The perfect digital camera

Are you searching for the perfect digital camera?  Perhaps you have owned one or two before?

I have been through MANY digital cameras over the years, since the old Casio QV10 back in 1995.  That was a little underwhelming with 320 x 240 resolution and battery life....well, shorter than you can say "battery life"!   However, because it was digital and didn't need film, I took many pictures I never would have taken. It was worth it.

My mission this summer was to look for a camera that could replace my trusty old Canon S2IS. I loved it, but it was too big.  I also wanted to be able to scuba dive with it.

I narrowed things down to a Canon SX200IS link
or Panasonic Lumix ZS3 link

Since the Canon does not have a factory underwater/marine case for Scuba, I had to go for the Panasonic. What a great choice that was!  Its a super camera, both in intelligent mode as well as the more advanced modes.

Now I need to order the Panasonic DMW-MCTZ7 Marine case.

Note: Aftermarket third party batteries for the Panasonic ZS3 will ONLY work with Firmware 1.1 or earlier. Beware if you buy a 'cheap' battery!

Save your iPhone battery Power

As many power users have come to discover, maximizing the battery life on your iPhone is rather important.

The settings screen holds the key to saving battery life on your iPhone so you can use it longer each day. Lets see how.

1. Brightness. Set the brightness setting where you need it. For example, just under half way is usually good indoors. This is a huge power saver on the iPhone.

2. Turn off Bluetooth. The Bluetooth 'radio' uses a lot of power. If you don't use a Bluetooth headset, leave it off. If you do. Turn if off when you don't expect to be using it.

3. Wifi. If you are away from your usual WiFi areas, turn off Wifi. Even if it is only for a short period of time, the battery life saved is worth it.

4. 3G. If you have an iPhone 3G or 3Gs, but you are only using voice calls and email, turn off 3G. This slows web browsing but saves an enormous amount of power! Great if you are just tweeting.

5. Turn off notifications. Notifications are great, but when you need to save power, turn them off. Particularly if you are using 3G, since the drop in network chatter will reduce the load on your battery!

Finally, if that doesn't save enough power, you may need one of these: