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Nikon D5000 – A different kind of review

 Let me start off by warning you up front. If you’re looking for a review of the Nikon D5000 that concentrates on how good of a still camera it is, you can stop reading now. I already have a great Nikon DSLR for stills. It’s the Nikon D700! I love it. Before that I was using the Nikon D300. Loved that one too. So my interest in the Nikon D5000 has very little to do with how good of a picture it can take. Don’t get me wrong, I will use it for taking pictures too and good picture quality is very important to me. However, the video features are what brought me to the D5000. The D5000 is so small it may become my travel camera too (more on that later).

 

Just yesterday…

I was talking about my experience with eBay and how I was selling my D300. Some of the readers here, Nikon Rumors and on Twitter started trying to read between the lines and find conspiracy where there wasn’t any (Why are both Scott Kelby and Terry White selling their D300’s?  hmmmm) . First off the Nikon D300 served me quite well. I upgraded to it from the D80 and it was night and day. It’s a great DSLR. Never had any problems with it and I’ve taken some stunning shots with it. Although the D300 is great, I wanted even lower noise at higher ISO settings. So when the D700 came out I was sold. It was full frame (still is) and gave me the higher ISO:low noise ratio that I was looking for. Although I could have sold my D300 then (see no conspiracy here about it being a bad camera), I decided to keep it as a backup! That’s how much I liked it. At first I was even using it more than the D300 because I was just more used to it. Slowly as time went by I continued to transition to the D700 until I was using it most of the time. So the D300 was just sitting there. When the D90 came out the only feature that got me the least bit interested was the HD Video capability. However, I wasn’t willing to spend over $1,000 to play. Since I wasn’t ready to part with my D300. I waited. Then the D5000 came out and I got more interested. It seemed to have the same video capabilities as the D90 for less than $750 (Body only).

I tried to do some research regarding the D5000’s video capabilities and I was really coming up short. It seemed like every D5000 review I could find focused about 95% of the review on it’s still capabilities and 5% (if that) on the video capabilities. Even this recent Macworld review only mentions the video features in the Cons section saying that it doesn’t auto focus! Wow, that’s it? They all pretty much said the same things. "It shoots up to 720p video at 24fps, the clips are limited to 5 minutes each and there is no auto focus." Even when I tried to find sample clips, most really weren’t showing off the flexibility of using different lenses. They were mostly shaky videos that complained about the lack of auto focus. So let’s get to the video capabilities of the D5000…

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Continue reading “Nikon D5000 – A different kind of review”

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Why isn’t eBay easier?

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Being a gadget guy, I’m always buying new gear, toys, gadgets, etc. This means that I usually always have something for sale. However, most times the stuff just sits here because of the effort it takes to sell it. For example, this week I’m selling my Nikon D300 DSLR Camera Body on eBay. I’ve learned over the years that when I get something new that I’m not going to keep it forever, therefore I try to keep the original box, cables, manuals, etc. intact so that when that day comes that I want to sell it I have everything ready to go. Even with that effort it’s not as easy as it should be.

  Continue reading “Why isn’t eBay easier?”

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Clear just went under

One of the ways I used to make travel a little easier was to use my Clear card to zip through airport security. Clear was an approved TSA pre-screening service that you would apply for and basically get a TSA background check. Once you were approved you got a Clear card that you could use to go through a much shorter line at the airports that offered Clear lanes. So imagine my heart break when I got this email last night! I’m totally bummed!

clearoutofbusiness

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My tech blog just got a make over

I had been using the same WordPress template since I switch my blog over from iWeb to WordPress. I was starting to feel that it needed to be updated and perhaps have a more custom feel to it. There were also features that I wanted that I’ve seen on other blogs, but anyone that knows me knows that while I dabble in web stuff, I’m NOT A WEB GUY! Sure I can do basic stuff, I can look at HTML and kinda know what’s going on, but building websites and web templates is really not me. So being smart enough to recognize my limits, I turned to a professional. I turned to legendary designer Erik Bernskiold of XLDStudios and I said, “make me look good.” Not me personally, but my site.

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Erik went right to works and his first question to me was “well what other blogs do you like and what features do you want?” One of my favorite blogs not only from a content standpoint, but also a design standpoint is my buddy Scott Kelby’s blog. His response was, “I had a feeling you would say that!” Now of course I didn’t want to rip off Scott’s site completely 🙂 (Scott, put the phone down. No need to call the lawyers) So I told Erik to use the things I liked about Scott’s site and come up with a design that would be “ME”. I was VERY EXCITED with what he came back with! There’s just no way I would have been able to do this myself.

Erik was easy to work with and we did everything via email. I highly recommend him! As a matter of fact he’s offering a discount to any reader of this blog of 15% off any of his services (web design, hosting and media production). Just enter the code “twhite“ when checking out or asking for a quote.

You can get to Erik’s site here.

Thanks Erik!

