Digital Camera: More Research & Then a Purchase!

After conducting a second round of research and deciding that I really wanted an ultracompact (so some of the cheaper, chunkier, but feature-equivalent compacts dropped out of the running) I narrowed my list of digital cameras choices down to these three:

1. Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS3

Priced at $270, this camera has an 8.1MP 3x zoom lens, records 30fps VGA video (and also 848x480 widescreen video) in QuickTime, and has optical image stabilization, face detection, audio photo tagging, and an AV-out port. [CNET review]

I liked everything about this camera except that it records video in QuickTime, which is not a native Windows video format. This is an issue because my resource-strapped Windows XP laptop doesn't handle QuickTime very well. So, in order to edit videos recorded from this camera, I would first have to convert them to AVI (the native Windows video format) and all that would do is add is an extra step to the process.

2. Pentax Optio M50

Priced at $270, this has an 8MP 5x zoom lens, records 30fps VGA video in AVI, and has digital image stabilization, face detection, smile detection, and an AV-out port.

Though this camera lacks optical image stabilization, I almost liked it more than the Panasonic because it records video in AVI and the 5x optical zoom and smile detection feature are nice bonuses. However I wasn't able to find a good review of it online so I was a little unsure about getting it.

3. Canon IXUS 80IS

Priced at $320, this has an 8MP 3x zoom lens, records 30fps VGA video in AVI, and has optical image stabilization, face detection, face tracking, automatic red-eye correction, audio photo tagging, a speaker, and an AV-out port. [CNET review (with video), CNET Australia review, detailed Photography Blog review, technical Photo Review Australia review]

This was the most feature-rich camera of the lot and was also my favourite. However, it cost an extra $50 and that was an issue.

The Decision: Go for the Best

Fortunately, Nadia convinced me to go for the best -- this camera is her birthday present to me, after all (thanks a billion!) -- and convincing me turned out to be pretty easy so, as of yesterday evening, I own a Canon IXUS 80IS camera!

It looks like this and is about the size of a pack of playing cards:

Canon IXUS 80IS Brown (Front)
[Source: Canon website]

I've been playing around with it since I got it and it's really quite fantastic.

Also, the extra $50 cost turned out to be a non-issue because Canon is running a promotion that gives your four free movie tickets (priced at about $15 each) if you get the IXUS 80IS. Yaay!

Accessories & Warranty

Naturally, the first thing I did after buying the camera was to get some accessories for it.

I got three freebies from Ted's Camera Store (which is a great store, by the way):

  • a 2GB Lexar SDHC memory card
  • a Transcend USB memory card reader (for the computer)
  • a Ted's-branded memory card storage hard case

I then bought three more:

Finally, I bought a 3-year extended warranty from Ted's.

What Next?

Like I said, I've been playing with the camera since I got it (well, since its battery got fully charged) and it's a lot of fun. Its features are awesome and easy to use and I am now preparing for my first video blog post :) I'll post some photos and at least one video from it over the next few days.

Thanks, once again, to Nadia for this moste awesomest birthday present. 'Tis wonderful, indeed :)

Digital Camera: Second Round of Research

After setting a mostly arbitrary budget of "under $200" for a compact digital camera that can also record video, in my previous blog post on this topic I made a list of cameras that seemed to fit the bill. Since then I have done a second round of research, this time focusing less on price and more on my overall camera requirements (both photo and video related).

Video Blogging Requirements

I started off by doing lots of research on the web and found these two useful resources:

Different blogs suggested different brands of digital cameras for video recording, by the way, so they weren't all that much help. Of course, most of the video bloggers I know use camcorders or webcams anyway (while Robert Scoble uses a Nokia N95) so I wasn't expecting much from these sources in the first place.

Digital Camera Guides and Reviews

I then looked at review sites and camera buying guides:

  • Yahoo! Shopping has a great article from Digital Trends' David Elrich on buying digital cameras called 'Digital Cameras: Buying Made Simple'. This is very useful in assessing basic camera requirements.
  • CNET has an excellent 'Digital Camera Buying Guide' that also talks about recording video on digital cameras.
  • CNET's digital camera finder suggested a few cameras that would suit my requirements, though most of the top ten -- all of which were Sony or Canon cameras, by the way -- had a price tag of over $200.
  • That said, two of the CNET Editors' 'Best 5 Digital Cameras' (i.e. best overall) are in the sub-$200 range and most their 'Best Compact Digital Cameras' (most of which are, again, Canon and Sony cameras) cost around $200. (Can you tell I love CNET? Teh ossim.)

