Category / General

by Aaron

A DNG WIC for Win7, 64 bit

Adobe has been dragging their feet for more than 18 months on this one – they can’t seem to ship a working DNG Windows Imaging Component compatible codec for a 64 bit based Windows system. Along comes the FastPictureViewer WIC RAW Codec Pack – which fully supports DNG on 64 bit Win7 machine. From my initial testing and reading other reviews, it makes DNGs (and other RAW file formats that would require other codecs) just work.

It also works on Windows 32 and 64-bit Vista and Windows 7 (and XP SP3).

It’s donationware (meaning you should donate to the author if you want to continue to use it after a trial period).

I use DNGs exclusively – and was frustrated by the lack of explorer thumbnails when browsing folders (as was my wife when she’s looking through our photo folders stored on our Windows Home Server).

by Aaron

Catalogs, oh my!

One day’s worth of catalogs:

pile of catalogs

I like shopping on the Internet, but there’s something to slowly paging through a paper catalog that is so much more satisfying than any Internet e-commerce site I’ve ever used. I’ll look through catalogs that hardly interest me if the catalog looks fun and interesting.

I’m not sure what it is about physical paper catalogs that appeals to me – if it’s the tactile touch, the presentation, the simplicity, …?

by Aaron

New Kindle Software Update!

Sweet!

  • Longer battery life for Kindle (Global Wireless): You can now read for up to 1 week on a single charge with wireless on. Turn wireless off and read for up to 2 weeks.
  • Built-in PDF reader: Your Kindle can now display PDF documents without losing the formatting of the original file. Send PDF documents directly to your Kindle (via your @Kindle address) or drag and drop PDF files from your computer to your Kindle (when connected via USB). Learn more.
  • and a few other things …

Get it here manually, or wait for the auto update.

Kindle 2.3 Update

I immediately added a few manuals for cameras, etc. – things that I take on vacations with me that I occasionally wish I had the manual for. I had converted them using their free service before, but it left them a mangled mess too often. The Nikon D300 manual for instance, is very readble now on the Kindle.

Thanks Amazon for this upgrade!

by Aaron

Google’s Chrome OS, Day 1

I downloaded the open source build of Google’s Chrome operating system from gdgt here and then tried it out in Vmware Workstation 7 running on Windows 7 x64. (It didn’t work the first time I tried it as my fresh Vmware installation required a reboot, which I hadn’t done).

Biggest shock is that they included Flash Player:

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Even on my quad core though, it’s barely usable. There aren’t any “vmware tools” for the environment, so my experiences I’m certain don’t represent any real world scenarios. There’s no audio support either, so it’s not useful either.

Apparently, other things are broken as well:

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Using CTRL+ALT+T, you can access the terminal. For example, here’s the list of processes running:

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Other than that, there’s not much to see. It’s just a browser. Yawn.

Maybe it will become clear why this is such a great thing – but for now, it’s just not clear. It’s probably a good thing that it won’t be ready for a year, as I’m sure that the market overall isn’t ready for a device like this. And if the price difference isn’t much between this and and a Win7 powered netbook, why bother? Even if it can cold start in 7 seconds, I can return from standby on my current laptop in about 2 seconds ….

Are you interested in Google Chrome OS?

by Aaron

“Can you hear me, sort-a? What? Huh?”

My wife and I decided to switch our cell phone service to Verizon, to join the USA’s most awesomest network. We bought 2 new Android phones, figured out what plans to get … it took about an hour and half in the store.

Having learned our lesson last time we tried to switch wireless carriers, we declined the automatic number port and got new numbers instead. We confirmed that we could port the numbers later and cancel our existing AT&T service ourselves.

On her Droid phone (the Eris), she got maybe one bar of service, if she stood in the right place, and faced the proper direction, with her arms at the proper height.

On my Motorola DROID, it was about 1 to 2 bars of service. A call between the two phones sounded absolutely terrible, with cut outs and so much vocal digitization that it was a very unpleasant experience.

Yes, there was “3G” service at our house, but making a phone call seemed to be a challenge – so, sorry Verizon. I can’t hear you now.

(And I’m aware of the Wireless Network Extender, but it has a bunch of caveats about size of house, network bandwidth, etc., that we can’t necessarily adapt to).

Phones will be returned.

AT&T didn’t even know we temporarily considered other options. :)