John Blackmore

I’ve found where you hide the extra toys daddy! (Taken...

Wed, 16 May 2012 06:40:17 +0100

I’ve found where you hide the extra toys daddy! (Taken with instagram)

#evoluch (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:41:46 +0100

#evoluch (Taken with instagram)

so what do think, genuine #banksy? (Taken with Instagram at...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 13:22:56 +0100

so what do think, genuine #banksy? (Taken with Instagram at Somerset Cricket Club)

White Pansy on Flickr.I was out again this weekend armed with...

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 22:39:15 +0100

White Pansy on Flickr.

I was out again this weekend armed with one of my trusty Helios 44M lenses and the macro tubes trying to finally get the grasp of that particular combination.

This pansy was out in the front garden and I had watered it earlier in the day so I thought I should give it a go to try and get a couple shots.

The lighting wasn’t great and I’m still not confident shooting handheld so I bumped the ISO up to 400 for the entire time I was out but I think I got away with it.

This particular shot was with 41mm of macro tube and f4 aperture. I was about 20cm (8 inches) from the plant and the depth of field was quite shallow, but it gave the effect I was after.

I’ll try and post a few more shots later in the week.

Via Flickr:
Helios 44M, 58mm @ f4, 41mm macro tube.

Ladybird, ladybird fly away home on Flickr.Yesterday was one of...

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 14:00:05 +0100

Ladybird, ladybird fly away home on Flickr.

Yesterday was one of the nicest days of the year so far, so we took the opportunity to get out in the garden.

The number of ladybirds in the grass was surprising so I grabbed my camera and started clicking. About 100 shots later and I caught this little chap preparing to launch!

Given the chance again I would have stopped down the aperture to f8 which would have got the wings in focus as well, but the best of the light had already gone so I was up against it slightly. Maybe next time.

Via Flickr:
Helios 44M, 58mm @ f4, 41mm macro tube.

Found via StumbleUpon

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 21:54:17 +0100

Found via StumbleUpon

No2 Ferarri F430 GT3 on Flickr. Today I’m sharing...

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 14:33:00 +0000

No2 Ferarri F430 GT3 on Flickr.

Today I’m sharing something a little different. Before I bought my Canon DSLR I spent my years shooting car events on bridge cameras and digital compacts.

This photo was taken at Brands Hatch back in September 2010 using my current go-to compact the Fuji FinePix F60fd. The event was one of the final rounds of the 2010 British GT3 championship and this photo of a Ferrari F430 GT3 was taken during one of the hour-long endurance races that day.

I love the slight motion blur in this photo but even more I love the bright red glow of the brake discs. I hope to go to some more events this year but this time I’ll be packing my Canon 450D and a couple of fast zoom lenses, either the EF-S 55-250mm IS or more likely the EF-S 17-85mm IS. If all else fails if I can get close enough to the action I might see what I can get from my “nifty” f1.8 50mm Canon lens.

ColorHexa - Colour Encyclopaedia

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 16:15:44 +0000

ColorHexa - Colour Encyclopaedia:

It’s not often I find a decent web tool for colours but ColorHexa is definitely one of them. Input any colour into the search box and then ColorHexa will return a bunch of information about that colour, including sample colour palettes and CSS snippets. A definite time saver for me when I’m pondering over colour choices for website designs!

Google Panda Strike Again!

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:02:05 +0000

Google Panda Strike Again!:

Once again it looks like Google are refining it’s search algorithm with no less than 40 changes this February. If you aren’t seeing the effects yet I’m sure they will be filtered in over the coming weeks so pop over to the official Google blog and check out what’s changing.

I’ve not yet read the full list but I can guess what it’s going to say so my advice remains as always; build a site with good quality original content and become the best resource of information you can in your sector. Great content will be rewarded (unless it’s stolen by a more popular site in which case chances are your site will get canned for duplicate content).

13 'Pinteresting' Facts About Pinterest Users [INFOGRAPHIC]

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 22:43:56 +0000

13 'Pinteresting' Facts About Pinterest Users [INFOGRAPHIC]:

It’s no secret that the Internet loves Pinterest. Now, most users are even spending more time, on average, pinning than they are on hanging out on Facebook. Here’s what you need to know about Pinterest user demographics. With an average of 1.36 million users daily, the social photo pinboard ha…

So it looks like the cool kids are all on ‘Pinterest’ now, so I might as well become a sheep to this as well! Follow John Blackmore on Pinterest

Zenit 12CD on Flickr.Via Flickr: With a Helios 44M-6 lens, 58mm...

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 14:02:05 +0000

Zenit 12CD on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
With a Helios 44M-6 lens, 58mm f2.

I bought this wonderful looking camera on eBay as part of a bundle, which also included my treasured Jupiter-37AM.

I don’t know a lot about these cameras but from what I could gather from the seller this one was bought new in 1991, had 2 rolls of film put through it and was then boxed and stored since. Looking at it I wouldn’t argue that at all, it looks practically brand new and absolutely everything works, including the LED high-low light meter!

