Canon EOS 1DX MkII

The new Canon EOS 1DX MkII is finally with us. It was meant to be released some time in April I think. Sadly York Cameras closed down a few years ago, so I ordered from Calumet in April, and was on their waiting list. Oddly being a CPS Platinum member no longer helps - why Canon?

They were told various dates by Canon, including end of May, and then 6th June, and then maybe end of June.

I was hoping to try the new camera out on my LA/Vegas trip (7th), and on the wedding blessing (26th) and I was getting rather concerned that it would not arrive in time.

So, I went to LA without my new camera. Surely, if anywhere would have it, then that would be Hollywood!

The concierge at the W Hollywood was very good, calling round camera shops. Best Buy claimed to have them available to collect in store on the Friday (10th) if you ordered. The Canon USA on-line store said in-stock for delivery before we left (6th). But I was very reluctant to order one whilst in the US in case it did not arrive on the promised day and I ended up without it, having paid.

Samy's Cameras have several stores in the area, and one in Hollywood said they would have one in on the Friday (10th). As we did not drive to Vegas until the Saturday, that was the plan.

So on the Friday we went to Samy's Cameras. An impressive camera store! They did not have one, and were puzzled that someone told us they would! They said they had one in the warehouse and could have it dropped in to the store later that day - yay! They took my number (which was tricky as none of us knew our US numbers on our holiday SIMs). I asked about the new WiFi adapter and he checked and only then said "Oh, we don't have the camera in the warehouse". Not impressed.

Anyway, we asked if any other stores had them, and he said no. So we went to Universal and ate at Bubba Gump (they do chicken too). Anyway, when we came back the concierge said they had found one, in Samy's Cameras in Pasadena! (So much for no other stores having them, FFS). However, someone was buying it, but his card was not working! But now they were shut. We should have given her our number!

We went there on the Saturday on the way to the I15, waited for them to open, and yes, they did indeed have one the day before, and the guy's card had failed, but he had come back at 5:30pm and it worked and that was the only one they had. We had missed it by half a day all because of the apparently totally inept sales assistant in the Samy's in Hollywood.

OK, off to Vegas. Again, not keen to order as only in Vegas a few days, but Best Buy says they can get one ordered to the store for Wednesday. We fly back on Wednesday. My plan was to order one on the Monday and see if we can pay for it to be expressed for Tuesday instead.

Thankfully, by the time I got up on Monday, PDT, it was afternoon in the UK and Calumet had emailed saying they had them in at last and mine was shipped for Tuesday at the office in the UK. So no need to go to Best Buy, phew. I decided against DHLing it to Vegas.

Now I am back, I have had a bit of a play with it. The offer of a CFast card does not work - having completed the on-line form it insisted a mandatory field is not completed, but does not say which (and they all are). No reply from their support people yet. Maybe the offer is a scam?

Anyway, first impression of the 1DX MkII...

It works well, and is very much like the 1DX. The built in GPS is very good - one of the main features I wanted as I like geo-tagged pictures, and had the GPS module on the 1DX all the time, meaning I rarely took a flash anywhere. Whilst it is very good in low light the flash is a useful addition to some pictures, obviously, and I was having to choose flash or GPS. Oddly the inbuilt GPS is not quite as good - struggles to lock in doors, and has no compass. Why the downgrade Canon?

Another really annoying feature is that unlike the 1DX, the wifi disables auto-power-off! I used to leave the camera switched on. It would auto power off and use no power so would be fine even if not used for weeks to just pic up and take a picture. If in the office or my house it would also immediately upload the picture via wifi. Then, on auto power off the wifi goes off.

Now, I have to faff with turning wifi on and off (in a menu) or turn the camera off, which is a total faff. Also, the GPS in mode 2 carries on checking occasionally when auto power off, but this seems to have no back off or time limit, which means it too will drain the battery after a few days. If I go for the "turn it off" option, then that loses the GPS lock and takes ages to get it again, so I want the auto power off for that, meaning I have to faff with turning wifi on and off. To make it worse, on the 1DX you could use the "transfer on SET" feature when wifi was off - it would turn the wifi on and send the selected images. That would not be a bad compromise, but guess what - that does not work on the 1DX MkII.

