gmail seems to think that all emails should be kept. regardless. so, when i delete an email via IMAP, gmail simply removes the label “Inbox”, thereby archiving the email. if i delete an email, however, i want it to be deleted and it’s captive electrons sent to digital nirvana. i don’t need to read cron emails (and their ilk) ever again. through the web-interface, i can delete my emails though.

some google-fu later, and i found a solution here.

more after the break…the solution basically involves ignoring google’s instructions on how to configure the email client. this also has the advantage of making sure that sent messages aren’t duplicated and only go to gmail’s Sent folder. following steps:

1. make sure Sent and Trash are visible to IMAP clients
2. make sure All Mail is NOT visible to IMAP clients (prevents mail clients from downloading x gigabytes of mail)
3. in the mail client (whichever), configure the account to store trash on the server and move deleted messages to a trash folder.
4. in the mail client, browse the IMAP subscriptions to [Gmail]/Trash and set this folder to be used for trash.
5. do the same for sent messages

retention policy can be set however you want, gmail deletes the messages with the Trash label after about 30 days. you can change the retention time in the mail client, when a mail is deleted from the Trash folderlabel, gmail respects this and purges the email. (at least from my account, completely returning the electrons to their nirvana will take up to 60 days, according to a caveat in the web-interface – screenshot below… ).

Source: OurAmazingPlanet.com: Infographic: Tallest Mountain to Deepest Ocean Trench

now, i loved the night angel trilogy, so i had to read this new (to me at least) offering. however, its only easily available as an ebook. i don’t own a kindle, an iPad or any other tablet. but i do have an iPhone (writing this blog post on it right now, actually). so, let’s evaluate my options to read this novella:

1. buy a kindle
2. buy a different tablet
3. buy an iPad
4. don’t read it

read on after the break…

well, option 4 is not really an option, so let’s have a look at the others.

a kindle is affordable. but i doubt that it would fulfill all my expectations of a tablet. the screen, from what i’ve seen, is fantastic as an ebook reader; however, i’m far too much a computer geek and tinkerer to be happy with a device that can only be used for one thing. yes, there is the kindle fire, but that’s not available from amazon.de.

a different tablet. a viable option, but not one i’m willing to pursue. main reason being that i switched to an apple based infrastructure about 5 years back and i like the way everything works. i don’t know how an android tablet would fit into that microcosm and there’s no tablet i’ve seen yet that i like.

and that includes option no. 3, the iPad. it’s a fantastic machine, like an iPhone but bigger. if i were to get a tablet, then it would definitely be an iPad—as i said above, i live in an apple microcosm. not because i’ve drunk deeply of the KoolAid, but because i like the way it all works together.

my biggest problem with any tablet though is that i have no concrete usage scenario for one. after this first brush with ebooks though, i can slowly start to see one. doesn’t justify getting one yet though… but if i had a longer commute, i’d seriously consider it.

i can see how ebooks can be really handy for trips or commutes—no heavy tomes in my bag, yay! but i could never replace the printed chunks of trees on my shelves—i like books too much for that. as an addition to my collection though, definitely.

ebooks on the iPhone

or more correctly, iBooks, as apple calls them work. the experience works. but that’s about as far as i’d go. the app supports everything i’d want: font size, bookmarks, table of contents, notes, etc. as well as supporting PDF files.

so, the functionality seems to be the same as on a “proper” ebook reader. but then the size of the screen comes into play:

this is the smallest font setting. if i counted correctly, there are about 130 words on this page. i don’t know about you, dear readers, but it takes me about 15 seconds to read this page (yes, i checked with a stopwatch). that means that i’m flipping pages every 15 seconds. on a normal book, i’m flipping pages about every 70-90 seconds. that’s a bit annoying.

one advantage is that it’s easier to hold than a paperback in a packed bus bouncing around the streets of innsbruck. i don’t need to remember what page i was on, it opens on the last page automagically. i like that (but that’s standard ebook functionality, from what i’ve gathered).

simon’s opinion

all in all, ebooks seem like a good thing. not necessarily on the iPhone though. for lack of a better option, i’ll probably keep on using iBooks on the iPhone, but at some point i’m sure i’ll get a tablet. then i can try it out on a bigger screen, see how i like it then.

