Posts Tagged ‘M’

Andy’s got a new camera – A CANON PowerShot SX50 HS

Tuesday, March 26th, 2013

Yes, I’ve purchased a new camera, A CANON PowerShot SX50 HS, and yes, it’s a “Bridge Camera”. A halfway house between a compact and D-SLR. I already have a compact camera, and D-SLR, so needed something in the middle, and this boasts a 50x optical zoom lens, equivalent to a 1200mm conventional telephoto lens.

I’m very impressed with the first photographs….(click for full image, straight from camera, no image processing, 12Megapixel – JPEG).

In this first photograph, if you look carefully, you will see our, two Doves on the chimney pots…

0x (no zoom)

0x (no zoom)

in this photograph, at 50x (1200mm) zoom, handheld, no tripod, you can see the Dove, and also notice the lichens on the chimney pot!

50x Optical Zoom

50x Optical Zoom

I don’t know how this camera does it, holding a camera in my hand at 50x optical zoom, with Image Stablisation, and it’s able to give me good photograph, with my shaking hands! (I would recommend a tripod! but without, gives good results)

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Citroen Xsara Modification – Guiness fuled car!

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Do I need to notify the insurance company I’ve got a Guiness fuled car!

In the damp, cold, wet January weather guesss what I’ve been doing today?

The exhaust dropped off the car yesterday, so I’ve been trying to fix the exahust with a

Diet Coke Can – didn’t work,

Heinz Backed Bean Can – didn’t work,

Draught Guiness Can minus the widget fixed it!

Barrier Cream
Citroen Xsara Modification
Diet Coke Can and Heinz Baked Beans Can
Modified Diet Coke Can and Heinz Baked Beans Can
Parts for Car
Wash my hands!

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I later took it to a garage to get a price to replace the exhaust, and they spotted they following:-

  • two front tyres are illegal (caused by tracking!), and need replacing.
  • two front brake disks on the front are badly corroded and need replacing.
  • and I just need a centre pipe for the exhaust!

So I just need the cheap centre pipe to the fix the exhaust!

Oh well that’s not too bad!!!

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Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008: R2 testing in VMware Workstation 7.1.4

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

Carrying on the nested hypervisor theme from the other day, when I tried VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi), free download from VMware, on VMware Workstation 7.1.4, as it’s becoming common place for vendors to allow the use of Hypervisors for free, I downloaded the Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008: R2 hypervisor for free to also try in VMware Workstation 7.1.4.

Here are the results

Hyper-V Manager Starting a VM on Hyper-V installed in VMware Workstation 7.1.4
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008: R2 installed in VMware Workstation 7.1.4
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008: R2 running in VMware Workstation 7.1.4
Using Hyper-V Manager to create and manage Virtual Machines on Hyper-V

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Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008: R2 installs correctly, and looks like it’s going to function, but then Whoops, cannot power on any Virtual Machines!

Well these are the results I would expect from installing Hyper-V in a VMware Workstation 7.1.4 virtual machine, as often nested hypervisors do not function correctly. I just thought I would prove this.

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Last post of 2010 – Happy New Year 2011

Friday, December 31st, 2010

This will be my last post of 2010, and to all readers a Happy New Year 2011, a may it be a Prosperous One!

It’s been the coldest December in North Yorkshire since 1840, ball cock froze, drain pipe froze, pipes froze, and the ground is just starting to thaw, after tomorrow I think all the snow may have gone, that fell in late November 2010.

Here are a collection of photographs taken in December 2010, to remind us of those cold dark days

Christmas Tree on a frosty day
Frost Day in December
Frost Day in December
Frost Day in December
Ice Crystals created by cold Frost
Ice Crystals created by cold Frost
Ice Crystals created by cold Frost
Ice Crystals created by cold Frost
Ice Crystals created by cold Frost
Ice Crystals created by cold Frost

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1 2 ... 4

All the best for 2011 – Folks…

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Hard Disk Drives (HDD)

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

Winchester Disk Drive, Hard disk drive, Hard disc drive, HDD or ‘that big box under the desk‘ (which is the answer I often get!) or I’ve got 500GB of memory or is that disk! I don’t know!

it’s what makes most computers go, most of the time, and if they go bad or stop working, so does your computer usually!

A number of years ago (7 years), I always used Western Digital hard disk drives (HDDs) but after a spate of failures with the new (at the time) WDC WD1200JB, the JB features a 7200 RPM spindle speed coupled with three 40 GB platters. The JB’s key feature, is its 8-meg buffer, four times that of competing drives at the time. An ATA-standard 3-year warranty backs the drive.

But after many of these failed, I decided to switch to Seagate Technology, backed by a 5 Year Warranty, and hard drive manufacturer I’d not used for many years.

The hard drive manufaturer market has certainly got smaller over the last 20 years, many names have disappeared, Connor, DEC, Fujitsu, IBM, Maxtor, Miniscribe and Quantum have disappeared. Quantum acquired DEC, Maxtor acquired Miniscribe and Quantum HDD, Seagate acquired Connor and Maxtor, Hitachi acquired IBM HDD, Toshiba acquired Fujitsu HDD, Western Digital acquired Tandon HDD.

So that leaves us with

  1. Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (1967)
  2. Seagate Technology (1979)
  3. Toshiba (1967)
  4. Western Digital (1988)
  5. Samsung (1999?)

So, we still have plenty of HDD manufaturers to choose from!

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500Gbytes ST3500320AS and Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black WD1001FALSq

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500Gbytes ST3500320AS and Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black WD1001FALS

But for me, I’ve decided to go back to purchasing Western Digital Black Drives for the moment, and spread the risk between Seagate for the NASes and Western Digital Black for the workstations!

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