In my last blog entry, I wrote about the Olympus Stylus 850 SW. Today, I’m going to look at the Olympus Stylus 770 SW. Both are digital cameras. Both are labeled as “rugged.” Both, presumably, are kid-proof, a primary consideration when you have an “active” child in the household. (For you non-parents, that’s a code word for somebody who sneaks into the garage and experiments with power tools when Mommy is taking a nap.)

Why am I looking at the 770 SW? Isn’t it just like the 850 SW? No! The 770 comes in brown (as well as blue and silver). That’s my favorite color these days because dirt doesn’t show as much. When dirt doesn’t show as much, there’s less to clean, right?

Also, the 770 has some user reviews posted on PriceGrabber, and I wanted to see what folks had to say.

But first, the facts.

This 7.1 megapixel, 5.5 ounce camera is designed to withstand a five-foot drop, immersion underwater down to 33 feet and temperatures as cold as 14-degrees Fahrenheit. That’s not bad. But, it can also withstand up to 220 pounds of pressure. I don’t know what scenario this would be important for, but I’m sure my son could figure it out. It has a 3x optical zoom and a 5x digital zoom, and it includes 27 shooting modes, including “fireworks,” “behind glass” and “underwater wide macro” (for those up close and personal shots of that octopus you’ve just discovered while scuba diving in a cave). Of course, my camera usage usually requires two modes — auto-everything still pictures and moving pictures. But should I ever have spare time on my hands, say, in another 13 years, it might be fun to experiment!

But what do people say who have had their hands on one of these? christina_shonts calls it an “awesome” system for something that’s waterproof. All she’d change is the zoom range.

Esprod considers the 770 “easy to use.” Plus, it fits in a pocket. But he or she doesn’t’ care for how well it takes indoor photos.

ForSpud in California, who used seven other digital cameras before this one, likes how it’s “built like a tank.” After dropping a Minolta on the floor from about three feet up and having the focus go bad, he or she believes the 770 will be able to hand that. ForSpud took the 770 on a trip to the Caribbean and came back with these impressions: Because it’s waterproof, the shutter button is “very stiff.” That meant many of those beachside photos turned out blurry, “due to camera shake” when pressing the shutter. Also, “the flash pictures were terrible.” This camera aficionado took a Minolta, Panasonic and Canon on the trip, and all of them produced much better pictures than the 770 SW, even at a lower resolution.

So, maybe the search needs to continue. I’m already taking pictures of a little boy in motion. I don’t need any more assistance getting blurry shots.

I’m on the hunt for a camera, and since the young heathen in our family can be hard on mom’s toys, I’m thinking a rugged-style camera might be a good bet for us.

So today, I’m looking into the Olympus Stylus cameras. Recently, Focus blogger Richard Schneider wrote about the Stylus 850 SW, a 7.9 megapixel digital camera with a 3x optical zoom. This one, according to Richard, is supposed to be “shockproof, waterproof, freezeproof, and dustproof.” Does that make it kid-proof too?

The company says its “shock-absorbing” technology can survive the impact of a five-foot drop. That’s good. My guy is still under four feet. So, unless he whales it purposefully across the yard, it should survive his terrestrial aerobics.

In the water, it has rubber gaskets and o-rings to keep out moisture. Plus, it’s supposed to be able to work under water to depths of about 10 feet. Since our kiddie pool is only about three feet deep, it presumably can withstand sudden submersion too.

Plus, it’s supposed to do well in freezing temperatures. That’s less of a problem. All my son wants to do when it’s that cold is build snow aliens. I’ll be controlling the camera, and keeping it warmed up in my pockets between shots.

But here’s where it really gets interesting: You can wash this camera if it gets dusty. Now, I don’t really know about dust permeating the casing and inner-workings. But I do know that sticky, grimy fingers can really muck up sensitive electronic equipment. This sounds like a winner to me for that feature alone. Next time, I’ll look at another Olympus camera, comparably priced, a bit heavier and a bit older. Why? Because it has user reviews attached, and those are worth gold when making a purchase.

Folk music and the listening world has lost a biggie with the departure of Utah Phillips, who died last Friday in his sleep at the age of 73 in his home town (and mine) Nevada City, CA.

According to an obituary put out by his family, his songs have been performed by Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, Joan Baez, John McCutcheon, Tom Waits and Joe Ely. In the late 1990s Phillips collaborated with Ani DiFranco on The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere and Fellow Worker, which was nominated for a Grammy award.

I used to enjoy tuning into his radio show on Sunday afternoons, titled “Loafer’s Glory,” which shared the stories and music of hobos, labor songs, tramping and railroad lore, topics that will never go out of style in this country. As his host radio station KVMR put it, “Utah has caught ‘the west bound.’”

When he wasn’t singing or writing or broadcasting, Utah enjoyed watching local little league and could be found wandering and chatting with folks at local parades and demonstrations (hands in pockets) or hitting locals up to support the homeless shelter, which he helped found.

