Macro Photography - digital photography, macro

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I have every macro photography book marketed in the last three years, and this is by far the best, in my opinion. Harold Davis has pushed the boundaries of macro photography with new techniques such as HDR, Focus Stacking, photographing transparency, an entire section of photographing water drops, still-life photography, and oh so much more. If you combine this masterful book with more detailed instruction from the companion book, The Photoshop Darkroom, Creative Digital Post Processing, you will learn amazing techniques for using LAB color to create fabulous effects, hand HDR processing techniques, and many more.



As a macro photographer, I could bury myself in the techniques and ideas presented in this book and it's companion, The Photoshop Darkroom, and not run out of new techniques to try for years! This book has stunning photographs and is very well organized. I especially appreciate references to exact page numbers to refresh my memory on techniques used earlier. Creative Close-Ups: Digital Photography Tips and Techniques

When asked if I would like to read and review a copy of Creative Close-Ups I jumped at the chance. A couple of weeks later the book arrived and I dove right in.



Creative Close-Ups is not a highly technical book, it is a well-written and thought provoking exploration of close-up photography. It covers many types of close-up photography including flowers, water drops, still life and glass.



Filled with wonderful photos that highlight the type of photography being discussed along with commentary on the choices made while preparing and taking the photographs. Details on lens choice, f-stop, shutter speeds, and more are given for every photo.



This is the first close-up photography book I have seen that covers High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography for photographs of flowers and other subjects. It also includes information on how to create High Focal Range (HFR) photographs to expand the depth of field in close-up photographs.



I appreciate the descriptions of lighting challenges and solutions offered in the book that do not require a lot of expensive equipment that the enthusiast photography may not own or wish to buy.



If you are a photographer looking to improve your close-up skills I highly recommend Creative Close-Ups, Digital Photography Tips & Techniques

Full Disclosure: I have been a macro (closeup) photographer for several years and I was sure I had read all the important books on the subject.



Full Disclosure #2: I was wrong .... since until this weekend I had not read this book, and thus my macro library was incomplete.



The author, Harold Davis, has put out a veritable instruction manual for the closeup photographer that is as good as anything I've ever read on the subject. His chapters on Focus Stacking and the use of the HDR (high dynamic range) multiple exposure approach are incredibly helpful with step by step guides (and screenshots) that make using these techniques really easy. Although I had read about "focus stacking", I had never felt comfortable at using this approach because I thought it would be laborious and too time consuming. After reading the chapter on how to do it, I was able to go out in my garden and immediately get good results. Heck, that advice alone is worth the cover price.



I also found the chapters on Selective Focus and Reflections and Refractions to be very helpful. I had long wanted to get that classic shot of a reflection inside a dew drop on the surface of a leaf, but I could never pull it off very well. With the text and accompanying photos in this book, I found myself able to correct my previous errors and nail the shot I've always wanted.



Mr. Davis writes in an easy to understand style that is both informative and casual. You don't have to be a pro to understand what he is writing about and his advice resonates like that of a trusted friend who has taken you under his wing to show you all his favorite tips and techniques.



If you're the least bit interested in improving your closeup photo work, or if you'd like to venture out into this fascinating field of the world in miniature as seen through a photo lens then I would HIGHLY recommend this book.

The emphasis in Harold Davis's book is definitely on "creative". If you suffer from a dearth of ideas of macro subjects, this book will start your juices going. Your pots and pans and glassware will all become possible subjects of inspiration. The sections on HDR and HFR are well illustrated with step-by-step instructions. I have two minor caveats about the book. I would have preferred that less space be given to reflections and droplets and it would be difficult not to immediately buy "The Photoshop Darkroom" after seeing the kind of results Harold Davis achieves in Photoshop. I just ordered mine. A highly recommended book. - Digital Photography - Photography Book - Macro - Harold Davis'

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Media Players - divx, nbox

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I have this NBOX TV Player for about 5 months, it works very well. It's not the best flash media player, but it's a lot cheaper than other brands which are all around $100-$200. I believe this one has the best value for that price.



NBOX is very easy to use, just put video files into SD card, USB flash drive or USB external hard drive. I personally used a 16GB SD card to carry my kid's cartoon, and use a 750GB Seagate External HDD to carry the movie or tv series for my wife and myself. The remote is very easy to use, and my little 6 years girl could use it by herself, no more bothering me.



