Monday, January 21, 2008

Boring battery stuff

Got a couple of old olympus cameras.
Current battery alternatives

OM 1....#675 hearing aid batteries...I believe these are a little smaller than the holder...some people have put in some sort of rubber ring stabilise the batteries.

Update: I was able to get a A675PX battery to fit into the OM1 battery compartment with some cardboard packing. The meter indicated a faster speed than the OM2n meter...by about 2 stops. Not actually taken any pictures however. This battery is a 1.5 v alkaline battery. (A$7.95 - Fletchers). The original mercury battery was 1.3 0r 1.35 volts. There are 1.4 V 675 Zinc Air batteries which may be more suitable, and can be obtained in a 6 pack fairly cheaply. http://www.hearingaidbatteries.com.au/catalogue/category13/category6/product48

$A4.00 per 6 pack plus shipping (approx $3.00)

Some info would suggest that a 386 silver oxide battery may be another option as a replacement battery, but its 1.55 v (some leica forums...as leicas used similar batteries to OM1)


OM2n....SR44 is a direct replacement AFAIK.

Might blow some dust off them and shoot a bit of film.

Spider Udate #2

Lot of rain and wind and so on and the spider didn't put a web up last night, but lo and behold it's done it again tonight though the weather is worse if anything. The web construction is more disjointed than the previous structures but I'm amazed that it's giving it a go.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Spider - Update 1

This spider must have read the books on expected orb weaver behaviour. By 8 am it had dismantled the web. It reconstructed it this evening. I'll keep a bit of a lookout what happens over the weekend.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Spider







This is the Garden Orb Weaving Spider. This one just spun a web on the back verandah. Here's some sites with some information about Orb weaving spiders.


http://www.amonline.net.au/factSheets/orb_weaving_spiders.htm


http://www.faunanet.gov.au/wos/factfile.cfm?Fact_ID=79


http://www.mdavid.com.au/spiders/orbweavers.html


http://www.geocities.com/pchew_brisbane/Garden_sp.htm


The site above has some interesting details about web building


Sunday, January 13, 2008

Non destructive sharpening in PS CS2

This is done in Layers.

Create a COPY of the merged visible layers and sharpen the copy. You can create multiple copies (each with a different name of course) to apply different sharpening parameters to each copy.

How to

ALT + Merge Visible.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

DRIVER_IQRL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

This blue screen error code has had me tearing my hair out. Have a DIY computer built about 3 years ago. ABIT IC7-G MB, P4 processor, 2GB Kingston RAM, Antec True Power PSU, Win XP pro.

Recently getting start up errors with a BSOD as windows is booting. Error still occurs despite replacing memory, disabling sound card, replacing SATA drive, reseating cards. Can be due to rogue drivers, but no new ones installed prior to event. Last thing I did was try and fix virtual memory if that was the problem.

Here are some sites with some info:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms795930.aspx

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=810093&sd=RMVP

http://aumha.org/a/stop.htm

If the error occurs again I will try running memtest and flipping memory modules in and out. If that fails looks like new MOBO.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

AVG Free Update Unsuccessful

Recently AVG Free started returning a message "Update Unsuccessful" when Update Manager was run. This meant that the anti-virus defs were not being updated.

The solution to this problem is to -
1. Launch AVG Control Center
2. Go to View in Menu bar
3. Click "Extended Mode"
4. In Extended Mode window scroll down to "Update Manager"
5. Right Click. Go to Settings
6. Click Advanced tab
7. Press "Delete Update Temporary Files" button

I was then able to Update successfully.
This solution was posted by someone on Yahoo answers. May not work in every case.