There’s a simple rule of thumb when it comes to SLR’s. When the Japanese are fighting their chop sticks off to get the upgraded model out in the market, the older models become slightly cheaper. And 9 times out of 10, you won’t need the new features in the upgraded camera; at least as a beginner. Here’s a list of the finest entry level SLR’s in the market today.

Note
1) All cameras that are included in this guide are ‘half-frame’ cameras. This means that their sensors are almost half the size of a single photographic negative.
2) All prices are mentioned with standard kit lens.
3) Includes cameras priced upto $600.

Olympus E420 (Price $410)

Innovating has always been Olympus’ forte. They invented Live View and the Four Thirds system (allows smaller sensors and more interoperability). All this is now accessible in their entry level models, The E420 and E520. The E420 is the worlds smallest SLR and the image quality is on par with the flagship Olympus E3. The only thing missing is Image Stabilization. (Tip: Check out this video called “$1 Image Stabilizer“)

Nikon D40 (Price $446)

The D40 is an amazing entry level DSLR. It’s small, light, easy to use, hassle free and bereft of useless features which will haunt the nightmares of the amateur photographer.

Canon 1000D/Rebel XS (Price $475)

Canon and Nikon are usually at loggerheads over almost everything to point that you can see the applications of what Japanese MBA schools teach. Every photographer I’ve ever seen has either a Canon or Nikon.

The Canon 1000D is essentially a 400D with Live View thrown in for good measure. Everything else is pretty much the same. Watch out, it comes with a non image-stabilizer lens by default.

Canon 400D/Rebel XTi (Price $499)

When launched in 2006, the Rebel XTi caused a furor of sorts. It was quickly lapped up by the masses because it was a solid entry level camera, with enough to satiate the average to semi-pro shutterbug. And Its easy to use while at it. The only problem I see, is that its fairly bulky and yet doesn’t have Image Stabilization built in to the body.  So, the lenses can get costly.

Sony A200 (Price $499)

The A200 is a small upgrade over the older A100 with only the Image Stabilizer being improved. At the price, there are better alternatives. Its a fairly well-equipped camera, but could have priced a bit lower.

Olympus E520 (Price $505)

The E520 is the bigger brother to the smaller E420 with a chunkier feel and IS built into the body itself, which saves you the headache of checking whether lenses are IS or non-IS.

Nikon D60 (Price $552)

The D60 is an upgrade to the D40 which includes a larger pixel count (but not a larger sensor, mind) Live View and a Dust cleaner for the sensor. Just boils down to what you can afford.

Sony A300 (Price $599)

The A300 on the other hand has a tilting screen, the fastest and most natural looking Live View and a tele-converter (digital zoom, basically) button. Best of all you get 18-70mm lenses with both of the Alpha cameras while everyone offers slightly shorter lenses by default. Recommended.

Other cameras in this price point and feature segment

1) Pentax K200D (Price $565)
2) Samsung GX1S (Price $530)

I hope this guide helps you zero in on your next digital SLR. Happy clicking!

For the uninitiated, here’s a short explanation of what an SLR camera is all about. It features only one lens and hence is termed as a ‘Single Lens Reflex’ camera. There is a “reflex mirror” which transmits the light to eyepiece. And when a photo is clicked, this mirror tilts to send the light scurrying to its momma, the image sensor, which records the image.

Jargon Buster

Live View

Previewing your image is something you take for granted on a normal digital camera, but on an SLR, pre viewing the image is not such a matter-of-fact thing. There is a load of mirror movement involved in getting the picture on the screen.

Sony, who brought over Konica Minolta’s flogging SLR camera business, has developed the fastest Live View with a neat tilting penta-prism.

Image Stabilization (IS)

This is more of a requirement on smaller cameras and not really on comparatively heavy SLR’s. It corrects minor shakes that happen due to clicking or mildly trembling hands. Eliminates the need for a tripod or such like.

Image Sensor

This is where the image is recorded. It converts the light that falls on it into a string of 0’s and 1’s which is your final image.

