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I don’t get why there are so many “1st” banks out there. What is the importance of being first? I’d love to see someone come out big as “2nd Bank”, with a slogan of:

Because no one gets everything right the first time.

Maybe the BankSimple folks can come up with some fun campaigns around this.

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I’ve been using a Canon G10 as my everyday camera for the last few years. It’s a great camera, feels wonderful in your hand, lots of manual control – it’s like a mini-SLR. Unfortunately, it’s not a mini-enough SLR, so carrying it all the time is hard. This is the constant struggle with cameras, small enough to carry but with enough control to get the shots you want.

I’ve put my G10 on eBay and ordered the Canon S95 to replace it. I was originally planning to make the jump to the G12 (benefits: better low light performance and HD video), but the body size was still something I was struggling with.

The S90 really jumped out at me when it was released. I had an S30 about 10 years ago and was happy to see the S series return. The size is just right – big enough that you can treat it like a real camera, small enough that you can have it with you most of the time.

One of the guys at work has an S90 and I played with it a little. I really liked it, but couldn’t find the * button (Canon’s exposure lock button). That’s the thing I use more than anything on my SLR and G10 to try to quickly get the shot I want (without too much fiddling of settings, etc.).

On Friday, we figured out how to do it. The S90 (and S95) have a customizable button that can be assigned to one of a number of different functions, one of them is AE – auto exposure lock.

Auto Exposure Lock is a surprisingly useful tool that really expands what the photographer can do to apply exposure control, without losing the convenience and working speed of automatic exposure. In many cases, using it requires little more than identifying an element in a scene that you’d like to concentrate upon, aiming the camera at it and pressing the rear AE Lock button, and then re-composing to get the framing you want. It can lead to more consistent exposures when you’re shooting a sequence of shots, and is ideal for shooting with a primary subject off-center. It’s a great thing to get familiar with, so that you’re ready to use it when an opportunity presents itself.

This is what I’d been looking for when playing with the S90, but I hadn’t found it – nor had anyone else on the team. With this set as the custom button, I can treat an S90/S95 like a mini SLR (or the G series) when trying to compose a scene.

So there you have it – something you might have known already if you’d read the manual. My S95 is on order, so I still have an excuse.

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It’s that time of year to promote your SxSW panels. I’m slated for two WordPress panels I’d like you to consider voting for.

1. Beyond Blogging: WordPress is a CMS – much of the work that we do at Crowd Favorite is creating advanced CMS websites with WordPress. It’s what’s driven us to create the Carrington theme platform and Carrington Build.
2. Making Money with WordPress (Without Working at Automattic) – I’ve really enjoyed talking shop with Shane and Peter as we’ve gotten to know each other over the last few years. Though our shops are very different we have similar experiences and challenges. We’re all trying to create great things, support the community and support ourselves and our teams at the same time.

Both of these have great groups of panelists/moderators and I think they’d be great events at SxSWi for WordPress developers, consultants and users.

Thanks for your consideration.

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I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier, but instead of going month-to-month with a Verizon MiFi, I can simply set up a family plan and add my Palm Pre Plus as a second line (it has the free HotSpot feature). Total cost over my existing plan should be about $20/month. The MiFi account is $60/month; seems like a no-brainer.

It would also give me an easy way to get another subsidized device, like a BlackBerry Bold (that will support OS 6 with a real web browser). Or I could wait until January to see if I should use the subsidy on an iPhone and wait to see what BlackBerry models come out in the next generation.

I’ve been surprisingly happy for the last few months with a simple BlackBerry Curve for communications (phone, email, SMS) and PIM (calendar, contacts) operations. A low-res screen for reading email doesn’t matter much.

Still waiting for that perfect device…

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