Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:

With any luck Canon will fire another shot at Nikon and we will have a price war

Rumor is that Canon will release 6D with the same sensor as 5D Mark II (or 5D Mark III).

Nish Sivakumar wrote:

Not sure how many DX people will move to this one though, since buying lenses will prove to be quite expensive.

Very much agree with that. Considering the high cost Nikon full frame lenses (I am seeing the same for newer Canon lenses - 24-70 II is $2300), not sure how many of the current DX users will move to full frame. Nikon did some nice work of releasing some cheaper full frame lenses. The new 24-85 is decent, and the new AF-S versions of F1.8 lenses (28mm, 50mm, 85mm) are good. But lack of F4 zooms is still a major concern (especially considering the cost for F2.8 zooms) Also, other than getting thin DOF, I am not sure the arguments (high ISO, DR etc.)for FX are valid any more. The newer generations of DX sensors are catching up (e.g. the 16 MP used in Fuji X-Pro1, Sony NEX-5F, Pentax K-30 are great) -Madhu

Nish Sivakumar wrote:

The Nikon D700 debuted at 2999 if I remember right

That might be true, but I saw them selling $2700 range within a couple of months of its release. Regarding Canon 5D Mark II, it was released with $2700 range. I bought it $2699 within 6 months after its release. My main point was Nikon D600 is not the least expensive full frame DSLR that is released. -Madhu

Nish Sivakumar wrote:

it's the first full-frame digital SLR that's ever been released for a sub-2900 price

Sorry, you are wrong.. The first full frame DSLR under $2000 is Sony A850. It was released with an MSRP of $1999. It was a good DSLR (good color - though high ISO performance is not that great) and released sometime in 2009. It was a the scaled down version (less FPS, 98% view finder) of Sony A900. Also when the last generations of Full Frame DSLRs released, the price point was around $2700. I remeber Canon 5D Mark II was $2699 or $2799. Same is the case for Sony A900 and Nikon D700. -Madhu

Nish, There are better alternatives to Bose (both in terms of money and in terms of quality). I do not know what your budget and space requirements are. But you can get decent KEF, Mirage or Paradigm for the same price as the comparable Bose speakers. There are other speakers like Definitive Technologies, Polk etc at the same price range. If you go a little bit higher end you can get B&W and higher end models of KEF etc. Personally I feel Bose is more of a marketing than the actual quality (they are decent, but not great, better choice available) Try www.accessories4less and there was a sale for Kef 3005 series (5.1) for around $1000. Since you are looking for 2.1, one of the better sub is SVS (www.svsound.com). They too have some speaker packages. Other subs like HSU research (www.hsuresearch.com) has good subs. What type of receiver you have? Personally I feel THX certification is more of a marketing. Some of decent mid to high end receivers from Denon, Marantz, Pioneer Elite and Yamaha do not have THX certification, but that does not mean that they are not great :-D :-D Try the following site for all your following Audio Video questions (you may know it already) www.avsforum.com -Madhu

I have asked about this in the "General Discusstion" and got no reply. Thanks for the details. But one question still remains: Is this the same as ActiveX? (ActiveX is for Windows and IE only, but other than that the concept seems to be the same) I must admit that I have't read the entire documentation. I am not sure how they are solving the security issues? Thanks, Madhu

I have been reading various reports about Google Native Client. I am still scratching my heard figuring out how this could be different from Microsoft's ActiveX (though ActiveX was only for Windows, but the principle seems to be the same). Can anyone provide more clarification? Thanks, Madhu

Vasudevan Deepak Kumar wrote:

Hailing from Microsoft technologies and exposed to an elevated level of user-friendliness,

I am not 100% agree with you on this statement. I have seen Eclipse offering nice (and better) GUI features (and fast too) even before Visual Studio 2005 was doing the same things. In terms of user-friendliness some of the Apple developed software is far superior than Microsoft's (my personal opinion).

Vasudevan Deepak Kumar wrote:

we normally look down on grey-technologies like Java.

Could you please tell me what you meant by 'grey-technologies'? No matter whatever tools/technologies you use, a badly developed application/tool is bad. Nothing more nothing less. I am not supporting Java or Microsoft. As someone else pointed out (about VB programmers), if a person uses only one language for everything, you can see these problems. I think for a company like IBM, it may be cost effective to develop in one language (Java) rather than developing in native languages like C/C++.But if another company chooses .NET for similar reason, they may also end with same kind of issues -Madhu

I am not a fan of Sony or defending them in this. But I have seen that Sony mentioned this many times. In fact most of the retailers who sell PS3 40GB model (Costco,Walmart, Circuit City, BestBuy etc - atleast in our area) put signs telling that this model (40GB model) won't play PS2 games. In SonyStyle web site, it is written as 'red letter note' The PS3 60GB and 20GB are discontinued models. The PS2 game support on PS3 80GB model is based on the software (I think they have inlcuded an emulator for PS2 games). What I have heard that, the software based PS2 support (in 80GB model) does not guarentee 100% PS2 compatibility (some of the games won't play etc). The PS3 60GB model has a chip included and plays the PS2 games and it is better than the software based solution within 80GB. Too bad that Sony stopped making these models. I heard that it was not cost effective for Sony to make this particular model due to the extra hardware. Now Sony has only two models (40GB and 80GB). You may be able to get 60GB in EBAY... The other difference between 40GB and 80GB is the SACD support in 80GB. Personally I don't care about SACD. I also heard that the 80GB model is creating too much noise from the fan !!!!!

modified on Monday, June 23, 2008 11:59 AM

Ajit Shekhawat wrote:

Now F# is something which is neither OOPs nor POP. What's next and why?

F# is a functional programming language. I heard about it a couple of years back (someone from our organization mentioned that they are planning to use it - I don't know whether they are using it now). Functional programming languages are the new frontier for many of the people. People say that with more work is going to be done at 'parallel programming' because of the advancement in hardware (multi-core CPUs etc), functional programming languages are better suitable to do those types of tasks. Haskell, Erlang are also getting more attention these days.

Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote:

In fact, without inheritance you can't have polymorphism.

I don't think that is an accurate statement. In C++, you can definitely have static polymorphism with templates (I am not talking about the operator overloading). In C++, dynamic polymorphisms is acheived through virtual functions (and of course inheritance). The C++ templates book (by Josuttis and Vandevoorde) explains the difference in both static and dynamic polymorphisms in detail. I think one of the Herb Sutter's book also talks about static polymorphism. Disclaimer:- The last time I looked at these books was probably 3 years back and there is a chance that I could be wrong about the fine details. Also I don't write code these days :) :) :) :)

modified on Tuesday, March 4, 2008 12:19 AM

I try to avoid Best Buy as much as possible. They are a bunch of arrogant guys who always try push their extended warranty along with any of the purchases...The regional stores in our area (NJ/NY) offer much better service (in terms of price and customer service) and I always prefer them..

Thanks John. I am leaning more towards HD-DVD. Does it perform upconversion to 1080P for standard def DVDs ?

John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:

I hate Sony and their propensity for installing rootkits on computers

Me too ...

John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:

If Blu-ray wins the format war, I figure the price of blu-ray players would probably drop dramatically.

True..but what about the investment that will be made on the HD-DVD discs? Thanks, Madhu

ToddHileHoffer wrote:

PS3 is amazing as an upconverting DVD player as well as a blu-ray disc player. DVDs played on the PS3 look incredible

I am thinking of not purchasing either HD-DVD or Blue-Ray players until the format war is over(or atleast in the last stages of that war). Thanks for the link. I will post these questions in that forum also. Thanks, Madhu

Hi, I am in the process of setting up a new home theatre system at my home. I recently bought a 46 inch LCD (1080P) which has 3 HDMI inputs. I am planning to buy an upconversion DVD player, AV Receiver and Speakers. I was going through various products and narrowed down my search to the following models. Denon 1908/1708/1508 - The 1908 model has both audio and video through HDMI (1.3) where as 1508 and 1708 have video only ports only. I don't know whether this really matters. My budget for the receiver is around $500 (max) and Denon 1908 is almost $100 more. I can stretch the budget, but don't know whether it is really worth. Yahama HTC 6060 - I heard that these are really good. Don't know more about these Sony STR-DG910 - Though Sony was not my choice for AV Receivers, I am hearing good reviews for this. Harman Kardon AVR 347/247/147 - I am not getting any detailed reviews of these. The lower power rating (50W per channel) was earlier a concern for me, but after reading several reviews of Harmon/Kardon being great with lower wattages and tonal balance, I decided to put them in the list My requirements are pretty simple. Since I will be buying an upconversion DVD player, I don't need the receiver to do upconversion for my movies from my DVD player. But I would like to get an upconversion (to 1080P) for my cable TV and a satellite channel. These receivers offer 7.1 channels, I will be going for 5.1 only. I heard that in some of these models, the remaining power can be directed to the front speakers in the 5.1 setup. I don't know whether it is true or not. Could anyone provide some recommendations/suggestions on these? I know that this is not a forum for audio/video review, but I know that some of you have very good knowledge in these (Home theatre setup etc) Thanks in advance, Madhu

Vasudevan Deepak Kumar wrote:

I was wondering whether the QWERTY-style keyboard is of any use by the way on that little mobile?

Yes. I use it regularly. I was using a Treo 680 and personally I feel BackBerry Curve is much better. I am able to check and reply my emails, calendar etc. I will be changing this to a Windows Mobile device (either Black Jack II or AT&T Tilt) probably by Christmas time and hopefully that would be much better. I corporate world BlackBerry is still the king though Windows Mobile devices are catching up really fast. Thanks, Madhu

Thanks John.

John, Pardon my ignorance. What if I bought an upconversion DVD player? Will it upconvert my standard definition DVD into a 1080p TV? How will be the performance? I know that I cannot play any HD DVD in standard DVD players, but the other day I saw one upconversion DVD player from Toshiba for $85 and I am now confused. I have a lot of DVDs but they are not HD. A lot of people are telling that if the TV size is less than 50 inches, the difference between 1080i and 1080p is almost indistinguishable. Is that correct? I am going to buy a 46 inch TV because my viewing area is that much. Thanks, Madhu

On Friday evening I was driving near the Apple store in our area and even though it was raining, people were standing outside the store. I think almost 50 people were standing outside the Apple store here in Woodcliff Lake, NJ. I was so surprised to see a crowd for Apple OS X...;););)

Chris Maunder wrote:

You know Apple are maturing as a company when their core product is suffering the slings and arrows of third party extensions.

True.. I think they didn't have enough experience in handling third party extensions like Microsoft.

Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:

Before people jump in I want to state the obvious: these are by no menas a substitute to manual code reviews?

Absolutely agree. With code analysis tools we may even achieve 20%-30% only. It gives a lot of false positives. We are using a different product in our environment and it is geared more towards security Though running analysis and finding issues are great, sometimes it is tough to enforce fixing some of the issues (because of different priorities for different groups, tight deadline, - all usual things :)) In that case we may have to choose the lesser evil.. Thanks, Madhu.