james fryer

Apparently, when you tell Spotify NOT to connect to your facebook account, they do anyway.

I received an email from Spotify this morning encouraging me to, “Start enjoying Spotify now.” Since I did not finish the sign up process, I was a little surprised to be getting any more email from them. I tried logging in and to my surprise, I do apparently have a Spotify account and it is connected to my facebook account. It was surprising because during the sign up process Spotify explicitly asked permission to connect to my facebook account and I explicitly clicked the NO button.

Next I cruised on over to my facebook account, and wouldn’t you know it, there is the Spotify app on my account! I removed that and went back to Spotify to delete my account, but they don’t have any way to that and no information at all on their site about deleting an account.

After searching the web, I turns out that the only way to delete a Spotify account is to, in their own words:

“Contact support@spotify.com and provide them with your username, date of birth and postal code and they will delete the account for you.”

This is not an acceptable practice. Spotify engages in predatory and misleading behavior. I strongly encourage people to stay away, far away, from Spotify.

On a positive note, Spotify’s conduct here makes facebook’s behavior look absolutely angelic.

Filed under: Computers / Internet by James Fryer
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I received an invite to Spotify a couple of months ago, but did not have the time to sign up until yesterday. I guess my timing was a little poor as yesterday Spotify changed their registration process and it now requires that you register using your facebook account. I didn’t like that too much, but I decided it wasn’t the end of the world. Not until I got further into the registration (after giving Spotify my facebook info) that I was asked to give Spotify permission to access my personal data on facebook and also allow Spotify to post to my facebook account. Now I don’t know what information they plan to to publish to my facebook account, but that isn’t something I’m comfortable with so I stopped the registration and uninstalled Spotify.

There is no other way to register with Spotify so I’d recommend, in the interest of keeping control over your own identity, to avoid Spotify. There are other options like last.fm.

In seeing that I was not alone in my aversion to linking my facebook account, I found their official response:

“This does not stop you creating the Facebook account adding nothing to it and making it totally private as the Facebook account does not have to be actively used.”

Actually, that mildly violates on of facebook’s terms of service:

“You will keep your contact information accurate and up-to-date.”

And, if like me, you already have a facebook account and don’t want to link it, then it violates another term of service by suggesting to basically create a dummy account:

“You will not create more than one personal profile.”

Filed under: Computers / Internet by James Fryer
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Nick Denton has a blogging empire named Gawker which includes eight successful blogs including one of the most popular tech blogs. He’s been involved in ‘journalism’ and technology for a long time. One would imagine someone in his position and with his background would take online user names and passwords very seriously as, for him, they are literally the keys to his kingdom. Apparently, that’s asking too much from this blogging mogul, because he got hacked. Big time.

It’s not clear when it all started, but there were clear signs in early November that something was amiss as Nick got a notification that he had setup a new account that he in fact, had not setup. Instead of recognizing this as any kind of serious threat, he basically ignored it and went about his business. And, critically, Nick doesn’t bother to change his password which he apparently uses for a lot of different accounts. This, eventually, gives the hackers a really easy way to get inside Gawker HQ.

A month later, Nick and his Gawker employees start to see odd behavior on some of the accounts, but it is still over a day before they take any kind of serious action and only after the hackers create a post on the Gawker home page indicating that they (the hackers) have copied every byte of data on the Gawker servers and have made it publicly available.

If you don’t know what a server is, imagine the ‘Gawker server’ as the Pentagon and the hackers as team of Russian spies. Now imagine the Russian spies having free run of the Pentagon for as long as they like, looking at and coping everything. The hackers probably aren’t as cute as Russian spies are these days though.

Part of the information that the hackers got was the user database for all the Gawker sites. That’s not just Gawker employees, that’s anyone who has created a free account on a Gawker site so they can leave a comment or add to the discussion on one of the many Gawker blogs. It’s no longer just about Nick Denton and his employees. No, now the hackers have account info on over a million people who have registered on Gawker. And because the hackers have made these records publicly available, hundreds, thousands, possibly tens of thousands of criminals (and corporations) have access to these user names and passwords as well.