Local Retailers

Next I checked out a few Aussie retailer websites:

Then, I went both a Ted's outlet and a JB Hi-Fi camera store -- they're a few shops apart on Elizabeth Street in the Melbourne CBD (#235 and #261, respectively) -- and got these recommendations:

  • Ted's salesperson: Your budget should be a little over $200. Get a Panasonic Lumix FS3 for $267 (8.1MP, good lens, 640x480 30fps video) and, if you don't like it, you can always utilize our 14 day exchange guarantee to return it and get another one instead. [Official page]
  • JB Hi-Fi salesperson: Under $200 is fine since you probably won't notice a marked difference till you go over $300. Get a Panasonic Lumix LS80 for $148 (8.1MP, decent lens, 640x480 30fps video) and we'll throw in a 3GB high-speed memory card for free. [Official page]

This confused me at first because, after reading all those CNET reviews, I was expecting to be pitched a Canon or a Sony which both shops had plenty of. Then I realized how silly it was of me to think that. Of course they wouldn't pitch those: those brands probably give them the lowest margins and are mainly there to draw-in customers who are then pitched all these other brands that make the shop more money.

Still, this wasn't bad for a quick trip to each store: I learnt quite a bit and also picked up their latest catalogues so I have all the latest brick-and-mortal retailer prices for comparison.

Personal Suggestions

Finally, I got suggestions from a number of different people -- thanks, everyone! -- all of which were most useful though no I talked to had used digital cameras for video recording before. Oh well. I did get some good tips from Yahoo! Answers, though.

Next: Word-of-Mouth, Hands-On, then Purchase

Next up, I'll be hitting online digital camera forums to see what's being said about all these makes and models by the people who actually bought them and use them. 

I'll focus on the four brands that have come up most often in my research -- i.e. Canon, Sony, Panasonic, and Casio -- though I will look at others such as Pentax and Fuji which came up a number of times as well. I'm hoping this will help me narrow my final list down to 3-4 specific cameras.

Once that's done, it's back to the stores for some hands-on time. I'll try each one out to see what the results are like and, once I've thought about it some more, I'll go ahead and buy one. I'll probably buy it from Ted's since I really like their 14-day exchange guarantee.

Oh, and then I'll blog about all that too :)

Final Thoughts

Some final thoughts about my general preferences:

  • I'd much prefer a really compact camera (sometimes called a slim or ultracompact camera) to a regular compact camera. I'd love to have something that'll fit comfortably into the pocket of my jeans or jacket and I can take with me pretty much everywhere.
  • I'd rather not buy a Panasonic since that records video in QuickTime and I don't like QuickTime because it's a resource hog and generally makes life on my crappy old computer much more complicated.
  • If I have to choose between two similarly-priced cameras, I'll go for the one that takes great photos and average video over the one that's only above-average in both.
  • I need to factor in the cost of a carrying case, batteries, a big memory card (4-8GB), and a small tripod.

Help Needed: Suggestions for a Digital Camera

Before coming to Australia, I bought myself a mobile phone that would also double as a digital camera. This was a Sony Ericsson K750i and it had a 2.0 megapixel camera that could both take pictures and record video. I knew I wasn't getting much of a camera but I wasn't planning to do much more than upload pictures to my blog/website or e-mail photos to friends and family back home so it was sufficient.

The K750i's phone capabilities are still pretty much what I want them to be -- it stores all my contacts, syncs well with my laptop, has great reception and battery life, and so on -- but now I really want to upgrade to a proper digital camera.

My Basic Requirements

Fortunately, there are lots of good, cheap digital cameras out there that'll do the trick for me. My three basic requirements are:

  1. A resolution of at least 5 megapixels (MP); preferably over 7MP and ideally closer to 8MP
  2. The ability to record decent-quality video with audio (suitable for basic video blogging)
  3. A price tag of less than $200; preferably closer to $150 if I need to expand its memory, buy a stand/tripod, or get a good cover for it

Lots of Camera Options

Unfortunately, too many cameras fit this bill. Here's a list I compiled from some quick research on the 'net:

