3. January 2009 by Gene.

Short posting today. I just got in from a delightful photoshoot with my friend Guy. We met up at the Second Cup at Queen Street and John in Toronto, and wandered along Queen Street to Steve’s Music where I picked up a new set of guitar strings (D’Addario Phosphor Bronze, medium gauge) and some new thumb picks (Dunlop M).

We continued snapping along Queen, then turned up Spadina, cutting through a colourful section of Chinatown. It was colder out than we’d anticipated — the windchill took some of the enthusiasm out of our shooting. On Spadina, north of Dundas, I spotted Ding Dong bakery, where my son’s girlfriend often buys the buns she brings to our house. We stopped in for a sample, and to warm our hands. The buns were seriously tasty.

Guy was shooting with his Zeiss Ikon silver-bodied rangefinder. I was shooting with two cameras: my grey-bodied Bessa R3A rangefinder with 40mm f/1.4 Nokton, and my latest joy-toy, a Panasonic Lumix LX3.

From Ding Dong we crossed over to the west side of Spadina and continued into Kensington Market. We tried for a coffee at Moonbean Coffee, but as usual on a Saturday, every available seat was taken, so we wandered around the streets in Kensington Market, eventually walking north to College. From there we headed east to the Starbucks on College & McCaul, again to warm up our frozen fingers.

After a short respite, we headed east to University where Guy and I parted ways. He took the streetcar home and I descended to the Queen’s Park subway station, taking the train to Union Station, then connecting on a GO Train back to Port Credit.

Aside from the cold, it was a very pleasant outing.

Yesterday I was on the phone with one of the magazine editors I sometimes work with, and ended up with three article assignments for 2009. I’m looking forward to working on them. I’ll divulge more as each one reaches print. All I’ll say is that they’re all technology based and that one of them involves photography.

Posted in Writing, Photography | No Comments »

1. January 2009 by Gene.

New Years is resolution time and whether they’re kept or not, resolutions are good thing. They’re a feedback system telling us that whatever we’re doing, and however we’re doing it, could use a few improvements. Some are naturals, involving health. My waistline is bulging again. No-brainer Resolution One: watch my eating habits. Eat more wholegrain products and less fat and sugar. Work on portion control.

I already exercise well as part of my cardio rehab, but I’ve slipped a bit on resistance training. So Resolution 2 is to get back into a regular resistance training schedule. I intend to use my handweights and tubing more.

I made a resolution last year to write more and by gum that’s one I’ve stuck to. I write almost daily and in my personal journal I target a minimum of 1000 words per session. I also have a modest fiction-writing project on the go. But my blogging has fallen off, so Resolution 3 is to increase the frequency of my posts in Silver Bullets.  To that end, I’m taking the NaBloPoMo theme challenge for January 2009.

Inspired by NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month),  NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) follows the same concept of encouraging you to write frequently, in this case with daily posts. January’s theme is ‘changes’ though participants are not required to blog on the theme.

I’m going to give it a try in January, especially since noticing that my posting frequency has dropped seriously in the past few months. I like the theme and will stick to it as often as ideas occur to me. I’ll also blog on some of my regular themes. I’ll attempt to keep the entries short — I have a tendency to turn blog postings into essays and I’ll try to curb that urge.

This in itself is a change, so wish me well. And on this 1st day of January 2009, let me wish you the best of health and well being in 2009. If, like me, you’re a photographer, I also wish you good light!

Posted in Writing | 6 Comments »

7. October 2008 by Gene.

I enjoy technology as much as the next techie, but there are times when it can conspire against all known logic.

Last week my Palm TX decided to call it quits, just after its warranty expired. These things happen so I wasn’t too upset. I suspected the problem was nothing more than a dead battery. I’ll get a new one from eBay or an online battery store, I thought, until I read up on what replacing the battery entailed.

The TX battery is soldered onto the TX system board. I could get a replacement battery from eBay for $15, but I’m not very good with small objects and I was nervous about the task of taking the TX apart. But soldering on top of it? I’m an absolute klutz with a soldering iron. When I was a boy scout I attempted to put together a small shortwave receiver from a kit. When I plugged it in, it spit, sparked, and splatted before imploding. The smell of charred, melted resistors and capacitors permeated my bedroom for days. I’ve experienced soldering-iron avoidance ever since.

