Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2012-02-06. (read more »)

Hello, everyone. I’m back from the remote Eastern Fields of Papua New Guinea. We only had 6 days out there because two strong tropical storms moved into the area, but the diving was good (until we moved back to the coast).

My 4-week cough turned into a 6-week cough, so I only did 3-4 dives in the Eastern Fields. It was extremely frustrating, but I enjoyed being out on the ocean with a great group of people. Here’s the video slideshow I made for the group:

Music selection by kozyndan. End credits by me and Dan.

Tony Wu (my co-trip leader) has posted a fantastic write-up of the trip, and a Wetpixel thread is tracking more pictures and experiences.

As always, you can see the expeditions we run over at Wetpixel: http://wetpixel.com/expeditions

I’m back from Papua New Guinea, and finally downloaded and watched “All for a Bowl of Soup,” an episode of Dan Rather Reports which aired Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 8pm ET on HDNet (strangely, I had to watch iTunes’ SD version of “HD”Net).

“All for a Bowl of Soup” is the most no-nonsense piece I’ve seen about the global shark finning problem. It combines facts with awe-inspiring footage of thousands of shark fins being pulled into a single fisheries facility in a single day.

The show features my friend, Shawn Heinrichs, and a significant amount of his investigative footage showing huge numbers of shark fins in processing facilities, as well as footage of a live, finned shark suffocating to death. It also includes about a minute of my shark footage shot in the wild.

“All for a Bowl of Soup” hatched as a plan between me and Derek Reich, a freelance cameraman who does a lot of work with HDNet. We had been talking about it for awhile, but finally hashed out a proposal when we happened to both be stranded in New York during Hurricane Irene last year.

If you have half an hour to spare, please download and watch “All for a Bowl of Soup” from iTunes. If you are moved by the piece, please donate to Shark Savers—my conservation organization of choice—or to your chosen shark conservation organization, and spread the word!¹

Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2012-01-23. (read more »)

Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2012-01-16. (read more »)

Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2012-01-09. (read more »)

This online journal has been running since September of 1999. I refuse to call it a “blog” because it was around long before blogs were invented the common name for such things.

On December 8, 2001, I set up Greymatter and started using it to post online journal entries. On February 9, 2003, I migrated to Cafelog b2, which apparently made me quite happy. On January 18, 2006, I migrated from b2 to Wordpress, which was quite a bit of work.

Here is a table showing posting and commenting activity:¹

In the last couple of years, Twitter and Facebook (and now, Google+) have caused me to post here less and less frequently. I think I’m going to redesign echeng.com to be more of a hub for my photography work sometime during this coming year. This particular design here at echeng.com has been in place since February of 2003—I can’t believe it has lasted this long!

I went on a fun photowalk with Robert Scoble last Tuesday, where we gave him a chance to play with a pre-production Lytro Light Field Camera. Scoble posted a thoughtful summary of the photowalk and included a video interview of me, which you can see here in this post.

Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2012-01-02. (read more »)

Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2011-12-26. (read more »)

My most-published picture is a picture of a juvenile loggerhead turtle being released into the wild just off of Palm Beach, Florida. It is commonly referred to as “the screaming turtle“. According to Google, it is being used online in about 21,200 locations. One day, I will unleash an IP attorney to hunt down all unauthorized commercial use. I don’t care about the personal use, as long as people attribute me and leave my watermark on the picture (which many do not).

Hint: to see where your pictures are used, go to Google Images and drag a JPG into the search field!

Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2011-12-19. (read more »)

Last month (November, 2011), 11 people at our office in downtown Mountain View were hit with credit card fraud. Most of us eat at the same group of restaurants on and around Castro Street in Mountain View. I was out of town, and was thus spared being a victim. However, I returned in late November and resumed using my credit card for lunch in downtown Mountain View. A couple weeks later, my American Express was shut down for fraudulent activity. It had been used at two Home Depot locations: one in Pennsylvania, and one in New York. One charge was for over $700, and the other for $450.

That makes 12 credit card fraud victims at our company—a significant percentage. The logical conclusion is that a someone who works at a restaurant in downtown Mountain View is stealing credit cards. If you’re headed to Castro Street to eat, it may be prudent to either 1) go somewhere else, or 2) pay in cash.

