date:20100205

2010/2/5 eckinator eckina...@gmail.com:
 yeah and next thing to come after the megapixel race they will
 advertise lenses based on hsm rpm and gear ratio or perhaps invent
 stick shift lenses...

My bet is an ATP driven linear contraction engine. A true way for a
camera maker to show some muscle, at last.

Jostein

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RE: GESO: Surf-n-Turf

2010-02-05 Thread Bob W

  Another sporting event for your viewing pleasure.  This is 
 the Surf n Turf which consists of a lap around a swim course 
 in the harbour followed by a couple of laps of a short 
 running circuit on the hill.  There's also an aquathon 
 event which is just three laps around the swim course.
 
  
 http://www.multisport.net.nz/photos/685-2010-02-05-frontrunner-surf-n
  -turf-photos.html
 
[...]
 
 That being said, why would anyone want to do that?  It's a 
 triathlon without the only good part (the bicycling, that 
 is).  Are these people just gluttons for punishment?

That's not a triathlon. This is a triathlon:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/8493238.stm



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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?

2010/2/4 Jim King jamesk8...@mac.com:
 Mark (and Jostein), things HAVE changed in the MacBook Pro lineup.  All of
 the current offerings use an IPS screen with LED backlighting.

Link to documentation of IPS?
Please?

Would love to know where Apple source those panels.

Jostein

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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?

2010/2/5 steve harley p...@paper-ape.com:
 current Mac laptops reportedly have TN displays (if someone has a reference
 to confirm they are IPS i'd like to know), but Apple claims 60% wider
 gamut and implies all models have the same display quality; i can report
 real satisfaction with casual use of my 13 MacBook Pro display, but i plug
 it into an older 24 IPS display when i edit photos

IIRC, Aplle is accused of faking the 60% claim by doing some clever
colour mapping in software. Dunno the substance in those claims,
unfortunately, but I guess such speculation arises because the sales
pitch lingo is not backed by any easily accessible tech spec.

Jostein

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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?

2010/2/5 Joseph McAllister pentax...@mac.com:
 Sort of along the same vein, and a definite jab, for which I apologize,
 something I just wrote somewhere else on the net:
 If someone was standing in front of you, trying to slap your face
 repeatedly, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, would you just
 stand there?
 Yet you currently pay someone to stand between you and the deranged persons
 attacking you.
 Just one of the ways you would save money in the long run by getting a
 Macintosh! No one slapping, no one to pay to protect your face. Life is so
 much more pleasant.
 Why is it that Microsoft has been unable to write an OS for more than 20
 years that has more fortitude than Windows does? I'll never understand it.

 Crazy love is what you got.

Another definite jab which I too should apologise for:

What a narrow-minded piece of drivel.



Can we now go on?

thanks,
Jostein

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Re: Laptop computers with good displays? - correction

2010/2/5 Jim King jamesk8...@mac.com:

 Sorry, but I need to correct myself - evidently I was thinking of the latest
 iMac displays, which are said to be IPS.  I can't find any credible source
 to support my statement above that the MacBook Pro displays use IPS.  They
 do use LED backlighting, however, and they are gorgeous, IMO.

Bugger. You had my hopes high there for a while.

LEDs are a Good Thing, though, no matter what panel is stacked before it.

Jostein

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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?

LG ( == Philips) is one of the major panel manufacturers. I just had a
look into their catalogue, and in their current lineup there's only
_one_ panel with 8 bit colour depth. A 17,1 widescreen. The panel
technology is not specified, but the backlight is described as RGB
LED where all the others are white LED.
It has about 34% higher power consumption than the other 17,1 alternatives.
Here's the webpage:
http://www.lgdisplay.com/homeContain/jsp/eng/prd/prd300_j_e.jsp
The panel model number is LP171WU5. It's not listed on the webpage,
only in the PDF downloadable from the webpage.

It's terribly difficult to figure out which panels are actually inside
any particular laptop unless the maker states it as part of the specs.
Which nearly noone does. :-(

Jostein

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

2010-02-05 Thread Anthony Farr

After ploughing through this thread I'm drawn to one recurring
reference, which is to unprofitable customers.  Forgive me for
asking, but doesn't the store and not the customer decide what deals
will be offered for sale?  In that context, then it's the store's
responsibility/fault if they offer a deal that doesn't turn a profit.
Also in that context, it's totally out of line for the store to turn
around and blame the customer for those losses, the deals didn't have
to be offered in the first place.

Now, we all know about loss leaders, don't we?  The store offers a
doorbuster price usually at a loss, but hopes to turn it into a profit
by upsizing the customer before they reach the checkout.  Then, is a
customer who hops from one store to another and buys only the loss
leader but never the upsize a bad customer?  No answer is needed for
two reasons.  One is that the store offered the deal, it's as simple
as that.  The second is that there's no workable way to filter out or
discriminate against a customer because of how many items you ~think~
they'll put in their cart.  If the business model for loss-leaders
isn't working for a store, then they need to remedy it, not demonize
customers who accept the offers.

In essence - an unprofitable transaction is the result of the business
practice that led up to it, not the customer who entered into it.

Finally, a question for Henry Posner.  If you could replay this event
that has caused so much grief, would you once again stand by your
legal/moral position for the sake of $250, or would you let it slide,
let the customer have the benefit-of-the-doubt (even though you
believe he is wrong), and circumvent the ill-will and misunderstanding
that it has spawned?

What does advertising cost these days, anyway?  More than $250?
(Rhetorical questions).

regards, Anthony

   Of what use is lens and light
to those who lack in mind and sight
   (Anon)

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Re: A couple of questions

2010-02-05 Thread Steffen Zahn

Am 04.02.2010 22:30, schrieb John Sessoms:
 What is a reasonable price for a used K20D kit w/18-55 lens?

 Figure condition is = KEH EX.

 Is there a SIMPLE, easy way to find out the total cumulative shutter
 activations?

exiftool imgtmp/Winter10428.jpg  |   grep  'Shutter Count'
Shutter Count   : 12246


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doing a happy dance!!

2010-02-05 Thread Tanya Love

Woot! Woot!  Yes I am!

I got me a K-7! She arrived this morning!!

Happy, happy, joy, joy.

I also got the kit 18-55 lens  tis a bit slow for my needs and I already
have an 18-50 of the same-ish speed, but thought for 100bucks more, it
couldnt hurt to have a WR version of that length lens and the reviews on it
actually seem quite good so long as it isnt used wide open too much. 
Actually I like to have a nice lens or two that IS soft when wide open
depending on different effects that I am going for at any given time.  It
will also be my very first DA lens!

Also got myself a screen protector, extra battery, batter grip and a couple
of 8gb Sandisk Extreme III SD cards.

Ooooh, I feel so spoilt!  

I have a commercial shoot on Sunday, shooting a babys nursery and the baby
for a magazine, I wonder if I should risk it and use a new camera that I am
not familiar with or stick with the old starkist for one last time.

H, me thinks Im feeling a  bit risqué, oops, I mean feeling a bit like
taking a RISK. Hehe.

Now, just to think of a name for her, so she can feel as though she is part
of the family

Tan.


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Re: doing a happy dance!!

2010/2/5 Tanya Love tanyal...@bigpond.com:

 I have a commercial shoot on Sunday, shooting a baby’s nursery and the baby
 for a magazine, I wonder if I should risk it and use a new camera that I am
 not familiar with or stick with the old starkist for one last time.

 H, me think’s I’m feeling a  bit risqué, oops, I mean feeling a bit like
 taking a RISK. Hehe.

congrats on the cam, Tan, that is great news! If you want my humble
thoughts on the shoot, bring both bodies, shoot with the starkist
until you feel mostly confident you have it wrapped up and then switch
bodies and enjoy

 Now, just to think of a name for her, so she can feel as though she is part
 of the family…

hmm... since she is successor to a starkist and thus heiress of ~Tan~,
why not call her sunkist? =)

cheers
ecke

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Re: SDM repair complete

2010-02-05 Thread Carlos R




Adam Maas escribió:



Is Pentax using Micromotors in all SDM lenses? Or just the dual-drive
DA*'s and the 17-70.

Note that ring-motors aren't inherently better, they're potentially
faster and have full-time manual focus built-in, at a major cost in
size. Micro-motors are much smaller.



AFAIK, all the first SDM lenses use micromotors. I don't know if the 
more recent models use ring motors, but I doubt it.


Carlos

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Re: OT/2: back from repair

2010/2/5 frank theriault knarftheria...@gmail.com:

 Who's the fat lady and why did you thank her?

that was sort of a meaning and a half - 'it ain't over 'til the fat
lady sings' and she hasn't sung for me yet as in I made it out alive
and in one piece; also I call my camera 'die dicke' (i.e. the fat one)
since with battery grip and L bracket and da*16-50 as my almost always
on she weighs in at over 2 kilos and looks the part, too, I thank her
as well for not letting me down

 I'm glad to hear you're on the mend - sounds like RR is just the
 ticket.  Now you can take more photos (a good thing) and spend more
 time on PDML (I'm not so sure that's a good thing).
 ;-)

absolutely - the price was a tad bit high but I won't shake a stick at the yield

 Glad to hear your camera's back.
 Sounds like everything's going in the right direction, which is good to hear.

yes and I am still a bit overwhelmed by all those kind and caring
responses; in fact, I was moved to tears, being still a bit shaky

thank you so much everyone (will answer some more)

all the best
ecke

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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?

Tanya Love wrote:

Really?  Well that shows how limited my Mac knowledge is, I always thought
that you had to keep whatever you got with it!  I didn't even know that you
could upgrade the RAM and hard drive!  

Oh yes, you can do all that stuff now. 

The requirement that you get an Apple tattoo on your butt, however,
has not changed. (Not that I expect that to deter *you*)

;-)


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Re: OT/2: back from repair

Thank you Ken
Took one on the way home that looked so good on the in camera display
but needs a lot of work still - contrast and saturation look totally
different on my laptop (don't own anything color calibrated) so back
to the lightroom it is first - will see if I can tweak it first to
bring back the mood I had seen then.
Cheers
Ecke

2010/2/5 Ken Waller kwal...@peoplepc.com:
 What Paul said  rembember to post your best photographic results!

 Kenneth Waller
 http://www.tinyurl.com/272u2f

 - Original Message - From: paul stenquist
 pnstenqu...@comcast.net
 Subject: Re: OT/2: back from repair


 Relax and get better.
 Reminds me of the days when my wife was a pastry chef. She worked 43 hours
 straight at Christmas and couldn't walk when she got off.

 Too much work is not a good thing.
 Paul


 On Feb 4, 2010, at 7:10 PM, eckinator wrote:

 glad to announce:

 - was released from hospital saturday after a major cardio  nervous
 breakdown thursday morning following 38 hours of non stop pc work
 - on a good way to a full functional recovery
 - one more hospital exam to go, looking good so far
 - will get weeks off from work for stress relief, me time and so on
 - am not to come back until back at at least 110%

 plus

 - picked up my k10d and 16-50 from checkup, cleaning, minor repairs
 and focal plane and back focus adjustment today

 - seems ok, too except for lens barrel appear slightly loose, can
 anyone comment if this is normal (never paid attention before) please?

 essence

 I was given a windfall of time and gear for finally some serious
 shooting since a vewwy long time
 so i wanna thank my maker and the fat lady

 cheers
 ecke - so glad to be still around (mind you my life was not in danger =)


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Re: OT/2: back from repair

Thanks again Paul
Thinking twice, after our recent run-in about climate change that I
started after all, coming from you, that mails means a lot to me so I
wanted to take the time to say I am sorry if my conduct was in any way
personally offensive which I think it may have been based on how
strongly I feel about this matter
Cheers
Ecke

2010/2/5 paul stenquist pnstenqu...@comcast.net:
 Relax and get better.
 Reminds me of the days when my wife was a pastry chef. She worked 43 hours 
 straight at Christmas and couldn't walk when she got off.

 Too much work is not a good thing.
 Paul


 On Feb 4, 2010, at 7:10 PM, eckinator wrote:

 glad to announce:

 - was released from hospital saturday after a major cardio  nervous
 breakdown thursday morning following 38 hours of non stop pc work
 - on a good way to a full functional recovery
 - one more hospital exam to go, looking good so far
 - will get weeks off from work for stress relief, me time and so on
 - am not to come back until back at at least 110%

 plus

 - picked up my k10d and 16-50 from checkup, cleaning, minor repairs
 and focal plane and back focus adjustment today

 - seems ok, too except for lens barrel appear slightly loose, can
 anyone comment if this is normal (never paid attention before) please?

 essence

 I was given a windfall of time and gear for finally some serious
 shooting since a vewwy long time
 so i wanna thank my maker and the fat lady

 cheers
 ecke - so glad to be still around (mind you my life was not in danger =)

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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?

AlunFoto wrote:

It's terribly difficult to figure out which panels are actually inside
any particular laptop unless the maker states it as part of the specs.
Which nearly noone does. :-(

That's what frustrated me into starting this thread.

Most of Apple's desktop displays are LG/Philips, with Samsung making
an occasional appearance. But I can't find out what kind of display is
in anyone's laptop computer.

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Re: GESO: Surf-n-Turf

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 3:45 AM, Bob W p...@web-options.com wrote:


 That's not a triathlon. This is a triathlon:
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/8493238.stm

Swimming the Atlantic?

Now that's just crazy...

cheers,
frank

-- 
Sharpness is a bourgeois concept.  -Henri Cartier-Bresson

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Re: The Contact Sheet

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 12:26 AM, Christine  Aguila
cagu...@earthlink.net wrote:

 I think that sounds like a fun idea, Ann!

 What do you'all think?

Gotta find my contact sheets.  I think they're still at the ex' place...

cheers,
frank



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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

2010-02-05 Thread paul stenquist


On Feb 5, 2010, at 4:30 AM, Anthony Farr wrote:

 After ploughing through this thread I'm drawn to one recurring
 reference, which is to unprofitable customers.  Forgive me for
 asking, but doesn't the store and not the customer decide what deals
 will be offered for sale?  In that context, then it's the store's
 responsibility/fault if they offer a deal that doesn't turn a profit.
 Also in that context, it's totally out of line for the store to turn
 around and blame the customer for those losses, the deals didn't have
 to be offered in the first place.
 
 Now, we all know about loss leaders, don't we?  The store offers a
 doorbuster price usually at a loss, but hopes to turn it into a profit
 by upsizing the customer before they reach the checkout.  Then, is a
 customer who hops from one store to another and buys only the loss
 leader but never the upsize a bad customer?  No answer is needed for
 two reasons.  One is that the store offered the deal, it's as simple
 as that.  The second is that there's no workable way to filter out or
 discriminate against a customer because of how many items you ~think~
 they'll put in their cart.  If the business model for loss-leaders
 isn't working for a store, then they need to remedy it, not demonize
 customers who accept the offers.
 
 In essence - an unprofitable transaction is the result of the business
 practice that led up to it, not the customer who entered into it.
 
 Finally, a question for Henry Posner.  If you could replay this event
 that has caused so much grief, would you once again stand by your
 legal/moral position for the sake of $250, or would you let it slide,
 let the customer have the benefit-of-the-doubt (even though you
 believe he is wrong), and circumvent the ill-will and misunderstanding
 that it has spawned?

