Reviews Written By: A38KK0SZYEH5UDprovided by Amazon.com |
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 | VMware Fusion 2 (VMFM20BX2) | |
 | "VMware - the best in virtualization" | 2009-10-08 |
| Others have covered most of what I want to say, but I thought I'd add a few comments.
First, VMware really rocks on my 8-core Mac Pro. For some reason I don't quite understand, it runs some Windows benchmarks within a virtual machine *faster* than booting Windows natively on the box! Graphics-intensive apps seem to do better natively, but anything that does lots of I/O seems to run faster under VMware. The other thing I wanted to mention is that it's really more than just Windows on a Mac - you can run just about any Intel operating system within VMware. On my Mac Pro, I have Linux (both RedHat and SuSE/Novell) and a few other old Intel-based operating systems - even a very old OS/2. Honestly, this helped me justify the price of my Mac Pro - one box runs Mac, several versions of Windows, Linux and so on. And they all run really well... :) Great job, VMware! | ||
 | NIKON 10.5MM f/2.8 G IF-ED Fisheye Lens | |
| "Fast and fun lens" | 2009-09-20 |
| If you like the fisheye perspective, this is one cool lens that should be in your camera bag.
If you've never used a fisheye, it's a different beast than any other type of lens. Fisheyes are ultra-wide angle lenses that (intentionally) produce distorted, curved and incredibly wide angles of view. You'll have a hard time not getting your feet in the frame, the field of view is so wide. Other than that, you just use the same rules you'd use with an ultra-wide...get up close to the subject, etc. Many people think of fisheye and picture those round images...this one isn't like that - it fills the entire frame. If you want, you can also un-do the fisheye perspective in Capture NX - it straightens all the lines and gives you a perspective like a non-fisheye ultra-wide. To an extent, this misses the point of the fisheye, and to my eye, the results still seem a bit "stretched" but it can be done. Most fisheyes are special-purpose lenses and very expensive, but the Nikon 10.5 is unique in that it has very good optical performance and is also reasonably affordable. As far as optical performance goes, it's sort of a secondary topic for a special-purpose lens of this type. However, having said that, it is extremely sharp and contrasty lens that tolerates being pointed into the light with little flare. I've noticed a bit of color-fringing sometimes, but nothing that can't be corrected easily with your favorite photo editing software. My only gripe about the lens is that, like most fisheyes and ultra-wides, there's no way to mount protective filters on the front of the lens. Although there's a built in lens shade, you get the feeling that that very expensive looking front lens elemenet is just hanging out there waiting to bump into something and cause damage. Highly recommended. | ||
 | NIKON 10.5MM f/2.8 G IF-ED Fisheye Lens | |
| "Fast and fun lens" | 2009-09-20 |
| If you like the fisheye perspective, this is one cool lens that should be in your camera bag.
If you've never used a fisheye, it's a different beast than any other type of lens. Fisheyes are ultra-wide angle lenses that (intentionally) produce distorted, curved and incredibly wide angles of view. You'll have a hard time not getting your feet in the frame, the field of view is so wide. Other than that, you just use the same rules you'd use with an ultra-wide...get up close to the subject, etc. Many people think of fisheye and picture those round images...this one isn't like that - it fills the entire frame. If you want, you can also un-do the fisheye perspective in Capture NX - it straightens all the lines and gives you a perspective like a non-fisheye ultra-wide. To an extent, this misses the point of the fisheye, and to my eye, the results still seem a bit "stretched" but it can be done. Most fisheyes are special-purpose lenses and very expensive, but the Nikon 10.5 is unique in that it has very good optical performance and is also reasonably affordable. As far as optical performance goes, it's sort of a secondary topic for a special-purpose lens of this type. However, having said that, it is extremely sharp and contrasty lens that tolerates being pointed into the light with little flare. I've noticed a bit of color-fringing sometimes, but nothing that can't be corrected easily with your favorite photo editing software. My only gripe about the lens is that, like most fisheyes and ultra-wides, there's no way to mount protective filters on the front of the lens. Although there's a built in lens shade, you get the feeling that that very expensive looking front lens elemenet is just hanging out there waiting to bump into something and cause damage. Highly recommended. | ||
 | National Geographic Earth Explorer Large Backpack | |
| "One big honkin' backpack..." | 2009-09-10 |
| I have a smaller backpack and got tired of having to pick and choose what to take and what to leave home, so I decided to go completely overboard and get the largest backpack I could find - and this one doesn't disappoint.
