Random Tangent

Before coming to Australia, I bought myself a mobile phone that would also double as a digital camera. This was a Sony Ericsson K750i and it had a 2.0 megapixel camera that could both take pictures and record video. I knew I wasn’t getting much of a camera but I wasn’t planning to do much more than upload pictures to my blog/website or e-mail photos to friends and family back home so it was sufficient.

The K750i’s phone capabilities are still pretty much what I want them to be — it stores all my contacts, syncs well with my laptop, has great reception and battery life, and so on — but now I really want to upgrade to a proper digital camera.

My Basic Requirements

Fortunately, there are lots of good, cheap digital cameras out there that’ll do the trick for me. My three basic requirements are:

1. A resolution of at least 5 megapixels (MP); preferably over 7MP and ideally closer to 8MP
2. The ability to record decent-quality video with audio (suitable for basic video blogging)
3. A price tag of less than $200; preferably closer to $150 if I need to expand its memory, buy a stand/tripod, or get a good cover for it

Lots of Camera Options

Unfortunately, too many cameras fit this bill. Here’s a list I compiled from some quick research on the ‘net:

Yeah. That’s a lot.

Mobile Phone Options

And it’s not just cameras that I need to look at since a couple of mobile phones, not only cover my requirements, but are awesome in many other ways:

So I’m a little spoilt for choice.

Oh, and to make things more complicated: some of the cameras have quirks that are potential deal breakers. For example, some have limits to how long your video file can be (e.g. you can record only 10 minutes at a time), others need to reduce their frame rate if you’re going to record audio along with your video (e.g. 30 to 15fps), and one or two may not be available in Australia at the listed price.

What Now?

So, what now? Well, after this preliminary round of research, I’ll move on to doing in-depth research on each of those models. This will involve reading reviews, making more detailed comparisons, finding out exact prices and availability, and so on.

I’ll also check online to see what other people — particularly video bloggers — are using and what they recommend. For example, which is better: a higher video resolution or a higher frame rate (or is there no simple answer to that)? And what frame rate is sufficient (whatever that means)? I’ll also compare videos made with different resolutions at different frame rates to see how they vary.

Finally, I’ll ask for advice, which is why I’ve written this blog post. So, does anyone have any advice for me? Any brand preferences, any previous experience with any of these products, any general suggestions? Should I forget the phones and focus on just the cameras (which is what I’m leaning towards anyway)? Any and all suggestions are welcome and thanks in advance for all your help!

Tags: Blogging, Life, Technology by Ameel
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Over the last few months Nadia and I have slowly started to upgrade our lifestyle from ‘international student’ to what I would call ’student-plus’ (since it’ll take us a whole year to get to the ‘young professional’ stage).

What does a student-plus lifestyle include? Well, among other things:

• A faster Internet connection (streaming video, yaay!)
• A DVD player and a video store membership (YAAY!)
• An MP3 player (for me, since Nadia already has one)
• New furniture including a bed, mattress, sofa, and some shelves
• A vacuum cleaner and a room lamp
• Generally more time and money for entertainment and relaxation (i.e. using all the stuff we just bought)

Here’s a picture of our new sofa (technically a chaise) from Fantastic Furniture:

Cool, isn’t it? Did you notice the little bean-bag foot-rest in front of it? :) Oh, and that swirly-patterned thing along the back wall is our old mattress which is waiting to be gotten rid of.

And here’s my MP3 player, an iriver E100, which is awesome and is exactly what I needed and wanted:

Yes, life is good.

Looking Forward

We still have a few more things to get, though: like a digital camera (more about this in another blog post), a cable TV connection, and an Audible subscription. We also have a few more things to do: like taking a short vacation somewhere near by (which we hope to do next month), watching a play or attending a concert (if something exciting comes long), and hanging out with friends more often.

Of course, what I want to get most of all is new laptops for both of us (specifically, tablet PCs) but those cost a lot of money so they’ll have to wait for another few months. Such is life. Still, we’re loving what we have now (e.g. we’re half-way through the one and only season of Joss Whedon’s awesome TV series Firefly!) and, with the exception of me complaining about my laptop all the time, we’re having a really good time.