Pros:

1. Support a lot of file formats: AVI, DIVX, XVID, RM, RMVB, MPEG, it even supports subtitles

2. We like that remote controller, it's one of the biggest advantage than hooking up my laptop/pc to the TV.

3. Auto Resume from last stop point. When I stopped watching a movie in the middle, I just hit power button on the remote to turn NBOX off. Later, when I power on NBOX, it would automatically resume the movie from the last stop point.

4. Continuous Play on Multiple Files. Sometime I watch TV series with 20 episodes, NBOX could smoothly play one episode then play the next one. I guess it uses the file name to sort the order.

5. With the component cable (included), I can get 720p HD output quality on my LCD HDTV from NBOX.

6. Price. It has the best price, almost the same as a regular DVD player. I can't find a cheaper one which could do so many good things.



Cons:

1. It doesn't support MKV and MP4, which is a pity. But 95% of my files are in other formats, and I don't want to pay $100 to buy other media player for just 5% usage.

2. The red power light is always on as it's designed for indicating the power cord connection to the wall jack. I wish it would be off if I turned off NBOX.



Overall, I am very satisfied with NBOX. It has very good value for such low price, and it's very easy to use. I am hoping to see new models with advanced chipset which could support more formats in such low price in future. NBOX Digital Media Player

For the price, this is a no-brainer.



Here's what the device is not:

1) It is not an HD Device. No 1080p video here

2) It does not support every file format under the sun

3) It is not a couple hundred dollars



Here is what the device is:

1) This device plays DVD-quality video

2) It plays the most common formats for downloaded TV shows and DVD-Rips, namely Divx & Xvid. I have also found that occasionally it will play an MP4 file, but it makes no such claims.

3) It is very inexpensive



Here's who should not buy the device:

1) People with collections comprising largely of BluRay rips

2) People who need network-support to retrieve from a server

3) People who want to spend a lot of money



Here's who should (at least consider to) buy his device:

1) People with DVD-Rips or downloaded TV shows on their harddrive that they would like to play on their TV (like me!)

2) People who sometimes connect their laptop to their TV to watch video but dislike the lack of a remote control (like me!)

3) People that would like to buy an expensive Media Player but don't have $100-200 (like me!)



Let's face it, there are a lot of devices that do this, to varying degrees of success. When you make a purchase like this, there are a few things to consider:

1) Will it play the videos I have?

2) Does the navigation suck? (Some devices have issues with forced previews that make loading video painfully slow)

3) Will it break my budget?



For me, this device plays everything I have to watch. The navigation is quite nice, it has a preview of video, but on a slight pause so that it doesn't scroll file to file slowly & I could afford it. A couple days after getting it, I recommended it personally to about a dozen people including co-workers without reservation. For what it is, it works exceptionally well. I see no discernible difference between this device plugged in via composite and my netbook playing the exact same video files on my 32" 720p TV. I am not connected to it in any way except as a very happy owner of one. Highly Recommend.

Got this beautiful little box and it works great,Compare too some of the high end models this little box does it all for about QUARTER THE PRICE over the other boxes out there.I play alot of dvdrip.avi files and it has not failed yet !!!!good buy under $40

This is a great product, I bought it for my mother for Christmas and the others I looked at were over $100 so I settled on this one. She is thrilled with the quality and features.Just take your card out of your camera, etc. and pop it in the box and that's all you have to do. Very easy to use. I am so impressed with it that I think I am going to buy one for myself! I bought this from NBOX US Distributor & this seller is great, good communication, easy to deal with and very fast shipping. - Nbox - Divx - Multimedia Player - Xvid'

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Touch Screen Stylus - ipad, iphone stylus

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These stylus are very well made and work very well, if all you want to do is find an alternative to pressing the onscreen keyboard. However, these stylus are totally useless for use with a drawing program because the rubber tip will not glide across the screen. If you use your iPhone outdoors and you are wearing gloves, these stylus are for you. If you want to draw, then you'd be better off with a stylus with a soft foam tip. 3 Pack of Universal Touch Screen Stylus Pen (Red + Black + Silver)

Short and sweet:



I've tried three of the stylus brands offered on Amazon: The $15.00; the $11.99 aCase; and the cheap three-pack "Universal Touch Screen Stylus.".



