Today, I visited the Roof Terrace at the National Museum of Scotland and took this Panorama showing the Castle at the top of the royal Mile, the Esplanade in front of it, and a little further down the hill, the tall bell-tower of the Hub.
Click the image to see it larger!
Edinburgh Castle and the Hub
Union Canal HDR Wallpaper
Last night, I visited the Union Canal at Lochrin Basin in Edinburgh. I took a series of photographs and combined them to make this HDR image.
I have posted it in various sizes which you can use as a desktop wallpaper if you want to.
Widescreen: 1920×1200 | 1920×1800 |1680×1050 | 1440×900 | 1280×800
Fullscreen (4:3): 1600×1200 | 1400×1050 | 1280×960 | 1024×768
Today, I visited the National Museum of Scotland and visited the roof terrace for the first time. The view of the city from there is incredible. Here is a photo in various sizes which you can use as a desktop wallpaper if you want to.
Widescreen (16:10): 1920×1200 | 1920×1080 |1680×1050 | 1440×900 | 1280×800
Fullscreen (4:3): 1600×1200 | 1400×1050 | 1280×960 | 1024×768
I have recently finished reading the Scott Berkun book “Confessions of a Public Speaker” and I think it should be compulsory reading for everyone, especially if you speak to groups of people.
People who will find the book especially useful are not just teachers or lecturers, but anyone who gives any type of performance; actors, magicians, storytellers, tour guides. I wish I had read it while I was still leading ghost tours.
Scott Berkun is a professional speaker who has had many articles published in top publications such as Wired Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. In this book, he reveals the secrets of successful public speaking all beautifully illustrated with real life stories and anecdotes. He gives tips on how to properly prepare for a presentation and how to adapt your presentation on-the-fly if the technology fails you, or you don’t get many “bums on seats”.
The final section of the book has confessions from other public speakers about speeches they gave where their preparation failed them and everything went wrong. I could add lots of examples from my own presentations, from trying to explain the inticracies of the National Covenant in Greyfriars Kirkyard while the ‘Three Tenors’ were performing outdoors at the castle above me. Or the time I stepped backwards out of the final tomb at the end of the tour, tripping on my black leather trench-coat and landing arse first in the muddy puddle behind me.
The book is fantastic – great advice about what your audience is likely to be expecting, and how they feel about being part of an audience which will help you see your presentation from a different point of view. If you purchase the book from Amazon through the link below, I get a small cut from Amazon. Thanks.
When I tried to power on my TV this afternoon, pressing the power button did nothing, it felt like the switch inside was not being activated. I decided to void my warranty and take a look inside. My TV is a Toshiba Regza model number 32XV555D, but I imagine the same switch is used on many Toshiba models and the following instructions may be of use to you too.
Opening your TV is dangerous and will void your warranty – there are high voltages inside and the following steps should only be carried out if you are sure you know what you are doing. I’m not a professional TV engineer and I take no responsibility for any damage you do to yourself or your TV if you are foolhardy enough to follow my description!
The first step to repairing the switch is to remove the back of the TV. Unplug the TV from the wall, and remove any HDMI/SCART/Aerial cables. Put the TV screen side down on a soft non-scratch surface.
The back of the TV is held on by 17 screws – you will need a phillips head screwdriver to remove them. The screws are not all the same size, so ensure you remember which screw goes in which hole. The screws to remove are all marked with an arrow, the 17th one took me a while to find – it is located above 2nd SCART connector.
Once the screws are removed, carefully lift off the back panel – it should come off easily. If not, make sure you have removed all the screws.
Switch as I found it
The power switch is at the right side of the TV , you will see that the button you push has a cylinder on the back which needs to somehow activate the switch which does not line up with it.
The button should push a square plastic plate which should be attached to the switch. In my case, the plate had broken and fallen off the switch. This meant that the button did nothing. You can see in the photograph that the plate has fallen off and is lying underneath the button. You have a couple of options at this point; you can either activate the switch manually, put the TV back together again and just use the wall switch to power your TV off an on, or you can repair the switch.
From a search of the Internet, it seems that this is a common problem with Toshiba TVs – if your TV is still in warranty, it is probably best to get an official spare fitted, but I decided to make a stronger repair so it does not happen again.
