Emacs

So this week I have run in to a number of technical issues. First of all, when I run emacs from the command line on my PowerBook it does not load my .emacs init file. I tried renaming it to all of the supported names such as init.el and sticking it in the .emacs.d directory, but that didn’t fix it. The debug options haven’t done a thing, and I was able to verify there was nothing wrong with the file itself by opening it up and executing it.
The only way I’ve gotten it to execute properly is to run: emacs -u <username>. I have no idea why I need to do this, but it apparently forces something to work. I have aliased emacs to emacs -u <username> and will settle for that until I can actually figure out what is wrong.

iTunes SoundCheck

In iTunes I have a number of songs that are not adjusted to the correct volume for SoundCheck. I generally keep SoundCheck turned on–which especially helps with un-mastered music–but without them having the correct sound-level adjustment in the get-info window set, it doesn’t really do anything. I am not sure if when I imported these songs I canceled the levels adjustment– or they were in iTunes before 3.0, but now I need to re-evaluate the sound levels of the songs without re-importing them (so I don’t loose ratings and playcounts) Is it possible to automatically re-evaluate the sound levels for these songs?

404 Errors

It seems there are an inordinate amount of 404 errors on my webserver. Some of them are obviously from my old site–bots are still trying to access pages that have since disappeared–but there are also a large number of errors on pages that should be working fine. Is anyone having problems with 404 errors in the gallery section? If so, please post a comment!

What do you think?

It seems like everybody is talking about CES, or predictions for the upcoming Macworld, or going back to school–and don’t get me wrong; I’m interested in all of that– but I’d rather talk about something completely different. Even though I’d like to talk about the new Western Digital Raptor X or Shure’s new E500 earphones.

I won’t.

Instead of these things, I will talk about Robots. Kuka Industrial Robots. I just found out about this wonderful new application for them. Even though it has apparently been around for three years or so the Robocoaster is completely impressive to me. Thats right, coaster-as-in-rollercoaster. I think it goes like this: some random guy working for Kuka thinks, “man, we could totally stick some people on the end of our robot, and whurr them around.” then they do. This article explains the specifics. They’ve apparently got one of these in the Wisconsin Dells. I’m going to have to go for a visit.

Maybe one day I could work for these guys and get them to switch OSes on their robots to Linux or something because other than that, these robots appear to be the most elegantly designed pieces of electro-mechanical wonder I have seen. Thank you Kuka, for taking a huge risk and investing a lot of money in TÜV certification. I hope you sell many robocoasters.

I am very impressed with the new Kodak V570 [imaging-resource.com] but almost certainly will not buy one. I probably won’t recommend it to my friends either. But I am extremely happy about it such that I hope many people buy it and use it!
Its not because I just got a new camera in October for my Birthday and not because it is a lower resolution than my current camera. Its because I don’t like Kodak cameras as much as Canon cameras.

That said, I have owned two Kodak cameras in the past; a DC265 and a DCS 330. I absolutely loved the DCS 330, but it is dated now, with its 3.2 megapixel sensor.

Anyway, the reason why I am so excited about the EasyShare V570 is that the industry is producing a reasonably priced camera with a genuine (23mm equiv) wide-angle lens. Being an avid QuickTime VR photographer for years now, I may be a bit biased to getting pictures with a great field of view, but I really think it will be useful for many everyday photographers. Holding the camera at arms length pointed at ones self takes on a whole new dimension when using a wide angle lens. Tight spaces and arid vistas are captured with incomparable spice given the adavantage of a wide-angle lens.

My setup is a Canon SD500 Digital Elph with a 1GB SanDisk Extreme III SD card. Additionally, i have a 28mm Screw Mount Adapter and Nikon WC-E63 Wide-Angle Lens Converter for a total focal-length range of 23.3mm to 117mm. @ 7.1 Megapixels. Score. And it looks way cool when I show up with this unreasonably large lens-adapter on my pocket-sized camera. I really enjoy every element of the setup, except feel the adapter was slightly overpriced. I also find my Delkin 5-in-1 Cardbus reader to perform exceptionally well, but have experienced a few problems with the Tiger version of the driver. Hopefully this will be resolved in the future.

I just got the wide-angle lens converter recently, so hopefully I’ll be posting more pictures taken with it. There is some distortion with the lens, but it is easily corrected. It certainly makes shooting the photos for a cubic QTVR easier than the wide-angle setting on the camera unassisted.
One interesting problem I have run in to is that the end of the built-in lens barrel on the SD500 is constructed of shiny metal. This unfortunately reflects light backwards in to the optics of the wide-angle converter essentially projecting a ring of light (with the focal-length markings visible) over the center of the picture, when taken in to a light source. I have come up with a solution to this problem that i think will work quite well. It is as simple as a piece of black felt placed in the adapter tube on the end of the lens. The ring-shaped piece blocks the mirror-like metal and prevents the unwanted reflection quite well. I hope to improve upon this in the future by securing it in the tube somehow, but I will need to be careful to avoid vignetting.

This setup has a few limitations; the flash is rendered inoperable with the converter mounted, as is the optical view finder. Its somewhat clunky and heavy, and not nearly as ingeniously engineered as the Kodak wide-angle solution, but wow, does a 72mm filter on the end say to my photographic subject that I mean business. In the end, I love the photos my SD500 takes with or without the adapter, and feel the camera’s software, size, and controls can’t be beat.

What do you think?

It’s Here! January 1, 2006 is the day that www.joeyhagedorn.com is opening to the public. I much appreciate the work of the Beta Testers in helping me get the site ready. I will still be adding pages and pictures and things, but generally most things are working the way I want them to. Enjoy!

I just got home from the greatest New Years Eve party that was put on this year. This event was so extravagant that it took somewhere between three and five PowerBooks among the DJs to provide the music. Thank you Missy Neis for holding the event.

I would also like to thank the other people on the road with me as I drove home for not killing me.