This morning I did a bit of tidying up, one of the things I needed to tidy up was a single lying around on my desk: The Proclaimers - 500 Miles (Comic Relief 2007) single. I searched Isohunt and PirateBay to see if I could download it, but neither had it. So I had to copy it myself, but it is a DVD single so I couldn't just copy the tracks using EAC.
So I used DVD Decrypter to rip the video and 2 audio tracks (which are ripped as video tracks). Then I found the Gordian Knot guide PDF and followed that to convert the video file to a x264 encoded OGM file. That took quite a while (most of the morning) to go through everything that needed doing and for my PC to encode it. Then I just demuxed the audio files and used RazorLAME to encode the audio tracks. After that I deleted all the extra files created during the video creation and demuxing process and renamed the files appropriately. Then add ID3v2 tags to the audio tracks using tag&rename. Finally, put the files in my Music Folder and watch/listen to them to check they were okay.
The video seemed as good quality as from the DVD, although the file size was very large (362MB). It featured lots of famous people, some who I recognized, some who I didn't and even included David Bellamy. DETTOL!!!
Yesterday morning I went out on a walk with Rad, then at tea time a policeman came round and wanted to talk to me. Apparently someone saw me taking a photo of some children and had reported me to the police! He came in and saw the photo I took (some children dancing on the village green in the village we stopped in to have a cup of coffee) and said it was okay. He was quite reasonable, although advised against taking pictures of children in future.
Also yesterday Alliance & Pester finally transferred the money that I had transferred on 10th June. Only took them over 2 weeks and numerous phone calls to an 0844 no, often being on hold for 5 minutes or more.
After lunch I tried taking some macro stock photos of my soap, then edited and uploaded them. Also looked through my recent walk photos and uploaded some of them to the photo websites I'm a member of. I read some of the forum posts on the photo websites as well.
After dinner I watched a couple of episodes of Pixel Perfect with Ben and went on the pinternet a bit more. Then in the evening I went in the garden and took some macros.
Food
Breakfast: Lemon marmalade toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Slice of chicken with Mediterranean style salad and Mayonnaise sandwich; a few of Ben & Rad's crisps; grapes; clementine; slice of raisin madeira cake; Gold bar; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Sausages; Roast potato; Yorkshire puddings; Broccoli; Baked Beans; Sweet potato. Pudding was Strawberries with Strawberry whip. Coffee. A few Roses.
Saturday, 28 June 2008
Wednesday, 25 June 2008
Macro
Yesterday and today mainly just been taking some macro photos and reading about macro on the pinternet.
This evening went on a walk to the field just behind the estate and took my FZ5 with Raynox DCR-250 and did some macros with that. A lot easier and less weighty/bulky than the D200 with reversed 24mm and SB-800s, but the image quality is a lot worse, possibly due to diffraction as I was shooting at f/8.
Food
Breakfast: Lemon marmalade toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Deli ham with Mediterranean style salad sandwich; 2x plums; eccles cake; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Slice of cheese and tomato pizza; slice of pepperoni pizza; chips; Mediterranean style salad. Pudding was chocolate swiss roll with chocolate custard. Coffee. Roses.
This evening went on a walk to the field just behind the estate and took my FZ5 with Raynox DCR-250 and did some macros with that. A lot easier and less weighty/bulky than the D200 with reversed 24mm and SB-800s, but the image quality is a lot worse, possibly due to diffraction as I was shooting at f/8.
Food
Breakfast: Lemon marmalade toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Deli ham with Mediterranean style salad sandwich; 2x plums; eccles cake; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Slice of cheese and tomato pizza; slice of pepperoni pizza; chips; Mediterranean style salad. Pudding was chocolate swiss roll with chocolate custard. Coffee. Roses.
Thursday, 12 June 2008
What event is triggered when you expand a select element?
Spent most of today trying to find out how to use javascript to make a select element expand. It doesn't seem to be a click, mousedown, mouseup, focus, activate, controlselect, select, change, or selectstart event that causes it to expand when you click on it, so I guess its probably something built into the browser that can't be accessed via script.
