Digital Photography Data Rescue
Nothing impedes the joy of digital photography more then defective memory cards. Today, while trying to make a small movie while skidding down a nicely snow covered hill in a park, the dreaded Memory Card Error blinked on the display.
Of course, I tell everyone who asks that you should write new memory cards full with data multiple times before you can trust them. The reason is that the Flash memory used in these cards has usually defect areas. To compensate that, there is more memory hidden on the card then what is written on the label. When a memory block shows signs of defects, the on-board error correction of the memory card internally uses a block of the excess memory instead of the defective block. Writing the card full with nonsense data multiple times makes sure that the usual early defects are recognized and mapped out, before you put any important stuff like your pictures on it. You can think of it as a sort of “burn in”, like a new car that needs a certain milage before the motor is considered to be fully performing.
Naturally, I had not done this “burn-in” with the card in question. Now it did not wanted to be read either through the camera nor through an SD-card reader. After a bit of experimenting, I succeeded in recovering most of the images and movies with the following procedure:
First, I used the camera-internal format option multiple times, until the camera no longer complained about the card error. This was needed to get the card into a state where the computer would recognize it again as a readable memory card. “Formating” on nearly all cameras does not really erase the pictures, but merely deletes the references to them in the file system. Then I used the trial version of PhotoRescue to determine if there is data worth paying for left on the card. PhotoRescue is made by Datarescue, the company that also makes IDA Pro , the worlds premier tool for disassembling and software reverse engineering.
To my great joy, PhotoRescue found all the images and most of the movies, except the one that got written onto the bad memory block that triggered the problem in the beginning. Fair enough. The trial version lets you see everything that can be recovered. So happily spent the 29€ for the tool that saved my day and recovered all the images and most of the movies.
Delete your Orkut accounts – Now!
Google is getting evil. We all knew it would happen, but now is the time. Orkut (googles social networking service) now forces every user to associate the account with an Google Mail account. The ultimate data treasure trove. You not only getting the social network nicely mapped, you also get all the content! Probably in one database! How convenient. Googles old motto “Do no evil.” has apparently been deprecated. Censorship for chinese users, sustained rumors about intelligence ties etc. pp.
orkut Help > My Account > Upgrading to a Google Account New!
After converting my orkut account to a Google Account, will my use of orkut be associated with my use of other Google services?
We may use information from your converted orkut account for other Google services in order to improve the quality of those services, for research and analysis, and to provide you with a seamless experience between our services. .
Probably Orkut will real soon now be able to flag who your friends are by just conveniently analyzing your e-mail. So you no longer need to decide, the nice OrkutGoogleMail will help you.
I am just trying to find out how to delete an Orkut account without associating it with an gmail account, I will report here on the associated problems. If you happen to have an Orkut account, delete it now and demand proof that the data has been deleted. And ask them too how to do that without having a gmail account, so they will explain it upfront.
Olfaktorisch lästiger Tag
Es gibt Tage, an denen stinkt Berlin einfach. Heute ist so einer. Die Temperaturen schwingen sich, zum ersten Mal seit langem, in den knapp positiven Bereich, der klare blaue Himmel ist grauen Wolken gewichen, die Luftfeuchtigkeit ist gestiegen. Irgendwie führt das dazu, daß es allgemein mehr stinkt, müffelt, mieft und sonstwie olfaktiert. Die festgefrorenen Hinterlassenschaften der vergangenen Tage und Wochen treten zu Tage, die Menschen, noch gewohnt an die Vereisung, treten rein und breiten die Müffelzone bis in die Strassenbahn aus. Die Abgase bleiben unten und würzen den Mief.
Ein kräftiger Wind wäre schön.
Richard A. Clarke: The Scorpions Gate
“Fiction can often tell the truth better than nonfiction. And there is a lot of truth that needs to be told.” said the author, and given the positions he held in the US security apparatus, before retiring to the usual consultant-afterlife of politicians, he is certainly right. On the outside, the book is a well-written politico-military thriller. But the meat is in the details. Clarke tells a lot about one half of the massive foreign influence on US strategy – the saudi oil money interests. A lot of information is given on how the Pentagon leadership does what they are paid for by oil money interests, regardless of how many soldiers die. Thinly veiled hints point to real world events of the last months, and the overall scenario seems not too unrealistic (the house of Saud toppled by an internal revolution, US thrown out of Iraq, China trying to assert its access to the Saudi oil…).
In short: worth reading. Lots of information packaged in a fast-to-consume thriller set in a convincingly realistic scenario.
Back in town
I am very much back in Berlin, the jetlag slept away and things are pretty much back to normal. Thanks for asking ;-)
Dear reader using an aggregator
Quite a number of people seems to read this weblog using a weblog aggregation service. The drawback is that most of the services do not re-fetch to gather updates (which I tend to make, especially when traveling) and some distort the sequence of postings. So I just wanted to kindly ask you to try out the RSS-feed with a RSS-reader of your choice (most browsers nowadays support feed subscriptions).
Die eilige Bäckerei
Langsam geht mir die Kombination von wenig Schlaf, Jetlag-Anfällen und anstrengenden Terminen doch ein bißchen an die Knochen. Heute früh hab ich mich dann auch im Aufwach-Dschum auf der Strasse auf dem Weg zum Auto auf einer spiegelglatten Tauwasserfrierpfütze hingepackt. Zum Glück ist weder mir noch dem Rucksackinhalt ein bleibender Schaden entstanden, abgesehen von einem etwas grösseren blauen Fleck an strategisch ungünstiger Stelle, vermutlich. Das Wetter heute früh war strahlend schön, Winterwunderland im Sonnenschein.
Der Tag war wie erwartet vollgepackt und anstrengend, aber Abends stand dann erfreulicherweise ein Besuch bei lokalen Hackern an, die MIT-bedingt in dieser Gegend traditionsgemäß in einer gewissen Konzentration zu finden sind. Eingeladen war ich in die Hasty Pastry und ich fühlte mich sofort zuhause. Ein wunderschöner kleiner Hacker-Hangout voller interessanter Leute die lustige Dinge tun. Im Keller gibts noch eine kleine Colo für die Freunde- und Familienprojekte. Einige der Regulars der Pastry waren früher verschiedentlich bei New Hack City, L0pht, @stake und dem Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) u.a. zu finden. Die Traditionslinie der Bostoner Hackerkultur lebt also erfreulicherweise weiter. Ich war sehr angetan und komme sicher gerne wieder vorbei wenn ich mal in der Gegend bin, dann auch gerne mal zum Basteln, wozu heute wegen Müdigkeit und weitem Rückweg keine Gelegenheit mehr war.