If your neighbour asks you if he may borrow your lawn mower, you shouldn't let him. He should get his own mower and pay the mower company the money they deserve for designing, producing and marketing their product. If you bought Simon Singh's "The Code Book" and know a friend who would love it, you should not loan him your copy. If you like Hootie & the Blowfish and have purchased a copy of their music then you should most certainly not let anyone else hear it except you. If you transfer the music to files and give it to someone else then you are a criminal.
Criminals share.
If you like a product you should not share this information with other people. You should offer it for sale if they ask and sue them if they pass it on. Your opinion is your intellectual property. Sharing your opinion for free devalues the opinion. If you do give/sell your opinion to someone, make sure they sign a end user license agreement to not pass that opinion on to anyone else. You could also approach the company who owns the product for which you have an opinion, and ask them to sponsor you to publish your opinion. This is often mistaken for journalism.
The media industry has a problem. They appear to be a bunch of greedy middle men that will rip the guts out of an artist to generate as much income for themselves and their company. Their only talent is making money. Their alleged "nuturing artists" is more like "extorting artists". Often they will try to produce cheap popular crap that they shine up with as many special effects involving as few artists and more computer tinkering as possible and then commence the marketing. Marketing is their god. They inflate product price to "what the market will bare" and complain when people say "too expensive, I'm copying a friends." Rather than look at "why", the corporations start attacking the potential customer with legal proceedings. Such is the image of the media industry. Is it true?
There are plenty of forward thinking people in the world. There does not seem to be any in the media.
2004-10-08
2004-08-26
Olympics
Every olympics I spend a lot of time in the rec.sport.olympics news group. There are the usual morons who post such low level garble of dreary prose that I just have to join in and set them on the road of self recognition of their lowly standards of verbal description, and comprehension.
OK, I flame.
But it is all good fun and I make sure there are plenty of smiles around. At least on my side of the screen.
However there are some particularly good posts and a lot of people wanting clarification or discussion on various issues that are important to them. One of the more interesting discussions is of course, who is winning. The one who has the most medals, cries the USA. Some, like many of the Australians there, would like to think you should score on medals per million population. The truth is that it is much more complicated than that, or simple. The simple answer is - measuring who wins is silly; athletes win events - so just stop there. There have been attempts to define a standardising function using population, economy and some other factors to predict what your score will be next games, and it seems that a couple economists have come pretty close.
In the end - we just want to see our countrymen do well. We would like to share in their moment of joy (seeing as usually our tax money went to get them there). We would like to see some spectacular events. We would also like to see sports that are familiar to us. Given all this, the television stations have a pretty hard task ahead of them. However they are stuffing things up. The free to air stations here in Australia have digital bandwidth that they could be filling with events that they don't have time to put into the mainstream feel good sections. They could have a couple other channels dedication to swapping between a full broadcast of the gymnastics, equestrian, shooting, judo, wrestling, team sport matches etc. But they haven't. This had bloody not better be the case in 2008. What a perfectly fantastic opportunity has gone begging for the tv stations to get people to buy digital decoders. Losers.
OK, I flame.
But it is all good fun and I make sure there are plenty of smiles around. At least on my side of the screen.
However there are some particularly good posts and a lot of people wanting clarification or discussion on various issues that are important to them. One of the more interesting discussions is of course, who is winning. The one who has the most medals, cries the USA. Some, like many of the Australians there, would like to think you should score on medals per million population. The truth is that it is much more complicated than that, or simple. The simple answer is - measuring who wins is silly; athletes win events - so just stop there. There have been attempts to define a standardising function using population, economy and some other factors to predict what your score will be next games, and it seems that a couple economists have come pretty close.
In the end - we just want to see our countrymen do well. We would like to share in their moment of joy (seeing as usually our tax money went to get them there). We would like to see some spectacular events. We would also like to see sports that are familiar to us. Given all this, the television stations have a pretty hard task ahead of them. However they are stuffing things up. The free to air stations here in Australia have digital bandwidth that they could be filling with events that they don't have time to put into the mainstream feel good sections. They could have a couple other channels dedication to swapping between a full broadcast of the gymnastics, equestrian, shooting, judo, wrestling, team sport matches etc. But they haven't. This had bloody not better be the case in 2008. What a perfectly fantastic opportunity has gone begging for the tv stations to get people to buy digital decoders. Losers.