The plastic piece with broken section
The plastic clip which holds the plate in place seems to be very fragile, and I could not find the small piece of plastic which had broken off. I mixed up some 5-minute epoxy and waited a couple of minutes for it to thicken up a bit. I put a small blob of epoxy onto the clip and put it in place on the switch. You will find this easier if you manually press the switch to put it in the ‘on’ position as this gives a little more space for maneuvering. The plate should be able to stay in position by itself while the epoxy cures (why not go and write a how to fix your TV blog post while you’re waiting!)
Once the epoxy has cured (mine says it is ready to handle in 15 minutes and achieves full strength in 1 hour) you can put the back on the TV by replacing all the screws. Power on your TV and, with a bit of luck, the power switch will work again. You have probably missed the programme you were wanting to watch though!
I hope this helps you if you have the same problem – the whole thing took me about 20 minutes to fix – much faster than waiting for the repair man! Leave a comment if it worked for you. Thanks.
The plastic piece glued back in place
I purchased the Interfit EX300 twin studio flash kit which comes with a softbox and shoot-through umbrella through the Amazon Marketplace from Hawks Photo Video on December 28th 2010. Due to the new year period, delivery took a while as is expected at this time of year.
The delivery estimate was good, I received an SMS message from Hawks on the morning of 9th January 2011 to say that the delivery was expected between 2:30 and 5:30 that day. It arrived shortly after 2pm.
When I arrived home from work that evening, I unpacked the kit. The Outer brown cardboard packing box was in good condition, but appears to have been opened and resealed. The inner display box was also in good condition.
Inside the boxes, the flash kit was all packed inside the included carry bag which was unzipped – I found that a bit suspicious. On unpacking the kit, everything initially looked fine. I unpacked both lighting stands, put the heads on both, and attached one reflector.
When I built the softbox, I noticed some discolouration on the front screen at one corner – it looks like a burn or scorch mark, but I don’t expect it will affect the flash at all.
The second reflector has damage to one side and to the attachment slot, so it is not possible to attach it to the flash head. I tried to attach the umbrella to the second flash head, but could not unscrew the lock-nut far enough to put the umbrella shaft into the hole at the front. On checking the other flash head, it seems that the holding bracket has been bent about 45 degrees. Only one head is damaged in this way.
Connecting the first power cable was no problem, but I couldn’t plug in the second cable as the plug has one bent pin. This means that although both flash heads work, I can only use one at a time.
The damage to the plug would require a lot of force, so I can only assume that this happened before the items were packed in the carry case – possibly an ex-demonstrator model? As can be seen from the below screenshot, the item I ordered is described as ‘New’.
I contacted Hawks to report the damage the same evening at 10:30pm, and got a response from them today (12/01/11) at 12:00. They have offered to pick up the damaged kit and replace it and want to know when would suit me for collection – sounds like good service to me!
At 6:50pm the same day, I told them I’d be available on Monday or Tuesday for them to collect it. I suggested they could send out the replacement kit now and have the delivery man pick up the damaged kit. I have had no reply from them and have sent a chaser at 4:40pm 14/01/11 – not such good service after all!
The items which need to be replaced are:
but it sounds like they are replacing the whole kit.
Screenshot of order on Amazon.co.uk
EX300 softbox with discolouration on front diffuser
EX300 reflector with bent attachment slot
EX300 reflector with bent attachment slot
Ex300 reflector with dent and scratches on side
Power lead with bent pin on plug
Power lead with bent pin on plug
EX300 Light Head with bent Umbrella mount
EX300 Light Head with bent Umbrella mount
So, they arranged a collection of the damaged kit on Monday 17th, but they refused to send out the replacement kit before they had confirmation the damaged one had been picked up. I wasn’t able to take any more time off work to be in to receive the new one when it arrived, so I asked for it to be delivered on Saturday (22nd). On Saturday morning, I got a text saying my delivery would be between 10:36 and 13:36. it actually arrived at 15:14. The new kit is in perfect condition and seems to work well. It’s a shame it took 13 days to get the replacement, and I had to be available in the flat for 3 days.
Hawks replaced with no quibbles, but the service could have been much faster. Maybe they should have offered a partial refund too.
I am delighted with the flash kit – It seems to have plenty of power for portrait and small group shots and I am really happy with the photos I have taken using it.
