Cambridge Sciences G7: One week in

It's now almost a week since I took delivery of my (finally working) Cambridge Sciences G7-II 7inch Android tablet so I thought I'd jot down some notes on how I've found it so far.

Overall, ignoring the "screen goes mental when plugged into the mains" problem, I'm happy with the device. I've been using it at those times when I've wanted something bigger and easier to handle that my HTC Desire HD but, at the same time, haven't wanted to pull out the Chromebook. It feels right in the hand (albeit somewhat heavy -- I can't imagine me ever using this instead of the Kindle as a ebook, for example) and, despite the fact that there's no feedback like I get on my phone, the screen is fine for typing on.

Overall, for the money, I'm happy with the purchase.

That said, here's a few niggles and observations:

• The battery status seems to be way off. Even after a full charge it tends to only show 93% full. It then seems to fall very quickly then ease up a little. I often also find that when I turn it off and turn it on again the battery will come back as showing having a higher charge than when I turned it off. This then falls rapidly back to where it was when I turned it off. All that said, the battery status seems roughly right so I've yet to find myself caught out by a low battery I didn't expect.
• Out of the box the auto-complete that's part of the keyboard doesn't appear to have a British English dictionary. Because of this the only auto-complete options you get when you're typing are things it can complete from the device's local data (application names, contact names, etc...). This is a bit of a serious issue but not one without a solution. Although it's essentially the same keyboard I installed Gingerbread Keyboard+ (which does have a British English dictionary) and have made that my keyboard instead. This is the keyboard I use on my phone anyway so not only does it solve the problem, it makes me feel more at home.
• There seems to be a pre-installed copy of EF File Explorer that can't be updated from the Android market. Any time I try and update it I get an error saying it's incorrectly signed. Bit of a shame because I use EF File Explorer.
• While I do appear to have and be connected to the UK Android Market with the tablet some apps seem to be missing. For example, the UK Amazon app (the one that lets you shop from Android) isn't anywhere to be seen. Same goes for the Box.net app.
• While I haven't had any of the WiFi problems some have reported in the reviews on Amazon (I imagine those problems have more to do with their WiFi setup than a problem with the tablet) I have found that it can be a little temperamental at times. Now and again I've had to stop and start WiFi to coax it fully into life. I also note that, if the unit has fully turned off and I've then turned it on again, I have to manually start WiFi. Not a big deal.
• From time to time it seems to fully power off after some time in sleep mode. I've not worked out if there's a reason for this, or if it can be changed. Neither does there seem to be a set time between being put into sleep mode and it turning itself fully off. This, again, makes for a mild annoyance because, most of the time, it means you can't just pick it up and do stuff -- there's a boot time you have to wait around for. While it's not terribly long (I've not timed it but I'd say around 60 seconds) it does mean it can take longer to get the tablet up and running than it can to get the Chromebook going.

And, so far, that's pretty much it. No show-stopper. Nothing that makes me hate it and want to send it back. It's not perfect, but then again it's around 1/2 the price of tablets that try to be.

Cambridge Sciences G7-II 7inch Android

I've been a pretty avid fan of Android since the early(ish) days. My first experience of Android was 1.5 on my HTC Magic (later updated to 1.6). I've toyed with the idea, on and off, of getting a tablet running Android. The last time I gave this some serious thought I ended up buying a Chromebook (a fantastic decision, I hasten to add -- I should probably write up my experiences of that so far at some point).

A couple or so weeks back I got an email from Amazon in which they included a pointer to this tablet. The spec seemed good, multi-touch capacitive screen, Android 2.3, and proper market access too. The price seemed right so I finally cracked and ordered it. It turned up a couple of days later and ended up being a bit of a disaster.

The first thing I noticed was that the screen just wasn't working at all. I couldn't type a thing. It was like every time I touched the screen it was registering many different touches. Worse yet, after a short while of trying to get things going (I was initially trying to connect it to my WiFi -- pretty much impossible given that I couldn't type the password because of the screen problem), the home app force closed and didn't want to play ball. A subsequent restart of the tablet had it just sitting on the Android logo on startup and nothing more would happen.

