GeekMadness

I was in the market for a new bag to hold my suddenly increasing gear. If ever you’ve tried traveling by plane, you’ll know how difficult it is to lug your gear around in your backpack. It’s heavy enough to break your back. And checking them in isn’t always an option because it’ll surely bring your luggage to the weight limit.

Enter the airport-friendly bags for the modern photographer. There were several brands that I was choosing from: Pelican 1514, Lowepro ProRoller Mini, ThinkTank Airport Security and a cheap Nikon rolling backpack that I found in one of the stores, among others. All of these choices offered two things I was looking for:

1. Easy to lug around; can’t get any easier than wheels
2. I can bring at as carry-on luggage
3. Price vs. quality and features

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The Tokyo Game Show 2008 is currently being held in…well…Tokyo. Actually, it’s in Makuhari, Chiba, but it’s close enough (Tokyo is actually a good 45 mins. away). So I went and see what they had. As it was my first time, I wasn’t expecting the sheer number of people. There was a loooong line outside, which thankfully went by quickly. Inside the halls, it was jampacked with people of all types and ages. So here I am, bringing you pictures from the show.

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Last time, we introduced you to Miro, a media aggregator labeled as Internet TV. It allows you not only to search and save YouTube videos, but also subscribe to video podcasts, including those of the iTunes variety, and auto-download videos as they become available.

This time, we’ll be showing you some great video channels to deck out your Miro player, but before that, I would like to point out that, YES, MIRO HAS A VERSION FOR WINDOWS TOO! And this guide is applicable for either GNU/Linux, MS Windows or Mac OS X.

WebbAlert

WebbAlert

TechTV/G4 X-Play host Morgan Webb gives you news about technology, Internet and gaming squeezed into digestible 5-minute shows 5 days a week, Monday to Friday. Perfect for getting all those tech news quickly, especially when you don’t have much time during the weekdays or when you’re on the go.

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It’s now been over 2 weeks since Project Peach’s Big Buck Bunny opened in theaters last May 30, or at least in home theaters. So if you haven’t seen it yet, now would be a good time to head on over to the Big Buck Bunny website and download a copy. If you’re still downloading pirated movies, here’s a breath of fresh air: this short movie is given to you completely free of charge.

Big Buck Bunny is the story of a large, but kind rabbit who is bullied by three naughty rodents. Finally, Big Buck Bunny decides to fight back, and…well you’ll have to see it for yourself. The visuals are breath-taking, from the tall grass blowing in the wind, to the stream reflecting off sunlight, to the cute and cuddly creatures. Read the rest of this entry »

For our 15th year company outing, we were headed off to beautiful Dos Palmas Beach Resort and Spa in Palawan. And my camera gear couldn’t have been more ready. The timing was excellent: the 18-135mm lenses that I bought used from a friend as well as the MB-D200 Battery Grip was hand-delivered from Japan just the day before our outing, as well as a DicaPac WP-S10 DSLR underwater pack I had ordered and delivered to my office.

Here is the official list of gear I brought with me:

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I just got a new toy to add to my room! I have been looking out to buy a flat-panel LCD monitor for my desktop. My aging CRT monitor’s plug was already falling apart and the monitor was displaying pink. While I could breath a little bit more life into it by repairing it, I figured it was time to move up.

I’ve been looking around for a flat-panel monitor for 6 months, but since I had a long-term assignment in Japan, it would be gathering dust and cobwebs if I had bought one last year. And thank goodness I didn’t! My initial choice was a 19-inch widescreen Samsung. But when I was already about to get one, the store guy recommended that I get this AOC instead, since the price difference was minimal.

Aside from the 19-inch widescreen goodness, the AOC also had a built-in TV tuner and your standard-fare RCA and S-Video inputs, as well as DVI input for a full HDTV experience (if your hardware has it). Of course, it comes with a remote control.

After trying it out at the store, I was pretty much convinced. After all, I didn’t have a TV in my room (my old TV was brought down to the living room). So now, not only do I have a space-saving flat-panel monitor for my PC, I can also play with my Wii from the comfort of my room! Plus the fact that I could pay for it slowly for 6 months through my credit card.

Another cool thing is the picture-in-picture (PIP) function; it allows me to use it as a monitor AND watch TV at the same time (click picture to enlarge)! Sweet.

