argus digital camera: August 2008

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Toshiba Satellite M300-S1002X

Toshiba’s latest business notebook, the M300, won’t blow your hair back with whiz-bang features and record-shattering performance, but it’s a very solid package that covers all the basics one needs in a laptop that’s somewhere between an ultra-portable and a desktop replacement. This 14.1” notebook is tastefully appointed in a Titanium Silver finish, weighs just 5.2lbs, and has one of the best keyboards we’ve ever sampled in a notebook. Though its trialware issues and long boot time are easily remedied, its lack of security features –either biometric or facial recognition – are disappointing on a laptop aimed at business users. Overall it’s still a surprisingly well-polished machine that is extremely affordable and easy to live with.

Read | Permalink | Email This | User Reviews | Linking Blogs

Microsoft goes further with software subscription model - Equipt

Microsoft goes further with software subscription model - Equipt
From the press release from earlier this month:

"Microsoft Equipt offers consumers Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, giving them the latest versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote for their personal and school projects; Windows Live OneCare, the all-in-one security and PC management service; Windows Live tools, such as Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Photo Gallery so they can connect and share with people they care about most; and Office Live Workspace, a new service from Microsoft that makes it easy to save documents to a dedicated online Workspace and share them with friends and classmates. Anytime a new version of Office or Windows Live OneCare is released, Microsoft Equipt customers will get the version upgrades as part of their subscriptions."

Cost is $US70 per year for up to 3 PCs. Pretty reasonable I think and improves the home user proposition versus Open Office and Google online services . . .

Mint 220 Wireless Digital Music Station

Manufacturers will do anything to put a different spin on their iPod docks – from using halo-shaped speakers to building party games into an orb. Mint’s 220 iPod speaker dock falls onto the far less gimmicky side of this spectrum by introducing a much more useful feature: wireless music streaming from a PC or Mac. Using a thumb-drive-style USB adapter, the 220 pulls music from any computer, allowing it to serve double duty as both a pair of wireless computer speakers and an iPod stereo.

Read | Permalink | Email This | User Reviews | Linking Blogs

DCR is now on Flickr

DCR is now on Flickr
Interested to see what we've been up to between reviews? Check out our latest photo uploads - including new shots this week from the Panasonic LX3 - on Flickr.

Huge News! VMware ESX 3i is free from 28 July!

Significant competitive move from VMware to counter the threat of Microsoft Hyper-V . . . not that 3i was expensive before, but this price is certainly better :) This is part of a new strategy kicking in after co-founder Diane Greene's departure. ex-Microsoft exec Paul Maritz is running the show now.

Read more in this article at Redmond Channel mag.

Microsoft Word 2007 - Insert Copyright, Trademark, Other Symbols

Add symbols for copyright, trademark, and registered trademark to your Word 2007 document. Read More

Retailers stung by credit card fraud

Retailers stung by credit card fraud
There is a new form of credit card fraud going around New Zealand. It involves customers using fraudulent cards made overseas that either, not linked to a bank account or the bank does not exist at all. They have been hitting retailers throughout New Zealand. Their modus operandi is to be friendly, chatty, well dressed as well as talking on a cellphone. Primarily they are of Asian decent, and use credit cards link to Asian banks.

The credit cards have all of the signs of being genuine, embossed numbers match front and back, signature matches for of ID (which is usually and passport) as well as the name matching. They always know what they are after, and do not mind mixing and matching goods if certain colours are not available.
The retailer will not know what has happened until they find that a few weeks later the funds are never transferred into their bank account.
They are confident enough to ask for goods to be put aside if their card declines, and then come back with a different card. Transactions can vary between just under $1000 to just under $2000.

Purchases can include Apple products, Playstation products and prepaid mobiles. To help ease the retailer into the suspicious looking sale, they will ask for a cheap mobile, stating that it is to be used as a spare. The perpetrators are usually Asian, and are dressed very well. They are usually using a high end cellphone to talk to their mates in a near by vehicle.

QuickTime for Windows - Manually Check for Updates

QuickTime for Windows - Manually Check for Updates
Manually check to see if any updates are available for QuickTime for Windows. ...

