I was wrong.

This week I came to a reckoning while using my new Canon Elan 7 non-digital SLR. Shooting film is expensive and time consuming. I even went so far as to delete a previous, long-winded post I created about why you should shoot film instead of digital.

Once you go digital it’s hard to go back. So what I’ve got to figure out is how to get the same quality out of a “low cost” digital camera. I can just forget about the frames-per-second that an SLR can achieve. It’s not that important anyway. A hot shoe and a snyc terminal are a must for an off-camera flash and the maximum aperture has got to be at least 2.0 for those times when I don’t want to use a flash at all. It also has to be at least 5 megapixels.

imageAnd so the top contenders are: The Sony DSC-V3 (7.2 megapixel) and the The Olympus C-5050 (5 megapixel). The Sony is nice but really expensive. It requires a Sony memory stick or a Compact flash card – neither of which I own. I also don’t own a Compact flash card reader.

imageThe Olympus is less expensive and can only be bought used. But it will accept xD, Smartmedia and Compact flash cards. I already own xD and Smartmedia cards plus the reader connected to my PC. So it seems like a no brainer. The editors of Digital Camera magazine have set the C-5050 as the comparison standard in high-end point and shoots for the past 2 years which gives me even more confidence that this is the camera I need to get – after I sell the Canon.

Backup Exec V9.1

image Today I went into grunt mode, I had to upgrade Dillon’s Veritas Backup Exec to Version 9.1 build 4691. I ran into a common problem where all the jobs want to go into a “queued” status instead of running. Seems to be the result of BEDB database corruption as far as I can determine. Hopefully this upgrade will help otherwise I may have to get Veritas involved.

Also, this morning I had to detach and re-attach a production database for our Business Objects reporting website “Infoview”. The drive that the database and it’s corresponding log file sits on were full. I simply did a sp_detach_db in query analyzer, deleted the corresponding log file and reattached the database so that a new, empty log file would be created. Note to self: Remember to rebuild the full text catalog for the Dillon Custom Application any time the Dillon database on DSCSQL1 is detached, otherwise the “filter” in the Telemarketing module will not work. – If I type it, I won’t forget it.

Sorry ’bout the boring techno entry – look for pics of our trip to Williamsburg shortly!

Sony-Ericson T237

Sony-Ericson T237Update 02-20-05: I cancelled this order with Cingular. I’ll be staying with Alltel and my cell number will remain the same.

I just ordered (yet another) new cell phone and I haven’t even told my wife yet. The good thing is that it was only $29.95 and no shipping or sales tax. It’s not the worlds greatest phone but it should work for my purposes and I’ve heard that Cingular has decent coverage in North Raleigh. We’ll see. It has an optional camera phone that goes with it for $44.00 if I feel like I need it later.

Look for pics of my new truck tomorrow. It’s sad but I haven’t been feeling well enough lately to even go to the driveway to take the photos. I’m also going to hook up the Nikon Coolscan that finally arrived a few days ago so I can start scanning slides. I know stomach flu wreaks havoc on most people but try it with Crohn’s. It will probably take until this time next month before I completely recover. I feel pretty slack about my entries. Obviously I’ve had a lot to blog about lately, I just haven’t made the time to do it.

Nikon Coolscan III LS-30

Now I’m ready. I just won a 35mm Nikon transparency scanner on ebay. This Coolscan LS-30 originally sold for $750 to $900 from 1999-2002. I paid a whopping $57.96 plus shipping. I may even dedicate an old PC to it. I happen to have a 19″ Viewsonic monitor that’s not being used. I could build a retro, late 90’s digital image processing station.

imageThis unit’s got modern power though. It scans at up to 2700 dpi (25MB file) from a 35mm negative and uses Nikon Coolscan software – the best in the business. It doesn’t have high end things like multi-sample averaging and can’t output files with more than 8 bits per channel. To get features like those you’ve gotta spend some bucks. This is an old-school pro-tool that has fallen into my price range by technological attrition.

what…WEATHERBUG!?

imageI apologize for my lack of updates lately. I’ve been slammed at work and at home. More work, more birthdays (my dads this time) and then more work again. Today Amy loaded AOL Instant Messenger on my primary PC at home so that she could chat with Katie. Innocent enough. But then to my shock, horror and embarrassment I found Weatherbug on my Start Menu tonight. I’m not sure what saved me from the stroke. Devinne intervention?

