Kodak to stop making digital cameras

Pete A writes:

On 2012-02-14 19:29:23 +0000, Bruce said:

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

Yeah, I'm quite sure I can't even invent a measure that adequately
quantifies the "value" of paper towels.


Low lint.

Bounty is one of the best brands when it comes to low lint.

Linen towels and microfiber cloths have lower lint, lower scratch, and
are reusable. The instructions on many paper towels warn against using
them on glass and metal - the impurities and wood resin they contain
are hard enough to visibly scratch said items.

I really *really* want disposable cloths for most of the cleanup
scenarios I use paper towels for; I have no idea how to safely clean a
reusable cloth afterwards.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, ; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info

On 2012-02-14 20:39:01 +0000, David Dyer-Bennet said:

Pete A writes:

On 2012-02-14 19:29:23 +0000, Bruce said:

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

Yeah, I'm quite sure I can't even invent a measure that adequately
quantifies the "value" of paper towels.


Low lint.

Bounty is one of the best brands when it comes to low lint.

Linen towels and microfiber cloths have lower lint, lower scratch, and
are reusable. The instructions on many paper towels warn against using
them on glass and metal - the impurities and wood resin they contain
are hard enough to visibly scratch said items.

I really *really* want disposable cloths for most of the cleanup
scenarios I use paper towels for; I have no idea how to safely clean a
reusable cloth afterwards.

Agreed. I find it difficult to image how previous generations coped
without paper towels.

I've noticed that some still use a dishcloth while preparing food (for
wiping their hands and work surfaces) with no regard for
cross-contamination of food. What surprises me isn't that they do it;
they seem to be ill less often than those of us who take more care.

In article , David Dyer-Bennet
wrote:

That one I find fascinating. My Apple-using friends seem to have
*endless* trouble with their computers, far more than my other friends.
I have no idea where this reputation for "quality" comes from!

what type of troubles and which products?

Mostly laptops, mostly hard drive problems, either internal or external,
in the last few years. Before that -- still lots of hard drive
problems, and about anything; random crashing they couldn't figure out
for example.

apple doesn't make its own hard drives, they buy them from various
companies, some of whom have had problems. seagate had a bad run of
laptop drives a few years ago, so anything that had seagate drives were
at risk for problems, whether it was a mac or a windows laptop. apple
doesn't make external hard drives at all, so any problems your friends
had was with whoever made that particular external drive, not apple.

nothing is perfect, but overall, apple tends to be better than average,
something that is confirmed by numerous customer surveys.

Similarly, I have no idea why the iPod was a success; it's unavoidable
partner iTunes is so dangerous I've had to block it from accessing our
music directories on the file server, it thinks it owns the universe and
messes things up badly, even losing files.

bull****. itunes only does what you tell it to do, and in the case of
deleting something, it will *always* ask for confirmation first. if you
lost files, then you not only told itunes to delete them, but you said
'yes' when the confirmation alert came up.

Perhaps they did, but they didn't believe they had done so. I finally
cut off write access to solve the problem.

yet you're blaming itunes for user error. itunes is not what is
dangerous. inept users are. if a user deletes a file and says yes to
the confirmation, what do you expect an app to do??

And the last thing I need is
another electronic gadget to carry around; my earbuds plug into my phone
just fine.

ten years ago when the ipod came out, phones didn't hold 1000s of
songs. the ipod replaced cd players and a stack of cds, or even tape
players and a bunch of tapes.

For most people I know, they didn't replace anything, they were a NEW
thing. Most people I know didn't use Walkman-type players routinely,
but many of them jumped onto the iPod.

that's because the ipod enabled them to do things they couldn't do
before, namely carry their entire music library in a pocket, anywhere.
they could also subscribe to podcasts and various other things, such as
jog, something you can't do with a cd player.

also, people had to decide ahead of time what they wanted to listen to
with a cd or tape player and bring those specific cds or tapes. if they
wanted to listen to something else, well that's too bad, they have to
wait until they get home. switching cds or tapes was a pain, especially
while driving. that wasn't an issue with ipods since the ipod had most
or all of the user's library, so any song was just a couple of taps
away.

nospam wrote:

also, people had to decide ahead of time what they wanted to listen to
with a cd or tape player and bring those specific cds or tapes. if they
wanted to listen to something else, well that's too bad, they have to
wait until they get home. switching cds or tapes was a pain, especially
while driving. that wasn't an issue with ipods since the ipod had most
or all of the user's library, so any song was just a couple of taps
away.

