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Trying to fix a digital camera

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I have three digital cameras. I really only use one of them as the other two are older models. Actually, now that I think of it I suppose I can say that I have four digital cameras if you count my mobile phone as it has a camera on it that’s 8 megapixels and it really does take quite decent pictures.

Anyway … the other day I was speaking with my sister and we talked about going out one weekend to take photographs around the city. My sister used to be an artist but because of recent health problems she really hasn’t been sketching or painting so I suggested that she might be able to express herself through photograph and she seemed to like that idea.

This past weekend I pulled out one of my older digital cameras – a Sony Cybershot DSC-H5 and I discovered that it had a problem. At first, once I’d put in new batteries, the LED screen would flash on for a moment with the message – “Lens cap still on” – and I’d remove the lens cap and the power would go off on the camera. The lens wouldn’t extend out or move in anyway and the LED screen wouldn’t come on with the lens cap off and it wouldn’t do much with the lens cap on either.

After a lot of research on the internet I finally discovered a a page that suggested that I plug in the cameras AV connection so that the LED screen wouldn’t turn on when I pressed the power button and that that would give more power to the lens motor. I tried it and the lens extended but then the power shut off again and I couldn’t get it to retract! I’d read on several pages to try tapping the lens or gently twisting it to the right to get it retract so I tried that many times and after two days of trying the lens went back in .. but still, the led screen won’t work. Now I’m thinking that it might be one of the retaining rings or the internal battery in the camera.

OR … I just don’t know … maybe I won’t get this camera working again. I’d like to. It took great pictures and it was an expensive camera back when I originally bought it. It would be nice to get some more use out of it or at least to see if my sister might enjoy photography as much as I do.

If anyone has any ideas as to how to fix this cameras lens and led screen problem I’d love to hear your suggestions. I really don’t want to take it to a camera store or back to Sony as that would probably be very expensive.

Exploring all the new features on my cellphone

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I was playing around with my cellphone the other day. I had uploaded some pictures and videos that I had taken onto my computer from the cellphone and then I noticed that there was a major software update for my phone. So … I spent some time updating the software and then updating it some more. Luckily everything went ok!

Naturally once everything was updated I decided to explore all of the new features that were now on my cellphone. It’s a Nokia N8 BTW and it just got Symbian Anna. I know there’s yet another update that some people are getting but it’s not in my area yet.

The new maps are very cool so I decided to try them out when I was walking the dog. It was a very cold day so the gps was a little slow calculating my route when I made turns that it didn’t anticipate but otherwise it worked great. I really hadn’t used that feature or the maps for driving before, but I should because, well with this phone I don’t need a separate GPS navigation device.

Now I want to find new apps to download onto my phone. I was looking at an app that’s similar to Instagram earlier today that I might put on my phone. Watch my tweets for some cool pictures soon!

Have you investigated all of the cool features on your smartphone? There’s just so much stuff isn’t there?

Kick start the old laptop

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I have an old HP laptop and I don’t use it very often these days, but the other day I decided to turn it on – you know, to let it update itself and so on and I think it needs a new battery.

Actually it’s very old it needs a lot of things but the least I can do for it is take a look for some hp batteries and see if I can find one that works for that model.

I’d actually love to do an upgrade on that laptop and get it working properly again so I’d have two laptops that I could truly count on, but as I said that laptop that I’m talking about is kind of old and I’m not sure that it’s worth putting too much into it. Hmmm maybe Santa will bring me a new laptop?

My neighborhood is under construction this week

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I’m tired this week. Almost every day there’s noise on the street very early in the morning. Why? Well … there’s construction crews tearing up our sidewalks for some reason. I’m not sure why, but they’re replacing some of the sidewalks that were put in two years ago when some of our neighbors had their waterlines improved.

On Tuesday the sidewalk right in front of our house was torn up with one of those big hammer drills. Our whole house shook like crazy! Luckily it only took about fifteen minutes for them to finish. Then … once they removed the broken concrete they cleared the area and at about 4:30 pm they put in new cement and smoothed it out and moved on to other areas.

Before they left the neighborhood they blocked things off with wooded blockades and put canvas over the wet cement but by 8 pm – only about an hour after the guys had left the area someone walked in all the wet cement in front of my house and apparent all down the street (doing the twist in the cement) mucking it all up. Who does that? So it’s all ruined! So I guess maybe tomorrow I’ll have another hammer drill making noise in front of my house again.

Now the sidewalk in front of my house is only partly useable because of the mucked up footprints in the cement. All the little kids parading by with their cute little personalized lunch boxes are having trouble walking on it. I hope they fix it soon.

Wracking my brain trying to fix my laptop

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Wow, I can’t believe that I’ve spent something like 9 days trying to fix my laptop!


I thought I’d finally figured out what was wrong and fixed it completely two days ago and then I got the black screen of death and audioses.dll error messages. Now I’m working with my old laptop which is slow as molasses, but still faster than my “new” laptop which takes 45 minutes to load. I’ve been trying to fix the audioses.dll driver problem … but if I can’t get it fixed in the next two hours or so I think I’m going to finally give in and wipe the hard drive and re-install windows.

I’m so thankful that I made recovery disks when the new Laptop arrived back in February! I just hope that they work!

Man if I were a drinker (I’m not I’m not!) I think I’d be looking for some effective alcohol rehab treatment centers!

Seriously … I’m surprised that I’m not bald and that I’m still sane after the week I’ve had trying to fix my computer. When my husband came home yesterday after being out of town for three days he asked me how he could help and I told him he could help me roll the car over and over the laptop. Yes at that point I was losing it … but the black screen of death had just made it’s first appearance after I thought I’d fixed the computer once and for all so I think that was understandable.

Wish me luck on fixing the computer!

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