What's New in CSIT
Lifeproof camera: The gift.
One of the lifeproof cameras, those seemingly indestructive pocket-sized cameras I reported on in Do you need a lifeproof camera? now lives in my house. I purchased it as a gift for my wife, but it is really for me about 30 days of the year.
Anyone who knows me knows I go backpacking in the high country every season of the year. I also kayak year-round. So whenever I'm "out there" I borrow my wife's camera. That's good, because I don't have to lug around my huge DSLR. It's bad because I break her camera one way or another.
My wife's cameras have all cost around $350 and lasted 2-3 years. I've returned from my adventures with cracked cases, malfunctioning lens covers, parts that won't open or close as they should, permanent dirt, and, of course, dings and scratches. She's been great about it, and the cameras have too. My wife knows I'll be getting a replacement for her sooner or later and the cameras have diligently continued to take pictures even after my accidental assaults.
In this recent go-round I needed to replace her Canon PowerShot A560. It now features a built-in lens cover that won't open unless you tap or rap it. There's been more rapping than tapping lately. It was time.
I read my blog again, went to the suggested websites, talked to friends who had a couple of them and picked the one no one I knew had, the Fuji FinePix XP10. It has 12MP (they have 14MP models, too), is waterproof to a depth of 10 feet (my kayak doesn't usually take on more than 6 inches of water), freezeproof down to 14 degrees F (my winter camping is usually in the 20's), dustproof (anything dustproof is a rarity in the wild), and dropproof from a height of 3 feet (I really need that).
I paid $105 online. The other Fuji models have more rugged specs like water depth of 33 feet and drop survival of 10 feet, and are 14MP, but they cost twice as much and I wanted to see if this amount of ruggedness would be enough.
There is one caution. When I took it out of the box to charge the battery and test it before gift wrapping it, I dropped it twice in the first minute. It is very small compared to what I'm used to so I have adopted the personal policy of putting the wrist strap on before I do anything else with it.
On top of all the right features, it has very good user reviews. My wife has had it for two weeks and loves it so there's another. My next adventure is in mid-April and that's when its lifeproof-ness will be tested fully. I'll let you know how it goes.
Power costs of our printers - An Experiment
The Kill A Watt device Karl mentioned in his blog post, “Are You a Power User?” has given me a good experiment. I wanted to see how much power our 3 main printers drew while they were in their low-power sleep mode and how much the electric costs would be over a year. Since these devices stay on continually, over the course of the day they...
File Vault 2.0
The web team members are like prairie dogs seen from the porch of your country home. You see them pop up over there, so you keep your rifle aimed in that direction. But then they go and pop up over yonder, and you ain't got time to change your aim before the little varmint chuckles and dives back into its meager hole. While we've been busy...
Designer's Guide to Print
This just in! The Communication Services designers have created a nifty 5-page how-to guide for creating print documents. It includes the basics like page bleed, fonts, and illustrations; walks you through preparing photos for print; explains file types; and how to prepare the final print-ready PDF. It's a big, bad digital world out there - so don't go to the print shop without reading this first!
QR Codes Demystified
Ever wondered about these graphics?
Mike Poe has written an excellent post on QR codes in the Communication Tools for ANR blog.