TechZerker

After years (more like a decade) of putting it off, this week I acquired my first serious camera, being a Canon T6i. Coming from various smartphones and earlier point and shoot devices, the older T6i hit the sweet spot of price and features for myself.

The T7 was a similar price with less features, and the T7i was a noticeable price jump in my searches in Canada.

My interest in photography started around the late 2000's, first with a cheap point and shoot camera. At the time it did job for basic travel and car photos, especially in the era of cheap flip phone cameras. As this camera reached its limits, around the time of my first iPhone 3G, I bought a more advanced Fujifilm camera that was higher quality and sported 18x optical zoom, a lot for me at the time, while still less than the film SLR and DSLR options. This camera suited me well for various car show and race photography as an extreme amateur. Progressively it phased out in favour of more convenient smartphone cameras, even at the sacrifice of quality for years to come, and my interests shifted away as 2010 closed in.

Interest picked up again years later when in 2014, I became a big fan of Windows Phone and acquired the hallmark Nokia Lumia 1020, with its incredible 41 Megapixel camera and its smart software tricks.

Even a few years later when I moved onto other Nokia Lumia phones, I often kept the 1020 around as my convenient photography tool. It took several more years, around the time of my iPhone 8, before that newer phone was consistently taking better pictures.

From that point, through multiple generations of iPhone (and my sidestep into a OnePlus 7T), the phone cameras continued to improve and I was able to capture some great photos with ease, with some limits. The modern phones really have eliminated most of the need for regular point and shoot cameras (if you already have a higher end phone, if not, obviously their expense is much higher).

This led me back around to this week, I felt it was finally well past time to really get into photography, study the craft further and purchase equipment I could learn and advance with. Hence, my initial gear set being:

• Canon T6i
• Canon 18-55mm STM Lens
• Canon 55-250mm STM Lens

With this gear, I have plenty to work, learn and practice with. I’m impressed with the kit right from the start, as even a fully automatic mode shot like this, with no effort feels better than what I’ve captured on my iPhone (even though I’ve had great iPhone shots too):

My next task is to continue reading and applying all I learn about topics like the exposure triangle, depth of field, and types of results that can be achieved with different lenses, shutter speeds and aperture settings, with more in my reading and video tutorial queues.

In the future, I have earmarked my equipment expansion to include a few more items:

• Quality Aluminium Tripod
• Canon 10-18mm STM Wide Angle Lens
• Telephoto Lens of some type, this I still need to research options, as I expect the budget manual options online are mixed on quality or value.

All of this will come later though, I have plenty to learn and practice with using my initial purchase. I look forward to sharing what I learn and any photos worth sharing here and via my Snap.as photo galleries.

#Photography #Canon #T6i

Over the past week I have worked on migrating this site and related services to the Write.as platform. I moved it here from it’s last home on GitHub Pages, with Hugo as the platform it was built on.

When I first started this site around 2013, my intention was to create a tech news and reviews site, which was hosted on WordPress. As I worked on that project and shifted away from being a Microsoft backer, I determined I did not have a passion for the project vs. My core career as a systems administrator.

Towards 2018 as I shifted deeper into Linux and self-hosting various services, I pared down the complex site, shifted more towards a personal site approach, and migrated to a self-hosted Write Freely site. At the time, I was looking for a service that would focus on writing, and no tracking or privacy tech, and maintained the site there for several years.

In 2020, I fell for the lure of more complex appearance/theming of a tool like Hugo, along with the version control workflow of GitHub and the related tooling. This system worked for me while I was committed to Linux, and was a great tool for learning the process of Git, with some geeky article writing via console or VIM. That being said, I spent a significant amount of time troubleshooting and fixing GitHub actions for automatic publishing every few months, instead of writing. That actions process stabilized more recently, but following Digital Minimalism ideals, I realized recently that this workflow and it’s issues were not in line with my purpose or preference. In addition, while it has been a while, with the Microsoft acquisition of GitHub, I expect it’s a matter of time before even a basic Hugo site would end up with some form of tracking trail embedded due to the hosting platform, which is not in line with my own privacy statements.

