For those of you who don’t know.. not so long ago I signed up to be a photographer assistant at a local photo studio - Tampa Photo. No no, I did not quit my primary job.. Still, my main duties are - automation, perl scripting, performance monitoring and such :) However, I decided to take my hobby (photography) to the next level - learn commercial aspect of it, while improving my skills by working with real pros. And the extra $$ I earn doing it will certainly help in acquiring new photo gear :)

It’s a very exciting engagement for me. I’ve already went out on a couple of assignments with Kevin and Eric, and hopefully next week I will get to work with MJ. They’ve already given me tons of pointers and few priceless advices. I feel already that my shooting skills jumped up by two levels. I’m finally not afraid of using speedlight anymore (before, I only believed in “Natural lighting” and couldn’t stand flash, b-cs as I thought it was “messing up” real colors :-), and now I’m learning not to trust my camera in making exposure decisions and taking responsibility for those myself. It’s hard… it feels like I have to re-learn how to play tennis from scratch… after playing for 7 years! But I’m slowly piecing it together, little by little…

This picture was taken with Nikon D70 and Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR lens

Wow, it’s been a while since I blogged. I’m going to try to catch up in this post, going from the most recent events back to where I left off.

From the most recent

Last Sunday my friend Randy and his brother Steve took me to the Buccaneers vs Cardinals football game. They had an extra ticket and they generously offered me to go for free :) I took the opportunity to work on my new shooting technique (which is shooting in Manual exposure mode, which I will comment on a little later). I grabbed my Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR lens and headed to the Raymond James stadium. It never crossed my mind that I may have trouble getting this lens past the security checkpoint. The guy who was checking the bags by the stadium entrance pulled me over and said “This thing is too big, I don’t know if I can let you in with it…Let me check with my supervisor” So he called another guy who then called another guy who then asked me “Does this thing extend any further?” And I must say, with the hood on, the 70-200VR looks quite long :) I said “No sir, this is as far as it goes” :) after which he waved me in.

Even though our seats were quite close to the field (row H, which is like… 8th row from the field), because we were sitting by the end zone, I realized that 200mm wasn’t offering me enough reach to shoot midfield and you can absolutely forget about it if the action was on the opposite end. But I managed to snap few interesting shots anyways. Here is one of my favorites:

The entire gallery of that game can be viewed here: Buccaneers vs Cardinals

Unfortunately, most of the action took place on the other side of the field, and not being so much into the game I was “stuck” with… taking pictures of Tampa Bay Buccaneers Cheerleaders :) It actually happened to be a challenging task I must say. In some cases the girls would either have some dudes on the background (photographers, security staff, etc) while in others I wouldn’t be able to compose a good shot b-cs some fan’s heads would get in a way. Finally, nailing down exposure turned out to be a bit tricky too - because the light was very harsh (early afternoon sun) it was resulting in strong highlights on girls faces. Bright white stripes painted on the grass were not helping either - they were creating quite distracting background which confused the heck out of my D70’s matrix metering. Eventually, I decided to spot meter off of girls faces and ran with that (which turned out to be a winning strategy). I locked my aperture on f/4 (to be on the safe side, making sure I was getting more than just their eyes and noses in focus ;-) and shutter speed was usually floating around 1/2500 (plus/minus third of a stop)

I must say, I was really “sweating” the shooting conditions… Constant doubts were attacking me - am I being too agressive with the highlights, should I back out exposure a lil bit, may be go by the matrix metering and preserve as much highlights as I can? But that will result in heavy postprocessing with a lot of curving later on… so, I was literally “sweating” it :) By the very end, I got a bit frustrated, I thought nothing was going to come out of my “Manual” approach. So when the game was over, I came closer to the field, and just in case my “fooling around on M” was not going to deliver any decent results, I flipped into Aperture Priority and snapped few pics of every girl.. just in case…

When I got home and sorted thru the material I was stunned. All my work in “Manual” resulted in perfect exposure! I simply nailed it. No postprocessing was needed. And the only pictures that didn’t make the cut were… the ones I took in the end, using Aperture Priority - they were a bit too dark and required “curving”…

Anyways, here is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Cheerleaders pictures gallery

One week ago

We attended Guavaween celebration down in Ybor City. To our surprise, it went pretty well. We got there about 20 mins before the night parade began. Parking wasn’t a problem at all (although did cost $20), getting inside was another $15/person but everything was quite well organized. Police was everywhere, we haven’t seen any “misbehaving” drunks and overall, had a lot of fun!

