ashnwendy wrote:hi marg
I wanted to get back to you after I had my Kindle for a while and I’m happy to say I couldn’t be happier with it, and Amazon is terrific to upload from instantly, do you get your ebooks from anywhere else?…. Anyway I was saying how much I love my KINDLE 3…..it is fabulous and you can even get audio books. leave notes, highlight quotes/ passages or entire pages! ….and excellent reading outdoors too, which is hugely important, because I get sore eyes reading back lit screens like computers have… I can read this for ages just like a real book. Another terrific feature is making the fonts or words bigger when I couldn’t be bothered with my glasses!! Anyway I HIGHLY recommend the KINDLE great xmas prezzy.
Thanks Marg Hope you are having the time of your lives .

Hi Wendy,
I’m glad you’re so pleased with your Kindle! I believe e-book readers were one of the hot sellers this Christmas, so everyone is getting onto the bandwagon. I like the Kindle because I can read it outside in bright sunlight, but I also like the iPad. I downloaded the Kindle app so I can download books from Amazon to my iPad too, and then they’re synced to the Kindle automatically… I can read the same book on either the Kindle or the iPad. I can read the iPad in bed at night without turning on the light, because it has a backlit screen.
I also downloaded the Borders app for the iPad, so I can order ebooks from there as well. I tend to order mostly from Amazon, though, because then I can read books on either device. (If I download books from Borders I can’t read them on the Kindle, because they’re the ePub format.)
I like being able to highlight and make notes, although I do find this easier to do on the iPad than on the Kindle.
Cheers
Marg

Hi everyone.
I thought I might jump in here as I have been told (and read) that .jpg files (most – if not all – digital cameras will save their files in this format) have a problem with being copied. They are like a photocopy (or fax) and the image will degrade with each and every time it is copied. Much like cloning. The image is not an EXACT copy each time unless the copies are made from the originals.
This means the quality will degrade as they are grandfathered.
One other option is to save the files in RAW or a rastor format that will allow the image to be cloned and enlarged without losing any resolution. Admittedly, this will also take up a larger storage space. If you have tried to enlarge a picture in jpeg format, it will eventually pixelate and all you will be seeing will be blocks.
There are picture viewers available that will read the formats mentioned (and more – one that comes to mind is Irfanview (free) as well as the one Marg has already mentioned) so all is not doom and gloom. I just thought I would mention this little known aspect of picture files.

Just a little background on myself,
6 years with Telecom Australia (before it became Telstra)
9 years Australian Army as a Technician in the Signal Corps
21 years in IT with an independent computer supply company (starting with the 8088 PC1 – 4 yrs) and then 17 yrs with Westpac IT/IBM.

Regards

Jake wrote:Hi everyone.
I thought I might jump in here as I have been told (and read) that .jpg files (most – if not all – digital cameras will save their files in this format) have a problem with being copied. They are like a photocopy (or fax) and the image will degrade with each and every time it is copied….Background… 21 years in IT with an independent computer supply company (starting with the 8088 PC1 – 4 yrs) and then 17 yrs with Westpac IT/IBM. Regards

Hi Jake,

Yes, you’re absolutely right. I was reading an article on this just the other day… the author was recommending saving photos in a TIFF file since this doesn’t degrade in a similar way to jpegs. That’s why I like using PhotoRazor… it saves the photos in a new folder and leaves the originals untouched.

Brave man, ‘outing’ yourself as an IT guy. You are going to be swamped!

Cheers
Marg

Hi Rob.
I have recently purchased a D Max Auto and will be heading off on our big trip in May. I noticed you had a auto transmission cooler installed. Isuzu say it is not necessary as the vehicle has 3 tonne towing capacity. Have you noticed a difference in transmission temperature ? I would have one installed if it maked a difference .

Crossin wrote:Hi Rob.
I have recently purchased a D Max Auto and will be heading off on our big trip in May. I noticed you had a auto transmission cooler installed. Isuzu say it is not necessary as the vehicle has 3 tonne towing capacity. Have you noticed a difference in transmission temperature ? I would have one installed if it maked a difference .

G’Day Crossin,
I would recommend that you install an after market transmission cooler. The D Max does have a small cooler as standard. From what I understand this will cater for general day to day work with limited towing.
I’m not sure what you van weighs, but the Crusader is just over 2900 kg loaded.
On our initial shake down trip, we were stuck behind a truck going up a long steep incline ( Mt Ousley – in the Illawarra if you know it ), and we had a warning light come up on the dash as we neared the top of the mountain. We fitted a cooler after that, before we left home, and have had no problems whatsover after 35,000km of this trip. We had a local auto transmission specialist install the unit and he selected the most appropriate ( maximum) size for the vehicle.
I also spoke with the local Isuzu dealer, and he agreed that the load we were carrying required a bigger cooler. The cost to supply and install was approx $500
Hope that helps.
Cheers
Rob

Thanks Rob . I will have one fitted.

Cheers ,Crossin.

Marg,
I placed this request on another site on the Forum but copy it here as this may be the more appropriate placement.

Laptop with grunt???
by tomcarmQ61722

Advice please …
We are increasingly into our ‘Selfmanaged SuperFund’ responsibilities but also ready for the ‘bigger & better’ trips. Communications & business here and overseas (daughter in Germany) are vitally important.

