Exploring my Life

How to fix a missing uninstall button in Windows XP

2009-09-01T14:14:00.003+02:00

I often have the problem that I cannot uninstall some programs in Windows XP. The programs are listed in the "Installed Programs" dialog, but the uninstall button is missing. Today I found a workaround how to re-enable this button:

Open the registry editor (Run: regedit.exe)
Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products
Then locate a subkey where ProductName is equal to the program to fix
Within that key, find a path that starts with C:\Windows\Installer followed by a GUID (e.g. {0A869A65-8C94-4F7C-A5C7-972D3C8CED9E}). Most of the time you will find this value in the ProductIcon value
Copy the GUID to the clipboard
Then navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall and check if there is a key with that GUID.
If there is no such key, simply add a new key by right-clicking on the Uninstall-Key and paste the GUID (including the { and } characters) as its name. You do not need to add any additional keys or data.
Now the un-installation should work as intended

I found another explanation on the web that said that sometimes there is a NoRemove key in an existing Uninstall entry. This value must be set to 0.
Note: Use all of the above at your own risk!

Multilingual DVB-T Experience for Free

2009-05-19T07:43:00.003+02:00

Last week we got ourselves a new DVB-T stick. Unfortunately the software that was provided with it only allows to watch TV in German, even though an English audio stream is attached on some programs.

Even free programs like ProgDVB do not allow changing the audio channel to a foreign language - they want you to buy the Pro version which has this feature enabled.

But I found one program that allows DVB programs to be viewed with all audio streams enabled: Video Lan Client!

Newer versions have a DVB-T access module plus GUI that enables full access to DVB television. The only thing I haven't found so far is a channel list editor that works. Nevertheless the only thing you need to enter is the frequency and bandwidth of the program you want to watch. It should work with most USB DVB-T sticks on the market.

From the Media menu select the Open Capture Device... item. Then select DVB DirectShow option from the Capture mode. Now enter the correct frequency of your provider and set the bandwidth. You can either copy these settings from another DVB program or look them up on the internet.

Now you can select a program stream via the Playback menu. I noticed that the default settings do not enable deinterlacing. This can easily be changed from the Video menu. Finally, the most important setting for me is in the Audio menu where I can set the Audio Track to any available stream.

How to use Manual Exposure on Canon EOS Cameras

2009-04-16T09:52:00.013+02:00

This tutorial teaches you how to use the manual exposure mode or "M"-mode on any Canon EOS camera. I will show some examples from my Canon EOS 400D but the techniques should stay the same across different models.

Why would you want to shoot in Manual Mode when you have automatic modes (P/Av/Tv) that can handle almost any light situation automatically? Because they can do it only "almost". Sometimes the light in a scene is too difficult for the light meter. At other times, you want to get the exact exposure of a scene every time. Then you should consider turning your mode wheel to the "M"-mode.

Exposure Basics
First, I will talk a little about the basics of exposure of cameras. The three factors that control exposure are:

Shutter Speed - how long you expose the photo (e.g. 1/200)
Aperture - How much light you allow through your lens (e.g. F/8.0)
ISO sensitivity - amplification of the light on the sensor (e.g. ISO 100)

Changing one of them will affect the exposure of the photo. If you change another factor, you can compensate or amplify the first change.

To make this more clear, I will explain it by using an example. Let's say the light meter tells you that the scene you are looking at requires a setting of 1/200s at F/8.0 using ISO 100. The picture on the right was taken with these exact settings.

If you do not want to have a shutter speed of 1/200s, it is possible to set it to 1/400. As you only will have half the exposure time then, you need to compensate to get the same amount of light in your photo. You can either do this by increasing the ISO to 200 (double the sensitivity) or open up the aperture by one stop to F/5.6.

The two pictures above were made with the described change of the aperture. The second image looks almost the same. By opening the aperture, you will have a more shallow depth of field though.

The following exposure/aperture settings will also produce an correctly exposed photo:

Time:	1/25	1/50	1/100	1/200	1/400
Aperture:	F/22	F/16	F/11	F/8.0	F/5.6

The table only shows one-stop increments. Most cameras support 1/3 stop increments, so there are 2 more possible combinations per entry. For more information take a look at F-Numbers on Wikipedia.

Reading the Histogram
The most important measurement tool for the manual mode will be the histogram. It tells you the exact distribution of tonal values in your photo. This means you can determine if your image is correctly exposed (you can find more information here). I will not go into detail about how a correctly exposed histogram should look like because this depends pretty much on the scene. What is important is to recognize and under- and overexposed image.

The picture above shows an underexposed, correctly and overexposed version of the photo. As you can see, the underexposed image lacks all high tonal values. The overexposed version does look quite OK in the histogram, but the high tone values start gathering at the brightest value. This leads to 100% white pixels in some areas.

Manual Exposure
Now you know all the basics that you need to know in order to operate your camera in manual mode. All you need to do is to set set the initial exposure and then work with the histogram until it looks right to you.

In order not to start with a random guess about correct exposure values, it can help to set the camera into Program mode (P) and copy the suggested values to manual mode. Also, the camera shows the light meter in manual mode. The light meter is the bar that reads -2..1..0..1..2 and has a blinking bar. Try to get the bar to stop below 0 (you need to half-press the shutter button to get it to work).

Then you can adjust your settings by changing either the exposure or the aperture value. Canon cameras support 1/3 stop increments. So when your image is underexposed by one exposure value (EV) or stop, you need to open up the aperture by 3 times 1/3 steps or increase the exposure time by 3 steps (double the exposure time).

On the Canon EOS 400D you can change the exposure time by turning the wheel next to the shutter release button. The aperture can be changed by simultaneously pressing the Av button next to the screen and turning the wheel.

To check your photo's histogram, take a picture and show the picture on your camera. Now press the DISP. button until the histogram is shown on the screen. The histogram has four gray vertical bars on it which are spaced at one-stop increments. This means that if you change the exposure time by one stop, the whole histogram will shift by exactly one bar. This is very useful to estimate how much you should change your settings.

Bar number 2 from the left is the 18% gray bar. This means that your camera will try to balance your picture around that exposure in auto mode. To verify this, you can take a shot of a clear blue sky or a white wall in auto mode. Then you should see a large peak of the histogram exactly there.