It is easy to tell you which not to buy: the cheap ones. The rubber tips on them have too much friction. You can't write or draw easily; you literally feel like the Stylus is getting stuck on the screen. Guaranteed, one zillion percent, you will hate it.



Now, to the Boxwave vs. the aCase.



This isn't just a draw; there's not even a fight, because the two products are exactly the same (there's one subtle difference in the way the little headphone-jack string insert is attached to the pen. One uses a tiny, carbiner-type hook, and the other a ring. You'd probably never notice the difference, because there is non.



So, which to buy? The aCase is three dollars cheaper, but it only comes in black. That's it.



Boxwave: http://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/ref=cm_cr_dp_wr_but_right?ie=UTF8&nodeID=172282&asin=B000ETU944&store=electronics

aCase: http://www.amazon.com/Acase-Apple-Capacitive-Stylus-Black/dp/B003ULE6GU/ref=pd_sxp_grid_pt_0_1

Three-pack: http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Touch-Screen-Stylus-Silver/dp/B002BBJMO6/ref=pd_cp_e_3

I should have read the reviews carefully.

Do not buy this if you want to use it with your iPhone to draw, slide the screens or do anything cool.



The tip is very soft and you need to put some effort in pressing it against the screen. If you try to slide it, you are in danger of damaging the screen since the tip moves away and the hard plastic of the stylus can scratch your precious sceeen.



This is probably good if you are missing a finger or you are wearing gloves and your apps are in the main screen.

There are three (3) types of touch screens, buy the correct stylus for your screen.



From eHow:



Resistive-type screens lack the clarity of other touch screens but they tend to be very durable and can be used in a variety of environments. Resistive-type screens are the most common in use today.



Capacitive screens are resistant to outside elements, making them very durable, and they still maintain a high clarity. Unlike resistive and surface wave screens, which can be used with stylus, capacitive panels must be touched with a finger.



Surface wave touch panels are the more advanced of the three types, offering the highest clarity. But they are more easily damaged by outside elements.



[...]

The iPad has a capacitive touch screen, your gloves won't work, and that plastic stylus from your old Palm PDA won't work either. Buy a capacitive stylus for your iPad.

For reaching those peskly small areas on your iPod Touch screen, the Universal Touch Screen Stylus Pen does the trick! They are comfortable in the hand and helps to make some of those tasks easier on the iPod Touch. If you have trouble with fingers that don't quite work the way you wish, then this is another reason to consider purchasing these pens.Silver Universal Touch Screen Stylus Pen for Apple Iphone 1st Gen, 3G 2nd Gen, Ipod Touch

The price and shipping time on this item are great. Sadly, the item itself is basically useless. I bought this for my iPad and it works but you have to mash really hard and then it leaves a funky streak mark and it's hard to get it to work and then it isn't very precise. I bought it to have a stylus to use with a drawing app and given how big the tip is and hard I have to mash to get it to work it's much less useful than simply using my finger.

This is a very nice stylus with a soft rubber tip. They work great on my Instinct and with the rubber tip there is no fear of scratching the screen. My only "issue" is that the stylus are to thick to fit into the stylus pocket on the stock Instinct case... but the size does make the stylus much more easier to control so you're more accurate with them. I'm glad I ordered the three pack because I can just keep one at work, one in the car, and one at home.

With fat fingers and hands that sometimes shake, these styluses worked great on my iPad AND my DroidX phone. I often give them away to friends and have ordered about four packs so far! For the price, it's worth a try! - Iphone Stylus - Stylus - Stylus Pen - Ipad'

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Lifetime Updates - gps, tomtom xl 340s

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just received my new GPS today, plugged it into my mac, and installed tomtom's mac version of their home software. everything has worked well so far and the free map update installed fine. there are two main things that purchasers need to know:



1) space is very limited on the device. there is only 2 GB of internal flash memory and out of the box there was less than 50 MB free. the very first thing you should do is to delete voices in languages you don't use. this will free up a couple/three hundred MB. they can get backed up to your computer so you could always put them back in the future. once a bit of space is freed up you'll be able to update the device without issue. after removing spanish and french voices, running update which installed a new dave voice, and then installing the free map update i was left with 89 MB free. when i tried to run update before removing the voices, the unit warned me about lack of space and aborted without creating any further problems. maybe the mac version of home is more robust than the windows one in this respect.



