He loved his food.

In his final years, housebound and slowly going blind, conversation, food and the radio were his only real pleasures. My Gran looked after the food side of things. She would cook all the dishes he enjoyed through the 50+ years they were together. Italian from her side, Ukrainian from his, and then some dishes somewhere in the middle.

The main reason for adding ‘Eat in A Ukrainian restaurant’ to my 40at40 list was to relive some of the dishes. Relive and compare. Even when I visited the Ukraine via Russia during the Russian Constitutional Crisis in 1993 I never got to eat in a restaurant. I ate on the street, on trains and with family.

The hunt for a Ukrainian restaurant was not as easy as I thought it would be. Mainly because it appears the Ukrainian community prefer to eat at each others houses, or at the many Ukrainian societies dotted around the UK. I did think of actually visiting the Ukraine but I thought that a little extravagant what with all the other things I plan to do this year.

Luckily after a little googling and a couple of phone calls, (one to the Ukraine) I found the Albina. The only other London place listed was called ‘Divo’ and had the most incredibly bad reviews. It had also shut, luckily down.

So I headed to the Albina.

239 Barking road was a short walk from the overland train. As I entered I could hear a conversation at the end of the long thin restaurant between what seemed like regulars or friends of the barman. No words I understood though.

Under the cartwheel light fittings, the walls were adorned with painted plates, crockery, dolls and wooden medieval weaponary.  Windows painted on either side gave you the impression you were on the shores of a cartoon lake. I walked between the heavy set tables made of varnished logs towards the beach type bar in the bottom corner opposite the toilets. The only word the barman spoke that I understood was “Wodka?”

I used the universal nodding system I fall back on when anyone offers me a drink. I sampled two drinks, a peppery almost chilli laced Vodka and one made from birch sap. This was new to me but I have since learned that 12th century slavic manuscripts refer to the use of birch sap in alcoholic drink making. I’d certainly drink them again. In fact I did just that almost immediately.

After meeting the waiter I picked a seat by the door (just in case) and ordered one of my favourite meals, Borscht.

When it arrived my hunger allowed a pause long enough to take a photo before I was overcome by the aroma and appearance. It was truly delicious.

An apple juice accompanied my decision making where I had to decide between a main and a sweet or two mains. I went for the latter. I am more of a lover of the more substantial dishes and I wanted to experience as much as I could. Afterall I had no idea if I was ever to return.

I followed the Borscht with with Draniki, a kind of shredded potato cake served with mushrooms, chicken and sour cream in a pot. I think the pot more Belorussian than Ukrainian but I could see by the clientele popping in that there was certainly fusion dishes on the menu.

My final main course was Golupsie. Minced beef, rice onion and veg wrapped in cabbage leaves and sometimes baked in a sauce. I knew this dish was to push me over the comfortably full line, but this was an important taste from my childhood and a dish that I miss very much. It reminds me of dinners with my Granddad more than any other dish.

I really enjoyed my experience at Albina and am so glad I not only added this option to my list, but that I discovered this interesting and unique restaurant. The service was great and I’d love to return with friends for a proper drawn out night of food, drinking and if it’s on a Saturday, perhaps some embarrassing dance.

The final bill came to £26.90 as I think a few of my ‘sample’ vodkas were omitted. Wonderful value for such hearty simple foods that look more complex when cooked, presented and delivered confident in the knowledge these are great and honest dishes.

Here is some audio I recorded as I left.

If you’d like to help me complete an item off my list please let me know. Or simply subscribe to the blog or follow the tag 40at40 to see other posts as and when I complete them.

Y-Cam Bullet IP camera

I got sent the Y-Cam Bullet last year and then when I moved home it found itself into a box, only to be re-discovered last week.

Cables, adapters, wall/ceiling mount, power lead, optional sun visor etc, all  come in the box.

What's in the box

I had already purchased a Y-cam S in black over 2 years ago (the older model without the micro sd card slot). I used it as a night vision baby monitor and at the time I remember it wasn’t the easiest device to set up as the Mac software from Y-Cam was pretty shoddy.

The new setup application for mac seems to have fixed this and I had the Bullet unpacked set up and operational in a little over 5 minutes.

Having used the smaller Y-cam S in the past I was expecting decent build quality but was a little surprised at the size. It was bigger than I expected and when unscrewing the front to insert the micro SD card I could see the size was not just a result of it’s sturdy IP66 weather proof external case, but this also had to house the chunky Infra Red diodes that give it is night vision capabilities.

So, what can it do..?
It does all the things you would expect from an IP camera. You can view and listen into what ever it is pointing at in real time, from anywhere in the world, through a computer on the web, or a smart phone. There is also a nifty little iPhone app that also works on the iPad.

It has motion detection that you can set up to trigger recording from movement in various regions of it’s sight. When motion is detected, the camera can email you a photo of what’s going on, or record the video to an internal micro sd card that you can view when logged on to the camera’s web page. You can also grab snapshots and record video whilst viewing through the browser.

Screengrab taken through the browser in total dark

It’s IR-cut filter enables true/day night operation so daytime colours are pretty good, it also has power over ethernet (PoE) and as yet un-explored by me (as it is still PC only), 2-way audio. I’d love to be able to talk through the camera from my Mac as this would open up all kinds of possible uses.