Now change the settings of aperture, exposure time and ISO as you like. When you have found the correct settings, you can take as many pictures of the same subject at the same light as you like. No matter what disturbs the camera's light meter, you will not get under- or overexposed photos.

When to use Manual Mode
I use manual mode in the following situations:

Night shots
When using an external flash (in order to balance between flash and available light)
Difficult lit indoor scenes, especially with backlight
changing lights that do not affect the subject directly

But you can find out for yourself when to use the manual mode. Whenever you get wrong results for a type of subject, start to think about going manual.

Do not forget to switch the camera back to an automatic mode afterwards. It's too easy to forget that the camera will not set the correct exposure automatically. This can ruin some shots if you don't think about it.

If you have any questions or find some parts of this tutorial not understandable, please leave a comment! I'll try to clarify it for you then.

My Photo on the Cover of the Book Throwing Stones

2008-12-30T20:57:00.003+01:00

Cow with bended Horn
Originally uploaded by theowl84

A few months ago I received an email from a publisher from Australia who was interested in putting my picture of a cow on the front cover of a book.

I let them use the photo for free and asked them to send me a copy of that book. Last week I got a copy of the freshly printed book "Throwing Stones" by Michael Dawson where the cow has found its place in a collage on the front cover.

The book is tag-lined "Throwing Stones will change the way you think, and think about religion and underwear". I'm pretty excited reading it in order to find out what it's all about. Then I'm probably write a blog entry about it.

Selling Photos on Shutterstock

2008-11-16T11:07:00.006+01:00

Lately I started selling my photos at Shutterstock. This was actually one of the first microstock sites I signed up to but I had to wait a long time until my initial reviews got accepted. They have a entry policy that requires you to upload 10 pictures and no less than 7 of them must be accepted.

Now I am a submitting member on that site and downloads are rushing in. In my first week I made more than 10 downloads with only around 30 pictures online already. I'm expecting to see these number increase in the future.

In the meanwhile I'd love to see you browse through or even buy my pictures :)

My latest images for sale at Shutterstock:

Make Money with your Photos

2008-09-28T17:30:00.007+02:00

It's been a while since my last post. That's partly due to my work and studies but to a new use of my photos as well.

After being on flickr for a little more than a year now, I started selling my images on various stock images sites. Why? Because you can make real money there and if you are seriously into photography, you need to make some money to afford all the equipment.

How does it work? You need sign up and take a short test to prove that your photos are ready for stock. This means that you can't sell your snapshots on stock-photo sites. It's all about pictures that sell. And only things that will be used can also be sold.

Just take a local newspaper or magazine and browse through the pages and read where the photos come from (e.g. ©iStockphoto / Photographer). I hardly see any newspaper that does not use stock photos. They are a lot cheaper than paying a photographer take the images on demand. But they give you only some idea what it means for an image to be a good stock image.

Once you've started uploaded your first image, you will need to wait for 7 to 10 days until it has been reviewed. This means that some woman or guy somewhere in the world will have to look at your photo and check if that picture is compliant to the rules. This means no noise, no company names or logos, no artifacts and loads of other reasons that would make your image not useable. Don't be disappointed if your images get rejected. I have not yet exceeded the 50% approval rate so far which means I still need to learn and improve.

So, if you like to enter the world of stock photography the doors are open. Everyone is accepted and there is a fair competition with those already in the business. The only thing that counts is that your image can be used by someone out there!

Of course, if you like to buy on of my images, just use the following link and license your copy...

Losing my Sense of Taste for a Day

2008-07-05T19:09:00.004+02:00

Last week something strange happened to me. After eating loads of Wasabi and Chili, I woke up the next day without any taste from my tongue.

I realized while having my breakfast because the chocolate syrup didn't taste as sweet as usual. It still took some time until I fully recognized my loss of taste.

So if you ever wondered how chocolate tastes when you can't taste, I can tell you it's boring. And because I lost all my other taste senses, it didn't taste bitter either, just like an tasteless paste.

The good part about chocolate is that it has a very good smell, so smelling it makes you remember what it tastes like, so you imagine the taste. This does not work with salt for example. I tried a little bit with the tip of my tongue. Normally it's quite intense when tasted pure, but for me it had less taste than a few grains of sand.

For lunch I had salad with many ingredients. Again, I know what most things taste like, so I imagined the taste and really thought I had little bit of my sensuality back. But I rather blame my memory for that, again.

The evening was even worse. I had potato wedges with tomato ketchup. If I didn't know ketchup before, I would be wondering why people love this viscid cream so much. At least it had a slightly sour taste when swallowing. And that taste came from my palate. I didn't know you can taste with the roof of your mouth... but it's true.

I better skip the part about how beer tastes without a taste, and even water tastes horrible without any sense of taste. Yeah, not tasting has some kind of anti-taste. Probably water has some taste that cancels out this anti-taste to taste neutral... who knows.

Luckily, the next day I slowly regained all my senses and now this temporal disability has vanished. But it left some great impressions on me and I want to summarize those for you:

You judge a lot about food by it's smell and your imagination about how it could taste.
You only fully realize how wonderful the sense of taste can be when you lose it
Never eat too much of Wasabi unless you intend to have the same experience I had :-)

Focal Length Calculation for a DSLR Camera

2008-06-30T14:14:00.006+02:00

As I'm studying for a subject concerning cameras at university, I have to used a formula for calculating the required focal length to fill the sensor with an image. And I thought this formula could be quite practical for you as well.

That formula is

f = d * I / (I + O)

where f[m] denotes the required focal length to picture an image with the width of O[m] on the sensor with the width of I[m] when the object is d[m] away from the camera.

For my Canon EOS 400D camera with a sensor dimension of 22.2mm x 14.8mm a sample calculation could look like this:

I would like to picture an object that is 20cm wide and 1m away from my camera. So I set d = 1m, O = 0.02m and I = 0.0148m (sensor width).
Inserting into the formula from above this gives me a focal length of f=0.0689m or 69mm.

This formula is valid for all cameras (just find out your sensor dimensions) and all lenses.