I also received my Adidit M1 remote shutter release from ebay and the 3.5mm female to 2.5mm male adapter from DealExtreme today so I plugged all the bits together with my ebay radio flash trigger and it did indeed trigger the camera when the camera was set in M mode. In autofocus mode it didn't seem to do anything. Also, it kept the camera awake (didn't go into sleep mode, the shooting info was always visible on the top LCD of the camera). Hopefully I can use this with the HiViz photogate trigger kit to get some automatic bug photos (hopefully bugs in flight!).
I also listened to Woody Guthrie all day again.
In the evening I played on Sims2, watched the last episode of Springwatch, listed my Zigview S2C and Creative CB2530 Wireless headphones on spleenbay and bought a 3 dvd set documentary about the American Civil War and an El Nombre dvd.
Food
Breakfast: Honey toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Cheddar cheese with sweet onion relish and iceberg lettuce sandwich; grapes; slice of marble cake; orange montana; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Shepherds pie; mixed veg; Tom Ketch. Pudding was coconut tart with loads of raisins/sultanas in it that Moohar bought from the market. Coffee. Caburys Rose chocolate.
Supper: Coffee; shortcake; dark chocolate digestive
I also received my Adidit M1 remote shutter release from ebay and the 3.5mm female to 2.5mm male adapter from DealExtreme today so I plugged all the bits together with my ebay radio flash trigger and it did indeed trigger the camera when the camera was set in M mode. In autofocus mode it didn't seem to do anything. Also, it kept the camera awake (didn't go into sleep mode, the shooting info was always visible on the top LCD of the camera). Hopefully I can use this with the HiViz photogate trigger kit to get some automatic bug photos (hopefully bugs in flight!).
I also listened to Woody Guthrie all day again.
In the evening I played on Sims2, watched the last episode of Springwatch, listed my Zigview S2C and Creative CB2530 Wireless headphones on spleenbay and bought a 3 dvd set documentary about the American Civil War and an El Nombre dvd.
Food
Breakfast: Honey toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Cheddar cheese with sweet onion relish and iceberg lettuce sandwich; grapes; slice of marble cake; orange montana; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Shepherds pie; mixed veg; Tom Ketch. Pudding was coconut tart with loads of raisins/sultanas in it that Moohar bought from the market. Coffee. Caburys Rose chocolate.
Supper: Coffee; shortcake; dark chocolate digestive
Wednesday, 11 June 2008
Share trading
This morning I started to defrag my 1TB Hard drive, after breakfast it was still going, I didn't want to use my comp while it was defragging so I went on Wii fit for a bit. After that my comp was still defragging, I didn't really have anything to do while waiting for it and needed to check my work email, so I stopped it defragging and will need to remember to start it again tonight before I go to bed.
Then I checked my spleen mail and went on the pinternet for a bit. I sorted some pics I took recently (mostly rubbish although a few okay of a fly I did yesterday). I found the fly pics were a bit underexposed, although they had looked good on the camera screen when I took them. I went in the garden for a few minutes and then it was lunch time.
After lunch I went in the garden again and tried to photograph some more bugs. There was a fly, but it kept moving when I put the camera near it and anything else I saw tended to fly away whenever I got near them.
After being in the garden for a bit I came in and checked my spleenmail again. Then I checked my bank account, and saw the money from my HiSave account hadn't arrived yet. I went on selftrade to buy some stuff with the money I did have. In a spreadsheet I put the market price per share of what I wanted to buy, then divided this by 1.95 to get the price in GBP, then divided 1000 by the GBP price to get the amount of shares I should be able to buy for £1000. Then in selftrade I either entered the amount of shares I should be able to get for £1000 or entered £1000 as the amount to buy, clicked best offer and made sure the cost/amount of shares matched up to what I was expecting. Of course you need to remember to take into account the £12 trade fee so you will be paying slightly more.
I wanted to buy AIGC (All commodities) but the price being offered on best offer was quite a bit more than the market value. So I decided to try and set an at limit buy on it, but it was a bit confusing. After reading the help I found:
After that I went on the pinternet for a bit, finished sorting my photos and then backed up my pictures.
After dinner I watched Springwatch (was at 6.30pm today) and then played on Sims2 for the rest of the evening.
Food
Breakfast: Chocolate oat crunch cereal; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Seriously Farmy cheddar cheese with iceberg lettuce sandwich; banana; slice of raisin madeira cake; cup o' tea.
Afternoon snack: choc chip cookie; orange juice.
