"does anyone know of any mid-range digicams that use these or similar drives?"
digicams or camcorder? I'd love a camcorder with a 40 or 80gig drive built-in. Since you're not swapping tapes or anything you can get rid of all those ejection-mechanisms, probably more reliable with less moving parts, no tapes to buy or lose, and how many hours would 80gigs hold? Guess it depends on the format, but I'm imagining quite a few.
anyway speaking of the battery life who cares if it only lasts 5 hours? My cellphone, pocketpc and ipod doesn't last much longer than that so I just charge them nightly, just add the PSP to the list of devices that need nightly charging. What's the big deal?
"It would not have been worth it to drive all the way to the closest place that accepts digital photos and pay for ONE photo to be developed, wasting gas, time, etc. Not that any would have been open at that time anyway.... Small volume nearly-instantaneous good quality prints are still something that the photo lab can't match."
true, but you're talking about spending over one hundred dollars on the printer, paper and ink for something you'll use once in a great while. You use your printer for CDs and DVDs mainly and since photo labs don't do that you don't have much of a choice, but for the average joe that doesn't print CD/DVD labels (I use to until I started burning so many a marker became much easier) a photo lab is the much better choice.
"It's funny how an entire feature can be so insightful about digital cameras, and totally leave out suggestions about photo printers. Quality in prints now is limited to printer quality, not image resolution, if I am not mistaken. "
That's because the easiest and cheapest option is no photo printer at all. When I hooked my parents up with a digital camera I also threw in a nice Epson photo printer. They've never even used the printer, not once, they just take the camera to walmart, put the memory card in the card reader and an hour later their 4x6 prints are finished for less than 30 cents each. No fuss, no hassle, no special software, no photo fading, no messing with $30 special inks or $1 per page special paper or paper jams or anything, just perfect digital photos. Clearly the best solution for any novice digital camera user.
"revenue goes up due to the high price of their special paper"
"...10 years antigas fading when used with Canon's "genuine photograph paper".
Only 10 years? And that's with the super special and probably expensive "genuine" photograh paper? You can go to any walmart or walgreens and print 4x6 photos from your digital camera for less than 30 cents each. That's much cheaper than the cost of ink + 4x6 photo paper, plus it looks the same if not better and if the print looks like crap you don't pay for it. Why do people still bother with photo printers?
I ran a photo printer review site for awhile until Walmart started offering prints from digital cameras. My last "review" was comparing Walmart's photos to a good photo printer's (Walmart was better) and the cost per page (Walmart was much cheaper). Think about it: 8x10 photo paper is about $1 per page, plus photo ink is $20-$30 for about 100 8x10 photos. That's $1.20-$1.30 per 8x10.
Conclusion: don't buy a photo printer. Now I use a cheap used corporate office b&w laser printer.
I suppose if you need color prints for documents other than photos (like cd labeling, etc) then a photo inkjet printer is a good idea, but if you don't a decent used b&w laser would probably save you money in the long run.
It is? Says who? Only thing I love is the article description: "Here's a review of one of those beautiful fanless machines running media center 2005." So much for un-biased reporting...
I think it's ugly and overpriced. Doesn't match anything else in the living room, might as well put a beige box in there since it'd match just as well. With the vents on top you couldn't even put anything on top of it for risk of over-heating.
"Bruce has always been the ultimate whiner, in and amongst some of his valid critiques, and he still wants a computer to be a mindreading typewriter at the end of the day."
Like they say the squeaky wheel gets the grease, if you don't whine a little how do you expect any improvements?
Sounds like a great idea, but what if someone comes out with a similar program but you can pick the site? What if a few dozen people on a forum decide they don't like a some guy's site or don't like some online vendor and decide hey, let's run this program. 3.4megs a day times 100 people = 34megs a day or a gigabyte of extra bandwidth a month. Most servers charge for monthly gigabyte usage so if you're close to your limit now and you've got an extra gig coming your way you're screwed.
Course that's only 100 people, imagine a few hundred or thousand, it could easily shutdown small online vendors or personal websites, hurting average people if the idea is altered a little and falls in the wrong hands.
