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Sunday, February 12, 2017

Last of the Little Owls

As you will have seen from a couple of previous posts, I undertook a mini project this summer photographing a family of Little Owls living in an old farm building. This post is the last of the photographs of them, at least for this year, which were mainly taken through the second half of July and the beginning of August. Most of my sessions were carried out in the evening after work although I did manage to get the odd first light session in during the weekend which required a very early rise. Certainly something you could not attempt on a weekday unless I wanted to take on the appearance of the living dead by the early afternoon.

I left you in the last post with the appearance of a juvenile which had appeared in the round window in the wall of the barn. There were in fact two young birds from this years brood and it was fun to watch them becomingly increasingly bold and inquisitive as they explored their new world. Young little owls are amusing birds to watch as they continually bob their heads around as they look around their surroundings. It took a while to get both birds looking in the same direction.

The adult birds were evidently reducing the frequency of feeding now to encourage the birds to leave the barn and hunt for themselves. During the end of July I did get partially distracted with the appearance of some leverets around this farm building which I showed in a previous post. These provided a great time filler as I was waiting for the owls.

Even the young birds are good at pulling that stern look.

It soon became obvious that the young were learning to feed for themselves as they started descending from the barn to the track. One of the two, the larger, being evidently much bolder.

Lurking on a low window sill

The young birds were relatively nervous and the slightest noise would see them raise themselves up at full stretch to try and located the source of the noise and to also make themselves look bigger in case there was a potential threat. However, even at full stretch a young Little Owl does not really appear as an imposing figure.

During the whole period with the owls only one bird regularly came close the other preferring to keep its distance and hunt from another building for the majority of the time. However, it did come in on one occasion.

There is not much more to say about these Little Owls except they provided with many hours of fun and its was a pleasure to share some moments in their lives. It was also great to share some of this time with Steve who had previously originally spotted one of the owls lurking in that round brick window several weeks previously.

Many thanks Steve.

I am sure mid-summer next year with see us out looking for these tiny owls once again. So I will finish off this project with a further small selection of images and hope all these birds are still doing well.

Always good to catch some in the late evening sun.

Available link for download

Lightroom The Develop Module a Case study

Howdy

Ive completed the review of the Develop module up to the end of the Basic Panel…

You can find an overview of the Develop module and the editing panels on the Class Website

The First 4 parts of the Case study can be found here at The Develop Module a Case Study

Process 2010 and Process 2012 are compared…

Next… Working with Smart Objects in Photoshop

Got a question? holler

Dont forget to bring to class your "last chance" questions and problematic photos…

Available link for download

Landscapes with the Tokina 19 35mm and A200

Finally got a chance to get out and take some landscapes tonight with the new lens. Its been pouring down with rain over the weekend, so I spent a frustrating time watching the rain instead of out taking photos. But tonight that was all forgotten.

Went out after work to a beach not too far from hone - along the coast road. Its a place that I have taken wedding photos at before, but never explored it for my own landscape images.

I went out there with a pre-conceived idea of what I was going to capture - and as per usual, as soon as I arrived all those ideas went out the window. There are some very cool tidal pool areas to explore, but when I arrived the tide was in, and the waves were pounding against the shore (not surprisingly given the amount of aforementioned rain weve had).

So I had to re-evaluate what I was going to shoot, and came across this very cool log formation well above the tide. A perfect subject for the Tokina to really sink its teeth into!

I was getting some very dramatic sky, and had fortunately fitted the lens with a Cokin Grey ND Graduate filter. I use the larger P type filters, so there was no vignetting in the corners, even with the Tokina set to its full 19mm (which is pretty much where I left it all evening).

I also put the A200 on a tripod (turning Steady Shot off on the Sony), and set the aperture to f16 for plenty of depth-of-field. I also focused manually on the log to make sure that was my sharpest area of focus.

As expected, the Tokina captured some beautiful images (matched with the Sony A200 of course), and was a joy to use. Even with the sun full in the frame, flare wasnt too big of an issue (the ND Grey Grad filter helps to cut down glare as well), and the resulting images are sharp, punchy, contrasty and bang-on in terms of color rendition.