Red Hot Chili Peppers

2008-06-15T22:12:00.001+02:00

Red Hot Chili
Originally uploaded by theowl84

My home grown chilies start to grow bigger and bigger, the first are bright red already. Soon others will follow. I'm planning to sell some of them on eBay as I can't handle the huge amount of them on my own.
So in case you want to try some or grow them yourself, just mail me and I can send you some exemplars.

Software Update for Nokia 5310 Version 5.81

2008-05-03T16:43:00.005+02:00

Today I updated my Nokia 5310 phone to the new 5.81 version. As I have read that there may be some problems with it I thought I'd report about my experience on my blog.

To find out what version is installed on your phone, type in *#0000# using your keypad. I had the 3.6 version installed. So I downloaded the latest version of the Nokia Software Updater. After a reboot it detected my phone connected via the USB cable.
I took the hint to backup the phone settings seriously. You can do that via the phone menu. Go to the Setting->Sync and backup->Create Backup submenu.

Then I started the update which ran automatically without problems. 10 minutes later the phone rebooted and requested the PIN code. Unfortunately all my personal data were deleted. So I had to restore the data I backed up before. That worked quite fine and I didn't loose any contact info or calendar settings.

What's new?
So far I found the following new options and functionalities:

I can now add Java programs to my favorite's list.

There is now a quick dial function. Just press one of the keys from 2 to 9 for 2 seconds.

Update: The newest version is V 09.42 which can be installed just as easy. I haven't found any major improvements yet (except for a new status bar when loading things).

Dark Cloud

2008-04-28T10:45:00.002+02:00

Dark Cloud
Originally uploaded by theowl84

What's more interesting than a dark cloud on a all sunny day. This one passed the sun and cast shadow over the whole place. I got my camera out just in time to catch this wonderful moment.

Cokin Filter System on my Canon EOS 400D

2008-04-05T09:36:00.004+02:00

My newest purchase for my Canon EOS 400D camera is a part of the Cokin Filter System. It basically consists of a filter holder and an adapter for 58mm lenses. The filter holder can hold a variety of filters. The set I got from eBay consisted of 7 filters including stars, blue color, pastel and others.
Later, I bought a much desired gradient filter and closeup lens (+3). Compared to the price of individual screw in filters, Cokin filters only cost a fraction if you buy them on the used market as most of them only consist of a glass plate with some printing on it.
I'd like to give you a review of the filters I have got. It may help you decide if you want to buy the same for your digital or analog camera. I will continue this list as I gain more experience and probably more filters.

Diffractor Galaxy (42)
This is a very odd filter that adds rainbow like beams to point light sources. The effect is rather strong and I think it destroys more of the image than adds to it.

Star 4 (57 A)
This filter adds nice star effects to your image. You can rotate it and use it for point light sources like street lamps at night.

Parallel (58)
This works similar like the star filter but only creates stars with two beams of light. You can also use it for point light sources like this image.

Spot-Orange (66)
This is an orange glass with a transparent circle in the middle. I have not found suitable scenes where to use it yet.

Coef. + 2 BLUE (80 A)
This is a blue filter that makes the colors the image. I made some wonderful images with a cloudy sky.

Pastel 2 (87)
This filter makes the picture look much smoother, almost like a painting. I found it best for closeups and the effect destroys the image on wide angle scenes. But for flower pictures it really adds a lot to the image.

Close-up +3 (103 A)
This is a classic closeup filter that allows you to move your camera closer to objects.

Gradual G1 Grey (120 A)
This filter is a gradual gray filter. You can use it to make the sky darker than the foreground which helps you a lot when it comes to correct exposure in high contrast outdoor scenes. You could do this effect on your computer when shooting in RAW but for JPEG images you get best quality when using this filter. The filter is color neutral and you can rotate the filter holder to adjust the effect.

Reviving an old Eumig R 2000 projector

2008-03-14T15:44:00.006+01:00

A few weeks ago I was carrying out the waste when I found something strange in the waste room. First it looked like a television, but when I took a closer look it turned out to be something different. It was a 8mm film projector.

I couldn't resist taking it into my flat and take a closer look. I plugged it into the power plug and turned it on. The lamp was still working and a motor was transporting the non-existent film. But there was some flickering on it's screen.

It must have stood somewhere for ages, so it was quite dusty. I started cleaning it and also opened it's case. It was quite a surprise when I found out that you can flip it's mirror outwards so you can watch movies on both the internal screen as well as the projection on a wall. The only thing it didn't have was sound.

As soon as this day I ordered a 8mm movie on eBay, the cheapest I could find as I just wanted to try it out. A week later I had the movie.

But how to get the movie into the projector? I failed feeding it at first. So I thought: "Maybe I need to rewind it". So I transfered the movie onto another film roll and tried again. I had quite some troubles getting the film through all the rolls and gears inside the projector. But finally I succeeded and had to find out: the movie was upside down. So maybe it was all right the way it was before. I retransfered it to the original film roll and tried another time. This time the projector accepted it and started showing the pictures on the screen. Hurray!!!

Later that day me and my girlfriend made ourselves a movie evening with 5 minutes of film. It was the Max and Moritz movie, part 1. As the projector is a silent one, we played a Ennio Morricone CD in the background. What an amazing experience for a guy who grew up knowing the television only.

As I never intended to watch movies on this device, I had the idea to sell it on eBay later on. But before I did, I came to a flea market and started talking to a dealer there. He said, that a few minutes earlier a guy wanted to buy a projector like mine. Before he could write down my number, that guy came back and I talked to him directly.

A week later that same guy came to visit my flat and took a look at the projector. And he actually bought it. So I sold my projector which didn't cost me anything.

Summing up I avoided that the projector would have been disposed in an inappropriate way, I had some fun playing around with it and I made some money selling it. I wish things like that would happen more often to me.

Total Lunar Eclipse

2008-02-21T06:15:00.004+01:00

Total Lunar Eclipse
Originally uploaded by theowl84

This night there was a big show on the sky. A total lunar eclipse over Graz, Austria. But when I got up at 3 a.m. I was very disappointed. There were clouds all over. So I went back to sleep until shortly before 4 am. Again, I went to my window and looked outside. I could see the moon, but only a slice of it. Then it disappeared.
A few moments later it was back on the sky. All clouds were gone and the moon turned red. That's what I wanted to see. I kept taking pictures for more than one hour until the earth moved away and the sun touched the moon again.
Interestingly, as soon as the moon started to reflect the sun's light, the clouds were visible again.

