I'm in singapore
I have a HP Netserver LH3 (1998) still in operation today.
I just bought a HP proliant ML350G3 because of the track record of that server and my experience with HP support (next day, 24 hours)
which has been very good.
I still possess some dell machines (about 4 dell dimension desktops and 1 dell poweredge 1500SC) the dell server hasn't given me any trouble yet.
however, my personal experience with dell aspire = crap motherboard almost next to impossible to upgradeetc. and the dell dimension = only 2 dimm slots!!!, and crashes win98 if you put in a cdrw for some of them. (even after a clean install)
needless to say, the rest of my new corporate desktops are hp d330 uT's.. I like them so far.
however, my home printer is a canon (cos hp's are JUST TO BIG), and my main office printer is the freakingly expensive canon imagerunner c3200 (roughly USD 35k)
but i still have plenty of HP laserjet 4 lying around being workhorses...(slow but working even after all these years)
likewise samething.
my last reinstall of xp (cos my 20gb hdd crashed last week).
I did:
a) install winxp from cd.
b) hook on the net (Dlink router/bridge to ethernet modem with NAT)
c) run windows update (v5)
so everything here was fine.
--
after that it went totally wrong when I went to one of THOSE sites.. 8)
got infected immediately by the secure.html hijacker and , had to install norton/spybot to clean it up in safe mode etc.
and no, I didn't have to turn off any firewalls to update norton (not that I installed any besides NAT)
A comparison by of a hacked 300D/Rebel with D70
dpreview link
--
some fallacies from the above threads:
noise performance : 300D/Rebel wins:it has ISO 100, D70 has a minimum ISO 200 . (also; at comparative 300DISO 200 vs D70ISO 200, the 300D is rated more like ISO160 )
the only major advantage of the D70 is its CF write speed/buffer, ie: in raw mode, it can shoot at 1fps continuous until your cf card fills up. so is this advantage worth the extra money?
flaw: D70 NEF/RAW mode is NOT lossless, it is visually lossless, but its just 9.4bits vs canon raw at 12 bits.
[quote]
The decoding curve is embedded in the NEF file (and could thus be changed by a firmware upgrade without having to change NEF converters), I used a D70 NEF file made available by Uwe Steinmuller of Digital Outback Photo.
The quantization is a lossy operation, and converts 12 bits into 9.4 bits' worth of resolution (dynamic range is unchanged). This is a fairly common technique - digital telephony encodes 12 bits' worth of dynamic range in 8 bits using the so-alled A-law and mu-law codecs. I modified the program to output the data for the decoding curve (Excel-compatible CSV format), and plotted the curve (PDF) using linear and log-log scales, along with a quadratic regression fit (courtesy of R). The curve is a gamma correction curve, linear for values up to 215, then quadratic.
In conclusion, Thom is right - there is some loss of data, mostly in the form of lowered resolution in the highlights.
[/quote]
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I'm in singapore I have a HP Netserver LH3 (1998) still in operation today. I just bought a HP proliant ML350G3 because of the track record of that server and my experience with HP support (next day, 24 hours) which has been very good. I still possess some dell machines (about 4 dell dimension desktops and 1 dell poweredge 1500SC) the dell server hasn't given me any trouble yet. however, my personal experience with dell aspire = crap motherboard almost next to impossible to upgradeetc. and the dell dimension = only 2 dimm slots!!!, and crashes win98 if you put in a cdrw for some of them. (even after a clean install) needless to say, the rest of my new corporate desktops are hp d330 uT's.. I like them so far. however, my home printer is a canon (cos hp's are JUST TO BIG), and my main office printer is the freakingly expensive canon imagerunner c3200 (roughly USD 35k) but i still have plenty of HP laserjet 4 lying around being workhorses...(slow but working even after all these years)
likewise samething. my last reinstall of xp (cos my 20gb hdd crashed last week). I did: a) install winxp from cd. b) hook on the net (Dlink router/bridge to ethernet modem with NAT) c) run windows update (v5) so everything here was fine. -- after that it went totally wrong when I went to one of THOSE sites.. 8) got infected immediately by the secure.html hijacker and , had to install norton/spybot to clean it up in safe mode etc. and no, I didn't have to turn off any firewalls to update norton (not that I installed any besides NAT)
A comparison by of a hacked 300D/Rebel with D70 dpreview link
--
some fallacies from the above threads:
noise performance : 300D/Rebel wins :it has ISO 100, D70 has a minimum ISO 200 . (also; at comparative 300DISO 200 vs D70ISO 200, the 300D is rated more like ISO160 )
the only major advantage of the D70 is its CF write speed/buffer, ie: in raw mode, it can shoot at 1fps continuous until your cf card fills up. so is this advantage worth the extra money?
flaw: D70 NEF/RAW mode is NOT lossless, it is visually lossless, but its just 9.4bits vs canon raw at 12 bits.
d70 forum link
NEF lossy compression
[quote] The decoding curve is embedded in the NEF file (and could thus be changed by a firmware upgrade without having to change NEF converters), I used a D70 NEF file made available by Uwe Steinmuller of Digital Outback Photo.
The quantization is a lossy operation, and converts 12 bits into 9.4 bits' worth of resolution (dynamic range is unchanged). This is a fairly common technique - digital telephony encodes 12 bits' worth of dynamic range in 8 bits using the so-alled A-law and mu-law codecs. I modified the program to output the data for the decoding curve (Excel-compatible CSV format), and plotted the curve (PDF) using linear and log-log scales, along with a quadratic regression fit (courtesy of R). The curve is a gamma correction curve, linear for values up to 215, then quadratic.
In conclusion, Thom is right - there is some loss of data, mostly in the form of lowered resolution in the highlights. [/quote]