In yet another round of Releasing More Stuff The Woods Can’t Buy, Apple today has quietly released revisions to their PowerMac G5 and iMac G4 lines:
***20 Inch iMac|http://www.apple.com/imac/***
***Dual Processor 1.8 GHz G5, Lower-priced Single 1.6 GHz G5|http://www.apple.com/powermac/***
You can now get a G5 for $1799. Go Apple!
One of the other nifty things you can do with the PhotoStitch software that came with the Powershot A70 is creating a QTVR movie. This basically puts all of the photos together in a form that you can pan and zoom with your mouse. If that doesn’t make sense, just click below to try it. You must have Apple’s QuickTime installed for this to work (chances are, you do).
***360 Degree Tour of the Wood Living Room|http://prwdot.org/mov/livingroomkitchen_qtvr.mov***
It’s not too big to download, so don’t worry if you’re on a modem connection.
Saturday was the first day I had to “officially” put my new camera through its paces. Becky and I took a trip up to Maine for a little shopping and for some fresh air. We stopped at a couple of parks near Portland – Two Lights State Park and the Portland Head Light. I shot some photos while we were out, and you can see the results ***here|http://gallery.prwdot.org/maine_parks***. I am very excited about the quality of the photos from this new camera – let me know what you think!
Well, after crunching some numbers, and thinking about our overall financial priorities, I decided that buying a $600 camera was not the best decision at this time. Instead, I did some research on the digicams available for about half that price. What I found was the ***Canon Powershot A70|http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/a70-60/index.html***. Some of you reading this, particularly Mom and Dad, might recognize the model… yes, in fact, this is the same camera that my parents bought earlier this year as their first digital camera.
The A70 is a really great camera. It’s perfect for first-time users, like Mom and Dad. If left in its automatic mode, it takes great photos and is simple and easy to use. But if you switch to its manual mode, you can control aperture, shutter speed, focus, exposure, and more. There is a ‘Stitch Assist’ mode that makes it easy to create panoramic shots, such as ***this one|http://prwdot.org/img/livingroom_panoramic.jpg***. The image quality is great. The camera runs on four AA batteries, and can get over five hours of shooting time. It received the best rating, “Highly Recommended,” at ***Digital Photography Review|http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canona70/***.
Hopefully this weekend I’ll get a chance to really put it through its paces. Becky is back from her NEMA conference (yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!), so we may bundle up and go do something outside. You can be sure that you’ll see the photos here!
Becky and I took a trip down to Boston last night to see ***They Might Be Giants|http://www.tmbg.com/***. They were doing a free performance and autograph session at Borders/Downtown Crossing, in Boston. It was a pretty fun event, as most TMBG events are. This one was a bit nicer, in a way, because instead of playing in a smoky, dark, drunkard-filled bar, they were performing in a nice, clean, sober, smoke-free bookstore. Definitely a lot more enjoyable. The musical set they did was only 30 minutes long, but it was still a good time. They did some old favorites, such as “Particle Man” and “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”, but also did some newer songs, from last year’s album “NO!”, and from “Mink Car”. A good time was had by all. I didn’t get anything autographed, but I did ***take some photos|http://gallery.prwdot.org/tmbg_borders***.
Speaking of which, if you check out those photos, you’ll notice that the picture quality is not quite up to par with my usual photos. That is because I was taking the photos with the camera built in to my ***Sanyo SCP-8100|http://www.sanyo.com/wireless/handsets/scp-8100.htm*** phone. And why was I using that? Well, sadly, after Becky and I arrived back in Boston from our trip to San Francisco, I had the misfortune of misplacing my camera bag somewhere in Logan Airport. Despite my best attempts at contacting the State Police (I actually went in and they let me look through all of their lost and found items, and then I filed a police report), Logan Express, the bus company that runs Logan Express, and American Airlines (both in Boston and San Francisco), and of course searching throughout our apartment and our cars, I have been unable to locate the camera bag. So, my trusty Nikon Coolpix 775 is lost.
Now, while I am disappointed at the loss of my camera, there are a few rays of sunshine to be felt. First, this has motivated me to get off my duff and finally sign up for a renter’s insurance policy. Not only does this protect the contents of our house, but it also protects items we are carrying with us while traveling. When I do get a replacement camera, it can be placed in its own separate insurance schedule so that if it is destroyed, stolen, or lost, it can be replaced at full purchase price with no deductible. By the way, if you or anyone you know is renting an apartment, house, or otherwise, I’d highly recommend getting such an insurance policy. It is a very inexpensive way to gain a great deal of security.
Second, I had already been planning on purchasing a new camera before this all happened. I have some money saved up, and hopefully by the end of this month, I will be making a purchase. My top candidate at this point is the ***Sony DSC-V1|http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start;?ProductSKU=DSCV1KITIS&Dept=dcc&CategoryName=dcc_DIDigitalCameras_CybershotProDigitalCameras***. While many people complain about Sony’s use of a proprietary memory format (MemoryStick), they are simply overlooking the fact that Sony makes excellent cameras. The DSC-V1 comes as “Highly Recommended” — the top rating at ***Digital Photography Review|http://www.dpreview.com/***. It’s got a compact design, a nice 4x Carl Zeiss zoom lens, 5 megapixels, Night Vision capability, holograph autofocus, manual exposure, aperture, and shutter controls, and lots more. ***MacMall|http://www.macmall.com/*** has the camera for $100 less than retail, so that’s probably where I’ll go.
Of big cats and operating systems – since we returned from San Francisco, we have been running Mac OS X 10.3 on both of our Macintosh systems. The experience has been good for the most part – overall, speed has increased, programs are more responsive and do less of the dreaded “beachball of death,” and the underlying BSD subsystem has been updated to be in sync with FreeBSD 5. At the moment, there is a bit of a quirk, which revolves specifically around the Sawtooth G4. When you are running Panther on a Sawtooth G4, nVidia GeForce video cards do not seem to be recognized properly, and various problems can result from their use. These problems range from black or grey screens at system boot, to strange video artifacts when dragging or scrolling windows. Our Sawtooth system has the latter problem, with its GeForce4 MX video card. There are a few possible workarounds. One is to simply revert back to the stock card that came with the system. Another is to take your system down to 256 megs of RAM or less. I opted for the second choice, and it’s actually working fine. Having such low RAM does bring a performance penalty, but it’s somewhat balanced out by the improvements in speed from having a fully functioning video card. Apple has already released Mac OS X 10.3.1, with a few urgent bug fixes, but as yet, they have not provided a real fix for this issue. I have submitted various bug reports, and they have acknowledged to me that it is a known bug, and that engineers are working on it. So I guess the game at this point is just to wait.
Also on the Mac OS X front, ***Ars Technica|http://www.arstechnica.com/*** has released their full and exhaustive ***review of Mac OS X Panther|http://www.arstechnica.com/reviews/003/panther/macosx-10.3-1.html***. If you are curious about what the upgrade really entails, take a read.
Becky’s going to be away for a few days at the ***New England Museum Association|http://www.nemanet.org/*** annual conference, so I’ll be all by my self in Beverly up until Friday evening… don’t worry, though, I’ll find things to do to keep myself busy. 🙂
Here are a few things I found interesting in San Francisco:
Re: Alcatraz
* Towards the end of Alcatraz’s use as a federal penitentiary, some of the cells were fitted with music listening jacks. You could plug in headphones and listen to two channels of audio, for example, music and radio dramas.
* On the wall of the kitchen, there were racks where sharp cutting instruments were kept. Behind them, painted on the walls, were black silhouettes represending each knife and other utensil. This made it easy for the kitchen staff to see if any items had been stolen, and specifically which items were missing.
* Alcatraz was considered a desirable neighborhood for families to live in. The prison staff and their families, including wives and children, all lived in a housing complex near the cell block. Children were ferried to and from the city to attend school. It was one of the safest neighborhoods in San Francisco.
Re: Transport
* The Bay Area transportation system was confusing to me for the first two days. Here’s why:
* There are five different mass-transit organizations in the Bay area: ***MUNI|http://www.sfmuni.com/home/home50.htm***, ***BART|http://www.bart.gov/index.asp***, ***Caltrain|http://www.caltrain.com/***, ***samTrans|http://www.samtrans.com/***, and ***SFO|http://www.flysfo.com/***.
* Each of these organizations runs either a bus or a train service.
* MUNI runs gasoline and overhead-powered electric buses, a ‘historic’ streetcar line using early-20th-century streetcars from around the world, a modern streetcar+subway line, and the famous historic cable car system, in the San Francisco municipal area – mainly within the city limits.
* BART runs high-speed trains with above- and under-ground stations throughout the Bay area, both in San Francisco and in surrounding communities. Some BART stations are shared with MUNI stations.
* Caltrain runs a commuter train service into the city and to the south of the city.
* samTrans runs a bus service into the city and into San Mateo county south of the city, in the “Peninsula”.
* SFO, the San Francisco International airport, runs its own ‘AirTran’ train service. This runs around all of the terminals and parking lots at the airport, and connects to the BART transit line in a station at the International terminal.
* Caltrain, samTrans, and BART share an ***’Intermodal station at Millbrae|http://www.samtrans.com/Intermodal_Guide.html***, at which you can connect between any of the systems.
* If you want to take a water ferry from San Francisco to a location around the bay, such as Sausalito or Tiburon, you must utilize a third party, such as Blue and Gold Fleet. No municipal authorities run water services.
Contrast this to the Massachusetts Bay area:
* The ***MBTA|http://www.mbta.com/*** runs streetcars, subways, commuter trains, buses, and water ferries all throughout the Massachusetts Bay area. All of the vehicles and stations bear the same “T” logo, so they’re easy to find.
* ***Massport|http://www.massport.com/*** runs the Logan International Airport, as well as shuttle buses to get around the airport, and it also runs the Worcester and Bedford regional airports.
Coming from Boston, do you see how I’d be confused?
Yes, we’d love to move to San Francisco. That’s what I have to say after our trip last week. Can we afford it? No, of course not. So it will remain a distant dream. But we did get to experience a lot of beautiful San Francisco, and you can see it all here:
***San Francisco Gallery|http://gallery.prwdot.org/san_francisco***
The photos aren’t captioned yet, but here’s a daily summary of what we did so that you can figure it out. You can also click on the Day to jump directly to the gallery for that day.
***Day 1|http://gallery.prwdot.org/sfo_day1***:
Fishermen’s Wharf
Coit Tower
Lombard Street (“The Crookedest Street”)
Ghiradelli Square
Pier 39
San Francisco Bay Cruise
***Day 2|http://gallery.prwdot.org/sfo_day2***:
Civic Center
Chinatown
Financial District
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Yerba Buena Gardens
Mission District
***Day 3|http://gallery.prwdot.org/sfo_day3***:
Bicycling
Palace of Fine Arts and Exploratorium
Bicycling over the Golden Gate Bridge…
…and to Sausalito…
…and to Tiburon…
***Day 4|http://gallery.prwdot.org/sfo_day4***
Golden Gate Park
California Academy of Science
Sunset District
Ocean Beach
Cliff House
Sutro Baths
Palace of the Legion of Honor
Haight-Ashbury
***Day 5|http://gallery.prwdot.org/sfo_day5***
Muir Woods
Napa Valley / Wine Country
Alcatraz
***Day 6|http://gallery.prwdot.org/sfo_day6***
Monterey / Monterey Bay
Cupertino (Apple Headquarters!)
Burlingame (Apple Store + Night of the Panther)
Hope you enjoy the photos. 🙂
And of course… Sunday, October 26, 2003, was our first wedding anniversary. Our trip to San Francisco was partially a celebration of our anniversary, and tonight we went out to ***Not Your Average Joe’s|http://www.notyouraveragejoes.com/*** for dinner to celebrate. We were thinking back on everything we’ve done in the past year, and it really doesn’t seem like such a long time. But every minute of it has been wonderful, and we are both looking forward to many more seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years.