Aperture – The light enters through a small opening which is termed as the aperture. This can be set to allow more or less light, according to the way you want to set up your shot.
Think of this as the iris in the human eye. When there is more light, the iris contracts to allow less light and when there is less light, the iris relaxes to allow more light in. Of course, you have complete control over the aperture in an SLR, which dictates how much light will be there in your image.

Lenses and lens ratings

The biggest USP of an SLR is having an extensive range via interchangeable lenses. You can fix lenses to suit your purposes and fancies.

You get an idea of how long or wide the lens is by looking at the ‘mm’ rating, no ‘x’ ratings here.

Let’s take an 18-55mm lens for example, which is usually the default lens from most manufacturers.The lower value, 18, is how wide you can go while the higher rating, 55, is how far you can go.
If you still want to be a baby and you need to know what the optical zoom rating is, subtract the lower from the higher and divide by 12. Happy?

Dust Cleaning Systems

When you are changing lenses, the image processor is exposed to dust and they definitely aren’t any good for your image. There is a filter above the sensor and this is vibrated at large frequencies, so that the dust is shaken off for good measure.

Check out this Canon video

I had a chat with Mr. Anil Dave, a professional photographer to put things a bit more into perspective.

1) What should one look out while buying a DSLR?
Anil Dave: Nothing in particular, really. Just pick up something from Canon, Nikon, Olympus or Sony. All of them have excellent cameras in the entry level.

2) What sensor should one go for? CCD or CMOS?
AD: CMOS sensors are more flexible in their architecture since you can upgrade their firmware.

3) Does having Live View matter?
AD: Pah, no. It’s just a marketing gimmick. I personally have had Live View in all my cameras since Olympus introduced the feature back in 2000 and have never used it once in my life. It might be a good for an amateur.

4) Does the presence of an Image Stabilizer matter?
AD: To an extent yes, I would say it does matter. But it can negate only minor shakes, like when you click. It certainly is not going to help when you dance around with the camera thinking the gyroscope will take care of every shake in the world.

5) What does the f2.8-5.6 etc rating on the lens indicate
AD: It indicates the speed of a lens. These ratings mattered during the days of the film. But not any more; anything having an initial rating of f2.8 to f4.0 is a very usable lens.

6) Any tips you’d like to give to budding photographers?
AD: Always remember that YOU are the photographer and have a brain of your own. Fool the camera to your hearts content. The camera won’t stop you from experimenting and neither is the fooling around part mentioned in the lame Jap to English translated user manuals.

Thanks to Mr. Dave for his patience and his willingness to share the minutest of his observations with a rank amateur like me. Also for letting me play with his gorgeous Nikon D3

Head to Part 2

Agreed, they started it, Apple borrowed a few elements and I’ll go as far as to say they are copying Apple now. No, no wait, they are completely pimping the Apple iPhone out now. And I didn’t really like the fact that were presenting it in such a way which would suggest that HTC created the whole thing. Plus, they could not implement a multi-touch input even at such an exorbitant price and they talk about “the experience”.

I was trying to play around with the phone a bit and tried zooming in on a picture. It involved a weird swirling action which I could not get right even after repeated attempts. Even the demonstrator ran into some troubles. Also, HTC’s version of cover flow is just terrible.

The HTC Country Head was totally tripping over the 3.2MP auto focus calling it “The best mobile camera in the PDA range”. Erm, I’ve been having a 3.2MP AF unit on my Sony Ericsson P1i since the last one year and its been serving me faithfully.

One more thing that put me off was the price. At 40000 INR or $800, this thing is just not happening. There is nothing really path breaking in the phone neither is it a head turner. Using it isn’t confidence inspiring at all. The touch screen is not as responsive as it should be and it isn’t half as gorgeous as its GSM cousin. Plus the few keys that are there on the phone feel flimsy.