Update: Today, less than 2 weeks later, my girlfriend got herself one of her own.:)

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I saw a Kohjinsha SH6KP10A for only Y40K in Nipponbashi! I have seen the Kohjinsha quite a few times before, but never really paid attention because it was a local brand and was as expensive as a more powerful, albeit larger laptop. So coming home, I decided to do a little forward research on the Kohjinsha, specifically on Linux support. It only had an Intel A100 600Mhz processor (for reasons unknown to me, it’s faster than my 2.4Ghz main laptop), although it did have an Intel 945 GPU, which was perfect for 3D in Linux. If this thing could run a Vista, it would be quite fast when running Ubuntu. I compared the price vs. feature set with other UMPCs. TheSamsung Q1 was another favorite of Ubuntu users, but as it did not have a real keyboard (I need to be able to work on it; the optional keyboard attachment made it not so ultra-mobile, yuck). Searching the Ubuntu Forums yielded few, but very promising and helpful results. Checking them out, I found a few owners of Kohjinshas getting Gutsy on their UMPCs.

It was only 40K yen if you were going to get a Yahoo!BB subscription with it. But at 60K, it was still a bargain, since it was only 6mos used and at half the price of a new one. And I got myself one last weekend.

Taking it home, what was my first impression? First of all, it was preloaded with Vista, and instead of a recovery disc it had a 4GB recovery partition. I had to test all the hardware first to see if everything was A-Ok. Touch screen worked, webcam worked, the controls beside the screen (a lot of ‘em: D-pad, track pointer, launcher, shutter, rotation, enter, brightnes. scroll keys. left and right mouse buttons), webcam, TV tuner, bluetooth and WiFi, all working perfectly. And you had no less than 3 ways to control your pointer: via the touch pad, the thumb pointer, and touch screen. As for text input, well you had the physical keyboard when you really need the typing speed, or you can use the touch screen.

While it still had Vista, I decided to do a quick speed comparison test. Nothing fancy, just a quick test to see which OS would allow me to work more before I had to get off the train at the station. In short, boot times.

Here are the results:

Windows Vista Home Basic Startup time:
1:10.03 - Time to welcome screen
1:49.83 - Time to desktop display
4:06.85 - Time to finish loading everything

Ubuntu Gutsy LiveCD startup time:
0:22.21 - Time to LiveCD menu
3:02.19 - Time to opening tune
4:26.33 - Time to finish loading everything

Vista was able to boot in just a little over 4 minutes (about the time it takes for a train to get to the next station) and 20 seconds faster than Ubuntu. That’s swell, until you consider the fact that IT WAS A LIVECD! For those not in the know, a LiveCD basically allows you to run an OS without installing on your computer. That’s right, that 4 minute Vista on my fast hard drive barely beat Ubuntu running off a CD drive! Hey, I wanted a fair fight, so I had to handicap Ubuntu..<snicker>

Alright, so what are the real comparison figures for Ubuntu and Vista when both are installed in the hard disk?
Ubuntu Gutsy LiveCD startup time:
1:01.44 - Time to Login Screen
1:10.41 - Time to opening tune
1:35.58 - Time to desktop display
1:39.49 - Time to finish loading everything

You could argue that the Vista desktop already appears at about 1:50, but you just can’t do anything with it yet for another 30 seconds, where you can *technically* do something e.g. click a button/menu, just don’t expect your computer to respond well.

So Vista was out and Ubuntu was in, and without needing to install any drivers at all, the CF and SD card reader, controls beside the screen, the webcam, 3D card, sound, and most everything worked out-of-the-box and without my intervention. And from the info in the Ubuntu Forums thread I had found earlier, I was able to get Koji up to speed.

So right now, I can type away on the train(where I wrote most of this post’s content yesterday on the train to Kyoto). Heck, I could do away with the typing altogether and just scribble away with Cellwriter.

I don’t really need to say this but I’m one very, very proud Ubuntu-powered Kohjinsha owner!

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As I mentioned last post, I bought myself a real goodie from Akihabara. Something I’ve long been working for so it was high time to reward myself with this, ehem, investment.

Ta da! Introducing the D200 from Nikon’s prosumer line. This hefty monster feels right in my hands, and the magnesium alloy body really feels solid, sturdy and can take a real beating before giving up the ghost.

I was able to pick one up from Sofmap in Akihabara second-hand for a price almost half off of a tag price on the cheap price range (Hint: brand new body-only price is around Y160K). So why did I pick up a 2nd hand D200 instead of a brand new D40x which I could get for even less, lens included (I think I could have also afforded the D80 kit as well)?

