Indecisive

[tinyjo]

What with my birthday and my bonus having arrived at about the same time, I find that I can afford to treat myself to some commercial electronics but I have a dither about what to get. So...it's poll time once again.

• A cd writer: This would be pretty cool and would be useful if I ever manage to get connected to the binaries newsgroups or if I get a digital camera but I'm not sure how much I'd use it initially
• A digital camera: This would be great and they're shiny and I could put my photos on my website (I'm sure you're all thrilled :) ). On the downside, I don't use my camera a lot atm - I tend to forget it's there. Possibly this would be less true with digital, but I'm not sure
• A scanner: I could digitise my current photos etc and move my scrapbook project to the web. Can't think of any obvious downsides to this one
• A DVD player: Would be cool. But I don't have any DVDs - I have a shit load of videos and I don't buy new ones that often.

In fact, it's painfully obvious that I don't need any of these things, I'm just seduced by their shinyness. Although, before I bought my visor I didn't think I'd get that much use out of it - I'd never really managed to keep an appointments diary properly before - and now it's one of my most essential bits of kit.

[Poll #20076]

Comments

[zoo-music-girl.livejournal.com]

A scanner is the most affordable, and it might get you into taking more photographs.

Although you can always get a photo CD made when you develop a film...

I've got a scanner and I use it a fair bit, I've also got a CD-RW and it's handy for doing my back-ups and sending large files to people but I don't use it that much. As you know I've just bought a digital camera.

DVD player would be last on my list.

Digital cameras

[smithi1.livejournal.com]

Depending on your budget, I think a digital camera can be a great shiny thing to have. The Canon ones are excellent - I absolutely adore my Powershot G2, although they are hard to get at the moment, and at the expensive end (?600).

Interestingly (perhaps) I think you can buy a bundle containing a Canon camera and a CP-10 baby printer which you can make prints of your digital shots on, directly from the camera.

Best digital camera review site - http://www.dpreview.com - excellent reviews in far more massive detail than you'll need (you can skip bits, its ok)

Good online prices from http://www.cameras-at-lowest-prices.co.uk/ and http://www.camerasdirect.co.uk/

[jinty]

A scanner is good, but digitizing pictures gets to be a real pain in the ass. I have loads that I've been meaning to do, but not got round to. Can you not get Boots or whoever to put them on disc as you develop them? That's a *lot* easier. Having said that, when I was doing Caption-APA, the scanner was the best bit of kit out of all my computer stuff.

A digital camera could get you into taking pictures more, and it is really nifty, but it's the most expensive of your options.

A CD writer -- good for making backups, but that's not terribly thrilling either as a use of computer time. I've had a CD burner for at least 2 years and this month is the first time I'm getting round to doing a mix CD for someone.

DVD player -- you could always *borrow* someone else's DVDs! (or rent from Blockbuster.)Plus things like Buffy DVDs with lots of extra stuff on them are v cool....

If you had a Mac, I would say the toy du jour is the iPod -- sexy MP3 player that can hold more music than one can readily believe. See http://www.apple.com/ipod for piccies...

Oops! Back to work now.