Re: [BLUG] importance of media (was: recommendations on a good...)

On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 05:14:04PM GMT, Steven Black [blacks@indiana.edu] said the following:
>
> SD seems to be the preferred media at this time. Some DVD players and
> even televisions have direct support for SD cards. Note, though, there's
> a sharp difference between normal SD cards and "Micro SD" cards. You
> can, however, buy adapters allowing you to plug your Micro SD card in to
> a machine accepting SD cards.

Speaking of Micro SD cards, they are insanely small for how much data
is stored on them. I have a 2GB one for my phone and the actual memory
part only takes up half the chip (about 5mm x 7mm). I'm afraid to lose
it. I did a rough calculation once and speculate that Micro SD cards
have about the same memory density as the human brain. Based on current
estimates of how much equivilently the brain can store (~40 TB).

And they are talking about releasing 12GB MicroSDHC cards in the near
future. I think its a safe bet that we will eventually see 1TB thumb
drives for $50. After all, they already have 32GB ones. Insane,
Insane, Insane.

--
Mark Krenz
Bloomington Linux Users Group
http://www.bloomingtonlinux.org/
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Re: [BLUG] Meeting tommorow

I'll have my phone, you're welcome to it.

Dave Cooley
dcooley@kiva.net

Mark Krenz wrote:
> Hi, yes there will still be a meeting tommorow at 7pm in room 1A.
> There will just be a change to the topic. INstead of showing just
> Asterisk, I decided to turn this meeting into a few different topics
> based on things I've been working on recently. Asterisk and VoIP will
> be one of them, but I'll also talk about and demonstrate WINE (the
> program that allows you to run Windows programs natively in Linux),
> Blender3D (The 3D rendering, modeling, animation and game making
> application. And also I'll talk a bit about the new version of
> num-utils that I've been working on. So there should be something
> interesting for everyone.
>
> The reason for the change is that I haven't had enough time to meet with
> Ned Baugh and figure out why I can't connect my VoIP phone back to our
> office from the library. Not being able to have the VoIP phone at the
> demonstration makes it hard to clearly demonstrate a lot of the
> features. No biggie, I can still show some other things and if someone
> would be willing to let me borrow their cell phone during the
> presentation, I can show what happens with two lines.
>
> Mark
>
>
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Re: [BLUG] more on batteries

Do they not make Lithium-ion batteries for Canon cameras in this price
range?

Steven Black wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 03:50:57AM +0000, Mark Krenz wrote:
>> As for batteries. I never understand why people want to have AA
>> batteries instead of the lithium recargeable. Sure, if you lose one it
>> is expensive to replace, but just don't do that. I've never had one
>> fail on me, but I guess that can happen. AA rechargeable batteries
>> won't last as long as actual AA batteries. Especially the Energizer
>> rechargeable ones. Those suck.
>
> My wife and I had trouble with rechargables until we found out there
> were a number of ways to kill them.
>
> AA rechargable batteries can last *longer* than actual AA batteries.
> Once we started taking care of our rechargable batteries, the number of
> pictures per battery change suddenly jumped way up. (And we normally use
> flash.)
>
> You need a smart recharger that won't overcharge the battery and avoids
> polarity reversal.
>
> If a rechargable battery is just left charging, it loses capacity. If it
> is left for days, you can make it totally useless.
>
> Simple overnight chargers are a quick easy way to kill rechargable
> batteries. Don't use them. Instead use smart quick chargers that shut
> off automatically when it is done.
>
> Also, avoid rechargable batteries that don't support quick chargers.
> They're just a waste of money. The slow chargers are much more likely
> to damage the battery life. If the battery doesn't support the quick
> chargers, you're basically buying little more than a single-use battery.
>
> Cheers,
> Steven Black
>
> _______________________________________________
> BLUG mailing list
> BLUG@linuxfan.com
> http://mailman.cs.indiana.edu/mailman/listinfo/blug

--
Joe Auty
NetMusician: web publishing software for musicians
http://www.netmusician.org
joe@netmusician.org
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Re: [BLUG] more on batteries (was: recommendations on a good digi cam)

On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 03:50:57AM +0000, Mark Krenz wrote:
> As for batteries. I never understand why people want to have AA
> batteries instead of the lithium recargeable. Sure, if you lose one it
> is expensive to replace, but just don't do that. I've never had one
> fail on me, but I guess that can happen. AA rechargeable batteries
> won't last as long as actual AA batteries. Especially the Energizer
> rechargeable ones. Those suck.

My wife and I had trouble with rechargables until we found out there
were a number of ways to kill them.

AA rechargable batteries can last *longer* than actual AA batteries.
Once we started taking care of our rechargable batteries, the number of
pictures per battery change suddenly jumped way up. (And we normally use
flash.)

You need a smart recharger that won't overcharge the battery and avoids
polarity reversal.

If a rechargable battery is just left charging, it loses capacity. If it
is left for days, you can make it totally useless.

Simple overnight chargers are a quick easy way to kill rechargable
batteries. Don't use them. Instead use smart quick chargers that shut
off automatically when it is done.

