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It's tax time again and for me that means a nice tax refund, and some purchases. I usually get to spend some of it on some kind of high tech gadget and this year we went with a new digital camera. Ours is a bit old and we could really use a newer and better one. More pixels would be nicer and maybe a few extra features. I looked on the web as I usually do and found some new information from the same site I usually go to for recommendations on my electronics. CNET is a great place to go for those high tech recommendations from professionals, and you might ask why am I writing this review. It's simple, you want to hear from someone who uses things just like you do and in a way that you can understand.

I went from the slightly smaller Canon A60 digital camera to the higher pixel and better featured PowerShot A610. I was very happy with my Canon PowerShot A60 and wanted to upgrade to a higher pixel count with a few more features. I have been doing more writing and want better pictures, especially for smaller stills like close ups of models for a hobby magazine. Looking around the net I found that many agreed with Canon's dominance in the digital camera realm. I had only one problem with my Canon A60 that I have found others had, the picture on the LCD screen would get static in it and if I gently moved the lens around it would go away. I know this is not a fix for the camera and in no way normal but I can handle a problem that goes away for awhile and never gets any worse. I recently contacted Canon about this and they say that I can let them know if I want to send it to them and they will fix it for free as long as it is the problem they are having with this model. Something about the CCD, or image sensor, they got from a certain manufacturer, I suppose I will send the older camera back and have them fix it.

Now I have upgraded to the 5 Mega Pixels, 16 X zoom of the PowerShot A610, and I like it a lot. One thing I noticed with my older A60, the LCD screen on the back is scratched, hence I wanted a screen that turned around, not only for protection though. I have taken those pictures in crowds where I raised the camera over my head and tried to get the shot of the stage at the state fair but did not always get a decent one. Now I can set the screen to point down and get a good framing of the shot on the screen. Those were the main problems I have had with my other older digital camera, the screen being scratched and the lens static. I wanted to make sure that I didn't have the same problems with a new camera from the same company.

Now on to the good stuff about my new camera. The upgrade I made was to the Canon Powershot A610 for many reasons. I like Canons use of regular AA batteries and the fact that the camera has four instead of two. This means a longer battery life and less batteries to carry around for changing out the dead ones. And no stupid special types of batteries that cost a lot either. I use Energizer rechargeable batteries that are nice as I have a lot of electronic stuff now and always need batteries. I also like the flip out screen on the A610, for protection and to get those odd shots like up high or maybe around corners. Lookout kids I can now take pictures of you in those compromising poses in front of the bathroom mirror and just stick the camera around the corner.

The digital zoom comes in at 4X and the optical is 4 X so that gives you a total of 16 X zoom. I usually will keep the digital zoom on, but you can actually shut it off on the menu features if you don't want to use it all the time. This camera changed the type of memory card I use, my old one was a compact flash and this one is an SD card. It's smaller but one feature about the new card I like is the lock that comes on the little thing. If I want to make sure someone else does not accidentally erase pictures off the card before I have a chance to download them I can flip the little tab on the card to protect them. It gives an extra chance for someone to see you want to keep those silly pictures of the kid shaving the peach fuzz from his face.

The door for the card seems flimsy but I don't think it will be a problem, I thought the same thing about my previous models memory card door but it lasted these two years and did not break off. The menu for all the camera settings and buttons are very easy to use and understand but of course the camera comes with the whole range of books and even ones in different languages. There's one whole set in Spanish for those who don't speak or read fluently in English, which is nice. The four books are the quick camera users guide and a more detailed guide that is 4 X 6 inches, handy to carry in a bag with the camera for reference while out shooting. The third book is a software starter guide to help you with the programs for downloading, editing and printing your pictures that also come with the camera. The program is called Canon's Digital Camera Solution Disk, not very original but it tells you what you need to know. I have used the Zoombrowser portion since I got my first camera and it is great for quick editing and cropping pictures to get it ready to print. Nothing fancy or very difficult in the way of editing but it gets the job done, and it's free with the camera. For those who want to branch out and really work on editing their digital prints I would suggest investing in a good photo editing program such as Adobe's Photoshop Elements 4, which I also have. There is also a PhotoRecord which is an organizer, PhotoStitch which puts those multi-part panoramic photos together and some drivers for the camera to hook to your computer and download photos automatically.

There is a forth book, Direct Print User Guide. It is a good reference to directly print to a printer and tells you all kinds of helpful things like how to edit, crop and set up the printer. With the feature of direct print you do not need a computer, you can print photos right from the camera to some kinds of printers. This is the only book that has several different languages in the same book. The other three books are in either English or Spanish but are separate books, this has English, French and Spanish in the same book.

