Author Archives: Andrew

In Damnation of PHP

Posted on 16 June 2010 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

<rant>Apologies if the title is a bit strong, but I think it’s the nearest I can get to the opposite of “In Praise of PHP”

I’ve just spent a week-end migrating my website to a new hosting server. As part of that process, I had to rewrite all my old ASP code using PHP. Here’s what I learned:

  1. The Apache/Linux community have misleadingly changed the meaning of “ASP”. If you bought a Linux-based hosting service 5+ years ago with “ASP”, it meant a *nix port of Active Server Pages. That worked for me, as I could develop it on Windows. Now, if you buy a Linux hosting service with “ASP” it means “Apache Server Pages”, and the embedded language is Perl. Useless!
  2. PHP has positively the worst combination of features for a language:
    • A c-based language’s sensitivity to case, ending semicolons and curly bracket counts,
    • None of the protections against errors in the latter that a C++/Java (or VB) language gives you, like strong typing and forced variable declaration,
    • No single-step debugging. Now I accept that this may not be 100% true, so don’t all write in with the names of all the debuggers I didn’t find in a quick search for tools on Sunday morning, but certainly I don’t have one at the moment,
    • It runs differently on Windows and Linux, and in a way I haven’t yet understood 100%, so I can only test by uploading to my live website.

That said, I’ve still got it! I’ve managed to convert my blog and my book reviews, and I’ve actually improved on my old code for the latter. Just please let me have VB.NET back for my next major project.

OK. </rant>

Posted in Code & Development, Thoughts on the World | Leave a comment

What I Want In My Next DSLR

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Posted on 14 May 2010 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

What’s missing from the typical DSLR, anno 2010? What could be improved, using simple established technologies, to make the DSLR a better picture-taking device? And why don’t the major DSLR manufacturers do some of these things, which might help sales?

The modern DSLR is a great image making machine, and I don’t want to change it’s core paradigm. But as I use my cameras in different ways, I recognise a number of lost opportunities and frustrations which have yet to be addressed. Now is the time to divert a small fraction of that enormous engineering effort from the hunt for ever more megapixels to the development of software and mechanical features which will make the DSLR a more flexible and better-integrated photographer’s tool.

In this article, I suggest a round dozen ways in which DSLR manufacturers could easily improve the product, mostly through simple software or mechanical refinements, to ease the process of taking and processing photos.

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Posted in Photography | Tagged | 2 Comments

Review: Superfreakonomics

Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance, By Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Posted on 2 May 2010 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

Fascinating, fun, and more depth than the first book

This book is a worthy, and in my view a better, successor to the original "Freakonomics". I found the original book fascinating, but ultimately frustrating because after good beginnings it lost its way and felt light on content. The second book avoids that problem, keeping the thought provoking analysis and insights coming all the way.

The new book  has a very broad scope – trying to understand the economics and human psychology which drive aspects of human existence as disparate as female oppression and prostitution, terrorism, effective medical treatment, altruism, vehicle safety, and global problems such as climate change.

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Categories: Reviews. Content Types: Book, Economics, and Psychology & Behaviour.
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Review: Architectural Photography

Composition, Capture, and Digital Image Processing, By Adrian Schulz

Posted on 2 May 2010 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

A sandwich with not quite enough meat

This is a good, broad introduction to the field of architectural photography which will suit photographers with basic to intermediate skill levels. That said, the level of detail varies, and it will leave some readers wanting more.

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Categories: Photography and Reviews. Content Types: Book and Photography.
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Review: Heresy

By S J Parris

Posted on 18 April 2010 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

Dodgy Dons Done to Death in Troubled Tudor Times

Initially I thought of this book as "’The Name of the Rose’ meets ‘Elizabeth’", as it combines religious themes into a murder mystery set in Elizabethan England, but on reflection that’s not quite correct. This is "’Elizabeth’ meets ‘Inspector Morse’".

Not only are the victims a series of Oxford University academics, who meet progressively stickier ends, but the central character is a lonely polymath with an ambivalent attitude to authority, and his own intellectual obsessions. That and the Oxford locations are both reminiscent of Dexter’s stories, but this is very much its own historic tale, focused on the turmoil caused by the multiple violent shifts in English religion between the reigns of Henry and Elizabeth.

