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I’ve been testing a media loan Panasonic TZ7 (25-300mm 12x ultrazoom) compact digital camera for the last 2 months. The TZ in TZ7 stands for “Travellers Zoom” because this camera is aimed directly at the huge market of travelers who want a relatively small easy to use camera for their holidays but don’t want to compromise on image quality or only have 3-5x zoom.

Good Features

The 5 key features which make the Panasonic TZ7 perfect for holiday makers who aren’t photography enthusiasts are:

1. Highly automated camera settings – great because most people don’t have the photographic skills, knowledge or inclination to learn how to use manual settings on a camera
2. Leica DC-Vario Elmar Lens – allows you to take photos from 25mm (wide angle) to 300mm (Ultrazoom) using it’s 12x Optical Zoom
3. 25mm Wide Angle lens setting – Makes it much easier to take photos of landscapes, cityscapes, large buildings, crowds etc and fit in all the detail without cropping
4. 300mm Zoom lens setting – Lets you zoom right up close and fill the full picture frame with photo subjects like wildlife or a specific person in a crowd.
5. LCD Screen – 3 Inch 460,000 dot screen makes it easy to frame photos and view them afterwards and the Intelligent LCD function detects light conditions and automatically boosts backlighting by upto 40% making it easier to see.

Annoying Problems

• MODE dial – at top right of the camera which switches between Intelligent Auto, Program and Scene modes is far to easy to accidentally jog and change Modes while you’re using the Zoom lever next to it. This MODE button should require more finger push pressure to change.
• LCD Screen – is very glossy which is fine indoors and in shadowy areas but outside in bright sunlight it’s quite reflective. Would have preferred a Matt finish (non-reflective) screen
• HD Video – Besides the standard Quicktime video format the TZ7 can also records HD videos at 1280 x 720-pixel resolution which creates AVCHD Lite files. I agree completely with DC Resource’s TZ7 review which says “The main benefits of AVCHD Lite are 1) longer recording times, 2) better video and audio quality, and 3) the ability to play the movies on Blu-ray players (PS3 included) and modern Panasonic televisions. The main downside is that viewing and editing the videos is a pain in the butt.”
• Few manual settings – If you want a compact camera which you can use in full manual settings mode look elsewhere, this camera was designed to be used by untrained photographers not enthusiasts.

Photos of the TZ7 + Photos Taken by the TZ7

View Photos of the TZ7 + Photos Taken by the TZ7 (slideshow below)

Should You Buy the Panasonic TZ7?

Verdict: If your a backpacker or “mum and dad” camera buyer who wants a mostly automatic, easy to use small camera for your holidays with good image quality and the ability to take photos at wide angle and ultrazoom you should definitely buy the Panasonic TZ7.

Other People’s Reviews of TZ7 (Sold as ZS3 in America)

Everything we said about the Panasonic TZ5 holds true for its sister model TZ7. The camera’s metal body handles nicely and it delivers very good image quality at low ISOs and does a better job than most others in this test at higher sensitivities. However, the TZ7 improves on the TZ5 by adding an excellent 3.0 inch/460.000 dots LCD screen and a very versatile HD movie mode to the package.

We like: Good image quality, intuitive user interface, decent high ISO output (for smaller prints), 25mm wide-angle, relatively fast lens at the long end (F4.9), large high-res screen, versatile movie mode

We don’t like: Some highlight clipping of contrasty scenes, occasionally slightly underexposed flash shots
- DP Review

It’s no secret that I really liked last year’s Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5. Its replacement – the Lumix DMC-ZS3 (also known as the TZ7) – is even better, in most respects. I love the new lens and its very versatile focal range, and the Intelligent Auto Mode and face detection functions have been nicely enhanced. And that’s on top of the amazing 3-inch LCD, easy-to-use interface, and snappy performance that the ZS3 inherited from the TZ5.

While I like the ZS3’s ability to record longer movies than its predecessor, the new ADCHD Lite codec is a pain to work with. The ZS3 is also in desperate need of some manual controls – I was really hoping they’d appear on this model, but no luck. Despite these and a few other shortcomings, the DMC-ZS3 remains an excellent travel camera, and one that I can highly recommend.
- DC Resource

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I follow goings on in the Australian, European and American media very carefully and consider what I do for a living as a professional blogger to be at the bleeding edge of change in the media.

