latest argos catalogue seems to have some fairly cheap digi-cams (probably cheaper eslewhere if you can find them, but it's always neat being able to see them in real life - although the 16-day money back policy does NOT apply on digital cameras at argos!): "polaroid" (made by concord) PDC2070 (2mp, 8mb) £74.90 - Oregon Scientific DS8238 2mp,8mb £74.99 - praktica g2.0 2mp,16mb £79.99 - polaroid (made by concord) pdc 3030 3mp,16mb £79.99 - concord 3040af 3mp, 7mb(!!) £89.99 - Concord 4060af 4mp, 16mb £129.99.

mepis is fab. mepis 2003.10.02 mini-review at: joshwaller.tk other truths: black keyboards with faded letters on the keys are very difficult to type in the dark unless you're very good at touch typing.

Escape! nearly 13 seconds was my best and then i got bored

Attrition Security Rant: Anti-Virus Companies: Tenacious Spammers "Solution? Anti-Virus companies need to QUIT sending auto-response e-mail to infected mail. Thanks to everyone who sent this one in"

Fuji Photo Film to Market Super CCD Honeycom Camera Module Fuji 1MP Super CCD coming to a mobile phone near you?

very small (2x8cm) linux machine.

BlogInfo apparently nelsoncolne.blogspot has an rss feed... (tea review updated)

VIA EPIA MII - has a built in compact flash card reader! That's cool innit - especially if you've got a digital camera that uses compact flash :)

mini-itx.com - news a passively cool mini-itx pentium-m 1.3ghz system. wow!

FBI to probe MyDoom e-mail virus - Worst virus ever apparently. Just goes to show there's too many people out there that go round opening attachments without thinking. (and people who don't have a/v software and people who don't update it).

Super CCD vs CCD (vs CMOS?)

(obviously the CCD is only one part of the camera, and the lens quality and other factors will determine the end quality of the image - but i'm interested in CCD stuff at the moment)

Does Super CCD really offer that much better image quality than conventional CCD?


(this picture show the basic way super ccd works, but doesn't show the colours)

Super CCD uses the same mosaic type pattern, using 2 green pixels, 1 red and 1 blue. Recently they have announced the 4th generation - Super CCD "SR" and Super CCD "HR" (HR = High Resolution - basically the same as Super CCD but more pixels, eg 6mp sensor instead of 3mp sensor).

"Fuji uses aggressive interpolation to take advantage of the closer pixel spacing on the SuperCCD, producing an image that has more pixels than the sensor itself. In the case of the S1, the camera produces a 6.1 million pixel file from a 3.5 million pixel sensor. The resulting image doesn't have as much resolution as a real 6 million pixel sensor, but images produced by the S1 did show a slight improvement in detail resolution when compared to other 3.5 megapixel cameras." extremetech.

Fuji claims: "New, Honeycomb-Shaped Super CCD Image Sensor Technology Significantly Improves the Color, Clarity and Sharpness of Digital Pictures" (99) dpreview here's a review of the Fuji s7000 which uses the 4th generation of Super CCD 6MP sensor: dpreview s7000, this review of the Fuji S700 (using 4th generation 3MP Super CCD SR) concludes that the S700 "Exhibits more resolution than a camera with a normal 3 million pixel CCD" and there's a "Visible improvement in image resolution using the 6mp image size" but there's bad stuff too: see the conclusion.

Here they say that Super CCD offers a much better "interpolated" high resolution (eg 6MP image from a 3MP sensor) than you get from just interpolating a 3MP image yourself (using photoshop etc) - But it does not offer the same quality as a real 6MP camera.

"it would seem the Fuji s602 [with a 3MP super ccd sensor] can provide almost as much usable data as a typical 5mp native digital camera" comparisons here - although trying to compare the difference the CCD makes is always going to be difficult because different cameras have different lenses, images processors, etc etc.

here's another review of the 3MP Super CCD "SR" Fuji F700 Zoom with sample images - the guy says he doesn't think this new 4th generation Super CCD lives up to all the hype. (when the camera costs £260, for 3mp, 3x opt - is it really worth the extra money compared to a Canon A70 (3mp/3xopt) from £210, or an Olympus C-350 (3mp/3xopt) for £139? - see dealtime.co.uk.)

for some more on super ccd, see my earlier post: here.