This was one of the days where I was happy to have my Canon EOS 400D camera with all the lenses I have got. For this picture I used the Vivitar 400mm f/5.6 with and without a 2x Minolta Teleconverter and my Canon EF 28-105mm USM lens. I needed to set the ISO to 800 most of the time as I the earth turns very fast when using a 800mm lens.

My Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens

2008-02-10T09:57:00.001+01:00

Beautiful Sunset on Schlossberg
Originally uploaded by theowl84

I was asking myself if I really need a fixed focal lens and if so, how much it should cost. After almost a month I decided to get myself a Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens. I didn't want to get the cheaper f/1.8 as I read that it's build quality isn't that good. And in addition to that I already have a 58mm filter, so the f/1.4 was a perfect fit there. Another plus was the USM focus, which I am used to from my Canon EF 28-105 USM lens. I don't want to miss that anymore.
So I decided to go for that lens. As it isn't that much cheaper on the used marked, I got mine from Amazon.
Last weekend I went on a photo trip with my Canon EOS 400D and my new lens. I tried it out in various situations. And I have to say, I am impressed by it's sharpness, how fast it is in both light and focusing speed and when using it with the 400D's x1.6 crop factor, you can use it for almost any situation.
The thing that I love most about it is that it allows digital zooming on my computer. As almost every pixel is sharp, it's no problem cropping the picture to about 10% of size and still get a good quality picture.
If you like to view more of the pictures I've taken with the lens, take a look at my flickr-page.

It's raining satellite dishes today

2008-01-27T16:44:00.000+01:00

On Jan. 27th 2008 there was a stong storm in Graz, Austria. In the news you hear from fallen trees and people getting hurt.
When I looked out of the window this morning, a satellite dish was just dropping down from the forth floor of the building I'm living in. I don't think it will work anymore. I brought it inside, so the owner can at least pick up the remainings of it.

Vandalism on Hans Kloepfer

2008-01-24T15:56:00.001+01:00

Vandalism on Hans Kloepfer
Originally uploaded by theowl84

Today I was walking on Schlossberg in Graz. I realized the green head before but today I also took a picture from it.
It's so sad that there are people destroying the most beautiful things. This head used to be black, but now somebody has spray painted it green. There are also other statues destroyed in the same way near this place.
When I took this picture an old woman started talking to me about what she'd do to prevent this: she'd place police men with bats and guns everywhere. While she admitted that shooting the perpetrators isn't the best choice, she suggested beating them.
Well, I don't think that this is the right treatment, but I do not have a good alternative neither. The best thing would be giving young people something better to do or at least make them realize that there are valuable things that shouldn't be destroyed.

Sample Picture taken with Nokia 5310 XpressMusic

2008-01-07T22:24:00.000+01:00

As some people have asked me to show them some pictures taken with my Nokia 5310, I'll post some here.
For the beginning, here is one I took in a park in Graz:

Rokkor 50mm/f1.7 meets Canon 400D

2008-01-06T15:39:00.001+01:00

Rokkor 50mm/f1.7 meets Canon 400D
Originally uploaded by theowl84

This week I got my lens adapter to be able to attach the old Minolta lenses that we have at home with my Canon EOS 400D. I got it for about EUR 30 at eBay. It was cheapest in a shop in Hong Kong.
It works quite nice. I can attach all MC or MD lenses (with manual focus of course). It also features a correction lens, which is important if I want to focus to infinity.
I did some tests with the MC Rokkor - PF 50mm f/1.7 lens. It performs great when wide open and the object isn't far away. For infinity I do have to stop it down a little - but for these ranges I do have other lenses.
The only negative side is that I do have to focus manually, which is quite tricky with the lens wide open.

Merry Christmas

2007-12-25T07:59:00.001+01:00

Christmas Tree HDR
Originally uploaded by theowl84

Merry Christmas 2007 to all of you and your loved ones.

Mango Lassi Recipe

2007-12-10T18:41:00.000+01:00

My girlfriend and I have a favorite drink: Mango Lassi. Maybe you want to try it as well, so here is the recipe.

First, all you need is to pour these ingredients into a glass:

Natural Yogurt (without sugar and flavor)
Mango Juice
Brown Sugar
Milk
Brown rum (you can skip it if you don't like alcohol)

Fill the glass up to 1/3 with yogurt, 1/3 of milk and 1/3 Mango juice. Then just add a spoon full of sugar and a little rum. You can vary the amounts of each ingredient if you wish. Now stir until everything is mixed together.
It's best when still cold and freshly prepared. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Dead Body Forecast

2007-11-25T13:12:00.000+01:00

The weather on Sunday will be clouded in some areas, with 9 degree in the morning and up to 30 degree in the afternoon.

A message like this doesn't really catch anyone's attention. Unfortunately this kind of news won't either:

A parked car bomb exploded in a crowded area near a medical complex in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least nine people and wounding more than 30, officials said. [Newsvine]

I heard this news today on the radio just before the weather report. The reporter used the same voice tone for the forecast as for the killings.
It struck me quite a bit: we've become so used to people dying in Iraq that it's nothing special anymore. Like the monthly car bomb - a never ending series. I guess when a bomb kills only one person in my country, there will be reports about it all day long.

Nokia 5310 XpressMusic Phone Review

2007-11-16T21:06:00.001+01:00

I have been using my new Nokia 5310 XpressMusic for a week now. Enough to tell you what I have found out:

Audio
The sound quality is really good. I dare say better than my old iPod Mini. You can listen to music with your headphones or through the internal speakers. There is a larger speaker on the back of the phone, so it is loud enough.
Battery
The battery lifetime is really good. It lasts half a week with moderate calls and GPRS/EDGE usage. The screen goes black after a few minutes of inactivity - thus saving a lot of energy.
Camera
The camera is quite good in terms of dynamics and sharpness. You can take a look at a sample shot. Unfortunately the camera shows a lot of pixel errors in all colors. I've heard from other people that they have the same problem with the camera.
Dimensions
It is a very slim phone and fits perfectly in any pocket.
Headphone
The phone comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack. This port is used for the headset or for any other headphone.
Internet
The phone comes with an integrated browser and Opera Mini. I didn't have any problems surfing the net so far.
Java
The phone comes with many Java applications and most files you download work instantly.
Keys
The keys are quite small but easy to press. Writing texts works quite fast.
Organizer
You'll find the standard set of calendar, notes and tasks. I successfully synchronized with my Google calender by using GCalSync 2.
Radio
The integrated radio has everything you need. RDS, automatic and manual seeking. The best thing about it is that you don't need a special headphone for it. Any headphone will do the trick as long as it is plugged into to 3.5mm jack. You can also make the radio use the internal speaker, but still need to attach a headphone which is used as the antenna.
Screen
A 320x240 screen has enough resolution for my needs.
Volume
A very practical feature is the volume control on the right side. You can also use it while making calls or while listening to your music.
Weight
You almost don't notice the phone when you hold it in your hands. It's really light weight.