So I immediately volunteered to be a blogger/photographer when I found out that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) was hosting a collaborative international event called Media140 Sydney on Nov 5 & 6th bringing together leading journalists, broadcasters and media academics about the future of journalism in the era of real time news and citizen journalism.

In the spirit of new media and the real-time dissemination of news via the Internet I am embedding live (experimental) video coverage, photos I take at the event here via Flickr and using a tool called Coveritlive to track+archive the conversations on Twitter about the Media140 Sydney event.

Neerav’s Media140 Sydney photos

Coveritlive Archive of Media140 Sydney Twitter Stream

Live (Experimental) Video from Media140 Sydney

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This is the 1st Australian review of the new OXX Digital Vantage DAB+ Digital Radio. At $149.95 RRP the Vantage has the benefits of being portable with a rubberised outdoor resistant finish at half the price of the more fully featured OXX Digital Classic model

One unexpected strength of the Vantage is being exceptionally good at picking up DAB+ signals even in my suburb which has fluctuating digital radio signal strength. When I took it out of its box, tuned all the stations and started testing I didn’t even notice the antenna wasn’t extended until 30min later.

Before you look at any digital radios make sure you read my detailed Introduction to Digital Radio in Australia – I asked digital radio spokespeople at ABC / SBS what their offerings would be and also found out what Commercial Radio, Community Radio and several digital radio manufacturers had to say.

Photos of OXX Digital Vantage Styling/Design

The Vantage has a retro black/silver design which should remind elderly readers of Bakelite radios from long long ago. Play the photo slideshow to see what it looks like from various angles.

Good Features

Reception/Antenna – Second to none, far better at picking up Digital Radio broadcasts and playing them without any sound dropouts than the other digital radio’s I’ve previously reviewed. Picked up all the Sydney stations and displayed the digital radio station datastream eg: current song name, weather forecast, news headlines etc on screen.

Portable – With a rubberised non-marking soft touch weather resistant exterior and 15-18 hours Battery Life using 6 C Cell batteries it’s great for taking out with you while gardening in the backyard, to the beach or a sports event covered by radio eg: cricket match, NRL etc. Weighs 800gm (Dimensions: height 14.4cm x length 21.2 cm x depth: 7.6 cm)

Speakers/Sound – 2watt mono linear magnetic full range speaker feels biased to treble and sounds quite fine upto volume 12/16 but after that it’s a bit distorted. Suited for a studio apartment but doesn’t have enough power for a big open space house living area

Extras – Dual Alarm Clock with Snooze Function and 10 preset radio stations of your choice. Battery or mains power as it suits you.

Warranty – Generous 2 year (24 Months), most consumer electronics products only have a 1 year warranty.

Weaknesses

Connectivity (Inputs/Outputs) – Stereo Line Out and Headphone jack output. Digital Radio + FM Radio input. If you want WiFi internet radio or access to songs via shared network drive you’ll have to pay more for a different digital radio.

Display & Buttons – 2 line screen is clear but it’s somewhat tedious to read scrolling text news updates or song names because the scrolling speed is so slow. The display is clear and easy to read from a distance if you change the backlight setting to “Timeout: ON” (which actually means that the timeout never happens). Make sure you turn the radio off when not in use if “Timeout: ON” because if you press Standby the screen stays backlit.

Buttons – Are small and not raised enough. The button font would be easier to read if it was Sans-Serif (not slanted and italics). The buton to change stations is labelled “DAB Station”, It should have been named “Select Digital Station” or something similar because the vast majority of people don’t know what DAB is.

Buttons would be more user friendly if they were below the screen to make them easier to press and read when the radio is on the grass outside on the lawn or on a kitchen counter

Verdict

If you want a quality portable digital radio to use outside which beats all the others at picking up all the stations clearly and has thought put into the design with a 2 year warranty than by all means buy the OXX Digital Vantage for $$149.95 RRP.

However if you don’t need portability – for $40 extra you could buy a Kogan digital radio with an unpolished design but lots more features or for $150 extra you could get the more deluxe OXX Digital Classic model with a big multi-line screen, WiFi radio, network share drive access etc.

The OXX Digital Vantage will go on sale from the 1st week of December at Wicked Digital online and probably also at some big electronics chains like Harvey Norman, Bing Lee etc.

