First of all, do you have any experience in photography? If so, have you ever had a film SLR, or point and shoot?
I'm a big one for learning things the hard way first. You can pick up a used 35mm SLR for next to nothing and you can learn how to be a good photographer far easier than you can (IMHO) with a digital camera. A lot of times people forget that photography is about taking good pictures, NOT playing with cool toys on the computer.
It's pretty cool to be able to instantly see how the image will turn out, pop it into the gimp or photoshop, adjust the color/balance/shadows/levels, etc, but having to wait a week to finish up a roll of film, get it back from processing, and having to imagine what the image will look like when you take it will make you a much better photographer. The key to taking pictures that aren't 'snapshots' is to be able to know what it will look like before you take the picture. Digital takes this away from the end user a bit and you end up just taking pictures of everything and ending up with 99.9% crap.
end rant:)
Regarding the purchase of the d-slr, if you have any existing lenses the choice is pretty clear. The D-Rebel takes any canon EOS lense, and you have a wide variety of choices for lenses (including image stabalized lenses). The nikon D70 takes any nikon lenses. The *ist-d will take any pentax K/KA mount lense.
If you have no lenses then it's a matter of what system you like (remember the body is a throwaway, you'll be investing in lenses if you get into it and will upgrade to a better model eventually and you will keep on using your lenses. If you're budget minded you probably will be looking at the d-rebel and you can eventually upgrade to the next step up. If your budget is a bit bigger you can look at the nikon or the pentax.
When I went through this I ended up buying the pentax *ist-d, at about twice the cost of the d-rebel. It's the smallest d-slr out there, and is light and fits in my hands nicely. It's more comparable with the canon 10d from what I understand, and having several pentax lenses already made the choice a bit easier. Of course, now I'm looking at buying more lenses to replace my older manual lenses, but that's the nature of expensive hobbies like photography and computers:)
One of the best pieces of advice I got about choosing a d-slr was to find something you're comfortable with. If it's too big or too small, or the menu or controls aren't intuitive or easy to use, you won't use it as much, it won't be taken with you everywhere, and will end up collecting dust. If you can spend more *with reason*, do. Don't (IMHO) settle for say, the d-rebel if it feels too big in your hands, or if you're going to do sports photography and need the bigger buffer in the d-70.
Remember, you'll be saving your money for lenses:)
Hands down, Windows Media Player is has a much improvement in the GUI plus a few music services being integrated into the player.
Uhmm..... huh? I'm very much in the dark as to whether the author thinks that WMP10 is an improvement or just a facelife and addition of a couple of new services?
Personally I want to see if my Rio Cali will be supported, though even if it is I think the music searching and handling in the Rio software is probably superior to the music handling in the WMP music library section. We'll see though, luckily right now I'm "stuck" on a mac at work:)
Emulating the functionality is different when the main object that you're hacking is physical. The construction of the 10D (IIRC) is quite different and "more professional" (as far as more solid and rugged) than the 300D. People who say they'll buy the 300 instead of the 10 because they can hack the functionality are at least partially, kidding themselves. The *real* professionals will get the professional camera (or the 1D, or the 1D2 or whatever).
Of course, it could also be argued that this is driving people to the 300D because they can get professional features at an amateur price just means that canon gets more sales anyway, right?
But it can mean constantly crashing. I ran it on a production server for close to 4 years and had few problems, but when I did, they were not nice, and not fixed right away. IE: mod_perl was broken for a week or so due to either a new dbi, mysql or apache upgrade and this was before I knew about the repository of old packages where I could downgrade.
Sigh. "stable" releases aren't for desktop users who want cutting-edge; they're for users who want extensively-tested software. Run "unstable" or "testing" if you want up-to-the-minute software. Really. Honest. I mean it. Lots of people do.
The average joe is going to put the CD in his computer, fumble his way through the install (I'll ignore the lack of a pretty clicky-clicky installer for now), and then use the system. He's not going to be like me and have a nice apt-sources ready to go on another computer, he's going to use the software provided and wonder what is going on.
