Don't repress me

Luciano Pavarotti 1935-2007

Luciano Pavarotti died at the age of 71 on September 6, 2007.

He will be missed.

The Machine is Us/ing Us

Part of what my new business does is make small business aware of the new Web 2.0
By participating in the web and contributing relevant information, even the smallest business can become the de-facto source for information within hours. Small business doesn't have to be.

What happens if you drive behind a 747?

I remember Mythbusters couldn't get this right and thought this was interesting.

How Apple could design a better iMac.

My 24 inch iMac is a great computer. It is very pretty. That's the problem. It seems that the folks at Apple think that I bought this computer so that I could just look at it and go oooooh! They never thought that I would want to plug a USB flash drive in on a regular basis. They never thought that I may regularly plug and unplug a DVI to S-video cable in to watch movies on my television.

No, they put all of the ports on the backside of the machine, so that when I had to use them I must pull the machine forward and fumble with the plugs. I never put the USB drive in the right way.

I purchased a small self powered USB hub so that I could easily plug the 4 Gig memory card of my digital SLR in. More wires. More crap on my desk. It still doesn't help when I want to use my DVI to S video adapter.

Hey, Apple. Put the ports and the plugs on the left or right side. Don't put ports on the back! How long did it take for you to think of putting Firewire and USB ports on the front of a PC? Now you put them in the back of the largest computer you build?

Why not have an access panel on the front? A little door for flash cards and drives? The 24 inch iMac is so big, using the DVD/CD slot on the right side means I have to pull my machine forward everytime. I don't know what to suggest there. I wish it were in the front where it should be, but the iMac is too shallow.

It looks good though. DOn't get me wrong. It really looks good. If only that made me more productive.

technorati tags:imac, apple, design, better, usb, ports, cd, slot, bad, idea

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Pentax K100D review

I purchased the Pentax K100D today from Blacks Cameras in Mississauga. It took a couple of weeks of online reading to finally come to this decision and I thought I would share my thoughts.

It is hard to decide which camera to buy given the overwhelming amount of information the net, but this is how it boiled down for me. First, I had to dismiss the reviews by wannabe photographers employed by computer magazines. They follow the same, predictable pattern that they employ while review computer equipment. Less expensive equipment is "entry level" or "beginner", sort of like selling condoms by asking if you want "extra small". Then there are the dedicated digital/film photography sites, who basically find fault with everything.

"I wish the LCD was bigger, it takes 0.6 seconds to turn on, you can only take 400 shots before the battery runs out or, my wife won't sleep with me anymore." Constant whining.

Two sites helped me immensely. Steve's digicams was a great resource when I decided on my Point & Shoot Canon Powershot A70. I must say though, Steve doesn't use very good pictures as examples but Flickr now lets you search by camera model, and that really helps. Sort of.

There are so many talented photographers on Flickr, you really can't see the REAL difference between a Pentax, a Nikon or a Canon, or any other brand. Flickr proves, that at the end of the day, its the person behind the lens, not the lens. Steve does a good job at explaining features, but never really says, "hey, don't buy this, buy this instead". That's good, but I want someone to really tell me what it's like.

So my second source was Ken Rockwell. Ken loves his Nikons, but he is honest enough to tell you that he enjoys his Nikon D40 as much as his Nikon D200. He explains the minor differences, and actually blows the doors off the industry. Why do all of these cameras basically cost the same? Why is a D70 or a D50 selling for the same as a D40, when the D40 is new? Why do people pay a premium for a D100 that has an admittedly crappy screen? He really likes Nikon, but he he doesn't mind telling you that a D80 or a D200 is probably not necessary. He explains the megapixel myth, which will really make you think. It made me realize that all I needed was 6.1 megapixels to really enjoy the SLR again.

So, I read all of this, and I sift through the data. The Nikon D40 looks good. I had a Nikon FG for years and although Nikon lenses are overpriced, the equipment was top notch and the results were amazing. Everybody loves the D40. Flickr loves the D40. Why the Pentax?