For a moment, I’m going to pretend to be a criminal. As a criminal, this is what I would do. I’d download that user database and start randomly picking out user accounts. Next, I’d try logging into different bank and social media websites like TD Bank and Facebook. At least 30% of people use the same user name and passwords for everything (do you?) so I’m going to get a lot of logins for very little effort. Then, I’d be in a bit of a quandary, do I steal you identity and setup a few credit cards, or do I just start making transfers from your bank account? After a few soul searching minutes, I say screw it, I’ll do both. Plus, if your Facebook profile picture looks cute, I’ll start stalking you too. Oh, and I’m also going to add you to my spam list so I can sell you Viagra or diet pills (probably both, I’m a greedy criminal after all).

Websites get hacked every day. User databases get loose all the time (just happened to McDonalds and Honda). So, even if you are good about keeping you computer up to date and secure, your data is still vulnerable if it’s on someone else’s server/website. And your information is on other peoples’ servers/websites, far more than you probably realize.

Forbes as a nice story on Denton’s debacle, if you’d like more details.

And This is How You go Straight

If you want to be even remotely secure online and safeguard against criminals getting a hold of your accounts, you need to get serious about user names and passwords. Two fundamental principles of secure accounts are:

1. Never use the the same user name / password for more than one account.
2. Use passwords that are complex and that do not contain any word you can find in a dictionary. A good rule of thumb is, if you can remember your password, it’s probably not secure. The best passwords are at least 8 characters long and include a mix of upper and lower case letters and punctuation. The longer the password is, the better. Here is an example of a moderately strong password: dB-26#je

If you want to use strong passwords that are too complicated to remember, you will need some way to manage them. Naturally, there are many applications for this. I use and like both KeePass and LastPass. I’ve also used eWallet, but found it comes up rather short over time.

KeePass is a free, open source password manager that runs on many platforms including smartphones. It does not easily integrate with your browser, but copying and pasting over passwords is pretty easy. It has strong encryption to keep your passwords safe and, since it’s all on your computer, you can back it up with the rest of your files. The process of syncing it with other devices is a bit awkward. I’ve been using it for a while and been happy with it.

LastPass is also free (but has a paid premium service also). Like KeePass, it uses strong encryption to protect your passwords, but it syncs your passwords to the LastPass server so you can access you passwords anywhere. Also, it runs as a browser plug in so it works directly with your browser to autofill your passwords when you log in to your favorite websites.

LastPass works on Windows, Macs, Linux, Blackberries, Android phones, and iPhones, but it costs $12 a year if you want to use it one of these smartphones. It works with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome.

I’ve been using it for a few weeks and am very pleased with it. To get a better idea of how LastPass works, check out the short video on their site and a short overview video from cnet.

A Little More About LastPass

When you setup LastPass, it will ask if you want it to scan your computer for user names and passwords already there. This will make it easier to get your user names and passwords into your new LastPass account. At the end of this process, LastPass will ask if you want to delete the user names and passwords from your browser. This is a good idea because your browser does not store these user names and passwords in a secure fashion. But be aware that once you choose this option, your user names and passwords will now only be stored with LastPass.

LastPass will keep an eye on what you are doing and if you come across a registration form, it will try to help and ask if you want LastPass to remember the new registration information and it can help you create a more secure password.

Password notes: Using 0 (zero) and O (capital letter O) can be confusing, so use one or the other as a rule. Same goes for other letters like the lower case letter L (as in Lincoln) and the upper case letter I (as in India).

Oh, and uh, Happy Holidays!

Filed under: Computers / Internet by James Fryer
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I’ve been using the new Nikon D7000 for several weeks now and just love it. It’s such a huge upgrade from my dear old D70 that it’s hard to believe it’s only been five years since the D70 came out.

I’ll be writing a lot more in the coming weeks about the D7000 (especially in comparison to the D90), but I wanted to share some of my initial giddiness.

Nikon D7000 - f/2.8 : 1/125" : 35mm : ISO 3200

Nikon D7000 - f/1.8 : 1/640" : 35mm : ISO 100

Nikon D7000 - f/1.8 : 1/25" : 50mm AI : ISO 3200

Here is a list of what gets me me excited about the D7000:

