My first DSLR

Yesterday I traded in my old Olympus mju:400 (Stylus in the US) for a new Olympus E-500 DSLR. I wasn't that happy with my old point-and-shoot anymore and wanted to upgrade to a DSLR to have more control and be able to learn to do some more serious photography. Being on a limited budged I had to go for an entry level DSLR and after reading some reviews I was hesitant about going for the E-500. The Nikon D50 or the Canon EOS 350D Digital Rebel XT would have been a better choice according to most of the reviews I read, but most of the packs available in my local stores were 100-200 € more expensive than the Olympus one including two lenses, that not including a memory card that I would have needed to buy as well if I had gone with either Canon or Nikon. Having three of the (expensive) xD cards that Olympus uses made the decision a bit easier for me. Sure, no camera in that price range is perfect, the E-500 has a few known downsides and I will likely discover more when learning to use it but I still expect it to be a solid learning tool for a DSLR newbie like me.

Until now I only had the time to unpack it play around for a few shots, I am a bit worried about the plastic body that has a nice finish but doesn't seem to be the most robust. After reading the manual I will start putting it into action over the week-end and hope to get back with my impressions.

Rolling Stones Barcelona Date announced

Well, I already know what to do on May 27th.
RollingStones.com events.tickets

Update to yesterday's twisters

Unfortunately I had no camera when I witnessed yesterday's Tornadoes here in Barcelona. Today the local newspapers had some photos. Foto: ANTONI PASTOR / EL PERIODICO

Google Base live and working!

Google Base is live and I just posted my first item, my mountain bike. I don't think that this will actually help me to sell it but it was the first thing I could think about that I could post. Posting an item is really easy and I wouldn't wonder if this eventually becomes the eBay killer everybody was talking about a few weeks ago when Google Base first surfaced.

Now where is my Google Wallet???

Well, let's try the base

First Base: "Posted by Bindu Reddy, Product ManagerToday we're excited to announce Google Base, an extension of our existing content collection efforts like web crawl, Google Sitemaps, Google Print and Google Video. Google Base enables content owners to easily make their information searchable online. Anyone, from large companies to website owners and individuals, can use it to submit their content in the form of data items. We'll host the items and make them searchable for free. There's more info here.Some organizations are already using Google Base. Here are a few examples.

'Students need as much information as possible when they are searching for the right college or university. Google Base helps us reach students and parents and deliver more of the information they need when making important college decisions.' - Hal Higginbotham, President, CollegeBoard.com

'We want to use knowledge and information about the environment to help motivate more responsible public and private action. With Google Base, we can bring the public key insights on sustainability issues – like climate change, human health, and resource consumption – and bring about change.' – Amy Cassara, Senior Associate, World Resources Institute

'CareerBuilder.com's business model is built on providing employers with as many avenues as possible to connect with job seekers. Feeding our jobs to Google Base "

Just observed two tornadoes

That was a cool sight, two tornadoes clearly visible from our office at the WTC in Barcelona, one over the sea, about a few miles out and one over land, not very far either. This was the first time I saw a real big tornado.

They were visible for at least ten minutes but are gone now.

Like I said a few posts ago... we now have a tornado season here in Spain!

Donavon Frankenreiter show in Barcelona

Donavon Frankenreiter did a great show tonight here in Barcelona.
Here the setlist:

• Butterfly
• Heading Home
• Swing On Down
• So Far Away
• On My Mind
• Bend In The Road
• What'Cha Know
• That's Too Bad
• Love
• Call Me Papa
• Stay Young
• Fool
• Free
• Make You Mine
• It Don't Matter

Special guest was The White Buffalo

This is so weird

It just started to snow here in Barcelona, very unusual and even more considering that it's November! Even though the snowflakes melt before touching ground, I never saw this before.

Slick browser-based AJAX IM solution

I just discovered meebo.com and will give it a try. I am just tired to install more and more software that makes a mess on my PC so the concept of browser-based applications realized in AJAX is very compelling to me.

More tornadoes!

This makes me wondering if there is anything such as a "tornado season" in Spain???
Another article in english.

Spanish press gets it all wrong

The Spanish free daily newspaper 20 Minutos announced the iPod Nano as being the new 'iPhone' - I wish they were right because the Motorola ROKR's design doesn't knock me off my feet.

What would you do if you had 630.000 € spare?

Why not charter this super-yacht for a week. I have been seeing this from my office window (the Barcelona WTC is in the middle of the port) for the last few days, it's the 116 meter Turama.

Tornado in Barcelona!

Yesterday was really really windy in Barcelona, but I would have never thought that there were tornadoes. These photos were all over the papers today, they were taken at or close to Barcelona's airport:

Great expectations!

The new Stones album due out very soon can now be listened to in full length at Rollingstones.com: A Bigger Bang. After a quick listening session I have to say that at least 50% of the songs are really good or great. My favorites so far: a really funky "Rain Fall Down", bluesy "Back Of My Hand", "It Won't Take Long", "Laugh, I Nearly Died" - which reminds me of Tattoo You's "Heaven" and even Keith's "Infamy" is not bad. I am counting down the six days remaining before I can buy it.

Evidence

I had never heard of this idiotic movement before reading the Wired article about Yomango yesterday. And then when walking home from work I found some evidence of it so I decided to bring my camera today and snap a picture of it. The text says "Pasa del consumismo absurdo" meaning "Ignore this riduculous consumerism".

Everybody's... (google) talking!

Yesterday evening I was all exited playing around with the new Google Desktop and adding some of the cool plug-ins and then this morning I heard the news about the new Google Talk. The first reactions seem to be that this new IM is nothing special and that more was expected from Google. The user interface sure looks good without all these ads and pop-ups that I remember from Yahoo IM, MSN Messenger and ICQ. Google Talk uses the open jabber standard so I guess a lot of those unhappy with its UI will use it through Trillian or Gaim. As for me I hope that over time Google's Gmail, Desktop, Talk, Blogger, Picasa and other utilities will become more and more integrated and finally offer me what I am really looking for (I will know when I see it!).

Finally Online!!!

After two month waiting I am finally online at home now. Spain really seems to be in the developing world when it comes to telecommunications. Let's see if my ISP will offer a good DSL service.

Just a small experiment

It cannot hurt to try this The J-Walk Blog Link Experiment, especially since I will finally get my Internet connection at home today and have to start thinking about getting to blog regularly again.

Still offline

Sorry, no new regular posts here. I still have no internet access and yesterday I cancelled with my provider after being tired of waiting two months for the installation of my line. I am looking for a different ISP now and still hope that one day I will have an access at home.

Waiting for connection

I haven't been blogging lately because I am currently waiting to get a new ADSL line at my home. Right now I have only access to the Internet at work but here I don't have time to blog. I hope to get the new line by next week.