Flickr Upload: Analogue photography

For our 2nd year anniversary Lindi got me something I’ve wanted for a while, but I never considered it practical enough to justify the purchase being film and all. So here it is a 35mm film based Lomography Fish Eye 2 camera. I’m looking forward to playing with this crazy 10mm equiv fish-eye and getting some films developed! If you don’t know what lomography is… here are the 10 “golden rules”:

1. Take your camera everywhere you go.
2. Use it any time – day and night.
3. Lomography is not an interference in your life, but part of it.
4. Try the shot from the hip.
5. Approach the objects of your Lomographic desire as close as possible.
6. Don’t think.
7. Be fast.
8. You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured on film.
9. Afterwards either.
10. Don’t worry about any rules.

So really, it’s just a more care-free style of photography which does not worry about technical excellence, and actually embraces visual flaws… but most importantly it’s about capturing our lives. I’m looking forward to dropping the DSLR every now and then, and having some fun!

iPhone 3.1 Bug: No auto reconnect to hidden SSID wireless networks

Problem: I’ve got an iPhone 3G running 3.1.2(7D11) and I use a WLAN network at our office which does not broadcast it’s SSID for obscurity security reasons. Since some version, I guess 3.1, when I get within range of the SSID hidden network it no longer auto connects. Frustrating.

Solution: Apple to fix it in the next version I guess.

“Work around”: Not really a workaround, but a sightly less frustrating way of reconnecting… when in range of the network… recreate the network by entering the SSID and leave out any of the security stuff then click Join. The join will fail (for obvious reasons), but will then “remind” the phone that that network exists and will then connect using the previously configured settings.

Canon EOS 400D & EFS 17-85mm Err99

The symptom:

My Canon EOS 400D (XTi in the states) along with my EFS 17-85mm f/4-5.6 was giving the famous Err 99 – “Shooting is not possible. Turn the power switch to <OFF> and <ON> again or re-install the battery” when I fully depressed the shutter button. It did not do it at all times, and also the problem did not occur with my EF 50mm f/1.8.

The problem:

I found through a process of elimination that the problem (Err 99) would only occur on the wide angle (17-35mm) when using an aperture smaller than f/4. So I guessed that either the lens was the problem, or perhaps the communication between the lens and body. I cleaned the contact points with an eraser… but no go… same problem.

The solution:

Took both the out-of-warranty body and lens into the Canon Service Centre in Singapore. They found the problem to be with the len’s power diaphragm assembly, and replaced it as a cost of S$111.28 (Part S$24, Labor S$80 & GST S$7.28). They also did a great job cleaning the internal lens elements and external housing, so it looks as good as new now.

Unrelated they found my focus screen on the body to be really scratched too, and replaced it for S$26.75 (Part S$5, Labor S$20 & GST S$1.75).

Image credit to Rowen Atkinson

Canon lenses – How they are made

After watching this video on how Canon lenses, and in particular the EF 500mm F4L (~USD10K) are made… I can appreciate why these things are so damn expensive!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Linksys WRT54G Wireless Ethernet Bridge

I found that our PS3’s streaming was pretty bad using it’s internal radio, so I setup a wireless bridge using two LinkSys WRT54G’s. One was a version 7 (non-hackable), and the other a version 4 (hackable). I loaded HyperWRT onto the V4 in order to activate the ‘wireless ethernet bridge’ mode.

