HeliNews

I'm interviewed about Rotary Action (www.rotaryaction.com) in the latest issue (July 2008) of HeliNews magazine... www.helinews.com.au, and this Australian publication of Niche Media, also includes a fascinating top 10 listing about helicopters in the movies.

Library Thing

Ah! Yet another fascinating online time-sink, and displacement activity for constant readers...
http://www.librarything.com/

Outlook

Just recovered from an Outlook 2000 inbox meltdown...

Although I managed to fix problems (got speedy and helpful advice from Mark Voss...) with that email program, I lost all messages from last month, and the folder-sorting rules turned up DOA (and will need writing again).

It could have been much worse if I had needed to un/ re-install Outlook from scratch! Who'd have thought M$ would stick a 2GB size limit (after which it simply corrupts!) on Outlook's PST file? Looks like I will have to get back into the auto-archiving habit, to prevent a repeat of this Outlook failure.

So... 10,000+ messages (many with xMB attachments). Where else to store them?
I just knew someone would suggest Gmail (and they did).
;D

Watching

Since my old Hitachi TV set had recently developed quite annoying faults, I decided it was overdue for a 21st century replacement. After failing to get a Toshiba special offer (which sold out, very quickly!), I eventually chose a Sony D3500 series 40-inch digital LCD panel (model # KDL40). Product reviews had nothing but praise for the Sony TV range's 'Bravia' engine, and its screen contrast ratio 16000:1 was greater than specs of several other brands and models I considered. Sony also offered more connections, including two HDMI sockets, two SCART, one for a PC, various amps, and other components.

This new high-definition widescreen television certainly looks impressive, as a piece of consumer tech (taking up much less space than old bulky CRT), and for watching movies on. Adding to my existing kit of Sanyo multi-region DVD player, Orion DVD recorder, and trusty old Hitachi VHS machine, I also bought a Samsung BDP1400 blu-ray player, which does a fantastic job of automatically upscaling standard DVDs (region 2 or region-free discs, only!), but really comes into its own when outputting the content of blu-ray discs (region B only) at full HD 1080p to Sony's TV.

Picture and sound quality is astounding, which takes some getting used to (having so many tiny details now clearly visible on a big-screen TV can be distracting). As others who've converted to blu-ray and HD TV have said, there's simply no going back to cathode-ray viewing after experiencing hi-def digital at home, and the differences in viewing quality are particularly notable when looking at the playback of old video for comparison. Even a first-generation VHS copy looks quite fuzzy.

Cloudbusting

Intriguing New Scientist article here about clouds spotted before earthquakes. Amused by added comments, too, which include one from 'Cloud Appreciation Society' (I wonder about their attention span)!