Dinner: Meatballs; pasta; mixed veg. Pudding was strawberries. Coffee. Piece of Ben's dreamy; caramel rocky; 2 roses chocolates.
Then I checked my spleen mail and went on the pinternet for a bit. I sorted some pics I took recently (mostly rubbish although a few okay of a fly I did yesterday). I found the fly pics were a bit underexposed, although they had looked good on the camera screen when I took them. I went in the garden for a few minutes and then it was lunch time.
After lunch I went in the garden again and tried to photograph some more bugs. There was a fly, but it kept moving when I put the camera near it and anything else I saw tended to fly away whenever I got near them.
After being in the garden for a bit I came in and checked my spleenmail again. Then I checked my bank account, and saw the money from my HiSave account hadn't arrived yet. I went on selftrade to buy some stuff with the money I did have. In a spreadsheet I put the market price per share of what I wanted to buy, then divided this by 1.95 to get the price in GBP, then divided 1000 by the GBP price to get the amount of shares I should be able to buy for £1000. Then in selftrade I either entered the amount of shares I should be able to get for £1000 or entered £1000 as the amount to buy, clicked best offer and made sure the cost/amount of shares matched up to what I was expecting. Of course you need to remember to take into account the £12 trade fee so you will be paying slightly more.
I wanted to buy AIGC (All commodities) but the price being offered on best offer was quite a bit more than the market value. So I decided to try and set an at limit buy on it, but it was a bit confusing. After reading the help I found:
- Bid Price - this is the highest anyone is willing to buy at
- Offer Price - this is the lowest anyone is willing to sell at
- The limit price you set is in pence, so if you want to buy a share at £12 you need to enter 1200.
After that I went on the pinternet for a bit, finished sorting my photos and then backed up my pictures.
After dinner I watched Springwatch (was at 6.30pm today) and then played on Sims2 for the rest of the evening.
Food
Breakfast: Chocolate oat crunch cereal; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Seriously Farmy cheddar cheese with iceberg lettuce sandwich; banana; slice of raisin madeira cake; cup o' tea.
Afternoon snack: choc chip cookie; orange juice.
Dinner: Meatballs; pasta; mixed veg. Pudding was strawberries. Coffee. Piece of Ben's dreamy; caramel rocky; 2 roses chocolates.
Thursday, 5 June 2008
Testing
After breakfast I cleaned the bird seed tray which I put in to soak and meant to clean yesterday, the birds always seem to use it as a toilet and if put seeds in it only the fat wood pidgeons eat from it.
This morning I did just a tiny bit more macro testing, then I posted to the thread I started on dpreview about a week ago (which only had 2 replies) to see if anyone could tell me why DOF using a lens with a diopter lens is so much shallower than using a reversed lens or extension tubes.
Then I tried to take some photos of the bluetits going into/coming out of their nestbox. I found:
After that I tided up some of my camera stuff and took all the sheets etc. off my bed to go in the wash. I went on the pinternet for a bit and then had to do some work. After lunch I did a bit more work, then checked my spleenmail. Did a bit more work, went on the pinternet, then got Ben back from school.
Went on the pinternet a bit more then sorted some pictures. Went on the pinternet again and then edited my Safari style form buttons illustrator file to make a textbox innerglow (previously I didn't realise the focus glow was inside the form element and made an outerglow).
After dinner I made a webpage with a form to try and style it using the safari style images. Watched springwatch, then carried on with my safari style form webpage until 11pm when I went to bed.
Food
Breakfast: Lime marmalade toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Cheddar cheese sandwich; satsuma; slice of raisin madeira cake; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Tandoori chicken slices; spaghetti; mixed veg; chicken tonight sauce. Pudding was a slice of rich fruit cake. Coffee, some cadburys Roses.
Supper: Coffee; malted milk; dark chocolate digestive.
This morning I did just a tiny bit more macro testing, then I posted to the thread I started on dpreview about a week ago (which only had 2 replies) to see if anyone could tell me why DOF using a lens with a diopter lens is so much shallower than using a reversed lens or extension tubes.
Then I tried to take some photos of the bluetits going into/coming out of their nestbox. I found:
- They're too quick to take a photo of manually.
- The nestbox is in the shade, so I needed f/5.6, 1/125s and ISO800 to get a reasonably exposed pic, so the image quality wasn't that great.
