European Starling

European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)


enature
cornell
(Good comparison photos here. Compare with the immature red-wing blackbird. And the female, a blah brown, could be difficult to distinguish from other species.)

Here's a good photo comparison of the European Starling at different times/stages.
paulnoll.com

UPDATE 8May11:

More/better

Tree Swallow

(Pretty creamy bokeh background.)

Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor)

cornell
enature

Couple:

(I like the colors.)
Females and males must look the same? There were a lot of them and all I saw were the ones that looked like this.

This was a park sign bird house setting, one of the reasons why I got the nice closeup shot above.

Pine Siskin

I think this is a Pine Siskin, which means he's a winter bird for our area. Closely related to the goldfinch.

cornell
(Spinus pinus)
"The most common of the irruptive 'winter finches,' the Pine Siskin often remains on the wintering grounds long enough to breed."

enature
(Carduelis pinus)

Carduelis vs Spinus:
itis favors Carduelis.
wiki (1976...Spinus merged into Carduelis)
wiki - carduelis (2009 Cornell link.)

House Finch - House Sparrow

Mr and Ms House Finch and Mr and Ms House Sparrow all on the same tree.



House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus):
Male:

Female:


cornell
enature

House Sparrow (Passer domesticus):
Male:

(He looks interesting. I'd sure like to get more/better photos of him.)

Female:


I think this is a female house sparrow also (better detail):


Must be nesting. That's a overexposed feather in her beak.

enature
cornell

UPDATE 2May11
Here's another one of the male house sparrow. He looks so cute. Nesting.

Butterfly

I think this butterfly is a Polygonia comma.
There's a winter and summer form. Must be the winter form.
I was surprised to see a butterfly this early. There was a break in the rainy/snowy overcast weather. It was sunny and maybe 45-50 degrees at about 10:30 am.

wisconsinbutterflies.org
(Has pics of winter and summer forms.)

"The Eastern Comma is the most common of the commas and is found throughout the state. Adults of this species hibernate and appear on warm sunny days in the early spring, even when there is still snow present. After a long winter it is a real pleasure to see these butterflies flying around."

bugguide drill down to
Genus Polygonia - Commas, Question Mark
Species comma - Eastern Comma

wiki
ND Butterflies

Yellow-rumped warbler

New bird.
A migrant.



Yellow-rumped warbler (Dendroica coronata)

cornell
enature
wiki

My Dakotas Bird book says:
"Sometimes called Butter-butts due to the yellow patch on rump. Was formerly called Audubon's or Myrtle Warbler."



White throat would be the Myrtle form (SDBirds).
Or Adult Male Eastern (cornell).

Apophysis Windows 7

There is a Windows 7 UI version of 3D Apophysis.

Some improvements, but it's basically the same.

Most of the current online activity for this software is at deviantart.

It's probably easier to google what you want (tuts, news, plugins, scripts, flames etc.) rather than surf deviantart directly.

I didn't see much new beyond very basic tuts. And I think much of the fractal creations rely on plugins and scripts. What I've already posted for Apo info is still relevant and probably still contains the best links.

There also might be some current info at fractalforums.

Muskrat Love

These muskrats are fun to observe (previously). They were out at 2pm this day, so my theory that they are only out and about early in the morning was wrong.

The male was feeling amorous again and his mate looked less than enthused:


Scuffle ensues:



Maybe I'll get baby photos eventually if they stick around the same area.

Muskrat Love, by America.

songfacts.com
“This was written by the Texas singer Willis Alan Ramsey in 1972, who recorded it as "Muskrat Candlelight." America recorded the song on their 1973 album Hat Trick before Captain & Tennille recorded their hit version in 1976...
This song really is about 2 muskrats making love. It's not to be taken seriously, and even contains synthesized sound effect to simulate the muskrat copulation. This sound was played at the end of the song and included in the end groove of the 45 single, so when the record ended, it played the muskrats on a loop until the record player was attended. ”

Is that really true? I have no idea, lol.

Lyrics...
And now he's ticklin' her fancy
Rubbin' her ties
muzzle to muzzle now
anything goes
as they wiggle
and Sue starts to giggle

And they whirled and they twirled and they tangoed
Singin' and jinglin' the jango
Floatin' like the heavens above
It looks like muskrat love...

Mystical Goose

Canada Goose


I thought this looked kinda cool. Mystical? or something.
I had to do some post-processing work. I cloned out a few branches. The right wing tips were clipped, so I copied mirrored blended the wing tips from the left side. Tone Mapping and High Pass Sharpen to increase definition. But it really was white snow drifts for background in April, yes, it's true. lol.

Canada Geese are very common around here and sometimes considered pests. I don't post anymore photos of them unless something unusual shows up like the photo above.

Alice

I finally watched Alice In Wonderland.
Worth a watch.
I liked the song by Avril. I didn't know she wrote a song for the movie.
I recognized her voice when the song played.

