Want a Photographic Memory? Stephen Wiltshire has one, but it comes with a price.

There are times when I'd die for a photographic memory, especially since my own memory is particularly bad. (For example, it can be a stretch to tell you what I ate for breakfast, or what particularly big things happened in my life when I was 8. Or 12. Or 16. And so on.)



Stephen Wiltshire, however, has the gift -- after only one helicopter view of Rome (as in the video), he was able to create a near-perfect panorama... from memory, with no help. Wow...



But that comes at quite a price -- he's an autistic savant, which means that his brain, while particularly suited to these kinds of mind-boggling tasks, isn't particularly suited for normal, every day life -- i.e., the kind of social interaction we tend to expect from most people. Stephen is able to communicate now (as shown in the video), but it came as quite a struggle, as his website indicates.



If you'd like to learn more, here's his website: http://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/

Amplify’d from www.petapixel.com

Stephen Wiltshire: The Man Known as ‘The Living Camera’ Read more at www.petapixel.com

[...] when he was only eleven, he drew a perfect aerial view of London after only helicopter ride. Even the number of windows in all the major buildings was correct. Read more at www.petapixel.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/8gco

25 Incredibly Useful CSS Snippets for Developers

URL:  http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/development/useful-css-sn...

Stuff everyone who works with CSS should have in their toolbox.

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/8fl8

50+ Very Useful Free Vector Illustrator Patterns And Resources From 2010 | Little Box Of Ideas

http://www.littleboxofideas.com/blog/design-resources/free-vec...

Some very nice vectors here. As always, be sure to double-check the use rights if you use these for one of your projects.

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/8fl2

Fancy Tables with some CSS3

First off, honest -- this isn't a blog about web design entirely. And I haven't forgotten about the photography aspect either. But, hey, it's early -- haven't had my first cup of coffee yet, and I'm in a giving mood, so I thought I'd share this with you.

If you're like me, tables in web pages tend to get the least amount of love, which is rather nuts, if I think about it logically. So I finally decided to give those tables some love by applying some cool CSS3 effects. If this can help you out, great! (If not, oh well. Wait until my next post.)

So, to whet your appetite, here's what the tables look like in all their CSS3 glory:



Isn't that pretty?

So, to begin with, you'll need some CSS code:

.pkFancyTable
  {
    
    -webkit-box-shadow: black 0px 0px 12px inset, #888 0px 0px 12px;
    -moz-box-shadow: black 0px 0px 12px inset, #888 0px 0px 12px;
    -o-box-shadow: black 0px 0px 12px inset, #888 0px 0px 12px;
    box-shadow: black 0px 0px 12px inset, #888 0px 0px 12px;
    background-color: #444;
    border: 4px solid white;
    border-radius: 15px;
    -moz-border-radius: 15px;
    padding: 10px;
    width: 75%;
    margin: 0 auto;
  }
  
  .pkFancyTable tr.oddrow
  {
    background-color: #555;
  }
  
  .pkFancyTable table
  {
    border-collapse: collapse;
    color: #CCC;
    width: 100%;
  }
  
  .pkFancyTable table th, .pkFancyTable table td
  {
    border: 1px dotted #888;
  }
  
  .pkFancyTable table thead
  {
    background-color: #000;
    border-bottom: 1px solid #888;
  }
  
  .pkFancyTable table tfoot
  {
    background-color: #600;
    color: #FFF;
    border-top: 1px solid white;
  }
  
  .pkFancyTable table td div
  {
    font-size:80%;
    color: #AAA;
    margin-left:15px;
    line-height: 0.95em;
  }

Next, you need to build an HTML table wrapped in a DIV container like so:

<div class="pkFancyTable"><table cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0">
<thead>
<tr><th>Heading 1</th><th>Heading 2</th><th>Heading 3</th></tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr><td>Value 1 <div>
I'm a smaller, indented line of text.</div>
</td><td>Value 2</td><td>Value3</td></tr>
<tr class="oddrow"><td>Value 1</td><td>Value 2</td><td>Value3</td></tr>
<tr><td>Value 1</td><td>Value 2</td><td>Value3</td></tr>
</tbody>
<tfoot>
<tr><th>Total 1</th><th>Total 2</th><th>Total 3</th></tr>
</tfoot>
</table>
</div>

The outer DIV classed "pkFancyTable" gives the table the nice round borders and the dark background color. Then, the THEAD element will get the black background color for the heading row. The TFOOT element will get a red background color and white text, which could be used for a row of totals. In between, the TBODY has all your normal rows, and if one of those rows has the class "oddrow", it'll get shaded a slightly different color.

Also, if you put a DIV inside of a TD, it will be indented slightly and rendered with smaller text, which makes it great for giving further information about the cell without resorting to asterisks and such.

Now, for the red-headed stepchild of browsers: Internet Explorer. Yes, well, the fancy CSS3 effects are totally lost on this poor browser, but the tables still look decent. They get the nice dark background and alternating row effects, so unless someone knew there was supposed to be a nice border, they'd be none the wiser.

Now, go and have some fun with your tables! And I promise that I'll try never to leave a table naked again. ;-)

Until next time, keep writing with light.

Mastretta: ¡Vivan Los Músicos!

Mastretta: ¡Vivan Los Músicos! is a fantastic, quirky, and odd album that I simply can't get enough of, so I had to write about it here. Maybe you'll find out that you like it too, or you might think I'm crazy. Either way, I'm in love.

I first came across Nacho Mastretta's music when watching a distinctly disturbing yet fantastic video on Vimeo entitled "Alma" by Rodrigo Blaas. The film itself is worth watching, so I'll let you go check it out for a minute.

So now that you're back (and slightly disturbed), the catchy music? That's Mastretta. And the album is more of the same quirky but catchy music with the same distinct sound, which I can't really come up with any words to describe. It's beautiful and surreal with Spanish musical influences, some Jazz thrown into the mix, and since I was introduced to the composer through "Alma", a good bit of creepiness. But it's a good creepiness, if you get what I mean.

The music itself ranges from cacophonous revelry to slow, sad instrumental solos, and everything in between. It's odd how things can be both harmonious and disharmonious, but it's the case here, and things can slide so easily between the two that you've barely had a chance to notice it until it's happened. And let me tell you, there's a lot happening in most of these quirky songs, and you'll have to listen for quite some time to pick out each little moment and twist thrown in.

The previous album by Mastretta (self-titled) does feature some vocals, but this one does not -- it's purely instrumental. If you're looking for music that both thrills the cockles of your heart and your brain cells, here is something new and interesting, and yes, slightly creepy.

Until next time, keep on writing with light. (And listening to great music!)

Adobe Lightroom 3 Noise Reduction

One of the features in the new Lightroom 3 is a much-improved noise reduction algorithm. Lightroom 2’s version, to be blunt, sucked. It helped, to be sure, if you had nothing, and for minor adjustments it was okay. But when you started throwing ISO 3200 images at it, things degraded quickly, and you were pretty much assured of needing to use a third-party noise-reduction plugin (many of which are very good).

So when I upgraded to Lr3, I had to try the new noise-reduction, and frankly, was blown away. There are situations where the third-party plugins are better, but Lr3 is more than up to the task, as you’ll see in this post.

Note: Because Lightroom is non-destructive, and because noise-reduction algorithms tend to take some time to process, I find that Lr3 gets really, really fussy when you’ve turned the NR on beyond a few percent. Best to disable it if you’re doing other things, or you’re going to start tapping fingers on the desk really quickly. A few other features easily induce this behaviour as well (like distortion correction), so it’s not limited only to NR, but something I thought I’d pass on.

Back to Basics: Welcome!

