Until next time… toodles

Stuart

Many people have laptops these days and one of the sad facts is that laptops are a premium target for theft. To kick this off I want you to know that this is not in fact a review, more something that I have found out (a review will come later) and wanted to let fellow Australians know where they purchase Absolute’s Computrace from.

Absolute’s Computrace comes in several different flavours, this includes ComputraceOne and ComputracePlus (more targeted to corporate users) as well as Computrace LoJack for Laptops which is targeted to the home user. Either way companies such as Dell are embedding this laptop tracking software into their systems so that in the event of a system being stolen, they can be traced and hopefully recovered.

For quite some time, I have been attempting to find somewhere in Australia that will sell Computrace to me (in *ANY* flavour) so that I could put it on my laptop. As I have just purchased a new laptop I once again went in search of someone that would be willing to sell Computrace to the Australian personal market (as opposed to the business or corporate customers). For me this will have two benefits, not only can I track my laptop if it is stolen, but I can also remotely delete any sensitive or personal data (which for me is a big plus).

After a lot of searching, and sending out emails to a variety of companies in Australia I received an email back from Murray at Sense of Security (contact details below) who was extremely prompt and professional and is in the process of getting me up and running with ComputracePlus. For those of you in Australia, although this is the corporate product I have yet to find somewhere that sells the Computrace LoJack for Laptops Premium version in Australia which I believe is essentially the same product for the home user.

At the time of writing Computrace Plus cost me $209AUD (inc. GST) for a three year service contract.

If you are interested you can contact:

Murray Goldschmidt

Sense of Security Pty Ltd
Level 3, 66 King St
Sydney NSW 2000
T: +61 2 9290 4442
F: +61 2 9290 4455

Web: http://www.senseofsecurity.com.au
Email: Drop Murray a line here

I hope this helps some other Australians to finally be able to purchase the Computrace products for their laptops. As a side note, I am in no way affiliated with Sense of Security, I am just one happy chap that managed to find a company that sells Computrace in Australia.

Stuart

All I can say is *EPIC FAIL* MWAHAHAHA! (What are your thoughts?)

Hello,

We are sending you this e-mail to inform you that recently cPanel has
increased its prices on licenses when they released version 11.24. The
reason for the increased pricing is because cPanel for VPS servers are now
completely redesigned and improved upon the old code and because of
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Since we have had our prices increased for VPS licenses we will no longer be
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their VPS License prices increased to $15/month. If you have any questions
or concerns regarding the price increase please contact us at our help desk
and we will be glad to assist you.

Please note: We have not made changes to any other licenses! (Dedicated,
Fantastico, RVSkin).

Thanks,

InstantcPanelLicense.com

-----------------------------------------------

Had to be very vague in the e-mail because I didn't want everyone to know
that some people were paying $13/month or even $14 since this is going out
to everyone.

------------
<Name Omitted>
Sales Manager
HostDime.com

Anyhoo, in past times every time I was ill I would go back to my bad eating habits and just go to my comfort foods. However I am proud to say that this time, I have regularly walked past bowls of lollies, rum balls and other such yummies all without giving in to temptation.

I guess the one real push for me this time is that I cannot fit into any of my good clothes at the moment which is an embarrassment more than anything. I want to get myself back and healthy and back into my clothes.

So how do you manage to resist your temptation for good foods (in sickness or in health)?
Stuart

Click the image to view a larger version.

Source Unknown

Personally I can see the humor in it, but to be in that situation would be shocking. What are your thoughts?

[note] As I expected this is an urban myth *but a funny one nonetheless* See http://www.snopes.com/business/consumer/firedrill.asp

Before I go any further, I want to try and keep this as two sided as I possibly can so I do welcome feedback from smokers, non-smokers and ex-smokers as well. So please, after you are done reading, feel free to leave a comment.

Before I delved into writing this post, I requested some input from my friends and followers on twitter.  The question was: Smokers and non-smokers “What are your feelings on passive smoking”.