After PS3 is wired directly into the V4 box, and establishing a wireless bridge between the routers… streaming has improved considerably. Here is view of things today:

Internet -wired-> *WRT54G v7* -wireless->*WRT54G v4* -wired-> PS3

I put the improvement down to the router’s having proper external antenna’s and prehaps more powerful radios. Here are the settings and firmware versions I used:

Main router
Firmware version: 7.00.6
Internet connection: Auto

LAN IP: 192.168.1.1
Mask: 255.255.255.0
DHCP server: Enabled

SSID: whateveryoulike
SSID broadcast: enable

Security: WPA Personal
WPA Alogrithm: AES
WPA Shared Key: whateveryoulike

Bridge router
Firmware version: 4.30.1, HyperWRT 2.1b1 +tofu13c
Internet connection: Disabled

LAN IP: 192.168.1.2
LAN Gateway: 192.168.1.1
LAN Mask: 255.255.255.0
DHCP server: disabled

Wirless mode: Wireless Ethernet Bridge
SSID: same as main WLAN network
SSID broadcast: enable

Security: WPA Personal
WPA Alogrithm: AES
WPA Shared Key: same as main WLAN network

Gimp fullscreen previews

I’ve always been frustrated with the lack of proper full screen preview in Gimp. By default if you enter fullscreen mode (F11), it just gives you a bit more screen real estate but keeps all of the menu bars, rulers and other things that distract you from the image.

I found that you can customize what is displayed in full screen mode, and also on what colour background your image is shown. By turning all things off in full screen mode, and selecting a background colour of choice (I like black) it works well as a full screen preview mode.

Here is what my preferences look like now (click here for a larger version):

Flickr Upload: Khai Island, Thailand

Stopped at Khai Island for about an hour and a half on a recent trip to Phi Phi islands near Phuket. It’s a beautiful sand island which is good for relaxing and doing some snorkeling too. I wish I was still there…

PP: Masked curves, vignette, sharpening and border.

Looks better on black

Flickr Upload: Fly by Night

Took some friends, who are currently staying in Holland, on the Singapore Flyer, it was lots of fun, but unfortunately my camera is playing up now giving “Err 99″ errors and such – so off to the Canon Service Centre I go this weekend.

Flickr Page

Update: got that Err99 fixed!

Flickr upload: Sunday

Flickr page

SFTP, SCP, FTPS, FTP over SSH – Oh, the confusion.

Firstly, these tables go a long way towards showing the differences: Comparison between SFTP, FTP and SCP & Secure FTP, FTP/SSL, SFTP, FTPS, FTP, SCP… What’s the difference?

Here are some of my notes explaining the differences between these protocols:

SFTP (SSH file transfer) protocol

>Draft protocol designed by the IETF SECSH working group, working documents available here. RFC not complete.
>The protocol assumes that it runs over a secure channel, that the server has already authenticated the client, and that the identity of the client user is available to the protocol.
>The secure channel could be provided by SSH, TLS or others.
>When used with the SSH2 Protocol suite, this protocol is intended to be used as a subsystem as described in RFC4254 in the section “Starting a Shell or a Command”.  The subsystem name used with this protocol is “sftp”.
>The SFTP protocol does more than just file transfer, including resuming interrupted transfers, directory listings, and remote file removal.
>From version 4 upwards this protocol has become more platform independent.

SCP (Secure Copy) protocol

>Is a secure variant of rcp
>The protocol itself does not provide authentication and security; it relies on the underlying protocol, SSH, to provide these features.
>Does file transfer only,but does include file attributes (permissions, timestamps) – which is not possible with standard FTP.
>Mostly used on UNIX platforms, and seldom found on others.
>Note that many scp *programs* actually use SFTP (SSH file transfer) protocol instead.

FTPS (FTP Secure, FTP-SSL)
>Is an extension to the commonly used File Transfer Protocol (FTP) that adds support for the Transport Layer Security (TLS) and the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) cryptographic protocols.
> RFC 4217 “Securing FTP with TLS” & RFC 959 “FTP Security Extensions”

FTP over SSH
>This is the act of using the standard FTP protocol over an already established SSH tunnel.
>Because FTP uses multiple TCP connections, it is particularly difficult to tunnel over SSH. With many SSH clients, attempting to set up a tunnel for the control channel (the initial client-to-server connection on port 21) will protect only that channel; when data is transferred, the FTP software at either end will set up new TCP connections (data channels) which will bypass the SSH connection.