The entire gallery can be view here: Ybor City Guavaween Pictures

Two weeks ago

Attended AirFest in St. Petersburg. My friend Dennis told me about this event, but because their web site looked kinda boring I decided I wasn’t going to go. But then later on, as Nadia and I were sitting at Panera bread on Saturday afternoon and trying to come up with what we were going to do for the rest of the day, I decided to give it a shot. And so we rushed down to St. Pete, and were quite surprised with how many various activities were going on there besides the airshow itself…

The entire picture gallery can be viewed here: St. Petersburg AirFest Pictures

Three weeks ago

Denis and I went on a photo safari to Ybor city and Tampa downtown. To our surprise it went quite well, we’ve come out with few decent shots, but my favorite still was this one, when we fooled around in the end with a cigar we picked up at Ybor for exactly this purpose :)

The Ybor City/Tampa picture gallery is here

Four weeks ago

Trip to new York.. boy, there is no way I can even begin to describe it :) I’ll just say that the pictures are here and that will have to do it :)

New York City Pictures gallery

Finally

And finally, my DELL Vostro 1400 has been working flawlessly ever since I got it. I’m very happy with my purchase, it’s a relatively light, very mobile laptop with extremely bright LCD screen and long battery life (I consistently get 6 hours on this 9-cell battery).

Which is better? What is the difference?

WXGA (left) and WXGA+ TrueLife (right)

I hope this information will help those of you who are about to purchase DELL Vostro 1400 notebook and are trying to decide which panel to go with.

As you probably know by now, Dell Vostro 1400 notebooks come with three different LCD panels:

1) WXGA (Matte finish) - 1280×800 resolution which is somewhat standard for this type of screen size
2) WXGA TrueLife - 1280×800 resolution, similar to the one above, except it has glossy finish instead of matte
3) WXGA+ TrueLife - 1440×900 (higher) resolution, also with glossy finish

From what I’ve learned so far reading various reviews on notebookreview forums, WXGA panels being “veterans” of LCD screens represent your typical notebook displays which you see on majority of laptops. So far I’m yet to hear a single complaint about those panels, with the exception that certain people might find them “boring”, comparing to the latest “trendy” glossy ones.

TrueLife screens are supposed to offer more vibrant colors, brighter picture, and overall “True Life” experience. I myself have not seen DELL’s WXGA TrueLife screen, but I’ve compared glossy LCD displays with non-glossy ones before, side by side, and I must admit that photographs and images look very impressive on glossy screens. On the other hand, with glossy screens you’ll have to put up with heavy reflections, especially on sunny days and if/when used in brightly lit rooms. So, I guess depending on how and what your laptop is going to be used for, you may or may not want glossy screen.

Dell’s WXGA+ TrueLife screens are probably the most controversial ones. People either love them or hate them. Apparently, DELL is using at least 3 different panel suppliers to manufacture these high resolution glossy screens. From what I’ve gathered so far, AUO branded panels have been getting the the worst reviews of all, mostly due to their graininess. Then there are SEC panels, which tend to show less to no graininess, yet suffer from being significantly dimmer than the rest. SEC panels also seem to have the worst viewing angles according to user posts on the Notebookreviews forum. Finally, there are LG panels. Few lucky owners of those screen report exceptional quality and seem to be the happiest Vostro 1400 WXGA+ owners.

I managed to get my hands on both WXGA (matte) and WXGA+ TrueLife (gloss) panels. Both of them are SEC panels. I first had a chance to work on the high resolution (WXGA+) screen for almost two weeks. My initial impressions were somewhat mixed. I did like the extra “real estate” that WXGA+ screen offered. I was also quite happy with the gloss (despite the fact that not so long ago I was determined to steer clear of shiny screens). However, viewing angles of that screen were a real joke. There just wasn’t a point from which I could see well both the top and the bottom portions of the screen. When I tilted the LCD to where top of the Windows desktop looked nice and color-reach, the bottom part (task panel) appeared a bit washed out. At the same time if I adjusted the screen in such a way that the bottom part of it looked bright and vibrant, then the top was turning so dark that grays were turning into blacks while near-black colors simply disappeared. And if that wasn’t enough by itself, horizontal angles were even more bizarre - my display looked slightly better (colors were reacher and pictures appeared to be brighter) if I looked at the screen not straight on, but at approximately at 15 degrees angle from the right. Yet at the same time, going 15 degrees to the left rendered the display noticeably darker.