Ad-Aware to the rescue – save me now. Sure ‘nuf, 13 data miners were found, quarantined and deleted. Whoa. I still feel violated. The machine seems healthy. Amy didn’t know any better. And like most people she doesn’t understand my concern. So for those who can’t see the “big deal” – Weatherbug is spyware. It loads cookies (files) on your PC to track where you go o the Internet. And AOL is happy to load it for you with Instant Messenger unless you specifically say no. To explain how robust and efficient it is I’ll let the fact that it made 76 connections to 13 sites for traffic reporting in the 9 hours it was on my PC stand as testament. And now I’ve done my “end user support” duties for the evening.

In my world AOL stands for All Outta Luck. Stay away from it at all costs. If you must use IM software, please use Yahoo Messenger. Your PC will thank you. Just for the record, I let Amy keep AOL IM installed. I cleaned off the rest of the garbage it came with.

How Dell made North Carolina beg for business | The Register

How Dell made North Carolina beg for business | The Register

Here’s an article showcasing our state representative’s fiscal discipline. I’m so proud to be from North Cakalacky, the only state where elected officials can’t pronounce the names of towns that end in “oro”. I guess Dell had to receive some incentive to build a plant in a place like “Greensbur”. It’s not exactly the technology center of the universe.

VisionMan 10 “Servers”

imageYes, here come some cheapo, generic VisionMan 10 servers for Dillon Supply’s rack. $1600 for the pair with 1GB of RAM each and a Western Digital 250GB Hard Drive.

The BIOS could see the 250GB drive and it’s full capacity (of course Windoze 2K Server setup could not) but the RealTek PXE boot manager hated it. So I bypassed it and still kept getting the ‘ol “Hard Disk Fail: Drive Not Found” error when trying to boot straight to the drive.

In frustration I popped the 80GB drive in that came with the stupid thing back in. Formated it NTFS, loaded 2000 Server, SQL Server Enterprise, alot of of dependencies, hotfixes and anti-virus. Bang – server running. Now it’s time to add the 250GB drive which Windoze will see now that SP4 installed…. but noooooooo…

The freakin’ server’s only got enough power couplings coming off the 200W power supply for one hard drive! So why did they build the chasis for two??? And to make matters worse, the way the drives fit in the drive bay doesn’t allow for the IDE cable to reach both drives. I gotta find a cable with more distance between the female inputs. Splitting power and abnormal cable requirements – that’s what goin’ cheap gets you. Quite a pain for a couple of test servers.

Rotary Cell Phone

Spark Fun Electronics – Rotary Cell Phone

imageFound on slashdot: This article explains how to turn an old rotary phone into a wireless cell if you are someone who knows all the acronyms. I’m building one of these for my desk at work as soon as I have time (which means maybe next year). How retro-cool is this? I can’t explain.

I haven’t had the chance to work on a PCB in a couple of years. Haven’t really had a reason to until now. And I’ve never touched a cell chip before… success is eminent.

How to get a free Mac Mini – for real.

Here’s how to really get a Mini Mac for absolutely nothing. Follow these instructions exactly and you will get zero spam and no charges on any credit card. It’s done by referring friends.

1. Go to the link below fill out some info (use a spam trap email account like hotmail etc. if it makes you more comfortable).

2. Next click “No” to all of the optional offers presented (unless you’re interested in the garbage).

3. Then when you come to the place where you must select one “required” offer choose the eFax.com offer which is free for 30 days. It is one of those deals where you have to cancel in 30 days or you’re charged.

If you cancel the eFax account within the 30 day trial period and you get 10 people to do the exact same thing I’ve detailed here you will get a Mini Mac for free. The $600 80GB one.

Get your free Mac Mini right here!