Welcome
This page is a mix of blog entries on various topics and update notes on changes to this website.

Filter the entries using the categories and tags links lower down on the right column.
Best viewed on a 15 inch or larger monitor set to 1024 pixels wide



Support
If you click on the link above to initiate a buying session with Amazon using the link at right, I get a tiny commission on any purchases you make while you shop during that session.
If you'd like to support the site, this is one way that you can participate.

Hear

Notes on Hyper-V

Bits
More notes from a presentation on Microsoft's new Hyper-V server technology.
Read the BitDepth story on the event here... Read More...
|

BitDepth 660 posted

Arrow
BitDepth #660, a look at Microsoft's new Hyper-V virtualisation enabled server is posted here...
|

Editorial for December 30

TG
Guardian Editorial for December 30
"Next year's Carnival is shaping up to be a guava season for stakeholder representatives anticipating the kind of generous handouts that have floated the Carnivals of the last three years past the ruin of the Grandstand and a sharply felt lack of planning for an entirely predictable festival." Read More...
|

Editorial for December 29

TG
Guardian Editorial for December 29.
"Carnival band and party brand loyalty will be tested in 2009 by even the most enthusiastic of Carnival supporters and cost constraints will challenge promoters and bandleaders to provide more with a reduced profit margin." Read More...
|

Editorial for December 23

TG
Guardian editorial for December 23
"The fugitive nature of these flavivirus serotypes have made it possible for successive Ministers of Health to argue with passion that dengue is not a problem in Trinidad and Tobago.
Those who have suffered the ravages of an illness known as "bonebreak" and "bonecrusher" fever would beg to differ."
Read More...
|

Editorial for December 22

TG
Guardian Editorial for December 22
"There seems to be a fair amount of fuzziness in the police accounting of missing persons in Trinidad and Tobago, and a review of the reality of existing police reports and the actual standing of missing persons in this country would seem to be not just in order, but a matter that should be a routine part of the statistical analysis of police reports." Read More...
|

Editorial for December 16

TG
Guardian Editorial for December 16
"Until this country can find a way to reconcile its enthusiasm for celebrating beauty with tangible returns on the investments that are necessary for success in the business, local franchise holders will remain doomed to a cycle of accolade and abnegation in their efforts to build a business that many desire but nobody seems to want." Read More...
|

Editorial for December 15

TG
Guardian Editorial for December 15
"There have been some concerns about the PM's decision to pursue this surgery in Cuba, bypassing the possibility of having the procedure done in this country, but it is, ultimately is one of those decisions that a man must make for himself in his best interests." Read More...
|

BitDepth 657, 658, 659 posted

BitDepth 657 on the value proposition of HDTV is posted here...
BitDepth 658, the annual gift guide for tech lovers
is posted here...
BitDepth 659, a look at Quantum of Solace and The Day the Earth stood still
is posted here...
|

BitDepth 656 posted

Arrow
BitDepth # 656, a look at Google's new web browser, Chrome, is posted here...
|

Notes on the 2008 ICT Symposium

Bits
Additional reporting on the ICT Symposium, direct from my notebook...
Related: BitDepth 655... Read More...
|

McNally talk posted

Loupe
The final posting of notes from PhotoPlus Expo 2008, notes on talks given by Joe McNally is posted here...
|

BitDepth 655 posted

Arrow
BitDepth 655, a report on the two days of seminars of the ICT Symposium 2008 is posted here...
|

Remembering Bheem Singh

Bheem
Bheem was always kind to strangers but he doted on his children and their children. Photo by Mark Lyndersay.

Bheem Singh died on November 09 and was buried on November 12 in a quiet ceremony at St Mary's Church in St James.
In one of those curious turns that makes Trinidad and Tobago such a unique and intriguing nation, the man who returned Divali, a Hindu festival to St James with a street display outside his home at Ethel Street, was buried under Christian rites.

Bheem Singh was always kind and generous to me and his tireless patience with my efforts to photograph his work for the festival, so he was, after a fashion, the first of my Local Lives subjects.
I first photographed the work he was doing with his sons on Ethel Street for The Wire, but the photos weren't published. When I came by to apologise for wasting his time, he berated me instead for not visiting on Divali night to share in the food his family generously served to anyone who visited their home.

