Dragon*Con Countdown!

I found this image in the LJ Dragon*Con community:

Image by herrgeist

This is made me laugh harder than I have laughed in some time!

My new lens came in- and it is awesome!  I picked up a cheap 72mm UV lens cover (to protect the actual lens) from BestBuy and I also purchased a new strap for my camera; the lens almost doubles the weight of the camera and the original 'EOS Digital' strap is just too short and cheesy.  The new one is a Quantaray 'Neo Air' comfort strap- a cheapie from Wolfe Camera (like they know what 'cheap' is!).

I am hard at work converting an XLSX version of the Dragon*Con schedule into Office.  It look me about 3 hours to do just the Friday schedules (lots of experimenting and proof-reading!); hopefully it will only take me about 3 hour to do the remaining 3 days!

The only other thing I am considering purchasing is a camera mono-pod (a one legged tripod); I have seen decent ones at BestBuy for $40 (or $100 for a carbon-fiber version) or $20 for a crappy one at Fry's... I guess I will need to go out to the Alpharetta Fry's tomorrow and see if they have different stock than the Duluth store.

Johnny Rockets didn't make it in Gwinette Place...

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

FLAC and Enjoying Music

I was listening to an episode of TWiT in my car on the way to work and a topic was presented that some research has been done and people are using different parts of their brain to listen to music now; due to the compression in digital music our brains are using more of the areas associated with analytical thinking to re-create the 'missing' parts of the music- rather than having the music stimulate the emotional centers of our brain... 

This seemed weird to me so I downloaded a few FLAC songs and listened to them.  Perhaps it was that I haven't listened to Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother in some time, but it really sounded MUCH better than I remember.  From this I am on a long quest to replace all of my 224Kpbs MP3s with FLAC.

I started ripping some CDs (all of my Cruxshadows and a few albums from The Church) with dbPowerAmp (excellent program!) and downloading what I can (so I do not have to rip!); it looks like converting to FLAC will at least quadruple my library size (about 30gb in MP3 format)- and then I will need to convert to M4A format to allow them to play in iTunes or on my iPod (which dbPowerAmp will do as well). 

Right now I am loading some INXS and Kraftwerk up on my iPod to go outside and enjoy the sun- this should be a good test of the iPod's playback quality.

New Lens for Dragon*Con!

I have been considering a new Lens for my Digital Rebel XT camera as the standard EF-S 18-55mm lens is good, but it doesn't always do spectacular for indoors shots (which is where Dragon*Con is held).

I narrowed mo choices down to the EF-S 17-85mm IS lens and the EF 28-135mm IS lens; both of these have a larger opening lens than my current lens (72mm vs 58mm) and both have optical image stabilization (hence the IS in the title).  In addition, both of the ones I am looking at have ultrasonic motors (indicated by USM) that allow manual focusing without having to turn off auto-focus...

I decided on the later lens as I find myself doing more 'zoom' shots than panoramic shots.  The 17-85mm lens is also an EF-S lens designed for Canon cameras with a 'short back focus' body- the inner lens goes into the camera a little deeper to accommodate a smaller CMOS sensor; this will work with my current Rebel XT (or the newer XTi) but not with some of their higher end cameras (like the EOS 5D) and I want to keep my upgrade options open!  (my next step is probably the 30D- which will accommodate the EF-S lenses)

I found a nice deal on eBay (about $50 less than a new lens from Amazon) and I received notification that it shipped out on Monday via USPS Priority Mail- so I should have it by Friday! (and in time for Dragon*Con!) 

Unofficial WM6 for Axim x51v

Someone has released a hacked version of Windows Mobile 6 for the Dell Axim x51v (there is also a custom A17 ROM available- Dell stopped at A14).  Being the technically adventurous sort of person, I am trying the update right now... 

Rumors are that this breaks MSN Live and WPA Wireless on the unit, but I guess I will have to see if there are future patches to fix this!

A note: to enter the boot loader on an Axim, you must press Power + Reset + Wireless together and release the Reset button (the main page was saying to release the wireless button first- and this does NOT work).

JetLag...

Wow- I cannot believe how hard it is to get back into my normal sleep pattern after being in GMT+2 for two weeks!  I was awake at 4:00am on Sat, Sun, Mon and Tues and I had to force myself to go back to sleep on Wed to get up at 7:00am!  Toady had a few early wake-ups but I managed to stay in bed until 7:00am...

The early morning part isn't a problems- this gives me more time to research new things such as the new xBox 360 Premium (has HDMI now), PTGui, Adobe Lightroom and Blurb BookSmart; the issue is that I am almost falling asleep at 7:00pm- during my evening commute home (not a good thing).  I also must get adjusted as Dragon*Con is less than 2 weeks away!

I am trying to follow the LJ Dragon*Con journal, but I keep getting side-tracked; for example, today I ended up reading Wil Wheaton's blog (he was Wesley Crusher from ST:TNG)...  I also need to get an electronic version of the program guide so I can convert it to a format that I can sync to my Treo or PocketPC...