My stupid lens on my stupid D-SLR had been playing up for a few months. Instead of nicely taking a photo when I asked it to, the camera would report, “Err 01 – Communication between the camera and lens is faulty, check lens contacts.”. I have no idea precisely what that means, however I tried out every fix on the net that I could find:

• Detach then re-attach the lens;
• Cleaning the lens contacts with an eraser;
• Shouting at the camera

Each fix seemed to work for a little bit – perhaps long enough to record a few photos, but the problem gradually got worse over a number of months. By September, it was so bad that I couldn’t take any photos with the lens.

So, off to Jessops we trundled, where we did a bit of a swaperoo to see if the problem was on the lens (my suspicion), or the camera. Unfortunately, the tests were inconclusive, so we had to send both of them back to Canon for a service.

Ten weeks, many frustrated phone calls to Jessops, and a painful-though-it-could-have-been-worse £170 later, the camera and lens are both safely back in our possession. So far, we haven’t had a chance to give it a good run for it’s money, though preliminary tests show much promise – no signs of the dreaded Err 01 message anywhere.

We’re off to Canterbury this weekend which should provide us with ample photographic opportunities. If my lovely camera and lovely lens really are back, I’ll be snapping shots of Matthew and Emily so quickly, they’ll think they’re being followed by the paparazzi. Fingers crossed!

For about as long as I can remember, or at the very least, since a few weeks ago, I’ve been wanting to build a Media Centre PC. It’s not the easiest thing to research – there’s a few places where you can buy something “out of the box”, but I couldn’t find any that would put a machine together out of the pieces I wanted. So, I finally bit the bullet, bought all the bits, and put it together myself!

I’ve never actually put a computer together from scratch before, so I was a little intimidated. The thing I was most worried about was the CPU, as there’s so many things that can go wrong with it. For example, if you don’t have enough thermal paste between the CPU and the heatsync, and it can overheat, burn out, and potentially damage the motherboard as well. Ironically, if you have too much thermal paste, the same thing can happen!

There were a few other gotchas as well, like just trying to get everything to fit. It’s a fairly large case, but due to the way it’s “zoned” (which helps with cooling), there’s not a lot of space for all the cables to fit in. Plus, I made a few n00b mistakes, such as not attaching both power connectors to the motherboard, and then wondering why nothing happened when I powered on.

But after a few false starts, I finally had everything up and running! Here’s the final product – as you can see, the machine fits perfectly into our existing TV cabinet:

The only thing that I couldn’t get working properly was the sound. I was relying on the sound from the motherboard, but as it turns out there’s no optical output. So after a number of frustrating hours trying to get that working, I’ve given up and ordered a Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio card instead. Awesome!

Update: The new audio card has arrived, and has been installed. Just wish I got this one in the first place, it would have saved a lot of headaches!

After much humming and harring, plus a very helpful advanced phone search website that Karl found, I decided to get myself a Nokia E65. Yes, I know what you’re saying – it wasn’t even on the shortlist – but it still seemed like the right choice to me.

For me, the number one feature of this phone is that it has built in Wi-Fi support. Admittedly, I can’t see myself using it to surf the net on unsecured networks all that often (but I guess it’s handy to know that I can if I need to, and the browser is better than I thought it would be). But the big plus of this is that the phone also has built-in support for VoIP. Better yet, you can configure the phone such that if a Wi-Fi network is available and you make a phone call, it will default to using VoIP instead of the cellular network.

Other selling points of the phone – for me at least – were:

• It’s a slider phone. I’ve never had one of these before but I liked the concept and was keen to get one.
• Built in 2MP camera. Admittedly, it’s not exactly time to trade in my dSLR just yet, but still the photos are much better than they were in my 1st-gen Razr.
• Built in bluetooth and IR.
• Long battery life. The battery is rated to 10 days on standby, but we’ll see what that actually equates to.
• Small form factor. Obviously bigger than my Razr was but when closed, this is still a pretty small phone.

So far so good! Oh, and most importantly, it seems to make and receive phone calls quite well, too .

Now we just need to find a new phone for Kristy…

Since I’m now in the market for a new phone, I’ve been searching around to try and work out which one to get. It’s been a while since I bought one and honestly I’m no longer sure what’s best. I remember when buying a new phone basically meant go and buy the latest Nokia and be done with it, however now it seems like there’s stiff competition from lots of other vendors.

I figure for what I use a phone for, the most important features are -

• Bluetooth – and what’s more, it must be able to sync with the Mac address book over a bluetooth connection. (This immediately rules out any Samsung phones unfortunately.)
• Large address book – since my address book syncs with my Mac address book, it brings down ALL the details for each contact – phone numbers, address, e-mail, etc. So a large amount of address book storage is essential.
• Camera – essential for moblog!
• Decent battery life – Goes without saying, really. Oh and speaking of battery life, it would be good to have a phone that charges over USB.

So with that said, here’s my shortlist, in order of price:

• SonyEricsson w810i – about $300.
• Nokia 6300 – about $350.
• SonyEricsson w850i – about $430.
• Nokia N80 – about $450.

The thing I especially like about the last two is that they’re slider phones, and I like the concept of having a covered keypad. But, they’re both somewhat more than I want to spend – $400 should be more than enough for a mobile.

Anyway, I’m putting it out there for comment/votes – which phone do you think I should get, and why? Is there any other phones that should be on the shortlist for consideration? Has anyone had/got any of these phones, and if so would you recommend it?