Well, the Pentax has the same image sensor as the D40, so image quality wasn't the concern. I liked the fact that the K100D took AA batteries. Four of them ( i get over 500 shots on 4x 2650 NiMH). I have always used NiCad or Li-ion AA batteries in my other cameras, and I don't ever want to be stuck without power. Another factor was that the K100D has Shake Reduction technology (which also doubles as a sensor cleaner). That's cool and Nikon and Canon don't have it. The K100D has top display like the Nikon D50. The D40 did away with this. It's handy to know battery power, shots left, mode, etc. Why give that up? I use it all the time, since the rear color display is off 99 percent of the time.

Finally, Pentax invented the SLR and they have maintained the same lens mounting system for years. I can take a zoom lens from 1975 and it will adpat to this camera. Manual focus of course, but hey, I know how to focus. It isn't heavy work. Invest in the Nikon D40, and you have to buy into new AF lenses. In order to take advantage of Nikon  AF lenses that you have, you really need to to look at the D50 with it's built in AF motor. At this price point anyway.

The Pentax K100D is just a better camera. It also has an 11 point AF system. The Nikon D50 had 5, the D40 has 3. Sure, you probably only use one, but the K100D is keeping the pro aspects intact. The Shake reduction alone allows far more creative low-light shots than any of the other cameras. The Nikon D40 was $700 (Canadian) at Blacks, and the K100D was $750. This was a no brainer. Last but not least, the diopter correction on the K100D has a larger range. Just enough in fact. Buying a D40 would mean getting another eyepiece to compensate for my eyesight.

Look at Flickr and see the pictures for yourself. An unwritten feature of the K100D is its infra red abilities. Many digital cameras are incapable of decent IR photography which is something every photographer should experiment with. The Pentax K100D produces spectacular IR shots with a filter. Yes, almost all of the brands and models have amazing shots, but when you look at the cameras in the sub $1000 sector, the K100D is a pro model with more features and and expandibility (Pentax lenses will keep their value for sure).

I didn't buy the SDHC card at Blacks. $50 for 1 Gig. Across the street at Tiger Direct, I managed a 4 Gig SDHC (150x) card for $70. That's 378 6MP RAW pictures, or 1400 6MP, JPEG (high quality) pics. I downloaded the new firmware update that allows the Pentax to use SDHC cards. It's fast.

I haven't seen any LCD screen protectors. I use screen protectors for a Palm Pilot. This works on my Powershot A70 and my iPods as well. It's the first thing I do.

I used to take very good pictures with my old Nikon. I can hardly wait to do that again.

Quick update: After a thousand shots and some very good ones at that, I can attest to the capable AUTO features. Some wannabe photogs will insist on manual aperture settings and guessing their own shutter speeds all the time, but lets face it, you are splitting a thousand bucks between decent optics and a clever computer that figures out stuff for you. Shoot art when you have the time to set manual shots, but shooting from the hip at 2.8 fps using the K100D on Auto is absolutely amazing. I throw away about 90 percent of my shots when shooting this way, but the 10 percent that stays is great photography. Using a 4 Gig card, I can take 1400 high res JPEGS or almost 400 RAW pics. Of course, RAW is a bit over rated and should be reserved for special portrait or landscape shots. The compression algorithms on the K100D are exceptional and if Photoshop can't fix it, you took a bad picture. The camera model or the image format won't help you much if you didn't take a decent picture in the first place, so let's not argue over the merits of RAW.

technorati tags:Pentax, K100D, K100, SLR, digital, shake, reduction, Nikon, D40, D50, D100, D200, review, ken, rockwell, steve, digicams, diopter, screen, protector, Canon, Flickr, photography, film

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Xbench 24 inch Intel Core 2 duo iMac to 17 inch G4 eMac.

I just ran these tests using Xbench 1.3. The Intel iMac 24 inch, 2.16 Ghz, with 2 G of RAM and a Nvidia 7600 GT scored 110.56 using Xbench 1.3.

The 2003 G4 eMac (1 G RAM, 32 MB ATI 7500 video card) scored a whopping 30.20. Some quick math tells you that we have a 3.6x increase in overall performance. Many of the graphics results come in at 5x, while things like disk access are not that different. The CPU is a factor of 3 faster, and graphics around 5.

This seems reasonable. Although the eMac could play Halo "just", it managed about 20 to 25 fps. The Intel iMac would probably run it about 125 fps, since it runs Doom 3 at about 100 fps.

