Heute waren wird dann endgültig los, um für Steffen das Handy zu besorgen, das er sich zum Geburtstag gewünscht hat. Es ist dann ein Sony Erickson T610 mit einem Voafone Callya Vertrag für 149,- Euro geworden. Vodafone weil wir bereits einen Vodafone Vertrag haben.

Zunächst hatten wir ja mit einem Nokia 3200 oder einem Siemens MC60 spekuliert. Die wären mit einem Vodafone Vertrag für 129,- Euro erhältlich gewesen, wobei ich persönlich mehr zu dem Nokia tendiert hätte. Und laut Stiftung Warentest haben beide Handy’s in etwa gleich gut abgeschnitten. Ich habe dann aber nochmals alle drei Handy mit Hilfe der focus und chip Handytests verglichen. In beiden Hitlisten war das T610 dann doch deutlich besser als das Nokia oder das Siemens. Die 20,- Euro mehr schienen mir dann doch gerechtfertigt. Speziell das große Display bringt einen deutlichen Mehrwert.

Und Papa kann das Handy nutzen, sich etwas mit der Bluetooth-Technologie zu beschäftigen. Und wie man es vielleicht schafft unter Llinux zugriff auf das Handy zu erhalten.

While experimenting with some recipes from my new Photoshop CS book, I found, that “The Gimp” and “Photoshop Elements” behave differently, were USM (Unsharp Masking) is concerned. Here are the dialogs of both programs (Gimp at the top, Elements at the bottom) for the particular USM functions. Radius and Threshold (Schwellwert) are identical for both programs. Amount (Menge / Stärke) is given as percental value in Elements while Gimp uses a decimal value. So, in my understanding both programs are identically parametrized.

And here is the result. Again, Gimp is at the top and Elements at the bottom. As is obvious, the results are different. Apparently the used algorithms are different. And I think Elements looks better.

After having read the review of Scott Kelby: Photoshop CS für digitale Fotografie (digitalkamera.de-Buchtipp) (english title: The Photoshop (R) CS Book for digital photographers) and having skimmed through the book at the bookshop, I decided to actually buy the book. There are so many good recipes in it, how to improve a digital photo. And the recipes can be transfered to a certain extend to other programs like The Gimp or Adobe Photoshop Elements. What I like in particular, that the author shows the parameters for the various steps, which can be used as very goog starting points for your own experiments. So, highly recommened.

Heute morgen vor 13 Jahren kurz nach 7 Uhr war es dann geschehen. Steffen hat das gedämpfte Licht der Welt erblickt. Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum 13. Geburtstag.

Soon after kernel 2.6.8 was released, this version version was also marked stable in the Gentoo Portage tree. I immediately installed this kernel version. However now I found I have some problems with this kernel version.

First of all, the framebuffer looked different, when the kernel is started with the same arguments as the 2.6.7 kernel. Today I learned, as I went through the Gentoo forums, that the 2.6.8 introduced some changes in this area. More details about vesafb-tng can be found here. So this issue could be fixed.

The more annoying issue is with K3b – CD/DVD Kreator for KDE. Apparently 2.6.8 doesn’t allow to create CD/DVDs as a normal user any more. Burning as root works. I had been searching for this problem for some days, stracing k3b as normal user and as root, but couldn’t find any problem indication. Then, again I found the resolving hints in the Gentoo forums leading to the k3b home page, where the problem is described (apparently some security fix in 2.6.8 causes this misbehaviour).

Additionally there might be an issue with the ALSA sound system and my motherboard (VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller). When I listened to internet radio the last time with kernel 2.6.8 and XMMS human speech in particular sounded unnaturally high, which comes I think from the incorrect sampling frequency (44.1KHz vs. 48KHz). Well, I need to recheck that now with kernel 2.6.7.

Anyway I’m back 2.6.7 for the time being.

Ever since I bought my Canon Powershot G3 in August 2003 I’ve continued to scan the announcements of new digicams and reading the reviews on the well known websites. And up to now, there hasn’t been any camera, which caught my attention like the Canon G3 did, the most interesting for me be being the Konica Minolta A2 with its Anti-Shake system or possibly the Canon Powershot Pro 1. However both are in a price category, which is above my limits.

But now there were two announcements (one official, the other somehow leaked) of cameras with feature sets very similar to the G3. First there is the Pentax Optio 750Z with 7 Million pixels and a LCD screen, which can turned and twisted like the one of the G3. Otherwise the features look very promising.

And there leaked some pictures of a new Canon Powershot G6. The camera apparently should have a similar feature set as the Pentax. The pictures of the camera have been removed in the meantime from the Canon US website, but this camera also looks very promising. If I should ever really consider a newer camera, then a Canon model would allow me to keep my investment in a Canon 420EX flashlight. Well, we will see.

The only thing, where my Canon G3 really could do better, is the time until Autofocus locks. Recent Canon cameras in general havent’t the fastest in this respect, atleast the consumer models. So, I really hope, that a new Canon G6 is significantly faster in this respect.

Update: I found some G6 pictures on another website.

Update 2: Well, it’s now official. Offical information released by Canon at 23:00 European time. There will be a new Canon Powershot G6. digitalkamera.de has the details including news about some other new models. And Digital Camera Review as well.