My new Nokia 5310 Phone

2007-11-09T20:31:00.000+01:00

After 4 years of use, my old Siemens M55 has died. Well, it does work, but the keys work crappy and the charger needs a little "fine tuning" when plugging it in. So the decision to buy a new phone was rather easy.

This week I got myself the new Nokia 5310. It has everything from Internet, MP3 player, camera, large screen and so on. With only 9.9 mm thickness, it fits perfectly in every pocket. I'm a little concerned about breaking it, that's why I handle it with extra care.

It comes with a 2GB micro-SD card, so there is enough place to store MP3s and pictures. The camera isn't really that good. I only tested it in low-light scenes so far. But without flash no camera will give good results.

One of the features I really like is the 3.5mm standard audio jack. You can attach any audio cable to the phone. So it can really replace an MP3 player. The headset is also quite nice, it has a button that allows to accept calls or switch through the playlist or select frequencies in radio mode.

So far I have encountered only one major failure: I couldn't load Java files. It simply didn't work. Not even for the files already on the phone. The service team told me to visit the store again, to let them check the software. They replaced it instantly the next week.

Apart from this initial problem, I'm quite happy with my new phone. Let's see what other advantages or disadvantages it has. I'll keep you updated.

HDR Tutorial for Canon EOS 400D

2007-11-01T18:53:00.002+01:00

Schlossberg Stiege in Graz
Originally uploaded by theowl84

In the last weeks I had some time to experiment with my new camera. One of the reasons for buying it was the possibility to use the Auto Exposure Bracketing function (AEB). This setting can be used to let the camera shot three pictures with different exposure settings.

I use a mini tripod and the timer function to avoid any shake of the camera, especially for night-time-HDRs. I'll give you a small tutorial about how I do it:

Mount the camera on a mini tripod
Set the camera into Aperture-Priority (Av)
Get into the menu "Camera 2" and set the AEB to -2/0/+2
Change the shoot mode to self-timer to delay the shutter by 10 seconds (press the button below the AV+/- button to do this)
Find a nice place for the camera where it can stand on it's own. You must not touch the camera when the shutter is open.
For some scenes it's good to manually change the basic exposure to an adequate level (This is necessary when the brightest picture is too bright or the darkest picture is too dark)
Then press the shutter button and wait 10 seconds for the camera to start shooting. It will make 3 successive shots automatically.

The setup should now look like the screenshot on the right.
After the pictures have been taken you should review all pictures and assure that all details are at least visible in one picture (for example very bright objects should be clearly visible in the darkest picture)
If you are not content with your picture series, manually change the basic exposure and re-shoot the entire series.
Now you can load the pictures to your PC and use your favorite HDR software to create magic pictures.

A few examples

You can see many other HDR pictures on my flickr page.

My new Canon EOS 400D

2007-10-21T14:21:00.000+02:00

I am now an owner of the Canon EOS 400D digital SLR camera - and proud of it. Initially I wanted to get myself the previous model - the 350D. But before I orderd it I found out that Canon has a cash back promotion now. This means they return 70€ to your bank account if you send them a proof of purchase. So the new camera model wasn't that expensive compared to the 350D.
The last days didn't leave a lot of time to try it and the weather wasn't nice either. So I only have made a few pictures so far.
The camera is really great. It has all the functions I wanted to have like AEB, up to 30 seconds shutter times and great image quality. I will write a little bit more about my camera as I have more experience with it.
You can have a look at some of the pictures on my flickr page:

Photography is becoming a new hobby

2007-10-11T11:57:00.001+02:00

University Glass House in Graz
Originally uploaded by theowl84

I'm becoming better at HDR photography and I decided to buy a new camera. Once you start playing with advanced techniques, a normal camera like my Sanjo J4 is not sufficient anymore. That's why I'm going to buy myself a Canon 350D SLR camera.

And finally they turn Red

2007-10-05T13:52:00.001+02:00

It's been more than 5 months since my chilies have been planted. They started as tiny green leafs. A few weeks ago I harvested 25 of them and tied them up on a string. Now they started to turn red. But even those still on the plant started to change their colors.

I tried one of them today. They are hot, hot, hot. So all my efforts in growing them have succeeded. If you know any good recipes or want to try some of my chilies, just drop me a comment.

I'm On YouTube

2007-09-25T20:05:00.000+02:00

This video was taken while the four of us were playing around with beer bottles.

Dinner Jazz Excursion Radio

2007-09-19T19:23:00.000+02:00

I've been listening to an internet radio station a lot recently it's called Dinner Jazz Excursion. They have good music in great quality, no ads and it's free. Now I've become a real Jazz addict.

Experiments with HDR

2007-09-18T12:26:00.000+02:00

While using flickr I stumbled upon a new method to shoot pictures. It's called HDR (high dynamic range) that merges pictures with various exposure settings into one. This way dark and light areas of the picture will be displayed with many more detail.

The picture above is one of my best pictures with HDR so far. I went to a church nearby and took some picture. It is a composition of three pictures to make the walls bright as well as the window visible. A single shot would either be under- or overexposed. You can see more of my HDR pictures on my flickr page.

The Dead Rabbit

2007-09-14T21:17:00.001+02:00

Today my mum told me a very funny story (it may be real):

A family had a very bad dog who kept running away all the time. Their neighbors didn't like the dog therefore.