In almost no time at all a few people had responded, before we go any further I just wanted to mention that fridley is a self-confessed ex-smoker, which is why it seems that he is so knowledgeable about the topic (and kudos to him for giving up the habit).

@fridley My only real prob is walking smokers. (when in front of me). You want to smoke? Fine. Go for it. Just dont hold the damm thing!! Main probs with Aust cigi is the chemical smell/taste (inc menthol), cost, rubbish, & ppl who just hold it while walking. I still now and then smoke a cigar, but not in places that affect others. Besides, I like to savor good things when possible.

@BethTana As a smoker, I think it’s extremely rude, harmful and unnecessary to smoke around others. Going outside is so easy to do.

@alanjlee I don’t mind… but I don’t know how bad it is these days as i am hardly ever near smokers/in the city. Just don’t blow at me!

Initially I was interested that two of the people that comented were either active smokers or ex-smokers themselves. I must also commend BethTana for her attitude to not subjecting non-smokers to smoke. It is funny from my own discussion with people (offline that is) I have discovered that the only people that hate second hand tobacco more than non-smokers are ex-smokers.

Personally for me I am at a loss as to why when I go out I am forced to endure the inhilation of second hand cigarette smoke. Be it walking down the street or even leaving my building at work at the end of the day, I find it a rare (pleasurable) occasion when I can walk along without having smoke trailing in front of me or blown in my face.

So what I wanted to do was ask two questions:

For the smokers/ex-smokers: How do you feel about going out and blowing smoke around often when people may not desire to be subjected to tobacco.

For the non-smokers: What are your thoughts, does passive smoking not bother you or do you have your own pet hate?

Of course I welcome any other comments, those questions are only a guide. I would really love feedback on this one.

(And finally if you do not follow me on twitter feel free to add me, I would love to do more of these discussion type posts in the future. @ereality is my twitter ID.)

OK I have been around a lot of the net I would like to thing, and I thought I had seen it all, the funny the crude, the “what the fuck” (WTF) to the downright disgusting. So I would like to think that I am pretty well travelled and that nothing could really surprise me on the net anymore.

After recently putting the request out to my fellow tweeters of what my next blog post should be, @desdev came back and requested suggested “How about a exegesis re: RT @Tarale I don’t know why this site exists. ‘Girls eating sandwiches’.” So here we are.

Now I really do not know how much detail I can go into but to make it short and sweet, someone has put together their favourite list of pictures of girls eating sandwhiches… (now I know you are giving me a strange look… see what I mean… WTF!)

Anyhoo, what is the strangest thing you have come across on the internet and what are your thoughts on Girls Eating Sandwiches.

During my photography class last week, our tutor sent us out to get some photos of each other on the street at night. The above photo happened to be me just shooting from the hip… /Queue stranger with weird look on his face.

So I thought for a bit of fun we could do a caption this on this photo (or if you so desire you could do it as one of those demotivator posters. After racking my brain for quite some time I decided on:

“That is the most awesome…. *drools*!”

OK So I was never spectacular at this, but hey, lets see what you guys can come up with.

Therefore I am now trying something new, I know it sounds cliche but I am trying out the Biggest Loser Shake supplements and using the Biggest Loser club as a guide to what I should be eating alongside that. Essentially this is putting me back to the six small meals a day theory that I did three years ago (and worked quite spectacularly if I may say so).

So, I have some stocks, the shakes actually taste half decent and I even had a fruit salad and bottle of water for morning tea (my workmates were stunned LOL).

So here is to new beginnings. I am on day 1 of the shakes, I will see how I am going with them tomorrow.

I have to say that I see this as extremely obscure, CitiRail is saying that they do not want their staff to be copping flack from customers because the timetable information does not account for delayed rail services and so forth. My workmate today however posed an interesting question, do they update the distributed paper timetables to include day to day delays? Not that we know of!

OK granted the nature of having an iPhone app, or an app for any other smart device, would lead you to believe that the information would be current but a short disclaimer would get around this and easily cover CitiRail’s arse.

