Check out the size of this mama, 40D?

Its finally here, what I've been waiting for all week and by extension more than 5-years in the should-I-department and a decade in the wish-I-had-one-department.

Of course after a few years of wanting a film SLR it made more sense to get a DSLR and avoid having to process my own film -- not that it would stop me if I find the need for film in the furtherance of my photographic hobby.



So going back, the journey of actually choosing a Canon 40D was really arduous. Ask Yna and she'll tell you of sleepless nights reading up on similar (and perhaps better in some opinion) offerings like the Nikon D80 and the awe inspiring D700. I chose for familiarity based on my mom's older SLR which was a Canon (and she's still waiting for that telephoto lens from her friend in Japan these past few decades). The smaller Canon Rebel models are alright but the solid magnesium alloy base and weather sealing sold me. Against the 5D it was a matter of price, even more so considering Mark II's that I would perhaps never be able to handle easily on a trip or safari -- someday.

When ordering online I would vouch for Amazon as the place to go and their partner price offers. I did it all, by the way, looking at online prices from Google and Live Seach and even eBay (best tip, don't blindly go for seller rating but also investigate BBB feedback). From here I settled on the best choices like JR or B&H or Adorama -- all of these are well known to Canon USA as authorized sellers (a fact I found out when I double checked on rebate eligibility). Canon had a promo going and so I waited on the last day to decide. Unfortunately B&H online store was closed on a Saturday so it was Adorama, settled.

And this is where the pain starts.

My order was transacted the afternoon of a Saturday and according to Amazon the Free Shipping from its sellers would be about 3-5 days. Adorama's site claims the same and I took it at that face value. Since I was supposed to be at Huntington Beach the weekend after the camera should arrive via UPS no later than Friday. Since Adorama customer and store support is closed on a weekend I figured a Monday call would suffice and I could pay the difference of 3-day priority shipping. I know Adorama is in the East Coast and my call was around 11am Pacific. The CSR on the other line assured me that the item would arrive for sure on Friday if not Thursday and that there is no way for her to change the shipping option as it was already out for shipping. And here's where having an account with UPS counts, I called them and got all the relevant details and found out that Adorama actually sent the shipping instructions only by 7pm and that the package was only then picked up from them by 10pm Eastern. WTF?

Just remembering gets me worked up. The line "escalated to my supervisor" simply means I read your email and I'm going to ignore it. There was a full working day (8-hours) where Adorama "could" have done something for what it was calling "Valued Customer" but apparently the meaning stops on email and no amount of follow-up has lead to any form of compensation. Why you may ask? I MISSED MY TRIP TO SoCAL. The rule for UPS is to attempt delivery thrice and return the item after that. No way am I having to deal with missing 2 grand in merchandise given the difficulty of Adorama's process!

So I waited, and just as expected I got a package with makeup. By that I mean that the enclosing packaging was perfect but take a look at the item box for yourself. I am not even going to imagine what kind of blow to my item could cause the box damage (and here's a good thing that I opted for the Mack extended 3-year warranty package). I am not a professional photographer, have not had extensive experience with semi-pro DSLR's so currently have no way of knowing what damage was done. Am going to use the camera and learn about it and if something's up you betcha someone's going to hear about it and I've saved the EXIFF information on the photo to prove it (too bad no geo-tagging yet, but thats another story for later).

My next purchases will take a little more convincing and Adorama is now my 3rd option unless they improve their claims of 3-5 days (that line doesn't mean to use up the 5 days and more but to use LESS of it, hello?). Here are some other stories and recounted experiences of concern.

Lets make Thermal Music

Being a hardware geek who loves music and aesthetics will probably lead many to HTPC configurations. I was looking at my audio systems and figured a nice black steel finish would go perfect for my systems. So off I went to surf-window-shop ...

The Thermaltake Mozart IP VF3000BNS is a beauty. Its chassis has an integrated iPod dock and looks really sleek and won't look garish alongside the rest of your equipment (most are in black anyway for a more modern yet classic look). Other features include the optional Multimedia LAB accessory (though the VF3001BNS has this built-in). The internals of this case will also allow for about 5-TB of total drive space (for die hard RAID fans like myself) and thoughtfully places these in well ventilated sections.

