Fox Page: August 2005

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Sunday, August 14, 2005

Digital Cameras

A digital camera, as opposed to a film or videotape camera, uses an electronic sensor to transform images (or video) into electronic data. Modern digital cameras are typically multifunctional and the same device can take photographs, video, and/or sound.
In 2005, digital cameras are starting to push traditional film cameras out of many markets. Shrinking device sizes have recently allowed miniaturized digital cameras to be included in multifunctional devices, such as cell phones and PDAs.

Storage: SD (Secure Digital), xD (picture card), Media sticks (Sony), compact flash . These are various types of memory that your camera may have. Sam: I prefer SD; Chase: I prefer Compact Flash. It helps to learn about the cameras storage b4 purchase.

Connectivity:Many digital cameras can connect directly to a computer to transfer data. USB is the most widely used method, though some have a FireWire port.

The Megapixel: A megapixel is 1 million pixels, and is usually used to express the resolution capabilities of digital cameras. For example, a camera that can take pictures with a resolution of 2048×1536 pixels is commonly said to have "3.1 megapixels" (2048 × 1536 = 3,145,728).Pixels are generally thought of as the smallest complete element of an image. A pixel (a portmanteau of picture element) is one of the many tiny dots that make up the representation of a picture in a computer's memory. Usually the dots are so small and so numerous that, when printed on paper or displayed on a computer monitor, they appear to merge into a smooth image.

Digital Zoom: Don't be fooled by digital zoom. Most digital cameras on the market today carry this feature and some rely entirely on this zooming technique and do not have any optical zoom capabilities. With digital zoom the image doesn't physically get any closer and no extra information is collected, therefore it creates a zoom illusion by stretching the pixels. This results in loss of clarity.

Choose the camera that fits your life:a friend bought one that fits in his pocket, takes 3.1Mp photos and video with sound. He is a candid kind of person so this camera goes with him everywhere for just such moments. Another friend has a >6Mp with huge telephoto lenses. He takes it with him on safaris and gets amazing crystal clear close-ups (say that 5x fast ;).

posted by The Knowles Family @ 10:34 PM 0 comments

Friday, August 05, 2005

Laptops for your College Bound

Things you want to look for:

RAM: 512MB
Hard Drive: At least 40GB (it's easy to find 60-80 GB)
Processor: Pentium M or Athlon Mobile (avoid Celeron and Duron)
Drives: CD-RW (cd burner) / DVD player combo drive, (DVD Burner can add to the price and is not necessary)

PC World just recently ranked E-machines, Fujitsu, and Apple among the best and HP, Compaq, Gateway among the worst. Now, this is a generalization. HP makes a good laptop and Gateway does too, but the best priced for the money is what this is referring to. Dell has some great deals going as well.

The price for your average college student should be between $700-$1000. Now this excludes students who are entering a graphic or video intensive major.

Also, warranties are a gamble. Unless your student is hard on most things or loses things easily I would not recommend the warranty or replacement insurance.

posted by The Knowles Family @ 11:53 AM 0 comments

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