Scott's Blog of Scott

Dumb Luck

2009-02-04T11:13:00.002+01:00

So the story goes like this:
Sunday February 1st was Jessica's christening. After the ceremony, we had lunch with the whole family at a local restaurant. We hired a photographer for the ceremony, but not for the lunch, so I took my camera. After lunch, we hauled everything out to the truck. (stroller, baby bag, blankets, gifts etc.) Somehow, my camera bag never made it back into the truck. I realized my error as soon as we got home, but by the time I got back, it was gone. Sunday night and Monday morning, I was inconsolable. The following morning, Diane's mother gets a phone call. A second cousin of Diane's was also at the same restaurant, and happened to park right next us, and left only few short minutes after we did. When they came out to their car, my camera bag would have been on the ground nearby. When they packed the car, they packed my camera as well, and didn't realize it until they got home later that night.

Talk about dumb luck.

If you are here, have you checked out my deviant art site lately? The main point of it is really to show off my panos and network with other artists and photographers.

http://immauss.deviantart.com/

Return to Blogging.

2009-02-02T11:48:00.001+01:00

OK. I'm back. I really need to keep better track of this. With my college classes in the fall, and then the holidays and post holidays were such a busy time, I kind of slacked off quite a bit here. Yesterday was Jessica's Christening. What a day. The christening went well. Narciso was there to take pictures for us, so we should have some beautiful pictures. After the ceremony, we had lunch at restaurant in Somma. Villa Smeraldo. When we left, somehow I managed to leave my camera bag in the parking lot. When we got home, I realized it what I had done, and rushed back. When I got there, it was gone. Needless to say, I was crushed. This morning, Diane called me at work to let me know that somehow, someone found it. Will miracles never cease. I'll try to get some of the pictures from my camera tonight and get them up to flickr soon.

IT'S OVER !!!!

2008-11-06T10:17:00.001+01:00

Finally, I finished my classes. I took the history final yesterday morning. I don't think I did tooo bad. I'm pretty sure I passed anyway. Now I can finally start to get some life back. I hope.We are leaving Saturday morning to visit the states for a few weeks. So the next few days will be packing and getting ready. Additionally, I'm delivering all of the prints I sold at the international bazaar. I did pretty well this year. You can see our booth here:

Aaaahhhhhh School is killing me.....

2008-10-23T06:07:00.001+02:00

OK, maybe not literally, but it sure has eaten up most of my time for the last few months. I took a Psych class with UMUC and it was 4 nights a week from 4:30 to 5:45. That class ended last week. Now all I have to do is finish the History class I'm taking on line and I'm ONE CLEP test away from my Associates degree!! Yippie!!! (Oh did you know the Yippies were a radical anti war/political party/activist group that started in 1968? I'm writing a paper on them for History.)

Anyway, there are loads of pictures that I have't even had time to look at myself. I've been spending a little of my time lately with my new online store for photos and the journal their. So check out http://www.immauss.com/ Also, John K. and I setup at the International Bazaar again this year, and I sold around 15 prints at the shop and took orders for almost 30 more! (I feel like a pro :D)

Massa Lubrensa

2008-09-22T10:14:00.002+02:00

For Labor Day weekend, we took a short trip out to Massa Lubrensa on the Sorentine penninsula and stayed at the Hotel Delfino. It was incredible, relaxing and beautiful. I went out and took loads of pictures of the area, and Diane took loads of pictures of Jessica. The Panoramas will come when I get a chance to process them. (No telling when that will be.)
See the Whole set here

An update, finally.

2008-09-05T08:50:00.001+02:00

She's almost 3 months old now, and growing like crazy. At last check, the day of her shots, she was 5.55 kg and and 60cm long. That's 12lbs 4oz and 23 1/2 inches.

Click here to see the whole set.

Pompei Piazza

2008-08-19T06:28:00.004+02:00

Yesterday, I got up at 4 am to go to Pompei and get some pictures before sunrise. As you can see from my photo stream, this is not the first time I've done this. The one thing I have found it impossible to avoid at this time of day is the town crazy guy. It seems like every town around here has at least one. Pompei is no exception. When I first entered the Piazza, his bicycle was upside down on one end of the piazza, and he was walking around yelling at the the trees, the dogs, and the street cleaners. He seemed to not notice me at first. However, as soon as I started to setup for my picture, he comes over to say hello. Well, he kind of yelled it. I assume that was his intent, because his Neopolitan accent was so thick, I couldn't understand a single word he said. If you don't speak Italian, you have no idea the difference between Italian and Neopolitan. If you have ever heard a comedian or actor in a silly movie try to speak cajun, or pigeon, its kind of like that. It sounds kind of like Italian, but not really. Anyway, I politely tried to tell him in Italian, that I didn't speak Italian well, and to please excuse me. At this point, he had taken the front wheel off of his upside down bicycle and had been rolling it around the piazza. He yelled a little more and went back to rolling his wheel around. I coninued to setup for my picture as he walked on. At one point, he rolled his wheel across the entire piazza and it ran in to a small barrier at the front of the church. He then yelled something I can only assume was "GOAL !!". I didn't see him for a while after that, which was good for me as I managed to take most of my panorama pictures without him in them. (He did show up in one though.) As I was breaking down my rig and getting ready to leave, he came by again, with the wheel in his hand. He didn't look any different, (crazier or less crazy) than he did the first time he came up, but this time when he got close enough, he swung the wheel at me. I instinctly turned and took the wheel across the chest to protect my camera. The wheel also struck my tripod and knocked it over. He didn't really swing it hard, because it didn't hurt at all. However, he knocked over my tripod. I weighed my options on taking a swing at him, but in the end decided it was probably safer, and less expensive should something break, to just yell at him. I told him in plain Italian to "GO!". I picked up his wheel, which he had dropped after hitting me and my tripod, and threw it across the piazza, and yelled "GO!" again. After a bit of yelling, he finally walked away still ranting at the dogs, trees, and street cleaners, except now I could understand one word he was using in his rants. Photographer.

