Posts by Billz

Transit of Venus, live-ish from Australia

Venus Transit From Carlsbad, California USA

Hello!

I no longer live in Worcester Park - where I used to send you photos from :) Hopefully you would like to use this somewhere

The online / hires version is on Flickr at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/billius/7343376464/

I just shot this in my backyard in Carlsbad, California, USA

Please feel free to use it for anything!

Was shot with Imaging Source DMK51 - short AVI video, stacked in AutoStakkert and processed in Photoshop/Lightroom

Cheers

Bill Pinnell

Steve Jobs death-grips iPhone 4 reality

I'm returning my iPhone 4

Things I love about the iPhone4 (compared to my old 3GS): Good video. Good camera. Fantastic screen. However, I don't like the fact that I have to use a bumper to avoid signal degradation.

I watched the press conference on Friday. I really wanted Apple to 'fess up to making a design mistake - I wanted to hear how they would improve things in the future (e.g. putting lacquer on the antenna - would help a little) etc. What I heard instead was this is a common smartphone problem - its not - you don't need to death grip iPhone - just try browsing the web holding it in your left hand...

I also wanted to hear about whether this is a problem for ALL iPhone 4's or it is only affecting certain units - I believe its the former.

So.. even though I really love that screen, and can avoid signal problems using the bumper I have I've just phoned AppleCare in UK and arranged for them to pick up my iPhone and refund my £599.

TomTom iPhone Car Kit

No mention of Live Traffic

I get live traffic information free on google maps - why not on TomTom?

Google Chrome OS - do we want another monoculture?

Chrome vs Android

Back in July, Google made the distinction that Chrome OS would also be for desktops & net-books - whereas Android was for handheld, phones and net-books.

But today we hear its basically just for net-books - and only ones with SSD/Flash...!

It seems even stranger to continue to have both OS offerings.

Google-branded Android smartphone inbound?

Isn't this just the new Motorola/Verizon "Droid" phone?

I may be barking up the wrong tree but could he have got confused ? My guess is the mystery device is the new Android 2.0 Droid device coming from Motorola/Verizon

Droid doesn't have MotoBlur UI and is more of a Google designed device by all accounts than a Motorola one. This maybe why people are getting confused this is a "Google phone"

Reg reader captures Perseid meteor

timeline looks ok

when I look at metadata page - has both as the 12th.

The only thing I was worried about was the timestamp that had it as 3.33 when in reality it was 4.31am - but I imagine I haven't set the camera to BST properly.

Re: Iridium Flare

@dxmnkd316 Blimey I haven't ever looked into Iridium Flares so went to the Wikipedia images for a look and thought they look a lot like my photo. eek

Just visited Heavens Above though and put in my location - it looks like there was a satellite around 3:40am but it was ESE and lower elevation - so i <think> my shot is a meteor trail. But feel free to expose me as a fraud !

Some more info

For those that are interested, the photo is a crop of a full frame shot taken with Nikon D3 with 85mm f1.4 lens (at f1.4). 8 seconds exposure.

I purposefully took shots around Polaris to reduce the amount of star trails - I wasn't using a tracking mount - just normal photographic tripod.

I used the Nikon MC-36 wired remote to automatically take multiple shots.

There were some larger (and slower) trails which I have captured sections of trails in 5 consecutive shots but these don't show such good colours as they don't burn so hot as they are not going through atmosphere so quickly.

Perseid meteor shower set to dazzle disappoint

Slim pickings

Managed to capture one fast, coloured trail at about 4.33am.

The green is from Magnesium components, the Yellow/Orange from Sodium

http://twitpic.com/dl4a9

iPhone 3GS turns yellower shade of white

Duh! How else do you report the beginning of a problem!

@magnetik - I've got a yellow tinted iPhone 3GS and emailed Bill Ray last night to draw his attention to this issue - as I said to him if it wasn't about the iPhone it wouldn't be <at all> newsworthy.

You may be right that this is a minority problem - however if it turns out to be more it would have been embarassing for The Register not to decide to cover it before others.

Looking at the the discussion forums it certainly seems that an appreciable amount of early stock in shops suffers from the problem (people having to swap 3 times before 'finding' a better one). I hope any manufacturing or quality control problems got/get sorted soon so I can get one with a better looking LCD!