Slacy’s Blog

So, the Lenovo S10 works great with Linux, particularly Ubuntu 8.10, but the one thing thats a bit wonky is the way the trackpad works.  The trackpad is non-square, but reports square coodinates, so the vertical motion is exaggerated.

I’ve compiled a hacked version of the X11 Synaptics driver that includes a fudge factor for the Y component.  It does hw.y *= 0.6 internally, and this pretty much compensates for the incorrect coordinates.

Here’s a link to a modified replacement Ubuntu .deb package.

Just download that file, and then run:

dpkg –install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics_0.15.2-0ubuntu7_i386.deb

And you should be good to go.  If/when the Ubuntu maintainers publish a new or upgraded version of this package, this version will be overwritten, so you’ll be SOL.  So, be careful with those autoupgrades!

In other news, there are patches underway to do this in a more configurable way, and its possible that future versions of the Synaptics driver will include the ability to adjust the vertical sensitivity.

No, not our official name.  Here’s some photos:

I’ve re-enabled shutterfly printing in the Gallery. This means that there are now “Add Photo To Cart” links below each photo. After adding one or more photos to your cart, you can choose “Print with Shutterfly” from the menu in the upper right. Good luck!

Here’s several reasons why digital camera reviews and review sites suck:

• Canon vs. Nikon: Its like Mac vs. PC, Ford vs. Chevy, or Honda vs. Toyota. Both sides think their product is better, and argue constantly.
• Megapixels: Really, megapixels shouldn’t be the goal. Good pictures are the goal. megapixels != good pictures.
• X is better than Y: The best reviews are comparative, and the worst reviews are comparative. The problem is that comparative reviews require knowledge of 2 products instead of 1, and the 2 products are chosen (sometimes poorly) by the reviewer.
• Pro vs. amateur: Great sites like photo.net are chock full of all kinds of people, pros and amateurs alike. When someone comments or posts a review, you’ve got no idea what their level of knowledge and expectation is. A novice can think that a $100 digital point and shoot takes better pics than a disposable 35mm, and a pro will think that a $5000 DSLR setup isn’t as good as the medium format rig he’s got back in his studio. Both opinions are basically pointless for most “middle of the road” people, and don’t really convey any useful information.
• Lens confsion due to DSLRs: Entry level DSLR’s don’t have a “full frame” sensor, and this confuses the market quite a bit. The problem is that the same lens can have different behaviors on different cameras. Thus, when someone says that the lens is “too long” or “too short” for a given task, you need to know the context, and its usually not provided. The same thing goes for example photos — unless you know the sensor size, you don’t know that you’ll get similar results. If you’re trying to compare maximum aperture (and thus, sensitivity) of 2 point and shoot cameras, good luck! You’ll have a heck of a time finding comparative sensor sizes!
• Lack of stats: For some reason, everyone has focused on megapixels as the only viable stat for digital cameras. What about numbers to measure chromatic aberration, center and edge resolution, softness, contrast, etc. There just don’t seem to be any. It makes reading camera reviews somewhat more akin to wine reviews: Its got lot of body, smoky overtones, and finishes with a bit of falloff and softness when wide open.
• Fancy-schmancy features: Image stabilization, ultrasonic dust cleaning, on camera image editing, face detection algorithms. Are these truth or fiction? Useful new features, or a bunch of bull? You get to decide, but only if you buy the right camera first.
• Is this how I take photos?: When reading reviews, it seems as many of the reviewers use the camera on a tripod, in bright studio lights or sunlight. Is that how I’m going to take photos? Where are the example shots of handheld indoor at night without flash? Thats where I want to be able to take great photos. I EXIF data could encode stuff like whether the camera was handheld (and how steady!) I’d be super excited!

Ugh. It makes decision making so hard. I fear that I’ve fallen into the trap of “a better camera will make me a better photographer.” I know its not true, but at least I can try, right?

These are from last month, so I’m sure things are looking quite a bit different in there these days…

I’m about to embark on Geotagging my photos with Linux. Basically, this will amount to:

1. Figuring out the right way to add Lat/Long information as EXIF data to my photos.
2. Figuring out the right gallery2 plugin to parse, import, and display this info in a reasonable way. Optionally, generate Google Earth .KML files for albums, display inline maps, display an overview map, etc.
3. Figuring out how to associate a .GPX log file (from a handheld GPS) and associate it with a large set of images, to automatically add EXIF data. (I believe that gps2photo, below, will do this).
4. Automating everything in a reasonable way such that its not too much work when I upload photos.

To that end, here’s a list of some useful starting points for software. I don’t think that there’s any software out there that does all of this, but I’m still looking.

http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/TagNames/GPS.html
http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/
http://www.carto.net/projects/photoTools/gpsPhoto/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gps2photo/
http://codex.gallery2.org/index.php/Gallery2:Modules:Map
http://www.ozhiker.com/electronics/pjmt/
http://www.jakeo.com/software/exif/index.php
http://pel.sourceforge.net/
http://tadek.pietraszek.org/blog/category/programstools/

We spent the last 2 weeks touring Japan: Tokyo, Nikko, Matsuyama & Dogo, Miyajima, Hiroshima, & Kyoto. Had an awesome time, and are still sifting through the ~1500 pictures we took. In the mean time, if you really want, you can sift through them yourself. Any comments on good ones & bad ones would be appreciated!

We should have a more whittled down gallery of just the “good ones” in a day or 2.

Tesla Roadster, Wrightspeed X-1, Tango… what more could you ask for?

New pictures are up:

San Jose Art Car Fest

Reno Air Races

We just got back from Anil & Seema’s totally awesome wedding in Baltimore, as well as a short visit with Andrea’s family in the D.C. Area. Pictures below…