The more I use the A200, the more I enjoy using the A200. Im getting used to its quirks, and loving the images Im getting out of it.

Sony have a host of new cameras soon to be released (at Photokina at the end of this month), and the buzz about them is very positive. Match that with some fantastic, but cheap, Minolta and Tokina lenses, and you have a winning formula as far as Im concerned.

Sony, I think you may have a new convert...

Available link for download

Just the Hare Necessities

Coming up to the end of the year is often the time to try and reduce the usual processing backlog and get the years images wrapped up and finally backed up. So my first task was to go through some brown hare photos from the summer that have been left gathering dust on the hard drives.

I spent quite a bit of time with the hares again this year, an animal of which I can never tire. Its always such a pleasure being in their presence but I cannot quite put my finger on the attraction of hares for me. I mean I have obviously seen a large number of rabbits over the years but taken relatively few photographs but put a hare in front of me and the hours just seem to drift away. They certainly have mesmerizing glassy eyes that reflect that surrounding landscape.

Keeping those feet clean.

A warm summer evening spent lying down on the ground close to hare is such a wonderful experience and all of lifes pressure and stress fade to nothing in the background. To use a versus from a song in the Jungle Book film but substituting bare with hare and you get the following which I think sums it up well.

Look for the hare necessities
The simple hare necessities
Forget about your worries and your strife
I mean the hare necessities
Thats why a hare can rest at ease
With just the hare necessities of life

May be I have just spent too long with hares !!

Anyway on to some photographs. The summer brown hare is a very relaxed animal they still breed throughout the summer with the occasional crazed boxing bouts but most of the time seems to be spent feeding and building up fat reserves to see them through the hard times in the coming winter months. This makes these shy cautious animals much easier to approach.

Hares eyesight is geared up to detect movement. If you sit still enough they can sometimes walk right up to you, apparently completely oblivious to your presence. Some of you may remember a couple of years back when I told you of a hare that walked up to me whilst sat in a hedgerow and started licking my boot, presumably for some residual salt left on it from a beach wader photography session.

If you need to approach them then crawling flat is the way to go as they, together with many animals, associate the upright human form with danger. At times you will be surprised how close you can get to a hare. The tricky part is often leaving without disturbing it as crawling very slowly backwards with a heavy camera is not the easiest movement to make. However, the goal with all wildlife photography should be not to disturb or stress your subject. I see many people having got their photos then forgetting about their subject, standing up and sending whatever they were photographing speeding off to the horizon. My view is you should back away as carefully as you approached.

With the brown hares now quiet my thoughts are rapidly turning to photographing mountain hares given that they will be well in to taking on their white winter coats. It is all dependent on the weather which is never to be taken lightly in their habitat.

Available link for download

Kaspersky Mobile Security 9 for Android and Blackberry antivirus for the smartphone

The smartphone needs antivirus as well, at least that’s what Kaspersky is claiming and charging $30 per year for the use of the application that purports to be an all inclusive security solution for the mobile OS.

The rise of the smartphones also has disadvantages: in recent years, smartphones, their applications, browsers and processors become no less powerful than our PC’s, and are used for tasks and assignments. If there’s one thing PC’s are characterized with (especially those running Windows) its security breaches. Viruses, malware and Trojan horses are terms that still bring fear into users hearts and force them to use an effective antivirus, like Kaspersky – a veteran in the arena of PC antivirus.

Kaspersky Mobile Security is the company’s product that purports to provide a collection of tools to maintain privacy and security on our smartphone. This is not just an antivirus but an entire package that contains firewall, tools to fight theft of loss of the device, call filter and more. Version 9 that was issued in the beginning of the year with support to Windows Mobile and Symbian received a significant update that added support to Android (versions 1.6 to 2.2) and Blackberry (versions 4.5 to 6.0) but not the new Windows Phone 7 by Microsoft.

Unlike other solutions for the Blackberry and Android that exist on the market, Kaspersky doesn’t have a free version for the application and the application is offered at a license limited to one device at a relatively higher price than common in the smartphones market. In order to gain access to the application in any of the four supported OS you’ll have to part with $29.95 per year. A trial period of one week is available after which you’ll have to decide whether you want to continue.