Microsoft
People who know me will know I have been rough on Microsoft from pretty much Windows 3.0. Before then the software they made was well known amongst the computer savvy as being second rate, or barely adequate. But Windows 3 started Microsoft down the route of bringing the PC to the mass market. The mass market didn't know anything about crap software. Microsoft made the operating system so the word processor has to be good. Sounds logical. Reality was very much different tho. Microsoft started a bunch of dirty tactics to make sure that it and anyone who wanted in would have control of the market. Control. It's the big keyword here.
I see a lot of other people trashing Microsoft these days, but they don't have a very big grasp on the history and the slippery slick foulness that oozed off this company. Some people are just plain annoyed and mouthing off with spurious claims of Microsoft's misdeeds and they are doing more damage to the cause than good. I get a feeling for how some of the more conservative greenies must feel about the feral hippies chaining themselves to trees. Or the absolutely moronic punks who throw rocks in a globalisation protest. The idiot kids who want to fight against the "One Nation" party for what the kids "think" the party stands for and not what it actually stands for (which is more ignorance than maliciousness). Unions whose noble ideals are corrupted by petty minded administrative power hungry representatives.
A cause is not responsible for the morons that fight for it.
Unfortunately, in this day where marketing rules all, it seems if you have idiots on the frontline then the mass media will push that image. The public gets turned off the idea.
If you are a moron and prone to getting excited in a mob, please stay home.
Gandhi would win the media campaign every time with his non-violent protest, the other guy would have to become active and voila - he's the bad guy. And if they don't bite, damnit starve yourself until they do.
Back to Microsoft's history; the continual law suits and settlements against Microsoft were simply amazing. They stole code. They stole workers. They bought things that were good and bent them to their own purposes, often making them crap or killing them off completely. Their main product lines were and are lousy with bugs, flaws, unecessary feature bloat and lack of control. The department of justice lawsuit against Microsoft, which went on for years was a farce. Microsoft was convicted. Talks of splitting the company up were just about set in stone. But the penalty was appealed, while Microsoft continued doing what it went to court for. Negotiations and appeals went on for ages. Until the Republican party got in. Microsoft are big buddies with the Republicans. They are major sponsors of the Republican conventions, along with the national gun lobby, telecommunications companies, drug companies, and the tobacco companies. What then. Oh - let Microsoft think up their own punishment; free software for schools. Don't go thinking that the Democrats are any better, justice might have been served in this case had Gore been president but Microsoft money was still good enough for them. As soon as the Republican government came to power everyone knew that Microsoft would get off.
It seems that lately Microsoft, like the USA government, has picked up the pace of doing dirty evil thngs. The push for digital rights management, the lies about other operating systems, the pulling out from the United Nations Standard group, it's enourmous push to place patents on even the most rediculous of things is indicitive of an unhealthy system and power gone mad. The centralising of wealth can only go on for so long, but it seems that the power mongers of society today are rushing to wring every last drop of blood from the planet ... before we turn on ourselves.
So - don't buy Microsoft. Or Sony. Or NEC for that matter (they screwed me over once and I won't forget it). There was more point to this but my fingers and brain are tired.
I see a lot of other people trashing Microsoft these days, but they don't have a very big grasp on the history and the slippery slick foulness that oozed off this company. Some people are just plain annoyed and mouthing off with spurious claims of Microsoft's misdeeds and they are doing more damage to the cause than good. I get a feeling for how some of the more conservative greenies must feel about the feral hippies chaining themselves to trees. Or the absolutely moronic punks who throw rocks in a globalisation protest. The idiot kids who want to fight against the "One Nation" party for what the kids "think" the party stands for and not what it actually stands for (which is more ignorance than maliciousness). Unions whose noble ideals are corrupted by petty minded administrative power hungry representatives.
