Let’s imagine ourselves with the perfect set up of digital camera and a few accessories to make things just right. My personal and professional recommendation is that we start with memory. Get more today. If you only have one memory card for your camera it is time to add to the collection. If you have more than one then good job! The more memory you have for your digital camera the less likely it will be that you get stuck wanting to take more pictures and have no more room on the storage. Memory is relatively cheap, takes up no space in your kit and gives you total control over creativity.

Your camera comes with a variety of quality settings to work with when taking images. Don’t use TIFF, leave it on one of the medium quality level settings and your camera will take fine images for you and not eat up all your memory. If you use the highest setting you will get very few images onto your card. They will for the most part be of very high quality but you would only want to shoot at that level of quality if you are intending to make high quality large format prints of your images.

Now if that child of yours is just so incredibly cute and your wall is aching for a portrait of his or her shining face then by all means do it on the highest quality. The key will be to use good software to process the image and then a printer that can make a large format, high quality print of your image. They exist and for not unreasonable prices I might add.

I was stunned at a recent art show in my neighborhood to be looking at a photographer’s exhibit of large size prints (18×24 and up in size) to find out that he shoots exclusively in digital now. He was a former film photographer who switched over in recent years and now makes stunning prints from his digital images. His landscape images were simply amazing and to find out that he shot them on a good digital camera made me very curious about the process, but that is fodder for another article.

Juice is the answer to your next question. Always have more juice. I spent 20 years in the TV news business and my mantra was always have extra batteries ready to go and an extra tape under the back seat in case of emergency. For TV cameras the batteries were always big and heavy rechargeable NiCads. Lithium batteries are the rage nowadays as they are lighter in weight, have no memory problems, and run longer. Digital still cameras can take advantage of Lithium batteries but the cost is often slightly prohibitive for most of us. Some camera systems use proprietary battery systems. I would recommend not buying into that sort of system. Try to buy a camera that uses universal types of batteries such as AA’s. I use a camera that takes AA’s and I have three sets of rechargeable batteries so I can rotate through them and never be caught short. Total cost for three sets of batteries is about $30, and they will last you several years if you treat them right. If you just buy regular AA batteries and shoot a lot of images your battery cost might triple that over a like period of time.

Edison did it and now we consider him a genius. Experimentation is the name of the game. Digital images cost you nothing but time and a little battery life. Play around and take lots of shots of things, people, events, you name it. Look at magazines, newspapers and notice what images look cool to you. Try to take shots like that yourself so you can see how it is done. This will get you thinking about how to make your everyday shots better. Look for new and different ways to frame things, take both a vertical and a horizontal shot of the same thing and see how it changes perspective. Get closer to your subject, or get farther away to see which looks better. Find something unique about your subject and look for a way to exploit that for a better image. Here is and example, say for instance you have a great looking car you want a picture of, well don’t stand across the street from it and zoom in on the car, get right up close with the sun behind you so the car is sparkling shiny and fills the whole frame of the image. Find it’s best feature and center that in the shot say the awesome lines of front of the car or snazzy wheels.

The base price for and XBox 360 is $300, the most common accessories are the 20GB hard drive ($100), wireless controllers ($50) and headsets ($20). Many vendors are offering packages with a variety of options with prices of $500 or more. While some of these options depend on your gaming style and preferences the hard drive is the one option we recommend you get right away. The hard drive allows you to save games to play back later and install updates that make many older games compatible on the new platform.

One of the advantages the XBox 360 will have over other game systems is graphics. The graphics of other gaming systems are top notch but on newer games like Project Gotham Racing 3, NFL 06 and Call of Duty 2 which were written for this platform, there simply is no comparison. When you compare the specifications the XBox 360 to any of its competitors, it’s anywhere from 2 to 10 times more powerful. If you are lucky enough to own and HDTV you will really notice the difference, although it will work on standard TV’s as well.