Make/Model Photo (MP) Video (px, fps) Price ($)
Canon PowerShot A470 7.1 640x480 20fps 150
Canon PowerShot A580 7.1 640x480 20fps 200
Sony CyberShot S730 7.2 320x240 30fps video 180
Samsung S760 7.2 640x480/320x240 30/15fps 160
Samsung L100 8.2 640x480/320x240 30/15fps 160 (online)
Olympus FE-340 8.0 640x480/320x240 30/15fps 200 (online)
Panasonic Lumix DMC-LS850 8.1 640x480/320x240 30/10fps 190
Fuji FinePix F480 8.2 320x240 30fps 180 (online)
Fuji FinePix J10 8.2 640x480/320x240 30fps 180
Kodak EasyShare C813 8.2 640×480 15fps, 320×240 30fps 130
Kodak EasyShare M863 8.2 640×480 15fps, 320×240 30fps 180
Pentax Optio E40 8.1 640×480/320x240 30fps or 15fps w/sound 130
Pentax Optio E50 8.1 640×480/320x240 30fps or 15fps w/sound 180
Pentax Optio S10 10.0 640×480/320x240 30fps 180 (online)
Casio Exilim EX-Z9 8.1 848x480/640×480 30fps, 320×240 15fps 180 (online)
Casio Exilim EX-Z80 8.1 848x480/640×480 30fps, 320×240 15fps 200 (online)

Yeah. That's a lot.

Mobile Phone Options

And it's not just cameras that I need to look at since a couple of mobile phones, not only cover my requirements, but are awesome in many other ways:

Make/Model Photo (MP) Video Price ($)
Nokia N95 5.0 640x480 30fpx 150 up front + 2-25 monthly
Sony Ericsson K850i 5.0 (not specified) 150 up front + 2-25 monthly
Sony Ericss
on C905		 8.1 (not specified) (coming soon)

So I'm a little spoilt for choice.

Oh, and to make things more complicated: some of the cameras have quirks that are potential deal breakers. For example, some have limits to how long your video file can be (e.g. you can record only 10 minutes at a time), others need to reduce their frame rate if you're going to record audio along with your video (e.g. 30 to 15fps), and one or two may not be available in Australia at the listed price.

What Now?

So, what now? Well, after this preliminary round of research, I'll move on to doing in-depth research on each of those models. This will involve reading reviews, making more detailed comparisons, finding out exact prices and availability, and so on.

I'll also check online to see what other people -- particularly video bloggers -- are using and what they recommend. For example, which is better: a higher video resolution or a higher frame rate (or is there no simple answer to that)? And what frame rate is sufficient (whatever that means)? I'll also compare videos made with different resolutions at different frame rates to see how they vary.

Finally, I'll ask for advice, which is why I've written this blog post. So, does anyone have any advice for me? Any brand preferences, any previous experience with any of these products, any general suggestions? Should I forget the phones and focus on just the cameras (which is what I'm leaning towards anyway)? Any and all suggestions are welcome and thanks in advance for all your help!

Lifehacker's Outlook vs. Gmail

Jared Goralnick recently posted an excellent comparison between Microsoft's Outlook and Google's Gmail on Lifehacker.

Having recently shifted all of my e-mail to Gmail you can image which side I'm lean towards...though in all fairness I chose Gmail because I wanted all of my e-mail to be in the cloud and not because I thought Outlook wasn't for me.

I actually think Outlook is great. I don't like it's search capabilities all that much -- though maybe that's because we still use Outlook 2003 at work -- but otherwise it's got everything (and more) than I need.

That said, Gmail is awesome: I love everything about it and, now that Google is moving towards letting you bring some of its capabilities offline, I'm sure I'll soon like it even more.

All E-mail Successfully Moved to Gmail!

It's done: I've moved all of my e-mail over to Gmail. Folks at Google, please don't let me down.

So how did I go about doing it? Let me tell you...

Step 1: Rationalize E-mails

I had almost 2GB of e-mail data and many thousands of e-mail messages in my Thunderbird Profile. I knew a lot of that was crap, redundant, and no longer needed so the first thing I did was whittle this down to about half a gigabyte of data and under 10k of e-mails.

The cool thing with Thunderbird is that you can sort your e-mails by attachment. That made it easy to find messages with big attachments and then either get rid the attachments while retaining the text or delete the e-mails outright.

I also deleted tonnes of other e-mails that I knew I wouldn't need in the future. Indeed, as you may have gathered, I was brutal in my deletion criteria.

[Related post: Creating a new E-mail Taxonomy]

Step 2: Rationalize Contacts

Next, I exported all my contacts from Yahoo! Mail and Orkut and imported them into Thunderbird, which is my central contacts repository (I even have my old Outlook contacts in here) and is the easiest to mess around with. I then went through that list: updating, removing duplicates, and deleting old contacts.

I also went through my list of Facebook friends and, for those who weren't already in my address book (only 3 or 4 of them), I added their e-mail information as well.

