I ordered a bunch of materials from Penn State Industries a couple of weeks ago, and according to their shipping policy, “We will make every effort to ship parts and accessories within 1-4 days of receiving your order. (Subject to product availability.)” So when I waited 10 days and checked my order status it shows as not shipped yet, even though the site claimed that everything I ordered was in stock. I sent them an email through their contact us page, no response.

Now it is 14 days, again I checked my order status and again it shows as not shipped yet, so WTF? I didn’t get a reply, my order hasn’t been shipped, so what is the problem here? I sent another email asking about the status, but haven’t heard yet, If I don’t get a reply by the end of the day I will have no choice but to call my credit card company and advise them of the fraud.

It’s companies like this that give e-commerce a bad reputation. I don’t believe that as consumers we should have to put up with this crap!

Carnival Miracle

There were a lot more amenities on this ship and shopping was a little bit better than on the smaller Fascination. There were a number of buffet stations featuring a variety of different foods from Chinese to Italian and all points in between. The 24 hour pizza bar is a great stop for a slice between feedings. The food on Carnival ships that we’ve experienced so far has been great. Not a lot of variance from day to day, but good quality and very tasty. I was quite impressed that they offered Mahi Mahi, my favorite seafood, daily by special order in the buffet section and the chef got to know me my name, he never disappointed, each time delivering my meal with a different assortment of garnishments. A very nice touch that the dining room staff could learn from.

We chose this cruise for two reasons, first was the price, it was a great deal for the cost and leaving from Fort. Lauderdale meant a lower cost flight then leaving from San Juan, where most Southern Caribbean cruises depart from. Second, the itinerary; we wanted to see the Southern Caribbean and it offered 3 ports of call, St. Maarten, St. Lucia and St. Kitts.

Unfortunately when you cruise you don’t get to spend a lot of time on the island exploring, so you can only see what is in close proximity to the port. Shopping is the greatest attraction to the islands and they don’t disappoint. Jewelry, jewelry, jewelry….  lots and lots of it. So if you’re looking for Gold, you’ll certainly find it in the Caribbean.

The water at St. Maarten was absolutely incredible! The color, clarity and sheer inviting-ness would bring me back to the island for an extended stay. By taking the water taxi from the ship to the peer you land at a span of beach that was gorgeous.

St. Maarten

The people on the island are very nice and helpful. There is even a McDonalds if you’re afraid of local cuisine. Beer is cheap and cold.

St. Lucia is a wonderfully green island. It had an inviting appeal, unfortunately it rained when we got into port so we didn’t venture farther then the local market at the end of the port. Again lots and lots of jewelry, a couple of small restaurants and beer tents. I was pleasantly surprised that the public washrooms were very clean and free! No one was waiting for your with a “donation” basket as you wash your hands. Again, as it seems to be custom in the Caribbean, the people are very friendly and helpful, the sales staff are attentive but not pushy, thus making the shopping experience a lot more enjoyable than say in Mexico.

St. Lucia

Our final port of call was St. Kitts. This was a nice island to visit but not as pretty as St. Lucia or as clean as St. Maarten. The marketplace was a lot more developed than in St. Lucia, but seemed to be more expensive. There are a lot of monkeys here. The locals bring them to the port so that you can have your picture taken with them, but they’re not cheap! They charge US$10 per click, so if you take 3 pictures its US$30.00. A princely fee for a bunch of monkeys!

All in all, the trip was great, the weather was in the mid 80’s and sunny most of the time. It was 15 degrees when we left home! We’d cruise with Carnival again, as you can’t judge a cruiseline by one ships crew, especially since the first Carnival ship we went on, the staff were amazing, all of them, especially the dining room staff. I’d highly recommend it.

For more information, click below:

http://www.zdravkogalinec.cruiseshipcenters.ca/Cruise/Itinerary.aspx-item-265404

The malls pay a lot of money for fancy sets, the photography companies pay for Santa and all the staff to run the set, so why do consumers feel that they can simply walk up and take as many pictures of their kids with Santa at no cost to them?

What people don’t realize is that the more that people do that, the more likely it is that Santa won’t be coming to a mall near you!

So what will you cheap scrooges take pictures of then? Ah NOTHING! But it is free so I guess you win anyway.

Click on the banner below and get all the smoke free details.

I picked up this fine piece of software while I was in Florida for my Annual pilgrimage to the Holy Land, a.k.a. Disney World, and used it side by side with my built-in GPS in my Expedition for the trek to Jacksonville to board the Carnival Cruise Line’s Fascination; more on the cruise later.

The interesting thing about running both GPS units side by side is that they were virtually the same in distance to my next waypoint, but the major discrepancy was the travel time. The TomTom software claimed that the trip would be a full hour shorter then the built-in unit showed, both going to the same waypoint, both showing the same total distance. It appears that the TomTom was far more accurate with times, all other things being equal based on the arrival time to the waypoint.

So lets examine the pro’s and con’s of this first release of the software.

PRO’S

• Reasonably fast lock-on to satellite signal, I haven’t had it lose the signal yet, 1.5+ weeks and counting,
• Quick routing to waypoint,
• Simple to use interface
• Finds some POI’s that you’d never expect, i.e. Norms Vacuum Shop in Niagara Falls, Ontario
• Fast loading
• Battery life sucks when not connected, but if plugged it it doesn’t drain the battery like on some reviews I’ve read.

As for the whiners out there that protest that it shuts down when you get a call, well you can always relaunch it while on your call and miss nothing…. This is an Apple thing, not a TomTom thing, the iPhone doesn’t multi-task, yell at Apple as there is no reason for it not too, other than why would you buy a Macbook Air if it did?

CON’S

• Only one waypoint at a time, hopefully they will allow for multiple waypoints as this is very limiting when planning your day or a long trip,
• Can’t just have the map showing while you’re driving, the Browse Map doesn’t allow for zooming in, it would be nice to see the POI’s that you select at street level rather than city view,
• No maps for the Caribbean, hopefully they will add this,
• A global search would be nice, sometimes I don’t know the city name that a POI is in, I’m trying to find it!
• Doesn’t allow you to “move” the map around, this would be nice as sometimes you want to see where you will be going rather than zooming out. Google maps allows this, so I don’t see why it would be difficult to do for TomTom.
• CANNOT NAVIGATE TO CONTACTS. I am in Canada and I guess it doesn’t understand Canadian Addresses, it keeps giving me a “The address given for this contact can’t be understood. Would you like to enter the address yourself?” This is the biggest flaw that I see with this initial release.

Otherwise, a great first start. I expect that when the cradle will be released it will be even snappier than it is now. Like most first release app’s it has its issues, but all in all, I am liking it.

This post will talk about both experiences plus a little of the new Video Camera by Canon that I took along to test. I will put up a complete post just for the camera for anyone who wants additional information.

Cinderella's Castle - Magic Kingdom

The magic of Disney is not only witnessed in their hit movies, teenage superstars, and memorable characters; there is one element that doesn’t get much publicity except through word of mouth and the occasional blog that is devoted to all things Disney and that is the wonderful experience that you and your family can have staying on a Disney Resort property.

In this post I will expose some of the magic of a Disney Vacation from the prospective of someone who not only appreciates the unbelievable customer service and vacation value, but also from a business owners point of view in that I understand that to create the magic that you will experience is not cheap and whilst the overall cost of a Disney Vacation may be slightly more than doing it on your own, the benefits greatly outweigh the extra costs involved.

So as always, lets lay out the ground rules. I have been to Disney both as a child, some 35 years ago, which I don’t remember much about it, and most recently 4.5 times in the last 3 years. We’ve stayed on Disney properties in 4 of the 4.5 trips, the .5 was due to the fact that we actually went to Universal Studios in Orlando and stayed at the Holiday Inn – Universal Studios, but ended up going to Disney almost more than to Universal, hence the .5 as we spent about 1/2 of our vacation there even though it wasn’t the intended destination.

When we stayed on Disney property we stayed at the following resorts: Disney’s All Star Music, a value level resort; Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort, a moderate level resort; Disney’s Port Orleans – Riverside Resort, moderate level; and Disney’s Animal Kingdom Resort, a deluxe level resort. So the logical question is what are the differences between the resort levels? I’ll examine these differences in detail based on our experiences in other posts, but for now lets look at the general reasons one would stay at the Disney properties in lieu of other hotels that are in and around the World of Disney.

One of the greatest advantages of staying on Disney property is the option of purchasing Disney Dining for your trip. What is Disney dining you may ask? Well it’s a meal package that gives you a variety of dining options at a fixed cost. This is wonderful if you’re traveling on a budget, but don’t want to get stuck eating the same swill day in and day out. Unfortunately most travel agents don’t understand the dining option very well so they tend not to “push” it on you when they really should be! Everyone likes to eat, so lets look at the various Disney dining plans that are available to you when you stay at a Disney Resort.

Disney Dining: Based on the dining package you buy you get X number of self-service or counter credits and X number of table-service or menu based credits. The important thing to note here is that the dining credits are good ANYWHERE in Walt Disney World. So if you’re staying at the All Star Music resort and feel like having a dinner show experience, you can book any number of fine dining experiences at any park or resort, and yes, your credits are good there! So you can take the kids to a Character Breakfast at the Grand Floridian, or experience an amazing all you can eat dinner and Disney’s Spirit of Aloha Show at Ohana’s located in the Polynesian Resort, or try some authentic African cooking at Jiko – The Cooking Place located at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, all at no additional cost (except for tipping). Dining now comes with 4 different options, each at different price points to suit any budget, they are as follows:

1. The Disney Quick (Counter) Service Dining Plan includes two (2) Quick (Counter) Service Meals and two (2) Snacks per person, per night of your package stay for everyone in the party ages 3 and over. The plan also includes one (1) Resort refillable drink mug per person, per package (eligible for refills at Quick Service locations only in your Disney Resort hotel).
2. The Disney Dining Plan (Standard) includes one (1) Quick (Counter) Service Meal, one (1) Snack, and one (1) Table Service Meal per person, per night of your package stay for everyone in the party ages 3 and over.
3. The Disney Deluxe Dining Plan includes (3) Meals and two (2) Snacks per person, per night of your package stay for everyone in the party ages 3 and over. The plan also includes one (1) Resort refillable drink mug per person, per package (only eligible for refills at Quick Service locations in your Disney Resort hotel). This plan allows you to have any one of the 3 meals to be either counter service or table service. This is a great option if you plan on going to a number of character meals or shows where often you need 2 credits per person, this way you don’t run out of credits and can experience all the dining magic that Disney has to offer.
4. The Disney Wine and Dine Plan: Save up to 20% on wine when you take advantage of an exciting opportunity available with any vacation package that includes dining! Enjoy delectable Chardonnays, smooth Merlot, tawny Ports and more. For less than $40.00 per room per night, Wine and Dine offers one bottle of wine per room for each night of your stay. Choose from a variety of premium wines from a designated list — ranging from 15 to 140 selections — at participating table-service or Signature Dining Experience restaurants. Wine may also be redeemed at a number of merchandise locations.

Disney Transportation: Another one of the benefits of staying on Disney property is the Disney Transportation system. There are two components to this and they are both extremely valuable in saving you both time and money. Lets look at each with a little more detail.

Disney Transfer Service: This service takes you from the Airport to the resort. You get off the plane and proceed to the lower level at the main terminal at Orlando International Airport (MCO) and you get on an air conditioned bus that takes to you your resort. You don’t have to worry about luggage as it will arrive in your room approximately 2 hours after you check in. The ride from the airport to any Disney property is about 35 minutes depending on traffic. The buses are comfortable and play Disney shows and ads on televisions that are spread out throughout the bus so that no one has a bad seat. The bus drops you off in front of the main lobby for your resort where you will check in. This service is very easy to use and included with all stays on Disney property, you just have to tell them that you would like it at time of booking so that they can send you your resort tags, which is how they know which bags need to find there way to Disney. This service runs the hours of the airport, so no need to worry if you’re coming in very early or very late.

When you’re ready to go home, not that you will ever be truly ready, if you are flying anywhere in the Continental USA, you can check you luggage at the porters desk at your resort and they will take it to the airport for you and put it on the plane, you don’t have to burden yourself with lugging your many suitcases full of Disney toys all over Orlando International. About two hours prior to your scheduled take-off, you will board the same bus you came to the resort on, along with many other long faces and head back to the airport. Once you reach the airport, you will be dropped off at your airlines gate and home you go! Disney makes it very, very painless. An important note here is that if you are not flying in the continental USA you can still use the transfer service, the only difference is that you will have to take your luggage with you as they cannot check international luggage.