Update 09/02/04 super CCD 3rd generation artifacts. Fuji 3MP Super CCD HR no better than Canon's standard 3MP CCD here.

Conventional CCD development is obviously not stagnant:


(this is how standard mosaic / bayer CCD / CMOS sensors work)


(this shows sony's new 4 colour ccd)

Sony seem to be the other big player in CCD development - they have developed a new CCD adding an additional colour (link) and a lot of other manufacturers often use Sony CCDs. (more info: sony press release) Cameras that use the new 4-colour filter CCD: macnn and a review of the Sony DSC-f828: dpreview dsc-f828 - it apparently "reduces color reproduction errors". Dpreview concludes that the 4-colour filter CCD is good: "New RGBE four color CCD delivers more pleasing color balance than DSC-F717 it replaces"

Kodak and Olympus are working together, Kodak have developed this 5MP GRGB CCD, (using the standard 1 Red, 2 Green, 1 Blue pixel), which is used in this Olympus E1.

Pentax use a 6MP Sony CCD in the stupidly named Pentax *ist D.

What about CMOS?

Most people tend to think of CMOS sensors in relation to cheap poor quality digital cameras that generally produce images that don't compare well to CCD cameras.

However - there's high-end CMOS sensor development from the like's of Nikon and Canon. 4.1MP in the case of this Nikon: Nikon D2H Review (dpreview) and 6MP CMOS sensor used in the popular high-end Canon EOS 300D. Canon are using an 8.2MP CMOS sensor in this new Canon.


(this is how foveon sensor works)

Another CMOS sensor (the clever Foveon X3) is used by the Sigma sd10 (preview) and the Sigma sd9 (review), I thought this deserved a more specific mention - reading this makes it sound awesome! more tech details.

...another is the Kodak DCS 14n which has a 13MP CMOS sensor. What's the quality like - and how does it compare to CCD? - From quickly skimming the reviews using a CMOS sensor in these high-end cameras results in pictures that are just as good as a CCD camera can produce. I've read elsewhere, that CMOS is preferred from a manufacturers point of view, because it's easier to manufacture and also cheaper.

From Canon's site - they think CMOS is good: "CMOS: Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor. A type of semiconductor that has been, until the EOS D30, widely unavailable for digital cameras. CMOS semiconductors use two circuits, negative and positive polarity circuits. Because only one of the circuits can be on at once, CMOS chips are less energy consuming than other chips that utilize simply one type of transistor. This is a clear advantage of the CMOS sensor over the standard CCDs in use today."

(as a completely unrelated side-note - did you know aiwa are owned by sony? link)

As a side note: Fuji XD cards tend to be twice as much as Compact Flash cards, eg 256mb CF £33 ex vat, 256mb XD £66 ex vat (28/01/04)

The Most Hated Company In Tech you can probably guess who this is talking about. Linus Torvalds: SCO Is "Just Too Wrong" "SCO doesn't own the copyright on the files they are talking about". boycott SCO. and lets throw in another SCO link, just for good measure: SCO offer 250K reward for capture of writer of MyDoom virus. (the mydoom virus does a DOS attack on SCO's servers)

PRAKTICA 1.3 MEGA PIXEL LOOK............ this is an interesting camera, in the PDF here it says it does video: CIF (320x240) @30fps and VGA (640x480!!) @20fps! - although this could just be in the PC Cam / Webcam mode? Wonder whether it does sound? this place are selling it for £109! and say it does 25fps videos...

open office for windows/etc includes a free pdf generator. top notch.

"MessageLabs has now intercepted 1.2 million copies of W32/Mydoom.A-mm. The company is processing between 50,000 and 60,000 copies of the worm an hour. To date, the worm’s peak infection rate is 1 in 12 of all email scanned be MessageLabs. So far, the worm has been seen in 168 countries." link

The Tech Report - Worms bores through fabric of 'net | W32.Novarg.A@mm | Mydoom worm fills inboxes with zip file(s). | update your av software now - you do have av software don't you? | 'Novarg' or 'MyDoom', the latest mass-mailing worm to infest your in-tray is spreading at the same rate as SoBig - The worm also targets the SCO Group's corporate website | more links Mydoom Worm: The Next 'Big Evil' On The Net" | "today's windows virus". [slashdot.org*] | sample message. | more info.

presumably if your company have antivirus software on your email server and it's up to date (and it checks all your emails) then you should be okay. likewise with yahoo / hotmail which should theretically be able to stop hotmail / yahoo users from recieving this...