Put any of those cars next to a Smart Car and I don't think it looks so Smart anymore, I was thinking closer to 6 or 7 grand, half what they plan on selling it for, considering the prices of the competition.
instead of just being a "disgruntled spouse" I suggest you become a "supportive spouse" and spend a little of your free-time finding your EA spouse a different job. There's no reason you can't e-mail or fax his (or her?) resumes instead of your spouse doing because, obviously, they don't have the time. That way instead of just complaining about the situation you're actually trying to fix it, and I'm sure there's plenty of companies that'd love to have a former EA programmer come work for them.
"Nah.. why can't they just put in a decent 20Gb harddrive (like the iPod)"
Price, weight, durability, longevity, and upgradability?"
Expensive? Those micro-sized 20gig drives aren't that expensive anymore, sure more expensive than just shoving a DV tape recorder in a camcorder but when size matters the hard drive will make up for it with longer videos: if 512meg fits 21 minutes of 640x480x30fps 3Mbps quality video then 20 gigs will fit 840 minutes (14 hours) of video.
Weight? What weight? 20gig Mp3 players weigh like 5 ounces and that's with the LCD, batteries, and all the other electronics.
Durability? You don't think mp3 players get tossed around, probably much more so than an expensive camcorder would be, and they seem to hold up just fine.
As far for upgradability goes just toss a SD card reader on the camera. That way when we do have terabyte SD cards your "only fits 14 hours" camcorder isn't obsolete.
The newer, "high-speed" SD cards are
"up to 10Mbps", roughly 2.25 megabyte/sec, much faster than USB 1.1's average 500 kbyte/sec. I have a "high-speed" SD card and I really do get 2+ mB/sec transfer rates.
" Still, you gotta wonder why people need to find things to be upset about. I am not sure why this irks me so much, maybe I should drink less coffee....."
seems to me like you've fulfilled your need to find things to be upset about for the day, but I do agree, I think you do need to drink less coffee.
"My first "modern" PDA was a Palm III, it had 4 weeks autonomy, 2 when playing SimCity in Black and White."
I started on a Palm, and quickly noticed I mainly used it to play games. So I upgraded through the years and realized the only reason I needed a faster pda was for playing games so now I have a x30 that plays SNES and Gameboy Advance games at 30fps with no problem.
The X50 is great, but my main problem is the lack of buttons: the x30 has a total of 7 buttons along the bottom along with the directional control (the regular 4 for apps, another on each side for recorder and wireless, then another in the middle of the directional control). Coming from a iPaq I can tell you these extra buttons make a huge difference, especially when you fire up SNES games where the original controller had 4 buttons on the right side so the games expect you to easily press the buttons quickly.
They took the extra buttons off the X50v so the x30 remains the best pocket pc out there for playing games at the moment.
After seeing this picture I can already guess how every conversation will go:
1: What games does it play?
2: it doesn't, just video and mp3s
1: how much was it?
2: $500
1: wow you got ripped off!
Think I'll wait until they have a portable game system that does everything this thing does AND play games (PSP, anyone?)
You're right, this is incredibly stupid. What they need is I-Sex, where you can look up women in your local area looking for sex. Now THAT would be popular!
Wonder if I-Neighbors has a "search by closest location with desire to get laid" option? Now that would be interesting...
As if we don't hear enough crap about moviepiracy from the MPAA these geniuses come right out and say "Hey great we can now transfer full DVD movies in 4 seconds over the internet!"
Yes I know it's Internet2 and only links universities, industry and goverment for research purposes but still I'm sure the MPAA got their panties in a bunch over that qoute. Couldn't they use the standard measurement for data transfer speeds like how many times it can transfer the entire Library of Congress in a second?
"WMA support which is, regardless of what Apple maniacs might say, much more useful than proprietary AAC support "
Let's not forget that AAC is dead: OGG vs. MP3 vs. WMA vs RA
"Obsolete codecs
AAC
We've been reading about AAC from the early 1998's. There is even an ISO comparison which proves (with statistics...) AAC's superiority to MP3. However, we have not found a single implementation that did not produce serious amounts of distortion in our testing sample. Nobody seems interested any longer."
Not to mention they said 96 kbps WMA is CD quality (5 out of 5).
"with all that i still bought one... because its the coolest toy on the block. hype sells."
strange... my friends with iPods want my Nitrus, probably because it does what it's suppose to do (play lots of music) and it does that very well, not trying to be a portable hard drive or PDA with piss poor battery life and no custom EQ. So what does that make the Nitrus?
