January 2008 – Hand Coding

Nikon D80 For Sale, Lightly Used (SOLD)

January 21, 2008February 4, 2008 Ashley Bischoff21 Comments

Update 2008-01-25: I’ve sold the camera (body + kit lens), the 50mm lens, and the 4 GB SD card.

I’ve decided to sell my Nikon D80 in pursuit of an upgrade. Here’re the details:

I have a Nikon D80 with the 18-135mm kit lens. The camera works just fine and I can see no visible scratches on it. (I’m not ruling out that there may be a faint scratch somewhere, but I just couldn’t find any when I looked.) To help come up with a fair price, I checked the prices online; the lowest price that I could find from a non fly-by-night retailer was about $1050, so I figured on offering the body and kit lens for $800.

As you might guess, that includes everything that came in the box, including the D80 body & camera strap, the 18-135mm kit lens, its battery and AC battery charger, its USB cable, and the manual. And, just to make things more interesting, I’ll also toss in a spare 3rd-party battery and a 1 GB Sandisk SD card.

In addition to the D80, I also have a couple accessories which could go along with that:

I bought a Nikon 50mm f/1.4 lens back in September. That’s currently going for about $270 online and I’d be willing to sell mine for $200.
I also have a 4 GB Extreme Ducati-Edition SD card from Sandisk. (The Ducati Edition is their very fastest model line.) Their online price is about $100 and I could sell that for $70.

Anyhow, if any of this is of interest, just drop me a line. And if you’re in the Dallas area, I’d be happy to show any of the gear to you.

PS As mentioned above, I’ve sold the camera and the accessories. I’ll be sure to update this post once I’ve sold the camera. Or, put another way, if you’re seeing this post (and I haven’t mentioned otherwise), you can assume the camera is still available :).

Getting Strikethrough Text in Adobe Fireworks CS3?

January 10, 2008January 21, 2008 Ashley Bischoff4 Comments

By chance, does anyone know how to get strikethrough text in Fireworks CS3? You’d think it’d be built right in — and I have no reason to believe otherwise — but I just can’t seem to find that option. I know that’s it’s possible in Photoshop (and Illustrator), so it’d make sense that it’d be in Fireworks too, no?

White Hat Hackers Break Into a Car Dealership

January 8, 2008January 8, 2008 Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

Autoblog links to a fascinating set of video clips from TruTV on a set of white hat hackers (in short, the good kind of hackers who want to improve security) who had been hired by an exotic car dealership to try to break in:

Symbolic Motors in La Jolla, CA wanted to test out its security systems and hired the “Tiger Team” to see if they could break into their showroom full of exotic cars. truTV watched on with video cameras in hand to see if they could do it undetected.[…]

I found it pretty captivating, but what really caught my eye was the degree to which social engineering played a part. Sure, there was still lock-picking and other physical security work-arounds, but I’m not sure the ploy would have worked without the unknowing assistance of the business’ own employees.

Squagels – Don’t Be Oppressed By The Tyranny of Round, Man!

January 3, 2008January 3, 2008 Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

David Cross is a pretty funny guy. If you can't picture him right away, you might recall him as Dr. Tobias Fünke from Arrested Development or from a variety of characters on the HBO series Mr. Show.

My friend Bryan introduced me to Cross’ comedy by way of some of his albums including, I think, Shut Up You Fucking Baby!. And, whether this next bit was from that album or his anothers, I can’t quite remember — either way, though, I think it’s my favorite of Cross’ by far.

The clip above below covers more than one bit — the relevant part, in this case, starts around 2:55. Oh, and it’s safe for work as long as you have headphones on (if you know what I mean).

As it turns out, I went to Super Target after work for some groceries and what did I find? That’s right — Squagels! I don’t even eat bagels that often, but I just couldn’t resist buying these. (Don’t get me wrong, bagels can be rather tasty — especially with smoked salmon and capers — but I don’t often buy them since they’re pretty much all carbs.)

I just can’t bring myself to call these products by their given name, “Thomas’ Mini Squares Bagelbread” (how lame is that?). Having said that, if anyone wants one of these needlessly square breakfast items, just let me know — I’d be happy to bring in a couple Squagels for you.