Category: Topslakr

Posts by Topslakr

Posted on

Thecus: Dead again….

You would think I’d have learned my lesson already. I’ve been using my Thecus N5200 for a while now and, like clockwork, every 6 months it just dies. I’ve blogged about it before here, a lot, here are some of the posts.

Briefly, I had the drive in bay 1 fail again. It’s always that drive. No errors on the disk the Thecus just looses it. No errors in the logs, no bad sectors, it just disappears. So, I pull the drive out, format it, test it and put it back in. I log into the interface, tell the Thecus to use the disk I just put in as a spare which causes it to rebuild the array.… Click here to read more!

Posted on

Review: JBL Onstage II

When I ordered my 160GB Black iPod Classic I also ordered the JBL Onstage II desktop iPod speaker system. I can’t think of another way to describe it. The feature set of the device is fairly benign, drop the iPod in and you can play back music. It comes with a basic remote to handle some functions such as volume, play/pause, and track skip. Media is chosen by manipulating the iPod itself. It also has a 1/8″ jack on the back to allow for device other than iPods such as computers, ect.

The crazy thing about this device is how good it sounds.… Click here to read more!

Posted on

Progress Check In

I’ve been as busy as ever these past few weeks but I have been slowly making progress on all my little projects. Yesterday Apple posted a few 160GB iPod Classics to the refurb site so I scooped one up. Should be here next week. When I bought I considered also getting an apple dock but at $50 it doesn’t seem worth it for my needs. I did pickup one of the JBL On Stage II speakers. It’s kinda pricy at $129 but it gets great reviews and sounds much bigger then it is. I’ll review it when I’ve gotten a chance to test it out.… Click here to read more!

Posted on

Ramblings: Technology Thoughts from an Amateur Photographer

In a digital world one has to be very thoughtful of where the industry is going before making a purchase. I wish tech companies would be more transparent in this regard though I can’t blame them for being hard to read; No one wants people to stop buying because in two months a new product is going to come out.

In realistic terms this has a large effect on how I buy camera equipment. I believe that, in time, full frame image sensors with be the norm on DSLR cameras. Basically, a DSLR that you buy today uses a image sensor that is smaller then a frame of 35mm film, but high end cameras are starting to come out with an image sensor that is the same size as a 35mm frame of film.… Click here to read more!

Posted on

Underwater Photography

Why is it so expensive to outfit a camera for use in water? I understand the need for divers to have solid and high quality diving cases for their cameras but what about the normal Joe looking to take their camera into a wet environment? I’m not about to spend twice what I paid for the camera for a box made of clear acrylic with a couple of buttons! Not only does a case for the D300 cost double what I paid for the camera but a case for a point and shoot also cost twice what that camera cost!

I’ve found one company making what looks like thick ziploc bags for the camera but they look so damn unwieldy I can’t image them being useful.… Click here to read more!

Posted on

Macbook Battery Life

I’ve just replaced the battery in my first generation Apple Macbook, well worth the $129 dollars. For such a small battery I was always amazed that I was able to get more then 5 hours of battery life and about 9 months ago when it started to drop off a bit I realized how great that was.

I will admit that to get better then 5 hours use has to be pretty minimal, but if I’m in a meeting or surfing the web while relaxing with the screen’s brightness down to it’s lowest setting I have no trouble keeping it alive for 5 hours.… Click here to read more!

Posted on

Install Tiger on a G3 without a DVD drive

Here is a quick tutorial for anyone with an ancient Apple G3 Blue & White Powermac looking to install an OS via DVD. Basically, these machines are some of the first to have Firewire ports on them, the caveat is that they are plugged into the motherboard using a small daughter card. This allows them to be used in the OS normally but makes booting with the or using them for target disk mode impossible.

My first thought after discovering that was to install a generic DVD drive in the mac and use that but the drives on had on hand did not immediately work.… Click here to read more!

Posted on

Thecus N5200 Failure…. Again

Wow, this is getting old. 36 days in and I’ve had another drive fail.. only not really. Sure the N5200 thinks it’s failed but if I pull the disk out and pop in back in, the array rebuilds and all is well. The logs show no errors on the drive, no bad reads or writes, it just disappears. What a wonderful device it is….

Also, even though the email test functions work the N5200 still does not send me email when something like this happens. I still have to log in every few days and check manually. Very nice….

Toplakr

Posted on

Digital Photography Workflow

I shoot a lot of pictures so sorting, editing, and using them can be cumbersome. Over the years I have moved around from application to application trying to find a good way deal with all the data. The biggest issue for me is that the application doesn’t get in the way of my organization of images, but works with it. I don’t want my images stored in some kind of ‘library’ file, I want them stored in flat folders that are easy for me to move around as I need to.

Up until recently I was running Windows or Linux on my desktops but over 2007 I switched to the Mac platform full time.… Click here to read more!

Posted on

D300: MB-D10 Battery Grip

When I picked up my D300 I also bought the battery grip, as I mentioned in a previous post my primary reason for buying it was the ability to be able to use AA batteries if need be. I also bought a spare battery for the camera which also fits into the grip so when it came in I of course tried it out.

When you buy the grip it comes with two battery holders, one for the same type of battery the D300 takes, and one that holds 8 AA batteries. Also of note is that the grip is able to boost the frame rate of the D300 from 6 frames per second to 8 frames per second but there is a catch.… Click here to read more!