I don’t believe that I am bashing an HTC phone to such an extent considering the fact that there is a strong possibility of my next phone being an HTC. Maybe it was the expectation of HTC getting the Android to Indian shores or even the Touch HD or Touch Pro for that matter. If priced around 25000INR or at $500, this thing might sell, but as of now, please stay clear of this phone. Go get a Blackberry instead. They are infinitely more functional, keep owners happy and have a full QWERTY keypad. Now, there.

The phone releases on November 10th.

A few questions I asked HTC India’s Country Manager, Mr. Ajay Sharma

1) Why have you chosen to lock the Diamond, GSM or CDMA to certain operators?

Ajay Sharma: We wanted the best for our phones and as far as CDMA goes, we cannot think of anyone else except Reliance Communications. We are in the basement of this hotel and we still have perfect coverage.

2) Point taken. Why is there such a large difference in pricing between the GSM and CDMA units.

AS: First of all, the hardware used has a fair amount of difference. Add to the fact that the dollar is trading at almost 20% higher than when we came out with the GSM version.

3) When do we see the Touch HD and Touch Pro coming out?

AS: See, as a company, we must thoroughly study the market before we launch a phone. Also, we do not want to cannibalize the sales of the other models. I’d certainly want to release these models right now, but it’ll be better if we are prepared for it.

Rest assured, HTC shall be coming out with 3-4 phones every quarter.

4) The HTC Touch has been the flagship model for you in India. What do you have to say about users reporting “hanging problems”?

AS: Hanging is a very generic term and more often than not, it is user generated. Users overload it with applications, hence, there are bound to be such problems. As far as I know, there is nothing wrong with the handset or the software.

The sales of the HTC Touch continue to be encouraging and are increasing every month.

5) One final question. When is the Android coming to India?

AS: Today is “Google Android No Comments Day!”

International

SendSMSNow.com

This website allows you to send texts to international numbers to 49 countries and has a 130 character limit, which is quite nice. Most of the carriers in the US are supported.

GizmoSMS

Another nifty service that supports a big list of nations to which you can text for free. These guys also have a bunch of other cool mobile services like Gizmo5, which happens to be an open talk solution. Do check it out.

From Yahoo Messenger

If you’ve paired up your phone with Yahoo Messenger, you can enter the phone number in the top bar and text away. There are no ads in the texts but it does have a limit before the receiver must reply.

Twitter.com

You can use Twitter as a group SMS service. Just ask your folks to turn on device updates. Needless to say, you need to be registered at Twitter.

For Indians

160by2.com

This is one of the most painless free SMS services. What you should do is, open a tab in your mobile browser dedicated specially for wap.160by2.com. So, whenever you need to send an SMS, just open your browsers and send to 1 person or a whole group. And if you turn off the images, the job gets done in 5KB. This translates into 5paise for most GPRS users in India.

There is also a small Java app which should run fine on most phones.

Only problem is the 80 character limit. Oh well, you can’t have everything in life.

Way2SMS.com

Very similar to 160by2, but with a higher character limit (110 to be precise). The website is easy to navigate and SMSes get delivered rather quickly. Sweet.
I tried using their WAP services, but in vain.

SMSGupshup.com

Here’s another group SMS service that also allows you to join random groups of your interest. It also allows sending SMSes to a single contact, the only problem being, it allows only 3 SMSes after which the said contact is supposed to reply back. Pity, because it has the highest character limit.

YouMint.com

Though offers nothing new in terms of text-ing, it offers a load of affiliate marketing cash to its users. Like referring your friends to YouMint’s services or signing them on to the advertisers programs. Sign up, if this sounds good.

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Cell phones are as integral a part of out lives as is food, water and air. Try living a day without your cell phone and you’ll know if I’m just making lofty statements or talking serious. Come to think of it, the one thing you check in your pocket when leaving the house is your cell phone. Everything else is not so much of a priority.

And this just shows with the rapid strides the cell phone industry is taking, thanks to the cell phone also being the most frequently changed gadget. That’s because, you might be able to live without your music player or gaming device for a day, but you just can’t do without your cell phone, can you?