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iPhone 3G S Review and a little fun with Woz

iphone3gsinmyhand1 The iPhone 3G S is Apple's newest offering for an already insanely successful product. The iPhone's success has exceeded everyone's expectations and even the naysayers can't deny that Apple came from nowhere and all of a sudden became the market leader that every other phone maker now aspires to be like. If you don't believe me, look at all the other smart phones that were recently released and you'll see "me too" like features and advertising. So what do you do when you have one of the most successful phones ever created? You improve it to keep the momentum going. My original iPhone review 2 years ago has had over 135, 000 reads. If you Google "iPhone Review" mine will come up on the first page. The reason for this success is that my first review was one of the most in depth reviews written. I spent almost 24 hours writing it. Then the iPhone 3G came out last July and I followed up with another in depth review. Now it's time to take a look at the iPhone 3G S, however, this review will not be anywhere near as long or in depth as the last two. It's not because I don't feel like writing, it's just that there isn't as much to cover that I haven't already said. If you have read my iPhone 3G review last year and my iPhone OS 3.0 Review a few days ago, you're 95% there in knowing about the New iPhone 3G S. (Also see my iPhone 3G S Unboxing Video here). – Continue reading “iPhone 3G S Review and a little fun with Woz”

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Unboxing my iPhone 3G S 32GB

Well today is iPhone 3G S day and while I have a full review coming sometime this weekend (no later than early Monday morning), I thought I would share a first look at the outside of the iPhone 3G S in this video. Now keep in mind that the on the outside the iPhone 3G S is pretty much identical to the iPhone 3G form factor:

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iPhone App of the Week – Helper Apps

I often come across great apps for the iPhone/iPod touch that work great and are very exciting to me, however there’s a problem. Some of these apps are really only useful to people that have a certain piece of hardware or a certain piece of software on their computer or use a certain service such as a particular bank. If I make one of these apps the iPhone App of the Week, then chances are the app will only appeal to a small segment of my readers. So rather than profiling an app with limited appeal or ignoring the app completely (as I have done in the past), I figured I would group them together from time to time in one post so that there will be a greater chance in seeing something that you can use. So welcome to my first “iPhone App of the Week – Helper Apps!” Here are 10 of my favorite Helper Apps:

Continue reading “iPhone App of the Week – Helper Apps”

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Do you still use a Fax Machine?

Do you still need to send or receive faxes? My guess is probably not. Or certainly not every day. However, as soon as you get rid of your Fax machine or Fax line, that will be the day you either need to send or receive a Fax. Although I have an Epson Workforce 600 that can send and receive faxes, I almost never use it for that. I receive my Faxes via email and now I send them via the web for FREE! Often when I want to send a Fax, I’m looking at it right there on my computer display. So why should I have to print it out just to stick it in a fax machine and then either shred it or recycle it 2 minutes later?

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Receiving Faxes via email for FREE

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I’ve used a eFax for years to receive Faxes via email. After you sign up for a free account, you get a randomly assigned fax number that is yours. You have no control over what area code the number will be in. After all it is FREE! Any faxes sent to that number will automatically be sent to you as an email attachment. The email attachments come in as multi-page TIFF files and they give you a free viewer app. Now keep in mind that if you want more like the ability to choose your area code and the ability also send faxes via email attachments. However, their lowest package is $16.95/month and at that point you might as well look at getting your own dedicated fax line. Here are the features in case you are interested in their paid service.

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Sending Faxes over the internet for Free

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Like I said, I’ve used the Free (hidden) version of eFax for years to receive faxes via email, but they’ve never offered a free way to send faxes. In order to send faxes you have to use one their paid services. I send so few faxes that I just couldn’t see paying for a service. Also I do have the ability to send from my Workforce 600. However, I figured there had to be a way to send the occasional Fax over the internet for Free. After doing a little searching I found just such a service. FaxZero is a website that allows you to send up to two faxes per day with a maximum of 3 pages each for free. This has worked out perfectly for me! I can go months without needing to send a fax and when I do it’s usually on a couple of pages. If I did need to send more than 3 pages or more than 2 faxes then I could use my own fax machine or pay their low price of $1.99 (for up to 15 pages). You can upload either a PDF or Word doc (.doc or .docx). The cover page for the free fax will have an ad on it. If you use the paid version your cover page will be ad free.

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The Bottom Line

I find that I’m doing less faxing each year as more and more businesses move to email and web services for communicating with their customers. So it doesn’t make sense to maintain fax equipment and fax lines anymore. There are both free and paid services out there to both send and receive faxes electronically over the internet. If your fax needs are low, you may want to look into these services.

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iPhone OS 3.0 Review: What’s New and Noteworthy?

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Now that the New iPhone OS 3.0 Software update is available, I thought I would give you a first look and point out some of the new features that you may overlook or not discover right away. The good thing is that at first glance iPhone 3.0 looks just like iPhone 2.x. This is what makes it hard to know what’s there because there isn’t a lot that jumps right out at ya. Also hundreds and hundreds of the enhancements are under the hood to improve performance and give developers the hooks to write more powerful apps.

– Continue reading “iPhone OS 3.0 Review: What’s New and Noteworthy?”