While I haven’t been posting as much, it’s not because of any trial! I just wanted to let everyone know I am not planning on being away for the next 7 years…

http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/michael-dolan-face-seven-years-jail

I recently bought a Canon T1i for $950. I bought it online at Amazon.com with free shipping (took 3 days to arrive). The local camera shop had plenty of them in stock and I could have picked it up that day. However, at 8% local sales tax, that camera would have cost an extra $76 for no incremental benefit to me as I wasn’t in any rush to get it so the 3 day delay was fine. The camera shop also closes at 5pm promptly during the week which is an annoyance and nearly impossible for me to get to anyway.

Why would anyone buy from a local store? I bought a plasma HDTV for a few thousand dollars a couple years ago. I saved approximately $175 that would have gone to sales tax by again buying it online (at Amazon.com). I buy EVERYTHING online these days. I’m probably one of a few power users of the iPhone Amazon.com app.

State sales tax policies will kill local retailers, local businesses, and local jobs. It’s odd, but your states implicitly encourage you to buy things from other states rather than the shop down the street. The Internet, USPS, UPS and Fedex have made it infinitely easier today than say 10-15 years ago.

The state sales tax is antiquated and adversely impacting local businesses. State governments need to stop trying to chase down Amazon.com and the 1,000 other Internet retailers who will pop up next.

How should states fix this? Who knows – taxes and markets are a complicated and dynamic system. I haven’t researched which states may have found alternative approaches, but I personally think the state sales tax has to go away. Sure, “local items” like gas, alcohol, etc are easy targets to continue a sales tax, but that’s because they can’t be shipped across state lines by individuals. I can see some moron legislator coming up with a plan to ban importing HDTVs next…

The reality is states needs to create a new, modern tax policies that align local interests and provide the funding needed for the services residents expect. It won’t be easy, but it can be done.

Many cities still tax personal income – another nonsensical issue. They should tax people based on the property the occupy. There’s no reason I should have to contribute to a local city 3x more than the guy down the street does just because I work harder, invested for more higher education, and accepted a more work-intensive lifestyle. I get the same municipal benefit he does but I should pay 3x more? When my wife and I moved from Tarrytown NY last year (no municipal income tax), we moved into another municipality that has no income tax as well. Sure, we pay for these things in property taxes, but it’s a more “even” allocation of the tax burden.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an “anti-tax” person. I’ll pay my fair share and that’s fine. I think that many of these taxation systems are trying to patch a failing system that no longer makes sense in our modern economy where physical boundaries are no longer relevant.

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090501/why-circuit-city-failed-and-why-bh-thrives_Printer_Friendly.html

I don’t buy the argument that the economy caused Circuit City’s failure. Take one look at its competitors, and you know that the market for consumer electronics and computer equipment remains strong, even in this economy. You can walk into any Apple Store and see large crowds of people lining up to buy computers and iPods. But enough has been said about how wonderful Apple is. I want to tell you about another first-class consumer electronics retailer — a much smaller business you probably haven’t been to, unless you live in New York City or are a professional photographer or an avid hobbyist. It’s called B&H.

It’s a sad day for me. Ashlee’s already writing daily articles for the NY Times that are non-obnoxious and it’s like seeing that old college drinking buddy 5 yrs later when he has 3.25 kids, a white fence and gets excited about Bed, Bath and Beyond.

The D90 is the first S.L.R. in the world that can record video.

High-definition video, at that. Stunning, vivid, 720p, widescreen, 1024-by-720, 24-frames-per-second video, with the color and clarity that only an S.L.R. can provide.

Preview

Announcement

Canon Site

Here’s a teaser:

For most companies, innovation is a proprietary activity conducted largely inside the organization in a series of closely managed steps. Over the last decade, however, a few consumer product, fashion, and technology businesses have been opening up the product-development process to new ideas hatched outside their walls—from suppliers, independent inventors, and university labs.

Executives in a number of companies are now considering the next step in this trend toward more open innovation.¹ For one thing, they are looking at ways to delegate more of the management of innovation to networks of suppliers and independent specialists that interact with each other to cocreate products and services. They also hope to get their customers into the act.