The things I go through for a good picture.

I just noticed that this is my 100th Post. WOOT!

More Pics

2008-08-13T08:45:00.001+02:00

OK, I've been getting nasty grams from Grandma. Here's some new pictures. I had to work out some technical difficulties with the computer at home. Hopefully, we willget more regular updates now.

0808080808

2008-08-08T08:08:00.001+02:00

Its August 8th 2008 at 8:08 AM

Vote For Me !!!

2008-07-25T06:15:00.000+02:00

Portrait Time

2008-07-02T21:59:00.002+02:00

So we setup a mini studio on the bed in our bedroom, and Jessica played fashion model. From the 60-70 shots, this was our favorite.

2 Weeks have gone by quick

2008-06-22T23:38:00.001+02:00

Well tomorrow Jessica will be 2 weeks old, and I have to go back to work. It's gone by quicker than imaginable. She is already sleeping for 5-6 hours most nights, and has almost gained enough weight to be back up at her birth weight. She has been for 3 medical check ups, two in town, and one at the Naval hospital. Tomorrow we go for another quick visit, then as long as everything is OK, it will be two months before here next visit.

More pictures on flickr. Mom says I'm not posting enough pictures, but I think if I had a running full time video feed that wouldn't be enough.

The Eyes Have it !!

2008-06-12T17:33:00.001+02:00

Yesterday and today, she has been keeping her eyes open a little more.

Jessica is here!!!!!!

2008-06-09T18:34:00.004+02:00

Well she arrived this morning by C-Section at the Casa di Cura in San Gennaro Vesuviano at 10:00am. She was 7lbs 11oz and 19 1/2 inches long. Diane and Jessica are both doing well and you can see them both over at flickr.

Click here for Jessica's Flickr Gallery.

Schedules and Timing

2008-06-08T13:21:00.001+02:00

Well it seems we will have our expected arrival tomorrow. We are scheduled for a C-Section tomorrow morning around 8:30. We took a few pictures last night, and I finally uploaded all of the panoramas from the trip to Amalfi to flickr.

The laptop is setup so we can connect to the internet through the local cellphone provider, so hopefully, there will be pictures of Jessica on the internet shortly after she is born. Wish us luck !!

Amalfi Coast

2008-06-05T13:29:00.001+02:00

Pictures from our Weekend on the Amalfi Coast are up on flickr. Panoramas and more to come soon.

Jessica's Room

2008-05-31T21:27:00.001+02:00

Well, its' more or less done. Close to more than less now, so here's a pano. I'm sure there will be little things added now and then, but for now, this is her room.

Its getting really close now. We have another appointment with the Doc on Tuesday, and at that point we may have to decide to wait it out, or schedule a C-section. Our preference is for natural, but that may not be an option. Only time will tell.

Baby Shower Pictures

2008-05-21T06:55:00.001+02:00

OK,
The videos aren't done yet. There should be at least one more installment. For now, here are some of the pictures from the Baby Shower.

To see the rest, Click on the below image.

Baby Shower Part 2

2008-05-20T19:31:00.000+02:00

Coming along slowly but surely, here's the Belly girth guessing game.

The Baby Shower

2008-05-16T05:51:00.003+02:00

It's taken some time, mainly to figure out how to get the video the way I wanted it. But here is the first installment of the Baby shower videos.

The Gardens of Ninfa

2008-05-10T12:55:00.001+02:00

A few weeks ago, we drove up to Latina to visit the Giardini di Ninfa outside of Latina. To say it was beautiful would be an understatement. I could have spent days in there taking pictures and never really do it justice. These are just a few of the pictures I took there. For more, go here.

Ouch

2008-04-27T18:00:00.001+02:00

Wow! Its been a while since the last update. I didn't realize how long it had been. It has been a busy time lately. Diane of course is about 8 months pregnant. I have a college math class two nights a week, and I started playing golf one afternoon a week. The weather the last few weekends has been beautiful, so we have spent them out and about. Work has been keeping me incredibly busy with another new engineering/design/build project, which hopefully will be done this week.
We had a baby shower for Diane yesterday, and there are loads of pictures from the last bunch of weekends that will be pushed up to flickr in the next few days as I'm taking tomorrow off in the hopes of catching up on some work around the house and some photo post processing. So keep in touch.

I also need to report the sad news that my Aunt Wanda, my father's sister, passed away this last week. We will all miss her, and our thoughts and hearts go out to other friends and relatives.

London, Stonehenge, and Bath

2008-02-27T19:21:00.002+01:00

Woot! Pictures from the London trip are up. That's not too bad. Less than two weeks.

Congratulations are in order as well. We received a note this week from Eric and Julie.
Eric James Hodeen was born February 24th.

Look here.

Congratulations Eric and Julie!!!

