Category Archives: Reviews

The iPad deliveries begin – Australia – 9.01am EST

iPad working via 3G on Telstra – had to put in the APN manually as iTunes didn’t download the carrier settings straight away.

Right on time.

Camera recommendations – May 2010

As with most photographers I get asked for my camera recommendations. So based on all the recent reviews and my personal experience here are the two types of cameras I would buy:

1. For no compromise photos, the Nikon D700 or D3s. The D700 if you don’t do sport and the D3s if you do. The D3s has a faster images per second which you can almost get with the D700 if you buy the optional battery grip.

2. For convenience when you want to carry a camera in your pocket the Leica M9 is unbeatable if you want maximum image quality and control. However, it’s 10x more expensive than the Olympus E-PL1. Is the Leica 10x better? Of course not. The Olympus has image stabilisation and movie mode which the Leica doesn’t but the Leica has arguably better lenses and a superior sensor. Other options in this category are the more expensive Olympus E-P2, the Panasonic GF-1 and the Samsung NX10. Here’s a review of why I chose the Olympus instead of the Panasonic GF-1 or the Samsung NX10:
On Vacation with the Olympus E-PL1 and Samsung NX10 by Jonathan Wong
But they would all be excellent cameras.

3. For point and shoot, I defer to Ken Rockwell’s recommendation of either the Canon S90 or the SD980 if you like to take wide angle photos.

Thunderbird 3 review – the first (and last) 12 hrs

So I got excited by TB3′s new search feature which is similar to the once great Zoe idea. However, after importing my Mail.app local files and letting it index overnight TB3′s not a replacement for Mail.app and Spotlight. TB3′s search feature presents the results in a more contextually useful way allowing the results to be refined further.


Many of the features of the TB3 search was already around in 2002. Have a look at the series of Zoe screenshots.


So I tried out the search with my current set of emails. I’ve got about 7 years of email on my Mac and after importing and indexing TB3 says its about 5GB on my Macbook. The “global-messages-db.sqlite” file is about 1.7GB.

The real problem is entering any email address in the search box makes TB3 spin for about 30 sec before any result begins to appear. With mail.app, the same search starts getting results back instantly. Sadly, “Syd says no” to TB3.

Burning Season Movie Review

My friend Dorjee’s project www.theburningseasonmovie.com: