Sony Cybershot DSC-N2 Review - Migration from 3 to 10 MP

Sony Cybershot DSC-N2, Review of a versatile, lightweight, compact and easy to use camera that comes in attractive champagne color. I have tried 2 other Sony models in the past, this model clearly out performs all cameras i tried before.

Some of the things i had in mind while considering this model - Sony DSC-N2

1. Awesome 10 Mega pixels - there are very few brands that have compact cameras with 10MP. There are 12MP models in the market too, Most of them are too expensive and for professionals. 2. Sony Brand - As almost (well i think so) every one agrees that Sony is a reliable and one of the best in electronics brand. 3. Huge 3" touch screen LCD adds to the fun - some one said on the net that "LCD works like citi bank ATM". 4. Whole bunch of features - I am a geek and like all fundo features being packed in such small devices read more at http://www.sonyindia.co.in/index_n2.html 5. Battery life - 300 to 400 photos can be clicked. 6. Market review of camera. To read more about the camera go the product site

My old camera is in fully working condition as it was 3 years back.
I had a Olympus C-310 model a 3.2 Mega pixel camera bought in Sept 2004.


Some of the considerations that made me change the camera are

Batter life was very limited 10-50 photos only (of course it depends a lot on the batteries used)

There was a 2-8 seconds delay after clicking a photo. This is one annoying thing.

Audio wasnt there, and videos almost doesnt make any sense without audio.

No connectivity to TV.

Video captured wasnt almost like VGA mode, and wasnt of good enough quality to share.

It has 3 Mega pixels and now you dont find cameras with less than 5 Mega pixels.(Ah.. technology changes so fast..)

Evening or night mode photos were not acceptable.

Small LCD.

No slide show opion.. had to browse through the photos manually.

When I bought this camera it was one of the best looking, highest mega pixel camera in the market and was in the budget that was about $400 including a 128MB XD memory card). But over a period of three years i had started missing above listed features.
Its was high time i changed my 3Mega pixel camera with a new one.

Bargain tips * Ideally wait for some bargain time like new year, christmas, thanks giving etc to buy anything at great prices. * If you are in hurry, still check some sites like deals2buy.com, froogle.com and other favorite sites of yours and compare prices. * Checkout taxes and shipping cost. * Ask your friends who make lot of research on prices (they will be more than happy to share their experiences). I bought 4GB memory stick and additional battery throught amazon.com

All photos (well almost) that you saw on my blogs so far were clicked by this camera. Probly Niagara trip was its last journey with me.

-- My wishlist of features ---

Shockproof (most cameras are)

Waterproof

Projector

High definition video recording

DSLR quality pics

About 20X optical zoom

And all these features...i still want my compact camera :) Technology...Show me the way...

Technical Glossary

This is an extension of my previous article Shortfoms of communication. This time you will see a technical terms & abbrevations also referred as glossary. This is an effort to consolidate some of the technical shortforms that we come accross. Almost all these terms are related to project management and other terms related to software industry.


AD - Activity Description
ADM - Arrow Diagramming method
ADSL - Advanced Digital Subscriber Line

BAC - Budget On Completion
BIOS - Basic Input/Output System
Blog - web log. Just like this one
BMP - BitMaP - A windows file format to store images.
BRM -Build and Release Management

CDM - Conceptual Data Model
COQ - Cost Of Quality
CPM - Critical Path Method
CPI - Cost Performance Index
CR - Change Request
CSS - Cascaded Style sheets
CSV - Comma Seperated Values

DB - DataBase
DBMS - DataBase Management System
DFD - Data Flow Diagram
DHCP - Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
DNS - Domain Name System.
DSL - Digital Subscriber Line.
DVD - Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc

EDD - External Design Document
ER(Diagram) - Entiry Relationship Diagram
ERP - Enterprice Resource Planning
FTP - File Transfer Protocol

GIF - Graphics Interchange Format - One of the earliest image formats
GPL - GNU General Public License

HTML - HyperText Markup Language
HTTP - HyperText Transfer Protocol

IT - Information Technology
JAD - Joint Application Design

LDD - Local Delivery Desk
LTV - Loan To Value

MCAD - Microsoft Certified Application Developer
MCP - Microsoft Certified Professional
MCSD - Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer - a Certificaiton by Microsoft

OOPS - Object Oriented Programming System

PERT - Program Evaluation & Review Technique
PMI - Project Management Institue
PHP - PHP Preprocessed Hypertext programming ??

