Sony DCR-SR42 Handycam Camcorder Review

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Though the Sony DCR-SR42 may seem pricey, its powerful telephoto lens and simple operation make it attractive for informal videography.

Sony DCR-SR42 Handycam Camcorder Review

Technical Specs of Sony DCR-SR42 Handycam Camcorder

30GB hard drive
1/6in Advanced HAD CCD Imager, 680K pixels gross
40X optical/2,000X digital zoom
Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens
2.5in touch panel SwivelScreen LCD display
Super SteadyShot picture stabilisation system
DVDirect compatibility
USB Cable
Battery & Battery Charger
Manual & Software

Expert Review on Sony DCR-SR42 Handycam Camcorder

When you’re recording a special occasion, keeping things simple is the safest way to go. Just point, press a button and let the camcorder do the rest. That’s the approach championed by the Sony DCR-SR42 Handycam camcorder (available for around 300 online), which reduces arcane recording features to a minimum and saves files to a hard drive so there’s no need to buy Mini DVD discs or MiniDV tapes. At its highest quality setting, the Sony DCR-SR42 Handycam camcorder’s 30GB hard drive can record up to seven hours of video.

Nicely designed, easy to use and lightweight, the 13 has everything you need for quick and simple videography, including a sharp, colourful 2.5in wide-format (16:9) LCD screen and a powerful 40X optical zoom lens with electronic image stabilisation. Set the Sony DCR-SR42 to fully automatic Easy mode, and nearly all of the menu options will be turned off. This is convenient because you can give the camcorder to an inexperienced shooter without much risk that the person will accidentally put the camera into manual focus or switch to an improper exposure mode.

(Oddly enough, in Easy mode, the hard disk formatting selection remains on and the Scene mode option is turned off, rather than vice versa.) With Easy mode turned off, the Sony DCR-SR42s menus are nicely labelled and well organized. The camcorder’s 40X optical zoom makes image stabilisation vital.Inevitably, simplicity entails some compromises. The Sony DCR-SR42 lacks a headphone jack, a microphone jack, a built-in low-light assist lamp and an eye-level viewfinder – a helpful feature when you’re shooting in bright light, and the DCR-SR42s LCD panel becomes hard to use.

In formal lab tests the Sony DCR-SR42 earned middling scores of Good and Poor, respectively, for video and still images – well below those achieved by the Sony DCR-DVD408.Informal videos taken outdoors produced pleasing (although not especially vivid) colours, and details that weren’t especially crisp. On the other hand, the Sony DCR-SR42s automatic exposure control worked well as scenes changed from shadows to bright areas to a mixture of both.

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Ipad Download Movies Services

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Apples iPad is one of the most popular and innovative gadgets created in this generation. Its popularity reaches even the farthest nook and cranny in the world. One proof of this is the proliferation of iPad applications that many owners go crazy about. Yes, the iPad is, in itself, an interesting gadget; but if you add in applications like games, music, eBooks and movies, it becomes an awesome gadget. Applications for the iPad have multiplied rapidly; there are now thousands upon thousands of application sources in the Internet. There are even those that claim to offer free apps for iPad download. But is this even possible? Free apps?

Yes, there are a number of iPad applications that you can freely download. Some websites even have their own regularly updated list of the best free iPad apps sources. Apps that are given for free ignite the interest of may iPad owners. These iPad owners, though, are not aware that some websites actually have viruses, adware and spyware that can pose extreme danger to your computer system. Once you download anything from any of these so-called free sites, no matter how small the size is, you will put your computer in danger.

Because of this, a lot of industry insiders advice iPad users to use only legitimate downloading websites. These legitimate websites have the same services that so-called free apps downloading websites offer. There is just a slight difference, though.

Legitimate iPad apps downloading sites offer you two convenient ways of downloading the apps that you want. The first option is to get the pay-as-you-download offer, where you pay a particular fee each time that you download. If you want to spend only when you want an application, you can choose this option. This is a legal procedure so you wont have to worry about spams, viruses, malware, spyware or adware.

Your other option is to shell out payment for a one-time fee that will allow you to download all the apps that you desire. You can download any application whenever you want and as many times as you want. With this option, you get access to unlimited downloads of a wide array of iPad applications. For some, this may seem quite expensive; however, if you come to really think about it, it will come out less expensive in the long run.

For a lot of people who have been in constant search for safe and easy ways to download iPad apps, the best choice is the Internet. You can make use of search engines like Yahoo and Google and find all the legitimate and reliable downloading sites for your iPad apps; whether it is movies that you want, or music and games, or newspapers and novels. If it is an endless stream of movies you want, but it is still your first time to download apps, you can always look for websites that give tips and ideas on how to download movies for iPad.

Programming Tutorial Android Development; Andengine

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Finally Ive been able to check out the Game programming for Android. Ive found several Android game programming tutorials out there, but none of them were really exciting or user friendly. However, I was able to find an open source game engine which makes the life of a programmer a lot easier when it comes to game programming for the Android platform.