IndywoodFILMS presents: ‘Invasion Of The NOT QUITE Dead’ teaser promo…
In August 2009, a special teaser promo was created to raise awareness for a horror feature film called ‘INVASION OF THE NOT QUITE DEAD’ which has the support of such names as: Tom Savini, Kevin Pollak, Ken Russell, David Hess, Lloyd Kaufman, HG Lewis, Lee Boardman, Justin Kerrigan & talk show host Jonathan Ross.
The teaser was shot on S16mm film on location at a small farm in Kent and stars horror veteran Leslie Simpson (Dog Soldiers, The Descent, Doomsday), Efisia Fele and Frank Jakeman.
Visit www.theindywoodproject.com and help them to independently raise funds to make the feature film, they are currently receiving an incredible amount of media attention due to them selling pre-order producer packages to help raise our £100,000 budget, so far as of Jan 29th they have sold 449 producer packages to 18 different countries, raising over £16,000 – help them to continue the success…
I am preorder number 10 and have recently upgraded to VIP Executive Producer status.
For more information on how you can help the production of ‘INVASION OF THE NOT QUITE DEAD’ please visit: http://www.theindywoodproject.com or http://www.invasionofthedead.com
and for real time updates why not folow them on twitter: @indywoodFILMS
and our official facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Invasio…
or contact writer/producer/director Antony Lane: adlane@indywood.co.uk
Yesterday, @rich_dyson invited me to join him taking some long exposure photos of the Edinburgh Winter Festival in Princes Street Gardens. We met near the ‘Giant Wheel’ and set up the cameras in the middle of Princes Street looking towards the wheel, carousel and helter skelter. I knew I wanted a long exposure to blur the wheel and people, and to get some nice light streaks from taxis and buses passing in front of us. With my 18mm lens at the smallest aperature, the exposure was about 15″, so I put put on an ND8 to increase the length of exposure. I am happy with about 3 of the 20 or so photos I took, the best is probably this one. (20″ f/13 iso100 18mm)
After that we took a wander through the ‘Scottish Market’. I had taken a photo earlier of ‘Amelia‘ (1/60 f/1.4 iso800 50mm) who was doing Tarot readings in her Gypsy Caravan (are you still allowed to say ‘Gypsy’? I can never remember)… although I did see another woman giving readings there earlier – I wonder if there really is only one Amelia. I did a bit of photoshopping to add detail back into the sitter’s white hat and reduced the exposure of the background which was a bit bright before.
We set up on the Plaza between the Art Galleries at the bottom of the mound where I took the photo you see on this page (10″ F/9 iso100 92mm). It is actually a merge of 2 photos, the wheel, shed and clock tower are from one, the sky, trees and helter skelter are from another – I think it was worth editing to get the nice sky.
I had never tried a long exposure with my long lens, so I also took a close-up of the clocktower on the Balmoral Hotel (5″ f/9 iso100 149mm) from the same position. Unfortunately, the nice moonlit clouds were beginning to disappear.
The cast of Chomp! take over the Royal Mile
This evening I was doing the City of the Dead Underground City tour at 9pm, but I was on the Royal mile from about 6.30 to see the street performers and generally hang out. At about 7pm, the cast of “Chomp! The new Zombie Musical” took over the High Street.
Usually at festival time you get hundreds of posh schoolkid luvvies who are in productions and make a fool of themselves on The Mile trying to get people interested in seeing their shows. Chomp! seems a little different – these actors are really getting into the part – a gang of zombies came sprinting up the Royal Mile, chasing each other and terrorising members of the public. Luckily the army arrived and a huge fight broke out between them and the zombies.
There was some extremely realistic looking punches being delivered between a zombie in a bowler hat and tails (who I assume is the leader) and one of the soldiers. Then suddenly two of the Zombies broke into song… “Shooting Out The Brains of the Dead” – A jolly ditty about DIY zombie lobotomy – brilliant!
The show is on in C-1, Venue 34. 5:15pm 7-8 August. I’m working both nights so I can’t make it – you should go though!
Update, If you missed the show live, Andy Evans has made a video of one of the early performances available:
Having made my own jump rings from silverplated copper wire, I decided to put them together into something that looks a bit more like some jewelery. The result, a 7″ bracelet with a chain made of double links and a box-chain central section.
2x2 chain with Box section
The joins in the links are much tighter this time round than my last attempt. Things to work on for the next one are to scratch the links less with the pliers while closing them, and to make the chain of silver rather than plated copper.
I’m quite pleased with the decorative section in the middle though – really tight due to the aspect ratio of the rings.
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