I, the DSLR Dummy: Why a Tamron 17-50mm F2.8?

I have to be honest: It is therapeutic to write about something that has brought  a little more fun into my life. Now, back to our business, the Tamron 17-50mm F2.8 lens.

After deciding to go back into photography as a hobby to chill out and decompress, and choosing the Pentax K-5 body,  I found myself looking for a lens. I wanted a multi-purpose lens, something to shoot both sunsets and random street photos, thus I focused on searching for a fast standard zoom. Three options pop-out during the first stage of the search:

• Pentax DA Star 16-50mm F2.8
• Sigma 17-70mm F2.8
• Tamron 17-50mm F2.8

Due to my clumsiness, the weather sealed Pentax lens was my first option. The pros of this beautiful looking lens are, of course, the fact that it fits perfectly the weather sealed body; basically, one can forget about light rain and dust for the few minutes that it takes to find cover. Also, the Pentax K-5 body has an integrated database with all modern Pentax lenses' characteristics and it is able to embed chromatic and geometric corrective parameters in the raw's Exif without wasting too much time. The contras are the price and the large geometric distortion, chromatic aberration and low resolution when compared with the other too; you can see for yourself the extensive optical tests on this Pentax lens at Photozone or Dxomark.

My second option was the Sigma lens. It has very nice numbers in both Photozone and Dxomark reviews—do not mind the fact that the lenses were tested in a Nikon and Canon body, in that order, the optical characteristics of the lens shouldn't change that much with a Pentax body— and it is cheaper than the Pentax lens but a wee bit more expensive than the Tamron.

Finally, my last option was the Tamron. Truth be told, I was not even considering this lens at first; another proof of my own stupidity. Then, I went to Photozone and Dxomark to check the cold facts reviews and things changed; the numbers for the Tamron lens are almost equal to, and in some places better than, those of the Sigma and, imagine, for a few dollars less. Still, the Sigma came first to my mind—I told you, my own stupidity.

Everything was decided at the photo shop because the didn't have the Sigma available at the moment—I bought my things at SLR Revolution after walking all Funan and Peninsula plazas searching for the best price, the difference may not sound big, but I saved enough for a couple of beers at my favorite micro brewery.

In summary, the Pentax 16-50mm F2.8 comes third in optical parameters and first when it comes to the price tag, but keep in mind that it is a weather sealed lens and you can use the lens correction data in the Pentax K-5 DSP to develop corrected jpegs from your raw files in situ. The Sigma and the Tamron 17-50mm F2.8 share almost the same optical parameter values, with the Sigma winning the race for a nose. Their prices are also almost the same. In the end, any of these two—Sigma or Tamron—was a good option for my actual needs: a fast general purpose lens that I could use to shoot both panoramas and portraits.

I, the DSLR Dummy: Why a Pentax K-5?

The process of choosing my camera started a few weeks ago, even before I thought about buying a camera for myself, when a friend of mine, Orthus, was daydreaming about upgrading his camera. 

At that time, we were looking for Canon and Nikon bodies. In the end, my friend decided on the Nikon D5100 but I kept on reading. Here's the reason, I'm very clumsy and easily distracted; my things usually end bumping walls because I was looking the other way, or under the rain because I forgot the check the weather forecast. Thus, I kept on reading trying to find a sturdy, durable body.

My first SLR body was a Pentax K-1000. It still works after 20 years of use and abuse. That made me look at Pentax DSLR bodies, where I found the Pentax K-5.

Now, all in all, the Pentax K-5 share most of the characteristics of the Nikon D7000; you can see a point by point comparison of these two at Snapsort. Truth be told, the only characteristic where they are not equal peers is the video capabilities; the Nikon D7000 easily beats the Pentax K-5 at this. But, opposite to the Nikon D7000, the Pentax K-5 has a built-in stabilizing system;  in the long run, this can save a lot of money when buying slow lenses. Finally, the most important characteristic for me, the Pentax K-5 is weather sealed. This means that you don't have to panic if you have to run for cover for a few minutes under the rain; which, as I said before, happens a lot to me. 