A cause is not responsible for the morons that fight for it.
Unfortunately, in this day where marketing rules all, it seems if you have idiots on the frontline then the mass media will push that image. The public gets turned off the idea.
If you are a moron and prone to getting excited in a mob, please stay home.
Gandhi would win the media campaign every time with his non-violent protest, the other guy would have to become active and voila - he's the bad guy. And if they don't bite, damnit starve yourself until they do.
Back to Microsoft's history; the continual law suits and settlements against Microsoft were simply amazing. They stole code. They stole workers. They bought things that were good and bent them to their own purposes, often making them crap or killing them off completely. Their main product lines were and are lousy with bugs, flaws, unecessary feature bloat and lack of control. The department of justice lawsuit against Microsoft, which went on for years was a farce. Microsoft was convicted. Talks of splitting the company up were just about set in stone. But the penalty was appealed, while Microsoft continued doing what it went to court for. Negotiations and appeals went on for ages. Until the Republican party got in. Microsoft are big buddies with the Republicans. They are major sponsors of the Republican conventions, along with the national gun lobby, telecommunications companies, drug companies, and the tobacco companies. What then. Oh - let Microsoft think up their own punishment; free software for schools. Don't go thinking that the Democrats are any better, justice might have been served in this case had Gore been president but Microsoft money was still good enough for them. As soon as the Republican government came to power everyone knew that Microsoft would get off.
It seems that lately Microsoft, like the USA government, has picked up the pace of doing dirty evil thngs. The push for digital rights management, the lies about other operating systems, the pulling out from the United Nations Standard group, it's enourmous push to place patents on even the most rediculous of things is indicitive of an unhealthy system and power gone mad. The centralising of wealth can only go on for so long, but it seems that the power mongers of society today are rushing to wring every last drop of blood from the planet ... before we turn on ourselves.
So - don't buy Microsoft. Or Sony. Or NEC for that matter (they screwed me over once and I won't forget it). There was more point to this but my fingers and brain are tired.
2004-08-08
Doom 3
Yes, I am a big fan of ID. I was one of the geeks who played all of the Wolfenstein levels you could find, I played the various Commander Keen releases too damnit. I was one of the idiots waiting for ID to release the original Doom, which they couldn't because the site they were supposed to release it on was clogged with slobbering geeks awaiting the download. I played a huge number of add on levels of Doom. I played it over a modem, I played it in a group lan.
And Quake was even worse for me. So many LAN parties which included a horde of Duke Nukem. I was in one of the top Australian guilds.
Quake 2 was fun ... in single player mode. Quake 3 was good intense fun for quite a while through the demo but never really made a hit with me for some reason. I guess that was when Everquest came out. So I wandered in my ID following. Return to Castle Wolfenstein was ok except when some of the bosses were just a little too hard I just went on to more fruitful ventures in life. Like anything. Vietcong provided a whole new feel for a while. Unreal Tournament with co-operative against bots was VERY entertaining. I have a friend who is in love with Serious Sam, and that was a real blast to play through on co-operative. I have played the Unreal Tournament 2004 demo and love the vehicles and taking over power towers. But it gets to the point where you know which side is going to win and the rest of the game is spent in futile resistance or bothersome stamping out of the opposition.
I knew there were a heap of other great software out there but you really have to limit yourself to something that will entertain you. LAN days where you spend half the time changing software is not really too much fun.
Doom 3 has been on the cards for a long long long time now. There was a "release" of a beta that showed a pretty neat environment - but wasn't overly interesting. The hype has been steadily building since then. The current reviews of the game are as good as you will ever get. Doom 3 was released last week and I have been playing it on and off whenever I get the chance. To make it simple for you, I approve and agree with what the reviews say: this is an awesome and defining game for it's genre. This game will scare you.
I love the tribute to the Doom monsters and setting. Some rooms I can pick as being right out of the original Doom. So should anyone who has had the Doom dreams - you know what they are if you have had them. And if you have had them then you have played Doom seriously too much.
And Quake was even worse for me. So many LAN parties which included a horde of Duke Nukem. I was in one of the top Australian guilds.
