New Toy

Well, I finally got my new toy thru. I have been waiting for a while to be able to get a new Digital SLR camera. All that i can say now is WOW!!. I am very impressed by the performance of the new Pentax.

I received the new *ist DL and can only say that it is quite simply an awesome camera. I have been snapping pics everywhere and cannot fault it in any way. I even attempted to do a 'BULB' exposure at night and was more than impressed. Eventually i will stop playing around and take some serious photos which i will post somewhere on the web.

My first opion of the camera was quite simply just WOW. even the box was extremely well packed and the feeling of opening the box was quite impressive. They have designed the packaging so that basically every part of the camera can be taken out without having to remove every other part first.

Upon first start up you are asked to simply set the time and the time zone. This is easily achieved with the 4 way navigation button on the back of the unit. The screen is extremely clear and easy to read as well as VERY large. The 2.5 inch screen makes it very clear what mode you are in and the preview screen shows an extremely high definition image.

Well enough ramblings at this point. I need to go play with this new toy and learn the best way to use it.

Search Engine Optimization

A good friend of mine has just let me know about a new blog he is writing. It is to do with search engine optimization.

This is a great site and is already full of great information. I know he will continue to improve and update this blog as time goes on. I have linked it off my front page as well.

The article will also be published at ThePublisherhouse.com as well.

Who's stupidity was it??

Well, My own humility might be blown away with this comment but i have to wonder about the stupidity of some programmers.

I have been working ona website now for a rather extended period. It started as a simple change of appearance of the site - which has since turned into a total rewrite of the whole site from start to finish including the database and all the code to run the site as well as the administration for the site. This small project which i quoted a rather small amount on has now turned into a MASSIVE project with basically the same amount of pay.

My gripe is simple. Programmers who don't think ahead when it comes to rewriting the site in the future. The whole site was completely undocumented and had absolutely NO consistent theme to any of the variables used or the way that the flow of the code was designed.

After many months i have basically written out all code bar a few small segments. I have not rewritten these segments quite simply because i have absolutely NO IDEA as to how they work. All that i know is that they do work and do return what i would expect.

I have to ask the question of some programmers (or should i say code mashers) - How do you expect to remember in say 6 or 12 months how a particular piece of code works when in most cases the code is so poorly written that it takes anything up to 15 minutes to follow the simplest of code paths.

One instance came to light today where i had to look over the original code to try and work out how to mash together some of the data from the original website database into the new site. We are at the point of going to a beta testing of this site and currently am trying to import the data ready for final testing. I had to follow a simple thing where some information was to be added to the original database. I was trying to understand how piece of information 'A' was then transformed into massive information pieces 'B C D E F'. After opening 11 different include files, 4 web browsers and 3 SSH sessions i was finally able to follow the code segment. Only to find that 'B C D E F' was always there and hardcoded into the database and only ever appeared once 'A' was passed to it. This total waste of time took in excess of 2 hours, 3 coffees and about 1000 obscene words.

Well i have had my say i guess. I do not under any circumstance try to say that i am an expert programmer. I am barely a novice compared to others that are around, but i do know that simple instructions and comments in the code could have easily saved me many hours of pain with this website.

Banking Disasters

Well, first thing in the morning and i am already upset for the day. I have just had a run in with the banks yet again.

It amazes me that it takes so long for the simplest of things to be done with the banks. To do a transfer from one bank to another can take anything up to 5 working days - even between banks that are supposed to be linked together. What really annoys me though is that when you have to pay using a cheque that the second that cheque is banked into ANY bank the money is withdrawn from your account virtually immediately.

How can the bank draw money from your account that quickly but cannot put money into your account with the same speed. To me it seems that they are using OUR money to make themselves richer. To top it off they also charge US to put OUR money into OUR account.

Sitting down and looking over bank statements i also find a rediculous amount of fees that always seem to be there. How can we be charged an account keeping fee each month when we already pay for each transaction? We also get charged each time we withdraw money from an ATM.

The other thing that has amazed me on several occasions is that they are able to charge you the fees from your account BEFORE and with a priority in front of any other transaction. I personally have had two or three times where a monthly payment has come out after they have drawn their fees out. This caused my account to become overdrawn - and as usual i then get charged MORE fees as well as having the payment dishonoured. You can never tell when they are going to charge the fees - it could be any day either before or after the end of month.

How do we as average people do anything about this abuse of trust that is allowed to be put upon us by the banks. How in this day where we can send a video around the world in seconds - can we not have a banking system that is able to treat us with the respect that we deserve

Future Dream Hardware

Further to my earlier post tonight, I was watching a segment on Beyond Tomorow and was starting to wonder how far technology is going to go.

The segment on the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics show gave me the impression that every person will shortly be carrying around a tv in their pocket. This really does scare me as a parent - i often have a problem getting my children to do anything when the TV is on. We jokingly call it the TV - Total eVaporation .

