POCKET digital video camcorders is the ‘IN’ thing or at least for any electronics manufacturer it is something they all need to embrace and produce otherwise they lose out.

I have reviewed some other manufacturers and it was nice for Sony Singapore to extend their own recently release model for me to evaluate.

Sony’s HD Bloggie brings a few new tricks that may be the big differentiator to win over the buyer. Personally, I like the additional features but felt that it lacked just a few things that would make the world of difference in this kind of device.

I’ve produced two videos for this product. One of the videos is a review with some sample video showing off the new 360 degree adapter/attachment.

The second video is video shot exclusively with the HD Bloggie and then assembled and edited using Microsoft Live Movie Maker. This video will give you a good idea of what to expect with regards to quality under a variety of lighting conditions as well as show the handling, in terms of handheld shooting. Do take note the quality changes with each iteration of an edit or conversion. The first is conversion to WMV for MovieMaker editing and the second is the conversion from WMV to YouTube.

THE EXPLOSION of digital still cameras and digital video camcorders has lead to the boom of storage devices. You can go the simple route and purchase an external USB hard disk drive or something a little more sophisticated like a Network Address Storage (NAS) device. A little bit more complicated is a Home Server but it does not take an engineer to figure out how it connects to your network or access it and set it up for sharing your digital media content.

Microsoft released Windows Home Server back in late 2007 and it was intended to be sold in OEM form to system manufacturers. So, it has been a while and I am happy to see more becoming available in Singapore. The model that I had the opportunity to test is the HP Mediasmart Server LX197 (FL706AA).

The design is not revolutionary nor is it all glam and glitzy. Instead, the Server is clad in a dark gray plastic with only the necessary light indicators – power, disk access, and network access. It is a pretty small device that made me think of a toaster.

On the back of the device you will find four USB ports, a Gigabit Ethernet socket, a power switch and the DC power connector. Take note, there isn’t a video output be it VGA or DVI connections. I found that a bit strange because you would need a way to administer the server. For the MediaSmart, administration of the server is done via a connected client machine (another Windows system).

The LX197 reviewed was configured with a 650GB hard disk drive and is not upgradable without swapping out the 640GB. If you were thinking about a RAM upgrade because we all know that more RAM always helps especially in a Server environment as it reduces the need to Page from the virtual memory (hard disk), you will be disappointed to know that there is only a single RAM slot. So if you decide you want more than the 1GB of DDR2 memory you will have to swap out the existing RAM module. If you decide you need more storage space and do not wish to simply take out the 640GB internal drive you can increase the storage capacity by adding external USB devices. I see that as a bit messy so my recommendation is to look at buying the largest capacity unit available. It is a pity there isn’t additional room inside for more drives but that is a moot point because the motherboard itself does not have any additional SATA connections for additional drives. Both RAM and hard disk drives are fairly inexpensive these days so it won’t hurt your pocket that much when the need arises to upgrade by a swap or external add-on.

The LX197 runs whisper quiet thanks to the low power Atom processor and the removal of the powersupply  out of the casing. The external power brick design ensures no additional heat inside of the case and that makes it possible to cool the MediaSmart using only a single low rpm (revolutions per minute) fan. Which I felt was really only there to cool the hard drive. Otherwise the whole setup would probably work with just convection cooling.

Hooking up the LX197 was a breeze. Plug the Ethernet cable into the gigabit port and into the router. The DHCP configured router issued an IP address to the LX195 and was ready. Connecting to the LX197 remotely was also simple. Open Internet Explorer web browser and input the web address.

The first connection will prompt to install the Windows Home Server Connector.

With the WHS connector installed you can easily access the system as a regular user. If you are setting up the LX197 as the administrator, and likely you are the Admin as well as a User, you have easy setup screens as well.

As a User and and Admin I know one of the housekeeping tasks almost always neglected is backing up. As a User it used to be (back in the days of Tape or offline storage) a pain and a half and it inevitably required you to start the backup and then you couldn’t use the machine or at least had limited access and slow processing. As the Admin the problem came from having a User simply click on an icon to start the process as and when.

So, one of the niceties of the LX197 is unattended backups. Once your client machine is registered as long as there is storage space available there is little to worry about.