Okay, says I, I’ll maybe send it to Palm and let them fix it. A little research showed that they would indeed fix it, for $150. Hmmm, that’s halfway to the price of one of the new ultracompact portables running Linux or XP. It didn’t seem like a winning strategy.

Keeping my equanimity very nicely, I decided to relegate the TX to my ‘history’ bin, and start using the Dell Axim X50v I used before I had the TX. It had much better battery life, the battery was user replaceable from the outside, and it had some nice features, such as Word and Excel built in. I wasn’t as fond of the ThinkOutside Stowaway BlueTooth portable keyboard though, mainly because it only has three rows of typing keys. To type numbers and symbols requires holding a blue or  green function key down first.

I’d used it before and assumed I could get used to it again so I charged the unit, reconnected the Windows cradle and attempted to install the  required driver for the keyboard. Every time I tried to install it, the keyboard control program would install but the critical driver itself would not. The error message said try again, so I did, about a dozen times, with no joy.

Because the unit had lost all its loaded software when the battery died from non-use, I thought maybe I’d applied an upgrade patch at some point. I roamed the Dell site and found two upgrades I duly installed. Then experienced another half dozen failed attempts to install the keyboard driver.

ThinkOutside, the company that made the Stowaway keyboard had in the intervening time been bought by another company, and that company no longer lists either ThinkOutside products or support. No knowledgebase to tap into. The keyboard has been orphaned.

At this point I actually thought about purchasing one of those nifty ultracompacts, like the Acer Aspire One, but I already have a 2-lb Neo that is fine for writing. Its only drawback, which is shared by ultracompacts, is that toting it around requires either a shoulder bag or backpack. In order to keep my photo walks light on weight, I prefer using a PDA with keyboard that will slip easily into a belt pack.

Unwilling to admit defeat, I dug deeper into my history bin, where I pitch bits of electronics and other things I can’t quite bear to throw away. There in the drawer was my old Palm IIIc with original Palm Portable Keyboard. The cradle was there too. I looked in my software archive CD folder and found the keyboard driver. I even had a copy of Palm Desktop 4.1, the version that always worked flawlessly with the IIIc.

Okay, I knew I was retrogressing but I needed a portable writing machine and didn’t want to buy a new one if I could get by with an old one. Besides, I recalled the Palm IIIc as not being all that bad.

I deleted the more recent Palm Desktop that came with the TX and installed the old 4.1. No problem. Then I installed the keyboard driver. No problem. It went right into the Palm Desktop which said it would stuff it into the Palm IIIc next time I synchronized.

The IIIc was finally charged and ready to go so I pushed it onto its cradle and looked for the serial port on my Dell portable. Right. No serial port. Old technology I guess. I looked at my Dell desktop. No serial port there either — just a honeycomb of USB ports. That rang a bell, so I went back to the history bin and found it: a USB-to-Serial converter. By gum, the driver for this was in my CD archives.

It worked. Everything sync’d and I had a working Palm IIIc with folding keyboard. Looking through my software archives I found the PalmOS text editor I once bought, called QED. Then I found the  registration key. It registered and I had an excellent little editor ready to use.

I grabbed a copy of eReader for the Palm and downloaded a few interesting eBook titles from ManyBooks.net — a great site for reformatted Gutenberg Project texts. I was feeling grumpy so I downloaded some H.L. Mencken.

Yesterday I used the combo for the first time and at first I thought I wasn’t going to be able to see the screen. To call it as dim as George Bush might be an understatement. Then I remembered to set the default font to bold. Voila! Suddenly I could see it as well as I see my Neo. And the keyboard? Mon ami, le keyboard, c’est douce. It’s the best full-size keyboard of any folding keyboard I’ve used. I’d forgot how fine it was.

The adventure of getting a PDA with keyboard working for me again generated enough tension and swearing for one week, I thought. I wasn’t prepared for the boomerang headed my way from HP.

