Best Coolpix for HD and low light too?
in [Digital Cameras]
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From: Neil Harrington on 2 Jul 2010 18:38 "Peter" <peternew(a)nospamoptonline.net> wrote in message news:4c2e282a$0$5529$8f2e0ebb(a)news.shared-secrets.com... > "David Ruether" <d_ruether(a)thotmail.com> wrote in message > news:i0l89h$cv8$1(a)ruby.cit.cornell.edu... >> > > >> Now the only reason I can think of for "amateurs" to buy "bleeding edge" >> computers is to edit memory card AVCHD video, which is VERY CPU >> intensive work, unless one can tolerate a very low-quality preview >> window, >> or defeat the advantages of quick transfer of files by making transcoded >> larger files that the CPU can handle more easily while editing. Funny, >> though, >> that the output of tape-based HDV HD camcorders can be edited in real >> time easily with the highest quality previewing on modest computers, and >> the original tapes serve as excellent archiving media for the raw >> material, >> which often must be thrown out with card material for space reasons. >> Ah, the wonders of marketing...! ;-) > > > The difference in speed for CS5 on my new machine is opponent. OTOH my > wife has an old Win98 machine that she uses strictly for Internet, email > and word processing for her investment club. An upgrade would do nothing > for her. I still use Win98SE myself, have it in a breadbox-sized computer and use it only for playing some relatively old games that gag on Win2000 or later. I don't expect ever to go online with it for anything, so it doesn't have any security updates or anti-malware of any kind. I still like 98 a lot, it's simple and lean and boots up fast. For older games it's perfect. One of my next projects will be a WinME machine. Though much reviled and loathed by millions, ME is fine when it works well and has a few advantages over 98 (native USB support and System Restore for example, and it boots up even faster since it doesn't have to go through real-mode MS-DOS). That will be just for games too.
From: Neil Harrington on 2 Jul 2010 18:52 "Tzortzakakis Dimitris" <noone(a)nospam.com> wrote in message news:i0lgi7$vjo$1(a)mouse.otenet.gr... > > � "Neil Harrington" <nobody(a)homehere.net> ������ ��� ������ > news:tqqdnb_FSohh97DRnZ2dnUVZ_oydnZ2d(a)giganews.com... >> >> "Tzortzakakis Dimitris" <noone(a)nospam.com> wrote in message >> news:i0huam$4ej$1(a)mouse.otenet.gr... >>> >>> � "Neil Harrington" <nobody(a)homehere.net> ������ ��� ������ >>> news:kYednV9TvKMt7LbRnZ2dnUVZ_qednZ2d(a)giganews.com... >>>> >>>> "John Turco" <jtur(a)concentric.net> wrote in message >>>> news:4C2AB5F3.9E1440FE(a)concentric.net... >>>>> Neil Harrington wrote: >>>>> >>>>> <heavily edited for brevity> >>>>> >>>>>> The Great Megapixel Race serves no purpose as far as I can see except >>>>>> to help >>>>>> manufacturers sell more cameras to people who think their pictures >>>>>> aren't sharp >>>>>> because they don't have enough megapixels. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Hey, don't forget the hard disk manufacturers! They're the ones that >>>>> are >>>>> really cashing in on this "Great Megapixel Race" -- as those larger >>>>> (in >>>>> file size) images demand increasing storage space. >>>> >>>> Maybe, but I wonder how many ordinary camera users keep that many of >>>> their image files. In the 35mm days I'll bet most people just had >>>> prints made and eventually lost or threw out the negatives, and they're >>>> likely to do essentially the same thing with digital. >>>> >>>>> >>>>> At the moment, I'm feeling the crunch, personally. I've barely over >>>>> 14GB free, on my 160GB IDE data drive. (A 500GB SATA puppy is ready to >>>>> be installed, but...I won't do it, until I purchase a suitable >>>>> external >>>>> HDD, to back it up.) >>>> >>>> Yes, it's amazing how HDDs have grown in capacity. My first one (about >>>> 25 years ago) was 30 megabytes (MEGABYTES!) and when I bought it I >>>> wondered what I'd ever do with all that space. Now you couldn't even >>>> put an operating system on a drive that small. >>> Yes, you can. Msdos v 3.3. >> >> Yes, of course I was still using MS-DOS when I bought that first HDD. >> That was 1985, a good five years before anyone took Windows seriously. I >> think it was MS-DOS 2.11 that I used in that my 8088-powered PC, and that >> OS would fit on a single-sided 180K floppy with room to spare. >> >> But when's