Snapshot taken with the iPhone app & reduced to 500px wide

I had a play with the app and whilst viewing you can grab snapshots with a click of the button (see image above). The snapshots drop into your iphone photos gallery. It’s a pretty simple app at the moment and I’d love an update that would enable remote recording and push notifications instead of email. I get a ton of emails a day and would not necessarily see an email notification that the camera had been triggered. I am thinking some kind of ftp push to app hack could be done but not needed if the guys at Y-Cam just update the app. I’m sure more sales would be generated as the great reviews for a fully functioning app rolled in.

(This test clip was recorded through the camera, downloaded remotly through the browser, looked fine on the computer, but seemed to have the audio scraped on upload to youtube.)

The Y-cam records video at a maximum frame rate of 30fps at 640 x 480 with the frame rate automatically adjusting with your internet connection. Stills are taken at the same resolution although I have reduced them to 500px to fit this blog column.

Although I have only used the ethernet connection during set up and then wifi from then on, the camera also has a Digital I/O and 2-way audio connector should you have a more complex monitoring system you want to plug it into.

I like the fact that adding an internal microSD card to the slot enables a local back up option should you not be continually recording the footage to an external hard drive. This also means you can use the camera on it’s own in a remote location and later view the footage via a mobile device with a MiFi, or plug the camera into a PC. This way it is effectively a self contained detection and recording device. As long as it’s powered of course.

As far as I remember there was only PC support originally but now things seem to work much better on a Mac with the video viewed using Quicktime and the motion detection settings adjusted in the browser. This does have to be adjusted using a flash enabled device though so using the iPad for fine tuning the camera is not an option. Once again perhaps a future app update will open up this functionality.

Should you want to get imaginative and use the camera for video conferencing, the Bullet supports up to 16 simultaneous remote users with password protection.

At time of writing the Y-Cam YCBL03 Bullet IP Camera is £270 on Amazon and looking at other options with similar specs, this appears to be the best value for money.

Apart from all the fun to be had just playing with tech like this and of course the usual security uses, I have a couple of other uses in mind. One would be front door monitoring when I’m locked away in my garden office and expecting visitors or post. The other is for the camera to be a kind of digital babysitter for my semi-independent Grandmother who suffers from Alzheimer’s

I’d like to monitor the times when she uses the kitchen and taylor her care accordingly. The carers at the moment visit three times day but my Gran never seems to be hungry when they are there. They told me that if they knew exactly the time she wanted food and assistance (as She can’t remember) then they can adjust their visit times. With the camera setup temporarily in her kitchen, it can be programmed to record all motion and this would log what my Gran is doing and when. No need for an internet connection as the footage could be stored internally on the microSD card. The footage could be used to see exactly what my Grandmothers needs where and when.

Ideally if a long term solution was needed, via an internet connection my Gran could talk to me through the video camera and me back to her from anywhere in the world. This would need Y-cam to sort out the two way audio feature for the Mac user. If you have any questions on this or the latest developments, perhaps connect on twitter with @YcamSolutions who seem very pleased to answer any questions and who have helped me out immensely with any queries I’ve had.

In Conclusion:

It’s a serious camera worth the money with lots of browser based functionality capable of dealing with all kinds of projects.

I’d happily recommend any camera tech from Y-Cam but take a look at the whole range to ensure you are not buying something over spec’d for your needs. For some of my planned projects the £100 cheaper Y-Cam YCB003 would probably suffice. That said, the Y-Cam Bullet is a solidly built professional IP surveillance camera that works well both indoors and out, night and day, in all weather. It’s great value for money with more features than I’d personally use. I love access via the iPhone app, but it is simple and I’d like to see more app development to cater for the increasing number of Mac users and those working from mobile devices.

Y-Cam Bullet

I know this may seem like a bit of overkill but as I normally take a pro SLR and a video camera out on assignments I was thinking that this may finally be the device that takes decent photos and video while at the same time is reasonably compact. By consolidating my kit I have fewer cables accessories and can travel lighter. there is no reason why with the additional microphone I cannot use the GH1 for pro audio, video and stills. As it records to an SD card I can pop that in the side of my mac and do away with a card reader too.

I am still getting me head around the AVCHD format. Files have to be imported and not simply dragged and dropped, but it is a sacrifice I am willing to take for the extra quality.

As well as being able to auto focus the Panasonic will of course record video at 1080p but in this test I wanted to have a quick look at what 720p 50 fps looks like at half speed (25fps).

The camera was set to intelligent auto (IA) and continuous auto focus.

Please keep in mind that this was filmed indoors, with little window light, in one take, using the internal microphone. I edited it in iMovie in about 5 minutes.

When i first saw the TV add for the Samsung ST550 I thought it would be a top vlogging camera. It’s duel screen would mean you could monitor the composition of your video as well as your photos.

SAM_st550.MP4
Watch on Posterous

I was wrong. The front facing screen although very cleverly hidden behind the plastic body and perfect for composing your cheesy self portraits in front of tourist attractions, for some strange reason is not activated during video recording. I figured it must be just ‘off’ as the default and could be turned on but no.. At least I think not. Neither me of the friendly shop assistant could find out how to turn the duel front facing screen whilst shooting video. This was pretty disapointing as as soon as I saw the camera I thought about it as a vloggers camera. I imagine this is a simple firmware upgrade that’s needed so Samsung, if you are watching.. You really have missed a trick and I would have certainly considered your camera over the Canon Ixus 120is I eventually bought. Although saying that, your audio was nowhere near as good as the Ixus so if you get the chance, please sort that out as well. ;o)