These are simple things, but really, why the backwards step Canon? Just make it work, make it auto power off, and back off  the GPS, to zero power usage if left on. Reading some comments on line I am not alone in leaving the camera on, ready to take pictures with no messing about.

Also disappointing that the wifi is not built in yet - it is possible to squeeze wifi on to an SD card even, so why not build in to the camera?

As for focus speed, image quality, etc. I need to do more playing with it. It seems good. The video is easier to do than on the 1DX. Maybe a follow up post on the actual photography aspects in due course.

P.S. One small puzzlement - it is specified as approx 20.2M effective pixels, but the images are 5472x3648 which is 19961856 pixels, so not even 20M.

Busy day

It would appear that there has been some sort of sporting event involving a football this afternoon, and, of course, lots of people have watched it via the Internet.

This is the LONAP graph...

As you can see, it was a couple of hours of very high usage.

A&A customers were no different, and our network saw proportionately similar burst of traffic. The good news is that the recent upgrades have proved their worth and it looks like we managed very well. The stats we publish with show that some links were pushed to the point of some errored seconds (even one packet dropped in a second counts as an errored second) but not enough to cause damping of any lines, or any packet loss of latency peaks showing on our line graphs.

It would appear that some other ISPs did not fair as well. We would not have coped before our recent network upgrades. This has been a good test, and well done to the team at A&A for all their hard work this year making it happen.

Using Mondo Card in the US

I have just returned from a week in the US and I tried to use my Mondo card as much as possible whilst there. We spent a few days in Hollywood, LA, and then went on to Las Vegas.

Cards in the US

Firstly it is worth understanding how cards work in the US. In the UK we are used to chip and PIN everywhere, with contactless for small transactions like Starbucks. The US is still somewhat different, though one retailer did say that it is all changing and they have a deadline of the end of the year for chip and PIN (no idea if that is all US or just that state).

At the moment the mag stripe is king in the US - you pretty much always swipe your card, or hand the card over and the retailer swipes it. Chip and PIN is rare, but they do appear to have chips on a lot of US cards, and readers that handle chips and even contactless are common even if only the swipe is used currently.

For small transactions like Starbucks you will often simply swipe the card and get a receipt. This is very quick and efficient and much like we would use contactless. For larger transactions you are asked to sign, either on a paper slip or using a stylus on a screen. The terminals that have a screen like this, and swipe and chip reader all in one, seem very common.

Why use the Mondo

There are two main reasons to use the Mondo card.

1. Budgeting is very easy. This can be important on holiday, loading a budget on the card, and then having real time tracking in pounds and pence as you go. This is one of the nice features of the Mondo card. Even though I have on-line banking with my other cards the Mondo makes this just way simpler. 
2. The other reason is saving money. Compared to my Barclays VISA card, Mondo has the exact same exchange rate but the Barclays card charges and extra “Non sterling trans fee” around 3% which is not funny! 

Cash machines

Cash machines work. I tried both Bank of America, and Wells Fargo. Both charged a fee ($3 and $5). I also tested a $20 withdrawal on Mondo and on my Barclays card. The exchange rate on mondo stated $1.45 and on Barclays $1.449899, so the same apart from the aforementioned non-sterling trans fee on Barclays. What was odd is that there was no machine fee for the Barclays card though. I must ask Mondo why that is - maybe Barclays have some deal with Bank of America. I did not test the Barclays on Wells Fargo. Obviously the more you take out, assuming a fixed fee, the better the deal. I am leaving the US with a lot more cash than I took out thanks to the roulette wheel.

Chip or swipe

It seems that many of the machines work best if you swipe the card, especially in smaller retailers. It is worth trying anyway as it will say if it wants chip instead, but I had no problem with the swipe.

That said, there were a few cases where using the chip was the option, and that asks for a PIN as normal and worked. The Apple store were on the ball, and chip and PIN worked perfectly as expected.

