It started about two weeks ago. Ali brought home a cold he’d picked up from one of his mates at nursery. Lasted a couple of days, then he was fine. Zee caught it and got really quite ill with the flu from it, so much so that I chose to work from home to look after her and the two boys. By the weekend she was on the up and I was feeling rubbish. I worked from home again on the Monday thinking it was just the cold. But it wasn’t, it was full blown Man Flu, which quickly infected both boys.

By the end of last week, Zee was fine, Ali was on the mend, and Rafi and I were very sick. I’ve been on antibiotics since then for a chest infection, have spiraled downwards all weekend with migraines, dizzy spells, and constant motion induced nausea which thankfully subsides when I stay in bed. Poor little Rafi has had a hard time, but appears to be on the mend. Ali and Zee have both been reinfected with flu, probably a mutation from me. Fortunately I’m the only one who required antibiotics, though Rafi got close. As of right now we are all very sick still, and are just hoping it’s going to be over soon. Both my birthday and Eid were a washout.

I’ve spent a lot time tweaking a theme of my own. It’s called zerotheme. I did it all on the iTouch itself via a terminal app I’ve installed. I’ve tried using the Customize Web App to build and share it, but after 4 failed attempts (zerolight - zerolightV4) it’s clear that the web-app is currently horribly broken. Any new theme you create ends up as empty folders when shared and downloaded by others - as 28 people told me! Still it works perfectly when built on my iTouch.

It’s got a variation of the dock I use on my iMac, the one I replaced the ugly Leopard one with. It’s got a bunch of icons from David Lanham and Louie Mantia, some nice wallpaper, and a few nice icons I made myself. I also replaced the WiFi indicator with a 5 bar indicator which gives a more accurate indication of the signal strength, and there’s nifty little a blue battery indicator too on the status bar. I made a tweak to the badge, and updated the battery charging screen, then gave it a Stüssy based lock screen… you know I love Stüssy.

edit: If you want it, and since the Customize Web App is f*cked, you can download it for a manual install here.

edit: I’ve migrated it to firmware 2.0 and submitted it to a Cydia repository. In the space of a few hours it’s been downloaded over 1100 times. EEK.

I decided to give it a go yesterday, and whilst I was at it, I mildly tweaked the two themes I liked best Agua (by David Lanham and Louie Mantia) and Buuf2 (by Louie Mantia). The results are below, alongside the original Apple SpringBoard theme. I kinda like it for now. Click the images to enlarge. Photoset here.

I started off with a Marlin Nasty. And it really was nasty. Poorly built, near unplayable action. I’m amazed it kept playing. I upgraded to an Ibanez Roadstar II a year later and threw in a pair of Dimarzio humbuckers, one pink, one blue. A year on traded that for a nice Kramer Beretta III (for a great price as Kramer had just gone bankrupt). That lasted me through Uni and was a great guitar. It’s one of the few I’d like to have been able to hold on to.

As soon as I graduated Uni, I traded the Kramer for a used Gibson Les Paul Standard. A dream guitar - I’d always wanted a Les Paul, almost as much as I wanted a Musicman EVH. The Les Paul was Wine Red, and it played and sounded great. It was allegedly used by Del Amitri on one of their albums. This is yet another guitar I wish I’d kept a hold of.

As fantastic as the Les Paul was, GAS (Gear Aquisition Syndrome) was always (is always?) burning inside, and I was feeling the need to trade again. It didn’t help that a friend at the time, who was a big advocate of super-strats for improving technique, persuaded me that a shocking pink Ibanez JEM 777SK was the way to go. Of course, it wasn’t long until I missed the Les Paul and hated the pink, heavily gigged, used JEM I’d bought. Can you really see me playing a pink guitar?

And so the downward spiral began. I traded guitars over the course of a year trying to find something that spoke to me like the Les Paul had - money was an issue, so I was trading for used guitars of ever decreasing value. I went through the following in no particular order: Ibanez Sabre, Fender Heavey Metal Telecaster, Hamer Steve Stephens Prototype II, and a Moon Les Paul Special. All in the space of a few months. I finally settled on a new Fender Strat to which I fitted Dimarzio stacked humbuckers.

At the time the strat was too retro for. But looking back, it too was a great guitar. You don’t find many great strats, but this one sounded good, and looked cool in a custard yellow finish with a rosewood fingerboard and white scratch plate. It was classy. I shoulda kept it. 6 months later I’d sold it and bought a Gibson Les Paul Classic. Finally, I was back to the good stuff again.

That shoulda been the end of it right? Well no, because I still hankered after the Musicman Axis (formerly Musicman EVH) - but couldn’t afford it. But Eddie jumped ship to Peavey and brought out the Peavey Wolfgang, almost as good as an Axis. I bought one in black. I even kept the Les Paul - yay… two guitars. I played the Wolfgang all the time, the Gibson barely getting a look in. It turns out that I tend to prefer the longer Fender style scale, rather than the Gibson. So naturally when GAS hit and I found myself trading a guitar to buy an acoustic Taylor 710CE, I traded the Les Paul right? Well no, sold the guitar I liked best, a mistake I’d later repeat. More than once.

