Creative Learning Systems
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There are some really top tips there on optimising your site, and some useful tools to help you find out the likely ranking you can get in a google search.
OK – this blog runs in Drupal. It’s a reasonably old version of Drupal, and needs upgrading to allow spam filters and other features to be added in.
However, the recent server down time has thrown up a new question… should it stay in Drupal?
What alternatives are there and how easy is it to move from Drupal to a different blog software?
I’ll be looking at alternatives over the next month or so, but any suggestions or comments to get me heading along the right track are warmly welcomed. I’ll start off by looking at WordPress… anyone seen any Drupal to WordPress conversions?
Aaagh!
It is like living on a knife edge when you have your blog on a server that is getting so many hits!
One of the Ultralab servers was hacked last week, and whilst not a great deal of damage was done, it did take it off line for a number of days. The worst part of this was the timing – just before a bank holiday weekend when no-one would be around to fix the problems.
SO it was that this blog was off line for five days. Sorry to all of you who tried and failed to get in whilst looking for Dension files, Limara info, stuff about cameras, the Highways Agency or DVD authoring in general. It really couldn’t have come at a worse time!
We are back up and running (as you can see) but it emphasises the point that this blog needs to move homes. Doing so will undoubtedly cause issues, not least we will lose google juice and people who have linked to these pages will lose the links. Hopefully we’ll be able to take enough time before moving to allow proper redirection and google bots enough time to re-link the pages.
I recently purchased a Sigma lens for my Nikon D50 so that I could take some extreme telephoto shots. This was a bit of an impulse buy, but I am fairly pleased I did.
The lens is a 135-400 telephoto which after factoring in the magnification results in a 600mm zoom. This is pretty good going, but what about the lens quality?
First off, the lens is heavy – weight is not an issue for me at the moment, but be warned that this puppy has a significant mass! If you use this lens without a tripod, beanbag or monopod then you’ll need a very steady grip – if the zoom factor doesn’t blur your images the fatigue of holding it up will!
The images I am getting from this lens are more than acceptable. They are pretty good (I imagine a better lens would give me sharper results) at all lengths and for most purposes will be fine. Of course, if you make your living out of photography then you’ll no doubt be using a different 400mm lens, but for those with a strong interest then this is a good lens to start off with.
The focus speed is quite good. It isn’t excellent, however and at times is downright sluggish. If you have a need for a very fast focus (for sports photography, maybe) then you might be disappointed. However, for the price this is possibly a compromise worth making. On my D50 this lens needs to be set to maximum aperture in order for the camera to work (lock it in place) but when done it allows all of the features of the camera to work.
I have taken about 400 or so images with this lens since I got it, and I am reasonably pleased (OK – very pleased) with the results at all lengths – the longest length seems to introduce a slightly softer look, but it isn’t something for a beginner to worry too much about… it is a slight softening and acceptable, in my opinion.
My only concerns with this lens are that when it is fitted to the camera, and carried ‘nose down’ the barrel slips out to it’s full length (hardly surprising… the force of gravity on a lens this weight…) and since it is a long lens it is tricky to find a decent enough bag to carry it whilst attached to the camera. I ended up with a Lowe Pro ‘Slingshot’ bag, putting the camera and lens in lengthwise instead of across the bag. My only other concern is that with the lens hood on, and the lens out at 400mm it does look a tad comical!
I was lucky to get this lens second-hand. As ever, when buying in this way be sure to check out the lense for chips, dents, marks, mould and so on. This one was spotless and at ��150 below retail price it was worth a chance.
Overall, I’m pleased with it. For the price it has to be a leading contender in the market and I would certainly consider other Sigma lenses on the strength of my experiences with this one. I would be pleased to hear from anyone who has been using it, or any other non-nikon lens in their photography.
If you have read this blog before you may well remember the entry about being stuck in a traffic jam on the M11… you may even have left a comment about it on here. I complained to the Highways agency about the appalling way we were treated, and I may make the complaint more formal yet.
It took a bit longer than the ten working days that they said it would take for me to get a reply, and I had to send in another email to get a response, and sadly, the response I got was as formulaic as you would expect. This is faceless bureacracy at its best… don’t get me wrong, it reads as if the Highways Agency do in fact accept responsibility for the muck-up, but you can’t get to a single person being held accountable. All I would like at this point is for one person to stand up and say “yes – it was my job to get thsi organised on the day and I didn’t manage it too well”. We all make mistakes, and we all struggle to get otehrs to do their jobs from time to time. Clearly there was a lot of struggling going on that day! I am assuming here that teh police didn’t think the weight of traffic on a Saturday was going to be sufficient to emrit closing a junction, or putting up some warning signs… or that the police had to await a direct order from the relveant officer in the Highways Agency. I don’t think the police can be absolved of all blame here, since they should have been able to see what was going on as well as we could.
If you missed it the original posting about this is here
If you click on the icon for this blog entry it will open in a new window at full size so you can see what the HA sent back to me.
Not particularly impressive is it? We really ought not to be treated like this by anyone, did we?
If you would like to let me know if you were stuck in that jam (or any other, come to that) and you want to have an input to a letter I write to the Highways Agency next, just leave a comment – but leave your name as well!