Category: For the Geeks

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For the Geeks Photography

SanDisk Extreme Pro, In Fire And Ice We Trust

SanDisk Extreme Pro ... 90MB/s!

I love photography.  And it is not everyday news that you wake up one day discovering that the product you use has a new model is double as good.  I am a proud user of SanDisk’s Extreme IV CompactFlash cards for my Nikon D700.  It was their top of the line product trusted by the professional photographers.  Then comes this new Extreme Pro.  The maximum capacity has doubled to a jaw dropping 64GB.  The read and write speeds have been boosted up to 90MB/sec, double of my Extreme IV cards.  That is shocking, on paper at least.  But how does the card perform?  Well, here is a little test I have done on a lovely Sunday morning.

Simple Test Setup

The three memory cards on the tests are (1) SanDisk Extreme Pro (90MB/sec), (2) SanDisk Extreme IV (45MB/sec), and (3) Lexar Professional (300x speed).  SanDisk cannot test with their competitors’ products, but I can.  To be fair, all my cards – including this new review unit from SanDisk – are pretty respectable, in terms of performance, reliability, and durability.  SanDisk has provided me with some testing procedures.  But I prefer to test it under a real life scenario.  So, below is my setup.

If you take single shots, it does not matter too much if you memory card is fast or not too fast.  Though once, a friend called me up and asked, “You told me to shoot in RAW but it is just too slow to take one photo!”  I wanted to pull a fast one on him and tease him that his is not a Nikon, like I have advised him to buy.  Instead, I told him that his memory card maybe too slow.

In this test, I put my camera on continuous shooting mode.  I chose a slow 3 frames per second for my Nikon D700.  Simply because any higher it would be difficult for me to count the shots.  I switched off as much post processing of the photos as possible in order to put extra emphasis on the memory card performance (and in real life too, I switch them off for high speed shooting).  Of course, no image review.  Who would care about image review in sport shooting scenario?  During each test, I shot 40 photos.  And I shot in 14-bit RAW, which is higher than the rather common 12-bit RAW format.  I resisted shooting in RAW+JPG because (1) I seldom do that and (2) converting RAW to JPG takes time and may alter the result.  RAW is good.  It is what I shoot.

To recap: 3 memory cards, 40 shots, 14-bit RAW, 480MB of data, one camera.

Test Results

Lexar Professional (300x speed) – On paper, this card has a similar speed the Extreme VI that I own.  The entire 40 shots took 22 seconds to complete the transfer from the camera buffer into the memory card.  However, after 30 shots, my camera slowed down and the frame rates dropped way below 3 frames per second.  That is disappointing of course, although I was not surprised.

SanDisk Extreme IV (45MB/sec) – My bread-and-butter, these are the cards that I am happy to spend money on.  40 shots took 21 seconds to complete the transfer with no slow down to my frame rate. An additional 8 seconds to complete the process (40 shots should take about 13 seconds to complete using 3 frames per second setting).

SanDisk Extreme Pro (90MB/sec) – Less than 15 seconds was what it took to transfer all 40 photos (total of 480MB).  In fact, the write speed of the card no longer seems to be a limiting factor (the entire shot of 40 photos took more than 13 seconds to complete).  For the testing of this particular card, I have increased my number of shots to 100, almost instantaneously, all the shots are stored.

Afterthought: For my 12.1 megapixel full frame camera, it seems that SanDisk Extreme Pro is all I need.  I could of course up the frame rate from 3 to 8 per second (which I may if I can find a suited theme for my next photo shot).  One participant at the media event has maxed out his Nikon D3 camera buffer in continuous shooting mode and it takes 130 shots to do that, with this Extreme Pro card.  I doubt if I would be that extreme.

Who Needs This?

Although my test centers towards speed, SanDisk Extreme Pro has lots to offer too.  The card works in an extreme temperature range of -25°C to 85°C (hence the picture and the title if you get the drift).  It is designed to be durable for humidity and accidental drops too.  In terms of reliability, it uses a wear leveling technology to spread the data across different blocks of memory so as to maximize the lifetime of the card.

For those of you who have to have the largest capability available (e.g. sport photography and underwater photography), the 64GB version is too good to be true.