One day the neighbors were on vacation and the dog was gone once again. So the lady owning the dog called her dog. No answer. After a while she saw the dog running around in their neighbor's garden. It was playing with some fluffy white thing. She walked to her dog shouting. When she came closer she realized that the white thing was the neighbor's pet rabbit. The cage was open.

"Damn!" she thought. This incident will definitely make the relationship with them worse. She took the rabbit which was dead and looked at it. It didn't have any obvious bite marks but was quite dirty. So she had an idea: She cleaned the rabbit with some water and blow dried it. Then she put it back into the cage and closed the door. It almost looked like the rabbit had died on its own.

A few days later the neighbors came back. They didn't say anything. While the lady was walking her dog on the street another neighbor told her: "Did you hear the latest story? Our neighbor's rabbit had died before they went on vacation. So they buried it. But after they returned the rabbit was back in it's cage and it looked cleaner than before."

I actually found the same story on the internet later.

A Poem against Suicide

2007-09-13T21:00:00.000+02:00

This is a poem I wrote to a girl I learned to know on the Internet about a year ago. I learned to know her in a time of depression and she was talking about suicide a lot. I decided to publish part of the poem I wrote to her at that time. I cut the first part to maintain her anonymity.

Talking for hours without a break,
I cannot imagine this is fake.
So it didn't take long to realize,
This is becoming friends without looking into the other's eyes.

There are so many things we share,
But one difference that makes me care:
While in my life I try everything I haven't tried,
You embrace death and suicide.

I don't know anyone with such an obsession
And please don't blame it on depression!
This thing is really spooking in my head:
I don't want you to be dead!

I think you are creative and smart,
I love your poems which is your way of art.
I read some of them and sensed your cry:
This world does not want me, so just let my die.

There is still one thing I don't understand:
You want to see the world on the other hand.
You are interested in many things including Spanish,
So death cannot be your eternal wish.

Sometimes life is good, sometimes it's bad,
Sometimes you're happy, sometimes you're sad.
There is so much this life is giving,
So promise me, you will stay among the living.

I met the girl a few month after I wrote this poem and she is fine.

Countries I have been to

2007-09-07T15:34:00.001+02:00

I found a nice site that allows you to create a map of all your visited countries. Check out mine...

create your own visited countries map or vertaling Duits Nederlands

I signed up to flickr

2007-09-05T17:58:00.001+02:00

As I have some photos I want to share with the world, I decided to sign up to flickr. You're welcome to view my pictures.

Also take a look at my new widget on the blog that shows my pictures!

196,324,232

2007-09-04T14:04:00.000+02:00

This is the first position where my birthday occurs in consecutive order in the digits of π (according to Pi-Searcher)

Great Midi Site

2007-08-31T15:16:00.000+02:00

I stumbled upon a great site offering MIDI downloads and a MIDI to MP3 converter. I was looking for such a feature for a long time as my old SoundBlaster gave up after almost 9 years of working.

Now I have only my internal soundcard with crappy MIDI playback. Now I can make use of the 1000s of MIDIs again that I have somewhere on my computer. I started converting some of the songs I wrote myself some years ago and put them on my iPod.

My Chilis keep growing

2007-08-27T08:58:00.000+02:00

It's been a while since my last post about my chilis. It's been amazing how fast they have been growing. The trick is simple: give them a good earth to grow in and they will surprise you every day.

I've stopped counting the fruits as their number has become uncountable.

If anyone out there has some hints of how to grow them into even more tasty chilis, please drop me a comment. I sure will post my experiences.

My New Bike

2007-08-06T23:51:00.000+02:00

I got my new bike a few days ago. The day I got it, I did a 22km trip followed by a 35km one the next day. I love it. It's fast, it's light weighted and it makes your back hurt. That's what everyone will experience when using a race bike for the first time I guess. I wasn't used to this kind of sitting style. But on my third trip there was no pain anymore, just fun.

My third trip took me to my girlfriend's place - some 44km away from home. And I was almost as fast as the train to the same destination: only 1:30 hours for one way.

My New Bike

2007-07-26T18:24:00.000+02:00

I finally did it! I bought my new bike - a Genesis Corsa 6600 racebike. I can't wait to finally ride it - which will be on Wednesday next week. I'm definitely gonna post a picture on my blog then!

Fuer Elise Jazzed Up

2007-07-18T22:33:00.001+02:00

Today a friend posted me a youtube link about how Fuer Elise can be played - jazz style.

My Chili Plant

2007-07-17T21:45:00.000+02:00

It's been a while that my chili plants have been growing. Today I donated them a new flower pot as they have grown really big. The small one already shows some buds. I hope the big ones will follow soon.

As temperatures are currently in the 100°F range, I expect them to grow perfectly. Keep looking for updates on my blog site.

Fuer Elise

2007-07-14T21:51:00.000+02:00

Today I was in the Haus der Musik in Vienna. The best thing was the Grand Piano standing in the hallway of the museum. Everyone was allowed to play.

I sat down and started playing Fuer Elise. Suddenly a little girl came to the piano and smiled. It didn't take long until several other children were around. They all were listening to me playing. I didn't even dare to look up because I didn't except that much audience. After I finished playing they applauded for me. My girlfriend who was sitting behind me was really proud of me at that moment. It's been a while that my piano playing skills have been honored that much.

Where is the fourth Little Kitten?

2007-06-26T17:26:00.000+02:00

For a few weeks the small cats are running around in front of my window. Last week some neighbors caught the mother cat and brought her to the vet for sterilization. The young kittens had to survive for a few days by themselves.

After the mother was released back into the garden, I didn't see the small ones anymore. Yesterday evening they were there again, but only 3 of them. The mother car keeps running around the garden, seeking for her lost child. She even sneaked into my room, crying loudly. But there was no answer.

I still hope she'll find the little kitten. I'm glad that at least three of them are still alive. Let's all hope they grow into beautiful cats one day!

Origami with $$$

2007-06-23T19:54:00.000+02:00

I found a nice site that shows how to do origami with dollar bills. Try it out yourself here.

Little Kittens in my room

2007-06-15T00:18:00.001+02:00

While sitting at my computer today, I had the door to the terrace open. The 4 little cats were running around outside. Once in a while they peeked into my room but as soon as I looked at them, they got scared and ran away.