Disney Bus Service: This service is no different then a city bus. The Disney bus will take you from your resort to almost anywhere in Disney World and back again. This is magical as you can get to any park right from your resort without having to worry about renting cars, or if you drove to Disney, you can park it and take the bus. Buy a lot of stuff? No worries, Disney has you covered there too, anything you buy anywhere in the World of Disney will be delivered to your resort gift shop, usually the next day. This is a great feature as you don’t have to lug the stuff around all day and then on the bus, you just spend, spend, spend and it’ll magically appear at your resort. These buses, just like the Transfer buses are air-conditioned and run well after the parks close. Using the bus service you can travel from resort to resort, to any park including water parks, and Downtown Disney. The Disney bus service is a wonderful feature available to you when you stay anywhere in the World of Disney and definately adds to the ease of staying at Disney over any other hotel option.

Disney’s All Star Music: Our first trip to the magical world of Disney brought us to Disney’s All Star Music, one of 4 properties for the budget conscious traveler. The other value properties are All Star Movies, All Star Sports, which is different then the Wide World of Sports, and Disney’s Pop Century Resort.

Restaurant: Our first time down, we didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves into, so we bought the standard meal plan at the time of booking which got us 1 table service meal and 1 counter service meal and one snack per person per day. This meal allotment doesn’t seem sufficient at first, but if you’re in the parks at all, you couldn’t possibly eat 3 meals per day. We’re late risers so we almost always missed breakfast and got there just as lunch was being served. The selection in the restaurant was good, there were sufficient choices for all taste buds, but unfortunately the value resorts don’t offer a sit down, menu service restaurant, it’s all counter service, kind of like going to McDonalds or Burger King etc. Each day the menu varied slightly, but the basics were always available like hot-dogs, burgers, chicken fingers etc. On a personal note, their hamburgers are probably one of the best restaurant burgers I’ve ever tried! I’ve never regretted getting one and always make sure that I order it at least once every trip. On a final note, if you’re a pop drinker or like having coffee at all hours of the day and are staying more than 3 days, you’ll be well served to buy the resort travel mug which gives you unlimited fountain pop, coffee and tea at your resort. The only thing they don’t offer at the service counter is milk, you have to ask for it for your tea or coffee. Milk is always available for sale at the restaurant.

Room: The room we had, featured two double beds, a television, a decent sized bathroom and an optional fridge (a daily charge is applied to your room bill). High speed Internet is available in every room at an additional daily charge, which at $10/day is ridiculous, and there is no WiFi available to date; although they keep telling me and they advertise that it is in fact available; I inquired and was told that it is currently available at Coronado Springs and the Grand Floridian but that it is being rolled out to all the resorts, hence the advertising. Each room also features a wall safe, hair dryer and heating/air conditioning unit that actually keeps the room very cool. The beds are comfortable and although it is a value property it is bigger and better kept than some hotel/motels I’ve stayed in.

Staff: Amazing. That pretty much sums it up. The people that work at Disney, are there because they like being there. Everyone is always smiling and happy to assist you no matter what your need. The room service is excellent, the always leave a towel figure on your child’s bed and if they see plush toys, they will try to integrate them with the towel figure which my daughter really loved.

Property: Being a value property, you don’t get a lot of fluff. It’s clean, well thought out and organized but not a lot to do unless you’re going to lay by the pool side. The pool is very big, but doesn’t go deeper than 4.5 feet, and goes as shallow as 3 feet. There is a wadding pool for wee ones and there are plenty of chairs and loungers to go around. You can sun bathe all day if your skin could take it. There is a coin-op laundry on site which sells a variety of laundry products, or bring your own to save a few bucks. The laundry is situated near the pool so you don’t have to miss out on all the fun. The arcade is big with lots of game choices, some classics like PacMan and Galaga, as well as the newer stuff utilizing big screen t.v.’s.

Parking: Lots and Lots of it, well thought out so you’re not walking miles to get to your room after a long day in the parks. But why drive, one of the best perks is Disney’s Bus Service, more on this later on. There is no cost to park, you just have to get a pass to put on your dash.

Summary: In my experience the Disney All Star resorts offer incredible value for your vacation dollar. The rooms are spacious and clean, the staff is extremely pleasant and professional, your needs are taken care of in a very timely manner and you will love the little extras that staying with Disney offers.

I get asked at least a few times a week what camera should I buy, is Nikon better than Canon, should I really get a SLR, what do you think of such and such… what follows is my opinion on where you should start and what you should look for when you’re buying a new camera.