I was particularly interested in the hurdles to evolving towards a more participative value chain model. These are the four hurdles McKinsey identified:

• Attracting and motivating cocreators
• Structuring problems for participation
• Governance mechanisms to facilitate cocreation
• Maintaining quality

I would add a fifth challenge which is maintaining visionary leadership. The challenge is that when a company open up to such participation, it’s too easy to justify investment in innovation to solve what customers, suppliers, etc are asking for today. What’s difficult in an environment with tons of user input is to also step back and recognize where you *should be* beyond what’s being asked for today. Think of Apple. If Apple had asked and listened to its customers about what to do next with the iPod next, customers would have posted a million points about X, Y, … N feature enhancements they’d like to see. What Apple did instead is look beyond what was right in front of everyone and set a strategy to take over the mobile device people carry with them. Apple looked further ahead and built an SDK platform for enterprise applications. They set a brilliant strategy that has now resulted in the iPhone becoming the next generation of what was just a music playing device. How many people will carry and iPhone and an iPod? Now look at the boost to Mac sales and you can see Apple has executed this strategy very well.

This challenge is also present in open source communities. Often the community will set many resources to what gap is in front of someone willing to speak up and complain or advise. The challenge is for that community to look a step ahead and identify what are the needs your users will want 3 years from now, not today.

I’ve diverted from my starting post, but while I thought the article was great, I felt compelled to add my personal addendum. The bottom line is that I think companies need to build into their open innovation model a means to capture this longer term vision either from the community if possible (without community NDAs) or through internal means.

If I get time this week, I’ll explain more, but I even just noticed James Governor is expanding the Greenmonk analyst team. Follow the money is always a good model for investing in growth :-)

http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/2008/05/23/announcing-new-line-of-business-new-analyst-greenmonks-tom-raftery/

The photographer was long gone, I knew it was taken before the CTEA and the 28 yr renewal requirement had been in effect. Let’s be realistic – who would know which of his decedents (if you could find them) had been bequeathed his rights in an old family portrait from many years ago? If no one had inherited the rights, then what? Take the entire family (if you can find them) to court to figure it out?

Personally, I think it’s ridiculous that non-commercial photographs are not excluded or carved out from the copyright law today. Yes, it may disrupt how some photographers charge today, but they can change their billing methods. Let’s be honest: how hard would it be for you to just scan in your picture and reprint a billion of them vs finding a photographer from 30 yrs ago? Think of Snapfish – do you have authorization to print pictures your friend (the copyright holder) posted on their account and shared with you? Snapfish will print and deliver them to you – has Snapfish violated their copyright? I haven’t read Snapfish’s terms or agreements, but you can see how ridiculous this can get.

If you can’t tell, these issues where we have refused to modernize our legislation and/our court precedent fire me up. While I understand that oil, energy, and Iraq are very important issues in the US, these arcane principles that we have not adjusted for the modern world really do prohibit our society from advancing and innovating. Instead of taking new technologies and riding their full potential, the innovators are constantly caught up in a complex web of vague/loose rights that make it impossible to move forward. This ties right into the software patent post from earlier today.

Let’s wake up – our founding fathers never imagined a system whereby people could instantly share photos over an internet at will. Heck, at the time of signing the Constitution, photography “as a usable process” hadn’t been invented yet – it’s time to update our systems!

Many lawyers and scholars will argue that we can accomodate new technologies with the existing system. Sure, they love the existing system. It’s vague, complex, and crazy enough that they can bill hours for a lifetime.

I disagree – the issue is not whether a particular ruling can be expanding to cover a new technology or advancement. Sure, we can keep expanding/contracting the scope of rulings for another thousand years. The real issue is what do we in today’s society truly consider to be intellectual property and who do we consider to be the owner of those rights? Finally, are the current laws around this intellectual property still granting the right (as in proper) permissions? For instance, have you considered that your family photograph is under copyright by the photographer for 70 years after his/her death! Yes, unless you signed an agreement otherwise, your wedding, family, and other photographer-taken pictures are owned by your photographer and his/her decedents.