I sent off a message, via Amazon, to the vendor and, all credit to them, I got a phone call from their support guy within about 10 minutes. Turns out that the screen problem is really a mains charger problem. With the charger in the screen has all sorts of touch-sensing problems, with the charger out it works fine (subsequent testing shows this to be the case).

Between us, over the phone, we were unable to revive the tablet to get it to boot again so it was decided that I'd send it back to be looked at or to be replaced. As it happened, it finally sprung back into life a little later but, once it did, it refused to connect to WiFi. In fact, it wasn't so much that it refused to connect to my WiFi APs, it didn't even know how to do WiFi. It was like it'd lost its drivers or something.

Anyway, as requested, I returned the unit.

The process of having it returned and seen to took a little longer than I'd have hoped. I sent it recorded/insured and with a guaranteeddelivery of before 13:00 the following day but it didn't get delivered. According to the Post Office website nobody was able to receive it. The same happened the following day. Finally, after the weekend (this was the Thursday and the Friday that delivery was attempted), it showed as having been delivered on the Monday.

A couple of messages back and forth with the vendor didn't really get me any clear answers as to what was going on but, finally, yesterday, I got a message to say that a brand new unit was being shipped to me and should be with me today.

Sure enough:

This time, so far, so good. It still has the "on the mains the screen doesn't sense touch correctly" problem, and I've sent the vendor a note about that, but other than that it's working well so far. It seems pretty snappy, and I've had no problem installing apps from the Google market (including those that I've previously purchased for my phone). I've not used it much so far, other than setting up WiFi, throwing on some apps, sorting the sync with my accounts and so on. Mostly I've left it to charge. I'll see how it goes this weekend now and possibly write a little more about it next week (or before if it all goes horribly wrong).

It's been a while

Erm, yeah, erm, hello.... it's been a while hasn't it?

It's not that I've fallen off the net. Neither is it that I've given up on enjoying any of the subjects that this blog dealt with (mostly things to do with photography). Mostly I've let this blog lapse because things like twitter became so much bigger and it was easier to write about stuff there (albeit very short writing) than here.

A few things have gone on since I last blogged. I upgraded my dSLR (now using a 50D along with the 400D). I got myself a Polaroid and started playing with Impossible Project film. I finally got myself a rangefinder camera and had a play with that. I set myself up with a digital Holga setup, of sorts (it's the new use for the 400D). I've also found that my photography has slowed down. It's not that I've lost interest, far from it, but I have slowed down a little. Whereas I'd be shooting and uploading every week (to my main site, I still photoblog from the phone a fair bit), I might only do something once a month, or every other month.

The big change of late is that I got on to Google+. Oddly, having done so has made me think about writing and blogging again. Twitter was and is too seductive -- it's so easy to bang out something sub-140-chars and be done with it. Using Google+ has got me writing things out at a little more length again, and so made me wonder about this neglected blog.

I can't say I'll be posting here lots again, my Google+ stream will probably be the place where I wrote most. But I think it is about time that I look to using this for better-formatted bodies of text (along with images) and linking to it from twitter and G+.

Fingers crossed...

Fisheye and Flash

After having some fun with the 38mm super-wide lens for my Diana+ I decided, late on last year, to also get the fisheye lens. So far I've not had the chance to use it but I aim to correct that pretty soon.

I mention this because, earlier this week, I took delivery of yet another extra for the Diana+: a flash. Here's the Diana+ with the fisheye lens and the flash attached:

The flash is rather clever. As well as working on the Diana+ (with it's two-prong connector) it comes with an adaptor for the usual hot shoe connection you find on many cameras. This means it'll work with my Lubitel 166B and, I imagine, my Holga 120GN. I'm also wondering if it'll work with any of my digital cameras too (no, I can't think of a reason why I'd want it to either — but it would look funny).

