There's one out now that doesn't use interpolation. It's marketed as a 10MP camera, but actually has around 3.3 full megapixels for each color and produces 3 MP-size images.
Check it out...kinda cool...but still can't touch pro cameras like the EOS 1-Ds.
I've got a $2900 Epson Expression 1640XL large-format flatbed scanner at work. (Not sure if the link will work for y'all...looks like it uses cookies...if not, just go to their site and click on Scanners.) The optical resolution is 1600dpi and the scanning bed is 13" x 19". Even at the maximum resolution of 1600dpi, the images are tack-sharp--it's almost like looking through a microscope.
At 1600dpi, the theoretical maximum image size is 20800 x 30400, or approximately 632 megapixels. Photoshop 7 reports that a 20800 x 30000 (it only goes up to 30000 pixels) RGB image would be 1.74 GB.
So, if you could expose a large enough piece of film (there's an optional transparency adapter), scan an original piece of art, or convert the scanner into some kind of mega-scanning-back camera, you could get some damn impressive images out of it, I'd think.
I've never tried scanning such a large image with it--don't have enough RAM--but with the FireWire interface, it'd probably be a lot faster than stitching all of those digicam images together.
The cool thing about the SliMP3 devices is that they include a remote control...you can change the music while sitting on the couch.
If you use wireless speakers, you're stuck listening to whatever your iTunes/WinAmp/whatever is playing at the time. The other benefit is that you don't have to have a big/old/ugly/noisy computer in the living room.
I currently use an old AirPort-equipped PowerBook to do basically the same thing as the SliMP3 devices, but it's a bit cumbersome...and there's no remote control, so when it suddenly starts playing something awful, somebody has to jump up and change it.
Mine came by FedEx Friday afternoon. My old dual 450 G4 has definitely perked up a bit; though I can definitely tell I need a new Quartz Extreme video card.
...at work and it's just amazing. As others have said, the new digital Rebel has pretty much the same guts.
The 10D (and Rebel) are both ~6 megapixel cameras. While this doesn't sound much better than other run-of-the-mill prosumer digicams like, say, a Canon Powershot S50, the actual image quality is much better.
I'm not familiar with the real nitty-gritty technical details, but the 10D's sensor is a LOT bigger than the little sensors in other point-and-shoot cameras, which means that there's a lot less noise. The 10D also has a different type of sensor (CMOS) than most other digicams, which use CCD.
But, yeah, I wholeheartedly recommend the 10D or Rebel. My 3-year-old 3-megapixel Toshiba feels like a piece of crap in comparison.
I have an old PowerBook hooked up to the stereo in the living room. iTunes streams music wirelessly from my G4...this way people can pick the songs they want to hear and I don't have to worry about them deleting songs...only about stealing the PowerBook...:)
I have a Mac and can't understand how people get by with WinAmp or --ugh-- MusicMatch. iTunes is just so easy to use and find the type of music that you want.
The feature that blows my PC friends away is the Rendezvous streaming. I have a G4 in my bedroom with 20GBs of MP3's and an AirPort-equipped PowerBook in the living room connected to the stereo.
If iTunes is running on my G4, all the music and playlists on it automatically show up when I launch iTunes on the PowerBook. It's really slick...the songs start playing immediately with no stuttering or buffering.
I was thinking about getting a SliMP3, but not anymore...I can even connect the PowerBook to the TV and show iTunes visualizations on it...cool.
Oddly, the outgoing G4 is more expandable than the new G5. The dual 1.25GHz G4 can be ordered from Apple with 4 160GB IDE drives (for a total of 640GB). Throw in 4 250GB drives and you have (roughly) a TB.
The G5, OTOH, can be ordered with two 250GB Serial ATA drives. Once bigger drives are available, I'm sure it'll support more than the current 500GB. Or you could always add another controller card or a FireWire 800 HD or something.
On another note, the G5 supports 8GB of RAM; the G4 can only hold 2GB.
People always seem to forget about Mac OS X Server for ease of use... It's damn near idiot proof to set up, use and maintain.
I'm the grad assistant for my university's student media department. We've gotta three-year-old G4 (a 533 MHz dualie with 512MB of RAM, 240GB of disk space and a four-port Ethernet card) for everything and it never even breaks a sweat. It's a file server for our three-day-a-week newspaper and two monthly magazines, which means that up to 20 Macs can be throwing huge graphics files at it concurrently.
Aside from all that, it's our webserver, too. AFAIK we've never had any problems serving pages, but that's probably more a result of our ~10 mbps pipe than anything else...;)
Ever read 1984? I hadn't until a few months ago. Try it...it's great. All the stuff about changing history and the wars really hit home, especially with everything going on now.
If you get a LCD, make sure to get one with a DVI (or ADC for Mac) connection. The digital connection affords a much sharper image than what you'd get from an analog VGA cable.
