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Page 2      Diablo Blue      July, 2001

In trouble again. No! not with the wife, or the law, but with my computer.
Not quite sure what I did wrong, I have my suspicions though. When I tried to boot up I got this message, Invalid media, or track 0 bad, disk unusable. Now we have panicsville.
So I took my troubles to the June "Advanced Users Group" meeting. First I got snickers, and knowing smiles, but after the frivolity, I was informed that part of my hard drive was corrupted. They went into more details, but KISG [keep it simple Griff]. Then Jeff Noyes dug up an ancient DOS tool: ZAP, year 1996 v1.x, which he loaded on a floppy.
Back at my computer I booted up with the startup disk I made when I installed windows ME. After I got the syntax correct [ZAP 0] at the DOS prompt, then pressed Enter, and the deed is done. KISG! What happens is that the ZAP program converts whatever was on the hard drive to a series of zeros. This gives you a chance to repartition with fdisk, and then reformat. This is not a frivolous operation because there is no saving what was on the hard drive, but you do get the use of your hard drive back.
See! You do not have to be a genius to take advantage of the Advance Users Group, just bring your problems.

It should come as no surprise that I like toys -- and that is exactly what the Eyemodule is -- a toy. The Eyemodule is a digital camera that plugs into the expansion slot of any Visor Handspring. (It does take color pictures on the color Visor.) With the Eyemodule I can take either Palm Size (160x120) or Full Size (640x480) jpeg photos.
That's right, 640x480! A Palm size photo takes up about 38KB of space and a Full size about 120KB. Depending on the amount of free memory, you can store well over 100 photos on your Visor. In addition to the still photos, you can also take mini-movies in quick time format. With the newer version (hence the 2 in the name) you have exposure control along with the higher resolution.
The thumb-nail viewer is a delight to use and it is very easy to beam a picture to another device or upload it to your desktop. There is even a single or multi image capture timer. In addition to taking pictures and movies, there is an application to attach a picture to your contacts. (Useful if you forget what people in your phone list look like!????)
Several companies have also released products to further expand the use of the camera. For example, Pixscreen (http://www.pixaround.com/products/ps_palm/index.html) released a $14.95 program to create 360 degree views. Bugme (http://www.bugme.net/) is a note taker which can overlay notes on your picture.
Check out Eyemodule's website at www.eyemodule.com for sample pictures and movies. I think the quality is surprisingly good considering the size of the lens. The real question is whether it is worth the $169.00 msrp. It is an expensive toy, but it is fun to use. Discounts are available. By the way, the original Eyemodule retails for $99.95 and is still available.

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