Category Archives: Photography

A cool iPhone case

iPhone

Thank you, Emily!


The coolest iPhone case on the planet. Click the image.

Not a single ‘control’ on this iPhone case does anything, but does it look cool or what? I saw it in the light-as-champagne Netflix show ‘Emily in Paris’ starring the gorgeous Lily Collins and nothing is calculated to put you in a better mood. The world’s most beautiful city with a gorgeous British/American girl. And no ordinary girl, as her dad is none other than rocker Phil Collins. The apple does not fall far from the tree when it comes to talent, though Lily’s looks are a step up from Phil’s!

Rambo meets Mitsumoto Sakari

Cooking

A better mousetrap.

For an index of cooking articles on this blog click here.

Five years ago I pretty much gave up on my chef’s knife and transitioned to a cleaver. You can read about that here.

The upgrade demon reared his ugly head the other day and I resolved to try a Japanese edge cleaver for even better cutting. Japanese knives are sharpened to a 12-15 degree angle, much finer than the 20 degrees used in European hardware. Better cutting, the trade-off being faster wear of the finer edge.


A new sharpening tool and a Japanese cleaver – the Rambo. Click the image.

My electric knife sharpener – check the link above – is getting long in the tooth, the grinding wheels are now well worn and you cannot replace them. You have to buy the whole thing again. Boo!

So I thought I would try the Japanese Mitsumoto Sakari sharpener which comes with coarse and fine stones, as well as a scissor sharpener. But the real secret to this tool is that the sharpening angle is adjustable from 14 to 24 degrees. As for the cleaver, it’s a non-stainless forged steel one (I borrowed it from Sylvester Stallone when he was not making Rambo XLI) for a better edge and I immediately sharpened it to a 14 degree angle. First, however, I checked the angles on the Mitsumoto and can confirm they are dead accurate, the 14 degree setting yields a subtended angle of 28 degrees, the 20 degree yields 40 degrees and so on. Nice.

I gave the Rambo ten unidirectional swipes through the 14 degree coarse sharpener, then five more through the fine and can confirm that it’s scary sharp. The hole in the blade is for your forefinger and has nasty burrs when shipped. A few seconds with a Nicholson rat tail file saw those off. The forefinger is inserted there as a further precaution against your finger dipping into your workpiece. The Rambo comes with a sturdy leather belt pouch for those occasions when you feel it’s necessary to wreak havoc outdoors.

The sharpening rods in the Mitsumoto are fairly fine so only time will tell how well they wear. At $25 you can buy five for the price of one Kitchen Chef electrical tool, so it’s not a big concern. Recommended.

As for the Rambo, I have to do a lot more butchering before passing judgment. Suffice it to say that I feel empowered – and dangerous.

Security fasteners for AirTags

Photography

Keeping it secured.

I updated my recent piece on Apple’s AirTag tracking device here, showing how to remove the internal speaker which announces the AirTag’s location after it has been removed to a location remote from the owner’s iPhone. (No preaching, please. This information is in the public domain).

The AirTag announces that it has been moved in two ways. First, 8-24 hrs after being relocated it beeps. Second, it will broadcast an “AirTag moving with you” message to the thief’s iPhone, if he has one. Disabling the beeping takes away the more obvious of these two warning mechanisms. Why does Apple not provide a software switch to disable the beeper? Because then all the creeps and perverts out there would avail themselves of this functionality for illicit stalking of the innocent.

Once the beeper is disabled, the thief (with an iPhone) will have the challenge of finding the AirTag once its proximity is announced to him. That means a well hidden AirTag will delay detection for long enough, hopefully, for the owner to get a location fix and call the cops.

I have one AirTag installed in my Honda scooter in a location easily located by me, but it would be hard for a thief to find in under several hours. And he has better things to do with his time – like more thieving. Scooters are very easy to steal and readily resold in large cities. (Ads with “no title” in the description are common).