iBooks also supports syncing PDFs from my computer to the phone, that seems like a really handy feature, but i’ll have to test how that works on the iPhone’s (comparatively) tiny screen. that will be the topic for another blog post…

Eva closeup

more after the break…

flat life

here are three from miranda visiting us in innsbruck:

Eva

Miranda

Eva

bbq in kufstein

here are some pictures from a bbq in kufstein. there were some foam cups left over from winter:

BBQ beer

eva’s grandmother joined us in the garden:

Oma Schwazer

karl relaxing after the bbq:

Karl

florian & sylvia sharing a sunbed:

Florian & Sylvia

camera & film

these pictures were taken sometime around the same time as the family get-together i posted last week. these ones are all on fuji neopan, also taken with the nikon F4 and the 50mm f/1.8.

why i love film, or another blast from the past

when i visited washington d.c. in december 2006, my sister lent me a nikon f80. i scrounged a 24mm f/2.8 wide-angle from a colleague and spent a day wandering around the mall, shooting my way through four or five old ilford b/w films. i still love these pictures. here’s a link to an older blog post with the pictures.

all of these pictures are supposed to represent some form of psychotherapeutic principle. i’m not 100% sure what they all mean, so i’m just leaving them with the titles eva gave them

Sculpture(Found this one in the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris)

more after the break…

river pics

eva knew what topics she wanted covering, but wasn’t sure what pictures she wanted. so we headed down to the river to the west of the airport and found these two pictures:

Borders

The journey is its own reward

schloss ambras

a few weeks before, we’d been to schloss ambras gardens to take some pictures. i thought we’d be able to find some more pictures there, so off we went. this first one was fun as the ducks were all asleep until eva sat down next to them, at which point the all started quacking and talking to her. of course, this one became the symbolic picture for groups:

The group

SkyThis was the cover picture for Eva's presentation.

The Triad

Decisions

eva needed a picture to symbolise saying “no,” but neither of were really sure what she wanted. until i spotted this sign next to the exit. perfect:

Saying no!

home studio

she also needed some “studio”-type pictures, so the dining table in our flat was turned into an impromptu studio. i’d left my tripod in the office, so i had to repurpose a lighting stand for this picture. not the best of solutions, but it worked:

Self-reflection

meet oliver:

Child therapy

Mistakes are allowed(Original German: Vehler machen ist erlaupt)

Reading between the lines

The tone makes the music(better translation: it's not what you say, but how you say it).

photoshop to the rescue

these final ones were photoshopped a little bit. the white background is a softbox, simple but effective. i know eva is slightly washed out, but that was an effect i was hoping for. the castle in this picture is Burg Hohenzollern:

Imagination

Expressiveness

cutting corners

this one was fun, our bathroom is so small it was a tight fit getting a light-stand with umbrella and myself wedged in there to get this picture of eva taking things as they come:

Just go with the flow…

this was supposed to be anger management, but she ended up using it as the closing slide of her presentation with the subtitle “any questions?”

Any questions?

needless to say, she got an A.

Mountains in the morning

by the time i got the station of the wasserrettung, it had warmed up considerably:

Weather report before the dive

more after the break…

we put our equipment together in the warmth of the station’s garage to keep our fingers from freezing at the lake—in hindsight, this made things a lot easier once we got there.

just to show how easily equipment can freeze up in these sort of temperatures, here’s a tank that andi emptied for it’s upcoming annual checkup:

Iced up tank

(yes, those valves are covered in ice).

once we got to the lake, first job was to cut a hole in the 10-15cm ice, shovel some radiating lines (more on them later) and move the ice-shelf out of the hole:

Cutting the ice

Creating the orientation lines

Hole in the ice

the ice-shelf cut out is secured with an ice-screw and rope and then pushed under the ice. two reasons: it’s too heavy to lift out and it’s used to close the hole again later.

dive-time

there were four experienced ice-divers and four of us who’d never been under ice, which made teaming up quite easy. i went diving with hans as the second team. fun and games at the surface, my inflator valve had frozen up (for non-divers: you have an inflatable jacket to regulate your bouyancy underwater, i.e. sink or swim). bobbed around in the water for a few minutes until it decided to work again, and then we were off:

Hans

Me!

the water was actually quite warm. the first trickle of water down the neck of my wetsuit was really cold, but it was bearable after that. underwater, it was really light, my lamp was totally useless. in this picture below you can see the hole about 10m behind us as well as one of the ice-shelf cutout off to the right:

Hole in the ice

the radiating lines tom and andi shovelled in the ice are quite handy underwater:

Hole in the ice

you can see one heading up to top-left. basically, if you lose the guide-rope, you can look up, find a radiating line and follow it. if you end up in shallow water, you turn around and swim back the other way and you’ll end up at the hole. such a simple principle.

one of the best views was looking up out of the hole to a differently coloured world:

Looking up

we surfaced after a 10 minute dive around, and then went back for another 10 minutes. the second dive was definitely more relaxed than the first time, i even managed to get a halfway decent picture of hans:

Hans

the aftermath

when i got out of the water (helped aground like a broaching whale), first order was to get out of the wet kit. the fact that the sun was out was nice, but you don’t stand around half-nekkid for long in these temperatures, sun or not:

Weather report after the dive

three layers of clothes later and some tea, i was feeling warmer, so i wandered back out to the hole to get some pictures of the last teams to dive:

SilviaMy regular dive partner.

Klaus strandedI wasn't the only broaching whale…

Danilo & KlausSafety divers for the last team.

all in all, it was an fantastic morning out in the sun. diving under the ice is so different to regular diving, but i’ll definitely be going again. next time, maybe in a dry-suit (yes, i’m slightly jealous of my dry-suited wimpy friends )—the turnaround after the dive is so much more comfortable…

if i had to give out recommendations, ice-diving gets a full five stars. if you’ve never done it, and you dive, try it out!

full album

Ice diving, February 2012

Ice-diving with the Wasserrettung.

this time, i’ll try this style of album embedding—one picture that opens the album in a lightbox. which do you prefer? check saturday’s post for the alternative or click on the album title to bring up a dedicated album page.

equipment

if you got this far and are wondering what camera(s) i was using:

• above ground: nikon d90 with the 18-105 f/3.5-5.6 VR kit lens
• underwater: canon ixus 55 in an AW-DC50 “all weather” case, rated to -3m. it still works at about -7m and is definitely still tight at -10m

the ixus is 7 years old this june and still in perfect working order. needs new batteries, but that’s the only problem…

i’m still on my lightroom 3 clean-up. on the topic of real film and family, i decided to put these pictures of a family weekend at the bailey HQ up here. i think i may have put these up on flickr a while ago, but as i haven’t renewed my pro account yet, i’m not 100% sure…

Arabella(Nikon F4, 50mm, Kodak Tri-X)

holly & simon came over to austria with little miss arabella. douggl & petra joined us as well for dieter’s birthday. miranda was also in the area, shortly before running off to NZ, so big family meetup.

Simon & Douggl(Nikon F4, 50mm, Kodak Tri-X)

camera & film info

i was playing around with a 50mm f/1.8 on a borrowed nikon F4, trying out Kodak Tri-X and Fuji Neopan 400. the pictures above are on tri-x, this one’s on neopan:

Holly(Nikon F4, 50mm, Fuji Neopan 400)

neopan is an amazing film. i love it. at the moment i haven’t got a non-D-SLR at the moment. then again, there’s no decent lab in innsbruck, so i’m not missing one right now. more pictures after the jump…

arabella loves rain, so when it started raining on sunday, she had to get kitted out in her rain togs and jump around in the rain:

Singing in the rain(Nikon F4, 50mm, Fuji Neopan 400)

there’s also a rare picture of me hidden in this lot:

Simon(Nikon F4, 50mm, Fuji Neopan 400)

rather than linking all of the pictures singly, here’s a matrix of the full album. pictures open in a lightbox. enjoy!

full album

Princess Arabella with the awkward relatives

so, rather than boring you all with yet more portraits from sometime last year, i decided to put these ones up.

