Nikon P7000 Review

Nikon Coolpix P7000Some of the readers may know that I used the Panasonic Lumix LX3 as a backup/compact camera for the times a dSLR isn't welcome (or practical). One of the places where a dSLR isn't welcome is your average (pop)concert. The Lumix LX3 was (and still is) an excellent compact camera with astonishing low-light capabilities. The only problem I had with the camera was that the zoom function only went to 60mm (35mm equivalent), and 60mm is a bit short when you're not standing directly in front of the podium....

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Dell U2711 27" Monitor Review

Dell U2711 MonitorThanks to some fortunate circumstances I've been able to get a new 27 inch monitor; The Dell U2711 Ultrasharp PremiumColor.

I was in need of a new monitor, since my old 24" Dell 2407WFP has some problems generating proper colors. Something which is quite important when fooling around with photographs on a computer. Another reason is that my the screen wouldn't work 'properly' with my new 27" iMac.

The 27"-er has a whopping resolution of 2560 x 1440 (WQHD), which is 'slightly more' than your average monitor. This monitor has an IPS panel, which is much better in rendering true colors than the old TN display.

The desktop real-estate is enormous (the same as the 27" iMac). Only problem so far is that my mobile devices aren't capable of using the full capacity of this display. Both my MacBook and Windows 7 Dell E6500 (work laptop) only go as high as 1920 x 1200. So I either have have some black borders, or I have to settle for a stretched screen. In both cases; the image is still extremely good. The display will be used as a second display on my 27" iMac.

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Windows Phone 7 Series

Windows Phone 7 SeriesMicrosoft will be shipping a new phone operating system this year. After the Windows Mobile brand, they're switching to an alternate name; Windows Phone 7 Series. And obviously, with a new name comes a new website; http://www.windowsphone7series.com.

I can't really see why they keep bothering trying to access the phone market. Every single Windows Mobile (or Windows CE as it was called in the old days) device I've owned crashed more frequently than the 'good old' Windows Millennium Edition on an average Sunday. I can't count the number of times that I received a phonecall while doing something else (e.g. playing solitaire, or reading e-mail) and that the call finally went to voicemail. Why? because the phone froze, crashed, or answer button was unresponsive.

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New Fast Nikon 24mm Lens

Nikon 24mm f/1.4G EDNikon is catching up with Canon in regards to the (really) fast prime lenses. They announced a new 24mm f/1.4G ED (link to the techpart)wide-angle lens today. This new lens makes it possible to do low-light photography with a maximum aperture of 1.4. Especially when you're shooting with a low-light monster like the Nikon D700 or D3(x/s).
The lens should also give you a nice depth of field (DoF) when shooting wide open, and being relatively close to your subject. We all know that wide-angle lenses tend to have a large DoF due to wide-angle optic characteristics (et voila).

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Nikon Scan 4 and Snow Leopard

My dad switched to an iMac a couple of weeks ago. He came from a Windows environment with lots of periferals (RF Mouse, Bluetooth dongle, HP flatbed Scanner, Espon printer, Nikon CoolScan V, HP PDA, etc.). So the challenge was to migrate as many periferals as possible.

Thankfully, most of them worked. Even the old Nikon CoolScan V film scanner worked with the supplied Nikon Scan 4 software, until last Sunday. For some reason the application crashes with a message that the preferences file can't be read (Is another instance of Nikon Scan 4 running??).

It seemed that the Nikon app wasn't shut down properly on one occasion and a lock file was left in the preferences. Removing the lock file solved the issue.
The lock file is located at the following location:

~/Library/Preferences/Nikon/Nikon Scan 4 Prefs.lock

Sidenote: Weird that relatively old propriatary software like the Nikon Scan 4 software works fine, but that more recent (Nikon) software needs special updates to keep working under Snow Leopard. Was Nikon Scan 4 written by people who understand what they were doing (OS sub-version independent)? Or is this just luck?

