Cyberward.net

So after I talked about my backup strategy, I went and started my command to sync my pictures. I went to checkup on it, and it was stuck. I checked, and I was out of space. Oh oh. I stopped the sync. Now what? Well, the drives are sporting LVM2, and I had extra space available, so I just added some.

First add some more space to the volume:
# lvextend -L +1G /dev/vgnas/pictures

Then tell ext3 about the extra space.
# resize2fs /dev/vgnas/pictures

Thats it. I did it live, without unmounting. I then went back to my rsync command, and it continued right where it left off. Sometimes I really like linux.

Scott Kelby just posted his backup strategy, and I thought I would follow up with mine.

The thing that is really interresting about Scott and my solutions, is that there are a lot of similarities. But mine cost a lot less.

His first step is to save on location to an Epson P-500 (link). That would be cool. I have looked at those wistfully before. I don’t have anything comparable. I don’t travel as much as he does, so I just have to put in my empty card and go from there.
Read the rest of this entry »

So far, there has been nothing but spam in the comments field. Not that I am expecting hundreds of people to all of a sudden start reading my blog, but I am surprised how fast the spammers picked it up. Especially since I had comments turned off on my last site for over a year. I see one to three a day right now. Actually, I thought WordPress had some type of captcha thing going. Have to check if that is turned on or not.

There are some trees along the Minnehaha Parkway bike path that bloom and then lose their flowers for just a couple of days each year. I was hoping to get them this year. Friday I rode my bike to work, and took my camera with me. It just so happened that that was the day! I wasn’t super happy with any of them in the end, but here is one:

Wow. I forget how much time it takes, and how little time there is to squeeze out of everything else that is going on. I haven’t posted new pictures to flickr in a long time. Anyway, the site is now coming along nicely. The front page is mostly up, with a couple of bugs. I still need to work on the content for the photography and consulting sections, but we are underway. I will post more on how I got the front page later.

I got around to creating the rotating banner images last night. I made 3 new ones, but they aren’t really my best images. I need to hunt round for some others. My flowers don’t really fit the landscape type space that is there, but I will have to see what I can do.

To make this work, I started out with some javascript in an onLoad function, but the image would blink with either the default image, or the background color. To fix this, I scrapped that idea, and went to an inline style block that is written out with a little php in the header.php file in the template folder.

<style type="text/css">
  #headerLeft {
    background-image: url(<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>
        /images/header-img-<?php echo rand(1,4); ?>.jpg);
  }
</style>

This just gets a number between 1 and 4, and the base directory for the template, and sticks it all together to make the image. Presto. No more flickering.

I am glad that what appears to be my favorite subject, flowers, are back. I wouldn’t have guessed that when I first got my camera, but judging by the number of pictures I have taken, it seems to be a close second to pictures of my kids.

I currently have this one as my background at work:

This was growing in my grass in the front yard. I take lots of pictures from my yard, or the neighbors when I go out for walks by myself or with the girls. It is hard to get landscapes in the south end of Minneapolis, but flowers… we got plenty.

I am also happy with the 50mm f1.8 I got. I wasn’t sure if I would like it, not being able to auto focus. I am getting better at it, having finally adjusted the diopter on my camera correctly for me. I especially love the bokeh that I can get with it when I take pictures of flowers.

I finally have the blog theme close to finished. It looks about how I want it now. The only thing left to do, is that I want to create several images that will rotate with the one that is in the top left. Just need to pick and crop the images, and do a little Javascript.

I looked out the kitchen window, and at the back fence, I saw that the tulips were coming up. Woo hoo. I have been waiting for flowers to come back around here. I like shooting flowers. Anyway, it was a bit of a trick to take their picture. It was raining. I grabbed Kate’s umbrella. Oh yea, I only had one hand for the camera, and the 50mm F1.8 I had on my camera is manual focus on my D40.

So, what I did was to hold the umbrella in one hand, the camera in the other with the focus set for as close as possible. Then I crouched down with focus just short of the flower. Then I took pictures as a slowly leaned in. I figured something had to be in focus.

This is what I got. Click for larger on flickr.

There has been a lot of water running down Minnehaha creek recently. I took Kate to Minnehaha falls to try to take some pictures. Kate hadn’t seen a live waterfall either.

I had to park several blocks away. There was a MS walk, and what seemed like thousands of people. Way too many people. I did get the tripod set up once, but I couldn’t get the shutter down slow enough for the look I wanted. It was too bright. Yes, I was there a little too late in the morning, but still, it makes me think that I need to get a neutral density filter of some sort. I would enable me to slow things down a bit more to get that real silky look to the water.

I also me another photographer there, with a massive tripod. She is also on flickr, but neither had a pen. Note to self: carry a pan and paper. Better yet, I want to make some business card type things that would have the address of my blog, and mybe my flickr ID.

Edit: Here is one of the pictures. Links to flickr.