David Emery Online

Questions

Stop.

What are you doing?

Is it good?

Really?

Be honest.

If no, why?

And don’t say it’s not your fault. It is. Even if the problem is nothing to do with you.

If yes, are you sure?

Would everyone agree?

Put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Still good?

Why is it good then, not great?

Camera Software

Last weeks camera post has got me thinking about the current crop of digital cameras. There are a few features that are obviously all related to the actual physical properties; the lens, the sensor side etc. But that’s only half of the story.

The software – commonly referred to as firmware – that the camera runs is almost as important. So many features a modern camera has are completely done in software; different ISO settings, for example, or manual focusing. Something increasingly frequent, however, is the purposeful limitation of software features by the camera manufacturers.

Take, for example, the Canon Powershot G7. If you read my previous post, you’ll know that it’s my current camera of choice. However, there’s been a bit of a ruckus in the digital camera fraternity about the absence of RAW support. It’s not something I care about, but some people really do, and the common consensus is that Canon left RAW support out to drive people to its more expensive DSLR offerings.

Here’s my solution; it’s not a simple one, but the effect it would have on the digital camera market would be quite interesting:

We need an open source digital camera operating system.

It’s not beyond the realms...

Friday Links

Yes, today I’m going to commit the heinous crime of just posting of load of links – sorry! I’m just too tired to post anything more coherent…

• Three Pink Monkeys – Yet another music blog, but quite a good ‘un.

• BBC: Patient gamers buy PlayStation 3 – The US launch of the PS3 seems to have been a bit of a frenzy. As much as I’d like the Wii to wrap up the next-gen fight, I think PS3 may have it in the bag.

• Canon G7 Review on DP Review – pretty much agrees with what I said yesterday.

• Logo Development – Nice branding experiments and extension from Mr Hicks.

• Zune is Tune with a Z – I’m really trying to stay out of all the Zune bashing. Amusingly, it’s turned out to be much worse then I thought it would be. So bad, I can’t understand what Microsoft were thinking. Anyway, you know Zune is just Tune with a ‘Z’?

Current Compact Cameras

I’m in the market for a new digital camera at the moment, so I thought I’d share my recommendations with you lot so you don’t need to do the silly amount of research I’ve done. Of course, the pre-purchase experience is all part of the fun…

My current camera is a Minolta Dimage 7i and it’s served me well over the past couple of years. In fact, it still takes great pictures – especially outside in good light – but it sufers from being a bit too large, meaning that to take it anywhere requires planning and being able to put up with an extra bag.

It’s also not too hot in low light, which brings me straight on to my requirements for a new camera; it’s got to take good pictures in low light. As my regular readers will attest to, I go to quite a few gigs so taking pictures in stage-lit environment is quite a high priority. I can also probably blag some photo passes from work too, so hopefully soon the accompanying photos that go with my gig reviews may get a bit better.

Anyway, after low light performance comes portability; it really needs to be small enough...

Banking 2.0

All over the news today (over here in UK at least) was the announcement by First Direct that they’re going to start charging for current accounts. I have to say that I think this move is going to prove hugely unsuccessful – the banking market here is far to competitive to put up with this sort of move, and the average punter on the street already think that banks make far too much money as it is.

From the other side of the pond comes this story on BoingBoing. The gist of is that Bank of America, by way of seriously bad customer service to one individual (he ended up in jail!) they’ve lost over $50m of business so far by way of people closing accounts.

While being interesting footnotes in the long battle between customer and corporation, both these stories highlight a rather glaring gap in the market:

Yes, we need Banking 2.0*.

We need simple banking, that focuses on user experience over and above everything else. A few simple things are necessary; it must have a debit card that works in all shops (Maestro or Visa Debit then), it must have a good online banking system (more on this below)...

Inversion

Welcome one and all to the 10th redesign of this site! I hope you like it.

The focus on this redesign really was readability; gone is the harsh red background, and gone are the serif fonts. In their place is a continuation of the red theme – but for the text instead – and larger helvetica. I’ve also had a tweak at the line heights and paragraph spacing, and put more margins left and right to reduce the line widths.

You may also notice the return of a bit of branding and logo at the top; I decided that the top bar really needed a bit of sprucing up so there it is. I still don’t think logos and the like are really appropriate for personal websites; nothing wrong with a nice title though.

Let me know your thoughts – there may well be more tweaks soon…

Hint

No time for a proper post today, I’m afraid – everything seems to be kicking off and it’s all gone slightly nuts.

Tomorrow will, however, bring some changes round here.

Tweaks.

Realignment.

That kind of thing.

Saddam Nation

Obviously you will have heard of the forthcoming hanging of Saddam Hussein. You will have no doubt also noticed that it’s the US Midterm elections, and that the timing of the sentencing is widely regarded as no coincidence.

Does anybody really find this turn of events surprising anymore?

The manipulation of the courts is easy for US government in its own country, let alone a third world foreign nation it has systematically destroyed.

Tying in with the other craze of the age (the first being control masquerading as protection) – how on earth are YouTube going to keep the hanging off their servers? I doubt any major western broadcaster will show it, but it is bound to be filmed. Sadly, it will become the most popular video of our times.

Does Saddam deserve this?

If you thinking “yes”, what are you basing that choice on? If you haven’t met him, and personally see him commit these reported acts then how are you so sure he is guilty? Propaganda is a very powerful tool, and is used against us every day. If you think Saddam is worth killing, just think for a second what that means.

You believe a string of letters, written by a journalist –...

Poppy Appeal

At the risk of alienating my last pair of readers…

I won’t be wearing a poppy this year. I think the Poppy Appeal is wrong.

The poppy – to me at least, and in my understanding – is all about remembrance. Wearing it is a statement saying “Yes. I remember that we went to war twice, and millions lost their lives”.

What I find sad is that I can see a time – not even that far in the future – where people don’t remember the existence of the two world wars in recent history. I’m sure you could find many teenagers today that are completely ignorant about how many died and how much affect it had on modern society.

What are the odds that if you asked them what the worst event in the last 100 years was, that they’d answer 9/11?

The Poppy Appeal doesn’t seem to be about remembrance anymore, though. It’s now seems to simply be yet another charity, trying to raise money for ex-servicemen and women. I have no problem with them using the proceeds raised from the poppy appeal for ex-servicemen – it seems as good a use as any (although as we haven’t seen conscription in...

Pricing Strategy

While on lunch today I saw something rather amusing that I thought I’d share with you all; it is a Monday after all, and who doesn’t need a bit of amusement on a Monday?

Any ideas how much that rather small Milky Way is? And for my American readers, that’s a UK Milky Way, which is like an American 3 Musketeers bar – what they call a Milky Way in America is actually a Mars bar. Madness.

Anyway. Pricing. Yes. Any guesses?

How about this?:

Personally, I this point in the shopping experience I just gave up. Obviously the price labels could not be trusted; luckily these choc-filed delights had their prices on them, but nothing else did. How would I know what price they were?

For the record, the prices on the bars were the prices paid; after recovering from the temporary pricing confusion I decided there was only one option: buy* both bars even though I don’t like them to find out the truth.

I hope you appreciate the sacrifice.

* Except I didn’t actually – James did. But he doesn’t have a blog.