Microsoft Excel 2003 Functions and Formulas - Find a Conditional Sum

Microsoft Excel 2003 Functions and Formulas - Find a Conditional Sum
Use Microsoft Excel 2003 to find the sum of numbers that meet a certain condition. ...

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX35 with 4x Wide-Angle 25mm Zoom

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX35 with 4x Wide-Angle 25mm Zoom
Panasonic has today introduced the 10.1-megapixel Lumix DMC-FX35 with an impressive 25mm ultra-wide-angle LEICA DC lens and 4x optical zoom (equivalent to 25mm to 100 mm on a 35mm film camera). Panasonic's Intelligent Auto mode, which includes various shooting-assist functions, has been enhanced in the DMC-FX35 by adding an Intelligent Exposure feature and Digital Red-eye Correction. See full story...

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Coming soon to the iPhone: streaming content from your iTunes library at home

August 8, 2008 One of Apple's recent patents promises to make the size constraints of the iPhone and iPod Touch seem like a thing of the past - the ability to stream all the content in the iTunes library on your home PC from anywhere with internet access...

Tags: iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPod, iTunes

Related Articles:

What makes life? (Kinstens Interpretation)

What makes life? (Kinstens Interpretation)
Is it a rose that opens in the morning light?
A new leaf upon each twig, that grew from humble beginnings?

The branch that broke will turn into the scar for life.The scar of emotion runs deep within us all, this injures everyone slowly but surely. Until the only way out of your own emotion turns to destruction. Destruction turns to chaos. Chaos turns to the way the world is operating at present with only a small amount of reason and intelligent thought.

Don’t believe everything that you see,
Because seeing isn’t believing,
Feeling is.

If I was to die today,
Would I be remembered tomorrow?

Would life go on without me?
Or does someone else’s existence end with mine?

If truth is letting people know the details of something real,
Does that mean reality is a truth only known to you?
Or is truth and reality far more complicated than that?
You could believe anything that someone tells you,
Or decide to think they are lying.
Either way your own decision is what you choose to believe.
Which in turn makes reality your own creation of thoughts comprised of facts given by not only yourself, but other people as well. How these facts are interpreted depends on the translator. You!

If something is too difficult, would you try your best to solve it, or simply give in and let someone else figure it out.

Thought, emotion, truth, justice, wisdom, creation, intellect, visualisation, hands on experience.
Does everything come down to what the individual is capable of, or rather what the individual is willing to accomplish.

You have to experience happiness to know sadness. You have to experience love to know hate. If there is one thing that lives alone in this world, without needing to relate to another. Show me this thing, for it will be a beautiful thing indeed.

To fly is to fall,
To swim is to run,
To walk is to crawl,
To speak is to be silent,
To create is to imitate,
To build is to destroy,
To make peace is to make war!

Everything exists for a reason, and there is always balance. When there is too much of one thing there has to be an equal amount of the other to compensate for the balance lost with the first.

Begin your day with birds in mind,
Never let the dawn show its face,
You will crawl upon any road given to you,
And you will find the path that suits you.

Am I going insane or is it just a figment of my imagination. If I was going insane, would I be trying to figure it out, or would I just ignore it and let things happen as they do. Because when thoughts take over my life, I feel responsible for all the thoughts that are approaching my life.
Never get too involved.
Never hold a grudge.
Never begin something if you do not intend to finish it.

Nikon D300 Image Samples Available

Nikon D300 Image Samples Available
Nikon Corporation has now provided another four image samples from the soon to be released Nikon D300 digital SLR. The full size images include a couple of portraits, one landscape/scenery and one action shot. The images are taken at 200 ISO, except for one of the portraits captured at 400 ISO. The Nikkor lenses used for these Nikon D300 sample image tests include the Nikon AF-S DX VR Zoom Nikkor ED 18-200mm F3.5-5.6G, the prime AF Nikkor 50mm F1.4D and the AF-S VR Nikkor ED 300mm F2.8 IF telephoto lens. Read Full story...

Backdoor in Skype? We need an open-source replacement

Backdoor in Skype? We need an open-source replacement
A backdoor in Skype?

It has long been speculated that there might be a backdoor built into Skype, something that would allow Skype (the company) or the police to easily monitor Skype conversations. Skype is closed software and can therefore ... (more in the full post)