DISCLAIMER: as of November 2009 I will be doing intermittent (now and then) paid design and usability tests for OXX Digital on new products that they are considering designing. This will not effect blog reviews of their products in any way as OXX has indicated they are keen on any feedback which can be used to improve their products

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Compared to most people I don’t buy or own much stuff but I still have too much stuff so I am slowly giving away, selling or throwing away all my excess stuff (clothes, gadgets, shoes, books etc etc etc)

“too much stuff” photo credit: joemad

I need don’t need all this stuff, I don’t even use a lot of this stuff. I think you’ll agree with me when I say that when you have too much stuff you spend more time finding space to store it and make room for yourself then you spend actually using the stuff.

“stuff for sale” photo credit: debaird

The problems with living in an economy where consumption (buying stuff) is a way of life encouraged by governments and corporations are more than you think

Problem: Negative Externalities of Stuff

A lot of the costs of the stuff you buy are “negative externalities” not reflected in the cost you pay at the counter. “Negative externalities” is a terrible phrase which basically means let somebody else deal with the problems (pollution from factories, roads packed with transport trucks, sick overworked sweatshop employees etc)

Story of Stuff – Externalised Costs

Problem: Rental and Housing Costs

Most of us aren’t really thinking when we go shopping to buy stuff like another TV, better speakers, more shoes, another suit, a second car, a new set of dishes, more towels without stopping to consider: is it necessary, can I afford it and the most important: What is this new thing really costing me?

Australian household debt is growing at a fast rate and I think buying stuff using personal loans, credit cards and home loan withdrawals is a contributing factor.

photo credit: stubbornmule

All this stuff is costing us quite a bit in storage alone. We are building new homes with bigger kitchens and more bedrooms, bathrooms and closets than ever before. When you buy a bigger home to accommodate your stuff, you pay higher taxes, higher heating bills, bigger cooling bills, a bigger mortgage, plus whatever the upkeep costs are for the stuff itself.

Problem: Overwhelming Stuff

Comedian George Carlin wonders why we keep so much stuff and describes the problems it creates

In fact he developed a routine around the concept of “stuff”. Carlin’s belief was that we all have a large supply of stuff, possibly too much stuff, but we insist on storing it in smaller and smaller containers of stuff. When our closets become full of too much stuff, we move some of it to drawers. If we need stuff for a vacation, we put some of our original stuff in suitcases. We even buy smaller versions of stuff just to have on hand when we leave our big stuff behind on a trip.

What You Can Do

Looking at all the stuff in your bookshelf, cupboards, garage, floor etc can be scary and you may feel that it will never be organised or gotten rid of.

So I suggest a step by step approach. Every day choose something in your house (it can be big or small) and give it away, sell it or throw it in the recycling/rubbish bin.

And when you’re going to buy new stuff like clothes, electronics etc remember that most of the pleasure gained is from anticipating buying it. As soon as you buy it it will become of less value to you and get pushed aside in favour of new stuff.

“shelves of stuff” photo credit: striatic

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I’ve had several people ask me recently for advice about buying a new laptop/notebook computer so I thought I’d create this general overall guide explaining the differences and pros/cons between Netbooks, Medium/Ultraportable notebooks and Desktop replacement laptop computers.

To start off whichever netbook/standard/desktop replacement notebook computer you decide to buy, I strongly suggest buying one with a Matt screen instead of a Glossy screen. Glossy screens look great in a computer store but as soon as you use them near a lightbulb or rays of sunlight they become really annoying because they are highly reflective.

Netbook Computer

What is a netbook computer? That’s a good question and not easy to answer because when netbooks started to be sold in 2007 they were all very similar : quite cheap, same size, parts and looks running Windows XP with an Intel Atom processor, compact keyboard, 1 GB RAM, 2-3hours battery life, WiFi Internet, small hard drive and screen size between 7-10inches.

These days netbooks at the upper end have a few more features such as 2Gb RAM, screen sizes between 9-12 inches, 160Gb hard drives or optional quieter, higher performance Solid State Drives (SSD) and extended battery life theoretically upto 12 hours.

The vast majority of Netbooks sold by manufacturers run on the Windows XP operating system, soon to be replaced with the newly released Windows 7 which runs very smoothly on netbooks.

A few netbooks are sold with the Linux operating system and at time of writing none are available from Apple computers because they concentrate on producing high end, high profit margin products and netbooks are a high volume, low profit margin product.

