- Blog
- Profile
- Homepage
-
Switching to Qwest and T-mobile
Well, if you are concerned at all about the government looking over your phone records, it looks like T-mobile and “Qwest”:http://www.qwest.com/LongDistance/index.html are giving record voluntarily. It was a good chance to see what those folks are up to. I was amazed at how prices have come down: * “Domestic Long Distance”:http://www.qwest.com/LongDistance/index.html. If you are a…
-
Shopping for the Nikon D200
“Pricegrabber”:http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_attrib.php/page_id=48/vendors%5B%5D=NIK/popup4%5B%5D=10:112/popup1%5B%5D=90:975 shows the complexity of buying a Nikon D200. Right now, they come in a couple kits, so what’s the best one? * “Body with 18-200 F3.5-5.6G DX ED VR”:http://www.pricegrabber.com/p__Nikon_D200_SLR_Digital_Camera_w_18_200mm_F_3_5_5_6_Lens,__15228650/search=d200 . “Ken Rockwell”:http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/18200.htm just loves this lense. It is a 12x zoom from wide angle to effective 350mm! Wow that’s amazing, it has vibration reduction…
-
More on PMA 2006
“Luminous Landscape”:http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/pma-30000.shtml really had some other great insights from the PMA. You can read the piece, but the summary is: * The megapixel wars are over. You won’t see new cameras every 12 months anymore. What a relief! Instead, the 6-8 megapixel cameras will be for amateurs and focus on low noise and higher quality.…
-
Scanning Services
When I get board of scanning each slide in, I looked at these services. They are expensive at $1-2/slide or 35mm but when you consider it takes about 10 minutes per slide for me to do it myself, it doesn’t look so bad. Larsen Digital Services. These guys are the top hit from google:”professional 35mm…
-
Oahu is the most amazing place
We’ve been going there for 5 years now very regularly. The kids absolutely love it. For the great budget stay, here are some recommendations. I have a few more on tongfamily https://richtong.org but didn’t have time to ferret them out, so here are the tips from the cheapest to the most expensive things to do:…
-
PMA 2006 Analysis
Thoughts About PMA 2006 and “Luminous Landscape”:http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/pma-30000.shtml. A great analysis of the the latest Photo Marketing Association trade show and what it means. First a good analysis of the various markets that are emerging. This is very complicated because folks don’t have standard terms, but here’s a good breakdown: The great Megapixel Race appears to…
-
Good Nikon reviews
Nikon Field Flash Digital Guide photography by Thom Hogan. This fellow clearly loves them and the review of lens is really great.
-
sites good
Viv Nicholson – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia good site
-
Cirque du Soleil VAREKAI Dining
“Redmond Town Center”:http://www.redmondtowncenter.com/about_us/news/5751 is right next to the Cirque du Soleil. They have a special promotion. If you go to the evening show, you can get free appetizers, etc. plus preferred parking. If you are going to the afternoon 4PM show, then Desert Fire, Red Robin, Matt’s, Todai & Claim Jumper,will have special seating before…
-
FujifilmS9500 vs. Panasonic DMC-FZ30 vs. Canon Digital Rebel XT
Finally, “Cameralabs”:http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/FujifilmS9500/page4.shtml has a good side by side comparison of high end superzooms S9500 and DMC-FZ30 vs the Canon Digital Rebel XT with its kit 18-55mm EF-S lense. While not exactly far, it gives you a sense for whether or not to buy a low end dSLR with a cheap lense or a high end…
-
Noise Ninja, Neat Image and DxO
“Noise Ninja”:http://www.picturecode.com/ and “Neat Image”:http://neatimage.com get frequent mentions from the top photography sites for reducing “digital noise” Another often used tool is “DxO”:http://dxo.com which corrects the imperfections of particular lenses digitally. They have a computer model for popular pro lenses and thus can correct lense problems. Pretty amazing really what you can do with digital…
-
Griffin iFill
For $20, “Griffin iFill”:http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/ifill/ will fill up your ipod when you recharge it overnight with any of a set of FM stations. A pretty good idea, it makes some sense as a usage scenario, but seems like you’d rather get news when it happens rather than overnight. Probably good for music though. I wonder how…
-
Rockbox
Rockbox – Open Source Jukebox Firmware. Wow how cool. This is an open source firmware replacement for iPods as well as certain models of iRiver (H100 and H300), iAudio X5 and Archos. Kind of amazing folks have done this. “Cnet”:http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6450_7-6513844-1.html?tag=cnetfd.sd says that it isn’t flashy, but has lots of features that nerds like me will…
-
Hard time to buy…
“Anandtech”:http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=2753 does another Buyer’s Guide. As he says, it is a hard time to recommend buying a desktop because both AMD and Intel are changing things so quickly. In a few weeks, AMD launches their AM2 platform. It isn’t any faster, but uses much cheaper DDR2 memory, so you should wait for that. On the…
-
Cable economics
Interesting to see how these niche sports folks are doing in terms of viewership on cable: * “OLN and TdF”:http://www.tdfblog.com/2005/07/sunday_tour_cov.html. They got 1.7M viewers or 418K households which was a 2.09 household rating. So its about 1M viewers for household rating.* “NBA and NHL”:http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6329685.html. The NHL got a 0.3 household rating while ESPN’s NBA got…
-
Listening to Windows Media formats with Creative Zen MicroPhoto and Vision:M
!
