Best Digital Camera Ever - Fuji Finepix S1600

I don't even know where to begin, because there are so many reasons you should buy this camera right now, either for yourself or as a gift. But there are two things you should know: 1) I don't write product reviews, and 2) I spent a lot of time comparing features and prices before buying this camera. It has impressed me so much that I genuinely want to tell you about it.

The Fuji FinePix S1600 Digital Camera is the most amazing digital camera you'll ever get for a couple hundred bucks. It has features found in professional SLR (single lens reflex) cameras costing thousands, yet an amateur like myself can turn it on and start taking pictures. (Other cameras at this price have none of these features.)



This camera is perfect for beginners not only for the price, but for the simplicity. The Fuji S1600 is like a photography course in the palm of your hand. I just wanted a decent camera and ended up with a powerhouse that makes photography really fascinating.

You can use the point-and-shoot mode if that's all you need, but if you mess around with other settings you can learn tons about photography without even trying. As you explore various settings you'll discover fun things to try. Of course the manual explains everything in detail, but if you're like me then much of the language is meaningless until you start taking pictures and see the results. Then you'll be stunned to realize what you're holding.



Here's the deal:
- standard point-and-shoot mode
- 12.2 megapixels, giant 3" display
- panorama mode, dual image stabilizer, tripod mount
- face detection, blink detection, red eye removal
- "micro" mode lets you take clear pictures as little as 2cm away
- true HD video with sound (choose from 1280, 640, or 320)
- true 15x optical zoom for amazing close-ups
    (avoid "digital zoom" - that just stretches your picture)
- shutter speed up to 8 seconds (take pics in total darkness)
- 16 automatic modes for situations like night, snow, fireworks, etc.
- if you dare: full control of shutter speed, aperture, white balance...
- use any SD or SDHC card
- software for Windows 7, Vista, and XP

I'm going to stop talking now because this could go on forever. This is the most brilliant camera under $1000, period. If you need a camera for yourself or a gift for someone else, this is it.

You can get the Fuji FinePix S1600 Digital Camera at Tiger Direct dirt cheap. Shipping is normally 2-3 days.

URL Expander Add-on For Firefox

We all know that the shortened URLs found on Twitter and other sites can sometimes lead to malware, spamware, trojan, and hacking sites. Most of the time it is intentional, but it can also be accidental. By way of example, an official city tourism site that I follow on Twitter recently posted a bit.ly link that took me to a porn site! They were stunned when I brought it to their attention, and thanked me profusely.

I've always felt that posting links on Twitter and blogs is very helpful, and try to do it often for my followers. Knowing the risks of shortened URLs, I actually make special efforts to post links that I can embed directly without having to shorten. I want my readers to see clearly exactly where any click will take them. Of course the problem is sometimes I want to link to something with a web address that's a mile long. Blog posts are definitely annoying to link to. Most blog platforms turn the entire blog title into the corresponding URL for that post, resulting in extremely long addresses full of dashes, and sometimes adding the date to make it even longer.

There isn't really a solution to the underlying problem - some sites have short URLs and some have long ones. The best you can do is protect yourself when clicking on someone else's link.

Thus I recently installed a Firefox add-on called Long URL Please. It automatically reveals all shortened URLs on every web page, with no need to do anything. It works with all the typical shortener services. Some comments from users on the Firefox plug-in site mention slow load times and system hangs, but I haven't encountered either in the week I've been using it. It works fine, and has removed any concerns I used to have about shortened and masked links. I can finally tell which links go to affiliate sales pitches and which ones go to news stories and blogs, it's fantastic.

I recommend it or a similar add-on to make your online travels safer. (... and I naturally assume you are using Firefox in the first place!)

Credibility Checklist For Business Web Sites

1) Eliminate All Typos And Poor Grammar: Spelling mistakes, incorrect use of punctuation, incorrect use of words, and other grammatical errors are more than embarrassing. Don't minimize the importance of this. Visitors who are literate can find this almost unbearable, regardless of the industry you are in. This sort of thing is particularly inexcusable because fixing this type of mistake should take a webmaster just minutes.

2) Correct And Up-To-Date Content: Your site must be accurate and current. Any changes, updates, or redesigns can easily be created offline and posted in one shot. You should never have to say "Sorry, we no longer offer that product/service", or "We just haven't put up the new prices yet", or "We're in the process of updating our site".

3) Prove You Are Real: Have photographs of key employees, photos of your office or facility, photos of products, photos of you with clients. Give real contact info, phone numbers, and street address. (Never reveal too much personal information about your people or your other clients.)

4) Prove You Are Legitimate: Make prominent use of client testimonials, employee credentials, courses, awards, community endeavours. Mention past accomplishments of employees and/or management. Tell how you created specific tangible results for a previous client.

