Editorial, September 04
Photography, EpicyclE and more...

Well coinciding with a very dull night of telly it's about time I drew up a comfy chair and wrote an editorial for the past month. You know.. I don't think editorial is quite the right word for this section. In a way this entire site is my editorial:

ed·i·to·ri·al n. 1) An article in a publication expressing the opinion of its editors or publishers. (Dictionary.com)

Photography: Coinciding with the latest review I've received a lot of compliments and had a few questions aired my way about the photos and their quality, which is always nice. I'm sorry if anyone's expecting me to give away all the tricks of the trade in obtaining good photos, because that's not going to happen.

It may seem a little selfish, but no matter what you may think I don't know everything there is to know about photography and I'm still learning every day. It would be foolish to attempt to lecture on a subject that I still consider myself to be a newcomer to. I also owe it to the kind fellow who's lead I've taken sted from, and whose experience I draw from not to leak the tips and tricks I have picked up.

That said, it's not all bad news as I thought I'd give some advice and helpful links on the subject. No matter what anyone says you don't need a hugely expensive camera for web publications. Anything at 2 mega-pixels or above is just fine. These days you can pick up half decent cameras in that area for a few notes if you know where to look.

My advice for photos is simple; you need plenty of light, a decent tripod and plenty of patience. A few websites that will be of interest to anyone looking to learn how to take better shots are DG28.com and dpreview.com.

Digital Photography Review is a great website, personally I wouldn't bother too much with the forums there, but the reviews are top notch. I find the advice sections somewhat lacking in content and length myself so dig a bit more digging and then came across the DG28.com. DG28 is the personal website of a chap called Neil who's a professional photographer and it's packed with nice example shots, articles and handy hints.

So what now? ..hmm now I have to think about what to write now. It's not that I'm short of subjects. It's simply that a few of the things I'd like to add into print will have to wait for another day.

Interesting reads: Given that I spend an inordinate amount of my spare time composing articles and web content here in my own corner of cyberspace, I do tend to read other people's work as an escape from bleary eye'd visions of html tags. It's quite easy to obtain virtual blinkers I suppose sometimes and forget that there's other blogs out there.

One weblog that I discovered quite some time ago was EpicyclE, a site by DominicT. It's a pleasurable read and for a change a site out there that's refreshingly honest and open. Now contrary to any wild accusations that may suddenly appear on the 'net perpetuated by mindless loonies I am not DominicT. No it's true, just because we've mentioned each other in our weblogs and have similar thoughts on some subjects we are quite honestly different people. (In joke.. if you've spent enough time on the web in the past year you have permission to chuckle.. if it's a meaningless statement for you, blame it on mad British humor). Go on, pop over there and meander through his pages and bounce his hit-counter up a bit.

But back to Airsoft related news...

Gone-do-whaty? Endoshoji-jp.com have rather worryingly dropped off the web this week. Registered through Yahoo Domains, their nameservers are listed as ns8/ns9.san.yahoo.com although both fail to give an IP address. The downtime does coincide with one month after their hosting renewel date.. past that I'm out of ideas. Anyone heard from them?

IntruderShop/Guarder have been going from strength to strength with loads of new releases of late. They seem to be speeding up the production rate of new items more and more these days which certainly isn't a bad thing. I've never heard a bad thing about a single product that Guarder make to date. The new 7.62x39 style mags for the AK series that use TM internals will most likley never end up on a retail shelf, circumventing stock management and going straight out to customers.

Out on the Airsoft news front, Matt (owner AirsoftPlayers/ASN) is very busy with repairs at the moment with the fallout from Ivan. It's nice to see the site back, but the poor guy has a lot on his plate at the moment, so updates are few and far between on his websites at the moment.

The XM8 kit news and details certainly proved popular.. last I checked the video that is hosted here of it was downloaded just under 5000 times this week. Best details at the moment is that the kit might have something to do with http://www.gunsworkshop.net/ over in Kwong Wah St, HK. They are reportedly a very small shop over there, but as they do obtain real firearms parts it does explain how they might have got hold of real XM parts. Thanks again go to Paul Chu of RedWolf for the information.

It's been a pleasurable month on the email front making several new virtual aquaintances with friendly websites and retailers that I'd previously not dealt with before. As is the norm, as and when I come across these places their details are added to the news page and their link to the weblinks area. I'm now about 160 links in populating the weblinks page, with a further 200 or so to process. It's all done manually so takes time, but it does mean that I get to validate and recheck and update links as I go. All work for the working man don't you know.

New site one month old: This new look is officially one month old.. I really don't get much semblance of time these days, so I was a bit taken back as it only feels like a week or so to me. Checking over the server load and stats the new look to the site has reduced memory load by two thirds, and the machine is generally very happy over there in Florida humming to itself on a rack in a veritable anti-hurricane bunker. I still have a good few things left to rewrite, but I'd find it dead boring without challenges and things to do.

Thanks to the useless dialog mumbling on my TV at this specific point in time I can leave you in the knowledge that in Arkansas the law states that Alligators may not be kept in a bath, and that apparently in Florida women can be fined for falling asleep under a hair-dryer. Oh, and John Travolta has a Boeing 707 in his backyard.

...but by far the most important news is that a new TV channel on digital terrestrial by the name of ABC1 was launched this week; now I just have to remember to set the video to record HomeImprovement while I'm out.