Oscar Ferrer /log

We had a winter storm a couple days ago and everything is still...

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 18:54:11 -0500

We had a winter storm a couple days ago and everything is still frozen around here. It’s good for photos but I’m getting a bit tired of it being so cold outside.

This past weekend I helped my friend Mike move. He rented this...

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 23:12:32 -0500

This past weekend I helped my friend Mike move. He rented this 24’ truck which I drove for him, I think I’ve officially driven all u-haul size trucks.

I went to Anderson, SC to check out some of the balloons they...

Sat, 13 Nov 2010 19:45:52 -0500

I went to Anderson, SC to check out some of the balloons they had going on for the “Balloons Over Anderson” event. While I didn’t get the type of photos I was expecting I did get some I liked, such as the one here and some others I posted here.

Time to use the Fireplace.

Sun, 07 Nov 2010 17:57:55 -0500

Time to use the Fireplace.

View

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:19:25 -0400

View

A gift from Lili.

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 12:48:06 -0400

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

A gift from Lili.

Today was the last day at my (now old) job. It’s been...

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 22:30:00 -0400

Today was the last day at my (now old) job. It’s been quite a ride, I started with one company and have been through two acquisitions, one relocation, three office moves and many changes in the past few years. I’ve learned a whole lot, and met some great people along the way.

As I left the office today for the last time I had a feeling similar to when I finished college: very excited about what’s next but also felt I was leaving something behind, which obviously always happens when you’re at the same place with the same people for a long time. I’m ready for the change however, and I know this was most definitely the right choice for me.

Change

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 17:02:00 -0400

Starts in 2 weeks.

Garden Soil

Sat, 22 May 2010 15:52:12 -0400

Garden Soil

One of the guys at work left for China to visit his family for a...

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 22:02:08 -0400

One of the guys at work left for China to visit his family for a month, so one of the other guys decided we should cover his desk in tin foil. I contributed with a couple of things and here’s how it ended up looking like, pretty impressive! let’s see what he says when he’s back next week.

Here’s another photo:

I don’t usually eat stuff with too many artificial colors,...

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 17:06:03 -0400

I don’t usually eat stuff with too many artificial colors, but today I ate these at the same time… Probably not good for me but I guess once in a while it doesn’t matter (I hope).

I saw this “Canon EF 70-200 f/4.0 L IS USM”...

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:42:51 -0500

I saw this “Canon EF 70-200 f/4.0 L IS USM” coffee mug online, apparently Canon was giving out to photographers at the Vancouver Olympics. I want one, supposedly they will begin selling some in April but it’s also already out of stock even for pre-orders.

It’s snowing and it’s March 2nd. Spring should be...

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:31:36 -0500

It’s snowing and it’s March 2nd. Spring should be around the corner but still no sign of it.

Infrared This week I got a camera that I had converted to...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:01:54 -0500

Infrared

This week I got a camera that I had converted to infrared, they replace the regular low-pass filter and use a 720nm filter that doesn’t block out IR light.

The colors look very different than normal, on this photo the jacket and cap were all black. Some light does not reflect at all, if the sky is a certain shade of blue it just shows up black, and all trees look white. Definitely a fun thing to try out and get a different type of photos.

I had made a ‘fake’ IR photo in photoshop, and a couple with a filter on the lens, but that’s a bit more complicated because you can’t see anything to frame the shot before taking it and it takes longer to expose it.

40 Days — 2.0 So it’s that time of year again, a...

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 18:45:14 -0500

40 Days — 2.0

So it’s that time of year again, a week or so ago I started lent, and just like last year I don’t do it because I’m very religious, but more to see how much self control I have to avoid something I like for that long.

This year’s choice is red meat (last year was chocolate), I’m doing pretty good so far, at least better than my friend Mike who’s been changing his and not being very enthusiastic about it this year after getting me into this lent thing (j/k man! :)

I’ll check back in in 40 days, hopefully it will be the same result as last year.

My inner 10-year old thought this was funny…

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:05:03 -0500

My inner 10-year old thought this was funny…

It’s snowing around here today, from what they say in the...

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:21:00 -0500

It’s snowing around here today, from what they say in the news it will snow the rest of the day, and maybe Sunday too. When it snows here it doesn’t seem to be as cold as other days when the sun’s out.

I heard a song by Zee Avi and thought it was kinda of cool,...

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:40:28 -0500

I heard a song by Zee Avi and thought it was kinda of cool, turns out she’s under Jack Johnson’s label Brushfire Records.

Today I got Google Buzz in my gmail account (just like pretty much everyone else in the world it...

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:53:34 -0500

Today I got Google Buzz in my gmail account (just like pretty much everyone else in the world it seems) and I got to play with it for a while. I think it’s much better thought out and executed than Wave was, there are a few things I like:

Integration With Email: one of the big flaws of Google Wave, it was a separate application and you never knew what was going on there if you didn’t manually go and check (the only notifier I ever saw was a Chrome extension). With Buzz you get an e-mail notification when there’s new activity on your items, and if you use the web interface you can very quickly tell “Buzzes” apart from regular e-mails by just seeing the distinctive icon.
Mobile Experience: great for a first iteration, at least on the iPhone (this is Google, they have enough mobile experience by now, but it’s still Buzz 1.0). You can geotag your “buzzes” and see a map of what people are saying nearby, or anywhere you drag the map to really. That’s the way twitter is moving with local trending topics (which suck for the most part) but if they had an implementation like this with the amount of traffic they have it would be awesome.
It’s easy to use to do the basics (that is, post something)

Now, the BIG flaw, which they brought over from Wave by the way, is the horrible handling of following and followers. I understand they want to be helpful, but why on earth would they think that because I sent an e-mail to someone years ago, that person is a friend or that I would be interested in their “buzzes”. The very first time I clicked on the Buzz link I was already following 25 people!! and if I had decided from the start who I was going to follow, I would have picked at most 4 people out of those 25. Also, they should not allow people to follow me without asking for my permission, I can’t find a way to remove some of those followers from my list (while some users have a link and I can block them, some don’t and there doesn’t seem to be a way to get rid of them).

One of the things that will surely be fixed (I hope!) in the future is the poor integration with other sites, they only have twitter and flickr at the moment and there are no options, you either add your link or delete it, and the twitter import is useless if you have your tweets protected (I’m sure they’re smart enough to figure out how to use OAuth).

Overall, I believe it’s a MUCH better attempt than Wave was but for now I don’t think I’ll be using it . The poor support for linking my other accounts, the lack of intuitive privacy settings, and the awful handling of following/followers are enough to make me stay out, not to mention it does not work on Google Apps which is where I have my real e-mail address so monitoring Buzz will be as much of a pain as monitoring Wave since it’s a browser window I’ll need open just for that. I also think it will just fade over time and most people won’t use it in the long run, but of course I may be wrong.

Good try google!

Another difficult photo to get, this is my mom. I have only been...

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:02:02 -0500

Another difficult photo to get, this is my mom. I have only been able to take 2 photos of her in a long time because she doesn’t like her picture taken. Here’s the other one.