E-P1.. 2..

A short 4 months after the launch of the E-P1, Olympus announced they will launch the E-P2 in January 2010. For those who are holding on the E-P1 and thinking of upgrading, or those who are holding out buying the E-P1 due to the news, here are some noteworthy features you want to note:

• Electronic Viewfinder.. and an excellent one at it. This one packs more pixels than the 3" LCD.
  
• 2 more art filters & i-Enhance mode
  
• Extension Mics for better sound quality when recording videos
  
• New AF Tracking mode
  

There are also common complaints about the E-P1 that are not addressed:

• Poor AF Performance. I found the accuracy to be somewhat lacking in dimmer light and continuous AF absolutely sucks. Fortunately, I manual focus most of the time.
  
• Wimpy LCD. I did not mind the resolution of "only" 230k pixels. The screen proved very useable to me.
  
• Not so great Dynamic Range. I am still learning to deal with this since the E-P1 is my first "serious" digital camera.
  
• Lack of very high ISO performance. Technically, I'm comfortable with the E-P1 up to about ISO800 and only go higher if pushed hard.
  

That said, it's not like those complaints affected me much.

The launch of the E-P2 trailing so closely behind the E-P1 left a few early E-P1 adopters crying foul. I take it that Olympus is very committed to this platform. Personally, I'd rather Olympus keep up this well paced schedule for new releases although I believe the E-P2 to be an exception than the norm.

The announcement of a lens roadmap is another welcoming sign.

The two-thousand dollar question is... how does that affect me? Well, not too much. I like the E-P1 as it is. The EVF will be quite useful but I'm not sure if I'll use it much. It does add to the bulk. The other features are just icing on cake. While I would have chosen the E-P2, its not unlike computers where a newer model always improves over the the pre-decessor. Fortunately other than brag factor, it does not make the pre-dessor any less useable.

I admit the titanium E-P2 looks gorgeous though.

Running >1k zones on Solaris...

The above is the presso I prepared for tonight's OpenSolaris User Group meeting. Feel free to use any of its contents.

Spammer to pay US$771m...

Spam King ordered to pay facebook US$771m.

It does seem like going to court is the best one can do against spammers. Afterall, they do come up with ingenious ways to work around just about any counter-measures you can think up. The entire world is likely pouring in more money to get rid of these nuisance than we are to save our planet.

While it is good to bankrupt a spammer or 2 but the court should reach deeper into the hierarchy, the only way to stop this is to reach the folks who fuel the spammers. In this case, Sanford may not be able to afford the US$771m but the combined financial resources of the businesses that drives spams should. Bankrupt Scanford and another spammer comes up to take his place. Bankrupting enough of those businesses behind him and that will put a lot of spammers out of business.

The biggest hurdle here is the lack of a trans-national law that allows spammers and businesses behind them to be brought to court. The above case was "easy" since everything happens in the US. What if the spammer lives in a different country than the plaintiff?

Alternatively, each country should set up a working group that supports investigation of internet related crime that co-orperates across boundaries.

Moved to Windows 7...

Yesterday was the last time Windows Vista will hang on me... Seriously, that OS is a complete flop. It should be called a NS -- non-operating system instead.

A good friend who works for Microsoft told me how the development is very different for Windows 7 vs. Windows Vista and recommended that I give it a spin. When my colleague advises me on the possibility of leaving that dreaded place (aka Pissta-land), I took the plunge and installed Windows 7.

My needs for this machine is quite simple:

• to update the firmware of my mobile;
  
• to upload my photos to flickr;
  
• *new* monopoly citystreets;
  
• any other non-important compute jobs...
  

The installation went fine with little hiccups. The desktop is uncluttered, unlike Pissta. Anyway, I am expecting more idiosyncrasies Microsoft style.

Android 2.0

is now available...

I seriously believe Android is the way to go for my future devices. Most of my contacts are already on google and I prefer my transactions to be online and the Mac is just a device to access/present the online data. For as long as I had the N95, I have been trying to emulate this online lifestyle.

Here are a few noteworthy items from the Android 2.0 highlights:

• Exchange support. This is a necessary feature for any phone to be taken seriously for the corporate types. While this is available through the phone makers (like HTC), they tend not to be as integrated. It should be interesting to see how deeply this support goes. For now, at least contacts and email is supported.
  
• Quick contact that integrates different modes of contacting a person.
  
• Smarter dictionary that suggests contacts is something I thought was a no-brainer. How many times have you struggled to key in a friend's name?
  
• Combined inbox. I have this on Apple Mail. I simply love the singular view.
  

I love the very user-oriented development I am seeing and think the robot will best other smartphone OS in a matter of time.

Playstation 3 for inspecting photos

Despite having a PS3 for almost a year now, I only venture into using PS3 as a photo viewer today. Well actually, I did use my PS3 to show my photos from the India trip to my family sometime last year but that is more a on-demand thing.

I have around 10GB of jpegs that I took in China that I need to quickly screen through. Annetta was on the iMac and I didn't want to stress out my MBA. To top it off, viewing 12MP photos on the 13" screen isn't terribly exciting so I had to look elsewhere.

The PS3 was sitting there looking pretty (well it's prettier than the excuse for the slim version), and is connected to the nice 32" Full HD TV. So I fired her up and plugged in the USB SD-card reader.

The entire experience turned out to be quite pleasant. The screen was excellent -- huge and strong colours. The PS3 did it's magic well. Once I figured out the controls, paging between photos, scrolling and zooming in/out of each photo was a breeze. The sticks of the DS3 controller helped a lot. The only shortcoming is I cannot delete unwanted photos easily.

In fact, this works so well that I am thinking of using the PS3 as my primary photo-display device. When I organise a photo-viewing session next week at my friend's place, I'm going to bring the PS3 over...

Shell's S$1 fuel...

It caused such a big problem to traffic all around Singapore.

The first hint was when I left home for my regular badminton training. The usual right turn had excessive cars for that hour. The highway a little more crowded than usual, and finally nearing my destination, there seem to be a long line of cars that didn't move despite not there not being any Shell stations around the area.

My patience was seriously tested on the way back home. I was stuck for more than 15minutes to make the exit back to the highway. That is for a distance of about 500m. It would have taken longer if I had not decided to make an illegal left turn from the right lane, overtaking all the queuing cars.

My almost empty tank is 50l and I use Octane 95 so I would have saved a grand total of S$35. The queue would have easily taken more than 1 hour provided there is any petrol left. I was never as elated to reach home and no, I did not join the mania.

It's just odd to me how so many drivers are willing to sacrifice their Saturday afternoon for S$40 saving. I probably would tolerate a 15minutes queue but definitely not any more. The car is my subscription for better mobility and convenience and is not supposed to cost me any time.

Further, Shell should be fined for the indirect public nuisance it caused. I almost switched from Shell for the inconvenience it caused me.