Douggl & Miranda

i took a bronica medium format camera with me that day, loaded with a konica film (which one exactly eludes me, sorry). manual focus, eyeballing the exposure (cloudy 11, sunny 16), nothing particularly artistic. the scans aren’t exactly very good, but i don’t have a decent scanner, so i used on here at uni.

i love playing around with medium format film, but sadly, there are no more photo labs left in innsbruck who develop the film themselves. meaning, it’s costly as hell. if i take 5 rolls of film, it will be cheaper to buy the equipment to develop it myself than taking it to a shop. it’s ridiculous. so the bronica is gathering dust atm.

more after the jump…

Proud mum

Enjoying the attention

Eva & Miranda

DougglThe sky's a bit washed out, but otherwise i like this one.

View over Zell am See

All comfy in the sled

Arabella & her Oma

Simon & Eva

i think i’m going to have to dig out the MF camera again.

last spring, claudia approached me, asking if i’d be willing to take some pictures of herself and her fiancé, edi, for the wedding invitations. a date was set, and on a rather chilly early spring sunday morning, we went for a walk around schloss ambras park.

this is the image they actually used:

Claudia & Edi

read on after the break for some more pictures.

i edited for a slightly washed out look in the colours, as they weren’t sure if they wanted b/w or colour photos. the desaturated look suited the light we had, so that’s what we eventually went with.

this was one of the pictures to warm up with:

here are some in front of a nice little waterfall:

we found a little cave they sat in with a flash parked behind to add some structure to the rocks:

some stairs up to a little side entrance of the castle:

the first snowbells can be seen in the background:

M81 & M82 in Ursa Major

the last few days went quite well. ran 3.6km on thursday, rest day on friday, ran 3.6km again on saturday and did a short run today of 2.6km. I’ve resurrected my cycling gps and am now using it as a running gps and pulse tracker—it actually works quite well. especially as i can set up the interval workouts on the computer and transfer them over. means i don’t have to keep looking at my watch.

i spent most of yesterday on the achensee in the sun, teaching two kids to sail. today i was on lifeguard duty at the baggersee here in innsbruck. fantastically hot weather, a very uneventful day, but with 15hrs sun-time, i managed to get a decent tan.

summary of the first two weeks

i’m starting to feel a lot fitter than i was. starting to run isn’t quite as easy as i thought it might be, but i’m enjoying it. the three week program i’m following seems to fit my pace really well, so i’ll be sticking with it.

weight check: lost 2-3kg so far
waist check: i fit into some shorts i couldn’t get into three weeks ago, so i’ll count that as positive.
well-being check: i’m starting to feel fitter and healthier. food intake is down, physical activity is increasing and the physiotherapy is doing wonders for my back and shoulders.

all in all, a good two weeks. only 50 more to go…

i wasn’t feeling totally fit yesterday, so it ended up being another sick day. was probably better that way, as i had a couple of mild dizzy spells every now and then during the day.

today, however, was a totally different day. i felt a lot better, so i managed to get back in the swing of things. didn’t cycle to work today, as it was raining and i really don’t want to catch a cold less than 2 weeks before a diving holiday.

physiotherapy went very well, had a load of mobilization exercises for my shoulder which is getting a lot better. early evening, i headed into the fitness studio (again, because it was raining) and tried my legs on a treadmill.

i deviated slightly from the 3 week running plan, which i wanted to restart again this week. did 3′ run, 1′ walk, then 5x 2′ run, 1′ walk and then 3′ walk to cool down. in total 2.6km (according to the treadmill), but i felt good all the way through.

well, this one’s easy. i got sick on thursday night and have been recovering since. :/ woke up at about 3:30am friday morning with a massive shivering attack, took 3 quilts and full clothing to warm me up. checked my temperature, which was rather low (35.5ºC), when i woke up, it had a mild fever (38.8ºC). however, now on monday, that’s all passed after a seriously lazy weekend. we went for a walk in kühtai yesterday – nice place, lots of fresh air.

plans for this week are to restart my running program from the beginning…

today’s run was really good. 5x 2′ run, 1′ walk followed by 5x 1′ run, 1′ walk. i felt really good after the 10th running interval and could probably have run another 2 or 3 intervals. the muscle aches in my legs have more or less disappeared. my weather timing seemed perfect as well – it started to rain as i was cycling home. looking at google earth, i managed to run 500m more than the first two times, so that makes a grand total of 3.5km.