I then exported that updated list into a CSV file. This file I imported into Gmail. For the heck of it -- and to test how well it worked -- I also imported that file into my Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail accounts. It worked just fine.

Step 3: Upload

Uploading thousands of e-mails to Gmail isn't easy. There are two things you have to watch out for: First, it's safer to upload e-mails (i.e. drag them from a local folder into a Gmail IMAP folder) in smaller batch sizes: ideally under 30 e-mails at a time. Second, don't start uploading the next batch immediately after the first one has finished uploading: give it a few seconds. Why? Because the Gmail IMAP system has spam-blocking and load-controlling algorithms built into it. If you flood it with e-mail uploads -- either too many or too fast -- it locks you out for a short period of time, which is a real pain.

All of this makes uploading e-mails a long and somewhat tedious process though it's not the end of the world. In fact, I did most of it in the background, which made it quite easy to do: I'd be working on other stuff and, every few minutes or so, I'd Alt-Tab to Thunderbird and upload another batch.

Step 4: Use

Now comes the fun part: actually using the new system (which I described in an earlier blog post). I now access all my e-mail either through Thunderbird (via IMAP) or a web browser (usually Firefox). Meanwhile, I've stopped Thunderbird from automatically checking my POP accounts. Instead, all those are POP-ed directly into Gmail, which has the additional benefit of drastically reducing the spam I get.

I still use Thunderbird when sending messages from my MBS account since I use a different e-mail signature for that but, otherwise, I've found it easier to move entirely to using Gmail's web interface. Not having both an e-mail client and browser open all the time also consumes significantly fewer computing resources which, on my ancient laptop, is a real blessing.

What I do lose from not using an e-mail client are the event reminder pop-ups that I used get but I've found a workaround for that: I've configured my Google Calendar to send me a notification via e-mail and I've installed Gmail Notifier so I get a pop-up when that notification e-mail arrives. It's not quite the same thing but, like I said, it's a workaround.

Conclusion

All in all, I am very happy with my decision to move to Gmail and the way in which everything has worked out so far. Here's hoping things continue to go this well in the future.

Oh, one last thing: When I do get a new laptop (tablet PC, actually), I might start using an e-mail client again. What I'll do then is configure IMAP to maintain offline (i.e. local) copies of all my Gmail folders. That way, I'll get the best of both worlds: e-mails available locally and in the cloud, both always synchronized. Also, you can never have too many backups, can you? :)

Creating a New E-mail Taxonomy

I truly am a geek. I am working on a new taxonomy for my e-mails (all of which I'm moving to Gmail, by the way) and...well, I'm having a really good time planning it all out!

The thing is: I'm a very nested-folders type of person so switching to the labels-and-search model is a little scary. Why is it scary? Because, other than the default folders (inbox, sent mail, etc.), I currently have 172 -- yes, that's one hundred and seventy-two -- folders in Thunderbird. And I'm trying to cut that down to about 15.

The reason I can do this (quite easily, in fact) is that most of my existing folders are second-level folders: one for each mailing list that I subscribe to, one for each MBA course that I'm taking, etc. So really I have just 37 top-level folders. Actually, even that's too many because, back in the day, I gave sites that I'm a paid member of their own top-level folder so those will now go. I also have a couple of temporary folders in there. I've been meaning to do a good folders rationalization for a couple of years now but I've just never gotten around to it. I guess this is my chance.

The good thing -- which is making this move much less scary -- is that, having used Google Web Search and Desktop Search for years now, I'm pretty confident that, even with 15 folders instead of 172, finding old e-mails shouldn't be much of a problem.

The New Taxonomy

The key change I'm making to the taxonomy is that my labels will not be about who the e-mails are from -- the taxonomy I've been following since the mid-90s that has served me well -- but what the e-mails are about -- the taxonomy I started to move to a few years ago (and which, obviously, I use for my blogs).

This lends itself well to the whole labels concept because an e-mail can be about more than one subject. So, for example, an e-mail sent from my sister about an Internet meme will get the 'Funny & Forwards' label. However, if she also wrote some family stuff in that e-mail, I'll also attach the 'Family & Friends' label to it. Neat, huh?