1. High ISO performance. I shoot at ISO 3200 without a second thought.
2. Meters AI lenses. This may be just me being a super geek, but using old buttery smooth AI lenses is nothing short of awesome.
3. But shooting manual lenses wouldn’t be as much fun if the viewfinder wasn’t so big and bright, noticeably brighter than the D70. This may be subtle, but it’s a big deal to me.
4. U1 and U2 custom profile buttons. This is such a complicated camera with so many shooting options that having two banks of instantly re-callable setting configurations is incredibly useful. It’s like instantly switching to a different camera with the simple flick of the Mode Dial.
5. Buttons, buttons, buttons! The D7000 is covered in buttons that give you immediate access to important settings. This makes the camera easier and faster to use (assuming you read the manual).
6. Better Dynamic Range. It actually takes a little work to get blown highlights, at least compared to the D70.
7. Dual SD card slots. I haven’t used this yet, but I can tell you it will make me a lot more comfortable the next time I shoot a wedding. Knowing I’ve got an instant back up of every shot of a bride on ‘her day’ is piece of mind that you can’t pay enough for.

What not so hot:

1. It’s pricey. Though that might not be a fair comparison as it has pro features you won’t find on any other Nikon DSLR in this price range.
2. The colors it produces are kind of weird. It’s taken me a couple of weeks to get accustomed to and get the colors I like. Part of this may be due to shooting in lower light than I have in the past at much higher ISOs.
3. I’m not convinced that the image quality or high ISO performance is much higher than the D90.
4. There is some talk about the D7000 being less sharp than the D90. I’ve not done any serious tests on this yet, but my casual appraisal doesn’t refute this. Definitely and issue that will get a lot more of my attention, stay tuned.

Surprising:

1. I’ve actually used the Live View a few times already and find it far more useful than I had thought.
2. The video is pretty darn impressive. Though I think it will be difficult for a casual user to get good results with the video, if you account for it’s many weaknesses, I think the D7000 will be able to shoot amazingly good video.

Where the D7000 stands in comparison to other Nikon DSLRs

The D3100 is a great camera that makes much better pictures than it should for such a low price, but it lacks a lot of pro features. The D90 adds a little bit better performance and lot of pro features. The D7000 is (probably) comparable to the D90 in performance, but adds pretty much every pro feature you can think of.

Nikon apparently still makes other DSLRs, but I’m not sure why. These three cameras pretty much cover the entire range of what DSLRs should be.

Well, OK, sure, the D700 is full frame and the benefit of that (having an even bigger and brighter viewfinder) is nothing to write off. And the D3X is also full frame and is pretty much the most perfect shooting machine made by man. That is if you don’t mind lugging a camera body around that is about as big and heavy as a small Korean automobile.

More to come… Stay tuned!

Filed under: Photography by James Fryer
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Ray is retiring, he has a few thousands thoughts on the matter. Written in completely impenetrable corporate-speak. I’ve taken one for the team, suffered through every word, and wrung out the secret code hidden within:

Things change.

We don’t really understand the cloud, but we keep throwing money at it.

We haven’t kept up with our competitors.

Even though Microsoft’s core products are overly complex crap, they remain strong because of their monopolies.

The kids may be waking up to the fact that Microsoft’s products suck, the road ahead might get bumpy.

This cloud thing may or may not develop and Microsoft may or may not be ready for it, still no clue where it’s headed.

The kids seem to be using the cloud.

Because no one is using Microsoft’s ‘cloud services’, we need to scare them into using them with talk about ‘trust & privacy’.

I’m going to ignore how much money Apple is making selling hardware and pretend that the hardware doesn’t matter.

Microsoft needs to put Windows in every one’s toaster, big untapped market there.

I’m embarrassed that Microsoft doesn’t have anything like iTunes or Gmail.

People seem to like simple stuff that just works, we’re not so good at that.

Uh, that cloud thing again. Microsoft is working on it, promise. It just might take a while…

Microsoft’s corporate culture is completely killing them.

The 1939 World’s Fair was seriously cool, someone really needs to make that into a movie.

The cloud is our generation’s flying car.

Microsoft needs to expand its monopolies into government.

In the future, we’ll all have our own personal robotic unicorns and they will be powered by nothing more than water vapor (the cloud).

And in closing, I’d just like to say, ‘the cloud’.

Filed under: Computers / Internet by James Fryer
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If you found a wallet in a bar, what would you do?

Would you take it home?

Would you hold onto it for three weeks without making any real effort to find the owner and then would you sell it to a blog for $5,000?

Oh, you would, well then you are a criminal.

There really is no difference between a wallet and a smartphone like the one that was stolen in a California bar last month. Except that a smartphone probably has a lot more personal data about it’s owner and poses a much greater risk when it is stolen (or lost).