The US used to require a renewal of copyright after 28 years in order to continue holding your exclusive rights. (ahem, then Disney came along and took over the copyright system) I think it’s time to update the entire system bringing all walks of copyright holders to the tables and systematically update our system to align with a modern world one piece of IP at a time. In my humble opinion ;-)

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080516-orphan-works-bill-clears-senate-committee-may-soon-find-home.html

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Government/Clinton-Obama-and-McCain-Vote-ForAgainst-Tech/?kc=EWKNLGOV043008FEA1

It’s been a while since I’ve used Winamp though. Having moved most of my systems to Linux, I have rarely seen much of Windows and admittedly lost touch with Winamp. Today am happy to say that we’ve reconnected.

Our reconnection starts with an absolute hatred of iTunes and a horrible relationship that involves completely erasing, syncing, and re-creating libraries, playlists, etc b/c Apple decided to build in all kinds of DRM into iTunes. It’s nonsense and the challenge has always been in my mind, a lack of alternatives. The latest issue I’ve had is that my MP3 library is on a RAID array and for some reason, iTunes keeps on blowing up the RAID array… not good. I can’t even imagine how that’s possible, but it’s highly repeatable. I start Windows, RAID array is fine. I do anything, leave Windows on for 2 days, it’s fine. On the second day, if I open iTunes and do anything that involves accessing a file… my RAID drive splits into 2 separate drives in Windows Explorer and if I reboot – I get a degraded RAID array.

I have a system at home that has Windows Vista 64-bit. I needed Windows b/c I needed a couple things: 1) Photoshop, 2) Video editors for my home movies recorded on the awesome Sony HDR-SR7 HD video camera, and 3) web conferencing (although I don’t need Windows anymore now that I have the latest Ubuntu).

So back to my plight. I bought an iPod Nano 3rd Generation a while back simply because it’s thinner and lighter than my last MP3 player. It’s perfect for skiing is really what it comes down to.

I tried Songbird, but it’s way too early (couldn’t add any songs to my iPod). I tried a demo version of some terrible app that supposedly integrates into Windows Media Player. I searched for any way to get gtkPod on Windows, and even considered a Busybox/gtkPod route. And then… a Google search finally led to a blog, a blog to another blog’s list of alternatives and there it was: “Winamp.com”. The solution quickly unfolded before my eyes. Winamp – it’s been years, but boy am I glad to see you again.

So I fired up Winamp and right there, it found my iPod without me doing anything. I can click drag files onto the iPod and it’s seamless. And here’s the best part – you can play songs OFF the iPod and you can go in and delete files from the iPod (no check a box in the library / sync nonsense).

Winamp is the best iTunes there ever was. It’s like seeing a good friend from college that you had so many great times with but lost touch through the years. Now, let’s go have a beer.

Escape iTunes: Download Winamp

Tuesday’s developments don’t guarantee a successful result, but both parties are under great pressure to produce a bill that can pass this year. There’s enough common ground for a bill, even though difficult negotiations remain on several fronts.

“Inaction is never an option when you have a crisis of confidence in the housing market and the financial market,” Shelby said. “The American people are looking to the Senate right now to see how we’re going to react to it.”

http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/03/south-park-to-o.html 

South Park fans will soon be able to watch any episode of the seminal animated show free online, thanks to a deal between show creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone and Comedy Central’s parent company, Viacom.

In an appropriately glib statement, Parker and Stone said they were inspired to start the site when they got “really sick of having to download our own show illegally all the time.  So we gave ourselves a legal alternative.”

Size (more specifically depth) was my greatest concern as I reviewed features. I could accept less than top tier performance in other categories, but I like to use this type of camera for skiing (drop it into a coat pocket), going out to bars (drop it in a pant/shirt pocket), and other places where I want its size to be no more than carrying a cell phone.

And so I began my research.

There were a few cameras that were easy candidates – the Canon SD1100 being the first. The SD1100 continued the ELPH SD100 tradition with portable size, a no-nonsense frame, and as expected a high quality Canon product. The SD1100 shutter speed only seemed slightly faster than my older SD100, boosted the megapixels to 8MP, widescreen pictures, and added Optical Image Stabilization (very nice). The SD1100 boasted a relatively small depth at 22mm. The price was definitely reasonable at ~$230.