YouTube
Avril Lavigne - Official 'Alice (Underground)' Music Video (HQ)

Lyrics...
It can't stop me now
I - I'll get by
I - I'll survive
When the world's crashing down
When I fall and hit the ground
I will turn myself around...

wiki
songfacts

“Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Photo Walk

Spring Thaw:


The usual spring sightings of robins, Canada geese, mallards, and...

Out for breakfast, a muskrat:



Well, that's something new.
Just an insignificant speck in the scheme of things:



Okay, here, take your best mug shot:



And there he was, gone:



I see them every morning about 7:50 am and by about 8:15 am or so they disappear. I see two couples at two different locations. Not much light so my camera is really straining to get a decent exposure and the photos aren't the best, but I'm happy to get something.

Feeling frisky (different day):



And a little further North along the river, a beaver, obviously bigger than those tiny muskrats:



I like the water texture. Moving right along, cutting thru that water pretty fast... and *slaps* the water with that flat tail and disappears.

wiki - muskrat
muskrat? previously
wiki - beaver

The End - Music

The End by Pearl Jam
What a sad song. Made me cry.
Nope, never heard it before. Found it while googling some stuff on the Castle tv show (Epi 213).

Backspacer Album 2009. 9th album.
songmeanings.net

I also like:
Just Breathe
Love his deep voice.

Eddie Vedder songs - previous blog posts:
Better Days (Eat, Pray, Love)
Hard Sun (Into The Wild)

Trading Yesterday - Music

Trading Yesterday, now known as The Age of Information

My Space

YouTube
She's The Sunlight
Shattered
The Beauty & The Tragedy
One Day

Windows Explorer Alternatives

Windows Explorer Dislikes:
1. I can't get it to remember my Column Header Titles (Apply View to All Folders does not work.)
2. I can't set it to display the full file path in the address bar at all the times, not just when I click on it. (Essential for doing backups. I need to see what drive I'm on.)
3. It doesn't refresh and sometimes crashes because of this.
4. I'd like a better search.

Alternatives:
I tried portable versions of:
Cube Explorer
FreeCommander
Explorer ++
seExplorer

The only one that has good Column Header Titles is Cube Explorer.
I wouldn't even consider using the other ones because of that.



• I like the clean interface.
• Nice Themes. I like the Green one.
• Has Tabbed Window Views.
• I like the No Folders Filter.
• Single Instance Only Setting.
• No 7Zip in right click popup.
• Search: No Date Criteria, no Views (You can search for *.jpg, but you can't view thumbnails.)
• The Sessions is a good idea, but a tad buggie and doesn't offer much except to bookmark a folder. Can't save selected Column Headers or Views or Filters. Make sure Sessions is set to Default on exit. If you have one of your saved sessions checkmarked and exit, whatever you are viewing is saved as that session.

FreeCommander and Explorer ++ have a Wipe File option that might be useful.

Explorer++ - column header titles are a mess, but it does have an Extension header. And Dimension is split into Width and Height Headers.

Reference

ReverbNation

Since MySpace is kinda dead now, I was wondering what bands/musicians are using now.
Discussion (garagepunk).

I liked reverbnation because I found songs to try right away.

Try:
Alexander Cardinale
Traffic Lights
Has a different background sound to it.

Reminds me of?...Sugarcult. Not sure why.



Sugarcult - Memory
Pencil stick figures playing guitar and singing - Fun. It's so amusing what people come up with for videos sometimes. (Way back in Nov 2006.)
Sugarcult - Memory
The band playing.

Other sites mentioned in discussion:
musicalley
bandcamp

Firefox 4 - Where's The Padlock?

Website address should say https not http.
Click on favicon in address bar and you'll see the padlock if it's a "secure" or encrypted site.

Reference
"All the padlock means is that the web page is using HTTPS (Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol Secure). It's almost useless, since you can easily see if a website (such as this one) is using HTTPS by looking at the url bar, or checking if the web site's domain is extended into the favicon. If you really want it, the padlock is still there if you click on the favicon/domain button."

Site Identity Button
"If you are sending any sort of sensitive information (bank information, credit card data, Social Security Numbers, etc.) the Site Identity Button should not be gray."

Site Identity Button implemented in Firefox 3. Who knew.

Another thing I've noticed in Firefox 4:
Font rendering is not as good. I'm assuming it's Firefox 4 causing the problem since that's when I noticed it. I use Josefin Slab font on my blog titles and the slanted e does not display very clearly. Addon fix?

Firefox - Java Console

I think this has probably been a problem for a while but I just didn't see it until I started tweaking Firefox 4.
There are multiple Java Console addons listed when I go into Tools, Addons.
(These are not listed in Windows 7 Control Panel Programs.)
Within Firefox, I disabled all but the newest version.
Exited Firefox.
Then went to the Firefox Folders.
In Windows 7 the extensions are stored here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\extensions
I deleted the relevant extra Java Console folders except for the newest version.

eMusic

I don't know if this is a deep dark secret or what, but here is the direct link to emusic free daily download. Emusic website wants you to install a toolbar to get these freebies, but I found the direct link when googling.