Many homes have multiple PC’s and if you have had to deal with managing them like I have you’ll know the pain of having someone in the family ask about sharing files between the machines or even between machines and gaming consoles. The aggregation and simple task of crawling all the authorised and connected client machines is the way to go and to save the day is Windows Home Server and the LX197. It is nice when I’ve only just shot some photos from the local tourist attract, Jurong Bird Park in Singapore, and I want to put the files up on the Server but am too lazy and it is a low priority.

If I leave my system on and connected, the new files will be found when the Windows Home Server crawls and finds the new files. Family and friends that is using the game console, be it an XBox360 can then view a photo slide show stream of those very photos. It all seems too good to be true but when it is hooked up and working you’ll have less stress and more time to share and enjoy your media with the family or at the very least easily access it from the many computers in the house.

The one point I’d like to highlight is the MediaSmart’s lack of built-in wireless connectivity. Personally, I’m not a fan of wireless but for some the sight or thought of wires running in and out of a box throughout the home is devastating. (Praying to myself that my new condo will have an easy way to run my cabling concealed without surface trunking.) So, it would be nice if the HP included a list of compatible wireless USB dongles that are compatible and supported. As I write this I’m sure there is a list somewhere I just need to Google it.

If you break down cost of the individual parts to the HP MediaSmart LX197 (FL706AA) you’ll agree that at a SRP (Suggested Retail Price) of SGD 599 it is a pretty good deal. If the price of these Home Servers drop below SGD 500 and offer expansion for HDD capacity I think we’ll soon see a Home Server parked next to the Gateway Router or the fibre optic trunking point of the new homes in Singapore. Maybe the likes of SingTel, M1 and StarHub will start giving them away instead of netbooks when signing or renewing broadband contracts.

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A hands-on video review of the Sony HD Bloggie. Shows off all the features and shows what to expect in terms of handling and video quality

STORING the vast amounts of media files and cataloging them has become a priority for me and I believe it is that way for many. It is amazing how all the photos and videos pile up taking up gigabytes and gigabytes of storage. Part of my problem is I’m also not a very tidy or meticulous person when it comes to filing. I’ve got hundreds if not thousands of photos just sitting in folders that are automatically created by my Canon dSLR’s programming. I never bothered to tag them with additional EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) information so I can easily sort and search. As it is, my best hope of finding files is to search using creation date.

I have been using an external 500GB Western Digital box for some time and the other internal hard drives coming to over a terabyte worth of storage capacity but realise that to optimise my storage I need to get the files into a common store that can be accessed by my many systems. Having direct access to videos or photos on my XBox 360, Playstation 3, Notebook or even my BlackBerry would be ideal. So, I liked the idea of a NAS (Network Addressed Storage) device but I wanted a very small footprint. I also wanted a device that would not suck a lot of juice and in the process exhaust additional heat into my place. 

I ruled out (for the time being) a Windows Home Server and chose a box and brand I am familiar with. This brand was also highly recommended by a good friend of mine. The brand, Synology has built-up quite a name and reputation in the NAS arena. In fact, I had the opportunity to hands on with an older unit, the DS209 reviewed here. So, when something even smaller came along with the powerful built-in Synology operating system I was thrilled. The DS409slim is an awesome compact little box that is smaller about the size of a compact box of Kleenex tissues. It has 4 drive bays to accommodate 2.5-inch notebook hard drives. So,with the current 2.5-inch capacity drives you can fit 2-gigabytes inside by using 4 pieces of 500-gigabyte drives without running RAID 1.

Thanks to Western Digital for helping me out with two pieces of the Blue WD5000EVT 500-gigabyte drives. I was looking at something more Enterprise but the box is so cramped that the slightly taller Black Western Digital series 2.5-inch hard disks wouldn’t fit properly. So, I had accept the fact and use the Blue series.

Here’s a photo documentary of the DS409slim.

Overview

External Connectors & Controls

The DS409slim is a NAS device so it naturally has a 1-Gigabit ethernet port but in order to allow for expansion capacity outside the four 2.5-inch drive bays the unit has an eSATA port and two USB ports. One of the USB ports is on the rear while the other is on the front. The front of the unit has all the indicator lighting for power status, hard drive activity and local area network activity.

Internal Storage

The DS409slim gets its name from the fact it uses the slimmest profile 2.5-inch hard drives for storage. This limits your hard drive selection. The drive cage is made of plastic but that is forgiveable because this was not a device targeted at businesses. For that reason the drive cages are also not lockable.