I also looked at the Olympus Stylus SW line of cameras. The 850 was within my price limit, and boasted unique features such as shockproof, waterproof, and freezeproof (great for skiers). The 850 was relatively slim at 21.3mm, however, almost every Olympus SW camera had received poor image quality results in reviews, and while slim, the camera was slightly wider/taller than other options. One other negative was that Olympus still uses its proprietary xD flash media which I just have a hard time buying into. The price was within reason at ~$260.

I was really hoping Nokia would offer me the perfect package. Nokia had two types of cameras that may have worked. First there was the 21mm slim S51, but I couldn’t get over the “cheap” feel of the camera. Then I noticed the super-slim 18mm depth, Nokia S210 which was also one of the cheapest options at a mere $175. This camera was the perfect size and on paper, had great features. I nearly hit the buy button to order it when I noticed the bad reviews on the internet. I was seriously bummed this one didn’t work out.

I checked a few others and then remembered Casio had its super-slim camera line. Casio was never known for high quality pictures, but was known for super-sexy looking cameras. And that’s when I found the Casio Exilim EX-S10 (commonly just referred to as the S10). This camera was launched in 2008 as the “world’s slimmest 10MP camera”. It just hit the store shelves a couple weeks ago at $250 but unfortunately NO ONE had done even a modestly decent review of the camera making a purchase decision difficult (and hence I’m sharing my experience now). I bought one anyway at a local Target planning to return it if I was disappointed. Since I bought it, I’ve noticed CNet UK has done a review here.

“World’s slimmest” turned out to mean 16mm slim, which … is very slim. Check out the pictures below with a Casio S10 next to my iPod Nano (3rd Generation).

The S10 is just “3 Nanos deep”. On size/portability, you can’t possibly beat the S10. The Exilim very easily fits into a shirt or jacket pocket. It has a great size LCD screen that works well in direct sunlight.

The EX-S10 picture quality was pretty decent (not a Canon, but nothing Photoshop can’t fix). Images can be taken at up to 10 Megapixels. It has 3x optical zoom, a standard flash and other features. There’s a one button movie record button which is nice. I did find it was having trouble in lower lighting conditions or very cloudy areas. Taking pictures is fairly simple and I actually found it “so easy” that it was somewhat difficult as a more advanced SLR user to get the shot to take the way I wanted. The integrated “Best Shots” feature proved to be very useful as is the face detection engine that follows the subject you’re shooting.

Here’s an example shot taken from near the mid point of Copper Mountain in Colorado recently (unedited, raw JPG, click for full 10MP version):

The Exilim is a great looking camera and packs only the features I really considered “necessary”. I personally don’t care about “in camera image editing” or other nonsensical things vendors seem to be packing into these small digicams today. There is a “YouTube upload” software package that is supposed to make uploading YouTube videos easy… whatever…

As for videos, I was surprised to see the Casio takes good videos and even does “Ultra HQ Widescreen” at 848×480 pixels.

The Casio uses an SD flash card slot which is great. It also has a proprietary battery which is not so great, but easily obtainable at $30 for a retail Casio battery (I found Casio to be the cheapest place online). Given this is a new battery, it may take some time for the super cheap options to show up on eBay. I did notice that the flash card “speed” can create a big difference in shoot time. I originally was using a slower TransFlash memory card in an SD converter, but when I switched to a SanDisk Extereme III SD card, the performance was noticeably faster.

The bottom line: if you’re looking for a slim camera that you can take anywhere and that takes relatively decent photos and videos, then this Casio is a great buy. I’ve never seriously considered a Casio and have always recommended Canon P&Ss to my friends and family, but that may change with the S10. Other Casios CANNOT be assumed to “be just as good” so be careful which one you buy.

If you want absolutely top performance in shooting and image quality, and are willing to sacrifice some size features, then the Canon SD950 or other models with OIS may be a better option although bulkier. If you need to shoot underwater, Olympus seems to be your only option without buying expensive waterproof housings. Unfortunately, Nikon’s consumer P&S line needs to catch up to its SLRs. I also looked at other vendors, but didn’t find any of them relevant to my particular needs.

UPDATE: Steve’s Digicams has posted a long review that I’d recommend looking at. There are sample pictures and videos too. http://www.steves-digicams.com/2008_reviews/casio_ex-s10_pg5.html

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