Personally I can still not believe that the information from Sydney’s rail, bus and ferry services has not been provided to developers via some API (Application Programmers Interface) so that they can get instantly updated information. Then the transit systems would not have to even concern themselves with developing their own applications. This would also permit the very easy integration of transport information from any device such as a WAP enabled phone, to a blackberry and PDAs, so in other words, not just the iPhone.

I am curious to hear other Australian’s thoughts on this though? I mean we all know how wonderful the Sydney public transport system is with the failed TCard Smartcard ticketing system as just another recent example.

So if you are a Sydneysider what do you think? If you are from another state or overseas, how do you think this reflects on Sydney in comparison to your own state?

Also while we are here, how do you think Sydney’s public transport reflects on Sydney as a whole?

iPhone Image courtesy of Apple

So tomorrow being Wednesday I have to get back on track, especially as I will be eating dinner out as I have my photography course.

Also I need to get back into the 100 pushups thing (dont think I have mentioned that on here yet) after my first day my pecks have been throbbing for 2 days solid LOL but they are feeling better now.

Bring on the not misbehaving!

Stuart

Last weekend I weighed myself and came in at a WHOPPING 106KGs. I decided that enough was enough as last year at this same time I was 95KG, and I can really feel all the extra weight that I am carting around.

Over the last week I have started using the Australian Biggest Loser Club to keep a track of what I am eating and chatting on the forums to try to help me get my weight down.  Well, one week in (to the day) I have weighed myself and am now 104KG. Granted I estimate I have only really lost just one kilogram as last week I weighed myself in clothes and this week I was in the buff (tho from now on I will always do it in the buff on a Sunday Morning before brekky).

So I thought that I would use this space (i.e. Secluded Habitat) to put down my thoughts, my feelings and how I am coping.

Twill be interesting, and I can’t WAIT to shed some of this weight. The motto is… there is no TRY there is only DO!

Stuart

Therefore I am deciding that I am “re-classifying” Secluded Habitat as my personal blog. It will be a place for me to really post my random thoughts and will not be updated on a regular schedule. I guess for the moment I am putting it on hiatus but I may pop in when I just need to have a vent and then scamper off again for a while.

I have decided that I really want to pour my heart and my soul into Eccentric Reality which is focused around my new hobby of Photography. I have been blogging for over a year on a blog which (I do hate to say did not have any sort of real direction to it), now I want to continue growing and actually blog with a theme and purpose.

Of course all my articles will stay here, and I hope that some time in the future I might be able to pick up and give Secluded Habitat some what more of a real direction.

I would like to thank all my regular readers for listening, reading and commenting over the last year and a half it has been real.

I hope to see you all again in future but for now, abiento!

Stuart

However in the last couple of months I have made the move towards outsourcing some of these things that compliment my blog. One example is the galleries that I use on both of my blogs and the other is the analytics that I use on my blogs.

In the case of the galleries, I made the move because I was finding that the self-hosted gallery software was a pain to customise and a pain to upgrade, as well as the storage costs were proving to be a killer. So… that was the galleries gone to an outside provider.

In the case of my site analytics, I have been looking for a self-hosted analytics packages and found that they just no longer exist as everyone either uses Google Analytics or a similar service, so that is my analytics outsourced too.

As far as the general concept goes I do not have all that much of a problem outsourcing such things, in fact it does come with a lot of benefits. The one that really concerns me tho is that I no longer have control over backups or have any avenue to go to if the service goes under. Granted I have gone with pretty stable companies but that is never any sort of guarantee.

Anyhoo, I am curious do you do all your blog stuff “in house” so to speak, and what are your thoughts on outsourcing. Is it really the future?

Stuart

P.S. For those who are curious I have added a new page to my blog Tech Details/Recommendations which contains an overview of what software and services I use to compliment my blog (including all the Wordpress Plugins that I use).