I tried to demonstrate this effect in the following two pictures. While photographing, when placed on the right (first picture), WXGA+ panel looks noticeably darker than WXGA. However, after I repositioned the two screens so that WXGA+ is on the left (second picture) - the WXGA+ TL happened to be in its “favorable” position (at 15 degrees from the right) and it looks almost as bright as WXGA matte.

Vostro 1400, WXGA (left) and WXGA+ TrueLife

Vostro 1400, WXGA+ TrueLife (left) and WXGA (right)

Straight out of the box WXGA+ screen looked anything but “true life”. Excessive blue color made it look really bad. Also, DHL delivered the laptop in the early morning, so I first got to play with it during the day and immediately noticed that I wished the screen was brighter. I repeatedly kept trying to increase brightness, but it was at its maximum. To make things worst, new calibration profile which I created for this screen with the Spyder2 made the screen look even a little more darker. That, however, significantly(!) improved the colors.

Font size on the 14″ high resolution WXGA+ screen was a bit challenging for me at first. But seems like I got used to it rather quickly. My vision is far from perfect, I wear eye glasses, and even with them on my sight is not 20×20. Nevertheless, I discovered that I could live with this resolution and really enjoyed the extra real estate this screen offered.

Few days ago I received the WXGA matte screen. First impression - WOW! It is a LOT brighter than the WXGA+ TrueLife. Colors are a LOT better straight out of the box. I did however calibrate it as well, which made everything look even more vibrant (apparently there still was quite a bit of excessive blue). Text size looks ridiculously big comparing to the WXGA+ and I immediately felt that I am looking at a laptop screen… whereas the WXGA+ felt more like a PC monitor. I understand that the difference in resolution is not that big, but the difference is definitely noticeable. Viewing angles on this panel are a lot better than on the WXGA+, which was quite obvious right away. Overall, the screen is easier to read and nicer to look at.

The following two pictures demonstrate better brightness of WXGA screen compared to WXGA+ TrueLife. Both pictures were taken with the same shutter speed and aperture setting. Both laptops were positioned next to each other in more/less evenly lit room. No post-processing has been applied (besides cropping). These pictures reflect pretty accurately the difference in brightness between the two screens.

WXGA+ TrueLife (calibrated)

WXGA (calibrated)

To sum things up I’d like to state one more time - each of the panels has its pros and cons. While WXGA+ TrueLife panel offers you “wider” monitor, the sacrifice you’re making is 1. Viewing andgles and 2. Brightness (unless you get lucky to own LG panel, which I presonally have not seen and hence cannot speak of). WXGA panel is crispy sharp and bright, better colors out of the box, but as some may say looks “plain old” and feels like laptop screen (contrary to “wider” WXGA+). Which one to pick - your decision, depending on what you’re gonna be using it for. I personally lean toward WXGA.

The entire gallery of Vostro 1400 WXGA vs WXGA+ TrueLife pictures can be found here.

I guess I should also mention this - my WXGA panel is SEC 3157 while WXGA+ was SEC 4457. You can check your panel manufacturer by right clicking on your monitor in Device Manager, choosing Properties, then Details and then picking from the drop down either Device Instance ID or Hardware ID.

If you’d like to try ICM profiles I created for these two panels you can download them here:

Spyder2express_SEC3157WXGA.icm - for SEC 3157 (WXGA) panel
Spyder2express_SEC4457WXGAplTL.icm - for SEC 4457 (WXGA+ TrueLife) panel

However, in order to use these LCD profiles you will need Microsoft Color Control Panel Applet for Windows XP, that is if you’re using XP. I believe Vista is capable of managing icm profiles natively (I’m not 100% sure though). Also if you’re on XP and would like your color profile to be loaded automatically on startup you’ll have to create the following shortcut in your Startup group:
"C:\Program Files\Pro Imaging Powertoys\Microsoft Color Control Panel Applet for Windows XP\WinColor.exe" /L

Enjoy!!

About a month ago I exercised my “new every two” option and picked up a brand new LG VX8700 phone from Verizon. As customer service rep transferred my contacts from the old handset to the shiny new VX8700 I found out that downloaded applications do not get transferred and you have to Buy/Download them again. Not that I had too many of those, but there was one which I used to use a lot - Downtown Texas Hold’em. It was a challenging application until I discovered a huge weakness in the bot’s (robot’s) algorithm - once a bot makes a call, it gets pot-committed. You can immediately re-raise (even go all-in) and no matter how bad the bots cards are, it will make the call. So, once I figured it out, the entire game went down to exploiting that weakness.