the last time anyone used MS-DOS? >> > For me, last year. I used command line to format a virus infected USB > stick. Sometimes it's useful to remember those archaic commands (windows > wouldn't let me format it, because it was "being used".) format k: No, > seriously, those days the most storage filling application they could > think of was an encyclopaedia, digitized or a whole library. Long before > anyone dreamed of internet or dvds. I have had a few utilities that required (or worked best with) MS-DOS as a matter of fact. Haven't used 'em for quite a while though. >>> I remember in the early '80s when hard drives came in 2 capacities: 10 >>> and 20 MB. >> >> Mostly 20 MB by the mid-'80s, the ubiquitous Seagate. I'd have been >> content with a 20MB Seagate myself -- I think that cheap drive probably >> went into more PCs than all the others combined -- but it was $333 and >> the 30MB version (essentially the same drive) was $388 from the same >> place, so the latter seemed too good a bargain to pass up. >> > Such a bargain! With 500 euros you can buy a core2duo laptop now, complete > with win 7 and 2000 times the hard drive space. Yep. Just a few weeks ago I bought a 15.6" laptop with Win7, Turion II CPU, Radeon 4200 graphics, 4 GB memory, 320GB hard drive, all the other usual goodies, for $500. To think that used to be the price of an Apple II 140K floppy drive! And when the dollar was worth a lot more too! It just boggles the mind. >>> Now you could hardly squeege a couple of RAW files into one. And they >>> were 5 1/4", not like todays 3 1/2" and slow as molasses. I remember my >>> best friend had a C 64 and he had a floppy drive, which was as large as >>> a shoe box, and sloooow (5 1/4"). But it was great, at the day. Our >>> favourite pastime was to play games on the C 64 (you could hardly do >>> anything else, except making trivial programms on basic-back then, home >>> micros didn't even have a OS, or BIOS-only IBM combatibles had these >>> features). >> >> Well, they did have OSs or they wouldn't have run, but nothing like the >> OSs that soon followed. My first computer was an Apple IIe, in 1983. The >> Apple used 5 1/4" single-sided floppies but they were only 140K -- >> because Steve Wozniak, who designed it, for reasons of reliability only >> used 35 of the 40 tracks that the drives were capable of. And each and >> every one of those 140K floppies had the *entire* Apple DOS on it! Every >> time you formatted a floppy it put Apple DOS on it -- which only took up >> 10.5 K, as I recall. >> > Yes, but I was talking about home micros that had mostly some flavor of > Basic (I was a teenager in the '80s). Right, Apple IIs had Applesoft Basic in firmware. That's really the only language I ever did much programming in. Pretty crummy Basic it was, too, and with a horrible editor. When I got my first PC and GW-Basic that was a vast improvement, but by then I'd lost most of my interest in programming. >> The first Macintoshes (in 1984) didn't have HDDs either, but they did >> have the new 3 1/2" floppies with greater capacity -- I think they were >> 400K in the earliest Mac versions. So they used a pretty small OS too. > I remember the Amiga 500 that a friend had in Kozani (in college), we > played mostly games, of course. Used a 3 1/2" floppy, and its OS was > called kickstart 3.2:-) I admired the Amiga in its day, never got around to buying one though.
From: Neil Harrington on 2 Jul 2010 19:15 "David Ruether" <d_ruether(a)thotmail.com> wrote in message news:i0l7et$c0v$1(a)ruby.cit.cornell.edu... > > "Peter" <peternew(a)nospamoptonline.net> wrote in message > news:4c2dcc71$0$5540$8f2e0ebb(a)news.shared-secrets.com... > > [...] >> When I did such work on a computer I added a surcharge for computer >> hours. I deliberately used a dot matrix printer because in those days >> there was a perception that if work was done on a computer, it was >> accurate. -- >> Peter > > 8^) > I've been relying on tax software for several years for my federal > and state income taxes, maybe hoping for that same perception - but > this year the IRS informed me that the software had made a mistake, > and that I owed money (of course...! ;-) Your post reminded me to > pay it... :-( > --DR I always did mine manually until about four years ago, now do it online. I'm using TaxSlayer.com now and like it. It's cheap (my main reason for liking it) and so far has worked well.
