GAURAV PATELme@gauravpatel.co.ukGraphic Designer

I’m impressed.

Unfortunately, it took several patches to get there. However, once you apply these simple patches, this baby flies – for the most part. It does hang every now and then, and it there is much to be improved. There is no excuse for any lag whatsoever.

The hardware is quite sturdy. Unlike the iPad 2, I don’t feel like the TouchPad will break into a million pieces when I put it down on a table. The weight is a little on the heavy side when handling with one hand for me, especially when you’re lying down with the TouchPad in the air, unless you like the risk of a brick falling on your face.

The glossy plastic back does become an issue sometimes and glides like fingers through silk. I don’t know why they didn’t put the matte finish used in their Touchstone back covers. The Pre 2, Veer and Pre 3 all have the same matte finish, so why did they go for something different for the TouchPad?

The weight and slippery back are negligible issues to what is otherwise a fantastic device.

I was not sure what I would find in the App Catalog, or if I would be impressed, but fuck me was I in for a shock. The App Catalog might not have the numbers like the iOS App Store, but I assure you, the actual quality of TouchPad-specific apps is definitely there. The best thing is: they’re mostly indie developers. I will be doing a review of my favourite apps on here so keep an eye out for that.

With the recent news, some say this platform is dying, why buy a device that won’t receive any updates? To these people I say, open your eyes, see the bigger picture.

The firesale has put webOS into a lot of hands. The news of BestBuy wanted HP to take back ~250k TouchPad but after the discounts, they’ve all gone, and they’re getting more stock. Retailers here in the UK had the same demand.

Developers and users have a relatively young operating system, and it’s exciting to see how the OS will be developed for both these camps of users, not to mention the news awaiting who will manufacture or how new webOS devices will come to market.

I want to end this post on saying the people involved in the homebrew community are all awesome. Without this community, who knows where webOS will be today. The work they have put into platform is nothing but outstanding. If you have so much as installed a single patch, you should think about donating some money to webOS Internals.

Update: I forgot to mention something quite big. You know that whole “Synergy” thing where webOS pulls in all the data and contacts from your online accounts? Well, turns out I can’t add quite a significant account: Google.

There’s a bug where you add an account to webOS that contains some special characters in your password where it simply states “Unknown error” and can’t be added. I’m not changing my password on a million devices and setups just because of a silly bug on one device.

So I’m having to do my email in the browser (which is less than convenient) and I have yet to find a nice mobile-optimised site for Google Talk.

Written on my HP TouchPad, using the WordPress app.

So you’ve just opened up your brand new HP TouchPad (or two *cough*) thanks to the recent sales. Allow me to be the first to welcome you to the webOS family.

You may notice it’s somewhat laggy in parts, and this is somewhat down to the fact that HP log a lot of data which can slow down performance. Don’t worry — they’re not out to get you!

Thankfully, thanks to the openness of webOS, you can turn down the logging yourself. To do this follow these simple instructions.

After trying out iOS 5 Beta 4 on my iPhone 3GS, I can safely say it’s nice, but it’s not ready to be used day-to-day (no surprises there).

Downgrading from iOS 5 to 4.3.5 (latest stable version as I write this) is a bit tricker than I remember from the other betas, but that just might be me.

There are a lot of methods to downgrade out there, ranging from Jailbreaks, TinyUmbrella to even Xcode, but they’re all shit.

Downgrading through the usual method, which is the same as below, minus the DFU part, would result in a 1064 error.

Using iTunes 10.5 Beta 4:

1. Download iOS 4.3.5
2. Connect your iPhone
3. Enter DFU:
1. Hold sleep/power + home button for 10 seconds
2. Release sleep/power, continue holding home button until iTunes detects your iPhone is in recovery mode
4. Hold shift and click “Restore”
5. Locate the .ipsw for iOS 4.3.5 that you downloaded previously
6. iTunes will erase and install iOS 4.3.5 on your iPhone

That’s what worked for me, your milage may vary.

As I write this, I should be up in Central London freelancing for a company to take photos of this company’s client. Instead I’m at home, blowing the dust off my blog and typing up this blog post.

Why? I got a call the night before to say I had been replaced by another photographer.

Before I continue, I should point out I’m not annoyed, angry or have any negativity towards the company I was freelancing for. Business is business after all.

The objective of the shoot was to take natural photos of the client at work, in a small to medium sized room. Nothing too fancy, right? Well apparently I was wrong. The client, and this is the part I don’t understand, wanted studio lighting in this room — I don’t have any. I hate using anything but natural light. So I was replaced with another photographer who had studio lighting.

I know there are justifications in using external lighting sources, especially in a controlled environment like a studio and I don’t have anything against people who use flashes/lighting.

I don’t mean to blow my own trumpet, but I think I can do an alright job without with just natural lighting.

Do people just see the amount of gear a photographer has with them and instantly expect their photos are going to be great? I know this is partially true because I used to think that. However, having been exposed to this world a little bit, I know that’s grossly untrue.

I’ve seen work from people who can do so much with such little, that walks all over people who have all the bells and whistles.

It reminds me of someone who has all talk but when it comes down to it, can’t do much.

Yeah, I couldn’t resist. I saw @kosso‘s iPhone 4 image and I just had to do this.