-
Samsung T509
!
-
Blackberry 7130
!
-
AGEIA PhysX Card
“Anandtech”:http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2751 reviews a physics acceleration card. This takes the physics modeling in games, (you know, shoot a bullet, hit a guy and how does he fall?) and puts a dedicated processor in to do that. It’s for the ultimate gaming geeks and requires specialized games to take advantage. The just shipping Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter…
-
Intel Core Duo on Desktops
Well, as noted before, the hotest processor right now is the Intel Core Duo and the motherboard folks are adapting their desktop designs to put it on the desktop. The true desktop Core Duos don’t ship until later this year, so it’s interesting to get the performance Intel is seeing on the iMac on Windows…
-
Camry Hybrid and other 5-passenger fuel-efficient cars
So I need a commuter car that can squeeze all five of us in a pinch. Here are the choices stack ranked thanks to among other things a “Road & Track”:http://www.roadandtrack.com/article.asp?section_id=31&article_id=3430 shoot out between the Civic Hybrid and the Camry Hybrid. # 2007 Camry Hybrid. Expensive at $25,900 MSRP, but it is large and has…
-
Compact EVF and Ultracompact Digital Cameras
With so many low end cameras coming out post PMA 2006, the choices are really changing. For many folks, a good EVF at $500 or a ultracompact is all that you’ll ever need. Here are some recommendations but stay tuned as these new cameras get reviewed. By the way “Imaging Resource”:http://www.imaging-resource.com/WB/WB.HTM?view=dp_enth probably has the best…
-
Salt Spring Island
We are thinking about going there. Went to Salt Spring Island. There are a lot of slow ways to get there, but “Kenmore Air”:http://www.kenmoreair.com/content.php?content_id=74 flies daily at 2PM out to Ganges on Salt Spring Salt Spring Marine Car Rental. 250-537-5464 or 250-537-3122 or email jaysmall@telus.net Don’t call Budget. The web has “Budget Rental Car”:http://victoria.foundlocally.com/Business/ViewCorp.asp?CorpID=73318. This…
-
Picture and Video Search and Feeds
I’m going through the whole Web 2.0 list, so here is a quick list. Man, the list of new stuff is just daunting. The first one I’ll do is picture and video search: * “Google Image”:http://images.google.com. They say they are still getting the most hits * Roo TV – On-Demand Video Portal. An on demand…
-
Could the best PC be an iMac?
Well, with this news about the Intel Core Duo out, Peter mentioned to me that he had just bought not one, but two of new iMacs. In looking at these bad boys, I can see why. For about $1600, you get a 20″ LCD, the very fast Intel Core Duo, 512MB DDR2 memory, DVD read/write,…
-
Intel Core vs. AMD Athlon 64
Intel vs. AMD Redux. With the new Intel Core Solo and Duo out, its really interesting to see how they perform compared with the Athlon 64. To use the geek terms: Core is a blend of P-M techniques and NetBurst architecture. However, Core is clearly a descendant of the Pentium Pro, or the P6 architecture.…
-
Travel clothes galore
Hey, great question, we went on a three week trip through Europe in July/August (boy did that define hot) and through China in October which was also warm. Here are some brands to try: 1. If you don’t mind toting lots of stuff, then Tommy Bahamas http://www.tommybahama.com/index.jsp really makes nice stuff. It is cotton and…
-
Honda Accessories
Genuine Honda Accessories, News, and Information from College Hills Honda. Here’s a good online place to get Honda accessories.
-
Honda Apple Link
nuxx.net – Honda Music Link iPod Adapter Review. But don’t get the Honda Music Link. It has software that is supposed to allow voice recognition and selection from the stereo, but as this user notes, it doesn’t work. Instead, I’d recommend getting a Tendeck flexible thingy that plugs into the cigarette lighter and then using…
-
Honda Fit Hybrid
Hybrid Cars – Honda Fit Hybrid. More details on this rumored car. The high points: * Will probably be about $3K more than the $16K list. * Target is 60 mpg (!!!) * Will use a 90 hp engine with Honda inline electric motor (20 hp) * They will probalby allow the electric motor only…