Checking ID

As the US does not normally use chip and PIN, they will normally want ID to check against the name on the card. This is not the case for small amounts where they do not even ask you to sign, but for larger amounts they will ask for ID. The reaction to the Mondo not having a name was a constant source of amusement. The Apple store looked and said “I guess it will ask for a PIN” which it did. We had a few “I’ll need your I… Oh, no I don’t”. One place insisted on ID anyway even though they had nothing to check it against, which was slightly amusing. Obviously in the US, checking ID like this is pretty essential when they don’t have PIN. You might say “surely they check signature” but the answer is NO! We did not see any signature check ever.

When using in a restaurant the process is you get the bill, enter the tip and total and offer card, they come back with receipt and slip to sign and your card. You take card, sign and leave. No checking the card or signature. The transaction is complete (as per the Mondo ka-ching on the iPhone) before they come back to the table and ask for a signature! You can see why ID checks matter normally though.

Silly questions

When using a card in the US, they have more than one account on the card, typically ”Checking” and ”Saving” (if I remember correctly). On a cash machine just select “checking account” (AKA “cheque account” or “current account”).

One oddity is that we were also asked on retail consoles for “Debit” or “Credit”, which makes no sense to me. Surely the card is debit or credit and no need to ask, but maybe like “checking” and “saving” there are type types of account on a card in the US? You pretty much need to say “Credit” contrary to what you would expect as otherwise it seems not to work.

On one occasions we had a real oddity where the card was declined (Mondo logged as being an invalid CVV even though it was a swiped card not on-line). The retailer was not surprised, tapped something and said try again, and it worked. Maybe the credit/debit question or something. Not clear.

Mondo app

As in the UK you see the transaction instantly (before you sign). Conversion is to UK pounds. It is slightly confusing that this is not final amount and can change a few days later so it seems when the transaction completes but not a big issue whilst exchange rates are not being silly.

Where it does not work

Chemists, I mean Pharmacies… They seem to be a problem. One was very strange - swiping said to use chip. Using chip said to swipe. It did the same on my Barclays VISA too. I had to find some cash! Another one just point blank refused, but the Barclays worked. The retailer said “does not work with foreign cards” but there was no explanation, and we even had that in the case where the UK Barclays VISA did work.

Another oddity which Mondo are looking in to, surrounds the hotel making a reservation on the card. When I checked in to the hotel in Hollywood they reserved $500 which was £344, but when I checked out the charge was actually $209. What was odd is it showed the $500 refund but as £199 claiming to be a $2.51 exchange rate, but looks like the right amount for the balance of the reserve. Naturally I was concerned that the $500 had been refunded at a silly exchange rate and that I may later get the $209 charge but that did not happen. I think I now have a Mondo statement that does not actually add up, but one to check when not on a plane. So was confusing to say the least. [update: My Mondo statement does not add up to the balance, and they are investigating]

Fun and games

We did think it would have been amusing if the card had different track 1 data. Track 1 on the mag stripe holds the card number and cardholder name. The name on a Mondo card is “/NON-PERSONALISED”. This often got printed on the receipt on a line on its own. We did think a name of “SERVICE INCLUDED” would have been entertaining, especially in the US tipping culture :-)

Conclusion

It works, at least as well as other UK cards, saves money by not charging a “Non sterling trans fee” and makes a really easy way to budget and understand what you spend.

The Hangover, Part 50?

A couple of my long (suffering) friends have agreed to be best men at my wedding blessing / renewal of vows later this month. Thank you Mike and Simon.

I know this is payback big time for the fact Sandra and I got married in a register office 25 years ago... Be warned anyone else doing that! But it will be a nice event and I am looking forward to it.

Now, when it is a wedding blessing a "stag night" in any traditional sense does not really seem right. But we did wonder about doing somethings, and then we realised (a) Simon was 50 a week or two ago, and (b) Simon has never ever been to Vegas!

So, the three of us, are off to LA then Vegas shortly, for a week. It seems they have what they are calling a heat wave and temperatures are forecast for something like 42℃.

Vegas is a challenge, it is a strange place. I once went during Halloween, and that was doubly strange.

We know that what happens in Vegas stays in vegas, apart from STDs and tattoos, and we have no intention of getting close to either!

Hopefully it will be fun. It may be a tad hot, but they have air conditioning, and we are all a bit old now :-)

I'll post pictures, I am sure.

What could possibly go wrong?

Update: Pictures here http://e.gg/e460

Droney McDroneface

This is the start of a series of posts on drones.