For most people a netbook computer will be their 2nd laptop or spare computer, suitable for email, carrying around on a backpacking holiday, casually surfing the Internet, Skype chat and social networking on Facebook, Instant Messenger or Twitter.

Netbooks don’t have optical drives so you can’t use them to listen to music on CD’s or watch movies on DVD or Bluray. They also don’t have enough power to play any serious graphical games or play HD video files from your camera.

A netbook screen is half the size of an average desktop LCD screen of 17-24inches so can’t fit in as much information on screen. When I was studying at university I found that a netbook screen was too small to read PDF lecture notes and required too much scrolling.

I use a fast desktop computer in my office, with lots of storage and a big LCD screen. On the other hand netbooks are really light and low cost so when I go to conferences/events I take my 10inch Kogan Netbook Pro with me to take notes because it’s best suited to that situation.

A real netbook should be much cheaper than $1000 including accessories, preferably closer to $500 and try to get a battery with at least 3-4hours life (ask for a 6 cell battery) because it would be a real pain to have to charge it every 1-2 hours of use.

Standard/Ultraportable Laptop Computer

Standard laptops have screens that are around 12-14 inches in size. They’re the kinds of laptop/netbook computers that have existed for ages and are commonly used by business people who have to travel between their office and various other locations for meetings and business events.

A standard laptop will cost well upwards of $1000 but in return you get a full size keyboard, screen that’s big enough to easily read and write documents or surf the internet, powerful CPU and video graphics card to open lots of applications at once and play movies or HD video during long commutes.

Ultraportables like the Lenovo Thinkpad X200 laptop I was recently loaned a media unit of for testing pack more speed and features into a specially buiilt 12-14inch laptop body which is designed to be very light.

If I was a “road warrior” business person who had a desktop PC in their office but needed a quality laptop to use everyday for offsite meetings and plane trips I’d definitely buy a Lenovo Thinkpad ultraportable.

Sure they are not cheap and don’t have a touchpad but I was very impressed with the exceptionally solid build quality, well designed keyboard and high performance with a remarkably light weight of roughly 1.5KG (depending on specification & accessories).

If you tend to throw your laptop around and are looking to buy one check to see if it’s protected like the X200 which has an external magnesium-alloy casing and internal magnesium “roll-cage” skeleton to protect the hard drive from bumps.

Desktop Replacement Laptop Computer

As the name suggests this kind of Laptop/Notebook is so powerful and fully featured that a business person who bought one could replace an existing Desktop PC and not need to buy another one. These laptops usually have 15-17inch or larger screens and contain the newest, fastest, most cutting edge hardware and therefore sell at a premium price of several $1000.

I recently borrowed a media loan 17″ DELL studio laptop to test Windows 7 and it was an interesting experience as I’ve never used such a huge laptop computer before.

For starters it is HUGE not just because it’s got a large full HD 1920×1200 17″ screen that allows you to open 2 windows side by side but also because it weighs almost 4 Kg including all the accessories.

This leads me to guess that desktop replacement laptop computers are most likely to spend their lives sitting on an office desk, unless their owners travel literally everywhere by taxi or have an accompanying butler who carries it for them to meetings

A desktop replacement laptop computer should be able to do everything that a desktop PC can do including store lots of data 500GB to 1TB+, have a powerful graphics card and multi-core CPU, lots of RAM 4-8GB which allows you to use a 64 bit operating system, DVD/Bluray player, 802.11n fast wifi and Gigabit ethernet, plenty of ports (eg: HDMI, DVI, Firewire, 3-4 USB etc).

If you get a HD 1920×1200 resolution screen make sure it has a Bluray player or DVD player with upscaling otherwise DVD movie compression artefacts and low bitrate compared to Bluray are painfully obvious.

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You may think that all USB Flash Thumb Drives are the same and therefore buy the cheapest one from Ebay or a stall at your local computer market – YOU ARE MISTAKEN and this article will tell you why

As you can see in the photo above: USB Flash Thumb Drives vary in many ways: Price, Storage Size, Physical size and shape, Material they’re made from, Whether they can be attached to a lanyard, Retractable USB connector that doesn’t need a cap, With cap for the USB connector, with/without Activity light etc

NOTE: prices mentioned in this article were accurate as of October $2009. The Sandisk, Lexar and Dell products mentioned were on media loan for review. All other products mentioned are owned by me

Price

When I bought a Corsair 256mb USB flash drive in mid-2006 it cost $36 ($144/GB)

Today I could buy a Corsair 16GB Flash Voyager for $36 ($2.25/GB). My point is that the price for USB thumb drives constantly falls and the capacity constantly rises.