Note: “Back to Basics” is a series consisting of short posts that intend to go back to the basics of photography. Hopefully these articles will be of interest to you – whether you are just beginning in your photography journey, or are an established pro. (View all posts in this series…)

Welcome to the first “Back to Basics” post! This series will cover the basics of photography from exposure to composition in short, bite-size articles. (Well, If anyone knows my penchant for being long-winded, the short part may or may not happen!)

The topics that this series aims to cover are as follows; the list is in no particular order, nor is every topic necessarily guaranteed, and I totally may add some other topics as time goes on.

• Capturing the Image (the Sensor)
• Capturing the Light (Exposure)
• Squeezing the Light (the Aperture)
• Letting the Light in (the Shutter)
• Sensitivity to Light (ISO)
• Measuring the Light (Metering Modes)
• Positioning the Light (Composition)
• Rendering the Light (Color and/or lack thereof)
• Focusing the Light (Focus)
• Changing Your Perspective (Focal Length, Zooms, Primes)
• Bending Light Artistically (Bokeh, Depth-of-Field, etc.)
• And more…

Oh, and just a “geek” moment: the image to the right is just a representation of the programming language I grew up on: Commodore BASIC. Ah, the fond memories of both that computer, and the language, and hence the image. (Back to Basics, get it?)

And with that, I’ll sign-off until the next post! Keep on writing with light!

Creating a Digital Background

I posted this image a long time ago on Smugmug, along with the instructions on how to create something very similar, but I never actually blogged about it. So, I thought I'd share it with you today.

First off, what is a digital background? A digital background is an image that is suitable for placing behind the subjects in an image; thus replacing the original background. The original background might be a green-screen, other studio backdrop, or some other scene entirely.

Smugmug Trick: Adding an Image to the Cart via Link

Note: This article applies only to anyone using Smugmug. As always, use the information at your own risk. If your Smugmug account goes berserk, be sure you know enough to undo anything contained herein. As always, photoKandy Studios isn't liable for anything that might go wrong.

Okay -- legalese done-and-out-of-the-way, we can get on to it.

Sometimes when you're linking to an image on Smugmug, you would like to prompt the user to add the image to the cart immediately, rather than hoping that they will click the "Buy" button, and then click "This Photo". The reasons you might want to do this vary, but I've seen the question asked several times on the customization forums, so I thought I'd share how you can accomplish it.

Telling Secrets: I use AUTO ISO

I know, shame on me, right? I mean, seriously? But yes, I do use AUTO ISO, and happen to use it quite a lot. It's not that much further a step beyond using Aperture or Shutter priority modes, and it can definitely help in lots of situations.

Some Thoughts on the New Lightroom

First of all, I'm in love with Adobe Lightroom. I purchased it when it was around version 2.3 or so, and have kept it up-to-date when Adobe released a new version. I've added plugins that assist my workflow, and I've got a lot of presets and settings tweaked just the way I like them.

When Adobe released the beta of Lr3, I downloaded it just about immediately and played with it. And then I couldn't wait until the final version was released, knowing that it was going to have all sorts of great features, fixes, and improvements. So, naturally, the day it was released, I bought the upgrade and downloaded the software and proceeded to install. And then, once installed, I had to play around.

Since that first night with Lr3, I've done some more work with the new version, and let me say this: hands-down, it's the best version of Lr there's ever been. Does it deal with everything I'd hoped would be dealt with in the new version? No, but it gets really close. So, all that said, here's some thoughts on the new version, and some tips and tricks that might help you get the most out of your new version of Lightroom.

Changing Clothes

If you haven't noticed already, there's a new look to our site! It's not 100% complete (the Blog and Smugmug portions use the old design), but a good portion of the site has been converted to the new look and feel.

(Update 6/14/2010: The Blog has been updated to the new look and feel. Yay!)

