Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Friday, May 30, 2003

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Amazon Vs. Apple In Music Downloads? "As millions of songs figuratively fly off the shelves of Apple's recently launched iTunes Music Store, analysts are looking at Amazon.com as one of the likeliest candidates to take the next crack at the retail music-download business." (CNET News.com via MyAppleMenu) [MyAppleMenu]

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NY Times: iTunes Music Store is online music's future: "Apple Computer seems to have the future of online music in its hands for the moment. Its new service, iTunes Music Store, has been the first real success story in the long effort to sell music over the Internet. In just its first month of operation the service, by the company's estimate, has sold three million songs online, at 99 cents each." [MacCentral]

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Memos Reveal the Inner Microsoft: 'A new series of internal Microsoft memos has come to light, and I'm not sure whether to be shocked or to say, "Yup, that's Microsoft." Apparently, the company isn't satisfied with its 90 percent share of the market for PC desktop software.' [osOpinion]

Update: apparently the address above does not work. This item was posted here through the Radio Userland aggregator. The item in question was either retracted or is being edited. Perhaps this missing article was related to another article, which is available at OsOpinion: Microsoft vs. Linux Takes a Weird Turn.

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AlwaysOn Interviews Lessig: "It's a very simple procedure: 50 years after you published something, you'd have to file a copyright maintenance fee, say a dollar a year. If you didn't pay the fee then the work would pass to the public domain, but if you did pay the fee then the copyright would continue. We know from past registration systems that 98 percent of copyright owners would not bother to renew, even for a dollar, because they don't care. So Disney would pay for Mickey Mouse for as long as they wanted, but 98 percent of the stuff would pass to the public domain." [GrepLaw]

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Rick Pitino: "When you build bridges you can keep crossing them." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]

Using Canon Digital Ixus 400 -- Comment()
I have been using the Ixus 400 for one and a half days. I have shot about 150 pictures with the camera, including a couple of movie captures. The camera works beautifully, better than I expected. However, although the camera is easy to use, it has so many features that I'm just starting to get an idea what can be done with it. The basic use is really straightforward, but there are quite a lot of features to help in more difficult situations.

I managed to scratch the beautiful case of the camera during the first day of use. This was to be expected, and now I don't have to worry about it any more. The case is sturdy, so I expect that the camera will function well despite small scratches.

I also tested the software that comes with the camera. I didn't have to, because the camera worked fine with my iBook running Mac OS X 10.2 without installing anything. In fact, I imported my first set of pictures without installing any Canon software - I just plugged in the USB cable, and iPhoto started up.

Later on I tested also some of the Canon software. I like the Canon software suit. However, thanks to the software included in Mac OS X, I don't really need the Canon software, except perhaps for video editing and for remote-controlling the camera from the iBook. It was a bit strange to see the camera responding to commands given on the iBook.

The quality of the pictures is fine, especially the daytime shots, or shots with enough daylight inside a room. The flash is a bit problematic, as was expected, because it is tiny and tends to leave the corners of a picture a bit dark. But that was expected. The startup time of the camera is fast, better that I expected. And the focusing delay exists, but is not too bad. Of course, you have to get used to the idea of the camera not responding immediately after the pressing the button. This is a bit difficult when trying to get good pictures of children, but then this is a difficult task even for a SLR camera.

In all, I like Canon Digital Ixus 400 a lot. Having a 512 MB cf card helps in organizing the pictures you have shot. A spare battery and a carrying case are good accessories to have. (I have still to wait for these to arrive at the shop.)