News

September 2004

Sales! Sales! Sales! : They do not publish only this, but The Inquirer has an interesting column about exceptional sales of hardware in France, United Kingdom, USA or Singapore.

Source: TheInquirer

Dynax 7 digital: Official data in plain English from Konica Minolta.

Beware CJB.net:

This information is for you if you just came to this site through the old roumazeilles.cjb.net address. I learned that this free redirection service (that I used primarily before I got my own domain years ago), on top of allowing a simple web address (like roumazeilles.cjb.net) inserts advertisements.

Up to this, it's ok. But a few real crooks use this possibiltiy to force install a Precision time utility program that is actually a spyware from the GAIN/gator family.

If you came here through this old address, here is my advice:

• Start by removing the old address from your bookmarks and always use http://www.roumazeilles.net/ that is the only operating adress from now on.
• You should also remove the Gator spyware from your system if it was able to install itself. Apparently, Ad-Aware from Lavasoftusa.com and SpyBot are able to do this removal and exist in free versions.

In any case, I immediately stop the redirection by cjb.net (I do not want to help distribute a spyware). Start using http://www.roumazeilles.net/.

I am sorry for this significant inconvenience it could have cause to some of my visitors.

Last update 28 September 2004

Adobe proposes a standard for RAW format: The digital cameras often provide a specific RAW mode to store images with all the data raw from the CCD device (before JPEG compression). But, these formats are all different, incompatible with each other, unusable without the proprietary software. Adobe decided to sort it all out with a new unifying format named : DNG. Decidedly good news.

Source :

Ilford knocked out: The brand of out Black&White films did not succeed in the survival game despite early successes with inkjet papers: 40 millions pounds of losses. Just after similarly bad news from Agfa, we can say that digital photography begins to really shoot at the traditional photo stars.

Latest news: Ilford keeps going after the initial announcement. Papers and B&W should be kept, but chemicals may be lost in trying to save what is left of the company...

Digital SLR: yet another interesting product in this segment (under 1000€), the Pentax *ist DS that is smaller, lighter, simpler to use, but will have to wait until November for availability.

With a small transtandard zoom optimized for digital photography like the 18-55mm F3.5-F5.6 AL, it could be worth buying.

Source:

CDcheck: An unusual utility able to recover data from CD-R ou DVD-R in a very bad shape (at least what's left of it). A blessing, but don't expect miracles for disks that are really dead.

SPF: While hunting spammers, I just correctly declared an SPF record for roumazeilles.net domain. If your mail server is interested (this is the case if you are at AOL, amazon, altavista, etc.), it can now easily check that e-mails claiming to come from me are generated by authorized servers.

See: SPF@pobox

Digital SLR: Since it is confirmed that the Konica-Minolta digital SLR will be priced around 1600€ (a test just published in Réponses Photo), it became necessary to look into the other choices offered by the market (even to keep my investment in lenses, I'm not ready to attack a bank). I am checking the two most obvious solutions (Nikon D70 and Canon 300D/Digital Rebel, currently just under 1000€ for the naked body) and I found a few interesting articles to dig a little deeper:

• Canon 300D/Digital Rebel
• Canon EOS 300D : le Rebel bouleverse l'ordre établi (in French, since Tom's hardware does not seem to have an English version for it)
• a paper from Imaging Ressource
• a paper from DCMag.co.uk
• Nikon D70
• Nikon D70 : la réponse au Canon 300D (in French, since Tom's hardware does not seem to have an English version for it)
• a paper from Imaging Ressource
• a paper from DCMag.co.uk

These date back to the initial announcements of the cmaeras, but they are full of details. And, since the cameras are no longer shiny in the list of the marketing departments, you can find them available in the stocks of the photography salespeople (while Minolta will probably soon hit the lists, but shelves will not see it before Christmas since they will be on hold for a long time).

Canon seems about 100€ less than Nikon (in the best online prices in France) because the general opinion is that Nikon D70 is a little better (longer list of features and less restrictions).

Dynax/Maxxum 7 digital: Konica Minolta just confirmed everything except the small details of:

• 6.1 Megapixel
• 2.5" TFT LCD display

Source: DPReview.com

According to French Chasseur d'images, its price may be an astonishing 1600€ (forgetting the competition from Nikon D70 and Canon 300D/digital Rebel). I doubt Minolta will find me following this path...

Dynax/Maxxum 7 digital: Konica Minolta just announced officialy its 1st digital SLR camera. The features seem to be exactly what was expected:

• 6 Megapixel
• APS-C sized CCD
• 1.5x focal factor
• Dynax 7 layout
• Minolta A mount
• Anti-Shake

Source: Konica Minolta

Radeon lesson #3bis (FarCry): I can now confirm that a Radeon 9800pro/128Mo, an Athlon 2600+ and 1GB of RAM is a very configuration to play FarCry. I fly at 1600*1200*32bits with most settings at "medium" or more. Totally fluid.

Le mystère Picasso (1956) : I just saw this movie from Henri-Georges Clouzot for the first time. I believe that any art lover will be changed by it. Seeing the intimacy of a major painter is a unique personal experience. And Clouzot knew how to warp a documentary into a drama and an action movie. Breathtaking.

Free stock photos: Useful to add illustration to a paper or to fill a business document, stock photos are often needed, but where can I find free ones? It's as easy as checking the list I built here. All images are not perfectn but the choice is large.

• MorgueFile 33000+ photos, +++ quality
• FreeImages 2500+ photos, +++ quality
• Piotr.Pix 1000 photos in 1600*1200, +++ quality
• Creart, ++ quality
• Open Photo 23000+ photos, ++ quality
• Stock.xchng 100000+ photos, medium quality
• B-Stock 1000+ photos in 55 series, rather artsy
• Free Stock Photos free photos specially formatted for web presentation
• FreeFoto.c*m 58000+ photos, but they are not free

Buy photo cameras: I am not sure of their respective qualities, but here are the web sites most cited for buying photo hardware:

• New York Cameras (photo cameras, ...) very deep and a true reference even in Europe
• B&H Photo-Video very deep
• Cameraworld.com very deep
• Adorama
• Nomatica, French
• CCI Camera City
• Focus Camera
• Shop Photo, French photo tradition

Laser as a real weapon: This is not a science fiction movie, but a real weapon under test that has been able to shoot down Katyusha-type rockets as well as (today) mortar rounds.

Source: SpaceDaily

Mods for Doom III out and aboot: Didn't take long.

Source : The Inquirer

TheOpenCD: is a web site offering a collection of high quality Free and Open Source Software. The programs run in Windows and cover the most common tasks such as word processing, presentations, e-mail, web browsing, web design, and image manipulation. Continuously evolving, but already very worth downloading.

If you intend to connect your OpenOffice Writer to a SQL database, it's better you read the available web pages (the documentation is still poor):

• Eric Zander : Connecting OpenOffice to a remote SQL database
• Publipostage en XML
• Pierre Créac'h : Publipostage avec OpenOffice Write

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Other links

• An excellent freeware source : NoNags.
• Tom's Hardware Guide is THE reference web site about computer hardware. Can be found in various languages:
• English THG
• French
• German
• Italian
• etc.

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Latest update: 23-aug-08

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