There was nothing wrong, necessarily, with the old design. I love that design. But I happen to love this design as well, and I felt it was time for a "change of clothes" for the site. The previous design has been in place for quite awhile, and I'd learned a lot since I first coded the original design. A lot about how best to present a photograph in a site, and a lot about how to better code a site in general.

So, if you haven't already checked it out, go take a peek at the new design and see what you think. Then come back and see why the design evolved the way it did. (Or not. It's up to you. Regardless, please, leave your thoughts!)

Cradlepoint MBR900 Wireless Broadband Router

It so happens that where I live has sucky internet access. Period. None of the options are very good. Cable doesn't reach me, nor does DSL. Satellite isn't an option, and so the only other thing left is wireless internet with a cellular modem and an expensive bill every month. But, at least, it did get me internet.

Things were fine if you only needed one computer to access said internet at a time, but I'm a geek, so I have several things in my home that can call out into the cloud -- my bluray player, my Wii, all my computers, my BlackBerry, etc. And if someone came to visit, getting them online was a major pain in the rear as well.

The Day the ISO Went Berserk...

(With apologies to Ray Stevens fans, but the title is the furthest my creativity goes tonight.)
It was evening. The sun was getting low in the sky, and the light was quickly fading from the landscape. But the animals were out and about enjoying the fresh air, and me? I wanted some pictures! I had, after all, just bought a new lens for my recently purchased Olympus E-P1, and needed to play!
The lens happened to be the Panasonic 45-200 f/4 – f/5.6 m4/3rds lens, which you can get online for around $270. It happens to be a pretty good lens, too, though it can’t match my Canon EF 70-200 f/4 IS USM lens for image quality and sharpness. But it doesn’t have to – it’s lighter, smaller, and sometimes that’s just what one wants.

Trek in a Cemetery

Okay, so this isn’t usually the place that most people go for pictures. But, for some reason, I like cemeteries, and today was a gloomy but warm day, and I just had to go wandering through a cemetery before I did other various errands. These were all taken with my Lensbaby Composer at f/2 using the double-glass optic.

Praying Statue

More LensBaby Fun

I’ve stated in several places that I absolutely adore my EF 24-70 f/2.8L USM and my EF 70-200 f/4L IS USM lenses, and that my 50 f/1.8 is wickedly sharp, especially considering the price ($100). All of these lenses produce excellent color, sharpness, and contrast. And yet, I’ve fallen in love with another lens: my new LensBaby. This lens isn’t about sharpness, saturation, or contrast – at least not in the ways we think of now-a-days.
I’ve posted the results of my first experiments, and in that vein, here are some more results of experimentation. For all of these images, I used the double-glass optics with an aperture of f/2.

Behind the Curtain

Lensbaby Composer

Note: Reposted because of a trigger-happy finger and a delete button. D'oh!

The LensBaby Composer is the third iteration of the LensBaby concept – a lens that you can tilt to achieve all sorts of creative effects. You can drop in different optics – from double-glass optics (relatively sharp), to plastic optics (think lomo), and even pinhole or fisheye optics. Needless to say the variation you can get out of this is amazing, as long as you’re willing to experiment.
I bought my Composer on Saturday, and so I haven’t had a lot of time to play, but of course, it was a new toy, so I had to play a bit. It was really cold & windy outside, so instead I coerced my puppy stuffed animal to pose for me:

Pose #1 (Double-glass Optics, f/2, 1/125, ISO 100)

Welcome, 2010

Here we are, 17 days into 2010, and I’ve yet to write my first post of the year on this blog. Shame on me! I’ve done tweets and facebook posts, but not a blog post. And that’s not for wont of trying – I’ve two posts that I’m working on – but they aren’t ready to be published just yet. But rather than put it off, I figured I’d get the first post of the year out of the way, and with it, some of the recent happenings on the site, and my hopes for this year.

A Trip to the Zoo

Some photographers have the wonderful privilege of going to these exotic (and not-so-exotic) places to see all kinds of animals and make photographs of them, but not all photographers are quite so lucky. For the rest of us, zoos are a wonderful place to experience the beauty and majesty of these animals, even if it is a bit limited by the confines of the zoo itself.