With this console Microsoft is also making a concerted effort to make the Xbox part of your media center. It can connect to any other windows networked computer in your house. It can be used to play movies, slideshows of pictures, and MP3 files. If you own and IPod or digital camera you can also connect them directly to the USB port located on the front game console.

Lastly you’ll want to think about Xbox Live. This is a paid online membership that allows you to get free trials of new games and play in head to head action against other players over your high speed internet connection. You also have access to updates and patches as they become available.

For hard core gamers there is no choice, they will do practically anything to get their hands on the newest and latest systems available. For others it may be worth waiting until 2006 when Playstation 3 is released to see how platforms compare.

What’s In The Package

The Max Shooter, both the XBOX and PS2 versions, come in a small package that holds the actual hardware and an instruction manual. The adapter only accepts PS/2 compatible keyboards and mice so if you have USB peripherals you’ll need to get an adapter or head over to the old used PC shop and pickup an old keyboard and mouse combo.

The actual adapter is small in size and doesn’t hog any serious amount of extra space. The XBOX version features an extra slot on the backside of the adapter for a memory card to plug in.

Features

The Max Shooter, both for XBOX and PS2, is packed with a wide array of functionality which can be accessed by using certain keyboard key combinations listed in the manual. It is fully programmable and also comes with game presets for many titles. The XBOX and PS2 presets are listed below.

XBOX Game Presets

Halo
Medal of Honor: Frontline
The Chronicles of Riddick
Counter Strike
James Bond 007: Nightfire
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Unreal Championship
PS2 Game Presets

Socom II
Medal of Honor: Frontline
Time Splitters 2
James Bond 007: Nightfire
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3
Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
REZ
If your favorite shooter isn’t listed above, the Max Shooter also has three programmable controller setups to fill your needs. The variables that can be adjusted include key assignment, deadzone adjustment, mouse speed, and mouse inversion. Most seasoned gamers know about all these terms but might not be familiar with the deadzone. The manual describes the deadzone as the zone within an axis range that is interpreted as being at rest.

Along with the game presets, the factory default preset automatically assigns keys in the following way.

The selection of game presets and programming for custom games is all very straightforward, if not time consuming, and is well explained within the manual.

All these features are great but what really matters is how it holds up in the games. So without further ado let us jump in to our first game.

Halo 2

My first experience with the Max Shooter and Halo 2 was less than stellar, but that was completely my fault. Like most gamers I know I jumped in head first without reading a single page of the instruction manual which was a really bad move. The factory default setup is pretty much only suited for menu navigation.

So I popped open the manual and found out about the presets, sadly no Halo 2, and decided to try out the Halo 1 preset so I could get a quick start. Everything worked ok but it wasn’t better than the XBOX controller I had become so accustomed to. In fact, it was much worse. The mouse sensitivity was horrible and the keys were mapped semi-incorrectly. But again this was my entire fault and I dove back into the manual to see how to fix my problems.

An hour and a half later I had finished tweaking one of the user programmable presets included in the Max Shooter and things were starting to feel much much better. The mouse responded close to what I would expect from a PC FPS and the keys were all mapped to my liking, but I was still sprawled out on the floor in an awkward position. I wasn’t quite in FPS bliss.

Another thirty minutes later I had a table setup with the TV, mouse, and keyboard in the regular PC positions and things were feeling even better. The Halo 2 bots didn’t know what hit them, but the mouse movement was still a bit off. Then I noticed in the manual that this is one of the biggest issues that needs to be resolved when setting up the Max Shooter and that I should max out the sensitivity settings within the game for optimal “PC Like” results. So I did that and it proved to be the one tweak that turned Halo 2 into my first PC FPS on a console. The controls are that good.

I finally decided my setup was ready for prime time and I headed online to face the masses. I must note that my ranking in Halo 2 was quite low before I got the Max Shooter and that the PC FPS setup has always been better for me than any console controller. So with that said, I jumped into an online match and low and behold I got my rear end handed to me like always, but it was just the first match so I pushed on.