2) the device only supports USB 1.1 transfers which max out at a bit over 1 MB/sec and can be slower. so doing a full backup or a map update will take quite a while (1-2 hours) and this is normal.



for me, those limitations are more than offset by the large, bright screen, text2speech capability, crowd-sourced map/route updates, and cheaper southern africa maps (we're moving there soon). especially given the cheap sale price i found. i will provide updates as i put unit through paces on cross-country trip and then intercontinental move..... TomTom XL 340TM 4.3-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Lifetime Traffic & Maps Edition)

I'm pretty tech savvy and have used different GPS devices in the past. I chose Tomtom over Garmin mainly due to tomtom HOME support, better user interface: tomtom has more info on the screen including the street name you're driving on.



Most negative reviews here are from issues updating map which is larger than the old one (about 5 Mb larger) and causes error.

but it's simple to go around it.



1. connect to home computer. turn the unit on. select Yes to connect. Tomtom Home will install on your computer.

2. on Tomtom HOME menu, go to "Manage my ONE XL". On Items on Device, click voices. you can back up then delete all foreign computer voices (recorded voice files are small, so doesn't matter). just keep DAVE, and Susan computer voices( you need at least one computer voice for spoken street names). You should free up about 130 Mb (much more than you need)

3. now you can update new map with no problem. it does take a long time. after you're done, you still have 125 Mb extra to download customized items, map corrections in the future. customized car symbols are really cool, as are start up and shut down images. these customized items and map corrections are so small: tiny to 0.5 Mb that with > 125 Mb free, you can keep updating for years to come.



Pros: 4.3 inch screen, great routing, advanced lane guidance (it does work well), IQ route (faster route based on historical traffic data), very quick GPS fix <30 sec (but you need to connect to computer at least every 7 days so that a GPS file can be updated to help fix signal quickly), a little longer for a cold start or if you forget to sync with your computer more than 7 days, but it's still around 1 minute or less to fix the signal. also very strong signal, almost full bar inside my house. Text to speech (for spoken street names) is computer voice, so it's OK. recorded voices are nicer but unable to do text to speech. the included Easyport mount is great, simple, stable.



Cons: the screen brightness at 100% is still not as bright as I want (I also use Tomtom Navigator 6 on my smartphone with better contrast, brightness) but you still can see fine on a sunny day. The computer voices for text to speech are not as clear when you drive and play music.



In summary, this tomtom has a lot of great features for the price. if you don't need bluetooth (for hands free call with your cell phone, which is not good anyway because your volume always appears tiny to the other end), FM transmitter (which is not practical if you need to play your CD in the car), or live traffic receiver (which is spotty based on the info I've read), This 340S is the one to get. most people own smartphones these days with internet, so they can get live traffic, up to date points of interest from Google map, play mp3 and pictures. So you don't really need those features from a GPS device (which is more expensive)

This is my 3rd Tom Tom and i always buy them refurbished beacuse they look and work new (Comes with a 6 month warranty) ! I got the unit out of its box and immediately hooked it up to my computer. After a few seconds the unit started and connection was made ( if you never had a tom tom unit, it will download the software for you) i immediately clicked on "latest map guarantee" and it told me that there was a new map available and it was free for me to download ! It took me afew hours to do the download and get the new map and now i have a brand new map in my refurb unit :) I turned the unit on when i was in the car for the first time and it took 5 seconds for the unit to find where we were !

The screen is very big so it is very easy to enter address and do the settings. The lane assist feature is great now i know where to stay on the highway and never miss a turn. I used it under the train tracks( Bronx NY) and just like my older tom tom never lost any signal and kept up with my speed and turns. IQ routes are great it knows where there will be traffic (gets this info from mapshare not live traffic but uses historical data) and suggests other routes for you to take. Map share is great so even if your map gets old you still get updates from other drivers so it is like getting free maps everytime you hook the unit up to your computer.

