Domain Hosting Companies

Have I mentioned lately just how much it bothers me to deal with companies that don't even give an option to contact via email, far less a phone number. My web hosting company is Great - they've got phone numbers, and email addresses posted easily so you don't have to spend the first hour searching, the domain names hosts are a much different story. First of all, it is highly likely you have NO IDEA who your host is, as it gets sold when you sign up, thinking that you are with one company, only to find out, you are actually subcontracted out to someone 3 or 4 steps down the line...and they have a password for you, which you don't know, but you will need to enter it, if you ever happen to manage to find their secret contact information in order to make any needed changes. I am rather frustrated with this process as is evident. I just want to say, 'hey, I need to make a simple change here, it only needs to take 30 seconds tops', but the search process to find a human to make the change takes weeks, and no surprise, I end up leaving an automated trouble ticket online with a company my account is with, that I have never heard of, and possibly, just possibly may get a reply from. Of course the subject line will probably say something like: 'do not reply to this email, it is automated!' There's my gripe, hopefully it will be a very long time before the next!

Twins Day At EBC

One Year Already - WOW
Two sets of twins one year apart...ok, no need to hold your breath any longer, they are from seperate families, just happen to be in the same church family! Congratulations Girls...or should I say - Congratulations Mommy's and Daddy's, you made it ! What a Great Deal To Celebrate On Mother's Day!

Proud Of The People I Met Today

Despite the weather it was a busy day of sittings. Three in all, I felt sorry for the families, and the one couple as they braved the cold. Me being the big wimp with cold, I was able to wear my coat; lets just say I'm very proud of the individuals I met today!

Tips For Caring For And Using Your Memory Cards

Your Memory Cards - Keeping them Healthy
Extracted from an article by Darren Rowse.

1. If Disaster Strikes – Stop Shooting
All is not necessarily lost, you may be able to recover your images, don’t use the card or you will simply overwrite them.
2. Delete Images on your Computer not In Camera
The Rule is that the fewer times you add or remove datea on your card the better. Erasing all your images at once after uploading them to your computer means one erase cycle rather than lots of them if you delete them one at a time on your camera.
3. Remove Cards Safely When Connected To Your Computer
After uploading images to your computer from a card make sure you follow the proper procedure to eject the card.
4. Multiple Cars Can Be Better Thank One
Basically, don’t put all your images in one basket!
5. Avoid Filling Your Cards Completely
Regularily remove images off of your card, rather than when they get full.
6. Periodically Reformat Cards.
This will wipe any data, images, file names on the card and set it up fresh for your camera. Only do this AFTER you’ve downloaded any images on the card or you’ll lose them. Also, do the formatting in the camera you want to use the card in.
7. Keep Your Camera Up To Date.
Camera manufacturers will release firmware updates from time to time. These keep your camera up to date with any fixes for errors or problems that are identified with a camera. Some of these can relate to the camera’s interaction with the memory card.
8. Replace Batteries Before they run down
This will stop you losing that last image but also can stop card errors that can occur when an image is not fully written to a card.
9. Don’t switch off your Camera too quickly after shooting
When shooting in ‘burst’ or ‘continuous shooting’ mode (lots of images quickly), a camera needs a little time to wrie all of the data you’ve taken to the memory card. The camera will need time to buffer the images and if you switch it off during this process you’ll lose images and could even find yourself with a system error.
10. Maintenance
Keep your card dry and clean, don’t expose them to extreme temperatures, don’t drop, bend or puncture them, and don’t expose them to magnetic currents.

The Life Of Your Memory Card

I recently received this article by Barry Smith – Very informative whether you are take pictures as a beginner, a pro, or somewhere in between.
They’re ultra small, decidedly clever, mostly reliable and offer remarkable storage capacities. But beware of their fragility…mistreat them and they’ll snap back with distressing damage. Reliability has increased to about a million write cycles from the past. Now the tricky bit: a single write cycle is not merely the action of writing a single image to the card. The cars write a single block at a time; this may total a couple of kilobytes each. Even if the computer is not interfering with the data on the card it still continuously accesses the card. This action is similar to a write cycle. The longevity of your card is directly affected and can be decreased quite significantly. Some people say they’ve ;lugged their card into the computer and started reading the image directly from the card: “If you think about how many millions of times the computer will be accessing the card just to read parts of the picture, byy reading and reading and rewriting – even small changes- you might reduce the card’s life expectancy by half just by reading a single picture.


Some helpful tips on extending the life of your card:
• The best approach is to load your memory card, copy the images on it directly to your hard drive. Then take the card out.
• Keep the card in the computer no longer than necessary. Do the image downloading from the card, then extract it. Left in the computer it will continuously access the directory, checking the byte order, to see if there are any changes etc. This action is identical to a write cycle so the life of your card is reduced. Don’t work on the image while it’s still on the card. You culd easily knock out half of the life expectancy of the card just by doing that with a single image.

A Spring Walk

Bradley and I went for a little walk this morning, and found that the fish were beginning to spawn, and the toads were out for some attention too!

Burger King Fun

Tonight we took Amy and the Bradley's to Burger King for "dinner" and FUN...lots and lots of FUN!