By the way, if you look closer to the point by point Snapsort scorecard comparing the Nikon D7000 and Pentax K-5, you will realize that they score popularity. On this item, the Nikon D7000 has 35 points, while the Pentax K-5 has only 5. Subtracting this subjective characteristic, the final score moves to 394.4 points of the Nikon D7000 versus 404.4 points of the Pentax K-5.

In summary, if you don't mind the "my camera is more popular" contest  and you are not buying a photographic camera for shooting video, the Pentax K-5 is the best camera available in its range, with the plus that it can stand clumsy guys like me. 

 

Second HDR try...

Today, I wanted to come home early so I could shoot a little bit more with the camera and try to compose some more HDR images. As always, things came out differently and I came too late. In the end, there was not enough light to shoot new raws. So, I started experimenting with some of the shots from yesterday, trying to get a different effect from yesterday's HDR image.

This was the result, a more natural image—that's the only word that comes to my mind to describe this composition. Yesterday's picture had very high contrast and the colors were dark. I tried to go for bright colors and less contrast with today's composition. Something closer to what I think I saw with my eyes. I used only three raw images with a 1 EV step, and kept the contrast parameter low, while the color saturation was very close to 1.

This one goes to my coworker and good new friend The Mysterious Dr. Noh, as thanks for his patience and help during these months in Singapore. It's nice to have someone to sit down and drag lead, to pick the many ideas inside his brain and share my antics. Thank you Bro!

I, the DSLR Dummy.

Yesterday, I decided to go back to an old hobby, photography. Lo and behold! I thought I was going back to an old hobby; I couldn't be further from truth...

In these few hours of reading manuals and toying with the camera, my first impression was that digital photography is quite similar to film photography—you shoot and you develop, minus the expensive dark room and supplies. Then, I read about High Dynamic Range Imaging and a small piece of the full power of a digital camera, plus image editing software, hit me like a rock.

First, a disclaimer. In the past, I used to shoot film with a Pentax K1000; mostly panoramas or portraits with a 35mm f/2.8 lens. I stop shooting film around ten years ago. In these ten years, I have used two or three point and shoot cameras from Sony—nothing fancy, always under 100usd.

In the last months, I've spent many weeks reading camera reviews with my best friend Orthus; this helped me to quickly choose the Pentax K-5 DSRL. It has very good specifications for shooting static and, in my neophyte opinion, beats the Nikon D7000 in all but video capabilities. Choosing the lens was the hard part, in the end, we choose the Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 as our first call. I couldn't find it at the camera shop, so I settled down for a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 that seems to have characteristics competing with the equivalent Sigma.

On the software side, I am a GPL fan; a completely ignorant GPL fan when it comes to raw developing and photo editing. The good thing is that I have my friend Orthus, he quickly pointed my way to RawTherapee for raw developing and Luminance for HDR. 

So, this is the result of my shooting Sunday...

Raw image:

Developed image (I just equalized the histogram a little bit):

HDR ( 5 shots, ±2 EV in steps of 1 EV, I just used the basic profile 1 for the HDR and toyed a little bit with the color saturation and contrast of the basic tone map. If this were film, I would think a gradient neutral density filter on the +2EV could help a lot, but that's something I need to read about):

I used to enjoy shooting, developing and printing with my old K1000; I really enjoyed my first photography Sunday. I foresee many days of reading manuals, downloading filters and toying with software in the future. It is great to remember the satisfaction of creating something, even when it is not so pretty as I wish it were.

Cheers!

Edit: Final disclosure, I took around 150 shoots and spent some 5 hours toying with Luminance to get the HDR file shown here. I said this because Lyx asked me if this was the only HDR image I made. I composed 10 HDR images from the sets of raw files, and filtered around 100 LDR images trying different tone maps and settings to get this one—the only one that I half liked.

Am I Burnout?

Today, I made myself that question. What strikes me the most is that I had never considered the option in the past; I guess that's not a question that someone regularly asks oneself, is it?

I had heard the term before, but it never got my attention long enough to search for it. Today, it was different and I found myself at Wikipedia reading about burnout (psychology). I'm surprised at the symptoms, they seem fairly common to me—are they fairly common? Take the list, can you skip through it without realizing some of them are part of your life?

So, Am I burnout? I have no clue. I'm not a psychologist, neither a hypochondriac  but this non-specialized article at Wikipedia at least made me see my friends' remarks regarding my "autistic", "strict and non-flexible","work-too-much", "secluded" life in a different light. 

I have left behind the daily jog or weekly bike ride that was part of my life in Hsinchu—while riding a bike in Singapur qualifies as having a deathwish, it is very nice to walk the city's parks. I have stop shooting pictures of sky, clouds, and sunsets from the seat of my Iguana. I have done all of  it for the sake of "hitting the ground running and get a publication as fast as possible."  A fairly stupid reason, to be honest. I managed to hit the ground running at Prof. Lee's group in NTHU and still have a life.

Well, I'm off to walk the city, I may get a camera too...

PS. Ask yourself the question, it may help. It shed a new light for me.

 

Codex Alera by Jim Butcher

The Codex Alera is many things, first of them is a six volume saga belonging to the realm of fantasy, it is also a coming of age, lost legion, militaristic, epic. I'm glad that it was this heroic saga that brought me to the mark of 250 books read, or so my Shelfari account  says.

Jim Butcher is a great storyteller—I came first to his work through the Dresden Files tv series, based on his homonym series of novels. His characters are polarized heroes or villains that remain solid and human, as great fantasy characters should be. In each novel of the series, He manages to interweave at least three stories that support and enrich the story arc of the codex in such a way that I most of the time I found myself unable to just leave the book and go to sleep—I guess, this is the reason  why I managed to finish the six books in nine weeks.

The Codex tells the story of Tavi, covering his life from late childhood to young adulthood, and his close family as they find themselves involved in the succession intrigues of Alera—a continent where humans have a close link to natural forces, called furies, hence being able to control and use them—and an apocalyptic plague.

Aleran society is based in the Roman model—actually, in the story, the Alerans are the descendants of a lost legion—a First Lord rules the land and feudal Lords and Ladies control cities and counties, while a Senate, conformed with the best of the citizenry, oversees the state of law. In this scenario, status is related to furycrafting, that is, the ability to control furies, the most powerful your ability, the highest in the ladder of citizenry you will land. In the bottom of the ladder are freemen and slaves, with little proficiency at furycrafting.

The novels are entitled:

1. Furies of Calderon.
2. Academ's Fury.
3. Cursor's Fury.
4. Captain's Fury.
5. Princeps' Fury.
6. First Lord's Fury.

They are a great read to relax and enjoy pure action and intrigue. Two thumbs up! 

Joomla! on Win 7

So, I got the Lenovo x220t and I'm using Win 7 because there's nothing in Linux that compares to MS Office One Note 2010; also, the Linux drivers and the software processing for the tablet input are not nice yet.

Well, Lyx wants to start playing with webpages so I installed Joomla! on the lenovo to start learning how to use it. The hat tip for all the steps and checks goes to my good old friend Orthus who coached me through the installation process. 

The first step towards getting a functional Joomla! in your Win 7 is to install Apache, mySQL and PHP. The good news is that there's a nice installer that solves all troubles: XAMPP.

1. Go to Apache Friends and get the stable release of XAMPP.
2. Right click on the file and choose: install as administrator.
3. Follow the instructions and choose the directory of installation, typically c:\xampp
4. Go to c:\xampp\php\ double click on the file named: php.ini, the notebook should open.  
5. Search for the line containing: error_reporting
6. Check that it says: error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE
7. Save and close.
8. Create a folder named: c:\xampp\mywebpage  you will need it.
9. Go to Joomla! and get the latest stable release.
10. Double click in the downloaded zip file and extract the contect to: c:\xampp\mywebpage\

Ready. You have all the packages installed. It's time to configure everything!

1. Go to Start: Apache Friends: XAMPP (Sometimes an error message appear, do not mind it)
2. Start the MySQL and the PHP services.
3. Open your browser and type http://localhost/phpmyadmin/
4. Fill the data for a new database, newdatabase, and create it.
5. Open a new tab in your browser and type http://localhost/mywebpage/
6. Follow the installing instructions for Joomla!
7. When it asks you for the name of the webpage and database put the names you used for mywebpage and newdatabase, for the user name use admin and leave the password blank unless you set a password on step 4.
8. If you want, choose to install some filler data. Finish the installation.
9. Open the File Manager, go to c:\xampp\mywebpage\ and delete the folder named installation.
10. Open a new tab and type: http://localhost/mywebpage/  you should see the Joomla!: Welcome to the Frontpage.

Now, you can start thinkering with Joomla's templates.

Is there a solution to violence in Mexico?

I came home today and found an old good friend online. It had been a long time without seeing him on the chat hence I decided to drop him a line; after exchanging salutations he shared this link with me: "Homicidios en NL a nivel histórico; 33 muertos en un día."

This news piece talks about 33 homicides—two of them personnel from the governor's security retinue, all of them related to the drug war—committed in just one day, yesterday, in Monterrey, the major city where I attended University.

A few days ago, some U.S. Senators issued a report stating that about 70% of the close to 30,000 weapons seized so far in Mexico by the Army and Security forces  in 2009-2010 originated in the U.S.

If I remember well, the latest number of deaths related to the ongoing drug war in Mexico is about 30,000 homicides in the last 4 years.

Now, I wonder when the Mexican Political Class—yes, there's such a thing in Mexico and I'm ashamed of that—will decide to take the reins of the country and pass legislation that addresses the problem of corruption in the political system, laundering of drug-related money, and all the political, economical and social issues involved in the actual mess. Oh, I forgot, that would mean that Governors, Deputies, Senators, Mayors, Judges and all public officials should be held accountable for their actions; I guess such a thing beats the idea of being the Mexican Political Class, the Lords and Ladies of our Banana Republic.

Professionals of Violence are needed, the Mexican Army and the Federal Police shouldn't be retired from the line of fire. But the efforts of all these valiant and honorable men and women—I'm hoping the majority of these valiant public servants is honorable and loyal to the idea of a state of law in Mexico—should be complemented with economical measures and foreign policy agreements; as well as social programs as an educated population could increase Mexico's role in the global economy once the state of law is recovered.

We all Mexicans have a role to play voting honest, hard working men and women to office, demanding affirmative actions from our already elected representatives, educating in our sphere of influence, and, in general, striving to reach maturity as citizens. Without such things Mexico will become a failed state.

I am really confused by those "intellectuals" that consider as an option to reach a pact with the drug warlords. It sounds to me like a come back to the times of the institutional dictatorship where mafia syndicates, drug warlords, governors, etc. were all the same thing. I would love to read a full argument because I really don't see how this could help our country. That, for me, is not a Federal Republic, but a grotesque aftermath of a warring warlords period; a failed state solution.


I concede that, compared to the average gross national product per capita of the country is $6,000.00 MXP per month,  the $8,000.00 - $12,000.00 MXP per month, the 16 to 21 year old Sicarii captured by the Federal forces say they get as a reward for risking their lives as footmen for the drug warlords, seems like a lot of money. It even seems like a hell lot of money when  one adds the fact that nowadays a freshly graduated from university gets around $6,000.00 MXP per month if he/she is lucky to find a job.

I am not gonna complain about the salary as a lot of people do;  I  find that completely useless. Without education there's no fertile ground for global enterprises to flourish. Furthermore,  violence scares investment. Without investment, there's no companies, without companies, there's no jobs. An important point is that we, as a country, became sclerotic with respect to  labor legislation—bah! we become sclerotic as a country, and that's our fault as citizens, period.