* "I brought a new Iron the other day and in capital letters in the instruction book I was told to never iron clothes while I am wearing them and that while I could use the shot of steam while the iron was in an upright position I should not forget the previous instruction about not ironing the clothes I'm wearing." link.

Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock's new documentary, "Super Size Me," details his 30-day McDonald's diet and subsequent health woes.: "His liver became toxic, his cholesterol shot up from a low 165 to 230, his libido flagged and he suffered headaches and depression. "

FUJI PHOTO FILM CANADA INC. Super CCD history and technology explained. If a Fuji camera doesn't say "super CCD" on it, then it's just using a convention square CCD - not that it really matters, because the results are still very good - it's just that with the way Fuji keeps on going on about how much better super ccd is, you'd think all fuji's used super ccd. These people have a pleasant argument about super ccd.

eBay item - New Folder for Windows XP Home / Professional (link to ebay). ha ha ha some people are so funny. some people are even funnier and bid £10 million for it. oh my sides are splitting. (but 72,000 hits! crikey!)

some videos that are real stylish and straight to the point.

is this one of the strangest digital cameras you've ever seen? Concord Eye-Q 3x optical zoom only .3MP (640x480) - but it has a 3x Optical zoom!! more info.

win an apple laptop or ipod. (click view demo, play the game and then register to win the laptop)

Round up of new ultra cheap digital cameras (just for fun. prices include vat)

1.3MP (real): Benq 1300 40quid | Mustek Gsmart LCD2 35quid (no flash) | Digital Dream Enigma 57quid. | Gsmart Mini 2 32quid (achieves 2.1mp through interpolation - no flash) | SiPix Groove £50.

2MP (real): Mustek LCD3 52quid (no flash) | Mustek D30 56quid | UMAX astrapix 550 58quid (with mp3 player - nearly identical to minolta e201) | Premier DC2302 50quid (3x opt 2MP CCD - sample photos of new zealand) | Premier DC2070 50quid (2MP CCD - sample photos) | Fuji Digital Q1 67quid (2MP CMOS) | Trust 715 - 57quid | Casio QV2900 99quid 8x optical zoom!

the two 50quid cameras from amazon.co.uk are still the best value by far, paying any less means you have to compromise, and loose resolution, the LCD and/or flash. you could try ebay if you wanted a cheap 1.3mp camera though as they sometimes go for less than they cost from ebuyer.com. (eg £20-36 if you're lucky)

3mp, 3x zoom: Konica KD3000 99quid. (seems cheap for a potentially "real" camera, ie, not just a rebadged one, but konica/minolta is the same company so who knows - my gut feeling is that's it's probably just a rebranded one, as no one seems to have bothered reviewing it. Update: It's the same as the 3mp / 3x opt PRAKTICA DCZ 3.2) Probably the best quality / price 3MP camera(s) are the Canon A300 (£125 amazon.co.uk) and the Olympus C-350 (3x opt - £139 amazon.co.uk) - The Fuji A210 (from £136), Fuji A303 (from £147), and Fuji A310 (from £154) are probably very good as well. more fuji 3mp cameras. cheapest 3MP JENOPTIK 3.1LCD from dixons.co.uk for £69 - Index also do a Vivitar 3.3mp digital camera for £69.99.

4mp amazon.co.uk also seem to do the cheapest real 4MP camera: Premier DC4311 Digital Camera [4MP 3xOptical] £129 (GBP) - Seems strange that Fuji don't do 4MP digital cameras.

5mp this kodak dx4530 (sample photos) at £199 seems to be the cheapest real 5MP camera.

New Zealand Gifts Kiwiana NZ Remember L&P matt? you can buy it online, and they'll send it to you in the UK :)

EBUYER 52quid inc vat for a 4x DVD writer! that's only 20quid more than most CDRWs!!

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Cuba law tightens internet access weird, imagine your government suddenly deciding you're not allowed to use the internet anymore!! :(

here's some amazing street art. simply amazing.

