I eventually bought an old Canon EF 70-210mm f4 macro lens from eBay. It did not cost too much, around 1/10th of the price of the new Canon 70-200 L USM f4. It was built in 1988 and it is in ok condition. I did some tests with it and its sharpness is good from 70mm to 150mm but at 210mm it is quite soft with full aperture. But it is still better than cropping photos of 18-55mm kit lens.

Today we went to Edinburgh and we packed our camera gear with us. Because of St. Andrews day Edinburgh zoo had free entry. After spending time in the frosty zoo we walked around in Edinburgh winter fair.

Last weekend I took a good look at the offerings of eBay for a very first time. I was searching for telephoto lenses for our Canon 450D. Because I did not know current and discontinued Canon lenses inside out, I had to do some research. Before, I was thinking about buying a brand new Canon EF 70-200 f4 L USM lens which is very good compared to its price. So, my criteria was something similar but maybe 1/3 of the price.

I came up with a list of suitable lenses and started following auctions on eBay. After some days I had a list of final prices for couple models so I decided to try my luck. Maybe I was too careful since I did not manage to win any.

So, the result has been so far somewhat bad. I know a bit more about old Canon lenses and I have spent several hours following auctions or researching. But how much is my free time worth of? Definitely more than my hourly rate at work. The gap between brand new EF 70-200 f4 L USM and second hand with unknown condition and sharpness doesn't seem to be that big anymore...

For two persons:

Box of 300g diced venison meat (available at least from Tesco).

Add some coarse ground pepper and salt, rub them to meat.

Fry with 3 nails of garlic in a hot cast iron pan with oil&butter mix.

Add water to cover meat.

Add some dry red wine.

Add two sliced carrots.

After water has boiled away add sour or single cream, around 1dl or bit more.

Serve with boiled potatoes and red wine.

Ext JS blog has a post about testing web application with Selenium. It provides quick overview of Selenium and gives instructions how to set it up. For me the most interesting part of the article was the example Selenium test case code.

At work we have been using Selenium to create acceptance tests for Ext GWT application and it has been quite painless so far. In our case the most important factor was to set id's for fields we wanted to test. That makes locating the right field in Selenium much easier. Another issue was the right mouse click because the application has some contextual menus. The Selenium IDE does not register right clicks properly so it was necessary to modify those actions manually to use mouseUpRightAt.

Yesterday I was wondering how to handle Ext GWT DateField's date picker in Selenium test and I ended up typing the date value in the field instead of clicking the calendar icon. After mentioning this to my colleague he told me to check the blog entry above. From the example I learnt about /following-sibling::img. It seems to be the way to handle trigger fields nicely - something to try out next week.

Previously I wrote about registering to GP and couple days ago we visited the GP for the first time. But like one might guess - there were some issues with our registration.

The whole process started when we moved to Kirkcaldy and we filled the address change form for the NHS. The GP assignment office in Edinburgh had their raffle and we were placed for a GP on other side of the town. How come I saw this happening... But we rebelled and we sent a polite email to the office. Shortly after that we got a letter from NHS apologising silly assigment and we were assigned to the closest GP. The GP was the same we visited in the very first place.

So, couple days ago we went to this GP to return the health questionnaire and to receive quick health checkup. But we weren't in their system anymore because we were assigned back to the GP on other side of the town. After some discussion with the staff, two phone calls from senior member of the staff to the assignment office and almost an hour waiting we were assigned back to the right GP. We also heard some explanation of overlapping automatic and manual patient data systems, NHS politics etc.

After similar experiences, not just in the UK, I am always overwhelmingly astonished when something actually works as promised on the first attempt.

Finally I ordered something I have been planning for some time. A simple cast iron frying pan without any nonsense like teflon coating. Frying steaks in a teflon pan is in my opinion just mediocre way.

After some treatment with oil the pan was ready for action. The result was definitely delicious. The problem was then that I did not check the amount of meat we ate, no steaks in near future..

Available on Java User Group Scotland website, GWT in Practice.

The first time I saw something about Stack Overflow was while I was reading Joel on Software. Couple days ago I finally created my account there and started using it. So far my impression has been very positive.

Stack Overflow is basically just a question-answer site for software developers. But because of its active user mass good questions are replied rapidly and bad ones are moderated. Users receive more privileges the more they are writing good questions and answers.

What is a good question or answer then? That is up to other users who can vote, edit or close your entry.