Quake 2 was fun ... in single player mode. Quake 3 was good intense fun for quite a while through the demo but never really made a hit with me for some reason. I guess that was when Everquest came out. So I wandered in my ID following. Return to Castle Wolfenstein was ok except when some of the bosses were just a little too hard I just went on to more fruitful ventures in life. Like anything. Vietcong provided a whole new feel for a while. Unreal Tournament with co-operative against bots was VERY entertaining. I have a friend who is in love with Serious Sam, and that was a real blast to play through on co-operative. I have played the Unreal Tournament 2004 demo and love the vehicles and taking over power towers. But it gets to the point where you know which side is going to win and the rest of the game is spent in futile resistance or bothersome stamping out of the opposition.
I knew there were a heap of other great software out there but you really have to limit yourself to something that will entertain you. LAN days where you spend half the time changing software is not really too much fun.
Doom 3 has been on the cards for a long long long time now. There was a "release" of a beta that showed a pretty neat environment - but wasn't overly interesting. The hype has been steadily building since then. The current reviews of the game are as good as you will ever get. Doom 3 was released last week and I have been playing it on and off whenever I get the chance. To make it simple for you, I approve and agree with what the reviews say: this is an awesome and defining game for it's genre. This game will scare you.
I love the tribute to the Doom monsters and setting. Some rooms I can pick as being right out of the original Doom. So should anyone who has had the Doom dreams - you know what they are if you have had them. And if you have had them then you have played Doom seriously too much.
2004-07-23
Pizza recipe
My girlfriend, Dragonfly, and I were cruising back to my place before we were to go out to the movies. We were going to have a quick dinner of whatever I might have about the place to avoid paying exhorbitant restaurant prices.
I usually can cook up something like rice and steamed vegetables and some lightly pan fried fish in less than 30minutes. Throw in some spices and nice sauce and you have really tasty healthy food. It is so easy - I don't know why "lean cuisine" sells at all.
A couple weeks ago, I had introduced Dragonfly to my specialty hors d'oeuvres of water biscuit, brie, smoked salmon and caviar (lumpfish roe). I don't make that many things, being a guy and all, but when you find something absolutely yummy as this, you find out how it is done and make it for yourself.
Well, as we were heading home, Dragonfly says that she would love some of the biscuits. In fact, she'd love one as large as a pizza.
Well now there was an idea. A pizza with brie, smoked salmon and caviar. Would it work? My mind was thinking about things that might go wrong but my taste buds and tummy were screaming out "YEAH BABY!"
So we stop at the local supplier of excellent but almost expensive things - Coles, and purchase about $20 worth of goodies. Get home and assemble the most delicious of pizza for about 25mins of baking.
Yes! This pizza is most excellent!!! We had it for the second time tonight, and I feel the need to share the discovery to the world because such yumminess must be shared. Be warned that it is salty and you will need plenty of beverage. If you are unsure about caviar - try the biscuit thing next time friends come over, there is bound to be a couple people who will *love* it so the biscuits won't go to waste if you don't like 'em.
At $20 for 2 largish pizzas - it's moderately good value too.
I usually can cook up something like rice and steamed vegetables and some lightly pan fried fish in less than 30minutes. Throw in some spices and nice sauce and you have really tasty healthy food. It is so easy - I don't know why "lean cuisine" sells at all.
A couple weeks ago, I had introduced Dragonfly to my specialty hors d'oeuvres of water biscuit, brie, smoked salmon and caviar (lumpfish roe). I don't make that many things, being a guy and all, but when you find something absolutely yummy as this, you find out how it is done and make it for yourself.
Well, as we were heading home, Dragonfly says that she would love some of the biscuits. In fact, she'd love one as large as a pizza.
Well now there was an idea. A pizza with brie, smoked salmon and caviar. Would it work? My mind was thinking about things that might go wrong but my taste buds and tummy were screaming out "YEAH BABY!"
So we stop at the local supplier of excellent but almost expensive things - Coles, and purchase about $20 worth of goodies. Get home and assemble the most delicious of pizza for about 25mins of baking.