Another crazy implementation is the Mozart TX VE1000BWS that comes with an optional A2413-01 7" LCD monitor. There are other accessories that look great as well including a secondary PSU and ever the Multimedia LAB. This chassis supports an ITC (independent thermal chamber) that partitions airflow into 4 sections for better heating control. Years ago it was the norm to use dual-processors and here Thermaltake brings it back big time by allowing two-(2) independent systems in a single case by combining a primary ATX/BTX and a secondary mini-ITX boards. This thing is as high as a bar stool and structurally sound to even support 300-lbs sitting on top of it.

Old Becomes New P4

I recently purchased a Shuttle XPC system and upon inspecting found that the included chip and speed was actually an Intel P4 3.2GHz -- but upgradeable.

The Dell XPS Gen 4 that my colleague Bruce was using and about 3-years old I noticed was similarly using a P4 3.2GHz.

The bunch of hardware I got from the office which was to be sent for disposal due to age to my surprise were also P4's but using the older 3.0GHz speed.

The larger casing I'd already tested and used previously as the FreeNAS case, works fine. The uATX/micro-ATX casings however both require a new PSU (and I'm almost sure thats why they got sent to the trash bin). These systems are more than 4-years old and thus were eligible for disposal.

Looking for a P4 TFX 12v power supply is a chore I discovered. Not many supply them anymore and I'm still mulling the decision to get a couple of these to complete those systems. Eventually they'll probably go up on Craigslist or maybe eBay.

Here are some sources I found for the PSU:
(1) Enhance ENP-2224B_2G - the original PSU used
(2) Acbel TFX/260W and 300W
(3) Memory4Less - also has the Acbel PSU
(4) Sparkle Power - has the Flex ATX and TFX options

WHS: Its Ali-i-i-i-v-e!

I've been ignoring the HP MSS for about a week now.

It does some of what its been promised to do, that is to backup my MS Outlook .PST mail files and ensure I don't loose them.

The server now also contains all my multimedia files and such plus a backup of installation packages that I've collected over the years from SimTel and so on. Yeah, it doesn't make sense to have archives of different versioned software but just like sifting through your music collections (is it iTunes or MediaMonkey or The Godfather or ...) its a tedious task to weed out through the junk. I may just end up deleting it all and refreshing someday. But not today.

Anyway, here I am wondering how its been doing the past few days after the PRE-PP1 and suddenly -

And on the other Windows XP client -

So hey, whats going on here? Thats never happened before (it probably should have) if it were working correctly, but still....

I rushed over to the net and poked around. Aha! Seems to be that today was the official "D-day" for PP1 after all. Thats "D" as in deploy.

The update console confirms that my system is up-to-date. Nice. Thats good, what us beta-users are probably wondering is how is that going to affect my beta-patched HP MSS EX475? Simple, you've got to roll-back and get rid of the PRE-RELEASE (thanks for the memories) and install the official update from the Microsoft Downloads site. Alright then, here we go -


Earlier last month I had a couple of projects lined up for the Home Server. That is, a bunch of add-ins that I'm currently testing and have loaded up in the directory in the off-hand chance I get some time out to try them out. Hasn't happened yet, but I digress. The end result though was seemingly the WHS picked up on the uninstalled add-ins and started to alert me about the latest versions and updates.

Alrighty then, as a result here's long list of statuses that the WHSC alerted me about, saying that the MSS was at "risk". Huh? I don't think so. Thats near confusing as saying I'm "infected" with a trojan horse program, whereas we all know trojan horses don't infect --- "viruses" do.


The most notable here are the updates that were previously pulled some time in April and people have tried to get around. Good thing I waited and didn't have to brute force it. This month's bag of goodies include 64-bit compatibility, McAfee Total Protection, and the much anticipated PV Connect Media Server add-ins.

Follow-up: Turns out that alerting me about the non-installed add-ins is one of the specified behaviours of the HP MSS update.

I admit relenting to the fact that my systems are needing and thus getting a hardware update. This Home Server business isn't currently giving me anything worth real squat that my FreeNAS wasn't already giving me for FREE. Time to give it a chance to shine.

.... but first, better I give in to my other diversion in the coming weeks, and my promise of an update when it finaly arrives!