How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 14:02:05 +0000

How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did:

This is data mining to perfection! Find out how Target was able to work out that one girl was pregnant simply based on a change in buying habit. What this article explains is a statisticians wet dream, identifying buying trends and using them to calculate a pregnancy probability.

It gets better, the article then explains how Target use mailshots to send offers on certain baby products but so they don’t raise suspicions they also include offers on items they know won’t be purchased. End result? The pregnant lady has no idea they were targeted and assume it’s a generic mailshot that everyone got.

This happens in the UK as well, although I doubt you would get anyone to admit it. Can anyone say “clubcard”?

According to Neilsen ratings, Women spend more time than Men...

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:02:05 +0000

According to Neilsen ratings, Women spend more time than Men watching television, watching online videos and visiting social networking sites!

Neilsen has recently rebranded those previous referred to as “Generation Y” as “Generation C”, with the C standing for “connected”. In the same report it appears Men only outnumber Women in one digital category, the number of people who are tablet owners.

On the basis that I am within the ages of 18 and 34, own a tablet and spend little time watching online videos or visiting social networks it would definitely seem that I fit the criteria of Generation C Male!

This is Moo, the unloved kitty who found a new home on...

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:02:05 +0000

This is Moo, the unloved kitty who found a new home on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
This is my cat. I’ve deliberately not posted too many photos of her on Flickr, partly because she’s so cute that I fear someone may steal her, but mainly because on the Internet if you continually post pictures of your cat some people may think you are weird.
We call her many names but at the moment she is Nana Moo. We rescued Moo from the RSPCA centre local to where we live, her previous owners had recently divorced and neither one wanted to keep her, so she was abandoned. She was 16 months old at the time and had already had a litter of kittens. We were told that she would find it hard to settle in a new home and that we shouldn’t expect too much physical attention as she was not used to human contact.
That was 4 years ago last month. Now Moo is the most caring and inquisitive cat you could ask for, in her new home she has everything she could want and more, including her new baby brother, our son Tom.

PDO vs. MySQLi: Which Should You Use?

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:02:06 +0000

PDO vs. MySQLi: Which Should You Use?:

Thinking about moving away from the native mysql wrappers in PHP? There are many reasons why you should, security being one of the top ones, but which alternative should you choose?

This article shows you code examples of PDO and mysqli (in both procedural and OO modes) and once you get the gist of it transitioning from mysql doesn’t seem daunting at all.

Now all I need to do is convince our technical director to move from mysqli to PDO and my work here is done!

Lily Dream on Flickr.Via Flickr: In between taking shots of my...

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:02:05 +0000

Lily Dream on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
In between taking shots of my son at feeding time I was able to take a few photos of some lilies that I had bought my wife for Valentine’s day. I started off with my “nifty fifty” but then swapped over to a Helios-44M with a 20mm macro tube between the lens and the body. Wide open at f2 it was too shallow to get anything in focus at this range, so this was stopped down to f2.8 and it landed me the effect I was trying to achieve.
Back on the computer very little post processing was required, just a slight adjustment to the white balance and tiny increase in definition was all it required. This is my favourite macro shot of the day, although if you take a quick glance through my photostream you will see a few more, including the first lily shot taken on the Canon lens.

There’s no kill switch on awesome!

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 15:05:14 +0000

There’s no kill switch on awesome!

Need a Job? Learn Linux Scott Merrill, techcrunch.com The Linux...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:36:30 +0000

Need a Job? Learn Linux
Scott Merrill, techcrunch.com

The Linux Foundation today posted their first ever Linux Jobs Report, created in conjunction with tech job site Dice.com. The report examines the current demand for Linux talent, and identifies a few interesting trends.
Of the 2,30…

Linux sysadmins rejoice! your talents are finally being appreciated. This survey by dice.com states 81% of companies polled are looking for more Linux experience. This is great news for open source, may I hope it continues.

Sunburst through the trees on Flickr.Out on a walk recently I...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:02:05 +0000

Sunburst through the trees on Flickr.

Out on a walk recently I noticed the sun had dropped well under the tree line. I had read recently that you could acheive a “sunburst” type effect by stopping the aperture right down so I decided to give it a try.
The end result was a little diffcult to guage at first, as reviewing the shot on camera it looked very underexposed. When I got back home though I managed to recover some of the detail in iPhoto and the end result seems to work out.
Definitely not one of my best, but it’s all a learning curve and trying something new definitely seems to be the way forward.

The hollow emptiness in social media numbers - most accounts are fake or empty

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 07:59:23 +0000

The hollow emptiness in social media numbers - most accounts are fake or empty:

zdnet.com

The numbers of users reported by Facebook, Twitter, Google, and many other sites, are closely watched. They reveal trends in adoption and they are one of the few public metrics available to analysts trying to assign value to companies…

With up to 50% of all Twitter accounts being either spam or fake, should we still be measuring the success of social networks based on the number of new accounts?