Often when taking photos with automatic cameras, your shots can have the wrong exposure, which basically means too bright or too dark. So it's worth turning on auto-bracketing which will take a picture at slightly different exposures (or stops) automatically. It's a feature I like about my old trusty SP-350. You would probably set it to around 0.5 or 0.7. For effect, I've used 1 stop above and below here.

The first photo is the exposure the auto metering thinks is best.

The second is one stop over.

And the final shot is one stop under.

The first shot captured the biggest range and detail, but actually isn't the right exposure as it was actually a bright sunny day. The second shot which had longer exposure (capturing more light) is the most accurate one. And finally the last shot was really underexposed. I'm no expert photographer, so without knowing much about setting the right exposures and such, this allows me to get the "correct" shot. With digital cameras, I'm not wasting any film by doing this.

The other issue I had was that auto-iso or speed of the film is that it's usually wrong on my camera for outdoor daytime shots. So for outdoors, I usually manually set it to 50 or 100. Slower film captures more range (detail of light and dark areas) and is less grainy.

All of this is pretty common knowledge for photographers, but it's still interesting for people like me with point and shoot cameras that want nicer photos.

This is from one of my favorite fiction books, The Magician.

An apprentice had come to pass several tests, except one where he kept giving wrong answers..

"What is your allotted place?"

"My place is here."

"What is your allotted place?"

"Where I am needed."

And so it went, until upon reflection..

I am the architect of my own imprisonment.

"What is your alloted place?"

"This is no longer my place."

It's coming together now. Having worked in this region for the past few years internationally, I've always felt that the efforts of Malaysians have not been recognised and that we're far ahead of other countries in terms of FOSS usage and adoption. Whether it's a guy using a bunch of FOSS applications to keep our weather monitoring stations going or our own City of Munich aka Melaka there are plenty more examples left to be discovered.

Maybe they're just being humble.

Some interesting gems from recent case studies I've received:

• UM makes extensive use of FOSS based applications, including centralised authentication with kerberos
• Kedah State Government is now at 2202 seats of OpenOffice.org
• More than a few universities are already using Linux to teach IT courses

If you have time, please do email, mail or fax letters of support and appreciation to these brave and hard working public servants. Their websites should have the names and contact details. Send it addressed to the head of the agency, CC the name/section who made it happen so that their efforts do not go unrecognised. If you're in Kedah, send it to the Menteri Besar, if you feel that the Housing Ministry did a good job migrating to OpenOffice.org, send it to their Chief Secretary and if it's an agency, send it to their Pengarah.

Let's keep this thing rolling..

OpenOffice.org Update

"It's not about choosing, it's about having choice" - Yasmeen Mahmood, Microsoft.

Whatever the hell that means, but Malaysian government agencies are smarter, they want choice, and have chosen to save taxpayers millions, choose open source, choose open standards and choose to stand up and say no to vendor lock-in.

http://knowledge.oscc.org.my/solution-areas/desktop/OpenOffice.org/openoffice-adoption

Usually I ignore this little feature, but today had one of those funny, yet sad questions,

What is the most ridiculous story of incompetence you have regarding IT Managers who have no technical knowledge or experience?

http://www.linkedin.com/answers/TCH_ITS_CMP/267521-15486651?trk=ape_q080708i_9

Another thing that really bothers me, are people who have to use computers a lot, who can't type. It's really worth taking some time each day to learn, it's free software even. Massive jump in productivity right there, better than silly things like making sure people clock in on time.

http://www.gnu.org/software/gtypist

• Government Agency Open Source Adoption and Trends now public http://www.oscc.org.my/content/view/227/139/
• All Perak State agencies will be using OpenOffice.org from 2009. Currently in migration process. Track status here: http://knowledge.oscc.org.my/solution-areas/desktop/OpenOffice.org/openoffice-adoption
• Tired of IE only sites? Check the bottom of the Penang State Government website! http://www.penang.gov.my