The application’s installation is a little complicated because it is not done through the Android Market or Blackberry application store but by entering Kaspersky’s website and downloading an outside file. On the Android you’ll have to enable the download of an application from an unknown origin and then follow the instructions. On the Blackberry you’ll have to authorize a series of authorizations for the application during the installation.

Available link for download

LibGDX How to solve the issue ADB didnt ACK failed to start daemon

After the Import of the Gradle Project in the Eclipse, you can immediately debug it to see how the default project looks like.

The fastest way to see what the existing codes work is to Run / Debug the Desktop directory.

However, if you are only interested on the performance in the Android device, you could straightaway connect it to your PC, and Run / Debug the Android directory.

Now everything is intuitive until the error hits you:

"ADB didnt ACK, failed to start daemon"

What the heck is this and how to solve this issue?

Of course, search engines could get you some results. However, I am surprised to find that the most voted solution doesnt really provide a big picture of what went wrong. It takes me hours to find out that, it is the answer by vladof (in this link) that really sheds some lights on how to cope with this issue more thoroughly.

Since his answer is getting drowned, here I show it again (with minor modification) - The most complete solution for the "ADB didnt ACK" problem.

Enter Command Prompt.
Go to platform-tools in Android SDK directory.
Type:

adb nodaemon server

Output:

cannot bind tcp:5037

This implies that the port 5037 is occupied by something else. Type the command below to see who is the culprit:

netstat -ano | findstr 5037

Output:
Note that the process with PID 4888 is occupying port 5037.
Open Task Manager, click on Processes tab, find the process and kill it, tfadb.exe in this case. If you dont see the PID column, you may add it from the "Views" tab. Repeat the process from 2 - 5 if observe the similar situations again.

Retry adb kill-server and adb start-server, you will notice that the daemon will start successfully. :)

Hopefully this helps!

Available link for download

LEGO Star Wars The Force Awakens Video Game

LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens Video Game

Download
Download

Download the LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens Video Game Poster

Available link for download

Lets Go Fly a Kite at the Beach

The last week of October I spent a wonderful relaxing week at a beach front rental in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida. Staying with my daughters family & her husbands family. We gathered together to celebrate my son-in-laws fathers 80th birthday.

Indian Rocks is about an hours drive south of where I live in FL. My granddaughter shown here, had a fun time flying kites. **Made this collage using Picasa.

Available link for download

Just Listen Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

Just Listen, Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone By Mark Goulston Pdf Book Free Download

Year:2015 | File Size: 11.3 MB | File Type: PDF | Pages: 257 | Category: Self Help

Just listen subtitle discover the secret to getting through to absolutely anyone is a beautiful self help pdf book authorized by famous psychiatrist Mark Goulston. No doubt persuading anyone is really hard and require a lot of skills. In Just listen discover the secret to getting through to absolutely anyone author provides simple but power full tactics for persuading every kind of peoples like make impossible people their best friend etc.

Just listen popularity is clear by its price on Amazon and other book selling sites ranges up to 29 $, I am feeling happy to present pdfbooksinfo viewers this beautiful book free.

Living in the future

Gemalto has come up with an infographic (yay, I love infographics) depicting how living in a M2M connected city in 2025 will be like. Unlike most future predictions which tends to be a tad way out there, the predictions here are pretty sound. Many of these innovations such as charging stations, smart meters and photovoltaic solar panels are slowly becoming the norm in London while others like underground cycle lanes will likely only appear in new cities (we cant even get HS-2 off to a start yet!).

While it may seem crazy to think that we would be getting LTE in underground subways, I dont think the ability to tweet from the Victoria Line is far off. WiFi networks (albeit paid for, and currently limited to stations only) has already been deployed in deep level stations.

via Gemalto

Available link for download

Learn Python The Hard Way 2nd Edition

Book link here.

Available link for download

Kickstarting the ArtOrder Invitational

How would you like a private look into the creative journals of all your favorite concept artists and fantasy painters? Award-winning art director Jon Schindehette is kickstarting an art book with work by artists from a variety of backgrounds.

Each artist gets a spread, and they can combine words and images any way they want. Heres the spread by Spectrum Grand Master Gerald Brom.