I changed my weapon setup from what I usually used to what I thought would be great for accuracy based shots and wow did that make a difference. Now all I use is the Battle Rifle. Four hours later I emerged with a better ranking and an awesome kill to death ratio. My hit rate and shooting speed went way up with my new found accuracy and the competition was destroyed because of it.

Once the Max Shooter is tweaked to a gamers liking, it is an incredibly deadly controller for Halo 2. But Halo 2 is just one of the FPS games out there so lets see how it holds up with the others.Unreal Championship 2

I confess this is my favorite all time XBOX game, so I was extremely excited to see how it would hold up with a mouse and keyboard. I once again tried out a preset which didn’t hold up so well and then went on to create my own setup. Once the setup was done I headed online for a FPS shocker.

I used the same mentality I had in Halo 2; go for the accuracy based weapons. I loaded up the sniper rifle, headed to a dark corner, and started sniping. My TV echoed “Headshot” many times before the match was over, but that was mostly because no one ever found me. The next match was much different.

The rest of the matches I played online with the Max Shooter were populated with very good players. They would find me sniping and then destroy me. It seems the problem with Unreal Championship 2 is that it was designed to only be a console FPS. Much of the gameplay really relies on the button configuration on the controller. Thus I couldn’t bounce around the walls, dodge, and reflect as well as I could with the controller. This could be because I have spent so much time with the controller that I couldn’t break my habits, but I believe this is one case where the Max Shooter isn’t superior.

So one game is completely changed by the adapter and one is built too much around a standard controller to benefit from it. Next up is the PS2 and Socom II; let’s see how the PS2 version of Max Shooter fairs.

Socom II

Once again I connected the keyboard and mouse to the adapter, plugged it into the PS2, and immediately got a good connection. I surfed through the menus with ease and entered an online game. This time around there is a preset available for the actual game I’m playing. I loaded up the preset and was pleasantly surprised to find the preset layout to be perfect for Socom gameplay.

It felt good and worked just as well as it did in Halo 2. I don’t play a lot of Socom but I found myself playing quite a bit in this setup as I could never get into using the PS2 controller for FPS gameplay.

With the large amount of customization, the ease of use, and the low price this adapter is really worth every penny. If you really want an advantage in games like Halo 2 or just want to try a new controller setup I would definitely recommend picking the Max Shooter.

Pros

Plug and Play
Customization and presets
Low price
Cons

The fact is for recent years, the expansion rate of satellite TV had beaten cable TV greatly.. Recent polls show some common reasons being superior picture quality, larger selection of channels and programs, increased availability, good customer service and the continuing drop in price.

However, with any hot product come the scammers. Thousands of “Free Satellite TV” websites have popped up; claming to offer the best satellite TV deals and promotions. Most of these scams offer a fake promise on their deals. Extremely low monthly subscription rates, next-day installation, and unlimited number of free satellite systems are some of the common promotion terms. However, once a customer signs up they find hidden activation fees, high delivery costs for free extras, installation dates continuously missed or pushed back, as well as shocking cancellation fees.

What will happen when I order my satellite TV via online retailers?

You place an order with an online satellite TV system retailer. You will then choose the number of satellite system you wished to receive. Standard online satellite TV deals will offer you up to 4 free satellite systems along with certain incentive gifts like DVD player or home theater systems.

At the time of ordering you will schedule a time that a local professional installer can come to your home and install the system. You do not need to choose your programming packages at the time of order. For example when you are ordering the Dish Network deals, you can always order your Dish Network systems first and decide your programming package later. Instructions for ordering your Dish Network programming will be sent with your systems. You will need to call Dish Network’s toll-free number (24/7 all year long) after your installation is completed. A customer service representative will help you activate all the programming you would like.

The satellite system will either be shipped to your home before the installation date or the installer will bring it with them. In normal case, shipping cost and standard installation fees are free of charge.