Sadly Australia lost the match. Through out the game they were dropping a LOT of catches, and their fielding in general was less than spectacular. But hey, I am not a cricketer so who am I to judge (I could not do anywhere near what they can LOL). The game was a lot of fun and I did get into it quite a few times doing Mexican waves and cheering.

There were also our fair share of disturbances, we had 3 people run onto the field. The first one was fully clothed and was caught the moment after he was over the fence (I did not even see him, Erin told me about it later). The other two actually managed to go a third of the field before they were tackled (one crash tackled) to the ground. Needless to say, a lot of fun to watch when they were only 40 odd feet away.

At one stage there was also what we could only assume was a brawl going on in one of the other stands. We knew something was going on after a lot of police and security guards were running over there… and then a few minutes later about 10 riot squat police. So that stopped the game for a little while but I have to say it was awesome to see just how quickly they reacted.

Anyhoo, just thought I would share a couple of photos as well while I was here, if you would like you can see the full One Day International Australia v South Africa album in addition to the photos below (and to see the photos fullsize for more detail).

So all in all I had a pretty good time. I may have to go back and see another somewhere down the track!

Stuart

For quite a while I have wanted to learn some form of martial arts. I would like to achieve better focus within myself, better confidence, and a better waistline.

So, I have now booked into a Karate class this coming Thursday evening. What got me off my butt was when Erin said to me “So when are you going to start?”, I have been pondering for the last few days and I thought that there is no better time than the present to get up and get going.

So, I am hoping this could be the beginning of something fun. After Thursday I will be back to give you all a progress report. For now though, I would like to know, do you do any form of martial arts? If not, what do you to for fitness and relaxation?

Stuart

Anyhoo, I have also recently moved myself back to dedicated hosting, because I found that virtual hosting was just not living up to my performance needs. I was curious how other bloggers deal with this though.

As I run quite a number of sites I can *just barely* justify having a dedicated server, but I know that the amount of traffic I receive on my blogs mean that I could not even think about having them on shared hosting anymore. So how have you found this, whether you are a blogger or you run another type of site, how do you deal with the growth?

Your curious pal,
Stuart

I have not visisted this since about March last year when I completed participation in the Worlds Greatest Shave 2008 raising money for Leukaemia research. So I thought it time, as part of the new year to revisit the register and do a general review.

As some of you know I have now started up an additional blog, Eccentric Reality, which is my blog which contains everything from my journey into photography. For so long prior to Canon Australia lending me a Digital SLR Camera I had a hidden desire to take up photography as a hobby. Now that I have had the opportunity to explore this and am diving in head first, I thought that I should add this to the register in hindsight.

So I now have a new addition to the Life Milestone Register; “take up photography as a hobby”. There is one other item on the register that I would really like to tackle this year and that is to learn a basic form of martial arts. I have decided that this year I MUST get healthy and I think that martial arts would help me to focus in my work, studies and every day life.

So, I guess that is a bit of an insight into where I am starting this year, and where I hope to be in a little under 12 months time.

Stuart

Being the enterprising little geek that I am I popped on over to Google and did a search for any coupon codes. After a few tries I managed to find a coupon for 50% off the first year (which on a $150USD package is a pretty massive saving).

Now… I know this is sounding like a gimmick (and that is the last thing I want) so I will say try it for yourself.

Next time you see a coupon field, take five minutes to do a search and see if you can save yourself some money… a lot of the time you might just surprise yourself. Best piece of advice I can give is just do a search for “sitename coupon” and you will quickly be able to tell if you are likely to make a saving (you will either see lots or none, and sometimes it does take trial and error but is worth the time).

Now I am curious, how often do you actually do searches for coupons? Also how much have you saved in recent times?

To my regular readers

I would just like to apologise for not being around much recently, as some of you know I had a death in my partners family and I have also been sick with both tonsillitis and conjunctivitis in recent weeks. So I do apologise, however now that Christmas is over I am starting to get myself back on track so I should be around far more often.

