Welcome to the Clerc Computer Consulting Corp. Chronicles for December, 2000!

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Should You Buy a Digital Camera?

So we are now in the 21st Century and you are still using 35mm Film Emulsion Technology developed in 1826! But you say why should I spend more money on a Digital Camera versus a traditional 35mm? Good question. Lets look at some of the reasons to consider the move.

Traditional cameras use film, which must be developed by a developing service. This therefore requires you to drive to a film processing location, have the film developed, and drive back to pick up the results. Digital Photography uses a process where pictures are taken to a computer disk or memory card rather than film. Unlike rolls of film, the disks or memory cards are reusable and can be recorded over an unlimited number of times. You can download the images to your computer, and then print as many, or as few as you want. There are even printers available that allow direct camera to printer download. The result is no driving, waiting, or extra cost for reprints.

Have you ever taken pictures that you wish you could have made differently? With a Digital Camera, your images are viewable immediately on the back of the camera. Did you accidentally cut off your mother-in-law’s left arm in the picture? No problem, just again shoot her, …ah, the picture again. Digital images can also be edited in a number of ways. Pictures can be enlarged, reduced, cropped, lightened, sharpened, and even, re-colored.

Digital images can emailed, posted online, or printed. Hewlett Packard printers, can give you resolution to 2400x1200 dots per inch, which is actually better than "photo quality".

Modern digital cameras aren't limited to still pictures. Many new cameras can produce short digital movies with both sound and video.

Hopefully you are now close to purchasing a modern photographic device. Expect to pay between $500 and $800 for a good midrange camera. Look for camera with a minimum of 1 Megapixel of resolution. If your budget allows, buy one with zoom. Optical zoom is preferable to digital zoom. Finally, CCD images sensors are better than the new CMOS type.

Happy shooting, may the sun be to your back and your thumbs clear of the lens.

Is the new Windows for ME?

The new Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (WinME) computer operating system is now available. This release follows the previous release this year of the Windows 2000, the version designed for business. The designers had Five goals in mind for WinME: ease of use, enhanced Internet functionality, flexible multimedia support, home networking, and improved system stability.

Ease of use: The change to WinME will take very little, if any, reorientation. The interface is very similar to that of Windows 98. One improvement is Personalized menus. WinME keeps track of programs you have used recently and hides the others from view.

Maintenance speed has been enhanced in Scandisk and Defrag for they are now 32 bit (read faster) applications. Speed has also been improved in booting (starting) and shut down process.

Internet: Internet Explorer version 5.5 now has a nifty print preview option. WinME has a new version of TCP/IP, based on Windows 2000 technology, that enhances security and reliability when you are connected to the Internet. Improved performance also occurs in downloads.

Multimedia: The Windows Movie Maker includes the Windows Image Acquisition feature. A wizard interface allows for ease of previewing, importing, creating, and managing digital images from cameras and scanners. Video from digital or analog cameras can be imported and automatically stored into the full-featured My Pictures folder.

Slide images and video can be combined with sound effects, narration, and music. Windows Media Player 7 is an all-in-one digital media player. This customizable program finds, downloads, and plays audio (music), video, and DVDs. The included Microsoft DirectX software allows for dynamic 3-D and surround-sound.

Networking: WinME has made improvements in simplifying small-scale networking. The Home Networking Wizard guides the user through the process of setting up a peer-to-peer network. The Wizard even creates a disk to configure other non-WinME computers to the network.

WinME implements and supports the new Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) networking standards. UPnP is a technology supported by Microsoft and over 80 other consumer electronics companies. This will allow for future integration of home appliances, home security, and computer networking. UPnP is designed to let you connect and disconnect peripherals such as scanners and camcorders without configuring or rebooting your computer.

Reliability: The System Restore feature can run in the background and automatically make a periodic snapshot of the PC system. If your computer becomes unstable, its wizard can restore your system and solve the problem. The System File Protection feature prevents programs from overwriting crucial system files, thus preventing problems before they happen. There is also an AutoUpdate feature that downloads the newest versions of Windows files.

Overall, Windows Millennium Edition has many improvements. These features will benefit some computer users more than others.

But these improvements require a fairly fast computer (200MHz or faster), at least 64MB RAM and almost 1GB free disk space. The installation, for an experienced user, is relatively simple.