I don't begrudge people who want stable software, but a while back I did some checking and a quick check over stable showed that a lot of the software wasn't anywhere close to a representation of the state of the program. Gaim.58, gnome 1.4, mozilla 1.4, kernel 2.2? Sure they all run on 80 billion different architectures, and never crash, but they are also 2-4 years old!
I'm not asking for bleeding edge software, I'm asking for something made in this decade.
Sorry, I love debian but they are just too far behind to be nearly as relevant as they were a few years ago. Hopefully they'll release before the end of this year and they can show people linux in all it's 2002 glory!
Instead of bitching about the lack of OGG support on Slashdot where it won't help matters, why don't you email Apple and tell them that you would be an iPod if they'd ship with OGG support? That would be the more constructive argument to make. Here, I'll even help you out and provide the proper link to submit your comment:
Wow, what a thought! I wish that someone else had thought of that before! You're brilliant!
Seriously, don't you think that people *have* been emailing apple about this? Even the ogg homepage has a note about this with an email to send to. I've emailed them several times myself with calm, rational notes that I'd love to buy but until they have this feature, etc etc. Apple just isn't listening, or rather, isn't doing what "we" (the collective people who have their CDs ripped to OGG) would want them to do.
And the time required to go through all this extra information should give them another 6 months to 6 years to try to buck up their stock prices, spread more FUD, etc.
I don't know about spyware in particular, but only once have I bought a computer system from the store, and that's it. My GF and I got a computer for her grandmother, and me being the computer guy got to get it all set up and ready for use. I figured that it'd be easier than assembling one from scratch, she'd be able to call the store if she had problems, etc etc.
Three versions of AOL, countless icons on the desktop for free this, unlimited that... Oh, lets not forget the 28 critical updates required just to get the system in a state that I'd feel semi-comfortable letting someone connect it to the internet with.
Standard Mac Reply(tm). "But you get more with a new version of OS/x than you do a windows service pack."
And as a relatively new mac user coming from a windows/linux background, it's true. You get the same updates as you do via windows update for security fixes, etc etc. Most windows service packs however (with the exception of the upcoming xpsp2 that is) are essencially the previous bug fixes all rolled into one.
Contrasting this, the incremental updates for MacOS (10.2, 10.3) are more than hotfixes but less than a completely new os. Generally they contain new apps, improvements in existing apps (not just performance or bug fixes either) such as the new 'find as you type', expose, ichat, etc.
That said, I'd love to see the *real* next gen apple offerings, ie: OS 11, as the "new" OSs that have come out in the os 10 line have really been evolutionary, not revolutionary, as longhorn promises to be. Of course, redmond is making a lot of promises about longhorn, and it's a "I'll believe it when I see it" situation for me.
Umm, you do know that Linux uses X11 too right? I guess you also know that the Mac OS X X11 implementation is largly based on the linux one, but has some compositing improvements which actually speed it up compared to linux.
Well, as someone who uses both linux and os/x on a daily basis to me running X11 apps on os/x is far slower than running them "pure" under linux. I realize that os/x is unix, but it's my impression (and that of another reply) that the X11 display gets translated through os/x's display layer first. Running X11 apps feels far slower to me anyway.
I use linux daily at work, I still cannot stand this setup. It's just not usefull. I keep having to first find the graphic window under all my other apps, then all the toolbar windows. It's just stupid.
I can't say I disagree with you, though if you're used to the gimp it's not horrible. However, I was more referring to the fact that people who are used to os/x are used to having their menu bar along the top and nowhere else, which is a foreign concept to linux/windows users. Therefor, the menu system that the gimp uses will be double bad (1x for the fact it's far from optimal, 2x because he's not used to menus anywhere but the top menu bar).
First of all, the main problem is that you are running on a mac. Seriously, macs rock, I'm on one now, but they only run "big" X11 apps so well. First of all, running under X11 makes it slower than running natively under linux. Run it under linux and see what you think. The toolbars issue... well, that's a Linux/Windows thing, Mac users just aren't used to having menus show up in application windows. That's a reflection of what you're used to, not the fault of the app.