After a while they didn't run away anymore and one of them dared to set a foot into my room. Very, very cautiously. The mother cat was watching it all the time. Then suddenly the small one entered my room completely and started exploring. I sat quietly in my chair because I didn't want to scare it.

Once the most daring kitten was inside, all the others followed. I had all four of them running around, hiding under my bed and checking out all parts of my room. I sneaked away to get my camera. In the end I got some very cute pictures of them.

Unfortunately I had to go soon, so I needed them to leave my room again. The mother cat was a little scared all the time anyway. She kept sitting outside, watching every move I made. Even after all the kittens were outside, she hissed at me while I put a cup of water outside.

Little Kittens

2007-06-13T15:06:00.000+02:00

A few days ago I was standing on my terrace talking to my neighbor while he was feeding a cat. He told me that the cat currently had 4 little kitten running around in the back yard.
It didn't take long until the little ones came running to their mother and started eating from the little plate my neighbor had put on the floor for them.
A day later I put a little cup of water with milk in front of my door. It didn't take long until the cats came closer to my flat, too. They are the cutest things I've seen in a long time.

A Dream about Real Virtuality

2007-05-20T10:05:00.000+02:00

This night I had an interesting dream. I visited a friend and he showed me a website with some kind of virtual world. Basically it was like a computer game where you could walk around in a 3D world.
It all started in a room where some people were walking around. I could move around with the mouse in my hand. I zoomed out and suddenly flew through the roof of the building. Then I saw something interesting: the building was a temple, but it was small, some kind of model. It was about 20cm in height in terms of "outer-world" measures. The outer world was a whole city. You could fly around in it, watching people, cars and of course buildings.
So I navigated a little through that world and zoomed into another house. There was a little girl looking at some kind of fish tank. On the water surface there was a little boat. I zoomed into that boat because I was curious how many details there were. And to my surprise, I could zoom into that boat and there were people in it. They were alive. I saw a mother with her little baby. I could click on them and they would talk. I left the boat and was out in the "big world" again. So I tried clicking on the little girl watching the boat and she talked, too.
I kept flying around in that world for hours (in dream time). The details were amazing. Thousands of buildings and even more people and cars. It was a mega city. I kept asking myself, since this was a computer program: who created all this. Maybe it was some kind of second life 10.0 . I never played that game in real life, yet that dream was so amazing that I would love to see such a game - or simulation in real life.
After waking up I imagined how it would be possible to create such a simulation in real life. It would be an amazing project, a whole civilization simulated on a computer. And most of all: I do not doubt that this will be reality one day.

Drugs and Coincidences

2007-05-12T17:09:00.000+02:00

It's amazing how many coincidences happen in daily life. I was just sitting in the park reading in my new book about neurons. A guy cycled by with his bike slowly quietly saying something I interpreted as Graz. As a matter of fact, I was sitting in the town Graz, but why did he tell me this. So I repeated in a questioning voice: Graz? He turned around and said: "grass, weeds..."

Now it got clear to me, he was selling drugs there. I just shook my head and he went off. I thought that I should have given him a stupid answer like "I'm satisfied with how the neurotransmitters in my brain work" because that is what I was just reading about - neurotransmitters.

I read on in my book. And the second next sentence I was reading was:

Many drugs work by affecting the rate and quantity of particular neurotransmitters released and the speed at which they are broken down and reabsorbed.

I was thinking: what kind of coincidence was that? Why did this guy have to cycle by at exactly this moment. It really gave me a big smile. So you could say, my mood was elevated by drugs - but as you see you don't have to smoke weed to make yourself happy :)

Swim Across The Atlantic Ocean

2007-05-05T22:32:00.000+02:00

That's what you would have to do when you ask Google Maps for directions considering the starting point is in the USA and you want to go to an European city, for example.

Go to the website
select Get directions
enter NYC into the Start address
enter London into the End address
press the Get directions button

That will tell you to "Swim across the Atlantic Ocean, 3462mi". I'm going to London, who is coming with me ;-)

[2007/08/06] Unfortunately this "feature" does not work anymore :-(

Intercultural Social Competence

2007-05-05T16:28:00.000+02:00

I'm currently attending a seminar at my university called Intercultural Social Competence. This course is quite interesting by itself. But for me it's just the thing I have been looking for - or better, it has found me.

It's like all my thoughts and experiences of the past half year coming together. I can relate to many intercultural differences because I have seen them in India myself this winter.

I started to love this seminar right from the beginning. It started with a quote from Sound Of Music. That shows how people from all over the world might perceive Austria, while most don't know how old that movie is or that not all Austria is that way.

Also, today we started the course with the first 15 minutes of Lost In Translation, a great movie about people traveling to Tokyo by themselves. I saw the whole movie about a month ago and it I loved it due to my Indian memories. But even more than that, today I learned to realize all the small details the movie offers. In the first 15 minutes Bill Murray arrives in a totally strange country. He has no idea what the local behaviors are.

This course teaches us all these little differences. For example, it's amazing how cultures differ in simple things such as greeting. While in southern countries you are almost hugged an kissed by everyone, in Asian countries a handshake is all that is accepted. If you are not aware of these things, you might screw up right at the beginning of a visit to another country.

I probably will post more impressions about this course during the week or next weekend, when the second half will take place.

Get Me Out Of Here

2007-05-04T17:30:00.000+02:00

I finished reading my latest book: Get Me Out Of Here by Rachel Reiland. A wonderful account of borderline personality disorder (BPD), how she suffered through it and most of all how she recovered. I especially liked the role of her therapist, who - while keeping himself totally distanced emotionally - was more of a father for her than her own.

Reading this kind of book gives you a lot of understanding in psychological illnesses. I do not know anyone with BPD personally, but it's pretty certain that many people you encounter in daily life show similarities but don't even notice.

One thing I have read about in this book is a very important one: many people do not want to be helped in the first place, but then are more than thankful that someone really cares for their problems. Most people only show understanding on a surface level - the real causes remain hidden even for the person dealing with them. Opening yourself up requires a lot of trust and time. And this is something that can hardly be found today.

Brain Scan

2007-05-03T18:15:00.000+02:00

I had my brain scanned again. For all of you who don't know yet, I like to take part in psychological experiments. They do take some time and don't get me money, but you can learn a lot from them and sometimes you get pictures like this fMRI one - for free!