We bought one of those little HP PhotoSmart inkjet printers. A wireless one that connects to my wireless router and can be parked anywhere in the house. Nice little unit. I installed the HP software on my Dell Portable. It seemed sluggish but not bad — providing a kind of photo kiosk experience. Useful, I thought, for those times I don’t want to do serious editing before generating a print.

When I rebooted my laptop it took so long to boot up and connect I thought my wireless connection had failed. I rebooted again before waiting more patiently. Eventually it connected and I was back on the net. Neat. I tested the printer using the HP software and got a nice 4×6 colour print.

Then I tried Photoshop CS3. I have Photoshop set so that in addition to RAW files, ACR opens jpegs as well. I find it a nice front end for making basic editing adjustments before the image goes to Photoshop for fine tuning. Every time I was done with ACR and clicked Open, Photoshop would hang. Totally unresponsive to clicks or profanity. Crikey. I live in Photoshop — this was seriously discomforting.

I next tried Photoshop Elements 6 so I could edit an image and send it to the new printer. Same thing. When it went from ACR to Elements, it hung as utterly as Tom Dooley. I suspected the HP software. The time-honoured First Rule of Troubleshooting says “what was the last thing that was changed? Look there first.”

I opened the HP software again and saw it was now sucking copies of all the images from my hard disk into its internal database. Without my asking it to. Well shit. Last night I deinstalled all the HP software. As soon as it was gone and I rebooted, both versions of Photoshop worked again. Nice work, HP.

Today I re-installed the print driver only, despite the installation software’s insistence that I needed the other packages to get the most from it.  I rebooted and the startup times were normal again. Best of all, Photoshop worked.

It could have been worse. Instead of XP I could have been using VISTA.

Posted in Technology, Writing | 2 Comments »

1. January 2008 by starbuckguy.

To the tune of Howdy Doody, “It’s res-o-LU-tion time, it’s resolution time …”

1. Shoot more film, especially medium-format B&W. My first photoshoot of the year is first thing New Year’s Day and I have my Minolta Autocord TLR ready to go, if the weather’s not inclement. If it is, I’ll switch to my Nikon FM10 with ‘E’ lenses.

2. Write more. During PicoWriMo in November I averaged nearly 1000 words a day in my journal and I wrote one short story and started another. The pace fell off in December and I want to increase it.

3. Explore more Linux programs. I have a new entry-level Dell laptop on order specifically to turn into a Linux portable so I can further explore open-source software while sitting in a comfortable chair or couch.

4. Trim the waistline. During December I shed ten pounds. I grew up as a thin, skinny guy and for cardio reasons, if for no other, I need to return to being that guy. Marion and I are following a Weight Watcher’s regimen of calorie counting. It works.

5. Laugh more. 2007 was a hard, serious year. Too hard, too serious. Life’s a dance.

Posted in Linux, Writing, Photography | 2 Comments »

23. December 2007 by starbuckguy.

The more I think about it, the less I would need to have a beefed up computer these days as long as I used the resources on the Internet for most of my work. For me, the exception to this would be Photoshop CS3 which I use frequently, but even that could be dispensed with in a pinch.

Already I use Google Docs & Spreadsheets to store my text files and spreadsheets. I update them online, or squirt them up from one of my tiny electronic writing devices. I keep a cardio exercise log there that I update and use to fill out for the sheets I hand in at class for my cardio rehab program.

Blog entries, such as this one, are written directly into WordPress from the keyboard. The online editor is fine for this kind of writing and it offers interactive spell check to help me catch typos and misspelled words.

Most of my good photos go up on Flickr, which now offers an online photo editor for making corrections to colour, sharpness, contrast, sizing. A casual hobbyist could take shots with a digicam, look at them on the LCD, and select the best ones to load up to Flickr, fixing them up once they’re online.

With this in mind, those sub-compact notebook computers, or Internet devices if you prefer, such as the Asus eeePC, could be all the computer you’d need. It runs a variant of Linux that is invisible to the casual user. It offers wireless connectivity and a few basic programs, including a browser.

I’m even tempted to say you could almost do without owning a computer at all. Just book time on an Internet computer at the local library or rent some connection time at an Internet café. Talk about travelling light!