A network called 'Internet' - Computer Invasion: A History of Automation in Canada - CBC Archives# Prime Time News on October 8, 1993 - 'Internet' a short tv clip from 93.

cd wow agrees to charge uk customers an extra 2 pound per cd, rather than go to court.
"We got our CDs from wherever we could, but they were always record company product and legitimate. There was never any question of piracy," say cd-wow.
"If we find a net retailer is importing music from outside Europe, then they are infringing copyright law," a spokesman said.
Bl**dy law: article from march 2003 It looks like the law says CDs are regionalised as to who owns the copyright.

One stupid dot org is at least partially mostly fixed, http://www.kiwinetcafe.com/www.onestupid.org/ please update if you can be assed :) actually don't bother cos it may have to move again sson.

Wired News: Linux Takes on the Windows Look New developments in the Linux GUI make it look pretty swish indeed.

i've made some windows background wallpaper and put it in the gallery at joshwaller.tk. let me know if there's any colours you want. the horizontal lines and the light circle one's look the best, but i didn't realise that till i'd made a load of diagonal ones :)

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Turn off, log out, shut down: "A tech veteran is boldly going where few of his friends and colleagues dare follow - he has cut his links to cyberspace and hit the road to find out more about life on the other side of the Digital Divide. "

WHSmith are doing Fuji "Premium Inkjet Paper Glossy" for half the normal price, 20 sheets of 270gsm for £5.99 (instead of £11.99), and 20 sheets of 160gsm(?) for £3.99 instead of £7.99.

I've added a nedstat counter to this site. (the little blue square on the left) while we're on the subject, if you have access to your web server's log files, then summary is an AWESOME program :)

brunley

IHT: SCO sues Novell, citing slander in Unix dispute "SCO Group, seeking royalties from companies that use the Linux computer-operating system, has filed a slander lawsuit against Novell, escalating an almost eight-month-old legal dispute." I wish "SKO"* would just curl up and die personally. *trying to avoid being sued for having an opinion. :)

more: Slashdot | One Company's Response to SCO have a look at the PDF response to SCO here. It just goes to show how ludicrous SKO's actions are - they are going round asking people to pay them money for licences, when they haven't even got any legal proof that they own the IP. (the code)

Chinese year of the monkey! hiyah!

man hurt, is taken to hospital end of story.
In other exciting developments Oasis off-licence in Brierfield is robbed, and firefighter rescues dog from river.

BBC NEWS | England | Shropshire | Bomb joke was 'foolish mistake': "She was told to return for a court hearing on 6 February and could face 15 years in jail." now that is rediculous 15 years!!

Hi,
Thought i'd just post a few things I found interesting. I know its a bit computer nerdish, but then a few of us are. Thanks to slashdot for these.
Python is one programming language (among many). and a new review of a book called 'learning python' is on slashdot.
Compiled languages This is fairly abstract, but it does look at the way a bunch of different languages compile in terms of speed. It ignores perl (a compiled just before language, similar to java's 'just in time' compilation of applets). So if you were thinking of choosing a particular language for a project, [ignore the results, but don't code in anything too slow :-) ] it really doesn't matter which you use, as the ms ones compile to 'pseudo machine code' which is then optimised in the same way. similarly the gnu compiler collection (which compiles fortran, c, c++ and probably objective c on a mac) compiles to some pseudocode, which then gets turned into binary.
On the other hand, the comment by 'bluGil' applies most of the time: "in the early 80s, many good [atari800, 1.6mhz] games ... were written in interpreted BASIC. Today I've used computers running at 2.4Ghz, and interprited languages are less respected because they are so slow now, than back then! .. Sure you can write faster code in C. You can get faster yet if you write in pure binary (.. P4 / P3 / althlon / various VIA and Transmeta CPUs with different optimal binary), if you have years to learn what makes a processor tick. In the end though, computers are fast regardless of which language you use."

Back to compilers: slightly exciting news for mac people:
IBM are making aC compiler [slashdot.org] which should make all mac software run about 30% faster;- or really fast if they recompile the operating system with it [which may take about a year or longer - booo apple]

If you like benchmarks, here is something that will benchmark your java compiler's speed. I was surprised to see that the dual 2ghz apple system in there is about half the speed of a fast pc, and only twice the speed of my 750mhz celeron. (judging by eye)

Oh and this review of one of suns latest 64bit workstations is actually quite a funny read. As we might be buying one of these or similar in the coming 6 months, it will be interesting to see whether the power supply, the hard drive or something else fails first.. I do like that it comes with a card that runs a faster pc processor for when a sun workstation just isn't up to the job.

