The Digital Photo Guy

Sorry, I just learned the bad link was still active in this post.

Be Careful Out There…

I don’t normally post this stuff but I’ve received this scam e-mail three times over the past day and it seems to be targeting photographers so be careful. The body of the e-mail starts with something like this:

Hey, some jerk has posted your pictures (u understand what kind of pictures are there) and sent a link of them to all ur friends. I have already replied back. Said, that he is an idiot. See the link:

(link removed)

Miles Zavala

ScamDetective.com has a story about this scam. If you look carefully at the middle of the screen capture, you’ll see a file name PhotoArchive.exe. Never, ever, ever open a .exe file from any unknown source. For tht matter, don’t open .exe files from known sources. Do you really trust Uncle Ernie or Aunt Ruthie to recognize a malicious file?

The two tools I’ve used to protect myself for many years are Mailwasher from Firetrust and AVG from AVG.com. Mailwasher is cool because it let’s me “peek” at mail before I actually download it to my PC. If it looks suspicious, I delete it directly off my ISP’s mail server. It’s also heuristic meaning it learns your usage patterns so it can better detect things that don’t look right. AVG is an anti-virus program that’s been around for ages. It had a rough patch for a few years when it crashed systems but it’s now back on track and offers good protection without causing your PC to slow down. Both are available as free downloads for personal use.

While we’re on the subject, if you send me an attachment other than a .jpg image file, I’ll never see it because it’s automatically deleted.

Stuff You Need to Keep Your dSLR Happy

(Sorry for the multiple notices. I fixed a broken link)

Everyone should carry a spare battery for their dSLR, no exception. That said, there’s no reason to pay top dollar for a battery from the camera manufacturer. If you were to look inside a Canon or Nikon or Sony battery, you could very well find cells from the same supplier. BTW, I DO NOT recommend you disassemble a battery. That can be dangerous.

Cells are the basic building block of all batteries. A Ni-MH (nickel metal hydride) cell produces about 1.2 volts while an alkaline cell produces about 1.5v. Li-ion (lithium ion), on the other hand, outputs about 3.6v per cell. Almost all batteries are comprised of multiple cells, ergo, the term battery, meaning a set, series or array. Of course, manufacturing quality plays a big role in the overall quality of finished batteries but cells are the basic building blocks. Most cells are manufactured by a few large companies such as Sanyo, Panasonic or Ultralife (formerly Kodak). Problems arise from new, small and, usually, Chinese companies that have proliferated over the past few years. Click to keep reading