Update 10/3/2010

I have been using this device for about 7 months and i am still very happy with it and not willing to upgrade or change it to another yet ! My rating is still 5 stars because this unit never failed on me ! did it give me 1 or 2 bad turns ? yes it did but this is acceptable and it was minor. Battery is still great gives me over 1 hr without the cord. Everything works perfectly so as i said before don't think twice just buy this refurbished unit ! - Tomtom Gps - Gps - Tomtom Xl 340s - Lifetime Updates'

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Verizon Dare Battery - lg dare, lg dare accessories

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Due to suspicions as a result of the low price, I purchased 2 batteries just in case. They both worked as advertised and I have a virtually new phone when I thought that I was going to need to buy a new one. LG Standard Battery LG VX9700 Dare, VX9600

The price of this battery made it too good to be true... and it was too good to be true. I had to charge my old battery every day. If I used the phone a lot, I would have to charge it twice per day. So I bought this "new" battery. Well, it lasts more than one day... it lasts two days!!! And no, I am not a person who uses their phone 24/7. When I first bought the phone, I could go 5 days without recharging the battery.



So, I don't believe this is a brand new battery BUT it does last twice as long as my bad battery AND it was CHEAP!!! So, I got what I paid for... which makes it an "ok" buy.

so just wanted to up date my last review. I still haven't recieved my order apprently lost in mail and company said on may 20 they would resend order. so three day now and no shipping info but will see

Still deciding between upgrading to a Droid smartphone or holding out for an iPhone through Verizon, this $3 investment literally brought my LG Dare back to life. I don't get a whole week out of it like the original battery, but the charge easily lasts 5 days. Shipping was super fast as well.

After 14 months of recharging nightly, my old battery finally wore out. The battery store in town wanted $35 for a replacement. This arrived quickly, and works like new. It only needs to last 10 more months. I now only recharge every other night.

I received this item earlier than expected and it works perfectly. I was worried that it would be a dead battery but it is brand new! If I need cell batteries in the future, I will buy from this seller. - Battery - Vx9700 - Lg Dare - Lg Dare Accessories'

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Panasonic Blu-ray - panasonic, streaming video

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The player is great. The menu system is the best I've used in a player and I returned both a Sony BD560 and a Samsung 6500 before getting this unit. Just a few notes for those that might be thinking of getting it this player.

#1 The internet options are extensive, new options to me like Amazon streaming and Skype, mixed with the mainstay apps like Netflix, Pandora, and many more. make this player very attractive to the streaming and online entertainment user.



#2 The firmware the unit currently ships with will not let you get into the Internet streaming apps or anything for that matter until you update the firmware. Updating the firmware from the 1.09 firmware it ships with will not work as of this date via wireless or wired internet connections. The secondary option is to burn the frmware to a disc. This you think would be straight foward, but it isn't. Using Windows 7 or Vista, you MUST create an ISO 9660 ONLY... I went through 3 coasters before this player could properly read the Firmware update disc I created to bring it up to 1.47. Using any other ISO format will fail.



#3, Netflix... I have 2 accounts, one old, one new and active. Got them mixed up during the install process and had my OLD netflix account essentially bound to the unit. No way to empty the cache, or sign-out and login with a new username and password (It doesn't use the code on screen method like a lot of players, you actually log into netflix from the machine) To wipe out the incorrect netflix ID, I had to factory reset the Blu-Ray player. Which meant setting everything up again. My shared drives (You can map a shared folder on your network to play files, very nice) Wireless, everything had to be set up again.



#4 No on board memory. It supports SD cards for Storage for Blu Ray online features and other apps, but it has no storage of its own. I personally found this to be nice, especially given I have many SD cards laying around from 1 to 8 gigs in size. But if you want to take full advantage of extras on Blue Rays, add the cost of an SD card to your price (Or possibly USB thumb drive??? haven't tested) in order to have on-board storage.



This player is fast, has an outstanding menu system. A very reliable network interface (Take note Samsung!) and has some nice next-gen features such as touch-less ejecting, kind of novel, but I did find myself liking it.... having come from the Samsung 6500 just recently, I found the fact that the player keeps you informed with on screen displays as to what it is doing if their are the common loading delays when first starting Blu-Rays for instance, a very nice change from the black of screen of questioning I always had with the Samsung model. And Sony's 560 had a very lame netflix interface so that wasn't an option for me after seeing it, given I use streaming a LOT.