To give you an idea, it comes in a box so large, you'll be wondering if maybe you accidentally ordered a new dishwasher or something. Luckily, there was a lot of packaging around the backpack, so it's not quite so large as you might think at first glance. After you get over the sheer size, you start to appreciate the utility of the bag. Lots of pouches, some velcro, some zippered. Lots of metal attachment points and D-rings. Everything seems built to last forever, and the workmanship is first rate. Everything's ajustable for fit and comfort. I'm a large person, and it fits me quite confortably. I did find the belt a bit difficult to latch, but once adjusted, it's comfortable and with some practice, easily operated. I like the light color...most of my othe bags are black, and they get quite hot in the summer months, especially if I leave my bag on the seat of the car in sunlight. The lighter color of this one seems to be much cooler. Still, I worry the light color might be subject to staining. Nothing so far, but I could see it getting fairly dirty. I did take my bag on a Southwest Airlines flight and didn't have any trouble getting it past the gatekeeper, and it fit fairly easily into the overhead bin. As another poster said, I could see it seeming too big and I wouldn't be surprised if some airlines gave you a hard time over it, especially international flights. The large size gives you many options about how to arrange your gear - a blessing and a curse. I found myself thinking about how I might best pack the beast, and thinking I'd need to write up an inventory and roadmap so as not to lose anything. You do want to give a lot of thought to how you arrange your gear. Some areas are more difficult to get to than others, so you want to make sure to put the stuff you use most frequently in the most accessible areas. To put it in perspective, here's what I fit into my pack: COMPUTER GEAR: A small 15" computer, CF reader, various USB and Ethernet cables, power adapter, broadband modem, compact wireless access point, small external hard drive. CAMERAS: Nikon D3, D300 (with grip) DSLR bodies, plus a small Canon point-and-shoot, spare batteries, memory cards. LENSES: The "big three" Nikon zoom lenses (14-24, 24-70 and 70-200), 10.5mm DX, 16-85 DX, 60mm macro, 85 (the 1.4), an old 500mm reflex, a TC14 and a LensBaby kit, plus about 10 filters of various types and sizes. LIGHTING: Two SB900 flashes, two SB600 flashes, a compact Norman reflector kit, a Sekonic light meter, four clamp-on flash mounts. Sometimes, if I'm photographing people, I bring along a pair of Westcott umbrellas strapped to the outside of the bag. OTHER STUFF: My Amazon Kindle, cell phone, iPod, headphones, pens and paper, business cards, chargers for all of the above, portable GPS device, camera straps, duct tape, first aid kit, small flashlight, tools, spare batteries, a travel tripod and/or a monopod. I like that the main compartments can be securely locked, if you like (doesn't come with locks, but there are plenty of attachment points). It also doesn't quite scream "camera gear" - as much as anything, it looks like a serious hiker's backpack. My only complaint is that when loaded to the hilt, it's about the limit of what I can comfortably carry. If you have more gear than fits in this beast, renting a U-Haul is probably your only alternative... Overall, highly recommended. | ||
 | Celestron Sky Scout Personal Planetarium | |
 | "Great idea, poorly executed" | 2009-09-08 |
| I thought this would be a quick and helpful way to make my stargazing sessions more efficient. In theory, if the device worked exactly as advertised, I suppose it would meet that goal, but using mine is a struggle.
First, the good news. With the latest patches applied, the unit is fairly reliable and contains a wonderful wealth of information. When it's properly configured and used, its truly amazing at the speed you can find nearly any visible object in the sky. This is indeed impressive. Now the bad news... As others have suggested, the GPS is somewhat suspect, taking a long time to acquire satellites, and sometimes even reporting wildly incorrect coordinates. Luckily, I know my local coordinates well (you can get them on Google Maps if not) and it's not the end of the world to input the time and location manually. My other usability gripe is the display, being difficult to read in the dark due to small type and poor contrast. Better would have been a black screen with orange text, or a way to see the text inside the finder. As it is, I find I need to carry a small magnifier to make out the writing on the display. Initially, the battery meter scared me a bit, showing about half way consumed batteries after only about an hour's use. Seems this is the meter though...the unit apparently needs 2.4 volts to operate correctly, and some of the calculations on the meter are suspect. A fresh new pair of batteries is often 2.7-2.8 volts, but many types of battery drop voltage fairly quickly at first, then run at this lower voltage for a considerable time before dropping again. The SkyScout seems to think that if a battery pair goes from 2.8 to 2.7 volts, it is 25% depleted (25% of the way to 2.4 volts, I guess). Moral of the story: don't trust the meter. Finally, there's the magnetic interference issue. I live in a semi-rural area, certainly no large metal structures within several thousand feet of my location, and yet I almost always get the magentic interference indicator. About the only metal object within a hundred feet of the unit is - you guessed it - a Celestron telescope and mount. But, I have to say, even when the unit complains about interference, it seems to be more than able to find the objects I'm scanning for, assuming the rest of the setup worked. Overall, cautiously recommended if you don't mind fighting with it from time to time. | ||