Why order satellite TV deals online?

Ordering your satellite TV deals online is instant and easy. All you need to do is just a few clicks on your PC and stay at home at the scheduled installation time. The retailers that have been around a few years have this process streamlined for efficiency.

The start up cost for online satellite TV dealers is much lower than the brick and mortal dealers. Thus, online satellite TV dealers offer the best bargains in satellite TV services. In order to win the market share, some online dealers even offer incentive gifts to their customers. Home theater systems, DVD players, digital cameras are given free to win more customers.

How about the Internet scams?

Unfortunately, with any hot product on Internet come the scammers.

Online ordering satellite TV deals sounds great. However, consumers should also aware that there are risks hidden when ordering your satellite TV deals online: Fraudulent websites.

There are hundreds or even thousands of scammers in the satellite TV online business, claiming to offer the best satellite dish deals and promotions. Their websites might look professional to lure unsuspecting customers. Most of these scams offer a fake promise on their deals. Extremely low monthly subscription rates, next-day installation, and unlimited number of free satellite systems are some of the common promotion terms. But once a customer signs up they find hidden activation fees, high shipping costs for free extras, installation dates continuously missed or pushed back, as well as outrageous cancellation fees.

Hundreds of “Satellite TV” websites have popped up, Buyers should always beware of all these scammers and do not fall into their traps. Satellite TV deals can be a huge bargains or a scary nightmare and it all depends on the satellite TV retailers that you pick.

Picking up the right satellite TV retailers

Both Dish Network and DirecTV had several reputable online retailers assigned and you are always recommended to order your satellite systems from them.

To get a dependable online dealer, we suggest checklist below as the minimum requirements. If you would like to view the list of satellite TV dealers that we recommend, we suggest this reference page: http://www.dishnetworkissue.com/DishNetowrk_retailers.html

Requirements on good online satellite TV dealer:

To set the scene, let’s imagine you are walking down the road when you spot a couple of A-List celebrities getting off the back of their car. You get your cam phone out of your pocket and start to snap your encounter so that you can share this moment with your friends, when out of no where a man begins an argument with the celebrities which quickly scales to a full-blown fight.

By the time the press are informed of the attack, the event is all but over, leaving journalists with the difficult task of having to collect information from eye witnesses at the scene and in some cases with few or no images to support the report.

Your pictures which are now a ‘first-at-the-scene’ account of the event, are collected by the journalist, often for little or no compensation, and used to produce an exclusive report. The images are then sold at exuberant fees to other members of the media industry, increasing their profits even further.

No digital camera repair warranty covers damage caused by abusing the camera or incorrect use. You also need to check what paperwork you have to send off with your digital camera repair for it to be carried out under warranty, such as the sales receipt and completed warranty card. Your warranty will provide instructions for how to obtain a digital camera repair and the procedures to follow. It is important to use a digital camera repair service authorised by the particular manufacturer of your digital camera to ensure that you do not incur any extra costs. A digital camera repair carried out under warranty will not cost you anything unless the equipment needs to be returned to the factory, in which case there are shipping charges.

One of the most frequent problems that require a camera to be sent to a digital camera repair service is a zoom lens that will not zoom, because the lens is out of alignment. This may have been caused by rough handling or some type of impact which will not be covered by the warranty. If your camera is not able to focus then it will not fire and may print out ‘system error’ or not turn on properly. It is a relatively simple process for a digital camera repair service to realign the zoom lens or reset the zoom barrel guide pins that may have been pushed out of their slots, and this will then enable the lens to focus and zoom. The cost for this form of digital camera repair will vary from service to service but it should be a relatively quick job, as long as the digital camera repair company has the correct equipment onsite. It is worth checking before you decide which digital camera repair service to use that they have the necessary equipment and expertise to carry out the repair and not have to send it away.