Of course, most of us would be unable to live without checking email several times a day or, if you use IRC or IM, being in constant contact with friends.

But a time is coming, and it could be soon, when the only computing device you might need is an iPhone-like cellular phone with embedded camera, MP3 and video player, browser, and an accessory Blue-Tooth folding keyboard to use for any serious typing.

Forget hard-disk failures and nasty Microsoft upgrades. Soon we’ll be nomadic, Internet-centric computerists doing our hunting and gathering via wireless hotspots.

Posted in Linux, Technology, Writing, Photography | 2 Comments »

15. December 2007 by starbuckguy.

Alzheimer’s. I cannot think of a word that strikes more dread into my heart. Alzheimer’s is tragic for anyone who is affected, but doubly so for those whose lives are entrenched in brainy creativity. Scientists, artists, inventors, and especially writers. Although it’s a childish fantasy, I wish highly-creative types could somehow be exempt.

I felt punched in the gut today when I read that Terry Pratchett has been diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s. I just spent the past year working my way through every Discworld novel he’s written and like millions of his fans everywhere, I’ve been looking forward to many more.

In a statement released by Pratchett he says, “Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there’s time for at least a few more books yet.” With his wry humour obviously intact, he says about the situation, “This should be interpreted as ‘I am not dead’. I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else. For me, this may be further off than you think — it’s too soon to tell.” “I aten’t dead” is a sign that his witch Granny Weatherwax affixes around her neck when she goes “borrowing” and appears dead to someone on the outside.

He further states that he is continuing his work and plans to complete his current commitments to his publisher. My fingers are crossed that there may yet be the promised third Tiffany Aching novel.

Selfish wishes aside, I wish the best to Terry, his family, and his friends. My hope is that with state-of-the-art medications and treatments, he may continue to live and enjoy his delightfully creative life for years to come.

Terry Pratchett’s Statement

Posted in Writing | No Comments »

4. December 2007 by starbuckguy.

Writing Machine
I have a passion for portable electronic writing devices. It began in 1983 with the purchase of a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100, later dubbed Tandy 100. By the standards of the day it was quite advanced: 32K internal RAM, modem software (via the serial port), MS Basic, calendar, text editor built in, and an amazingly typeable full-size keyboard. The display was a small LCD panel of 8 lines of 40 characters. Back then I was writing a lot for computer publications and I once estimated I’d written 100,000 published words with the machine.

The text files loaded, via a null-modem cable, into my Osborne CP/M computer and later my IBM PC. I used the Mod 100 for years beyond its relative shelf life mainly because nobody ever came up with a newer machine that duplicated its functionality.

In the past year I’ve discovered AlphaSmart machines and really enjoy using my Neo, which resembles the Mod 100 quite a bit. It has a slightly larger LCD display, and it’s more readable in dim light, but it too has a magnificent keyboard. I squirt my files from the Neo into my Windows or Linux word process via a USB cable. Plus ça change…

While I love the Neo, I think I’m even more affectionate about my new Palm TX with its matching Palm BlueTooth wireless folding keyboard. The bright colour LCD display on the TX can be expanded and flipped sideways, giving a really good view of what’s being entered. It sits in a little holder that is stored in the keyboard and unfolded during use. Because I already owned a copy, I use WordSmith, an inexpensive text editor for the Palm. I also have it loaded with eReader and have several Gutenberg eTexts on the Palm’s SD card.

Typing on the folding keyboard is not bad. The only quirk is that the right shift key and the slash/question mark key are reversed. I’m a touch typist so I always get a surprise when I type a slash or question mark. For the rest, the keyboard is decent and because it’s a four-row keyboard, I’m not required to use a function key to type numbers.

I’ve become quite speedy with this little setup, and I can see it under nearly all lighting conditions. The setup weighs less than half a pound or so and I can easily carry the two components in my coat pockets. With this, and an ultracompact digicam in my belt pouch, I can bring my main two interests, writing and photography, with me everywhere I walk.

My relative success with PicoWriMo was largely because of this gear. The only downside I’ve discovered is that the BT keyboard drains the TX’s battery fairly noticeably. I doubt I could get more than 3, maybe 4, hours out of it starting with a fresh charge. But most days I write an hour or two at the max, so it’s not been a serious issue for me. For a more prolific writer, the battery life could be a show stopper.

