Posted from my galaxy siii

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

its nice, isn't it?

WheelsFellOff wrote:Posted from my galaxy siii

join the club, playa

jamiethekiller wrote:its nice, isn't it?

Still getting used to using a touchscreen, and I need to hunt down where to turn off predictive texting, but yeah

can't get the android tablet tethered to the android phone

major blummer

WheelsFellOff wrote:

jamiethekiller wrote:its nice, isn't it?

Still getting used to using a touchscreen, and I need to hunt down where to turn off predictive texting, but yeah

download swiftkey. might literally be the best 3 dollars i ever spent.

Bucky wrote:DO IT

"an SSD drive in every PC" should be the new "chicken in every pot"

holy crap. i just swapped my mbp's hd for that ssd that i asked about a while back. i mean, wow. only problem now is trying to restore my former bootcamp partition. no big deal if i lose that, though. it's only windows.

well my stupid company finally put android back onto the approved list. So I now gots me a Galaxy S3. Welcome to the 21st century!

What a joy finally being rid of Windows Mobile. The first thing I (and others) noticed is the bluetooth/call quality- people had a hard time hearing me before. Now with my LG headset on, folks commented that I sounded like was on a landline.

The thing is big- which had me worried because I'm a pocket carrier. But, who knew (WHO KNEW?) that the depth of the phone was so much more important to pocket-carrying. I can bend over, move around, etc., and it's like the phone isn't even there. With my smaller, but much thicker, Omnia II in my pocket it was really bothersome.

Did my first bike ride with the G3 as my tracking device this morning. I had to turn it sideways (landscape mode) to sit into the front bike back top slot that I use as my dashboard, but the size really helps. I could much more easily see the readouts while riding along.

Synced up One Note to it- With "One Note in the Cloud", my desktop, tablet, and S3 now have and sync all the same info. A boon. It's where I keep all the random thoughts and procedures of my life.

I also "graduated" to google contacts. I didn't even know I could sync my win mobile phone with G contacts- but I set it up before I turned it off, synced all my contacts to "the cloud", and VIOLA, they appeared on both my tablet and S3 after configuration. There's also a Web Interface. I wish they had a desktop client, too, but I guess the we client will have to do from my PC.

I sampled a free TV download- it looks awesome. So much more to explore. My next step is to set up the Squeezebox Remote stuff, so I can stream my home music library to wherever I am. Also I'm wondering if I should consider using that as my audiobook player on bike rides. Not sure if I really need to, though- my sansa clip is so small an convenient it works just fine for that. But I am hoping by next season MLB implements on-demand radio replays via android- so I'll just avoid the game the night before, and start it in the morning and listen to it on my bike ride.

Progress!

So I'm looking to upgrade my digital camera from a broken one to something that works. I'm looking for something that will allow me to take some panoramic shots of the mountains, but also closeups of flowers, mushrooms, etc for my class. The latter is probably more important than the former. My phone and old camera do not do well once I'm too close to the object and I need to take some closeup shots for identification and educational purposes. Maybe I'll need to get an extra telephoto lens? Anyway, I was looking at the Canon Rebel T3i, but wanted to hear what you camera guys thought. I have a few Canon lenses that may fit the camera, so that's part of my reason for focusing on the Canon.

True panoramic photos, or just wide-angle? The former is easily accomplished in post-processing by software (though some cameras, Sonys for instance, have a built-in panorama mode that works sort of like the iPhone - you just swing the camera through an arc and it takes several images on the way and stitches them together automatically) and can be done with any camera or lens. Wide-angle requires a wide-angle lens. Most DSLRs and other interchangeable lens cameras come with a kit lens that starts at around 28-mm (equivalent to 28mm on a 35mm frame camera, that is) at the wide end, which is mildly wide-angle. If you require wider, you'll need to purchase a separate wide-angle lens, which tends to be pricey - for instance, the Canon 10-22mm ultra-wide zoom will set you back in the neighborhood of $700.

As to closeups, how close are we talking? Close enough to see the lenses in a bug's eye? That calls for a dedicated macro lens, which is also an expensive item. Macro lenses are telephoto prime (i.e. not zoom) lenses that are specially designed for close focus - some can focus on objects as close as a centimeter from the front of the lens. If you don't need to get that close, it becomes considerably cheaper. Canon makes a 50mm "semi macro" lens that can be had for under $300. And there are many zoom lenses out there that can focus reasonably closely, and at maximum telephoto can produce an impressive amount of magnification. Look at "maximum close-up magnification" in the specs - a true macro lens may be as high as 1x, meaning the image projected on the sensor is the same size as the subject.

Alternatively, you can look at compact (i.e., non-interchaneable lens) cameras. Many have astonishing zoom lenses in a pocketable body, though you "pay" for that in the sense that to make that possible, the camera must have a very small sensor, which hurts image quality. There are some high-end compacts that have a more modest zoom range but larger sensors. For example, the Panasonic LX7 has only a 3.8x zoom, but it's sensor is 50% larger than that of many "super-zoom" type cameras, which means it gathers more light, which means better images. Also, it's zoom starts at 24mm equivalent, which is substantially wider than most cameras. It's an expensive little camera at about $450, but a lot cheaper and a hell of a lot more compact than the closest equivalent DSLR setup you could buy.

