The eventual move to Firefox

Today I was so bored at work waiting for things to stir/dry etc I investigated making the switch to Firefox. I had tried v1 of the browser last year and wasn't impressed - it was much slower than IE and seemed to need a lot of plugins to achieve what I was used to. Last week I tried out the IE7 beta on my work laptop. Unfortunately, the very first website I visited (KLM to book our conference flights) wasn't compatible so it had to go. I decided to give Firefox 1.5 a go after seeing the range of (now stable) plugins. So far I've got ones that block all adverts from sites (pop-up and those annoying banners), enable more features of the tabbed browsing and, most importantly, allows me to run IE inside a Firefox tab for those sites that still insist on IE. So far I have to say it's still a little slow on occassion compared to IE, but the features such as the RSS reader, tabs and multiple search bar make it a better bet than IE. I'll probably move back to IE once V7 is properly available and those that know still claim that Opera is the best browser by far, but for the moment I'm happy with Firefox.

The search for a new camera begins...

First off, I know I still haven't done any more Ghibli posts. I watched Pom Poko tonight - it's a very much overlooked Ghibli offering due to the somewhat risque nature of the tanooki legends. But I digress... Over the years I've given several people advice on digital cameras. It's time to come clean to any of those that are reading that I really didn't know what I was talking about. A combination of factors has made me realise that it's time to upgrade from my current Minolta Dimage X20 - it has served me well, but it's just too limitng (only 2 megapixel and no control over aperture or shutter speed). After venturing into the photography forum on the DVDForums, (don't worry if you don't want to register, you can look at all the photos here) show that there are not only some very talented amateur photographers out there, but the average compact camera isn't going to cut it.
Canon have produced a very good guide to what all the options such as ISO, aperture and shutter speed actually do - you can find that here - although designed for dSLRs it's aplicable to all cameras. The final straw was this website where you can obtain 18"x12" for only £1 each (that's essentially a mini-poster). Of course, a 2MP image is going to get very blocky at that size.

After studying most of the DVDForums pictures, it became obvious that dSLR was the way to go. Unfortunately, at this point in my life I can't really justify spending £500 on a camera (and then more on lenses), so that remains a dream for the future. Instead I am left to decide between "prosumer" cameras
(ie the "superzoom" 10-12x optical zoom devices that resemble old-skool cameras) or an upgraded compact. The beauty of my X20 is that it fints excellently into my coat pocket (and I now take it everywhere with me). A lot of reviews mention cameras being "too big for pockets" but these mean trouser pockects and the like.

After my typical over-investigation I'm left with a number of candidates - all with pros and cons:

Ricoh Capilo R3 - has image stabilisation (ie the camera can detect hand shake and moves the lens accordingly to eliminate blurring aka magic) and an amazing 7x zoom (and it's smaller than the x20). Unfortunately it's blighted by high noise levels at higher ISOs (high ISOs make the sensor more sensitive so you don't need such a long exposure - ie at night). This would seem to rule this model out, but then I found this site where the camera has been locked to a low ISO and has produced some stunning pictures. Also doesn't seem to have full aperture/shutter controls.
Panasonic FX9 - again, has image stabilisation and a fantastic Leica lens, but once again, is seemingly let down by it's night time pictures. Also "only" has a 3x zoom.
Panasonic TZ1 - this is a bit more like it - although somewhat thicker than the FX 9, it retains the image stabilisation and has a 10x zoom! To early to tell if noise has been reduced, but doesn't seem to feature a manual mode.
Fuji F11 - has been getting rave reviews for it's noise reduction, allows shooting at previously unheard-of-in-compacts ISO1600 mode and has full manual controls. Unfortunately there's no image stabilisation and only a 3x zoom.
Casio EXz750 - Casio seems to be the average buyer's favourite at the moment - very small with a high megapixel rating. Full manual controls but no other stand out features.
Canon A620 - loads of people love this one; 4x zoom, a 2" fully movable LCD, the option to add "expensive" lenses for higher zooms and full controls. No image stabilisation though.


As always, I'm more confused than ever. I've managed to get over such things as large LCDs (it seems loads of 2.5" and over screens actually use the same resolution as much smaller screens leading to a large screen, but poor image) and high megapixel numbers (unless the sensor size increases, upping the MP value will actually introduce more noise). The deadline for a decision is early May as that's when I'm off to Japan, poster in hand, to attend the Fpi7 conference.


As you've probably noticed, some of my recent attempts at artistic pictures (some with the aid of Paintshop Pro) are scattered throughout this post. I don't feel any of them really captured what I saw, but I'd love some big prints of a couple of them. If you want any full res (1600x1200) shots, just ask...