Google for anything

2008-02-24T19:36:00.001+01:00

Google has really changed the world. 10 years ago, you could spend years toiling in ancient libraries and never find what you can find in 30 seconds with Google. For instance; Mental plasma energy stream control.

I've been learning this a few weeks now. This is one of my early attempts. I've been getting better at controlling and shaping the streams though.

Now I'm starting to work on multiple streams. This one uses four separate streams.

Click through to the pictures for larger views.

Stonehenge

2008-02-17T00:06:00.001+01:00

Stone Henge, originally uploaded by immauss.

It was so incredibly cold there. The wind was cutting right through us. But it was still awe inspiring.

Our New addition

2008-02-10T15:41:00.000+01:00

For those of you who haven't already heard, there is a new addition on the way here.

Her arrival is greatly anticipated for the first week of June.

Meet Jessica Angela!

And her first video too!

Its Christmas

2008-02-05T15:11:00.001+01:00

Well, as far as my flickr pages goes it is. The pictures from Christmas are up this morning. Check them out.

Updates !!!

2008-01-21T19:06:00.001+01:00

Woo hoo !!
I finally sat down and did some photo updating. Loads of pictures from our trip to Nottingham back in November. The computer room is almost done, and that means the whole house isn't far behind.

Nottingham on Flickr

Happy New Year!!!

2008-01-01T19:01:00.001+01:00

Happy New Year to all !!!!!
I started working on setting up my desk yesterday so, maybe sometime soon I'll be able to start working on some of the hundreds of pictures I've taken since we moved.

Back to the stone age

2007-12-12T15:04:00.001+01:00

Have you ever had one of those days where you look around you and think "The whole world is crazy" OR maybe, "This place is Crazy" ??

Check these out:

UPDATE 3-Italian truck strike stops fuel, food supplies

Italy truck strike causes chaos

Italian Truck Driver Strike To Continue Until Friday

Italian truck strike causes chaos

It amazes me some days that this country has made it to the technological level that it has. (And that really isn't saying that much)

Here we have a Union, that is striking for what would seem to be a good reason. The price of diesel fuel in Italy is 30-40 cents/liter higher than in surrounding countries because of the taxes the current government has implemented in an effort to reduce the national debt to below the 2.2% of GNP required by the EU. The truck drivers are obviously not happy with this. What kills me, is that initial estimates are that this strike could cost the country upwards of 5 BILLION Euros in lost revenues, rotten fruit and dropping stock value, (FIAT stock dropped 2.3 % after the news that the factories had to shutdown due to a lack of parts.)

So, wouldn't that mean they will actually be making the problem worse.

As Ankin Skywalker said: "IT'S WORKING!"

2007-12-06T07:45:00.001+01:00

In my quest for reasonable internet access at my house in the middle of nowhere, this solution seems to be the final chapter.

My first setup was with a Vodafone UMTS Connect card in a PC in the computer. Sadly, the signal strength was just not strong enough to maintain a workable connection.

I picked up a WRT54G3G at the local Media World, and popped in the express card version of the Vodafone connect card. With a quick linksys firmware upgrade, it was up and working, but still week signal strength. I Switched to X-WRT white russian and moved the router to the roof. Mounted in a water tight box with and external wifi antenna, the signal strength was better, but still I was dropping too many connections.

I picked up a new SIM from 3, another Cell carrier in Italy. 3 has built their network in the last few years and focused on data and video, so I reasoned that they should give better data support. I was right. The signal with the 3 SIM in the Vodafone connect card was stronger, and the data transfers were faster with less latency. (~300ms vs ~150ms) Now all I needed to do was get 3 to activate their higher data payment plan on my SIM.

"We can't do that." the store told me. We can only enable the 5Gig a month plan on a SIM purchased with a new modem. The standard plan, the one I used to test the 3 network, only allowed for 50MB a day. That doesn't last very long. So, we bought another 3G modem. This one, a USB model. At the time, I just wanted the SIM with the 5Gig Plan. But I awoke the next morning with an idea. I dug out an old PCMCIA USB 2 card, plugged it into the WRT54G3G, and plugged in the new USB 3G modem. a few quick hacks at the usbserial loading, and I was connected.

Yes, that's Vesuvius in the background. Monte Somma, to be specific, which is the peak on the left in most photos of Vesuvius.

You can see the whole set here.

December

2007-12-04T05:38:00.001+01:00

Well, another month has passed. We have been in the new house now for almost a month. So naturally, we went on another trip to get away from it. We spent last weekend in Cologne Germany. These low cost airlines are awesome. We flew with TUI Fly. We mainly wanted to go to a German Christmas market. Naturally, I took loads of pictures, but since the computer room is still a big pile of boxes, I can't really do too much with them. At some point in the what seems like the far distant future right now, we'll get the house straightened out, and I'll spend a few days working on pictures, and updating flickr. Until then, text only updates .... :(

Moved 3

2007-11-15T08:30:00.001+01:00

OK,
I'm back at work now. Almost caught up. Almost. The house is coming along slowly. I hung most of the kitchen cabinets on Monday, and should have the rest done this weekend. We may actually have a working kitchen by the end of the weekend. May .... Diane and I took a trip to Nottingham the first weekend of November and we took loads of pictures, but I haven't had time to even do more than download them from my camera. Not having the internet connection at the house is going to slow that process down for a while, but I'll get some up soon.

Moved ?

