Photo Hunters: It's About Time

My new Canon Rebel SXi arrived at the house today. I spent the late afternoon setting it up, putting on the strap (yikes! that's tough!) and taking photos around the house. I am overwhelmed with all the widgets on it but excited. I took the daffodil photograph by simply lying right next to the flower, pointing and shooting. I am still using automatic mode while I read the manual and practice shooting. I hope to get to using some sort of program mode tomorrow.

This photo of Scout was the very first photo I took with the camera, after I put in the battery. Why is this "about time"? Because after saving my money for months in order to buy this camera, my car's front end needed to be completely replaced, taking all the cash. But because of raises, no bills, and Bush's reparation payment, I was able to get the camera and the software to support it (Mac OS X Leopard, iLife '08 (including the newest iPhoto) and Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac).

I have found that I do macros by simply standing as close as possible. The camera does the rest. This is a photo of buds on my kitchen lilac bush.

I'm thinking that my zoom photos of beavers and birds will be a thing of the past until I am able to buy a zoom lens. Until then, I will carry both the Canon and the Kodak. The macro seems okay at this point but may not be adequate with bugs. I'll also need a safer tripod and a flash attachment. And a case. Extra battery, filters. Oh, more storage . . . . . (are my children listening?)

These photos will open full-size in a new window when clicked.

Thank you for visiting.

Click PhotoHunt to view more participants.

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Wired: Math Book Helps Girls Embrace Their Inner Mathematician

Math Book Helps Girls Embrace Their Inner Mathematician

The actress who played Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years, Danica McKellar, is a self-proclaimed math advocate for girls who might otherwise shy away from a subject that Barbie once famously described as "hard."

McKellar's math book for junior high girls, called Math Doesn't Suck: How to Survive Middle-School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail, will be at bookstores Thursday. It has the look and feel of a teen magazine, but puts heavy emphasis on fractions and pre-algebra.

Graduating summa cum laude from UCLA with a degree in mathematics, McKellar is also co-author of a published proof. She has testified before Congress on math education and served as a substitute teacher.

You can download the proof that Ms. McKellar wrote here. And of course, if you buy this book now by clicking on the book image or on the title, I will get paid. Then I can buy my Canon Rebel XTi.

Technorati tags: Danica+McKellar mathematics

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Busy Sick Day

The new garage doors went up this morning: one man alone took down the old ones (the pile on the left side above) and put in the new ones. I wish the windows were bigger like the old doors. I can barely see, with these windows, if the cats run in from the barn.

This is what it looks like inside. Of course, I now have to keep the far right (right from the inside) door up about 6 inches so the cats can come and go as they please. The door man said everybody does that and it does not harm the mechanism.

Of course, my old remotes for the old doors are now broken with age, so I had to order 3 more at $45 each. Also, Amy took the chain off the middle door when trying to fix it a year or two ago. It is $75 more to fix that. So at this moment I can only raise and lower one door with one remote. That should be fixed by this weekend.

See the flume in the photo above? It is very dry right now. I guess the upstream beavers have repaired or built up their dams.

In other news, I am home on a sick day. I thought I had pneumonia or something but everybody says it is severe allergies after being outside all weekend in the wind and pollen. I feel awful but better than this morning.

And guess who is my sub? Adam from Green Mountain Shuffle! What an ironic coincidence! I hope he is around tomorrow so I can chat with him.

Remember My Coke Rewards? They have changed, and for the good. It is an all-flash site now and works much better. Flashier than ever, but better. And the prizes are much better. I can also use 60 points a day to enter a contest for a Canon 35mm digital camera (3 points each entry, 20 entries a day allowed). The camera is way more than a Rebel. A bit over my head but I'll take it if I win. I have a Boston Acoustics mini-stereo and some other stuff on my wish list now.

I chatted with Camille most of the morning while I caught up with soaps and did some housework. I don't want to leave this house until all the pollen is gone.

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Apple! Get Over It!

iPhone ain't worth this delayed release of OS 10.5. You can't choose your own carrier, and there is no service in the Northeast Kingdom. I won't even be allowed to buy one! Cingular can "get me in big trouble" (ooohhhhh I'm scared!) if I go to New Hampshire and smuggle the iPhone into Vermont. Is this corporate high-handedness or is this corporate high-handedness? I took that iPhone off my wishlist one week after it was announced.