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digicams or camcorder? I'd love a camcorder with a 40 or 80gig drive built-in. Since you're not swapping tapes or anything you can get rid of all those ejection-mechanisms, probably more reliable with less moving parts, no tapes to buy or lose, and how many hours would 80gigs hold? Guess it depends on the format, but I'm imagining quite a few.
anyway speaking of the battery life who cares if it only lasts 5 hours? My cellphone, pocketpc and ipod doesn't last much longer than that so I just charge them nightly, just add the PSP to the list of devices that need nightly charging. What's the big deal?
true, but you're talking about spending over one hundred dollars on the printer, paper and ink for something you'll use once in a great while. You use your printer for CDs and DVDs mainly and since photo labs don't do that you don't have much of a choice, but for the average joe that doesn't print CD/DVD labels (I use to until I started burning so many a marker became much easier) a photo lab is the much better choice.
That's because the easiest and cheapest option is no photo printer at all. When I hooked my parents up with a digital camera I also threw in a nice Epson photo printer. They've never even used the printer, not once, they just take the camera to walmart, put the memory card in the card reader and an hour later their 4x6 prints are finished for less than 30 cents each. No fuss, no hassle, no special software, no photo fading, no messing with $30 special inks or $1 per page special paper or paper jams or anything, just perfect digital photos. Clearly the best solution for any novice digital camera user.
30 cents is expensive too, I've found 4x6s for as low as 9 cents each at pephoto.com or photocheap.biz has them for 10.8 cents with only 99 cents shipping. That's 24 photos (a standard roll) for $3.60. Can't beat that deal, but of course it's only so it's not as convienent.
"...10 years antigas fading when used with Canon's "genuine photograph paper".
Only 10 years? And that's with the super special and probably expensive "genuine" photograh paper? You can go to any walmart or walgreens and print 4x6 photos from your digital camera for less than 30 cents each. That's much cheaper than the cost of ink + 4x6 photo paper, plus it looks the same if not better and if the print looks like crap you don't pay for it. Why do people still bother with photo printers?
I ran a photo printer review site for awhile until Walmart started offering prints from digital cameras. My last "review" was comparing Walmart's photos to a good photo printer's (Walmart was better) and the cost per page (Walmart was much cheaper). Think about it: 8x10 photo paper is about $1 per page, plus photo ink is $20-$30 for about 100 8x10 photos. That's $1.20-$1.30 per 8x10.
Conclusion: don't buy a photo printer. Now I use a cheap used corporate office b&w laser printer.
I suppose if you need color prints for documents other than photos (like cd labeling, etc) then a photo inkjet printer is a good idea, but if you don't a decent used b&w laser would probably save you money in the long run.
yeah right, like anyone on /. has a wife ;)
welcome to /. where no one RTFA. Be glad I even followed the link and looked at the pictures!
don't be silly, houses don't grow, they're built. How'd you decide upon a house anyway? Couldn't you say tree? Least trees are growable things.
I think it's ugly and overpriced. Doesn't match anything else in the living room, might as well put a beige box in there since it'd match just as well. With the vents on top you couldn't even put anything on top of it for risk of over-heating.
Want to see what a beautiful media PC case looks like? Try the Overture Quiet Media Desktop Case, or perhaps the Silverstone Aluminum Home Entertainment Computer Case in Black or maybe the SilverStone LC10M Home Theater PC Case /w front VFD (Black). If you're on a budget the Antec MINUET Piano Black Slimline PC Case looks really nice for only $60 with Antec quality but you'll need a Micro ATX board.
Like they say the squeaky wheel gets the grease, if you don't whine a little how do you expect any improvements?
Might even sell a few games since that's where the money's at, the game licenses, not selling the hardware.
Course that's only 100 people, imagine a few hundred or thousand, it could easily shutdown small online vendors or personal websites, hurting average people if the idea is altered a little and falls in the wrong hands.
Yeah, like Metros looked that much safer. Guess you missed that link on the front page to video of a Zap Smart Car hitting a Mercedes head on.
That thing has a TURBO! The performance crowd will be all over it!
"Pricing should run between $12,000 for the cheapest model, and just over $20,000 for a convertible with all the available extras, Heidemann says. That's a markup of a few thousand dollars over the price in Europe, where Heidemann has been buying them from dealers."
