/sys/admin/blog

Lizard Brain

first.last@gmail.com (Joe O'Brien) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 09:12:50 -0500

Seth Godin: Quieting the Lizard Brain on Vimeo – you want to do great things? Focus on finishing things.

Project 365

first.last@gmail.com (Joe O'Brien) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 14:17:26 -0500

Practice makes perfect, right? I’m embarking on a year long “project 365” to take a photo every day. I’ll be posting them on Flickr.

Mi chiamo Via

first.last@gmail.com (Joe O'Brien) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:40:59 -0500

I finally tried some of Starbuck’s new Via instant coffee and it’s actually pretty good. It’s not regular instant freeze-dried-whatever-the-hell-instant-coffee-is crap. Via is “micro ground” coffee beans that you just add hot water to and you’ve got a cup of coffee. You can see some fine particles in the last sip of the cup but you can’t detect them in the coffee in a bad way.

Via is going to be my coffee of choice for the next camping trip for sure.

Google Wave

first.last@gmail.com (Joe O'Brien) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:04:21 -0500

Hearing about Google Wave and not sure what it is? There is a good 10 minute video from Google showing some examples of it being used here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6pgxLaDdQw&feature=player_embedded

Cool stuff. I think I’m going to plan poker nights with it… if only more of my friends can just get accounts already!

first.last@gmail.com (Joe O'Brien) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:24:15 -0400

Just a sampling of my favorites from the past week:

“Why didn’t you tell us in advance of the unscheduled outage you didn’t know would happen?”

“Is there any technical reason you’re doing this?”

“It’s your job to figure out what I really needed even though you gave me exactly what I asked for, that’s called customer service.”

Sigh.

Happy Sysadmin Day!!!!

first.last@gmail.com (Joe O'Brien) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 07:11:00 -0400

Thank you to all of you that make IT work! Happy System Administration Day!!!

Macro Exposure Trick

first.last@gmail.com (Joe O'Brien) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:57:49 -0400

Shooting macro photography without a tripod is hard. You need a lot of light and you’re trying to balance the depth of field with a fast enough shutter speed to get a sharp picture. Bump your ISO up too high and you loose detail and get noise.

So here’s a little trick I picked up. Set your exposure compensation down a stop or two. You’ll under-expose the shot but the detail will be there. Back home you can push the exposure back up in post processing the RAW file.

I got this little guy hand held at ISO: 400, Exposure: 1/45 sec, Aperture: 8.0 with -1 stop set. It works!

Getting more out of your Digital SLR

first.last@gmail.com (Joe O'Brien) — Thu, 21 May 2009 10:05:19 -0400

I plan on posting more on some of the features that those of you with digital SLRs should learn how to use and get off of that blasted full auto mode… however, let’s start with a basic thing: RAW.

If you’re not shooting RAW, that’s an easy one to turn on. If you’re nervous about it, most cameras will let you set RAW + JPEG and you can at least have the option of the power of RAW files. Granted, it will take more storage on your card but it’s worth it. Trust me… here’s a good article on RAW vs. JPG.

Why HDR?

first.last@gmail.com (Joe O'Brien) — Sun, 10 May 2009 09:22:56 -0400

I’ve been showing a few of my HDR photos to some friends and one of them suggested I post an example of what the images would look like without the HDR process involved.

So, here’s an example of a sunset at the beach while we were on vacation with an average exposure:

We can go two stops over or under exposed but as you see we have to give up something to do that… either the details in the sky get lost or the details in the sand get lost:

After combining all three images into an HDR photo, you can see that all the detail is there in the sky and in the sand. Here’s that final image:

HDR for the win!

Planet Photography

first.last@gmail.com (Joe O'Brien) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:35:42 -0400

I’ve created a new planet on sysadminblogs.com for photography blogs. You can send me your category feeds (like my photography category posts will go to that blog as well as planet sysadmin) or send on any photography blogs you think are cool.

Check it out at http://www.sysadminblogs.com/photography/

I will be populating the list of feeds this week while on vacation

HDR Photography

first.last@gmail.com (Joe O'Brien) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:13:02 -0500

HDR Photography is totally cool if you haven’t seen it. My first few tries are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/joe.obrien/HDR#

Now I just need some more things to try it on… I’m thinking Centennial campus at NCSU may be cool.

Shoot RAW

first.last@gmail.com (Joe O'Brien) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:03:00 -0500

I’m sold… I know I’m behind the times on this but I just recently started shooting in RAW. I don’t even bother shooting JPEG+RAW now, just RAW.

The proof is in the digital darkroom. I’m seeing how powerful having that RAW image is. Here’s an example from last night.

Continue reading "Shoot RAW"

The return to facebook

first.last@gmail.com (Joe O'Brien) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:35:17 -0500

It may not be long lived, but I’ve returned to facebook. I swore I wouldn’t go back but I’m giving it one more try anyway. This time I’m being much more restrictive on who I friend, disabled all the apps and crap, and turned the verbosity of the email notifications way down. I’ve reconnected with a few friends already and I guess that’s what it’s good for.

Now we’ll see how long I last… I still think it’s a time sink.

What I don't like about "social media"

first.last@gmail.com (Joe O'Brien) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:48:19 -0500

I think the thing that bugs me most about Facebook, Twitter, and the like is the way they make it easy for others try to get me to waste time. For instance, things like all the apps that want me to play poker or give or get a Shrute-buck. I don’t really want to play with these crappy little apps and the social pressure of my “friends” sending them to me isn’t really welcome in my day. Also, I have more than enough email so yet another way to get electronic mail inside each of these sites is also not something I want. Facebook became a chore to me… log in, look at all the crap that showed up, check my private messages, approve friend requests, read my wall, blah blah blah. I don’t have time for that. Email me, or call me, but don’t write on my freaking wall. And if you don’t know me in RL in some way, why are you inviting me to be your “friend” anyway?

The other thing that comes to mind is what inspired this very blog post. I’m seeing a few twitter posts with catchy titles and a tinyurl link that go to some article I don’t care about. Using the power of “someone I know” to drive me to actually click it, I do. And it’s nothing I care about. I actually like twitter. I really like following people I know. But for the love of god, tell me what you’re sending me off to.

I think these sites all have great potential and great uses. People just need to learn how to use them and find what they are good at. I think I’ll even re-activate my facebook account soon… but I won’t be accepting nearly as many “friend” requests this time around. I’m all for wasting time… but it’s on my own terms for now on.

The Animal School

first.last@gmail.com (Joe O'Brien) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:00:12 -0500

A Fable by George Reavis:

Once upon a time the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of a “new world” so they organized a school. They had adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all the animals took all the subjects.

The duck was excellent in swimming. In fact, better than his instructor. But he made only passing grades in flying and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to stay after school and also drop swimming in order to practice running. This was kept up until his webbed feet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in school so nobody worried about that, except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of the class in running but had a nervous breakdown because of so much makeup work in swimming.

The squirrel was excellent in climbing until he developed frustration in the flying class where his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of the treetop down. He also developed a “charlie horse” from overexertion and then got a C in climbing and D in running.

The eagle was a problem child and was disciplined severely. In the climbing class, he beat all the others to the top of the tree but insisted on using his own way to get there.

At the end of the year, an abnormal eel that could swim exceeding well and also run, climb and fly a little had the highest average and was valedictorian.

The prairie dogs stayed out of school and fought the tax levy because the administration would not add digging and burrowing to the curriculum. They apprenticed their children to a badger and later joined the groundhogs and gophers to start a successful private school.