Yes! This pizza is most excellent!!! We had it for the second time tonight, and I feel the need to share the discovery to the world because such yumminess must be shared. Be warned that it is salty and you will need plenty of beverage. If you are unsure about caviar - try the biscuit thing next time friends come over, there is bound to be a couple people who will *love* it so the biscuits won't go to waste if you don't like 'em.
At $20 for 2 largish pizzas - it's moderately good value too.
2004-07-18
Digital photo printing
Megapixels
This is a big hobby horse of mine. Well, photography is a hobby of mine, but the horse I ride is about people insisting that they have a huge number of megapixels. I looked carefully at the pros and cons before purchasing and have been ever so happy with my decision to stay with the lower megapixel camera but better optics and better reviews. The same sort of reasoning would apply today although you'd be looking at the other features on offer.
I have a 1.3 Megapixel camera. I have printed A4 size with excellent results, far better than I thought, and recently I printed A3, I really didn't think I would get as good a result as I did. The resolution of the image is 1280x960 and printing on 42cmx30cm which is about 80dpi once you allow for border ... and the print looks great. Only cost $6 too. I had a 4 Megapixel image printed up too, I was just as pleased. I have yet to go over it with a magnifying glass, but nobody I have shown so far can pick which has the higher resolution source image.
The 4 Megapixel image was 1.3MB, the 1.3Megapixel image was 0.3MB. My 256Meg card can store 700 images (1.3MP) at fine resolution. The 128Meg MMC card for the 4MP camera could only store around 90. When I go away on holidays I take about 8-10 rolls of 36 exposure film on average. So the 4Megapixel camera wouldn't cut it. I would have to buy one of those external hard drive downloaders, or take a laptop. Plus my hard drive would fill up 4x as fast.
The obvious solution is to set your 4MP camera to low resolution, which is exactly what I do. You have the advantage of setting to higher resolution whenever you really want / need it. Most cameras behave better at lower resolution settings too, they have more light per pixel to play with. And light *is* the image.
Most of my images are for screen viewing or web or emailing. My screen is only 1280x960, the highest resolution on my 1.3MP camera. Any bigger and the viewing programs would just resize it anyways. For web, the best I want is usaully 640x480, so some scaling down there, and the same for emailing, I would NOT make friends by sending 4MP files and gumming up email accounts. Like some of them do to me. Bastards.
There are other way more important numbers that you want to look at in a camera. You can't get 1.3MP cameras anymore (unless they are built into a mobile phone ... in which case they are probably CMOS and have a horde of other lense related problems), but if you want to save money then the easiest way is to reject the "supersize me" mentality on megapixels. YOU DON'T NEED IT!
Once you get an idea of the things you are looking for then check DPReview (www.dpreview.com) for an excellent guide on the various numbers. You should also check eBay if you're game, plenty of bargains - just make sure you are getting the full pack - because sometimes they leave things out to make it cheaper (Like the lense on the Canon Digital Rebel). Also Google around for online camera stores for the make model camera you want.
Video
Still image digital cameras have video, and if you're going to go that route, and damnit - I would, then you had better get one with sound - or what is the point? People gripe about cameras only being able to take 20 seconds at a time. Me - I think this is a great idea. You want to make a real video then get a video recorder. But for most people - nobody wants to see you pan around for 5 minutes occasionally zooming in and out. Think about the scene, take the clip and move on. Nobody wants to watch your stuff anyway.
Start up time
Start up time is kind of important. Some cameras just take way too long and if you are after a snap of an incident in progress ... long start up times can ruin you.
Delay to shoot
The time taken from your press down on the button to the actual image being captured is VERY important. Many cameras out there just don't cut it. You want a car going across your view, you see the car, press the button ... wait ... click - car long gone.
Zoom
Yeah, optical zoom is the best, BUT the amount of zoom out (wide angle) is absolutely critical. This is usually measured in the 35mm equivalent, but some stores / ads don't use that. Forget all them, check DPReview. Digital cameras usually can only zoom out to 35, the best ones go to 28. The lower the number the better. Any camera with it's widest zoom > 35 is complete rubbish and should be avoided.