I'm not Henry and certainly can't speak for BH. But after many years of 
dealing with them, I would guess the answer would be a firm no. They'll stick 
by their decision. And that's what I like about them. They have specific 
policies that are set forth in writing, and you can depend on them following 
them. I've never known them to deviate from the course that they've set. Most 
often, that works to the consumer's advantage.

I also doubt that this event has caused so much grief in the overall scheme 
of things. Hand wringing and name calling here? Sure, but that's meaningless. 
Perhaps another tempestuous discussion or two on photo lists? Certainly not a 
big deal given the scope of BH's business.

I think we should feel honored that Henry felt we deserved a reply. I'm only 
sorry that he was not treated with the respect to which any human being is 
entitled.

Paul


 
 What does advertising cost these days, anyway?  More than $250?
 (Rhetorical questions).
 
 regards, Anthony
 
Of what use is lens and light
to those who lack in mind and sight
   (Anon)
 
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Re: doing a happy dance!!

2010-02-05 Thread paul stenquist

Enjoy. I used my K7 for a magazine shoot the day after it arrived. I found the 
contrtols logical. However, make sure you have the latest firmware. if you have 
the launch firmware, the focus point selection vs.  joystick functions  will be 
bass ackwards.
Paul


On Feb 5, 2010, at 6:00 AM, Tanya Love wrote:

 Woot! Woot!  Yes I am!
 
 I got me a K-7! She arrived this morning!!
 
 Happy, happy, joy, joy.
 
 I also got the kit 18-55 lens – tis a bit slow for my needs and I already
 have an 18-50 of the same-ish speed, but thought for 100bucks more, it
 couldn’t hurt to have a WR version of that length lens and the reviews on it
 actually seem quite good so long as it isn’t used wide open too much. 
 Actually I like to have a nice lens or two that IS soft when wide open
 depending on different effects that I am going for at any given time.  It
 will also be my very first DA lens!
 
 Also got myself a screen protector, extra battery, batter grip and a couple
 of 8gb Sandisk Extreme III SD cards.
 
 Ooooh, I feel so spoilt!  
 
 I have a commercial shoot on Sunday, shooting a baby’s nursery and the baby
 for a magazine, I wonder if I should risk it and use a new camera that I am
 not familiar with or stick with the old starkist for one last time.
 
 H, me think’s I’m feeling a  bit risqué, oops, I mean feeling a bit like
 taking a RISK. Hehe.
 
 Now, just to think of a name for her, so she can feel as though she is part
 of the family…
 
 Tan.
 
 
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Re: OT/2: back from repair

2010-02-05 Thread paul stenquist


On Feb 5, 2010, at 7:55 AM, eckinator wrote:

 Thanks again Paul
 Thinking twice, after our recent run-in about climate change that I
 started after all, coming from you, that mails means a lot to me so I
 wanted to take the time to say I am sorry if my conduct was in any way
 personally offensive which I think it may have been based on how
 strongly I feel about this matter
 Cheers
 Ecke

Your conduct was never offensive. You just held your ground. That's admirable.
Paul


 
 2010/2/5 paul stenquist pnstenqu...@comcast.net:
 Relax and get better.
 Reminds me of the days when my wife was a pastry chef. She worked 43 hours 
 straight at Christmas and couldn't walk when she got off.
 
 Too much work is not a good thing.
 Paul
 
 
 On Feb 4, 2010, at 7:10 PM, eckinator wrote:
 
 glad to announce:
 
 - was released from hospital saturday after a major cardio  nervous
 breakdown thursday morning following 38 hours of non stop pc work
 - on a good way to a full functional recovery
 - one more hospital exam to go, looking good so far
 - will get weeks off from work for stress relief, me time and so on
 - am not to come back until back at at least 110%
 
 plus
 
 - picked up my k10d and 16-50 from checkup, cleaning, minor repairs
 and focal plane and back focus adjustment today
 
 - seems ok, too except for lens barrel appear slightly loose, can
 anyone comment if this is normal (never paid attention before) please?
 
 essence
 
 I was given a windfall of time and gear for finally some serious
 shooting since a vewwy long time
 so i wanna thank my maker and the fat lady
 
 cheers
 ecke - so glad to be still around (mind you my life was not in danger =)
 
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Re: Green Briar Camera Club 1st impressions

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 2:30 AM, Larry Colen l...@red4est.com wrote:

 One nice thing about this group is that it makes me feel so young.  I have
 eight months and a day until I hit 50.

Bunch of young pups!

cheers,
frank

-- 
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Re: PESO - Shelter

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 12:15 AM, Christine  Aguila
cagu...@earthlink.net wrote:
 Hi Frank:  The picture is quiet and intriguing.  The 2 hooded walkers evoke
 the idea of monks  you've caught the woman in a contemplative pose.  I like
 it.  I might like the pole on the left cropped out, leaving just a bit of
 the light, but not sure there.  Just thinking out loud.:-) Cheers, Christine

Thanks, Christine!  I might try that crop...

cheers,
frank

-- 
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Re: OT: Frank get your camera ready.

On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 6:15 PM, John Sessoms jsessoms...@nc.rr.com wrote:
 http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/toronto/story.html?id=2519563

I live about 4 blocks from the manufactured neighbourhood of Liberty
Village.  Until about 10 years ago it was decaying industrial
warehouses that had been converted into lofts by poor artists and
other marginalized folk (including lots of bike messengers).  Since it
was zoned industrial these lofts were not covered by Landlord/Tenant
legislation - these people were basically living there illegally
(insofar as they were renting commercial space and living there).

Then developers bought the warehouses and factories, renovated them,
added lots of new buildings and sold them as loft condos and made
millions.  The old tenants are gone, replaced by young upscale
professionals.

Anyway, I won't be going to Mildred's on Valentine's day or any other
day - too expensive for me...

cheers,
frank



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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?

2010/2/5 Mark Roberts m...@robertstech.com:
 Most of Apple's desktop displays are LG/Philips, with Samsung making
 an occasional appearance. But I can't find out what kind of display is
 in anyone's laptop computer.

Apparently, some of the more obsessed laptop geeks have a habit of
picking their machines apart to find model numbers printed on the
display assembly. That's how Dell was caught sourcing different
displays in some laptop models at different production runs.

It was that story that made me browse for the display manufacturers
directly. I know I checked LG/Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Acer and Sony.
I also checked a few Taiwanese and Korean factories whose names I
can't recall. I sort of gave up when I couldn't find _any_ 14-15
screens specifying either IPS/*VA panel technology or at least 8 bit
colour depth. To my knowledge, the 17 panel I mentioned in another
post is actually the only one with documented 8 bit colour depth. I
spent my lunch break today trying to find laptops carrying this
display, and the only one I found was HP's 8730w with DreamColor
display option (at a horrible price...).

Jostein

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Re: Green Briar Camera Club 1st impressions

On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 11:59 PM, Christine  Aguila
cagu...@earthlink.net wrote:
 Last night I stopped by the Green Briar Camera Club:

 1)  A bit of history:  the Green Briar Camera Club has been in existence
 since 1934--can you believe it!--and, of course, has been meeting at the
 field house of Green Briar Park in Chicago since the beginning.  At one time
 they  were so large, they had weekly meetings, which really were (and are)
 weekly competitions.  Now the club membership is a lot smaller, but still
 appears to be quite active, holding about 2 meetings a month.

 2)  Last night was the pictorial competition, which, for me, proved
 interesting, since I've never been to a photography competition. Prints are
 viewed by 3 judges from another camera club and viewed in a *print box*
 which is lighted with 2 tungsten bulbs  2 fluorescent bulbs.  This lighting
 set-up is the standard for single club  interclub (Chicago Area Camera
 Clubs Association--(CACCA)) competitions.  The club has created a specific
 category called Digital Projected Images (DPI), but it was very clear the
 projector was not calibrated; all images were way too bright.

 3)  The equipment for judges is quite impressive:  each judge has an
 electronic box used to punch in a score, which is then automatically
 calculated and displayed.  A reader states the combined score aloud, which
 is then tallied in software  by hand on a score sheet.  Once the category
 judging is finished, judges give critique  justification for score.

 4) I was invited to join everyone for coffee  ice cream at a nearby diner
 afterwards.  Lots of fun stories were told, some printing equipment talk
 ensued , and I was asked to testify: was I a PC or Mac user.  When I stated
 I was a PC user, I was playfully dismissed.

 5)  I was encouraged to get some prints together for a club nature
 competition in a few weeks.  Out of several thousand frames, I've found
 about 2 that will meet the competition requirements--no alterations  no
 *hand of man* in the frame (no people, trails, fences, etc).  I've got
 people everywhere in my shots. lol.

 6)  All in all, it seems like it might be fun, but there is something that
 really struck me last night that has nothing to do with photography: Despite
 the fact that Chicago proper is a huge, bustling city of brick, steel, 
 concrete, we have an outstanding park system; there are over 500 inland
 parks and, of course, the lake front is considered 1 huge beach  park. When
 you meet someone who was born  bred in Chicago, one of the 1st questions
 often asked is *what park did you hang out at as a kid?*  I, myself, grew up
 in Eugene Field Park (named after the poet).  Each park has a field house.
  Some are quite beautiful.  Eugene has a gym, club rooms, a beautiful
 auditorium, a wood shop, and an administrative office.  I spent my entire
 childhood  in that park:  We all played on the 16 inch pony-tail softball
 league; I took sewing lessons there; we were in the drama club  performed
 in plays in the theater; we had gym shows; we played all kinds of sports 
 track  field; and we attended girl scout meetings in the club rooms.
  Darrel  I were even able to have our wedding ceremony  reception in
 Eugene's auditorium.  I am a child of the Chicago Parks.  And there I was
 last night, exactly 22 days away from turning 50, and what was I doing?
 Walking into the field house of a neighborhood park, looking for the east
 club room with intent of possibly signing up for, yet, another park activity
 :-).

Photography (or any other art) competitions rankle me.  Since they
seem central to what the club does, I fear I wouldn't enjoy it much.

Hope you have a good time, though.  They seem like nice people.  I
think I prefer the social part of these things to talk about parks
more than incessant talk about cameras, equipment and the like.

cheers,
frank
-- 
Sharpness is a bourgeois concept.  -Henri Cartier-Bresson

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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?

AlunFoto wrote:

2010/2/5 Mark Roberts m...@robertstech.com:
 Most of Apple's desktop displays are LG/Philips, with Samsung making
 an occasional appearance. But I can't find out what kind of display is
 in anyone's laptop computer.

Apparently, some of the more obsessed laptop geeks have a habit of
picking their machines apart to find model numbers printed on the
display assembly. That's how Dell was caught sourcing different
displays in some laptop models at different production runs.

The Apple iMac 20 was sold with both a Philips/LG TN panel and a
Samsung S-PVA - *big* difference in quality between a TN and an S-PVA!


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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

2010-02-05 Thread Doug Franklin


On 2010-02-05 4:30, Anthony Farr wrote:

After ploughing through this thread I'm drawn to one recurring
reference, which is to unprofitable customers.  Forgive me for
asking, but doesn't the store and not the customer decide what deals
will be offered for sale?


First, you're right.  Second, I'm not coming at it from the retail side, 
where my only experience is working in high school as a stock boy for a 
pharmacy.  I'm coming at it from the environment of companies, 
especially start ups, producing computer hardware systems, software 
systems, and services.  I've seen way too many cases of closing a big 
contract just to get the cash flow.  Then the costs of supporting that 
customer or contract go far out of balance with the income, or even cash 
flow, resulting from the sale.  This happens for a variety of reasons. 
Sometimes, though, it's due to an unreasonable customer. Some customers 
in that environment end up being so expensive to keep that you could 
never get them to agree to a contract that would allow the deal to be 
profitable for the seller.  However, you're right that the burden is on 
the seller.


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Thanks,
DougF (KG4LMZ)

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Re: OT Geso Photos from the fund raiser

On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 10:04 AM, David J Brooks pentko...@gmail.com wrote:
 Put up a gallery of all the shots from the Haiti fund raiser at the farm.

 http://www.caughtinmotion.com/2010-paec-haiti/album/index.html

 Nothing special, just wanted to share.

 D1H, 35-70 f2.8, D200, 18-70 and or SB800/SB80DX

Looks like folks were very generous in donating their time, prizes,
stuff to raffle and the like.  It's great when people can do good
while they have fun.  You've captured the spirit of the event very
well!

cheers,
frank

-- 
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Re: doing a happy dance!!



- Original Message - 
From: Tanya Love

Subject: doing a happy dance!!



H, me think's I'm feeling a bit risqué,


The last time this happened, some of us got pictures

William Robb 



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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

- Original Message - 
From: paul stenquist

Subject: Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

I'm not Henry and certainly can't speak for BH. But after many years of 
dealing with them, I would guess the answer would be a firm no. They'll 
stick by their decision. And that's what I like about them. They have 
specific policies that are set forth in writing, and you can depend on 
them following them. I've never known them to deviate from the course that 
they've set. Most often, that works to the consumer's advantage.

Except when they decide that they don't like the price they offered and 
cancel the sale after they have accepted payment for it.

I asked you once, I'll ask you again: If you walked into a store to buy a 
quart of milk and when you get to the counter you are told the price that is 
clearly marked on the bottle as pr quart is actually per pint, and therefore 
you will have to pay double, would you do so happily?

If you'd care to, answer me this time.

In essence, this is what BH has done, and it is what you, Mark, Godfrey and 
(most unfortunately) Henry is defending.

For myself,  wouldn't tolerate it from a retail store, and I wouldn't 
tolerate it from an online store as well. I haven't been a big BH customer, 
I've probably only spent perhaps 20K with them over the years, but after 
this, I'm done with them as a customer.
They crossed the line from being trustworthy to being untrustworthy in my 
mind.

Now I suppose because I took up the cause in my usual fun loving manner, 
Henry will breath a sigh of relief because I am an outspoken person and 
therefore potentially one of the problem customers he doesn't want, but I 
suspect I am not in the bottom 10% of dollars spent with them and I have 
never given them grief, other than what I feel is the well deserved grief I 
gave Henry for coming here and defending the indefensible.

And for all of you who have sent me public and private emails chastising me 
for sewering this thread, please be assured that unless I am specifically 
invited to post to it again, I am most likely done with it.

William Robb

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Re: Myopic Bulls**t Artists

- Original Message - 
From: Sandy Harris

Subject: Re: Myopic Bulls**t Artists

On 2/4/10, Bob Sullivan rf.sulli...@gmail.com wrote:

 Bill R, after your retail experiences, I can't believe you want to
 keep that last 10% of the asshole customers who cause you all those
 problems.

Indeed not. I used to sell computers and pieces thereof retail.
The people that really drove me crazy were the ones trying to
get absolutely the cheapest box, without the skills to build it,
let alone debug it.

The real question though, is was this person 10% of your customer base, or 
is there perhaps a bit of hyperbole in that number?
I've spent most of the last 25 years working in retail, and would put the % 
of customers you just wish would go away and never come back at perhaps 
0.0001%.
However, I take a slightly diffeent mindset. I don't blame the customers who 
are pointing out a problem with my business model for my mistakes. Often, 
they become the best customers.

