New Mac Attack

I have been ferry patient over the last four weeks as I have had a new iMac sitting in the box in the library and have passed it by several times a day knowing that I could do nothing about it. I did fire it up to see if it ran but then it was back in the box until I had the time to devote to migrating the 24 to the 27 inch. So yesterday I was going through the mail and  an OWC (Other World Computing) catalog showed up.My son has an older MackBook and is going to run out of his 80BG hard drive sooner or later. I found there was a 320GB 7200 RPM drive for $69. I flipped over to the memory area and found 2x4 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 cards for the iMac at $127. Wow... That is a little different than the $600 Apple wants for the same thing when upgrading from 8-16 GB. Sent the order in and by using Yahoo shipping, it basically paid for the overnight cost.

I watched the videos on OWC about memory and hard drive upgrading and they were very thorough. It didn't take me more than five minutes and when I powered up and checked, the 16 GB showed up as advertised. Lightroom is going to looooove this machine.

Before the migration can start I had to run a software update on the new machine and it is taking its sweet time. Much longer than usual to download and then I realized... My son is streaming a Netflix movie on the Wii and that has choked the bandwidth this evening. 
Ahhh... She says the download is complete. Guess I'll be going, complete the update and hook the to computers up for the migrations. I'll have to wait until the morning to see how it all goes.


For now I'll just be moving a long. Cya... Doug

Office Update

Here is a quick update on the office progress. The work surface is complete with the exception of the edge treatment. I have a pretty good Idea I am going to use 1/4 round over of the fake wood kind because it is already white and I thought that would make a nice touch on the monochromatic look I have going here. The spots of tape on the wall are screw free zones where I can route cable holes in the surface.

I'll keep on plugging away.

Cya... Doug

Office Update

I know what you are thinking. It doesn't look any different than before. In some aspect I will agree with you but if you look at the edge of the work surface you will notice the Formica is attached. Ok so no big deal... or is it?

Think about it, this is the first time I have worked with Formica and it had to be right the first time. That contact cement is one shot only. Routing the edges flush with the top and bottom surface was a little un-nerving but not too bad once I got the hang of it. The only problem was in the corner of the surface where the router could not get to. This I used a smooth bottom bit in the router and hand cut it to where I could file the edge flush.

So I could have gotten further but I had two things working against me. First was the loss or our Golden Retriever on Tuesday. With Evelyn in Maryland for the grand-baby, I just spent Wednesday on the couch with Sniper our Australian Shepherd. The second work block was the weather. So what does the weather have to do with work inside. You see, that's just it. Nothing!

The sky was clear all week and the temps finally got up to where I could get out on the Harley for the first time this year.

Ok, so I am making excuses for not getting the laminate on the work surface but you know what?

It is what it is!

Cya... Doug

Office Update: Phase III Underway

It has been some time, actually since Jan 19 since the last Office Update (My bad!). I was somewhat perplexed as to the structural integrity of the work surface as there was to be a good section of the surface cantilevered off the wall and not supported from the floor. Apprehension was probably the biggest delay but one I decided it was going to work I laid into applying mounting strips to the wall. Lamination of the  supports which I did not photo. Don't know why but they took a while.

To save some cost I used 3/4 B-C plywood and laminated 1/4 B-C plywood to get two acceptable sides. The B-C signifies the quality of each side of the plywood sheet. A is the best and I call it Acceptable, B is the next and I call it Barely acceptable, finally C just stands for Crap. Anyhow I painted them black and the mounting strips of 1x2 and 1x6 the same gray as the walls.

Yesterday I laid down double layers of 1/2" particle board as a substrate for the laminate I will apply. That probably will not happen until April unfortunately. I plan on getting it cut our but it is going to take a couple of days to work in onto the surface. With work and going out east for the grandchild arrival, I am not too optimistic about the speed at which it is going to get done.

Anyhow progress is progress.

Have a great weekend... Cya.  Doug

Office Update: Phase II Complete

After thirteen years in primer and florescent lighting, the paint and tungsten lights definitely giver the office a different look. Evelyn says the battleship gray looks better than white primer but it's not for her. Actually it is a neutral gray . I will certainly have to run my Huey to re-calibrate my monitors though.