And for those who want to tap onto the potential of a higher speed, your camera needs to be able to utilize the UDMA 6 technology.  My contact in Nikon has informed me that all their high-end cameras – D3x, D3, D700, and D300s – are able to support UDMA 6.  It appears that Canon 5D Mark II and Canon 50D are able to support that too, though I have no means to verify.  As the image size getting bigger and more photographs elect to use their dSLR cameras to film HD videos, write speed of a memory card becomes a crucial attribute.

If you own a high end camera(s), you really need a memory card of a similar caliber to match.  For more information on technical specifications and pricing and etc., please click here.

PS. I have not tested on the download speed as the card has gone beyond USB 2.0 speed.  But I reckon the speed would be amazing, judging at what I have seen so far.

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For the Geeks

Latest Nokia Application Review – Part 1 of 2

N97 on Nightstand, photographed this morning

For the second time this year, Nokia has passed me some credits to try out applications of my choice at their OVI Store.  This is exciting of course.   Although some I would have bought anyway, it is good to test out others that I would have missed.   The size of the store has grown quite significantly over the last few months, especially in the gaming section.  Many of the real good applications and games come free of charge.   Part 1 of this review focuses on standard applications.  Part 2 will focus on games.  Some of the games are so fun that kept me going night after night.   Stay tuned for that.

On the standard application front, more similar – either competing or complementary – applications start to emerge.  It is interesting to see how some applications are sluggish and unappealing while a similar one with very similar functionality is blazing fast, looking stylish and professional.   Same Nokia Symbian operating system, very different in performance.  And it is also good to see applications continue to push the frontier of what a Nokia phone can do.

I use a N97 to test out some of the noteworthy applications.   If you or your friend owns a Nokia phone or intend to own one, I hope you enjoy reading this part 1 review as much as I writing it.

To continue reading, please click here.  For more articles on this particular phone model, you may also wish to check out the “Experiencing Nokia N97” page.

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For the Geeks

Norton Internet Security 2010 Is Here!

The front of Norton IS 2010

I genuinely buy into the idea that there are people out there who are going all out to make our lives miserable for profit, and for pride.  I run a website having to deal with hundreds of spam comments each day that come with thousands of dubious links.  And I wonder: Why are there people out there doing something so unproductive affecting millions of people every second of the day?  The reality is, these people not only want to disrupt your life by destroying your data, but also want to steal your identity in order to make money.  I have had the opportunity to attend a workshop held by the Norton team July this year.  The threat is real.  It is not a question of “are you protected”.  Rather, how well are you protected against the ever evolving threats.  Instead of telling you what Norton Internet Security 2010 is, here are the reasons why I choose the Norton product and want no less.

1. The Power of Community Insight to Tackle the Unknown-Unknown

Years in the making, Norton has established a community network to tackle not only the black and white, but also the gray area.  As seen below, the fingerprints of more than 66 millions files (note: NOT the actual file) have been submitted to Norton by the community.  We know what are the good ones, the bad ones, and what are the ones that trust is yet to be earned.

Think about this.  With the ever growing list of viruses, spyware, trojan horses, worms, bots, and rootkits, it seems counter productive to scan every file in your computer all the time.  So, the concept of a community insight is to share the knowledge amongst the Norton users and skip those trusted files in your next scan.  Reputation of unknown files are built that way too.

To tacklet the unknown unknown

2. Working Silently in the Background

One thing I really like about the new generation of Norton products is that they work behind-in-scene without much interaction and disruption to your work.  The moment I step away from my computer, Norton will scan my computer in the background.  The moment I grab my mouse, the scan will be paused and resumed the next time I make my cup of coffee.  Every so often, there is a pulse live update to make sure that my computer is protected with the very latest update.  For the tech experts out there, the memory footprint of Norton is only less than 10MB.  To give you an idea of what it means, Microsoft Live Messenger utilizes 30MB of my computer’s memory.

3. Feel Safe Surfing the Web

When you Google something going through the search results, how do you know which ones are safe to click onto?  With this Norton product, now you can.  Just take a look at the picture below, the little green ticks mean OK to click onto (thank God!).  For malicious sites, you will be warned.  Do note that there are sites out there that may hijack the real ones, look like the real ones.  That too can be detected by this Norton product.

Google my own site ...

You can also turn on the parental control function if you have kids at home (not me!).  And this Norton product also offers to store the user IDs and passwords for you.  I prefer to use my [physical] personal diary to keep track of all my user IDs and passwords.  Just so that I may still remember them when I am not using my home computer.  These functions may be relevant to some.

