Cheap digital cams
Before I talk about some cool digital cameras, we need to talk viruses again. This whole thing is a learning curve, I can tell you that.
I used to think if you ran a decent anti-virus product and kept it updated you were fine. Turns out you need to do that and much more. After doing a complete, in-depth scan of a friend’s system recently, Norton Anti-Virus found several viruses but failed to delete three of them.
I restarted the system in Safe Mode and turned off System Restore (so Norton could fix viruses in the system restore files) and ran it again. Again, we found a couple more but could not delete three of them.
What good is finding them but not deleting them? So I turned to some Web-based virus scanners. These are offered free to get people to try other virus products. I went to two, Trend-Micro (www.trend.com) and Panda (www.pandasoftware.com) Turns out each could remove what the other can not.
One of those that Norton could not remove is one that steals passwords to online banking sites. (It found it but the delete was unsuccessful.) Panda managed to remove it but this whole experience shows that once a month you really need to do a major housecleaning of your computer that will take a few hours.
In other news, I’ve been playing with a new digital camera from Concord Camera. This company (www.concordcam.com) has been quite successful in lowering the price point for digital cams. The most recent camera I bought, a 4 megapixel gem from Canon, cost me $350. The Concord Eye-Q 4060F retails for about $160.
That’s a pretty amazing price point. To be fair, the Concord isn’t built like the Canon, which is an aluminum brick. Instead, you get a plastic case but a decent interface and ease of use.
(It’s one of those things. I have several high-end 35mm Canon cameras from my days as a photojournalist but because of their weight I rarely use them any more. Instead, I like the convenience of a point and shoot camera.) The Concord is the camera you take when you need simplicity and won’t freak if you leave it in a cab.
In terms of image quality, I found the Concord to be very good (not as good as the Canon but remember, at half the price.) It clearly is good enough for the snapshot market, the ones currently using disposable cameras today. The benefit of digitals of course is speed; now you can take the smart card (containing your pictures) to your closest drug store and walk out with prints for a quarter or so.
If you need a first camera as an entrée to the digital world, a second camera or one for a budding photographer, this would be a good choice. And Concord’s aggressive pricing will only serve to lower prices for everyone.
WEEKLY WEB WONDER: One of the best places to read opinions about items you plan to purchase is Epinions (www.epinions.com)
James Derk is co-owner of a computer repair business, CyberDads, and columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His e-mail address is jim@cyberdads.com
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