While down with my family celebrating Thanksgiving, we had this absolutely gorgeous day – seventy degrees, gorgeous sunlight, all the trimmings. We knew this was likely the last day of the year to be this nice, and so we just had to do something special to enjoy it. And so a trip to the zoo was in order. After a little bit of finagling with our GPS (road construction confuses these poor things like nothing else), we arrived safe and sound. And… so had everyone else. We weren’t the only ones who figured this would have been a good day, and so the zoo was quite packed. Even so, we moved at our own very leisurely pace and picked up, I think, some fantastic photos.

Flare through Lamp Post (1/250/sec @ f/20; 75mm; 100 iso)

The day was a gorgeous day, as the above image attests. We arrived at the zoo at around 1:30pm, so the sun wasn’t at its peak, but that really didn’t matter; it just meant a bit harder light to deal with. The non-photographer in me was fine with that – I hadn’t seen 70 degree day for what felt like eons, let alone a nice, bright, sunny day. The photographer in me would’ve liked to have had softer light, but you can’t have your cake and eat it too!

Not Just Animals

The zoo isn’t just full of animals, but it is full of gorgeous flowers, plants, and trees. Although most of the flowers and grasses had, justifiably, put up for the winter, a few just couldn’t resist coming out on this glorious day and strutting their stuff.

Still in Bloom (1/250/sec @ f/5.6; 200mm; 160 iso)

Cute Plant (1/250/sec @ f/5; 200mm; 640 iso)

Photographer’s Side Note: Just a tip, if your camera supports it – get a circular polarizing filter! It’s not just for making blue skies bluer or for dealing with reflections in water or glass, but it can also saturate colors – not just blue. It does introduce some light loss (about 1 stop or so at full), but the results are well worth it.

Birds

The zoo has a lot of birds – especially inside, but that gets really difficult to photograph. I have lots of blurry images on my computer now, or images that are sharp but very, very, very noisy due to the low light. Not to mention that a lot of these birds were fairly active, and wouldn’t stay still long enough to get a blur-free image – so even if I had a tripod, I’d have had problems.

But the zoo also had birds outside and in an outdoor bird house (which was impressive on its own), so I was able to get some good shots:

Nitpicking: Standing on one leg, this bird is preening and cleaning. I suspect he's been napping, too. 
(1/200 @ f/4; 200mm; 200 iso)

Turquoise Eyes: From a distance this bird didn't look all that interesting -- for one reason, he was preening quite frequently, and didn't let us get a good look. But when I got home, I noticed his gorgeous eyes! Aren't they beautiful? (1/100 @ f/4; 200mm; 1600 iso)

I See You: This bird was just showing all sorts of attitude. I think he's rather used to being photographed! 
(1/200 @ f/4; 200mm; 320 iso)

Look At Me! This male peacock was out wandering the grounds, and definitely wasn't afraid of us humans getting up close. He did eventually get tired of us photographers stalking him though, and eventually wandered off to get away from our cameras. 
(1/80 @ f/4; 200mm; 1600 iso)

Animals

The zoo is also full of all sorts of animals. Most were taking full advantage of the fantastic weather and sun – either taking a nap or sunning themselves. Some were far more sociable than others… I have an image of a cheetah, but like most cats, it just didn’t want to appease us by making an appearance where any of us could get good pictures. But others just posed and posed, while others could care less what we were doing!

