Photography fun

I recently found out that my camera has some manual features, so while waiuting for my girlfriend to call last night I played around with it a little bit and came up with some interesting pictures:

swirl

supernova

ET’s touch

Unidentified Flying Toy

Captain Archer’s gonna kill ya

These images are teken directly from the camera with no editing involved, and merely involve the use of different white balance modes, a shutter speed of 2 seconds, and a florescent light bulb.

Zunemods.net

If you have a Zune, and you want to know how to make the most out of it (or even just how to turn it off properly), visit zunemods.  That’s all for today, I’m running on empty.

Love and Hate : Zune 30

That’s right, this special edition of Love and hate is brought to you by the Zune 30, which I’ve been playing with for a few hours, at least enough time to form some opinons on it.

Love

• It’s sexier than it looks in pictures on the net, and I’m loving the “doubleshot” and matte finish
• The HUGE screen.  It’s not an Ipod Touch by any means, but coming from the Zen it’s a huge improvement
• Seamless video conversion and syncing
• The packaging, as it’s the sexiest I’ve seen this side of Cupertino
• The podcast library in the zune marketplace is HUGE, and could potentially make it easier for me to download my favorite podcasts
• If you accidentally remove your earphones, it pauses automatically so you don’t miss anything
• Upgradeable firmware, so you’re always up to date with the latest features
• The screen and slideshow software make it a pleasure to show off pictures
• customizable desktop backgrounds
• beautiful and user friendly UI
• Powerful FM radio antenna, on the days I feel like tuning in to terrestrial radio

Hate

• The Zune Premium earphones make me dizzy, my ears weren’t meant for in-ear earphones
•  The foam of the regular earphones rips too easily, I may have to stick to my trusty old senns
• Zune’s file transfer software makes me uncomfortable, since I come from using an iRiver that has direct transfers and a Zen that has a simulated drag and drop style transfer
• I’m starting to get used to it, but the way the Zune turns on and off disturbs me, as I am not used to machines with instant  on and off without an announcement that they are “shutting down” and taking their sweet time doing so

100 dollar loot!

My loot’s arrived!  Since Aissa has a cousin in the states whose husband just so happens to work for DHL, we were able to get my loot in the states today!!!  Hooray for DHL!

These are the days when being a budget geek makes me happy, as all the stuff you see there was bought for a hundred bucks or less!  That’s right, my new Zune 30, Fujifilm Finepix f650 (5x optical zoom and 6MP) both cost 100 dollars each, the zune premium earphones were bought at 11.99, and the Mouse guard graphic novel…well that was 24.95 but it was a gift from Aissa so it doesn’t really fall under budget geek tech.  I can’t wait to play with my shiny new toys!

HTC touch’s new UI codenamed Manila

It’s really nothing special, but for some reason it warmed my 3rd world heart o know that one of HTC’s UIs in development for the HTC Touch is codenamed “Manila”.  They either ran out of cities, have a Filipino developer working for them, or threw darts at a world map.

A Laptop made of Corn!

This right here is a Fujitsu laptop made of corn.  That’s right, CORN!  CORN!!!!!  Well, not the entire thing of course, but the plastic casing of the laptop is made of 50% plastic dereved for corn product and 50% regular petroleum plastic.  Apparently they managed to make a plastic casing made of pure corn, but that just struck people the wrong way for some reason.  Read more at dvorak.org slash blog.

22 inch goodness

I finally upgraded my clunky old used 19 inch 2nd hand from Korea to a brand spankin new AOC 210v 22 inch monitor, and I’m still in awe at how awesome it looks. I can’t tell you what a huge difference it makes moving from a CRT to an LCD, and one of this size for that matter. I’d been looking at getting a 19 inch LCD but since my boss subsidized the purchase I figured I might as well go all in and get a 22. Of course the budget geek in me refused to be left unheard, so I did my research and concluded that the AOC 210V is the best value for money 22 inch monitor on the market right now. I got it for 12430 pesos at PC express, on 3 months 0% installment, and got me a cheapo UPS as well just to keep all the components safe. It’s a promo they have on offer right now, so if you’ve got a hankering for gear, I’d say this is the right time to buy.

Interestingly, PC express is selling another AOC unit at the same price, the 223VW, but I’ve heard that the 210V uses a better screen and overall gives a much better experience. It also has 2000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, but I rarely use that anyway. Still, it’s a bonus for the average PC user who just wants to watch movies and play games and doesn’t need to be finicky with all this contrast ratio nonsense.

My only issue? The pics from my camera phone that used to look ok on my CRT monitor now look like total ass on the new one.

My new toy!

Got my first paycheck from the new job, but in true budget geek fashion, I logged on to tipidpc and found this gem of a videocard, the 7600gt for only 2,900 pesos!  It’s used, but at the going rate of a little less than 5k brand new, this baby’s a bargain, and it even comes with a free Spellforce 2 game!  I can play KOTOR2 and Chronicles of Riddick now!!!!!

If I ever find the time, that is…

I hate Nokia but the N81 makes me think twice

I have traditionally disliked Nokia phones, and only gave the N-gage a chance because the concept of a multiple use gadget has always intriqued me.  In general, I find that Nokia’s phones ar boxy, unsexy, and their UIs look like they did when they were monochrome and pixelated.

This little number makes me wonder though.  The N81 still has the same crap UI, but the design’s just so much sexier than I’m used to from nokia, almost Sony Ericsson-like, and with 8GB of space  and a 2.4 inch screen it almost gives the iPhone a run for the money in my book.  My creative zen had a 2.5 inch screen and watching movies on it was a delight until it got cracked down the middle and started bleeding liquid crystals.  With a 3.5mm headphone jack and dedicated gaming buttons that don’t look awful, this’ll be the phone that might make me buy Nokia again, if Nokias weren’t so damned overpriced here.

The iPod touch theme song

Just a quick thought.  There are two songs that would be perfect as background music for any ipod touch ad.  “The touch” by Stan Bush and “I touch myself” by Blondie or Divinyls.  Think about it.