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Categories: Reviews. Content Types: Book, Crime / mystery, and Historical novel.
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Review: Photographic Multishot Techniques

Photographic Multishot Techniques: High Dynamic Range, Super-Resolution, Extended Depth of Field, Stitching, By Juergen Gulbins & Rainer Gulbins

Posted on 21 March 2010 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

Disappointing content, and too much Photoshop

This book should really be titled "Photographic Multishot Techniques with Photoshop CS3". Although it does touch on some other software (in particular a quite detailed look at PhotoAcute) you get the distinct impression that the authors are out of their comfort zone unless they can "do it in Photoshop".

This is a great shame, because multishot techniques such as panoramic stitching and HDR are areas in which smaller software vendors have frequently produced powerful, innovative, inexpensive software solutions. Also, it makes the book less relevant to anyone who cannot afford (or does not want to invest in) full-blown Photoshop CS3.

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Categories: Photography and Reviews. Content Types: Book and Photography.
Posted in Photography, Reviews | Leave a comment

Word Grammar Checker – A Nicely Carribean Flavour

Posted on 4 February 2010 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

This may amuse you. I went to type “Here are my comments” (something I do fairly frequently), but mis-typed it as “Here are me comments”. Word correctly identifies this as incorrect grammar, with a green line under “are”. Right click, accept the suggestion, and “Here am me comments” is deemed perfectly acceptable… 🙂

Even better, “I and I own comments here man” is also deemed fine!

I may explore this further – be afraid, be very afraid…

Posted in Thoughts on the World | Leave a comment

Virtual PC vs VMware Player – Further Thoughts

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Posted on 4 February 2010 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

I’ve added a brief addendum to my piece on Virtual PC technologies. It turns out that VMware Player seems to be able to “fix” unreliable VMs. Microsoft’s lack of attention to compatibility has led me to a better product, and could easily make me a complete convert to VMware!

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Posted in Thoughts on the World, VMWare | Leave a comment

Digital Convergence – Still Waiting

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Posted on 17 January 2010 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

Or… Why I Learned to Hate the HTC Touch HD

A few years ago I toyed with replacing my trusty PDA, phone and digital camera with a combined unit. That was not a success, and I ended up with a second hand SmartPhone, an iPaq 4700 PDA, and the T-Mobile MDA as my car satnav (a job it does acceptably). You can read an analysis of my trials and tribulations, entitled “Annoyance-Based Technology Selection”.

Last year, with my old mobile phone wearing out, I tried again, with depressingly similar results. Someone once said “Those who do not learn from History are condemned to repeat it.” Why didn’t I follow this excellent advice?

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Windows Virtual PC – Breaking Compatibility

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Posted on 17 January 2010 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

Having for years been an exemplar of how to maintain compatibility between software versions, Microsoft have recently suffered some horrible aberrations in this area. Setting aside the user interface horrors of Office 2007, my worst recent challenge has been Microsoft’s Virtual PC technology. This short article recounts the challenges I’ve had with the new version in Windows 7, and how I’ve ended up resolving the problems with a combination of the old version, and a competitor’s product!

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Posted in Thoughts on the World, VMWare | 2 Comments

A Parable

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Posted on 17 January 2010 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

In 2008, Bibble 4, supported by its community of plug-ins, was probably the best RAW convertor available – it was certainly my favourite. Then in late 2008 Bibble abandoned support for it, although Bibble 5 was not yet available (for another year, as it turned out). I wrote a short parable to express my frustration at this inexplicable decision.

Although mainly about photography, I think there are lessons for anyone contemplating a disruptive, rewrite from scratch change to a software product – beware!

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Posted in Agile & Architecture, Photography, Thoughts on the World | Leave a comment

My “Tenset”

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Posted on 11 January 2010 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

A recent post by Mike Johnston on The Online Photographer decried the frequent difficulty of quickly reviewing an online photo collection to understand the photographer’s interests and style, in order to decide whether to invest more time in studying the content in greater detail.

Mike’s solution to this is to suggest that each photographer’s website should start with “A photographer’s ten best, or ten favourite, or ten most characteristic pictures, up front.” He gives this concept the excellent name of the tenset.

Suitably chastened and inspired, I’ve taken this suggestion to heart, and my website now contains my very own “Tenset”, as the first grouping on my gallery page. If you’re not sure what makes me tick as a photographer, the subjects which interest me or the style I am trying to develop, look here. If you like what you see, continue browsing. If you don’t, then go no further.

I’ve also written a short article providing a bit more background on the tenset concept, and how I managed to choose my own selection.

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