The good:

It’s a really small camera, fits easily in the pocket and has a hard cover that goes over the lens (although, sometimes this opens on it’s own).  The LCD is really large and moving around the menu is easy.

I won’t get into all the features listed but obviously the waterproof/shockproof are nice.  Most of the menu items you can press the “Disp” button to get a brief text description about the item/feature.  There’s also a “Guide” mode that tells you how to take better shots in some situations, such as “Brightening subject.” , “Shooting into backlight.” and “Reducing blur” to list a few.

Night mode was pretty good.  Pictures have some grain, and more blurred when your subject is moving.  It definitely took shots that my girlfriend’s point and shot couldn’t because it doesn’t have a night mode.

It was fun to be able to take it on the water rides and go sailing/kayaking with it… and when it started raining it was nice to not have to be concerned with my camera getting wet.  Also, since it’s shockproof I wasn’t worried when it was hitting the kayak as I was rowing.

The bad:

No viewfinder, so when it’s sunny out, it can be hard to see what you’re taking a picture of.

The shots seem to be pretty good when there is quite a bit of light… In low light situations (or even just indoors) the shots don’t seem as crisp.  It is rather slow to focus and take the pictures… you have to take the picture about 3-4 seconds before you want it to go, and when handing it off to random strangers so they can take a picture of your group, we had several shots where they thought they took a picture and didn’t, or told us it had taken and we moved and the shot took half a second later.

Also, keep an eye on the lens… it’s location just begs to be touched when you’re getting ready to take a shot, I had a few shots that half of the image is blurred but you couldn’t really tell on the LCD (and a couple that were so bad you could tell on the LCD, which I was able to semi-clean it off and re-take the shot).  Other times it got a film over it after being in the water (maybe sunscreen?).

The battery life was “ok”… my last point and shoot ran on 2 AAs and had a much smaller LCD (maybe 1″?) so I don’t really know if it was because it has such a small battery and LCD because I don’t have a similar model to compare it to.  I would recommend an extra battery.  I think this also may be related to the lens cover opening when putting it in the case or in my pocket, because that turns the camera on.

The Other:
The owners manual states that after using in sea water, soak it in a bucket of fresh water for 10 minutes, then put it out in a shaded place to dry.  Just thought you might like to know in case you don’t read that part (it barely caught my eye!)

It comes with a micro-SD converter adapter, so if you have those around and no xD cards, you don’t need to buy one.  If you don’t have a card in the camera, it can store 8 pictures (in large/fine mode) into it’s on-board memory.

It has some “Tap-Control” feature where you can change settings by tapping the top/sides/back of the camera, but I’m not quite sure why you would use this feature because all of the settings you can change with it are the same as the main buttons that are easier and quicker to use.  At least, in the little time that I was playing with it… maybe I missed something?

Conclusion:

It sure was fun to have people warning me as I went towards the water that my camera was tied around my wrist, or hear things like “you don’t see that every day” when I was rinsing it off after being in chlorine water.
All and all I enjoyed the camera, but I’m undecided as to if I will return it or not (got it from Wal-Mart so I can return it for any reason within 30 days) because of the slow focusing/picture taking and the “ok” battery life.

A couple pictures straight from the camera (set at the highest/best settings):

(After you click on a picture you will go to the details page… from there you can click on the picture to see the full size JPG)

This guy has designed a program (and cable) to connect his Canon Digital SLR camera to his Gameboy DS so that he can use it to control the camera. Everything from shot bracketing to noise response photography.

I wonder if he would include the source code with the cable for us tweakers?
-Doug

http://userscripts.org/users/63349

This is for Firefox users, and is a GreaseMonkey script.  Please use Google to answer any questions related to the browser or the GreaseMonkey script itself (including, where to get it and how to install it).

While I was there, I decided kill some time and browse some word-of-the-day posts, and for your enjoyment, I bring you some of my favorites… and I’ll even write a little fiction to spice it up for you:  (Work with me here, I’m a computer nerd, not a writer)

So, the day started off like any other…  while reverse telecommuting at the widget factory, a co-worker stumbled up and starts trying to be a backseat surfer for all these clubs to go check out.  Me and my stupid mouth mention that I’d rather be at the club, than checking out it’s website, and the next think you know he won’t leave me alone until I agree to go hit up the clubs with him that night.  Next thing you know, I’m chatting up this totty and her lesbi-friend, and closing the deal.  By this point, my co-worker is busy clicking teeth some chick, and I don’t want to be an ice-maker so it’s a good thing did a California carpool.  So we get to her place, and her friend goes into the other room, she tells me about how much she likes choreplay as her friend walks in wearing a Maid outfit.  So after all is said in done, I get caught mid premature evacuation, at first I start blame it on the ol’ awkward arm issue, but she’s not buying it so I give her the old song and dance about just being friends.

That’s the story, if you enjoyed the words give me a wi-five and/or leave a comment.

One visitor that deserves special mention is… apparently somebody searched for “one guy many girls” and stumbled his/her way over to my site, haha…. That’s good stuff.

After installing the software and connecting your iPod (you may need to turn on “hard disk mode“, start the software and select the drive that your iPod shows up as.

