Megapixels make a Mega Difference

When I was looking to buy a camera a couple of months ago, I decided that for the buck, I would get the most value out of a 3 Megapixel Camera. But then I got lucky and found a 5 Megapixel DSC-P92 from Sony at a great price. And I much appreciate the greater level of detail in the shots (Even though a 5MP generates a considerably larger file size).

You see (for those of you that don't know) think of a pixel as a single, microscopic dot of color and shape in a picture. It is easy to imagine that an entire picture has millions of them. 1 Million pixels=1 Megapixel. Therefore a 4x6print taken at 5MP has much more detail and is much richer than one taken at 3MP. But that's not to say that a 3MP photo isn't of high-quality, it just means that:

• You get a much richer image from a 5MP printed on the same size as a 3MP
  
• A 5MP picture can be printed in a much larger size with the same level of quality
  
• For a smaller print, you can chop, crop, and blow up a 5MP image and get the quality of a 3MP print
  
  

I guess the picture at the right proves the level of quality of a 5MP camera.

Acceptable Anamolies

A friend of mine recently bought a laptop directly from the manufacturer. It was a very high-end laptop with all of the bells and whistles, including wireless, etc., and he paid a premium for it. When the laptop arrives it had a couple of dead pixels. No sweat, right? Just call up customer service and they'll replace it for you. WRONG!

Several attempts into getting Cust. Serv. to replace it for him all ended up with a response of "Sorry, but that is considered an acceptible anomaly" He checked around, and as it turns out, he discovered that most manufacturers will not exchange a laptop with less than half a dozen dead pixels. I guess they claim that Q/A is too hard to get that level of quality.

The irony is, if you bought the same device from a big reatil chain, you could have brought it back in without any hassles for an exchange. I bought a camera and printer back in January. I specifically bought it then to take advantage of a rebate offer, but I didn't start to print pictures until recently. I was going to by it from a smaller regional retailer, but I got a national chain to price-match, and I bought it there instead. I noticed that the print quality sucked. So I called the store. They told me that I could talk to the manager and if he felt it was justified, I could get a refund or an exchange for the printer.

The fact that 90+ days post-purchase that they would even consider this is a testimony to their effort on customer service. I guess maybe that the difference between the big chains and the manufacturer direct sales and their respective approaches to customer services reflect the fact that if the manufacturers lose out on the retail business, they are still generating revenue from sales to retailers. While the retailers want you to be a lifelong customer. Because if you leave, who will buy from them?

My latest project

So my wife and I have bought this new entertainment center for our living room. This lovely piece of Mission Style furniture will replace our old setup of a TV stand with plastic gates around the base to delay our son from playing with the DVD player and VCR (We thought it would stop him, but nothing stops Mitch). Combine this with the fact that my son keeps scratching CDs, I decided that I want to hook up the Dell Digital Audio Receiver (Made by Rio/Soniblue) to my home network and put that into the new Entertainment center.

That, of course, requires me to extend wi-fi network to their as well. I am currently trying to accquire the necessary Buffalo Technologies 802.11G equipment to upgrade the whole house. At the end of the day, I will have:

1. A Router connected to my Cable Modem
   
2. A Bridge/Repeater set up in my Entertainment center that will both connect wired ethernet devices in my home to the WLAN as well as boost signal strength in the front part of the house.
   
3. Digital Audio!!
   
   I think I might write an Article when it's done.
   

Another reason that Technology Rocks

My wife was on the phone with me, complaining about not knowing where the Jewel cases for the CD's that I needed to return to the library were. While I was on the phone, I just went to our library's web site and renewed them online.

Kickass!

Two Interesting Computer Security Holes...

I want to shed some light on two computer security holes - one that I just learned about, the other that I have been harping on for some time:

1. A new way to send pop-ups and defeat blocker tools Although the vast majority of Pop-up blockers do well against standard pop-up windows, some of them have learned how to exploit the window.showModalDialog() command in Javascript that is supported by IE (And I believe only IE) in versions 5+. What's even more annoying, you need to actually close or click in the window as it holds your browser hostage.
   
   
2. I have often raved about the fact that many people don't bother to change ANY of the default settings on their wireless router - including the administrator password. Therefore, with information that you can glean off of wardriving (the make and model of an open Wireless AP) and the Internet (the default admin passwords are usually printed in the user's manual, most of which are available on-line from the manufacturer's website) a malicious user can now assume control of your AP - even lock you out of it at their own will.
   
   The new scary premise - they can use this to modify firmware and upload spyware into your ap.