Bush Dogs: Awww, aren't these cute? These bush dogs were so enjoying the gorgeous day and taking a nap out in the sun seemed the perfect way to do it. (1/250 @ f/4; 200mm; 320 iso)

Red River Hog: I rather think this guy is rather cute, although he is definitely a hog, snout and all. He was busy foraging in the grass and dirt for some tasty grub, and was apparently finding some.
(1/160 @ f/5; 200mm; 1600 iso)

Sleeping Hyena: This hyena wasn't being very sociable when we arrived, and was curled up in its cave aways back. Thank goodness for long lenses! Though I think they look rather funny when up and prowling around, this one is managing to pull off "cute" quite successfully. (1/80 @ f/4; 200mm; 400 iso)

Dwarf Mongoose: I nearly missed this guy -- they are really small -- not much bigger than a large rat or something, but they are kinda cute up-close. He was enjoying the very warm rock, apparently, although he was definitely keeping an eye on us.
(1/200 sec @ f/4; 200mm; 1000 iso)

Having a Laugh: Technically I'm sure this Asian Elephant is doing anything but laughing (she's actually eating), but this frame just caught this expression. Who knows? Maybe she really is laughing at us... (1/250 sec @ f/4; 200mm; 250 iso)

Bull on the Prowl: At first this Bull Asian Elephant didn't seem to want to have anything to do with us, preferring instead to prowl in the distance. But something brought him striding proudly forward, and then he stopped to pose for us for quite some time.
(1/250 sec @ f/4; 200mm; 250 iso)

(FAKE) SNAKE ALERT!!!! (FAKE) SNAKE ALERT!!!! (FAKE)SNAKE ALERT!!!!

Okay – so even though the snake below is fake, he’s pretty realistic. If you don’t like such things, click here to skip right on by. Otherwise, scroll down and enjoy:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fraud: This snake -- while rather realistic -- is totally fake. (I wouldn't be so close if he was real!) But still, he's a bit menacing, isn't he? (1/250 sec @ f/4; 200mm; 1250 iso)

END (FAKE) SNAKE ALERT!!!!

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming:

Leave Me Alone: This bear was out enjoying the warm weather, and you could almost swear he was fake -- he was stock-still in one position for quite some time, and then did this. I think he was annoyed at all of us interrupting his siesta, since he wandered off to his cave shortly after. (1/250 sec @ f/4; 200mm; 200 iso)

Wanna piece o' me?: Something about this prairie dog just screams "attitude". I think he's got loads of it, and he's not afraid to let it stick out all over him! (1/200 sec @ f/4; 200mm; 500 iso)

I've my eye on you...: This prairie dog wasn't fooling around, keeping a keen eye on us when we got close, and for quite some time after we left. (1/200 sec @ f/4; 200mm; 160 iso)

Gorilla Antics: This image is just prior to this gorilla and another deciding that it would be a good time to ram each other and fight a bit. Not sure if they were really angry (their expressions sure looked it) or if they were showing off for all the onlookers. Regardless, they bonked each other so fast that I didn't have a chance to catch a picture of it!
(1/160 sec @ f/4; 200mm; 1600 iso)

Arf!: These sea lions were out basking in the remnants of the day (it was nearly sunset), and they were generally just in one pose: noses up in the air. But occasionally they'd make these movements at each other and bark a little.
(1/50 sec @ f/4; 121mm; 1600 iso)

Being that the days are pretty short, sunset was upon us by the time we hit the sea lions, and even though the photographer in me wanted to keep going, my feet (and the rest of me) said that it was time to go. And so it was back home, confusing the GPS even more, but we made it. Of course I couldn’t just not see if anything came out, so it was straight to the computer to check to see if the photographs were any good.

Finally, over the last few days, I’ve been able to edit the few you see here. I’ve got a lot more on my computer that may or may not ever see the light of the internet, but these give a pretty good representation of what we were able to see. One thing is for sure: I’d love to go back – the place is too large to explore in one afternoon (even too large for one day).

Photographer’s Side Note: I use Adobe Lightroom to post-process my images – just like film, digital images straight-out-of-camera are rarely exactly what I want. To maintain a consistent “feel” to the images, I also used the same Lightroom preset as a starting point for all the images, and tweaked to suit. I call it “Purple Shadow Vignette”. If you use Lightroom and would like to use this preset, download it here.

Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix First Impressions

Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix First Impressions

I adore my HP Mini 1000 netbook. It's got a fantastic keyboard (one I can actually type on), and the screen is gorgeous. It's a little cramped for space, though, given that it uses a solid-state drive, but in general that's not a problem -- this isn't my primary machine, after all. (Just don't expect it to handle your entire MP3 collection!)

But Windows XP didn't get along well with the SSD. I don't know why -- it should handle it just fine, but XP would often freeze for no apparent reason and then come back after a few seconds, and I tracked that down to accessing the SSD. So anytime an application needed to load a good bit of data from storage, the entire computer stopped. That gets annoying after awhile, to say the least.

I was originally going to just install Windows 7 on it, hoping it would do a better job, but that 16gb SSD kept nagging at me -- that's not a lot of space for XP; Windows 7 would eat even more. Not only that, but there was no guarantee that performance would be acceptable on the netbook, and so I bit the bullet, and switched the operating system to Linux -- Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix, to be exact.

My first impressions are very favorable. There were some installation difficulties, and I just wish that Adobe would release their products on Linux, but other than that things are going really well. The OS starts up far faster than XP, and once going, the OS is fast, responsive, and actually pretty. Not only that, but the HP is more than capable of supporting Compiz, which adds some pretty nifty effects to dragging windows, switching desktops, etc. 

Installation

Installation was not as simple as it should have been, in my opinion. For one, of course, is the lack of a CD or DVD drive -- this is a netbook --, but Ubuntu provides a nice utility for putting the OS on a USB stick and installing from that. Which does work, but with a very big quirk that wasted a lot of my time.

Because some people use the stick as their primary storage (which means they can take the OS anywhere and use it on any machine that can boot from USB) the USB stick tool assumes that's what you're going to do. Nowhere is it obvious you have to select the option to discard all your changes (like documents, etc.) when the OS is shutdown. For one, that's a scary way to phrase it, and two, the install fails if this isn't selected! 

So, check the option, and relax; the install proceeds normally, and you're left with a machine that runs just fine, and since you're installing to internal storage, the scary "discard" word isn't a problem -- you'll be saving to your hard drive, not to the USB stick.

That problem solved, the installation went without a hitch, and WAY faster than any Windows install I've ever seen. Granted the UNR version of Ubuntu is a smaller OS than the full version, but it's still pretty cool to see an OS install in something like seven minutes. ;-)

But wait, that's not all...

So everything's installed, and I'm pretty impressed. The machine responds quickly to any of my actions, and exhibits none of the slowness and freezing that XP exhibited. Score one for Linux. 

And then the next problem: no wireless. Uh oh - that's a pretty big problem -- I'm not always going to be hooked up to a wire - that's part of the point of a netbook.

So I scour the web, and it turns out that the wireless isn't supplied by default because the HP uses a Broadcom Wifi controller, and there are some legal issues that means that Linux can't use it out-of-the-box.

So I follow as many instructions as I can, and end up installing b43-fwcutter and try that. It's supposed to work, but fails for some reason. No matter what I do, no wireless. Even more annoying, I keep losing my wired connection at random, forcing a reboot to get it back.

And then, by magic, I find a post that indicates that Broadcom has released their own drivers. Downloaded, installed, rebooted, and...

*poof*

No go. Crashed computer. Ick.

Reboot. No wifi. Ick.

And then, after a few more tries, suddenly after a reboot, the wifi controller is there. (!!!) I don't know how it got there, but it was, and so I wasn't going to complain. I set it up to connect to my network, and voila! I had wifi access! YAY!

Elation aside, however, this is where Linux tends to fall flat on its face for new users. I've had experience with various flavours, and am pretty tech savvy, so I was able to eventually get things working. But a new user who knows none of this is going to get stopped by either the first failure (getting the OS to install), or by the second (getting drivers to work). So until Linux gets better at this, it's never going to beat Windows or OS X.