It is difficult to compare two completely different systems accurately. Different chip architectures, one is a dual core system, one is a G4. Normal use makes it hard to tell the difference. Internet browsing, email, listening to iTunes, all seem the same. Browsing 4000 pictures in iPhoto is something else completely. On the iMac 24, it is fluid, fast and seamless at any speed. Likewise, scolling through an iTunes library is equally effortless. This is where it feels 10 times faster. This is where you remember the eMac seemed fast when something took 2 seconds, but realize it was slow because nothing takes that long anymore.

Looking at other Xbench scores, I notice that this 24 inch iMac blows past a dual 2 Ghz G5. Finally a pro machine without having to buy an ugly aluminum box. The expandibility argument is about as valid as the WIndows argument now. This machine hooks up nicely to my WD MyBook Pro 500 G hard drive using Firewire 800 and it runs Windows. Looks like you can be a pro now and look cool.

technorati tags:xbench, emac, imac, 24, inch, compare, test, review, pro, firewire, 800, apple, windows

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24 inch iMac installation

It's hard to get the sense of size from online movie clips. I noticed that many people would take videos of the 24 inch iMac close-up. This doesn't give you a reference point.

So here I am unpacking and setting up my 24 inch iMac; replacing my 17 inch eMac. My 14 inch iBook G4 is also on the desk as well as my 3G iPod.

Apple 24 inch iMac

Apple 24 inch iMac
Originally uploaded by Carl Bachellier.

Today my new 24 inch iMac arrived. I ordered it last Tuesday and since then, I couldn't find enough information online to satisfy me until my new toy arrived. It was brutal. I just kept checking the FedEx site, seeing where it was.
I began reading the comments and complains on the Apple discussions site. I used to contribute as a troubleshooter, but found that the site was becoming a dumping ground for people who wont RTFM.

I had a few concerns after reading the discussions. One, there were some people complaining about dead pixels, and two, some were complaining about a nasty hum from the monitor. A third issue, some complained that BootCamp wouldn't work. It does. Not one dead pixel and I can't hear anything except a very slight whir of a fan. It is essentially silent.

My iMac was a BTO with 2 Gigs of RAM, a 500 G hard drive and the Nvidia 7600 GT with 256 MB of RAM. I stayed with the 2.16 GHZ Intel Core Duo, because even on paper, it doesn't make much of a difference. Remember, the fastest machine on my desk is a 1.42 Ghz iBook with 1.5 G of RAM, so this is a big jump for me. The iMac will be replacing my 3 year old 17 inch eMac, which by the way did an amazing job for me. I really dislike the snobs that categorize this machine as "entry level" or "education". Really? It performs no differently than any other 1 Ghz G4 computer.

Windows runs nicely on it, but I prefer Parallels to BootCamp. I have an actual PC to play Grand Theft Auto and Half Life 2, so I don't really require the graphics advantages of booting the machine into XP.

I will agree with the most common complaint. The screen brightness control is unable to deal with the power of this screen. I have it set to zero and it is too bright at night.

I do prefer this LCD screen to that of my iBook and the 19 inch monitor on my PC. It is as clear as a high end CRT. The ports on the back should be in the centre. Not a big deal, but I hated my eMac because everything was on the right. I am right handed and like the right side of my desk clear. Therefore, I put my desktop on the left. It just makes sense to put run the cables on the left. My wife is a lefty though and may consider this a victory for the L's.

I am already used to the huge screen real estate. It was the fastest and cleanest migration I have ever done. I connected to the eMac with a firewire cable and about 3 hours later, all 200 Gigs of information had been transferred. I used isync and dotmac to store my bookmarks and keychains just in case. It was flawless.

The only thing I had to do was validate my Flickr account using Flock (you aren't using anything else for photos and blogging are you?) and update the directory paths for DreamWeaver.

This is the most amazing machine I have ever owned or ever used.