This year, neither Bheem nor I were at the family's celebrations. He was in hospital while the family bravely carried on with the celebrations and I was was in New York, having carelessly failed to factor in the overlap with my travel.
He was a generous, kind and cheerful man, a great neighbour in St James. He will be missed, particularly when the lights of the deyas are lit each year.

I've finally posted the last three of the published
Local Lives essays, including A Light in the West.
|

BitDepth 654 posted

Arrow
BitDepth 654, an overview of the first five years of Fast Forward is posted here...
|

BitDepth 653 posted

Arrow
BitDepth 653, a report on cable company Columbus Communications' recent press conference, is posted here...
|

David De Caires, fondly remembered

Writing
I wrote this editorial for Monday's Guardian (October 03).
As I mentioned in a note to David's son, Brendan, his father always recognised me wherever we met with a kindness and generosity that was always touching.
David De Caires was a man of some intensity, but he had no airs and I count myself fortunate to have met him through my friendship with Brendan.
Read More...
|

Mass updates

Arrow
After almost a full week of hacking my lungs up and blowing my sinuses into a rather vast assortment of tissues, I've finally mustered the energy to begin posting to the site again.
Fortunately, I'm working from copious notes from the show floor at PhotoPlus Expo 2008, so the assortment of drugs and remedies I've been ingesting hasn't quite succeeded in wiping my brain pan clean of what I encountered over the three days of Expo.

Herewith, a roundup of all the new postings to the site...
BitDepth 651 covers a panel at PhotoPlus on the way Microstock has changed the face of not just stock photography sales but the profile of contributors.
There are additional notes from that panel posted to my Photo Blog
here.
BitDepth 652 covers the panel of winners of this year's All Roads Project. Just one of the winners was able to make it, and his story is a remarkable one.
Day One of my PhotoPlus expo blog coverage covers
the hunt for a new sling bag.
|

Blogging the show floor

Bits
The next installment of BitDepth (October 28) will be a report on highlights from this year's PhotoPlus Expo, but from Thursday evening, I'll be blogging my findings and notes from the show floor of the PhotoPlus Expo 2008 at the Jacob Javits Centre in New York for the duration of the three days of the show.
You'll find that coverage posted on
my photoblog here...
|

BitDepth 650 posted

BitDepth 650, a look at Apple's new line of notebooks is posted here...
|

Future talk

Bits
Notes on the Futurist event at the Hilton Hotel on October 08, 2008. Read More...
|

BitDepth 649 posted

Arrow
BitDepth 649, a look at Facebook's changes and future is posted here...
|

BitDepth 648 posted

Bits
Additional notes from an interview with Gerd Leonhard and a link to the BitDepth interview with him. Read More...
|

A farewell to testosterone

Y: The last man
By Brian K Vaughn and Pia Guerra

"In the end, it's not important what killed the men, only what the rest of us are going to do now that they're gone." - Beth DeVille
Y
Y: The Last Man, beginnings and endings, book one and book ten.

There's a film in the works based on this book by Brian K Vaughn and Pia Guerra, but I have no idea how they are going to pull it off.
Watchmen was always going to be possible (if far less impressively detailed) if you yank out the backstory about the early heroes and the pirate parable, but hacking Vaughn and Guerra's ten volume story down to the size of a film is going to require some criminal cutting and devastating character losses.

I've had an up and down relationship with the book, picking up each volume as it came out and there are undeniably some slow passages in the middle of the work that could do with some trimming, but it would be so easy to leave out everything that gives the book its heart. Rumours suggest a trilogy of films, but the work doesn't seem epic enough to draw people to the cinema for three outings.

The book has a high concept beginning, three incidents seem to point to the same climactic moment on July 17, 2002, the sudden deaths of every man on planet Earth, an epic genocide of men, gagging on their blood filled throats, collapsing with threads of read running out of their eyes and noses.
This is the stuff of Hollywood pitchmen, the kind of high concept story point that gets films green lit before anyone has given a moment's thought to what happens next.

What happens next takes five years in the arc of the book, a long meandering quest through the American countryside, to Australia, then Japan and China as Yorick Brown, literature student and amateur escape artist, his Capuchin monkey Ampersand, the deadly Agent 355 and Dr Allison Mann seek the answer to why the young, often quite silly Mr Brown is the last man left alive on the planet.

Along the way, the find other men alive, but they don't stay that way for long, and women coping with life sans the male gender in many intriguing ways. The sanest town the find has been established by women from a nearby prison, rampaging Amazons roam the countryside, one breast removed, with hate in their heart for any reminders of the old patriarchy.