Tweets posted by @echeng during the week of 2011-12-12. (read more »)

• Hello, friends! Please vote us (@Lytro) for the Crunchies! (Best Tech and Startup) http://t.co/ahbfWpmt and http://t.co/ZKoPHkxE #
• GMail's new look: less information! same space! why?! #
• @dane Quick update: they turned line 2 back somewhere (not at my place), and original modem works again. Looks like it has to be bonded. #
• Just bought $20 of Skype credit for $10 via LivingSocial (thanks, Mom). Hope it works! :) http://t.co/r5g5lYZA #
• RIM bringing email service to iOS and Android via Mobile Fusion—very interesting, for international travelers. http://t.co/55m0DOKY #
• When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality? http://t.co/kdEf7H58 (via Instapaper) #
• Light reading during lunch: "When did the GOP lose touch with reality?" (David Frum) http://t.co/0vRgdh83 #
• To Have and to Hate « Zócalo Public Square http://t.co/Ae4TMU4G (via Instapaper) #
• American Airlines Now Charging Fees To Non-Passengers http://t.co/XAceWjHe #
• Siri hasn't worked for over 24 hours (but still works on Pam's phone). #
• R.I.P., Yahoo billboard (in a couple of days) http://t.co/zvwyAEtz #
• MarineLife Keywords is 10% off this week (very useful for underwater photographers). http://t.co/u0htKokk #
• I just heard "mos' def'" used for the first time outside of television street dramas. I am so sheltered. #
• @grantshirk Siri tells me that she can't do anything now. Generic error message. #
• @henrik_pejer yeah. I will try that. Annoying, though. #
• Domenick Scudera: My Gay Lifestyle http://t.co/SzRKnuDi (via Instapaper) #
• Monstrously massive mammals in the murk! – Wetpixel :: Underwater Photography Forums http://t.co/0bsP0OdK (via Instapaper) #
• The YES! Breakthrough 15: Ai-jen Poo — YES! Magazine http://t.co/bnbCFzFc (via Instapaper) #
• http://t.co/gNFIOVos chats with Stephen Boxall and Richard Koci Hernandez about shooting using @lytro cameras. http://t.co/fsbATIXv #
• The view from Yelp. Happy mood at their HQ! @ Yelp HQ http://t.co/iS0H71gL #
• A rather magnificent magnificent ceratosoma nudibranch. Slugs are purrrty. http://t.co/xdyeuTkM #
• I made a little video out of the the underwater footage I collected last month in Indonesia. Enjoy! :) http://t.co/bTvnzyja #
• Photo: back-lit soft coral crab in Indonesia. http://t.co/3q1ORc0T #
• I want a juicer. #
• There is very little overlap in suppliers and clients between the ferry building and Alemany farmers market. #
• The cute Asian girl is the universal attractant of Ferry Building stalls. If you don't have one, you're losing business! #
• Ever seen the effects of dynamite fishing? We came across a recently-bombed coral head in Indonesia last month (photo: Frank Baensch)… #
• @littlemster I suppose you could just use a fork, and I could just use a blender and strainer, eh? ;) #
• Got sister on iPhone. Mom will be onboard in a couple months. That's pretty much everyone, unless my dad decides he wants one. #
• Perhaps the most epic cello duet ever performed: Cello Wars http://t.co/SxBXLdTT #
• Interesting. I always thought it was the bacteria that killed Komodo dragon prey. This report says that it is venom. http://t.co/F6jRu57y #
• A lovely walk through the Tenderloin at midnight. Just kidding–avoid it at night, if you can. http://t.co/wLomQiQ6 #
• Alien spider crab (known as the "xeno crab" to underwater photographers). http://t.co/hR5jYHlG #
• Underwater macro shooting tip: strobe positioning for black background http://t.co/6bdMZFID #
• We had dinner with a friend's friend from the UK last night. When we referred to Siri as "she," he chuckled because Siri is a dude in… #
• USPS will be eliminating overnight first-class mail this spring (closing half of its processing centers). http://t.co/av7LdIpy #

I have an iPhone 4S on Verizon. Last week, I asked Siri a question, and she responded, “I’m really sorry, but I can’t take any requests right now.” After 24 hours, it was clear that Siri was broken. I looked only, and there were dozens of support webpages offering various tips on how to get the service working again; apparently, it is pretty common for Siri, clearly labeled a beta product by Apple, not to work. This is unfortunate because the iPhone itself is clear NOT a beta product. For any Apple-branded service not to work taints the entire iPhone experience.

