This is a test of the responsive images technique outlined by Viewport Industries. Originally I thought that the Responsive Enhance script was checking the screen width, but looking at the script it appears to check the width of the image. So for this example WordPress generates a 300px wide “medium” version which I’ve modified to B & W for easy identification. When the image renders at smaller than 300px 500px you should get a black & white version of the image, everyone else should get the full-size version. That’s how I understand it, at least.

I was encountering a weird situation where a background shorthand stack was failing in IE 7, but only when wrapped in a media query. I was using modernizr 2.0.6, which had respond.js baked in. So a background declaration like this was failing:

@media only screen and (min-width: 500px) {
    ul li {
        background: rgb(233,233,233);
        background: rgba(233,233,233,.8);
    }
}

If I took away the RGBA declaration the background color would be properly applied. Other properties seemed to take properly, so I was left scratching my head.

With that information in hand, I set about trying to isolate the issue. I downloaded a fresh copy of HTML5Boilerplate and set to work. It ended up that I couldn’t replicate the bug I had been facing when boiling the markup down to a single unordered list and minimal CSS. But I was also seeing all declarations in my media queries fail. After some thrashing about, I read the release notes and this jumped out:

Respond.js is no longer available by default.

Well, I’ll be. So that explained why my test cases were failing in IE 7 and 8: the media query polyfills were no longer included with modernizr. I pulled a fresh copy of respond.js, threw that in, and the bug I started out with no longer occurred. That meant that my bug was probably a result of an older respond.js version, or a result of that being wrapped up in modernizr.

So, a hard lesson re-learned about debugging: When investigating a bug, try to make sure you’re working from a baseline that mirrors the situation where you found it. I was starting from a baseline that didn’t mirror the one that had the bug, since I was using modernizr 2.5.3 (vs 2.0.6). In this case using a newer version of modernizr compounded the confusion further because it no longer included respond.js, a major difference.

5 seconds, ISO 100

Five seconds appeared to be the sweet spot. I actually started out with a 15-second exposure, but that looked something like someone opened a rip in the universe on Broad Street.

15 seconds, ISO 100

Two seconds, on the other hand, is just a bit too dim:

2 seconds, ISO 100

Spring is for photography—everything’s blooming and colors come back full-force. Took the camera out into my in-laws’ backyard. Lately I’ve decided to hunker down and learn the ins-and-outs of this E-P2 that I got just before Sophie was born. I’ve stuck to two lenses, the Panasonic 14mm/f2.5, and the Olympus 45mm/f1.8. The 45mm in particular has become my favorite lens. It’s a touch long, but the results have made me pretty happy.

I haven’t made extensive use of the E-P2’s Art Filters before, so I perched on the top of the sloping backyard and took this photo of my in-laws’ house using the Diorama (Tilt/Shift) filter:

From up the hill (taken with the 14mm/f2.5)

You can see my daughter and my father-in-law in miniature in the foreground. I like the effect; it seems to work well with scenes like this.

I took another one using the Pinhole filter:

The Pinhole filter reminds me more of my old Lomo LC-A—with the extreme vignetting at the corners—than an actual pinhole photograph. Not sure I’ll use it much, especially since I have the Pinwide lens to play with.

A proper portrait from the 45mm/f1.8:

Amelia in her awesome hat

One of the other things I like about the E-P2 is the different aspect ratios to choose from. I set it to square for a spell:

It blows me away that you can get an E-P2 body for just $249 these days. We’re talking about a camera that was ~$800 just a few years ago. It proves once again that if you’re willing to surf just slightly behind the leading edge you can get some absolutely fantastic bargains.

I do miss having a proper viewfinder, though, and while AF on the E-P2 is pretty snappy in good light it gets pretty slow in low light. It seems like Olympus has addressed both of those issues with the E-M5; hopefully those will be going for a song when I’m ready for a new camera body. Until then I have to remind myself that the limiting factor on most people’s photography is rarely (if ever) equipment-related.

I felt sure this was the situation I was facing, so I ran through those steps and had the site’s sysadmin clear out the database references. But even after doing that the modules were still showing up in the list.

In the end it turns out it wasn’t database entries. When deploying my files the sysadmin had moved all the old modules into a folder under the sites/all/modules folder. So I think Drupal was recursively pulling those old module versions from that nested folder. The sysadmin had claimed he simply replaced all the folders with the build I gave him, but clearly that wasn’t the case.

The photos made by that 35/f1.4 look very, very nice.

Part 1

Part 2