Here is a shot of the track lighting. It looks like a lot but they are mostly 50 watt halogens it with a few 75 watt fixtures dropped in. All told its about 800 watts of juice to light the office now. Once I get the work space set up I will have to reset some of them. They are all floods except one 75 watt units as that will focus on the keyboard from a distance. The one nice thing about track lighting is that you are not stuck with you have. You can change things up as often as you want.

Thats it for my office project until next week when I hope to get a good handle on Phase III. The building of the work platform. But right now I am spending time in Columbus OH for a week of recurrent training.

Take care all... Doug

Office Update as Promised

I guess you know when the holiday season is over when you get back to the projects you started before Thanksgiving. Oh well some progress is better than none. Sorry about the image but There is no lighting in the room right now other than a fluorescent that is leaning against the wall to the left. I used the 5D Mk II at 3200 ISO to get the image as it is. Not exactly the architectural lighting shot of the century but we will just call it a snap shot.

Tomorrow it is onto the lighting. I was going to do that first but there were too many items in the middle of the room so I got the paint first and now the lighting. Tomorrow night the image should look a little better.

While I am typing this I am doing a firmware update to the 5D Mk II and I am not sure it went as planned. I don't thing it is a good idea when the screen goes blank when the instructions show something else "during the update".

I think I am going to research that now so I'll let you know how it went!

Cya... Doug

Update

This is a quick update on a couple of items I have been blogging about. This is the office project and the Canon 5D Mark II.

OFFICE

It really is in process but that has slowed to a crawl. The walls are ready for paint, the surface top for the work station is in hand, and construction of the work support will follow the painting. With Christmas and travel and all this will slip to mid January timeframe but photos will follow.

CANON 5D MK II

I took this little baby out to Maryland this past week and all I can say about the low light capabilities is that I am simply amazed at its performance. I am really liking the 4000 and 5000 ISO for interior photos at f/4-6. We spent some time down around The US Capital and the Jefferson Memorial and I will get some images up here in next week. I am kind of stuck with my laptop for the RAW files as I have Elements 6 on it and CS3 on my iMac. For the purposes of the 5D Mk II, Adobe Camera Raw 5.2 will only install on CS4 or version 7 for Windows on Elements. I do have the updated Version 2.2 of Lightroom so I will be able to convert the files there. Yes I know I could have just shot JPEG but I simply loose too much dynamic range from the RAW files. Some of these RAW files in the higher ISO settings are running 31MB each. Now that is starting to put a dent in the memory game.

That covers today, so stay warm and dry today.

Cya... Doug

Time

I was again going to call this an Office Build Update but then I would be telling the truth. The fact is that I have no Tuesday progress in the office. In fact I am getting slightly defeated in the knowledge that my last week off is rapidly coming to a close and I am not even close in the office. Of course there are always circumstances that cause distractions or delays here and there.

Yes I know last week was a wash with the kids in town and it being Thanksgiving and all but that still left two weeks to make some serious progress.

Today... Well, it pretty was spent working with Windows. For the longest time my wife has been waiting for me to get a laptop set up for her sewing machines. I broke out the last remaining windows laptop in the house and set to working on it.

First order of business was to dump as much junk as I possibly could. Not only for disk space but to help the speed of the machine. Off with the Spyware, gone with the anti-virus, and I even sent iTunes to the bit bucket. All music and pictures gone baby gone. Then it was onto the loading process. Right! Can you say 3 1/5 inch floppy disks. Oops, that threw a wrench into the soup. My old Gateway which I had transitioned to the iMac over a year ago had a 3.5" floppy.

After dragging that box out (pictured on table) and transferring a whole bunch of files into their own folder that I would then burn to a CD and put on the laptop. After scouring the two drives for sewing files for two different types of machines I came up with 684 files. The real amazing thing about this is the RAW image above is just slightly smaller that all those files.