This time I decided to get VZW Texas Hold’em instead (VZW Exclusive Texas Hold’em). The first thing I did was I switched Front view to Top (Front was just too annoying with constant scrolling thru all the players), then I switched the rest of the options to Off and entered a championship. I must admit, the logic/algorithm of the VZW Texas Hold’em is far more superior to Downtown’s. Bots are constantly “shifting gears” (or at least it feels that way) - some are playing pretty tight, while others are constantly bluffing. I’ve been playing for two weeks now, and so far - the game keeps me on my toes :) Overall, application’s user interface is very nice. I also like the fact that you can speed up the game significantly by constantly pressing “Skip” button (especially if/when you’ve folded). So, the bottom line - I definitely recommend this game to any Texas Hold’em fan :-)

Since I sold my DELL Inspiron 1150 laptop on ebay last week, I’m now shopping around for a replacement. I did have my eye on the new Dell XPS M1330, however when configured according to the minimal Vista requirements it costs around $1500 and that is way above my budget. I just don’t want to spend that much money for a laptop, which will be used for the most part only when I’m on the go. The primary computing power in my household still remains my Athlon 3700+/1Ghz FSB/2Gb/750Gb dual monitor desktop PC.

So, I decided that I should stay under $1000, preferable around $700-$800. My other two requirements were - 1) thin and relatively light laptop (hopefully not heavier than 4lbs) and 2) Battery life would have to be at least 2-3hours (more is better :-).

With that in mind I went out to Circuit City, Best Buy, CompUSA, Staples and Dell outlet. I looked at HPs, Sony VIAOs, Toshibas, Acers, Dells and Gateway lappies. One thing I realized right away - I’m not going to get a decent laptop under 5lbs in this price range. So, I had to “relax” weight expectation to “under 6lbs”. That pretty much translated into “14″ or lesser” screen size.

One of the Toshibas caught my eye - it was a 13″ (or even lesser) screen laptop, very small, probably weighting under 4lb. I was going to seriously consider it, however it had one major drawback which I could not get over - quite poorly made keyboard. Closer to the center, the keyboard was flexing inside so much that it was really hard to type. The rest of the tochibas as well as all of the gateways simply did not appeal to me aesthetically. Acers looked and felt very cheap. There were some very nice Sony VIAOs, however the ones I really liked were priced around $2k while less expensive units looked just awful.

Finally, there were HPs. One thing I do not like about HPs is the metallic looking finish on the inside. Also, I find somewhat annoying shiny bezel around LCD screens. I did like however one of the models they had on display at BestBuy - the dv2550se, also known as Hewlett-Packard Verve Special Edition Notebook, which apparently is only sold at BestBuy stores. The design looked gorgeous. I loved the imprinted finish. The specs were quite good as well - Intel Duo CPU, 2Gb of RAM, 160Gb hard drive, bright screen LCD, wireless, memory card reader, and so on - basically, it had all the bells and whistles. However, even while on sale it was priced at $999 (which with tax, would put it a little above $1k). ReviewPub has a wonderful review of this beautiful HP Verve Special Edition Notebook.

Once I got the feel of what local retail had to offer, I went online and did some research. I found terrific site which from now on I plan to use as my primary source of reviews and information on anything that has to do with laptops and/or notebooks - Notebook Review (http://www.notebookreview.com). I surfed its forums for few days and came to realize that I haven’t even considered yet any of the DELL products (other than the XPS I saw in the outlet). There was absolutely nothing that would interest me in the Home section of DELLs online store, while Small Business line of products definitely had few promising units. D630 was one of them. Equipped with a decent 1.8Ghz/800Mhz FSB, 80Gb hard drive and 14″ screen it weights only 4lbs! It’s 9cell battery life is reported to be exceptional (more than 5 hours) and it iss not a bad looking laptop overall. But then again, even with only 512Mb of RAM it costs almost a grand. On the plus side - it comes with 3 years manufacturers warranty - something you don’t see very often.

I finally decided to go with a less expensive Vostro 1400 model. It’s a bit heavier than D630 (probably weights similar to HPs Verve), but armed with 2Gb of RAM, 160Gb HDD, 14″ TrueLife XGA+ screen and long lasting 9cell battery it only costs $695 (tax/shipping included). $300 less than the Verve, yet with virtually the same tech specs. Notebooks Review forum has a very nice analysis of the new Dell Vostro 1400.