Internal

The DS409slim is basically a purposed computer system with the necessary ‘Server’ style operating system capable of running blogging tools and even more. I’ll look at the DiskStation software in greater detail in part two of this review. For now take a look at the internal setup.

It took less than a minute to fix the 2 pieces of 2.5-inch drives to the plastic removable trays and slotting them in was not a complicated affair.

The only way to configure the DS409slim is to connect via the assigned IP Address. If your network has an assigned IP address you open your Internet Browser and input the IP Address. Immediately you should have access to the secure login asking for user name and password.

You’ll be happy to know the list of included applications is not the end. It is possible to install additional applications on top of those included. Included:

• Internet Photo, Video and Blog Sharing
• BitTorrent
• FTP
• HTTP
• eMULE download

If you need more applications just visit the Synology forum and website for a list of third party applications that have been tested.

The DS409slim is now available in Singapore, previously it was not a model carried by the local reseller/agent. The product has a Recommended Retail Price (RRP) of SG$668 excluding hard drives. That may sound a little expensive but given the entire array of software that is included and the compact nature it is a small price to pay.

Available from:  Memory World (S) Pte Ltd and Storage Studio Pte Ltd at Sim Lim Square

Thanks to Western Digital for supplying the pair of test hard drives on short notice. The WD5000BEVT drives are available from all Western Digital resellers for SG$125 each.

I TESTED the BlackBerry Storm a while back and had mixed reviews but overall I liked it. So, I was asked to give the BlackBerry Bold 9000 a hands-on like the Storm. What is interesting is, for a long time I was using a the Samsung i-600 which is similar in form as the Bold but a lot different in operation mainly due to operating system. Take a look at the Bold against the Samsung. Quite a contrast don’t you think. The Bold is like the big American muscle car while the Samsung comes across more like the Japanese compact.

Both feature a landscape screen with a full qwerty style keyboard. Some big obvious differences:

• Bold has higher resolution display
• Bold is heavier and bulkier
• Bold runs on RIM’S Operating System
• Bold uses a trackball

Otherwise the unit has pretty much the same connectivity (ports) and functionality. So, it was only natural that I’d gravitate to liking the Bold.

The keyboard is really great and if put to the test against a touchscreen I believe the real keyboard would without a doubt win.

The Bold feels like a real computing device because it also incorporates a trackball device for navigation. The one area I felt may develop into an issue with the trackball is the build up of lint. The old mechanical mice had this problem so I can only see this being an issue with continued use. An interesting feature for the trackball would be to have it light up in different colours for notification messages.

The Bold is on the heavy side and it may not be liked by ladies going out for a night on the town. Although, I have spoken to some woman friends using a Bold and they absolutely love it and one of the main reasons is they can never comfortably use a touchscreen device, like Apple’s iPhone, because of their well manicured fingernails.

A very nice feature for all the BlackBerry devices is the auto-sleep come screen lock functionality of the included slipcase. Just slide your Bold into the case and your Bold or Storm auto-magically closes down to save on battery life. Even though this is a cool feature I did feel the included slip case sub-standard, not in quality, but functionality. As a guy I would prefer to have things out of my trouser pockets. I don’t carry a purse so maybe for women it is fine. It would have been more functional if the case where the kind that could be fixed by clasp or other method to a belt. Granted, there are such cases available from the BlackBerry store and third parties. I felt that if I had paid a premium for the BlackBerry I’d expect other premiums to be included.

As a connected device I felt the Bold really shines. Part of this is the quality of the social networking and instant messaging applications. I covered that in the Storm hands-on as well. There are a few Twitter clients (all free), the sophisticated FaceBook and nicely done MSN Instant Messenger. The Bold features multiple antennas – 3.5G, Wi-Fi and BlueTooth and a the built-in GPS receiver, so there is no shortage of connectivity for personal networkor wide network coverage.

If you are not the Social Media type but like to browse the web you also get a decent web-browser. That said, a couple of my friends using both the Bold and an iPhone thinks the Internet Browser on the Bold is not up to par. He compared it to the iPhone’s. Never-the-less, I personally felt the BlackBerry browser was decent. It rendered most pages I visited, albeit sometimes very slowly and because the screen resolution is limited I did encounter having to zoom in and out on occasion. What made the BlackBerry browser quite useful is the ability to change the emulation mode, that is, being able to tell it to look like Firefox, Microsoft IE or BlackBerry.