 | Linksys WRT610N Simultaneous Dual-N Band Wireless Router | |
 | "Fast and easy to setup" | 2009-07-30 |
| Replaced a Linksys WRT350N with this unit, and so far no regrets... Setup was fairly simple, although I'm not a fan of the Cisco/Linksys setup program that hides many of the advanced setup options from you. Would have been nice if they read the existing configuration off my Linksys device, and then carried all of the settings forward to the new one, but alas, they didn't think of that. Instead, I plugged the router into my PC directly (having no other network connections present) and let the setup program configure all the defaults. Once that was done, I went into advanced setup by pointing my browser to the WRT610N, and manually changed what I wanted. Sounds involved, but it's really no different than anything else out there. I was happy to see that the router worked flawlessly with the DDNS service from DynDNS. The wired gigabit connection seems a bit faster than my previous router. The network speed test site I use consistently reports 8-10% higher speeds on the new configuration, and local file transfers between two computers on the router also seems about 10% faster. On the wireless side, I'm getting a consistent 93 megabits on my 802.11N clients, up from 80 megabits on the WRT350N. Range of my 802.11N devices also seems somewhat better. The 802.11N implementation seems to work with all of the devices I have, including a few Apple computers. Earlier 802.11N products have struggled with the Macs, but this one seems fine. I use the storage link function with an inexpensive USB hard drive to host an FTP site on the Internet. Although poorly documented, there's a built-in FTP server in the WRT610N, and if you point the FTP port to the router, you get an instant FTP site that references whatever content you expose through the USB port. In conjunction with the DDNS service I use, this gives me a quick and simple way to access some of my data across the Internet. One missing feature I'd love to see is the ability to run dual networks in parallel (that is, two SSIDs). Most of my computers are WPA2 capable, but I have a few older devices (printers) that only work on open networks. At the moment, this means I need two wireless access points - one for the 802.11N devices with WPA2 and one for the older devices. Would be nice if Cisco could give me a way to service both in one package. The Cisco/Linksys "EasyLink Advisor" network management software is cute, but unfortunately very limited. If you're like me and have multiple networks and a broad mix of wired and wireless devices, you can do better. | ||
 | NIKON 2139 70-200MM f/2.8D G-AFS ED-IF Autofocus Lens | |
| "Terrific lens - lousy service" | 2008-09-19 |
| First, I have to say that this is an absolutely fantastic lens...anyone considering one will know that already, so I'm not saying anything new here. I had the prior-generation 80-200 (which itself was a tremendous lens) and I have to say that this one is better in every category. If you're wondering, yes, it's definitely worth the money to upgrade. br /br /My complaint was with Amazon's partner JR. I purchased this lens through them, even though it was more expensive than some other vendors, because they advertised it as "in stock, but takes an additional 2-3 days". Well, it wasn't in stock at all - and they couldn't tell me whether it was a few days, or six weeks. I ended up having to go through the hassle of canceling my order and hunting the lens down at another merchant. br /br /In fairness to JR, this lens is very popular among pros, and it was just before the 2008 Olymipcs, so apparently a worldwide backorder situation existed for this particular product. Still, advertising it as "In Stock" when it's not seems deceptive to me. | ||
 | Nikon D300 DX Digital SLR Camera (Body Only) | |
| "Worth every penny" | 2008-08-27 |
| Others have covered the basics, so let me just say that this camera simply helps me take better pictures than any other camera I've owned, period. Yes, there are lots of cool features that do all sorts of wonderful things, but at the end of the day, I seem able to take my D300 out with a few of my favorite lenses, and even just walking around town, I always come back with at least a few gallery-grade shots. Between the camera's capabilities and the comfortable controls, it just always seems to be ready to do exactly what I have in mind, and my results show it. I tried the 18-200 zoom, but wasn't impressed - I found it a bit soft. The 16-85 has become my favorite "walk around" lens, supplemented by the magnificent 70-200 2.8, the 10.5 fisheye and the 60 micro. Together, these give me about all the options I'd want, and the whole thing fits in a backpack style case. Don't forget to buy large (8GB) memory cards...they fill faster than you might think, especially if you choose the option of shooting raw (NEF) and JPEG at the same time - that's nearly 20mb per picture. Also don't overlook the very good Nikon Capture NX2 software that comes with the camera. I have Photoshop and lots of other applications, but while Capture NX2 isn't as flexible as Photoshop, it also seems somehow a lot simpler to go from the idea I have in my head to a finished print in my hands. Only minor gripe I have is with battery life...I find that on my typical mix of flash and non-flash shots, reviewing images on the built-in screen and so on, I get about 150-200 shots per battery charge. I have a few spare batteries, but perhaps it's a reason to buy the add-on grip. Bottom line is that the D300 has proven to easily be the best thing I've done in a long, long time to improve my photography. | ||