From Apple – Hot News:

Apple Statement
iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned. We can’t wait until customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a revolutionary and magical product it is. However, iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned. While Leopard's features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we're sure we've made the right ones. [Apr 12, 2007]

The following quote is from an e-mail to me from an Apple retailer in Vermont in response to my question about iPhones not being available in Vermont (18Jan07):

If you have a cell phone and a local 802 # you can go to Boston or another place where Cingular sells service, get the iPhone and Cingular service and because of all the rollover laws keep your VT phone number...

Also Gov. Douglas has a plan to make more wireless and cell service available in VT so this may change.

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My New Favorite Chocolate

BARRY CALLEBAUT JACQUES
Helene subs quite a bit in school and one day the topic came to chocolate. Her son lives in Belgium and sends chocolate home to her. The next time she subbed, she brought in a bar of this dark chocolate. It is great! Creamy and truly dark. Very rich, though, so my stomach hurt because I had too much.

Both of these pictures of the labels link to the manuafacturer's web site. For my gifts, you can google for an online retailer. Price is no object!

From the Jacques site:

In 1982, Jacques Chocolaterie was acquired by Stollwerck. To keep pace with the growing success of its products, the factory was repeatedly expanded, the last time in 2004.

At the end of the 19th century, when Belgium was in industrial and commercial euphoria, Antoine Jacques founded Jacques Chocolaterie in 1896.

In 2005, Jacques – whose key visual is a knight – and Callebaut – Barry Callebaut’s traditional brand for consumer products in Belgium – were merged to combine the best of two worlds: the name awareness of Jacques with the recognized quality of Callebaut inside. The result is a strong brand for anyone with a sweet tooth, distinguished by authenticity, a pioneering spirit and conviviality.

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In Vermont, Apple's iPhone is The i(can't)Phone

Gov. Jim Douglas holds up his cell phone during his inaugural address Jan. 4 about the importance of broadband internet and cell phone access. Several days after Douglas' address to a joint assembly of the Legislature, Apple Inc. announced its first foray into the cell-phone market with a handset called an iPhone. The device, hailed as potentially revolutionary in the wireless industry, will not be available in Vermont.
GLENN RUSSELL, Free Press

By Adam Silverman
Free Press Staff Writer

January 17, 2007
If Apple Inc.'s newly announced, highly anticipated iPhone is as groundbreaking as the company and industry analysts suggest, this is one revolution Vermonters will have to observe from the sidelines.

The iPhone -- a gadget that combines an iPod music player, cell phone and full-featured Internet browser in a sleek, svelte device -- won't be available in Vermont when it goes on sale in June.

Apple signed an exclusive, multi-year deal with AT&T's Cingular Wireless to distribute the handset, and Cingular offers no service in Vermont. Bottom line: No Cingular, no iPhone.

That's cruel calculus for local technology lovers and Apple enthusiasts whose cheering over the product, which had been the subject of rampant speculation and anticipatory lust for more than two years, turned to sadness within minutes of its formal introduction last week. For many Vermonters, the iPhone seems further away than ever.

"It was a pretty big letdown," said Don Mayer, CEO of Waitsfield-based Small Dog Electronics, a national Apple reseller. "I would have much rather seen them come out with a variety of carriers so places like Vermont won't be left out in the cold."

Users of cell phone users in more than a dozen other states, mostly in rural locations, face the same predicament. Cingular, like most other wireless service providers, allows users to "roam" on other carriers' networks but requires new customers to live in communities the company serves directly.

That means the iPhone will be unavailable in, among other locations, all or large portions of Alaska, Colorado, the Dakotas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, upstate New York, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.

Cingular coverage is fairly strong along the East and West coasts, in the South, across portions of the Midwest and in many major cities, including Denver, Houston, Minneapolis and Phoenix, according to a map of the provider's service locations.

No iPhone in 'e-state'


The lack of iPhone availability stands in contrast with Gov. Jim Douglas' plan to bring cell-phone and broadband Internet access to all corners of the state within three years. A single device that would help fulfill both of those promises is, for now, unattainable.

