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Aperture 3

When Apple launched their Mac App Store recently, they put Aperture 3 in it and dropped the price for App Store purchase from $200 to $79.99. That’s a compelling price. After reading a few reviews and talking to my photographer friend, I bought it.

I’ve only played around with a bit to date, testing reference file rename/delete/move handling and such, I haven’t really used it for reviewing and cleaning up photos. So far it’s not bad.

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Logitech Harmony One Remote

I’ve known about Logitech’s “Harmony” universal remote control product line for years. I’d see them for sale on Dealnews.com from time to time. But they just never seemed like they were worth the $80 starting price (for the ones I saw ads on — they do have lower-priced Harmony offerings).

Recently, someone at work told me they bought a Harmony One remote and loved it. Okay, that was enough for me to give them a closer look. So I looked. For a while, I considered the 1100 model (a big rectangular slab) but after reading reviews eventually decided not to buy it for three reasons:

  1. Higher price ($270 on Amazon cf. with $170 for the “One” model)
  2. No ability to assign multiple actions to one button. I forget their term for this, but it would prevent me, for example, for assigning several repetitive fast forward actions to the fast forward button. Might matter.
  3. The candy-bar style One, with its real buttons, would probably be easier to use by feel. I’d have to be looking at the 1100 to use its on-screen fuctions (it has few physical buttons).

I got the Harmony One working with my entertainment center setup in about an hour. The software, while definitely quirky and irksome, was an order of magnitude better than the total crap Wizz.it 3 software for programming my Marantz SR8002 universal remote.

I bought a Harmony One this weekend. It was delivered Tuesday and I set it up Tuesday night. It is working great. I have only two complaints:

  1. It doesn’t register button presses as fast as my TiVo remote, slowing me down.
  2. I wish it were thinner in the middle like my TiVo remote. My TiVo remote fits remarkably well in my hand and I have no doubt that that’s a result of real testing with actual humans.

29 August 2011 update: Our Harmony One remote is going strong. I love it.

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Canon S95: An Incredible Machine

I ordered a Canon S95 recently, to replace my S90 whose manufacturing and design defects resulted in its return back in August of this year (2010). Many thanks to Ken Rockwell for his excellent review. If you buy an S95, use one of his links to do so so he can continue to create great reviews.

While ordering my S95, I came across the Panasonic LUMIX LX5. On paper, the LUMIX seemed incredible:

  • Not too much bigger than the S95 (and I carry the S95 in my messenger bag, not in my pocket)
  • Wider and longer focal range
  • Faster across the focal range range
  • Zoom in/out while recording video (what I bought my Casio EX-V8 for)

I received the S95 this week, on 8 December. I received the Panasonic the next day, 9 December. It took me about thirty seconds to know the LX5 was not for me, though I gave it a full ten minutes of use to be sure. The photos were cold (too much blue) and just, well, disappointing. The whole thing felt like running Windows: Sure, you can get anything done you want, but it won’t be fun.

The S95 stays and the LX5 goes back.

To end on a positive note, here are my initial impressions of the S95 compared to those with the S90:

  • Incredible, grippy matte finish
  • Top buttons much improved. I can now find the shutter button by feel, the on/off button is in the right place and shaped to distinguish it from the button next to it. Three S90 design defects handled.
  • The rear wheel has a ridge around it that really helps to keep it from getting accidentally knocked. S90 design defect handled.
  • Lanyard slot on both sides. Did the S90 have this? I love the idea of having two instead of one.

Heavens, my S95 is just a pleasure to use. Every inch of it screams quality design and execution. A few ways I’d like to improve the S95, in this order:

  • Wider lens
  • Put the Video mode adjacent to P mode on the wheel.
  • Faster lens at the long end
  • Longer lens