by jaganath on May 10, 2007
If you are travelling with your photography equipments, probably you will not like to lug your laptop around. It is simply too much to carry. There are options like PMPs with built in hard drives and SD card slots which you can carry. They are ideal backup solutions, but bit expensive at $200 upwards. I hit up on a simple idea, which can help me save a lot of money but give me an excellent backup option with no need to invest any additional Rupee. I pulled out the following items which I no longer use:
- A old Sharp Zaurus Linux PDA with a compact flash and SD card slot.
- A few compact flash cards varying in capacity from 512 MBto 2GB. Total capacity: 4 GB.
Any PDA with both a compact flash and SD card slot will do. Many older iPAQs had this option. You can get those at a pretty cheap price from ebay. Whenever you want to take a backup, you can just insert the CF and SD cards simultaneously and copy over the contents from the SD card to the CF card. Then delete the pictures from the SD card. The SD is ready to shoot again.
I was just wondering what to do with all the CF cards from my old camera and PDAs. Now they are back in action!
by jaganath on May 10, 2007
If you are a tech enthusiast, probably your feedreader is already overflowing with news that you cannot simply catchup with. With gazillion technology websites out there, it is too difficult to cope up with the information overload. At the end of the day, you will end up reading the same news from multiple sites, thus wasting your time.
The following are the only sites that I scan everyday to read the technology news. My observation is that you won't miss out any important news if you visit only these sites.
ArsTechnica. The best technology news site. Alongwith latest news, they also give in-depth analysis of technology developments, which are very insightful and thought provoking. There are regular articles on new CPUs, gaming devices and news coverage specific to Microsoft and Apple and also open source in general.
Engadget. This is the place where you need to hang out if you want to know what is the latest and greatest gadget out there in the digital jungle. Technology with an extra dash of humour is just irresistible.
Techcrunch. This blog is a must read if you want to know what is the latest/emerging trend in internet or technology in general. Michael covers new VC investments in startup companies/companies which go out of business/companies which are up for sale in ebay etc., which generally gives you an idea of what is hot and what is not.
Slashdot. Nerd hangout. More than the stories, the nerds flock this site for the quality discussions that happen on each of the article that is published. Must read if you want to know "more than just the news".
Lifehacker. Not necessarily a technology/gadget website. If you spend atleast 8 hours of a day in front of your computer, this weblog is a must read. Their coverage includes the latest software that you can download for your PC/Mac, tips and tricks to efficiently use your computer and ideas to make your online life much easier and simpler.
PS: This blog post is created for the group writing project of Problogger. Visit Problogger to read more "top 5" items in the same project.
by jaganath on May 10, 2007
Jaganath.net is (more or less) a personal blog site of Jaganath, a software engineer hailing from the southern most tip of India. I usually rant a lot about technology, occassionally I give away some tips too. I earlier used to blog at My two cents , a wordpress hosted blog. If you like the content here, you may like those posts in my old blog too.
When I am not in front of my computer, you may find me shooting some macro photographs or out in the sun shooting some butterflies. I recently bought a Nikon D40 as an upgrade to my Canon S50. You can track my photography related articles/reviews in this link.
If you want to contact me for any reason, please feel free to shoot a mail to jaganath [at] jaganath [dot] net.
Thank you very much for visiting my website!
by jaganath on May 10, 2007
In the last one year, about four of my power supplies have failed, including the camera's and the wireless router's. Erratic electricity distribution in these areas could be the reason. One thing common between all the four power supplies was the that they were electronic. None of my transformer based power supplies have failed in the last many years. If any of the new electronic gadget that you are buying has an electronic power supply, just buy an equivalent universal power supply from the local electric store and use only that - it will keep your equipment safe from poor power regulation in this part of the world (read: India).
Now, how do you identify an electronic or a transformer based power supply? Just by the sheer weight and size of it. Electronic ones (SCR based) are light and small whereas transformer based ones are heavy and usually larger than their electronic counterparts.