This brings me to the point as to how much television do we really need to watch. We are able to get webcasts, podcasts, streaming video, video messages, video attached to emails and the list goes on. Do we really need yet another way for someone to fry our brains with more targetted advertising methods. Imagine that any provider of mobile phone services can basically re-telecast any Free to air TV service and put their own banner ads or targetted advertising into the program. This also then leads to further issues with Copyright infringement. Most of the devices shown are capable of capturing and storing these video signals. We already have enough of an issue with the digital music revolution and MP3 etc. do we need the same thing with our Television networks next?

Oh well - enough ramblings for tonight

PC Parts Dilema

Well, late at night again and sitting here thinking. Yes, i know, that is something that shouldn't be done often as it tends to be very dangerous.

Tonight i have been looking around for a friend who is wanting to upgrade their computer. So far i have visited over 15 online stores that can supply to this area. To put it very politely i have become very confused and really havn't worked out which way to go for this friend.

My dilema was rather simple to start with. They need a simple system without all the nice and fancy stuff that seems to be commonplace now.

From the 15 sites that i visited i was only able to compare about 3 different mainboards on price as each company seemed to have their own brand or they stocked a totally different range of models etc. Each company raved about how their model of motherboard was the best but not one of them actually stipulated why that was the case. Each one said that they can outperform the other without showing proof that this is the case.

My simple and modest opinion is this. If a manufacturer is able to say that they are the best why don't they prove it. Why don't they show a comparison between different brands or models and why they can outperform the other model etc. Most car manufacturers are able to physically show that their car is better because of XYZ readings achieved on a standard test track using standards that ALL manufacturers must match with. Some of these computers are used in a situation where it can easily be considered life and death.

A good case in this is a common brand of machine is used in a medical monitoring situation. I have heard of at least 2 cases within the last 3 months where a brand new machine (under 12 months old) has suffered a serious failure. This serious failure is rather simple - a complete Hard Drive collapse. Both of these machines where shown to not be in a situation that could have in any way created or caused a failure. To resolve the situation and get the computer back into a situation of being able to maintain the most important job of all - keeping someone alive - the technician had to physically go to a local computer store and buy a new hard drive for these machines. To avoid this issue happening again he chose a completely different brand of hard drive. Making matters seem even worse was the fact that the original hard drive performed only 1/3 as good as the replacement unit. It seems that the manufacturer didn't actually check and rate the performance of its units. To this date both machines are still working better than they did from the first day they where turned on.

Well my ramblings have again probably upset some people but at times i need to vent my frustrations. I simply have to ask the question though after all this - Why can't a computer manufacturer actually state and prove why you should buy their product instead of making all the unfounded promises and false impressions gained by fancy boxes and images. Why should we believe anything that is said on the box when all it is - in my opinion - is simply someone who thinks that they can make up some fancy words and draw some fancy pictures to make me buy.

What a better world would be like

Thinking back over today i wonder if there is an easier way to look after websites and web servers. After having to move a series of sites from one server to another, then finding version compatibility issues with PHP and Apache , fixing them and finding more problems it really makes you wonder.

Sometimes thinking about how we have to continually update a server to maintain the security and stability of the server causes you to wonder if it is really worth it. I was wondering what the life of a Systems Administrator would be like if you didn't have to worry about the hackers and script kiddies that are around at the moment.

I know these are probably just ramblings but it really does make me think of the way life could be.

If we didn't have to worry about hackers then all the masses of people involved in currently finding weaknesses could be used instead to make a product not only stronger but better and faster. If the undesirable peoples of the world who have nothing better to do than create ways to upset others put their talents to better use and made ways to actually fix the problems instead of creating new ones - we would probably have operating systems and applications that are far superior to what we currently have.

Wouldn't the world be much simpler for all if there was no concern about virus infections or trojan attacks. Imagine how many people, who are currently employed to fix these issues, could be put to much better use in developing far more advanced applications. We also wouldn't have to waste so many CPU cycles in each pc on attempting to secure and avoid breaches.

I know that what i say now really won't change anything around the world but i would like to put forward that all the script kiddies try to put their talents to fixing problems instead of creating more. That hackers should work with security people to try and close all the weaknesses instead of just creating more work and expense for the smaller companies who simply cannot afford to just throw money away. Speaking from experience i spend an average of 8-10 hours a week simply removing the junkmail from my inbox. Looking at the amount of wasted bandwidth and time that this creates for me alone, i wonder how much some of the bigger companies are losing out on each and every day.

Well i guess that i have had my 2 cents worth. Maybe one person reads this and understands what i mean. Maybe that one person will be able to convert one hacker or script kiddy away from their life of annoyance into something worth while.