William Robb 

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

William Robb wrote:

I asked you once, I'll ask you again: If you walked into a store to buy a 
quart of milk and when you get to the counter you are told the price that is 
clearly marked on the bottle as pr quart is actually per pint, and therefore 
you will have to pay double, would you do so happily?
If you'd care to, answer me this time.

In essence, this is what BH has done, and it is what you, Mark, Godfrey and 
(most unfortunately) Henry is defending.

Bill, you're equating a physical store with a virtual store. There
seems to be a tacit assumption that online stores can or should
work just like physical stores. This is, in and of itself, untrue.
They don't. They can't. They shouldn't.

Here's how a mis-priced item is handled in a physical store: You sell
the product to the customer for the price marked and eat the loss.
That's the right thing to do and it's also the law in many places (it
was in New York State when I lived there). Then you go back onto the
sales floor and correct the price. This isn't viable in an online
store because in the time it takes to ring up the sale and walk back
to the sales area of the physical store the customer in the virtual
store has announced his bargain through Twitter, Facebook, Woot, etc.
and the mis-priced product has been ordered by 100 other people. Or
200. Or 800. BH's servers can probably handle several hundred orders
a *minute*. Consider an expensive item that's not underpriced by a
mere 50% but with a mis-placed decimal point (it's been known to
happen) that effectively underprices it by 90%... and is ordered by
1000 or so people before the mistake is discovered. Consider a web
site that's been hacked and products re-priced: If the law treated any
of these like a physical store, they'd be obliged to sell everything
at the marked price until they noticed and fixed each erroneous price
(good luck proving it was hackers who did it - or, if you're an
aggrieved customer, proving that hackers *didn't* do it when the
seller claims that was the case). 

Mark Cassino's web page was hacked not long ago - they were trying to
upload trojans to site visitors but they could just as easily have
re-priced everything he sells.

Are there any online retailers who *do* guarantee that they'll sell
for the price that's advertised in their online store even if it's an
error? Find one. I haven't been able to. Look at the places that offer
to match competitors' prices (buy.com, for example): They specifically
state that they'll only match *correct* prices - they know *none*
of their competitors will actually sell at an erroneous price, and
they know pricing errors are a realistic possibility so they want to
be protected, too.

The marking of a price on an item on the shelf of a physical store
carries with it a kind of contractual obligation between the store and
the customer. The advertised price in a virtual store, on the other
hand, is treated as informational like the price in a printed
advertisement; subject to change or retraction in the case of errors.

Many practices that work in the physical world don't scale to the
speed, volume and security threats of the online environment. As far
as I can tell there are *no* online retailers who promise to sell for
the price advertised on the web site even if it's wrong. This is one
of the policies that simply isn't workable in the virtual world.


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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

Well I can state that I will not be purchasing from BH again where I
otherwise would have.

I have nothing personal against Henry.  I don't know him.

I agree totally with Stan and Anthony who have reiterated a point I
made earlier and then expounded with logical reasoning.

In short, this was an issue of choosing profit (or loss of profit)
over the customer and their satisfaction.

BH would not have suffered huge losses causing irrepairable harm and
I believe the Equitable Doctrine of Unilateral Mistake is being
grossly misapplied and misused, if that's the rationale behind not
honoring the contract.

In fact I think they would have come out ahead in the long run by
eating the cost of the goods, the desired profit margin and the
shipping, in effect purchasing  customer goodwill, loyalty, and
perception. Or if they simply viewed that bargain sale as a loss
leader instead of a loss.

If BH can't see the logic in this reasoning, or if they set forth a
policy and blindly stick to it on every occasion, then they are a
stupid and foolish corporate entity, and are likely losing current and
future business that far offsets any short term savings on a
transactional basis.

Even as a single independent IT Consultant I sometimes give away hours
of service here and there.  Maybe I had trouble figuring something out
or possibly I had to ramp up learning a new tool and the job took me
longer than I anticipated. Because I realize that in the business
world perception is at least 50% of reality, I eat those hours, that
profit, in order to ensure my client has a positive view of me and my
services. What I lose amounts to a lot more than $250, but what I gain
exceeds even that.

Tom C.



On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 8:06 AM, paul stenquist pnstenqu...@comcast.net wrote:

 On Feb 5, 2010, at 4:30 AM, Anthony Farr wrote:

 After ploughing through this thread I'm drawn to one recurring
 reference, which is to unprofitable customers.  Forgive me for
 asking, but doesn't the store and not the customer decide what deals
 will be offered for sale?  In that context, then it's the store's
 responsibility/fault if they offer a deal that doesn't turn a profit.
 Also in that context, it's totally out of line for the store to turn
 around and blame the customer for those losses, the deals didn't have
 to be offered in the first place.

 Now, we all know about loss leaders, don't we?  The store offers a
 doorbuster price usually at a loss, but hopes to turn it into a profit
 by upsizing the customer before they reach the checkout.  Then, is a
 customer who hops from one store to another and buys only the loss
 leader but never the upsize a bad customer?  No answer is needed for
 two reasons.  One is that the store offered the deal, it's as simple
 as that.  The second is that there's no workable way to filter out or
 discriminate against a customer because of how many items you ~think~
 they'll put in their cart.  If the business model for loss-leaders
 isn't working for a store, then they need to remedy it, not demonize
 customers who accept the offers.

 In essence - an unprofitable transaction is the result of the business
 practice that led up to it, not the customer who entered into it.

 Finally, a question for Henry Posner.  If you could replay this event
 that has caused so much grief, would you once again stand by your
 legal/moral position for the sake of $250, or would you let it slide,
 let the customer have the benefit-of-the-doubt (even though you
 believe he is wrong), and circumvent the ill-will and misunderstanding
 that it has spawned?

 I'm not Henry and certainly can't speak for BH. But after many years of 
 dealing with them, I would guess the answer would be a firm no. They'll 
 stick by their decision. And that's what I like about them. They have 
 specific policies that are set forth in writing, and you can depend on them 
 following them. I've never known them to deviate from the course that they've 
 set. Most often, that works to the consumer's advantage.

 I also doubt that this event has caused so much grief in the overall scheme 
 of things. Hand wringing and name calling here? Sure, but that's meaningless. 
 Perhaps another tempestuous discussion or two on photo lists? Certainly not a 
 big deal given the scope of BH's business.

 I think we should feel honored that Henry felt we deserved a reply. I'm only 
 sorry that he was not treated with the respect to which any human being is 
 entitled.

 Paul



 What does advertising cost these days, anyway?  More than $250?
 (Rhetorical questions).

 regards, Anthony

    Of what use is lens and light
    to those who lack in mind and sight
                                               (Anon)

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

Please post Bill, please.

Tom C.

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 8:45 AM, William Robb war...@gmail.com wrote:

 - Original Message - From: paul stenquist
 Subject: Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I




 I'm not Henry and certainly can't speak for BH. But after many years of
 dealing with them, I would guess the answer would be a firm no. They'll
 stick by their decision. And that's what I like about them. They have
 specific policies that are set forth in writing, and you can depend on them
 following them. I've never known them to deviate from the course that
 they've set. Most often, that works to the consumer's advantage.

 Except when they decide that they don't like the price they offered and
 cancel the sale after they have accepted payment for it.

 I asked you once, I'll ask you again: If you walked into a store to buy a
 quart of milk and when you get to the counter you are told the price that is
 clearly marked on the bottle as pr quart is actually per pint, and therefore
 you will have to pay double, would you do so happily?
 If you'd care to, answer me this time.

 In essence, this is what BH has done, and it is what you, Mark, Godfrey and
 (most unfortunately) Henry is defending.

 For myself,  wouldn't tolerate it from a retail store, and I wouldn't
 tolerate it from an online store as well. I haven't been a big BH customer,
 I've probably only spent perhaps 20K with them over the years, but after
 this, I'm done with them as a customer.
 They crossed the line from being trustworthy to being untrustworthy in my
 mind.

 Now I suppose because I took up the cause in my usual fun loving manner,
 Henry will breath a sigh of relief because I am an outspoken person and
 therefore potentially one of the problem customers he doesn't want, but I
 suspect I am not in the bottom 10% of dollars spent with them and I have
 never given them grief, other than what I feel is the well deserved grief I
 gave Henry for coming here and defending the indefensible.

 And for all of you who have sent me public and private emails chastising me
 for sewering this thread, please be assured that unless I am specifically
 invited to post to it again, I am most likely done with it.

 William Robb


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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

Ugh! :-)

I agree that the retailer should not suffer *huge* losses because an
item was mismarked, especially in the electronic online ordering
scenario where word gets around and they are flooded with orders. On
the other hand, being aware of this possibility, any large online
retailer who does not have software in place to monitor transactions
and send out an alert when there's a spike in orders of any given item
in a given time period, and automatically suspend sales of that item
is foolish.  Same goes for selling items at or below cost unless they
are specifically flagged to allow it.

On an individual transaction basis, Bill's mis-priced milk scenario
stands and the online store has exactly the same responsibilities to
the customer as a brick and mortar store. The money is the same, why
is everything else not the same?

Tom C.

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 9:04 AM, Mark Roberts m...@robertstech.com wrote:
 William Robb wrote:

I asked you once, I'll ask you again: If you walked into a store to buy a
quart of milk and when you get to the counter you are told the price that is
clearly marked on the bottle as pr quart is actually per pint, and therefore
you will have to pay double, would you do so happily?
If you'd care to, answer me this time.

In essence, this is what BH has done, and it is what you, Mark, Godfrey and
(most unfortunately) Henry is defending.

 Bill, you're equating a physical store with a virtual store. There
 seems to be a tacit assumption that online stores can or should
 work just like physical stores. This is, in and of itself, untrue.
 They don't. They can't. They shouldn't.

 Here's how a mis-priced item is handled in a physical store: You sell
 the product to the customer for the price marked and eat the loss.
 That's the right thing to do and it's also the law in many places (it
 was in New York State when I lived there). Then you go back onto the
 sales floor and correct the price. This isn't viable in an online
 store because in the time it takes to ring up the sale and walk back
 to the sales area of the physical store the customer in the virtual
 store has announced his bargain through Twitter, Facebook, Woot, etc.
 and the mis-priced product has been ordered by 100 other people. Or
 200. Or 800. BH's servers can probably handle several hundred orders
 a *minute*. Consider an expensive item that's not underpriced by a
 mere 50% but with a mis-placed decimal point (it's been known to
 happen) that effectively underprices it by 90%... and is ordered by
 1000 or so people before the mistake is discovered. Consider a web
 site that's been hacked and products re-priced: If the law treated any
 of these like a physical store, they'd be obliged to sell everything
 at the marked price until they noticed and fixed each erroneous price
 (good luck proving it was hackers who did it - or, if you're an
 aggrieved customer, proving that hackers *didn't* do it when the
 seller claims that was the case).

 Mark Cassino's web page was hacked not long ago - they were trying to
 upload trojans to site visitors but they could just as easily have
 re-priced everything he sells.

 Are there any online retailers who *do* guarantee that they'll sell
 for the price that's advertised in their online store even if it's an
 error? Find one. I haven't been able to. Look at the places that offer
 to match competitors' prices (buy.com, for example): They specifically
 state that they'll only match *correct* prices - they know *none*
 of their competitors will actually sell at an erroneous price, and
 they know pricing errors are a realistic possibility so they want to
 be protected, too.

 The marking of a price on an item on the shelf of a physical store
 carries with it a kind of contractual obligation between the store and
 the customer. The advertised price in a virtual store, on the other
 hand, is treated as informational like the price in a printed
 advertisement; subject to change or retraction in the case of errors.

 Many practices that work in the physical world don't scale to the
 speed, volume and security threats of the online environment. As far
 as I can tell there are *no* online retailers who promise to sell for
 the price advertised on the web site even if it's wrong. This is one
 of the policies that simply isn't workable in the virtual world.


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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

I can guarantee you Bill, that between either one of us alone, and
certainly combined, BH has already lost far more profit than they
would have by simply honoring the contract on that one transaction.

Tom C.

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 8:45 AM, William Robb war...@gmail.com wrote:

 - Original Message - From: paul stenquist
 Subject: Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I




 I'm not Henry and certainly can't speak for BH. But after many years of
 dealing with them, I would guess the answer would be a firm no. They'll
 stick by their decision. And that's what I like about them. They have
 specific policies that are set forth in writing, and you can depend on them
 following them. I've never known them to deviate from the course that
 they've set. Most often, that works to the consumer's advantage.

 Except when they decide that they don't like the price they offered and
 cancel the sale after they have accepted payment for it.

 I asked you once, I'll ask you again: If you walked into a store to buy a
 quart of milk and when you get to the counter you are told the price that is
 clearly marked on the bottle as pr quart is actually per pint, and therefore
 you will have to pay double, would you do so happily?
 If you'd care to, answer me this time.

 In essence, this is what BH has done, and it is what you, Mark, Godfrey and
 (most unfortunately) Henry is defending.

 For myself,  wouldn't tolerate it from a retail store, and I wouldn't
 tolerate it from an online store as well. I haven't been a big BH customer,
 I've probably only spent perhaps 20K with them over the years, but after
 this, I'm done with them as a customer.
 They crossed the line from being trustworthy to being untrustworthy in my
 mind.

 Now I suppose because I took up the cause in my usual fun loving manner,
 Henry will breath a sigh of relief because I am an outspoken person and
 therefore potentially one of the problem customers he doesn't want, but I
 suspect I am not in the bottom 10% of dollars spent with them and I have
 never given them grief, other than what I feel is the well deserved grief I
 gave Henry for coming here and defending the indefensible.

 And for all of you who have sent me public and private emails chastising me
 for sewering this thread, please be assured that unless I am specifically
 invited to post to it again, I am most likely done with it.

 William Robb


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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?

2010/2/5 Mark Roberts m...@robertstech.com:
 The Apple iMac 20 was sold with both a Philips/LG TN panel and a
 Samsung S-PVA - *big* difference in quality between a TN and an S-PVA!

If that's without informing the customer, it's pretty arrogant... :-(

Jostein

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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?

2010-02-05 Thread Rob Studdert

On 06/02/2010, AlunFoto alunf...@gmail.com wrote:
 2010/2/5 Mark Roberts m...@robertstech.com:
  The Apple iMac 20 was sold with both a Philips/LG TN panel and a
  Samsung S-PVA - *big* difference in quality between a TN and an S-PVA!

 If that's without informing the customer, it's pretty arrogant... :-(

Regardless I bet customers owning either thought the sun shone out of
their screens!

-- 
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Tel: +61-418-166-870 UTC +10 Hours
Gmail, eBay, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Picasa: distudio

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Re: Green Briar Camera Club 1st impressions

2010/2/5 Christine  Aguila cagu...@earthlink.net:
 Last night I stopped by the Green Briar Camera Club:
[...]

Well told, Christine. :-)
The GBCC seems to be just like most camera clubs here. For good and for bad...

Jostein
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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?


Am 05.02.2010 14:33, schrieb AlunFoto:


Apparently, some of the more obsessed laptop geeks have a habit of
picking their machines apart to find model numbers printed on the
display assembly. That's how Dell was caught sourcing different
displays in some laptop models at different production runs.


You may obtain this info easily for the Mac. Just open the terminal and 
enter:


ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed /[^]*/s/// | xxd -p -r | 
strings -6


What's your computer and what does ioreg name?

- Martin

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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?

2010-02-05 Thread Godfrey DiGiorgi

On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 9:41 PM, Tanya Love tanyal...@bigpond.com wrote:
 Really?  Well that shows how limited my Mac knowledge is, I always thought
 that you had to keep whatever you got with it!  I didn't even know that you
 could upgrade the RAM and hard drive!

 Me thinks I need to do lots more research!

I was deeply involved with Apple as an external developer from 1984 on
and then worked for Apple from 1991, shortly after the first PowerBook
introduction, to 2004. I sat in laptop development teams representing
Developer Relations during the first decade of my involvement there.
RAM and hard drives have *always* been user upgradeable, on all of
them, although some have been easier to do the upgrade than others.
They've always used industry standard components for these items too.

The same has been true for nearly all of the desktop systems since the
first Macintosh II in 1987.

The myth of non-upgradeability has to do with cpu and logic board
upgrades. Apple had a couple of upgrade programs for these components
during the '80s and '90s, but they turned out to not be cost effective
for the customers (or for Apple). Their computing systems are designed
with most everything people normally want to add as included, and the
highly integrated design (from board design to case to components to
operating system) means that when you want to upgrade something, you
have to upgrade most everything.

With other manufacturers' computing systems which were basically
incomplete in their base configuration, upgradeability usually means
'adding the bits that you didn't get when you bought it'. Cpu and
logic board upgrades usually mean basically replacing the entire
component (logic board, cpu, clock, graphics card, drive adapter, etc)
in what is a not-too-tightly-integrated box of bits, and then hoping
that it all works and that you can find drivers that run it. They keep
the boxes simple and basic because they don't put any time or money
into integration, which lets them sell them cheap. They don't develop
their own operating system or offer a suits of integrated software
products either.

Each approach has its plusses and minuses.

Apple is the largest volume single computer vendor in the world,
though, in the market space of personal computers, the largest single
vendor of mobile computing devices (laptops, phones, music players
together), and the only top to bottom integrated solution vendor in
this space. By current sales, they're a $50+ Billion dollar company
with massive profitability and growth, as well as $9-15 Billion in
cash in the bank. Most of the innovative new things that have become
de rigeur, a part of our everyday lives, across entire
computing/communications/electronic landscape of modern living have
either come directly out of Apple or were first adopted by Apple. To
say their approach is unsuccessful is an obviously ridiculous
assertion.

Yes, I use Apple systems, been using them (along with many others)
since 1983-4. They do what I need in a way I find satisfying and
productive, and get in the way less of the time, for me. Their warts
are warts I can live with more easily than the warts I find in other
systems. Nothing's perfect.

My goal is to do Photography, not to mess around with equipment.

Equipment often gets in the way of Photography.

Pick what gets in the way less of the time, for you, and accept what
it does and doesn't do. Then do Photography.

-- 
Godfrey
  godfreydigiorgi.posterous.com

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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?


Am 05.02.2010 16:12, schrieb Martin Trautmann:

Am 05.02.2010 14:33, schrieb AlunFoto:


Apparently, some of the more obsessed laptop geeks have a habit of
picking their machines apart to find model numbers printed on the
display assembly. That's how Dell was caught sourcing different
displays in some laptop models at different production runs.


You may obtain this info easily for the Mac. Just open the terminal and
enter:

ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed /[^]*/s/// | xxd -p -r |
strings -6

What's your computer and what does ioreg name?


Some typical MBP displays are e.g.
* B133EW07 V1 (AUO)
* LTN133AT09
* LP154WP3-TLA1
* B154PW01 V0


Within MBP 13 there are dedicated color profiles:
9C8C (?)
9C9E (Samsung)
9C9F (LG-Philips)
9CA0 (Chi Mei)
9CA1 (?)
9CBD (LG-Philips)

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Re: doing a happy dance!!

2010-02-05 Thread Jack Davis

LoL..(out loud). Good'un, Bill!

Jack

--- On Fri, 2/5/10, William Robb war...@gmail.com wrote:

 From: William Robb war...@gmail.com
 Subject: Re: doing a happy dance!!
 To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List pdml@pdml.net
 Date: Friday, February 5, 2010, 5:23 AM
 
 - Original Message - From: Tanya Love
 Subject: doing a happy dance!!
 
 
 
 H, me think's I'm feeling a bit risqué,
 
 
 The last time this happened, some of us got pictures
 
 William Robb 
 
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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?


Am 05.02.2010 16:15, schrieb Godfrey DiGiorgi:


Yes, I use Apple systems, been using them (along with many others)
since 1983-4. They do what I need in a way I find satisfying and
productive, and get in the way less of the time, for me. Their warts
are warts I can live with more easily than the warts I find in other
systems. Nothing's perfect.


Unfortunately their's a major lack of alternatives, once you are 
addicted to OSX.


matte 13 screen?
firewire?
express card slot?
eSATA?
fax modem?

Once in a while Apple does react on furious feedback (returning the 
firewire port on some models), while you don't have any alternative as 
long as there's no matching MacBook around.


You may add some stuff via USB (or one of the many expensive display 
adapters), but you don't have any choice for other models, as long as 
you don't use hackintosh - and most of the times the OSX86 models lack 
some essential functions afterwards.


Waiting for a usable Mac-Pad or at least a reasonable MBP upgrade this 
month. My iBook fell back to the C-clamp serial error, which is not 
considered as a design flaw by apple, and does require resoldering about 
every 6 months.


- Martin

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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?

2010-02-05 Thread P N Stenquist

Interesting. Terminal says the display on my iMac 24 (previous  
generation to the current iMac) is

LM240WU2-SLB2
Color LCD

Don't know what that means, but I suspect it can be translated.

Paul
On Feb 5, 2010, at 10:22 AM, Martin Trautmann wrote:


Am 05.02.2010 16:12, schrieb Martin Trautmann:

Am 05.02.2010 14:33, schrieb AlunFoto:


Apparently, some of the more obsessed laptop geeks have a habit of
picking their machines apart to find model numbers printed on the
display assembly. That's how Dell was caught sourcing different
displays in some laptop models at different production runs.


You may obtain this info easily for the Mac. Just open the terminal  
and

enter:

ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed /[^]*/s/// | xxd -p -r |
strings -6

What's your computer and what does ioreg name?


Some typical MBP displays are e.g.
* B133EW07 V1 (AUO)
* LTN133AT09
* LP154WP3-TLA1
* B154PW01 V0


Within MBP 13 there are dedicated color profiles:
9C8C (?)
9C9E (Samsung)
9C9F (LG-Philips)
9CA0 (Chi Mei)
9CA1 (?)
9CBD (LG-Philips)

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 4:30 AM, Anthony Farr farranth...@gmail.com wrote:
 Also in that context, it's totally out of line for the store to turn
 around and blame the customer for those losses, the deals didn't have
 to be offered in the first place.

 Then, is a customer who hops from one store to another and buys only the loss
 leader but never the upsize a bad customer?
 snip
 If the business model for loss-leaders  isn't working for a store, then they 
 need to remedy it, not demonize
 customers who accept the offers.

 In essence - an unprofitable transaction is the result of the business
 practice that led up to it, not the customer who entered into it.


Anthony,

Your post reminds me of something I've experienced in airports
recently.  Yesterday evening, I walked past a gate that was getting
ready to board (this was Delta Airlines but I've heard this from
United as well)...

'We have a very full flight today and would like to make an ontime
departure.  It's important that travelers board the plane, stow their
luggage and belongings, and be seated. We ask that you stow your
larger items like roller bags in the overhead bins, leaving the space
at your feet for smaller items.  If you bring an item on board that is
too big to fit in an overhead bin, this will cause additional
congestion in the aisle and the bag will need to be carried to the
front of the plane and then stowed with the rest of the cargo.  The
number one reason for late departures is because travelers delay
departure by not handling their carryon items properly.'

WHAT???  The CUSTOMER is responsible for late departures?  Who decided
to change their policy and charge an exhorbitant fee to check luggage,
so that now 70% of the passengers bring the larger carrier on bags
into the passenger compartment?  THE AIRLINE.  It's they that have
caused the congestion and lack of space in the overhead bins, the
confusion while travelers wander back and forth searching for a place
to put their bag, blocking the aisle no where near their assigned
seat, and consequent late departures.  THOSE NAUGHTY PESKY CUSTOMERS!

So I check my bag and then put my laptop in the overhead bin, so I
have room at my feet.  What do you think happens?  The flight
attendant, frantically searches for space in the overheads, sees my
laptop, asks whose it is, and then asks me if I would mind stowing it
under the seat in front of me.  To that I say 'No, I've already
checked my large bag underneath (often having to pay to do so).  I
shouldn't have to pay to check my bag and then ALSO give up the space
around my feet.  You want me, the person that has paid to check their
luggage, now sacrifice my comfort for the sake of customers who chose
not to pay. It's the airlines policy of charging for checked luggage
that is the problem and that's why there's not enough space'.

Anyway when I walked by the gate and heard that announcement, I
stopped and told three guys waiting to board that Did you hear that?
It's all your fault they're going to be late.  They laughed.

Tom C.

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

Tom C wrote:

Ugh! :-)

I agree that the retailer should not suffer *huge* losses because an
item was mismarked, especially in the electronic online ordering
scenario where word gets around and they are flooded with orders. On
the other hand, being aware of this possibility, any large online
retailer who does not have software in place to monitor transactions
and send out an alert when there's a spike in orders of any given item
in a given time period, and automatically suspend sales of that item
is foolish.  

Good idea, but I'm not aware of any software that does so. And, by
definition, it could only react *after* a spike existed. It would be
tricky to implement, too, because most of the time a spike in sales is
something you *want* to see. You'd need algorithms to differentiate
between good sales spikes and bad ones. (And staff to deal with
pissed off customers when the algorithm - eventually - made a
mistake.)

Same goes for selling items at or below cost unless they
are specifically flagged to allow it.

I'd guess that's exactly what happened in the case that started all
this. The company running the web site has the *price* of the items
for sale but it's unlikely that any large retailer would allow their
*cost* information out of house. So the discrepancy won't be detected
until the web host forwards the order information to the retailer.

On an individual transaction basis, Bill's mis-priced milk scenario
stands and the online store has exactly the same responsibilities to
the customer as a brick and mortar store. The money is the same, why
is everything else not the same?

The cashier in Bill's mis-priced milk scenario can see if there are
1000 other customers in line with mis-priced milk. The online retailer
can't (until it's too late). If the online store is required to sell
just one mis-priced item because the loss isn't huge, what do they
tell the second person in line? For that matter, how does the second
person know they're not being lied to and they really *are* the first
person in line? (I think that's what Cambridge Camera Exchange would
do!)

The answer to pretty much all of the above is that a lot of best
practices for the real world simply don't scale to the virtual one.
Comparison of one to the other is fundamentally flawed.

I looked for online retailers who promised to honor the prices
advertised on their site even in the event of a mistake. I couldn't
find any. (They're probably out there if you look hard enough, but
I'll bet they're small, newbie operations that haven't been bitten
yet. Or sellers of v...@gra, pr0n, etc. who have no intention of
honoring the promise.)

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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?

2010-02-05 Thread Godfrey DiGiorgi

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 7:33 AM, Martin Trautmann tr...@gmx.de wrote:
 Unfortunately their's a major lack of alternatives, once you are addicted to
 OSX.

Being addicted to anything is a bad idea

 matte 13 screen?

Don't care. As stated prior, I see no point to worrying about a fancy
laptop screen, and particularly not a 13 teensy one.

 firewire?

There in the MacBook Pro 13

 express card slot?

don't care. Never used one, have no need for one. SDHC slot is there.

 eSATA?

don't care, don't own any eSATA devices. FW 800 is fine.

 fax modem?

Haven't used a laptop modem in 8 or 9 years. FAXes are received by a
service and transferred digitally, wirelessly as PDF files. My
outgoing faxes are sent through a service from JPEG or PDF originals.

 You may add some stuff via USB (or one of the many expensive display
 adapters)

$19 for the DVI video adapter cable for my desktop monitor. The MBP13
will drive an excellent 30 desktop monitor.  I don't call that
expensive.

As I said, it doesn't get in the way *for me.* If it gets in the way
*for you*, buy something else.

Don't be addicted to anything. Buy what works.

-- 
Godfrey
  godfreydigiorgi.posterous.com

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Re: OT Geso Photos from the fund raiser

Thanks Frank

Dave

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 8:40 AM, frank theriault
knarftheria...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 10:04 AM, David J Brooks pentko...@gmail.com wrote:
 Put up a gallery of all the shots from the Haiti fund raiser at the farm.

 http://www.caughtinmotion.com/2010-paec-haiti/album/index.html

 Nothing special, just wanted to share.

 D1H, 35-70 f2.8, D200, 18-70 and or SB800/SB80DX

 Looks like folks were very generous in donating their time, prizes,
 stuff to raffle and the like.  It's great when people can do good
 while they have fun.  You've captured the spirit of the event very
 well!

 cheers,
 frank

 --
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Re: OT Some good news at Casa Del Brooksie

On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 6:44 PM, P. J. Alling webstertwenty...@gmail.com wrote:
 Is Pleasantville still BW or have they discovered color...

Sepia, they are transitioning.;-)

BTW it is a real place here.

Dave

 On 2/4/2010 6:09 PM, David J Brooks wrote:

 On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 9:56 AM, John Sessomsjsessoms...@nc.rr.com
  wrote:



 What's 30 minutes north of Stouffville?  Sounds like a nice place.


 Wouldn't that depend on what you're traveling IN?

 By one horse open sleigh, 30 minutes north of Stouffeville is
 Stouffville.


 Well, no. That would get you to Lemonville for sure, maybe Pleasantville.

 Dave



 By SR-71 Blackbird, it's Moscow.

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Re: Scott Bourne, QA With Scott Bourne About the iPad

2010-02-05 Thread Godfrey DiGiorgi

As I said, this whole thread is damm funny.
-- 
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  godfreydigiorgi.posterous.com

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

- Original Message - 
From: Mark Roberts

Subject: Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

Good idea, but I'm not aware of any software that does so. And, by
definition, it could only react *after* a spike existed. It would be
tricky to implement, too, because most of the time a spike in sales is
something you *want* to see. You'd need algorithms to differentiate
between good sales spikes and bad ones. (And staff to deal with
pissed off customers when the algorithm - eventually - made a
mistake.)