In my experience, Apple's LCD's are clearly the best, though you have to buy a $150 converter to use 'em with a PC because of the proprietary ADC connector that carries power, video, and USB.
Dell's digital UltraSharp models are pretty good, too.
My mom has a 14" Trinitron that's seen heavy use since 1990. It's about to outlast the third computer she's used it with...starting with a 386/25, then a P60, and now a PII/266. It's still bright and sharp, and runs 800x600 all day long.;)
I got a Canon i320 at Amazon for $40 after rebate and have been really happy with it. Works great with OS X, too.
I have a laser for most of my work, but use the inkjet to print the occasional digital photo or whatnot. The quality is actually quite good--much better than the entry-level Lexmarks and HP's I've seen--with a printhead resolution of 2400x1200.
Another good thing is that, even though they're a little small, the ink cartridges are nice-n-cheap. The black ones cost around $6, and the color carts only cost about $16 or so.
If you want economy, get a laser. But it seems like Canon printers are the most economical right now.
I bought a Canon i320 at Amazon for $40 (after rebate) and have been pretty happy with it.
I use a Lexmark laser for most of my work, but got the inkjet to print the occasional digital photo. Prints on glossy paper look durn good--not quite as nice as, say, a $300 Epson Stylus, but I'm not complaining--it only cost me $40! What's cool is that it can print borderless prints on 4x6 paper. It has a little sponge in the paper path and actually "bleeds" the image off the page a little.
Carts are reasonable, too. Black ones are $7 and (all-in-one) color ones only cost $17 or so. Their higher-end printers have higher-capacity separate tanks for each color and a multipack costs about the same ($35) as all-in-one carts from other mfrs. I think the main reason they can price their carts so reasonably is that unlike HP and Lexmark, Canon's cartridges don't include new printheads. But unlike Epson, the printhead is user-replaceable if it's ever damaged, which is nice.
Hope this helps a little.
Have any of you used Apple's new displays?
on
LCD Overtaking CRT
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
They're pretty amazing (the bigger ones at least). I've used Trinitrons for years (and have a 17" FD at home) and the new Apple displays blow all of 'em out of the water.
I've got a digital 17" Studio Display on my desk at work. It's incredible: very bright colors, no flicker, wide viewing angle, zero distortion, one-cable connect (for video, power and USB) and 1280x1024 resolution.
At my other job we have a digital Dell Ultrasharp, and while still better than most CRT's, it isn't nearly as nice as the Apple display.
We've got a coupla 15" iMacs and 15" studio displays as well, though, and the picture isn't nearly as nice on those.
Oh, and there are rumors of Apple introducing a 30" model with the next revision of their displays./drool
The most recent version of the Mac keyboard is great. Apple now includes four new keys in a row above the numeric keypad: mute, vol up, vol down, and cd eject. The volume keys are especially convenient if you have to suddenly adjust the volume (like if the phone rings).
The other thing about Mac keyboards that is better than most others is its Command key. One is located on either side of the space bar...an ideal location. Hitting a PC's CTRL button requires rotating your wrist so your pinky finger can hit it...the Command key can be pressed easily with your thumb...cause it's already there!
I'm a big dork and intensely research any potential electronics purchase. Instead of impulse-buying, I wait until the unit I want--usually the expensive one--goes on sale.
As an example, I bought a Harman/Kardon receiver a few years ago as the model line was being end-of-lifed. The normally $400+ receiver cost me $199 at Circuit City. The damn thing is a tank. It sounds great and weighs 25 lbs due to its massive transformer...about 10 more than the average Sony. I cracked it open out of curiosity and was surprised at how well-built it is compared to my previous crap JVC receiver.
I've actually had good luck with other Sony stuff, especially their computer monitors. I just don't like their receivers and low-end audio stuff. The upper-end and ES-level components are quite good.
Just pay a little extra and buy something good--it will last. Instead of, say, a Pioneer or JVC receiver, get a H/K, NAD, Denon or Onkyo. This isn't high-end audiophile gear by any means, but it is considerably better than Bose and most of the other mass-market crap at Best Buy.
And don't buy those all-in-one home theatres. If one component fails, you'll be stuck with a whole bunch of useless (still good) equipment.
Slashdot Mirror
There's one out now that doesn't use interpolation. It's marketed as a 10MP camera, but actually has around 3.3 full megapixels for each color and produces 3 MP-size images.
Check it out...kinda cool...but still can't touch pro cameras like the EOS 1-Ds.
I've got a $2900 Epson Expression 1640XL large-format flatbed scanner at work. (Not sure if the link will work for y'all...looks like it uses cookies...if not, just go to their site and click on Scanners.) The optical resolution is 1600dpi and the scanning bed is 13" x 19". Even at the maximum resolution of 1600dpi, the images are tack-sharp--it's almost like looking through a microscope.
At 1600dpi, the theoretical maximum image size is 20800 x 30400, or approximately 632 megapixels. Photoshop 7 reports that a 20800 x 30000 (it only goes up to 30000 pixels) RGB image would be 1.74 GB.
So, if you could expose a large enough piece of film (there's an optional transparency adapter), scan an original piece of art, or convert the scanner into some kind of mega-scanning-back camera, you could get some damn impressive images out of it, I'd think.
I've never tried scanning such a large image with it--don't have enough RAM--but with the FireWire interface, it'd probably be a lot faster than stitching all of those digicam images together.
The cool thing about the SliMP3 devices is that they include a remote control...you can change the music while sitting on the couch.
If you use wireless speakers, you're stuck listening to whatever your iTunes/WinAmp/whatever is playing at the time. The other benefit is that you don't have to have a big/old/ugly/noisy computer in the living room.
I currently use an old AirPort-equipped PowerBook to do basically the same thing as the SliMP3 devices, but it's a bit cumbersome...and there's no remote control, so when it suddenly starts playing something awful, somebody has to jump up and change it.
HTH.
Mine came by FedEx Friday afternoon. My old dual 450 G4 has definitely perked up a bit; though I can definitely tell I need a new Quartz Extreme video card.
...at work and it's just amazing. As others have said, the new digital Rebel has pretty much the same guts.
The 10D (and Rebel) are both ~6 megapixel cameras. While this doesn't sound much better than other run-of-the-mill prosumer digicams like, say, a Canon Powershot S50, the actual image quality is much better.
I'm not familiar with the real nitty-gritty technical details, but the 10D's sensor is a LOT bigger than the little sensors in other point-and-shoot cameras, which means that there's a lot less noise. The 10D also has a different type of sensor (CMOS) than most other digicams, which use CCD.
But, yeah, I wholeheartedly recommend the 10D or Rebel. My 3-year-old 3-megapixel Toshiba feels like a piece of crap in comparison.
You can't do it DIRECTLY. You CAN make MP3 files if you want to, by burning an audio CD and then ripping those files....
I have an old PowerBook hooked up to the stereo in the living room. iTunes streams music wirelessly from my G4...this way people can pick the songs they want to hear and I don't have to worry about them deleting songs...only about stealing the PowerBook... :)
I think they should offer the AACs at a higher bitrate, 'cause I can already detect some compression artifacts in the original AACs.
It's not too bad on slow music like Jack Johnson or something like that, but heavy metal and punk rock have some pretty noticeable distortion.
Yes.
I have a Mac and can't understand how people get by with WinAmp or --ugh-- MusicMatch. iTunes is just so easy to use and find the type of music that you want.
The feature that blows my PC friends away is the Rendezvous streaming. I have a G4 in my bedroom with 20GBs of MP3's and an AirPort-equipped PowerBook in the living room connected to the stereo.
If iTunes is running on my G4, all the music and playlists on it automatically show up when I launch iTunes on the PowerBook. It's really slick...the songs start playing immediately with no stuttering or buffering.
I was thinking about getting a SliMP3, but not anymore...I can even connect the PowerBook to the TV and show iTunes visualizations on it...cool.
Wow, those unsmoothed fonts don't look very nice, but overall it's a good effort... :)
It's kind of a hassle, but you can burn your downloaded AAC files to CD, then re-rip them as MP3s that'll play in any MP3 player.
Oddly, the outgoing G4 is more expandable than the new G5. The dual 1.25GHz G4 can be ordered from Apple with 4 160GB IDE drives (for a total of 640GB). Throw in 4 250GB drives and you have (roughly) a TB.
The G5, OTOH, can be ordered with two 250GB Serial ATA drives. Once bigger drives are available, I'm sure it'll support more than the current 500GB. Or you could always add another controller card or a FireWire 800 HD or something.
On another note, the G5 supports 8GB of RAM; the G4 can only hold 2GB.
People always seem to forget about Mac OS X Server for ease of use... It's damn near idiot proof to set up, use and maintain.
;)
I'm the grad assistant for my university's student media department. We've gotta three-year-old G4 (a 533 MHz dualie with 512MB of RAM, 240GB of disk space and a four-port Ethernet card) for everything and it never even breaks a sweat. It's a file server for our three-day-a-week newspaper and two monthly magazines, which means that up to 20 Macs can be throwing huge graphics files at it concurrently.
Aside from all that, it's our webserver, too. AFAIK we've never had any problems serving pages, but that's probably more a result of our ~10 mbps pipe than anything else...
Ever read 1984? I hadn't until a few months ago. Try it...it's great. All the stuff about changing history and the wars really hit home, especially with everything going on now.
If they like crappy GM cars so much, why not call it Camaro?
(This'd require the traditional mullet and wife-beater.)
If you get a LCD, make sure to get one with a DVI (or ADC for Mac) connection. The digital connection affords a much sharper image than what you'd get from an analog VGA cable.
In my experience, Apple's LCD's are clearly the best, though you have to buy a $150 converter to use 'em with a PC because of the proprietary ADC connector that carries power, video, and USB.
Dell's digital UltraSharp models are pretty good, too.
19-footer, eh? ;)
;)
My mom has a 14" Trinitron that's seen heavy use since 1990. It's about to outlast the third computer she's used it with...starting with a 386/25, then a P60, and now a PII/266. It's still bright and sharp, and runs 800x600 all day long.
I got a Canon i320 at Amazon for $40 after rebate and have been really happy with it. Works great with OS X, too.
I have a laser for most of my work, but use the inkjet to print the occasional digital photo or whatnot. The quality is actually quite good--much better than the entry-level Lexmarks and HP's I've seen--with a printhead resolution of 2400x1200.
Another good thing is that, even though they're a little small, the ink cartridges are nice-n-cheap. The black ones cost around $6, and the color carts only cost about $16 or so.
If you want economy, get a laser. But it seems like Canon printers are the most economical right now.
I bought a Canon i320 at Amazon for $40 (after rebate) and have been pretty happy with it.
I use a Lexmark laser for most of my work, but got the inkjet to print the occasional digital photo. Prints on glossy paper look durn good--not quite as nice as, say, a $300 Epson Stylus, but I'm not complaining--it only cost me $40! What's cool is that it can print borderless prints on 4x6 paper. It has a little sponge in the paper path and actually "bleeds" the image off the page a little.
Carts are reasonable, too. Black ones are $7 and (all-in-one) color ones only cost $17 or so. Their higher-end printers have higher-capacity separate tanks for each color and a multipack costs about the same ($35) as all-in-one carts from other mfrs. I think the main reason they can price their carts so reasonably is that unlike HP and Lexmark, Canon's cartridges don't include new printheads. But unlike Epson, the printhead is user-replaceable if it's ever damaged, which is nice.
Hope this helps a little.
They're pretty amazing (the bigger ones at least). I've used Trinitrons for years (and have a 17" FD at home) and the new Apple displays blow all of 'em out of the water.
/drool
I've got a digital 17" Studio Display on my desk at work. It's incredible: very bright colors, no flicker, wide viewing angle, zero distortion, one-cable connect (for video, power and USB) and 1280x1024 resolution.
At my other job we have a digital Dell Ultrasharp, and while still better than most CRT's, it isn't nearly as nice as the Apple display.
We've got a coupla 15" iMacs and 15" studio displays as well, though, and the picture isn't nearly as nice on those.
Oh, and there are rumors of Apple introducing a 30" model with the next revision of their displays.
Unless you have to log in, this is an e way to get around the usage cap.
I've got 1mbit DSL at home, but if I need anything really big it's faster to drive down to the library and download it there (~600kb/sec).
Simple answer: take a screenshot. It works with "protected" Acrobat documents and'll probably work with this, too.
The most recent version of the Mac keyboard is great. Apple now includes four new keys in a row above the numeric keypad: mute, vol up, vol down, and cd eject. The volume keys are especially convenient if you have to suddenly adjust the volume (like if the phone rings).
The other thing about Mac keyboards that is better than most others is its Command key. One is located on either side of the space bar...an ideal location. Hitting a PC's CTRL button requires rotating your wrist so your pinky finger can hit it...the Command key can be pressed easily with your thumb...cause it's already there!
On black Friday I bought a 30GB Maxtor for $29 (!) after rebate.
It wasn't all that long ago (early 90's) that hard drives were a still a dollar a megabyte.
I'm a big dork and intensely research any potential electronics purchase. Instead of impulse-buying, I wait until the unit I want--usually the expensive one--goes on sale.
As an example, I bought a Harman/Kardon receiver a few years ago as the model line was being end-of-lifed. The normally $400+ receiver cost me $199 at Circuit City. The damn thing is a tank. It sounds great and weighs 25 lbs due to its massive transformer...about 10 more than the average Sony. I cracked it open out of curiosity and was surprised at how well-built it is compared to my previous crap JVC receiver.
I've actually had good luck with other Sony stuff, especially their computer monitors. I just don't like their receivers and low-end audio stuff. The upper-end and ES-level components are quite good.
Just pay a little extra and buy something good--it will last. Instead of, say, a Pioneer or JVC receiver, get a H/K, NAD, Denon or Onkyo. This isn't high-end audiophile gear by any means, but it is considerably better than Bose and most of the other mass-market crap at Best Buy.
And don't buy those all-in-one home theatres. If one component fails, you'll be stuck with a whole bunch of useless (still good) equipment.