I really wanted my Vostro with matte panel, and with a lesser resolution - I didn’t want TrueLife XGA+, which is 1440×900, I would much rather prefer XGA’s 1280×800… But this particular pre-configured laptop was deeply discounted ($300 less than similar configuration w/o discount with cheaper(!) XGA panel!) - so I decided to give it a shot. This is the configuration I ended up ordering:


Intel Core 2 Duo T5470, 1.6GHz, 800Mhz FSB 2M L2 Cache
14.1 inch Wide Screen XGA+ TL LCD
2GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 DIMM
Intel Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
120G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
Integrated 10/100 Network Cardand Modem, for Inspiron
8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
Integrated High Definition Audio 2.0
Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Mini Card
85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Genuine Windows Vista Home Basic


Considering the fact that I got almost $360 for the old Inspiron I just sold on ebay, for extra $340 I’m getting quite an upgrade. Order has been placed, DELL is promising to ship it to me on September 7th… I CANT WAIT :-)

Getting my Nuvi fixed was easier than I though. After relatively painless (and rather quick) call to Garmin’s customer support, I shipped my 4 months old refurbished unit to their factory address and exactly 6 days later I received a brand new(!) replacement. Guys, register your purchases!! They did not ask me for ANY paperwork whatsoever (receipts, warranty sheet, etc - nothing!). Once customer service rep located my registration record and confirmed my home address - I was immediately issued an RMA, and that was it - end of story :-)

After almost two weeks of playing with three different monitors - UltraSharp 2407WFP-HC, HP w2207 and Samsung 226BW I finally made up my mind. HP w2207 was the first one to go back to the store - despite the fact that pictures looked awesome on it, I could clearly see (having it side by side with Samsung and DELL) that quality of the text just wasn’t there. Then, I really really loved Dell’s UltraSharp 2407WFP-HC - awesome panel! Amazing colors. Unfortunately, its native resolution was just a little bit too high for my eyes. No matter how hard I tried adjusting brightness, messed with different resolutions, I just couldn’t get comfortable enough with it to say that I’m perfectly happy and ready to pay $600 for it. Not DELL’s fault… Terrific product, but went back to Dell. I wish I could afford 27″ version of that monitor, but I just can’t see how one can justify extra $700 for the panel of the same resolution as 24″. May be when it comes down in price (quite a bit) I’ll consider it… but for now, I decided to keep the Samsung 226BW (which, btw, Amazon has now for $299 after mail-in rebate!)

My 20.1″ DELL 2001WFP monitor served me quite well for the last three, may be even four years… It felt huge when I first got it, but kinda “shrunk” overtime as I’ve been seeing more and more larger monitors piling up on shelves of my favorite Circuit City store at fractions of the price I had paid for my DELL back in 2004. Also, lately my job responsibilities shifted quite drastically - I went from a heavy unix scripting to a very involved windows programming. Dozens of SSH sessions have been replaced with a bunch of Remote Terminal sessions and overall I’ve been doing a lot more clicking than typing. The feeling that my desktop was getting too crowded was growing stronger and finally I gave into the idea and decided to make the move. I figured I could pick up a brand new primary monitor and demote my current DELL to being a secondary. This is where it all began :)

I googled around and noticed that monitors up to 22″ in size were literally dime a dozen. Especially the 22 inchers seemed like the best bang you can get for your buck. After reading reviews on circuit city’s web site as well as customers feedback on newegg I zeroed in on one particular model - Samsung 226BW. It also had quite promising reviews on cnet and behardware.com. This was shaping up to be another one of those impulsive purchases and frankly, I didn’t mind, because doing all that research, comparing options, buying and exchanging one model after another, all of that was just very tiring and time consuming. Besides, we were getting dangerously close to deadlines on a couple of projects at work and I simply didn’t have time for any of this. So I decided that Samsung 226BW it’ll be - trusted brand, widely praised model - I got nothing to worry about. Little did I know :-)

When I went to Circuit City to pick it up, another monitor caught my eye - the HP w2207. It was a 22 incher which really grabbed my attention right away. Windows wallpaper looked incredibly vibrant on it… colors were so saturated and bright that images were almost jumping off the screen. It was also one of those glossy screens which I thought I could not stand. Lately, as I’ve been observing more and more laptops introducing glossy screens I was getting really concerned - the time was coming to upgrade my Dell Inspiron and I was running out of options as far as laptops with non-glossy screens. So, as you can understand, looking at the w2207 I was getting very mixed feelings. Stunning pictures with darkest blacks I’ve ever seen and vibrant colors were most definitely the result of the glossy LCD surface, which I thought I will be avoiding at all costs.