Now while I do not own an exotic, costly bicycle, an AirTag would seem an essential on such a machine. Easily stolen, easily sold, no registered title. The problem is where to locate it? Tests disclose that location inside a metal tube – down tube, handlebar, seat post – kills the transmission, so you want to either install the device in a carbon fiber component (if your machine has any) or securely attached to the frame. But secure attachment with regular fasteners is time and effort wasted for obvious reasons. What is needed is a security fastener, and you will not find a better selection than at McMaster Carr:


Beat this selection. Click the image for the site.

Use one of these with an appropriate holder, along with the matching fastening/removal tool, and you will make the bike thief’s job that much harder.

Leica M11

Cameras

Gorgeous.


A beautiful thing.

As a once upon a time (a long time ago) Leica M enthusiast, it’s hard not to look at the new M11 and come away impressed with the sheer physical beauty of the machine.

While the entry price – reckon north of $20,000 for a body with three aspherical Leica lenses to do justice to the monster sensor – is ridiculous, and the absence of IS and AF makes the tool anachronistic, it’s a beautiful thing to behold.

An inexpensive Mac Pro mouse

Mac Pro

This one is a winner

My desktop Mac Pro, a 2010 model upgraded with dual 3.47GHz Intel 12-core CPUs and 96GB of memory, has long enjoyed the company of a Logitech G500 gaming mouse, which remains available. As I have better things to do with my time than destroy brain cells I do not game, but that mouse, after almost a decade’s use, remains a perfect performer. It’s wired and tracks and clicks perfectly, showing no signs of deterioration after over 3,000 days of daily use.

But the other Mac Pro, which is my movie server, is a different story. That 2009 machine, again with upgraded CPUs, controls over 40TB (!) of disk storage on which reside all sorts of DVD and BluRay movies, all instantly accessible at the click of a mouse using DVDpedia. Well, that’s a bit of an overstatement. For years I have been using an RF Microsoft mouse, one of those with a dongle attached to a USB port, and things have gone from bad to worse. First, in this application, you must have wireless so that there are no wires to trip over. Second, scrolling must be dead smooth if you are to page through a lot of movies on those evenings when there is nothing else to do. And while the pointing and clicking functions of that mouse are as good as it gets, scrolling has gone from bad to unusable over the years, so much so that I resolved to explore alternatives.

I settled on a MacAlly bluetooth mouse – no dongle. It paired instantly and using the adjustable scrolling speed setting in the relevant System Preferences window, it points, clicks and scrolls perfectly. The mouse-to-Mac Pro distance is some 10 feet, with the TV screen hiding the computer. The Microsoft mouse has been relegated to the box in the corner of the garage with the black beetles, perennially in search of cheese. I should throw it out but we have developed a relationship over the years, and it’s not like it’s a disposable ex-spouse. The Mac Pro uses a dated bluetooth card which peaks at 802.11n and that’s all that is needed.


The MacAlly bluetooth mouse.

The MacAlly mouse uses two (included) AAA batteries. I use it on a brown wooden semi-matt finish coffee table, as above, no mouse pad, without issues. Unlike the Logitech G500 – no lefties – the MacAlly is ambidextrous. The small rectangular button below the tilting (sideways scrolling) and very smooth scroll wheel switches sensitivity between 800/1200/1600 DPI and I have found that the 1600 setting provides the smoothest pointer movement in my setting. Plus, you can get it in white finish, in addition to the usual black.

Be aware that this mouse is not very tall, unlike the gaming mouse linked in the first paragraph, so all day use may not be that comfortable. But for occasional use with my movie sever it’s fine.

Recommended, and at $20, what’s not to like?

A note on improving Bluetooth reception: If your Bluetooth reception is marginal, characterized by a delayed response of the cursor to mouse movement, a Bluetooth receiver like this helps. Because my Mac Pro is hidden behind the TV screen, the internal Bluetooth receiver receives a weak signal. I simply attached that external $10 Bluetooth receiver to a USB cable and routed it to the base of my amplifier which is in line of sight of the mouse. Problem solved. For $5 more the receiver even comes in a 5.0 version (the cheap one is 4.0) which confers enhanced sensitivity if needed.


The Bluetooth receiver on a USB extension cord.