Cactus V5 triggers

I received my new flash triggers! *squee!*

I bought two sets of the Cactus V5 flash triggers from Gadget Infinity. I only have one flash at the moment but I've ordered two more which are on their way giving me three flashes to play with. This'll make for a basic three-light setup.

I was testing them just now and they appear to be working properly. I was initially a little frustrated as I could get all the triggers to talk to each other (orange light on top) but couldn't get the flash to fire. Turns out (after reading the instructions) that I needed to press just a tad harder which makes the trigger lights flash green and sets off the flash. So there you go, read the instructions!

I'll probably pick up another two flashes and another set of triggers for a set of 5 flash/trigger units.

What the hell is wrong with Google

Well, looks like Google are finalizing their sell-out.

Oh wait, no - they were always in it for the money.

My complaint is that Google's search engine facility used to be pretty good for locating information. Let's say you wanted to buy something and wanted to read up some reviews on that product. You'd go to Google, type in the product name and "review" and you'd get a bunch of pages which people had review said product.

Today, it has become painfully obvious that this no longer works. I was trying to get some reviews on a UHF CB radio and all Google gave me was page after page of links to shopbot, getprice, myshopping and all these other crap "find the best price" sites. The worst thing? None of those damn sites actually had the product I was looking for! Just a page with "your search did not find any results - try these" and would then suggest a bunch of random stuff that had nothing to do with what I was looking for.

What. The. Hell?

Do these sites really think that if I come to their site looking for something and they don't have it, I'll say "well, I'm here - might as well buy something"? Or is the rest of the world finally retarded enough that this actually work for them?

Gah, why bother looking for intelligent life out there - there's none down here!

Hosting Upgraded

All-right! I have managed to get the hosting package on my main site updated from a basic personal plan to a business plan. This means more storage space and more bandwidth (not that I'm using that much) plus more reliable performance. It also means additional cost, but that's to be expected.

I'll be starting to upload all my photos (meaning all the best ones, not every single one) and organising things into folders and such to share with the world. In my experience, more images with descriptions means more people are likely to visit the site - which can be a good thing or a bad thing.

This also means that I need to be taking more photos. This is fine with me as it is what I want to do plus I have all the fancy new gear to play with.

Speaking of new gear, I do have a small issue with flashes. I've been buying Yongnuo YN460 flashes which are pretty cheap and they have worked out pretty good for the most part (review / tutorial coming soon). The problem is that I want three of them. I bought one, liked it, then bought two more. Turns out that one of them was DOA but because I didn't get around to testing them for a few months I wasn't able to get it replaced.

Recently I bought another one and this one arrived faulty. It works in the sense that it turns on and the flash fires if you press the "test" button but the trigger on the bottom does not respond. So neither the camera nor the wireless triggers will make the flash go off, rendering it useless. I corresponded with the seller who said they'd send a replacement (I think) so now I'm waiting for the replacement one to arrive. I offered to send the faulty one back to them to which they asked how much shipping would be. I sent them a message saying how much it was and have not had a reply, so not 100% sure what's going on.

Hopefully they'll send a replacement, but will wait and see. Might need to buy another one from another seller.

Lucky I am patient.

Letting the blood run ... free

I've been on the hunt for a while now for an old Australian TV series called  Let the Blood run Free. It was on in the 90's or so and I have very little memory of it - other than finding it funny. The one thing that I can clearly remember is that it was a spoof show set in a hospital and the perpetual "patient" was shown as a man lying on the operating table except that his chest was just a ribcage. No skin, no organs - nothing. The man was clearly dead.

(Note that this was a low budget comedy show - they didn't have an actual cadaver, it was just intended to look that way.)

At any rate, it isn't available (EzyDVD sell it but are out of stock) but I was able to find someone selling copies on eBay. I've ordered one and will see if it was worth the $20 I dropped for it.

Bee Positive

Well, got the results back from the blood clinic and it turns out that I am B+ bloodtype.

I’m not sure what to say. I don’t feel any different and I don’t think it’ll make a whole lot of difference in my life (unless someone gives me the wrong blood type at the hospital).

In an effort to head off that calamity before it happens, I put in an order for some dog tags. We’ll see how long they take to arrive.

Also ordered more flashes and some stands. Hanging out for those to arrive…

Goodies arrived!

I found a site a few weeks ago that sold old series and stuff that aren't available. The package arrived today - yay!

I'll be opening it up and having a look in a minute. Hopefully, they'll play on my dvd player. If it does, I'll definitily be leaving positive feedback for the chap who sold them to me - not to mention spending hours and hours watching them!

And I thought I had a book to write! Well, I did order a book that arrived a few days ago which I haven't looked at yet.

There must be something wrong with me that a new book arrives and I don't start reading it and a package arrives with stuff for me that I've been waiting for and I jump online and blog about it rather than opening it up...

Okay, off to watch!

Updated website

Wow, it has been way too long since I updated my website.

Well, at least I don’t do frivolous updates for the sake of an update. Put up the latest “essay” (if you can really call it an essay). It’s a short article about upgrading my Extensa 5220 laptop with more RAM and a bigger HDD.

Didn’t go out on the weekend to do any photography (wanted to save a bit on fuel) but I did take a bunch of photos of the flowers and stuff around the house.

Mood: Anxiously waiting for stuff I bought on-line to arrive.

Insane, but quiet.

Okay, I was looking through some of my old stuff when I found some old Lego catalogues (I seem to be thinking a lot about Lego at the moment). In it, I saw one of the old Technic sets, specifically set 8880, which was "the" must-have supercar in the mid 90's.

This particular set is actually available from a few places (only second hand) and I got to thinking, would it be possible to build this set out of new parts?

I trundled over to Shop@Home (Lego's on-line shop) where they have a "buy the bits you want" service. Now, they don't keep the full range of bits for people to buy, but they do have a very wide selection of bricks. About 80% of the parts I would need are available.

Now, it's that last 20% that is the kicker. This set uses many pieces that are not in production any more and two specific pieces that were exclusive to this set.

Doing the maths, new bricks from S@H come out to about AUS$160. The other 20% would need to be bought second-hand and total (approx) another $50-70. And the two exclusive bits are still available, but they would be about $20 for just those two.

So the running tally would be AUS$240 plus postage, which would be around another $80 since all the extra bits would be coming from different sources, mainly in Europe.

AUS$320 for an 80% new car.

Or AUS$200 for a second hand one with no box or instructions.

Gee, which would I do? Let me think about this one for two seconds. . .