The challenge, of course, is in coming up with those few, most useful labels. Here's what I've come up with so far:

  1. Friends & Family -- e-mails about (you guessed it) friends and family

  2. Funny & Forwards -- jokes, forwards, memes, etc.

  3. Life Admin -- e-mails from banks, utilities, ISPs, etc.

  4. Lists & Sites -- e-mails from mailing lists and sites I am a member of

  5. LUMS -- old e-mails from my undergrad days as well as current alumni-related e-mails

  6. MBS -- all course, admin, alumni, etc. e-mails

  7. Music -- old and, in the future, new band-related e-mails

  8. Nadia -- a whole separate label for my wife since she is, after all, more than just a friend or family member

  9. Saved Stuff -- stuff I want to keep for future reference that is not a funny or a forward (i.e. articles and the like)

  10. Sites & Projects -- stuff about non-work websites I maintain or about various projects that come up

  11. Temp Bukkit -- e-mails that I'll catch up on the weekend but want out of my inbox for now

  12. Work -- all work-related e-mail (I presume I'll be maintaining another taxonomy in my work e-mail account)


Just twelve?! Not bad, eh? :)

Of course, as with any taxonomy, I expect this one to evolve over time. So far, though, I think it's an accurate representation of all the e-mails I currently have in Thunderbird. And if it isn't, I'll probably tweak it as I upload my e-mail to Gmail (either that or I'll delete the e-mails instead!). Meanwhile, I'm quite pleased with this list. Now...let the uploading begin!

For the two people who read this blog: what taxonomy do you use for your e-mails?

Switch to Gmail & IMAP?

I have three primary e-mail accounts: Melbourne Business School, Yahoo! Mail Plus, and insanityWORKS.org. I also have three secondary ones: The University of Melbourne, Gmail, and Hotmail. I forward UniMelb to MBS, Gmail to Yahoo!, and I check Hotmail via a browser periodically. I POP mail from my primary accounts to my laptop and I use Mozilla Thunderbird as my e-mail client. That is:

E-mail Changes Blog Post 1

When I'm away from my laptop, however, I usually only check my primary accounts. To do that, I use the MBS webmail interface, Yahoo!'s excellent webmail interface, and I POP my insanityWORKS mail into Yahoo!. That is:

E-mail Changes Blog Post 2

This system has worked well for the last seven years because I've always had one primary computer to work on (which, for the last four years, has been my laptop). Now things are starting to change and I'm tempted to (a) move all my e-mail online and (b) move to one primary e-mail account (Gmail) and five secondary ones (all the rest). That is:

E-mail Changes Blog Post 3

Here's why...

Three Major Changes

First, I've become a lot more mobile and I increasingly want access to all my old e-mails (and some of my data) regardless of where I am and which computer I'm working on. This wouldn't be a problem if I was to carry my laptop (and, therefore, all my e-mail and data) with me everywhere I went, but that's not something I want to do all the time. Also, in the future I want to use my phone to access my e-mail and I simply can't do that with my current setup.

Second, cloud computing has come a long way over the last couple of years and Yahoo!, which is by far my preferred e-mail provider, lacks a number of cloud computing features that I really want. For example, Google Reader is much better than Yahoo!'s RSS reader and Microsoft's SkyDrive is much better than Yahoo! Briefcase. I also prefer Google's Calendar to Yahoo!'s, I really like Gmail's labelling mechanism, and Microsoft's Live Mesh sounds very exciting as well. In other words, I want to start using cloud computing-like services and Yahoo! alone isn't giving them to me.

Third, we live in an increasingly connected world. My current system of downloading all my e-mail to my laptop works well because it assumes that I'll be doing a lot of e-mailing (and, in general, computing) offline and from one computer. Increasingly, that is not the case. Instead, I now use communication tools like Facebook and Twitter for which you need to be constantly online, I don't limit my e-mail usage to just my laptop, and I even access the 'net and my e-mail through my mobile phone (though I don't do much of that right now because it's really expensive on my current phone plan!).

Two Implications

This means two things. First, I am seriously considering moving all my e-mail to the 'cloud'. I want this for seamless and synchronized e-mail access across multiple computers and devices. And since I am frequently online (or at least in mobile phone signal range) not being able to access my e-mail because I don't have an Internet (or mobile phone) connection is no longer an issue.

For this to work, though, I will need an IMAP-based e-mail solution and not a POP-based one. IMAP will not only let me sync my e-mail across multiple computers and devices, it will let me work offline (before re-syncing) as well. 

Second, because of that IMAP requirement, I am seriously considering making Gmail my sole primary e-mail account. In fact, I'll start to POP e-mail from all my other accounts into this one as well (see diagram above).