The reason for the mass patricide is eventually revealed, and the rationale is no better or worse than George Lucas' convoluted explanation of midichlorians as the source of Force control.
As Yorick put it, "As far as answers go, it was...vaguely unsatisfying."
By the end of the book, it's so transparently a useless deus ex machina that it's dealt with in two pages as we get on with more critical issues. Indeed, the reason offered at the end of the story is as plausible as any of the others that are hinted at throughout the book, but the real story of Y isn't what happened to the men, but what happened afterward.

Beyond the story of Yorick Brown, 355, and Dr Mann is a richer tapestry of women's many reactions, responses and readjustments after Le Grand Dpart. Vaughn's examination of this remarkable alternative future, the conspiracies that thread through it and the power brokers that emerge from it constitute a moving, elegaic story that really only surfaces when you read the entire book from beginning to end. I freely confess that it wasn't this powerful when I read it in monthly sittings.

The peaks that Vaughn builds into keep things moving along at a crisp clip, but they are also a bit irritating when you've got to wait months between episodes. The tiny interlocking arcs and references only become apparent when you read it, well, like a book, not like a serial.
That may have been why the series seemed to be getting a little...annoying, but Vaughn wraps up the story with a powerhouse arc that ends with the finale, "Alas..."

That storyline is one of the most remarkable feats of the book, closing the story with the same impact that it began with, and it's a payoff that's earned with strong storytelling, steady characterisation and a ruthless eye on playing straight and true with the premise he sets up in the first book.
Yorick is at the heart of this story, but what keeps it moving are the women who decide to reshape and destroy the world after all the men are gone.

I’ve made much of Vaughn’s writing, but Guerra’s elegant art, rich with nuance and emotion, adds a subtle richness to the storytelling. There’s a moment right at the end of the story, when Yorick suffers his greatest loss and you can see in Yorick’s rueful smile the dawn of his adulthood.
Some of Vaughn's ideas seem unlikely and pretty out there, but who knows what would happen in a world of women.
The success of Y is the courage he brings to executing the enormity of the concept.

Download a PDF of the first issue at
Vertigo Comics here...
|

BitDepth 647 Posted

Arrow
BitDepth #647 a look at the Jill Greenberg - John McCain situation is posted here...
|

Fundraisers for Jeffrey Chock annoucned

Loupe
Notes about fundraising events for the photographer Jeffrey Chock. Read More...
|

PhotoBlog: Lenses, not cameras

Lens
A new entry on my photography blog explores the unoirtabce of high quality lenses on digital camera bodies. Find it here...
|

BitDepth 645 & 646 posted

Arrow
Sorry about my tardiness this week. BitDepth 645 was posted late but 646, which concludes my coverage of the iPhone in Trinidad and Tobago is posted here...
|

Four colour heroics in black and white

A review of four novels about comics and the beginning of my coverage of comics on the blog. Read More...
|

Chock fundraising

Loupe
First notice of the fundraising effort in support of the medical expenses for Jeffrey Chock. Read More...
|

Virtual exhibit hall

Loupe
New image gallery added to the brand new section of the website, The Virtual Gallery.
This new section offers images in much higher than normal resolution (images will be 1200 pixels wide or 1024 pixels high on their long side, depending on orientation) and will fit nicely on a screen that’s 17 inches or larger.
The display is roughly equivalent to viewing an 8 x 10 inch print.

This runs counter to the traditional thinking on web reproduction, these larger files being easy targets for theft. But there’s also a very valuable counter movement, exemplified by
the Boston Globe’s take on photography on the web. Which is, in summary, so what?

I’ve had exhibitions of my work in the past and I still haven’t recovered from the experience 25 years later. I’d rather risk some petty theft and display some of my collections properly than massage my ego with another show in a hurry.

Let me know what you think about the first collection. I have another, much larger “show” waiting in the wings.

