Matt | 
08 28th, 2008| 
Captcha is broken - now what? The Guardian. I was quoted in today’s Guardian, which consistently has some of the best tech coverage around.
Aug
28
A neighbour’s gate is securely locked. As secure as a 3 foot high driveway gate will ever be I suppose.
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Tags: Blarney, Canon 20D, Cork, Cork Photos, gate, Ireland, Irish photos, irishblogs, knots, lomo, rope, Sigma 18-200, tied up, Urban
Aug
27
It’s been seven weeks since my knee surgery. I can now officially put my full weight on my right leg. Unofficially, I’ve already been walking around without crutches for most of the past week. When I had my six-week checkup with the surgeon, I asked when I could drive a car on my own instead of having to get my family members to drive me to appointments. He said “whenever you feel like you can,” so I did.
The important thing about the six-week checkup last week was that it marked the point that my meniscus repairs are healed enough for me to start bending my knee past 90 degrees. At my physical therapy appointment a few days later, we measured my angle at 118 degrees, and I was able to pedal an exercise bike. Between the bike, the squats and the leg-lift exercises (4 different exercises with 4 pound ankle weights x 100 reps each = 1600 pounds!)
We’re also getting back to a proper eating plan at home, so between that and the exercise I get from therapy, I’m hoping to shed some pounds now. I’ve got to say, though, I don’t recommend the knee surgery weight loss plan. It’s a pretty darned expensive gym membership. 
Aug
27
No drinking on the street. This reminds me of an incident several years ago when I was in town with a group of friends on a Saturday night. This was before I started drinking, and my friends bought cans of beer in an off-license.
The guy behind the counter warned them the Guards were about watching for people drinking alcoholic beverages in public and they seemed to heed his warning until they got across the road and popped open their cans.
Sure enough, within 2 minutes a Garda was there! He took their names and addresses, and asked them to stop drinking, and of course gave them an awful fright. I followed a chastened group of lads to the pub. Don’t even know why they wanted to drink outside as the pub was just around the corner. Could have been the “poor student” in each of them trying to save money.
Not drinking was great of course. Cost me all of about 6 or 7 quid on a night out, and I could drive home too!
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Aug
27
No drinking on the street. This reminds me of an incident several years ago when I was in town with a group of friends on a Saturday night. This was before I started drinking, and my friends bought cans of beer in an off-license.
The guy behind the counter warned them the Guards were about watching for people drinking alcoholic beverages in public and they seemed to heed his warning until they got across the road and popped open their cans.
Sure enough, within 2 minutes a Garda was there! He took their names and addresses, and asked them to stop drinking, and of course gave them an awful fright. I followed a chastened group of lads to the pub. Don’t even know why they wanted to drink outside as the pub was just around the corner. Could have been the “poor student” in each of them trying to save money.
Not drinking was great of course. Cost me all of about 6 or 7 quid on a night out, and I could drive home too!
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Aug
27
I’ve got a new beta version of Twitter Tools ready for testing. Twitter Tools is a WordPress plugin that creates an integration between your blog and your Twitter account.
This release has a couple of bug fixes (from version 1.5b1) and a couple of new features:
- fixed a logical bug that made the “exclude replies” option work backwards (oops!)
- removed a try/catch for PHP 4 compatibility (oops!)
- added support for hashtags (linked to search.twitter.com)
- abstracted all API endpoints and URLs so that it can theoretically support any service that implements the Twitter API
Hopefully this will be ready for a full release shortly, with only minor changes (if any). I guess we’ll find out soon. 
The download and more information are available on my WordPress Plugins page.
If you have any trouble with this, please open a thread in the WP Support Forums and send me the link.
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Aug
27
Yes, yes, boo hoo, oh woe is me, my Canon 40D arrived on the day the new Canon 50D was announced. If only I had waited, my photos would be so much better with the Canon 50D.
Yeah right. I’ve already stated before that the equipment behind the camera is the most important part of image making. Sure, the camera does matter, but DSLRs are getting to the stage PCs got to a few years ago. Upgrading doesn’t significantly change the game. I’ll upgrade again in maybe 3 years. No rush.
The Canon 50D looks sweet though. 15MP sensor, better ISO, better LCD. Nice upgrade. Roland has linked to a few of the sites previewing or discussing the Canon 50D. The Rob Galbraith page is probably the most readable, but the DPReview preview has a neat comparison table to compare the Canon 50D with the Canon 40D.
DIGIC 4 processor Canon’s next-generation, 14-bit DIGIC 4 processor see its debut in the 50D, and it offers both more functionality and about 30% faster processing speed than the DIGIC III processor in the 40D….
The two cameras’ dimensions, body style and control positions are also the same (though the 50D is fractionally lighter). In a nutshell, the 50D appears to be a 40D with a higher-resolution sensor, revamped image processing, faster CompactFlash write speeds, HDMI video out and a crisp new rear LCD.
Love this pic of the motherboard with the DIGIC 4 processor!
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Tags: Canon, Canon 50D, Canon EOS 50D, Canon-40D, irishblogs, Photography, Words
Aug
26
This church in Castletownbere in West Cork looks like it may have seen better days but by the looks of the mowed grass it’s probably still in use.
The Canon 40D was delivered today. I could have posted a sample picture but I didn’t have time to shoot anything interesting besides a few snaps of family. Loving the 3″ LCD on the back of the camera, it’s so quiet compared to the Canon 20D, hardly any noise at ISO 400, and experimenting with the auto ISO mode. That should help with street photography where light conditions change so rapidly.
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Tags: Architecture, Black and White, Castletownbere, church, Cork, Cork Photos, grass, Ireland, Irish photos, irishblogs, Nature, path, Urban, urban-decay
Aug
26
Riding the Crazyhorse: Iterative Testing and Design of WordPress. If that sounds like something you’d want to see at SxSW 2009 presented by Liz Danzico, Jane Wells, and yours truly then vote early and often. Polls close soon.