There seem to be a lot of people who think the whole story of the theft of the iPhone prototype is no big deal (and then there are the crazy people who think this was an intentional leak). A smartphone is not just some nice thing, It’s not like a nice pen you might find lying around somewhere. Sure, you can try getting the pen to the nearest lost and found, but who would make much of an effort to recover their lost pen?

A wallet, on the other hand, is entirely different. Who wouldn’t go to great lengths to get it back?

Here is the difference:

Oh look, I found a nice shiny new pen, bonus!

Oh look, I just found someone’s wallet, damn, I need to make sure whoever lost it gets it back fast!

Filed under: Computers / Internet by James Fryer
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I am very much enthralled with the abstraction of macro photography (as seen in my photos) and I’m all about cheap. So, let me combine the two, here is a cheap way to shoot macro. The nice thing about this solution is that it will work on just about any camera, DSLRs as well as Point and Shoots.

Here it is, the Opteka 52mm 10x HD² Professional Macro Lens. This ‘closeup filter’ attaches to the front of a lens with a 58mm filter thread. Opteka sells this closeup filter in several different kits, each one containing a different ‘step down filter adapter’ that allows it to fit different lens filter sizes. 58mm is the size of many Canon lenses including the ubiquitous Canon EF-S 18-55mm IS. On this page, Amazon has a boatload of kits to fit just about any DSLR and many point and shoots.

Essentially, adding one of these to your lens is like putting a magnifying glass in front of your camera. The images below show how it compares to a true macro lens, the inimitable Nikon 60mm Micro. The first image is with the 60mm at full extension, at this ‘zoom’ the 60mm is a 1:1 ratio. That means that image is fully filling the sensor at a one to one scale. The next image is with the Opteka fit on the standard Nikon 18-55mm AF-S VR kit lens at 55mm and focused as close as possible. Following that, is a shot with the same lens, but without the Opteka close up filter so the impact of the closeup filter and be readily seen. The last image is with the Opteka attached to the wonderful Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF-D.

Click on an image to see the larger, straight from the camera, image.

Nikon 60mm Micro

Opteka on the Nikon 18-55mm AF-S VR lens

Nikon 18-55mm AF-S VR lens without the Opteka

Opteka on the Nikon 50mm f1.8 AF-D

The Opteka brings the 18-55mm quite a bit closer, almost to 1:1. Same goes for the Opteka on the 50mm. The images a softer than the 60mm Macro, but for $30, it seems like a bargain to me. On these smaller lenses at longer focal lengths there is no noticeable vignetting, but there will be on fatter lenses. The 18-55mm will show vignetting as you zoom out, but it works best for macro shots at 55mm, so there is no reason to be zooming out.

The depth of field is noticeably more shallow in the image from the 60mm, this is because the closer you get, the shallower your depth of field becomes. All the images were shot at f14 so it is apparent that a lot of light is needed to make a macro shot work. Unless you want to exaggerate the shallow depth of field, in which case, attaching the Opteka to the 50mm f1.8 really makes things interesting. Even though the 60mm is rated as an f2.8, that is not fixed, the closer you focus, the more it stops down. It is only f2.8 at about 6 feet to infinity, then starts to stop down and ends at f5 at its closest (1:1) focus.

Now, if you put the Opteka on the 50mm f1.8, it does not stop down, it shoots at whatever aperture you want from 1.8 too 22.

OK, so what happens if the Opteka is attached to the 60mm? It does get in closer, but the trade-off of sharpness is, in my opinion, is not worth it. Without the opteka, the 60mm will frame the helmet from top to bottom with a little space, with the Opteka attached, most of the domed head would be cropped out. At that point, the depth of field gets so shallow that a great deal of light is needed to stop down all the way to the 60mm’s minimum aperture, f57.

One last note, I’ve tested the Opteka with the 50mm f1.8 on a full frame FX camera (Nikon N75) and there is no noticeable vignetting there either.

Filed under: Photography by James Fryer
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Raw Therapee (THe Experimental RAw Photo Editor) is a treasure for digital photographers who shoot in RAW. It supports many RAW files types from the most popular Digital SLRs, details on supported cameras can be found on their site.