Having to click on buttons several times to active is also a symptom of running under X11. I have GIMP2 on my powerbook and it's *horrible* to work with because of the way that focus works in a mac so each time you click from window to window in the gimp you have to click once to give the window focus, and then again to activate the menu/tool/etc.
Tools probably aren't grouped in the best way, but they are grouped with reasonably. The selection tools, manipulation tools (rotate, scale, etc), fill tools, and drawing tools. Again, they aren't perfect, but they are definately not "thrown down".
The open dialoge is standard GTK and if you were running in GNOME under linux, would look the same as the rest of your desktop. It doesn't look like your standard open dialoge because it's GTK, not aqua!
Some of the performance issues again are no doubt due to the emulation, again, same with the font handling. Try it on a real linux computer.
Also, GIMP isn't trying to be photoshop, I don't think, it's the poor man's photoshop. Hopefully now that 2.0 is out the devs will be able to concentrate on polishing the UI, adding in some of the niceness that is in elements, etc.
Not now, if I go into the ITMS and try to sign up for a new account my CC choices are visa, mc, amex, and discover, and if you try not to enter one you're put back to the same page.
WTF? The free download idea is pretty cool, but you *still* have to sign up for a ITMS login, which means you have to have a valid CC with billing information in the states. So if you're in canada or not in the states you can't download the free sample because they can't get your billing information?
I'm a bit of an amateur photographer, and was wondering what the more experienced ones out there would set their cameras up with as far as shutter speed / apateur for this event? I figure I'll set my digital as long as it'll go at f8 or however small of an apateur I can set, but is that good or not?
Slashdot Mirror
First of all, do you have any experience in photography? If so, have you ever had a film SLR, or point and shoot?
:)
:)
:)
I'm a big one for learning things the hard way first. You can pick up a used 35mm SLR for next to nothing and you can learn how to be a good photographer far easier than you can (IMHO) with a digital camera. A lot of times people forget that photography is about taking good pictures, NOT playing with cool toys on the computer.
It's pretty cool to be able to instantly see how the image will turn out, pop it into the gimp or photoshop, adjust the color/balance/shadows/levels, etc, but having to wait a week to finish up a roll of film, get it back from processing, and having to imagine what the image will look like when you take it will make you a much better photographer. The key to taking pictures that aren't 'snapshots' is to be able to know what it will look like before you take the picture. Digital takes this away from the end user a bit and you end up just taking pictures of everything and ending up with 99.9% crap.
end rant
Regarding the purchase of the d-slr, if you have any existing lenses the choice is pretty clear. The D-Rebel takes any canon EOS lense, and you have a wide variety of choices for lenses (including image stabalized lenses). The nikon D70 takes any nikon lenses. The *ist-d will take any pentax K/KA mount lense.
If you have no lenses then it's a matter of what system you like (remember the body is a throwaway, you'll be investing in lenses if you get into it and will upgrade to a better model eventually and you will keep on using your lenses. If you're budget minded you probably will be looking at the d-rebel and you can eventually upgrade to the next step up. If your budget is a bit bigger you can look at the nikon or the pentax.
When I went through this I ended up buying the pentax *ist-d, at about twice the cost of the d-rebel. It's the smallest d-slr out there, and is light and fits in my hands nicely. It's more comparable with the canon 10d from what I understand, and having several pentax lenses already made the choice a bit easier. Of course, now I'm looking at buying more lenses to replace my older manual lenses, but that's the nature of expensive hobbies like photography and computers
One of the best pieces of advice I got about choosing a d-slr was to find something you're comfortable with. If it's too big or too small, or the menu or controls aren't intuitive or easy to use, you won't use it as much, it won't be taken with you everywhere, and will end up collecting dust. If you can spend more *with reason*, do. Don't (IMHO) settle for say, the d-rebel if it feels too big in your hands, or if you're going to do sports photography and need the bigger buffer in the d-70.
Remember, you'll be saving your money for lenses
Hands down, Windows Media Player is has a much improvement in the GUI plus a few music services being integrated into the player.
:)
Uhmm..... huh? I'm very much in the dark as to whether the author thinks that WMP10 is an improvement or just a facelife and addition of a couple of new services?