2007-11-09T09:39:00.001+01:00

Well, all of our stuff is moved into the new place. Now all we need is another few weeks to sort it all out, assemble everything, and find everything else. Its slow going, but we'll get there.

Out of touch

2007-11-05T05:53:00.001+01:00

OK,
We are still in the middle of moving. Its been painful, as moving always is. The internet at the new house is still a little spotty, and I don't start back to work until tomorrow, so if you haven't had any email from in a while, that's why. We'll be back online and in touch again soon.

Buy Prints!

2007-10-21T19:37:00.001+02:00

You too can buy some of my artwork!!! Check it out at Imagekind.

Spread the word.

Bazaar

2007-10-21T09:07:00.001+02:00

Bazaar, originally uploaded by immauss.

John, Mark and I rented a booth at the International bazaar this year. Even though we were stuck off in a corner, we all managed to do pretty well, and sell some prints. The best part was when the manager for the Navy Exchange invited us to come to the Navy Exchange and sell prints there!

Thanks Liz.

White and Nerdy ?

2007-10-02T11:14:00.001+02:00

I'm sure someone will be disappointed with me on this quiz score....

How White and Nerdy Are You?

Carolingian Aqueduct

2007-09-20T09:35:00.001+02:00

Carolingian Aqueduct, originally uploaded by immauss.

September 19th was a local holiday, San Gennaro. I figured it would be a good day to strike out early and gets some photos before work, because there would be less traffic on my way in to work. That part of the plan worked out fine, but the clouds didn't really want to cooperate. I did spent about 2 hours crawling over the hills around this aqueduct looking for different angles to shoot from. This is one of my favorites, but there are more here.

Zoooooooooooooooomify

2007-09-09T20:19:00.000+02:00

OK, This is something I have been waiting quite a while to do. Mainly because the atmospheric conditions need to be just right. Last week, it rained quite a bit on Tuesday. Consequently, Wednesday, was incredibly clear. After work, I went to the top of the parking garage, setup the camera, and started taking pictures. When I was done, I had taken 90 shots of Naples and Vesuvius. I plugged them all into the computer, and Voila!

Now, at this resolution, its not that impressive. It looks like any old panorama. But to see the real beauty of it all, you have to visit this link. Its a zoomify view of the original 155 Mega-pixel image. You can zoom all the way in to the top of Vesuvius to see the colors of the rocks sliding down the outside of the crater. Those 90 shots were all taken at highest zoom I had available, 135mm. The zoomify interface lets you zoom all the way in to the full resolution of the 90 shots.

Enjoy!

And yet more

2007-09-06T16:13:00.001+02:00

I also pushed up a few pictures from recent photo shoots here in Naples. Mainly the Lago Satcom Fac shots. They were a request from last week and I needed to make them available...

Finally

2007-09-06T13:28:00.001+02:00

OK, the last of the Dublin pictures are up on Flickr.
Enjoy.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/immauss/

Dublin

2007-09-05T07:54:00.001+02:00

Wow! There are 2 more days worth of pictures on flickr now. I've uploaded the Day4 & Day5 shots. Tomorrow, the Day 6 shots.

More Pictures

2007-09-03T07:44:00.001+02:00

Life's a little crazier than normal around here. I'm taking a college class in Italian. I guess its about time. I've been here 10 years this month. Wow, 10 years. Its hard to believe really. Of course at this point I feel like I have always been here. Anyway, we are moving in to the apartment above Diane's parent's house. Lots of work to do for that. It will be nice to be close to the family, and if the job here goes away, it will allow us to save a little more money.

There are more pictures up on Flickr from Dublin. If Telecom Italia wasn't so useless, I would have put even more Dublin pictures up this weekend. Of course, last week, Telecom was scheduled to come out and "Connect" our ADSL. (It was already working) But, they didn't tell us they were coming out. So we weren't here. So naturally, instead of calling us to reschedule, they assume we don't want it, and turn it off. This is the 3rd time they have done that to us. Its getting a little old at this point. . . .

Anyway, there are over 100 pictures from Dublin including maybe 15 Panoramas waiting to go up to Flickr as soon as I have some bandwidth.

Yeah !!

2007-08-12T16:12:00.001+02:00

Many more pictures from London went to Flickr today. Finally had bit of time to sit down and go through them all.

More Shots From London

2007-08-10T09:34:00.001+02:00

OK,
Here's another 55 shots from London including some shots from the Star Wars exhibition!

www.flickr.com

immauss' London 2007 photoset

Finally

2007-08-04T13:29:00.001+02:00

Finally, I've pushed some pictures up to flickr from the trip. Its been a little crazy around here the last two weeks. Diane starts the last two weeks of her Master's program Monday, and I have final exams in two weeks for the two classes I'm taking. The picture update is only the first 3 days of the trip in London. The 4th day will take a little while to sort through as we both had our cameras and I think we took around 800 pictures that day. They will be up soon though. Keep checking in....

New Pictures here

Too Cool

2007-07-24T06:39:00.001+02:00

Stumbled on this today, and though it was just too cool to not pass it along. Pictures from the trip coming soon, I promise.

No Pictures

2007-07-18T07:50:00.000+02:00

OK,
That's not entirely true. We have taken LOADS of pictures, but haven't had time to sit down and sort through and send to flickr yet. I probably won't have time to do that until after we get back to Naples. We spent 5 days in London and had a great time. We are Dublin now, and heading out on a day trip to Belfast tomorrow morning. Expect lots of pictures and panoramas soon. But not today.