In slightly dull 'small form factor pc' news:
shuttle zen is a slightly smaller case than the usual shuttle case / motherboard. But there's nowhere to plug in a floppy drive, and only one PCI slot.
Josh had info on a small dell system. the Dell SX270 (tiny, silent, and not rediculously expensive, yet can still hold a high speed P4) which seemed more interesting.

quest game needs sound

RealAlternative v. 1.04 a bloat free realplayer alternative.

BBC NEWS | England | Shropshire | Bomb 'joke' student jailed £2,700 bail for woman who's in jail because she said she had a bomb! Don't be rediculous - you can't stick someone in jail for saying they "have a bomb".

BBC NEWS | BNP winning seats even though they are not getting the highest number of votes. The BNP could be running Burnley within the next 2 years if it continues like this apparently.

Microsoft.com are sueing Mike Rowe for owning the domain name: MikeRoweSoft.com rediculous.

And why does it take about 1-2seconds on a Windows XP PC for the right click menu to appear? (when the PC is a P3-866/256mb machine)

HEXUS.net Forums - Vodka and Hard Drives! amazingly the hard drive kept on working for a while... :)

Sonic the Hedgehog Online emulator. and another fun game smack the pingu!.

for some reason there were 199 hits on the 13th Jan to jillajang - don't have any idea why - the only recent mention of my site seems to be on the llamasoft / yakyak forums: mentioning my picture of battered sausages. Most other people seem to come from Google for VIA EPIA reviews - but why would so many come on the 13th Jan? (the normal amount is between 50 and 80)

I've put a load of new photos up at joshwaller.tk, including: Christmas / New Year 2003 photos, The Cavern (liverpool) Photos, and other random ones. (plus some vids)

Sony still do the "Mavica" cameras, this one writes to 156mb 3 inch CD-Rs or RWs. Sony MVCCD500 CD Mavica 5MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom and they still do one that writes to the humble floppy disk. Expect about 1 or 2 images per floppy? (up to 4 according to amazon.com user reviews) - You can use the Sony memory stick as well, but that kind of defeats the purpose of having a floppy drive built into the camera...

Microsoft has to pay half billion over patent infringement. anybody out there? (say hi!)

firebox.com - SiPix Pocket DV Camcorder £49.99 (half price) 1.3MP, 1.6" TFT LCD, Digital Video recorder / camera. VGA resolution but only at 8fps (which is rather poor). But cheap never-the-less. (eg, this £50 1.3MP normal digital camera with do 640x480 up to 15fps with sound although it doesn't have a TFT screen in the back.)

Free Digital Camera Enhancer sounds / looks fairly impressive.

AP Wire | 01/15/2004 | PC shipments reflect improving economy Dell no. 1.

Dixons: "Model - JENOPTIK 3.1LCD Product Code - 584186" 3.1MP digital camera £69.89 on dixons.co.uk website (and probably pc world) don't know if it's real or interpolated though, or whether it's cmos or CCD.

Novell add to the Cash fund for Linux legal defence

MSNBC - Kodak to stop selling traditional cameras "it will stop selling traditional film cameras in the United States, Canada and Western Europe, another move by the troubled photography company to cut lines with declining appeal in favor of fast-growing digital products... it plans to continue making reloadable cameras that use 35-millimeter film in emerging markets, such as China, India, Eastern Europe and Latin America and that it will introduce six new cameras in those markets this year."

new virus out : warning people they need to run a patch, because windows XP beta is on there machine, which is worrying because some people (a vast majority of people) don't even know what version of windows they're running so will just assume it's true (as it appears to be from microsoft).

"I don't believe Microsoft ever intended Windows 98SE to be so big in the enterprise. But it also appears that the newer bugs have been written for NT-based systems, which helps a bit," Lambright said. Microsoft Bows to Pressure, Extends Support for Older Windows Versions.

Yes another funny quote, I think he means Viruses, not Bugs. Otherwise its bit like a Garry Laron cartoon. Microsoft Department of Bugs, Boss "Look you guys, you just haven't written enough bugs for NT, we need more newer bugs, or we just won't make our qutoa."