Personally I want to see if my Rio Cali will be supported, though even if it is I think the music searching and handling in the Rio software is probably superior to the music handling in the WMP music library section. We'll see though, luckily right now I'm "stuck" on a mac at work
I'd think the full frame sensor would be something pros would be interested in though...
Emulating the functionality is different when the main object that you're hacking is physical. The construction of the 10D (IIRC) is quite different and "more professional" (as far as more solid and rugged) than the 300D. People who say they'll buy the 300 instead of the 10 because they can hack the functionality are at least partially, kidding themselves. The *real* professionals will get the professional camera (or the 1D, or the 1D2 or whatever).
Of course, it could also be argued that this is driving people to the 300D because they can get professional features at an amateur price just means that canon gets more sales anyway, right?
Just grab the java .torrent...
But it can mean constantly crashing. I ran it on a production server for close to 4 years and had few problems, but when I did, they were not nice, and not fixed right away. IE: mod_perl was broken for a week or so due to either a new dbi, mysql or apache upgrade and this was before I knew about the repository of old packages where I could downgrade.
Sigh. "stable" releases aren't for desktop users who want cutting-edge; they're for users who want extensively-tested software. Run "unstable" or "testing" if you want up-to-the-minute software. Really. Honest. I mean it. Lots of people do.
.58, gnome 1.4, mozilla 1.4, kernel 2.2? Sure they all run on 80 billion different architectures, and never crash, but they are also 2-4 years old!
The average joe is going to put the CD in his computer, fumble his way through the install (I'll ignore the lack of a pretty clicky-clicky installer for now), and then use the system. He's not going to be like me and have a nice apt-sources ready to go on another computer, he's going to use the software provided and wonder what is going on.
I don't begrudge people who want stable software, but a while back I did some checking and a quick check over stable showed that a lot of the software wasn't anywhere close to a representation of the state of the program. Gaim
I'm not asking for bleeding edge software, I'm asking for something made in this decade.
Automatic hardware detection? And it's only 2004!
Sorry, I love debian but they are just too far behind to be nearly as relevant as they were a few years ago. Hopefully they'll release before the end of this year and they can show people linux in all it's 2002 glory!
Yea, but you wouldn't want to do a gentoo install on a 486 :)
(yea yea, I know about the pre-compiled packages..)
Instead of bitching about the lack of OGG support on Slashdot where it won't help matters, why don't you email Apple and tell them that you would be an iPod if they'd ship with OGG support? That would be the more constructive argument to make. Here, I'll even help you out and provide the proper link to submit your comment:
Wow, what a thought! I wish that someone else had thought of that before! You're brilliant!
Seriously, don't you think that people *have* been emailing apple about this? Even the ogg homepage has a note about this with an email to send to. I've emailed them several times myself with calm, rational notes that I'd love to buy but until they have this feature, etc etc. Apple just isn't listening, or rather, isn't doing what "we" (the collective people who have their CDs ripped to OGG) would want them to do.
Doubtful. If I was MS getting someone who knows a lot about open source and has been "in" the market would be a perfect person to use against it.
And the time required to go through all this extra information should give them another 6 months to 6 years to try to buck up their stock prices, spread more FUD, etc.
Dude, you seriously need to seek help for your mail-archiving condition :)
Or if nothing else move some of the mail to a backup directory so the poor little imap server doesn't have to deal with YOUR pack-rat habits!
Thanks, was kinda wondering what was going on. Story is long done now, so hopefully won't be a problem anymore. I have the karma to burn anyway :)
Yes but...
private beta -> p2p networks -> pirates
I don't know about spyware in particular, but only once have I bought a computer system from the store, and that's it. My GF and I got a computer for her grandmother, and me being the computer guy got to get it all set up and ready for use. I figured that it'd be easier than assembling one from scratch, she'd be able to call the store if she had problems, etc etc.
Three versions of AOL, countless icons on the desktop for free this, unlimited that... Oh, lets not forget the 28 critical updates required just to get the system in a state that I'd feel semi-comfortable letting someone connect it to the internet with.
Never again.