It was an evolutionary process. Before the pocket MP3 player there were
battery operated portable CD players that played CD-ROMs containing
MP3 files. I still have the Sony I bought, but gave away the one I had
before it.

Using the 128k bits per second standard of the time, a disk could hold
220 songs. A magneto-optical Sony Minidisk (competeing technology)
could hold less than 20.

Then someone came out with a memory based MP3 player.

MP3's were not a commodity item, you had to rip your own CD's, though people
traded them (remember Napster and Kaazza?), and people borrowed and
ripped other people's CD's.

What they did NOT have is the package that Apple offered, the iPod,
iTunes and the iTunes store.

This gave a person the ability to legally buy a song they wanted to hear,
a user friendly player to play them, and neat gui to manage them.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM
My high blood pressure medicine reduces my midichlorian count. :-(

In article , Geoffrey S.
Mendelson wrote:

What they did NOT have is the package that Apple offered, the iPod,
iTunes and the iTunes store.

This gave a person the ability to legally buy a song they wanted to hear,
a user friendly player to play them, and neat gui to manage them.

true. what people miss is the overall user experience. that doesn't
show up on spec sheets.

On 2012-02-14 21:06:45 +0000, Bruce said:

Pete A wrote:
On 2012-02-14 19:29:23 +0000, Bruce said:
David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
Yeah, I'm quite sure I can't even invent a measure that adequately
quantifies the "value" of paper towels.

Low lint.

Bounty is one of the best brands when it comes to low lint.

Linen towels and microfiber cloths have lower lint, lower scratch, and
are reusable. The instructions on many paper towels warn against using
them on glass and metal - the impurities and wood resin they contain
are hard enough to visibly scratch said items.

Have you seen such warnings on Bounty/Plenty in the UK?

Not that I can recall. I've tested it a few times when dry (the towel
that is, not necessarily me), by scrubbing an old mirror, a silver mug
and a CD. It's one of very few paper towels I'm happy to use for
cleaning windows, car windscreens and shiny plastic items. However, for
cleaning glass and plastic I've switched to a product that's guaranteed
not to scratch - the roll is much wider than a standard paper towel so
it isn't a convenient substitute for general use.

It might surprise you to see what Plenty is used for. ;-)

I doubt I'd be surprised ;-)

On 2012-02-14 11:24:40 -0800, David Dyer-Bennet said:

Savageduck writes:

In Apple's case advertising is only part of the story. The level of
customer satisfaction and word of mouth evangelizing has led to repeat
sales and some switchers. Then came the iPod and advertising aimed at
frustrated average PC users, not PC power users or IT
specialists. That laid the groundwork for the iPhone, which the Apple
community had been demanding from the release of the iPod.
The iPod & iPhone led many PC users to Macs, both desktops and
laptops. Now there are the MacBook Air and the iPad which have
developed their own particular niche. By sticking to their particular
design philosophy and product mystique the team at Cupertino has
achieved its current success.

That one I find fascinating. My Apple-using friends seem to have
*endless* trouble with their computers, far more than my other friends.
I have no idea where this reputation for "quality" comes from!

It would be interesting to find out just what "endless trouble" your
"Apple-using friends" had with their computers.
Certainly back in the dark days old Mac OS6 & OS7 Apple was not without
its issues such program extensions driver conflicts, some
incompatibilities and such. Even then, with one exception, I had no
issues of "endless trouble" with any of the nine Apple computers I have
owned from an Apple IIe to the Intel iMac & MacBook Pro I use today.
My most disappointing and conflict ridden Mac was a Performa 6400,
which was a sorry excuse for a computer, but still managed to do what
was expected of it when the stars aligned favorably. That was soon
replaced with 1998 iMac G3's, and all has been smooth sailing with my
Macs ever since.