Stuart

I will be back home this weekend and once I fix my laptop properly, I should return to regular programming. However, because it has been a slow week, and because I know that you all love What if Wednesdays so much I could not bare to miss a WIW post this week.

This week’s question is “What if you woke up on Christmas Morning and found that it was not actually Christmas Morning, you had slept through the whole of Christmas Day”.

Short and sweet from me this week… I would be asking my family why they thought they would let me sleep through Christmas and all the pressies and yummy food LOL. Knowing them they would say that they thought it would be funny!

So what are your thoughts? Now before you go, I just want to wish you a Merry Christmas or Season’s Greetings if you do not celebrate Christmas. Keep safe during the Christmas break as I want to see you all back fighting fit next week.

Finally I have one last question for this WIW post. I need some more ideas for What if Wednesday,  so if you have any floating around in your mind please just add them on the bottom of your comment, haha I need some brain food to help me for the next few weeks for What if Wednesday!

Merry Christmas
Stuart

Also this week I have decided that I am not going to give you my thoughts, I want to see how everyone goes without my response as an influence. After a couple of days I will add my thoughts as well but for now it is up to you my dear readers (if you would like to hear my thoughts I recommend electing to get responses via email when you post your comment).

So this weeks question is “What if Santa Clause was not a jolly old fat man with a gray beard and elegant red clothes?” a simple question so lets hear your thoughts.

Remember, the whole idea is you tell us the first thing that comes to your mind when you read that question so be creative and go nuts!

Stuart

The photos below are the work of my workmates and I, it really was a large group effort. I will put a small description below each. Please tell me what you think… I really am curious!

Mini Trees

At the end of the two tables separating the cubicles we put these lovely little Christmas Trees with tinsel and “snow” at the base” just to spruce up the desks a little. You can also see the lights just around the edge of this table… two strings of these lights run around the WHOLE of our section.

Cubicle Present

No cubicle would be complete without being wrapped up like a Christmas present. I guess there is nothing really to say here except… Wouldn’t ya love to get to open a present that size?

Doorway and more

Here we decided to put a festive archway with lights and tinsel as well as another cubicle wrapped up like two presents. You can also see the lights draped over this present as well.

The Christmas Tree Masterpiece

Ahh this was a lot of fun, we needed a good idea for a Christmas Tree and so I had this brilliant idea to use lights to put up a tree on the wall. Mix this idea with blutack and a bit of planning and effort and the result is a pretty cool looking Christmas tree. Underneath it you have presents that you can shake and rattle (in actual fact they are just empty boxes with rubbish but *shhh* don’t tell anyone).

Also you have a cupboard which was only delivered recently (and hence is empty) it has been completely wrapped (and actually now has ribbon too, I will have to get a new photo). That one was a lot of fun to wrap!

The Roof

Finally the design would not be complete without tinsel on the roof to make it snazzy.

All in all this was a lot of fun and a great team building exercise… plus it just looks awesome too. So let me know your thoughts and tell me what you have been upto in the realm of Christmas Decorations.

Stuart

Due to the upgrade on the site to Wordpress 2.7 and some issues that I have had with my previous theme for some time, I decided that it was time for a face lift. Please let me know your thoughts as I am always open to suggestions and feedback.

I will try to put together a nice new header image in the next 24 hours so please bear with me while I do that.

Lastly if you see any problems please let me know (just leave a comment) and I will look into fixing them.

Thanks everyone.

Stuart

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like you to welcome back a long missed regular segment on my blog, “What If Wednesdays”.

Unfortunately due to Uni, holidays and a few other things I have not been able to do this for a while but SecludedHabitat.com is now back to it’s regular scheduled programming (go on… you are all jumping for joy now aren’t you?).

So in the spirit of the upcoming (well, pretty much the current) season of Christmas. I present to you this weeks question: “What if you woke up and suddenly found that you were an elf in Santa’s workshop?”

My Thoughts:

You know what… I would take the opportunity to ask Santa why he never got me any of the really big cool stuff when I was a kid. I was good… I behaved… I even wrote him letters… Just because I wanted to own my own fax machine (yea… go figure) and probably a host of other insane things when I was five doesn’t mean I could not have handled it.

