Prakash Advani's Blog

Vista which was suppose to be more secure, more reliable, easy to use, (showered with all the nice marketing terminologies) is already showing its true colors.

It has a serious security flow that allows any application to play with the core kernel, this is potentially dangerous as someone can use this to write a virus, put a trojan, infect your pc with a spyware and create all kinds of havoc. Read more.

The blog world is filled with how insecure Vista is. Some more interesting reading. BBC says:

Microsoft has admitted that speech recognition features in Vista could be hijacked so that a PC tells itself to delete files or folders.

Forbes.com screams: More than five years in the making, more than 50 million lines of code …. Vista is at best mildly annoying and at worst makes you want to rush to Redmond, Wash. and rip somebody’s liver out.

Please don’t do anything like ripping anyones liver. Just rip out Vista and put Linux

Pentax K100D is an interesting Digital SLR Camera.

Pros:

• Has good reviews about the photo quality.
• Built-in Anti-Shake, so you don’t need to spend extra for anti-shake when you buy an extra lens. This is a great feature cause if you buy other brands, you have to pay almost twice for the lens with Anti-Shake.
• Takes AA batteries (Alkaline, Ni-MH) as well as Lithium-Ion.
• Accepts SD Memory, which is getting more common now in consumer devices such as MP3 players, Phones. So if you run out of memory on your camera, you can plug out a mini-SD from your cellphone, plug it in the SD adaptor and use in your camera.
• Supports both JPEG and RAW format.
• Value for Money (around US$500).
• Accepts all the Pentax lenses ever made. Yes Pentax claims that you can use any of the Pentax lenses ever made, the latest ones can fit on directly and the older ones need an adaptor.

Cons:

Not much really of an issue, seems like a good buy but may of concern to people.

• 6 megapixel may be limiting for some: 6 MP is good enough to print A3 size prints, but may be issues if someone wants to use your photos for printing larger than A3 posters.
• Weight: slightly heavier than Olympus/Canon in the same category.
• Pentax not being the most popular SLR in some countries, getting choice of lens may be difficult.

Note: There is a cheaper K110D is also available which is identical to the K100D except it doesn’t have anti-shake. Anti-Shake is highly recommended so its worth paying the extra.

Read the review at DP Review, they have listed this camera under Highly Recommended.

See my photo album.

There was a time when people would buy their computer based on the gigahertz. After the gigahertz race, now people are running after megapixels. What are you going to do with all those extra pixels?  Is the megapixel the most important criteria to selecting a digital camera?

Not necessary. If you can print an A3 size print from a 6MP (megapixel) do you need bigger than that?

From this article:

Digital camera makers continue to squeeze ever more megapixels into their products. But does that make for better pictures?

Some experts say no. Image quality isn’t improving, they say, and some fear it may actually be degrading as the megapixel race escalates.

Also consider the fact, that higher megapixel, mean bigger image sizes, which require more memory costs.

So unless you are into professional photography, your buying decision shouldn’t only be based on megapixel. Especially when you are starting with your first point-and-shoot camera. You could also save a 100 dollars by just selecting one model older with lower megapixel.

Related article: 25 things you must know before buying digital camera