Canon PowerShot A560

For Christmas I bought my mother a digital camera and printer. At first I was going to go with a Kodak bundle. The printers had good reviews, but the cameras didn't. Then I thought about an HP bundle. The cameras had good reviews, but the printers didn't. At that point I said skip the bundles and find a good printer and a good camera, separately. For the camera, I ended up going with a 7.1 megapixel, 4X optical zoom lens Canon PowerShot A560. It has very good reviews and I have a Canon PowerShot A610 which I've been happy with. Turns out I made a good choice. The Canon PowerShot A560 is a very nice camera. For a beginner photographer, the photo quality is excellent. The camera has 14 shooting modes, including 6 special scene modes. The various modes include night time, kids & pets who are moving, portrait, and an automatic feature. That is the setting my mother uses most often and the photos are very good. The camera automatically adjusts the focal length, ISO to take the best photo for the current lighting conditions.
The camera is about half the size of my older A610, which is nice.
The Canon PowerShot A560 takes 2 AA batteries, a step up from my Canon PowerShot A610 which takes 4 AA batteries and seems to eat them up very fast.
The Canon Powershot A560 uses a DIGIC III Image Processor to get the best image quality, so that the camera works efficiently and battery life is improved. Face detection and red eye correction features have also been improved.
There is a high-resolution 2.5-inch LCD to make viewing easy and there are four movie modes, including 30 fps VGA and 60 fps fast frame rate.
A Print/Share button makes it easy to print photos or transfer them to a computer. The Canon PowerShot A560 is PictBridge enabled.
The only complaint I have about the A560 and A610 is the lag time between shots. I used the A610 at a wrestling match and it wasn't the greatest for taking photos one right after the other. There was a bit of a pause between each shot while the camera refocused for the next shot. Afterwards, I played around with some settings and was able to decrease the lag time a bit.
So, if you are in the market for a good quality, reasonably priced digital camera, I highly recommend the Canon PowerShot A560.
Check out this link for my review of the printer I bought to go with the camera. It too is excellent.



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Epson Picturemate Dash

For Christmas I bought my mother a digital camera and printer. At first I was going to go with a Kodak bundle. The printers had good reviews, but the cameras didn't. Then I thought about an HP bundle. The cameras had good reviews, but the printers didn't. At that point I said skip the bundles and find a good printer and a good camera, separately. For the printer I ended up going with an Epson Picturemate Dash. It's the latest in the Picturemate series, new for 2007. The printer was very easy to set up. It comes with an initial ink cartridge. It doesn't last very long though, so make sure to buy a spare one. It also comes with a packet of 4x6 paper. The printer has memory card slots on the front. The following memory cards are supported: CompactFlash® (Type I and II), Secure Digital (SD™), SDHC™, MMC, Memory Stick®, Microdrive® (Type M/H) and xD-Picture Card™. You just insert the ink cartridge, paper and memory card. Turn the printer on, go through some initialization steps and you're good to go. You can either print from the printer using the memory card or from the camera directly if it is PictBridge enabled.
The largest available print size is 4x6. If you want a bigger print size, it looked like you would have to go with a full sized computer printer. I wanted a printer which wouldn't require a computer. Other print sizes available include wallet size, mini-wallets, jumbo-wallets, U.S. passport size, 2" x 2" – 3" x 3" square photos, portrait packages (four per page and ten per page) and proof sheet.
The print quality is very good. I was quite impressed. I'm sure if you are a professional photographer you could detect flaws, but for a home photo lab, the photo quality is excellent.
I was also impressed with the size the printer. It is very small. I was surprised when I opened the box it comes in. The printer is half the size of the box. A very portable printer.
The LCD is huge at 3.6 inches which makes it nice to view images. You can even crop, remove red eye, add color effects all from the printer.
The printer is very fast. Apparently it takes about 37 sec to print a borderless 4x6 photo.
Photos are also supposed to be smudge, scratch, water and fade resistant for over 200 years.
Anyways, I highly recommend the Epson Picturemate Dash, if you are looking for a good quality, compact printer for a home photo lab, which does not require a computer. It sells for around $100.00. You can get it at Amazon.com, no tax, no shipping for $99.00.
Check out this link for my review of the camera I bought to go with the printer. It too is excellent.

