Reviews

L.L.Bean gets it right

My first shopping experience at L.L.Bean was sometime in 1996, when I purchased a winter jacket from their catalog. There were two choices in the fasteners for the hood, and I picked the one that didn’t work out. I called them a few weeks later to ask if I could get the other fasteners, and to ask how much they’d be. Their answer floored me: they’d be free, and they’d also be shipped to me for free. Wow.

Furthermore, the customer service rep said that if I ever didn’t like the jacket or it started to come apart on me, I could send it back for a refund or an exchange. I still have that jacket, and can’t bear to part with it. It’s just as sturdy as the first day I got it, although the colors have faded a little with time.

Over the 4th of July weekend, we dropped by the L.L.Bean store at Tyson’s Corner to get some winter boots. As I was about to try mine on, the clerk offered me a brand new pair of heavyweight socks to try with the boots, so I’d get a better idea of the fit. He literally pulled them off the shelf, broke apart the packaging, and handed them to me. Wow.

It just so happened that I found the medium width a little tight, and was worried it might bother me later. No problem, the clerk said. I could order the wider size along with the regular and try them both out, then bring back the one that didn’t fit right. I said I wasn’t comfortable bringing back merchandise that I’d already worn, but he said it would be no problem, that the right fit mattered more. Wow.

I ended up getting the heavyweight socks I’d tried with the boots as well. They fit so nicely, and the quality exceeded my expectations. Ligia ended up getting the same model boot in her size, and heavyweight socks to go along with them as well. Not only that, but we bought two more pairs of shoes.

While we were there, we saw a beautiful high-back sofa, but weren’t sure what finish we’d want on it. (We’d been looking for just such a sofa for the longest time.) The store had only one finish in stock. No problem, said L.L.Bean customer service when we called. We’ll send you out some swatches for free, and you can call and order the sofa when you’ve decided. Wow.

Calling L.L.Bean is an epiphany onto itself. You don’t get robots or prompts. You just get a live, friendly, helpful human being, usually after just a few rings. What’s more, they already know who you are when you call. If you’re calling from the same phone number you’ve listed in your L.L.Bean account, their CallerID system pulls up your account for the customer service rep. Wow.

When you put together fantastic customer service and beautiful, well-made products that last, you’ve got one company that deserves our business. If they keep on like this, L.L.Bean can count me as a lifetime customer.

Reviews

Lens review: Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM Zoom

I had a chance to play with Canon’s affordable 100-400mm L series zoom last week. I rented it for a day from Penn Camera at Tyson’s Corner, mounted it on my 5D, and ran out to chase wildlife as soon as I got home from work. As the sun began to set, I took it up to the roof, set it on my tripod, and took photos of the horizon. In the morning, I snuck out onto the terrace at sunrise and got photos of that as well. All in all, I put the lens through its paces, shooting in daylight, dusk and dawn conditions, handheld and on a tripod. Even though I only used the lens for a day, albeit a pretty full one, I’m fairly comfortable with what I’m about to say.

I liked it. The 100-400mm range is a versatile range, and the fact that you can get this L series lens at around $1,400 makes it a bargain. The lens isn’t as heavy as the 70-200mm L series zoom (which I played with today), and it’s fairly comfortable to hold for moderate amounts of time. It has a push-pull mechanism for extending the focal range, and that has its benefits and drawbacks. The benefit is that it does make it a bit easier to get through the large focal range a little faster. It’s also necessary in order to make the lens affordable. Push-pull lenses are cheaper to make than regular zooms, and require less glass as well, making them lighter.

➡ Updated 7/4/07: Erik Persson asked me two relevant questions this morning via private email. One is about how the autofocus handled, and the other was about whether autofocus is possible at all with an extender, or whether manual focus needs to be used. Autofocus was a bit slow, but that’s to be expected. This is a big zoom that can focus over a large distance. There is a focus limiter switch that decreases the focusing distance. You tell it to focus either from 1.8m to infinity or 6.5m to infinity. If you know you’re only going to shoot things farther away than 6.5m from you, then set the switch to that, and the autofocus will be a little faster. I’m not sure how to answer Eric’s second question. He suggests autofocus on EOS models up to the 5D is possible only up to f/5.6, and Mark 1D models can autofocus up to f/8.0. Not sure about that. I can only point you to this lens chart at Canon, which talks about the compatibility of the extenders with various lenses, and tells you what the expected aperture will be, and whether or not autofocus will be possible at all. I checked the specs for the 5D and 1Ds, and can’t find the upper f-stop limits for either models. Perhaps a call to Canon will clear this up, but it is the 4th of July today, and I doubt they’re open. Maybe one of you who has more information is willing to comment on this.