What you'd need is an item tracker to find spikes and a person who's 
responsibility it is to track back to the website to see if the spike is 
caused by incorrect pricing.
It would mean having someone with the ability to correct pricing errors 
manning a terminal 24/7, but considering that BH and it's ilk has done a 
very effective job of killing BM stores by not employing people, perhaps it 
would only be fair to ask them to hire a few people whose job is to keep 
them honest.
At what point do these places have a right to practice breach of contract? 
Is it a 2 for 1 price mistake such as what this thread is about? What 
happens if it is a fifty dollar mistake on a five hundred dollar item? What 
happens when the price is believable but they decide that it is too low and 
so arbitraritly decide to raise it, cancelling good faith transactions at 
the same time?
What happens when they arbitrarily cancel back orders because they decide 
that it is inconvenient to fullfill the order?
What happens when a customer chooses BH for the low price, eschewing 
another retailer who is slightly higher, only to have BH dishonour the 
contract and then said customer finds that everone has raised their price 
and he is screwed because he tried to be a smart shopper when in reality if 
he had been smart, he would have bought from the somewhat higher priced 
seller whose pricing was correct at the time?

All this makes me very glad that I live in an area that has an honest camera 
store so that I generally don't have to deal with mail order shysters.

Tom, that was your invite, I'm done now.

William Robb

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Re: PESO - Shelter

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 8:17 AM, frank theriault
knarftheria...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 12:15 AM, Christine  Aguila
 cagu...@earthlink.net wrote:
 Hi Frank:  The picture is quiet and intriguing.  The 2 hooded walkers evoke
 the idea of monks  you've caught the woman in a contemplative pose.  I like
 it.  I might like the pole on the left cropped out, leaving just a bit of
 the light, but not sure there.  Just thinking out loud.:-) Cheers, Christine

 Thanks, Christine!  I might try that crop...

Frank, cropWhats next a device to get film prints on a computer.??

Dave

 cheers,
 frank

 --
 Sharpness is a bourgeois concept.  -Henri Cartier-Bresson

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Re: OT/2: back from repair

Glad to hear all is good.
I've gone throught the cardio bit, so RR is the best right now. I do
that by taking pic's;-)

Not sure about the wobbly 16-50 barrel but i know some of my lenses do
have a bit of play to them. Never looked itto it.


Dave

On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 7:10 PM, eckinator eckina...@gmail.com wrote:
 glad to announce:

 - was released from hospital saturday after a major cardio  nervous
 breakdown thursday morning following 38 hours of non stop pc work
 - on a good way to a full functional recovery
 - one more hospital exam to go, looking good so far
 - will get weeks off from work for stress relief, me time and so on
 - am not to come back until back at at least 110%

 plus

 - picked up my k10d and 16-50 from checkup, cleaning, minor repairs
 and focal plane and back focus adjustment today

 - seems ok, too except for lens barrel appear slightly loose, can
 anyone comment if this is normal (never paid attention before) please?

 essence

 I was given a windfall of time and gear for finally some serious
 shooting since a vewwy long time
 so i wanna thank my maker and the fat lady

 cheers
 ecke - so glad to be still around (mind you my life was not in danger =)

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

The thing is, it's not difficult to implement, it's just a matter if doing it.

Will it cost money for the online retailer to do it? Yes.  Would it
potentially save them money if implemented? Likely yes.

The online retailers are already reducing overheads and maximizing
profits by 1) not usually have a physical location with a store front,
2) having essentially no sales staff, and 3) many times drop-shipping
an item straight from a manufacturer to the customer's door, meaning
that they didn't even have to maintain an inventory, and did not incur
the item cost until it was purchased.

Detecting sales spikes is simply a matter of setting threshholds,
recording item and time of each sale, and then a batch process running
that continually analyzes the data and flips a switch if a probable
problem is detected.  As you know the NYSE has software that operates
on this principle, and guess what? AFAIK, up to the point it kicks in,
the trades are valid and legal.

I disagree with the notion that there is any inherent difference
between putting a physical price tag on an item or display shelf, and
entering that same information into a computer screen, except that the
computer screen likely shows far more information (item cost,
description, units of sale like single or pair) to the person, and
should enable one to catch pricing issues more easily than when a low
paid, unknowledgable clerk hangs a price tag.

As far as where to cut it off in the case of volume sales, that's up
to the vendor.  One way to handle it, other than the monitoring
software, is to have sales of certain items only be finalized after
further review and approval, which could take no more than several
minutes.

It seems what you would do is put the majority of the responsiblity on
the customer, and abrogate the responsibility of the retailer, which
if done, will simply lead to sloppy(ier) business practices.

Tom C.


On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 10:58 AM, Mark Roberts m...@robertstech.com wrote:
 Tom C wrote:

Ugh! :-)

I agree that the retailer should not suffer *huge* losses because an
item was mismarked, especially in the electronic online ordering
scenario where word gets around and they are flooded with orders. On
the other hand, being aware of this possibility, any large online
retailer who does not have software in place to monitor transactions
and send out an alert when there's a spike in orders of any given item
in a given time period, and automatically suspend sales of that item
is foolish.

 Good idea, but I'm not aware of any software that does so. And, by
 definition, it could only react *after* a spike existed. It would be
 tricky to implement, too, because most of the time a spike in sales is
 something you *want* to see. You'd need algorithms to differentiate
 between good sales spikes and bad ones. (And staff to deal with
 pissed off customers when the algorithm - eventually - made a
 mistake.)

Same goes for selling items at or below cost unless they
are specifically flagged to allow it.

 I'd guess that's exactly what happened in the case that started all
 this. The company running the web site has the *price* of the items
 for sale but it's unlikely that any large retailer would allow their
 *cost* information out of house. So the discrepancy won't be detected
 until the web host forwards the order information to the retailer.

On an individual transaction basis, Bill's mis-priced milk scenario
stands and the online store has exactly the same responsibilities to
the customer as a brick and mortar store. The money is the same, why
is everything else not the same?

 The cashier in Bill's mis-priced milk scenario can see if there are
 1000 other customers in line with mis-priced milk. The online retailer
 can't (until it's too late). If the online store is required to sell
 just one mis-priced item because the loss isn't huge, what do they
 tell the second person in line? For that matter, how does the second
 person know they're not being lied to and they really *are* the first
 person in line? (I think that's what Cambridge Camera Exchange would
 do!)

 The answer to pretty much all of the above is that a lot of best
 practices for the real world simply don't scale to the virtual one.
 Comparison of one to the other is fundamentally flawed.

 I looked for online retailers who promised to honor the prices
 advertised on their site even in the event of a mistake. I couldn't
 find any. (They're probably out there if you look hard enough, but
 I'll bet they're small, newbie operations that haven't been bitten
 yet. Or sellers of v...@gra, pr0n, etc. who have no intention of
 honoring the promise.)

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

2010-02-05 Thread George Sinos

Just tagging onto the thread here.  Responding in general, not to
Marks specifics.

I've been following this for a couple of days and what surprises me is
the attitude of aha, I caught you, the rules say you have to do this,
so there!

Because of long standing experience with BH I'm convinced this was a
mistake.  But it would not make any difference to me.

If I was approached by any vendor that said, we made a mistake,
here's how we would like to make up for it.  You won't get as good a
deal as you thought, but it will be the best we can do or we'll take
the mdse back at our expense, refund your money and call it a day.

I don't think I could say aha, the law says you have too lose money
because  there are other people in the past that have done this on
purpose.   I wouldn't feel right treating anyone that way.

I would of course, take this into account in future transactions.

Now, on the subject of bad customers.  Yes, they do exist.

Women, for example, that buy a dress, wear it to a function, and
return the dress to the store.

A friend's wife, who bought several place settings of fine silver for
a party, used it, washed it, and returned it to the store.

The handy homeowner who buys a tool, uses it for one job, then takes
advantage of the store's no questions asked policy to return the
tool.  (Ask anyone who's worked in the Sears tool dept.)

These people raise the cost of doing business which raises prices for all of us.

You guy with the attitude of the store should eat the cost.  You do
understand that that raises the cost of doing business which only
raises the price for everyone else, don't you?

From the standpoint of learning about human nature, the most valuable
jobs I ever had were the retail jobs I worked while going through
school.

Stepping down from my soapbox now, gs

-- 
George Sinos

www.georgesphotos.net

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

... also large companies have software that automatically orders and
replenishes stock, think of the risk inherent in that.  So certainly
software of this nature exists.

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 10:58 AM, Mark Roberts m...@robertstech.com wrote:
 Tom C wrote:

Ugh! :-)

I agree that the retailer should not suffer *huge* losses because an
item was mismarked, especially in the electronic online ordering
scenario where word gets around and they are flooded with orders. On
the other hand, being aware of this possibility, any large online
retailer who does not have software in place to monitor transactions
and send out an alert when there's a spike in orders of any given item
in a given time period, and automatically suspend sales of that item
is foolish.

 Good idea, but I'm not aware of any software that does so. And, by
 definition, it could only react *after* a spike existed. It would be
 tricky to implement, too, because most of the time a spike in sales is
 something you *want* to see. You'd need algorithms to differentiate
 between good sales spikes and bad ones. (And staff to deal with
 pissed off customers when the algorithm - eventually - made a
 mistake.)

Same goes for selling items at or below cost unless they
are specifically flagged to allow it.

 I'd guess that's exactly what happened in the case that started all
 this. The company running the web site has the *price* of the items
 for sale but it's unlikely that any large retailer would allow their
 *cost* information out of house. So the discrepancy won't be detected
 until the web host forwards the order information to the retailer.

On an individual transaction basis, Bill's mis-priced milk scenario
stands and the online store has exactly the same responsibilities to
the customer as a brick and mortar store. The money is the same, why
is everything else not the same?

 The cashier in Bill's mis-priced milk scenario can see if there are
 1000 other customers in line with mis-priced milk. The online retailer
 can't (until it's too late). If the online store is required to sell
 just one mis-priced item because the loss isn't huge, what do they
 tell the second person in line? For that matter, how does the second
 person know they're not being lied to and they really *are* the first
 person in line? (I think that's what Cambridge Camera Exchange would
 do!)

 The answer to pretty much all of the above is that a lot of best
 practices for the real world simply don't scale to the virtual one.
 Comparison of one to the other is fundamentally flawed.

 I looked for online retailers who promised to honor the prices
 advertised on their site even in the event of a mistake. I couldn't
 find any. (They're probably out there if you look hard enough, but
 I'll bet they're small, newbie operations that haven't been bitten
 yet. Or sellers of v...@gra, pr0n, etc. who have no intention of
 honoring the promise.)

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Re: Green Briar Camera Club 1st impressions

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 2:30 AM, Larry Colen l...@red4est.com wrote:

 One nice thing about this group is that it makes me feel so young.  I have
 eight months and a day until I hit 50.

Been there.

Glad you had a good time Christine. I think a weekly meeting is a bit
much, but twice a month seems like a good idea.

Dave

 --
 Larry Colen l...@red4est.com sent from i4est





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Re: Myopic Bulls**t Artists

Bill,
.0001%?  Sounds like hyperbole to me.
Remember Wally World.
Those folks who didn't understand why the blow-up was so fuzzy, or
why you couldn't just move the picture over to the left a bit and get
all of Uncle Ned.
You're the guy who bailed out on the job because you couldn't take 'em anymore.
.0001%?  You're not warm and fuzzy enough to love the customers that much!
Regards,  Bob S.  :-)

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 7:52 AM, William Robb war...@gmail.com wrote:

 - Original Message - From: Sandy Harris
 Subject: Re: Myopic Bulls**t Artists


 On 2/4/10, Bob Sullivan rf.sulli...@gmail.com wrote:

  Bill R, after your retail experiences, I can't believe you want to
  keep that last 10% of the asshole customers who cause you all those
  problems.

 Indeed not. I used to sell computers and pieces thereof retail.
 The people that really drove me crazy were the ones trying to
 get absolutely the cheapest box, without the skills to build it,
 let alone debug it.

 The real question though, is was this person 10% of your customer base, or
 is there perhaps a bit of hyperbole in that number?
 I've spent most of the last 25 years working in retail, and would put the %
 of customers you just wish would go away and never come back at perhaps
 0.0001%.
 However, I take a slightly diffeent mindset. I don't blame the customers who
 are pointing out a problem with my business model for my mistakes. Often,
 they become the best customers.

 William Robb

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I


 You guy with the attitude of the store should eat the cost.  You do
 understand that that raises the cost of doing business which only
 raises the price for everyone else, don't you?


Does it?  Only if the retailer makes it so.

On the other hand, the increased sales because you have a happy
customer and now enjoy the benefits of their repeat business can
quickly surpass the temporal loss. Then that customer tells his
friends, 'You know what happened?', and his friends think next time
they want to make a purchase, 'Wow ABC company really treated my
friend right.  I think I'll check out their website first'.

So many many businesses are shortsighted and only see the tangible,
when it's often the intangible that is of higher value.

Since I'm no longer purchasing from BH, and they will not have the
benefit of my $ paying the gross margin, and consequently stock for
which they've paid for sits longer in the warehouse, does that raise
the price for everyone else?

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Re: Green Briar Camera Club 1st impressions

Christine,
This is an age of mobility with people shedding one metro for the next.
It is excellent that you have found a way to connect the threads of
your life to your roots.
Age is a number.  The last number I remember is 26.
Regards,  Bob S.

On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 10:59 PM, Christine  Aguila
cagu...@earthlink.net wrote:
 Last night I stopped by the Green Briar Camera Club:

 1)  A bit of history:  the Green Briar Camera Club has been in existence
 since 1934--can you believe it!--and, of course, has been meeting at the
 field house of Green Briar Park in Chicago since the beginning.  At one time
 they  were so large, they had weekly meetings, which really were (and are)
 weekly competitions.  Now the club membership is a lot smaller, but still
 appears to be quite active, holding about 2 meetings a month.

 2)  Last night was the pictorial competition, which, for me, proved
 interesting, since I've never been to a photography competition. Prints are
 viewed by 3 judges from another camera club and viewed in a *print box*
 which is lighted with 2 tungsten bulbs  2 fluorescent bulbs.  This lighting
 set-up is the standard for single club  interclub (Chicago Area Camera
 Clubs Association--(CACCA)) competitions.  The club has created a specific
 category called Digital Projected Images (DPI), but it was very clear the
 projector was not calibrated; all images were way too bright.

 3)  The equipment for judges is quite impressive:  each judge has an
 electronic box used to punch in a score, which is then automatically
 calculated and displayed.  A reader states the combined score aloud, which
 is then tallied in software  by hand on a score sheet.  Once the category
 judging is finished, judges give critique  justification for score.

 4) I was invited to join everyone for coffee  ice cream at a nearby diner
 afterwards.  Lots of fun stories were told, some printing equipment talk
 ensued , and I was asked to testify: was I a PC or Mac user.  When I stated
 I was a PC user, I was playfully dismissed.

 5)  I was encouraged to get some prints together for a club nature
 competition in a few weeks.  Out of several thousand frames, I've found
 about 2 that will meet the competition requirements--no alterations  no
 *hand of man* in the frame (no people, trails, fences, etc).  I've got
 people everywhere in my shots. lol.

