Month: December 2003

Rael mentioned unlocking mobile phones yesterday.  I followed the link trail to UnlockMe.co.uk. I downloaded the code calculator and fired it up.  I typed my IMEI number in and then hit google for the correct MCC+MNC number.  Eventually I ended up here which said that T-Mobile USA uses MCC+MNC number 31020.  After plugging that in to the program, I hit Calculate and tried the first code.  It worked like a charm.  ‘Restriction removed.’

Be careful about trying to unlock your phone, it looks like you only get 5 tries and then you have to unlock it with a cable.

Legal disclaimer: I did not perform any of the actions described above.  The above account is complete fiction.  Yes, the DMCA scares the crap out of me.

Imaging Resource links to a Nikon press release about the D70, Nikon’s answer to the Digital Rebel.  Nikon is late to the party (though they don’t mention it in their press release).  They are expecting to ship their cameras by Spring 2004.  With Nikon’s track record, we could see the camera in Sprint 2004 or it might not make it ou until sometime mid-2005.

This is in stark contrast with the launch of the Digital Rebel by Canon.  They kept a tight lid on the project, announced it, had catalog numbers a few weeks later, and about a month after that there were a good number of them hitting the street.  The camera is still on allocation, meaning that whenever cameras come in to the country, the regional reps decide who gets how many.  The cameras are trickling in though.

Nikon’s announcement is much more vague than Canon’s was, which tells me that they are much further behind in the manufacturing process.  They probably don’t want to release any/many specs because they are still in flux.  Hopefully they will use a high quality/high megapixel sensor (6+ megapixels).  They list the magnification factor as 1.5x, which means that they are at least using the same size sensor.  If they’re smart, they’ll either use the same chip that ships with the D100 or go with a similar quality chip that is a little less expensive to produce.

They will probably develop a consumer DX lens akin to the 18-55 that ships with the Digital Rebel.  Nikon does have a nice lineup of DX lenses designed exclusively for their digital cameras.  They have an ultrawide fisheye and a pair of ultra wide zooms.

It is too early to tell what the price point is going to be, but it is going to have to come in under $1000 with lens in the US in order to avoid laughing stock status.  If Nikon is smart they will be able to set a new price point when they introduce the camera.  By the time they get D70’s on the streets, the Digital Rebel will have been out for some time, and should be selling for at least a hundred bucks less than its initial $1000 pricetag with lens.

The entry level digital SLR lanscape just got a lot more interesting.  Expect more detailed specs at PMA in February.

Update:

DPReview thinks that it will come in at $999 for body only.  I hope for Nikon’s sake that this number is wrong.

All of this negativity would lead one to think that I’m anti-Nikon.  I’m not.  I happen to own Canon equipment, but that is because an amazing deal on some used equipment fell in my lap several years ago.  If I had not picked up my Elan II rig, I would have probably saved up for a Nikon N90s, which along with the F3 is one of my favorite SLRs.  My problem with Nikon is that they’re constantly shooting themselves in the foot.  I feel bad to see a company do that, and it often comes out as cynical negativity.

ZDNet:

Sybase Chief Executive John Chen agreed on Tuesday to join Walt Disney’s board of directors, following the stormy resignations of two Disney board members, including the founder’s nephew, Roy Disney. In a clash with Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner, Disney quit the board on Sunday followed by fellow director Stanley Gold.

I’ve got Roy’s back on this one.  I hope he manages to get things under control (again).

From the Seattpe PI Blog:

Ever wonder just how Washington state comes up with your driver’s license number? Alan De Smet explains. He even wrote a tool to generate them (and a warning to anyone contemplating using it for fraudulent purposes).

He also has algorithms for a couple of other states, including Maryland.  It works.  Quite scary.

MobileWhack: It’s the new mobile site from Rael and the gang.  The site runs on enterprise blosxom (and by that I mean it uses blosxom).  The site is also designed to look good in your browser and with a mobile browser such as Opera.  Of course what would really rock would be an XHTML-MP version of the site for those of us who never quite have enough free memory on our phones to run the Opera beast.

Wow. Roy Disney resigned today. That is big. (Blogging in traffic)

Later:

From the looks of things, Roy was very upset with a lot of things that Eisner has been doing, and some general issues with the poor performance of the comany in several key areas (Animation, ABC, theme parks).

He could probably usurp Disney from Eisner if he came up with the right replacement.  As a sidenote, he installed Eisner as CEO in a sort of coup almost 20 years ago.

Who would be the perfect Disney CEO?  Steve Jobs of course.  He already heads Apple and Pixar, two of the more creative companies out there.  Disney owns a part of Pixar.  It makes perfect sense.  Of course if I were Steve Jobs, I wouldn’t touch that position with a 39.5 foot pole, but still, how cool would that be?

Back to reality…

WebDAV is one of those things that I’ve been meaning to set up and use for awhile but I have never actually done it.  It’s so cool though.  Someday…

Cake:

CAKE is a networking protocol in which all messages are addressed to a public key, and are signed by the source public key. Public key identifiers are treated like IP addresses. They represent the destination or source of any particular message.

Cool idea.

DPReview:

Leica today announced the Digilux 2, a five megapixel compact digital camera with a 3.2x optical zoom lens. Leica are promoting this camera as the “analog” digital camera, in essence this is driven by the camera’s design and control layout which is almost identical to a standard manual film camera (such as aperture ring, shutter speed dial etc.) The lens is also pretty special, a 28 – 90 mm equiv. with a maximum aperture of F2.0 at wide angle and F2.4 at telephoto. The Digilux 2 has a magnesium body, a trans-reflective 2.5″ LCD monitor, Electronic viewfinder, stores images on SD card and is powered by a 1400 mAh Lithium-Ion battery.

Check out the article at DPReview for more info and pics of this ugly beast.  Of course it’s ugly in that retro-non-ergonomic-but-I-want-one-anyway sense.  The basic design is similar to the Digilux 1 with the exception of a monster 28-90mm lens.  The previous lens was nice.  This lens is a monster!  It’s a shame that the lens does not zoom more, but you’ve got that quality not quantity thing going on here.

Just like its older brother, the Digilux 2 has one of the bigger LCD screens out there, and it also retains the ability to manually control shutter speed, aperture, and focus if you like.  Couple that with a 5 megapixel sensor on a platform most likely done by Panasonic, and you’ve got a great albeit ugly camera.

The weekend is almost over.  I’ve been a bad boy and have not been keeping up with the couple hundred or so feeds that I monitor.

I did a bit of moblogging this weekend though.