A Mind Lost

Well, I did it.  Following my previous post about considering a digital camera upgrade to a DSLR I am now the proud owner of a Canon 450D with a kit 18-55mm IS Lens.  I just need to work out how to use it now and of course it calls for a new “Photography” category on A Mind Lost.

I’ve already identified the need for a tripod, a longer zoom lens such as a 55-250mm or a 75-300mm and a remote switch for the shutter release.  If anyone has any recommendations for kit, feel free to pass your tips on.

The current “Credit Crunch” in the UK is now starting to bite.  Sales at the two companies I manage are both down.   One company is in the packaging market and is showing a slowdown simply because of the general lack of activity in the manufacturing and retail markets whilst the larger company is in the scaffolding supply business and, although less dependant on the housing market than others, is still being hit hard by the downturn in the construction brought about by the Banks’ complete failure to manage their business with the respect and foresight it deserves.

Sales at the Scaffolding company dipped in April by around 25%, now in August they are at less that 50% of this time last year.  We are fortunate to be in a diverse group in which the pain and cashflow problems can be shared to a point, although job losses and other cuts are inevitable at this point.

The banks basically sold dodgy loans to one another apparently without any care for their quality.  It was a circle of debt and as soon as it cracked the banks ran inside with their toys and slammed the doors shut.  The mortgage market has all but dried up and has taken the housing market with it.  The fallout is a tightening of budgets and less money being spent on anything.  The UK economy has been built on easy credit and now the supply has been cut off and there’s nowhere to go but down.  The media have over-hyped the situation with “Credit Crunch” articles every time you turn the page or change the channel and the situation now seems unstoppable.

How the simple act of restricting mortgage lending managed to spiral the UK economy into a recession needs some serious investigation.  Are the world’s economies really this fragile?

My companies will both ride out the storm but we can expect to see significant numbers of others go out of business and large numbers will hit the unemployment list.

In the last two weeks I’ve had two separate infections of Fake XP Security software on machines at the offices. The first was an installation of XP Security Centre telling the user it had detected 3500 viruses on his machine. I got rid of it with Ad-Aware 2008 and all seemed well until it reappeared about four days later by which time I was dealing with the second infection on another PC which this time had XP Security Centre and Antivirus XP 2008 causing mayhem with regular BSOD’s and other crashes. The first infected PC was now showing both of these pieces of Malware as well.

Ad-Aware would find the XP Security Centre and tell me it had removed it but after a reboot it came back. Spybot would install but wouldn’t run and neither would Hijack This nor a third program I tried. I assume the spyware was looking for and blocking their executables.

I tried a couple of recommended spyware removal tools including Spyware Doctor but they wanted payment before removing the spyware and since Ad-Aware could find it but not permanently remove it, I wasn’t about to keep paying out for packages without any guarantee of performance.

Finally I came across MalwareBytes’ Anti-Malware which is a very lightweight download at only 1.8Mb and got rid of both infections on both PCs with no fuss whatsoever. Congratulations to MalwareBytes who now have some of the money I would probably have wasted on the other programs.

The source of the infections is believed to be fake UPS tracking emails which are out in abundance at the moment. Since we have an account with UPS for all of our courier transactions it was inevitable that at least one person would be caught out before it was locked down.

I’m considering upgrading my point and shoot digital camera, a Canon Ixus 50, to a Digital SLR since being on holiday in North Cornwall recently really showed the limits of the point and shoot.  I’d like to get more into photography and a DSLR is a must.  I’m now trying to justify to myself whether I should lay out the cash on something like a Canon 450D or a 40D with a couple of lenses or whether it will end up gathering dust because I can’t find the time to get out and use it and then do the post-production with Photoshop.

I borrowed the Canon 350D from the office to do some comparison shots and on image quality the Ixus stands up to the 350D extremely well, but the 350D just feels better to use and the control it gives can’t be matched by a point and shoot.

If I upgrade I think it’s going to be to a 450D.  The 40D is not that much more expensive but it’s main benefits are the semi-pro handling and build quality which I think is a bit of overkill for a newbie amateur like me!  I’ve looked at the Nikons as well but the Canon seems a more rounded package.

Now, back to that question of whether I REALLY need it ……..