S T E P H E N H U C K E R . C O M

Moving House

stephen — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:28:19 +0000

Moved house today from Coburg to Reservoir after three years in Coburg.
I discovered I don’t really like Coburg at all. I should have moved a little east to Preston b/c it has a LOT of chinese restaurants

I also managed to lose my iPhone 3GS, in the process losing all contact with the outside world.
- No telephone, no internet – so I had to go purchase a cheap $30 phone and a $49 USB 3G modem with 1GB of data to last me until my ADSL is connected.

The good news is after paying the excess on my phone insurance ($225) I will get a new iPhone 4!

….. but I will have to wait four weeks

Geotagging photos on the Mac

stephen — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:55:06 +0000

Was reading my email, and lo and behold, what pop into my inbox? Another bloody offer to buy yet more software.

This time HoudahGeo an application that has had tremendous reviews.

What does it do? It embeds GPS location data into your digital photos .. but it does it so well.

Here is a screen dump from my iPad showing the location of pictures taken in Seoul, South Korea. I used a standalone GPS to record my location and a special program which synced the GPS location to the photo by using the time stamp on the photo and in the GPS log.

?The iPad is the best means of showing off photos I have ever seen. The only thing that beats it is a well put together scrapbook but that involves glue, scissors and “real” physical photos …. not my thing

Previously I had used Googles Picasso for the Mac to do this, see a review here

For an overview of Geotagging Geotagging and the Mac (1) – Basics is excellent

Learning PHP and WordPress Templates

stephen — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 16:23:44 +0000

Step 1: Setup MySQL and PHP ==> ?http://maestric.com/doc/mac/apache_php_mysql_snow_leopard Test to see if php works by creating a sample php file ?<html><head><title>PHP Test</title></head><body><?php phpinfo(); ?></body></html> Step 2: Install Wordperss Step 3: Find a good SQL admin tool ?If you have … Continue reading →

Sopranos [TV]

stephen — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:08:42 +0000

Just finnished watching the Sopranoes, all 86 episodes!
I love the show, but are all gangsters so greedy and stupid?
They should leave it to the professionals … Wall Street

New stuff for the Bike

stephen — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:55:10 +0000

On the weekend I purchased a 45 L topbox for my bike.

A SHAD SH-45 for $290. The 50 L version costs $500, too expensive for my taste.

I was looking at a Givi 52L box, but they are USD $300, plus USD $180 postage. On top of that you needing the mountplate for USD $90

Now all I need are:

- Centrestand
- panniers for the side
- Protector for the bottom of the bike.

Blake’s 7 [TV]

stephen — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 14:25:59 +0000

When I was growing up in Country Victoria there were only two TV channels, no McDonalds and KFC was an hour drive away.
Did I mentioned the shops closed at 1pm on Saturday? … a very fast paced life

The point of this? …. a few shows on TV captured my imagination and allowed me to escape the fast life in country Victoria.

- Doctor Who
- Star Trek
- Black Adder

And last but not least, Blake’s 7. The special effects made Doctor Who look good. The fight scenes were terrible, but the story and the characters were wonderful. My favourite? Avon, who would sell out his own mother if there was no other choice.

Anyway I have just finished watching them all again, all four seasons.

Technology is pretty amazing now. I can stream the Blake’s 7 DVD rips from my computer to my iPad.

Mum’s married (again)

stephen — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 10:50:38 +0000

Mum got married today! Her first marriage lasted for 50 years, somehow I don’t think the second will last that long!

Best of luck and wishes for a long and happy marriage.

More pictures on facebook

Victoria Sword Exemptions cut back

stephen — Sun, 09 May 2010 09:04:20 +0000

In Victoria (Australia) it is generally illegal to own a sword, unless you have an exemption

GENERAL EXEMPTION UNDER SECTION 8B TO POSSESS SWORDS

1. Museum
2. Theatre or Opera Company
3. Accredited Fencing Organisations,
4. World Singlestick Federation
5. Member of a Religion whose practice involves swords
6. Defence Force Serving Member
7. Former Defence Force Member if obtained in official duties
8. RSL officer/member
9. Masonic Lodge
10. Participant in Scottish Highland Dancing
11. Inheritance – maximum of two swords.
12. Australian National Wushu & Tai Chi Association
13. Australian Kendo Renmai Associated Club
14. A sword owned prior to July 2004 that has never had a sharpened edge
15. Active Scout Association member.??

or you have a licence similar to a gun licence!

The cheapest way until recently to legally own a sword was to joint the Australian Knife Collectors club which has a general exemption for members owning swords. On my last blog article I mentioned that in Victoria there is a big crack down on knives. Something which I have no problems with.

This naturally caused a problem for the Australian Knife Collectors club b/c they were the most prominent organisation providing exemptions. Because of this pressure and to protect its core interest, knife ownership it has relinquished the exemptions bestowed upon it for swords. If you are covered by the exemption you will have until 30 September 2010.
After that you will be breaking the law if you don’t have a licence or an appropriate exemption.

In summary, bring on the nanny state

Rsync backup on OS X

stephen — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:44:13 +0000

Mission: To backup my music and picture collection onto portable hard drives as a backup .

Music: 406.66 GB
Pictures: 57.86 GB

The pictures folder is updated every two or three days with pictures from my iphone and the occasional run with my SLR.
The Music folder is updated multiple times a day with podcasts and other downloads.

To copy the entire folders to an external USB 2 drive would take most of the night. This is simply not practicable, at least until USB 3 comes along.
Even then it makes more sense to only copy the changes.

The solution, RSYNC

Original disk: work ==> backup disk: backup500gb

>>> sudo rsync -vaxE –delete Music /Volumes/backup500gb

This would recursively transfer all files from the directory

/Volumes/work/Music to /Volumes/backup500gb/Music directory.

The files are transferred in “archive” mode, which ensures that symbolic links, devices, attributes, permissions, ownerships, etc. are preserved in the transfer. Additionally, compression will be used to reduce the size of data portions of the transfer.

The archive mode is overkill for pictures and music, but if I were copying programs, batch files, etc it would be very important.

-v, --verbose               increase verbosity
-a, --archive               archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
-x, --one-file-system       don't cross filesystem boundaries
-E, --executability         preserve executability

>>> sudo rsync -vaxE –delete Pictrures /Volumes/backup500gb

V (2009) – TV Series

stephen — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:52:50 +0000

Remember, V ? The TV series from the eighties about aliens landing on Earth?

At first they look like us, and they come in peace ….

but all is not what it seems.