 6)  All in all, it seems like it might be fun, but there is something that
 really struck me last night that has nothing to do with photography: Despite
 the fact that Chicago proper is a huge, bustling city of brick, steel, 
 concrete, we have an outstanding park system; there are over 500 inland
 parks and, of course, the lake front is considered 1 huge beach  park. When
 you meet someone who was born  bred in Chicago, one of the 1st questions
 often asked is *what park did you hang out at as a kid?*  I, myself, grew up
 in Eugene Field Park (named after the poet).  Each park has a field house.
  Some are quite beautiful.  Eugene has a gym, club rooms, a beautiful
 auditorium, a wood shop, and an administrative office.  I spent my entire
 childhood  in that park:  We all played on the 16 inch pony-tail softball
 league; I took sewing lessons there; we were in the drama club  performed
 in plays in the theater; we had gym shows; we played all kinds of sports 
 track  field; and we attended girl scout meetings in the club rooms.
  Darrel  I were even able to have our wedding ceremony  reception in
 Eugene's auditorium.  I am a child of the Chicago Parks.  And there I was
 last night, exactly 22 days away from turning 50, and what was I doing?
 Walking into the field house of a neighborhood park, looking for the east
 club room with intent of possibly signing up for, yet, another park activity
 :-).

 Cheers, Christine




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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

Those were also my thoughts Bill. The person wouldn't have to find the
spikes, simply review the ones reported.

I can't say what the transaction volume/min on a given item is... but
I can imagine were not talking about something like 50 Pentax K-7's or
10 Nikon D3x's sold per minute. The software could even track
inventory data and regularly update a database containing sales volume
per item in a time frame, last month, last week, yesterday, last hour,
last minute.  If at any point, a threshhold is crossed, the software
would run the proverbial red flag up the flagpole, temporarily suspend
sales of the item, and generate high priority e-mails, pages, or phone
calls to the appropriate personnel to alert them.

If not excessive, I think most businesses view pricing errors as a
cost of doing business and to some degree it's already reflected in
the selling price, just like shrinks, returns, damages, etc.

Tom C.

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 11:19 AM, William Robb war...@gmail.com wrote:

 What you'd need is an item tracker to find spikes and a person who's
 responsibility it is to track back to the website to see if the spike is
 caused by incorrect pricing.
 It would mean having someone with the ability to correct pricing errors
 manning a terminal 24/7, but considering that BH and it's ilk has done a
 very effective job of killing BM stores by not employing people, perhaps it
 would only be fair to ask them to hire a few people whose job is to keep
 them honest.

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Re: Green Briar Camera Club 1st impressions

2010-02-05 Thread George Sinos

Hi Christine -

The Omaha Camera Club is very similar.  They've been meeting 3 times a
month for over 80 years.  It's interesting how some things carry on
and others disappear.  gs

On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 10:59 PM, Christine  Aguila
cagu...@earthlink.net wrote:
 Last night I stopped by the Green Briar Camera Club:

 1)  A bit of history:  the Green Briar Camera Club has been in existence
 since 1934--can you believe it!--and, of course, has been meeting at the
 field house of Green Briar Park in Chicago since the beginning.  At one time
 they  were so large, they had weekly meetings, which really were (and are)
 weekly competitions.  Now the club membership is a lot smaller, but still
 appears to be quite active, holding about 2 meetings a month.

 2)  Last night was the pictorial competition, which, for me, proved
 interesting, since I've never been to a photography competition. Prints are
 viewed by 3 judges from another camera club and viewed in a *print box*
 which is lighted with 2 tungsten bulbs  2 fluorescent bulbs.  This lighting
 set-up is the standard for single club  interclub (Chicago Area Camera
 Clubs Association--(CACCA)) competitions.  The club has created a specific
 category called Digital Projected Images (DPI), but it was very clear the
 projector was not calibrated; all images were way too bright.

 3)  The equipment for judges is quite impressive:  each judge has an
 electronic box used to punch in a score, which is then automatically
 calculated and displayed.  A reader states the combined score aloud, which
 is then tallied in software  by hand on a score sheet.  Once the category
 judging is finished, judges give critique  justification for score.

 4) I was invited to join everyone for coffee  ice cream at a nearby diner
 afterwards.  Lots of fun stories were told, some printing equipment talk
 ensued , and I was asked to testify: was I a PC or Mac user.  When I stated
 I was a PC user, I was playfully dismissed.

 5)  I was encouraged to get some prints together for a club nature
 competition in a few weeks.  Out of several thousand frames, I've found
 about 2 that will meet the competition requirements--no alterations  no
 *hand of man* in the frame (no people, trails, fences, etc).  I've got
 people everywhere in my shots. lol.

 6)  All in all, it seems like it might be fun, but there is something that
 really struck me last night that has nothing to do with photography: Despite
 the fact that Chicago proper is a huge, bustling city of brick, steel, 
 concrete, we have an outstanding park system; there are over 500 inland
 parks and, of course, the lake front is considered 1 huge beach  park. When
 you meet someone who was born  bred in Chicago, one of the 1st questions
 often asked is *what park did you hang out at as a kid?*  I, myself, grew up
 in Eugene Field Park (named after the poet).  Each park has a field house.
  Some are quite beautiful.  Eugene has a gym, club rooms, a beautiful
 auditorium, a wood shop, and an administrative office.  I spent my entire
 childhood  in that park:  We all played on the 16 inch pony-tail softball
 league; I took sewing lessons there; we were in the drama club  performed
 in plays in the theater; we had gym shows; we played all kinds of sports 
 track  field; and we attended girl scout meetings in the club rooms.
  Darrel  I were even able to have our wedding ceremony  reception in
 Eugene's auditorium.  I am a child of the Chicago Parks.  And there I was
 last night, exactly 22 days away from turning 50, and what was I doing?
 Walking into the field house of a neighborhood park, looking for the east
 club room with intent of possibly signing up for, yet, another park activity
 :-).

 Cheers, Christine




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-- 
George Sinos

www.georgesphotos.net

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

Not the selling price of THE item, but across the board in terms of
overall markup.

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Tom C caka...@gmail.com wrote:
 Those were also my thoughts Bill. The person wouldn't have to find the
 spikes, simply review the ones reported.

 I can't say what the transaction volume/min on a given item is... but
 I can imagine were not talking about something like 50 Pentax K-7's or
 10 Nikon D3x's sold per minute. The software could even track
 inventory data and regularly update a database containing sales volume
 per item in a time frame, last month, last week, yesterday, last hour,
 last minute.  If at any point, a threshhold is crossed, the software
 would run the proverbial red flag up the flagpole, temporarily suspend
 sales of the item, and generate high priority e-mails, pages, or phone
 calls to the appropriate personnel to alert them.

 If not excessive, I think most businesses view pricing errors as a
 cost of doing business and to some degree it's already reflected in
 the selling price, just like shrinks, returns, damages, etc.

 Tom C.

 On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 11:19 AM, William Robb war...@gmail.com wrote:

 What you'd need is an item tracker to find spikes and a person who's
 responsibility it is to track back to the website to see if the spike is
 caused by incorrect pricing.
 It would mean having someone with the ability to correct pricing errors
 manning a terminal 24/7, but considering that BH and it's ilk has done a
 very effective job of killing BM stores by not employing people, perhaps it
 would only be fair to ask them to hire a few people whose job is to keep
 them honest.


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Re: Green Briar Camera Club 1st impressions

2010-02-05 Thread Ed Keeney

David J Brooks
Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:26:13 -0800

Glad you had a good time Christine. I think a weekly meeting is a bit
much, but twice a month seems like a good idea.

I thought about joining my local group as well, but they have at least
3 meetings a month; just too much time.  I'd rather spend the time
with the kids.

-- 
Thanks!
Ed
http://picasaweb.google.com/ewkphoto

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

Thanks Mark for putting some sanity back into this thread.
Bill wants to argue like this is some 2 dollar item picked off of the
store shelf.
I think the situation changes with the price of the item and in the
virtual store.
Regards, Bob S.

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 8:04 AM, Mark Roberts m...@robertstech.com wrote:
 William Robb wrote:

I asked you once, I'll ask you again: If you walked into a store to buy a
quart of milk and when you get to the counter you are told the price that is
clearly marked on the bottle as pr quart is actually per pint, and therefore
you will have to pay double, would you do so happily?
If you'd care to, answer me this time.

In essence, this is what BH has done, and it is what you, Mark, Godfrey and
(most unfortunately) Henry is defending.

 Bill, you're equating a physical store with a virtual store. There
 seems to be a tacit assumption that online stores can or should
 work just like physical stores. This is, in and of itself, untrue.
 They don't. They can't. They shouldn't.

 Here's how a mis-priced item is handled in a physical store: You sell
 the product to the customer for the price marked and eat the loss.
 That's the right thing to do and it's also the law in many places (it
 was in New York State when I lived there). Then you go back onto the
 sales floor and correct the price. This isn't viable in an online
 store because in the time it takes to ring up the sale and walk back
 to the sales area of the physical store the customer in the virtual
 store has announced his bargain through Twitter, Facebook, Woot, etc.
 and the mis-priced product has been ordered by 100 other people. Or
 200. Or 800. BH's servers can probably handle several hundred orders
 a *minute*. Consider an expensive item that's not underpriced by a
 mere 50% but with a mis-placed decimal point (it's been known to
 happen) that effectively underprices it by 90%... and is ordered by
 1000 or so people before the mistake is discovered. Consider a web
 site that's been hacked and products re-priced: If the law treated any
 of these like a physical store, they'd be obliged to sell everything
 at the marked price until they noticed and fixed each erroneous price
 (good luck proving it was hackers who did it - or, if you're an
 aggrieved customer, proving that hackers *didn't* do it when the
 seller claims that was the case).

 Mark Cassino's web page was hacked not long ago - they were trying to
 upload trojans to site visitors but they could just as easily have
 re-priced everything he sells.

 Are there any online retailers who *do* guarantee that they'll sell
 for the price that's advertised in their online store even if it's an
 error? Find one. I haven't been able to. Look at the places that offer
 to match competitors' prices (buy.com, for example): They specifically
 state that they'll only match *correct* prices - they know *none*
 of their competitors will actually sell at an erroneous price, and
 they know pricing errors are a realistic possibility so they want to
 be protected, too.

 The marking of a price on an item on the shelf of a physical store
 carries with it a kind of contractual obligation between the store and
 the customer. The advertised price in a virtual store, on the other
 hand, is treated as informational like the price in a printed
 advertisement; subject to change or retraction in the case of errors.

 Many practices that work in the physical world don't scale to the
 speed, volume and security threats of the online environment. As far
 as I can tell there are *no* online retailers who promise to sell for
 the price advertised on the web site even if it's wrong. This is one
 of the policies that simply isn't workable in the virtual world.


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Re: Myopic Bulls**t Artists

- Original Message - 
From: Bob Sullivan

Subject: Re: Myopic Bulls**t Artists

Bill,
.0001%?  Sounds like hyperbole to me.
Remember Wally World.
Those folks who didn't understand why the blow-up was so fuzzy, or
why you couldn't just move the picture over to the left a bit and get
all of Uncle Ned.
You're the guy who bailed out on the job because you couldn't take 'em 
anymore.

.0001%?  You're not warm and fuzzy enough to love the customers that much!

Take those customers into account within the entire store, and that number 
is probably still pretty close. The vast majority of the type of complaint 
you are talking about was solvable with a quick explanation.
The customer who comes in with a query and a request for a redo is not a 
problem customer. They think they have a QC issue with the lab, and 
sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't.
The customers who complained when we scratched their films would be problem 
customers by your reckoning I guess.
I bailed on the job because the job was no longer photofinishing and I 
disliked what the job had morphed into enough to want to leave it.
I suppose this is the customer's fault because they bought digital cameras 
rather than staying with film, but this is a bit of a stretch of logic, even 
for me.
If I couldn't take the customers any longer, I certainly wouldn't have gone 
across the street (literally) to work in the Lumber and Building Supplies 
department at Home Depot (which, BTW, is a great place to work).
Now, instead of answering questions about how to take pictures, I answer 
questions about how to build houses.
What has changed is that I have much bigger muscles from loading carts for 
people.

William Robb

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

- Original Message - 
From: George Sinos

Subject: Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

These people raise the cost of doing business which raises prices for all 
of us.

You guy with the attitude of the store should eat the cost.  You do
understand that that raises the cost of doing business which only
raises the price for everyone else, don't you?

Dammit Geoge, I hate it when you make a liar out of me.
For the past 9 months or so, I have been slinging lumber at my local Home 
Depot.

Here are some actual returns I've dealt with:
A cart load of 5/4x6/16' PT deck boards returned.
The top layer was new wood, the bottom 40 boards had been pulled off a deck.
I presume they replaced old wood with new and successfully returned the old 
product.

Odd length boards such as 11 foot runs. We sell 8', 10' and 12'
Soketimes you get to see where the customer calculated his cut and them 
marked it wrong.
Boards with screws still embedded in them (I hit that with my radial arm saw 
when cutting it down to cull and I wouldn't be happy).
Sheets of plywood that have been cut up and then returned because they did 
the cuts wrong.
If you like, I can post a picture of a sheet of MDF that was broken by a 
vehicle driving over it.

We gave them their money back for it, too.
Broken sheets of drywall.
A pail of drywall mud that had been opened and partially used.
Two end plates from single device electrical boxes that the customer had 
bought, made a single two gang box with and then returned the unused end 
plates for a full refund.

I bitched and moaned about this sort of thing at a Towne Hall metting once 
and was told that this sort of thing was a very small % of returns, and that 
the company's position was that it wasn't worth annoying customers over.
We eat the loss, write off the product at full retail and I am sure that the 
Harvard guys figure out some way to turn it into a financial windfall.

The point is, a good retailer takes the point of view that the customer, 
while not always right, at least deserves the benefit of the doubt, and 
should not be called out as a liar by the retailer.

In the situation that led us to this thread, had BH been as good a retailer 
as Home Depot is, they would have taken the hit, and not had the bad PR that 
anyone doing a Google search is going to give them when people find this 
thread.
BH has not only made it plain that they will not stand behind their pricing 
when they find it inconvenient, they have sicced one of their 
representatives onto this forum and he, in turn, has cast a few insults at 
forum members.

It's one thing for Bill Robb to insult Henry Posner, Bill Robb is known for 
this sort of behaviour.
It is something else entirely for BH Photo to insult Bill Robb, who has 
been a good customer of theirs.

William Robb

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

The principle is the same. We were not talking about massive high
volume sales where the retailer loses his shirt.  We're talking about
one transaction of two items to one customer, and it was not a high
priced item.

I don't see that any sanity was injected into it.  What's insane is
for a retailer to alienate their customers when by a relatively small
gesture, they could make them happy and most probably lock in their
repeat business.

Tom C.

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Bob Sullivan rf.sulli...@gmail.com wrote:
 Thanks Mark for putting some sanity back into this thread.
 Bill wants to argue like this is some 2 dollar item picked off of the
 store shelf.
 I think the situation changes with the price of the item and in the
 virtual store.
 Regards, Bob S.

 On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 8:04 AM, Mark Roberts m...@robertstech.com wrote:
 William Robb wrote:

I asked you once, I'll ask you again: If you walked into a store to buy a
quart of milk and when you get to the counter you are told the price that is
clearly marked on the bottle as pr quart is actually per pint, and therefore
you will have to pay double, would you do so happily?
If you'd care to, answer me this time.

In essence, this is what BH has done, and it is what you, Mark, Godfrey and
(most unfortunately) Henry is defending.

 Bill, you're equating a physical store with a virtual store. There
 seems to be a tacit assumption that online stores can or should
 work just like physical stores. This is, in and of itself, untrue.
 They don't. They can't. They shouldn't.

