Chad Things

I got a third lens for my collection – this one is a NICE. The 70-300mm DO IS USM Lens. This is a bad boy. First, on the techie tip, the DO indicates Canon’s new Diffractive Optics technology, which means i can have a 300mm lens in a tiny little package (great for travelling, why i bought it). Also, the IS (Image Stabilization) is improved so much that its equivalent to 3 f-stops when hand-holding. You can really notice this – makes taking pics much easier. This will be a great compliment to my 17-85mm lens. I can now take pics of somebody’s face from a hundred feet away (like this). Hurray.

I got my new pocket-size digital camera, the SD600 today. I bought the SD450 only a few months ago, but on my recent trip to New York and Philly, I smashed the LCD screen. I’m not sure how, but i prolly put my keys and the camera in my pocket together, and i think the keys applied pressure to that huge 2.5″ LCD screen. But the SD450 was great, so i wanted another one. I spent a few more bucks this time and got the SD600, which is pretty much identical to the SD450 except its 6 megapixel instead of 5, and takes better shots in low light (due to ISO 800).

Also, I’ve been enjoying my Canon 350d that i got a few weeks ago, so i decided to get a second lens – the 50mm F/1.4 lens. My friend dennis has one, he loves it, as do most people. I chose the 50mm because it is quality yet affordable, does great portraits and works well in low light without flash (gotta love that f1.4 aperture). I’ve found that my 17-85mm does a good job all-around – the 17mm is enough wide angle for me for indoor room shots, and the 85mm has enuf zoom to get decent shots from far away. However, i do want to get another telephoto type lens, but i’m not sure if i want a zoom lens, like the 70-200mm($600), or a fixed-focal length (prime) lens, like the 135mm($800) or 200mm($600).

Score one for apple. Ok, this is just a quick update on my apple macbook pro laptop adventures. About a week ago my laptop battery started going out, from 3-4 hours on a full charge to 5 mins or less before it would die (not even ‘sleep’). Obviously this sux, so i needed to fix. First i thought i could just go to an apple store and they would swap it. But alas, there’s only one apple store in SF and the genius bar there is always booked, making this idea and all tech support a nightmare. So i called 1-800-fix-my-apple-please and within 5 mins the nice girl resolved my issue – i’d get a new battery delivered to my door, and as long as i returned the old one, no charge. The very next morning my new battery arrived. That was 12,000 times easier than trying to goto the genius bar, and i’m super happy. Hurray apple.

Yep, today I dropped a grand on a camera and lens. Took the plunge into the Digital SLR world. With all my free time and travel coming up, i needed a nicer camera, and after a bit of research, i went for the 350D. I’m not going to bore you with how i picked, but basically the 350D is arguably the best value under $1K. You can compare canons or compare 350D to Nikon D70 for yourself.

As you probably know, nice cameras sell lenses separately. Deciding which lens is right depends on what ya gonna use it for. I’m still not sure what i want, but at a high level, i want to take
– panaramic shots of nature – beaches, mountains, lakes, etc.
– wide angle shots indoors – dinner table, people in small rooms, etc.
– low-light situations – night sky, no-flash shots of people at bars/restaraunts
– macro – close-ups of flowers, jewelry, etc
– normal shots of everything in between

Today I just got one lens in addition to the 350D body, both from craigslist. The body was $550, and i got a 17-85mm like-new lens from his buddy for $450. A good intro lens – not too expensivve, a little bit of macro (1.2 feet), a bit of telephoto, got the IS (Image-Stabilization) for low-light. So Thats $1,000 total. One grand. Lets see if i really use this and want to spend more on even nicer lenses.

Ok, so they don’t always suck – they can design kick-ass products, but they’re quality and support need some work. I’ve had several problems recently with both my new macbook pro and my ipod video, and i need to vent a bit.

I took a chance and bought the new intel-based macbook pro. I’ve had it a few weeks now, and for the most part its the same as the powerbook. The main 2 things that are different are the intel chip (vs PowerPC chip in powerbook), and the RAM access (twice as fast on macbook). For the few apps that are compiled as a universal binary (like camino browser), macbook rocks. But most apps are not, and performance is about the same as the powerbook.

Specifically, i was using firefox (powerpc binary) a week ago when my laptop froze up. The mouse would still work, but nothing else would. I let it sit for a while (10 mins), came back, and it was still frozen, so i hard-rebooted. After this, it would not ever boot up again – It would go to the screen where it says “Mac OS X” in small white square window with solid blue background, and then just be completely solid blue, and stay forever. I kept hard-rebooting (by holding down power button till it turns off) and repeating this process for several days. Unable to find any info help online, I went to the “genius bar” at the local apple store. They would not accept drop-offs, and the wait to talk to anyone 1-1.5 hours. Sigh. I had to goto work, so i skipped it. Later I tried a few more things on my own, including the firewire target disk mode (press-T-on-bootup), but nothing worked till i wiped the drive and did a fresh install. So i lost all my data, but at least my laptop works again. I’m not sure exactly what happened, i’m guessing there were bad sectors on the harddrive that could not be read on bootup so it hung .. but not sure. I should prolly run some exhaustive drive checks …

The other problem i have is with my ipod video. I have the 60GB one, bought last december, and 3 times now it has frozen up on me. The screen is lit up, usually during mp3 playback, but the entire unit becomes unresponsive. Normally you can power on/off a device or computer if it freezes up, worst case remove batteries/power and reboot. But ipod video does not have that option. I had to wait till batteries were drained and it powered off. Then i plugged it in and it would reboot. Not annoying enough for me to get rid of if and by a new mp3 player, but annoying enough to piss me off and blog about it. Heh.