And while I was there...
Listened to:
The Rural Alberta Advantage.
Song: Barnes' Yard

YouTube:
Best Quality
Live at Beachland Tavern in Cleveland.
Talks about the song.

wiki
Canadian indie rock band formed in 2005.
Based in Toronto, Ontario, the band consists of Nils Edenloff (lead vocal & guitar), Amy Cole (vocal & keyboard) and Paul Banwatt (drums)

Ditching Windows Media Player 12

I'm abandoning Windows Media Player 12 (WMP12) for my music player/manager. Besides the other numerous dislikes, what finally sent me over the edge is that I can't get it to correctly sync playlists to my Sansa Clip no matter what I do.

So...what to use instead?
I looked at free software.

WinAmp?
WinAmp Features
I tried WinAmp years ago and didn't like it. I'm trying out the current version. Still don't like it. No.



Another software that is popular is MediaMonkey.
MediaMonkey Features
The feature I wondered about is: "File Monitor (automatically updates library)"
Not available in the free version. I think I just have to manually do that. File, Add/Rescan. Not a biggie. It runs pretty fast. And I just might prefer that. WMP12 was always monitoring what I did NOT want it to monitor, even though I set the applicable settings.

Windows Task Manager tells me it takes about the same memory as WMP12. (WinAmp takes twice the memory on startup and then increases significantly the longer I use it.)
I did not associated any file types with either program on install, because I wanted to try them out first. Can do that later via Tools, Options, File Types in MediaMonkey.

MediaMonkey interface is cleaner and easier to read and navigate than WinAmp. MediaMonkey also has offline help that is actually helpful, unlike WinAmp.

First up: Transfer my playlists:
Save WMP12 playlists as type *.m3u.
Play the playlist in WMP12 and in the right pane click on the List Options Icon dropdown and select Save List As, select m3u from Save As Type dropdown.
In MediaMonkey, click File, Add/Rescan Tracks and scan the directory containing the *.m3u Playlist.
Reference
Success.

Tools, Sync Device, (My plugged in Sansa is listed here.)
Configure Device:
AutoSync Lists, Playlists
AutoSync Options

Then Sync Device
MediaMonkey asked me if I wanted to delete the files that did not belong on the playlists and then it proceeded to resync my playlists correctly.
Thank you, thank you, I'm doing a happy dance.

I have Comments and Lyrics fields. I have text field lists instead of album art sorts. Yay. I'm liking it already.
Script: Dockable Lyrics Panel. Has style sheets for different skins that can be edited. Have to move/copy the *.css file first, then edit, then copy back. Worked with the Glided default skin. I changed to CleanMM skin (link below) and it still worked. There are other Lyric addons that do more, but a display panel is all I wanted.

I noticed the songs play one after the other with no silence in between. I thought maybe it was the Play, Crossfade toggle, but I don't think that changed it. Script maybe? Not necessary. "Disable Crossfading to not have the overlapping and disable silence removal as well (Tools > Options > Output Plug-ins)." Click on the Configure button in that area, uncheck Crossfade, uncheck Remove Silence. That helped considerably.

WARNING: Changed the font display size (Tools, Options, Skin) and then I couldn't access that area of the menu again to change it back because the window display text is cut off rather than scrolls. I had to resort to a Windows System Restore to get the default font size back. There is no restore defaults within MediaMonkey. Well that is a strong negative. Changing the font display size by 1% is a much larger increase than expected and is the lowest amount you can enter. Use px instead.

The Player has a big ugly red button (default Glided skin) so I looked for Skins. Not much out there. I installed CleanMM which is a nice clean easy to read minimalist light gray skin. Player looks better. Download skin, double click on the file to install it, then it shows up within MediaMonkey under Tools, Options, Skin.

At the top right of screen in MediaMonkey is a hard to see icon, click on it and you can switch to Mini or Micro Player.
Choose MicroPlayer and MediaMonkey disappears. lol Right Click on Windows 7 Taskbar, Toolbars, MediaMonkey Player and the MicroPlayer shows up on the Taskbar. Right click, Restore to go back to the usual large viewing window.

Volume:
There is a volume slider on the player within MediaMonkey that is independent from the computer/sound card volume. Somehow I must have bumped the slider down and suddenly the volume within MediaMonkey was too low. I bumped the slider up all the way and it's okay now.

There is a persistant crash/freeze issue with right menu popups, but so far I haven't been able catch what exactly it is that I'm doing which causes the crash/freeze. I have to exit MediaMonkey via the Windows TaskManager.

Overall, MediaMonkey is a keeper.

The next thing I'm ditching in Windows 7 is Windows Explorer. I'll blog about it if I find a useful alternative/replacement.

Firefox 4 - Another Add-on

I noticed the Address Bar behavior changed. Wah.
Here's the addon to fix that.
Via GroovyPost.
(More tips there.)

Boy, seems like I'm adding more and more add-ons to this version of Firefox, hmmm.