So now I have an acoustic and an electric. Every guitarist needs an acoustic right? Wrong! I can count on no hands at all how many acoustic songs I like to play. So that mistake sat gathering dust. Then one day I walked into McCormacks whilst Zee was out shopping. And there, hanging on the wall, was the most perfect Musicman Axis, translucent gold (more like a warm yellow) with a flamed maple top. I traded the Les Paul and the Taylor on the spot (dashing home to collect them and bring them in).

The Musicman was simply amazing. Of course GAS hit again, but I wasn’t going to part with the Musicman. No chance. So I bought myself a PRS McCarty Rosewood as an engagement present to myself. My first really really expensive guitar. I considered a James Tyler Studio Elite at the time, but didn’t know much about them, so plumped for the PRS. This too was a mistake, but I never realised it at the time.

When you buy a new guitar, there’s a honeymoon period. You play it all the time, ignoring other guitars in your collection. It is new after all. This was true of the McCarty. So much so, that I convinced myself that the PRS was it, “The Guitar”. I didn’t need two guitars. I sold the Musicman! It didn’t take long to realise I’d made a mistake - but admit it? No chance. Quick tip: don’t go for a rosewood neck on your McCarty, it sucks a lot of warmth away from the tone. Anyway, I bought and sold another load of guitars trying to replace it: Ibanez JEM 7VWH, Ibanez J-Custom RG8270, Musicman John Petrucci and a Fender Custom Shop 51 Nocaster. The Nocaster had a cool vibe, but the tone wasn’t for me. You gotta play like Bruce Springsteen or Keith Richards if you have a Nocaster. The J_Custom was very nice, but not quite what I wanted. The JEM was amazing - but the look was perhaps a bit too… Elvis. It’d have been nice to hold onto the JEM though.

None really fit like the Musicman. Then I bought a James Tyler Studio Elite HD. Yes, the same model I’d nearly got instead of the PRS. At least now I had both the PRS and a Tyler. For two years, the PRS gathered dust and the Tyler got played all the time. It was hands down, the best guitar I’d ever played. Yet after two years I sold it! I have no clue why. I bought a PRS Navarro (Custom 24) to compliment the McCarty. Looking back on it, for the 4 or 5 years I owned the McCarty, I almost always played whatever other guitar I owned more often than the PRS. So why buy another PRS? I dunno, I guess I kinda felt like I couldn’t sell the McCarty because I’d bought it when I got engaged.

So at the start of this year I had two PRS’s. But I was haunted by two guitars I’d owned in the past, the Musicman and the Tyler, mostly the Tyler. GAS got the better of me and I ebayed both PRS’s and to fund a custom order James Tyler Studio Elite HD (and a bed for my son). I’m glad I did. It’s fantastic, lots of pictures here. Barring a lottery win, it’s probably the last guitar I’ll ever buy. I certainly won’t sell it.

Here’s the full list, some mistakes, some I wish I’d kept(*) and one I still own(**):

Marlin Nasty
Ibanez Roadstar II
Kramer Beretta III*
Gibson Les Paul Standard*
Ibanez JEM 777SK
Ibanez Sabre
Fender Heavy Metal Telecaster
Hamer Steve Stevens Prototype
Moon Les Paul Special
Fender Strat*
Gibson Les Paul Classic
Peavey Wolfgang*
Taylor 710CE
Musicman Axis*
PRS McCarty Rosewood
Ibanez JEM 7VWH*
Ibanez J-Custom RG8270
Musicman John Petrucci
Fender Custom Shop ‘51 Nocaster
James Tyler Studio Elite HD*
PRS Navarro Custom 24
James Tyler Studio Elite HD**

I’ve been noticing that my photos on flickr all appear a little soft. A tiny, teeny, weeny, bit soft. This, even after switching to shooting in RAW mode. I experimented a fair bit, taking photographs of batteries no less, to see if my camera had focus issues. All was fine. I checked out my photos in iPhoto, all were crisp and sharp. Then I compared an unscaled flickr export (a plugin for iPhoto that exports to flickr) with a scaled one. Bingo, the scaled one was softer than the unscaled.

However, there is a beta of flickr export 3, which lets you choose the quality of the export. So, some more tests followed, and thankfully I found that at maximum quality, the scaled exports are just as sharp as the unscaled exports. Yay. Of course, this also gives me an excuse to post yet another photo of Rafi.

In terms of image quality, the 40D is better than the 10D. Not massively so, it has to be said. But that’s because the camera body is only part of the equation, with the lenses (which haven’t changed) having a very significant affect on the resultant pictures. Images seem more detailed, a more colourful, a little sharper. However, the biggest leap is in performance. High iso noise for example, when in JPEG mode with NR on, gives very pleasing images in comparison to the 10D. Auto focus speed is very rapid, as is the cycle time between pictures, and power on is near instantaneous.