I'm looking forward to the chance to get to use the flash now.

seen by davep v1.2

Back in October last year I used Blurb to produce a book based on the content of my photoblog. Having been very pleased with how it turned out I decided to do one every time the blog contained enough material. A couple of weeks back I had enough material to produce a second book. Here it is:

seen by davep ...

A geek and his mob...

By Dave Pearson

Book Preview

My copy is on order and should be with me in a couple of weeks. Really looking forward to having a printed "collection" of the content of the blog.

White Horses by Juliet R. Harrison

It started with this tweet from @ShutterBetty. You see that stuff all the time on twitter, of course. "Follow this", "retweet that", "use this hash tag" and... get some thing for free. Possibly. But probably not really.

But I took a look at the account in question, saw it was an account for a photographer, liked what I saw, and decided to follow anyway. And before I did I could see she had 1,000 followers. After I did the follow it went up to 1,001. I did find myself wondering "will this work then? what if someone else now unfollows? what if I look like I'm only #1,000, etc..."

I needn't have worried.

And, sure enough, less than two weeks later, this landed on my doormat:

So, I just wanted to say a big thank you to @lecheval. It was a very sweet thing to do, and I really am loving the book. I'm not really one for doing reviews, I generally don't have the words to describe books and people's art in that way, but this is currently in the pile of photography books that I look at on a regular basis.

If you'd like to have a look for yourself go visit the preview over on Blurb. If you really like what you see you can order a copy from here.

New Toy: 38mm Super-Wide Lens for the Diana+

Yesterday I took delivery of a new toy from Lomography. Actually, two new toys, both connected to my Diana+. One of them was the 38mm super-wide lens:

It's a nice little package. Not only do you get the lens, you get a viewfinder (the black gadget you see fixed to the top of the camera) and a bag to keep it all in. The viewfinder is very handy because, as well as still allowing you to compose via the usual viewfinder, the super-wide one has brightlines for the "standard" lens too. This means that you can swap lenses without needing to pop the viewfinder on and off. I think that's a rather nice touch.

The other thing I purchased, more on a whim than with an actual need, was the Canon EOS Diana+ lens adaptor. Now I can use either of the Diana+ lenses I've got on my Canon EOS 400D.

I had hoped to test both toys today but the weather was pretty foul and the light was no good for a bit of messing about. Hopefully I'll get to try them some time soon. Obviously I'll blog about the results when I do.

First Test of the Diana+

A couple or so weeks back I finally got the chance to put a roll of Fuji Provia 400X through my new Diana+. It's taken a while to get the images processed (strikes on the part of the Royal Mail partly got in the way, but I was also slow doing the processing at my end too) but I finally have the results up on my website:

Lomography Diana+ Test
I'm very please with the results. I've only published 11 images from the 12 shot, and the one that I've left out was my mistake. I'd attempted to use the Diana+ in its pinhole mode but took a wild guess at the exposure time and got it wrong. From what I could see the image looked from the point of view of how well the pinhole performed, but it was very over-exposed so I decided to leave it out. At some point soon I'll give the pinhole mode another try.

Vodafone push Android Donut to my HTC Magic

I first saw it was heading my way last week and, sure enough, last night, Vodafone pushed Android Donut onto my HTC Magic.

I knew pretty much what to expect in terms of headline features, thanks to this video:

but there's a couple of other things that have changed that I really like.

First off, it seems that screen orientation changes are now much faster. Before, when I changed the orientation of the phone from portrait to landscape (or back) it would take a couple of seconds to sort itself now, now it seems to be a fraction of a second — almost to the point of feeling like an instant change.

Another change, again a speed thing, is that the camera feels much more responsive, and quicker to start up too (although I think the startup time as something to do with the above change). This is a good thing from my point of view given that I use the phone as the camera that populates my photoblog.