- The bluetits didn't like me standing there. I was about 3-4metres away.
- Getting the focus correct was hard.
- My zigview S2C wouldn't automatically take pics of them using it's movement detection mode.
- With the distance I was standing from the nestbox, a 300mm lens is a bit short.
After that I tided up some of my camera stuff and took all the sheets etc. off my bed to go in the wash. I went on the pinternet for a bit and then had to do some work. After lunch I did a bit more work, then checked my spleenmail. Did a bit more work, went on the pinternet, then got Ben back from school.
Went on the pinternet a bit more then sorted some pictures. Went on the pinternet again and then edited my Safari style form buttons illustrator file to make a textbox innerglow (previously I didn't realise the focus glow was inside the form element and made an outerglow).
After dinner I made a webpage with a form to try and style it using the safari style images. Watched springwatch, then carried on with my safari style form webpage until 11pm when I went to bed.
Food
Breakfast: Lime marmalade toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Cheddar cheese sandwich; satsuma; slice of raisin madeira cake; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Tandoori chicken slices; spaghetti; mixed veg; chicken tonight sauce. Pudding was a slice of rich fruit cake. Coffee, some cadburys Roses.
Supper: Coffee; malted milk; dark chocolate digestive.
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
Final-chee bought some precious metals!
This morning went on pinternet for a bit, then went down town while the weather was still okay. It was actually quite nice and sunny. I went to Halifax to close my accounts with them, had a bit of trouble because my signature didn't look like the one on my driving licence or any of my cards. Luckily they still let it go and closed my ISA, they said I had to close my web saver online. I deposited the cheque from Halifax at Alliance & Pester and they pestered me to buy life insurance. Makes a difference to mortgages I guess but still annoying for me and probably more annoying for the people who work there to have to try sell rubbish to people who don't want it.
After that I went to instore to get some more sunflower bird seed and some hanging clothes organizer Tom Hings for Moohar. I got them, although they only had 2 packs of sunflower bird seed left. I also bought some mixed seed and insects/little worm things meant to be for Robins. Walking home with the bag totally canned my arms because I am so weak.
When I got home I checked my email and looked into buying GBS. First of all I couldn't work out how the price of it related to gold, but after doing a bit of searching I found this which says the price is ¹/10 of the gold price. But then there was a further complication that when buying the bid price and offer price are both in GB pence, but most places that give share/stocks tips advise you of buy/sell limits in USD. They don't tell you what the current exchange rate they're using is either, so its hard to work out what your bid should be.
I just used best offer and bought at what was being offered, probably I could get a better deal if I could work out what the correct amount to bid for a buy at $85 would be, but I just wanted to get it bought really. It may go down for a bit but in a year or so should have increased quite a bit anyway.
In the afternoon I tidied up my room a bit, went on the pinternet and then started testing different lens / extension tube / diopter lenses combos to see what magnification they would give. After dinner I finished testing my lenses. I found that the 70-300mm VR lens with a diopter lens gives the greatest working distance but shallowest DoF for a given f-number, whilst the reversed 24mm or 50mm & extension tubes require close working distances but give much greater DoF.
I watched Springwatch, then Coast and then read up on DoF on wikipedia to see why the DoF in my tests was so different, then went to bed.
Food
Breakfast: Lime marmalade toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Cheddar cheese with salad sandwich; satsuma; couple of grapes; slice of raisin madeira cake; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Potato; carrot; baked beans; peas; home made scotch egg. For pudding I had an oven heated apple pie; microwave heated rhubarb crumble; custard; cream. Coffee and a chocolate button Ben gave me (he went to Cadbury World on a school trip today).
After that I went to instore to get some more sunflower bird seed and some hanging clothes organizer Tom Hings for Moohar. I got them, although they only had 2 packs of sunflower bird seed left. I also bought some mixed seed and insects/little worm things meant to be for Robins. Walking home with the bag totally canned my arms because I am so weak.
When I got home I checked my email and looked into buying GBS. First of all I couldn't work out how the price of it related to gold, but after doing a bit of searching I found this which says the price is ¹/10 of the gold price. But then there was a further complication that when buying the bid price and offer price are both in GB pence, but most places that give share/stocks tips advise you of buy/sell limits in USD. They don't tell you what the current exchange rate they're using is either, so its hard to work out what your bid should be.