1. Create a folder on your hard drive to download your music to, we will us C:\Music\iPod\
   
2. First select “Playlists”, then select the playlists you wish to keep (don’t worry about the individual songs you want to keep yet). You don’t want to select “Top 25 Most Played” “Recently Played” or “My Top Rated” or anything that starts with a “+” sign. To select more than one click the first one and hold Ctrl while clicking on any other playlists.
3. Right click over any of the selected playlists and select “Copy Playlist(s) to Directory”
4. Select the directory you created earlier (ie: C:\Music\iPod\) and click “Ok”
5. After it finishes, you will now have your playlists and the songs that are used in them.
6. Then select “Songs”
7. In the bottom half, where the songs are listed, select the songs you want (you can right-click and select all). Don’t worry about if you have selected something that was in a playlist, it won’t be duplicated if you follow these steps in order.
8. After you’ve got all the songs you want to keep selected, right click any selected song and select “Copy Songs to Directory”
9. Select the directory created earlier (ie: C:\Music\iPod) and click “Ok”
10. When this finishes you will have all of your music and playlists on your hard drive, to add to a new iTunes selection, or continue to use ephPod as your music manager.

Note: I did not write any of this software and can not support it, all trademarks and such reserved… Do this at your own risk blah blah blah. It worked for me, I hope it works for you too.

-T1G

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, and not much is new… but I figure, I need to post something every now and then. That, and I feel as if I’ve run out of internet again… got any good sites I can check out?

Been spending quite a bit of time working lately… big project that will have huge deadlines at almost every step along the way, so no worries about not having enough stress/pressure to keep me going there, haha.

When I’m not at home, I’ve been relaxing at home… getting tired of sitting at home almost every night again, but don’t really know what to do about it. Nothing really sounds interesting outside of going to Fox and Hound or Dave and Busters and such, which isn’t an “everyday” sort of deal.

So while I sit at home, I watch TV (it looks like this should be a good season of Lost again!) and play Halo 3. I’m not that great at it, but I still enjoy playing it. The multi-player aspect is quite fun, and I’m usually playing with 3 or 4 people over here against other people online, which is good.

I really need to wash the car, but it’s too cold outside… maybe I’ll clean up around the house a bit one of these days… Ok, well, off I go now I suppose.

So, here’s a quick update for anyone that cares… I’ve been really busy lately and yet, not at the same time. A couple weeks ago I helped out at the Love For Kids Christmas Party.

Here’s a quick description:

We sponsor an event for 3,500 disadvantaged children between the ages of 6-12 and transport the groups to a local ranch (Circle-R-Ranch) for this day of fun. We also donate 3,500 toys to this event and an additional 1,000+ to agencies that need our assistance over the holidays

That was pretty fun… I really enjoy working with the kids at these events, I think it brings out the inner-child in me. If you’re in the Dallas area and in your 20’s and looking for something to do with your free time, check out The YAVO group.

Other than that, I’ve been doing some holiday parties and such, got a work one to go to on Sunday. Oh and I got an XBox 360. Here’s a list of games I’ve played and my quick thoughts on them:

• HALO 3 - This is a blast on multiplayer… but what’d you expect. (Haven’t played Story mode yet)
• Forza 2 - This is a blast! I love it… ’nuff said.
• Tony Hawk Proving Grounds - This is pretty fun, but I miss the old school TH games.
• Ultimate Alliance - This game got some pretty crappy reviews… which I could definitely understand. Until you play it multiplayer! This is a great game to play with a few friends over.
• Dead Or Alive - Your standard fighting game, with good graphics.

So there you have it… an update on ThatOneGuy’s life.

It seems to me that Andrea Grimes has some sort of mental disorder, that seems to be fairly common for a lot of writers… Especially for the Dallas Observer. I’m sure you’re wondering what I’m talking about… well here’s the article. It’s a long read, and barely worth skimming, but the comments are worth a chuckle. I also like how it’s in the ‘news’ category.

Now for those of you that don’t know “me”, the lifestyle that this article is attacking is far from my own.  This ‘review’ is not biased due to being offended. I do however, find it rather funny that the writer could pull this much crap out of their fingertips and into the keyboard. So much bull shit assumptions and being genderist (* see note) in general.

I have three things more to say about this article:

1. The chicks that go home to sleep with the guys that spend the money on them don’t deserve anything more than what they get. IMHO: The guys got what they paid for and the girls sold themselves out. Point being: These guys may be sleeze bags, but the girls that they get aren’t any better than they are.
2. At least one of the guys in the pictures on that article carries an American Express Centurion Card (Black Card). For those that don’t want to read about it, this card requires an annual fee of $2500/year and $250,000 in annual cash flow through the card account. $30,000 millionaire he is not…
3. There is somebody else with my name that made a comment on the article, that is not me.

* note:

genderist - A person that discriminates or is prejudice based on gender.

More politically correct than sexist.

Submitted to urbandictionary.com, we’ll see what happens.

Ok… so I’m not sure why, but I find myself watching the news and they have a story about a girl that graduated from UNT and wanted to be a judge, blah blah blah….  didn’t get accepted to Ohio State Law School and ended up overdosing on heroin.

So the dealer got charged with her murder… which is cool with me, that’s not what this rant is about.

During the interview, the mother says “somebody’s gotta pay” and the whole news story makes it seem as if the girl that overdosed was a victim…  NO, she wasn’t.  You know what she was?  She was guilty of drug use!  Quit acting like she was innocent!