Update: Check out the comments for ways to fix..

2/21 Update – It was shipped 2/18 via Federal Express and arrived today. Hurray!!!! Now back to the original post from 2/14:

Just got an email today – my new apple laptop, the intel-based macbook pro, has been delayed and upgraded. Is this good news? Hmm… When i ordered it on Jan 10, 2006, they said it would ship 2/15. Today they said they will begin shipping the macbook pro, but mine will not ship till 2/23. For the record, i ordered the macbook pro the day they were announced – so you would think mine would be the first to ship – think again. I guess its because i got the more expensive 1.83GHz version. However, my 1.83 GHz has been upgraded to 2.0GHz – and for $300 more i can bump it up to 2.16 GHz (yeah right .. maybe for $50 .. but not $300). Anyway, i suppose one week is not that long, and it will be slightly faster …

Here’s the email i received on 2/14 from apple:

                                                         Date: 02/14/2006
To Our Valued Apple Customer:

  Today we announced that this week Apple will begin shipping the new 15.4-inch
  MacBook Pro featuring the Intel Core Duo processor, a built-in iSight, Front
  Row with Apple Remote and more. The reception of the MacBook Pro has been
  tremendous and we are working hard to ship as many units as fast as possible.

  Better still, prior to shipment we've improved the entire MacBook Pro family
  with configurations starting at 1.83Ghz up to 2.16GHz. We have upgraded your
  MacBook Pro from a 1.83GHz processor to a 2.0GHz processor at no additional
  cost! We anticipate shipping your upgraded order by February 23, 2006.

  To learn more about the most recent upgrades to the MacBook Pro family, please
  visit http://www.apple.com/macbookpro. You might be interested to know that
  Apple is offering an even faster processor - the 2.16GHz. This is a custom
  configured option and is available for an additional charge.

  If you decide you'd like to make a change to your upgraded MacBook Pro order,
  we're happy to help. You may reach us at at 1-800-676-2775, Mon-Fri 7 am-10 pm
  and 9 am-6 pm Sat-Sun (Central). Some change requests may extend your shipment
  date slightly. If we do not hear from you by February 18th, we will ship the
  MacBook Pro 2.0Ghz Intel Core Duo.

  Our systems will reflect the change to your order by February 15. Please visit
  http://www.apple.com/orderstatus for the
  most up-to-date information on your upgraded order.  A shipment notification,
  with tracking information, will be emailed to you as soon as your order is
  shipped.

  Thank you very much for shopping at the Apple Store!

  Sincerely,
  The Apple Store Team

I’ve finally gone Apple. Ever since i was a kid and my dad worked for IBM, i’ve always been into computers, but some how resisted Apple. First DOS, then OS/2 (i really loved), then NT 4.0, and finally XP. But I’ve never really liked microsoft, and when OS X was released, i started getting excited, mainly because it has BSD underneath (i know how to hack with that), but also because it finally had enough applications that i no longer needed windows for anything. This last one is key – every consumer will have at least one application they love and will tolerate crap as long as they can still have that killer app.

First apple purchase was the 60GB iPod Video. My old mp3 player died, and i wanted a new one with a big drive and quality sound – this fit the bill with a great screen for photos and videos as bonus.

Then I drooled at the powerbook for a while and finally broke down and bought the 15″ one (standard except 1GB RAM) on 12/28/05. It arrived Jan 3, and i loved it ever since i opened it. I’ve been around computers my whole life, always buying lots of gadgets, but i never thought i’d be so happy about a laptop. The whole experience is done right – from the sleek laptop body and backlit keyboard to the vivid screen colors to how easy it was to be up and running. I won’t go much into it, because i have to return it – what you say? read on.

Then today, 1/10/06, Apple officially announced the new intel-based laptops – MacBook Pro. It was not unexpected, there are several reasons apple went intel (price, DRM, etc), but i decided i wanted the better performance that steve jobs professes. I called apple, and luckily i was on day 13 of my 12/28 purchase and still fell under the 14-day refund policy. Hurray!!!. So i got a RMA to return that and then immediately went and purchased the MacBook Pro online (but it won’t ship till February, sigh).

Here’s some key differences if you’re considering an apple laptop:

Right before i went to morocco i lost my cell phone, which sux. I quickly scoped out the current offerings, almost went with Motorola RAZR v3, but decided on the VX-8100 from LG. I’m not a big fan of verizon (not as good as ATT/Cingular at yahoo campus), but verizon’s the only one selling it. The 2 main reasons i went with the 8100 were because i previously had the VX6000 from LG, and it ruled (robust – dropped it hundreds of times, and could hack it with custom ringtones, etc using bitpim) and the among the new features of the 8100 was a mp3 player, which gave it lots of potential. At the time i bought it, the mp3 player was disabled, but the hackers were organized around this phone and it wouldn’t be disabled for long. Recently verizon released version 4 of their firmware which enabled the mp3 player. I also ordered a bunch of accessories online, and now i am good to go. Feel free to see my details on the VX8100