I just used best offer and bought at what was being offered, probably I could get a better deal if I could work out what the correct amount to bid for a buy at $85 would be, but I just wanted to get it bought really. It may go down for a bit but in a year or so should have increased quite a bit anyway.
In the afternoon I tidied up my room a bit, went on the pinternet and then started testing different lens / extension tube / diopter lenses combos to see what magnification they would give. After dinner I finished testing my lenses. I found that the 70-300mm VR lens with a diopter lens gives the greatest working distance but shallowest DoF for a given f-number, whilst the reversed 24mm or 50mm & extension tubes require close working distances but give much greater DoF.
I watched Springwatch, then Coast and then read up on DoF on wikipedia to see why the DoF in my tests was so different, then went to bed.
Food
Breakfast: Lime marmalade toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Cheddar cheese with salad sandwich; satsuma; couple of grapes; slice of raisin madeira cake; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Potato; carrot; baked beans; peas; home made scotch egg. For pudding I had an oven heated apple pie; microwave heated rhubarb crumble; custard; cream. Coffee and a chocolate button Ben gave me (he went to Cadbury World on a school trip today).
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
Not a lot
This morning I went on pinternet and did a bit of work.
After lunch I watched that last episode of 'the kill point'. I went on the pinternet a bit more and asked a question about css on a forum. After that I decided to get on with opening my self trade account since I recieved the login info today. I also received a tax certificate from Halifax, so I logged into my halifax account to see how much money I had there, and noticed the interest rate I was getting on my ISA was 3%!!!!!!
After dinner I looked into a precious metals ETF and gold ETF, I decided to buy some GBS (LYXOR GOLD BUL) but then found out that I couldn't buy it through the shares ISA I had setup and transferred £1000 into. And I couldn't transfer the money into my dealing account because then that £1000 would come out of my ISA and so use up £1000 of my ISA allowance. Actually I doubt it would matter since I'm not really going to use up all my ISA allowance, but I thought it best to leave the money in there and can use it for buying shares if I find any worth buying.
So I added £500 to my dealing account and tried to buy some GBS, but the market bid spread and methods of setting your buy point were a bit too much for me to understand, so I didn't go through with the trade. I'll hopefully have some more time to do some research on them tomorrow.
Food
Breakfast: Blackcurrant jam toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Cheese with salad sandwich; satsuma; slice of raisin madeira cake; cup o' tea.
Afternoon snack: Malted milk; dark chocolate digestive; coffee.
Dinner: Homemade mexican chicken /chicken tikka pizza; chips; salad. Pudding was swiss roll with blackcurrant juice and custard and a strawberry. Coffee.
Supper: Malted milk; dark chocolate digestive; hot chocolate milk.
After lunch I watched that last episode of 'the kill point'. I went on the pinternet a bit more and asked a question about css on a forum. After that I decided to get on with opening my self trade account since I recieved the login info today. I also received a tax certificate from Halifax, so I logged into my halifax account to see how much money I had there, and noticed the interest rate I was getting on my ISA was 3%!!!!!!
After dinner I looked into a precious metals ETF and gold ETF, I decided to buy some GBS (LYXOR GOLD BUL) but then found out that I couldn't buy it through the shares ISA I had setup and transferred £1000 into. And I couldn't transfer the money into my dealing account because then that £1000 would come out of my ISA and so use up £1000 of my ISA allowance. Actually I doubt it would matter since I'm not really going to use up all my ISA allowance, but I thought it best to leave the money in there and can use it for buying shares if I find any worth buying.
So I added £500 to my dealing account and tried to buy some GBS, but the market bid spread and methods of setting your buy point were a bit too much for me to understand, so I didn't go through with the trade. I'll hopefully have some more time to do some research on them tomorrow.
Food
Breakfast: Blackcurrant jam toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Cheese with salad sandwich; satsuma; slice of raisin madeira cake; cup o' tea.
Afternoon snack: Malted milk; dark chocolate digestive; coffee.
Dinner: Homemade mexican chicken /chicken tikka pizza; chips; salad. Pudding was swiss roll with blackcurrant juice and custard and a strawberry. Coffee.
Supper: Malted milk; dark chocolate digestive; hot chocolate milk.
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