Technology is wonderful but I think it has made the tech industry lazy. The amount of programing power/KB just six years ago was so much greater than it is now. Don't get me wrong I totally enjoy and am amazed with what out computers can do for us but good night, the size of these applications is just incredible.

I really hope to have better news about the office tomorrow. But that is it for now.

Cya... Doug

Office Update

This is how it was Tuesday night.

As you can see I have turned the corner on the "out with the old" phase and am ready to start with the "in with the new" phase. First it is to layout the workspace support and lay the top in place. When I get that done I will be onto the paint and cut in the trim, then the ceiling and finally the walls. The last bit of work I will do for this phase is the lighting which will be a double track lighting unit with halogen lamps for illumination. I have found that working in the bright fluorescent lighting my prints are always dark and after profiling my monitor with my Huey, the monitor seems dim. Solution.. Lower ambient light makes the monitor feel brighter. I have an interesting power panel planned so I don't get all those nasty cords laying on the floor. The carpeting is going to wait along with the print drawer unit and mat board storage device I have designed.

Honestly I am not sure I will get this all done before I head back to work but I will be giving it my best shot the week after Thanksgiving.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I hope you take some time to be thankful for all that we have been blessed with. Not monetarily or with stuff but those invisible assets we have in family, friendships, and values. Take a moment and encourage or do something nice for someone else this week.

As for me I will be off until Monday so have a great Thanksgiving and enjoy the long weekend.

Cya... Doug

Office Update

I am not sure if this was a good idea or not. And what idea is that? No, not reworking my office as it has needed it for way too long. The bad idea was to put my progress up on the blog. However it does give me something to talk about as not much else is going on.

Anyhow, the shot below was my clean up progress as of Saturday night which actually took until Sunday afternoon. 

Monday (below) is when the action really started. The part where the husband says to the wife... "it has to get worse before it can get better." What is missed in any of these pictures are two floor to ceiling bookshelves to the tight that had to be gone through. I am eliminating one set of shelves and used that decision to allow me the freedom to eliminate a number of items that I really have no plans on ever using again. They were just taking up space.

The desk that I have had for twenty two years suffered fatal wounds and is being reincarnated as two roller drawer assemblies. The first problem I ran into was the metal on the bottom of the cabinets was really thin and would not support the wheels by itself. So out to the shop I went and came back with four 3/8" plywood planks to mount the wheels to and subsequently to the metal boxes.

Sounds easy but it took one trip to Harbor Freight (wheels), one trip to the locals hardware store for nuts and bolts, and one trip to Home Depot for more nuts and bolds when I figured the initial plan was not going to work and longer bolts were going to be necessary.

The plan is to have the work platform wall mounted and be able to move the various floor units around for easy cleaning.  Time will tell on that idea!

Tomorrow morning will be used to mount the wheel son the other box and take the dogs to get groomed before our daughter and son-in-law show up for Thanksgiving. That may put a damper on my office progress until Monday when I can spend the las week of my vacation getting as far as I can on the project.

Ok... So why is it a bad idea to put this up on the blog. For some reason there is a certain level of cyber-accountability. There it is! I said it, now I have to do it. The pressure is on. All in all this is phase one of the project as there are some needs to use the shop (it is no full blown winter in MI) tools in a larger way than just trimming.

Let's see what I can get done this week.

Cya... Doug

Building Update

The office is coming along but not nearly as quickly as I had hoped. Yesterday we took the mother of a friend of ours over to U of M Hospital in Ann Arbor to see her family so yesterday was a wash. I am trying to have the office ready to paint by Monday. One thing I have discover is that I have a whole bunch of junk (I think I knew that but was unwilling to admit it).

Back to work now.  Cya... Doug

START

BEFORE

It is late Wednesday, o should I say early Thursday. Obviously the image above is the before shot of the office that I am spending the majority of my vacation working on.

The image below is my temporary working location in what will become the "studio" for lights and backdrop. That is phase two of this project and will not be nearly as ambitious of a project.

Just wanted to get an update on the progress.  Continue to check back for the continuing saga of the Office Rebuild.

Take care... Doug