Friday, July 26, 2013

My Camera Buying Strategy

I tend to over-research purchases like this; here's my strategy:

The last couple times I was in the market for a new camera I spent 8 or 10 bucks for one of those "Digital camera buyer's guide" you see on magazine racks.  This gives a good table of hundreds of models and features, what the latest models have, etc.  Then I check online for prices and reviews.  Dpreview.com has really in-depth previews (20+ pages) for the cameras they do review; adorama.com and bhphoto.com have good reviews from camera-heads, amazon and newegg are good for more consumer-type reviews.  For pricing, I'd probably check them all.

[Your Camera Doesn't
Matter](http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/notcamera.htm) is a great
article to make you think twice about spending (more) money.  The best
camera is the one you have with you; and
[sensor size](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_sensor_format) and
optices are more important than megapixels.

DSLR's do seem to keep their value pretty well, so could be seen as an
investment.  Used ones are good too and you might not worry about
carrying it around as much as a brand new expensive one.  If you like
to hack and want to really expand your camera's abilities, look at
CHDK (Canon point-and-shoot; search flicker) or Magic Lantern (Canon
DSLRs) alternative firmwares.  These give additional capabilities like
motion detection (catch lightning strikes), time lapse, auto
bracketing, etc. that would otherwise add hundreds to the cost.

posted in
http://www.reddit.com/r/pittsburgh/comments/1hk0yu/camera_stores_in_pittsburgh/

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Aquamacs Emacs color themes

Mostly a crude note to myself so I remember--this is just something I started trying and haven't commited to memory or .emacs yet.  Expect updates  (post a comment to get an email I think, or remember to check back).

HOWTO:

  • M-x color-theme-select
  • Pick one (click with mouse, move and hit enter

  • Mode help says:
    (use M-x describe-mode, or ^H m)
    Color Themes mode:
    Major mode to select and install color themes.

    Use I to install a color theme on all frames.
    Use L to install a color theme for the current frame only.
    'L' is a useful way to have different colors
     in a different frame,
    to either try out, 
    or keep separate windows for separate tasks.
    The changes are applied on top of your current setup.  This is a
    feature.
    Feature 'on top of' means that 
    each theme only affects a subset of all possible settings
    (may be fonts, colors, certain modes, etc.), 
    so order of application will make a difference.
    If you worry about the size of color-theme.el: You are right.  Use
    P to print the current color theme and save the resulting buffer
    for example, 678 lines

    I (usually) prefer light text / dark background.  I haven't spent any time tuning or tweaking yet, there are many existing themes to try first.

    Theme notes:
    • Arjen - ok, but echo area unreadable
    • Bharadwaj - looks like default ?
    • Blue Sea - nice purple
    • Cooper Dark - trying (7/24)
    Couple links, form searching "aquamacs select color theme":


    Somewhere my previous setting from M-x customize for modeline color/font..  where was that saved?  what's it called?


    and what are these desktop commands?  I found a emacs.desktop file:
    Click on a completion to select it.
    In this buffer, type RET to select the completion near point.

    Possible completions are:
    desktop-change-dir desktop-clear
    desktop-read desktop-remove
    desktop-revert desktop-save
    desktop-save-in-desktop-dir
    desktop-save-mode

    ... to be continued..

    Wednesday, July 3, 2013

    My LinkedIn policy for connecting

    I often get requests to connect from recruiters, etc., which I appreciate.
    However, this is my policy and the email I send them:

    Thanks, but I make it a rule (99% of the time anyway) to only connect with people I actually know / have met.

    Exceptions:

    1. I really respect your work (or your admiration for me), or you're really cool
    2. Our interests or friends are so similar I can't believe we haven't met yet, but we should!
    3. We have exchanged email a few times or transacted in other ways (which means really that we "know" each other)
    4. Our networks are so dissimilar or disconnected that we should connect them for some kind of multi-disciplinary cross-pollination possible synergisms

    5. For networking possiblities (I guess similar to 4)
    6. For the right amount of money (hey--everyone has their price)