Tags: Life by Ameel
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Having moved all of my e-mail to Gmail, I am now ready for my next move-stuff-into-the-cloud project.

This time I’m moving all of my photos to either Flickr (where I already have a small presence) or Picasa (which I haven’t yet installed on my current laptop). I don’t know which I’ll end up going with but I’ll start by giving both a try and seeing how things go.

I’ll keep y’all posted on what I’m up to.

Tags: Internet, Life by Ameel
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Jared Goralnick recently posted an excellent comparison between Microsoft’s Outlook and Google’s Gmail on Lifehacker.

Having recently shifted all of my e-mail to Gmail you can image which side I’m lean towards…though in all fairness I chose Gmail because I wanted all of my e-mail to be in the cloud and not because I thought Outlook wasn’t for me.

I actually think Outlook is great. I don’t like it’s search capabilities all that much — though maybe that’s because we still use Outlook 2003 at work — but otherwise it’s got everything (and more) than I need.

That said, Gmail is awesome: I love everything about it and, now that Google is moving towards letting you bring some of its capabilities offline, I’m sure I’ll soon like it even more.

Tags: Technology by Ameel
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Raza Rumi recently wrote a good feature on one my LUMS BSc classmates Asim Butt on the ‘All Things Pakistan’ blog:

What distinguishes Asim Butt from his generation and perhaps the preceding generations of artists is the sheer originality of his vision and an iconoclasm that is neither trumpeted nor made visible until the subtext of his lines is closely studied.

More on Asim:

• Wikipedia page
• BBC feature
• Saatchi Online Gallery

Tags: LUMS, Life, Pakistan by Ameel
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Engaget’s Darren Murphy reports that the design studio Art. Lebedev is opening a store (well, a sub-store to start with) in New York on 8 August! Awesome.

Tags: Technology by Ameel
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Speaking of stuff that’s related to Pakistan (see my previous post), I’m really looking forward to watching Mehreen Jabbar’s film ‘Ramchand Pakistani‘ which I’ve heard good things about.

Ramchand Pakistani is derived from a true story concerning the accidental crossing of the Pakistan-Indian border during a period (June 2002) of extreme, war-like tension between the two countries by two members of a Pakistani Hindu family belonging to the ‘untouchable’ (Dalit) caste, and the extraordinary consequences of this unintended action upon the lives of a woman, a man, and their son.

I don’t know when we’ll get to see it in Melbourne but I hope it’s sometime soon.

[Also see 'Ramchand Pakistani' on IMDb]

Tags: Film, Pakistan by Ameel
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Laila Kazmi’s Jazbah.org — a site about “Pakistani women who have worked hard to achieve great goals and made significant, positive impacts in their societies” — has been around for a number of years but I’ve never gotten around to mentioning it on this blog. That’s mainly because, even though it’s a great resource, it’s not updated very often and most of the profiles on it are a few years old.

However I visited the site again recently thanks to the Muslimah Media Watch — I was commenting there on how it’s only blogs like MMW and PakPositive that ever seem to talk about all the good things going on in developing countries — and figured I should give it a mention. It’s a good site and the events and books sections seem to be active, which is cool. Make sure you take a look.

Tags: Internet, Life, Pakistan by Ameel
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Good article in IndustryFinest.com on ‘The Top 20 Most Influential Rock Producers‘. Particularly since I’m a huge fan of Rick Rubin, Brian Eno, Butch Vig and Daniel Lanois.

Tags: Music by Ameel
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So, is this goodbye to the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution? I guess only time will tell.

Don’t know what I’m taking about? Read on:

• EFF article: Senate Joins House in Caving to White House Immunity Demands
• FISA primers: EFF, ACLU, Wikipedia
• Ars Technica article: FISA compromise passes with Obama, Clinton on opposite sides
• Salon article:
• Wil Wheaton’s conclusion: EPIC FAIL

Tags: Life, Technology by Ameel
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