This one is by John Harris. The goal is to give everyone a chance to lure the viewer into their own creative vortex.

My spread has the sketches and ideas that led up to the giant robot painting "Aftermath."

Participating artists include Iain McCaig, Allen Williams, Laurie Lee Brom, Gerald Brom, Sean Murray, Karla Ortiz, Sterling Hundley, Craig Elliott Bill Carman,Jon Foster Ron Lemen Vanessa Lemen Mark A. Nelson Tony DiTerlizzi Filippo Vanzo, John-Paul Balmet Petar Meseldzija, Rob Rey Stephanie Law Reiko Murakami John Picacio Kinuko Craft, Alyssa Winans, Andrea Sipl, John Harris, Bastien Lecouffe Deharme, Bud Cook, Chuck Lucacs, Elizabeth Leggett, Eva Widermann, Filippo Vanzo, Galen Dara Smith, Grahame Baker Smith,George Pratt, Henrik Uldalen, Ian Miller, J.A.W. Cooper, Jessica Shirley, Kelly McKernan, Micah Epstein, Mike Yamada, Nekro, Richard Anderson, Rob Rey, Rovina Cai, Samuel Araya, Sho Murase, Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, Tommy Arnold, Tooba Rezaei, Tracy Lewis, Tuna Bora, Yukari Masuike, and me—and thats not even everybody.

Jon is doing this to benefit the artists and to give the backers a thing of true beauty and mystery.
This is the kick-ass campaign that youll be glad you kickstarted, and if you miss out, youll kick yourself later.

ArtOrder Invitational on Kickstarter

Available link for download

Lady By the Window Manipulation by Rhoda Mwaka

I hope you are going to enjoy and learn a lot with this new tutorial have prepared. Please download PSD file for this tutorial

Download Free psd file here

Available link for download

Linux for the visually impaired ADRIANE Opensource com

A simple menu system for blind Linux users The Knoppix distribution goes back in time, to the era of text menus, to provide an interface for computer users who are blind. Remember back when computers were driven mostly by text menus? Press: [Y] Yes, I remember. [N] No, that was before my time. [U] Unknown. Seems familiar but its hazy. Enter your choice here: _ Yes, that sort of thing. This isnt a trip down memory lane, but a proof of concept; this method of computing actually worked, and it worked well for many years. It was less asynchronous than modern interfaces, but that was largely because of random access memory constraints and CPU cycles than design. Once RAM became affordable and CPUs got more powerful, a proper Unix shell with the ability to launch subshells made the user experience more fluid than ever. This old system of computing worked so well that many people strongly resisted the idea of a graphical make-believe "desktop" that they would have to interact with. Some people still do resist that idea; some are efficiency-obsessed Unix geeks, and others are people who cannot see the pretend desktops because they are blind. It is the latter group that the venerable Knoppix distribution targets with its ADRIANE user interface. It is specifically targeted at blind computer users, and is deliberately welcoming to non-technical users. This interface is called ADRIANE: Audio Desktop Reference Implementation and Networking Environment. See http://ift.tt/29if0UZ

Available link for download

Journey 2 The Mysterious Island

Film Journey 2: The Mysterious Island diadaptasi dari novel karangan Jules Vernes, "The Mysterious Island". Film ini disutradaraiBrad Peyton. Sedangkan penulisan naskahnya digarap oleh Eric Brevig dan Richard Outten. "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island" dijadwalkan rilis Februari 2012. Bintang bintang top ambil bagian untuk film Journey 2: The Mysterious Island ini.Ada Josh Hutcherson dan Vanessa Hudgens serta Dwyne Jhonson.

Cerita sipnopsis Journey 2: The Mysterious Island - Sean Anderson (Josh) dan ayah tirinya, Hank (Dwayne Johnson), berusaha menyewa helikopter untuk tiba di sebuah pulau yang tidak tergambar dalam peta. Mereka lalu menyewa helikopter milik Luiz Guzman dan putrinya, Kailani (Vanessa). Petualangan tersebut sebenarnya ditujukan untuk mencari kakek Sean (Michael Caine) yang hilang dan hanya meninggalkan sebuah petunjuk misterius.