For the 2011 models, I'd like to see the offerings from the competitors before I whole heartily recommend this one, but I'm very happy with my purchase. Panasonic seems to know what they are doing with UI's, UI user Feedback and general tech savyness in their Blu-Ray players. (aside from the current Firmware glitch) Panasonic DMP-BDT210 Integrated-Wi-Fi 3D Blu-ray DVD Player

To give a frame of reference, I replaced a Panasonic BD35 with this Panasonic DMP-BDT210 it is hooked to a Sony HD AV 7.1 receiver and to a Panasonic 50" Plasma TV, and I have a LinkSys Wireless Router (802.11n).



It arrived today and I opened the box at about 6PM, ready for what I expected was going to a long night, just seems to usually work out that way these days, figured it would be issues with getting it on the network, so I started in.



Nothing tricky for my hook-up, just one HDMI connection to the receiver and I used the one that was there from the BD35, and the power cord, that was it for wires.



Put the batts (supplied) in the remote and turned it on, pops up quickly to an Easy Set-Up menu that you can get through in a few seconds and start playing Blu-ray DVD's. I wanted to hook it to the network and I always like to look around at the options, so I opted to go to the other set-up menu.



The Easy Set-up takes you to the option to set up a network connection, if you are not going to use the network features you can just pick no and you are ready to watch a Blu-ray movie. I opted to set-up the network and this is what I thought was going to be the hard part, it asked, wired or wireless, I picked wireless, it found my network in about 15 seconds and put the name on the screen, I picked it and it knew it was a secure/encrypted network connection so it asked for the password, and put up a keyboard to put it in.



Once I gave it the password it started trying to connect to the network, a screen pops up with a number of pass/fail tests it is running, that took another 15 seconds to pass them all.



The rest of set-up can be skipped for the most part depending on your connection to the TV or in my case the player to the receiver and receiver to the TV through HDMI connections, so it knew the capabilities of the TV and set everything right.



If you want to more personalize it or need to set the screen size (standard/wide) then Set-Up offers that an a number of other options, like parental control, the display brightness, a number of audio options and 3D and 2D video options, all in all very nice set of options and again, most never need be messed with if you don't want to, it attempts to optimize itself. (Also, no matter how bad you mess it it, you can just tell it to go back to factory settings and do it again)



After spending about 5 minutes in set-up doing the network and looking around I had to pop in a disc and see how it looked and sounded. I did not really expect a noticable difference from my old one in picture and sound, and perhaps it is just percerption, but both seemed better to me.



However what you notice first is the speed it loads the disc, it is very fast. The BD35 was slow, so slow I would rather watch a bad movie than change discs, I had put in Tron 3D as the first test, killer, video and audio, and effects. Next, I put in Tron in 2D and tried the 2D to 3D, interesting and effective, looked pretty good but I am not a big 3D fan. There are also settings the change the 3D effects.



Next, I went to 2D and again the audio and video were just outstanding, not that the old one was bad at all, this was just better, enough to notice. So for picture and sound it is 5 stars all the way for the price.



The menu navigation is very clean and easy to follow while in the Panasonic menus, and very fast, navigating the disc is also fast, more that quick enough to make those options worth it. So overall navigation and easy of use I have to also give a 5.



Now for something I had not tried before on my TV other than Pay-Per-View via cable, I hit the VeraCast and there was YouTube, Amazon, NetFlix, VuDu, and a bunch of others. I tried out Amazon first and watched a free show, no issues at all. It played perfectly, no picture snags, stops, buffering, audio dropouts, it played as well as from the cable box. Same for NetFlix, the stuff all played fine.



I did notice sluggish menus while on the Internet Movie sites, it was clear that it was not the unit but the sites, and even then by sluggish I mean a few seconds delay on some selections, not like my old unit were somethings could take a few minutes.



So 5 stars on the internet movie, tv, and information features.



I guess no review would be complete with a unit with the ability to wave your hand over the top of the player to open and close the drawer, so here is its honorable mention, it works.



Well my prediction of spending half the night (3 hours) was correct, but it was not in getting it to work, it was watching YouTube and Amazon video's, and parts of a number of movies. A very enjoyable evening.



Overall I give this a solid 5, there was nothing I could find to knock it down, it was easy to set up, easy to use, and outstanding performance and features.



