Product Reviews Posts

I’ve been a pretty loyal user of Apple’s Macbook Pro line for the last few years. I purchased my first one after Northern Voice in 2007, mostly because the laptop that I recently had Vista installed on failed to work for me during a presentation. Since then I’ve probably been through three or four of them, often upgrading every year or so to keep up with technology. The first few were the 15″ model, and the last Macbook Pro I purchased was a 13″ model. While the Macbook Pro is a great computer, the Macbook Air has always intrigued me. Most of my uber techie friends have one, and I’ve always thought it was cool how small and light it was. But other than its startling good looks, the Macbook Air line has always been underpowered compared to the Macbook Pro line. And while I don’t really do anything computationally […]

While the weather in Vancouver hasn’t exactly been stellar lately, I’ve still managed to get out for a bike ride from time to time. Given that I envisioned myself wanting to take my bike to Stanley Park from time to time or out to Chilliwack, I decided a while ago that I would need some type of bike rack. The easiest option for my Mazda 3 was a roof rack. The Mazda 3 already has a built in header that allows a rack to easily be mounted onto it. But truth be told, the idea of having a bike floating way above my car has never really sat easy with me. First, it means I would really have to be careful when driving into parking garages. I’ve heard plenty of horror stories of bikes being sheared while trying to enter a parking garage or other low clearance areas. Given that […]

Funny. The last post I did in the photography section of this site was titled “SLR Owner, No More.” That was written in New York City back in March right after I sold my Canon SLR and purchased my micro four-thirds system. That said, it’s always been my intention of buying some new higher-end camera gear when I had a chance. The Canon 40D I had was quite old when I sold it, and while it was still a decent camera, many advances have been made since I purchased it almost two years ago. I’ve also hinted many times about switching to Nikon, and I finally got around to doing that a few weeks ago. London Drugs actually had a sale on for the Nikon D7000 body, and I decided to pick one up. It cost me just shy of $1,200, which is still a rather great deal in my […]

I’m up to a little over 60 kilometres worth of biking on my new bike, and so far I’m really enjoying getting outside again. The first few rides I did were pretty painful, both from a muscle perspective and also from a cardio perspective. But I’m up to about 16 kilometres a ride now, and I can see myself doing a 25 kilometre ride fairly soon as well. I’ve actually been using the RunKeeper application on my iPhone to track my progress. It’s a free application as well as a free service (there’s a paid upgrade option). I don’t think I’ll upgrade, mainly because I don’t think I’d need any of the perks at the higher level. That said, I get enough out of RunKeeper that I would gladly pay for it if some features become available that I think I might use. Part of why I like it is […]

Between the ages of 17 and about 21 or so I was actually pretty big into biking. I used to have a Specialized mountain bike, and would hit the trails on the weekends or ride around Chilliwack with my friends. Unfortunately that bike got stolen one day when I accidentally left the garage door open overnight, and I didn’t have money to replace it at the time. About five years ago I decided to pick up a bike in Vancouver, and ended up getting a cheap $150 hybrid just to try and get some exercise. I’m not sure if it was because it was pretty much a piece of garbage or the fact that it wasn’t really adjusted for my body, but it was like dragging a tank through the streets and I basically never rode it. When I moved to Chilliwack from Vancouver I gave it to my mom. […]

I originally wasn’t going to bring my SLR along at all on my trip, mainly because it would take up a pile of room. As the departure day loomed in front of me though, I just couldn’t bring myself to travel the world with only my point and shoot. As a compromise I decided to bring along the Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 lens, which I bought right before coming. On a 1.6x crop factor it acts more like a 44mm lens, which is close to a standard lens but slightly wider. I was hoping that would be a useful field of view for most situations. I find it a little long for walking around the city, but it’s decent enough for doing portraits (although I haven’t done any yet). I probably should have brought along a zoom, but I’ve made do with the prime so far. Anyways, here are a […]

My friend Dale picked up a Seagate Momentus XT 7200 RPM hybrid drive not that long ago and put it in his Macbook Pro. Shortly thereafter he was raving about how fast it was, so I decided it would be a good idea to put one in my computer as well. Dale brought one down to Mexico, but unfortunately neither of us had a Torx screwdriver to change out the one on my computer. So I took it home with me and did the surgery on my computer a few days ago. For those of you that don’t know, a hybrid drive is a cross between a normal hard drive and a solid state drive. While hard drives are fairly slow (and cheap), solid state drives are super fast (but really expensive). A hybrid drive fits in the middle and offers really fast speeds for a reasonable price. It does […]

A while ago Epson asked me if I’d like to take their relatively new Epson Stylus Pro 3880 printer for a spin. Since I’m obviously into photography and the printer can easily accommodate colour prints, I thought it would be fun to test it out to see what it could do. First of all, I should say that this is a BIG printer. When the courier arrived to drop it off you could tell he was having a hard time moving it. Once it was in my apartment, it basically blocked the entire front door. Being a typical bachelor I of course left it blocking the door for the majority of the evening, but eventually decided to slide it across my apartment and into my computer room. My original plan was to put it next to the existing inkjet printer in my computer room, but it became obvious that there […]

I went down to Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) in Vancouver a few weeks ago with the intention of buying a new backpack for travel. While I’ll be living fairly normally in Buenos Aires, I wanted to have a backpack that would allow me to take the occasional weekend trip without carrying too much or too little. Since I have a camera and a laptop, I also wanted a bag which could accommodate both of those, since I know one or two people who have had camera’s stolen from checked baggage over the last few years. Most travel books I’ve read go out of their way to remind people not to pack too much. Most first-time travellers buy a huge 80 litre backpack and fill it to the brim before setting out. Those same travellers usually have horror stories about dragging that same backpack up 100 stairs, or trying to make […]

A few months ago, Darren Barefoot put up a proposal on his blog asking for west-coast bloggers to review a few Brother printers. Since I love getting my hands on new technology, and have never really used a color laser printer before, I signed up for the challenge. A few weeks later the Brother HL-4050 CDN Printer arrived at my office place. First of all, let me just say that nothing could have prepared me for not only how big the box was, but also how insanely heavy it was. I seriously had a hard time moving it from the front door over to the spare desk next to me. That’s what it looks like when it’s all unpacked. As you can see, it takes up a huge amount of desk space (this is offset by the fact that it looks pretty cool). There are a few different ways to […]