Update on Friday, November 20, 2009 at 21:30 by Willem

Eventhough the Nikon Scan software works in Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6), Nikon abandonned the support for Nikon Scan 4 a while back. Alternatively you could use SilverFast from LaserSoft (commercial software).

Western Digital My Passport Essential Review

Updated on Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 15:02 by Willem

In the post before this one I had some trouble with a Freecom XXS USB drive. I had no way of fixing it, so it went back to the store (and basically back to Freecom). But since that drive is used for offsite backups I needed a replacement unit, because the return of the old drive could take several weeks.

This time the Western Digital My Passport Essentials 500GB (2.5" USB powered) disk was chosen. A nice small device with lot's of storage capacity.

Western Digital Proprietary Connector on the LeftUpon opening the box I noticed immediately that there's something 'wrong' with this drive. The cable / USB connector is proprietary. The connector is some sort of ultra-mini-USB format. No need to say that of all the USB cables I collected over the years will ever fit. So I need to be extremely careful with the one I got with the drive.

Since I lose stuff (hell, everyone does), you could expect a blog post of me swearing 'bloody hell' (and stuff) when I have lost the cable.... but I won't, just read the rest of this review.

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TrueCrypt Bug, or Hardware Failure

For the last couple of years I've been using an offsite backup method. And today the drive I use for that failed on me. My backup program reported that it could write (or read) data to the drive.

Investigation showed that several directories in the TrueCrypt volume were gone!!!!! Thankfully, the data on my Drobo and server were still pristine condition.

Disk Utility and several other tools reported problems with the drive (or at least the TrueCrypt part/volume). So I erased the drive, and re-initialized it. No reports of trouble while I did that. After that I recreated the TrueCrypt volume and restarted the backup to the drive (which takes forever).

All I can do now is wait for the backup to finish, and pray that the house doesn't catch on fire.....

After that a new case for SpinRite.

Additional iPhone Thoughts

Before I go into the imperfections of the iPhone, I must mention that the iPhone is one of the best (smart)phones I've had so far.....My (smartphone) references are the Nokia Communicator, Nokia E61i, Nokia N95. While the PDA experience comes from Psion (to bad that they are gone), and a boatload of crappy/unstable Windows CE/Mobile platforms over the last 10 years.

Every device had its limitations, but the iPhone clearly has the upperhand (at the moment). But there's always room for improvement :-)

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Member of the iPhone Club

As of today, I'm the (proud) owner of an iPhone 3Gs 32GB (Black). Ever since the release a couple of years ago I really wanted an iPhone. The problem is that we can only get an iPhone in combination with a T-Mobile plan here in Holland, and alternatives to the T-Mobile plan are relatively expensive;

• You need to cough up the entire amount for a SIMLOCK free iPhone in once (several hundreds of euros) or
• Get the T-Mobile plan and let them remove the SIMLOCK (for a fee). Initially less expensive, but you're still hooked to their two year plan.

Either way, an iPhone cost around 800 euros, whether you pay it at once or spread the costs over two years. Since I didn't like to finance T-Mobile for a plan, since I already got a pretty good deal, I went out and bought an iPhone.

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Unibody MacBook Crashes Solved

At least with a 99.9% certainty.

It seemed that the memory upgrade I bought when I bought the MacBook is having trouble. Weird, because under Leopard it worked just fine. Snow Leopard crashes (system freeze), and sometimes even with weird flashing lines on the screen.

I guess that Snow Leopard is a bit more sensitive about the memory that's installed.

Ordered a set of Kingston KTA-MB1066K2/4G @ Informatique. Let's see if that's more stable.

The old RAM I had was OCZ So-Dimm DDR3 PC3-8500, 1066MHz (P/N: OCZ3M10664GK). Let's see if I can put it in another laptop. A less picky one.

Update on Friday, October 2, 2009 at 23:44 by Willem

It's been over a day, and no freezes or hickups whatsoever.

Damn that Apple hardware is sensitive about the hardware you throw at it.