If the landlord doesn’t approve and permit satellite dish TV, under the FCC (Federal Communication Commission) rules and regulations, renters have the right to install dish antennas in permissible areas. The FCC ruled that landlords do not have the right to prevent installation, maintenance, or use of a satellite dish to receive video programming such as satellite TV.

Under the FCC guidelines, renters are allowed a satellite dish in exclusive areas designated to be used by the tenant, but not in common areas. Renters are permitted to install satellite dish television in their own exclusive areas such as their balcony, patio, or other areas that they have exclusive right to use. Renters are restricted to install satellite dishes in common areas that are generally used by other tenants such as shared balconies, patios, and roof decks.

For single family homes and leasehold properties, satellite dish TV may be installed in areas that are part of the leased space which includes inside or outdoor areas. A Satellite dish may be installed upon the home itself or other leasehold property such as outdoor gardens, patios, yards, or other areas accessible to leaseholder’s exclusive use.

For apartment buildings, rules do not apply to common areas such as roofs, exterior walls, or other areas accessible to other tenants. In this case renters may install a dish inside or on their balcony.

2. Satellite Dish TV Restrictions

Size of satellite dish – The size of the satellite dish antennas must be one meter or less (39.7″) in diameter. The standard 18″ and 20″ dish antennas from dish network and directv comply with this rule.
Safety restrictions – There are safety restrictions for a dish satellite being on a fire escape or violating any fire or safety codes. Dish satellites are to be a certain distance away from any power lines.
Historic preservation – Satellite dishes are restricted from Historic preservation properties that have a prehistoric or historic district and are registered in the National Registers of historic places.
Damage restrictions – There are damage restrictions for having a satellite dish when necessary to prevent property damage such as drilling holes to exterior walls or roofs. Check with installer for installing without holes.
3. Satellite TV Home Compatibility

Outdoors are recommended to get a clear reception. If you are a renter who does not have access to outdoor areas, you may still install a satellite dish TV inside near a window or on a balcony facing south. In order for you to receive satellite television broadcast signals, the satellite dish must be placed facing view of southern exposure that is unobstructed from any large trees, buildings, or other large object that may block and diminish quality of reception.

If you are a renter who doesn’t face southern skies, you can talk to your landlord to workout finding a place to install your satellite dish. You also need to obtain consent prior to installing when installing in common areas. If you do have such an area to install satellite television, the landlords may not charge extra rent, fees, or make you sign a satellite dish addendum mid-lease to have a satellite dish.

4. Satellite Dish Installation

Most satellite dish providers provide free professional installation. So you won’t have to worry about mounting the dish. You may use a clamp or a tripod in order not to make any holes in exterior walls. Tripods should be set up in areas that are not in high traffic areas of walking or people bumping into it. The antennas are sensitive to any movement that may throw off your reception signal which you would have to readjust and reposition tripod to catch signal again.

5. Satellite TV Reception

1)Don’t buy a used one if you don’t have to. The funny thing about these TVs is that their prices drop significantly every month and that if you just wait a little longer, the price you’ll pay for a new TV is probably not going to be too far off from the price that you are going to pay for a used one. A little patience might actually save you some dollars here.

2)Compare features, not just prices. One of our favorite places to go to compare prices on LCD Tvs is ConsumerReports.org. Consumer Reports was rating different items way before the internet even become popular. Remember buying your first real car? I do. And I went straight to Consumer Reports to find out that the Honda Accord was the car to buy (and still is according to CR). Shopping for a high end LCD Tv shouldn’t be any different than shopping for a new car. All the resources are at your disposal, so give it a try. I’m sure you can find some gems of information at CR regarding your LCD Tv purchase.

3)HD is coming, don’t miss out. High definition television has allegedly been “right around the corner” for years. Well, that time may finally have arrived. Some LCD Tvs come HD ready and some do not. Make sure your new LCD TV supports HD so that when it is finally popularized, you can watch the programs utilizing this latest technology.