That brings me back to this week. I spent time pondering over the Write.as hosted platform via the Pro subscription, with it’s related and included services, and remembered why I originally used the platform via the Write Freely option. Since I originally left the service, and returning to the paid platform, Matt and his team operating Write.as have expanded and solidified the service all while focusing on their ideals. With this service, I’m able to return to having the site @writing@techzerker.com">federated as @writing@techzerker.com, I can easily support discussion via the linking with Remark.as, and with a recent intention to explore Photography beyond a smartphone, I can display and discussion that via the included Snap.as. Finally, with the support for custom CSS, I’ve been able to do minor theming to my style, while keeping the site simple, reading focused, and free of unsightly graphical advertising or intrusive tracking technology.

I’m writing this piece as a fan and user of the platform, there has been no form of compensation or promotion, but I say, it’s worth checking out if your looking for a place to write with simplicity, no tracking, and no distractions handling administration.

Discuss...

#Writeas #Writefreely #Github #Writing #NoTracking

As I was journaling tonight, I was circling on thoughts of what I need to refocus on my writing practice. The first stage of this I feel is re-approaching Digital Minimalism (Cal Newport) to review my tools and usage.

To the effect of writing more, to build the habit I expect to have more ‘micro-blog’ style entries, that are more journal / stream of thought style, vs well thought/planned/edited.

As I begin my efforts on re-evaluating my tools and applications via Digital Minimalism, I aim to write about those findings and my thoughts.

My first target as I make time in the busy days ahead will be my iPhone 13 Pro and the various apps and services I have installed. More to come!

#minimalism #digitalminimalism

Discuss...

After my last article went into some detail on arranging Obsidian for my Zettelkasten to play nice with Hugo and this site, I came about-face back to paper systems.

Despite, or maybe as a result of working in tech every day, or my interest in subjects like history and stoicism, I've come to have a growing enjoyment of paper. As I started to setup how I wanted to use Obsidian, I was seeing the beginning of a possible collectors fallacy source. I was concerned that with being fully digital, I would miss the focus of Zettelkasten to maintain atomic notes.

In addition to that, even with the high survival rate of text files and something like the Markdown format, I became uncomfotable with long term sustainability of the system being digital. I say that given the popular Markdown format still only came into being roughly fifteen years ago, and tools such as mobile technology of changes beyond measure within the past decade.

Read-It-Later on Paper

Deciding to break away from this, my first real challenge was deciding how I was going to queue and handle all my reading material. While I keep building a reasonable collection of physical books, a lot of my reading queue comes from online sources. I generally don't read much news, and Im not much of a social media user, but I have an RSS reader packed with blogs and online sources, both big and small.

The initial thoughts I had were to capture this fully on some of my 4x6” Index Cards, from my Zettelkasten supply. I would build it up as a transient source of cards, with the source, a sentence about it, and the URL written out. I selected this method as I knew from the start I didn't want to just “print everything” and waste paper. Once I started to plan this out more, I was predicting where it would lead to abandonment as a result of upkeep. I could see where I would likely end up with a stack of cards with handwritten URLs collecting dust, and a return to browser tabs scattered on devices.

Based on this, I kept researching for a solution that might suite my online content volume. A workflow that would play well with reducing some iPhone/iPad screen time, but also avoid over-printing.

InstaPaper, Kindle & ScreenBreak

After some reasearch of features and discovery via random articles on other personal blogs, I came down to this process leaning on InstaPaper. Among the reasons after reading I settled on InstaPaper, was that I don't care for the social features/direction Pocket has pushed, and Open Source options are missing features essential to this workflow.

The key feature of InstaPaper that made it the focal point in this workflow, is the digest content delivery to Kindle, via the email to Kindle functionality. Granted, it is a paid feature of InstaPaper, but is fairly priced for the services. By sending content from any online source, including my RSS queue that I am wanting to read, I can get back to a single reading queue source. With the feature to auto-push reading digests to my Kindle, this also helps serve the less full screentime desire, given the eInk displays lack of blue light and avoid distraction of other apps/notifications on the iOS devices.

