November 2006 Archives

Well time to start thinking about Christmas, here are some gifts and some good deals right now:

Altec Lansing IM7. I got one of these boomboxes for myself, but now I find that everyone seems to want one. They are expensive, but really work well, the sound is awesome. Right now Pricegrabber shows that J&R sells them for $170, but if you use Google Checkout, you get a $10 discount that just covers the $11.72 shipping. The $170 price is about as low as I've ever seen them.


Apple MacBook 17. For the geek that has absolutely everything, this is a desktop replacement notebook that costs $2800 direct from Apple plus sales tax. It is hard to find discounts on Apple, but there are two deals, first, Next Warehouse has them for $2665 or about $150 off and you will also find people with rebates like Macconnection that are at about the same level. If you don't mind getting last years model, the older 2.16GHz Intel Core is available for around $2100, which is a pretty good deal if you love the screen but don't need the screaming dual core performance and 2GB of memory (not me, I want it all!)

Buffalo LinkStation Pro 500GB. I got this for the house and was skeptical because stuff like this normally doesn't work, but this little guy has 500GB of storage and plugs into a gigabit ethernet. It is very fast and very quiet. Also has a nice piece of software that does auto backup, plus it can be a web server too. Discounts are hard to get, but both Nextwarehouse and PCNation has it for $287. A bargain!

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Well in backing up a DVD, I tried DVD Decrypter but it failed with some structure errors and it is old having been updated March 2005, the other two rippers to try are DVD43 which runs in the background and Smart Ripper which is now hard to find.

Happy Turkey Day! Here are some recipes from Elise that look pretty good. The main issue is how to protect the breast from becoming too dry. Brining really helps (put it in salt water for 12 hours before).

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Right outside John's door is the most amazing bike trip, you literally go through a 100 years of history, from rice paddies to skyscrapers all right next to each out in Kangqiao 康桥. Thanks Adrian for the great pics

OK, I admit it, the cab got lost between Puxi and the Emerald (路博园 lu bo yuan) . It has to have the worst directions in the world because it is so confusing. Here are the Map. The basics to know are that it is in kangqiao and it is on the outer ring road and hunan gong lu 湖南公路

Here are directions from the Emerald to various locations, so you can reverse them to get there:

Lujiazui 30 minutes Hu Nan Road --> Jin Xiu Road --> Hua Mu Road --> Yang Gao Road --> Century Avenue --> Lujiazui
Pudong Airport 20 minutes Hu Nan Road --> Outer Ring Road --> Pudong Airport
Hongqiao Airport 30 minutes Hu Nan Road --> Outer Ring Road --> Xu Pu Bridge --> Outer Ring Road --> Hongqiao Airport
Bund
(Wai Tan) 25 minutes Hu Nan Road --> Long Yang Road --> Nanpu Bridge --> Zhong Shan Dong Yi Road --> Bund
Huaihai Road
(Puxi Tai Ping Yang Dept. Store 2) 35 minutes Hu Nan Road --> Long Yang Road --> Nanpu Bridge --> S-N Viaduct Road --> Huai Hai Road
Xujiahui
(Puxi Tai Ping Yang Dept. Store 1) 45 minutes Hu Nan Road --> Long Yang Road --> Nanpu Bridge --> In Cir. Way Viaduct --> Cao Xi Road --> Xujiahui

Personally, I don't like these directions because they are kind of round about. The easiest thing to do is to get the on the A20 highway （A 二零高速公路) and get off at the Hunan Gong Lu (湖南公路）

Shanghai Community International Schools

Map and Directions

From Puxi: (浦西）
Take the Lupu or Xupu Bridge. （卢普大桥或溆浦大桥）
Follow the signs to the Pudong Airport. （开道浦东机场）
Take the Hunan Rd. exit. （开到湖南公路 出口）
Turn right on Hunan Road. Turn right on Xiuyan Rd. （小拐修沿路）
The school is on the corner of Hunan Rd. and Xiuyan Rd.

SCIS - Pudong
800 Xiuyan Road
Kangqiao, Pudong 康桥浦东
Shanghai, China 201315
86-21-5812-9888 (FAX: 86-21-5812-9000)

Well, the first generation of truly amazing camcorders are coming. These are hard disk based and record in high definition format (technically called AVCHD, how is that a mouthful, it is really just a version of MPEG4/H.264 used in iPod Video). Anyway Camcorderinfo says that it is really quite amazing but that it isn't quite a high resolution as the Canon HV10, but is easier to use ironically because it is a little larger.

The big drawback is that the encoding is higher bandwidth at 15MBps, but there are still artifacts when you take the video.

Net, net, this area is moving so fast, if you can afford to wait for the next turn of the HDD HD crank, I would. It is moving ahead so rapidly that the standard definition SR-100 I bought two months ago is already obsolete! And I'm sure this new SR1 will be as well shortly.

