miniature earth

because sometimes, one needs to see the bigger picture to come to a realisation

the miniature earth project

hendrix-esque

28mm | 1/200 at f8 | 0 ev | iso 200 | 2x studio strobe diagonal front left & right

post-process: high pass, smart sharpen, diffuse, fade, surface blur & color adjustments

the zesty ape

the excitement of ubuntu’s next release was at fever pitch when i caught up with my linux os news updates of late (i kinda found out that i only have six months to squeeze the most out of my ubuntu installs before a new one gets released and i yearn an upgrade) – gusty gibbon was released amongst much fanfare (from the fans at least – heh). i fired the wget in the office box and drove down hours later to cut it into a dvd.

installation was preety much standard easy, not much changed since the last. did have an issue with updating packages though, possibly due to the large number of users accessing the same server or starhub was very stingy with their bandwidth (in which i pay 80 bloody dollars per month – gawddammed rip off). first impressions were very positive with new eye candy and what-nots, but digging deeper i found some things that were a deal breaker for me. restarting the machine or starting up took longer – like minutes longer. never had that problem on my x31 with feisty but somehow starting up gusty took yonks to get to its login prompt. then there was the oversized fonts on the console that were so big that you’d only see only the first few letters of a line. even the prompt is hidden somewhere off screen. desktop effects (via compiz) were supposedly turned on by default with the gibbon, i can’t even turn it on manually without getting an error (was working fine in feisty – which was still in its “experimental” stage).

i tried find the fixes to listed gripes (and a lot more) but since the official release was only a few days old, its kinda tough to come by.

(update)since this has been sitting in my “drafts” section for about a month:-

i gave ubuntu’s gusty gibbon another go when i got back from vietnam (all the issues with windows that i faced in vietnam left a very bad taste so much so that i didn’t want to see another windows machine for a while. besides, running vista on the x31 would be the equivalent of asking a bi-plane to go supersonic). yup the listed gripes were all there but this time there were numerous forum threads on them.

with increased user base numbers, a community driven operating system benefits from its users as more and more people eyeball every detail of the release. moving along the same lines as the community, loads of developers and powerusers are also getting on board with helping out others with issues on their installs. its amazing to see a free operating system getting this much attention as compared to multi-million dollar closed sourced OS release.

almost all of my gripes have been solved though it does take a little technical massaging to coax my aging machine to run the gibbon to its full glory. imagine taking all of vista’s eye candy (transparent windows, glassy window frames and animated transitions), add the ability to customise every aspect of the system (from the design and type of the login window to splash screens to even the size of window frames), then include multiple virtual windows and also a good dollop of speed to keep everything running harmoniously to the user. all these on a tiny notebook with 1.4ghz mobile processor and 768mb of ram (as compared to vista which needs a more “gusty” processor and at least 2gb to get its eye candy working properly)

i see grim everyday

 

icing on the cake fact : i got photoshop 9 and elements to work on the gusty…woot!

post vietnam blues

the trip up to vietnam was like a bad dream. 14 hours work day daily in an utterly fubar-ed situation left me broken and 3 kilos lighter when i got back (and that was only a 6 day trip, wonder if i’d just disappear into thin air if i stayed there for a year). right up to the very last minute that i was in the office in saigon i was hassled by either the users or the systems; it felt like getting out of prison when i finally got into the cab to the airport.

recollecting back from the limited times i had outside work in saigon (i chose to take a slow walk to & from work eveyday), i would think that it would be a wonderful destination for a photography holiday. the town looks like any medium sized malaysian town but ten times cleaner! traffic was mad (imagine the amount of people jostling at the start of the boston marathon, then imagine each of them on a motorbike – you’ll get the traffic on saigon’s roads) with motorists mostly not heeding the traffic lights. surprisingly though, to cross the streets, one would just have to just walk right ahead, the motorists would do everything to avoid you.

people aren’t very friendly though they wont bother you either. nonetheless, i noticed a few instances where a tourist raised up a camera to capture one of the numerous sidewalk eateries (one literally sits on the side walks’ ground and have a meal here) and all of them actually stopped, noodle hanging out from mouth, smiled and waved at the camera! anyone who loves people or street photography should slap on some 50mm primes and walk the streets for some very interesting shots (becareful of snatch thieves on bikes though, loads of incidents of such)

communication can be a problem with only a handful of viets who can actually converse in even basic english (i seriously almost punched a viet vendor because of network issues in the office – its hard to speak even plain english let alone explain technical jargon to them). the service staff would usually be ok (why shouldn’t they? accommodation and service in saigon is not cheap!) with english but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone to have your questions answered when you’re on the streets.

i would love to return to saigon on my own time but for now, i am just reeling from the bad work experience. also, i have my credit card bills to clear first before i can plan to go anywhere (hotel was $USD310 per night when i was there!) …boy its gonna be a long while.

goood morning vietnam

i hate rush jobs. especially when “business” is driving opening an office in an “emerging” market, the technolgists have to scramble to set up the infrastructure in double quick time. add a little “every one wants to keep costs lean” factor and you’d come up with an utterly fubar-ed situation.

oh, i am writing this on an overpriced hotel internet access in saigon (20USD for net access per day is daylight robbery!)

more to come… ahm seriously bushed after days of lack of sleep and long long work hours (silver lining fact – am flying back home later in the evening, regardless of the condition of the office! woot!)

(wished i could have taken and posted a picture of the place or something….seriously, i really haven’t the time!)