MWAHAHA true story… Anyhoo thought I would go with something short, sweet, and that will hopefully instill a chuckle from you. Now, what are your thoughts, remember, tell us the first thing that comes to your mind.

Stuart

As some of you will already know, three months ago Canon Australia contacted me out of the blue and offered me a Canon EOS 1000D Digital SLR camera to play with (and if I decided to, review as well). If you have not read about this wonderful adventure you can see my initial post about details of the program, or my First Impressions of the Canon EOS 1000D.

After going on a holiday to Merimbula at the end of last month (and taking in excess of some 4000 photos), I thought it was time to get down my final thoughts on the camera.

Before we go on, I would just like to mention that while I was away I had an additional lens that a workmate lent me (a 75-300mm Canon EF lens). Therefore not all the example photos below were taken with the stock lens that Canon sent out, however this did allow me greater flexibility.

Now we can move onto the good stuff… While I was away I took photos of just about anything and everything. This included wildlife, my girlfriend, boats, water, the township and a lot more. During this time I had a really good chance to put the camera through its paces and get my hands dirty. This of course proved to be somewhat of a challenge as the Canon EOS 1000D Digital SLR is the only SLR that I have ever used, which meant that concepts such as shutter speed, ISO, aperture and focal length confused (and still confuse) me to no end.

The EOS 1000D was a great camera for me to start out on, being that it is targeted towards first time SLR users. While I have been playing with this camera for a little under three months, I can guarantee that I have still not managed to find all of it’s features or really used the camera to the limits of its abilities. What I have discovered is that there really is a lot to learn, including a whole new world of terminology and different techniques which makes photography an ongoing process to improve my skills.

Battery Life

The first point that I wanted to cover is battery life, as I mentioned in my earlier post, depleting the battery of this little beauty seems like an impossible task. While at the beach in Merimbula there were (what seemed like) hundreds of kite surfers, naturally I whipped out the EOS 1000D and in that session alone I took ~860 shots and the canon battery showed no sign of even being remotely depleted (granted it probably was but the battery metre still showed as full capacity).

So all I can surmise is that, if you want a camera with decent battery capacity… I would have no problems recommending the EOS 1000D to you it just seems to keep going on and on and on.

Weight of the Camera

Canon promotes the EOS 1000D as the lightest digital SLR that they have ever produced, with the body itself weighing in at only 450g (referenced from Canon Australia’s website). After taking the camera out on some extended shoots I found that with the 18-55mm lens I was able to carry the camera around my neck without feeling any discomfort (and may have even played a shot of minigolf with it around my neck… that was somewhat amusing). When I put the 75-300mm lens on, it naturally made the camera more heavy. Although I did not find this to be uncomfortable, I did find it somewhat awkward.

Overall I found the weight to be easy to handle and holding the camera for extended periods of time was achievable without any strain so the EOS 1000D gets my thumbs up here too.

Memory Card

I know this might seem like a small point to bring up, but it is one that users new to Digital SLR cameras will find of great benefit. Many modern digital cameras (excluding SLRs) use SD (Secure Digital) cards as their memory source. Up until recently Digital SLRs have often used Compact Flash cards (at least in the case of the Canon Series of Cameras). However as Canon has marketed the EOS 1000D towards first time users of digital SLR cameras SD cards are used rather than Compact Flash which means for those first timers taking the leap up to an SLR, there is less chance you will need to by new memory. This also provides the added benefit that the SD cards can be used interchangeably between your compact camera and the EOS 1000D as well.

Picture Quality

After taking over 7000 photos with the Canon EOS 1000D since receiving it (can you tell I am a shutterbug) I have gone through my fair share of bad photos. Mostly this is related to my lack of knowledge of the relationship between the ISO, shutter speed and aperture and using these each of these incorrectly with one another.

