Apple products are priced a little higher than others. This is not news.
Check out this benchmark comparision.
http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/merge.xhtml?doc1=129700&doc2=135353
The interesting thing here is this: that Athlon can be picked up with a motherboard at Fry’s for like $400. Wow.
You can even compare that AMD with a Dual G5 and see the same jump in speed over the G5.
When Apple moves to Intel, the older Macs are really going to start looking much paler.
At this point in time, if anyone is looking for a laptop… I would only recommend an Apple.
Why?
Over the years, the PC guys have just gotten worse and added more cruft on the PC side in order to be like Apple. The end result is a disappointment.
For example, if you want to burn a CD to an MP3 or play a DVD, the bundled software on a PC will require you to go upgrade the app or buy some codec.
On the wifi side, I find that the PC side is overly complicated. Lots of the manufacturers have their own app overriding and fighting with the Windows XP wireless settings. The end result is that they don’t connect a lot of times. I’ve also found their range to be less than that of the typical iBook.
Back to the topic of media: on a recent occasion, a friend tried to play his DVD of his vacation to England and the audio wouldn’t play on a thinkpad (we had to use a TV with a built-in DVD player). On another separate occassion, a bunch of linux guys were trying to get some old Dr. Who videos to play and they just couldn’t pull it off. Enter the guy with the iBook and tada -> playing in no time flat.
Overall, when you take the whole experience in, Apple delivers a solid ‘it just works’ experience on top of the already superior physical design. I will now recommend an Apple laptop for any general user.
Note: I used to be a Thinkpad guy and I’ve seen the lifespan of many Sony Vaio and Dell laptops at the various companies. Laptops in general do not last more than 2 years, so why not enjoy that 2 years.
Great comedy and a great group of actors. They nailed so many scenes in this movie, its not funny (yeah, yeah, a pun 
)
When it gets to video rental, go check it out.
Highly recommended!
When I’m in my car, I listen to FM radio. The CD changer in the trunk broke a long time ago and I don’t own an iPod.
Over the last few days, I’ve been listening to 106.9 FM. I don’t know who is licensed for that band, but I can tell you that the stuff they are playing is quite unique. It’s kind of like a live version of Negativland. They just constantly play a collage of sounds from old 30’s radio, movie sound bytes, a few bits of songs, songs mixed over political sound bytes … just about anything from the dawn of radio to just odd sounds. Its a cool art experiment.
All of this is done without commercials, a DJ, or a call sign every 15 minutes. This is definitely not going to last, but I just listen to it whenever I’m in the car. Where else do you have kermit the frog exclaiming that he is the director only to be mixed in with a quote from some senator who is asking whether the Iraqi consititution that was just ratified will hold up.
Is this happening anywhere else?
Should be fun. We have several colds/viruses running through the Nelson compound right now. If the chaos settles down, we may get to go on some hikes…
Nice! There is a picture of Wilber.
Essentially, these guys have taken the GIMP - the Gnu Image Manipulation Program, which was already really powerful, and made it even more Photoshop like. It has a simple windows installer as well. This is a great strategy that really worked for FireFox. For example, one of the reasons that I switched to FireFox was because it had the same menu and keyboard shortcuts as IE.
Considering that Photoshop is expensive, and hasn’t really innovated for the low end in a long time, I think this is a great alternative for some users out there who have some time to try something new out.
Go check out the link and the screenshot comparisions…
First, an apology to Terry, he is my friend and he has a Nikon D70. It’s a great camera and it was voted as best camera of 2004 by Popular Photography.
Ok, so on to the research…
If I were to buy a SLR-Like or Prosumer camera, I would buy the Olympus 8080. It’s a great camera for the price. The review is here at dpreview. The guy there doesn’t hand out “highly-recommended” easily. This means that for $700, you are set and good to go.
If I were to buy an SLR camera, I would buy the Nikon D50. It costs less than a Rebel, and has less resolution, but the pictures should be just as good as a D70. The D70 beat the Rebel last year, and is still very competitive. (If you have a Canon Rebel/XT, you did fine too). I trust Terry (and articles he has presented) on the actual handling of the camera. The Nikon cameras get out of your way a lot faster when you have to manually adjust something.
Here are a few articles from Terry and Bill on the whole bridge versus SLR debate:
From Bill: http://ilikecameras.com/equipment/choosing-between-bridge/
From Terry: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/panasoniclumixdmc-fz30canoneos-20dcamerashootout/
Essentially, the DSLR cameras still have these huge sensors and faster processors, which give them a significant advantage. However, SLR-Like cameras give you all that you need in one package for 99% of the amateurs out there, and they have the added feature of showing you the shot in the viewfinder.
All that being said… what camera am I going to get:
My wife needs to use the camera as well, so it is off to point and shoot land. Most of her photos will be outside shots and the camera needs to be simple and not super expensive. This camera will get dropped and scratched. It will get little fingerprints on it.
So, as it usually goes, research leads to … more research!
After that purchase, I will probably get myself a decent bridge camera. I don’t need a lot of different lenses, dust issues, and expense. Buying an SLR means buying better lenses, which means spending over $1000. To get a great SLR, think over $1500. I don’t need that. The SLR-Like will handle 80% of my photos Just As Well for the same price. Cameras are almost like computers, right now. They get better and better at a fast pace, so it doesn’t make sense to get to invested into a super nice camera at this point in time.
My prediction: In 2-4 years, the bridge cameras will start getting the same features as the higher-end DSLR cameras. Why? The economics of camera making of the past and of now are very different. Eventually, the larger sensors, faster processing, better lcd viewfinders, etc. will all go down market. I mean, if they had the huge Canon sensors, how could they not be just as good?
Sidenote: After talking to people at work, it is amazing to discover how much people spend on cameras! I mean, there was someone who bought a Canon EOS 20D, to take pictures of their nephew!
Sidenote 2: Here is a guy who takes a very expensive camera and makes it a pinhole camera: link
