At some time or another the time will come when you look at your old Hanimex 35mm and say "well, old buddy, I'm afraid you're obsolete." It will be a sad day, for many that day has already come. For me it came two years ago when I realised that photography and photos were changing so rapidly and that I had to keep up or get left in a big cloud of dust kicked back from the 21st century.

So then you have to go through every catalogue, megapixels screaming at you and confusion racking your tired brain. Let's face it. We could all use a little help. You need to do some heavy-duty research before purchasing a camera. 42nd Street is a digital camera store that reviews and recommends various digital cameras and helps the digital camera shopper to decipher the myriad of options available to them. With concern to safekeeping digital pictures there is a handy section on camera care, warranties and storage. Their prices are reasonable and some savings can be found on many of the models discussed on the site. The range includes cameras for the holiday snapper right up to the serious photographer.



This post brought to you by 42nd Street Photo.

HP 550 Business Notebook - FW384AT
Celeron T1400 / 1.73 GHz, RAM 1 GB, HDD 120 GB, CD-RW / DVD-ROM combo, Intel GMA X3100, WLAN : 802.11b/g, Vista Home Basic, 15.4" Widescreen TFT 1280 x 800 ( WXGA )


I'm amazed at how inexpensive HP notebooks are these days. Although it's not just HP, many other brands of notebooks are also bringing their prices down. The above model can be found for around $500 (US), whereas previously it may have been closer to $1000. But this is the beauty of technology, the prices continue to come down as the features go up. Perhaps a 256mb version two years ago was out of reach. I'm just waiting for that last little discount so I can get myself a roaring beast of a laptop. One that can launch shuttles and that sort of thing. Well, maybe not shuttles, I suppose Windows XP would do. Although I've been wanting to try Ubuntu since Windows hogs a lot of resources. I just need my favourite programs to create versions compatible with Ubuntu and I'll definitely give it a go.















Samsung CLP-315 Color Laser Printer
This model can now be found for under $200. However, the price of the printer is not the amount you should be focusing on.

When you are looking to buy portable printers, there are many factors to consider.
1. Size - is the footprint of your printer small enough to fit into your office/home office?

2. Consumables - some laser printers use an solid ink that sometimes can cost more than the printer itself. Make sure your needs are commensurate with the features and requirements of your printer. In other words, make sure you run the printer, not the other way around.

3. Electricity usage - unbeknownst to many people is that fact that some models of printer need to be left on all the time for different reasons including smoother running and ink conservation. In an era of global warming and financial crisis, this may not be the best investment. Make sure you find out these details before committing to a purchase.

I don't know about you but I find that surveillance and GPS tracking can be mighty useful. I just watched "Firewall" the other night. How does Harrison Ford find his kidnapped family? By following the dog's GPS collar microchip on his laptop screen.

Now, I'm not suggesting people should get themselves microchipped, but if your are wanting to track something (or someone! - ooo, play X-Files music here!), then this little device is quite nifty and could come in handy when you least expect it. Like when you're being pursued by aliens and you need to find the rendezvous hiding spot. Or if you are trying to find your dog because the end of the world is coming and you're in the car with Bruce Willis. Or any other situation far more plausible than the ones I just mentioned (but you never know!)

These easily concealed, pocket sized GPS Tracking devices get their signals from 24 Department of Defense GPS satellites and are accurate to 2.5 metres, updating every second (I told you this was X-Files-ish!!). Strong magnets inside make it possible to place underneath a car, and it is also water resistant. When you have the information you can turn on a computer (or laptop if you are speeding across the desert on a mission) - and plug in the tracking key into your USB port. You can then follow the progress in real time on your screen, using the existing technology of Google Earth.



This post brought to you by LandAirSea.

The debate rages on. Many will tell you that digital is the way of the future,
because it's new, it's better, can hold more information, keeps for longer....etc.etc.etc.

Well, I'm not sure that applies to everything. On comparing digital voice recorders for recording ideas such as:
song ideas
movie scripts
a novel
blog entries(!!!)

I realised that these little digital recorders (see fig 1.) have their setbacks. On reading the 5 star rating review system on Amazon.com, I was amazed at the number of complaints about these machines. I was intrigued so I read on..."erased all my information"...."wasn't compatible with XP software"..."recorded 30 hours of grainy, scratchy, unintelligible information"

I was stunned.

fig 1.



These gadgets boast "30 hours recording time!!" but in the small print it actually means 30 hours of unintelligible static OR...3 hours of high quality recording. And what if the machine crashes while downloading to your computer? What then?
A novel lost!! Brilliant ideas down the drain!!

And nobody wants that.

So then I thought, what about the alternative? I could get a dictaphone (fig 2.) ...yes, that's right...using TAPE!!!! (Techno savvy metros gasp in horror here)
But seriously, you record a side of a tape. You turn it over. You record the other side. You knock the tabs out. If you simply HAVE to have everything you ever create on computer (and many do!!) then get a male to male stereo plug, plug one end in the "line in" jack at the back of your computer, plug the other end into your dictaphone, or tape recorder or whatever, use a program like "MP3MYMP3" (freeware, check any site such as tucows etc.) and record the ideas as MP3s.

Brilliant!!!

Fig 2.




If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Or, to go one step further...

Don't "upgrade" to something crap.