This experiment actually consisted of two parts. First I had to do three tasks (visually, cognitive and motion) in the fMRI scanner, two weeks later I had to do the same set of tests in a NIRS scanner. While the fMRI is the big magnet tube you have to lie in, NIRS is just like EEG but without sticky pastes and hours of setup time. It's only light beams going in your head and going out again.

As far as I know, the results of both tests will be compared later. I don't really care what they do with my thoughts now, as long as I have this wonderful pic.
Actually this is only one picture of many others. I have a 3D view of my head on my computer now that allows me to slice and dice it in whatever way I want to.

Dogs find their way home

2007-05-02T14:47:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I went for a walk with my two dogs. The older one doesn't really like long walks anymore. She constantly keeps sitting down and turning in the other direction clearly saying: "I want to go home"

After I had reached my destination yesterday, my dog again pulled in the direction of our house. So I decided to let her find the way. But instead of going the same way back, she took different roads and I dare say she has never taken this way home before. But in retrospect, she decided for the shortest way - without any hesitation.

I think this is an amazing behavior. You may say that maybe I would have given the dog subtle directions where I wanted to go, but as I would have liked to walk another way, I don't think that this is true. Have you ever let your dog decide where to go?

Globalization vs Localization

2007-05-01T14:23:00.000+02:00

Recently I made two purchases on the internet. The first thing that I bought were two books. A typical globalized transaction:

I found these books while commenting an article from an Austrian guy
I did a search which brought me to an American website: Mind Hacks
So I logged in on the Austrian portal of Amazon
As you know, this site is only a modified version of the German Amazon
I found out that these books were cheaper by an alternative seller in the UK
A week later the books arrived and on the envelope it said:
Paperbackshop.co.uk from the UK
But the address was from Illinois USA
Interestingly the stamp said: sent from Niederaula in Germany (written in French)
and then i was sent all the way to Austria

On the other hand, last Sunday I bought two packs of chili seeds on eBay. As I found out after the purchase, the seller lives about 10 walking minutes from my home. So today I just walked over there to buy them and save the shipping money.

So one transaction involved 4 countries from half around the globe and 3 languages, while the other was done within less than 2 kilometers from my home. Now that is globalization vs. localization

Strange people in the park

2007-04-28T18:40:00.000+02:00

Thanks to the marvelous weather I'm spending as much time as possible in the park. Today I sat again on the place as yesterday. And again most people were drinking alcohol there - at 4 pm.
But today I also had some funny experiences. A girl sat down on the bench next to me and said: "Excuse me, is my nose bleeding?" First I didn't even understand the question because it was so out of context. But it seems like she has that problem very often and of course had no mirror.
She went away shortly after and after a few more minutes an older guy walked by every bench and tried to sell self-made candles for EUR 1.50 each. Well... I don't think he'll sell many candles in the direct sunshine. Maybe he should have tried a few hours later.

Where is our youth going?

2007-04-28T09:43:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I was reading in the city park of my town. Even though it was still afternoon many young people sitting on the other benches were already drinking beer. Too bad there is no ban on drinking in public places in Austria.
But compared to what I have seen later in the evening, this was nothing. I came across the park again in the late evening. It was filled with hundreds of young people, many of them below the age of 16. But everyone was drunk. I wish drinking would have been the only drug consume there.
In addition to that the paths were littered with empty or full beer bottles and other things. Compared to afternoon, this place looked completely different. And nobody is gonna do anything against it. The police was driving by but didn't even bother to get out of the car. Like society lets down our youth on purpose.
We must not forget that our children will be the ones who will be the adults in the future. They will have children of their own. Where is this all going? Maybe their parents are already drunk on some evenings, too. A great example for them.
But instead of seeking a better life, the children embrace alcohol and drugs in ever increasing numbers. Looks like there is nothing else to do for them. Or if there is, they all have only one thing in common: getting drunk on a regular basis. What more do they need. It's fun, it's probably cheaper than going to the movies and you have lots and lots of people who do the same.
There are some ad campaigns against alcohol. But instead of telling them that it's bad, we should show our youth how to have fun without it. And we should do it fast before those who know how die out.

Life on Mars

2007-04-26T18:30:00.000+02:00

In yesterday's Philosophy lecture the professor somehow mentioned a possible trip to Mars in 20 years time. The interesting thing was how the crew might change during the trip - which will take 2 years for each way and possibly includes a 2 year long stay on Mars.

Well, during this long time time some crew members may die but also there is a chance that a baby will be born. Don't ask me about ethics for an inspace-pregnancy, but I like the idea. The child might get born on Mars and not see earth before being 4 years old. And when it does, it's a natural born alien.

A very funny question that will arise is: what city of birth do you write into the child's passport?

Being more friendly to strangers

2007-04-24T16:18:00.000+02:00

About a week ago I was walking my dogs in the morning. Many people pass by every time. But this time was different. A girl passed me. Well, there's nothing special about that - but shortly after she said "Hello" and went on. I turned around. No one else was there but she kept on walking in the opposite direction. It got me all a little confused.

Having seen the movie Waking Life I remembered the ant scene where the narrator passes a woman and she starts talking to him:

I mean, it’s like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continuously on ant auto-pilot with nothing really human required of us.

I've thought about it after seeing the movie and I'm thinking about it again: why do we ignore most people on the streets? Can't we all be a little bit more friendly or at least notice the people we pass?

In the future I want to be more friendly to strangers. For example, today a girl wanted to cross the streets and was unsure whether I'd stop my bike. Instead of going on, I stopped and gave her a smile to let her know it's safe to cross. She smiled back.

It doesn't take much - but when everyone does it, life can be a lot more enjoyable.

Welcome to my blog

2007-04-24T16:09:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone!

I've been wondering... do I need a blog, do I want to write one and most of all, do I have time to write one? I've decided to give it a try.

What is my motivation for blogging? I'm thinking about many things from my every day life. Some times these thoughts are so interesting that I share them with friends and other people. But in the end they will be forgotten sooner or later. This blog will therefore be a collection of my thought about life, a journey through it and it will give you an insight who I am.

I hope I can make this an interesting blog, so keep coming back!