This time we took the same coastal path as last time but we continued to Burntisland. After compulsory sandwich break we headed up to Dunearn Hill. The ascend was slow but the view was worth of it. The way back to Kirkcaldy was then downhill with high speed coasting and I nearly bit the dust after veering off the road in tight turn. Dora did not have any problems at that turn so I definitely need to upgrade my bicycle... Some photos from there are visible on my flickr page


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On Saturday we did some shopping and bought a cheap mountain bike for Dora. Now we both have bikes and today we headed out to check some local paths. Our first route was the Fife coastal path from Kirkcaldy to Kinghorn. The trail wasn't too demanding but it was still great fun and weather was nice as well.

I hope she will get hooked on more adventurous biking after she gains more trail experience and gets more confident with the bike. However, this could cause that the current cheap bike will be too modest in no time. And then the vicious cycle of bike upgrading begins...

Worth of checking, it even contains a photo featuring silly looking me.

http://bydk.blogspot.com/

Nasty flu or something caught me and I got fever on Tuesday afternoon so I left from work a bit earlier - around 4 pm. I also wanted to avoid overcrowded trains because there was a strike going on and train services were limited later in the afternoon. Despite my earlier traveling time the train was full and there were no seats available. Combination of hot and packed train with raising fever forced me to ask a young guy to give up his seat. After I sat down I received unexpected act of kindness as a young woman sitting opposite of me offered some HSBC sponsored bottle water which I gratefully drank. Maybe she knew that I have an account there.

Anyways, I am feeling somewhat better now but I decided to stay home also today. One difference between Hungarian and UK system is that one does not need an official paper from a doctor for a one day sick leave. Actually, in my current workplace in Scotland the limit is something like five days before any official paper. I am pretty sure this is very much work place dependent - I could imagine that cashier in Lidl does not have such possibility.

I don't have very comprehensive idea how well health care works here but at least getting registering to a new GP in Kirkcaldy turned out to be a bit more complicated than I expected. In Edinburgh I simply walked in to the closest GP reception and I got assigned to that one. Here in Kirkcaldy the closest one has their books closed so they could not assign us there directly. Instead, we had to fill a lottery coupon and return it to NHS via post. We are expected to receive our assignment within couple weeks - hopefully that reception wont be on the other side of the town.

Yesterday I hosted Java User Group Scotland - JUGS meeting at my workplace for the second time. This meeting was about JBoss Seam and there was a presentation by Ashish Kulkarni. It was pretty useful as I did not know much about Seam before.

I was also looking forward to receive a review copy of GWT in Practice by Robert T. Cooper and Charlie E. Collins. I have been using GWT for a couple months and it is definitely a fascinating piece of software. It will be interesting to see how this book brings up some new approaches or tricks. Eventually the review will be online under JUGS website's book review section.

Actually, GWT is not the only new technology I have been lucky enough to use at work. We are using agile approach in a new project and therefore our database schemas are under constant change. H2 is a Java database engine written by Thomas Mueller and it allows us to have disposable in-memory database which gets populated by a migration process fed by a legacy database. The H2 project is also very active and bugs are fixed pretty quickly.

Couple days ago we received a delivery containing 20" 2.4 GHz iMac, printer and iPod Nano. Nice difference compared to old 12" 1.5 GHz PowerBook. But the nicest thing was the higher education student discount and special promotions for the printer and iPod - sweet.

Finding a decent flat is matter of luck or good preparation. Unfortunately, there are dodgy landlords, horrible flats and difficult neighbours. I listed couple advices for UK flat hunting:

Reserve time for flat hunting. Prepare to stay in B&B for a week or two instead of rushing to sign contract for the first flat you happen to visit.

Get a clear idea how much you can pay and what you should get with that. Some areas are cheaper but there are usually reasons for that. Remember to check the council tax for the flat.

Visit several flats. Do not worry about wasting agencies' time, they get paid for that. Ask questions but be prepared to meet totally clueless agents.

Check the background of the rental agency. Ask your colleagues and check Internet forums.

Consider private landlords instead of agencies. Generally, private landlords might offer lower rent.

Get everything written. Lease contract, meter readings, inventory list and receipt of the deposit. Take photos of the flat and make sure you capture existing damages.

Ask about current gas and electricity suppliers. A flat without previous utility bills should be avoided. Opening a new supply takes a lot of time and it isn't recommend for people with weak heart.

Older flats have single glazing and carpets everywhere - even in the bathroom. This means higher gas bill during colder months. Carpets can cause problems for allergic people.