Off late, Blackberry seems to have pipped Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 7 to the number 2 spot. Spot number 1 belongs, quite obviously to Symbian OS. What shall be interesting to see is how Google’s Android squares up against the competition.

And along with cell phones, the accessory industry seems to be booming as well. Users need accessories to personalize it or increase their functionality. Like Cell Phone Holsters for example, which let you clip your cell phone on to your belt. This is great for people always on the move.

Needless to say, 2008-09 will see bigger and better strides being taken in the mobile world. Wireless networks and their capabilities will touch new ground. Convergence will take bigger forms and the day when the cell phone is all you need when you step out of the house, isn’t really far away. 

There is a certain charm in everything old and that applies to games as well. Take a look at the specs of games and consoles of yore and you’ll conclude that the ‘snake game’ on your cell phone is more sophisticated than what a whole console could pull off in the 90’s. Though there’s nothing new, you ought to know how to revisit the good old days, right here on your PC.

There is a small bit of software called an Emulator which does exactly what it sounds like; emulate a specific console. It tricks the game into believing that it is being played on a console so that you can have some fun shooting half a pixel characters’, jabbing the space bar on your keyboard, and paving the way to world domination.

Kawaks

When you have an arcade emulator, you won’t need to insert coins in your PC to punch the pants off of your opponent in Street Fighter II. Install Kawaks for that and every Capcom Play System 2 game you ever desired is all yours. Hallelujah!

http://cps2shock.retrogames.com/

MAME

MAME or Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator is the biggest, baddest emulator out there which is sure to keep you busy till you are 30 if you are 20 right now. It supports around 4000 games which mean a lot of fun.

http://www.mamedev.org/

Stella

For life to have certain meaning, you need to play the original Pacman. You won’t get an Atari 2600 around, so you need to do as I say (this is so awesome!). Install the Stella Emulator to bring home the Atari 2600. Oh, joy.

http://stella.sourceforge.net/

MESS

Life’s a MESS alright, but MESS take care of the, er, MESS which stands for Multiple Emulator Super System. It’s based on MAME but is more accurate when it comes to emulation and supports a lot of platforms. It also supports Nintendo DS, Sega Dreamcast and Sony PS1 games. I hope you shall conclude that I do more than just make messy statements.

http://www.mess.org

Some other things that didn’t help were the emcee who was also the Asia Pacific head, was a bit too enthusiastic with the proceedings and said “Cool, isn’t it?” around 457 million times. He also expected people to know things like how many million songs were sold from the iTunes store and how many applications the App Store sold. Christ save them. And people actually knew. Christ better save them.

Plus, the gadgets were kept under a black cloth which totally looked like a machine gun was kept below it. It gave me the feeling that I was attending some Jihadi press conference where the AK-447i with Mary Jane compartment was to be unveiled. I waited patiently till the whole presentation got over and when that happened; I had greater respect for my own levels of tolerance. If there is one thing that you learn from engineering, its tolerance.

I finally got my hands on the super slim iPod Nano and was completely miffed at its thickness. Its unbelievably thin and makes you question the laws of physics when you consider that it has a battery that ploughs on for a full day. It also has a whole host of features which actually had legitimate “Cool, isn’t it?” questions to it.

The more important ones would be, integrated Nike+ (to calculate workout data), accelerometer (to change screen orientation from portrait to landscape when held accordingly), a complete range of colours, a brighter screen, voice memo recording (there ain’t no internal mic. Its built in to the earphones) , Genius play list creation (a play list created by an algorithm which selects songs that’d go best with one particular song) and all that faff.

I also tested the new in-earphones that Apple put out. According to them, it had 2 drivers to keep the audiophiles happy. It was decent but frankly when you consider the 4200 buck price, the one normally bundled with iPods sounded better. Go get a Sennheiser CX 400, life will be much better.

Moving on to the new iPod Touch, Apple have given it a comprehensive nip and tuck. They’ve slimmed it down (but holding it isn’t exactly confidence inspiring). That’s thanks largely to the stupid chrome finish at the back. When will they start offering a matte finish option? I don’t want something I will need to wipe every 42 seconds.