Finally, here's a list of decent camera websites for those of you looking for info:
Photography Blog
Steve's-Digicams
DCresource
DPreview
Imaging resource

BIG EDIT
Of course, within 24 hours of me posting this, Canon have gone and announced over 30 new products, the one that catches my eye is the A700. Cheapish, all the features I want except image stabilisation. One to keep an eye on I feel...
EDIT #2
Now Ricoh have announced an R4 model. Thankfully all of these newer cameras are out over Easter so I should have time to read the reviews and decide.

The first half bottle formal

Well, out with the old... Trevs has now fallen into line with the rest of Durham and "enforces" a half bottle limit on wine taken into formals. Blondie and I came prepared - each with a 37.5cl bottle (mine was the bottle that I got from the Hilton in Edinburgh over the summer and has been sat in the fridge ever since). We sat between a group of 4^th years and some 1^st years and both groups seemed perfectly happy with the arrangements. In fact, in a bid to make formals more "formal" we had tablecloths (albeit made of paper) and wine glasses - very classy. Now if we could just get some better food. Of course, there were many ways around the cutback - from drinking the first half of the bottle before hand (in the shower in some cases...) to bringing in orange juice laced with vodka, but then ban isn't really about that as I see it; it's there to protect the people that feel pressureed into drinking the whole bottle during an hour long meal - those that are going to get battered will (and did) do so anyway.
Another nice thing was that Blondie and I stayed in the hall after the meal chatting with a 4^th year, Fran, until we were chucked out - just like we used to do in 3^rd year. In the bar were the next two anti-drunk measures: no shots from the bar without mixers (which is pointless as the carbonated mixers get the alcohol into your bloodstream faster and therefore get you drunk quicker) and a wandering senior on the lookout for drunks. Tonight it was Adrian and he was "undercover" in his formal-wear which proved to be a good ploy as several people came up to him without realising he was sober and gave themselves away. We met up with Alan and Ollie and innevitably ended up at Rixies dancing round like dickheads. So a good night all round really.

The trials of a 7th year

It's pretty hard going. I find myself right back where I was 12 months ago: A series of "promising" reactions formulated over Christmas either didn't work or are proving a nightmare to purify. I'm starting to feel the pinch of time constraints. Last year I was looking forward to kicking back over Easter and catching up with all the things I never got around to doing (of course, that never happened...), and this year I have the "excitement" of organising the best part of 250 journal papers into some semblance of a chronologically linked story and get started on my literature review. That's right, the thesis must begin. Add on to the search for a job which is planned to start at around that time.
Days just seem to be passing freely - already we're 1/3 of the way through the second term... The only thing I'm trying to do is not to slide down into a pit of absolute despair as all it will take are a few good reactions to get me back on track - and surely I'm due some of those soon? My first 2 years seem to be getting wrapped up quite nicely - the paper we've been writing since October is nearing completion (ah - I look forward to the day when I can search for myself on Web of Knowledge). The work has got me nominated to attend an organic symposium in York in April to talk about it (not too scared; for some reason I've completely conquered my fear of public speaking even though I'm sure I sound like a right spaz) and will also form the topic for a poster that will accompany me to Fπ7 in Osaka in May (take that tax payers!). I was beginning to think I'd be going alone (well, with the odd Ukrainian PDRA, so as good as alone), but thankfully my labmate, Kara, is coming with me. I'm planning to stay out there an extra week to travel around a bit - Kobe (setting for Grave of the Fireflies), Himeji, Kyoto (Former capital that escaped WW2 bombing boasting over 10 UNESCO world heritage sites) and Tokyo (for the happiest place on Earth: The Studio Ghibli museum). Of course, this will throw away even more precious lab time, but I don't care - I've wanted to go ever since I started ready the SNES magazine SuperPlay (all those years ago in 1992). I'll write a bigger section on Studio Ghibli in a few weeks time - there's a glut of DVD releases coming soon: Howl's Moving Castle, Whisper of the Heart and Only Yesterday. As always, the more I read about the films I haven't seen (especially Whisper...) the more I want to see them.

But that's enough of a Miyazaki digression. The MCR gave a talk to the finalists about postgraduate study last week; I wrote a quick powerpoint introduction and the last question to ask on it "Is it worth it?" is certainly very pertinent. If I can get through this - everything that's happening and emerge the other side as Dr Kiran then yes - it will have given me the determination to carry on through just about everything. Let's hope I get there...