HEXUS.net Forums join hexus forums for all your PC / software / apple / cooking / bargain hunt / for sale / wanted needs. go on. they do competitions in there too where you can win free stuff.

Intel chips in on anti-SCO defense fund | CNET News.com "Intel has gotten involved in the legal battle between the SCO Group and Linux, contributing money to a defense fund geared to protect users of the open-source operating system"

"Intel has gotten involved in the legal battle between the SCO Group and Linux, contributing money to a defense fund geared to protect users of the open-source operating system. The Open Source Development Labs, an industry consortium that employs Linux leader Linus Torvalds, is organizing the legal defense fund. OSDL plans to announce details of the fund on Monday. "It would be made available to some Linux customers that come under litigation from SCO," said the OSDL's executive director, Stuart Cohen."

Good prices on digital cameras / battery chargers and batteries etc...

Premier DC2070 Digital Camera [2MP] - another 2MP £50 digital camera on amazon.co.uk made by "Premier" (Premier actually claim to manufacture the cameras on their website!) - same as "Vivitar" etc. some sample images / photos for this digital camera are here on fotopics.net

This looks just like the 2MP Sony DSC-U30, but it's made by "mustek" and is £62 inc vat, instead of £116 inc vat.

Interestingly enough - here's photos of liverpool buses taken with a Konica KD-220Z / Premier DC2302. - here's the bus i rode home on today.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Ninja Turtles return for battle, dude: "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Konami is out in February for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and the PC. "

eBay item 2976346597 (Ends 09-Jan-04 17:50:49 GMT ) - UMAX ASTRAPIX 470 1.3MPIX DIG CAM TFT - UMAX appear to have the same cameras as Jenoptik (eg the UMAX 470 is the same as the JENDIGITAL JD C 1.3 LCD) - They still sell the 2MP version for £70. (you may be able to get a 1.3mp digi cam for about £21 like this one if you're lucky)

Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo: Premier DC2302 Digital Camera [2MP 3xOptical] Shocking. Brand new 2MP 3x Optical digital camera for £50 inc vat! from Amazon.co.uk! it's especially good because it has a 2MP CCD! (appears to be the same as the Konica KD-220Z which amazon.co.uk sell for £124!! here, which is also the Vivitar V3675) - here's some sample images from the Konica KD-220Z from fotopics.net

BBC NEWS | Technology | Tiny hard drive packs a big punch neato, hopefully you'll be able to get a 4gb compact flash drive one day :) (you can already get 1gb compact flash).

So I assembled a copmuter and it doesn't go. What happens is it powers up the cpu fan spins, and thats about it. No keyboard lights, no monitor sync, no post etc, won't power off.

Heres a list of the parts and any possible problems,

Case and PSU - did the same thing to / with another mobo

Mobo, second hand came wrapped in a NORMAL plastic bag not anti-static

CPU PIII 733 supplied by Josh untested

2 x 128 MB PC133 sheep also supplied by Josh untested

Ye gads where do I start :)

Also I have a Fujitsu 4.3 gig hdd supplied by Josh that ran like a total dog, like it some how magically went into super slow or sleep mode.

Suprise suprise, I also have a near identical Fujitsu 4.3 gig hdd, that I bought second hand, it was simply described as "Hard drive 4.3 gigs" like I would have touched it if it said Fujitsu.

I also have a Gigabyte socket A mobo (replaced under warranty) that showed the same fault, but the "replacement" does the same thing. Unt a Duron cpu 1.0 or 1.1 gig I think.

Should I just give up?

What should I do?

I bought a mouse and keyboard and UDMA cable for this alledged pc as well.

Posted for your amusement rather than any sensible suggestions.

I think you should be able to get these older Fuji digital camera's for bargain (ideally £50 or less - considering the new Fuji Q1 Digital 2MP you can get for £74/67 link, and the Kodak 2MP 6200 for around £76 link) also because a lot of people might be selling their old ones after crimbo - anyway:

1.3MP: Fuji 1300, Fuji 1400 (with 3x optical zoom), or the Fuji a101. (some people call them "fujifilm" so you may wanna just search for the number) (also Fuji 1200 eg.)

