paul smith's Snaps & Bytes e-home
May 2004: PAUL SMITH - Goolie cooking shame
I'm a gadgety sort of a bloke, which means I'm often found with a digital camera around my neck, a GPS in my hand and an MP3 player clipped to my shirt. Obviously it's a disaster if any of these stop working while I'm out and about, so I keep a set of spare AAs in my pocket.
I heard the genuine sad tale of a chap who made the mistake of putting batteries in the same pocket as his car keys. After a bit of jiggling about (gentlemen know how this works. It's the return of warm weather I think) they got shot-circuited and began to heat up. He didn't notice until a sudden jolt of pain shot up his leg. Confused as to what the problem was, he dropped his trousers (he was in the middle of a wood looking for badgers to badger at the time) and inspected the damage. While nursing the burn on his leg, the batteries finally set fire to his trousers (2100MaH Nickel-Metal Hydrides have quite a kick to them) and in the excitement of patting the blaze out, he didn't notice his slightly melted car keys had fallen out of the resulting hole. It wasn't until he'd limped two miles to his car with half his arse hanging out of his freshly distressed combats that he realised. I bet he wished he'd had one of these: http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=88822
On the subject of digital photography, I had call to check out all the 'real photographs from digital pix' booths in town this week, as I wanted to have some hardcopies printed.
Snappy Snaps machine couldn't take the xD cards my Fuji S5000 uses, but they had a Compact Flash adaptor which would do the job. 10 6x4" prints cost £4.90 for a next day service. If I'd taken up their offer, I could have had 100 6x4" prints for £19.99. Not a bad deal. Or so you might think…
The Agfa stand is located, slightly unexpectedly, in a greetings card and helium balloon shop. They couldn't print from my card, and suggested I brought the photos in on CDR. Had I felt so inclined, I could have had my 10 6x8" photos for £3.50 the next day, or for an extra 50p, in a mere 30 minutes! A good option for the photographer in a hurry.
Dixon's Fujifilm machine could take my media (just as well, since xD's their format) and my usual order would've cost me £4.90 for next day service. However, since I was in no rush Jessops did the best deal. Their three-day service cost me a tiny £2.00 dead, nearly half the cost of the best of the rest. Their machine didn't have an xD slot, but they had a PCMCIA adaptor I borrowed. Result! Home printing would cost me (retail) around £6.99 for 20 Fuji photocards (35p each) plus ink. Clearly this is only a sensible route if I'd wanted to print off the odd shot, in a hurry. Even more clearly, it pays to shop around.
Paul Smith is still 'resting'. Job offers to info@snapsandbytes.co.uk please
508 electrifying/printed words Dale. Any problems please let me know as per usual mate.
Paul.