 Here's how a mis-priced item is handled in a physical store: You sell
 the product to the customer for the price marked and eat the loss.
 That's the right thing to do and it's also the law in many places (it
 was in New York State when I lived there). Then you go back onto the
 sales floor and correct the price. This isn't viable in an online
 store because in the time it takes to ring up the sale and walk back
 to the sales area of the physical store the customer in the virtual
 store has announced his bargain through Twitter, Facebook, Woot, etc.
 and the mis-priced product has been ordered by 100 other people. Or
 200. Or 800. BH's servers can probably handle several hundred orders
 a *minute*. Consider an expensive item that's not underpriced by a
 mere 50% but with a mis-placed decimal point (it's been known to
 happen) that effectively underprices it by 90%... and is ordered by
 1000 or so people before the mistake is discovered. Consider a web
 site that's been hacked and products re-priced: If the law treated any
 of these like a physical store, they'd be obliged to sell everything
 at the marked price until they noticed and fixed each erroneous price
 (good luck proving it was hackers who did it - or, if you're an
 aggrieved customer, proving that hackers *didn't* do it when the
 seller claims that was the case).

 Mark Cassino's web page was hacked not long ago - they were trying to
 upload trojans to site visitors but they could just as easily have
 re-priced everything he sells.

 Are there any online retailers who *do* guarantee that they'll sell
 for the price that's advertised in their online store even if it's an
 error? Find one. I haven't been able to. Look at the places that offer
 to match competitors' prices (buy.com, for example): They specifically
 state that they'll only match *correct* prices - they know *none*
 of their competitors will actually sell at an erroneous price, and
 they know pricing errors are a realistic possibility so they want to
 be protected, too.

 The marking of a price on an item on the shelf of a physical store
 carries with it a kind of contractual obligation between the store and
 the customer. The advertised price in a virtual store, on the other
 hand, is treated as informational like the price in a printed
 advertisement; subject to change or retraction in the case of errors.

 Many practices that work in the physical world don't scale to the
 speed, volume and security threats of the online environment. As far
 as I can tell there are *no* online retailers who promise to sell for
 the price advertised on the web site even if it's wrong. This is one
 of the policies that simply isn't workable in the virtual world.


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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

- Original Message - 
From: Bob Sullivan

Subject: Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

Thanks Mark for putting some sanity back into this thread.
Bill wants to argue like this is some 2 dollar item picked off of the
store shelf.
I think the situation changes with the price of the item and in the
virtual store.

The price is not germaine, the principal behind it is what is important.
If I can't depend on an online retailer to honour the pricing on his web 
store shelves (and lets make no mistake, that is what the BH website is), 
then what incentive do I have to go there rather than to my BM store that 
may end up having a lower cost if BH decides they don't have to honour the 
pricing on their virtual shelves.
I can go downtown and get an honest transaction, or I can go to 
BHPhotoVideo.com and run the risk of them being dishonest with me.

Mark mentioned Cambridge Camera as an example of who not to shop with.
Is BH really any different?

William Robb 

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

Bill,
After your story, Lynn will have to sell her Home Depot stock...
Regards,  Bob S.

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 10:57 AM, William Robb war...@gmail.com wrote:

 - Original Message - From: George Sinos
 Subject: Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I



 These people raise the cost of doing business which raises prices for all
 of us.

 You guy with the attitude of the store should eat the cost.  You do
 understand that that raises the cost of doing business which only
 raises the price for everyone else, don't you?

 Dammit Geoge, I hate it when you make a liar out of me.
 For the past 9 months or so, I have been slinging lumber at my local Home
 Depot.
 Here are some actual returns I've dealt with:
 A cart load of 5/4x6/16' PT deck boards returned.
 The top layer was new wood, the bottom 40 boards had been pulled off a deck.
 I presume they replaced old wood with new and successfully returned the old
 product.
 Odd length boards such as 11 foot runs. We sell 8', 10' and 12'
 Soketimes you get to see where the customer calculated his cut and them
 marked it wrong.
 Boards with screws still embedded in them (I hit that with my radial arm saw
 when cutting it down to cull and I wouldn't be happy).
 Sheets of plywood that have been cut up and then returned because they did
 the cuts wrong.
 If you like, I can post a picture of a sheet of MDF that was broken by a
 vehicle driving over it.
 We gave them their money back for it, too.
 Broken sheets of drywall.
 A pail of drywall mud that had been opened and partially used.
 Two end plates from single device electrical boxes that the customer had
 bought, made a single two gang box with and then returned the unused end
 plates for a full refund.

 I bitched and moaned about this sort of thing at a Towne Hall metting once
 and was told that this sort of thing was a very small % of returns, and that
 the company's position was that it wasn't worth annoying customers over.
 We eat the loss, write off the product at full retail and I am sure that the
 Harvard guys figure out some way to turn it into a financial windfall.

 The point is, a good retailer takes the point of view that the customer,
 while not always right, at least deserves the benefit of the doubt, and
 should not be called out as a liar by the retailer.

 In the situation that led us to this thread, had BH been as good a retailer
 as Home Depot is, they would have taken the hit, and not had the bad PR that
 anyone doing a Google search is going to give them when people find this
 thread.
 BH has not only made it plain that they will not stand behind their pricing
 when they find it inconvenient, they have sicced one of their
 representatives onto this forum and he, in turn, has cast a few insults at
 forum members.

 It's one thing for Bill Robb to insult Henry Posner, Bill Robb is known for
 this sort of behaviour.
 It is something else entirely for BH Photo to insult Bill Robb, who has
 been a good customer of theirs.

 William Robb


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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

 It's one thing for Bill Robb to insult Henry Posner, Bill Robb is known for
 this sort of behaviour.
 It is something else entirely for BH Photo to insult Bill Robb, who has
 been a good customer of theirs.

 William Robb

MARK!

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

Bob,

I'm a virtual store and will gladly accept your virtual money, in any
amount, denomination or currency.  HAND IT OVER!

:-)

Tom C.

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Bob Sullivan rf.sulli...@gmail.com wrote:
 Thanks Mark for putting some sanity back into this thread.
 Bill wants to argue like this is some 2 dollar item picked off of the
 store shelf.
 I think the situation changes with the price of the item and in the
 virtual store.
 Regards, Bob S.

 On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 8:04 AM, Mark Roberts m...@robertstech.com wrote:
 William Robb wrote:

I asked you once, I'll ask you again: If you walked into a store to buy a
quart of milk and when you get to the counter you are told the price that is
clearly marked on the bottle as pr quart is actually per pint, and therefore
you will have to pay double, would you do so happily?
If you'd care to, answer me this time.

In essence, this is what BH has done, and it is what you, Mark, Godfrey and
(most unfortunately) Henry is defending.

 Bill, you're equating a physical store with a virtual store. There
 seems to be a tacit assumption that online stores can or should
 work just like physical stores. This is, in and of itself, untrue.
 They don't. They can't. They shouldn't.

 Here's how a mis-priced item is handled in a physical store: You sell
 the product to the customer for the price marked and eat the loss.
 That's the right thing to do and it's also the law in many places (it
 was in New York State when I lived there). Then you go back onto the
 sales floor and correct the price. This isn't viable in an online
 store because in the time it takes to ring up the sale and walk back
 to the sales area of the physical store the customer in the virtual
 store has announced his bargain through Twitter, Facebook, Woot, etc.
 and the mis-priced product has been ordered by 100 other people. Or
 200. Or 800. BH's servers can probably handle several hundred orders
 a *minute*. Consider an expensive item that's not underpriced by a
 mere 50% but with a mis-placed decimal point (it's been known to
 happen) that effectively underprices it by 90%... and is ordered by
 1000 or so people before the mistake is discovered. Consider a web
 site that's been hacked and products re-priced: If the law treated any
 of these like a physical store, they'd be obliged to sell everything
 at the marked price until they noticed and fixed each erroneous price
 (good luck proving it was hackers who did it - or, if you're an
 aggrieved customer, proving that hackers *didn't* do it when the
 seller claims that was the case).

 Mark Cassino's web page was hacked not long ago - they were trying to
 upload trojans to site visitors but they could just as easily have
 re-priced everything he sells.

 Are there any online retailers who *do* guarantee that they'll sell
 for the price that's advertised in their online store even if it's an
 error? Find one. I haven't been able to. Look at the places that offer
 to match competitors' prices (buy.com, for example): They specifically
 state that they'll only match *correct* prices - they know *none*
 of their competitors will actually sell at an erroneous price, and
 they know pricing errors are a realistic possibility so they want to
 be protected, too.

 The marking of a price on an item on the shelf of a physical store
 carries with it a kind of contractual obligation between the store and
 the customer. The advertised price in a virtual store, on the other
 hand, is treated as informational like the price in a printed
 advertisement; subject to change or retraction in the case of errors.

 Many practices that work in the physical world don't scale to the
 speed, volume and security threats of the online environment. As far
 as I can tell there are *no* online retailers who promise to sell for
 the price advertised on the web site even if it's wrong. This is one
 of the policies that simply isn't workable in the virtual world.


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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

2010-02-05 Thread John Francis


No - please don't.

It should be obvious to all, by now, that you and Bill stand
on one side of the issue, and a much larger number stand on
the other side.  Nobody is going to change anyones opinion,
so this topic should be dropped - its just religion/politics
now, not a sensible discourse.

On Fri, Feb 05, 2010 at 09:11:08AM -0500, Tom C wrote:
 Please post Bill, please.
 
 Tom C.
 
 On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 8:45 AM, William Robb war...@gmail.com wrote:
 
  - Original Message - From: paul stenquist
  Subject: Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I
 
 
 
 
  I'm not Henry and certainly can't speak for BH. But after many years of
  dealing with them, I would guess the answer would be a firm no. They'll
  stick by their decision. And that's what I like about them. They have
  specific policies that are set forth in writing, and you can depend on them
  following them. I've never known them to deviate from the course that
  they've set. Most often, that works to the consumer's advantage.
 
  Except when they decide that they don't like the price they offered and
  cancel the sale after they have accepted payment for it.
 
  I asked you once, I'll ask you again: If you walked into a store to buy a
  quart of milk and when you get to the counter you are told the price that is
  clearly marked on the bottle as pr quart is actually per pint, and therefore
  you will have to pay double, would you do so happily?
  If you'd care to, answer me this time.
 
  In essence, this is what BH has done, and it is what you, Mark, Godfrey and
  (most unfortunately) Henry is defending.
 
  For myself, ?wouldn't tolerate it from a retail store, and I wouldn't
  tolerate it from an online store as well. I haven't been a big BH customer,
  I've probably only spent perhaps 20K with them over the years, but after
  this, I'm done with them as a customer.
  They crossed the line from being trustworthy to being untrustworthy in my
  mind.
 
  Now I suppose because I took up the cause in my usual fun loving manner,
  Henry will breath a sigh of relief because I am an outspoken person and
  therefore potentially one of the problem customers he doesn't want, but I
  suspect I am not in the bottom 10% of dollars spent with them and I have
  never given them grief, other than what I feel is the well deserved grief I
  gave Henry for coming here and defending the indefensible.
 
  And for all of you who have sent me public and private emails chastising me
  for sewering this thread, please be assured that unless I am specifically
  invited to post to it again, I am most likely done with it.
 
  William Robb
 
 
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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 12:23 PM, P N Stenquist pnstenqu...@comcast.net wrote:

 On Feb 5, 2010, at 12:20 PM, Tom C wrote:

 It's one thing for Bill Robb to insult Henry Posner, Bill Robb is known
 for
 this sort of behaviour.
 It is something else entirely for BH Photo to insult Bill Robb, who has
 been a good customer of theirs.

 William Robb

 MARK!


 Mark knows better, believe me.


Great now we don't have an unbiased collector of MARKS!  This
deserves a review panel.

Tom C.

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

2010-02-05 Thread P N Stenquist



On Feb 5, 2010, at 12:20 PM, Tom C wrote:

It's one thing for Bill Robb to insult Henry Posner, Bill Robb is  
known for

this sort of behaviour.
It is something else entirely for BH Photo to insult Bill Robb,  
who has

been a good customer of theirs.

William Robb


MARK!



Mark knows better, believe me.



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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

2010-02-05 Thread John Francis

On Fri, Feb 05, 2010 at 09:29:52AM -0500, Tom C wrote:
 I can guarantee you Bill, that between either one of us alone, and
 certainly combined, BH has already lost far more profit than they
 would have by simply honoring the contract on that one transaction.
 
 Tom C.

Oh, good.  Sou you can retire to your corner with a smug feeling of
having made those reprobates at BH pay for their misconduct.

Now can the rest of us get on with our lives?


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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

2010-02-05 Thread George Sinos

Hi Bill -

I agree, as long as this remains a small percentage of customers, it
can be handled. I was just trying to point out there there are
problems on both sides of the cash register. As long as both parties
treat each other with the benefit of the doubt, we're all better off
for it.

My daughter worked at the Home Depot for about a year and told me
similar stories. I've worked at Camera and Stereo/Audio stores and
could also tell tales that would make you cringe. I don't know how
people can live with themselves when they do that kind of stuff. It's
clearly dishonest.

I'm lucky to have a great retail camera store, Rockbrook Camera,
http://www.rockbrookcamera.com/ right here in town. This place is
family owned, and in an era where camera stores are closing, they are
growing. They recently expanded by opening another store.

You can read about them here if your curious.
http://www.photoreporter.com/article.asp?issueID=128num=15vol=17articleType=tsarticleID=3123

That being said, there are times when I need some oddball item faster
than they can order it and I've usually turned to BH. I especially
like the shipping discount offered to NAPP members.

I feel like I've been treated fairly by both companies.

Fair disclosure - For the most part I'm just a Rockbrook customer, but
after doing business with them for decades, I teach a Saturday morning
class for them about three times a year.

George Sinos

gsi...@gmail.com
www.georgesphotos.net

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Re: Message from Henry Posner etc

2010-02-05 Thread Henry Posner

 I'll do my part when you do yours.

IMO you ought not need to wait on others to act responsibly for you to do so 
yourself. If everyone waited for the next fellow to act with maturity, no one 
ever would.

 I suspect a lot of your wisdom comes from the back of a Rice Chex box.

Perhaps I am older than you. I recall when the back of boxes of Chex cereal 
featured the Chex Press, which in its own way included a lot of clever satire.

 However, in this case you have, apparently, decided to drop a customer for 
 being too much trouble after lying to him about your pricing on your website.

You are mistaken. We did not drop this customer, nor did we lie. We had an 
error on our site. When the error was uncovered it was corrected. The customer 
was offered reasonable compromises which he declined. You are more bellicose 
than he about this.

  There are times when a display of maturity and civility would be nice.
  Paul
 
  +1

 Henry, keep pushing and I'll forward these emails of yours to
 your boss. You are acting as an official representative of
 your company.
 This means you don't get to insult people.

It is unclear to me how agreeing with Paul can be considered an insult. You do 
not have to forward this to my boss. He gets a printout of this stuff every 
Friday afternoon.

That was from me not Henry. You've really taken this in the toilet, Bill.  
Henry just came here to explain his company's position. Your personal attacks 
are, as usual, way out of line.
 Paul

Thank you, Paul.