PL - Project Lead
PMI - Project Management Institue
PMP - Project Management Professional
PR - Permanet Resident (US)
PR - Page Rank (Google)
PR - Public Relations (Marketing)

RAD - Rapid Application Development
RDBMS - Relational Database Management System

SAM- Security accounts Manager
SSAD - Structured System Analysis and Design
SOW - Statement Of Work

TBD - To be done
TDD - Technical Design Document
TL - Team Lead
TPM - Thought process Map

UML - Unified Modeling Language

WBS - Work Breakdown Structure.

Do share the other terms that you came accross by commenting on the topic. I will also add them as a part of the topic.

.net session timeout settings in IIS6 on windows 2003 server

Does this sound simple web.config setup?
Nope this is way beyond that newbie configuration.

Problem: We were facing timeout issue on one of our servers. Web.config settings had no effect on the time out.

Note: In all screen shots pink color is hiding the actual server details.

Solution:
So here are some more interesting findings related to timeouts of sessions in IIS6 hosted on a windows 2003 server. You may need to change one or more of these setups in your server according to your setup.
There are totally 5 setups that influence your timeout. All of those are discussed here.
1. Web.config file of Application: First one to influence timeout is Session timeout setting in your we.config file.



Note: Web.config file is inherited to the subfolders and subfolders config settings take the precedence in case they exist.

2. Application session timeout in IIS:
Go to IIS, right click on the web application, go to properties. Go to Directory tab, click on Configuration button. Application configuration tab opens, click on Options tab as in the screenshot, you will find enable session state. Change the session time out period here.



3. Default website session timeout in IIS: Right click default web site under IIS and choose Home directory tab. Click on configuration button to open application configuration. Choose options tab and you will find Enable session state again similar to session state of each application. Enter higher session timeout period which will be application to all sites in the webserver.


4. Change Worker process idle timeout of application pool – Shutdown worker process after being idle for (time in minutes) – Default is 20 minutes. This setup is applied for all websites that use this application pool. To change this, Right click on the required application pool, choose Performance tab, and change the duration of idle time or uncheck the option so that the process is never recycled. You can also create an application pool, configure it, and use it for a selected list of web applications.



5. Change Recycle timeout period of application pool: Right click on application pool or default application, and choose Recycling tab. Change the “Recycle worker process (in minutes)” option to either change the period or disable the option by un checking. Un checking this option may be a good idea from performance point of view.



And finally there is a last one in machine.config file. But that does not affect any of these configurations and these setups take the precedence.

Let me know if you have any timeout related issues. Lets share.

.net - Error while trying to run project: Unable to start debugging on the web server. The project is not configured to be debugged

Running or debugging a ASP.net web application from visual studio.net throws following error.

"Error while trying to run project: Unable to start debugging on the web server. The project is not configured to be debugged."

Reason: .net web application is converted in to a directory by IIS when its renamed or copied from other location
Resolution : Change the directory back to application with these steps

1. Go to IIS management tool Choose select your virtual dir.
2. Go to Properties of the virtual directory by choosing Properties from right click menu.
3. In the Properties dialog box, click on the Create button.


Thanks Tim for that tip.

Happy New Year 2007

I Wish all my visitors and their families a very happy and prosperous new year.


View Full screen

My new year resolution related to blogging - I am going to blog on technical topics at least once every fortnight.

How about yours?