cycled to work in the pouring rain, shortly after i got to work, it stopped raining and i had a dry trip home. go figure…

summary: 3.5km running, 15km cycling. good day.

rest day today. so only cycled to work and back. physiotherapy as well again – my back, shoulders and neck hurt. on the way back from work it was tipping it down, my rain jacket and trousers aren’t watertight anymore, so i got a bit wet. soaked comes closer, actually…

this evening, the wasserrettung had a training exercise and i learnt how to drive a motor-boat on the inn. driving on a river is a lot different than the RIB i’m used to on the lake. really enjoyed it though.

summary: 11km of cycling (took the longer route home), and painful physiotherapy massages.

physiotherapy was painful today. trigger point massage in my trapezius and scalene muscles. there was a massive lump in my scalene muscles, i now have what looks like a hickey from the pressure points.

cycled to work and back, as well as to the starting point of my run on the inn-promenade, in total about 15km. running went slightly better than yesterday; at least, i didn’t start to cramp up in my calves like yesterday. 3km of running in 10 batches of 1 minute running, 1 minute walking. like yesterday, it was probably at the limit of what i can manage right now.

not too sure about the back stretching exercises – i couldn’t feel any stretching at all. i’ll review them tomorrow with the physiotherapist.

a fairly recent picture of me

i’ve decided to start a personal 365 project. for the better part of july i was on sick-leave due to a fitness related issue. more accurately a lack of fitness issue. the neurologist and the orthopedic surgeon disagreed on what it was exactly – either thoracic outlet syndrome or an irritation of the C8 nerve plexus.

regardless of what it was, i’m seriously unfit and have been for almost 10 years. so i’ve decided it’s time to sort myself out. so, this is the start of my year of getting fit. i’ve set myself the following personal goals, which i think i can achieve by the end of this 365 project:

• run 10km
• swim 100 lengths (2.5km)
• cycle 100km (on a more or less flat stretch)
• 2’30″ static apnea
• 50m dynamic apnea with fins
• get my weight down to 85kg

so, what am i doing in order to achieve these goals? first step is sorting out my shoulders and neck – i’ve been referred to a physiotherapist. i managed to injure my supraspinatus tendon sometime earlier this year and my right shoulder is severely limited in its movement. most of my other muscles and joints seem to have limited range of motion, something which can be improved with regular exercise and stretching.

the next step is to get to a basic modicum of fitness; for me, the best way to do this is cycling, jogging and swimming. i dug around on the interwebz and found what looks like a sensible program to start running over the course of 3 weeks. while i was browsing around for that, i also found a set of 22 stretching exercises which i’m going to be working on as well.

i also bought an old bike for bumbling around town today – with mud-flaps so i can cycle to work every day, regardless of weather. the problem with my road bike is that there are no mud-flaps, and i refuse to put any on – it’s still a piece of sport equipment, and shouldn’t be a regular daily city transport… so, that’s step two of my plan – cycling to work every day to support my developing running habit.

regarding swimming, the wasserrettung (life-saving association) is currently on summer break, so there’s no regular training at the moment, but that starts again at the beginning of september. by then i should be fit enough to hack 1.5hrs of training – at the end of this training year, i couldn’t. apnea diving training starts again at the beginning of september, i’m sure that as my fitness gets better, my underwater times will go up again as well.

by putting all of this up here on my blog, i’m sticking my neck out a bit – if i fail, then the failure is public. so, i’m keeping my fingers crossed and will be doing my best to achieve my goals. daily or bi-daily reports will follow, except in periods of [forced] internet abstinence.

daily report, day #1

started day 1 of my running program. 10 times 1 minute running, 1 minute walking. in total about 2km in 20 minutes. it was just right to start out with, i probably couldn’t have managed more than that. i cycled there and back to warm up and cool down, in total 4km. stretched everything except for the back exercises. now my quads hurt, but i feel good about starting this project.