Moving onto the Kindle itself, mine being a 7th Gen basic kindle, I am impressed with how well the InstaPaper service formats most content cleanly, and its ability to still interact back to InstaPaper. When I planned this process, I assumed the delivery to Kindle would be 100% one way, with the need to load InstsPaper to archive what was read. Instead, the InstaPaper kindle digests pleasantly have Archive and Favorite & Archive web links for each article. It may not be fancy, but it works seamlessly while the Kindle has WiFi for that special link to properly tell InstaPaper I've read an article, without a complex login or iOS dependant process.

Finally, looping this back to working with my Zettelkasten on paper, involves the Kindle, and this online ScreenBreak service. As is used by many, the Kindle handles highlighting and making notes on content very quick and easy. In this manner, I can easily take Literature Notes as I'm reading on my index cards, or save Kindle notes to move to Literature Notes after I've finished. These can then serve their purpose to fuel and cite via permenant Zettelkasten notes.

ScreenBreak comes into play to serve the long term archiving desire, in a print resource friendly manner. The function of ScreenBreak is to take digests of online content, clean them for readability, and then compile them into concise printable, or professionally printed paper copies. My intention is only content I've read that I purposly want to archive longer term or reference back to the source reliably offline, will get collected for printing. In most cases, I will likely use the free service to generate a clean PDF for self-printing, but I may consider paid professional printing for curated articles and to support the service.

In summary, all online sources will feed to InstaPaper before reading. Content may be read on iOS or Browser InstaPaper, but will mostly push daily to Kindle. Reading and literature notes will focus on the Kindle whenever possible, and content I want printed will be “Liked and Archived” from the Kindle digest. I will then in regular bursts clear the liked/favorite articles section of InstaPaper into ScreenBreak, and when appropriate, print a digest of long term content from ScreenBreak. The printed material I already have a reference system in place so literature notes can easily direct to the offline source.

Maybe the system will end up being too much, but currently it feels like what will work best with my objectives. It helps reduce blue light screen time, while also minimizing excessive printing, and ultimatly feeding my desire for a long term paper system.

Discuss...

#ReadItLater #Zettelkasten #Antinet #InstaPaper #Paper #Kindle #ScreenBreak

I’ve been ‘officially’ dedicated to Linux as a whole for roughly six years now.

Was nine months when I first starting writing this series in 2018…so everything below is from the perspective of 2018.

I came from the far opposite end of the spectrum as a dedicated Windows Insider. It feels as I prepare more Linux and Linux Gaming articles, a short series covering my computing past up to now is in order. This series is presented in three distinct “eras”:

Windows Insider to Linux

• Before The Insider Years
• Committed to Windows
• The Broken Window

I could date and detail my earlier computer years back to being a kid with an old Apple IIC, and junior high student with Windows 95. However, the best real starting point is when I began professionally getting into computers when I started University, circa 2002. In this era, Windows XP was still fresh and new on the market, with its share of compatibility issues, but a long stride ahead of Windows ME. While I had plenty of exposure in our high school environment, Macintosh wasn’t exactly at a high point, and in my experience, I wasn’t even aware of Linux yet. So Windows XP full steam ahead it was!

If it helps date this era of my experience any further, in that two years of university until 2004, all my homework was being shuffled around on a handful of 3-1/4′′ floppy disks. Likewise, if you wanted to really do PC Gaming of any sort, either an older Windows 98 or modern Windows XP install was your only real, reliable choice. As such, at this time I don’t declare I was “dedicated” to Windows, it was just really the only option for both my gaming and school work software needs. It met those needs without too much fuss.

As 2005 drew near, my first exposure to Linux on a personal machine came about. I don’t recall exactly what first led me in the direction, probably a fellow student. The result, I wiped my aging student homework laptop, which was a ‘Hughbee’ branded laptop, an off brand found online when I needed a cheap student system. The first Linux OS installed from a loaned CD? Mandrake Linux! (Renamed the following year to Mandriva Linux after a court case loss).

