After getting myself into Amazon marketplace mess, finally my newly ordered D90 has arrived.
D90 is the very first DSLR to do HD video. I’ve taken few pictures and video with it and I’m impressed. The crisp quality pictures you get when you hook it up with your HD TV using hdmi connection is just breathtaking! I’ve bought few photography books and am reading all about ISOs, whitebalance, lenses, Aperture, Shutter speed, etc…
For last few months I’d been craving for a DSLR. I thought it was about time to take a step forward from my old point n shoot Canon Powershot S50 and upgrade it to a decent DSLR. BTW, my wife and I are expecting our second child in mid July and thought it’s the right time to have a quality camera to take nice pictures. Spent quite some time researching which camera to buy that fitted my requirements and budget. I narrowed it down to Nikon D90, Nikon D5000 and Canon Rebel T1i / EOS 500D, and finally decided to go for Nikon D90.
I was keeping my eye on the price of D90 in UK at Camera Price Buster (very useful site indeed!). When I was ready to buy it from Currys (it was £709.00 at that time), just decided to do a last minute check on Amazon (I prefer buying from Amazon because never had any problems in the past) and to my surprise Nikon D90 Digital SLR Camera, 18-105 VR Kit was there for just £649.99 by a seller called “rodneyjwillis”. Almost £60 cheaper, Excellent - I thought. Checked the sellers profile/review - it had 100% positive feedback from the buyers, nice comments and seller was with Amazon for almost a year. So, ordered it from Amazon marketplace. I didn’t see anything phisy at that time and anyway I was aware that paying via Amazon will guarantee my purchase with their A-to-z guarantee scheme.
When all other stuff I ordered together with D90 arrived (camera bag, sd card and d90 book), but there was no sign of my D90 being dispatched, let alone delivered. I sensed something was wrong. Went back and checked the seller’s profile - there was one new feedback saying
“BEWARE! This account is being used in a scam - items don’t arrive!”
Because a policeman couldn’t subdue a single suspect with pepper spray and baton, then gave him warning in Cantonese (possibly the suspect didn’t understand) and decided to shoot him twice (one in the head) from a very close range.
Investigation is underway, but looking at the mobile phone video footage, shooting was absolutely unnecessary. If the officer was so unfit to subdue a single suspect he should have left him alone and waited for a backup support instead of shooting in the head, after-all he wasn’t a fugitive or a terrorist.
Shame on you Hong Kong Police!
Update: Latest News about the incident from HKNepal.com
Thanks to facebook I’ve come in contact with many of my childhood buddies, neighbors, old school mates to university friends. It’s a place to be. Even when you’re busy, you just login once a day to check what your friends and families are up to. It provides sleek, friendly and relatively non-intrusive environment to interact.
I’ve to say that I’ve been quite reluctant to install third-party apps and post family photos due to privacy concerns, but this new terms of service makes it worse. Now anything you post or upload can be used by facebook even after you close your account. In previous terms of service, facebook’s rights on your content would expire after you closed your account, but not any more.
Update (17Feb09): facebook ceo, Zuckerberg has written a blog post about the issue, trying to explain why they need this TOS.
Our philosophy that people own their information and control who they share it with has remained constant. A lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective of the rights we need to provide this service to you. Over time we will continue to clarify our positions and make the terms simpler.
Update (18Feb09): After a global complain facebook has returned to previous terms of service (until they find a new language to clarify their position). Zuckerberg explains it in his Update on Terms
We concluded that returning to our previous terms was the right thing for now. As I said yesterday, we think that a lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective so we don’t plan to leave it there for long.
My son was very excited from yesterday after he saw the snow forecast in BBC news. This morning he just jumped up when I opened the curtain to show him 10 to 12 inches of snow outside. The best part was yet to come - he started dancing when he knew his school was closed . It was the heaviest snowfall in south-east England in 18 years. London public bus was completely shut down in the morning and only few trains were operational. London was almost brought to stand still, most of the flights were cancelled.
As for myself, I decided to go to office but my car needed some work.
After 15 minutes of shoveling the snow, it was ready for a drive.
The road was pretty slippery, it took half an hour to drive to work (it’s a 10 minutes drive in normal conditions).
