XD Cards – Are they less reliable than SD cards?

I’ve recently  found a misplaced 2G XD Olympus card. The card refused to co-operate both in my Fuji F20 or in various usb card readers.  In truth I was about to throw it away when I realised (a) it might still have some photographs on it and secondly when I checked the camera invoice I paid £37 for the card! Returning same to Olympus, they kindly rescued some of the potentially lost photos and replaced with a brand new card! It did take a month or so, so not the fastest service. Still credit where it’s due, they have reimbursed what was an out of warranty product. Still this is the third incident I’ve come across with XD cards failing amongst my close friends I only know of one SD card incident. Hardly a full analysis I know but it does worry me a bit! Comments welcome.

 

Nokia E71 – Keyboard Locking

Battling a rotten cold tonight, guess it’s that time of year.

Don’t really know what’s happened here but I’ve been struggling to engage the keyboard lock on my recently acquired E71.  (I’ve turned auto locking on but often want an immediate lock. ) It was fine on my earlier E61 & 61i.  A quick look on the web suggests that other people of had similar problems! Any way here’s the correct sequence [thanks to  good colleague at Nokia ] .  Simply touch the top right soft key (labelled Menu) and then release and touch the bottom left  soft key or Function key. That should do the trick.

New firmware just came available to me on T-Mobile here in the UK.

(300.21.012  18.06.2009 305.05 )

check your firmware version with *#0000#

with the usual caveats of backing up all data first I’ve just upgraded. No immediate observed benefits observed so far, but no problems either. Having said that I’m always being asked to select a network in , many times in a session? Also been playing with the new mini Opera browser,  http://www.opera.com/mini/next/ . Thanks to a nice review in PC – Pro magazine.

 

Google Picasa & Maps – More Clever Stuff

Just installed the latest build 3.5 .  It’s now got ‘face detection’ in it’s armoury. As I write this it’s matching images of friends and family in a rather an uncanny manner. You don’t have to use but guess it might help if looking for a specific photo.  Download from here: http://picasa.google.co.uk/

Also downloaded Google Maps on my Nokia E71 phone today, another new version It’s added layers so you can look up information via Wiki for example . Check it out  http://www.google.com/mobile/products/maps.html#p=default

 

Tangent CD Player CDP-50 comes to the rescue

I’ve had a bad ‘run’ of CD issues recently . My trusty Technics starting acting erratic on one or two cds albeit I found to my horror it was about 8 years old . How time flies! A donated Sony  CDP-XE27 also worked for a while and then got into trouble with one new CD. At first I thought a ‘faulty’ disc but it happily played on three other players around the house. Time to replace with something new I thought.  Luckily !  I’ve a Richer Sounds shop at the end of my road. I picked up the last of the above mentioned CD players for the grand sum of forty pounds.  It’s a discontinued model as far as I can see but if it works? In truth you could buy a cheaper dvd player , but I would like to think that there’s more attention to the audio quality. It sounds detailed to my ears any way.

It happens I’ve already a pair of Tangent loudspeakers so this should fit nicely. A peak inside (there was a loose screw !) reveals a tidy construction with fibre glass pcb assemblies. Found a review here , note the original review price. Grab a bargain whilst you can would be my advise.

http://www.goodsound.com/equipment/tangent_cdp50.htm

 

‘HomePlug’ Ethernet Networking – some pragamatic advice

Just deployed some power over ethernet technology here in the home . ( Playing with a video IP camera at the moment but that’s another article. ) I’ve changed over my son’s PC and it seemed more convenient to employ a pair of Solwise Home Plug devices in order to provide internet/network connectivity. What I stumbled into (many of you may already know especially if you’ve read the manual)  is that these devices seem very sensitive to mains impedance. By that I mean the any ‘resistance’ to a good  mains  connection. In practice this means avoid plugging these devices into extension leads, particularly ones fitted with suppression technology. Also avoid master/slave socket energy socket technology. I’ve improved the link from 30Mb/s to 40Mb/s (only 11Mb/s when I first installed! ) just by plugging the pair straight into the wall sockets and hence eliminating any in-line extension sockets. A simple bit of advice that can make a huge difference.

