Day: December 24, 2007

Photography

Vivitar ViviCam 3350 Part Two

Shelly

ViviCam001_002
Paint Brushes

ViviCam001_006
Fairy

ViviCam001_008
Lipton Tea Pot

I think the failure message I keep getting has nothing to do with the camera itself. I tried restarting my computer, with the camera powered on and connected, and it worked just fine. The same thing happens with my scanner (if I turn it on after the computer is powered up, the scanner isn’t recognized). This is a recent-ish issue that coincided with the installation of Zone Alarm. I suspect ZA is interfering with my USB ports, which is annoying as all hell but makes a certain amount of sense.

Photography

Vivitar ViviCam 3350 Resurrected

Shelly

I came across one of my old toy digital cameras the other day. I set it aside, assuming I wouldn’t be able to find the cable, and if I did, I wouldn’t be able to find the drivers disc, and if I did, the camera for sure wouldn’t work. Well, I found the cable, and I found the drivers disc, and I’ll be damned if the camera didn’t work just fine when I put fresh batteries in it.

ViviCam000_004
December Landscape

ViviCam000_002
Foo Dog and Duck

ViviCam000_005
Planter

ViviCam000_006
Patio Light

ViviCam000_008
Electrical Box

It’s just as hard to compose close-ups as I remember. There is a ginormous amount of parallax between the lens and the viewfinder. That explains some of the wonkiness. It’s definitely a shoot from the hip sort of camera.

These were just some quick test shots taken on my patio. It was sort of beastly trying to get the drivers set up properly. I kept getting a failure message whenever I’d try to download images from the camera. I thought, at first, that it might have something to do with a bit of rust on one end of the USB cord, but the camera streamed video just fine, so I don’t think that’s the problem. I’ll just have to enjoy it as the toy it is, and keep in mind that it could croak on me at any moment.

Crankypantsing

How Rude!

Shelly

I’m not going to pretend to be brimful of holiday spirit, but neither am I going to pee on anyone’s Festivus parade. So, I check my e-mail, and there’s a message to the alt.books list. An international list with 7276 members, mind you. It says:

A bah humbug to all!
To all who don’t celebrate this season in any way ;-)

Now, doesn’t that strike you as just a bit obnoxious? And please to be noting the passive aggressive use of emoticons. There should be a law against that sort of thing.

What the hell is wrong with people?