Chilijohn - Slashdot User

Comment I was in the same boat (Score 2) 569

by Chilijohn on Friday November 25, 2011 @05:46PM (#38169538) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Best Camera For Getting Into Photography?

Get a Canon Powershot SX150. It's about $200 if not less online. I got myself a Canon Powershot SX110 a few years ago for the exact reason you describe. The SX-series is one of the least expensive digital camera lines that allows you full manual control over ISO, aperture & shutter speed, which allowed me to learn the practical differences amongst the various combinations of settings. You also get a nearly ridiculous stabilized zoom range of about 20-250mm (12x), which allows you lots of flexibility in composition. Unfortunately the camera doesn't tell you the focal length so you'll need to learn to read the zoom bar to do the conversion in your head, but the info is stamped in the EXIF metadata within the JPG. I've since stepped up to an entry level SLR having discovered I like photography as a hobby, but the great thing is that the SX remains useful as a compact camera. You won't want to lug the bag everywhere. Another plus is that the SX's run on 2 AA's so if you get some nice NiMH rechargeables you're set for general use and in a pinch any drugstore at a vacation destination will get you running again.

Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Expected Tomorrow 149

Posted by timothy on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @03:27PM from the tomorrow's-tomorrow's-yesterday dept.

arcticstoat writes "After dishing out a few copies of the beta of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 to select customers in October, Microsoft has now decided to let the general public get their hands on the beta of the service pack, starting from tomorrow. The beta of the service pack will be made available via Microsoft's Customer Preview Program on 4 December, and it includes all the updates since Service Pack 1, as well as a few other bits and pieces. Most notably, Microsoft says that Service Pack 2 'improves performance for Wi-Fi connection after resuming from sleep mode,' and adds the Bluetooth 2.1 Feature Pack, ID strings for VIA's Nano CPU and support for the exFAT file system for large flash devices."

DMCA Exemptions Desired To Hack iPhones, Remix DVDs 188

Posted by timothy on Wednesday December 03, 2008 @03:00PM from the what's-on-the-shortlist dept.

An anonymous reader writes "For copyright activists, Christmas comes but once every three years: a chance to ask Santa for a new exemption to the much-hated Digital Millennium Copyright Act's prohibitions against hacking, reverse engineering and evasion of Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes protecting all kinds of digital works and electronic items. Judging from the list of 20 exemptions requested this year [19 shown], some in the cyber-law community are thinking big. The requests include the right to legally jailbreak iPhones in order to use third party software, university professors wishing to rip clips from DVDs for classroom use, YouTube users wishing to rip DVDs to make video mashups, a request to allow users to hack DRM protecting content from stores that have gone bankrupt or shut down, and a request to allow security researchers to reverse engineer video games with security flaws that put end-users at risk." Reader MistaE provides some more specific links to PDF versions: "Among the exemption proposals is a request from the Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic to allow circumvention of DRM protection when the central authorization server goes down, a request from the EFF to allow circumvention to install third party programs on phones, as well as a request for ripping DVDs for non-commercial purposes. There were also several narrow requests from educational institutions to rip DVDs for classroom practices."

Choosing a Replacement Email System For a University? 485

Posted by timothy on Friday October 10, 2008 @06:27PM from the did-I-leap-off-the-page dept.

SmarkWoW writes "The university I attend is currently looking to change the way in which is provides its students with an email service. In the past they used a legacy mail system which can no longer fit their needs. A committee has narrowed the possibilities down to three vendors: Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. Representatives from these three vendors will be coming to our college and giving a presentation on the advantages of their systems. We're looking at other services these companies provide such as calendaring and integration with existing software that our university runs. What questions would Slashdot readers ask during these Q&A sessions? Which of these three companies would you recommend? Why? What advantages would each have that college-level students would take advantage of? What other aspects should we consider when making our decision?"

Comment Re:Any reason... (Score 4, Informative) 72

by Chilijohn on Monday July 23, 2007 @07:36PM (#19963357) Attached to: PS3 Firmware Update, Heavenly Sword Demo This Week

The DVD Copy Control Association's CSS license, required for legitimate DVD playback, limits DVD output to 480p over component video. DVI/HDMI or VGA can legally support upscaled output, however, a DVI/HDMI standalone must use HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection, such a terrible acronym) encryption for the upscaled digital output AFAIK. Of course not everyone fully abides by these rules. Zenith had a model DVB-318 that did component video 720p/1080i upscaling, but they got the hurt put on them and "fixed" that with future firmware revisions. Also, the Oppo Digital OPDV971H player does not utilize HDPC on the DVI output.

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