I noticed my iPhone 3GS running iOS 4.0 deletes all text (and photos) in any textbox when you hit the Globe and Backspace keys together. Notes app, the subject field in Mail, the address bar in Safari, anywhere you enter text. If the keyboard has the Globe icon (you must have an international keyboard enabled), it will do it.

The video below shows me doing it:

Yeah, it’s a little find, it’s not world changing, but it’s there.

I haven’t posted anything in a while and I just made this and and and and and and and.

It started off as this, which turned into this, and ended up as above. Oh yeah, I shaved my head.

Yesterday, 4th April, was the day crazy people around the world took to the streets of their local city at 4am for 4amproject.org:

The aim of the 4amproject is to gather a collection of photos from around the world at the magical time of 4am. Everyone can take part and join in! All you need is a camera. We want to see what you see at that moment in time on that one day. What’s your view at 4am?

I read about this through PetaPixel at around 11pm, needless to say I instantly jumped at this. I scheduled to meet my friend at 3:30am, from where we would drive somewhere into Central London. I had no idea what to expect from London at 4am. I’m always drunk whenever I experience the city that late/early.

I did not sleep and I was practically dead when picked my friend up. We drove past Westminster Bridge and saw how beautiful it was at night. We both agreed to park nearby and walk as Southbank, Waterloo, etc were walking distance away.

This is the route we took. Each photo has been placed on the map where it was taken or as close as possible.

Here’s a higher-resolution slideshow of the photos from the morning (or see them on Flickr on lower-resolution):

A remote control arrived that morning and if I did not bring that, my photo strategy would have radically changed and I wouldn’t have been as happy with the results as I am. I instantly knew I would be taking long exposures with the Canon EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6, otherwise known as the “Shit Stock Lens”.

I basically tied my camera to anything and everything using the Joby Gorillapod SLR-Zoom with the ballhead attachment. This was the first time using the Gorillapod and I have to say, for this, it was perfect. The only problem I had was straightening the legs once I was finished with a shot, though if you’re constantly tying it around rails and benches, it’s awesome.

Once mounted, I would use the remote control to control the shutter speed (the camera was on fully manual with BULB setting for shutter speed). What’s awesome is the Canon 500D displays the seconds the shutter has been open for on the LCD.

Protip: anyone can take photos like mine. You just need a stable surface and manually set the shutter speed. This is definitely achievable with an inexpensive point and shoot. In fact, the next time I do this, I’ll take my Sony DSC-T70 and do some more experiments with my 500D.

Despite freezing my chops off and being ridiculously tired, this was definitely worth it. Walking around Central London at 4am (read: sober) is definitely an experience; you don’t see many people but the ones you do see are the ones you think about, like what they’re doing, where they’re going, etc. We even saw a lovely couple broadcast their fornication outside Embankment Tube Station.

This post is already 50 million times longer than I had planned.

Summary: I loved it. I look forward to the next 4amproject.

Goodbye.

If you want to see the all the photos, they’re on my Flickr. If I’ve taken a photo of you and it’s not there, email me.

Holi, the “Festival of Colors” was actually on the Monday 1st of March, so the Borough of Richmond Upon Thames with Arts Service and the Ethnic Minorities Advocacy Group (EMAG) put on a festival on Saturday 6th March.

I did not see this festival advertised anywhere and I don’t live too far away from Twickenham, however the turnout was staggering, as was the diversity of the crowd. I seriously expected to see 2 small Indian families (do they even exist?) and a few couples, but boy was I wrong. There were people of all ages, walks of life, colours, sizes.

I went with my friend and he said something along the lines of if all people came to events like this, there would be no racism or hate towards people of certain ethnic backgrounds or their way of life. The entire day was enjoyed by absolutely everyone, I saw a sea of smiles through my cameras viewfinder and that surely can’t be a bad thing.

Update: As I do for all my events, I compile video and photos from the day and make a short YouTube clip:

The festival started off with 3 acts, a bloke, a woman, and some kids. That’s about as precise as I can get about who they were.

Just after they finished, the coloured powder was available.

They didn’t put all the powder out at once, they seemed to have the perfect amount for the people there and just kept on reissuing it after once in a while.

The music was flowing, people were dancing… and throwing powder at each other

A few local Twickenham Indian restaurants came out in full force, providing food and drink for everyone

The kids absolutely loved it and got stuck in, I didn’t see any fighting or snatching of powder

If I had £1 for every smile I captured …

Nothing Indian is complete without dancing

I think he might be famous

Some organisers with smiles and a proud look on their faces, so they should, it was organised well

With dancing, comes dance-offs. The little girl won.

‘Ello ‘ello officer

Cute couples everywhere

This chick came running up to me with handfuls of powder with the intent on throwing it on my “clean face” but ended up all. over. my. camera.

This was my first Holi experience and it was nothing short of epic. I am definitely going to this next year.

Camera: Canon 500D with EF 50mm f/1.8 II, EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 USM III

Vincent Brown (@attila) is the sole cause of my obsession of self-portraits in reflective surfaces. I can’t stop! Someone lock me up in a MySpace prison.

This photo was taken in Dharamsala, North India, home of Tibeteans in exile, and the Tibetean Government.

I’ve been stupidly busy going through all of my photos from India. I have taken over 3000, of which I am processing and organising in Adobe Lightroom. I promise to have a full, lengthy blog post up soon, preferably before the year is over.