Archive for December 30th, 2007

I lasted on MySpace for about a year and a half. I think Facebook’s lifespan will be much less than that.

I used to have 8 or more Scrabulous games going simultaneously, now I have 1. I used to be digging and looking for people and reading statii 20 times or more a day, now I go when I remember, which sometimes isnt even every day. It used to be the first page I opened, now I’m back to Google Reader.

Redesigning my blogs over the past two weeks has taken up my online time and I’m posting here instead of to Facebook many times a day.

Maybe it’s just the holidays, there isnt much ‘book action going on as people interact the old school way, but it’s lost a bit of the lustre for me.

I just read a blog predicting some trends for 2008 and Facebook came up.

Adults who didn’t grow up with social networking services experience burnout of being bitten by zombies after a few months, and many stop checking in four times per day. Those who went to school during the Facebook era continue to complain about all the old fogies (like me) polluting their sacred resting ground. They also continue to put radically inappropriate pictures of themselves online, blissfully unaware of the interviewing process. [link]

Ding! I’m over it and I still shake my head when I read the stuff that twentysomethings post on their profiles.

Clinton got a free pass on the weed because he was of the generation that did that sort of thing, in the same way Strom Thurmond got a pass on his racism and such.

Pretty soon naked girl-on-girl tongue wrestling pictures of a female president will be “No Big Deal” because, like I mean, who didnt do that when they were 17?

*Ahem* Miley Cyrus. *Ahem*

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

You know about Recycling. Take your cans and put them in the blue box. Call 604-RECYCLE to get some tips and find a place near you that will chip your Christmas Tree.

You know about eCycling. Take your computers and electronics to places that can responsibly dispose of them, or turn them into useful things for other people.

But what about Freecycling? Have you heard of that one?

Imagine if everything on Craigslist was free - that’s freecycling.

Basically if you’ve got something you don’t want, you offer it up and see if someone else needs it. If they do, they come and pick it up, no money changes hands and all is happy in the world.

I mean, be honest, most of the stuff we try to dump on eBay or Craigslist is just taking up space in our place. The benefit to us is being rid of the item, it’s almost a greater value than getting $10 or $20 or $50 for a nasty old couch or bookcase.

There are thousands of people already Freecycling in BC and there’s probably a group near you.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

I recently chatted with Dan Kesselring from Panasonic to get some tips on how to buy a digital camera for my column in 24hrs.

Megapixel is where a lot of people get confused. It simply refers to the dots in the image.

If you have a 7 megapixel camera vs one with 10, you’re really only going to see the difference if you’re using the camera to make very large prints, say beyond 19×13. Dan says really 5 megapixels is enough for most of us who are just printing 4×6 or archiving family memories

When it comes to specific features, “image stabilization should always be top of mind,” says Kesselring. “Its almost become a generic term, but there are different types and optical is providing the best form of stabilization.” [link]

A test done by a German company is now coming out with similar information. More megapixels does not equal more better.

The study actually finds that picture quality over the last 3 years has actually decreased as megapixels have increased.

But why? Well, compact cameras are supposed to be small and reasonably priced. Therefore small image sensors, e.g. format 7.5 x 9.4 mm or 5.4 x 6.8 mm, are built into the cameras. To increase the pixel count, the sensor has to be divided into smaller and smaller pixels.

The result is a decrease in sensitivity of the camera and an increase in noise because the amount of light collected by a single pixel is smaller. [link]

So as the CCD sensors have to stay small for the point and shoot, they have a harder time getting the larger amounts of data processed properly. The study found the optimum relationship between CCD and MP comes in at 6 Megapixels.

That’s got to be the reason so many more people are stepping up to Digital SLR. Me? I’m not quite ready, so I picked up the Panasonic FZ-18 instead. It’s $500 list price, but I managed to grab it on sale for $250 at Amazon.com. What a steal!

Check out some of the pictures I’ve been able to grab with it:

Since the FZ18 is kind of a “hybrid” between a DSLR and a point and shoot, it’s offering me the chance to just grab it and take a picture, or work with the settings for something more artistic.

For that sunset shot, I just pointed and clicked. Nice.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?