The camera also came with a wrist strap, four batteries, which will probably go into a clock around here and two cables for hooking the camera up to a computer or TV. Yes, I said TV, you can hook you camera directly to a TV and look at pictures on your television right from the camera without editing. To view pictures from your camera on your TV you just hook up the AV cable from the camera to your TV's AV inputs and turn your TV to AV. You get to look at the pictures or short movies from your memory card right on your TV, or use your camera like a web cam and zoom around the room. It works just like a little web cam if you flip the switch to shooting mode instead of playback, you can pan around and use your camera like a web cam. You can do the same with it hooked up to your computer and use a program on your computer like windows media encoder and a video card that uses video input. These of course are not the main reasons to buy a digital camera but it is nice to have all these kinds of extra things to do with it.

The PowerShot A610 is a 5 Mega pixels camera, which means on its highest resolution the picture you take will be made up of over 5 million small colored dots. Every digital camera works like this, but the higher the Mega Pixel the better image you will get. Today you commonly see cameras above four mega pixels and the numbers will only be going upward. The lens has a zoom optically or built into the lens using the lens moving in and out of four times. That means it can zoom in and make things four times larger. The digital or program inside the camera can also do this, so together you can zoom in and make things sixteen times larger.

The camera has the usual shooting modes like portrait, scenic, night and panoramic. There are others under an SCN setting on the selection wheel. There is night snapshot, kids & pets, indoor, foliage, snow, beach, fireworks, and underwater under the SCN or special scene setting. These settings, like the others, specifically use settings in the camera to make each type of picture come out the best. The color changing is a newer feature where you can specify the colors and how the camera sees these colors when it shoots pictures. If you thin the red needs to be more pronounced like more vivid colors for either red, blue or green, or lighter or darker skin tones. You can also tell the camera to swap out colors with other ones. These features can add whole new areas to experiment with.

One thing I would mention, there is a setting for underwater but that does not, repeat, not mean that your camera is waterproof. You need to buy the underwater case that costs about $120 or so to use this feature, and I'm not sure this is a good idea. With electronics if you go from one area like a hot environment such as above water and then take the camera to a cold environment like down underwater your camera can be susceptible to condensation. And with electronics this is not good. I read on a forum that a guy did this and it did not surprise me he got condensation in the camera and had to send it in for repair. Canon said the warranty did not cover this type of repair, corrosion from water, and would not repair it under warranty.

The Canon Company has many additional attachments you can buy, including the underwater camera case. You can get an adapter for adding on additional lenses like a wide angle or telephoto zoom lens. You can add any 58 MM filter onto the adapter, the adapter is a hood that goes out from the body of the camera and past the point where the lens can possibly go out the furthest. It has threads that are a common size, 58 millimeter, for camera filters used on older 35MM film cameras. Good news for me as I have a couple of sets of them from my dabbling in film photography. You can also get an external flash to enhance the built in one. These items all cost extra and are available at the online Canon store or you can search the internet for other places to get them.

The Canon A610 uses SD memory cards, this one came with a 16 Mega Byte one. That will hold about 10 decent pictures on the card. I bought a 1 Giga byte card that was on sale, along with the camera. In total I paid $324 for the A610 and the 1 gigabyte SD card. The camera was on sale, the SD card had a rebate and it was on sale.

I was very happy with my purchase of the Canon A610 and am having fun finding out all the different things it can do and how it is better than my previous Canon digital camera. I would recommend Canon for digital cameras as they have gotten the technology down pat and are firmly the leaders in the market. There line of PowerShot cameras leads in the digital camera field.

from: Jackelines Blog

Rutgers University has suspended the Sigma Gamma Rho sorority after some of its members were charged with torturing at least seven women who wanted to join the organization.

The six members who were arrested are charged with aggravated hazing, which a police spokesman Friday called a possible “indictable offense.”

Under Rutgers’ Code of Student Conduct, a student found to have engaged in these kinds of rituals may be subject to disciplinary action up to and including expulsion.

The alleged victims came forward saying they were beaten and starved over an eight-day period. One of them, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Star-Ledger she suffered seven nights of beatings and was struck 201 times between January 18 and 25.

Police said the hazing occurred at a student apartment building, and at private homes.

Rutgers University is the largest institution for higher education in the state of New Jersey and is the eighth-oldest college in the United States.

In this volume of the Six Sigma and Beyond series, quality engineering expert D.H. Stamatis focuses on how Statistical Process Control (SPC) relates to Six Sigma. He emphasizes the "why we do" and "how to do" SPC in many different environments. The book provides readers with an overview of SPC in easy-to-follow, easy-to-understand terms. The author reviews and explains traditional SPC tools and how they relate to Six Sigma and goes on to cover the use of advanced techniques. In addition, he addresses issues that concern service SPC and short run processes, explores the issue of capability for both the short run and the long run, and discusses topics in measurement.