zvis.com blog

CAPTCHA added to guestbook. Thanks to the spammers posting over 1000 spam msgs in my guestbook I had to add CAPTCHA. That is random generated code to identify human from the spambot. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Breadcrumbs navigation toolbar added. Just to make yuor navigation easier. Lemme know if there are bugs.

zknives.com went public - zvis.com got split. knives, flashlights, digital photography and stuff went to zknives.com. The rest stays here, including throwing knives :)

Gonna go water cooled - Even though I like all sorts of noise a dozen of fans on my comp is getting annoying. Plus all the hot air moving around with the dust. Shizz... So. Got Thermaltake Armor case and slowly collecting WC setup components. Real lazy to do all that, but real annoyed too.

Advertisment developments - Doh... This is real pathetic. Google finally informed me that add serving was disable because my site was promitong guns and ballisongs. What the hell with that? Promoting? Where? How? Ok, so now reviews become promotions. Considering how many folks out there I have upset with my reviews not prizing enough their favorite toy now getting that from google >:( Go figure. valueclick.com was even better. After denying my site to serve adds their explanation was that my firearms and nuclear weapons pages "rised questions of their stuff". No kidding. So, apparently displaying pictures of nuclear tests and telling the history counts as promotion of nuclear armament. I guess I am right there with Iran and North Korea... How stupid all that can get anyway? Not much worse than this though.

New 24" DELL LCD - Doh. I knew it was big, but haven't expected such a monster. All I can say widescreen monitors rock :D Played Doom 3 and Half life 2. Really different experience. Actually finished D3 ROE on it. OMG! That was a blast. So far I've decided to keep old 20" LCD as well. Dual monitor setup does have its benefits :) Especially if you work in graphics and run over a dozen progs at the same time.

Doom 3 Resurection Of Evil. - D3 ROE rocks :) Got it today, been playing since then. Double barrel shotgun is a blast. Trully Doom spirit. Especially interestign when combined with the "Artefact". Blasting monsters in a single shot and slo-mo is somethin you'd have to experience yourself :) As for the rest, it's Doom 3. So, it's dark, scarry and creepy. And yes, you still have to switch between flashlight and a weapon.

Google disabled AdSense for zvis.com. - Citing that site is not compliant with their policies prohibiting "firearms and ammo sales/promotin, and knuckle or gravity knives" Go figure, in all pages I do state that I don't sell anything, and in CA I can't have those gravitly(butterfly) or knuckle knives. Before signing for it I submitted site to google for review, they said it was ok, no problems. In 2 weeks they change their mind apparently, since I didn't change content... Frustrating. And can't get an answer from them which page is incompliant. Looks like email bot answering all emails with the same standard answer. What is wrong with this people anyway.

Bill Martino has passed away today. - Uncle Bill of Himalayan Imports passed away today, March 28 :( He was a real gentlman and very nice person. He will be remembered by his family, friends and all kukri enthusiasts all over the world.

Metallica: Some Kind of Monster.Watched the documentary today. if you're Metallica fan perhaps you should watch it. Otherwise, not worth it. Donno why this movie got so hyped up, there's nothing extraordinary to it. For one I can't even tell who's real and who's faking or even if the whole movie is real or fake. Besides, why do you want to watch your favorite band in crisis... Anyway, Newsted did look real and sincere in the interviews, the rest was much less interesting. L. Ulrich going about being most hated person in R&R, like someone forced his to drag Napster case to court, but eventually nobody said anything and the movie hardly made a point in the end.

Angels & Demons Just finished reading Dan Brown's books, Angels And Deamons, Da Vinci Code. Frankly, I don't understand what was all the fuss about. It's a good reading, but nothing extraordinary. Besides, IMHO Angels & demons is much better. Da Vinci code is just rehashing the same things over and over again. Same R. Langedon, same race against time, lone assasin and lying, manipulative hand driving the assasin and so on. And because of that Da Vinci code is boring compared to its predecessor Angel's & Demons.

Arc LSH review posted. Customized Arc LSH with 561ma TWAK LED frmo CGPeanut. Review posted here. Pictures were up for a while, but now linked in the review page as wel.

Received Peleng Fisheye :). My very first fisheye lens :) Got it from rugift.com. Initial test passed, it's brand new and working fine. I'll post a review later on once I manage to do some serious shooting with it.