Now, in order to beat the swords into plowshares, a state of law and consequent peace has to be attained. The only way for that is to change as a whole, as a country and root out corruption for good. Bring out of our cultural baggage phrases like "to live out of the Federal Budget is to live in error" or "that who doesn't cheat does not go forward" that have been ingrained in our society for too long.

3. Awakening

The real alarm clock beeped. I woke up, faithless and godless. It was uncommon in me to wake up bellowing in anger; or was it pain? Anyway, the alarm clock ended up crashing into the wall. For the first time, I hated myself for being a social drinker and not having any alcohol at home. It seemed like the most logical path to force my mind into oblivion.

The routine kicked in. Every muscle doing what it had been trained to do for years on end independently of the state of my mind. That was me, a part of me, most of the time impervious to the state of my mind, doing the job.

In no time, I found myself walking the road back to the lab trying to keep my mind busy with the eerie world provided by the morning fog out from the river. Sunrise got me at the underpass through the river. The long tunnel filled with  thick brume refracting the nascent light in such a way that the passersby were rendered as mere blurry, inhuman silhouettes.

Time stop. I became no better than a piece of marble. Unmovable. All the silhouettes frozen at their places. 

That's when the infernal sound came. If pure, distilled pain had a characteristic sound, that unearthly cacophony would have been it. My skin wanted to crawl; it couldn't. A silhouette at the other end of the tunnel—no, not a silhouette, rather a dark void devouring all the scattered light—started moving towards my direction. Whenever it brushed one of the human silhouettes, the tunnel was filled with the hellish sound, and I felt this urge to ran away in every cubic centimeter of my body.

It advanced slowly, the silence in between encounters a periodic witness to its approach. The silhouettes of those in front of me getting blurrier as soon as my ears ringed again with the infernal sound. I thought of destruction... of undoing, but the silhouettes remained. Tendrils of pure darkness slowly creeping over them, slowly engulfing them. Everything in me begged to flee.

The black void stood in front of me. At its heart, a figure clad and hooded in a black robe stood.

A sleeve slowly rose until its empty end was in front of my face; a pale hand covered in thick, lively tendrils of pure darkness reached out for my face.

My skin crawled. Before I consciously registered the feeling and the though, I found my hand flying towards the hooded figure. 

My fist hit the mark and I found myself staring at Corruption itself. It had my face...

Cantar de Mio Cid

The Poem of the Cid is an epic Dark Ages Spanish  masterpiece written in verse and prose both. It narrates the life of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, known as El Cid, who is exiled by the King Alfonso VI after years of faithful and loyal service to the crown.

This is one of the first books I remember reading. It was an old version, belonging to either my Grandfather or my aunt Eda, with old Spanish on the left page and modern Spanish on the right page. I guess that this was the cause behind my reading of the "El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha" and "La chronique de Rains" before I was 15.  I guess it turned out good, it the end I don't think I am such a big pain in the neck of people who care for me like the fictional Alonso Quijano was to family and friends.

Two days ago, I found myself reading again "El cantar del mio Cid."  I quote,

De los sos ojos tan fuertemientre llorando

tornava la cabeça e estávalos catando, 

vio puertas abiertas e uços sin cañados, 

alcándaras vazías, sin pielles e sin mantos 

e sin falcones e sin adtores mudados. 

Sospiró mio Çid, ca mucho avié grandes cuidados, 

fabló mio Çid bien e tan mesurado, 

-Grado a ti, Señor, Padre que estás en alto, 

esto me an buelto mios enemigos malos.- 

Allí piensan de aguijar, allí sueltan las riendas, 

a la exida de Bivar ovieron la corneja diestra 

e entrando a Burgos oviéronla siniestra. 