Unfortunately, they did not have the 226BW on display and no other monitor came anywhere close to the way w2207 looked. I was seriously puzzled. Right there in the store I went online and googled for “226WB vs w2207″ just to find out hundreds of pages, blogs and forums where people were debating which of the two was a better buy… Obviously, there was no obvious answer to this question :)

Right about that time I realized that I’m not going to be able to decide which monitor to go with unless I compare them both side by side. And since the store I was in didn’t have the 226BW on display… I decided to do the same thing that many other customers did - I bought both monitors with the intent to return one of them later, thanks to Circuit City’s “30 days no restocking fee” policy.

First of all I’d like to note, that when I brought the monitors home I was quite bias - I knew I didn’t like the gloss and I kind of felt that my mission was to tweak and tune the 226BW to look if not better but at least just as good as the w2207.

Right out of the box Samsung 226BW looked awful. Excessive blue which I couldn’t get rid of rendered any images I tried to view on it completely dull. I’m terrible at calibrating displays “by eye” - I can see any color imperfections easily, but I’m having hard time making the appropriate adjustments. In the past, I often regretted that I didn’t have some kind of hardware monitor calibration tool. This time I decided the situation was critical enough to invest in one. I went to CompUSA and picked up the ColorVision’s Spyder2 (Exress version) monitor calibration device. Once calibrated, 226BW looked a LOT better, but still on the “cooled” side of the spectrum (still, as I felt, there was a bit too much blue and red.. at least to my taste).

HP w2207 looked almost perfect straight out of the box. I could sense a little excess of green/yellow colors. Unfortunately, calibrating with the Spyder didn’t help much in this case. In fact, I wasn’t and still isn’t quite sure if this display looks better calibrated or set to its original factory presets.

So there I had it - both monitors connected to DVI outputs of my nVidia GeForce 7600 GS, side by side sitting on my desk. The difference was quite clear - HP w2207 was blowing away the Samsung 226BW in displaying pictures, which to me was quite important aspect since I’m into photography (I own a D70 with 20-200 VR and 70-200 VR), while Samsung had a firm edge in displaying text, which is just as important to me as image quality since I work from home, which means MANY hours in front of the monitor reading, writing, and coding. Both monitors, even after calibration and excess of certain colors - 226BW had too much blue/red and overall looked a bit cooler than w2207 which was on the wormer side, yet exhibited a little bit extra yellow/greenish. No matter how hard I tried to fine-tune colors manually, I could not get either monitor to give me the “perfect colors” I was looking for.

This was a bit disappointing, so turned to google again and that’s when learned about TN panels… and S-PVA panels… and ISP panels. As it turns out, ALL 22″ monitors on todays marked are built based on TN LCD panel. While this panel is very fast it delivers the worst colors ever. ISP panels are considered the best as far as color representation goes with S-PVA panels being somewhere in the middle… yet they are still A LOT better than TN panels when it comes to “true color” reproduction. But once again, unfortunately for me, ALL 22″ monitors seem to be a TN panel. To me that meant only one thing - I needed either to give up the idea of extra real-estate on my desktop and go back to 20-21″, or shell out few extra $$ to be able to go up to a 24″ monitor.

Back to the drawing board. After some more research I found out that DELL has recently dropped the price on their well respected 24″ UltraSharp 2407WFP-HC displays to $570. And in addition to that, a local DELL kiosk at Brandon mall was running two weeks “back to school” special where they didn’t charge tax on any purchases made until August 13th… and shipping from dell.com was free… and they had 21 days satisfaction guarantee (no questions asked/no restocking fee) return policy…. AND :) the new version of the 2407WFP (the HC version) was a “wide gamut” unit which could display 92% color gamut unlike any other “traditional” monitor, which was only capable of representing 72% color gamut. So, as it appeared, for only a couple of hundred dollars more I was getting a LOT better monitor, so I decided to go for it.