 At the Robert Frank show at the Met Museum here there was a display of the 
 contact sheets in the center of one room with the selections Frank had made 
 along the walls - all from  The Americans
I saw a Garry Winogrand several years back. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Winogrand
Winogrand died of gall bladder cancer, in 1984 at age 56. As evidence of his 
prolific nature, Winogrand left behind nearly 300,000 unedited images, and more 
than 2,500 undeveloped rolls of film. The exhibit included enlarged contact 
sheets of quite a few rolls of film and I recall telling my wife I'd be very 
very uncomfortable having my work displayed in so raw and unedited a fashion.

 Last night I stopped by the Green Briar Camera Club
According to The Big List http://www.photo-ne.com/biglist/:
GREEN BRIAR
2650 W. Peterson, Chicago,
1st and 3rd Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m.
312-539-7080.

 The first time she had to go to the emergency room for something it just so 
 happened that the head of surgery at the hospital was on duty, covering for 
 one of his assistants.

I sliced a finger open to the bone a decade ago and the intern on duty got 
called away before stitching me up. After a while they sent in a plastic 
surgeon who told me I'd cut a tendon completely and had the intern simply 
repaired the skin I'd have lost the ability to straighten the finger. I was 
very lucky.

 Forgive me for asking, but doesn't the store and not the customer decide what 
 deals will be offered for sale?  In that context, then it's the store's 
 responsibility/fault if they offer a deal that doesn't turn a profit.

The issue of a company distancing itself from unprofitable customers is not 
related to a store electing to run a sale or post a loss leader. It has to do 
with a customer who repeatedly turns every transaction into a welter of 
difficulty. I don't mean a customer who only shops occasionally and I don't 
mean a customer who calls customer service to check on shipping status once in 
a while. I mean, for example, the customer who returns 85% of everything he or 
she buys, or the customer who files a BBB complaint every time a return is made 
the same day the RMA is written before the retailer's had a chance to process 
the refund. Some customers, no matter what they buy,. Nor how often, simply 
drain profit and resources to a level that is ultimately not sustainable.

 I think we should feel honored that Henry felt we deserved a reply. I'm only 
 sorry that he was not treated with the respect to which any human being is 
 entitled.
This is very gracious and much appreciated. Thank you. I am pleased (for the 
most part) to participate here.

And for all of you who have sent William public and private emails chastising 
me for sewering this thread, THANK YOU! I have no problem with a reasonable 
disagreement and understand there's more than one opinion and appreciate that 
people defend their opinions vehemently, but I think the personal invectives 
have been more than unreasonable.

  I don't blame the customers who are pointing out a problem with my business 
 model for my mistakes. Often, they become the best customers.
For once, I agree with you. Customers who help us understand where we need to 
improve are a valuable cherished asset. That's not the same as the customer who 
drains resources and kills all profit and does so time and time again.

 On an individual transaction basis, Bill's mis-priced milk scenario stands 
 and the online store has

Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I



- Original Message - 
From: Bob Sullivan 
Subject: Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I



Bill,
After your story, Lynn will have to sell her Home Depot stock...

Consider, Home Depot is doing very well, Lowes OTOH..

William Robb


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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I



- Original Message - 
From: John Francis 
Subject: Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I





No - please don't.



Mafud once said:

Bill Robb will be the one to put the Muslim in his place. 

Now it's Henry's turn.

HAR!!



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Re: Myopic Bulls**t Artists

Now, instead of answering questions about how to take pictures, I answer 
questions about how to build houses.
What has changed is that I have much bigger muscles from loading carts for 
people.

Is that a threat?

Tom C.

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

Bill,

Price is really important here.
A one dollar error is fluff to be overlooked.
A 10,000 dollar error is something nobody will overlook.

You and Tom C. are welcome to continue the rant against BH.
Your rant won't save the brick and mortar shops.
That train has left the station.
It's wonderful that you have a Pentax retaler in Regina.
In the Chicago metro with 6-8 million people, we have one retailer left.
Central Camera is the only place to go for a hands on look at Pentax.

I can wish that this was different, but I know that I won't pay
10-20-30% extra to support a local shop.  Whenever I was given the
choice, I voted on price.  And before you opine on all those wonderful
services I lost, let me tell you this.  The guys behind the counters
didn't know squat about Pentax cameras and lenses.  I get more good
and useful feedback from this list about new products than I ever got
from the bricks and mortar shops.

There's an image forming in my mind of Regina, a windswept town on the
frozen tundra of Canada, miles from the nearest neighbors.  Rising
from the plains of 1 story homes and shops is a 2 story retail beacon.
 It's the Regina Camera shop.  In the early evening darkness I can
almost see the faces of the customers, bundled against the cold, as
they wind thru the streets toward the brightly lit shop.

Regards,  Bob S.

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 11:13 AM, William Robb war...@gmail.com wrote:

 - Original Message - From: Bob Sullivan
 Subject: Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I


 Thanks Mark for putting some sanity back into this thread.
 Bill wants to argue like this is some 2 dollar item picked off of the
 store shelf.
 I think the situation changes with the price of the item and in the
 virtual store.

 The price is not germaine, the principal behind it is what is important.
 If I can't depend on an online retailer to honour the pricing on his web
 store shelves (and lets make no mistake, that is what the BH website is),
 then what incentive do I have to go there rather than to my BM store that
 may end up having a lower cost if BH decides they don't have to honour the
 pricing on their virtual shelves.
 I can go downtown and get an honest transaction, or I can go to
 BHPhotoVideo.com and run the risk of them being dishonest with me.
 Mark mentioned Cambridge Camera as an example of who not to shop with.
 Is BH really any different?

 William Robb

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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

Sorry Tom,
A guy with a virtual gun stole all my virtual money.  ;-)
Regards,  Bob S.

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 11:23 AM, Tom C caka...@gmail.com wrote:
 Bob,

 I'm a virtual store and will gladly accept your virtual money, in any
 amount, denomination or currency.  HAND IT OVER!

 :-)

 Tom C.

 On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 12:04 PM, Bob Sullivan rf.sulli...@gmail.com wrote:
 Thanks Mark for putting some sanity back into this thread.
 Bill wants to argue like this is some 2 dollar item picked off of the
 store shelf.
 I think the situation changes with the price of the item and in the
 virtual store.
 Regards, Bob S.

 On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 8:04 AM, Mark Roberts m...@robertstech.com wrote:
 William Robb wrote:

I asked you once, I'll ask you again: If you walked into a store to buy a
quart of milk and when you get to the counter you are told the price that is
clearly marked on the bottle as pr quart is actually per pint, and therefore
you will have to pay double, would you do so happily?
If you'd care to, answer me this time.

In essence, this is what BH has done, and it is what you, Mark, Godfrey and
(most unfortunately) Henry is defending.

 Bill, you're equating a physical store with a virtual store. There
 seems to be a tacit assumption that online stores can or should
 work just like physical stores. This is, in and of itself, untrue.
 They don't. They can't. They shouldn't.

 Here's how a mis-priced item is handled in a physical store: You sell
 the product to the customer for the price marked and eat the loss.
 That's the right thing to do and it's also the law in many places (it
 was in New York State when I lived there). Then you go back onto the
 sales floor and correct the price. This isn't viable in an online
 store because in the time it takes to ring up the sale and walk back
 to the sales area of the physical store the customer in the virtual
 store has announced his bargain through Twitter, Facebook, Woot, etc.
 and the mis-priced product has been ordered by 100 other people. Or
 200. Or 800. BH's servers can probably handle several hundred orders
 a *minute*. Consider an expensive item that's not underpriced by a
 mere 50% but with a mis-placed decimal point (it's been known to
 happen) that effectively underprices it by 90%... and is ordered by
 1000 or so people before the mistake is discovered. Consider a web
 site that's been hacked and products re-priced: If the law treated any
 of these like a physical store, they'd be obliged to sell everything
 at the marked price until they noticed and fixed each erroneous price
 (good luck proving it was hackers who did it - or, if you're an
 aggrieved customer, proving that hackers *didn't* do it when the
 seller claims that was the case).

 Mark Cassino's web page was hacked not long ago - they were trying to
 upload trojans to site visitors but they could just as easily have
 re-priced everything he sells.

 Are there any online retailers who *do* guarantee that they'll sell
 for the price that's advertised in their online store even if it's an
 error? Find one. I haven't been able to. Look at the places that offer
 to match competitors' prices (buy.com, for example): They specifically
 state that they'll only match *correct* prices - they know *none*
 of their competitors will actually sell at an erroneous price, and
 they know pricing errors are a realistic possibility so they want to
 be protected, too.

 The marking of a price on an item on the shelf of a physical store
 carries with it a kind of contractual obligation between the store and
 the customer. The advertised price in a virtual store, on the other
 hand, is treated as informational like the price in a printed
 advertisement; subject to change or retraction in the case of errors.

 Many practices that work in the physical world don't scale to the
 speed, volume and security threats of the online environment. As far
 as I can tell there are *no* online retailers who promise to sell for
 the price advertised on the web site even if it's wrong. This is one
 of the policies that simply isn't workable in the virtual world.


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Re: Message from Henry Posner etc

2010-02-05 Thread Sandy Harris

Henry Posner wrote:

 The customer was offered reasonable compromises which he declined.

I have not been following this thread in detail, thank heaven. However,
I have looked at a few messages and have opinions and a question.

If you advertised an incorrect price, the customer paid it, and you took
the payment, then as I see it you should deliver. It is too late to fix
this transaction in any other way. There may be questions about
whether the price was plausible or whether the customer acted in
good faith. There may or may not be some legal requirement to
honour the contract. As I see it, you should deliver in any case.

That said, if the store offers a full refund, including paying shipping
charges both ways, the customer should clearly accept. Anything
less than that, though, amounts to making the customer pay for
the store's error.

Was that your reasonable compromise, or something less.

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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?

2010/2/5 Martin Trautmann tr...@gmx.de:
 You may obtain this info easily for the Mac. Just open the terminal and
 enter:

 ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed /[^]*/s/// | xxd -p -r | strings
 -6


ROTFLMAO.
easily, eh?

Jostein

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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?

2010/2/5 Martin Trautmann tr...@gmx.de:
 Some typical MBP displays are e.g.
 * B133EW07 V1 (AUO)
 * LTN133AT09
 * LP154WP3-TLA1
 * B154PW01 V0

So tell us, Martin! Are they 6 bit TN panels or something decent?

Jostein


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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?

AlunFoto wrote:

2010/2/5 Martin Trautmann tr...@gmx.de:
 You may obtain this info easily for the Mac. Just open the terminal and
 enter:

 ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed /[^]*/s/// | xxd -p -r | strings
 -6

ROTFLMAO.
easily, eh?

Yeah. That's a Quotes List candidate for sure!

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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?

2010/2/5 AlunFoto alunf...@gmail.com:
 2010/2/5 Martin Trautmann tr...@gmx.de:
 You may obtain this info easily for the Mac. Just open the terminal and
 enter:

 ioreg -lw0 | grep IODisplayEDID | sed /[^]*/s/// | xxd -p -r | strings
 -6


 ROTFLMAO.
 easily, eh?

Duh. Hit send too early in my giggling.
I mean, it's a nice thing that it's actually possible to extract such
information, but easily in this context was very funny to me...

It would be great if someone with a 15 or 17 macbook pro would do
that magic on their boxes.

Jostein


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Re: The Contact Sheet

Contact sheets?  What are those?
You guys must be much older than I am to propose some archaine
artifact like that.  I'll contact my sister to see if maybe she has
some with my Dad's old photo gear.
Regards,  Bob S.

On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 11:26 PM, Christine  Aguila
cagu...@earthlink.net wrote:

 - Original Message - From: ann sanfedele ann...@nyc.rr.com
 To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List pdml@pdml.net
 Sent: Thursday, February 04, 2010 10:12 PM
 Subject: Re: The Contact Sheet


 At the Robert Frank show at the Met Museum here there was a display of the
 contact sheets in the
 center of one room with the selections Frank had made along the walls -
 all from  The Americans

 I never did see the book the Contact Sheet  - but saw excerpts from it -
 I think run over several months in
 one of the major photo mags here back in the 80's
 That might be a fun thing to do for us...  scan a contact sheet from old
 where only one or two photos
 were selected from it and show both...
 What say you?

 I think that sounds like a fun idea, Ann!

 What do you'all think?

 Cheers, Christine


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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

Exactly!

Except I still reserve the right express my views and the rest of the
list can excercise their right to read it or not.  There's a good 50%
of the list I don't read based on topic alone.

I think there's probably an equal number who see it the same way as
Bill and I, and simply have not felt it necessary to join the
discussion.

All things considered though, as strongly as we feel about it, it's
been relatively low key and even in the hiccups where things
escalated, it's at least been entertaining.

Tom C.



On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 12:28 PM, John Francis jo...@panix.com wrote:
 On Fri, Feb 05, 2010 at 09:29:52AM -0500, Tom C wrote:
 I can guarantee you Bill, that between either one of us alone, and
 certainly combined, BH has already lost far more profit than they
 would have by simply honoring the contract on that one transaction.

 Tom C.

 Oh, good.  Sou you can retire to your corner with a smug feeling of
 having made those reprobates at BH pay for their misconduct.

 Now can the rest of us get on with our lives?


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Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I

OH NO, Tom has evoked the 'silent majority'!
Next thing I know, you'll be pelting us with tea bags.  :-)
Is that Ronald Regan I see over your shoulder?
Regards,  Bob S.

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 12:27 PM, Tom C caka...@gmail.com wrote:
 Exactly!

 Except I still reserve the right express my views and the rest of the
 list can excercise their right to read it or not.  There's a good 50%
 of the list I don't read based on topic alone.

 I think there's probably an equal number who see it the same way as
 Bill and I, and simply have not felt it necessary to join the
 discussion.

 All things considered though, as strongly as we feel about it, it's
 been relatively low key and even in the hiccups where things
 escalated, it's at least been entertaining.

 Tom C.



 On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 12:28 PM, John Francis jo...@panix.com wrote:
 On Fri, Feb 05, 2010 at 09:29:52AM -0500, Tom C wrote:
 I can guarantee you Bill, that between either one of us alone, and
 certainly combined, BH has already lost far more profit than they
 would have by simply honoring the contract on that one transaction.

 Tom C.

 Oh, good.  Sou you can retire to your corner with a smug feeling of
 having made those reprobates at BH pay for their misconduct.

 Now can the rest of us get on with our lives?


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J. Peterman, hire this man (was Re: Message from Henry Posner, Part I)

2010-02-05 Thread Derby Chang


Bob Sullivan wrote:

There's an image forming in my mind of Regina, a windswept town on the
frozen tundra of Canada, miles from the nearest neighbors.  Rising
from the plains of 1 story homes and shops is a 2 story retail beacon.
 It's the Regina Camera shop.  In the early evening darkness I can
almost see the faces of the customers, bundled against the cold, as
they wind thru the streets toward the brightly lit shop.
  


Brilliant, Bob, brilliant

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der...@iinet.net.au
http://members.iinet.net.au/~derbyc

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Re: Laptop computers with good displays?