The new search facility is really nice in that, now, I don't need to bother with the search gadget on the home screen any more. Until now I had it on the middle part of the home screen taking up a fair amount of space (see right) but, with 1.6, the search tool comes up when you press the hardware search button so there's no need to use the gadget any more. That means I get four "cells" back on home. That's come in very handy.

So far I've only run into one problem after the 1.6 install. It seems that Google Search by Voice is now broken. Any time I try and run it I get a "force close" dialog (I know I'm not the only one too because there are plenty of comments in the Android Market reporting the same problem). That's kind of a shame because the new search facility searches contacts, amongst other things, so it would seem like the two together will work as a voice dial (in fact the video above suggests this too). Doubtless a new version of Search by Voice will turn up in the Android Market real soon.

First Google Wave Gadget: 5x5

Last week I was lucky enough to get an invite to Google Wave (having signed up for an invite back in May when I first saw the Google I/O presentation video). Like most people, I imagine, I spent a couple of days getting to know it, finding contacts I know, waiting for the people I invited to turn up, and also playing around with some of the robots and gadgets that are currently available. By the weekend I was itching to do something about gadget development so I had a quick read of the development tutorial and started to play.

The first couple of gadgets were simply throw-away tests but I finally decided on something a little more "meaty" to try (still rather simple, but something more than just pure "Hello, World!" type testing). I decided to to a Wave-enabled version of my 5x5 puzzle.

The very first version was up and running in no time, but it wasn't terribly use as it didn't save and share state. Not to long later, however, I'd got my head around Wave's shared state system and I had a Wave Gadget version of 5x5 that multiple people could view and interact with.

Here's how it looks inside a Wave:

Nothing too clever, but one step along learning how to code for Wave.

If you're on Wave, and you fancy having a play, just use the add-gadget button and paste this URL into the dialog that pops up:

http://serenity.davep.org/5x5/5x5.xml

There's also a version hosted over on GitHub.

Note that I'm still tinkering with it and it could go wrong at any moment. If it does, don't worry, I'll be sure to fix it right away. And, if you want to ask me something about it, I'm davep.org over on Google Wave — feel free to Wave me.

New Toy: Lomography Diana+

I tried to resist. Really, I did. But ever since I got my Holga 120GN there's been a part of me that's kept nagging the rest of me about looking at the Diana+. Just for kicks. Just for extra toy-camera fun.

Last week I cracked:

I just got a new delivery of Fuji Provia 400X so hopefully, in the next week or two, I'll get some time to take it out for a spin and shoot a test roll (sadly this generally means needing to wait for weekends now because weekdays are dark before I finish work).

I'll blog the results when I get them.

New site: www.seen-by.me.uk

Back in May this year I finally cracked and joined the ranks of people who use "smart phones". For a while I was seriously thinking about going for an Apple iPhone (especially after seeing Elizabeth Gordon's early shots with CameraBag) but, in the end, I was tempted by Android and got myself a HTC Magic.

One of the first things I did after I got it, following the lead of Elizabeth Gordon and James Beston, was to get a posterous account. At first I used it as a place to post ad-hoc photos but, pretty soon, I started to treat it as a more (insert hand-waving here) "serious" photoblog.

It's been running for a few months now and I'm rather happy with the content. So much so that I've decided to let it have its own domain: www.seen-by.me.uk.

Also, recently, I finally cracked and won an ongoing battle I've been having with Blurb's Booksmart (the battle is all my own making — I just don't "get" that software) and made a book of the blog: seen by davep v1.1:

seen by davep ...

A geek and his mob...

By Dave Pearson

Book Preview

The content of the book starts a couple or so months into the blog (hence v1.1 rather than v1.0, there's technical reasons why v1.0 didn't get created first) and ends a couple of weeks ago. At some point I imagine I'll make v1.2. I currently have a copy of the book on order (I only really made it for myself anyway) and will post about it here when it finally turns up.