New Family members

2007-07-10T08:02:00.001+02:00

crw_0809, originally uploaded by immauss.

And here they are, the new members of the family.

One of Diane's students, Christian Strom, is moving back to Sweden this summer. They were not able to take their turtles with them to Sweden, so Diane offered to adopt them.

Galeria Umberto

2007-07-02T09:00:00.001+02:00

Galeria Umberto, originally uploaded by immauss.

Saturday, I went to downtown Naples and walked around taking Panoramas. This is my favorite of the bunch. Galeria Umberto. Check out the interactive link. Quite cool.

Canon Digital Rebel / 300D

2007-06-27T08:03:00.001+02:00

Canon Digital Rebel / 300D, originally uploaded by immauss.

I finally found a DSLR that fit my budget. Its used, its a little older than I was thinking, but its still a great camera, and it didn't break the bank. Now I can break the bank buying lenses. :D I've already done a few pano's with this rig, I'll be posting them to flickr soon.

For the family update, Diane is studying hard for her Masters, we have a house guest, John, who is also attending the Masters program with Diane. I'm taking two classes with UMUC one in programing, and the other on Network Security. Planning to have my Degree done by the end of this year. Woot!

July we will be going to London for a few days for Diane to take the teaching certification exams with ABCTE. We are planning to drop through Dublin for a few days on our way back and stay at the same B&B we stayed at the last time we went. Looking forward to the break from work, but I'll still be taking my online classes. Oh well. Real break for a week in August maybe. Time will tell.

American Idol

2007-06-19T05:59:00.001+02:00

Well, the results are in!

Apparently I didn't have enough friends at the popularity contest. I failed to receive enough votes to move on to the next show. I say it that way, because many people have told me how much better they thought I was than several of the people that did make it. One of them, I know I was better than. Small time talent contests are a real bitch. You are basically stuck to whoever has the most friends at the show to vote for them.

Oh well.... maybe next time.

Some crazy driving in Italy is still frowned upon.

2007-06-14T07:00:00.001+02:00

"Hang on, lads - I've got a great idea."

Or perhaps not so great, as this driver found after appearing to
recreate a scene from The Italian Job, by driving down the iconic
Spanish Steps in Rome.

After hurtling down the 138 marble steps, a 24-year-old Colombian was
found slumped at his Toyota Celica's steering wheel by police - and
more than twice the drink-driving limit.

The driver was unhurt, but several of the 200-year-old steps were chipped and scuffed.

An eyewitness said: "It was like something out
of The Italian Job - this car was coming down the steps at quite a
speed but the driver didn't lose control.

Full Story and more pictures here.

Idol

2007-06-07T10:58:00.001+02:00

So,

The USO in Naples has decided that American Idol should come to Naples. They are sponsoring an American Idol like contest this month dubbed, what else, "USO Idol." The tryouts were last weekend, and of course I had to go and try out. They threw me a curve ball in that when I arrived, I found out that I would have to do the audition acapella. (without music). Apparently I did ok, they called me yesterday to tell me I'm one of the 12 people selected for the contest. The first audition is this Saturday morning, with three Saturday night shows on the 16th, 23rd, and 30th.

Wish me luck!

5th Grade trip

2007-06-07T10:57:00.001+02:00

Last Thursday and Friday, I went with Diane and her class down to Bari to see the trulli houses, Castellano caverns and Fasonolandia. In two days, I took over 1600 pictures. Half of them after I had a near fatal camera drop the first night. (It didn't look good there for a while, but the camera eventually reset, and seems to be working fine.) The selected pictures, only 222, are posted on Diane's class flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrsascoolkids/

Keeping me Busy

2007-05-29T06:56:00.001+02:00

China Crafts Cyberweapons

The Defense Department reports China is building cyberwarfare units and developing viruses.The People's Liberation Army (PLA) continues to build cyberwarfare units and develop viruses to attack enemy computer systems as part of its information-warfare strategy, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) warned in a report released on Friday.

And Here's a Google video

2007-05-24T11:05:00.001+02:00

Ok, this took some doing. Rip the stream, recode the stream, chop it up to just here part, and upload to google video.

Broadcast vs Satellite

2007-05-24T06:58:00.001+02:00

So yesterday, I stayed home. The original intent was to be here so Telecom Italia could bring us an ADSL modem. Party time right? Wrong ! I didn't really expect them to show. That's just their track record. However, Diane called me around 8:15am to tell me that her interview would be aired at 2pm. Begin mad scramble. I had no way to record it! First I tried the old faithful VCR. Of course the VCR is NTSC and the Sky receiver is only PAL, so all I get is jumpy non viewable black and white video, but the audio is good. So I then commence to trying to make my myth box do the job. It might work now, but I haven't had a chance to try it. I ended up dragging my big dual processor box up stairs to the Sky box in our bedroom to try and record. It worked. ATI All-in-Wonder card on Windows XP. So I setup the backup, my digital camera on a tripod in front of the TV, and sat down to relax. It was 1:45. At 1:55, I run back up stairs to start the digital recording. I hit the record button, and BOOM. Windows crashed. Cursing Bill Gates and of his software, I run back down stairs to start the camera after hitting the old reset button, then back up stairs to watch it reboot. It comes back up uneventfully and started recording. Woot! Time to relax a bit. I sit down on the couch and wait for my love to appear on TV. About 15 minutes later, Diane calls. RAI has called and told her they are going to air the segment at 7pm, so her and the kids will be able to see it. AH! No big deal, I'm ready for it now. So, 7:30pm rolls around, I've got the dually upstairs recording, and the camera recording the TV down stairs. And we wait. And wait. And wait. It's only a 20 minute show. Finally, the show ends and no Diane. WTF? Then the phone starts to ring. "We saw it!" "You were great!" Apparently, it was a "Regional" show. The Satellite company, Sky, apparently didn't choose our region to air tonight, so we saw the show for the Pumone region in northern Italy. We missed it. Needless to say, we were a little annoyed. Not to be deterred, Diane went to the RAI 3 website and found that they put the videos online. We just needed to wait for the latest update. So, finally, around 9pm, the updated. Click here for RealPlayer version. Of course the interview is in Italian, and its mostly the narrator talking. But you can definitely get a look at Diane's class room and her teaching. In the next day or so, I'll convert and post with either subtitles or with a dubbed track.

