Herring and Lee and Lee and Herring

May 14, 2012 by Tony

A few weeks ago I went to see this year’s show from Richard Herring, ”What is love, anyway?” at The Lights in Andover. Although Richard didn’t think the show went down very well, I enjoyed it. It was a more thought-provoking and personal show than the previous ones I’ve seen, made all the more poignant as he had just got back from his honeymoon. There were some touching moments in the show, which was devoid of much of his usual bluster. It was a refreshing change for a comedian who specialises in playing myriad different versions of himself.

The following week I got a call from the Theatre Royal in Winchester, saying that there had been a return for Stewart Lee’s show. I had tried to book a few months ago but the show had already sold out, so went on the waiting list. Some poor so-and-so wasn’t able to go, so just one week after watching Richard Herring live I was watching the other half of the erstwhile comedy duo.

I’d not visited this theatre before. It’s an impressive space, not large but very ornate. The show was great, although it’s hard to explain why. Stewart’s style is confrontational and he deliberately divides the audience. The first ten minutes consisted of a stream of uncomfortable put-downs directed at a woman in the front row, who couldn’t work out how to turn her phone off. The material must have been used before but I still can’t work out if the whole thing was a set up.

I bought the Fist of Fun Series 1 DVD set after Richard’s show and he signed it. I remembered to take it to Stewart’s show too. So after seeing Herring and Lee, I can now watch Lee and Herring whenever I want.

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Come to OggCamp 12

May 7, 2012 by Tony

That’s right, the biggest and best free software event in the UK is back! OggCamp 12 is happening on the 18th & 19th August at the Art & Design Academy in Liverpool. I’m looking forward to going back to Liverpool and the venue this time around sounds absolutely amazing. The tickets are free (again!) and available from the OggCamp website. There are also details of the official hotel, social events and parties on the website.

OggCamp is an unconference, which means the people who come along determine what happens. The event is aimed at anyone with an interest in technology, creating and sharing. It’s a bit chaotic and a bit random but always a lot of fun. Last year there were people juggling with fire, people soldering circuit boards and some 3D printing going on.

There were also a lot of talks, on a range of subjects. As with last year, there will be a scheduled programme of speakers on the main stage and other rooms available for volunteered talks. I don’t know who is on the schedule yet, but I know there’s a lot of effort going in to finding some great speakers.

I’m not involved in organising this year’s event, having decided to concentrate on my wedding photography business, but I know it’s in safe hands with the rest of the team. And I’m going to do my best to be there. Last year, tickets were snapped up very quickly, so get one while you can!

No Comments / Posted in FLOSS, Ubuntu

Gradual and silent encroachments

April 30, 2012 by Tony

The high court has ordered five of the biggest British ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay. They have just weeks to implement the block, although it’s not clear how they’ll do it and how effective it will be. It is the first major example of Internet censorship in the UK. I don’t use The Pirate Bay, but I’m concerned about what this order means.

Taking direct legal action against a domain or site that breaks the law feels legitimate, but getting ISPs to block access doesn’t. It takes the moral decision out of the hands of the individual. I don’t agree with the heavy handed actions of the media industry lobbying groups either, whose calculations always assume that everyone who downloads a movie illicitly both a) would have purchased it otherwise and b) hasn’t purchased it.

Some will point out that The Pirate Bay, and other sites like it, aren’t responsible for the files that are distributed through the site by their users. Or that torrent sites distribute links to legitimate content, like Ubuntu. However, it’s obvious that a significant proportion (if not the vast majority) of downloads available through The Pirate Bay facilitate the illicit redistribution of content. It’s a piece of cheap misdirection, akin to the second hand car salesman who proudly points to the only car on the forecourt that actually has an MOT as a shining example of his wares.