When I took my time and really “listened to what the camera was telling me” or in other words, intently paid attention to every setting on the camera and every flashing light, the pictures came out really well and I have taken some rather stunning photos (which I will showcase at the end of this post). I found the easiest photos to take were in broad daylight but after a bit of a learning curve I managed to start taking some great indoor shots and low light shots as well.

Some things I have noticed are that at really high ISOs (1600), the image can get quite grainy. After doing some research on this I have found out that by the pure nature of using a high ISO, the image will tend to get grain, so although I am unable to comment on the exact technical details of this I did feel that I should bring it up.

As a final note on that, shots taken at an ISO of 800 had a little bit of grain, but not to the same levels that I observed at 1600.

Problems I have found

No review would be complete without a bit of an insight into some of the issues I have found with this camera (and I am pleased to say there are not all that many).

The first would be something I mentioned in post with my initial thoughts. The scroll wheel for changing settings (such as shutter speed) can sometimes feel a little stiff. I am aware that it needs to have sufficient resistance so that a simple tap will not change the settings, however I would welcome a teeny weeny bit less resistance.

The second issue I found was with the battery compartment. While using the camera I sometimes found that the it would become unresponsive and after some troubleshooting, discovered that the battery compartment was not clipping closed properly. I suspect this is just due to a lot of use and after consciously checking that it was locked in each time I replaced the battery I had no further issues.  To be honest I really do not think this would be common to the model, as I mentioned above the camera appeared to have been used previously so I am guessing it was a well used “loaner” but once again I thought it should be mentioned.

I really hate to say it, but other than that I could not find fault with the camera, it really was a dream to use (and still is, for a little while longer).

A Suggestion for Future Models

Part of Canon’s Blogger Product Review Program is to gain not only reviews of a product but to also gain feedback about the features and suggestions that could possibly be adopted in future. I have been having a think on this and have come up with one feature and a couple of ideas that I really think would enhance a camera such as the Canon EOS 1000D to make it just that little bit easier for first timers.

As I was starting to use this camera, one thing that has caught me out time and time again was that I would keep forgetting to read the light metre and ensuring that the camera was set to the correct exposure. I would have LOVED for the camera to have a “Beginners Mode” which would beep at me if one of the settings was not “ideal” such as the resulting image would be over or under exposed.

I guess it was just something that I found difficult to get used to, and just thought that something like that would really help any person just to remind them that the light metre was there and sometimes needs some attention and tender loving care.

In addition to the aforementioned feature, a couple of other things that I would have loved to see were some more resources for first timers. Things like a DVD containing a few how-to step-by-step guides and perhaps another for jargon busting and explaining ISO, shutter speed and focal length (and so on). Also I thought would be great would be something like a  little A5 sheet of paper with a few “where to find more information” links. These could be something like community forums, or even pointing to some of the extra information on Canon’s own site. This stems out of the problem nowadays of there being so much information on the internet, it can often be hard to find the right information. I know from experience, as a beginner finding that information can be even more difficult due to a lack of knowledge on exactly what to search on, so a push in the right direction would be great and I believe a very welcome addition to those first timers.

Roundup

The EOS has been (and continues to be) a dream to work with. As someone starting out with digital photography and having never picked up an SLR in my life the Canon EOS 1000D seems to push all the right buttons for me.

The manual that it comes with is extremely comprehensive and guided me through the camera and features that I needed to get started, although all the technical information did overwhelm and confuse me a little. After some additional reading from more sources I began to find more solid footing. I did however feel that the manual was far to overwhelming for someone just starting out as it seemed to jump straight into the technical terminology, which is why I thought that a few videos on an accompanying DVD would bridge that gap wonderfully.

I really have no reason that I could not recommend this camera to any new budding photographer and could not more highly recommend it. For any person that desires to really have a greater level of creative control over their photos, than they can achieve with a point-and-shoot camera the EOS 1000D seems to me like a great first step.

Other than that, I would just like to take this chance to once again thank Canon Australia for providing me with this opportunity and I hope that if they continue the program in future, I can be a part of it once again.

