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For no particular reason, I just wasted/spent an hour posting in a different place, with the topic, of all things, yet another variation on that hoary old perennial theme, raw vs JPG. This one was a little different, however, insofar as it was less vague than most and focused on the question of...

awesome!

It is indeed an interesting article. I find it very interesting that anyone would bother typing up a "test" comparing three cameras using a $1700 lens on one, a $950 lens on another and ... wait for it .... a $100 lens on the third. (They say the 18-55 is $180 (presumably $US) but it isn't...

Yup, and when I was being conceived, I rang God up on the hotline and asked to be made with brown hair, brown eyes, slim, and about 5' 10", because that was just about perfect. (Actually, cynical comment above notwithstanding (Tea made me say it) I believe Olympus. Why wouldn't they make a new...

Actually, the OM-1 was my dream camera once upon a time. My father was a Canon man and I had a very cute little Minolta 35mm, but I planned and dreamed my way towards an OM-1 ..... which, needless to say, never actually happened. Possibly something to do with discovering girls and beer and my...

That's one of the things I dislike about them, Paugie - the damn things don't have the decency to expire after a few years so you can throw them away and put something nice in.

I generally try to avoid using Intel motherboards, but not because I think Intel processors are inferior - right now they are excellent, though I freely grant that I never liked the Pentium 4. Nope, it's the motherboards Intel make that are the main reason we tend to be an AMD shop...

People who put up Christmas lights also tend to be people who: Weigh (on average) 10kg more than they should Listen to Neil Diamond Eat at McDonalds Wear stripes and spots at the same time Watch Opra every day Have kids who are too busy playing video games to know what a cricket ball is...

I agree, Mubs. But they should absolutely not be allowed to have anything to do with the design of the equipment the firing squad uses. Can you imagine it? READY! TAKE YOUR AIM! FI- Yes, what is it, Jenkins? Yes, Jenkins, it's a new model, that's why the trigger is over by your left thumb...

E_dawg, nope, not yet. I had to get a different tripod head first, one that has the appropriate flash brackets available. I've done that now (mail-ordered a Wimberley from the USA a month or two ago), but I won't get arpoujnd to getting the flash system till sometime in the new year. I'm off to...

I've almost stopped caring. In general, I just buy whatever Gigabyte boards my supplier feels like shipping to me this week, except for when I buy from a different supplier who has (shock! horror!) ASUS. I've actually come to regard the current crop of ASUS boards as solid and reliable ...

You need a PP guru to answer properly, DD, but some simple things you can do to most pictures (if you want the "postcard look") without needing any actual PP skill are: 1: Photoshop levels: chop off the blank areas at each end of the histogram - what you are doing here is making the result use...

I don't think it's overexposed either. Yes, you could darken it a fraction (not too much), play with levels/curves a bit if you wanted to, and that would make it more picture-postcard-like, as a side effect bring the colours out a bit more too, but I don't think I'd do that. Matter of taste...

Little by little, in fits and starts, the Phillipines has crept towards a more open, fair-minded style of government over recent decades. Aided by men and women with paitence and goodwill, may that process continue. Good luck, Paugie, show your support, and stay safe. Tony

Is my memory playing tricks on me, or is the RAM limit 3GB for XP and 3GB for Vista also (except for the 64-bit versions, of course).

CS3 works perfectly on XP

Lunar, what do you think of your 400/4 DO? I've sort of maybe got one on my wishlist. Do you get much use out of it?

(Admitting to some slightly puzzled feelings, which Tea would be better able to express than me) Your problen, David, is twofold. First, you are apparently carrying the camera in what is probably the most uncomfortable way possible: around your neck. Why on earth would you volunarily do that to...

Skip the love affair, Small Hairy One, I'll take the Paradise Parrots, the not-in-the-slightest-bit-in-any-way-unfair and also long overdue dismissal of the man who has had 11 years in power and still can't say "sorry" or admit that there weren't any babies overboard to rescue, or weapons of...

If they did it in Australia, I should think that they would be at significant risk of prosecution under the unfair/unreasonable restraint of trade laws .... not that they have ever paid any attention to them in the past, of course.

By the way, I now have a fresh dilemma: I've sort of promised Kristi the 400D, but I'll miss having a small, light camera with the 10-22 always on it ready for instant use anytime I want it. (Now that I have a 24-105 instead of the 18-55, I need the 10-22 much more often - 24mm on a 20D is...

Oh, and I make a point, these days, of using the 20D with the same lens all the time, so I'm not having to clean it much anymore either. But that sort of eliminates the point of having an interchangable lens SLR, doesn't it. Nevertheless, given the luxury of four cameras, I mostly use: 1D III...

That's exactly the point, Mubs, the old 20D doesn't have a cleaning system; the 400D, 1D III and 40D do. I've never had to clean any of the newer ones.

Cleaning frequency: 20D: often: daily in very bad conditions, more typically every couple of weeks 400d: after 10 months, never had to clean it 1D III: after 3 months, never had to clean it 40D: after 2 months, never had to clean it Short answer: dust shaker technology works. Next question...

XP install on Thinkpads is fairly painless, just be sure to do stuff in the right order - in particular, install a recent .net as early as possible, otherwise the (generally pretty smart) auto-install device drivers stuff up something chronic. The first time I tried it I would up having to wipe...