Spice Your Kitchen has Urban Accents

About a year ago, I came across this collection of spices at HomeSense. Finding the right spice blend has always been a quest for me, and when I saw this collection from Urban Accents, it provided a new opportunity to try out yet another "delicious" recipe.
It was a hit. The 4 pack included rubs for Pork, Chicken, Fish and Beef.
The Pork and Chicken blends were not bad, but definitely not original.
The Beef and Fish rubs are amazing.
So amazing, that I panicked when I found out that HomeSense no longer carried them. After a few emails to Urban Accents, I managed to find a local distributor. That distributor was in Oakville Ontario. Spice Your Kitchen is owned by Francois and Therese Boukhaled. Therese was very helpful. I loaded up on Urban Accents spices, just in case. Spice Your Kitchen has a large selection of spices, rubs and sauces, as well as numerous kitchen supplies and gadgets. I write this blog entry, because I noticed that the website for Spice Your Kitchen was poorly designed. No keywords, no meta tags at all. My little blog entry should help "The Google" get the message out on "The Internets".
Spice Your Kitchen is located at 2530 Sixth Line, just south of Highway 5 on the West side. There is a small mall and they are located in unit 12.
If you like cooking, and like spices, go here.

Ontario Science Centre Host. The Eighties.

Smokin Nitrogen
Originally uploaded by Carl Bachellier.

I have been scanning some old pictures from the early 80's. A time when I was a Host at the Ontario Science Centre. I guess I did turn out to be somewhat of a rocket scientist! Maybe I'm just visible on the web because I am so passionate about computers, but I don't see other people from my past out there. I don't see people participating. Just spectating. No other pictures of Hosts out there. Maybe it's time to start a trend.


My first desktop computer experience was at the Ontario Science Centre.
The OSC used Apple II computers at the time. Many hours were wasted playing Lost Treasures. Just before I left, they were buying Lisas and I saw my first computer politely announce, "that it was now safe to shutdown". During one show on computers in 1982, I discovered my first flight simulator. It was probably worth hundreds of thousands of dollars at the time, it was amazing. You could pilot a 747 and fly to the end of the world. In 1983, the scenery would run out before the fuel and you literally fell off the edge of the world. That was when I knew my love affair with computer would continue. Now I build custom, high performance computers just to run the latest version of X-Plane. A 60 Gigabyte installation these days. Truly unbelievable.

Perhaps my fellow science types never fully participated in the World Wide Web. Perhaps anonymity is just an accident. With sites such as Flickr, YouTube and Blogger, I am surprised that there are not more of the Hosts online. Maybe there are, and they just haven't surfaced. I would encourage my fellow Hosts to get a blog. Get some pictures up on Flickr. Start participating.

technorati tags:Ontario, Science, Centre, Host,

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Pluto refuses demotion. Stays planet.

Today in Prague, a group of astronomers decided that Pluto should lose its status as a planet. They didn't really give a very good laymens answer except to say that Pluto's oblong orbit takes it well outside the boundaries of the other planets in the Solar System. What does that mean? Pluto can stay at my place.

If Pluto is a planet, then it defines the outer boundary of the Solar System. Pluto is round and has two moons. It orbits our Sun, so it's a planet. It seems a bit harsh for astronomers to start making claims about a celestial body that they know very little about. Now we have them demoting it. Planet comes from a Greek word "planetes", which means wanderer and is defined as an object in orbit around a star that is not a star in its own right. The word planet doesn't really have a precise definition. It's one of those words that we use to describe something in general. Unless the International Astronomical Union has decided to change what the word planet means, they have absolutely no authority to change the the staus of Pluto. As of today, Pluto is still not a star, and it still orbits around a star. This makes it a planet.


Is this what astronomers do when the sun comes up? Is this the bureaucracy of star gazing? I can't imagine a group of people getting together and discussing the validity of a planets status. Pluto is a significant part of the twentieth century having been discovered in 1930. Pluto has always been a mystery planet and has no doubt been the inspiration for a great number of science fiction movies.

Pluto was a planet in my Grandfathers day, my Fathers day and mine. Of course it is a planet. At the very least, it defines itself as a planet because it has been part of the Solar System for 75 years.


Astronomers are obviously burdened with the growing bureaucracy that comes with any organization. Why is it when something becomes mainstream we need a a group of experts to stand around and write rule books? These people always complicate things. The people who refuse to to be held back by rules of physics, rules of math, rules of business, are the true innovators.