Mrs A on TV

2007-05-22T16:18:00.001+02:00

RAI, the Italian television network sent a reporter out to Diane's school today to interview her. They were impressed by the fact that she has managed to get her 5th grade class actively involved on the Internet with her blog at http://mrsascoolkids.blogspot.com/ . I was there and took some pictures and they are posted on her flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrsascoolkids/ . So, check them out! We should have copy of the video here soon too.

Don't be a statistic

2007-05-18T08:45:00.001+02:00

Hundreds Click on 'Click Here to Get Infected' Ad

By Lisa Vaas

May 17, 2007

People will click on anything.

That was evidenced by the 409 people who clicked on an ad that offers infection for those with virus-free PCs. The ad, run by a person who identifies himself as security professional Didier Stevens, reads like this:

Drive-By Download

Is your PC virus-free?

Get it infected here!

drive-by-download.info

Stevens, who says he works for Contraste Europe, a branch of the IT consultancy The Contraste Group, has been running his Google Adwords campaign for six months now and has received 409 hits. Stevens has done similar research in the past, such as finding out how easy it is to land on a drive-by download site when doing a Google search.

Read more.

The sad part is someone paid money for this.

2007-05-15T05:40:00.001+02:00

A study by the FDS research group reveals that French workers are the
world's biggest whiners while the Irish complain least about their
lot.(AFP/Illustration)

Yahoo Story

For TJ ?

2007-05-12T06:04:00.001+02:00

As I read this article, I couldn't help but think of my nephew TJ who watches a clock and waits for 6am before he gets up. Hey Sis!, Maybe this would work better for you.

'Reverse Alarm Clock' keeps the kids in bed so you can party

Posted May 11th 2007 1:02PM by Evan Blass

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Three
cheers for Professor John Zimmerman, who's finally doing some research
to benefit Joe Public, and who has invented a device that lets parents
sleep in late and put the kids to bed early on those long summer days.
Zimmerman, of Carnegie Mellon's School of Design and Human-Computer
Interaction Institute (and probably a parent himself), designed the
so-called 'Reverse Alarm Clock' to give the tykes a visual
representation of their expected schedule; when the clock's 'Sky
Display' shows a sun, young children know they're free to roam about
the house, but when a moon and stars appear, they'd better not get out
of bed lest the boogie monster devour them whole. So far the system --
which uses a parent-set sunrise and moonset calculator, and also
features a "Treasure Chest Music Selector" to pleasantly awaken your
own little treasures -- doesn't seem to be commercially available,
which is kind of a shame, because we know more than a few people who
would love to trick their tiny terrors into bedtime at five o'clock on
the daily.

Original Article here.

Big Red Button.

2007-05-10T06:58:00.001+02:00

Now this is funny. Its not really, but I had to laugh. We have a few red buttons were I work but they have plastic covers over them.

The Big Red Button

My very own 128 bit integer !!!!

2007-05-09T05:46:00.001+02:00

93 7B B3 69 8C 94 FD 03 1D 38 77 10 93 72 BE 77

Woot!

Get yours here.

The Craziest Thing

2007-05-03T09:54:00.001+02:00

So yesterday, we had a hard drive fail at work. It was on a mail/web server. The drives in the server were setup in RAID 0. This is a great setup if you want lots of space and speed. If you want reliability, its useless. One drive dies and you lose everything. While this normally wouldn't be that big a deal, I very quickly found out that there were no backups of the cgi scripts I had written for the box. 3-4 months worth of tweaking gone. I was upset to say the least. One of our resident geek-extremes in the Navy here, Eric Sprague, suggest freezing the hard drive. I was skeptical. I did a little research and found the theory behind it. When things get cold, they shrink. (This I knew.) With hard drives, if the bearings shrink, it increases the tolerances, and makes it easier for the drive motor to spin the platters. So, I called work and had them put the drive in a zip lock back, and place it in the freezer in preparation for recovery. When I got to work, I popped the drive in and booted it up. It worked!!! I was able to copy all of the cgi scripts and the entire web page directory off the server before the drive warmed up and died again. It only stayed up for about 3 minutes, but that was enough. Isn't physics awesome !

Sunset over Ancient Achers

2007-05-03T07:45:00.001+02:00

Sunset over Ancient Achers, originally uploaded by immauss.

Finally got around to stitching these together. I think it came out pretty nice.

