A series of Long Exposures taken of the Marsh Creek Spillway in Chester County, PA.
My first series of images using my new Triggertrap Mobile – Exposures ranging from 0.4-500 seconds, for HDR post capture processing using Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop and Nik Software – HDR Efex Pro 2.
[2012 May 17] – Is Skip the next Carl Bernstein? or Bob Woodward?
or the mysterious man in the shadows….
Skip at a private fundraiser (5/17/2012)
[2012 August 30] – Skip had heard via various sources, that there was a party in town… Even with a hurricane blowing into town, he was able to witness history in the making…
Skip At The Republican National Convention (08/30/2012)
[2012 September 24] – So Skip… What is your call on this one…
Skip, what is your call on this one? (09/24/2012)
[2012 October 14] – Once again Skip shows his desire to be at the edge of everything…
Skip – Space Jump
[2012 October 30] – As fate would have it, Skip was one of the last people able to fly into New York City, and Hurricane Sandy could be seen in the distance.
[2013 July 21 02:02 AM] – Geraldo and Skip after Last-call
Geraldo and Skip after Last-call
[2013 July] – Skip takes pictures of Weiner
Skip’s Weiner pictures
[2013 August 19] – Shark, Shark, Skip!
Shark, Shark, Skip!
[2013 August 23] – The Royal Birth
Skip’s New Cousin!
[2013 August 29] – An Early Birthday present
Happy 48th Skip!
At one with Nature
During a recent trip, Skip was able to meetup with old friend, Bryan!
Skip with his friend Bryan
While checking on the ‘neighborhood’, Skip Middleton startled some of the local wildlife, some of whom where NOT happy with his kind of paparazzi…
Skip with Bigfoot
Skip in Space
With the help of S.R. Hadden, of Hadden Industries, Skip was able to take a quick trip, and capture this Kodak moment (See Date-line entry above).
Not many people realized, Skip left the planet, for his real mission, which had begun many years before… He was eager to compare notes with Dr. David Bowman later on in the “day”.
Skip with Tycho Monolith Anomaly 1 (TMA-1)
In an email/text to his mother, Skip, said “You should meet HAL! It’s so cool to talk with a computer! Should be Home in a couple of days! L8ter! – Skip”
Skip with HAL9000
Snapshots of Life
[No GPS data available] – Skip on alert!
Skip on Alert!
[Budapest] – During one of Skip’s many adventures, he ran into this timeless traveler.
Skip – Budapest
[Justin Bieber] – Ever since Justin Bieber’s songs first appeared in 2008, Skip has been a big fan. Then there was the big night, where Justin invited Skip to one of his concerts, and gave him an “All Access Pass”! Needless to say, Skip was thrilled, and even managed to capture this image.
Skip & Justin Bieber
Skip in the Movies
Skip does not always talk about his screen, but when he does, it is sure to be epic!
As I mentioned in a previous post, “Moving to Windows 7“, I have completed a second major task that I’ve been meaning to do for a long time.
CrystalTech and fastCGI
2011 Chester County Balloon Fest 098
This task has been bittersweet, in the sense that I’ve been with my previous host, CrystalTech, for 10+ years and they have always been very responsive during that time, but ever since I moved to a WordPress environment, I’d been having issues.
By no means, do I mean to slam CrystalTech in any way shape or form.
The hosting service has done me well for well over a decade, and I have set up many of my clients with them during this time.
My issue with their hosting at this stage the game is purely technical.
CrystalTech’s main mission is to provide Microsoft based Hosting services, which was great for me during my early days of HTML, FrontPage and DotNetNuke adventures, but as I move to WordPress, it became apparent that their Linux/Unix emulation services left a little to be desired.
Again, I do not blame CrystalTech directly because they are offering WordPress in an emulation mode in a Microsoft environment.
Where I see the major issue in this, is the reliance on the little piece of software called fastCGI.
Since I did not have direct access to the error logs, I can only make this inference based on the errors that were coming up in my browser screen, and they seem to indicate more times than not, that fastCGI was the culprit, and I surely do not want to offend anybody that has not had any issues at all.
Again, during my time with CrystalTech, I was never aware of any major outage, and the tech support staff was readily available during instant messaging session, and were always courteous, and I would recommend them for someone wishing to host a pure Microsoft environment.
Inmotionhosting.com
As mentioned previously, I have been investigating a new hosting service for some time, and during some research for new client of mine, I discovered Inmotionhosting.com.
After setting up a new domain registration and hosting requirements for my new client, Filec Services, LLC, I got my first taste of what it was like to be in a purely Linux/Unix environment.
I was first struck by the speed in which I was able to install a brand-new installation of WordPress, and from there, the installation of my various required plug-ins seem to take seconds to install compared to that of my previous hosting service.
When it became time to actually add content, I could just add the information as needed and my WordPress installation just seem to flow with each new page.
Based on this initial experience, I prepared my old site for the migration to Inmotionhosting.com.
Again after doing numerous backups, of both my content and my database, and reviewing as much information on the topic as possible, I made the import of my old website into my new hosting environment, and was extremely pleased to see that nearly everything transferred without any issue whatsoever!