Some may recall I got a Parrot AR ages ago, It was not easy to fly, rather flimsy, not good video, and not good in the slightest gust of wind, so hardly played with at all. If anyone wants to buy it - just ask.

However, at the weekend, I made the mistake of going in to the Apple shop while my wife and daughter were in Primark (it seemed the better option). I only wanted a lightning cable. Well, I left with a DJI Phantom 4.

I have to say the difference from the Parrot AR drone is unbelievable!

It is much more stable, much better picture, much easier to fly (has proper dual stick controller connected to phone/iPad, not using the iPad itself), way better in wind. It really does what it says on the tin!

The problem with drones are the rules! The Civil Aviation Authority and the Air Navigation Order. They are a bit complex, but basically there are restrictions flying near people and property. So short of finding some field somewhere you don't get to do much legally with the drone.

Well, I may have done a quick test flight (after getting hobbyist insurance on-line). Just up around down, from my property. Of course, instantly, my nosey neighbour came round (before I had even landed), asking what the rules are for drones now, and so on. I am not 100% sure if that is allowed. There is a "test flight" exception in the rules, and one related to property you have control over, but it may be stretching a point. I convinced him it was fine :-)

Sorry CAA, please don't prosecute me - I'm going to do it right now...

What that means is taking an approved course, with theory and practical tests, and then applying for a permission for aerial work from the CAA (for 12 months). Once I have that, subject to the rules on safety, and proper operating procedures, and so on, I will be allowed (from CAA point of view) to fly near buildings, and do things like aerial surveys of people's houses and stuff. I'll need insurance as well. I'll be able to do the flights commercially too. I'll need to consider any DPA issues and registration. Whilst I think it is obviously hassle, as it is a 4 day course, I am thinking I'll go for it. It will be a new skill ("certified drone pilot" sounds good). A&A already sells photographic services, why not start selling aerial photographic services, at least locally. With any luck I can pay for the drone and course with some work. I may even have two pilots on staff...

There will be a lot more on the process of getting training and permission in future posts. It will be a few months as I need to go do some proper practicing (in a field) first, and book the course, and do a practical test, and then apply for the CAA PFAW. I'll post more on this as I go.

In the mean time, just a few points on the drone itself. We did go find a deserted car-park with no people around, and permission to be there, and had a bit of a play well away from any nosey neighbour.

I have to say, one of the most impressive features is the tracking mode - I can point at someone on the screen on the iPad and tell it to track them, and it does - hovering, flying, and directing the camera. It has built-in collision detection and avoidance, and just flies itself. It also has GPS, and in the beginner mode was even smart enough not to follow someone anywhere near the road (restricted area!). Very smart.

The "home" mode is good too - using GPS, it shoots up like 30m, flies over everything and lands back at the start. And it can do that on loss of signal automatically.

The 4K video camera is excellent quality too.

So, assuming I maintain the motivation on this, more posts to follow and a new A&A service in the making...

Photographing children

Interesting article here on police intimidation in the UK.

Basically a reporter taking a couple of pictures for a story, having identified himself as a reporter, from a public street, where a school was evacuated because of a bomb scare.

The police intimidated him in to deleting the pictures!

The odd thing is some of the reaction on twitter. Some people seem to think that taking pictures of children is illegal. The police officers suggested the pictures may be for "personal use" and that somehow that made their request for the images to be deleted valid.

Now, let's put this in context. I do not think that even pedophiles find images of normal fully clothed children arousing. If they did, then they just need to get a copy of the Mothercare catalogue to be happy. And bear in mind that people see children in public places all the time. If someone finding a fully clothed child arousing was somehow a "harm" to that child, you could not take children out in public at all, just in case. Do consider, just going shopping with them, many CCTV cameras are taking a picture of your kids 25 times a second.

But just think about it - I bet every parent of every kid there has pictures of those children for "personal reasons" and did not for one second think that in some way wrong or illegal. I have loads of pictures of my kids and grandchildren, even with no clothes on! Bear in mind the vast majority of child sex abuse is by family members, so that is not an irrelevant comparison by any means.

This is nothing to do with pedophiles whatsoever. This is a lot to do with police state intimidation of the press!