To assist you in viewing the images on your screen with greater accuracy, I’ve included these colour bars. Most modern monitors offer some colour controls that will eliminate particularly obvious colour casts.
ColourConfirm
The blocks in the bar are from left to right, 100 percent of blue, green, red and black, 50 percent gray, 25 percent gray and 100 percent white (that block should disappear on this page).
|

PhotoBlog: Portrait with a single light

Lens
The latest photoblog entry is a look behind the scenes at some recent photography for Gayelle TV that’s now on show here...
|

Dreamscape goes nuts

Lens
Trinidad Dreamscape freaks out after finding out that Noel Norton is shooting with a digital camera.
|

BitDepth 644 posted

Arrow
Got an iPhone and messed around with it thoroughly. Part one of my exploration of Apple’s new mobile platform.
|

MacBlog: Think

Mac
A new Mac blog entry on Think, software for reducing visual clutter on your screen is posted here...
|

BitDepth 643 posted

Arrow
BitDepth 643, a look at the short but company changing history of Apple’s iMac is posted here...
|

Posted CRB Reviews

Arrow
Posted my other two reviews for the Caribbean Review of Books to Other Writing, here. They are a 2006 review of Jeffrey Chock’s book of Carnival photographs and a 2007 review of Jamaican photographer Monica DaSilva’s collection of dance photographs.
|

BitDepth 642 posted

Arrow
BitDepth #642, a rundown of effective complaint lodging procedures (with an emphasis on technology issues) is posted here...
|

Norton website launched

Lens
Noel Norton has launched his new website. View it here. There's an excellent history of the studio's operations available on the site. You can read more about Mr Norton and his place in Trinidad and Tobago from my perspective here...
|

Kelly's surreal Tales

ST
Richard Kelly's Southland Tales is one of the most irritatingly intriguing films I've seen in years. Where Donnie Darko was focused on a fairly straightforward, if mind twisting plot seasoned lightly with earnest weirdness, Southland Tales is awash with unfulfilled ideas, heady notions and wild paranoia.

Like Darko, there's an interesting science fiction underpinning to all the goings on, but it's almost irrelevant to the political intrigue of a US Government that has taken homeland security to its logical conclusion and the personal peccadillos of Dwayne Johnson's Boxer Santaros.

The star power that's brought to bear on this story is impressive, inclusive of Sarah Michelle Gellar, John Laroquette, Miranda Richardson, Justin Timberlake and Seann William Scott, but what's lacking is a sense of restraint and service to the story. Kelly's tale wanders off on odd little tangents that ultimately amount to very little and nudge the story forward imperceptibly.

It's not hard to see why the film failed so completely to find an audience. The comedy is so black as to stifle even the most hard earned laugh, the science fiction is almost marginal and the action is so brief that it could qualify as punctuation.
Add to this Mr Timberlake's surreal little song and dance number and you have a cinematic pelau so varied that it's sure to be inedible to all but the most refined of palates.

What Southland Tales is, though, is a very personal piece of work that feels a lot like the work of a post-Matrix Robert Altman-esque director, one whose passions are involving enough to draw intriguing performances from a strong cast but so undiluted that they alienate all but the most committed of audiences.
If you like your movies odd and quirky, then give Southland Tales a look.
|

PhotoBlog: Photographing a CD cover

Lens
A note on my approach to photographing an album cover for jazz guitarist Theron Shaw is posted here...
|

BitDepth 641 posted

Arrow
BitDepth#641 covering the announcement of the IDC state of IT report is posted here...
|

MacBlog: Homemade coolpad

Mac
Notes on a cooling system I built to reduce heat on my laptop are posted here...
|

PhotoBlog: I hate shooting tethered

Jack
Notes about the philosophy of shooting tethered are posted here...
|

MacBlog: Backup software I find useful

Mac
These are software tools that I use to keep my data backed up.
|

BitDepth 640 posted

Arrow
BitDepth#640, notes about the need to backup in the face of potential drive failures is posted here.
|

Transcript of TATT response to BitDepth 638

Mail
This is a text facsimile, extracted from the PDF copy of a letter sent to the Trinidad Guardian’s Editor in Chief, Anthony Wilson by TATT Executive Director, Cris Seecheran.
TATT has chosen not to make any changes to the copy, which I reproduce with only a few additional page breaks for web readability.
Read More...
|

Notes on TATT's response

Writing
My notes on the letter sent by TATT to the TG Editor in Chief. Read More...
|

BitDepth 639 posted

Arrow
BitDepth #639, the story of footballer Adrian Foncette’s recovery from a potentially crippling injury, is posted here...
|

Beat Big Up for La Fleur Morte

Beat_LateBloomers_Link
One of my personal projects, La Fleur Morte, is featured in the July/August issue of Caribbean Beat.
The story by journalist James Fuller offers some kind words about my work and manages to date me quite nicely.

