Nikon Coolpix s51 digital camera manual

Here it is! Why do they make it so complicated to get to these? What's more interesting, 'to protect against copyright infringement', Nikon is reluctant to make printable versions of the S51 (as well as other products, I assume) available. So, you have to read this one off the screen.

Nikon Coolpix s51 digital camera manual


By the way, in order to remember this camera's model when I saw it at the store and decided to do research and check out some reviews, I used a simple mnemonic technique: it's s51 as in Area 51 :)

On the surface, looks like a good camera. One serious flaw - slow shutter.

Can't listen to AM radio on my Philips HTS3544!

That's right. AM radio stations disappeared. I cannot tune in to a single one now. I don't understand how this can happen. I believe, the antenna for AM reception is inside the unit. Maybe, using an external antenna would help. FM reception still works just fine. I am quite puzzled. Naturally, once you can no longer to listen to AM radio, AM radio is precisely what you want to listen to all day long. It's just human nature! Frustrating.

40" BRAVIA XBR manual

One day I will be fortunate enough to see my old TV in the living room will enter eternity - I am already seeing signs of aging... When that bitter sweet day arrives my only consolation will be in upgrading to something... well... worth upgrading to. In fact, I am willing to sacrifice a pretty nice entertainment center presently housing the TV in the living room.

For years, Sony was known among manufacturers of electronics products as their R & D department. Meaning that many features that Sony introduced find their way into devices produced by other companies. So, as it has become my best tool for researching electronics to study manuals of products before purchasing them, here is Sony's current flaghship LCD TV, the XBR series:

http://www.sonystyle.com/wcsstore/SonyStyleStorefrontAssetStore/pdf/KDL40XBR5.pdf

I would like to add that looking a product's manual is like getting a little part of it for free. After all, when and if you buy it, the manual will be a part of the purchase. The cool thing is that you can get this component of literally every product you buy. This way you will get a much better idea about the product's features and their availability. Sometimes, it is enough to look at the instructions to figure out that the menus are just not set up the way someone would find convenient and intuitive. So, get those manuals people!

Sharp TV remote speed dial of sorts.

I discovered that when my TV is switched to input 4 (HDMI cable from the home theater) or, I am sure, any other input, in order to get back to the TV channels I only have to punch in the channel number or use one of the predefined colorful channel buttons (A,B,C,D). It remains to be checked if it is somehow possible to assign the HDMI input to one of those buttons.

A problem with Philips HTS3544

As I watched "The Tudors" last night on DVD, I was wondering why on earth they decided to shoot Episode VIII in full screen format, as opposed to wide 16:9. Turns out, the settings on my Philips HTS3544 became reset for no good reason. I had to change the setting for the output TV from 4:3 to 16:9. I only got around to changing a few other settings that I had previously customized. At least I did not have to worry about surround sound speaker placement with speakers mysteriously jumping from place to place. But my volume settings for each channel became reset as well. Sure hope it does not happen again!

Download any free DVD from Netflix?

My coworker was involved in a study that Netflix carried out some time ago. Apparently, the plan is to make set-top boxed that would be able to play DVDs and also download them from Netflix. This is probably the same idea as AppleTV which failed, to the best of my knowledge, but it is only a matter of time for this idea to work well.

Audio lag problems unnoticed before

Here is an odd thing. Ever since I have installed my Philips HTS3544 and discovered that the digital audio from TV broadcasts needs to be synced with the video I started to notice that the audio lag is present in many programs even when I simply view them on my Sharp SH12U. Even on the analog channels! There is a chance that somehow this is a problem with the television, but I don't think so. Apparently, home theaters really amplify, so to speak, the lagging by channeling the sound through surround speakers.