➡ Updated 7/6/07: Erik got back to me once more with a link to a review by The Digital Picture, where the AF to aperture specs are discussed. Furthermore, he provided a link to specs from Canon for the EOS 1v SLR (film camera) where the bit of information about being able to use AF with lenses that only open to f/8 is provided. So it looks like you’ll have to use manual focus if you stick extenders on the 100-400mm zoom. Thanks Erik! You know, you could just as well use the comments instead of sending me emails, but whatever works for you. 🙂

If you’ve been looking at the 400mm f/2.8L tele, which retails around $6,500, and you’re wondering why this lens is so inexpensive, you should know there is a reason for the price difference — but I doubt you needed me to tell you that. I stated the reasons in the paragraphs above, and they are: less glass, push-pull mechanism for the EF 100-400mm zoom lens. I haven’t tried out the 400mm tele myself yet, but I have a feeling it’s a great deal sharper and has more contrast than this lens.

I think you can already guess what my two complaints are: the details are a bit soft when the photos are viewed at 100%, and the push-pull mechanism creates a sort of vacuum between the camera and the innermost lens. Every time I extended or contracted the lens, air rushed in or out through the crevices. I’m sure things are isolated pretty well and dust doesn’t get sucked in, but it feels odd, and it makes it difficult to stop at say, 300mm. It’s certainly a lot easier to either pull the lens all the way out to 400mm or push it all the way back in to 100mm. You know how they say that zoom lenses are soft at either ends of the focal range? Well, it would have been nice to have some sort of limiter switch that could let me stay between 110-390mm, or something like that. With the push-pull mechanism, it was hard to get the focal length just below or above its limit in order to avoid softness.

Having said all this, let me reassure you that this lens is a bargain at its price. If you’ve had your eye on it, get it. Realize you won’t get the results you might get with a more expensive tele, but you won’t pay through the nose for it either. This lens will definitely shine on cropped sensors like those found in the 30D and Rebel, where the effective focal range will be 160-640mm. How else can you get in the 600mm focal range without spending a ton of money? What’s more, with extenders like the 1.4x or the 2x, you can get up to 800mm on a full sensor or up to 1260mm on a cropped sensor. That’s pretty amazing!

There are a few other things to keep in mind though. The maximum aperture at 400 mm is f/5.6, and that means you’ll need pretty good light in order to shoot handheld with it. If you stick an extender on it, the effective aperture will get even smaller, so you’ll either need serious daylight or a tripod. But, as I’ve already said, you get amazing range with this lens, and it’s inexpensive for an L series zoom. If you’re willing to live with the few issues I’ve outlined, then get it.

Buy the lens

EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM specs on Canon website
EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM listing at Amazon
EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM listing at B&H Photo

Reviews

Mosaic makes delicious food

We dined at Mosaic Cuisine & Cafe in Rockville this past Friday evening. The food was delicious and the service wonderful. Here are some of the dishes we had with our friends:

Reviews

Hardware review: WD My Book World Edition II

After looking around for a storage solution to house my growing collection of photographs, I found the Western Digital My Book World Edition II. I’ve been storing my photos on single external hard drives so far, but data loss has always been a concern with that approach. All it takes is a hard drive failure, and I’m going to lose a good portion of my hard work. Naturally, I’ve been looking into various RAID or other failsafe solutions, since they’ve gotten to be fairly affordable.

Great design

I was immediately drawn to the new WD My Book line because of their beautiful design, 1 TB capacity, and the ability to configure the device in RAID 1 format, which would mean my data would be mirrored across the two hard drives inside it. (This would also halve the amount of space available, but that was okay with me — I wanted data redundancy.)

For those of you not familiar with WD’s external drives, they have done a beautiful job with their enclosure design, and I raved about their Passport line several months ago. It turns out I now own one of them, a sleek black 160 GB 2.5″ drive just like the one pictured in that post. It’s perfect for data portability, and for a while, I even stored some of my photos on it. But it is just a single drive, and as I said, I’m worried about data loss.