"I propose that by 2010, Vermont be the nation's first true 'e-state,'" Douglas said during his Jan. 4 inaugural address to the Legislature.

That the iPhone won't arrive in Vermont soon is not of particular concern to the administration, spokesman Jason Gibbs said. Still, the governor wants increased competition among wireless providers and believes the planned system will attract new entries to a market where Verizon, Unicel and Sprint are the only players.

"The network the governor has proposed will be so advanced that every service provider in the world will want to use it," Gibbs said. "The more options Vermonters have for wireless service, the better."

Cingular, which plots expansions two years in advance, has no plans to extend into Vermont before 2009 because the company is focusing on improving services for current customers, spokeswoman Kate MacKinnon said.

New technology


The type of phone the governor held aloft in the Statehouse -- a BlackBerry -- differs from Apple's new offering, which both the company and industry analysts say is more advanced.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in a lavish presentation Jan. 9 during the annual Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco. The device, which Jobs predicted will revolutionize the telecommunications sector, is a cross between another of Apple's industry-changing devices, the iPod, and a cell phone.

The iPhone, which runs a version of the Macintosh computer operating system, is a type of device called a smart phone, which, like the popular BlackBerry, melds calling with other features. Apple's version allows users to play songs, movies and TV programs; display photographs and slide shows; surf the Internet in a browser like those running on desktop computers; send and receive e-mail; listen to voice messages nonsequentially; and make calls in a simple user interface.

Users access the phone's operations via a 3 1/2-inch touch-screen that uses technology Apple invented and claims is superior to other touch-controlled devices on the market. There's no keyboard, for example, but virtual keys appear in programs that require typing.

The iPhone will be available only through Apple's and Cingular's retail stores and Web sites for $499 for a 4-gigabyte model, and $599 for a handset with double the memory. Partners such as Small Dog, the No. 3 Apple reseller nationwide, will not be allowed to sell the iPhone.

Vermont options


A user could purchase an iPhone without activating the cell-phone features, said Cingular's chief national spokesman, Mark Siegel. Doing that wouldn't make a lot of sense, though, Siegel said.

"It is meant to be a wireless phone," he said. "As a practical matter, you have to have wireless service."

An Apple spokesman, Tom Neumayr, said the company would have no comment on the lack of availability of the iPhone in communities where Cingular offers no service.

The iPhone is likely to be able to roam by borrowing time on other carriers' networks when no native signal is available. That means the device could work in Vermont and other Cingular-free locations, but signing up for new service could prove difficult without a billing address in a Cingular service area.

Small Dog CEO Mayer, who said he wants Apple's handset because he's disliked every other mobile phone he's ever used, hopes a post-office box will fulfill Cingular's requirement. His nearest option, according to the company's service map, is Lebanon, N.H.

"I will have an iPhone," he vowed, "if I have to drive to New Hampshire and have the bills forwarded to me."

Contact Adam Silverman at 660-1854 or asilverm@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com

Spectators at the iPhone Display

Spectators at the iPhone Display, originally uploaded by duncandavidson.

THIS IS ON MY WISHLIST
I only want the biggest one.
Not the biggest you can afford: THE BIGGEST ONE.

Justification: when I am in a ditch on a snowy icy night in the far northern reaches of Vermont without any cell service, (see Barton Mountain Alliance) I will be able to watch movies, listen to my tunes and freeze in peace.

Check out http://www.iphonecountdown.com/iphone_readymech.pdf
and iPhone Count Down

The bedroom I want.

The photo I took from a website (long since lost but I remember that it was from a web site illustrating rooms at a local bed and breakfast) shows the skylight curtains and bed that I want. Since my bed is king size, I can’t get an antique bed. But this is light and flowery. The problem with the curtains on the skylight is that you want to see the stars, snow, or moon when you can. But you need to keep the sun out because it fades fabrics and creates awful heat.

To see my wishlist you can use the froggle link on the blogroll, click "wishlist" on my del.icio.us tag cloud, or click on the amazon wishlist script. These are all on the sidebar to the right.

You can be sure to find me a wonderful gift at any of those sites! As I become more organized the froggle list will be disabled because it is not as good as a tag cloud.