Here’s how I finally managed to get Siri to work again:

1. Settings->General->Reset->Reset All Settings. This will reset things like your Desktop background, notification settings, and network settings, but will not delete any applications or user data. After I did this, Siri worked, but there were still a few problems: Siri refused to call anyone, and all phone numbers in my address book seemed to want to be 9 digits instead of 10. For example, if I entered a normal, 10-digit phone number like (415) 123-4567, Address Book would display it as “4151234567″. However, if I removed the last digit, it would display, “(415) 12-34-56″. Truly bizarre.

2. I turned off Siri.

3. I dialed *228 and selected option 2 to update roaming.

4. After updating roaming, I turned Siri on again and waited for the phone to connect to the Verizon network. At this point, 10-digit phone numbers were again recognized and re-formatted to the proper “(xxx) xxx-xxxx”. Siri was again able to dial.

I hate wasting time trying to get services to work properly. One of the reasons I have an iPhone is that I just want things to work, and all of the effort expended to figure out a way to get Siri to work was not fun. If I wanted to endlessly tweak my devices, I’d still be on Android!

Anyway, I hope this post helps folks out there to get Siri working again on their Verizon iPhones.

Underwater footage from a 26-day Wetpixel underwater photography expedition to Alor and Komodo, Indonesia. Footage taken by me, with Canon EOS 7D, Tokina 10-17mm fisheye zoom lens and Canon 100mm macro lens. Macro footage was lit with dual Light & Motion SOLA 1200 video lights. Additional footage captured with GoPro HERO cameras in modified Eye of Mine underwater 3D housings.

• Crap. Had to check my uw camera backpack on SQ2, so I have a bare housing to lug around. #
• New things: I was taught "Air Hair Lair" and "Whale Oil Beef Hooked" by Julian (a Brit). #
• @ArneKuilman sound them out. :) #
• "Welcome home, sir" at SFO is so much better than the "Whatchoo doin' here?" I have gotten at LAX. #
• After re-activating my iPhone upon returning to the States, I had 85 app updates. Had to run overnight. #
• Back (happily) to the grind… @ San Francisco Caltrain Station http://t.co/DiQXfW88 #
• @Lytro wins PopSci's Innovation of the Year (again, featuring @schrep's cats) http://t.co/usMGoD7g #
• Final Cut Pro X update is failing (so many problems, it's unbelievable). Solution: http://t.co/Vg75A6e7 #
• I love little moments of beauty when I'm not expecting them. http://t.co/Kg6Mp0Mq #
• @leyanlo Good idea! Will do, next time. #
• @arnekuilman No way. Guides find them! #
• Jetlag sucks. I passed out at around 9pm and then work up, wide-awake, at 11:30pm. #
• I nearly missed the fall while I was gone @ Castro In MV http://t.co/vRUQfdVS #
• Adobe is having a great sale for 1 week: 50% off Lightroom, Elements; big savings on Photoshop. http://t.co/vh6Tx2v3 #
• This seems like it would be useful for us underwater photographers. Resist floods! :) http://t.co/8RLkpjej #
• The TILT cooling stand for MBP. Would be a great thing to have in warm environments. http://t.co/OONACu1a #
• Onmifocus will now retrieve iCloud reminders, which means Siri has just become much more useful for me! http://t.co/8HQZQtyk #
• @Lytro makes TIME's Top 50 Best Inventions (and 5 Cool Inventions). Exciting!… #
• "Brinicle" filmed in Antarctica. Incredible footage. http://t.co/7EQGFrrX #
• The end of an era: The Yahoo! billboard comes down. – The San Francisco Egotist http://t.co/JY9WJWxY (via Instapaper) #
• Two spaces after a period: Why you should never, ever do it. – Slate Magazine http://t.co/kPgBcdcB (via Instapaper) #
• @blam Damn. that looks dangerous! Water is like concrete at those speeds. :) #
• My buddy @andybiggs is running a big Black Friday sale at GuraGear. They are awesome camera bags. http://t.co/HVaWAGGq #
• @Sonicnet DSL down and support unable to get it working. 1 of 2 Fusion lines dead & modem possibly dead. bad timing! #
• @sonicnet Great support, though. David tried his best to get things working. #
• @bizofdiving @indokerri Not surprising. Just search for #demashow and @dema_show and count number of tweets. No young people were there. #
• @dane Nope. Machine plugged directly into modem (with manual ip settings) does not respond in bonded or non-bonded modes. #
• @dane 1/2 speed worked for the last 11 days (2nd line has been down that long). Failed altogether starting yesterday. #
• @dane Line 2 is down. Line 1 syncs (green light solid). But no connection through modem, at all. #
• @dane AT&T dispatch scheduled for tomorrow. Sonic for Wed. Loaner modem ordered for $12 shipping. #
• The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy | Naomi Wolf | Comment is free | http://t.co/KuhNAgyz http://t.co/dOp4YL5l (via Instapaper) #
• At SF Ferry Building. There are festive musicians everywhere–two groups per block. #
• The more you "were like," the more I want you to leave. #
• FS: Motorola 9505a satellite phone with accessories and data kit. http://t.co/VVmrVMyj #
• A Crash Course in Typography: The Basics of Type – Noupe http://t.co/cwPxSuyt (via Instapaper) #
• FS: 2 x Fisheye FIX LED 1000 DX underwater video and focus lights http://t.co/7QazHfnB #