I was not looking for an entry-level camera. I’ve had prior practice on film with my trusty, if not comparitively simplistic, F55D film camera. So, while I knew that a ton of features do not a good picture make, at the very least I needed camera that can keep up with my needs.

The D40 was also much more pickier with lenses, since their lens mounts do not have the built-in focus drive motors, and since I had a few lenses already, I did not want to put them out of use and invest in new AF-S and AF-I lenses. And while I often do manual focus, you will have to love the autofocus speed and control you get with the D200’s 11-area TTL focus.

The D200’s built-in flash can also be used as a commander unit for use with Nikon’s Creative Lighting System. In other words, you can control an SB-600/SB-800 flash remotely without the need for additional equipment, save for the flash unit itself of course. The only other cameras that can do this is the D70, but it was already aging and has a smaller LCD screen.

So why buy a 2-year old product second-hand? Simply put, it gets all the technology I need in my hands at the right price. Since the D300 just got introduced, people who have lots of money or people who think they need features that the D200 lacks would be strolling off with their new buys. I on the other hand have done my homework and am confident to say I don’t need those 3 or 4 bells and whistles for more than twice the price. Besides, I’m in Japan so I’m pretty confident when the tag doesn’t indicate any damage that the previous owner took care of this D200. Plus Japanese are known to be prone to upgrade quickly, so that’s good enough for me.
Edit: I just found out that my D200’s shutter actuations was only less than 28K when I bought it! Yippee!:D

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Well, so I was in Tokyo, THE big city of Japan.

First stop, of course, as the owner of this blog, has to be one of the key destinations in Tokyo, Akihabara Electric Town or Akiba for short. Well, actually, we were supposed to go to Tokyo Disneyland first but tickets were sold out so…

Anyway, it was just after Christmas, and right before New Year and me and my girlfriend’s 3rd Anniversary (yup, same day), so for a gift that can cover all three bases,

the Canon TX1 more than just handles that requirement, topping off even the Sony T70. Both had face recognition and image stabilization. It wasn’t an easy decision, with the ultra-sleek design and touch screen of the T70, and being cheaper by Y10,000 further compounded the difficulty of that decision. But ultimately, it came down to the nitty-gritty specs and practical capabilities of the Canon TX1 that subdued all the glitz and glamor of the T70. While it sounds cool to control your camera via a touch-screen LCD, it’s use was just not practical enough to replace solid physical controls, of which the TX1 has plenty. The TX1 not only had better optical zoom and larger optics, a separate video record button, the capability to record 16:9 videos, a solid body and a form-factor most suited for taking steady photos and videos. And while the LCD screen is smaller, it can however swivel around, useful when you’re shooting above your head, shooting yourself, or if you just need a mirror. Of course, the Y10,000 discount we got was certainly a big bonus and bumped the T70 out the window.:)

Aside from the TX1, I also bought myself my own Christmas/New Year/Anniversary present, but I’ll tell you more about it in my next post. For now, here’s a picture of Akihabara at night, taken from the TX1.

(Click on the thumbnail for the bigger picture)

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Three weeks ago, during the New Year break, I had the best vacation ever, which started with the fulfillment of a dream I’ve long had and ended with new gear in tow.

Note: This is going to be a two- or three-part story, I’m not really sure yet.

While I can’t talk in detail about my vacation, I will provide highlights on the cool tech that I’ve encountered and/or brought home. Firstly, as I had mentioned earlier was a lifelong dream fulfilled: to be able to ride the incredibly fast Shinkansen, more famously known as the Bullet Train.

Its popular English name came from the literal translation of Dangan Ressha (弾丸列車), a nickname given to it while the project was still being planned in the ’30s. The train pictured at the left is a 300 series Hikari train on the Tokaido Shinkansen line (東海道新幹線), and it’s capable of running at 270km/h, which got me to Tokyo in a little bit over 3 hours. The 300 series boasts being the first Shinkansen with a 3-phase AC traction motor. It’s super fast and it’s quite quiet, allowing for a comfortable afternoon nap. But it’s also super expensive, costing twice a domestic flight to from Manila to Davao via Cebu Pacific, for an ordinary unreserved seat. Luckily, seats were abundant coming from Shin-Osaka station.

The Tokaido line to Tokyo also carries a bit of a history with it. The Shinkansen project was put on hold during the second World War and the Tokaido line was where the project resumed in 1958 and opened in time for the Tokyo Olympics on October 1, 1964.

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