The ones standing around, writing rule books and thinking up conference dates are the ones not doing anything. It would be nice if they stopped interfering with the peoplethat do.

Outlook Express Identity problems

I have seen this problem several times. Outlook Express allows you to set up unique identities so that more than one person can use the same program to check their email. Unfortunately, if one of the identity files becomes corrupt, you can lose all of your email.
Microsoft makes it extremely difficult for a novice to backup their email. Where is my email? Where indeed. It is buried away in the hidden application support folder and named using a long, incoherent, alphanumeric code. It is very infuriating, even for a power user. There are many sites that offer methods of backing up your Outlook Express mail, but if an identity becomes corrupt, you will never make it past the second step of the process. The best you will be able to do is open another mail program and import the primary identity. That's it. One identity.
So this advice is purely to prevent the problem. Stop using Outlook Express immediately. It is great when it works, but when it breaks, your mail is most likely gone. An expert can get it back, but it will cost you. Upgrade to Outlook. Too bad they couldn't come up with a better name, but the "non-express" version is the best way to go. The biggest advantage is that it is better at exporting your mail to a .pst file. Store this on a CD or removable drive. As for identities. Stop using them. Instead, learn how to set-up a new user on your computer. Then, when you want to switch identities, simply switch users instead. This gives each user their own computer, documents folder, music folder, etc. The Outlook Express identity system is a shortcut, and a bad one.
If you insist on using Outlook Express for multiple users, do it by creating new users in the control panel. Not identities. This way, each user can use their own copy of Outlook Express. One identity file. Fewer problems.

Fuel Farming and ethanol

Harvesting fuel

Ethanol fuel has been getting quite a bit of attention lately due to the recent price jumps in gasoline. It is actually a technology basically abandoned almost 100 years ago due to a cheap and plentiful resource called oil. Henry Fords Model T was built to burn ethanol so that farmers could make their own fuel from corn. Ethanol is grain alcohol, and almost all gasoline sold today is comprised of 10 percent ethanol (E15).
The United States imports a little over 60 percent of its oil which translates into one-third of the U.S. trade deficit. Canada is the largest supplier at 20 percent, the Middle East provides slightly less than that, Nigeria, Venezuela and Mexico round out the rest of suppliers producing over 10 percent each. There are several other countries contributing less than 5 percent each of the total demand.
Converting to a home grown fuel alternative has a positive economic effect. A trade deficit reduction will strengthen the dollar and the economy, farmers have a crop in high demand, ethanol production is a domestic industry producing jobs, and fuel prices become less dependent on the price of crude.
Ethanol is produced by fermenting sugars, Enzymes convert starch into sugar, and then yeast converts these sugars into ethanol. I am more than curious about how governments will deal with people who decide to build a still to make "fuel".
Ethanol producers have also found ways to convert other cellulose materials into ethanol. Wood chips and grass clippings for example. E85 is 85 percent ethanol and 15% gasoline. This is being produced now, but there are a few roadblocks to overcome. For one, our fuel distribution system is all about gasoline, and we all know what that means. However, I am hopeful that governments have a better understanding of what the people want, and that legislation will prevent unwanted interference. Although it may seem surprising, there are quite a few states that have E85 gas stations. Minnesota is by far the leader with over 200 stations, whereas Texas has 4 and Washington D.C. has none.
E85 can't be used in just any automobile. You either need a Model T, or something built quite recently. Almost all vehicles built after 1990 can use 20 percent ethanol without ill-effects.
E85 has corrosive properties that damage rubber fuel lines, and untreated metal engine parts. New FFV or Flexi Fuel Vehicles incorporate special nitrate coatings on the engine parts to prevent engine failures. E85 is about 40 percent cheaper to buy, but nothing comes free. If you get 30 mpg on gas right now, that equates to 20 mpg on ethanol. It's high octane rating of about 110 doesn't have the same kick as regular gasoline.
Is ethanol the future fuel? I don't think so, but I think it will become a competitive alternative for the next 20 years or so. It is quite an exciting time for inventors. There appears to be a stream of energy innovation going on. Hydrogen, solar/battery, ethanol, what's next? Energy technology is no longer under the control of large corporations. The world is open to new energy sources, and each of these solutions require new ideas to make them work. Now that's something to think about.