[edit 10/8/10: checked again in google earth, it was 3km running]

this film is just amazing. i got goosebumps when he jumped. great piece of work by both the diver and the cameraperson.

i basically just put a flash behind eva, blasting at the white wall and a flash in a reflective umbrella in front. so not quite zack’s setup, but the closest i could approximate in our living room. i didn’t quite get the lighting ratios right, so i had to add a touch of fill slider in lightroom, next time i’ll know better… but see for yourself:

Eva on white

as you can see on some pics, i had banding/sync issues with the cactus triggers. i’m going to have to see if that can be corrected.

Benni invited us round to his place last night to celebrate him turning older than he’s ever been before. here’s some pictures of the evening:

Benni's Birthday, 12/3/10

Benni turns 23. :)

flash gallery

alternatively, here’s a flash gallery:

quick update: eva and i have moved and are more or less finished with the move. flo & ursi came for dinner last night and brought some flowers with them. i love the way the colours just pop against the black background of our *massive* windows.

more tulip pictures on my flickr page.

what a weekend. police band concert on friday evening, playing and emceeing is very hard work. went down really well and was an enjoyable evening.

skiing on saturday at the stubaier gletscher (pictures to follow). “junge solisten am podium” by the innStrumenti chamber orchestra was the evening’s entertainment on saturday.

sunday was a lazy day, spent most of the afternoon playing around with the latest, greatest version of lilypond. the evening was spent at a concert by the kammerchor walther von der vogelweide, conducted by claudio büchler, also the conductor of the uni orchestra.

this was quickly done in the improvised kitchen studio before dinner:

fruit and veg, originally uploaded by tiamak.

the tomatoes and the garlic in the basket have been surprising me every day with the simple colours, so i decided to knock together a quick studio in the kitchen. a large cardboard back-wall made from a weetabix box, lit by an overpowered sb-900, another sb-900 with a dome diffuser off to the right, kindly held by eva. not perfect, but not too shabby for a job knocked together in 3 minutes…

the picture at the top was taken during a short break from transcribing music. the sun hit the glasses just right on my laptop case, and luckily i had my camera sat next to me.

gabi , originally uploaded by tiamak.

i had to setup a really quick portrait for the conductor of our band this afternoon. as he was slightly pressed for time, i asked gabi to jump in as a quick lighting model. and got this shot, which i’m quite happy with.

while i was trying to work out how to do portraits yesterday evening, i got this nice shot of eva:

eva, originally uploaded by tiamak.

next time, i’ll try not to cut off the side of her hair.

and here’s the 2 portraits of our conductor:

Stefan Laube

Stefan Laube

fantastic program selection and very well played. mr. fritzsch conducted everything by heart, which is a fairly amazing feat if you take a look at the score to the alpensinfone. all in all, it was a very impressive concert and i’m looking forward to future concerts conducted by mr. fritzsch.

second stop of the evening (after grabbing a pizza) was the ambient art lounge, organised by harry triendl. the concept is intriguing, it’s basically a semi-organised jam-session for electronic music. i think the most interesting part of this concept is that ambient music is generally created in a studio and heavily tweaked and refined. getting a group of people together with a set of rules (my favourite: tolerable volume. ) can result in chaos, or as shown yesterday, in some very enjoyable ambient music.

we caught the tail-end of an art installation by urbeil consisting of soundscapes supporting a critical text dealing with the andreas hofer cult and emancipation. (a different form of dealing with andreas hofer’s historical image can be found in an earlier posting).

the idea behind the jam session, as far as i can tell, is that everyone is allowed to bring their equipment and set up before the session starts. everyone gets piped into the master mix and can take part however they want. this singer laid vocals over the soundscapes being created by the guitarists on stage. sounded cool, but the lighting also made for quite cool photo-opps.

pictures

nikon d90, 50mm f/1.8 and 24mm f/2.8 primes running at ISO 1600 in manual mode. i love these two lenses for low-light photography. i had a flash with me, but decided not to use it, as i wasn’t sure what the etiquette was. pictures were post-processed in DxO to get rid of the noise, slightly adjust the black point and improve the contrast (which is already good straight out of the camera). i’m fairly happy with the results, even though one or two pictures could do with some slightly different enhancements.

here’s the slideshow:

alternatively a standard HTML album:

Ambient Art Lounge #16

Ambient Art Lounge #16 at the Live-stage Innsbruck.
Official Page