Raw Therapee opens and edits RAW files. Just point it to a directory of RAW files and it will generate thumbnails of RAW files (and JPEG files) from that directory. Double click on a thumbnail to bring it into the main editing window. Now you can make a wide range of modifications:

• White Balance
• Exposure
• Highlight Recovery
• Shadows/Highlights
• Sharpening
• Color Boost
• Color Shift
• Luminance Curve
• Luminance Noise Reduction
• Color Noise Reduction

These are the main options on the right hand side of the screen. On the left is a history panel listing each change you make. This is very handy, it allows you to simply click on an earlier action to see what the image looked like at that stage. And if you want to revert to that point, simply click on that action and continue working.

It is not a great way to manage your photo collection, Picassa does a much better job of that, but it is substantially better at making adjustments to an image. My work flow still starts in Picassa to quickly review my photos. I then delete the hopeless images and pick a few for further editing in Raw Therapee. Once editing is complete in Raw Therapee, I save the photo as a PNG. This is easily done with the “Save Image” in the lower right corner of the application and can be customized in the program options.

My initial response is that it is at least as capable as Photoshop (I have CS2), but probably better for ‘developing’ and image and certainly a lot faster. But it’s not a fair comparison, Photoshop is designed to do more then develop a photo. Raw Therapee is really in the same league as Lightroom and Aperture. I can not speak to how it compares to Aperture because Aperture crashed the first time I used it and I decided I did not need that in a photo editor and ended my evaluation there. I did use Lightroom during a 30 trial and really fell in love with it. I would purchase that Lightroom if it were not so overpriced. It is especially annoying to know that Lightroom was based on a free application.

The million dollar question: how well does Raw Therapee compare to Lightroom? I would prefer to use Lightroom, it has a broader set of tools. But, I use Raw Therapee because of the price. It’s free, but a program of so much value, I am glad to give the developers a ‘donation’. It is still under development so it might well become a threat to Lightroom.

Raw Therapee is available for Windows and Linux.

Filed under: Photography by James Fryer
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Last week was the eight annual Texas Furniture Makers Show in Kerrville Texas. Another successful show with strong work and great judges. This year the judges included Charles Kegley, Rex White, and Thomas Moser. Rex White has had work in the show several times and had won numerous awards in the past. Thomas Moser founder of Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers is well respected and was really a great choice of a judge. I don’t know anything about Charles Kegley other then that he made for a good judge and was quite affable, yet direct when fielding questions about his decisions.

From left to right: Charles Kegley, Rex White, and Thomas Moser

As always, Jim Derby did a master job of running the show.

Jim Derby at the awards ceremony

I was asked again this year co-lead a continuing education seminar and this year I was with Alton Bowmen and Frank Stazza. It was a round table discussion this year and I think that worked out quite well. I had a number of photos I took at the ICFF this past spring and I had a little slide show of these. Frank did a great demo on handtools.

Frank Strazza’s handtool demo

I thought the judges first place choice for the show was a little odd, but generally I was in agreement with their decisions, including Frank winning second overall for his Jewelry Cabinet.

Frank Strazza – Jewelry Cabinet

This has become a strong show and it is always remarkable how a show limited to state wide entrants can draw such strong work. But then, Texas is a large state.

Jim Derby will start working on the Ninth Annual Texas Furniture Makers Show in short order, I look forward to seeing it!

Filed under: Furniture by James Fryer
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Time again for the annual Texas Furniture Makers Show. As in years pass, KACC has found three talented people to judge the show: Amy Devers, Christi Farley, ASID, and Jim Wallace. KACC is offering show participants a ‘review’ session with the judges on Sunday, November 5, 2006. This is a unique opportunity for furniture makers to gain insight into the work displayed. I can not emphasis enough the value of this session, it is truly unique. This session is open only to show participants.

The show is starting earlier this year: October 26, to December 2, 2006. The reception and awards ceremony will be from 6 to 8 pm on Saturday, November 4, 2006. That is the same day Karl Muench and I will be giving another class on furniture design: “The Art and Function of Furniture”. Howard Hale will also be offering a finishing class the same day: “Essential Furniture Finishing Techniques”.

The winners from the 2003 show can be seen here: http://www.kacckerrville.com/2004furnitureshow.html. And the work of David A. Petersen, a former show winner (2003 President’s Award), can be seen here: http://www.masterpiecefurniture.com.

If you find yourself in or near the beautiful town of Kerrville in November, you owe it to your self to see this show.

Filed under: Art, Furniture by James Fryer
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