We both use laptops – me a MacBook Pro and ‘Attila the Hun’s’ sister an ASUS pc.

Her ASUS is now getting long in the tooth (aren’t we all?) and needs replacing. I suggested I go for a ‘wife & laptop’ bundle exchange but that only got me ‘the glare’ (I’m sure you know that look!!!!)

So to get back in the good books (highly improbable ), I want to provide a new laptop BUT one with real grunt to act as our chief comms & business centre. So while $$$ are important, they will not be the issue on this occasion given the importance of the role (and my need to crave forgiveness! )

I heard that some of the ‘gaming laptops’ are bigger better and brighter than the run of the mill.

For my sins I am both a tech philistine as well as a married reprobate (but with 40 years up next Feb, I merit some sympathy!!!!)

Thanks in advance for the advice….

Hi Marg
Great to read about your tech tips as I love all things computer related … cameras, phone etc. Did you set your internet link up through a telstra shop or were you able to do it all on line. Would ove some advice as yur set up sounds pretty good and it is imperative we have as much cover and access as possible as we have aging mothers and other family n NZ who we need to be able to stay in contact with.
Have been watching your DVDs and loving it all. We have done our 1st 4 week ‘shakedown’ trip with another planned in about 3 weeks, then plan on living on the road permanently (or however long we can) from about August.
Cheers, who knows, we my eet up somewhere.
Barb

tomcarm wrote: Advice please … We are increasingly into our ‘Selfmanaged SuperFund’ responsibilities but also ready for the ‘bigger & better’ trips. Communications & business here and overseas (daughter in Germany) are vitally important…. Her ASUS is now getting long in the tooth (aren’t we all?) and needs replacing. I want to provide a new laptop BUT one with real grunt to act as our chief comms & business centre. So while $$$ are important, they will not be the issue on this occasion I heard that some of the ‘gaming laptops’ are bigger better and brighter than the run of the mill. Thanks in advance for the advice….

Hi TomCarm,

Let me preface this by saying although I love my tech toys I am far from being an IT professional… and there are others on this forum who undoubtedly know more. However, I recently had a chat with a helpful guy from Harvey Norman because Rob needs a new laptop too… but Rob’s scenario is the opposite of yours: he said firmly “I just want a simple little laptop to check email, create word docs and handle a spreadsheet! I don’t want it filled with all that software you use…” (Well, okay, Rob… just because my laptop takes an age to boot up because I’ve got so much ‘stuff’ on it…)

But I digress. So for Rob, a basic laptop with at least 4 gb RAM (to run Windows 7 at a reasonable speed), a hard drive of around 500 gb and a core that falls into the i3 to i5 range is fine. Also, laptops that fall into that range are plentiful and cheap. ($650 – $1200-ish)

You, on the other hand, say you want something with serious grunt. A typical laptop of that type would probably come with an i7 core, 8 gb RAM and probably a terabyte hard drive, and a decent graphics card (essential for gamers). It could come in anywhere between $2,300-ish to $3,500 (e.g. Sony Vaio), depending on the brand and where you buy it.

You need to think about why you want all the extra power. If you are using applications that are graphic-heavy (lots of video editing, gaming) then it’s understandable that you want more grunt and memory, but if you will be using mainly Office-type functions then you probably don’t need it.

There are plenty of options out there, and I think it would be a good idea to write down everything you want to do on this laptop, and what you plan to store on it, and then start talking to salesman at various computer stores. If you’re lucky you’ll get a helpful and knowledgeable person as I did, who was happy to fill me in on various options even while knowing that I wasn’t buying that day. (It helped to go in on a slow day. Thursday night or weekends is probably not the best time if you want someone to spend time with you.)

You should get a good picture of what’s available and what you really need.

Good luck!

Cheers
Marg

jenville wrote:Hi Marg
Great to read about your tech tips as I love all things computer related … Did you set your internet link up through a telstra shop or were you able to do it all on line. Would ove some advice as yur set up sounds pretty good and it is imperative we have as much cover and access as possible as we have aging mothers and other family n NZ who we need to be able to stay in contact with. Have been watching your DVDs and loving it all. We have done our 1st 4 week ‘shakedown’ trip with another planned in about 3 weeks, then plan on living on the road permanently (or however long we can) from about August. Cheers, who knows, we my eet up somewhere. Barb

Hi Barb,

Always good to talk to another geek.

We just use a BigPond Network Gateway… we’ve had it for around eighteen months now, I think, and in the 11 months we’ve been travelling around Australia it’s been terrific. NextG coverage is pretty good in most places. (We also carry a BigPond prepaid USB modem just in case we’re free camping without power… the Gateway plugs into 240v.)

We might be looking for an upgrade soon actually (18 months is a long time for technology!) and there are probably faster devices out there now. The Big Pond Ultimate looks good, but I don’t think it allows networking – which the Gateway I’m using DOES. (We like being able to network both our laptops and the printer via the Gateway… that way I can keep a wireless printer in the cupboard without having cables trailing around the caravan.)

We just set it all up ourselves straight out of the box, networking the computers and printer. All we do when we set up at each new spot is plug it in to the 240v wall socket… and within a minute we’re online.

Glad you’re enjoying the DVDs! August will come quickly. We’ll be spending a while at home when we finish the Big Lap, then we’ll start travelling again, so there’s every chance we’ll catch up with you sooner or later!

Cheers
Marg