trisweb.com

I’ve been in the market for a new camera after having my Olympus E-300 stolen out of my car a while back, and before going on a ski trip this year, I decided to just go grab one from Best Buy. I did minimal research before going, but I’m happy with what I got, so here’s my review.

For specs and in-depth testing, you can read the excellent review at dpreview.

After using this camera for a couple of months, I’ve come to like it very much, and especially some of it’s very unique features. To get right to the point, these are:

• 28mm wide-angle zoom lens
• Optical image-stabilization that actually works
• Leica-branded sharp optics

That’s it really. Those are its unique features. The rest is pretty run-of-the-mill. But let me explain why those three are so great and make this camera worth its weight in plastic.

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That title is for Google; I’m leveraging my rank just a bit so people looking for information about this dentist can find an honest account.

I just got back from a dentist in Berkeley with whom I made an appointment after searching with my insurance provider’s site. He was the first on the list, and close, so I figured, how could one go wrong with all the regulations and inspections and everything they control in this modern dental world?

Well, you could at least Google the dentist. I didn’t, so I had no idea what to expect from the office I was approaching on Parker street, but I got an idea once I came to the address. It was a house. A two story house, with a messy porch and a little plaque on the wall with the dentist’s name on it.

Oh-kaaay… well, I could at least give it a chance. Maybe it’s white and sparkly on the inside, like a Twinkie.

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Yep, that’s right, trisweb.com, zenphoto.org, and the rest of my sites have been moved to another new web server.

The previous moves were all opportunistic. Back in the day, I hosted on I was hosted on Berkeley’s Open Computing Facility, which was cool until I ran out of space. I moved and stuck with wha.websensei.com for a long time, who had a great deal going with a hosting “alliance” (same webmaster as caedes.net, highly recommended if you have some kind of artistic site).

Then I got in on a “startup,” and moved all my sites to their new dedicated server we got for “development.” I say “development” because no “development” actually happened, and in fact nothing ever happened. Great. They notified me that they were taking the server down in three hours, and that I should probably back it up if I wanted to keep anything. Bye guys!

From there I scrambled to find a host. I searched reviews and forums and settled on PolurNET, mostly because they had a 30-day money-back guarantee. Turns out these guys were great! I super-highly recommend them if you need any kind of general hosting, they really are a great company with reasonably-priced and feature-complete service. I spoke to the president, Anand, personally in a support chat, and he was surprisingly open and responsive to my problem.

But then I found slicehost a month later. Because, of course, you can never find what you’re looking for when you look for it—it has to be discovered when you least expect it.

Slicehost is awesome. Period. It’s a developer’s dream come true. Brand new servers with highly featured VPS plans designed for developers by developers. As soon as I saw the site, read the description, got the overall feel of it, I signed up. That’s marketing at its best, my friends. And no one was lying—they get it. My VPS server (“slice”) has been great from day one, except for a series of hardware-related crashes that I’m ignoring entirely for two reasons: one: they were on top of it immediately and kept everyone updated, and two: they refunded my payment for that entire month. I’ve had no problems since and only great experiences. Jason and Matt (owners/developers) really get it and it shows in their company. Thanks guys!

So I’ve been setting up my slice for the last month or so, off and on. It’s been fun and educational… it’s the first Linux server I’ve ever set up from scratch. I’ll post a couple of articles in the next couple days about the server configuration problems and solutions I encountered.

Also, now that I have my own server, Zenphoto will get Trac this week. It’s not JIRA or Confluence in usability, but it will work (and it won’t eat gigabytes of memory in the process… stupid Java… when will you learn…). SVN will move yet again so Trac can have access.

The bottom line: this should be solid for a long, long time. I’ve got full control over this server and my hosting now, no longer at the mercy of shared servers or bad sysadmins—except myself, of course ;-).

My friend Robert works at Dreamworks animation studios, so I went with some friends to see his latest work, “Flushed Away” the other night. I must say, I was very surprised. It was hilarious and fun, not at all what I had expected. I mean, it looks like a cheesy rip-off of Pixar’s new movie Ratatouille, right? (Seriously, is it just me, or is it weird that there seem to be two versions of the same themed movie always coming out around the same time? Two “penguin movies” are on their way, two “rat movies,” two “bug movies” a few years back… grant-theft marketing if you ask me). Fortunately, beyond a socialite rat as the main character, the two movies probably don’t have much in common.