Office was almost empty. No public transport and road closures made it impossible for most of the staffs to get to work.
Came back home and played in the snow with my son.
Just came to know that my sons school will be closed tomorrow as well. He’s very happy.
After a vigorous job hunt of little more than a week, I’m glad to let you all know that I’ve joined Vanco (Reliance Globalcom, Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group) as a Security Engineer, which provides global managed network solutions with assets and expertise of FLAG, Vanco and Yipes:
Delivering customer-focused managed network and application delivery solutions that leverage a global network with unrivalled reach, depth and breadth to multinational, service provider and global carrier clients. Over 1400 enterprise customers and 200 carriers depend upon Reliance Globalcom to manage business-critical network solutions and address complex requirements for their businesses and partners throughout the world
Vanco is now Reliance Globalcom, Anil Dihrubhai Ambani group, which is also well known because of it’s chairman Anil Ambani, currently 6th on The World’s Billionaires List.
I feel myself privileged and honored to have this opportunity. At Vanco my role will be exclusively focusing on security, I’m really excited about it. This is a perfect opportunity for me to bring forward my previous network/security expertise as well as learn and grow at this truly global organization.
Yup, I became a victim of global credit crunch last week. Our CTO and VP for finance politely explained that the company didn’t meet it’s target last quarter and it’s nowhere near meeting it this quarter too. So, several jobs will be cut and mine was one of them. I think more than 30% of the IT team was made redundant.
Watching news about the economic downturn, global credit crunch and job cuts is one thing but experiencing it firsthand is a different matter altogether.
How does it feel?
Awful, I felt something swirling in my stomach I can tell you it wasn’t a pleasant experience to be on this side of the table (it used to be other way round). Anyway, there’s first time for everything. It felt awful for a while, but the fact that this redundancy had nothing to do with my personal performance, and I had no control over it provided me some consolation. I was over with it pretty soon. I didn’t see it coming though and was caught with a surprise after enjoying my Dashain holidays…
After all it’s just a business decision for the company. I believe that whatever happens, happens for good. So, hopefully ShipServ will be able to weather out this storm. As for myself and other affected colleagues at ShipServ there might be something good waiting for us.
Its slightly painful now (you know you start thinking… oh my god how am I going to pay my rent, bills, food, blah blah…) but I’m absolutely positive that something good will come out of this. Lets see…
Looking at the brighter side… I’m excited about new opportunities and have attended few interviews, which look promising. Also, it’s a good news for prospective employers; thanks to the credit crunch there’s one more very talented and experienced network, security and infrastructure engineer available on the job market
Some of my friends have been asking me why aren’t any updates here. I don’t feel good about leaving this blog unattended for so long, but frankly didn’t have time and energy to keep up with it. Now I have decided not to feel guilty because this was just meant for fun anyway. So, this blog will go with the flow of my life, without any stress… Things have changed slightly. Mainly the time. I’m pretty busy running a rat race, like most of the people, work, home, work…. Weekends are good time to get in touch with reality and re-charge your battery. I try to devote the weekends to my family.
On personal account, life is pretty good, trying to climb a property ladder, probably good (or bad) time for first-time buyers… On professional side, enjoying the challenges at ShipServ, grateful for the opportunity to serve and learn… My son is having a good time (very little homework and lot of play). My wife is quite worried about the teenage stabbing, drugs and alcohol abuse…
The weather was very good last week. It was warm and sunny for the whole week! That’s something to celebrate here, English weather is so unpredictable… you can truly see 4 seasons in one day.
Here are few moments I’ve captured from my life in UK…
April snow, my wife and son enjoying their first encounter…
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Thanks to facebook I’ve come in contact with many of my childhood buddies, neighbors, old school mates to university friends. It’s a place to be. Even when you’re busy, you just login once a day to check what your friends and families are up to. It provides sleek, friendly and relatively non-intrusive environment to interact.
Delivering customer-focused managed network and application delivery solutions that leverage a global network with unrivalled reach, depth and breadth to multinational, service provider and global carrier clients. Over 1400 enterprise customers and 200 carriers depend upon Reliance Globalcom to manage business-critical network solutions and address complex requirements for their businesses and partners throughout the world
