A lot of people feel this is the best MiniDV camcorder ever made, and I love it. But I haven’t used it in the last year or so, and it is a waste to have it sit.

A great camera for an aspiring filmmaker or film student, it has a lot of great manual features that are uncommon on consumer camcorders. Can adjust the aperature, shutter speeds, manual focus and zoom (on lens), white balance, zebra pattern, etc. Has an color eyepiece as well as a flip-out LCD screen–a lot of camcorders these days just have the flip-out screen which isn’t always enough. You can also set it in automatic and just point-and-shoot for great results–it is easy to get great results even if you don’t have a lot of photography experience!

It is in very good overall shape, everything works perfectly including the on-off rotator switch (which I guess fails sometimes on these units). It has a couple of light scratches, but I’ve tried my best to take great care of it. The only thing I have to mention is that were the microphone mounts to the handle is cracked, but it works perfectly, just have to be a little careful when handling/packing (and obviously don’t drop it!) not to break it off. Under normal or even rough conditions you should be fine, but it is possible that it could break if mishandled. Sony does stock the replacement parts if this should happen and they are inexpensive.

Camera Specs

• 3CCD Progressive Scan (Very Important!)
• Built In Stereo Microphone (Sounds Great!)
• 12X Optical Zoom, 48X Digital Zoom
• 2.5″ Color LCD Viewfinder
• Color Eyepiece Viewfinder
• RCA Video Inputs/Outputs
• SVideo Input / Output
• LANC Remote Support (works great have tested)
• Lens hood & cover
• Digital Video on MiniDV Tapes

The upgraded NP-F750 battery that comes with it is really great. You can shoot several hours with it.

Comes with a bunch of Accessories

• 2X Telephoto Lens & Covers, Bag
• .5X Fisheye / Macro Lens & Covers, Bag
• Polorized Filter
• UV Filter
• Flourecent light filter (for shooting indoors)
• Filter case
• 8 MB Memory Stick
• NP-F750 Infolithium Battery
• Shoulder/Carrying Strap
• AC Power Adapter / Charger
• AV Cable (RCA Audio & Video)
• New headphones
• Original Manual
• Lens cleaning cloth and wipes
• Hard 1450 Pelican Case with Divider Kit (worth well over $100)

Camera originally retailed for about $3500, accessories worth about $250.

I’d like $1100.

Please only email if you’re serious and have the money–it takes a LOT of time dealing with folks that end up flaking out. Cash and PayPal only (due to check and western union scammers). Located in Issaquah, WA. Am willing to ship, but only domestically and only with PayPal. Buyer to pay actual shipping charges.

World Pies, a new pizza joint, recently opened up in my Issaquah Highlands neighborhood

I’ll preface this with saying that I’ve been looking forward to having a decent pizza place in town.  Flying Pie Pizzaria has been my main place lately, but it is pretty expensive and they stop delivering pretty early in the evening.  Papa Johns in Sammamish stopped delivering to Issaquah a while back (and are almost finished with their new Issaquah location), and so I’ve kinda been in pizza limbo lately.

The restaurant is also a coffee stand which opened earlier this month, and when I  stopped by, they said they would be opening this week.

So tonight I stopped by to give it a shot.  When I walked in, the place was fairly busy, and was greeted by a hostess.  I informed the hostess that I’d like to place a To-Go order and was told that “We’re not doing To-Go orders until next week.”  Huh?

I took a look around and noticed several tables with “To-Go” boxes (presumably with leftovers) sitting on them, which confused me further.  I understand that they are probably doing a soft-opening, but I can’t help but think that turning away a new customer is a prudent thing for a budding restaurant.  After all, 58% of all restaurants close within the first three years.

At some point I might head back to try the food, but so far I’m impressed with the service.

If I do head back I’ll let you know if they were able to change my first impression or not.

Got back from Ignite Seattle 5, was a good time had by all. In general the event was more political and less humor than 4. 30 minutes before the start of the event, the place was already standing-room only, and by the start it was packed to the rafters (literally) again. There were probably between 350 and 400 people, and folks were getting turned away due to (I assume) fire codes and lack of oxygen… I’d say that the event has definitely outgrown the venue.

Ontella was looking for developers, and giving out free drink tickets.

I really enjoyed the talk by Vj Vijai entitlted “Hacking the Technical Interview“, which, ultimately dealt with psychology of interactions, and influencing people through interaction.

I also enjoyed the talk by Ramez Naam about bottom-up concept in business–and how democracy has overtaken dictatorships in most other social forms, but not in most businessed. Naam goes on to discuss ways of integrating a bottom-up structure and ideas into businesses. He’s working on a book which I think I may have to pick up.

I was also intrigued by the talk Justin Martenstein gave about creating a new ’startup’ in a weekend.

I will post links to the videos of the talks when they are posted.

I also promise to begin working on a talk for the next Ignite!

Okay, so I’ve about had it with apps that claim that they require a full system reboot before they can be used, especially on the Mac.

If you are just installing an application, there is no reason to reboot.  So don’t force me to reboot, or make me manually kill the installer that has a modal box with a single “Reboot” button, and no way to easily abort/kill the reboot process.

If you are a developer, and you think you have a legitimate need to restart the system, the dialog box should say “Reboot Now” or “Reboot Later”, giving the user a choice of what to do.

So in the meantime, I’m going to use this page to call to the carpet those developers who insist on forcing a user reboot.  If you have one to submit, please let me know and I’ll add it to the list.

•  Logitech - Harmony Remote Software (Works fine without reboot)

So I bought a PS3 this week, and have found it to be an incredible improvement over the XBOX 360 with a HD DVD player–at least when it comes to watching movies (games are a different matter).

The Playstation 3 is whisper quiet, even when watching movies/playing games, so it can be out in the living room, as opposed to mounted in the closet, which is where my 360 lives.

The remote that comes with the HD-DVD player for XBOX 360 is infrared, unlike the rest of it’s remotes–which means I can’t actually use it when the 360 is in the closet.  The PS3 uses bluetooth technology for all of it’s remotes, so even if I did put it in the closet or not in the line-of-sight, I’d still be able to use the remote.

So the Blu-Ray is the more convenient method of HD content for me now.

Folks may not know this, but Netflix gives you the option of sending movies out in HD-DVD or Blu-Ray format as a default, and if they don’t have that format they will send you a normal DVD.  It is a bit hard to find in their help section, so here is the link.

So I changed my preferred format from HD-DVD to Blu-Ray this weekend.

Just in time, I guess because I get this in an email from them Neflix this afternoon:

As you may have heard, most of the major movie studios have recently decided to release their high-definition movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format. In order to provide the best selection of high-definition titles for our members, we have decided to go exclusively with Blu-ray as well.

They will continue to ship out HD-DVD movies for the rest of the year, but will not be buying any new ones.