I’ve got an additional website set-up. This one is rather COOL because:

With my phone I can take pictures, which I can then immediately post to an online website.

The results is a Picture Blog, or a visual scrapbook online.

Hopefully this will also work when I’m abroad, but depends on GPRS roaming availability around the globe - hope to test that soon!

Check it out here:

www.marcdelange.com/mmsblog

Screenprint of this service:

For the first time ever I’ve purchased music online last weekend.

With the launch of the EU iTunes Music Store, one can purchase songs at 99 Euro cents each from a large database of music. The service is focused at EU, and there’s already an existing one in US. iTunes is not available yet in Asia Pacific, but if you have a credit card issued in one of the participating EU countries, you can sign up.

This is an interesting milestone in some respects:

- The music industry and record labels are finally starting to co-operate with online service providers to create an online distribution channel.
- Some of the large volume of songs that are downloaded free (mostly illegal) will start moving to the paid and legal form.
- While current users are early adopters, there will be a critical mass of users in a few years time. I expect next generations will get most of their music by downloading it electronically, rather than buying some kind of physical recording (like a CD).
- And consequence for retailers in this business: they better add a music download service to their portals to survive, or co-operate with the likes of Itunes.

See Apple’s Press Release here.

~m

I love wireless technology. It is really creating new opportunities in the entertainment area. My prediction is that rising notebook ownership and increased adoption of wireless home networks will create more personalized entertainment options than the fixed TV can.

With the pictured laptop I can move around the whole house and watch an episode of “Jiskefet” - one of my favourite Dutch programs - while I live in Hong Kong, far away from the Netherlands.

I’m foreseeing that the Internet combined with wireless networking technology will slowly eat into the amount of radio and TV broadcasted content. The enormous benefit to users are clear: don’t wait for the planned broadcast time to start, but start the program anytime you like.

And choice will be limitless - any content from around the globe can easily be accessed.

I was on a trip in Singapore last week and shot a couple more test pictures with the D70. In the mean time I’ve finally managed to find an 18-70DX lens for the camera - thanks to a reader of dpreview

So the pictures in this post are all made with the D70 + new 18-70DX lens.

Click on image to go to test pictures

I particularly like the close-ups of my Thai diner (spring rolls and Singha beer…I admit the diner could have been better) and the night exposure shots taken over Suntec City area. The resolution of this camera is so good that you can almost see the people inside their rooms in the Conrad hotel across from me…

Another one that came out well are the aussie clowns performing in the City Link mall (you’ll recognize ‘em when you see ‘em). I’m quite happy with how sharp the camera still is in indoor situations and higher ISO settings.

Please take a look at the pictures under the link. I mentioned the ISO setting in the file name of each image. If ISO setting is not mentioned it’s iso200.

I look forward to taking more pictures with it, a very nice opportunity arises in our upcoming trip to Kathmandu in April.

Bye,

Marc

Click on image to go to test pictures

The camera I had my eyes on for a while turned out to be in the shops quicker than I thought.

This beauty is my first Digital SLR camera and it opens up a whole new world of creativity in photography.

Here are some first pictures, just click on the image.

Click on image for first test pictures

I spend a Sunday morning messing with a new toy I bought yesterday: a Wireless broadband router from Linksys/Cisco.

Click on image for enlarged picture

We got only one PC in the house so you might wonder why we got a wireless router…. Well the only key reason I could find to buy the router is that it would allow me to hook-up Nadine’s IPAQ pda over WLAN to the PC. Alright - and what’s the key benefit of that? Well, for me it is simple: I can now carry the PDA into the living room / kitchen / bedroom and still tune into a Dutch radio station over the Internet via Windows media player.

This is great, the PDA now functions like a little portable radio, but this one lets tune in to virtually any radio station in the world! And in the living room I can hook it up to my stereo and listen radio with top quality sound.

Click on image for enlarged picture

Furthermore, we can synchronize the IPAQ from anywhere in the house (and from outside) with the PC. It also enables us to browse files on the PC from the PDA. All over the airwaves via WLAN.

I bought the G Wireless router and not the B type, but I’m only using the B type WLAN at the moment. I still bought the G type router coz it was only 200 HKD extra over the B type, so when I get a laptop with built-in G WLAN, it can connect hi-speed in my home WLAN. I spend 700 HKD on the G router (that’s 70 Euro or about 90 USD.

Anyway - check out them pictures. One shows the Linksys router sitting neatly under my broadband modem. There are two antennas on tha back of the router, and they give good coverage in my whole place (but I live in Hong Kong - our places are small!). The other shows my IPAQ playing Radio 538 live over the WLAN… really: no cable can be seen

Cheers,

Marc

A few weeks ago I lost my Palm VX PDA. A little later I lost my Ericsson GSM phone. Obviously this had left me pretty frustrated with myself for a few days, as well as unconnected with the digital world. So I went out to purchase a new toy that would replace both the lost phone and pda.

I reviewed all available PDA phones, which included several smartphones (Motorola MPx200, O2 XDA II) and several Palm based phones (Treo 600). My hunt came down to a relatively unknown device. It is unknown because it is not branded by any of the usual big brands. Instead this little baby is manufactured by a Hong Kong company and it got the product name “Xplore G18″.

It is a really neat phone / PDA combination that finally hits it right in the number one important attribute: device size. The market wants phones with built-in PDA’s and not the reverse and this “made in Hong Kong” phone got that exactly right.

See below some pics of it.

Check back later for a review of the Xplore G18

Marc