What really makes the Bold appealing at this stage of the smartphone game amongst all the competitors is the amazing integration of the applications available. Obvious services and required applications were available through the local telco or you needed to be a bit nerdy to find and install them that is because only recently has RIM’s App World come online for Singapore and Rest of  Asia. It isn’t fully implemented yet because there are no paid apps available. Still it is currently better than nothing.

Summary

I am sad having to return the Bold to RIM’S local agency Lewis PR after my couple of weeks testing. Truthfully, I was about to go out and redo my telco contract and get a Bold but…a new Bold (the 9700) is coming to town (not soon enough for Singapore) and it has been released to some continents just not Asia. So, now I wait. I did have a consolation and that is being the recipient of a lucky draw and the prize, a new BlackBerry Storm (no not the Storm 2 – also not yet in Asia market   ).

I guess it is clear that my choice for a smartphone device will be a BlackBerry but just so you understand why here’s the good and bad highlights.

Good

• Battery life was excellent (actually much better than the Storm)
• The Qwerty keyboard is to die for
• Display resolution is sharp - (piTooie if you are a manufacturer still making QVGA smartphones)
• Navigation is a breeze with the trackball
• Sleep / Lock mode using the magnetic switch (no more fumbling to figure out how to lock/unlock the phone)

Bad

• Sub-standard consideration for a suitable carrying case (my really opinionated view)
• Digital camera quality – damn can RIM go speak with Zeiss or some other optics manufacturer to get a decent lens and CMOS or CCD device, I’ve had Sony Ericsson phones with 3.2Mpxl cameras that take wonder pics
• Size and weight

Ed’s Note: The Bold and Storm’s in Singapore are not running the latest version 5.0 of the RIM operating system. I don’t know of anyone that has tried the firmware upgrades that are circulating the Internet. Perhaps, if you are one of those in Asia that has done it, successfully or unsuccessfully, just post a comment to let us all know.

WHAT’S the big deal with having a digital camera that can take knocks like a 100cm drop; work while submerged underwater; withstand freezing cold temperatures?

Well, from my own experience I can attest to the need of such a camera. The reason is based on a lifestyle. Back in the day when I was younger and single. I used to ride a sport bike and I rode it rain, shine and even during the cold but dry and precipitation less days in Toronto. The fact of riding the motorcycle in those conditions meant anything electronic or water sensitive would be easily spoiled.

Digital cameras during those years were super expensive and low-resolution so I bought and used a compact 35mm film camera from Nikon, the L35AWAF Action Touch. It was water resistant down to 10 feet but I wasn’t really interested in going snorkeling or diving with it. I only needed it to withstand getting rainsoaked. The camera accompanied me from Toronto across Canada to Vancouver, down to Monterey Bay and back through central USA on my bike in all kinds of weather. It also went on numerous trips to Florida again on my bike and around Ontario.

Fast forward to 2009 and no longer are we in the film age. Digital cameras that sport ruggedness are available from most if not all the manufacturers. For me my requirements for having a ruggedised camera changed. Now a family guy I can go strapping myself to a pocket rocket and blaze through rain soaked to my destination.

That’s not to say my interest wasn’t piqued on what is available now and the fact that I had gotten a compact digital camera wet one day when I knocked over a glass of water next to it resulting in a lot of splashing. Luckily no damage was done.

So I set about finding what is available and two models caught my interest – Olympus Mju-8000 and Panasonic FT-1.

The Mju-8000 is a masterful creation that reminded me of a tank except this one was polished to a mirror finished shine. It weighs heavily in your pocket and has some interesting features.

The Panasonic FT-1 does not come across with the same ruggedness and tolerances and felt more like an armoured Humvee. It will survive most knocks and weather thrown at it but could still end up battle damaged.

Specifications

I need to process some photos of the camera and photos taken by the respective cameras before I finish up this story. However, I know there is interest out there for this so I’m putting up the introduction.

By the way, a big warm thanks to Canon Singapore for making the arrangements for the HF21 evaluation sample for recording of the Windows 7 official launch and the XGS2009.