Photos taken at Sizzler off of Lembata, Indonesia. See the larger version here.

I used Final Cut Pro X, Apple’s controversial new “professional” video editing program to cut the trip video during my latest Wetpixel expedition to Indonesia. These slideshows have become a tradition for guests and combine video, stills, and music into something people can take home to show their friends and family.

Using Final Cut Pro X was, for the most part, fantastic. It is really more like an “iMovie Pro” and includes one-click video stabilization, color balancing, and look filters, which were all features I used extensively. Aside from dealing with small bugs, I was able to produce a 30-minute video fairly easily, without being impeded by any critical issues. However, I am back home, and am now in the process of trying to migrate my slideshow project and event files to my main Mac Pro from my MacBook Pro. This is proving to be impossible. Two excellent threads provide work-arounds for reconnecting missing media, but upon following the instructions outlined within those threads, this is what happened:

1. After copying events and projects to the Mac Pro, they showed up and opened in FCPx, but all of the media showed up as missing (red thumbnails).
2. Per suggestions, I re-imported all of the media (annoying, since the files are spread out over many folders). The red missing media icons for videos and audio were all restored to color (no longer missing). This seemed like a good sign.
3. Many JPGs in the media list were not successfully re-connected; instead, they were duplicated. I have hundreds of JPGs in the slideshow, which are now all “missing” and therefore, would need to be re-cut into the timeline.
4. Soon after re-import, I noticed an import background task running. Upon closer inspection, I realized that FCPx was in the process of copying over all the newly imported media instead of honoring my request to leave the files in their original location (by leaving “Copy files to Final Cut Events folder” unchecked). The source media is hundreds of gigabytes. Duplicating them is not an option.
5. Closing FCPx and re-opening it immediately causes the import process to re-spawn. If I cancel the process, the media simply does not show up in my events.

Put quite simply, there is no way to move a complicated project and its associated event media from one machine to another. The fragility of the media storage system in FCPx is shameful—it’s like the product was never tested in the real world.

I will, in this case, essentially lose this project and never be able to edit it again. I suppose I’ll archive the events and projects in case FCPx improves its media handling capabilities. One significant side effect: if I upgrade my machine or need to reinstall, I’ll effectively lose all of my FCPx projects. Until there is serious improvement in media management, I can’t see myself using Final Cut Pro X again.