The Photos

Now for some photos, as I know that is what you all want to see most.

As always if you wish to get the full quality examples of the above photos you can download the zipped file here (~48MB).

Hello everyone, I am now back from holidays and BOY do I have some stories. These will come out over the next week or so, I will try to make them a little funny to keep you all entertained (and may even try to put together a funny What if Wednesday as I know there has been a few members sad to have missed a couple in a row.
So I wanted to point you to my holiday snaps, I am *still* putting them up in my Merimbula 2008 Holiday Gallery, however I would recommend a quick squiz at a couple of the photos of me driving a boat.

When we were away I managed to get myself tonsillitis which was GREAT fun (not) haha, but I managed to clear it up in a few days.  We played minigolf, went out on a boat a couple of times, watched some rented movies, went out for dinner, had a walk along the beach.

Entrecarders, one for you!

If you are unsure of what Entrecard is then there is no need to read over this but if you are I hope that you will be excited to hear that I am now manning the support desk (for an hour a day) at Entrecard (as per this post on the Entrecard Blog). I have spent quite a bit of time getting a new helpdesk system set up in my free time and now I am just tweaking things and getting it quite right.

Do keep your eyes peeled for some great features coming out in the future on the helpdesk.

Well, I guess that covers everything for now. I will be trying to get my final review of the Canon EOS 1000D out as soon as I can as (sadly) the camera has to go back next week. I did have a LOT of fun taking photos while I was away and I hope to get more of them up soon.

So keep your eyes peeled on this space, it is going to be a busy week getting you all back up to date.

Stuart

If I am really lucky I might get on here to do a post while I am away with some photos of Merimbula (South Coast NSW Australia). Will see how we go, if not get ready for a barrage of new content when I return including the final parts to my review of the Canon EOS 1000D.
Stuart

Should the Top Commentators widget reset periodically (for example mine currently does monthly) or should it be an all time thing?

I have started a poll and was wondering if I could get my readers to jump on over to the poll here and let us know your thoughts. What can I say I like to give my readers what they want.

So what are your thoughts?
Stuart

A while ago I installed Bad Behaviour and noticed that it now makes use of the Project HoneyPot http:BL (a blacklist which is created from catching email and comment spammers using a trap, dubbed a ‘honeypot’).

However in order to be able to use the blacklist you need to be a contributing member to Project HoneyPot. In order to make this really simple for people using Wordpress Blogs I decided to create a plugin which I have dubbed WP-HoneyPot which is esentially a simple plugin to add Project HoneyPot traps to your blog to help catch these spammers and comment spammers.

The plugin has undergone extensive testing by quite a few people and has now been released as the first stable release (1.0). The Plugin details are as follows:

• WP-HoneyPot Wiki – For everything on WP-HoneyPot including development notes, testing and installation instructions
• WP-HoneyPot Release Testing – Part of the Wiki, the testing results of supported Wordpress Versions
• GeekyHabitat Bugzilla – My Bugzilla page where you can log bugs and enhancement requests
• Official Wordpress Plugin Download Page for WP-HoneyPot

Anyhoo I just thought it about time that I officially do a release of this plugin to everyone. Also if you have any questions please do let me know as I would like to build some FAQs to surround the plugin as I know it can be a tad confusing.

Cheers
Stuart

If you are using/will be using WP-HoneyPot and you think it is a good idea, please consider helping me spread the word, it might be to stumble or digg this post, writing about this post, or anything really. I would *greatly* appreciate any support.

Congratulations to you all.
Stuart

The winners are:

• 1st Prize: Julehya – Blogging For A Cause
• 2nd Prize: Riyanne – Entrecard Bloggers A Chance to win Free Webhosting
• 3rd Prize:Lisa – Entrecard Bloggers A Chance to win Free Webhosting
• 4th Prize: Icon – Win free web hosting at Secluded Habitat
• 5th Prize: Melai – Secluded Habitat’s free self hosted contest has made me cool! Or so I thought.