My First Impression of Nikon D5300

The primary reason for me to upgrade from Nikon's D5100 to D5300 was new GPS location recording function.  A secondary reason was hoping a sharper image without the low pass filter. With limited use so far, I would not say D5300 is a must have upgrade from D5100.

Pro:

• It is slightly lighter than D5100. I like it but others may not.
• LCD screen is bigger than D5100.
• There is an added single/continues/self-timer selection button. Although the button position could be better, but it is still better than D5100 has go through quick menu to change it.
• The image may be  marginally sharper using Nikon 18-200 zoom lens, but because the sensor has different pixel counts, it is hard to say for sure without spend some effort look into it. But then again, if one needs to look so hard to find the difference. it shows the differences are really small.

• It uses the same EN-EL 14 battery as the D5100. This means I can keep my spare batteries.

Con:

• When I first got the D5300 three days after it was released, the GPS's performance is just awful! Then there was talk about update the camera's GPS file. With the update, the GPS function improved significant but still some what inconsistent with lock on time varies between 10s to 1min. on exactly the same location. I was also surprised to find out the update is only good for between 11/22-12/06 and it requires update every two weeks! First, if this is required Nikon should have put it in clearly in the manual but they did not. Second, Nikon should made to update available on day one. but the 11/22 starting days is also fours days after I got the camera. More importantly, since the camera has the Wi-Fi function and Nikon has the utility, they should have implement auto update with the utility instead of requiring user to manually update it every two weeks!!
• D5300 added AF assist lamp from D5100. While this may be good for some cases, it is inappropriate for others. The way Nikon implement it is not very flexible. The default setting is have the lamp on all the time for Auto and PASM mode with some pre-programmed scene modes will disable it. The only way for user to turn it on/off for PASM is to go through custom setting menu and it applied to all modes. One cannot program PASM differently that made this function less useful or even annoying.

Indifference: 

• Wi-Fi function may be desirable for some but I have no need for it. Had the Wi-Fi function was important to me, I would put this in the "Con" column! To setup Wi-Fi it require the router to support WPS, either push button or pin. It does not allow manual setup method. Not all routers or devices support WPS nor the WPS compatibility is universal! 

 I will update this review after Thanksgiving holidays when I have chance to use D5300 more extensively.

11.12.13

12.12.12

 

 

12.12.12

Happy Easter

Pearl Harbor 70th Anniversary

In Remembrance  

0606 66th Anniversary of D-Day

In Remembrance

Quicken 2010, a Buggy and Slow, Unworthy “Upgrade”

I “upgraded” Quicken 2010 from the 2008 version for a few months now. I very sorry I did not the “upgrade” as the 2010 version not only offers VERY LITTLE improvement over the 2008 version, in many respect it probably is going backwards as it seems being not only slower but also more buggy.

I have been using Quicken since the good old DOS days. At the time it was relatively fast. When Windows comes along the early Windows Quicken seems improves with each version. But things start to change around the 2007 version as it did not offer much improvement and 2008 was even worse as it has become VERY SLOW.

I have decided to skip the 2009 version as it did not appear to add any improvements. When the 2010 comes along, again from the list of “features”, I don’t see any improvements either. But I was growing inpatient with the speed of bugs of the 2008 and thought if those greedy Intuit people can not add features from year to year, at least they should improve the speed and get rid of some bugs. Well, I was very very wrong!

While it seems fixed the UTF bug for none ASCII characters, this version seems has more bugs than ever! I have already encountered the update bug that auto update failed. Recently, I even found out this supposedly money management program can not even count correctly! I have noticed the supposedly same net worth chart on two different panels is different! When I go in and check out the report it was even worst as I have no idea how it got some of the numbers. I first thought it was some how I change the setting on one panel but after exam every settings and make sure they are at default, I still got the same result. In fact, when I added a new net worth chart to the same panel, I got two different charts on the same panel and both of them disagree with the net worth report to boot!

Bugs aside, this version also getting slower and doing certain things on its own. Take download account transactions for example, in the past, if I want to update one bank account and one bank account only, I can go the bank web site and down load the info to the Quicken and that is it. But now after the down load from the bank is completed, the Quicken 2010 will go off on its own to connect, down load “financial institutions” information that I did not initiate and do not know what exactly were down loaded! Manually update stock price is also getting worse as it takes long time for it to bring up the screen and then again take a long time to update after the new prices were entered.

Beyond been buggy and slow, the Quicken 2010 also retain all the greedy trademark of Intuit that it will without asking for consent install whole bunch self-serving advertising icons on your desktop trying to sell more Intuit junks. I would have not problem for the advertisement if Quicken is a freeware or even shareware. But when I paid for a buggy and slow software that have close to zero improvement over previous versions, unwanted ads without consent just to show how bad and greedy this company is.

Many people don’t like Microsoft. But I think Intuit is even worse. Too bad Microsoft decided to abandon Money as I really want to abandon Quicken.

The bottom line is if you have Quicken 2008 or even Quick 2007, don’t bother to upgrade. I wish I did not.