Google AdSense added.I figured the site can at least cover direct maintenance costs using that.

Bugfixes over the site. Fixed bug in DOF & FOV calc. Minor bug fixes for IE in various pages.

DOF & FOV Calculator now supports skins. Site skins will be used in DOF calc. Not all the details are worked out, but in general it'll work. Plus minor bugfixes.

Bugfix in DOF & FOV Calculator. Fixed bug for IE version of HTML code, which was preventing applet from loading in IE. Tested on FireFox, IE, Kameleon, Netscape...

DOF & FOV Calculator is up. Beta version of Depth Of FIeld and Field Of View calculator is up and running here. For now calculator can compute lens DOF, FOV, HD, COC based on Focal Length, focusing distance and camera format. You can also build multiple charts (up to 3) simultaneously.

More updates on Ministry Pages. Bugfixes in several lyrics pages. Fixed few links on the Ministry main page. Minor revisions.

Ministry Pages updated. Ministry is Back! Most definitely they're back with their Houses Of Molé. I liked it a lot. Typical Ministry style, reminding Psalm 69 quite a bit. In short, I've added lyrics for Houses Of Molé and Animositisomina, also a good one, though I like Hoses better. Anyway, I'm glad they're back and still kickin'.
And special thanks to Afra and his Ministry Pages.

RSS 2.0 feed working! I recon with the addition of the RSS 2.0 syndication "feeding frenzy" on my site is over for a while :) All 3 feeds validate according to their standards and report the same newz. Isn't that just wonderful ;) Overall it was interesting experience digging all the info regarding syndication and all those feed standards, including flame wars about which feed is better and all that. I personally like Atom better, because of its simplicity. Though RSS and RDF have more features, but then again, that sortta defies feed concept, and with all those features it not so simple in the end. In short, pick whatever you like, there is no standard and the whole thing is a mess anyway.

RDF feed is up! Ok, as learning experience added RDF feed. So latest 10 site news will be there in RFD format as well. Frankly, it's getting too much. Originally I wanted only one feed, but what the hell. I'll add RSS 2.0 too, just for the sake of it.

Atom feed is up! Finally managed to get Atom feed working. So latest 10 site news will be there. Not sure whether RSS 2.0 feed will make much sense in addition to Atom, but we'll see. RSS can have links as far as I see, but all that versioning/compatability stuff in RSS is a lot more messy. For now I have to read tonns of RSS vs. Atom articles to try to understand what's the issue.

New pictures in .357 DEP Album. Was playing with 10-22mm lens I got last week. Real nice lens. Perspective shows :) Check out Lochsa gallery in folding knives gallery section as well.

Got 10-22mm lens. MG, this lens is wide. Will be fun playing with perspective.

On the bad side, the sensor on my digicam is real dusty. Why should that be an issue with 1 month old digicam, which I never took outside anyway? Canon can't deal with dust in their factory or what?

Ordered 10-22mm lens. Decided to take a plunge and buy Canon EF-S 10-22mm. As everyone agrees it is a very good lens, especially for DSLRs where there's nothing that wide is available. Sigma 12-24 doesn't really count, it's for full frames. Though Tokina and Tamron will be releasing their 11-22mm superwide angles soon. Quality won't be as good as Canon's I guess, but will be cheaper. We'll see how this one will work out.

New lens arrived. Again Canon, this time EF-S 17-85 IS USM. My first IS lens. IS rocks in certain situation. Not an universal cure, but still, does help a lot. Overall nice lens, wide, sharp. Nice perspective and zoom. In short great all around lens. Does have distortin on 17mm, but still, at that angle...
Used it for one evening, took around 1000 pix. Results are more than satisfactory. Could've been cheaper though, not L quality and costs 600$ in USa and more in europe.

Got 18-55mm lens.As part of lens upgrade for EOS 20D got Canon EF-S 18-55mm. Not the pro level, but for what it's worth IMHO this lens does a lot. Perfect for party picture taking, when everyone is drunk including photographer ;)

Finally got new digicam setup. That is Canon EOS 20D, new 2GB Sandisk Ultra II card and reader. Well, now I can take pix much faster, no 2.5 delay on startup :) Overall I like the new cam, definitely step up from 10D, although nothing extraordinary except startup time and faster focusing.