July 05, 2008 @ 10:10 PM 3 Comments

Filed under: Fun, Macro, Photography

what you see in the following photo? I guess this post needs some explaining first though. Today I was reading National Geographic Magazine and noticed some beautiful photographs. So I went online and found even more, but these seemed to consist out of textures.

Seeing it as a challenge I tried to make some texture photographs myself. Although they didn’t come out very well, or at least as not as good as I wanted them to be, I think it’s a nice way to see if anyone can guess what exactly it is I photographed.

Surely the first one might be a bit harder than the second one, but I’m anxious to see what you all come up with. Here are the photos;

The answers will be revealed in my next post!

July 04, 2008 @ 9:09 PM 3 Comments

Filed under: Animals, Photography

Every year we have kittens with our barn cats. And every year I say the same thing ‘Ooh they are so cute!’ Seriously, they are. If you look at them play together for a little while you can see they all have different characters. Some are a bit shy, others are quite playful and others are just up to no good.

Unfortunately this year, most kittens are  a bit scared of us ‘big humans’ and tent to run away when I come too close. So it’s a bit hard to take some good photographs but I’ll manage to get some great shots over the next few days, I’m certain of it.

Just by spending a few minutes outside today with the camera I managed to get a few nice photographs. Including one from one of the mother cats, who was keeping an eye of them from on top of the fence.

This little kitten is from the same mother as Sam is from. If I look at his face I can see a little resemblance with Sam. That look on his face is something Sam can do as well, especially when he’s up to no good.

Meanwhile mum is keeping an eye on the kittens sitting on top of the fence. If one of the kittens does something wrong, she punishes them, whether it’s her own ‘kid’ or not. Which is something I noticed in all cats here, they don’t raise the cats by themselves, all cats in the group have a part in helping with the kittens.

Hopefully the weather will be good over the weekend, and I’ll be able to get some more photographs. It was great all week but I’ve been ill all week (the GP didn’t think it was pneumonia but he gave me medication anyway) so I couldn’t go outside with the camera. So stay tuned for more kitten mischief.

July 03, 2008 @ 7:27 PM 3 Comments

Filed under: Opinions, Pedestal

For the last couple of days I have had some problems with my McAfee account. For some reason it wouldn’t accept my password. Although I was quiet sure I was using the right one, as I had written it down when I created the account.

After trying to get a password retrieval email at least 3 times on Monday, I contacted customer support yesterday with my problem. McAfee has a great system that allows you to get customer support for free, or well nearly free. They have an online chat system that allows you to talk to an employee, instead of calling them. This is a great service as you don’t have any extra costs on top of your internet subscription, in contrary of using the phone service.

When I contacted the Customer Support yesterday, I explained my problem and hoped it would be solved quickly. I mean how hard can it be to get an email send to my email address I registered with? I couldn’t have been more wrong, after more than 30 minutes in the chat, the only thing I achieved was that the employee could tell me my email address (which I submitted before the chat) and when I resubscribed to their service (and I already knew that too!).
Even though he tried his best, or at least that’s what I assume, he couldn’t solve my problem and told me they had server problems, so to ‘keep trying with the old email and password’.

Great advice! After trying a few times with the previous settings, my account gets blocked! And of course the only way to unblock it, is to retrieve a new password by email.

All I wanted to do was bang my head against the wall, but considering that wouldn’t do me (or my computer) any good I decided to have one more go at the chat support today. After some server updates on McAfee’s side I finally got a hold of a representative and within 15 minutes all was working again. He understood the problem immediately, reset my account and password, gave it to me in the chat and asked me to try and login.

I could login instantly and was prompted to change the password. Which I have written down, once again. Now my computer is protected again and I feel safe. I just wonder why the first representative couldn’t have done this yesterday, it wouldn’t have frustrated me as much.

Overall I’m very satisfied with their Customer Service. I have had a slight problem before with my set-up and contacted them through chat then, everything was solved within 10 minutes then too. So all in all 2 out of 3 and for free is definitely not bad. Especially if you compare it to other Customer Services.

What’s your best or worst experience with Customer Service and did it eventually get solved?