There are two sides to every coin, so they say…
– Bad: The Red Sox ***blew yet another chance at a trip to the World Series|http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/nyy/news/nyy_gameday_recap.jsp?ymd=20031017&content_id=583098&vkey=ds2003game&fext=.jsp***.
+ Good: At least Becky and I won’t have to think about baseball while we are on vacation next week.
– Bad: Becky had a ***wisdom tooth pulled|http://www.salempeabodyoralsurgery.com/*** today.
+ Good: It’s better than her being on Vicodin while we’re on vacation.
– Bad: Millions of Windows users will soon become hopelessly addicted to a new ***online music store|http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/***.
+ Good: Their addiction will play into the coffers of my ***favorite computer company|http://www.apple.com/***
In celebration of ***this guy|http://www.mvnu.edu/facstaff/professors/FineArts/swood.html***’s birthday, it would be prudent to review some of the events of ***the year 1943|http://www.infoplease.com/year/1943.html***.
Happy Birthday, Dad!
Yesterday, Becky and I visited [Gordon College](http://www.gordon.edu/)’s 2003 Homecoming. There were receptions for the various departments, so I went to the natural sciences reception, and Becky went to the social sciences reception. I got to see some of my [favorite professors](http://www.math-cs.gordon.edu/faculty.html), namely Dr. Senning and Professor Bjork. I also got to see and catch up with various classmates. I did take [some pictures](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/events/2003/gordon_homecoming_2003/) while we were there, but nothing spectacular.
Today, Becky and I took a rather more adventurous trip. Many times in the past, we have been driving around Massachusetts, and noticed that Route 62, which runs through Beverly, seems to pop up here and there in random places. We have discussed some day possibly taking a trip from one end of 62 to the other. Well, we decided that Sunday would be the time to do it! So we packed some lunches, and started at the Beverly end of Route 62, with no plan other than to follow Route 62 wherever it would lead us. In the end, it was a great time and a fun expedition. So here’s a quick synopsis of our trip:
[The Photo Gallery](http://prwdot.org/gallery2/v/travels/2003/route_62/)
Start Odometer: 182170
Start Time: 9:03 a.m.
Start Location: Lothrop St. and Route 62, Beverly, Massachusetts.
End Odometer: 182254
End Time: 11:52 a.m.
End Location: Route 62 and Route 32, Barre, Massachusetts.
Total Miles: 84
Elapsed Time: 2 hours, 49 minutes
Towns passed through, in order:
Beverly
Danvers
Middleton
North Reading
Wilmington
Burlington
Bedford
Concord
Acton
Maynard
Stow
Hudson
Berlin
Clinton
Lancaster
Sterling
Princeton
Hubbardston
Barre
Major highways intersected, in order:
Route 128 in Danvers
Interstate 93 in Wilmington
Route 3 in Bedford
Route 2 in Concord
Interstate 495 in Hudson
Most unusual sight:
A USPS delivery truck – on a Sunday!
Music listened to on the way:
none
Interesting Facts:
* Route 62 in reverse is ’26’. The exits for Route 62 on both Route 3 and Interstate 495 are numbered ’26’.
* The two towns at the ends of Route 62 are Beverly and Barre, both of which start with “B”
* If you add together 6 + 2, you get “8”, which looks sort of like a “B” (see the above fact)
* There are only three fast-food restaurants on the whole 84 miles of Route 62 – a McDonald’s in Beverly, and a McDonald’s and a Wendy’s in Maynard.
* Part of Route 62, in Bedford, runs along the Bedford Minutemen’s marching line, the historic path that the Minutemen took during the American Revolution.
* Route 62 crosses MBTA Commuter Rail lines many times, but only once does it come within clear view of an actual commuter rail station – in Wilmington.
* The roughest section of road on Route 62 is the stretch between Hubbardston and Barre. It is very uneven and bumpy. Most other sections are well-maintained.