Digital photography is addictive

I've never been really interested in photography until I saw a fairly cheap 1.3MP camera about 5 years ago and bought it. I was snapping away, taking pics of almost everything and loving the ability to preview pictures I'd taken and delete any I didn't want. Unfortunately, I then experienced the problems of buying a low spec. camera, lots of noise on images taken in low light and shutter lag meaning taking pictures of anything moving was virtually impossible.

Being thoroughly addicted after a week of snapping away at random things these problems started to annoy me even more so after some research and shopping around I found what looked like a great camera for me, the Canon PowerShot A70. 3MP camera, 3x opitcal zoom, an automatic mode for basic point-and-shoot, some other modes for scenery, portrait etc.. and the ability to manually change all settings in, funnily enough, manual mode. The small movie mode was fun too, not very practical though.

Alas, after 4 years loyal service I started looking for a new digital camera with my wallet hoping I'd fail to find one. Well my wallet is suffering once again because I settled on the pretty tasty looking Panasonic DMC-LX1. An 8.4MP beast capable of taking photos in 16:9 format, movies in the same format, as well as 4:3 and 3:2. Leica lens, in camera ability to crop, resize, change aspect, RAW shooting mode and a lot of other things I won't list here (click the link if you want to know more) the massive 3840 x 2160 maximum image size has made me happy and seen me snapping away all over again.

If I have any complaints about the camera it would be to do with a lot of reviews I read mentioning high noise levels at higher ISO levels but I think that's to be expected. The only other thing I don't like is that there is no optical viewfinder at all, you have to use the 2.5" to frame all pictures. It isn't a really big issue unless it's very bright and you're trying to frame a small object against a bright background, for example when I was trying to capture a bird flying in the sky when it was pretty bright. I couldn't make the bird out at all and it was hardly going to hover for me until I could. Other than that I love the camera and hope this will last me a long time because I'm going to be paying for it for a long time! -_-;;

Cheap WiFi router?

I've been thinking about setting up a small, home WiFi network because I'm constantly tripping over cables and anything I can do to remove another from the floor is great. It's also pretty cool being online from the back garden :D The downside is that a WiFi router isn't really practical because of the cost for me. I know they don't cost a lot but the price is something I have to justify and I can't so when I read a news item on the BBC website about cheap routers I read on with great interest.

Basically it's a company that claim they want to help spread WiFi access and are offering routers for a very low price ($5 US or €5, delivery and taxes to be added) as long as you use their software. The software that you use just lets your WiFi router serve as an access point for anyone. If you are a member of the site you are classed as either a Linus, a Bill or an Alien. Linus' share their connection so they can access any other connections for free, Bill's get a cut of money that Alien's have to pay to gain access. If it works as it claims then you can earn money from sharing your connection using their WiFi router and software. I want a cheap router but if I can make money from it too bonus! :P