Home Office: More on Taking Digital Pix

"Digital cameras and photos are a big topic," I said to my editor, "you mind if I stick with it?" I figured that with 350 photos still to organize, I could spend another week doing research and milk it for my next column. He didn't say no (or even yes), which was good enough for me.

Learn to Be a Photo Expert

As you may remember from last week, I have a bunch of photos from a recent trip to China. Lucky for me, PCWorld.com has plenty of in-depth articles and newsletters loaded with practical content. For instance, Jim Welp's last "Office XP Tips" newsletter has a marvelous piece on creating a photo album with PowerPoint. (Yeah, I know, I hate PowerPoint presentations too, but this is different--and lots better.)

But I hadn't read Jim's column when I wanted to make an album, so I loaded up my photos in E-book System's FlipAlbum Suite 4.1. FlipAlbum's a neat program that emulates a real photo album with pages, a table of contents, and the sound of pages flipping. It's fairly easy to use: You just drag and drop pictures or videos into an album, move the images around, add some text, and burn it to a CD. When a friend pops in your CD, the self-contained, automatically running album pops up and starts flipping pages. To see how it works and compare FlipAlbum with the company's other products, you can download a trial version from the company's Web site.

You could also just buy it for about $63. For the latest prices, check PC World's Product Finder.

After my wife and I got back from China, we took the Bass extended family out for dinner (Chinese, natch) and showed them the pix. I used a ViewSonic ViewPad 1000 Tablet to show off our FlipAlbum pictures. The tablet's a PC with an 800-MHz Celeron CPU, 128MB of RAM, a 10GB hard drive, and a 10.4-inch screen. It weighs a little over 4 pounds and has a modem and a LAN port, plus built-in wireless 802.11b Wi-Fi. The cost is a shade under $1900--and you're right, that's a princely sum unless you have a specific need for such a thing.

You can read details about this product in "ViewSonic Displays Its New Devices."

Specs and prices are at PC World's Product Finder.

A Demise and a Resurgence

I know that some of you are bothered by the demise of "Office XP Tips"(me, too) but there's an upside: We're not doing a PowerPoint newsletter.

But seriously, you should check out our "Digital Focus" newsletter, which has photo maven Dave Johnson at the helm. He's a good writer and really knows his stuff. You can also sign up to receive the newsletter every week.

And while I'm shamelessly pitching PCWorld.com, take a look at Jim ("I'm back") Martin's newsletter, "Mobile Computing Tips," which was just resuscitated. The comeback kid's got a good handle on the problems you face when traveling.

Dig this: Last week I obliquely implied that people in the IT department and MIS services don't have a sense of humor. (Some do, of course, like PCW's lovable Stan E.) If you want to test your IT's level of tolerance, ask if any of these cables are available for you to try. (Big warning: My attorney, Bernie at Dewey, Fleecem, and Howe, insists I explain this site is a joke. Like, it's not something you want to try in real life, okay? Thanks.)

And if your IT department doesn't find those power plugs funny, how about inviting them to the new iToilet site? While Mac and Apple people aren't likely to find this site humorous (except you, Cousin J), the rest of us will--including IT types, maybe.

Need a Digital Camera?

At the top of our "Digital Cameras Under $500" chart is the Toshiba PDR-M71, a 3.1-megapixel camera for $400. We've evaluated nine others, and if you're thinking of buying one, it behooves you to give that Top 10 chart a look.

OTOH, maybe you've got the bucks to spend and want the latest 5.2-megapixel camera. In that case you'll want to check out Nikon's $1099 Coolpix 5000, which we also evaluated.

I can't imagine anyone would want it, but there's a phone with a built-in digital camera. (What? No MP3 player!?) It's described in a newsy story that's a quick and interesting read. Check out "Samsung Phone Doubles as a Digital Camera."

Dig this: Got ants in your pants? They're probably coming from JavaAntz, a Boid Ant Simulator. Throw down a few crumbs and watch the simulated ants go to town. BTW, the author says he created the site "because after careful examination of the Internet he found there was 'not enough bugs.'" (Guess he's not using Windows...)

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