I am shocked that any reporter caved in to this - but I can appreciate the police can be intimidating. That is the problem, after all. Personally, I hope I would have had the nerve to ask:-

"Either my taking these pictures is a crime, in which case you are asking me to destroy evidence of a crime, or it is not, in which case I can go about my business without intimidation from you. Which is it?"

Maybe I would not have the nerve. At best I would turn off, and hence lock, the phone and offer it to them to either use as evidence to charge me or to return later with an apology - and then leave the scene.

The fun part is that the technology is already changing, and I am surprised any reporter with any clue is not already set up to auto-upload all photos to his editor in real time as a matter of course. That solves the issue with a "sorry mate, already in the cloud, nothing I can do".

One thing someone asked if whether the "press" are special, and for the most part they are not. The freedom of the press is a basic principle of any free and democratic society, but everyone is allowed to take pictures in public, pretty much. The press do, however, have some exceptions in the Data Protection Act to cover public interest where personal information is involved, so the fact kids may be identifiable from such pictures would not be an issue when published.

So the problem goes away with technology, thankfully. But this does not address the total paranoia of people that think anyone with a camera is up to no good. We all have eyes, and can see what we can see in public - using a camera is not a big step from that and is legal and normal and sensible. I hope that the fact that almost all of us now carry several cameras all the time is going to change that paranoia.

P.S. As a courtesy I did check my daughter was happy for these pictures of my grandson to be published. The original taking of these pictures was not seen as any issue by me or her though.

When is a KCI3 not a KCI3

Sorry this is technical, but it is just so BT that it is scary.

This is one of the final niggles with the renumber+export process, one we can work around somehow and is mostly just an annoyance.

When the renumber order completes, we want to send another order to BT to set incoming barring on the newly assigned number. This is a number that will not be used and already has outgoing barring or direct connect on it. This is a final tidy of the line to be a "naked DSL" line.

So, the renumber order completes, and BT send us what they call an KCI3, which is to tell us the order is completed. There are a lot of clues in the XML including:-

• LineStatus: Completed
• CompletedDate: 2016-05-27T11:43:00
• Message: Order Completed

KCI stands for "Keep Customer Informed", by the way. We feel very well "informed" with this message that maybe, just maybe, the order is now "Completed". Wouldn't you?

But it turns out that no, the order is not in fact complete. When we send the next order we are told "A pre-existing open order has been found on this line"!

Apparently there is still a "robotic process" which can take 24 hours, and we will get a KCI3 when it finishes. To my surprise we do, indeed, get one!

Same clues in the message:-

• LineStatus: Completed
• CompletedDate: 2016-05-13T11:38:14
• Message: Order Completed

The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed a new "CompletedDate", one that is 14 days ago?!?!

The new "CompletedDate" looked familiar. We checked our original order, and we sent:-

• RequiredByDate: 2016-05-13T11:38:14Z

This is actually when we created the order, as we want it ASAP, and BT adjust to the minimum lead time (10 working days). But wow! what a co-incidence! Except it is stranger still as the really eagle eyed will spot that 2016-05-13T11:38:14Z is not 2016-05-13T11:38:14. At this time of year they are an hour different. 11:38:14Z is in fact 12:38:14.

So it is almost like they plonked the UTC time of the CRD in to the CompletedDate as local (summer) time, in this robotic process, for an order that actually completed 14 days later.

I'd love to see that really special programming BT, and the comments that go with it. I wonder if, as a BT shareholder, I have any right to ask to take a look? I doubt it. Perhaps I should go to one of the shareholder meetings one day.

I'd also love to have a definitive way to tell the real KCI3 from the fake KCI3 so I can know when it is safe to send my next order.

The good news is that our "take over line and port number" system is apparently working right up to this point, and this is a minor last tidy up order which we can probably find a way around or do manually until BT fix it.

P.S. BT presumably use one of these big commercial XML B2B systems to do all of this. In A&A we use an XML library I knocked up. However, for us to do what BT are doing here would be really hard - we don't process date/times as text, they go in to a time_t right away, so we'd actually have to mess about taking 3600 off the date/time when in the summer to fill in the XML like this, it would be hard work.