Spurred on by Nathan’s new earphones, I decided that it was finally time to part with the crapola earbuds that Apple give you with an iPod, and get a decent pair of headphones instead.

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Wifey told me just last week that she simply couldn’t exist any longer without a bluetooth headset, so that she didn’t have to be connected to the computer while she’s Skyping the folks back home. And, being the diligent, subservient husband that I am, I noticed there was a $10 mail-in rebate from Buy.com, so I ordered one for her. (Ohh, and I’ve just noticed it’s gone up by another $10 – looks like I bought at the right time!)

Thus far, the headset has proved fairly good, though my major complaint has been that it’s not very loud. Then again, I’m very much used to Skyping using our premium corded headset, which not only is top-of-the line (in terms of Logitech’s lineup, anyway) but also benefits from having 2 speakers.

Still, you can’t beat the freedom that cordless devices offer. And the range is brilliant, certainly more than enough to cover pretty much anywhere in our apartment (about 10 – 12 metres). And since BlueTooth is built into our laptop, we don’t need any special adapters to get it running. Even bigger bonus, it’s completely compatible with my mobile phone!

Not bad for $30, eh?

There are at least 4 curious Charlies who just can’t wait to find out what my new toy is. Well wait no longer – it’s a Motorola Razr!

Truth be told, I had no real desire to purchase a new mobile phone just yet; I was quite happy with my Nokia 6610. And given that our local contact list consists of about 6 people, and the 2 most frequently called of those people are going back to Sydney in December – well, the need for the latest, state-of-the-artiest phone isn’t really too pressing.

But sadly, my Nokia had started down the path to its death. Namely, it started turning itself off every few hours for no particular reason. Handy when you go to the flicks and forget to switch the phone off yourself, but otherwise rather annoying.

So given that electronics in the USA are so cheap, it turns out buying 2 Razr’s would still have been cheaper than buying 1 in Australia, so I lashed out. I’m most impressed, it’s an awesome little phone – lightweight, bluetooth, in built camera (photo and video), etc. The selling point for me was that not only does it sync to Outlook via an in-built USB port, but the phone actually charges over the USB link! Totally awesome.

Thanks to Brother J for the recommendation!

Just in case you have no idea what the title of this article refers to – it’s a camera. And not just any camera – our brand new digital SLR! That’s right, Kristy and I (mainly Kristy) have entered the world of photography.

So how is it, I hear you wonder? Well, here’s our initial impressions, firstly the pros:

• The colour produced in the images is simply beautiful.
• The shutter sound is also beautiful – it’s so great listening to an SLR fire!
• The control system is totally awesome (once you work it out!).

There’s even a little dial next to the viewfinder that lets you compensate for the eyesightedly-challenged. It actually simulates wearing prescription glasses, which is a huge bonus for Kristy. Also a bonus for me, since happy wife = more money in the gadget budget.

And now the cons:

• Man, that thing is heavy! Much heavier than the old point-and-shoots that we’re used to, anyway. I rest assured that this is a good thing, but it will take some getting used to.
• I was under delusions of grandeur, believing that an expensive camera would take nothing but amazing images. Turns out you can still take bad photos with it, they’re just a better quality of bad.
• And again, with delusions of grandeur, I believed that photos of me would make me look taller, more muscular, and more often than not I expected a slight golden glow to shimmer off the outside of my body – like you were photographing an angel. Again, it turns out I was wrong; I still look tired, rundown, and slumpy – perhaps even more so as the pictures are freakishly realistic.

So overall it’s all good, all the bad points will get better with time, practice, and patience… well, all except for the last one!

Since we use Skype as our phone service (instead of having a landline), we (by which I mean “I”) decided we (“I”) should invest in a headset/microphone combination. I figured that the coolest PC accessories are made by Logitech, so their Premium USB Headset 350 was a clear winner. Added bonus – they make me look like a commander from Star Trek!

After some shopping around, I found the best price was a Buy.com – coming in at only $32.98, they were about $17 cheaper than RRP. And, since I’ve already bought a heap of stuff from them, they send me vouchers all the time – so there’s another 10% off. And then today when I got them, I found a voucher for about $5 worth of credit on Skype! So the overall cost was only about $24.

Of course I had to try them as soon as possible, so Sista Suz was lucky enough to receive the first call. Reports from Australia are that the microphone is “very clear”. The cushy earpads are also very comfy on the ears, and they have a handy volume/mute switch on the cord. At $24 I reckon these are a top buy – gerrod.com rating: 9.5/10. Logitech gear rocks – I think I’m going to buy some shares in that company (if they’re listed)!

Kristy has wanted a pedometer for ages, so I surprised her by ordering one from Amazon. It arrived today – only 3 days to ship, that’s awesome! So far she’s walked 1167 steps. She needs to take it to the gym so she can configure it properly (walk a set distance, check how many steps it took, then calculate stride length) – but it certainly shows promise of being a very nifty little toy.

And of course, I couldn’t buy a toy for her without getting a new toy for myself, too! Actually this one is for both of us – a remote for the iPod. It’s pretty wicked – has a range of 60 feet (20 metres?), and it transmits via RF (instead of IR like normal remotes) so it works around walls! It even comes with a little cradle for the remote, so you can strap it onto (for example) the handlebars of your bike. Very, very cool.