Saving Stuff...

I have been running my own server for a while now. I started largely as an experiment to see how cheaply I could make a running website. (It originally cost me zero dollars, including the computer, but a TON of time...) Later it evolved into a full blown home server.
At the present time, I am running two servers in my living room. One runs my photo site, and the other is a storage server. The second is the subject of this blog...
As photographers, even with judicious editing, we amass a lot of images. And while hard drive space gets cheaper and cheaper, hard drives still fail. I really did not want to lose years of work. Through my research on building my own website (a topic for another day...) I came across SME Server. A few things I like about this Linux distribution:

1. very simple and very fast
2. runs on cheap, old hardware. Both my servers are old discarded machines.
3. runs raid "out of the box"
   
4. easy to configure and run (more on this below)
5. works well with windows networks (XP at least, I had problems with Vista, which was one of the reasons I moved completely to Linux)
6. well maintained, many updates.

Let me start with the last point first. There are almost literally a million Linux distributions out there. Many of them are very specialized, many of them are a hobby of a small group of people. SME has a large group of people working on constantly improving it. The really cool thing about open source software is that any programmer anywhere can look at the program and improve it. The more eyes looking at a project, the faster it improves. Also, because so many eyes are looking at it, it is much harder to bugger it up by adding spyware, etc. The rule of large groups says most people are very reasonable, "it is the few that spoil it for the many". or to state it more directly, any sufficiently large group tends to act to its collective best interest.
While I consider myself fairly computer savvy, I am not a computer tech. I can follow instructions, but I don't want to spend all my time configuring or fixing my system. now that may seem a bit strange considering how I have my Ubuntu desktop setup, but while I like eye-candy, I do just want it to work!

On to point 5. did I say Vista sucks for networking? In fact Samba (the Linux version of MS Windows networking) is better at networking than the Windows it is supposed to be copying. Also Linux (and Unix that it was originally based on) were designed from inception to be network aware. Permissions, user groups, etc are much easier to manage on a Unix based system. SME servers shows up in windows XP as a shared network drive. Same for my Ubuntu. Apparently OSX is supported as well, but I have not tested this. FYI an SME installation is seen from Vista, but Vista is not able to log on without a lot of hoop jumping, and the final straw was that all these hoops had to be jumped through every time I accessed the drive. I could not find any way to get Vista to save my settings. Just frustrating.

And finally, a note on RAID. If you don't know what it is, it is basically an instant backup of everything you store. All files are stored on both of the two (or more, but that gets a bit more complicated to explain) installed hard drives. If one drive fails, you still have all your data backed up on the second drive. You can take out the bad drive, install a new one, and the system will rebuild itself. You can read more here

New Images up

OK, I got a few new images up...
check them out.

new stuff

OK, I have neglected this site again. I do plan on adding some more photos on my website soon, so please be patient...
as a teaser here is one I took today

Merry Christmas

'Tis the season for good cheer and good will to all...
I have been very busy at work lately, and I have not had a lot of time for photography or blogging...
I have been working on my photo software. As you may know, I use Ubuntu Linux as my main operating system. It has been a bit of a learning experience moving from years of Windows and Adobe products, but I am getting closer to a real workflow.
I wish everyone a happy holiday season and a photographic new year.

Eye candy

Ok, I got sidetracked. I started playing with Awn (avant window navigator) and before I knew it I had completely redone my desktop. We will see if I become more productive, or if I just show off my machine...


It still needs some fine tuning, but it has lots of free real estate (I hate menus under menus under menus) and it is fun to use...

What computer do you use?

I recently upgraded my laptop and gave my well loved, but slower machine to my kids. I decided I wanted a 17" monitor (more room to see images and place pallets in Photoshop, etc.) I wanted to try an Apple, but a Macbook was out of my budget. After a bit of shopping around I found a deal on a Toshiba P200 that had tons of horsepower, 2GB Ram and all the trimmings. Unfortunately, it was preloaded with Vista. I say unfortunately now, but at the time I was anxious to try the latest greatest operating system..... I hated it..... I quickly installed Ubuntu as a dual boot to see if that would satisfy my needs...
I will admit there are a few rough edges. My webcam seems dodgy, and it took a bit to find a photo workflow that worked for me. Some help from this website, and a bit of research has brought me to the following method:

1. Raw files are downloaded to date organized folders. ie Year/Month/date or 2007/10/29
2. Since I have gnome raw thumbnailer installed, I can view and delete poorly composed or exposed images right in the file browser. This is a preliminary edit. just getting rid of the junk.
3. Anything that looks promising gets an initial tune-up in RawTherapee or Lightzone (unfortunately, Lightzone for Linux has been discontinued).
4. The next step is where I am having trouble. I haven't yet found a program I am happy with for fine and final retouching. I have tried the Gimp, but I just can't get comfortable with it. Cinepaint is supposed to be good, but again I can't seem to get comfortable. I tried Pixel but it seemed pretty buggy. Maybe it will get better...

So I am doing my final processing in Photoshop still running on a windows XP machine I keep running. I guess I still have some learning to do if I want to move away from windows...

one post per month?

Wow, a whole month has passed.
I went down to Port Angeles to visit a friend. We did some hiking and I ended up with these images...