From: Neil Harrington on 2 Jul 2010 19:09 "Peter" <peternew(a)nospamoptonline.net> wrote in message news:4c2dcc71$0$5540$8f2e0ebb(a)news.shared-secrets.com... > "Neil Harrington" <nobody(a)homehere.net> wrote in message > news:qY-dncdzV-fE8LDRnZ2dnUVZ_hqdnZ2d(a)giganews.com... >> >> "Doug McDonald" <mcdonald(a)scs.uiuc.edu> wrote in message >> news:i0idd8$2g5$1(a)news.eternal-september.org... >>> On 6/30/2010 11:32 AM, Neil Harrington wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> Yes, it's amazing how HDDs have grown in capacity. My first one (about >>>> 25 >>>> years ago) was 30 megabytes (MEGABYTES!) and when I bought it I >>>> wondered >>>> what I'd ever do with all that space. Now you couldn't even put an >>>> operating >>>> system on a drive that small. >>>> >>>> >>> >>> Really? The first hard disk I bought, in 1971, was 256KILObytes. And I >>> knew >>> I would soon fill it up ... the overflow was saved on AUDIO CASSETTES!! >>> (And I still have that data, transferred to 8" floppies, then to 3 1/2 >>> inch floppies, then to cd-roms.) >> >> Wow, way before my time. I remember when audio cassettes were used for >> storage, but the only computer I ever actually saw using that method was >> a Radio Shack "CoCo" (Color Computer). However, I think all Apple IIs >> continued to keep the cassette port, long after users had abandoned >> cassettes. >> >> When you could buy a great 140K floppy drive for only $500, who would >> want to use cassettes? :-) >> > > > IIRC my Apple II had no port for an audio cassette. I did have two Rana The first Apple IIs definitely had cassette ports, but I don't know how long they provided them. Mine was a 1983 IIe and I cannot remember whether it had a cassette interface or not, but then I had no interest in using cassettes so wouldn't have paid any attention to that. > drives. the whole system with an Epson dot matrix printer cost me about > $4,200, with VisiCalc. As to ROI, I made the cost back in less than 3 > weeks. I was able to do financial analysis and projections more > efficiently. When I did such work on a computer I added a surcharge for > computer hours. I deliberately used a dot matrix printer because in those > days there was a perception that if work was done on a computer, it was > accurate. <chuckle> That makes sense.
From: Peter on 2 Jul 2010 23:18
"Neil Harrington" <nobody(a)homehere.net> wrote in message news:7vOdnVw9c_SR7rPRnZ2dnUVZ_qKdnZ2d(a)giganews.com... > > "David Ruether" <d_ruether(a)thotmail.com> wrote in message > news:i0l7et$c0v$1(a)ruby.cit.cornell.edu... >> >> "Peter" <peternew(a)nospamoptonline.net> wrote in message >> news:4c2dcc71$0$5540$8f2e0ebb(a)news.shared-secrets.com... >> >> [...] >>> When I did such work on a computer I added a surcharge for computer >>> hours. I deliberately used a dot matrix printer because in those days >>> there was a perception that if work was done on a computer, it was >>> accurate. -- >>> Peter >> >> 8^) >> I've been relying on tax software for several years for my federal >> and state income taxes, maybe hoping for that same perception - but >> this year the IRS informed me that the software had made a mistake, >> and that I owed money (of course...! ;-) Your post reminded me to >> pay it... :-( >> --DR > > I always did mine manually until about four years ago, now do it online. > I'm using TaxSlayer.com now and like it. It's cheap (my main reason for > liking it) and so far has worked well. > Most of the tax software programs work well for most people. If you have a need for a more sophisticated program you probably should pay a professional. While the program will do the arithmetic, it will not do the thinking. Most programs are designed to strictly adhere to the IRS position. There are times when the IRS is simply wrong and you can legally, upon proper disclosure, take a contrary position. As an example, I had advised someone to take a position contrary to the then published IRS position. Most software could not deal with that situation and change and the computation would have to be done by hand. Also the inexpensive software does not handle even the most basic multi state issues well. . -- Peter |