Convergence of new technologies

Every once in awhile there is a significant leap in technology. The dawn of the twentieth century dealt with the convergence of many new technologies at once. Electricity became common in homes, the first automobiles appear, and radio is changing the way we communicate. I imagine that sales of oil lamps and horse carriages are also seeing a decline. Will we see this kind of change again? Is it far away? When I was in University, I rented a typewriter from a busy leasing and repair business in town. That business is long gone and I don't think I have seen a typewriter in quite awhile.

I think the next big leap will occur in the energy sector. Not oil, but electricity. The politics of filling your gas tank will make the oil industry a wild card for a few more years, but electricity, now there's an industry that can flourish much more easily.
Recent developments in solar cell technology have seen two important breakthroughs. A lower cost per panel, and a higher electricity output per panel. It seems to be following the model of computers. Every iteration produces a faster and more efficient system while lowering cost.

Solar panels use highly purified silicon in a process called photovoltaics. Silicon is classified as a semiconductor. By itself, silicon is actually a good insulator and resistant to electrical flow, but by "doping" and changing it's properties, it can be forced to accept either a positive or negative charge. When you place a negatively charged plate of silicon over a positively charged plate, an electrical field is produced allowing the flow of electrons. This is electricity. The focus of most research has been to improve the efficiency of translating light into electricity, and doing it using smaller and smaller panels.
There are solar panels under development today that use low cost, low grade silicon as a source for the panels. The interesting part of this research is that the solar energy itself converts the low grade silicon into ultra pure silicon and as the panel ages, it's efficiency goes up. Given the leaps in solar conversion efficiency over the last five years, it is not unreasonable to expect that solar panels may become the "shingle" of choice in 10 to 15 years. The roof area of a typical home will be able to convert enough solar energy to run everything in your house----for free.

This technology leap is inevitable. What will happen to us as a society, as an economy? Will going wireless now mean that the power lines strung all over the planet will slowly disappear? Are we getting too emotional over issues such as nuclear and coal power plants? Maybe they will just go away like the horse and carriage. If every building has the capacity to generate its' own electricity, it is only reasonable to assume that technology for storing energy will also advance. Necessity is the mother of invention. How will the economics of energy independence affect society? How do you tax consumption? Recharging your hybrid at home will really mean something when it doesn't cost you anything.
Will the political landscape of the world change when energy is taken off the table? There are so many unknowns. I have a feeling that a convergence of technologies is just around the corner. When the President of the United States starts promoting alternative energy a few days before a drop in gas prices, something is in the air. Solar energy is on a collision course with fossil fuels. Cheaper energy sources always win. In the early days of the 20th century, there were people in their 30's and 40's with vivid memories of a world lit by gaslight and streets full of horse buggies. 30 and 40 year olds today remember typewriters and a world without Internet.
I wonder what it will be like to look out on the horizon and not see power lines? Hang on, I think we're going to leap again.

Anna Melick Public School Blast from the Past

Anna Melick Public School 1975 Grade 6
Originally uploaded by inventorant.

I just found this picture the other day. I can't believe that 30 years have gone by since this was taken in 1975. Funny that everyone's pictures look the same.
I'm in the top row. 6th in from the left. Harley Harvey was my 6th grade teacher.

30 years since I was King
Originally uploaded by inventorant.

This was with the class picture, and I thought it would be a kick for anyone who remembers this stuff. Anna Melick Memorial put on the play, Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs. I wanted the part of the prince, because I really wanted to kiss Donna Clarkson, the Princess. My luck, I get to play the old man. This play was videotaped my David Millen, my 5th grade teacher. I wonder what ever happened to that tape? Dunnville was one of many small towns that I remember as a child.
In February of 1976, my family moved to Nova Scotia. I read a few months ago that they tore down the school I went to in Windsor, Nova Scotia. Windsor Regional High School. I don't have any pictures from those years. That's a shame.
A few years later, we moved back to Ontario and settled in Kemptville for a few years. I guess getting an email about a high school reunion (North Grenville District High) made me look up some of the old pictures. I think blogs are the perfect medium for sharing this kind of stuff.