Kate meets Robot Man

2007-04-29T11:28:00.001+02:00

OK,
So one disadvantage to having a camera that does video and still pictures is you forget sometimes that video should not be taken with the camera in a portrait orientation. As I did with this video. It took me a little while, but I finally found a way to rotate it, but it left the black borders on the sides. Oh Well. This video is hosted on my new Brightcove account. (vice YouTube.) Check them out at Brightcove.com. Thanks to cousin Dina who is the VP for National Advertising and sales at Brightcove for the tip. Go Dina!
So here it is, Kate meets the Robot Man at South Seaport in New York City.

Another Award

2007-04-27T07:08:00.001+02:00

Just noticed that I won the OSP photo of the week again last week with Kate's Planet.

http://wiki.osphoto.org/

LIttle Planets for Sale

2007-04-20T16:11:00.001+02:00

Have you ever wished you had your own planet? Maybe you feel like you have the weight of the world on you shoulders ? Check these out.

Upcoming Panos

2007-04-19T15:34:00.001+02:00

Oh yeah,
I should have some pretty Unique Panoramas up in a day or two. Maybe this weekend. Check back later........

Spring 2007

2007-04-19T10:34:00.001+02:00

Well, We are back. I know, where did we go. Well, We went to North Carolina for short family visit and we went to New York for some site seeing and another short family visit. Would have loved to visit with more folks, but time was very limited this year. There's lots of pictures on flickr, so check em out. Here's a sample.

www.flickr.com

immauss' Spring 2007 photoset

House Tour

2007-03-25T17:37:00.000+02:00

The house tour is probably as done as it is ever going to get. Loads of different viewing options.

For detailed listed from flickr showing all of the pictures on one page, click here.

To see all of the pictures together in the interactive Spi-V viewer at "Field of View", click here.

You could also start a slide show from flickr if you click here.

Finally, you could just click here and see a the "House Tour" set page at flickr.

Either way, here's a preview below.

www.flickr.com

CCNA !!!!!!!

2007-03-16T19:12:00.001+01:00

Finally !! A Certification from this Century. I took the CCNA exam today and passed with flying colors. So in a few weeks, I'll receive an actual certificate stating that I am a Cisco Certified Network Administrator.

Wooohooo !

Trentola Trash

2007-03-15T10:12:00.001+01:00

Trentola Trash, originally uploaded by immauss.

Unfortunately, one of the down sides to Naples is that from time to time, we have some minor trash removal problems. This was two days ago. Yesterday morning there was a bulldozer and a dump truck removing it , but there was still a pretty sizable pile today when I came to work. This happens to be the main road through the town I live in and is only 2 blocks from our house.

Fox News (or should it be Faux News)

2007-03-12T12:32:00.001+01:00

This is one of the things that scares me the most about the state of things in the US. There are many many people who believe whole heartedly about this new channel. For long time, I have referred to it as Faux News. Now, I feel even more justified in that statement.

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/03/fox_news_crazy_.html

Hall of Fame

2007-03-07T11:46:00.001+01:00

Another photo noticed.

The "Planet Satcom" photo made into the "Crown or Kick" Hall of Fame this week. I might be a worthwhile photographer after all . :)

Crown or Kick Hall of Fame

I won a Photo Contest.

2007-03-05T09:57:00.001+01:00

WoooHooo !!!

My first photo contest Win. Well, I tied anyway. Since I use nothing but open source software for my photography, I joined a group on Flickr called "Open Source Photography". The group is just starting up, and decided to use a photo contest to select the front page photo for the OSP website with a contest. Last week I entered this photo.

and I won!

Check it out here.

PlanetSatcom

2007-03-01T11:02:00.001+01:00

PlanetSatcom, originally uploaded by immauss.

Spent yesterday out at the Sat Com facility with my friend and coworker, Ike. While there, we went on the roof of the facility, and did a little photography.

Ack

2007-02-26T14:05:00.001+01:00

Yes, I know. Its been a while. Well we have been busy. Diane has just finished another online class with Framingham, and I've been studying for CCNA. I'll also be doing more College and more certs here in the near future. I'm still taking pictures, in fact, the house tour is almost done. I have one more room to do, and one more outdoor shot I want to do , and the house tour will be complete, so stay tuned.

Bagnoli

2007-02-10T08:57:00.001+01:00

Bagnoli, originally uploaded by immauss.

At one time many years ago, this was an industrial area. Since I have lived in Naples (1997) they have been trying to clean it up by removing all of the old factories. I wish had a picture from 5-10 years ago, because the difference is incredible.

Nisida

2007-02-08T13:29:00.001+01:00

Nisida, originally uploaded by immauss.

It rained most of yesterday morning, so the air around Naples was really clear, so I got out and took some more landscapes. This is the island of Nisida and the Bay of Pozzuolli. Quite a site with clouds.

Smog over Naples

2007-02-06T21:03:00.001+01:00

Flickr: Photos from immauss

Took this today around 10:30 am. The wind was coming off the water and cleared the air over Naples. If you look at the center left of the photo, you can see the smog cloud being blown away.

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Comune di Trentola on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

2007-02-04T20:34:00.001+01:00

The weather this weekend was beautiful! Saturday, around 1:30 , I went for a short walk in the town we live in. This is outside the comune or town hall here in Trentola Ducenta.