Recent Holga Photographs

Recently I put another two rolls of Fuji Provia 400X through my Holga 120GN. They've both been processed and scanned (once again thanks to to my friendly Scottish landscape photographer for the scanning) and the results have been uploaded to my site:

Holga Near Billingborough

Holga on Stow Lane

Holga in Bourne Wood

Holga at Wheelgate Park

Second Outing With the Opteka 0.20x Fisheye Conversion Lens

After my very quick test of my new fisheye conversion lens the other night, I was impatient to give it a better test. Last Saturday afternoon had great weather and great skies so I put the fisheye on my EOS 400D and took a walk up to Birthorpe and back.

Here is the result:

Fisheye to Birthorpe

New Toy: Opteka 0.20x Fisheye Conversion Lens

Ever since I got to play with one back in the 1980s (using it on my Zenit 11), I've wanted a fisheye lens of my own. Trouble is, they're generally expensive, especially given the limited use they have.

And then, a couple or so weeks back, while browsing for something else on Amazon, I stumbled on the Opteka 0.20x Fisheye Conversion Lens:

It turned up yesterday and, last night, just as the sun was setting, I managed a very quick walk around the village to give it a quick try:


Opteka 0.20x Fisheye Test
My initial reaction is very favourable. There's very obvious fringing as you move away from the middle of the image (which I expected), but the sweet spot is very sharp and, overall, it's nice and easy to use.

Great little toy that will get more use.

Seen by Me -- An experiment with video slide shows

For a long time now I've wanted to have a go at creating a video slide show. While I did have a quick dabble with Animoto a while back, and while it was fun, it wasn't quite what I had in mind.

I've wanted to be able to take a piece of music, ideally an instrumental, and try and weave my images around it. To this end I've spent some time, over the months, looking for instrumental tracks that I love and which are also licenced in a way that would permit using them as the backing of such a video. That was the really important part, that I was legally permitted to use the music.

And then, last week, one of my favourite singer/songwriters released a couple of instrumental versions of her songs via her newsletter. She also said that anyone was permitted to use the music in other works as long as full and proper credit is given.

One of the tracks was the instrumental of I'm Yours. I *had* to do something with that. And so, last Saturday night, I fired up Windows Movie Maker and started having a dabble.

This is the result:

And please, if you like the music, go visit Marian's website and have a listen to her music. Better still, why not treat yourself to some of her music?

Even better, if you're looking for instrumental tracks that are licenced in a way that let's you use them while passing on the news, why not join her mailing list and keep up with what she's doing?

PS: If you didn't click through to the original song, and you're done watching the video, have a listen to the original here:

First Roll From the Zero Image 2000

Yesterday I finished uploading the results of the first film through my Zero Image 2000. I'm very impressed with what I've got out of it on a first go.

Another film out of the Holga

Thanks to the processing and scanning skills of my friendly Scottish landscape photographer I have the results of the most recent film from my Holga 120GN online:

Soon It Will Be Clear


If I Know One Thing


Flat Bed


Holga South of Birthorpe


Holga in Grantham - 2009-06-06
That was another roll of Ilford HP+ 400 and, once again, I'm very happy with the results. I think I'm probably more keen on sticking with Fuji Provia 400X in the future, mainly because I feel, for some unknown reason, that colour does the Holga more justice.

All Set With the Zero Image 2000

The postie came today, carrying a parcel from 7DayShop:

The main thing being that I've now got some film to use with my Zero Image 2000 so I'm all set for when I've got the time (and the weather is playing ball).

And, as you can see, I found a dinky little case and a nice soft bag to keep it in when I'm wandering about, or when it's in storage waiting for its next outing.

Hopefully the first outing will be real soon.

New Toy: Zero Image 2000

Today I took delivery of a new photographic toy. A Zero Image 2000 pinhole camera:

I've been considering a pinhole camera for a while and I'd decided that, given that I already own a couple of medium-format film cameras anyway, a medium-format pinhole was the obvious choice.

I probably won't get to use it for at least a week as I've only just ordered some film for it. I'm really looking forward to trying it out.