Other Thoughts

I am a simple dude.  I just want an industrial standard tool to protect my home computers from online threats.  You may also wish to know that I have tried out their online support recently.  It was kind of cool.  The Norton service consultant actually took control of my computer thousands of miles away from my home.  All I needed to do was to stare at the computer screen and ‘monitor’ how the consultant resolved my problem.  I am impressed by his or her professionalism (though I nearly fell asleep halfway).

Also comes with Internet Security 2010 are a few tools to monitor the network security as well as the application ‘trust’ ratings.  As of now, they are of less use to me.  But I would suppose these tools would come handy when I become paranoid and want to see if there are some strange applications running in the background, or a stranger is logging onto my network.

Many friends whom I talk to often ask me how much it costs to run Norton products at home.  Below is from the official source.  And of course, I take no commission.  How nice if otherwise!  Do drop me a comment or write to me if you have questions.  I may be able to get you an official response.

The suggested retail price for Norton Internet Security 2010 is SGD89.00 for a three PC license and SGD59.00 for a single PC license and for Norton AntiVirus 2010 is SGD65.00 for a three PC license and SGD39.00 for a single PC license.  The price includes one-year service subscription to use the product and receive Symantec’s protection updates.

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For the Geeks I See I Write

So, Honestly, What Is It Like With The Nokia N97?

Home Screen of Nokia N97

In a world today whereby every other touchscreen phone is a Blackberry or an Apple, I certainly feel somewhat special by having the new Nokia N97.  Strangers would come up to me and ask what is it like with the N97 (as I use my phone often in public).  Like in NTUC, while I was doing grocery shopping with my family.  Or like the lady behind the mixed rice counter in a food court.  Or my colleagues whom I normally wouldn’t interact with would come up and strike a conversation with me.  Some ask for the tips of using the phone.  Some simply like many others curious of what this new flagship product is like.  For them, I am more than happy to do a live demo, there and then.  Making friends.

Throughout this six weeks, I have experienced quite a fair bit with the phone.  I have also had quite a few good opportunity to play with my friends’ Blackberry and Apple phones.  By no means the following article is meant to be a product comparison, or even a product review.  Just an honest write-up on my hands-on experience with the N97 thus far.  And if you are already a N97 user (or going to be), you may find a few good tips too.

So, are you ready?

PS. If you are shopping for a phone, make sure you work out the total cost of ownership over the contract period.  My 30GB data plan is S$13 a month just to give you some ideas when you examine the bundled price of any given phone.

Related Article: Experiencing Nokia N97

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For the Geeks I See I Write

21 Nokia Applications Reviewed, Just For You

Nokia Applications

Over the last few weeks, I have been busy experiencing the different applications on my Nokia N97 wireless phone.  Most are free, some require purchase that settled via the phone bill.  Of more than 40 applications I have downloaded and tried, I have singled out 21 applications to share my thoughts with y’all here in my website.  Of which, 10 are my top favorite ones.

Maybe you are curious on what our world is like, maybe you are trying to decide if Nokia Application is your cup of tea.  Either way, I invite you to take a look at the review by clicking onto the link below.  Some applications are pretty interesting.  If you already have a Nokia phone, I hope this review will help you in deciding which are the good applications out there for you.

So, are you ready?

Related Article: Experiencing Nokia N97

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For the Geeks

Norton Inner Circle: Getting Ready for Norton 2010

Norton Productions

OK.  Exactly how do I get recruited into the Norton Inner Circle, I cannot recall.  Maybe I am an excellent specimen who needs extra … protection.  Or maybe I am one crazy beta tester who is willing to surf porn dubious sites on a holy mission.  6.30 pm sharp I turned up at the Pan Pacific Hotel.  I recognize quite a few familiar faces (like Lester!) and was ready for an intensive knowledge download all the way till 10pm.

Gasp!

But I am really glad to be at the event and hear the experts from Norton who flew in all the way from US and Australia and meet with the media and those in the business for a couple of days in Singapore.  This is the team who is behind monitoring all the threats from the world’s malicious hackers.  They are also behind the development of the upcoming Norton products.  I am not technologically inclined and the number one burning question I have was …

Who get to come up with all the cool computer virus names like W32.Koobface.C or Bloodhound.Exploit.264?