3 days later (apparently DELL ships to Florida from Nashville TN, so even DHL ground shipping took only 2 days) I was unpacking the new, huge 24″ display. What can I say… DELL lived up to my expectations - superb quality of the monitor, slick design, AWESOME colors - very vivid, sometimes may be even a bit too saturated (can be easily adjusted), very bright and contrasty. Perfect white after calibration! No further tweaking required. The only thing that bothered me from the very moment as I plugged it in was the fact that my eyes were feeling strained. Either native resolution of this monitor (1920×1200) was too high for my eyes or something was wrong with this particular unit. It almost felt that my eyes were having hard time focusing… Tomorrow I plan to make another trip to the DELL kiosk and take a look at this very same monitor they have on display. I will also look at Samsung and Gateway 24 inchers to see if things are indeed too small for my sight with such screen size/resolution. I would really hate to give up this monitor because of I really have no other options… I can work on a TN panel… and I really don’t want to go back to 20″… and 27″ PVA is still out of my price range. I might consider upgrading my glasses first :)

This wasn’t supposed to happen, I’m pretty sure… So far I’ve been lucky buying electronics off of eBay, realizing that the compromise I make to get good price was the warranty. Nevertheless, I bought my DELL 2001WFP monitor four years ago on ebay, my floor standing speakers - the great Infinity Alpha 40’s, lots of PC components, cell phones, laptops - never had any issues, never regretted the fact that I didn’t have the warranty. This time it happened…

Half a year ago when Toys-R-US began featuring plastic replicas of GPS units for kids to play with (you know those, similar to the fake “cell phone” toys), I finally decided to catch up with the progress and bought myself an adult version of the gadget, the real deal - Garmin Nuvi 350. It was one of those impulsive purchases when I didn’t really do much research, simply went to a Circuit City store and looked at units they had on display.

I rejected Tom-Tom right away - the name just didn’t sound serious enough… Lowrance, as I heard, was a fine unit but packed lots of extra features which might only confuse a novice rather than help (and which, I’m sure, I now wish that my Nuvi had)… So that narrowed down my options to Magellan and Garmin. Since Garmin’s aesthetics appealed more to me than Magellan’s, when I came home and googled for Garmin vs Magellan I primarily concentrated on pros of the Nuvi model and cons of the Roadmate. As a result, the Nuvi 350 came out as a clear winner :)

Next, I had to decide whether I wanted to pay close to $500 for this device at my local Circuit City store, contributing to the future prosperity of my neighborhood’s retail… or get a refurbished version of it on eBay for $350… and by doing that show my support to the entire world-wide community of entrepreneurs. Obviously, I’ve chosen to spread the wealth :) Few days later I was holding in my hands this marvel of todays electronics, which kept talking to itself with quite distinct British accent, and yet had hard time figuring out what was it that I meant when asked for directions to “Piccadilly Circus” :) Honestly, I must admin, I didn’t do a very good job researching the prices around… Only few months later a friend of mine bought a brand new version of this very same unit on Amazon for less than the amount what I paid for a refurbished. But oh well, I only wanted what was best for our economy… ;-)

Few months went by, and I was very happy with the purchase. So far the Nuvi 350 have performed quite well. I primarily used it in my car and on few occasions took it with me on business trips. That’s where it really proved to be an invaluable. It’s one thing cruising around in your hometown, purposefully deviating from your “usual” route to work just to see how It would react or what It would say… :) and totally different when you’re driving in an unknown city, looking for a client’s office, or your hotel, or simply a place to eat. That’s when you appreciate having GPS the most.

Things were going great and I couldn’t be happier with my new “assistant”. However, a week ago, something terrible happened…. All of a sudden the Nuvi would not power on or off. It looked like the only button it had - the Power switch - simply stopped responding. I could still power the unit on by hitting the Reset button (a tiny “bump” hidden behind Nuvi’s GPS antenna) and it would boot up and function as if everything was alright. But then later I could not power it off. Although, I finally did figure out a workaround - if I hooked it up to an external power source, and then disconnected it, Nuvi would detect primary power source loss and automatically shut itself down in 30 seconds unless it was commanded otherwise. So, again, it looked like its “brains” remained intact, the screen, its memory and whatever else was inside it worked just fine. It was just the power button that malfunctioned. Technically, I could still use the device, but it was extremely inconvenient.