If you need to buy one, buy it now at the capacity level you need now. Chances are by the time you need a larger drive it’ll cost next to nothing anyway

Storage Size

The largest size commonly sold in Australian stores at the moment is 32GB starting at around $70. 64GB, 128Gb are also available at a much smaller number of stores but are understandably much more expensive eg: $550 for a 128 GB drive!

I don’t think 64GB, 128GB, 256GB+ capacity USB 2.0 flash drives are going to be useful because they are limited by USB 2.0’s transfer speeds.

Speed

A 32GB Transcend Jetflash V60 drive filled with JPEG photo files connected to a Dell Studio 17 laptop took 22min 43.2 seconds to copy the photos onto the laptops hard disk. Because the write speed is half as fast it would take roughly 47minutes to fill the drive with photos copied from the laptop.

I estimate that even if a 256GB USB drive can be as fast as the Transcend drive I tested it would take 352 minutes (5 hours 52minutes) to fill it with files and 176minutes (2 hours 56minutes) to copy the files back to a hard disk drive.

This shows the limitation of the USB 2.0 connection used by USB flash drives. 32GB+ capacity USB flash drives won’t be useful in real life until the widespread implementation of USB 3.0 which is supposed to be 10 times faster than USB 2.0 and can upload and download simultaneously (USB 2.0 can only do one or the other).

Physical Size and Shape & Material

If you have a look at the top of this article you’ll see that there’s a big range in how large drives are, the smallest drive is both thinner and much shorter than the largest.

Most USB thumb drives are made from plastic so they are cheap, light and usually small. Unfortunately this means they are much more likely to break if dropped, stepped or sat on.

Some USB flash drives have an all metal case like the Lexar Jumpdrive or a mostly metal case like the Sandisk Cruzer Contour. They’re much more likely to survive being scratched by car keys, dropped, sat on etc but are heavier and fatter than the plastic drives so they make it hard to plug other devices into adjacent USB slots.

Reliability

Generally speaking USB Flash Thumb Drives have a limited number of write/delete cycles. The more heavily you use them to transfer many files/often the faster they will fail. For 99% of people this isn’t relevant because a drive will likely be discarded and replaced long before it wears out.

However I strongly advise against using cheap no name USB flash drives sold on Ebay and computer markets or given away at a conference. These are cheap/free for a reason – it’s because they’re made from low quality parts and are much more likely to fail.

I do some casual work at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the flash drives I’ve seen students using which fail and cause them to lose whole assignments are almost always cheap no-name drives.

Activity Light, Caps, Lanyards and Inbuilt U3 software

I think that flash USB drives with flashing activity lights are useful because they show when the drive is being written to. You should never pull a USB drive out of a computer when it’s light is flashing because you might lose data

USB Drives with a detachable cap are useless, sooner or later you will lose the cap.

Drives with swivel cap protection for the USB connection can be found every now and then (see 2nd drive from the left in photo at top of article). The benefit with these is they can be much smaller.

USB Drives with retractable USB connections are becoming more popular because they don’t need a cap. However this brings up other issues because the retractable slider switches are not always designed well and can get stuck.

If you like to hang your USB drive around your neck make sure it has a Lanyard loop and it’s big enough to attach your preferred lanyard.

U3 software is builtin to some USB drives and allows some applications to be run directly from the USB drive without leaving any trace of your programs or data on the computer. I personally dislike U3 software as it causes more harm than good:

All USB Flash Drives that support the new U3 standard have a locked, undeletable, 2nd drive emulating a CD-ROM drive which is setup to auto-install the U3 software on any Microsoft Windows PC you plug the Flash Drive into. If you don’t disable autorun, or hold down the shift key anytime you plug one of these drives into someone’s Windows PC the U3 software pops up and annoys you .. every .. single .. time

I have also seen U3 flash drives not work properly on Linux, Apple Mac OX, Windows 98 etc as well as not working at photo printing kiosks. So U3 sucks and you should avoid buying any USB drive with it builtin. If you’re unfortunate enough to own a USB drive with U3 builtin try these U3 uninstall instructions

Visit the Rambling Thoughts Blog regularly to read articles about Technology, Personal Finance, TV Shows, Politics, Environment, Books and more