The statistics are mind blowing.  In year 2002, there were about 20,547 different kinds of viruses and threats.  5 years later, the number has grown to more than half a million.  This year, we have 2.5 million and counting.  An estimated 120 million ‘signatures’ recorded since 2002.  Imagine if each virus maker or threat originator was to plant a tree instead for each virus they create, the world would have been a much better place.  Think about all the added carbon footprint just to fix this virtual problem that in the past, these people did it for fame.  And now, for the money.

Plant trees, not viruses!

But fear not.  If there was no crime, we wouldn’t have police.  If there was no cybercrime, we wouldn’t have the big N to keep us cyberly safe.  Throughout the presentation, Norton has shared with us the history of computer threats and how they evolve.  Most of you are perhaps familiar with the need to have the anti-virus to scan our computers for known viruses and firewall to block attacks from the network.  Maybe less so on the vulnerability attack or intrusion through the ‘common doors’ we open for network communications and the chance for our computer to be zombie-fied and do it’s new master’s evil deed!  And because of the fake websites and applications that are designed to trick us into providing them with our personal information or even legitimate websites that are seeded with bad stuffs that automatically infest your computer by you merely surfing the site, the threat – to me – seems very real.  Cybercriminals ought to be punished, in my humble opinion.

Year 2009, Norton from Symantec has officially released the Norton Insight (read previous entry for my hands-on experience) that leverages on the community’s help in identifying what are the trusted files and what are not.  It is an opt-in program to send the footprints of the downloaded files to their lab for profiling with the rest of the community.  I opted in as I am cool with it.  No personal information is sent to Norton and they are not interested in the content of the downloaded files either.  For the past 3 years, millions have participated in this program to make our virtual world a safer place.  And so have I starting this year.

In this upcoming release, Norton takes it one step further and closes the gap on the gray area between what is trusted and what is not.  You will hear more from me later, perhaps next month.

Having seen the behind-the-scene on how the Norton team monitor the global threats (pretty cool with a war map like a computer game or what you would have expected Obama to see inside the Pentagon), the stringent key performance indicators on the performance (one of their senior VPs has mentioned during a BusinessWeek interview last August that Norton will not ship [their products] until they are the fastest in the world *gasp*), and how they upkeep with the product quality, I have decided to sign up as their guinea pig for the beta testing / preview of Norton 2010.

So what will I do as a guinea pig?  Norton didn’t give me much guideline.  Since I am a creative dude, what I will do for a start is to open up all my daily spam comments in my website (quite a lot), click onto each of the spam link and see if my computer would get an infection.  I always fantasize to be a cybernanny and ‘investigate’ on those dubious sites on a daily basis.  Man, this could be fun!  Wish me luck.

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For the Geeks

Use My Coupon and Get a Telltale Games Episode for US$5 Each (44% Discount)!

Get your game today!

You may recall in 2007 I was passionately writing the reviews for the Sam & Max Season One episodes that were released monthly.  Undeniably one of the best adventure games ever made and the episodes have consistently received positive rating from PC Gamer magazine and others.  In celebrating the 5th anniversary, Telltale Games is giving me a coupon to share with you all!  Use my coupon below and you can get any of their games for $5 per episode at their store.  That is a 44% discount.

COUPON CODE: GCP-AQE-RN3-TS6

To remind you how great Sam & Max is, below is one video I have contributed to YouTube.  A user rated 5-star video with a humble 15,873 views to date.  This genre of adventure games often involve solving puzzles by point-and-click in a 2D world of beautiful cartoon art.  In between the game, there are cut-scenes.

As you can see from the video, the game is hilarious.  For every title, Telltale Games releases the game by episodes.  That way, gamers get to receive a more frequent release and the developer gets to fine tune the game based on online feedback.  My personal experience with Telltale Games has been very positive.  The payment and delivery is seamless.  The download of each monthly episode has been fast.  And the collector’s edition in DVD format available at the end of the season was delivered to my home address as promised.  I did have a slight problem with the discount and they responded to my query posted at their forum almost instantaneously.

To start browsing for your favorite title, click on this link.  You shouldn’t need to type in the coupon code (see below).  All the episodes should come with a discounted price of US$5.  Depending on your appetite, you may wish to try out Sam & Max, Wallace & Gromit, Bone, Strong Bad, and more.  Feel free to download a trial version and see if it’s your cup of tea – free.