Once in place, I started to tinker around and was still greeted with the new speed that I had just gained for my web site!
In reading further of SEO, Google has announced that website response times are now linked to your ranking, so hopefully I can get my site further up the scale when potential clients are searching for my services!
In the meantime, please take a look at my various posts and pages and see if you do not also agree that the site seems faster than it was a few days ago.
Update
I still find it amazing, how many little bits and pieces need to be reconnected when one moves to a new host, especially after 10+ years!
In reviewing my Google Webmaster Tools account, it seems to indicate that prior to my move to my new host, my page load times were nearly 20 seconds!
It will be interesting to see how those load times will change during the course of the next several months, but already I know, or I should say, that they ‘feel’ a lot faster!
I have finally done two things for my computer and online environment that I’ve been contemplating for a very long time: Upgrading to Windows 7 and Moving to a new Web Hosting service. (Moving to a new host will be described in another post.)
When Microsoft Vista came out, there were a great many reports and issues involved with this transitional operating system, and many of those did not like what they seem trapped with when they bought their new machines, and many corporations refused to move to Vista.
Even with time, service packs and patches, Vista never seem to be ready for prime time, so when Windows 7 came out in October of 2009, many people were even more anxious about this new operating system. Would this new operating system be a similar public relations disaster?
As more and more people used and reviewed Windows 7, it became clear, the Microsoft had learned from their earlier mistakes.
Personally, I had said to myself many a times, that I was going to wait till I got a new computer before I made the switch to Windows 7 on my primary machines, but that thinking got squashed when Adobe announced that Lightroom 4 would only run in Windows 7.
To my knowledge, this was the first mainstream application that required the use of Windows 7, and since I rely heavily on Lightroom, I had to reevaluate my thinking and my pocketbook.
So after freeing up some time and getting all business related activity done, I set about the task of backing up my system and beginning the migration to this new operating system.
I had not done a fresh install of my main computer in many years, so I was very concerned that I was able to keep my various settings, as well as applications that I had grown very fond of over the years.
I made backups of backups, hunted down preference settings and serial numbers, and finally made the switch.
After booting into my fresh operating system, I noticed my machines seem to be responding quicker to normal tasks which was quite pleasant.
I am still amazed the amount of time necessary for our newly installed machine, which easily reaches 200+ patches, if one includes Microsoft Office, but once done it is like driving a new car, but without that unique scent (some would argue there is a different scent…).
At the moment, my single biggest issue with doing the upgrade, has been the restoration of my files, and this has to do mostly with my usage of Robocopy and User Account Control (UAC).
In the past, using Robocopy was a matter of learning the various command-line switches and writing your script accordingly, and for the most part, this still holds true, but one still needs to manually increase their privileges for the script to work.
This can easily be done, by typing in “cmd” in the program search field, and then holding the “Shift” key, as one right clicks, and selects “Run as administrator”.
I do need to spend some more time to get my backup scripts running with the same robocopy scripts but at the moment I’m happy doing it manually.
At least, I know they are running and completed.
All in all I had been very pleased with the upgrade, and does seem to increase the life of some of your existing computer equipment, assuming you can find compatible drivers.
If for nothing more, you now have a lot longer period till you have to worry about Microsoft no longer supporting your operating system! (See Microsoft Product Lifecycle for XP)
Last week, I spent the better part of the day backing-up all my files to make sure nothing would get lost, which should be common practice, for anyone looking to do an upgrade, or in my case a full rebuild my machine, moving from Windows XP to a brand-new install of Windows 7.
Why?
Well, XP has been my workhorse for several years now, but there are several applications, that are beginning to require Windows 7, namely Adobe Lightroom 4.
For the most part, the Rebuild of my main computer went quite well, and I can see a definite improvement in the general speed of my main desktop.
I also spent a fair amount of time prior to the upgrade, tracking down the various serial numbers which lay hidden in numerous e-mails that I have accumulated over the years.
There were a few applications that I have reservations about in my move to Windows 7 but after a day or two, my fears were alleviated.
Today, was my day to finally get back in touch with the real world, and tweak my Outlook 2007 for my new environment.
In my haste, trying to get back online last week, I inadvertently connected the wrong PST as my default, and this morning I paid for it.
After trying to do what one would think simple to clean-up of my mistake, I decided to go ahead and just create a brand-new PST.
What really amazed me, was that I was able to save approximately 600MBs of disk space just by copying the emails to the new PST, and that was after contacting the original PST!
So the moral of this quick story, or should I say rant, is that if you need to recuperate some disk space, one might take a look at copying your old emails to a new PST, but be forewarned it can take some time.
![Skip with the Hindenburg (1937) [Dean H]](https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/533220_10151405418858709_1296291671_n.jpg "Skip with the Hindenburg (1937) [Dean H]")
![Skip in Dealey Plaza, Dallas (1963) [Dean H]](https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/304657_10151405585873709_137908795_n.jpg "Skip in Dealey Plaza, Dallas (1963) [Dean H]")