Comune di Trentola on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

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Get a First Life: A One Page Satire of Second Life

2007-02-02T08:19:00.001+01:00

Get a First Life: A One Page Satire of Second Life

If you have never seen or have no idea what "Second Life" is, then you may not get this. Second life is an online-game/community that lets you have a "Second Life" This is a web page that parodies the game. Apparently, the owners of the Game, have sent a "Continue and Permit" letter instead of a "Cease and Desist" letter.

Amusing...

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OpenDNS Get Started

2007-02-01T10:52:00.001+01:00

OpenDNS Get Started

This sounds like a cool idea and it seems to be working well for me so far.They are providing faster safer DNS service. If you feel remotely competent at configuring your computer's network. Check this out.

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Naked Thief ?

2007-01-27T11:54:00.001+01:00

Naked Thief ? on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

So I saw this on the way home yesterday. I couldn't resist. Some poor thief is walking aound naked out there.... Maybe I should look for him and offer some help. :D

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More Bridge Interupted

2007-01-22T11:29:00.001+01:00

So, Friday afternoon, I parked near the bridge again, and went for a walk. I climbed up on the short section of the bridge and took some more pictures. Bridge Interupted - a photoset on Flickr This link will take you to the whole set.

Good weekend, except I spent yesterday with some kind of stomach virus. Still working it out of my system today.

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Long Week

2007-01-19T11:57:00.001+01:00

Well, its been a long week. Last weekend was kind of rough. Diane came down with strep through on Friday and had an incredibly high fever. We spent the whole 3 day weekend resting and getting healthy again. Naturally, with 3 days down, that put us behind on other things. Anyway, Its Friday, and hopefully we will have a nice healthy weekend to relax. No new pictures this week, maybe I'll get out to take something interesting this weekend.

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Friday

2007-01-12T10:45:00.001+01:00

Ever notice how Friday is always the slowest day of the week, until 3:30. Then someone calls with some terrible problem that absolutely has to be fixe now!. At the rate this morning is gone, I'm not answering the phone this afternoon. :D

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Interesting

2007-01-10T14:20:00.001+01:00

My creation on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

So,

Flickr has this thing they call "interestingness" Its how they measure how popular a pictures is. If the picture has a high "interestingness" then it shows up on the random pictures of default pages and in flickr on the "Explore" page. I realized today, through fd's Flickr Toys, that these two photos had managed to be interesting enought o show up in explore.

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T-Shirt

2007-01-09T08:36:00.001+01:00

T-Shirt on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

On our honey moon in Corfu, Diane had a shirt made for me that said "I'm a Geek and she loves me." Yesterday was Diane's birthday, and this is the T-Shirt I had made for her. And I sure do !

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Mitch and Wendy

2007-01-08T13:48:00.001+01:00

Flickr: Photos from immauss

Here they are, Mitch and Wendy sitting on the couch at Eric and Julie's house. We really enjoyed our stay in Stuttgart, mainly for the company. Thanks Eric, Julie, Mitch, Wendy, Jeff, & Rebecca.

I added a BOAT load of pictures to flickr today. So click on over there and check them out. Pictures from Christmas, New Years, and our trip to Stuttgart.

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The Computer Room

2007-01-06T11:33:00.001+01:00

Computer Room on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

So here is the Computer room where all the magic happens. Yes, those are all legos on the top shelf. I know, I'm 36 years old and I play with legos. Is there a problem with that ? We just got back from Germany last night. We had a great vist with Eric, Julie, Mitch and Wendy. Not too many photos, but I'll be pushing them up to flickr here in a few days.

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LivingRoomNN3-2.jpg

2006-12-28T17:37:00.001+01:00

LivingRoomNN3-2.jpg, originally uploaded by immauss.

I love these. I've seen them all over flickr, but this is the first time I've really liked the results from one my photos as a polar projection.

Living room 360

2006-12-27T10:11:00.001+01:00

Living room 360, originally uploaded by immauss.

It has begun. Diane bought me a Nodal Ninja for Christmas. It's a special tripod mount for taking panoramic photos. This is the first 360x180 degree photo I've done with it. The plan is to make panoramas of the whole house to create a virtual tour of the house. make sure you have the Adobe Flash player installed, and then click here for the interactive viewer. If you don't have the viewer already installed it should link you to Adobe's flash player download page.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-25T11:05:00.001+01:00

Yes, I'm making a post on Christmas Day. I had intentions of posting more recently, but time has been precious as we ran around making our last minute purchases and wrapping gifts. Soon, there will be many more photos gracing the flickr site and the blog. Not only will I be uploading pictures from Christmas, but one of my Christmas presents from Diane was the Nodal Ninja 3. Its a special gizmo designed solely for taking panoramic photos. :D. I love her!

Capodimonte

2006-12-19T13:37:00.001+01:00

Capodimonte, originally uploaded by immauss.

Well, I'm certain the time of day was right, but the clouds didn't want to cooperate. I had wanted this to be a sunrise shot. Oh well. The results came out pretty well.

Miracle !

2006-12-15T11:24:00.000+01:00

Will miracles never cease. Diane and I finally got a home phone hooked up and working last night ! We were both totally amazed. Now if we can get ADSL we will be ecstatic.

TrinityCollegeCourtyard

2006-12-15T11:23:00.001+01:00

TrinityCollegeCourtyard, originally uploaded by immauss.

Still trying to stitch some photos from the trip to Ireland. This is one of my favorites, even if the lighting didn't balance out as well as I would have liked.