Ok, I've outlined in my previous post that the Surface Studio Laptop is a lovely device, and a potential candidate for replacing my aging desktop. So the question is, how well does it cope with the kind of workloads I have? Left, the Surface Laptop Pro. Middle - the monitor for my Desktop. Right, the... Continue Reading →
[Academic Tech] Surface Laptop Studio review/first thoughts (i7, 32GB, A2000)
My home desktop has been having some issues recently – crashes, general slowness here and there. I’ve mentioned the computer many times on my blog, and it’s what I’ve been using consistently for all my photogrammetry testing. I bought it from DinoPC, and I’ve nothing but good words to say about it – it’s been... Continue Reading →
[Academic Tech] Samsung Galaxy Fold 3
A few weeks ago, and with the upcoming Society of Experimental Biology annual meeting coming up, I decided to try out the Samsung Galaxy Fold 3. I was interested in a device I could use for taking notes on during talks, much as I have in the past with my Surface devices (mainly the Go... Continue Reading →
[Academic Tech] The Anycubic Photon Mono X resin-based 3D printer
As part of a teaching push, I was able to secure a new 3D printer for the lab, to produce specimens for practical sessions (on our Zoology and Animal Behaviour programmes). I actually got it at the start of semester, last September, but have been so busy with teaching I didn't get chance to give... Continue Reading →
[Academic Tech] Agisoft Metashape on the M1 Macbook Pro – impressive.
My wife recently upgraded her aging 2014 Macbook to a new 14" M1 Macbook Pro. Let me preface what I'm about to say with "I very much dislike MacOS and don't like using macs." Bear that in mind when I say I've never been more jealous of hardware. The MacBook Pro is beautiful, the screen... Continue Reading →
Neural Radiance Fields (NERF), and Instant-ngp – Future of photogrammetry?
I’ve been testing out instant-ngp recently, it’s an open-source software from Nvidia that generates neural radiance fields. That’s a 3D representation of an object that is fundamentally different from the points or verticies and faces we may be used to. Rather than representing an object through 3D coordinates, connections between them, and colours (i.e. vertices... Continue Reading →
[Academic Tech] Data Backup! Western Digital My Cloud Ex 2 Ultra Network Attached Storage review
Backing up is super important, we all know this, but we're not all great at it, and almost everyone I know has had an incident, at some point, where important data has been lost. It's not just having duplicates of things that is the issue either - just storing and accessing the kinds of big... Continue Reading →
[Academic Tech] Sony a6400 ‘review’
A few months back I finally upgraded from my trusty Sony Nex-6 to the newer Sony a6400. I've only just got around to having the time to write a review. This 'review' will very much be a ramble about my feelings using the camera, not a technical, specialist review. If you want one of those,... Continue Reading →
[Academic Tech] Back to the Surface Pro X
One year ago, on Christmas eve 2020, I posted about the Surface Pro X. I was very happy with it, except for one thing - the size. I ended up replacing the Pro X with the Surface Go 2 just a month or so later. My reasoning was that it was about as powerful as... Continue Reading →
[Academic Tech] Logitech Craft Wireless Keyboard
Much as the popular view is that palaeontologists spend their days out in the dusty desert digging up fossils, the fact is most of us spend more time at a computer than anything else, and that goes doubly so when your research revolves around computer simulations. As such, a keyboard is probably one of the... Continue Reading →