Here's to Duane and Natalie who were asking me to karaoke this next time. S. Korean National anthem'.htm

Donghae mulgwa Baekdusani mareugo daltorok
Haneunimi bo-uhasa uri nara manse

CHORUS:
Mugunghwa samcheolli hwaryeo gangsan
Daehan saram Daehan euro giri bojeonhase

Namsan wie jeosonamu cheolgapeul dureundeut
Baram seori bulbyeon naneun uri gisang ilse

CHORUS

Gaeul hanal gonghwal hande nopgogu reumeopsi
Byalgeun dalgeun uri gasim ilpyeon dansim ilse

CHORUS

Igi sangnwa imam euro chungseongeul dahayeo
Goero una jeulgeo una nara sarang hase

CHORUS

I've always loved this song by Elton John and thought it was just about two brothers leaving, but saw being a Cold Case mainly because of its great Soundtrack I found out that the song has a missing set of lyrics. Apparently, it was really about a fictional Vietnam vet who has lost his sight and was headed out of the US to live in Spain. Totally change the meaing when you know about the lost lyric. Most amazing the song was written recorded in just one day.

I had the great fortune of hanging out with my buddy Steve for a day in Shanghai. He had never been to China so the challenge was how to show him something so complicated to explain in a day. I'll call this my

OK, now that the Canon sales are here, I have to decide what lenses I need to complement the EF 24-105mm F4L IS USM lense I have. I have to say that this lense is very nice, but that there are many times I wish for that additional stop to F2.8 that the EF24-70 F2.8L USM would have given me. The tradeoff was no stabilization and also getting an additional 35mm of zoom. Many times this means I end up shooting at ISO 800 instead of ISO 400 with the F4L. Fortunately, the Canon Digital Rebel XT that I have shoots pretty well up to ISO 800, but there are times I would pay for an additional stop:

So, what to do now, well there are two alternatives, if sticking with F4.0 being OK, then I should get:

• EF-S 10-22mm F3.5/4.5 USM. This is a super wide lense that is great for landscapes. It is slower as noted, but has great quality even if it isn't a L (e.g., professional) lense. Pricegrabber has it for $660 with a $15 rebate (doubled if you buy two lenses). Also it is incompatible with a full frame camera like the Canon 5D when I get one, although at $600, that is not as big a hit as I would have thought.
• EF 100-400 F4.5/5.6L IS USM. This is the lense that I borrowed from Matt when we were shooting the Blue Angels. It is really an amazing focal length and we got some great photos in bright sunlight. That's the main tradeoff. With a 1.6 lense factor, this is like having a 600mm monster of a lense for nature shots. Pricegrabber has this bad boy at $1350 so pretty breathtaking, but not as bad as the two lense below. It is a high quality lense though.

If I want to get that extra stop and go to the professional F2.8 constant aperature lenses, then I lose wide angle at the bottom (10mm vs. 16mm is a big deal) and also at the top end (200mm vs. 400mm)

• EF 16-35MM F2.8L USM. This is a really amazing lense and it shows in terms of cost. Pricegrabber has it at a breathtaking $1340 which is amazing even with the $100 double rebate. Usually you use a small aperature in landscape so you don't need a fast lense.
• EF 70-200MM F2.8L IS USM. This is actually not really a big zoom for nature photography but more often used in general cases. It is amazingly fast and with image stabilization, you can really take picture in low light. Or for use in sports photography in low light. I personally have found my Nikon equivalent 70-200 great for informal portraits as long as you can manage the 3-4 pound weight of the beast. It is really a general purpose lense that complements the 24-70 F2.8L really well. It is also astoundingly expensive at $1670.

So the net, net if that if I had all the dollars in the world, I'd get the 70-200, 100-400 and the 10-22, but that is enough to buy a car really. I'll probably settle on the 10-22 and 100-400 and crank the ISO up.

Thanks to Duane for the reviews, here are three fine hotels. The ones we like on the Pudong side are the Shangri-la and the Grand Hyatt, but what about Puxi (浦西）

Westin at Bund Center is the best location. It is within walking distance of the Bund, the bars and the nightlife.

St. Regis is the nicest inside (and the most expensive) and in fact they are call themselves the only six star hotel in Shanghai, but the location isn't super interesting

Four Seasons is very good and its in a busy downtown location, so it is super urban.

Finally there is the JW Marriott which is right next to People Square and all the parks.

By the way Elong has good rates for these place (e龙）

Adrian and I are moving all our photos over to Fotki to see it all. He's got his new woodworking project there!

Jim pointed out that Google now has a downloadable app for reading Gmail., Get it at http://gmail.com/app from your Java enabled phone. They even have a Blackberry version!