Why? Not only is Gmail the only one that offers IMAP (which is why it should be my only e-mail interface), it's free and it gives me tonnes of storage, great calendar integration, and excellent e-mail search capabilities. It is also reliable, universally accessible, and, once I switch, I won't have to take regular backups of my e-mail folders any more.

I could, of course, use other (paid) IMAP services, but I think I'd be better off using Gmail for all the additional benefits I get from it.

One Decision

So I have a big decision to make. Do I move all 2.1GB of e-mail archives off my laptop, out of my direct control, and into the cloud? Some people have done that and are happy with it. Others didn't have such a great time. Until I try it myself, I don't know how things will turn out for me. What might be useful, though, is if I was to do a bit of e-mail housekeeping before uploading everything to Gmail. Doing that would be a pain up-front, but it would make life a lot easier going forward.

Actually, maybe the bigger issue is this: should I commit myself to using only Gmail (via IMAP) from this point on? I guess another way to think of this is to ask myself whether this is better than the status quo. That is: should I commit myself to using only my laptop (with occasional backups) to store all my e-mail? Or, to get the best of both worlds, does it make more sense to store my e-mail both on Gmail and to maintain a local copy of all that e-mail in Thunderbird as well? The answer, in theory, is pretty obvious. Naturally, it's much harder to go ahead and actually implement the solution.

I think I'll start off with a baby step: I'll activate IMAP on my Gmail account and will start using that with Thunderbird. I'll even try uploading copies of some of my old e-mails into Gmail to see how it goes. If that goes well, I'll spend the next few weeks moving all my folders over one-by-one. Before I know it, I'll be good to go. Let's just hope things go as smoothly as I've just made them sound!

Apple's Safari Debacle

Or is it a debacle only when, say, Microsoft does it but a minor PR issue when Apple does it? Whatever.

I've been meaning to write about this for a while now, but haven't gotten around to it (the last week of my MBA starts today! Yaay!). Meanwhile, Paul Thurrott's gone and said pretty much what I wanted to say in his article: Apple lofts middle finger at PC users, PC users thank Apple for acknowledging them. Of course, he says it much better than I ever could (and with a lot more authority, being a tech journalist and all) but that's okay.

Peter Gabriel & Technology

Peter Gabriel, one of my all-time favourite musicians, continues to be at the forefront of technology usage -- particularly when it comes to technology for music and human rights:

On the human rights side:

  • In 1992 he co-founded WITNESS, "an international human rights organization that uses video and online technologies to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations"
  • In 1999 he started TheElders.org, which is a "new gathering of world leaders who [have] come together to guide and support our 'global village'".

So it's no surprise that he is involved in recent areas of music technology as well:

Both sound really interesting and I'll write more about them once I've played around with them a little more.

[More PG: Wikipedia, Last.fm, Real World Records, WOMAD]

Jonathan Coulton!

I'd heard a couple of Jonathan Coulton songs before but, thanks to this episode of TWiT, I went and explored more of his music...and I love it!

If you're a geek and you love good music with fun lyrics, be sure to check him out. I mean, who couldn't love these lyrics:

Heya Tom, it’s Bob from the office down the hall
Good to see you buddy, how’ve you been?
Thing have been OK for me except that I’m a zombie now
I really wish you’d let us in
I think I speak for all of us when I say I understand
Why you folks might hesitate to submit to our demand
But here’s an FYI: you’re all gonna die screaming

All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re not unreasonable, I mean, no one’s gonna eat your eyes
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise:
If you open up the doors
We’ll all come inside and eat your brains

[From Re: Your Brains]

:)

Two Toshiba M700 Reviews

Both Gotta Be Mobile and Tablet PC Review have recently published their reviews of the Toshiba M700 tablet PC:

Both are positive and both have reinforced my decision to buy the M700 as soon I can afford it. Things may, of course, change over the next few months but I doubt any manufacturer will come out with a machine that tops the power, versatility, and customisation options of the M700.

Twelve Days of InkSeine

Ken Hinckley (The Alpine Inker) works at Microsoft Research and, over the last couple of weeks, he's been running an awesome series of blog posts called Twelve Days of InkSeine.

InkSeine (pronounced ink-sane) is a really cool inking application that Hinckley is working on (which is not yet an official Microsoft product). It's one of the only products around that has been designed for inking and not just a keyboard-and-mouse based product that has inking support. For example, a lot of its commands (like cut, copy, paste, search, etc.) are all pen-flick based and not menu-based.

It's still in private beta but will released to the public in 15 February. To find out more about it, check GBM's InkShow on it. Better yet, once it is available, download and try it. Assuming you have a tablet PC, of course.