Got myself a Microsoft Surface about a week ago and I'm loving it. Moving back and forth now between the Surface and my iPad. The Surface is a different experience, but MSFT got it right IMO. The app store still has a long way to go, of course, by I've got Netflix, NYTimes and Kindle, which are the most important to me anyway. The touch cover is brilliant, btw. Thought I'd hate typing on it, but quite the opposite.

phatj wrote:True panoramic photos, or just wide-angle? The former is easily accomplished in post-processing by software (though some cameras, Sonys for instance, have a built-in panorama mode that works sort of like the iPhone - you just swing the camera through an arc and it takes several images on the way and stitches them together automatically) and can be done with any camera or lens. Wide-angle requires a wide-angle lens. Most DSLRs and other interchangeable lens cameras come with a kit lens that starts at around 28-mm (equivalent to 28mm on a 35mm frame camera, that is) at the wide end, which is mildly wide-angle. If you require wider, you'll need to purchase a separate wide-angle lens, which tends to be pricey - for instance, the Canon 10-22mm ultra-wide zoom will set you back in the neighborhood of $700.

As to closeups, how close are we talking? Close enough to see the lenses in a bug's eye? That calls for a dedicated macro lens, which is also an expensive item. Macro lenses are telephoto prime (i.e. not zoom) lenses that are specially designed for close focus - some can focus on objects as close as a centimeter from the front of the lens. If you don't need to get that close, it becomes considerably cheaper. Canon makes a 50mm "semi macro" lens that can be had for under $300. And there are many zoom lenses out there that can focus reasonably closely, and at maximum telephoto can produce an impressive amount of magnification. Look at "maximum close-up magnification" in the specs - a true macro lens may be as high as 1x, meaning the image projected on the sensor is the same size as the subject.

Alternatively, you can look at compact (i.e., non-interchaneable lens) cameras. Many have astonishing zoom lenses in a pocketable body, though you "pay" for that in the sense that to make that possible, the camera must have a very small sensor, which hurts image quality. There are some high-end compacts that have a more modest zoom range but larger sensors. For example, the Panasonic LX7 has only a 3.8x zoom, but it's sensor is 50% larger than that of many "super-zoom" type cameras, which means it gathers more light, which means better images. Also, it's zoom starts at 24mm equivalent, which is substantially wider than most cameras. It's an expensive little camera at about $450, but a lot cheaper and a hell of a lot more compact than the closest equivalent DSLR setup you could buy.

Thanks for the info/input. I'm not really looking for true panoramic, so it sounds like a simple wide angle lens would work. They don't need to be pro quality or anything like that.

And I don't need to be able to see the lenses in a bug's eye, though that does sound cool. I'm just looking for a higher quality shot on my closeups than I'm now getting. Here are a few examples of my phone's pics. They aren't terrible, but I can't do anything closer or better with the phone and my previous camera couldn't focus on the closer shots. We are making a library of local organisms and I'd like to have nice shots of the organisms with good detail.

What do you think of the Canon Rebel T3i? It sounds like that camera would do what you suggest if I got a few of the cheaper lenses (I don't need the higher end capabilities). Like I said, I have a few lenses and filters for a Canon, so I may be able to use a few of them. In the meantime, I'll look for the things you suggested.

The bitchinest gadget ever:

phatj wrote:The bitchinest gadget ever:

Holy wow!!!!!

I am going to be getting one of these: http://www.staples.com/Lenovo-Thinkpad- ... uct_985048

I am sure there are higher-end versions of roughly the same thing to be had, but for what I do for work it's nice to have a laptop with a very long battery life (this clocks in at 7 hours), that is highly portable (ultrabook), and can be used as a tablet in a pinch (though I admit I already have a tablet). It's definitely a bit of a luxury expenditure, but I just got a small promotion, and this is going to be my gift to myself I think.

Bucky wrote:well my stupid company finally put android back onto the approved list. So I now gots me a Galaxy S3. Welcome to the 21st century!

Had mine for four days now and absolutely love it. Can't even begin to fathom all of the things I can do with it though--this is my first foray into Android.

Now root it and install Cyanogenmod 10 and Android 4.1.2 (or 4.2 if it's out). Then you'll start to feel how fast it really is.

JUburton wrote:Now root it and install Cyanogenmod 10 and Android 4.1.2 (or 4.2 if it's out). Then you'll start to feel how fast it really is.

I'm paranoid about fucking up the warranty. Verizon is supposed to be pushing out the JB update in early December (although we'll see).

verizon is VERY slow to push out updates.

one of the reasons why i'm going off contract with a nexus 4(whenever it comes back in stock)