2.1MP: A201, Fuji 2200, Fuji 2300, Fuji 2400 (3x opt)

Others you may want to consider - 1.5MP: MX-700, MX-1500 1.3MP: AXI@ IX-100 (no TFT screen - Oregan Scientific are trying to flog these for £60!.), DX-10 VGA: AXI@ IX-10, AXI@ Slimshot (no flash). In fact, I would recommend just keeping an eye out in the 2mp or less ebay section here and doing a search for olympus or fuji to see if you can get a 1.3MP camera for about £30?

Blimy have you seen these things (AMD Athlon XP/MP overclocking and upgrade adaptor). They allow you to put "Barton" Cpus in to older 133 FSB mobos and they set switches to achieve the real clock speed. Yes you can do it by painting and cutting links, what was my point I forget.

What about these new Duron 1800's they're pretty cheap eh? Less than an XP-1800 which clocks at 1666. So is that 134 Mhz for free ? whats the cache size of these applebreds? Do the poor little buggers realy only have a 64K level 2 cache? Thats a 1/4 of the XP's or 1/8 th of the "Barton". The "old" Durons have 128K L1 and 64K L2, owww my head hurts and I've gone all cross eyed.

What is it with digital cameras being the same but made by different companys?

Konica/Minolta are the same campany. see konicaminolta.net. Kyocera / Yashica / Contax are all the same company.

Trust PowerCam 770Z LCD Zoom is the same as Minolta Dimage E223

is the Trust 735S PowerC@m Zoom the same as the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-U30?

Also, the CASIO EX-S2 is the same as the AGFA SP2 (they added a 'P' to fool you!) is the same as the Oregon Scientific DS6638, is the same as the CHE-EZ D'Zign.

The Praktica DCZ 3.2S is the same as the Trust Powercam 750 just ever so slightly different. (an older version made by hitachi link) also same as vivitar 3695.

The Trust Powercam 760 is the same as the Konica KD-25 both 2MP, except the Trust emphasises the fact that it can interpolate to 3MP... same as BENQ DC2300. same as Praktica DC 22. same as Samsung Digimax 201 Chuffin nora! What is the point in that?!?!

centon 5MP link same as BENQ C50 link.

Vivitar V3740 is the same as the Trust Powercam 913

Konica KD 220 link same as vivitar 3675.

Jenoptik / Digital Dream / "Shotz" / Concord Also seem to "share" cameras. (eg Jenoptik JD 5200 x3 5MP is the same as Concord Eye Q 5330 zoom)

So, what's the advice? make sure you get Canon, Fuji, Olympus, Nikon, Pentax, (Sony?) to make sure you're getting a "real" digital camera and not just some rebadged OEM / Chinese "digital camera".

how to save money here - do this by: 1. not spending money and 2. putting your money in a savings account. another one here about loose change they say: put it all in a jar and then put it in a savings account. and rent movies (don't go to the cinema) and don't go out for meals, just get take-away if you have to. one of these recommends going veggie to save money too.

Hewlett Packard Photosmart 435 - Compare Prices & Read Reviews at DealTime.co.uk £91 inc vat for a 3.2MP HP Digital camera - does video with sound - but has FIXED focus lens and 85cm is closest "macro" apparently. (canon is auto-focus, and macro down to 5cm) Still the HP seems like a very good price for 3MP (That isn't interpolated) - although video resolution is 320x240 vs Canon 640x480, plus the HP has bad reviews (on the dealtime site - ranging from a few "bad quality" etc to one saying "great quality"). More info: dcviews. from amazon:

"Terrible battery life (I went through 4 brand new batteries and 2 already used batteries in about 10 minutes), mediocre picture quality in general lighting. It is compact and lightweight, but there are better cameras out there, so avoid this one"

fotopics.net is always good to look at if you can't find a review or any sample images of cameras - as they tend to have every camera listed there :)

Canon Powershot A300 Digital Camera review now on-line at joshwaller.tk - check it out - yesturday my IP address changed and then today the whole area's internet connection went do-laly - hopefully it'll be fine for ages to come :)

Also check out heather's new website: heatherwaller.tk bums, legs and tums :)

the smaller ipod is out (flip that's expensive^{tm josh}) in colour and rackmountable dual processor 2ghz IBM 950 based apples appear to be approximately as fast* as other computers. I'm sure someone out there will be disputing the figures for months. Apple have probably re-invented that music software, was it emagic? Wow software as clever as quartet / tcb tracker :-)

Gameboy Advance for £34.99 almost as cheap as the Lynx before that dissappeared.