5000 systems a month? What orifice do these scumbags spend their time up anyway?

I'd like to be just left somewhere in the outback where nobody ever goes so that the crows can help themselves to any bits they take a liking to and , over time, the soil can reclaim my bones.

In a word, no. You use a spotting scope for bird photography when you are unwilling to spend enough to buy the proper equipment, or when you already own the scope for looking through in the ordinary way and want to "double your return" by pressing it into service in a secondary role as an ersatz...

Complete nonsense, Udaman. You use a spotting scope for bird photography when you are unwilling to spend enough to buy the proper equipment, or when you already own the scope for looking through in the ordinary way and want to "double your return" by pressing it into service in a secondary role...

I agree entirely. I regularly frequent fora much less civilised than this one where there is no time limit at all. They work just fine. The longer the edit window the better.

Have to disagree with you there Lunar. The Canon 500/4 is the serious bird photographer's lens, although there are also applications that call for a 600/4, a 400/5.6, a 400/4 DO, a 100-400, even (from time to time) a 400/2.8 or a 300/2.8. Everybody has (or wants) a second top-class birding...

Another story. This week I got a customer who wanted Vista on a new machine. Yup: the very first one. As it happened, this was a guy I'd done an especially low price for at around $100 over the cost of the parts, which is barely break-even (for reasons that are not relevant to go into here) and...

Spot on. I haven't had that particular experience, but the general tenor of it fits with what I see. Now for my mind-boggling Vista experience of the week. Lady brought her laptop in to have Vista removed and XP Pro installed. This is routine, we see a lot of it. Being smart, she had made sure...

When I go out hiking with the 500mm f/4 and some converters, I see objects/birds/whatever at all distances. 95% of them are out of reach. I'm three parts serious when I say that! You always need more reach if you are birding. I'd say forget doing birds, Dave. If you want to be any good at it...

You are right, Tea. I probably should read Gilbo's posts in this thread, but every time I try I get distracted by that weirdo illiterate spelling fetish of his, and find it difficult to go on. Sorry Gilbo, it's not very rational, but I don't think I have the mental flexibility to take a post...

Oh, and we don't need genocide, all we need is some sane and sensible long-term economic management. First thing on the agenda is removing artificial distortions in the economic landscape which create externalities which, in turn, result in people doing things they would not do if they were...

I almost agree, but you still haven't explained how filling Lake Eyre would be different to filling Spencer Gulf - the two water bodies are roughly the same size after all. If a water body of that size increases rainfall, why is the country around Spencer Gulf so dry? Even the combination of...

Make that three out of three. The new Spybot: * Cannot be installed in safe mode because it insists on trying to download updates and refuses to install without a live web conection * Thus cannot be used to detox a machine that is sick enough to have lost connectivity * Doesn't start up...

Ahh, I see your are in fine vitriolic form, Udaman. Good to see some fair-dinkum frothing-at-the-mouth ranting return to the hallowed halls of Storage Forum, I have missed a bit of good old-fashioned robust debate. Just to inject, alas, a note of practical advice and sanity here in what was...

Canon or Epson. For inkjet printers there are no other brands worth even thinking about. I no longer know which of the two brands to recommend, as neither one has given me the slightest cause for grief in many years. If you buy any other brand you can use it, if it lasts long enough, to print...

Mate, you are completely off the planet now. First, you are asking me for industrial espionage. If I had those internal papers - and short of being a major crime king, I'm not going to - I certainly woudn't be posting them here! Tell you what, you link to Microsoft's internal confidential...

I thought you were supposed to be an ape.

You have to show them, David. Just because they don't know enough to identify or articulate the difference doesn't mean they don't see it - and a stress factor is every bit as much a stress factor regardless of whether they are conscious of it or unconscious. I think it's part of your job...

Hands up those people who write stuff that displays on people's monitors. Me for one. Guilty as charged. I write lots of web stuff - and all of it is defined in pixels. All of it. Why? Because the limitations and design inconsistencies and incompatibilities between different browsers, screens...

That would require intelligence on the part of Microsoft. We are more likely to see a lower-res monitor, or indeed, rains of frogs, first.

And another thing: the number of customers I have who need a decent print size, as oposed to the runny glass size you get with current LCD screens, is significant. We would sell ... oh ... around 30% of our screens to people who would buy a 1024 x 768 19 or 20 inch monitor in a heartbeat. We...

And I thought I was a lone voice crying in the wilderness on the shallow-screen madness engulfing the computer world at present. It turns out that practically everyone here agrees. I'm surprised. We sell about 7 to 1 standard screen vs shallow screen. I show people both, then let them make up...

We have been selling that exact model as our standard, everyday monitor for quite a while now, Tim. Very neat design, reasonably priced, happy with the picture quality given it's a mid-range TN film screen, you could do a lot worse. The only low end Samsungs I've seen recently are a model...

Now you are thinking. Nevertheless, some difficulties arise with this plan - not least that the trees you plant out in that part of the world will all die - it is way too arid to support forest, or even woodland - although it certainly did in the past. (Not speculation this: there is any amount...

The animals don't go: they arrive, in vast, uncountable millions. Beneath the dry salt crust, there are unimaginable numbers of organisms: shrimps, yabbies (freswater crayfish for our over-the-water friends, though "fresh" isn't really the term for this water), fish, insects, you name it. These...