Panasonic DMP-BDT210 Integrated-Wi-Fi 3D Blu-ray DVD Player - Panasonic - 3d Blu-ray - Streaming Video - Blu-ray Disc Players'

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Computer Bags - computer bags, laptop case

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The look of this bag really appealed to me it is a really sharp looking bag. Functionality wise, I think they could have made some improvements without effecting the cost very much.



The buckles and straps for both the front and back compartments are mainly decorative, there is no way to adjust them without modifications. There is plenty of expansion room in the compartments themselves but if you put too much stuff in them the buckles won't snap, defeating the expansion of the compartments. I don't always need the extra room, but when I do need to stuff a few extra things in the bag it is nice to know it will be secure.



To remedy this problem I took the bag to a local cobbler and had him modify it. He added two holes to each of the front buckle straps and installed two magnetic clasps to the ends of the decorative straps on the rear of the bag. This allows both compartments to be secured when at full capacity. The price of the modification was $12 and makes the bag much more versatile and doesn't impact the look.



Other than that, I really like the bag. I'm finding it a bit difficult to organize all the various electronic gadgets I carry with me, but there would be no way to remedy that without making the bag more bulky and that would defeat its style. SOLO D535-3 Classic Collection Colombian Leather 15.6" Laptop Portfolio - Dark Brown

I have been using this briefcase for several months now and I am very happy with it. Looks great. Fits my 15.4" laptop very nicely. Has a bunch of compartments that can hold pens, cell phone, pda, power adapter, a few thin folders, pads of paper etc. If you are looking for a laptop bag that can hold large amounts of files, folders, other computer equipment, this is not the bag for you. However, if you want a stylish briefcase that can hold a laptop and a moderate amount of documents and accessories, I think you will be very happy with this one.

I put this bag through about two years of serious use without a problem. It fit my 15" macbook pro perfectly. It was so stylish that my father trashed his more functional company provided briefcase and bought one for himself. Last year I would have given this bag 5 stars, with the only complaint being it's a little too small for serious school or business use. It basically fits a 15" laptop, the AC adaptor, a mouse, and a couple of folders or thin books. Anything more and it begins to bulge and look rather ridiculous, the buckles won't close, and you worry about breaking the handle which doesn't seem altogether sturdy.



This year, however, I have to take off two stars. It ruined two pairs of pants, and the silver ring that the handle was attached to (one of them) fell off without me noticing while I was only using the shoulder strap. How did it ruin two pairs of pants? It starts to bleed after awhile. For light pants, when this happens, its a complete disaster. Brown streak marks on your pants is never flattering, especially ones that don't come off all the way in the wash.



So would I recommend this? Only if you're planning on buying a new briefcase in a year or two. If you're looking for something to last a few years or longer, get something else.

Solo 15.4- Inch Leather Laptop Portfolio



Great price for a solid quality leather bag. Well constructed. Fits laptop and cables/cords in protective sleeve. Lot's of pockets for stuff. Lightweight.



I'd been looking for the perfect bag for a long time and this one was as close as I could find with a fair price.

I bought this as a gift for my brother who's a med student. He absolutely loves it and says that it works perfectly for carrying around all of his necessities. He has a wide screen laptop which fits very nicely into the protective sleeve. Lots of pockets to keep track of the little things and roomy enough for files, paperwork, books, etc. The leather is a dark chocolate brown...a little more rugged than the standard black laptop bag/briefcase--perfect for my brother!

Let's start with the good stuff: It's a good looking bad and I've received compliments on it. It also feels very well made, not cheap like some of the ones I've had in the past. The straps, handle, etc seem sturdy and show no signs of wear/tear. I have a 17" laptop and it's squeezes into this bag nicely. I like the pen holders and other little pockets that hold things like cards and such.



Let's move on to the 'not so good': Although this bag looks like it could store a lot of stuff, it doesn't. I have a laptop, power cord, a headset, a notebook and some pens. And this bag is pretty full. I've managed to squeeze a few more goodies into it, but this is not a backpack replacement. So if you have a LOT of stuff, you'll need something larger.



Overall, I love it. The space issues have actually helped me determine what I REALLY need vs. what's just nice to have around. Also, I don't look like a total tool anymore with my nasty vinyl backpack :) - Laptop Case - Laptop Bags - Computer Bags - Business Case'

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