Andengine

The Andengine is an open source, free game engine strictly aimed at the Android platform. It offers Physics such as gravity or collision checks to the developer. Its based on OpenGL and offers a lot of functions which make the life of a game developer a lot easier. The advantages of this game engine are that you dont need to mess around with OpenGL directly when programming games for Android. You get some easy to use and fancy classes, so you can develop fast and efficient games in no time! Also this game engine is being developed on right now, so its not like a game engine which is dead and has a low user base. Its very wide spread and there are a lot of apps out there on the Android Market (obviously games) which were programming using the AndEngine. However, there is one problem with this game engine, which will probably scare away a lot of users; the documentation. The game engine might be coded fine and you can view the source code, but there is no or low documentation. There are examples out there for basically anything your game developer heart desires, also there is a community that will be glad to help you out, but there is no Javadoc for example, which is a badly wound for the AndEngine. However, its open source and free, so you cant expect more, its just great!

My own experiences with the Andengine

To be honest I havent had that much experience with the AndEngine. I have just been playing around for a while now with the examples out there and I will soon post some game tutorials in the near future on this blog, so you can get a feeling for the AndEngine. However, it seems that stuff which should be very easy to do, such as loading a picture into the memory, is not that easy using the AndEngine. Let me put it in another way, it is easy and user friendly, but its not very intuitive, you will need to get a feeling for the AndEngine first, if you have been programming with other Game development kits or engines, it has its own special approach. However, the code is very readable and well maintainable. Also the source is very well written and basically anybody with some Java and Android knowledge will be able to understand the source code more or less.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Versus Samsung Galaxy S Ii – A Comparison Review

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The Sony-Ericsson Xperia X10 is one of the earliest microprocessor-driven smartphones to use 32 GB of memory on the market, using the 1 GHz Tegra processor and it is one of the first to use the Android operating system, while the Samsung Galaxy I9100 S II, one of the latest on the market that still offers 32 GB of memory, but it also offers the latest in display technology with a superAMOLED Plus touch-screen, and a dual-core Tegra processor.

When the Sony-Ericsson Xperia X10 was introduced a couple of years ago, it was really a world-beating smartphone at it offered access of up to 32 GB of memory, a 1 GHz Tegra microprocessor and it ran the freely accessible Android-based operating system so that users had access to thousands of apps.

When you look at the Xperia X10 versus the Samsung Galaxy S II, you may notice that Samsung offers the latest and greatest version of Android 3.1 with access to more than 200,000 apps, while the X10 can be upgraded to about 2.3.1 which means that though there are still thousands of apps available, you do not have the same range that is available today, nor do you have the same WiFi range. Where the Samsung offers 802.11 a/b/g/n, the X10 offers 802.11 b/g/n. This means that while both can find public hotspots, the Samsung is able to take advantage of higher speed WiFi networks.

One of the features that is neat about the Xperia is that it does offer a slightly larger on-screen QWERTY-style keyboard so texting and email access is somewhat easier on your thumbs or forefingers. In fact, if you are good, you can probably get two-fingered access to the X10, though the touch-screen is nowhere near as bright as the Samsung whose superAMOLED Plus technology gives you not only high-definition quality displays, running at a native high-resolution speeds of 1080p (the X10 does about 720p which was good a couple of years ago) with the right app on the Samsung you can interface your smartphone to a high-definition device and use it for streaming video or audio. Plus, the superAMOLED Plus screen’s colors is brighter, crisper and its contrast is brighter so that you have excellent rendition on a small device.

Both the Xperia and and Samsung are about the same size, but the key difference you will find is that the Samsung software has been optimized to take advantage of each processor and its power so that it can do true multitasking such as taking texts while you are streaming audio, while the Xperia can handle one item at a time. Or, it can handle more than one, but you will find you have to break out of one to move to the next.

The keys to both of these devices is the fact that they are Android-based and as such have a wide variety of apps from which you can take advantage.

A Free Mobile Phone Gift

Posted by & filed under Mobile Phone.

For many years now, the top UK mobile phone companies such as Orange, Vodafone, T-Mobile, O2 and Virgin Mobiles have offered free gifts with mobile phone contracts as an effective marketing strategy. A free mobile phone gift, particularly something of a high perceived value can be the ultimate clincher when if comes to attracting and subsequently signing up a new customer.

Many years ago people were tempted into signing up for new mobile contracts with the offer of free texts or extra inclusive minutes, but as these tried and tested methods have become more the norm and expected by customers, clever marketing departments have had to dream up new ways of attracting new business. Tempting offers such as free cinema tickets and priority tickets to concerts and sporting events are some of the favourite client retention methods used by the networks, however more radical solutions are required to bring in new customers from the outset.

As mobile phone contracts run to an end, it is often the case that certain demographics reach a cross roads as to which mobile phone to buy, and weighing up various factors such as the cost and the overall package against the free mobile gift associated with the phone is common place. What was once a happy bonus for new customers has now become a prerequisite, and for certain groups of people the whole process has turned on its head, and that free mobile phone gift now dictates which mobile phone they choose to buy.

Many internet based mobile phone shops such as www.phones-for-you.net have made this easier and have pages dedicated to art of picking a free mobile phone gift, with hundreds of offers ranging from free LCD televisions and X Boxes to free Apple iPads and laptop computers. The whole process has been catered for as there is now a dedicated section on the phones for you website showing all of the free mobile phone gifts available, where you can simply click through and find the phones available with that gift. Usually each free mobile phone gift has a direct relationship to which phone you buy, the package and the length of the contract you are willing to sign.

To conclude your dilemma the final choice is this, if the mobile phone isnt the priority and basic functionality is all that is required, then a whole host of free gift options will open up, if however you are a more discerning customer and a little more rigid in your requirements you might find your options far more limited.