5) Educate Visitors/Potential Clients: Giving free advice, free articles, free videos, useful internet links, and/or a routinely updated blog are all good for establishing credibility. If you can help your visitors learn or discover something new, it will stick in their mind and set you apart as an authority on the subject.

See our Articles page at Second Glance Digital Media for more good stuff.

Our Three Latest Web Design Clients

Like most web design companies, we get some clients who have thoughtful ideas for their sites, and others who give us raw material and tell us to call them when it's done. It's the variety that makes it interesting.

Sometimes we get clients who are just fun to work with. Our latest three web design clients were actively engaged in the design of their sites, and all three were fun in their own way. (And of course each one of these is now a top-10 ranking site in their market, since that is our specialty at Second Glance Digital Media.)

Robin Walton, freehand illustrator and artist (RobinWalton.ca) - Being a freehand artist, Robin had given much thought to the look of her site and had made some custom drawings for it. All we needed to do was translate her ideas into a functioning site. This was fun to build for a few reason: she's an independent freelance artist, and we love putting people on a small budget in the top-10 search results; she came prepared with great ideas and custom content for the site; and she asked good questions about what could be done, what might look best, and responded immediately to mock-up approvals.

Inside Security, about the new Ontario security guard course and test (InsideSecurity.ca) - Inside Security also came prepared with tons of content. There's nothing better than good content. It makes site design easy and search engines love heaps of real information. We spent some time acquiring images to supplement the predominant text, but much of it was simply building the site and getting layout approvals from the client. It's a straightforward design, very clean and easy to read. There's nothing cute or artsy to distract from the solid text content of this informative site.

Heritage Natural Beef, drug-free local beef (HeritageNaturalBeef.com) - Another case where it was rewarding to put a small business in the top-10 search results. They actually had a site for several years but it couldn't be found in searches, and I mean you couldn't find it no matter how hard you intentionally tried. It hadn't been banned or anything, it was basically just lacking every possible element of correct design. When we were done they ranked number two, only behind the long established industry leader.

Google Wave Revisited

Chatting with a friend the other day about the demise of Google Wave inspired me to find my original post about it. Turns out it was one year and one day between my post (Aug 03, 2009) and Google's acknowledgement (Aug 04, 2010) that it was a failure.

Here's my original post about Google Wave, no need for further comment.

And here's Google's official blog post ending support.

Stats: Operating System Usage

This post we look at the operating systems used by visitors to our sites.

XP still has a massive lead over both Vista and Windows 7. Businesses and consumers despised and rejected Vista from day one, and Microsoft acknowledged that failure. But it did ship on new computers for quite some time, so takes the distant second place.


One would have to assume that people are only moving into Win7 with the purchase of a new computer, rather than buying it to install on a current computer. And computer purchases must be slim, since Win7 has been shipping on new computers since around Christmas 2009. I was shocked at such a low percentage of Win7 users, as it has gotten fairly good reviews from techies. Although when you look at it another way, there are more Win7 users than Mac users, and Mac OSx has been around for a heck of a lot longer than 9 months. So Win7 certainly has market share.

The other/unknown browser category include some iPhones, Win2003, WinNT, network servers, and search engine crawlers. None of them accounted for more than a few percent each.

Stats: Javascript Enabled or Disabled

Another stat about the visitors to our highest traffic domains.


Javascript is generally enabled by default, but can be disabled within your browser settings. It is often used to determine which ads to show on a web page, set formatting and layout styles, and gather information about user activity.

So why would it be enabled or disabled?

Disabling it can considerably speed up web page load times, prevent piles of third-party advertisers from tracking things, and eliminate spyware & trojan risks.

Java is a two-way street, it sends data back to the server about the settings and usage of the browser and computer being used. Simply by looking at a web page without clicking on anything, Javascript is running.

"Java exploits" are currently being used quite often to piggyback trojans into computers. (Cell phones and PDAs are at risk too, because they are powered by Java and it can't be turned off. Blackberry/iPhone/cell hacking has become a new goldmine of identity theft because everyone stores all their phone numbers, contacts, emails, account logins, photos, and other personal info on them.)

We've also made the interesting observation that sites offering higher-ticket specialty products and services have noticably higher rates of Javascript disabled (upwards of 30%). Should we assume these people are more security-aware in general, and/or more tech-savvy?

Are the above stats surprising? Higher or lower disabling than you'd expect?

Stats: Browsers Used By Visitors To Our Sites

Here's a current look at the browsers being used by visitors to the heaviest traffic sites that we operate. No big surprises with Internet Explorer leading the pack, followed by Firefox.


Without saying too much about our clients, trust me when I say this traffic is very broad in scope. These statistics reflect traffic to sites in many unrelated industries, with very different target audiences and user demographics (from highly educated specialists to random consumers, and from world-wide to Peterborough-specific).