The revised menu, ripped straight from a 1DS III (less some features) is great - a particular highlight being a favourites page, where you can place short cuts to even the most buried setting. Live view, for me, is a bit useless. Maybe I just don’t know how to use it, certainly it’s not compatible with my microdrive. However if you are into macro photography, hooking the camera up to your laptop and focusing directly from the laptop screen must be a boon. There’s also more information in the view finder, which allows you to determine at pre-focus, whether or not things are likely to work out.

All said and done, I’m very happy with it. The fact that it makes me want to shoot in RAW, use custom white balance, and actually think about what I’m doing, speaks volumes. AT £500 after rebates, it’s a steal - 6 months ago you’d have paid over double that.

I had been tempted with the Nikon D300, as on paper that’s a slightly better camera. DPReview comparisons show there to be almost nothing between them in the real world. Crucially, unlike the 40D, the D300 is still priced around the 1k mark - factor in a new lens or two, and the D300 becomes a massively more expensive animal, for very little gain. It’s bigger too.

Whilst I’d like some fast Canon L lenses, I can’t justify the price - besides I really didn’t like the 17-40L I once had. To compliment my 28-135IS, down the line, I’ll pick up the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 DI-II lens as it seems to be terrific value. Then a new bag - I’m liking the Kata T214. That’ll complete the package for another 4 or 5 years. Baby steps though, the first purchase will be an EF50 f/1.8 II from eBay (cheap as chips).

RAW:

JPEG:

At f1.8 it’s a really fast lens that lets in a lot of light. It really shines at portraits, even in low lighting. As a walk about lens with smaller apertures and thus more depth of field, it again provides some good pictures. I’ve created a flickr set with some samples. I also used it for a few shots inside the Botanic Gardens, and for this entire West End Festival set.

With such a shallow depth of field, focus is absolutely crucial. In fact, if you can keep your shutter speed high enough, and the depth of field at 2.8 or less, then you can get some terrific portait shots, and it’s here that the EF50 is strongest. I’d almost go so far as to say that the lens is a total one trick, full frontal portrait, pony. But that would be a disservice as it gives good results with smaller apertures too. When funds allow, I’ll definitely buy myself one, it won’t get used all the time, but it will get use - my wife and kids love to strike a pose.

I’ll post some 40D thoughts later, but food for thought, the following shot was taken with my 28-135IS at ISO3200!

This post was updated on 16th June.

It wasn’t that difficult really. The best guitar I’ve ever owned was a James Tyler Studio Elite HD. Jim builds these guitars in his Custom Shop in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California. He builds them to order, it just happens that the one I originally owned was a dealer order, and there were a few things I didn’t like about mine, specifically the body wood, the bridge saddles, and the lack of a midboost-bypass button. So, naturally I went to him with my own custom order.

Spec’ing out the guitar was relatively easy. I chatted to Paul at Tyler Guitars for 10 mins and got the basic order down, then had several emails with Jim Tyler himself, finalising the details. Then processed the order through Steve of Tyler Guitars UK / GuitarGuitar. The basic spec is as follows: Studio Elite HD, Solid Alder Body, Maple Neck with Rosewood Fingerboard and a Std ‘59 Neck Carve, Hipshot Tuners, Hipshot Saddles, Gotoh 510 Bridge, Mid-Boost with Bypass, Nickel Covered Tyler Supercharged Studebaker Humbucker, white 2Hot Single Coils, and Pearl White Pickguard.

In terms of finish, I was initially a little unsure. I really wanted the Antarctic Mint Shmear, which is a really nice white finish with streaks of grey and blue through it. Unfortunately it was discontinued, so with no other strong preference I settled on a Hazmat Shmear.

So the order was placed in February. Since then, there’s nothing I’ve wanted to change on the order, except the colour. I just wasn’t happy with it, but nothing was really jumping out at me as an alternative. Then last month, Flint over on Huge Racks Inc showed off his new Tyler Mongoose with a one off custom finish, a Glossy Orange Shmear. Now that was something very special. So I had a chat with Jim, and he was happy to do that same colour on my Studio Elite which is nearing completion, pointing out that mine will be the first Orange Shmear Studio Elite. I’ve since had word from Tyler Guitars that it’s looking beautiful, so the anticipation is building - even though it’s still a few weeks from completion.

Tyler Guitars are simply the best playing and sounding guitars money can buy. They fit me like a glove. The fact that mine is coming in a very unique finish only adds to the excitement.

You simply tell it how many icons you want (one to eight), what the target url is, specify a url to an icon, specify a target tag if desired (eg. _blank), and give it a description. You must also specify a divider image which appears between each icon, set the icon size, and adjust the layout with the appropriate parameters.

It’s really straight forward, self explanatory, and doesn’t do anything particularly complex, but I couldn’t find anything similar for Joomla. You can find it here.

Icons/Images are not included, though if you like the ones I’m using you’ll find them here.