And right away I knew I was in trouble. Having purchased this Nuvi on ebay meant I most likely did not have any kind of protection (manufacturers warranty or anything like that). However, after careful inspection of all the paperwork that came with it I discovered that unlike most of the manufacturers of other electronic devices which I have purchased on ebay during last few years, Garmin doesn’t specifically state (in their warranty booklet) that units sold on “online auctions” are exempt from the warranty. So, there was hope. Nevertheless, their rules posted on customer support web site were pretty clear about one thing - “online auction receipts are NOT considered as valid proof of the date when the product was purchased”. To me, that almost sounded that I was out of luck. Fortunately though, in addition to the online auction receipt I also had paypal transfer confirmation with the product name on it as well as my AmEx statement, confirming the payment and the amount along with the date when it happened.

Armed with every piece of evidence relevant to my Nuvi’s acquisition I could find I called Garmin’s tech support. First question they asked me was whether or not my unit was registered with them. Thanks God I did that the very first day I got it - I went online and registered it. That turned out to be a sufficient evidence for them as far as my date of purchase goes… second and last piece of information they needed was the serial number of my unit and next thing I know - I’m writing down an RMA number and being told that my unit will be exchanged to a brand new one under manufacturer’s 1 year warranty. Way to go Garmin! That very same day I shipped my Nuvi to the address they gave me and now I’m keeping my fingers crossed they don’t change their mind and goes thru :)

About a week ago my Minolta QMS laser printer started to show signs of tiredness. To be precise, each page I would print exhibited slight yet permanent evidence of low toner. I have had this printer for almost 3 years now (bought it a while back on change I saved up over who knows how many months… not that I was poor or anything, just had a habit to dump change from my pockets to a can… and one day I decided to count how much I got there, and it turned out to be somewhere around $200… and that’s where all that change went to :) Anyways, during the lifetime of this printer I only had to replace the cartridge once… And now it appeared to be due for another replacement. However, since new cartridge would cost me around $70 anyways, I figured I might as well spring for a new printer instead. Besides, I wanted a network printer for quite some time now - always liked the idea to print from my laptop via home wi-fi, “no wires attached” :) Not that I really need that… I just like new toys :) Oops, did I just say that out loud ? ;-)

After doing some research (well, mainly looking for any inexpensive network printers :) I zeroed in on this particular one due to a couple of reasons: 1) It was a refurbished model sold by staples for $149 with $20 mail-in rebate, which made it $129. 2) It was a network printer (with a built-in wired NIC), from a reputable brand - Brother, and to top things off - it had dual sided printing (it can print on both sides of each paper sheet). To make things even sweeter, my Chase Amazon VISA credit card sent me $25 cupon on any purchase I’d make over $100.

Staples rebate on the printer was ending on July 6th, and that was exactly when my credit card’s cupon was kicking in… so first thing in the morning on Friday the 6th I completed online purchase order and became a proud owner of this terrific printing machine having paid only $109!! (That is, once I get my rebate back).

Printer arrived in timely manner (thanks UPS ;) as promised, on Tuesday afternoon. Installation was a breeze - I hooked it up to the local network, popped in setup CD into my PC, couple of clicks later the driver was loaded and a crispy steaming test page come out of the Brother. Apparently, the printer picked up an IP over DHCP broadcasted by my Linksys router, and installation software was able to find that IP automatically by scanning my local subnetwork. The printer has a built in web server, by connecting to which one can change/tweak any printer’s settings just like if it was connected directly to ones PC. It prints quite fast, and takes only 8 seconds after you hit “Print” button before the first page comes out.

Couple of days later though, while being logged into my company’s private network, I decided to print a piece of code for an off-line analysis (over lunch). I hit Print and patiently waited… and waited… and waited - the page never came out. I canceled the job and tried again - same story. And that’s when it hit me - I’m no longer part of my local subnetwork! I’m VPN’ed in! So how in the world am I gonna print now?

Fortunately, my printer was resting on the floor right next to my PC. So technically, I could patch it thru to my PC with a USB cable, but that would negate my dream of having a network printer and being able print from a laptop, over wi-fi, etc, etc, etc… Besides, the whole network thing would render absolutely useless… So I desperately was looking for a solution, and finally something quite obvious occured to me - I connected my PC to the printer with a USB cord, leaving the printer connected to the network as well. I defined another printer on my PC - this time on a local port. I called it Brother Local, and renamed previous (networked) connection to Brother Networked. Now, whenever I’m VPN’ed in - I print via local (USB) connection, and at the same time, the printer is still accessible from the network, should I ever need to use it from my laptop. To my pleasant surprise, Brother HL-5250DN works just fine with both connections being active simultaneously!