Also, avoid rechargable batteries that don't support quick chargers.
They're just a waste of money. The slow chargers are much more likely
to damage the battery life. If the battery doesn't support the quick
chargers, you're basically buying little more than a single-use battery.

Cheers,
Steven Black

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Re: [BLUG] importance of media (was: recommendations on a good...)

Make sure the model you pick has a popular media, which is reasonably
cheap.

If you're thinking about a camera that doesn't have removable media, my
advice is to avoid it. There's nothing like having lost a USB cable and
a having full camera to spoil a special occassion. Also, while you may
think you'll always have your PC with you, it can really suck to find
yourself in the middle of a good time with friends/family (like at, say,
an amusement park) where you have access to your PC in the evening, but
the lack of a PC when your camera gets full prevents you from taking
a super-cute photo of a child/spouse.

SD seems to be the preferred media at this time. Some DVD players and
even televisions have direct support for SD cards. Note, though, there's
a sharp difference between normal SD cards and "Micro SD" cards. You
can, however, buy adapters allowing you to plug your Micro SD card in to
a machine accepting SD cards.

More than that, if your computer of choice doesn't already have built-in
support for the camera media, get yourself a USB-based adapter for it.
These should go for under/around $20.

You can now pop out the media from the camera, load it with a fresh
card, hand it back to the person taking pictures, and load the pictures
from the full card in to your computer.

Most cameras are writing JPGs (and MPG/AVI files) directly to the media.
(This is as opposed to using a proprietary format which later needs to
be converted to a standard format.) Most systems will detect media cards
and deal with importing the photos reasonably, though it is possible to
traverse the filesystem and copy files off manually.

Note: If you delete photos in-camera you can get photos out-of-order
(depending on model), otherwise copying them from the card to the PC
should preserve order taken. This can happen whether you plug in the
media or the camera to the computer. (It can be bothersome if you don't
clean the card off regularly.)

Cheers,
Steven Black

On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 03:16:48PM -0400, matthewzin@gmail.com wrote:
> I'd be interested in this info as well, particularly if there is one camera
> that is a little more Ubuntu friendlier than others. (Though I suspect this
> won't be much of an issue.)
> Thanks,
> Matt

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Re: [BLUG] recommendations on a good digi cam

Hey Ben. I'm going to put my vote in on the Canon PowerShots too. I used a SD110 for a few years until it fell 4 floors off my balcony, and now I've been using a SD600. I've played with other PowerShot models and they all work really well.

Weldon

On 7/12/08 3:10 PM, "Ben Shewmaker" <ben@shewbox.org> wrote:

Hey everybody,

I'm in the market for a new digital camera. I'm looking to spend between $200 and maybe as high as $300 depending on the camera and the deal. I'm looking for a decent point and shoot, but I don't need anything really advanced or fancy, just want a good quality camera with a good lens that takes great pictures. I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations?

Thanks!

Ben Shewmaker

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Re: [BLUG] note on batteries for digi cams (was: recommendations on a good...)

My wife and I have been using AA-powered cameras for some time.

Some important things to note:

1. These devices gobble up cheap batteries like you wouldn't believe. It
isn't worth "saving money" by buying cheap batteries. Dollar batteries
may only give you three shots.

2. Even high-end batteries aren't as good as nice rechargable batteries.
(It's a myth that rechargable batteries aren't as good as disposable
alkaline batteries.) http://www.greenbatteries.com/batterymyths.html
We've had much better over-all luck (and signficantly cheaper overall)
using nice rechargable batteries with our digi cams.

Cheers,
Steven Black

On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 09:38:04PM -0400, Michael Schultheiss wrote:
> I second the recommendation of Canon Powershots. They're powered by AA
> batteries, which you can get anywhere. My wife and I had a bad
> experience with a Sony camera with a proprietary battery pack so we've
> used AA powered cameras ever since. Our latest camera was an A650is.
> It was about $400 last year but a recent check shows it for $306.94.
> _______________________________________________
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[BLUG] Meeting tommorow

Hi, yes there will still be a meeting tommorow at 7pm in room 1A.
There will just be a change to the topic. INstead of showing just
Asterisk, I decided to turn this meeting into a few different topics
based on things I've been working on recently. Asterisk and VoIP will
be one of them, but I'll also talk about and demonstrate WINE (the
program that allows you to run Windows programs natively in Linux),
Blender3D (The 3D rendering, modeling, animation and game making
application. And also I'll talk a bit about the new version of
num-utils that I've been working on. So there should be something
interesting for everyone.

The reason for the change is that I haven't had enough time to meet with
Ned Baugh and figure out why I can't connect my VoIP phone back to our
office from the library. Not being able to have the VoIP phone at the
demonstration makes it hard to clearly demonstrate a lot of the
features. No biggie, I can still show some other things and if someone
would be willing to let me borrow their cell phone during the
presentation, I can show what happens with two lines.

Mark

--
Mark Krenz
Bloomington Linux Users Group
http://www.bloomingtonlinux.org/
_______________________________________________
BLUG mailing list
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