesting since I will spend the next 10 weeks on a boat which isn't the best place to run at.

For more details or to get your own piece of russian iron goto http://www.kettlebellcenter.com/.

Express delivery, less then one working day from USA to Sweden

I ordered the Google Android Development Phone on Friday afternoon local time. Just after lunch today I received the package with the phone from UPS. That what I call express delivery.

See the unboxing pictures below.

Don't get a Mac if you don't like Microsoft crashes...

... or make sure not to use any of their software. If you have been following my blog for a while you might think that I work as a tester with all the problems that I get. Is this the state of the technology in 2009?

After struggling with Microsoft Word 2008 for the Mac all to many times I thought it was time to let the world know how unstable this program is! I have had similar problem with multiple files now and I don't know why I even consider to use Word while I have OpenOffice, Pages and other alternatives.

The problem comes random and results in that the program freezes and you have to force quit it. The main problem beside the pain of restarting the program all the time is that you will loose your last changes. I really thought that the time when you had to save your documents between each sentence was past.



Thank you Microsoft that you once again show how real software should be done....

Out of jail keycombination for Linux...

I'm not sure if I have problem with Parallels or the Linux installation which I run within Parallels but regardless the VM system has stopped working properly now and then.

Previously I had to restarted the VM the hard way but I have not found a nicer way to restart the system that I like to share:

1. Hold down the Alt and SysRq (Print Screen) keys.
2. While holding those down, type the following in order. Nothing will appear to happen until the last letter is pressed: REISUB
3. Watch your computer reboot magically.

The instructions come from this site: http://lifehacker.com/software/linux-tip/gently-restart-a-frozen-system-298891.php

Lost my e-mail, kind of...

Just ordered webhosting with my domain provider, and they was kind enough to change the DNS records for the e-mail aswell, not such a big problem if it wasn't that they removed the inteface for me to reset the DNS to the actual value, so right now I lost e-mail for one of my domains. Thanks Loopia!

Panorama and HDR photos

The yacht Skat in Gothenburg in November 2008.


Panorama over Marseille December 2008.


Section from the panorama in natural size over the Viex Port area.



Photos from the inside of two of the churches in Marseille.

Four and a half month and nothing to show for it

Today we had a meeting with the contractor for the upgrade of the A/V and IT systems onboard. Since I joined the yacht two months ago I have asked the contractor company how they are supposed to provide the solution to our TVRO switching since I didn't understand how there proposal would work with our equipment. In two months they have not been able to produce any details and every time I have asked them they have had a new excuse and insurance that I would get the details shortly.

During the meeting today one of the senior managers from the company again ensured us that they would solve our request during a morning meeting and that a college had the drawing of how the system was supposed to work and that I would get a copy of it this evening or early tomorrow.

Around 17 o'clock he was back onboard and told us that they are abandon the contract, and will not do the work that has been agreed and payed for. This is four and a half month after the requirements was presented to them at the Monaco Yacht Show and more then two months after we went into the dry dock and the work was supposed to start. So here we are half-way through the dry dock period and have to get new contractors onboard.

The reason that they gave to abandon the contract was:
1) That they could not guarantee the function of the system since we still have problems with the domes onboard.
2) That they couldn't meet our expectations.

When he told me that they couldn't meet the expectations I asked him which of my three expectations that they couldn't meet:
1) Provide a reliable change-over for the RF signals from the different domes in case of failures.
2) Upgrade the distribution of A/V onboard from composite to component.
3) Do a tidy and nice looking installation.

He was unable to tell me which of these expectations that they where unable to meet. And I find it hard to see what has changed with the dome situation during the day. To leave a customer in the middle of a contact when they are on a tight deadline is not a good way to do business. I really wonder what their real reason to abandon the contract was. I surely hope hope that not all companies in this industry operates in this way...

The Kaleidescape experience - more than just cover art

This week I visited Integrated System Europe (ISE) in Amsterdam for two days. I took the oppertunity to go to some of the Kaleidescape training to get more details about the system. The training was quite basic because of the time constraints but the interesting parts was the Q&A and the presentations of how Kaleidescape operated as a company.

There are four things which I like to share:

1) Kaleidescape consider it their problem if the system doesn't work as a user would expect. An example of how they apply this is when importing DVD or CD:s which are not recognized by Kaleidescape. Instead of telling the user that they should enter the details themselves Kaleidescape offers to provide the user (or dealer) with shipment boxes so the disks can be shipped to them so Kaleidescape can enter the details for the user into the system.

2) Developed the system from the ground up. Kaleidescape have built everything in their system, from their OS - Keaos, to the hardware all within the company. Both the software and the hardware was designed just for their own purposes and the complexity has therefor been minimized which in return has maximizes the reliability.

3) Dedicated services, Kaleidescape is more than just the hardware that you buy, it's the experience from using their meta data of DVD:s and music, all freely available to the user.

4) Full support, this is something that I actually got verified just as I came back from ISE. Kaleidescape has a 24/7 monitoring service of all their equipment, if any problem is reported by the hardware Kaleidescape will be notified and they will contact the user (through the dealer) to handle the problem before the user even have noticed the problem. As I came back from ISE I had an e-mail waiting for me that there might be a problem with one of the drives in the server. They asked me to verify that it was properly sealed and if that was not the problem they would go ahead and send a replacement unit out to the dealer. I checked the drive and just as they had expected it was not properly inserted. This really improves the trust in their system and you are probably thinking like I did that this must be how Kaleidescape get their concurrent income - was I wrong, Kaleidescape does all of this free of charge, the user would not even have to pay for the replacement unit if it had to be sent out. And in the extremely rare situations that the data would be corrupted Kaleidescape will restore the data for you. That is what I would call a full commitment!

I can only say that my impression of Kaleidescape so far is nothing but great, you surely pay the big bucks for the gear but there simply is no comparison to the value that you get with it. If you like to get satisfied customer make sure that you consider their problems to be your own and than build your organisation around that idea, I believe that is one of the reason behind Kaleidescapes success, besides their grate products of cause.