Others will say that it’s an inevitable consequence of market forces, of technology responding to consumer demand faster than the music and movie industries have. They will also point out that technological blocks can usually be circumvented easily by anyone with some know-how. I suspect that the ISPs know this too, but have to co-operate with the process. Blocking The Pirate Bay won’t have a massive effect, some other site will jump to prominence. But it’s a worrying glimpse into the future of Internet access in the UK.

2 Comments / Posted in FLOSS, Media, Ubuntu

Helen and Jeff

April 23, 2012 by Tony

Helen and Jeff had chosen an 1920s/1930s theme for their wedding and all the guests dived headlong into the spirit of the event, sporting some splendid spats and fabulous feather boas. Helen was resplendent in a suitably period dress, her hair in tight ringlets and bright red lipstick matching her bouquet of roses. After the ceremony at the Register Office in Hemel Hempstead, Jeff opened the champagne much to Helen’s concern!

For a 1920s/1930s theme wedding, Helen and Jeff couldn’t have found a more perfect venue than the Gatsby in Berkhampstead. It originally opened in 1938 as a cinema and its foyer and dining hall are still resplendent in the original art deco fittings. A lot of effort had clearly been put into the details, with Jeff putting his skills as a graphic artist to good use creating versions of vintage film posters featuring the couple in place of the original artistes.

The reception was a swinging affair, with live piano accompaniment and lots of Pimms!

It was a very relaxed and fun day and I’m grateful to Helen and Jeff for letting me share it with them! You can see more on my wedding photography site.

No Comments / Posted in Photography, Weddings

A hard tablet to swallow

April 16, 2012 by Tony

Recently, I’ve been experimenting with tablets. No, not the sort that make you dance for hours or think you’re reeeeeaaalllly interesting. The sort that glow enticingly and give you something to swipe at on train journeys. That’s right, this is going to be a fairly geeky post.

I want a device onto which I can load a large number of images, sorted into albums, then run a slideshow with nice smooth transitions to show to prospective wedding photography clients. Let’s say that I had a couple of hundred images but would also want to be able to add new images or remove old ones fairly easily.

Preferring the Open Source option, I tried a couple of Android tablets including the Asus EeePad Transformer. Getting the images onto the device was easy: I just pushed a microSD card pre-loaded with the images into the appropriate slot. After waiting a minute or so, there they were in the gallery app. Unfortunately neither of the Android tablets I tried displayed images at a high enough quality. It’s not the resolution of the screens, but it seemed that the bit depth of the image was too low. It might have been something else, some automated image scaling perhaps or a limitation of the display, but it looked like old school bit depth problems.

My friend Alan kindly lent me an iPad. I’ve been impressed with the screen quality of iPads in the past. What I hadn’t tried to do before is get a large number of images onto an iPad. There’s no card slot on an iPad, you have to buy what is essentially an SD card reader (but Apple call a camera connection kit) for £25. Even then I’m not sure if you can copy the files off the card onto the iPad itself. If you don’t have one of those card readers (I don’t) you have to get your thinking hat on!

I tried downloading a zip file from a webserver, but Safari didn’t like that. I could save individual images from within Safari, but it’s not a great way to manage a couple of hundred photos! I tried Dropbox, but you can’t select all the images in a folder and save them out in one go. It’s one image at a time again. All the images end up in a single “Saved Photos” folder too, making managing them a bit of a pain.

Andy Stanford-Clark suggested I used an app called iZip to open zip files, which worked for smaller zip files through Dropbox or Safari. Finally, a solution of sorts! But it would be a lot of hassle to load new images this way.

Of course, I’m grateful to Alan for lending me his iPad, and I had a great time playing Where’s My Water, Tap the Frog and Angry Birds. But the Android tablets made it so much easier to perform a simple task than the Apple offering. It’s just a shame the display quality isn’t good enough on the Android tablets. Of course, I’m keen to see Ubuntu running on tablets soon. It’ll be interesting to see whether I run into the same rendering issues as I experienced with the Android ones.

13 Comments / Posted in Computing, FLOSS, Media, Photography, Ubuntu

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