I always had problems with batteries for my Canon Powershot A350 camera: From the time they were fully charged, they lasted only a few days until they drained to zero.

Even at the time they were new, I only had about a week of benefiting from their capacity. It left even if the batteries were not in use.

I discovered that precharged batteries do the job better: The low self discharge enables dealers to store them up to 12 months and still sell them without pissing off their customers.
Of course, the discharging properties stay after recharging batteries at home..

The other benefit is, that the low self discharge enabled me to leave the batteries in the camera for more then two weeks. Hence I stopped suffering the loss of first class snapshots just because the camera is not ready.

This apllies to multiple camera series: Canon Powershot, Fujifilm Finepix, Pentax K series and basically all models that come with AA or AAA batteries - not with the prebuild own battery models like in the Canon Ixus series.

As for Germany, the dkamera magazine suggests these tested precharged batteries:

• Panasonic Infinium
• Kodak Digital Camera Battery Pre-Charged
• Ansmann maxe
• Conrad energy Endurance
• Duracell ActiveCharge
• Sanyo eneloop
• Varta Ready2Use
• AccuPower AccuLoop
• ELV Combo
• Hama Ready4Power
• GP Recyko
• UniRoss Hybrio

Please compare worldwide vendors and models yourself by regarding to the international brands.
Have fun using those!

Here is a new toy for wannabe graphic designers and photographers:

Adobe just released it’s online image proccessing tool Photoshop Express. After creating an account, you are able to upload, edit and publish your photos. Let’s see if this becomes a valuable photo community.
Some info:

• It’s 100% Flash
• There are functions to integrate your work into Facebook, Photobucket and Picasa. Why not Flickr?
• The interface actually does not convince me: Too slow, too much fading effects and shaded buttons.
• Image processing capabilties are reduced, somehow. Do not forget: It’s an online tool, not an replacement of a desktop version of Photoshop.

And Beware: In Adobes General Terms and Conditions it says:

Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.
“Publicly accessible” areas of the Services are those areas of the Adobe network of properties that are intended by Adobe to be available to the general public.

Did I get that right: Adobe is allowed to earn as much dough with my pics as they want to? Without sparing me a dime? No way, this is not going to be used by me. No matter what you think about it - think twice.

Here’s a demo video:

[via]

Some photos from my short trip to Finland, where I was visiting my cool Brother. Click image for 1st class resolution:

I will add some storytelling to this, as well as a video. Enjoy for the moment.

That’s a free piece of candy for all blognerds and other design wannabes:
It is set up and installed in 14 minutes (I hit the stopwatch), and with my pics it looks like this:
[Feel free control the grid by clicking and moving]

View this in fullscreen

Your own gallery is set up in four steps:

• Download Tiltviewer here
• Customize the file “index.html”: Simply add your Flickr userID
• Upload the bulk to your webhost
• Embed it in your site or blog

That’s all.
Tiltviewer 3D Flash Gallery is provided by Airtight Interactive

…und noch was heute abend:

Ipernity rocks! Der Suchtfaktor beim Content-Sharing für Flickr-Exilanten ist kaum zu übertreffen.

• Die Usergemeinde wächst exposionsartig
• Man kann nicht nur Fotos, sondern auch Musik, Videos und Blogtexte mit anderen teilen (und favorisieren, kommentieren, die ganze Flickr-Palette eben)
• Die Ipernity-Entwickler sind äusserst aktiv und saugen Anregungen förmlich in sich auf
• Laufend neue Fetaures
• Die Oberfläche / Datenbank läuft sauber und ohne erkennbare Bugs
• Das -bisher vermisste- Gruppenfeature ist definitiv in Arbeit
• Und es macht einfach Spass, nach Bildern, neuen Songs oder anderem zu suchen.

Was ich vermisse, ist eine gut dokumentierte API und, damit verbunden, erweiterte Funktionen zum Einbinden des Content - sei es als Slideshow auf meiner Website oder Wordpress-Widget. Auch das kommt noch.

Grosse Empfehlung: Tragt auf der Ipernity Wishlist die sehnlichst erhofften Features ein: Post your wishes here.

Konkurrent Zooomr hat übrigens nur wenige Überläufer überzeugt. Das Interface hat Bugs an allen Ecken und Enden, die Funktionsweise der Gruppenpools ist nicht zu begreifen. Wenn ich dann genug von Zooomr habe, kann ich nicht einmal meinen Account löschen - WTF?

[Edit:] Kaum schreibe ich, dass alles bugfrei läuft, ist Ipernity wegen Überlastung offline. Versucht’s später nochmal, falls ihr diesen Screen kriegt:

Da hat Rene von Nerdcore mal ein geiles Photoset entdeckt: I wanna kiss myself von Pupsam. Gephotoshoppte Doppelportraits, metaphorös und egoman. Und dann stell dir selbst vor, du würdest dich küssen. Mundgeruch?

Ich finds zeitgeistig.

Auf blogoff.de gibt’s die Variante I wanna f*ck myself - auch nicht schlecht.