Why don't I worry about "zoom in"? 3x is plenty good enough. I don't even like going that far. The more you zoom in the more you are prone to movement blur from shaking the camera, less light is getting onto your CCD making it darker or lengthening the exposure (even more prone to shake blur), the more issues there are with lense aberations. Forget it. Just walk closer to the subject. Walking back is the hard bit, regularly cannot be done because of walls, cliffs, gardens, roads!
Macro
Lesser importance, but one that I use moderately often is the macro zoom. You should be able to change the camera into a macro mode and get extremely close to what you want to capture. Some cameras only get you 40cm to the subject, some will let you get 1cm! This is awesome for taking shots of flowers, bugs, and small items for insurance / eBay.
Battery life
Oh yeah, if you get the wrong camera, say from Minolta, then you can be really chewing through the batteries - like a set every 10 shots. You get the right camera and put it in the right mode, you can get > 200 shots without needing a change your precious power mechanism. The only way I have seen to find this information out is to check the user feedback on DPReview or talk to someone who has one. Don't trust salesmen unless you get them to write down what they say on paper and sign it.
Memory card type
Compact Flash is everywhere and really popular but the SD/MMC is newer smaller and fast gaining acceptance. Whatever you do, avoid like the plague anything that takes proprietary memory, like MEMORY STICK (evil evil evil) meaning that you are stuck with one company for memory supply and they will charge what they want, and they always want more than you want to pay.
Also check out:
Buying a camera
Photo printing
Camera Comparison
DPReview
Lunar photography
This is a big hobby horse of mine. Well, photography is a hobby of mine, but the horse I ride is about people insisting that they have a huge number of megapixels. I looked carefully at the pros and cons before purchasing and have been ever so happy with my decision to stay with the lower megapixel camera but better optics and better reviews. The same sort of reasoning would apply today although you'd be looking at the other features on offer.
I have a 1.3 Megapixel camera. I have printed A4 size with excellent results, far better than I thought, and recently I printed A3, I really didn't think I would get as good a result as I did. The resolution of the image is 1280x960 and printing on 42cmx30cm which is about 80dpi once you allow for border ... and the print looks great. Only cost $6 too. I had a 4 Megapixel image printed up too, I was just as pleased. I have yet to go over it with a magnifying glass, but nobody I have shown so far can pick which has the higher resolution source image.
The 4 Megapixel image was 1.3MB, the 1.3Megapixel image was 0.3MB. My 256Meg card can store 700 images (1.3MP) at fine resolution. The 128Meg MMC card for the 4MP camera could only store around 90. When I go away on holidays I take about 8-10 rolls of 36 exposure film on average. So the 4Megapixel camera wouldn't cut it. I would have to buy one of those external hard drive downloaders, or take a laptop. Plus my hard drive would fill up 4x as fast.
The obvious solution is to set your 4MP camera to low resolution, which is exactly what I do. You have the advantage of setting to higher resolution whenever you really want / need it. Most cameras behave better at lower resolution settings too, they have more light per pixel to play with. And light *is* the image.
Most of my images are for screen viewing or web or emailing. My screen is only 1280x960, the highest resolution on my 1.3MP camera. Any bigger and the viewing programs would just resize it anyways. For web, the best I want is usaully 640x480, so some scaling down there, and the same for emailing, I would NOT make friends by sending 4MP files and gumming up email accounts. Like some of them do to me. Bastards.
There are other way more important numbers that you want to look at in a camera. You can't get 1.3MP cameras anymore (unless they are built into a mobile phone ... in which case they are probably CMOS and have a horde of other lense related problems), but if you want to save money then the easiest way is to reject the "supersize me" mentality on megapixels. YOU DON'T NEED IT!
Once you get an idea of the things you are looking for then check DPReview (www.dpreview.com) for an excellent guide on the various numbers. You should also check eBay if you're game, plenty of bargains - just make sure you are getting the full pack - because sometimes they leave things out to make it cheaper (Like the lense on the Canon Digital Rebel). Also Google around for online camera stores for the make model camera you want.