All the features mentioned in the Nano are here and there is an external volume button which makes you praise the Lord for all the small mercies in life. Controlling volume on the earlier iPod Touch was such a pain. There is also a tinny speaker, enough for listening to music in a quiet environ or for games. And oh yeah, the games are killer. All of them make use of the Accelerometer and you can tilt your Pod to glory. You can download them from the App Store which can thankfully be accessed by us ‘3rd world’ Indians.

The iPod Shuffle and iPod classic have been untouched. Apple calls this lineup the best ever. Oh well, they do that all the bloody time. Do stay tuned, I shall give you comprehensive reviews of iPod Nano and iPod Touch as soon as Apple gives me test units.

Pricing

Apple iPod Nano 4G

• 8GB 9700/- in India or $149 from Amazon
• 16GB 12500/- in India or $199 from Amazon

Apple iPod Touch 2G

• 8GB 15,100/ in India- or $229 from Amazon
• 16GB 19,100/ in India- or $299 from Amazon
• 32GB 25,000/ in India - or $399 from Amazon

Security is a boring topic to talk about. But you don’t need a luckless under grad like me to tell you that it is as important as chicken in a chicken burger. I tell you how to secure your PC for free and be miles away from the bad guys.

Anti-spyware

Spyware is bad, m’kay. Because spyware spies on you and can steal your information, m’kay (yes, Southpark fan in here!). I recommend Spybot and Ad-aware. Both are equally effective.

Firewall

A firewall acts as a filter for all connections leaving and entering your computer. Yes, Windows XP (As far as my circle is concerned, only 1 in 50 people run Vista) does have a firewall, but it inspects only incoming traffic, not outgoing. So get something like Zone Alarm or Comodo (suggested by reader Sean) and be sure that nothing inside the PC is trying to contact extra-terrestrial life forms.

Update PC regularly

This keeps you ahead of the trouble makers. Most software prompt you when it is time for updating, but in case yours don’t, use the Filehippo.com utility which checks for the same. Plus, schedule Windows Update to check once a week.

Good Anti-virus

If you’re asking me, anti-virii like McAfee and Norton not only burn a hole in the pocket, but also one in the ozone layer. They take up so much of processing power that they end up consuming more electricity in the long run. Use something light and free like AVG or Avast. Save the earth.

Be careful online

If you want to infect your PC for fun, just head to all the nasty websites on the planet. Also install every greeting, screen saver and everything that comes your way, to have a blissfully infested PC. More often than not, they are packaged with some or the other Trojan. So try not to be a curious twat when it comes to the web.

Clean your registry from time to time

The registry is a place where all the settings of your hardware and software are stored. And you don’t want this to be messed up. Use CCleaner to keep your PC as well as your registry clean.

After all this, check your PC’s defenses at http://secunia.com/software_inspector/

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday -May 22, 2006

Leonardo Da Vinci’s birth anniversary

Louis Braille’s Birthday - January 4, 2006

Dilbert! May 20, 2002

(This was a whole series of logos from Monday to Friday. Click on the image to see the complete series by Dilbert creator Scott Adams)

50th Anniversary of Understanding DNA - April 25, 2003

Edvard Munch’s Birthday - December 12, 2006

Doodle for Google competition winner

Earth Day - April 22, 2007 & 2008

Albert Einstein’s birthday - March 14, 2003

Michelangelo’s birth anniversary - March 6, 2003

100th Anniversary of Flight - December 17, 2003

MC Escher’s birthday - June 16, 2003

Father’s Day - June 18, 2006

Halloween - October 31, 2002

25th anniversary of TCP/IP - January 1, 2008

Alexander Graham Bell’s Birthday - March 3, 2008

Invention of the First LASER - May 16, 2008

Martin Luther King Jr. Day - January 16, 2006

Spirit on Mars - January 15, 2004

50th anniversary of the LEGO brick - January 28, 2008

250th Birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - January 27, 2006

2008 Olympic Games in Beijing - August 8, 2008

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