Utah was definitely worth digging. Just tune into his music and you’ll see what I mean.

The digital camera we bought on the birth of our son nearly six years ago is giving out on us. The flash makes an ominous crack! whenever we take a shot — though I’m sure I can’t blame that for the fact that my spouse shuts her eyes the very instant I click the button to shoot a picture with her in it. So I’ll be doing a little shopping around to find our the next camera. In the course of my initial research, I came across a resource on PriceGrabber.com that I wanted to share with you: A “How-To-Buy Guide” for cameras.

For example, I didn’t know there were two types of digital cameras — point and shoot (the kind I currently own) and digital SLRs (the kind pros use because they can switch out lenses).

Also, according to the guide, a five-megapixel camera will probably be fine for most of my needs. Here, I was fantasizing that I’d be getting a 10-megapixel or greater device. It even suggests going with a 2- or 3-megapixel camera if all you’re going to do is post photos to the web. As the guide explains, “Paying for pixels you don’t need is a waste of money.”

There’s plenty of other advice in this brief guide too, touching on what to look for in a viewfinder, how to choose the right lens for a point-and-shoot and the advantage of buying a camera that works with the same memory cards you already have or that will fit into other flash devices you own.

I won’t even touch on some of the newer features that have cropped up in the latest generation of cameras. Go to the guide to read up on those.

If you’re shopping for a GPS, an MP3 player or a TV, you’ll find guides for those too.

Now, if only I could figure out what camera has an anti-blink device , I’d be set.

Did you ever make little claymation movies? My brother did. I remember one he made, just a tube of clay inching its way along the table, like a friend of Gumby’s. “The Worm” was shot with a new Super-8 camera my folks had given him and a production budget of about seven cents for the clay. From those humble beginnings, my brother made a career in the movie business — driving his own camera truck and doing keygrip work (and complaining about chucklehead Hollywood “types” and which stars have souls and which ones are jerks, but that’s another story).

And since I’m always pondering my next career move, here’s a cool software program I’d like to try: Claymation Studio from honestech.

The idea with Claymation Studio is that you create the images, then capture them into the software using a digital camera, webcam or DV camcorder. Then you apply small changes, add background images and music and there you have it: You could become known as the next Walt Disney.

What do you need the software for? An onionskin feature lets you view the previous frame in transparent overlay to help you create the next frame or image. A rotoscope feature lets you take one image and overlay another image to create a third image. Finally, a chroma key (that blue screen you see behind weather people on TV) lets you change the background so that it looks like your character is standing on your desktop, for example.

The program runs on Windows XP or Vista and doesn’t require any majorly intensive processing power, but the manual does suggest you defragment your hard disk before installation — a suggestion I’ve never seen in documentation before.

Who knows where it could lead? I hear Pixar is hiring animators. And as we all know, the actor who played Mater definitely has a soul. I hear he gave everybody on the shoot these really great Car crew jackets.

I was once again putting out big bucks for ink cartridges and bemoaning the day I bought into the idea that color printing was a revolution in personal publishing. And a thought struck me: Who said I had to use a color printer for everything?

If you’re like me, it’s possible that color is rarely essential to your work. (In fact, the last time I needed to do color printing, it was because I was in charge of printing out flyers about the neighborhood springtime picnic potluck, and the person who made the flyers used red in the headline.)

HP puts out a slick little laser printer by the name of P1006, which reviewer hugocharmichael calls “an excellent black and white laser printer for the home.”

It connects via USB cable to your computer (Mac or PC), has a compact footprint and is engineered to use the smallest amount of power possible to get the print work done. Plus, it spits out up to 17 pages per minute. The warranty lasts for 12 months. The printer uses the 35A toner cartridge.

Geofreeyz2000 likes how it can produce that first page in “less than 4 seconds” from the time you turn it on.

Be forewarned: Reviewer Fastor says that the starter cartridge you get with the machine is only good for about 700 pages, compared to the 1,500 you’ll get with a replacement cartridge.

Have you checked out the Asus Eee PCs? My blogging buddy Mervyn over at BlogBytes has covered this device a couple of times (see “A Second Laptop” and “Budget Notebooks“).

The attractiveness of the Eee resides in its weight and its price. For $400, you get an XP or Linux notebook that weighs two pounds. A slice of pepperoni pizza from Costco weighs more than that! The display is seven inches on the diagonal — smaller than your desktop flat panel to be sure, but larger than that iPhone screen you squint at every time a new message comes in. RAM is 512 megabytes, a bit on the pokey side if you’re running major apps like Dreamweaver or Microsoft Office; but that’s where you have to think outside the box. The Eee isn’t intended to be a primary computer — it lets you compute on the go.

Storage comes in the form of a solid state drive — from two gigabytes to eight. SSDs tend to be hardier than standard hard drives, which means you can lug them around inside your notebook without being so concerned about the normal dings and dents of a life well-lived. Plus, they’re easy on power. The four-cell batteries in the Eee will give you about three hours of compute usage.