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Toast.net vs. Netzero

I live in a rural area, so I'm stuck with dial up. For over 3 years I've used Netzero 3G Highspeed. Worked good, but I decided to look into other dial up isp's to see if I could get a better speed. Toast.net had good reviews, so I gave them a try. I really like them. Their accelerator works much faster than Netzero's. If I was loading a couple different web pages and one had video or audio, Netzero would sometimes slow down or the accelerator would suddenly become unavailable. It got annoying after a while. Toast.net's accelerator must work differently because I have no problems loading multiple pages when one has audio or video. For dial up, web pages load very quickly.
With Toast.net, you have to make sure you disconnect from the internet when you're not using it though. They automatically disconnect you after 4 hours, but if you automatically keep reconnecting for most of the day, they will put your account on hold, so you can't login anymore until you contact them. That happened to me the other day. I like to leave my internet connected all the time. My account was flagged for excessive usage & I couldn't log in. I called them & they reactivated it as long as I disconnect when not in use. I don't like it, but I was thinking, maybe that is why their connection is so fast. They keep an eye on people's usage & make you disconnect when you're not using it, but that does free things up. I guess I can live with disconnecting in exchange for the faster speed.
BTW, I tried cancelling my Netzero service and they gave me 3 free months. After that, monthly payments are $6.95. Pretty good deal, so I'm keeping it as my backup ISP.
Toast.net is $9.95 a month. If you pay annually it is $7.95 a month. Toast.net does have a dedicated plan where you get disconnected after 8 hours, but it is $39.95. A bit steep for dial up.
If you need to call Toast.net for support, it is free. Netzero charges $1.95 per minute. That's a little ridiculous.


Can only get dial up and want to go wireless? Then check out the Wiflyer!

Amazon Kindle - A portable reading device

I just discovered something really cool. The Amazon Kindle. It is a little portable reading device which lets you download and read newspapers, books, blogs and magazines wirelessly. There is no monthly fee. Amazon pays for the Kindle's wireless connectivity. You only pay for the device which sells for $399.00 and includes free two day shipping. The Amazon Kindle uses Amazon's optimized technology plus Sprint's national high-speed (EVDO) data network to enable you to wirelessly search, discover, download, and read content on the go, so you can use it anywhere. It's not WiFi, so you don't have to be near a hotspot which makes it nice for areas where wifi is not available.
The Kindle is light and thin, weighing only 10.3 ounces. Very portable.
Downloads are made right from the Kindle and prices are reasonable.
The Kindle has a QWERTY keyboard for doing searches etc.
You can add bookmarks and annotations just like with a real book.
There is a built in dictionary and you can wirelessly access Wikipedia from the Kindle.
Text size is adjustable.
The Kindle also has a long battery life. If left on, the battery will need to be recharged about every other day. Battery life does vary based on usage and coverage strength. Full recharging takes about two hours.
If you have a long commute or spend lots of time reading on the go, the Amazon Kindle sounds perfect. No bulky magazines or newpapers to drag along. Just a small little device where you can access just about anything you would like to read. Pretty cool.

No more analog television

February 18 2009, television as we know it will end. There will be no more analog television. The FCC is requiring all television stations to air their broadcasts in digital format. What that means for the low-tech, common man is you either have to buy an digital tv or buy a converter box for your current analog tv. Either way, you have to spend money if you still want to receive a television picture.
The cheapest short term option is to buy a converter box. Supposedly they will cost $50 - $70, but wait, the wonderful government is giving away 2 free $40 coupons per household, which expire 90 days after you receive them. Each receiver will then cost $10 - $30. How generous. How about giving the first receiver free to each household and then a $40 coupon. No, that would be too generous. As usual the government is scamming the poor man over something which is completely involuntary. Oh and the coupons are only good towards certain gpovernment dictated converter box models, which are probably cheap and will bust after a year, so then you'll have to buy another converter box at full price.
If you are interested in applying for the television converter box coupons, you can get them here.
Check out this site for more info on digital television.


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