New Landlord

Today I get a new landlord.  um... I guess that's it, nothing else to report.

Skyrim Mod: Riften Crafting Closet

It's the mod I made for skyrim. Contains all your crafting needs in a small little room.  It's been a few weeks since I updated, but it's still a good mod all in all.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=15913

Photo post processing with Gimp 2.6

Now I'm using Gimp 2.6 for Windows, but this technique will work on any image editor, for just about any over exposed, slightly fuzzy photo you have.  First I want to show you the original photo, and then give you shots of each step.

As you can see the original is not a horrible photo, but could definitely need some tweaking.  I was using a cheap camera, in a very sunny locale (LEGOLAND California), with no sun shield.  Almost every one of my out door photos look something like this one, white and fuzzy with sun streaks.  Now I'm not going to show you how to get rid of sun streaks, just dealing with over exposure and colour offset.

First thing is open your photo.  Next step, duplicate the layer and change the new layer's blending to Multiply.  Your photo should now look like this:

Big difference already, but we aren't quite finished with this.   What this does is double up the visible information making everything clearer.  but as you can see we've still got some glow and streaks, and the brightest stuff is still washed out.  My next step is what gave me the wow factor.  Make sure your new layer is selected and Click colous->auto->equalize. It should look like this now:

Very nice.  Next we deal with the overall fuzziness of the image by going to Filters->Enhance->Unsharp Mask.  I like the default settings of 5.0 radius, 0.50 amount and 0 treshold, it's a good catch all setting.  Now click OK and you'll watch as you go from a slightly fuzzy photo to being able to see individual bricks!

Keep frosty!

Is it time to upgrade your computer?

Well this is a loaded question for some people.  Most every computer guy out there is going to tell you to upgrade your 5 year old machine, then tell you to buy the fastest thing with wires "so it lasts longer".  Well I think there are actually a few questions you need to ask yourself before you go pay $1000 or more on the latest tech.

1. Can I afford it?

This has got to be your top priority when talking about a computer.  Sure the $2000 top of the line computer is nice, but you know top of the line computers will ALWAYS cost that much (sometimes more if you like Apple).  Want proof?  I have some old magazines from 1989 here that advertise the Commodore Amiga, the most advanced computer on the market at that time, for only $2000.  Want to know how much it cost for a C64?  $500 (it was on the next page in an article).  New technology always costs more than old technology.  You want the latest greatest thing, good, but you better be willing to pay for it.  That being said you may be better off (at least until the new round of Operating Systems comes out) with a simple upgrade.

2. Does my current computer work well?

If you've been struggling for the past few months, or even if you had the same issue with the computer since you bought it, it really doesn't hurt to talk to you friendly neighbourhood computer store.  I'm not kidding about this.  Every single person reading this has had to put up with some glitch or backwards way of doing things because they never got around to fixing the problem.  Every time I sit at a friends computer there is always some thing wrong with it.  I'm not talking about ergonomics (which no one else cares about any way) I'm talking about error messages, browser pop ups, ghost windows, and worst of all it's slow!  You shouldn't have to put up with a 6 minute boot cycle.  No, you shouldn't have to go get a coffee after you turn on your computer.  Clicking on a menu shouldn't give you a 5 second pause.  There is almost no reason to have more than 10 things running next to your clock!!  Run some scans, get rid of spyware, trojans, viruses, anything that is currently running is slowing down your computer.  Don't know what's what or how to speed up your computer?  Once again try your friendly neighbourhood computer store (best buy and future shop do not count!)  Or even better yet, send me an email and see if I have time to fix it!

3, Can I fix my current computer?

Short answer: YES!!!!  I can guarantee you that if something is wrong with a computer, there is someone out there that can fix it.  It could be as simple as a RAM upgrade or as involved as a hard drive replacement.  I say that you can fix any problem, but there are some fixes you aren't going to like the answer to.  Broken motherboards, failed hard drives and burnt out CPUs are among the customer's worst fears because it's time to decide on either a new computer, or an upgrade, and all those options can be confusing.  There are a small number of us "Computer Guys" that will ask the right questions, give it to you straight, and tell you exactly what you need.  Some of us might even have it on hand, or will go to the store with you to get it.

4, Can I just upgrade my current computer?

Oddly enough this isn't a yes for everybody.  There are quite a few people out there with computers old enough to not want to upgrade them.  Computers have moving parts, and as we all know moving parts create wear, and wear creates damage.  If you want to upgrade a computer that still works but is over 10 years old, I would suggest that you donate that awesome computer to someone that needs it, and find your self something new.  Now if you just want to try to get the most out of a 2 or 3 year old computer, I'd say try a SSD hard drive, adding more RAM, and find out how much a faster CPU would be.  Sometimes you can get a bargain on a slightly older CPU.  Intel has changed their sockets so many times in the past 5 years that you might not even be able to find any faster CPUs for your Motherboard in your city (as is the case with this 6 year old computer).  You also have to worry about whether or not you computer is a big box brand name.  Dell, Gateway, HP, Apple, Lenovo, Acer, Alienware are all brand names, and with the exception of Acer and Alienware, all are VERY hard to upgrade.  I'm not going to go into the details of all the reasons why you SHOULDN'T upgrade these computers and give you one major reason why you CAN'T.  IT IS AGAINST YOUR WARRANTY TO OPEN THE COMPUTER.  That means if you have it under warranty, you can't touch it. And if you are wondering how "computer guys" feel about warranties and big box brand name computers, we actually LOVE them, we just don't use them at home cause we like to tinker.

5, Do I want to change to a new operating system?

Deep down you know the answer to this is no.  Remember Windows Vista? How about when XP came out and everything was in the wrong place, but not by much?  What about Windows 95 can you remember how crazy it made windows 3.11 users?  what about have to switch from DOS to Windows?  Every time you have switched Operating Systems and hence user interfaces you have complained about not knowing where stuff is.  Some of you have even bought books to find our where stuff is.  I say change is good, but when I'm on an unfamiliar User Interface (UI) everything just feels wrong.  Windows 8 is on it's way, and you know that the next version of Mac OS X isn't too far behind it.  There's going to be devices out there you have never seen before with Windows 8 on them.  Apple will be making smaller and smaller devices with larger and larger screens.  EVERYTHING IS GOING TO CHANGE! Except it isn't. In six months it's likely that you will still have the same sort of money flow, in either the same or similar job, and if you're smart you've been able to keep your same old computer going just that little bit longer by fixing it.  And if you are truly smart you would take that money you saved by not buying, save it up for when the new stuff does come out, and buy yourself a new computer.  Oh and look, now you have two working computers.  Give one to the kids, if you don't have kids there's plenty of charities (like Warehouse of Hope) that will accept your used but working electronics to give them to underprivileged families.

6, Should I buy a new computer right now?

I've been preaching "Fix now, buy later" all throughout this blog post.  I truly do believe that it's always better to fix your computer than to just buy a new one.  Especially if it's only software issues like slowness, pop ups, viruses and error messages.  There are actually a few instances where I would say "you have to buy a new computer"  things like age of the computer (the older the more you need a new one), age of the user (the younger the user the less you need a new one), and hardware issues are all factors in the decision making process.  So if you can afford it, the old one can't be fixed (without a serious upgrade), and you don't mind using Windows 7 for a year, then spending $100 for windows 8 next year, I'd say yes you should upgrade.