 | Epson Sylus Photo R2880 UltraChrome K3 Large Format Photo Printer | |
| "Wow prints" | 2008-08-09 |
| I've been making due with an older Epson Photo EX...can't believe how much the technology has improved since then. The printer is easy to operate, and colors are nothing short of amazing...fine, detailed prints like nothing I've ever been able to produce. Drawbacks are probably what others mention...the matte black/photo black swapping thing is just silly, the ink cartridges are too small, at highest quality settings the printer's a bit slow, no built-in network interface, and the printer's physically a little on the large size. Still, for me it's all about the final image quality - and nothing I've seen tops the Epson in this regard. | ||
 | Sennheiser HD650 Audiophile Open Dynamic Stereo Headphone | |
| "Pretty amazing" | 2007-04-03 |
| Echo most of the positive comments in other reviews. Wonderful sound overall...I find them neutral, which can sound a bit "dead" to some, especially if you're used to "colorful" speakers. They need a fairly powerful headphone amp if you want the best sound - your portable iPod probably isn't up to the task unassisted. Like many fine speakers, I find they needed a good 8-10 hours of listening to fully break in. The semi-open air design lets you hear what's going on around you, which I like but it's not the usual "dead zone" you get from sealed earcups. Finally, I find the fit slightly snug, but not annoyingly so. Great choice overall. | ||
 | The RVer's Bible : Everything You Need to Know About Choosing, Using, & Enjoying Your RV | |
 | "An okay intro - not a lot of "meat"" | 2006-08-15 |
| Generally okay for a newbie like me, but I was hoping for more. I found the writing style a bit annoying...seemed to say the same things over and over, with lots of "noise" words and little substance. Almost like they had contracted to write a 20,000 word book - but when they were done, there were only 12,000 so they went back and added some "fluff". | ||
 | Agile Database Techniques : Effective Strategies for the Agile Software Developer (Wiley Application Development S.) | |
| "Lots of good ideas, but not always practical" | 2006-07-31 |
| Like many, we struggle to de-couple logic from data, and we pay the price every time we need to do substantial schema changes. Scott's approach is sound, however, like many who write on these topics, it lacks a certain degree of pragmatism that will let you take a big, complex system from ugly, embedded database queries to one with a clean, extensible persistence layer. Not that there's anything particularly wrong with the approaches outlined, it's just that it starts to feel like a "religion" and that makes any of these ideas hard to retrofit back into a complex system. | ||
 | Viking VT200WH Professional White Toaster 2-slice | |
| "Serious little toaster in the Viking style" | 2006-07-31 |
| Nothing flashy...just solid construction in the typical Viking style: built like a tank, and it looks like it'll still be running in fifty years. Cooks toast and anything else you can stuff into a toaster with complete evenness, even when several items are toasted back to back. Cool exterior and easy to clean, especially with the pull-out crumb drawer. | ||
 | NETGEAR WGT624 802.11g 108Mbps Wireless Router | |
 | "Plenty of problems, even with latest revisions" | 2005-09-06 |
| I've only had mine a few days, but that's been enough time for me to become completely dissatisfied and to return the unit. The major problem I had was performance - using an older Linksys gateway, I routinely achieved throughput of 5800kb/sec (cable modem to my cable provider's test site). With the Netgear, I averaged 60kb/sec, even on the hard-wired ports...that's nearly 100 times slower than my old Linksys unit and barely faster than dialup! Netgear proved unable to find the problem, or even to suggest a plausable explanation. I happen to be a networking expert and after spending many hours with the Netgear unit, I could find no other explanation other than some type of internal problem to explain the problems I was seeing. I did try exchanging the unit for another just in case my results were a fluke, but I had exactly the same result. By the way, the unit does seem to run abnormally hot: I measured the surface temperature on mine to be nearly 120 degrees in spots. Internal chip temperatures must be higher still...can't see how a device like this will have a long life running at these temperatures, especially if installed in an environment having poor cooling or air circulation. Taken all together, I ended up returning the unit and trying another brand. | ||
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