Think that's a bit steep for what you're getting, considering you can get Chevy Aveo with nearly double the horsepower (100 vs 60) for 9, a Focus for 13 or a new Chevy Cobalt (cavalier replacement) for 14. Don't forget things like A/C and Power Steering are options on the ZAP Smart Car, things that most Americans have long considered standard: even the 9 grand Chevy Aveo has standard A/C.
Put any of those cars next to a Smart Car and I don't think it looks so Smart anymore, I was thinking closer to 6 or 7 grand, half what they plan on selling it for, considering the prices of the competition.
remind me to not let him see my credit card...
i miss being single... *sigh*
instead of just being a "disgruntled spouse" I suggest you become a "supportive spouse" and spend a little of your free-time finding your EA spouse a different job. There's no reason you can't e-mail or fax his (or her?) resumes instead of your spouse doing because, obviously, they don't have the time. That way instead of just complaining about the situation you're actually trying to fix it, and I'm sure there's plenty of companies that'd love to have a former EA programmer come work for them.
Price, weight, durability, longevity, and upgradability?"
Expensive? Those micro-sized 20gig drives aren't that expensive anymore, sure more expensive than just shoving a DV tape recorder in a camcorder but when size matters the hard drive will make up for it with longer videos: if 512meg fits 21 minutes of 640x480x30fps 3Mbps quality video then 20 gigs will fit 840 minutes (14 hours) of video.
Weight? What weight? 20gig Mp3 players weigh like 5 ounces and that's with the LCD, batteries, and all the other electronics.
Durability? You don't think mp3 players get tossed around, probably much more so than an expensive camcorder would be, and they seem to hold up just fine.
As far for upgradability goes just toss a SD card reader on the camera. That way when we do have terabyte SD cards your "only fits 14 hours" camcorder isn't obsolete.
The newer, "high-speed" SD cards are "up to 10Mbps", roughly 2.25 megabyte/sec, much faster than USB 1.1's average 500 kbyte/sec. I have a "high-speed" SD card and I really do get 2+ mB/sec transfer rates.
seems to me like you've fulfilled your need to find things to be upset about for the day, but I do agree, I think you do need to drink less coffee.
I started on a Palm, and quickly noticed I mainly used it to play games. So I upgraded through the years and realized the only reason I needed a faster pda was for playing games so now I have a x30 that plays SNES and Gameboy Advance games at 30fps with no problem.
The X50 is great, but my main problem is the lack of buttons: the x30 has a total of 7 buttons along the bottom along with the directional control (the regular 4 for apps, another on each side for recorder and wireless, then another in the middle of the directional control). Coming from a iPaq I can tell you these extra buttons make a huge difference, especially when you fire up SNES games where the original controller had 4 buttons on the right side so the games expect you to easily press the buttons quickly.
They took the extra buttons off the X50v so the x30 remains the best pocket pc out there for playing games at the moment.
After seeing this picture I can already guess how every conversation will go:
1: What games does it play?
2: it doesn't, just video and mp3s
1: how much was it?
2: $500
1: wow you got ripped off!
Think I'll wait until they have a portable game system that does everything this thing does AND play games (PSP, anyone?)
Wonder if I-Neighbors has a "search by closest location with desire to get laid" option? Now that would be interesting...
Yes I know it's Internet2 and only links universities, industry and goverment for research purposes but still I'm sure the MPAA got their panties in a bunch over that qoute. Couldn't they use the standard measurement for data transfer speeds like how many times it can transfer the entire Library of Congress in a second?
Let's not forget that AAC is dead: OGG vs. MP3 vs. WMA vs RA
"Obsolete codecs
AAC
We've been reading about AAC from the early 1998's. There is even an ISO comparison which proves (with statistics...) AAC's superiority to MP3. However, we have not found a single implementation that did not produce serious amounts of distortion in our testing sample. Nobody seems interested any longer."
Not to mention they said 96 kbps WMA is CD quality (5 out of 5).
strange... my friends with iPods want my Nitrus, probably because it does what it's suppose to do (play lots of music) and it does that very well, not trying to be a portable hard drive or PDA with piss poor battery life and no custom EQ. So what does that make the Nitrus?