Standard Mac Reply(tm).
"But you get more with a new version of OS/x than you do a windows service pack."
And as a relatively new mac user coming from a windows/linux background, it's true. You get the same updates as you do via windows update for security fixes, etc etc. Most windows service packs however (with the exception of the upcoming xpsp2 that is) are essencially the previous bug fixes all rolled into one.
Contrasting this, the incremental updates for MacOS (10.2, 10.3) are more than hotfixes but less than a completely new os. Generally they contain new apps, improvements in existing apps (not just performance or bug fixes either) such as the new 'find as you type', expose, ichat, etc.
That said, I'd love to see the *real* next gen apple offerings, ie: OS 11, as the "new" OSs that have come out in the os 10 line have really been evolutionary, not revolutionary, as longhorn promises to be. Of course, redmond is making a lot of promises about longhorn, and it's a "I'll believe it when I see it" situation for me.
The parent post isn't a troll, the wilwheaton link does indeed do as he says.
Umm, you do know that Linux uses X11 too right? I guess you also know that the Mac OS X X11 implementation is largly based on the linux one, but has some compositing improvements which actually speed it up compared to linux.
Well, as someone who uses both linux and os/x on a daily basis to me running X11 apps on os/x is far slower than running them "pure" under linux. I realize that os/x is unix, but it's my impression (and that of another reply) that the X11 display gets translated through os/x's display layer first. Running X11 apps feels far slower to me anyway.
I use linux daily at work, I still cannot stand this setup. It's just not usefull. I keep having to first find the graphic window under all my other apps, then all the toolbar windows. It's just stupid.
I can't say I disagree with you, though if you're used to the gimp it's not horrible. However, I was more referring to the fact that people who are used to os/x are used to having their menu bar along the top and nowhere else, which is a foreign concept to linux/windows users. Therefor, the menu system that the gimp uses will be double bad (1x for the fact it's far from optimal, 2x because he's not used to menus anywhere but the top menu bar).
Aside: It'd be nice to have a native gimp under aqua, but I doubt that's going to happen anytime soon :)
First of all, the main problem is that you are running on a mac. Seriously, macs rock, I'm on one now, but they only run "big" X11 apps so well. First of all, running under X11 makes it slower than running natively under linux. Run it under linux and see what you think. The toolbars issue... well, that's a Linux/Windows thing, Mac users just aren't used to having menus show up in application windows. That's a reflection of what you're used to, not the fault of the app.
Having to click on buttons several times to active is also a symptom of running under X11. I have GIMP2 on my powerbook and it's *horrible* to work with because of the way that focus works in a mac so each time you click from window to window in the gimp you have to click once to give the window focus, and then again to activate the menu/tool/etc.
Tools probably aren't grouped in the best way, but they are grouped with reasonably. The selection tools, manipulation tools (rotate, scale, etc), fill tools, and drawing tools. Again, they aren't perfect, but they are definately not "thrown down".
The open dialoge is standard GTK and if you were running in GNOME under linux, would look the same as the rest of your desktop. It doesn't look like your standard open dialoge because it's GTK, not aqua!
Some of the performance issues again are no doubt due to the emulation, again, same with the font handling. Try it on a real linux computer.
Also, GIMP isn't trying to be photoshop, I don't think, it's the poor man's photoshop. Hopefully now that 2.0 is out the devs will be able to concentrate on polishing the UI, adding in some of the niceness that is in elements, etc.
Not now, if I go into the ITMS and try to sign up for a new account my CC choices are visa, mc, amex, and discover, and if you try not to enter one you're put back to the same page.
WTF? The free download idea is pretty cool, but you *still* have to sign up for a ITMS login, which means you have to have a valid CC with billing information in the states. So if you're in canada or not in the states you can't download the free sample because they can't get your billing information?
ARGH!
Back to kazaa I go....
Easier then to make firefox your first download then :)
I'm a bit of an amateur photographer, and was wondering what the more experienced ones out there would set their cameras up with as far as shutter speed / apateur for this event? I figure I'll set my digital as long as it'll go at f8 or however small of an apateur I can set, but is that good or not?