I couldn't say the same for the PC and terminals I was compelled to use
at work.


Similarly, I have no idea why the iPod was a success; it's unavoidable
partner iTunes is so dangerous I've had to block it from accessing our
music directories on the file server, it thinks it owns the universe and
messes things up badly, even losing files. And the last thing I need is
another electronic gadget to carry around; my earbuds plug into my phone
just fine.

I am certainly not one for personal music players of almost any breed.
However that does not mean the appeal does not exist for others. I
bought an iPod and use it as a mobile jukebox wired into my car's audio
system.
With regard to iTunes, I have found it to be quite useful in accessing
Podcasts & tutorials, as well as access to many radio stations and
interesting audio streams, which I can play via iTunes on my computer,
no iPod involved. I have also set the preferences in iTunes so that it
doesn't do things on my computers using Apple default settings.

Now that I have finally got an iPhone, iTunes has been quite useful in
a different way, and I have yet to experience issues with it.


--
Regards,

Savageduck

In rec.photo.digital Pete A wrote:
On 2012-02-14 20:39:01 +0000, David Dyer-Bennet said:

Pete A writes:

On 2012-02-14 19:29:23 +0000, Bruce said:

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

Yeah, I'm quite sure I can't even invent a measure that adequately
quantifies the "value" of paper towels.


Low lint.

Bounty is one of the best brands when it comes to low lint.

Linen towels and microfiber cloths have lower lint, lower scratch, and
are reusable. The instructions on many paper towels warn against using
them on glass and metal - the impurities and wood resin they contain
are hard enough to visibly scratch said items.

I really *really* want disposable cloths for most of the cleanup
scenarios I use paper towels for; I have no idea how to safely clean a
reusable cloth afterwards.

Agreed. I find it difficult to image how previous generations coped
without paper towels.

I've noticed that some still use a dishcloth while preparing food (for
wiping their hands and work surfaces) with no regard for
cross-contamination of food. What surprises me isn't that they do it;
they seem to be ill less often than those of us who take more care.

The more hygienic you are the less experienced and effective your
immune system is. It needs a certain amount of regular practice to
keep it in top tune. Excessive hygiene weakens it.

--
Chris Malcolm

On 2012-02-14 15:57 , Pete A wrote:

I've noticed that some still use a dishcloth while preparing food (for
wiping their hands and work surfaces) with no regard for
cross-contamination of food. What surprises me isn't that they do it;
they seem to be ill less often than those of us who take more care.

The immune system does not work unless it is stressed and exercised.
Brief periods of stress (emotional, physical) stimulate the immune
system. Further, of course, actual bacteria and viruses need to attack
from time to time to stimulate the immune response and build up the
"library".

I recall also the following: sewer rats have much stronger immune
systems than nice clean lab rats:

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2006/06/71185

QUOTE You Dirty, Healthy Rat

Associated Press 06.17.06
WASHINGTON -- Gritty rats and mice living in sewers and farms seem to
have healthier immune systems than their squeaky clean cousins that
frolic in cushy antiseptic labs, two studies indicate. The lesson for
humans: Clean living may make us sick.

/QUOTE


--
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).

On 2012-02-14 14:24 , David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
That one I find fascinating. My Apple-using friends seem to have
*endless* trouble with their computers, far more than my other friends.
I have no idea where this reputation for "quality" comes from!

The sole problem I've had with my iMac was a dying HD. Replaced it.
I've had other nits having more to do with me not knowing the OS that
well. I've had minor network issues that were solved fast enough.

My son had a bad SATA cable in his MBPro. Replaced it.

The benefit is on the not screwing around endlessly with the crappy OS
configuration and maintaining anti-malware s/w.

The main thing with my Macs (3 in the house) is they start and work.
Period.

--
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
Douglas Adams - (Could have been a GPS engineer).