Shopping chart for Telltale Games

My coupon only works for per episode download and not for the bundle.  Spread the word!  Every time someone uses my coupon, I get a $1 credit to fund my future purchases.  Thanks!  You won’t regret it.  It’s fun.

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For the Geeks

Dell Swarm – The More People Buying It, The Most Discount You Get!

Dell Swarm Website

So I was at what appears as the world first preview of Dell Swarm.  Of all the countries in the world, Dell has decided to choose Singapore as the pilot for this new and innovative way of product sales.  Maybe that says something about how we Singaporeans love … discounts?  Or more so for group discounts.  To cut a long story short, Dell Singapore is selling some of their products at a promotional price.  But there is more to it.  The more people swarmed together and buy the same product, the more discount the entire group gets.

That makes perfect sense.  I bought my Nikon dSLR camera together with my buddy Darkspore; and then we bought the white balance card together at Amazon.com.  I bought my NAS together with my buddy TK; and then we bought the digital jukebox together at Amazon.com.  So if the air travel industry has the 2-to-go or 4-to-go concept all this while, why doesn’t the e-Commerce retail business follow suit?

Apparently, that is what Dell Swarm has in mind.  The idea is so new that the Dell and Intel folks at the blogger event are as excited as me on how this will turn out.  So what exactly is Dell Swarm?  Here is a quick run down.

  • A Swarm is a group that forms to buy selected Dell laptops powered by the latest Intel® processors for less, within Singapore.
  • Every Tuesday (at 00:00:01), two swarms will be opened for two selected products eligible for group discount.
  • Any product put on swarm will have a discount from the original price as advertised in Dell.com.sg regardless on how many buyers are in the swarm.  So I guess if you already want to buy that Dell product powered by Intel®, you already have a good deal when you join the swarm.
  • And now, here is the fun part.  The more people join the swarm (in Singapore) and buy, the lower the price will drop!
  • The swarm has a lifetime of 72 hours or it will close when a limit of 15 buyers is hit.
  • So how much do you pay?  Everyone in the swarm will pay one final price – the lowest one.

Since I am given an access to their yet-to-go-live website, here are some screenshots on how it works.  I was told that all prices shown are not official so don’t get too excited if it is too … low … ha ha ha.

Dell Swarm - Demo 1

In this example (above), the Inspiron Mini 12 at the original price of S$899 is selling at a discounted price of S$854 if you are the first buyer (I tried the new netbook by the way and it looks awesome!).  So what happens when more buyers are joining the swarm?

Dell Swarm - Demo 2

With just 3 buyers, the price has dropped from S$899 to S$820.  And with 8, the illustrated price has dropped to the lowest you can get, S$809.

If you are not sure about buying, you can choose the follow option and will be informed as and when the price changes.  Maybe you have a target price in mind?

What is interesting about this innovative sales model is that it encourages word-of-mouth through both traditional means as well as the social media network.  Simply put, the more people join your swarm, the deeper discount you will get.  And which products do Dell Singapore plan to promote via Dell Swarm?  Reliable source tells me the followings: Inspiron Mini 12, Dell Studio 14, Dell Studio XPS M1340, and Dell Studio 14.

Dellswarm.com will be launched on May 5, 2009.  Keep a look out if you plan to get a Dell.  I for one am shopping for a netbook for our upcoming Spanish trip (mainly for the back-up of my digital photos just in case you think I am a workaholic or blogaholic).  I know someone in office who is buying a netbook for her business trip to UK.  And another friend is buying a laptop for his daughter.  Happy swarming guys! 

PS. This is not a sponsored post and all details are subjected to change.

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For the Geeks

Norton Internet Security – Protection That You Won’t Feel Like You’re Having One!

Norton Insight

These days, everything seem to be on steroid.  Like the F1 on TV, that very fast very furious movie, and like the new Norton Internet Security I have been using for the past 30 days.  In the beginning of this year, I wrote an entry on the Norton Gaming Edition.  I’m still running that in one of my machines at home.  Friends of mine know how much I value the speed of my quad core monster.  Right after my Norton subscription on that machine was expired, I installed this 2009 version.

I timed it.  The installation was indeed less than a minute as advertised.  That’s pretty fast.  From the moment I’ve installed Norton Internet Security till now, everything works in the background.  That is, from live update (or now they call it pulse update as it happens every 5 to 15 minutes on its own) to quick scan to incremental full system scan.  What is really cool about the latest version of this software suite is that scanning happens whenever my computer is in idle, automatically (see screenshot below).  The moment I wake up my computer, the scanning stops.

