Review: Nikon D300

Since I bought my Nikon D40 back about a year ago I’ve taken nearly 20,000 shots with it and could not be happier with the device. It does everything I had hoped it would and had a large enough feature set that I could grow into it a bit. I love it. It marks a real turning point for me in terms of becoming a ‘photographer’. One thing to be clear on though, spending money on cameras does not a good photographer make. What the D40 does do for me is allow the camera to get out of the way and let me take pictures.… Click here to read more!

My OLPC Laptop

I’ve spoken about the OLPC laptop before, Twice, in fact. Mine has finally arrived after much wasted time on Fedex’s part. I still prefer UPS. Fedex was supposed to deliver the OLPC on Dec 20th, I didn’t receive it until the 26th. Whoops!

Within the box you find the laptop, a power adapter, the battery, a quickstart guide and a letter from Nicholas Negroponte.

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The first thing I noticed was just how small it is. For whatever reason I was expecting it to be about 50% larger. The keyboard is very small and I cannot touch type, I can only hunt and peck with my index fingers.… Click here to read more!

Update: Thecus N5200 – RAID Repair

Well, I have to admit: I am one lucky guy. I have been running a truly degraded RAID array since day one of my experience with the N5200. To get up to speed you may want to read my other post about the device: Thecus N5200 Review

So, today my replacement hard drive arrived for a failure I noticed recently. I took a look at the RAID and double checked the reason for the replacement. My #2 drive was showing some bad sectors and was listed as a ‘warning’. Not a failed drive but a drive on the way. Better safe then sorry I thought.… Click here to read more!

Review: Jinzora Media Jukebox

I’m always looking for better ways to access my media when I am away from the house. For a while I was using Microsoft’s streaming server because I had free access to it through a company I was working for but it was very limited. To access the music you had to be using a current version of Windows Media player which was a hassle. For the music to stream you had to actually copy the music files to the server and create a station. You basically had to create static playlists, when you wanted to add or remove a song you had log into the server to make the changes and copy the files.… Click here to read more!

Review: iPod touch

Well, I bought one. I heard rumor Thursday night that there were showing up in some stores so come Friday morning like a little apple lemming I dashed down to the local and grabbed what they had. In a stroke of Apple genius, the stores were only stocked with the 16GB model at $399. Ouch!

On the eve of the device release people were confident that hacking the touch would be simple. It’s basically they same as the iPhone so it was hoped that the current iPhone hacks would need a little tweaking but everything would be all set by the end of the weekend.… Click here to read more!

Review: 5th Generation iMac 20″

Yeah, I bought one. No story for why, no long explanation about it. I bought it because I needed a new desktop and I don’t regret it. With the addition of this iMac I am 100% Mac now, my Macbook for portability, the Mac Pro for the recording studio and now the iMac for my general desktop use.

I will admit that adapting to using a Mac desktop has been somewhat rough. I learned to use the Macbook with no trouble at all. Using the laptop with the massive touch pad and it’s attached 13.3″ screen fit me like a glove.… Click here to read more!

Review: 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor

Unfortunately, one of the few camera and photography shops near me is closing. On the bright side though they are selling off everything in the store, from neon lights and shelves to lenses and camera bodies. I happened to have been in the area on Saturday so I stopped in to see what they had. I found a couple of items at decent prices. One of those items was the 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor.

This is a pretty basic prime lens, that is to say it does not zoom at all. It’s a very small, light weight lens and quite fast as lenses go.… Click here to read more!

Review: Apple’s New .Mac Service

As far as I can tell .Mac (Apple’s Website describing the complete service) has been overhauled in a very big way and for the better. For a while now I’ve been aware of the .Mac service which was basically a somewhat expensive way to keep all of your macs up to date with each other. It offered a simple way to sync bookmarks, address books ect as well as offering 1GB of online storage to use between your iDisk and the IMAP email they offered.

The iDisk itself was and is a very cool system. Basically it’s a place that you can keep your files so that they are available to all of your macs.… Click here to read more!

The Lens Hath Arrived

I’m an amateur photographer, which I’m sure is obvious. I’m a guy in my mid-twenties that ‘discovered the joy of photography’ only about a year ago. A few months back I bought my first DSLR, the Nikon D40, and I’m very happy with it. I’ve had very good luck with the kit lens but found myself looking for a longer zoom. I’m not one to get a shot from where I’m standing in lieu of walking closer to the subject but there are times when that isn’t possible; A body or water may come in the way, or 60 rows of people in an auditorium, sometimes grabbing the zoom lens is the only way to get what I’m looking for.… Click here to read more!

Review: Honda Fit

Well, I’ve had 2007 Honda Fit Sport for about 4 months now and I’ve already put about 14,000 miles on it. Who knew I was doing so much driving. Overall I’m very happy with the car. The size is great, gas mileage is excellent and it’s much faster then I was expecting. I have the sport model which adds in a number of things including power everything, cruise control, fog lights better stereo yadda yadda yadda. If I’m being honest though I bought the sport model because it has cruise control. Sure, it’s nice to have the rims, the ground effects and the paddle shifters but those were not deal breakers for me.… Click here to read more!