The WiFi 802.11b/g is built in for wireless connection. The system includes a bunch of software for writing (Google Docs), emailing (Web Mail), chatting (Skpe and Messenger) and listening (Internet Radio). It includes a built-in card reader, camera, speakers and microphone.

This is the kind of computer you could take with you on your travels around the world. You can post photos, do blogging, chat with family members, and stop worrying about whether it’ll get ripped off or dented on that crowded bus in Uganda.

It’s time for a new watch — and I don’t mean a Timex from the grocery store. I think when a person is my age — not young but not so old I don’t still have a lot of seconds left — it’s time to invest James Bond-style — quality for the long haul. And, because I live on the West coast but have multiple clients on the East coast, I need a watch that’ll show me what time it is here and what time it is there. Plus, I’m not a fan of digital watch faces. Give me little hands that move around on a dial.

The question is, am I ready to give up the magic of a watch battery?

That’s what I ask myself, as I ponder investment in a Stuhrling men’s Manchester Dual Time automatic watch.

Listen to this loving description:

“Bold and stately, the Stuhrling men’s Manchester Dual Time automatic watch will keep you prompt for tee times and Sunday brunches–no matter how much fun you’ve had the night before. This timepiece is constructed with a 42-millimeter stainless steel case, a square stainless steel bezel, and a 23-millimeter perforated brown leather band with buckle clasp for breathability and casual style. A strong synthetic sapphire window protects the copper dial face, which features detailed vertical texturing and a playfully inverted design for a unique look. Arabic numerals in five-minute increments line the face, while two sub-dials located at the traditional three and nine o’clock positions convey the hour in both Roman numeral and Arabic numeral form. In addition, this handsome watch includes automatic-self-wind movement, and is water resistant to 165 feet.”

Look at that face! The minutes tick by with the big hand (just like you learned in school). And each of those little faces shows the hour in two different parts of the world.

Plus, on the backside you can watch the inner workings of all those Swiss gears.

But this is an old-fashioned watch that requires winding. Although I can get into the routine of that — just do it after I brush my teeth at night or set the clock-radio — I have to wonder how well it would hold up under the curious attentions of my son. He doesn’t know his own strength, and I can see him winding this one with all the vigor that he turns off hose bibs — you crank and crank until you couldn’t possibly make it any tighter. I guess James Bond didn’t have a 5-year-old in his life.
 

Come July 1, those of us traveling in California will be facing fines if we drive while holding a cellphone to our ears. The fines aren’t huge — a first offense is $20, but with penalty assessments that adds up to $76. Personally, I can’t use my phone while I’m behind the wheel — I weave all over like Carol Migden on a bad allergy day. But I can’t say the same for Significant Other. She frequently calls me while I’m at my desk, and I say, “Are you driving right now?” If there’s a pause on the other end, I know what the answer is.

So it’ll be easy for me to justify the cost of a couple of new headsets for our vehicles. I’d rather it went to buying new stuff than to landing ignominiously with a small tinkle in the State of California general fund or, worse, having somebody I love plow into a tree.

I’m looking at the Aliph Jawbone Wireless Cell Phone Headset – an elegant choice SO is sure to approve of. A lot of readers have weighed in on this model, and here’s the sense I get:

This headset does an amazing job of blocking out background noise. (I’m thinking our 5-year-old counts in the backseat definitely counts in that category.)

It’s nice looking — always a good thing when you’re walking around with a dongle dangling off your head.

The sound itself gets mixed reviews. Some say it’s excellent; others call it “tinny.”

The controls are in a weird position on the device, but since you don’t really need to use them much, that’s OK with most users.

You can easily bust something when you take it out of the recharging cradle. On that recharger, apparently, the company doesn’t offer one for the car — rather an oversight.

The earpieces included with the unit are horrible. They don’t fit well, especially if you have small ears. (But even if your ear isn’t small, it’s still custom to you.) Many users seem to be replacing them with Jabra EarGels.

Well, looks frequently trumpet usability in this household. Tinny tone and lousy earpiece be hanged! California Highway Patrol, here we come…!

When you plug a search term into a search engine, you never really know what’s going to pop up in place of what you were really looking for. In my case, I was searching for a new pen I’d just read about that records audio while you’re taking notes, but instead PriceGrabber shared with me links to a pen that can tell you when currency is counterfeit.

Say what? That’s right. The Drimark 351BCL is a counterfeit bill detector pen.

You simply make a small mark on the currency (US bills for the links above). If the mark is amber (yellow to us mortals), it passes. If the mark turns dark brown or black, that means the bill could be fake.

It’s not 100% foolproof. According to the company, if your counterfeiter goes “green” — meaning he or she is using recycled paper such as newsprint or cardboard — the dark markings won’t appear. The presumption here, of course, is that if that $100 bill comes on cardboard, it should be questioned, and you will be smart enough to know that fact.