Before we begin, I’ll lay down some ground rules, I am not a camera retailer. I am a Nikon and Canon owner and have had Minolta, Sony, and Fuji cameras in the past. I own, in my business, over 20 cameras and usually upgrade my flock every couple of years. I won’t list specifically what I have in my stable now, because it’s not relevant to the topic at hand, but hope to make you appreciate that I come at this from a minimalists position as I don’t want to pay for bells and whistles that I’ll never use, nor should you!

So, where do we begin? In my humble opinion, you start with a budget.

Budget: When you go to buy your new camera, it is crucial to note that this will NOT be the last camera that you ever buy, so don’t spend your life’s savings on it as if it was. The first consideration when buying a new camera is how much you are really willing to spend on it. An answer of “as little as I can” will only result in you spending far too much. Without having a firm “top-end” cost in mind you will be subject to a salespersons up-sell tactics that usually start with “for another $30 you can get… insert feature here…” and once you’ve got yourself sold on that option, they usually repeat the sales phrase until you finally end up spending two or three times what you really should spend or wanted to spend on the camera, and you end up not felling particularly good about your purchase, not because the product was bad, but because you don’t have bus fare to get home!

Once you’ve established a budget, the next step is to clarify what your primary goal for the camera is, so you need to establish a purpose.

Purpose: What are you going to do with the camera? Is it for pleasure or for work? A backup or a primary? Are you going to shoot portraits or landscapes, are you connecting to a telescope or a microscope? Are you photographing for print or for the web? Are you using it in water or out? All of these uses should be thought about and considered when planning a purchase. As every camera has some ability to perform some or all of these functions, how well it performs them is usually determined by price. We’ll examine these various uses in a little more detail as we progress through the various sections, but suffice to say, you should know what you’re primary use is before you walk into a camera retailer as that will, if nothing else, steer you in the right direction.

Along with the Purpose, you need to determine the State of the purchase.

State: Is this a new system or an upgrade to an existing one? Are you looking for a relocation from one system to another, or from one format to another? The answer to these questions can be the single most important element to the direction of your camera purchase and the cost as the answer to this usually determines how big a budget you need and ultimately what purpose your gear will serve.

For example, if you currently have a Point and Shoot camera and you want to move to an SLR system, then the State is new as this move will not have an impact on your existing equipment, but rather will provide you with a new system to work with. If you already own an SLR and you’re buying a new body, then the State can be either an update to existing equipment or a movement to a new system. It’s an update if you stay with the same manufacturer as you will in most cases be able to use your existing lenses and accessories but are updating some of the features of your body. If you are buying a new body from another manufacturer then you will be forced to buy new lenses, flashes and accessories to build a functional system. This is the most expensive way to go as you are starting with essentially nothing, much like when moving from a Point and Shoot to an SLR.

Finally, you have to determine what if any accessories you will need in order to be able to use your new camera purchase.

Accessories: The accessories that you want or need can often run you as much or more than the actual camera itself. Accessories are things like lenses, flash units, filters, camera bags, tripods, protective housings, cables, memory cards, card readers, batteries, and so on. Everyday there are new and exciting items added to the world of photography, you may want them all, but you surely don’t need them all. Knowing what you need in place of what you want, is the hardest obstacle in photography to overcome, but it ultimately will determine how much you will end up spending and how much you will end up using your gear.

Lets examine these accessories in a little more detail.

The ultimate camera support!

I got my very very cool camera support a couple of days ago, unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to play with it until earlier today. Here are my initial thoughts.

1. Sturdy: I put my D700 with AF-S Zoom NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8 lens and SB900 flash on this mini tripod and there is nothing mini about its ability to support heavy camera systems. It handled it without any problems and didn’t give the feeling that it was going to fall over or collapse.
2. Well made: its machined gun-metal aluminum with rubberized rings supports are impressive. Look cool too!
3. Holds up to a whopping 11 pounds!
4. Weighs 1.1 pounds. Won’t break your back.
5. Can be used both with or without a third party tripod head, I have a Giottos ball head on mine.
6. You can wrap its legs around a pole, tree branch, assistants neck etc… and it will bend anyway you can think, its like a Gumby for your camera bag!

I am looking forward to taking it on the road and putting it to the test. I’ll keep you all posted. You can get more details on this wonderful product by visiting Joby. If you’re interested in getting one, drop me a line and I’ll hook you up.

Gorilla Pod Focus