The install went well enough without any real issues, and I began exploring. I quickly realized that essentially none of my modern games could run on the system, but it was so under powered, it was not a concern. For the most part I played with a few basic Linux native games, put my music and some movies on the system, and used it for browsing, chatting, and writing, either on homework or uh... MySpace...

That laptop carried on as a secondary system for those functions for a good six months, until the hardware finally failed catastrophically. At that point I knew however much it peaked my interest, it’s inability to easily and seamlessly run EverQuest and EVE Online meant my primary Desktop PC was sticking with Windows XP. As such, using Windows XP as the only viable option continued onward without a thought of Linux again until mid-2007 and the arrival of Windows Vista.

As many will attest, the era of Windows Vista was a challenge. With a higher performance system, barring hardware compatibility issues, it ran ok. But hardware was a big challenge, along with a solid eighteen months by estimate of heavy Apple marketing against the PC, for which Microsoft had little retaliation too. The cracks in Microsoft’ dominance were at least viable, even if no one was poised in the gaming sphere to really unseat Windows.

It was in these early years of Windows Vista that I returned in part to Linux. This time it was on my main gaming desktop, but via the comfortable method of dual booting. I kept my Vista install, but also received an Ubuntu 8.04 CD in the mail to install. This time around the Linux OS dug its fingers in a little deeper. As I began the efforts to do some form of Linux Gaming, the non-Gaming elements pulled at me. It was faster, and regardless of if by design or obscurity, appeared more secure. It hooked me so much that Ubuntu One was my first ever cloud storage service and music streaming (ish) service of my own music files to my android phone of the time. Its only drawback was the struggle of gaming. A few games like Total Annihilation and StarCraft with some years under their belt worked excellent with WINE. I distinctly remember having to play with scripts and various config files to get Elder Scrolls: Oblivion to run... only to have the game that ran 50+ FPS on Vista reward me with 4-5 FPS...tops!

Alas, this is the setup I retained for several years, getting some games working on Ubuntu. I used the OS mostly for daily tasks, working games, and then dual booting to Vista for the remaining majority of games. It wasn’t again until early 2010, and the release of the much loved Windows 7, that my shift started to lean back to Microsoft. It wasn’t an immediate or instant shift, but Windows 7 was the start of the next phase in my journey towards a dedicated Windows Insider... that journey to fandom will be in Part Two of this series.

#Windows #Linux #Microsoft #Gaming #WindowsToLinux

As I've been refining my site, I am preparing to use the Obsidian Export project so that I can have a section within this Hugo based site with my Obsidian Zettelkasten notes. The issue I was running into trying to just put the .md note files directly into the content directory, was that Hugo natively does not play nice with relative links like Obsidian would use. That's where Obsidian Export comes into play to fix up the files as they get pushed to Hugo. However, once I setup the two layout _markup files needed for link processing, my existing method of referencing images with content broke.

Before all this, I was doing simple paths like this:

/content/posts/post-date/index.md
/content/posts/post-date/image.png

With the image in the markdown file being referenced as:

[Image](image.png)

But once I made the changes to I can also play nice with Obsidian, the images were not posting in a way that works with the relative reference like before, so they were all just dead links with an icon, and no image.

The end result that is working (after trying others things like placing the images in the root /static directory), was the following, from this github bug note, which is to mirror the full path from the content directory within static. I am certain there may be better ways for this to work, but it's also likley an acceptable side effect from wanting Obsidian Export to work well, which is more important to me.

Updated Structure:

/content/posts/post-date/index.md
/static/posts/post-date/image.png

Then the same Markdown inline reference works again.

As I'm writing this, the next step now is to fully test Obsidian Export itself, and make sure with a few notes relative linking to each other in the Obsidian style, that those links properly generate so you can “crawl” the web of the Zettelkasten notes.

#Hugo