The down side to this advice is that I can’t use my fine OneClick to turn off the homeplug when the PC is powered down. Still the performance gain is worth it.

For general detail on the HomePlug Alliance see : http://www.homeplug.org/home

 

Nokia E71 , shiny …

At last my contract has come up for renewal and I’ve acquired a nice
shiny Nokia E71. Immediate impressions, feels solid and well built.
Keys for my fingers are just manageable any smaller and it would be no
good. The phone seems to work well, I’ve taken a few shots with the
camera. Pictures are OK, truthfully I don’t think it’s  that good but great to have in such a
small package. Fired up my normal Gmail app , had a few issues with
changing case? An informed colleague recommend Nokia Messaging to me as a
probable superior messaging suite that uses your phones contacts. It
can be downloaded with this link:
http://email.nokia.com/account/home.action

But take care it doesn’t cost you additional money on your contract.
I’ll probably stick with the Gmail application for today. Bought myself
a screen protector on ebay. Dropped the first one straight on to the
carpet but the second went on without  a hitch!

Also installed the free scientific calculator, courtesy of Nokia
http://betalabs.nokia.com/betas/view/enhanced-calculator-s60
This never worked for me on the E61i but seems to be fine on the E71

A bit annoying that the dedicated contacts key has shifted sides (from
my earlier E61i) but no doubt I’ll quickly get used to it. Nice having
an FM radio, really missed that when I moved to the smart phones from
my Walkman phones. Shame it needs an adaptor though if you wish to use
it with existing headphones. Still the supplied Nokia set sounded just
fine to me.

Overall an impressive package. I’m afraid I’ll have to hang on to my
digital cameras for a bit longer though! Highly recommended never the
less.

Nokia E71

 

Outsourcing Destinations – Good article

Take a look at:

http://www.evertiq.com/news/14305

Part 1 of a 2 part article on outsourcing and risks associated with different parts of the world. This is good site if you’re interesting in manufacturing or related issues today.

 

Windows 7 RC – Surprisingly Agile

Just installed Windows 7 RC available here:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

Surprisingly it seems quite ‘nippy’ on a relatively modest PC. I’ve installed it on my ‘benchtop’ machine using a spare 20G hard drive in order to keep separate from my working XP install. It’s only a 2GHz Athlon with a 1G of RAM. Doesn’t seem particularly sluggish by any means. Only have the base installation running without any other applications apart from Firefox and an antivirus program. Still all very impressive and will have to spend a bit more time using it. Be aware that the RC will expire in March of next year.

 

35mm Film Scanner Frenzy

I’ve recently assisted a colleague by resurrecting a relatively ancient film scanner. Specifically an Epson Filmscan 200 film scanner. The last published drivers were for Windows 95/98 and my colleague only had an old ISA SCSI card. I obtain an Adaptec 21960N PCI card and a 50HD way to Centronics cable off Ebay for the grand sum of £20. We then added the well regarded program Vuescan http://www.hamrick.com/ .  It’s running under XP , (XP provided a default driver) and results to my eyes appear surprisingly good in spite of the modest 1200dpi native scanning capability.  (Although in truth my colleague has a problem, the first scanned negative is always at the wrong resolution?)

Enthused by this process I’ve obtained a Canon Lide500F scanner. Not as elegant as the Epson but a little more up tod date. Simply plug in  to USB and run the supplied toolbox software. I’m using PaintShop Pro 4.15SE to save acquire and save the images.   Results are again surprisingly good. Well good enough me to revisit some of my negatives that hold sentimental value. It’s much slower than the epson as each frame has to be scanned individually. (The Espon can automatically scan 6 slides or negatives by itself). Sample image from my Canon below. Happy Scanning !

 

Kingston University reveals it’s Electric Bike for the TTXGP

I was privileged to attend the presentation of the University’s entry into the TTXGP.  This is a 100 mph electric bike. Perhaps not in itself unique but this has been carried out by a number of students during their final year project with limited resources. For more details see the following links:

http://www.ttxgp.com/

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2009/04/24/45967/kingston-university-builds-102mph-electric-bike.htm

I’ve added a few of my own images below:

DC Motor

The Bike

Battery Pack

The Team