[H]ard|OCP - VIA Enters Console Market with a 1.4Ghz VIA CPU etc.

Darrell's pix very neat use of the same gallery that's on my site - neat setup of subalbums for each year. i loike it. check mine out at http://joshwaller.tk - i've added new photos recently and re-designed it.

Holy COW! Compaq Laptop battery explodes! Taking a good chunk of the laptop with it! see hardocp.com for the story.

- They claim to have worked out the Google PageRank algorithm which you can read here.
- Ford have "rediscovered" cars. Makes you wonder what they've been doing all these years? Making "Kars"? bbc news, new lego jeep.
- in other important news Britney Spears got married! and now wants the marriage Anulled after only 48hours!.

- crikey the world has gone mad today, make sure you're sitting down: no-one warned him about the danger posed by an avocado.... the unripened avocado he was trying to cut slipped and he lost control of his kitchen knife. bbc news - chef suing for £25k "He claims he had been shown how to cut the fruit, but had not been told the avocado might not be ripe." ... "The court action states that the restaurant was busy and he had already cut 12 avocados without problem before tackling the unlucky 13th." ... "he claims the hotel was responsible for the injury because he had not been trained fully or warned that the accident could happen." does he want some kind of warning on life, otherwise he'll sue? warning, when using a knife, if you use it improperly you could end up cutting your finger, toe, ear, leg, nose, and other parts of your body off, in fact, why not sue knife manufacturers for every knife they've ever made for the inherant danger they pose to people's lives!?

Yorkshire Gold - is it really the best tea out there? What do you think? Post your views at Tea Review.

Canon Poweshot A300 Digital Camera so far I'm impressed. Image quality is very good, the macro mode is BRILLIANT, you can get as close as 20cm without using the macro mode, and then between 5cm and 20cm for the macro mode.

Have a look at these pics below (the originals and other pictures are in the gallery at http://joshwaller.tk) - thumbs on left (resized) - both cropped on right (not resized) so showing actual pixels, the first is just the normal mode on the camera, and the second (below) is using macro mode, showing the writing on the side of an AA battery. (the jaggedness really is on the battery, but you can only barely see it with your own eye!)

Minolta Dimage E223 Digital Camera Review (aka Trust 770Z POWERC@M Optical Zoom Digital Camera Review) written up with sample images / photos and sample videos at http://joshwaller.tk. It was only £99 inc vat at ASDA so I thought I'd give it a go. I wasn't that impressed (and will be taking it back), and suspect a similar spec / price FUJI will produce better images (eg A203/204/205) and generally be better. We very much liked the fact that the video's had sound - so we think we'll get a Canon Powershot A300 3MP / No Zoom / Audio with Video (review | review) (640x480/30secs or 320x240/3mins both @15fps) for £122 (dealtime.co.uk).

Pantheronline.co.uk - Have the Olympus C-350 (3mp, 3x opt) for £114 inc vat refurbished - £6.49 postage to UK. With 3 month warranty. Is this a good idea? Or would it be better getting a new one with 12 month warranty for £139?

it's like tetris only different swap the animals around to get them in a line. Anco's Energizer - Miniclip.com another fun game.

10 ADS AMERICA WON'T SEE some of these are funny.

Apple Users Threaten to Sue Over IBook, IPod
"Can a few bad apples -- like product quality complaints and potential lawsuits -- spoil the bunch for loyal fans of Apple Computer Inc. ahead of their biggest party of the year?"

downwithwebsense.co.uk
"This site, downwithwebsense.co.uk, is in no way affiliated with the real Websense company/site."

JillaJang I've redone the home page, let me know what you think. I've also done a page about choosing a hard drive. Let me know what you think. Cheers. Oh and Phil, if you're out there - do you think you'll ever update your website again? It still has last years "Happy New Year" message on it! :)

Happy new year everybody! :)

Slashdot | 100 Years of Macintosh some kind of geeky post posted as interesting and relevant? (on slashdot).

101 ways to save the web, from things like spam, make songs cheaper, and other stuff.

Apple to release a mini-ipod. and other top stories of 2003.