Happy Days Are Here Again...

With the Wifi enabled, happy days officially started. Mostly ;-) Being that this was a brand new installation, there were all sorts of programs I needed to install to get a familiar environment. Here's a few that I installed:

• Adobe Air
• Tweetdeck
• Google Chrome (Dev)
• Last.FM
• Mozilla Sunbird
• Gimp
• RawStudio
• AbiWord
• MonoDevelop
• Audacity
• Hulu Desktop
• Wine

(Yes, Wine. I know it is heresy to install something that would allow some Windows applications to run, but hey -- you never know when you'll need it. And no -- Lightroom does not work under Wine. *Sigh*)

After all that, and configuring each application (like adding plugins to Chrome, getting Flash working, etc.), I have a machine that I can use without feeling frustrated at it because it feels slow or keeps freezing. Responsiveness is amazing, even when I push it. If an application freezes for any reason, the rest of the system still works, which wasn't always the case with XP.

Minor Glitches Remain

Not everything is 100% rosy, but it isn't enough to cause me to drop Linux on this machine. Here's a bit of what is glitchy:

• Flash: sucks. Period. While it technically works, it quickly slows any browser or application that uses it to a crawl. I suspect this may be in part to my use of Compiz and extra desktop effects, but seriously -- I like me my eye candy. So watching Hulu in my browser or via the desktop application is a bit painful, but any other flash use is too. It could also just be that Flash for Linux really isn't all that optimized, but whatever the cause, I'll only be using it whenever necessary. (For that reason, I've got FlashBlock installed in Chrome.)
• The UNR interface, while very nice, occasionally breaks down when using an application that isn't aware of the limitations of my display. (Chome, I'm looking at YOU.) Granted, UNR is just window-dressing, but it'd be nice to have some way to get to parts of windows that  have decided to be off screen because surely no one would ever think to use the application on a screen that's only 600px high. 
• Also, some portions of the UNR desktop could use extra customizability. Granted, this is supposed to be easy for end-users, but I think we could all grasp moving icons around on our desktop, something I haven't convinced it to do yet. 

Even so, Things Are Grand

Even with the glitches, things are grand. Most things have improved, including:

• Responsiveness - the HP now hums along beautifully. 
• Speed - No longer does the HP feel like it's struggling to keep up -- programs open quickly, desktops change fast, application switch is quick, and the machine is even able to render some 3D effects reasonably well.
• Compiz - The closest thing I can compare this to would be Windows Vista Aero, but Compiz is really a bit more than that. You can have the things Aero gives you, and so much more, and the HP handles many of these with aplomb. Not everything is within its capabilities -- this is a built-in video card --, but for the most part things are nice and smooth. 
• Audio - Somehow the drivers supplied with XP made the audio sound like crap. High-pitched, tinny, lacking any punch. I originally chalked that up to the small speakers in the chassis, but the same applied to listening by headphones. So then I assumed the chipset was just crappy. But the Linux drivers have surprised me -- it's not excellent sound, but it's WAY better than under Windows. There's actually some bass involved, and it doesn't sound like I'm listening over a bad telephone connection!

Our Future Together...

Granted, I've only used this on my netbook for a short time. It's possible the same freezing problems will creep up on Linux too, but I doubt it. It's possible I'll run into some sort of horrible bug that'll ruin me on it forever, but again, I doubt it.

My only wish was that Adobe released Lightroom on Linux. Because if they did, I'd seriously consider switching on my primary computer as well -- I'm that impressed. While Vista x64 never really bothered me (x32 is horrible, though), I've never been all that impressed, either, and it quite often feels like molasses, even on a 2+GHz machine with dual cores, 4GB of memory, etc. Ubuntu on that thing would literally fly... :-)

But until then, I'll live in Windows on my primary computer, and keep Linux on my netbook.