Posted in Technology, Writing, Photography | 3 Comments »

3. December 2007 by starbuckguy.

From today’s journal:

Things keep slipping through the cracks of my concentration. Life is kaleidoscopic. Another day, another turn of the scope, and all the previous patterns are gone, replaced by new ones. I see the ones in front of me. I forget yesterday’s images, or those of the days before that. Perhaps that’s why I keep a journal. It’s my butterfly net. The images are like butterflies I try to collect for later study. The difference is that these butterflies don’t lie dead, pinned in trays. They’re still fluttering and alive and seeing them again sometimes recreates the original impact of the images and ideas. Where there are butterflies, there is hope.

Posted in Writing | No Comments »

30. November 2007 by starbuckguy.

It’s the end of November and the last day of PicoWriMo, a stripped down version of NaNoWriMo in which each participant set his or her writing goals for the month. My goal was to write and complete two short stories and to write 500 words a day in my journal.

I wrote one story and started another before I became too discouraged with it to finish. I did, however, manage to write 28,459 words in my journal in November and I posted about 10 blog entries during the month. Given that I’d never tried my hand at fiction before, I didn’t do too badly on that side of things and that second story keeps calling to me with suggested changes to make it work better. I intend to work on more fiction writing if I can manage it.

I nearly doubled my goal for my journal and that pleased me very much. By deliberately writing faster than I’ve ever written before I found I was enjoying the experience more and breaking through to more creative material. I was outracing my inner editor.

Nonetheless, I’m glad PicoWriMo is over. While I intend to keep up a good pace of writing, I found myself feeling pressured. A little pressure is normally a good thing, but that’s not necessarily true when you’re also in cardio rehab. I need more downtime and relaxation than usual to allow my body to recover after exercise.

The best part of the PicoWriMo experience was getting into the space of a creative writer, albeit briefly. I’ve picked up a few recommended books on fiction writing, and I’ve listened to many writers discuss their craft on podcasts such as Writers on Writing. I’ve developed enormous respect for those who write and gained some insight into the process.

It’s been a worthwhile experience and it’s given me plenty to ponder in the months ahead. Excuse me now while I sneak off to my favourite reading chair and lean back with a good novel.

Posted in Writing | 1 Comment »

14. November 2007 by starbuckguy.

[originally posted 14 Nov 2007 at LiveJournal]

I don’t know what it is with me and beginnings, but until I have the beginning working, I don’t feel as if my writing is getting anywhere. I’m not temperamentally capable of skipping the beginning and coming back to it later. This has always been my way during essay and article writing, and today I discovered it applies to fiction as well.

I started my second short story today, part of my PicoWriMo target. The writing was flowing well. I had some plot points roughly worked out and knew where I was going. The characters were coming to life and acquiring personality. The descriptions were good. I was on my way, or so I thought.

Then, at around 700 words, I wrote something that I realized was the real beginning of the story. There was nothing wrong with what preceded it; it was simply not needed. So I started over, at the new beginning, and summarized all that preceded it in a single short, snappy paragraph.

When reading, I like beginnings that grab me right away and don’t waste time getting things started. There are many ways to do this, and they don’t have to be fancy — just interesting and effective. When writing I try for a strong opening. If I don’t have one, I don’t have momentum and the piece stalls until I get one. I have to get the beginning right, or close to right. Then it starts to flow into the right channels.

When I think of all the writers I’ve read, the one who does the best beginnings is Agatha Christie. I don’t always find her middles and endings as strong, but I’ve never read another novelist who can get a novel started so quickly and so well. Bang! You’re right into it, often chuckling or smiling at her wit. She doesn’t do it with a set formula either. Each novel opens uniquely. I think my favourite first chapter of all time is from The Body in the Library. It never ceases to make me smile. All of which contrasts sharply with the darker elements that arise later in the story.

Middles and endings have plenty of pitfalls of their own, but for me the critical part of any writing I do is getting the beginning right.

Posted in Writing | No Comments »