Meçió mio Çid los ombros e engrameó la tiesta, 

-¡Albriçia, Álbar Fáñez, ca echados somos de tierra!-

Mio Çid Ruy Díaz por Burgos entrava, 

en su conpaña sessaenta pendones, 

exiénlo ver mugieres e varones, 

burgeses e burgesas por las finiestras son, 

plorando de los ojos, tanto avién el dolor, 

de las sus bocas todos dizían una razón, 

-¡Dios, qué buen vassallo, si oviesse buen señor!-

I love the epithet closing the third verse. I guess that's why I like militaristic fantasy and science fiction, they are always epic and portray polarized, morally upright or downright characters that belong to realm of fiction inside our heads, that gives plenty of space for epithets.

Last weekend movies...

These last weeks have been a hell of a time with referee reports on the papers we have submitted and trying to finish the latest manuscript; but we have managed to squeeze some time to watch some films and television series...

1. Rio, ***
   A very well done animation by the guys at Blue Sky studios, the same that made Ice Age. The music is fantastic, the locations are amazing. I really didn't care about the story, I just sat down, enjoyed the crazy angry birds cameos, the wonderful music and the virtual tour of Rio. It's money well spent at your local cinema. 

   
   
2. Thor, ***
   
   Disclosure: I'm really waiting for the Avengers movie. So you can imagine that at least one star is just due to my hype about watching Robert Downey Jr., Edward Norton, Stellan Skarsgard, Natalie Portman, and Samuel Jackson directed by Joss Whedon. Anyway, the film is entertaining, the story came a little bit close to what Thor is about in the Marvel comic books and, again, it is money well spent at your local cinema.

   
   
3. Gnome and Juliet, **
   
   "Two households, both alike in dignity. In fair Verona, here we lay our scene. From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclea. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life..." Well, they actually don't end up dead in this one. It's a funny film, but it is not a masterpiece of good jokes or animation... 

This week, I'm really sad because "The Big Bang Theory" just finished its fourth season one week ago. The season's finale was not bombastic but it was actually unexpected, so Priya is going back to India, what will Leonard do?

Glee! has just finished its second season in the city that never sleeps. The kids were free in NYC visiting all the landmarks and, of course, Broadway. This season's ending was a little bit too cheesy. 

Win 7 for Linux users

I just got my new laptop ---I broke the screen of the old one by falling while walking with it on my hands. As it is a tablet (Lenovo x220t), I'm keeping Windows 7 due to the beautiful MS Office One Note. Now, I haven't used Windows in more than 10 years, so I thought that there might be someone there in a similar situation that could benefit from my current experience. 

Really important things to do once you get your fresh Windows 7 install, 

1. Be paranoid! The first thing to install is an antivirus. Go to Microsoft Security Essentials, download and run it. Follow the instructions.
2. Be hip! Go to Start (The Windows icon in the bottom-left corner), search for Windows Update, click on it and relax while your system gets updated. You may have to restart once and run it again.
3. Be prepared! Go to Start, search for Backup and Restore, click on it  and follow the instructions to create a backup of your fresh install.

Hereby, it is all about what you need. I'm going to start with all those things that most people use and need everyday---for free!

1. Summon the Intertubes! Go to Google Chrome webpage, download the installer and run it. Follow the instructions.
2. Secure the Intertubes! If you are a little bit paranoid, like yours truly, you may want to set Google Chrome to use Secure Socket Layer (SSL)---nowadays most of use do internet banking. Click on the wrench at the right of the address bar, select options, under the bonnet, verify that the SSL options are checked on.
3. Say Cheese! Lets keep on with Google. Go to Google Picasa webpage, download the installer and run it. Follow the instructions. You can even import your online folders to your fresh system.
4. And do something funny! Pictures are usually not enough, so lets install a very nice media player that usually has no problems at all with codecs. Go to Videolan webpage, download VLC and run it. Follow the instructions, and you will have THE media player. 
5. Do not close your eyes! Nowadays, everything is Flash. Go to Adobe Flash Player webpage. Download the installer and run it. Follow the instructions.
6. Just feel the vibe! There's a very nice audio player, that usually has no problems with codecs. Go to Foobar webpage, do not get confused with all the adds asking for a click to download something that is not the latest version of foobar, download the installer and run it. Follow the instructions.
7. Get your coffee cup ready! Java is sometimes needed for those fancy webpages with proprietary controllers. Go to Java webpage, download the installer and run it. Follow the instructions and don't forget to verify your version at the end.
8. And prepare to work! Now, here it is about your choosing of buying a MS Office license for some $150 USD or go to Open Office webpage. Download the installer and run it. Follow the instructions and you will have a free functional productivity suite that can do most of what MS Office does.