Setelah melewati badai yang sangat hebat, mereka pun tiba di pulau itu. Awalnya, semua terasa indah dengan pemandangan pulau tersebut yang menakjubkan. Tapi kemudian mereka mulai bertemu dengan berbagai dinosaurus yang memburu mereka untuk disantap. Berhasilkah mereka keluar dari pulau itu hidup-hidup?

Trailer

Available link for download

Last of the color models!

Hi Folks! Had one heck of a weekend! Saw some really beautiful country, shot some guns, and walked through some incredibly cheap houses! I thought id share the last colour model with you guys. I havent added any texture to this yet, i havent been able to find one i like yet. So, now all the color models are done, at least until i change the script, which WILL happen. speaking of the script i need to finish it! so enjoy this pic for the day, by the way anyone can comment on the color. As ive said im not an accomplished painter by ANY means so please any helpful hints would help. cheers!

Available link for download

Longest Day of the Year

"Uploaded on Jun 24, 2007
The longest day of the year timelapse taken from the roof of a house in Tuktoyaktuk. The clouds rolling in make it look darker than it actually is. Music by Frank Cockney."

Available link for download

LibGDX How to install the Gradle plugin

After generating the necessary files from the gdx-setup.jar, according to the messages from the console, it is time to Import the Gradle project with the Eclipse IDE.

However, by default, the Eclipse IDE doesnt come with the Gradle Plugin. Where to install it?

The answer actually is available here. However, I am not following the step of the "Installation from the STS dashboard". Instead, I chose the second option "Installing Gradle Tooling from the update site". Why? Because Eclipse IDE supports that feature.

Copy this link: http://dist.springsource.com/release/TOOLS/gradle (latest release)
In Eclipse Open Help >> Install New Software
Paste a the link into the "Work with" text box.
Click the Add button at the top of the screen.
Ensure that the option "Group Items by Category" is enabled.
Select the top-level node Extensions / Gradle Integration.
Click "Next". This may take a while.
Review the list of software that will be installed. Click "Next" again.
Review and accept licence agreements and Click "Finish".

By following those steps above and restart your Eclipse IDE, you would be able to see the Gradle option when you opt "Import", as shown below:

After the "Next" button, click the "Build Model" (it may take some time to generate the screen similar to the below):

*Note: this image shows a failure example.

Here, you have to SELECT ALL, and click Next/Finish.

If you come across the error message as in the picture: "my-gdx-game-android existing workspace project my-gdx-game-android has the same name", this means your current workspace has the other directories with the same naming. You may create a new workspace or remove the old one.

With this, now the LibGDX is ready to take off. Implement your logic, debug and be ready to package the app for multiple platforms!

Available link for download

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Last of the Little Owls

Saturday, February 4, 2017

Lightroom The Develop Module a Case study

Friday, January 27, 2017

Landscapes with the Tokina 19 35mm and A200

Friday, January 6, 2017

Just the Hare Necessities

Saturday, December 31, 2016

Kaspersky Mobile Security 9 for Android and Blackberry antivirus for the smartphone

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

LibGDX How to solve the issue ADB didnt ACK failed to start daemon

Sunday, December 18, 2016

LEGO Star Wars The Force Awakens Video Game

Download the LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens Video Game Poster

Friday, December 9, 2016

Lets Go Fly a Kite at the Beach

Monday, December 5, 2016

Just Listen Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

Just Listen, Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone By Mark Goulston Pdf Book Free Download

Just listen popularity is clear by its price on Amazon and other book selling sites ranges up to 29 $, I am feeling happy to present pdfbooksinfo viewers this beautiful book free.

Related Posts: Body language for dummies, the psychology of success, stepping up how taking responsibility, brain training, how to improve memory

Monday, November 14, 2016

Living in the future

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Learn Python The Hard Way 2nd Edition

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Kickstarting the ArtOrder Invitational

Saturday, October 29, 2016

Lady By the Window Manipulation by Rhoda Mwaka

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Linux for the visually impaired ADRIANE Opensource com

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Journey 2 The Mysterious Island

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Last of the color models!

Monday, October 3, 2016

Longest Day of the Year

Saturday, September 17, 2016

LibGDX How to install the Gradle plugin