Norton Security History

So how quick is a quick scan?  I just did one.  Less than 30 seconds.  How can that be?  That has to do with the new Norton Insight.  It is a community intelligence-driven technology that drastically cut down the need to scan common files.  As you can see from the screenshot at the top of this entry, 87% of my files are in the trusted zone.

Just how resource intensive Norton Internet Security then?  In terms of working memory usage, it’s less than 7MB.  That’s pretty light.  Norton Internet Security offers a higher level of protection than Norton Gaming Edition, for those who need it.  And if you are into actively monitoring your security, there are tons of reports on security risks and scan, firewall activities, errors, Norton community watch, and more.

Idle time scan

If you need a more comprehensive protection than just an anti-virus and if you work with the Internet a lot, Norton Internet Security is a good product to consider.  Its small memory footprint, fast scan, and hassle free security management makes it certainly one attractive product to own.  If not for the little pop-up that appears every now and then (see right), I wouldn’t even feel that Norton has been working hard for me.

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For the Geeks

Beyond Saving My Life And Into The World Of ReadyNAS!

My New Netgear ReadyNAS!

I had a vision, last Sunday.  As I was inching my way, through a huge crowd of people, inside the air-conditioned subterranean shopping mall, that connects where the IT Show was held, to where I parked my car, I saw grey sky and the heavy rain, through the huge glass windows.  Travelling at point zero zero zero zero one kilometer per hour, smelling the humidity of sweat and rain, at one vintage point, on top of an escalator, four meters above the crowd, I saw faces.  Lots of faces.  So many faces looking at my direction.  At that point, I had a vision.  I want to be a rock star.  And these are my audience, with the faces of anticipation.  My friends and I were looking at each other, shook our heads and said: They have no idea what they are getting themselves into.

But such is the price of attending an IT Show.  I have not seen that many people in our convention and exhibition center.  Not even for the Motor Show when there are usually a lot of hot babes inside.  I got scared coming down by escalators.  What if there was a – touch wood – piled up at the bottom?  Sardine heading into the cans like the non-stop production line.  Where is that bloody emergency stop button?  None.

Sunday morning, I woke up relatively early, wanted to pay Azeroth a visit.  Bam!  My hard disk crashed.  It crashed on the last day of IT Show.  Panic!  I called my friends at the last minute to see who could accompany me.  Phew!  Those Maxtor hot backup devices do save my life as advertised.  My data is all saved.  I wish Bill Gate has the brain size of Steve Jobs and gave us PC users a Time Machine, like Apple has.  Time to replace my crashed 500GB hard disk and reinstall the Operating System.  Fun time.

Not.

Maybe this is a sign.  Maybe I shall go beyond saving my life.  I need my own home network storage, with an industrial standard that I can pull out or jam in any hard disk any time and all my data will still be intact.  Happy for me, TK and my photography buddy Mat could make it.  Time for shopping!

Except, it was not too much of a shopping with them.  They knew exactly what they wanted, they knew the strike price, and they just needed to find the exact location of the booth, buy the item, and go.  I had no idea what to buy, exactly.  Exactly!  I had a concept, like most things in my life, that’s all.  Yes, Mat has used Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ for years and he loves it.  TK is going to get the little brother version and he said: Since you have tons of CDs like me, you will need a Squeezebox and this.  OK sold.  If I am stuck don’t know how to use that device, I have some numbers to call.

Wait … what the heck is a Squeezebox?!

Imagine this: all my 800 CDs can now be digitalized, in the free lossless audio codex (a.k.a. flac) format, ready to be streamed into a Squeezebox (?!), that connects directly to my Hi-fi.  Any song from my CD collection available with a touch of a remote control.  Hi-fi sound quality.  My new toy (as seen in picture above) can hold up to 4 hard disks.  Right now, I have installed three 1TB Western Digital green power hard disks.  With the data redundancy built-in function, I have a total of 1.8TB of space accessible from within my home network.  Gadgets these days are going green.  So is the new D-Link switch I’ve bought that day.

I could have bought two of the latest version of Nikon 50mm with the money that I’ve spent.  Oh well, there is a price to pay for the world of ReadyNAS.  TK and Mat told me that I could do a lot more with that.  We shall see.