The movie is genuinely funny. By that I mean it doesn’t avoid clichéd humor or repetition for cheap laughs; in fact it masters both. It seems like the writers took their cheesy plot (admittedly) and ran with it, just having a blast and having fun with their characters, which is really what comes across. I was laughing hysterically at more than a few scenes and jokes—they don’t even try to be PC, it’s great. The animation is also good, a great mix of Wallace and Grommit-like claymation (done on the computer of course) with a touch of added realism and fluidity. It matches the story well.
So, I thought I’d never say this, but if you’re looking for a fun movie, go see it! It’s a blast. The kids will love it too I’m sure.

And for Robert, I totally saw your name in the credits! Awesome job on that, uh… one scene

I haven’t found an album like this in years. I’ve been listening to it and nothing else for the last week and it still hasn’t gotten old, which is no small feat for me. Maybe this is just my style, a perfect mix of folk guitar and harmonized vocals, something like Iron & Wine mixed with Joni Mitchell and Rilo Kiley, but actually together, well orchestrated, and more modern and very listenable, none of them annoying in the slightest. The songs are tight, perfectly arranged and played, and memorable, with beautiful poetic lyrics that shift between somewhat pessimistic and hopefully and honestly optimistic. From the first to the last track, there’s not a single bad one. The only one I skip sometimes is the sad one

If you’re looking for an album to listen to, think about, and listen to again and again, this is the one! Hear some tracks at their web site.

Went to Fry’s electronics today expecting to buy a replacement for my stolen camera, but their salespeople are so inept that I decided they didn’t deserve my money (“I’m sorry sir, but we can’t turn them on for you”—NO SALE FOR YOU). Instead I wandered into their speaker room (as I usually do at some point) and spotted a pair of these on the top shelf with a red reduced price tag…

Cambridge Sound Works M50 Bookshelf Speakers

They were store display models on sale at a discount, $95.67 for the pair. I compared them to some Polk speakers of similar size that were on sale for $40 a pair, but the Cambridge’s were much more lively and accurate, with a noticably better soundstage even in the horrible little listening room (that’s just speaker nerd speak for “where you can hear the sound coming from”—with good speakers, you don’t want to hear the sound coming from the speakers; you don’t want to hear the speakers at all, just the music). Definitely worthy of their $299 list price, and at $95, I couldn’t pass them up.

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First, a note: I’m loving this server!! Blistering speed and stability! Woo.

So I bought these computer speakers a while back just so my computer could make sound, and recently I’ve been fed up with their horrible sound quality. It’s just a cheap 2.1 channel system from Creative, so I didn’t really expect much, but still, I was disappointed. On the off chance that it might sound better, I decided to switch out its two crappy little speakers with my KLH 911B bookshelf speakers (using the amplifier built into the Creative subwoofer).

Needless to say, the quality was still horrible. No stereo separation, bad frequency response, flat sound… the amplifier was probably finely (or unfinely) tuned to the speakers that came with it. With that in mind, I ordered the Sonic Impact T-Amp from Thinkgeek ($30) to improve the setup.

This little amp is simply amazing. ‘Nuff said. Read on for more thoughts.

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Because life is better with music.

1. José Gonzalez – Veneer: A silky mix of deftly picked guitar and a perfect low-key voice. I heard the track “Heartbeats” (a cover of a song by The Knife) on this Sony commercial and had to pick up the hard-to-find CD. The whole album lives up to it, and I’m surprised it hasn’t gathered more attention.

2. Tristan Prettyman – t w e n t y t h r e e: Yes, her name is Tristan, and yes the spaces are supposed to be in the title. This album is a perfect set of folk-pop love songs from a songwriter and a voice you could easily call a female Jason Mraz (and I mean that as a compliment). He even sings on one track, and it’s pretty good. Plus her name is Tristan, so how could I resist?

3. Matt Pond PA - Several Arrows Later: I’m not sure what the PA stands for, but this album is all around good. Reminds me a little of Josh Rouse’s older albums, or Keane with a guitar but different. It’s energetic and calming and comfortable at the same time, with great lyrics to boot.

4. Rogue Wave – Descended Like Vultures: Okay, where is all the hype for this amazing album? Let me start it if there is none. Sort of like Arcade Fire’s “Funeral,” but with just the good tracks, and with better lyrics and music. Seriously, I’m a musician—some of the chordal structures (especially in “Bird on a Wire”) are stunning; I mean, when was the last time you heard a major 9 in a rock song? I love it! I was about to list my other favorite tracks before I realized it was 8 of 11 total. This whole album has great energy, but at the same time it’s not overdone or artsy; it’s easy to listen to, catchy at times, thoughtful, musical, etc. etc. Just go listen to it already.