Now, my line of work requires some fidgeting with figures and a special formatting system called Latex. What follows are those programs related to my work.

1. MiKTeX is a very complete distribution of latex for windows. Go to MiKTeX webpage, look for the latest release, as of today v2.9. I recommend you downloading the Basic MiKTeX 32 bit Installer as I got troubles with the 64 bit version---the on-the-fly installer of styles and classes never worked.
2. TexMaker is a free and very solid latex editor. It may not win a beauty pageant but it gets the work done. You can download the latest version at TexMaker webpage,  run it and follow the instructions.
3. The Gimp is a free image manipulation program that competes with Photoshop---actually, in my standard, The Gimp wins as it is for free. There's a working Windows installer here or you can get the source files at The Gimp homepage. Whatever you choose, just follow the instructions.
4. Inkscape is a scalable vector graphics editor; you may be interested in this if you use Illustrator often. Go to Inkscape webpage, download the windows installer and you know the drill.
5. Python, iPython, wxPython, NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib, and Python Toolkit are a great combination for producing quick numerical routines for your everyday physics problems. Just follow the links in the order presented here and make sure that you choose the adequate version of each one. iPython is a nice IDE for quick scripts and running proper scripts. Python Toolkit looks and feels like Matlab a few years ago, which is very good for a free product.

And I think that is it for now. I hope you find this helpful.

Update 12/25/2011:

Lately, I found myself using more and more the following free software:

1. Magic ISO is an almost free ISO burner and mounter, for some reason Windows 7 didn't come with a mount app and this is a nice supplement to the file manager. In order to mount ISO files it will ask you to install Magic Disc, it is just a matter of following the instructions and, then, mounting a ISO file is just a right click away.
2. Adobe Digital Editions is the free library manager and DMR enforcer from Adobe. It allows you to download the epubs associated to those acm files you get whenever you buy an ebook. It has a nice interface and it basically works with almost any epub ereader. 
3. Raw Therapee is a free RAW image file developer, it has very useful basic preset and a nice batch processing utility. I have developed all of my latest photos with this software and I'm very happy with the result. 

Broken...

I walk the land.

I come and go randomly following the wind, the tide or the stars.

Sometimes I live, most of the times I watch. Every time, I do.


I'm broken. By doing,  I hope to be fixed.

My hands fixed, brought grins back to the surface.

In fixing, I hope to be fixed.

My hands fix no more. My hands break, mash... destroy.

I'm broken.

Now, my hands are broken too.

Reuters' Special Report: Monterrey

I was chatting with Lyx and she shared with me "Special Report: If Monterrey falls, Mexico falls" by Reuters. Among a plethora of  horrifying  statistics, this is one is very disconcerting and hits me deeply:

"Perhaps hardest of all for city leaders to stomach is the exodus of some 2,500 students, some 20 percent of the student body, studying at the Tec University, considered one of Latin America's top schools for engineering and business and at the heart of Monterrey's industrial success. "

It is sad what's happening there, but  it is good that at least someone is writing about it. I have heard testimonials of kidnapings, shootouts, abuse, theft, and lack of government at Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon but up to this day I have never read such a detailed account of all that is happening in one of the cities.

Not so long ago, some six months if I remember well, I was wondering if Mexico was a failed state; I think I have found my answer at least for Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. Sad but true.