I'm not so ancient, however, that I'm likely to be doddering about humming Neil Diamond songs for inspiration, so please note that James misheard me and the quote that he cites is by
Neil Gaiman, not the composer of the film Jonathan Livingston Seagull that some folks consider to be quite inspirational.

FleurLGLink
The image enlargements on this page are quite large and will require at least a 17 inch monitor to view properly, but anything less just didn't do the reproduction of the pages and the sample image of the flower of the Chalice Vine (Solandra Guttata) just didn't seem right any smaller.

You can view the story
online here...

You can also access many stories from the current issue of Caribbean Beat as well as archives of the magazine by
signing up for a free subscription here...

There's a blog posting on my website and
links to other material about the project here...

Interview with Magella Moreau and Dennis McComie of Gayelle TV's Cock a Doodle Doo.

Slideshow movie that I prepared for that appearance.

Download the interview
here and the slideshow here.
|

BitDepth 638 posted

Arrow
BitDepth 638, a look at TATT’s proposal to introduce a Universality Fund to finance enhancements to Trinidad and Tobago’s telecommunications infrastructure is posted here.
|

Remembering 1990

Lens
Reflecting on the impact of 1990 in images. Read More...
|

1990, enriching the narrative

Writing
Eighteen years after the 1990 coup attempt, the story of the insurrection is still focused on the Jamaat al Muslimeen. Read More...
|

Happening for the birds

FilmReel
M Night Shymalan’s The Happening looks a lot more like Hitchcock than you might have expected. Read More...
|

BitDepth 637 posted

BitDepth #637, a look at a new report from the Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago is posted here...
|

Mac Blog Posting: Software updates

Mac
A note on my process for updating the Mac OS is posted here...
|

RBTT becomes RBC

Writing
RBTT becoming RBC provokes some interesting memories. Read More...
|

BitDepth 636 posted

Arrow
BitDepth 636, a look a superhero deconstructions as offered by the new Will Smith movie Hancock is posted here...
|

BitDepth 635 posted

Arrow
BitDepth 635 on the wisdom of careful upgrading is posted here...
|

BitDepth 634 posted

Arrow
BitDepth 634, a look at the newest version of Mozilla’s Firefox browser is posted here...
|

Mac Blog Posting: FTP on the Mac

Mac
A new Mac Blog posting on software for handling FTP chores on the Mac is posted here...
|

Photo Blog Posting: Pixels are Not free

Lens
A new Photo Blog posting is available on the real cost of digital images...
|

BitDepth 633 posted

Arrow
BitDepth#633, a hands-on look at Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader is posted here...
|

Stock photography section

Loupe
The stock photography galleries have been revamped significantly. The collection is far from complete, but images will be updated over the next few weeks. View the samples that are available right now here...
|

BitDepth 632 posted

Arrow
Phillip Emeagwali is an African scientist who has done pioneering work with parallel computing. Read more here...
|

Mac blog moved

Mac
Macintosh blog moved to here...
|

New photography blog added

Lens
Decided to move my ruminations about photography to a new blog. The first few entries consolidate information about my photojournalism projects and contemplate an egg. Read more here...
|

BitDepth 631 posted

Arrow
BitDepth 631, a look at the magic of the double feature is posted here...
|

BitDepth 630 posted

Arrow
Flash has been a boon to designers who wanted predictable glitz on their websites, but it may also have become something of a bit in the teeth of web development. Read more here...
|

More on Vista adoption...

Bits
The rest of the story on Vista adoption. There first part was published as BitDepth 629. Read More...
|

BitDepth 629 posted

ArrowBitDepth 629, a look at Vista's adoption is posted here...
|

A slyph of a star

FilmReel
On Audrey Hepburn. Nothing more need be said, but I go on and on anyway. Read More...
|

Cold Comfort

FilmReel
Frances Anne Solomon's A Winter Tale is a keenly seen vision of the struggle to find Caribbean truth in a metropolitan city. Read More...
|

BitDepth 628 posted

Arrow
You could just scan a photo or you could digitize your analog images with the utmost fidelity. Read more here.
|

Mac word processing tools

Mac
On my Mac blog, the inside story on two software tools I've used for years in preparing my writing for publication.
|

BitDepth 627 posted

Arrow
Flow's broadband is fast and affordable. The tech support needs some improving though.
|

BitDepth 626 posted

Arrow
Derren Joseph believes that he has the right mix of hands-on and virtual for Trin