Video
Still image digital cameras have video, and if you're going to go that route, and damnit - I would, then you had better get one with sound - or what is the point? People gripe about cameras only being able to take 20 seconds at a time. Me - I think this is a great idea. You want to make a real video then get a video recorder. But for most people - nobody wants to see you pan around for 5 minutes occasionally zooming in and out. Think about the scene, take the clip and move on. Nobody wants to watch your stuff anyway.
Start up time
Start up time is kind of important. Some cameras just take way too long and if you are after a snap of an incident in progress ... long start up times can ruin you.
Delay to shoot
The time taken from your press down on the button to the actual image being captured is VERY important. Many cameras out there just don't cut it. You want a car going across your view, you see the car, press the button ... wait ... click - car long gone.
Zoom
Yeah, optical zoom is the best, BUT the amount of zoom out (wide angle) is absolutely critical. This is usually measured in the 35mm equivalent, but some stores / ads don't use that. Forget all them, check DPReview. Digital cameras usually can only zoom out to 35, the best ones go to 28. The lower the number the better. Any camera with it's widest zoom > 35 is complete rubbish and should be avoided.
Why don't I worry about "zoom in"? 3x is plenty good enough. I don't even like going that far. The more you zoom in the more you are prone to movement blur from shaking the camera, less light is getting onto your CCD making it darker or lengthening the exposure (even more prone to shake blur), the more issues there are with lense aberations. Forget it. Just walk closer to the subject. Walking back is the hard bit, regularly cannot be done because of walls, cliffs, gardens, roads!
Macro
Lesser importance, but one that I use moderately often is the macro zoom. You should be able to change the camera into a macro mode and get extremely close to what you want to capture. Some cameras only get you 40cm to the subject, some will let you get 1cm! This is awesome for taking shots of flowers, bugs, and small items for insurance / eBay.
Battery life
Oh yeah, if you get the wrong camera, say from Minolta, then you can be really chewing through the batteries - like a set every 10 shots. You get the right camera and put it in the right mode, you can get > 200 shots without needing a change your precious power mechanism. The only way I have seen to find this information out is to check the user feedback on DPReview or talk to someone who has one. Don't trust salesmen unless you get them to write down what they say on paper and sign it.
Memory card type
Compact Flash is everywhere and really popular but the SD/MMC is newer smaller and fast gaining acceptance. Whatever you do, avoid like the plague anything that takes proprietary memory, like MEMORY STICK (evil evil evil) meaning that you are stuck with one company for memory supply and they will charge what they want, and they always want more than you want to pay.
Also check out:
Buying a camera
Photo printing
Camera Comparison
DPReview
Lunar photography
2004-07-13
Lunch time
Finalised a web site that I have been working on intensively for the past couple weeks. The site owners are extremely happy and relieved that all the information is finally out. I am the second web monkey to work on the site, the first guy had to go overseas and was given an out of date set of source material to construct the site from. Basically, the content had to be rewritten, but the site template needed little change. The menuing system used is an excellent java script from milonic, highly recommended if you don't mind editing code - only basic editing as the script is really well done.
Boss is away sick and I really would like to get her feedback on another web contract that I have won. Need to get some water tight specifications and costings to them. Aparently we were $40,000 cheaper than the other guy, they told us this and I could not see where the problem is. I have done something similar before, in fact, if their specifications had not included some extra features then I would have been able to use my old code and done the complete product for one tenth of the cost I quoted. Well they have already changed the specifications and they know I am going to charge more because of it.
Lunch over. More work.
Boss is away sick and I really would like to get her feedback on another web contract that I have won. Need to get some water tight specifications and costings to them. Aparently we were $40,000 cheaper than the other guy, they told us this and I could not see where the problem is. I have done something similar before, in fact, if their specifications had not included some extra features then I would have been able to use my old code and done the complete product for one tenth of the cost I quoted. Well they have already changed the specifications and they know I am going to charge more because of it.
Lunch over. More work.
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