Choosing the product

Back to the My Book line. There were two models I really liked: the My Book Pro and the My Book World. Because I have a mixed OS environment (both PC and Mac), I thought a NAS solution like the My Book World would work best for me, even though its specs said it would only work for Windows. I had a pretty good hunch that I would also be able to access it with my iMac. It runs on Java, it has Samba shares, and those are readily accessible from any Mac. But, this isn’t advertised, and that’s a pity.

By the way, if you’re thinking about getting the My Book Pro drive, make sure to read my review of that model. The takeaway message is to stay away from it, and I explained why in that article.

How it works

The drive itself is beautiful and fairly quiet, except when it boots up. WD has also made firmware upgrades available that make the drives even quieter, so that’s a good thing. I can tell you this right away. If you only plan to use the drive in a Windows environment, it’ll work great. Feel free to buy it, you’ll be happy. But, if you plan to use it in a mixed OS environment, and are looking to access it in more flexible ways, such as with custom drive mappings, and not through the software provided with the drive, you might be very frustrated.

Let me explain. The drive comes with a custom version of something called Mionet. I’ve never heard of it, but it’s software that installs on your machine and makes your files and computer remotely accessible from anywhere. When you run the installer, it’ll prompt you to create an account on the Mionet website, and it’ll register the WD drive, along with your computer, as devices that you can then access remotely. (There’s a monthly fee involved if you want to control your own PC remotely with the software, but you don’t need to pay it to use the WD drive fully.)

Once you install the software, you start up Mionet, and the WD My Book World drive gets mapped automatically to your machine. You also have the option to manage the drive through a browser interface. That’s actually where you configure its volumes (1 TB single volume, or RAID 1, still single volume, but mirrored data and only 500 GB) and other options. Basically, you have to remember that the only proper way to access the drive, whether you’re at home or you’re away, is to start up Mionet and get it mapped to your “My Computer”. If you do that, you’re good to go.

Potential problems

The problem with this approach (and this tends to be a problem only for geeks like me) is that the drive is readily accessible over the network without Mionet. I can simply browse my workgroup and find it, then log in with separate accounts I can set up by using the WD drive manager, which is accessible through my browser. So here’s where the frustrating part comes in. I can browse to my drive over the network, without Mionet, from any PC or Mac in my home, administer its options, add users and shares, etc. Then I can use Tools >> Map Drive on my PC or Command + K on my Mac to connect to the share name, and log in using those user accounts I’ve just set up. But, I can only read from those shares. I can’t write to them. The drive operating system assigns weird UNIX privileges to those shares, and they don’t correspond to the accounts I’ve just set up. It makes no sense to me and you’ll only fully know what I mean if you do this yourself. Suffice it to say that it’s really frustrating, and it’s not what I expected.

It would have been alright if Mionet made a version of their software for the Mac, but they don’t, and they don’t seem to have any plans to make any. It would have still been alright if the drive hadn’t been accessible through any Mac whatsoever. But the fact that they are accessible, and that I can log onto the drive with usernames and passwords that I can set up through the admin interface, yet I can only gain read-only access to those shares even though I’m supposed to have full access really gets me. Sometimes it’s a real pain to be a geek…

So, my verdict is that I really like the design and the RAID 1 capability, but I do not like the implementation. I ended up returning this and getting the My Book Pro Edition, which I will review very soon. But remember, if you don’t have a mixed OS environment, and have no problems with starting up Mionet when you want the drive to appear in “My Computer”, My Book World will work great for you, and the remote access capability is a really nice feature.

Updates

❗ Updated 7/19/07: I purchased and reviewed the My Book Pro as well. You can read my review right here.

❗ Updated 8/3/07: Multiple commenters have pointed out (see this, this, this, this, this and this) that you can use the drive just fine with both Macs and PCs, over the network, if you skip the install of the Mionet software altogether. It looks like the clincher is the Mionet install itself. Just forgo it, and you’ll be able to map the drive to both PCs and Macs, and read/write as much as you want. I didn’t realize that I had to uninstall Mionet entirely in order for the read/write to work properly.

But keep in mind, if you don’t use the Mionet software, you won’t be able to access the drive remotely. Well, you might be able to arrange some access, but you’ll need to custom-configure your firewall settings to allow traffic on certain ports, and you’ll need a static external IP or dynamic DNS so you can get at your firewall from the outside. And then you’ll need to worry about data encryption as well, unless you don’t care that your data will travel unencrypted over open networks. If you’re a hardcore geek, feel free to try this last bit out, but if you aren’t, beware, it’s a weekend project, and I can’t help you.

❗ Updated 8/9/07: I’ve had several people comment on how they bought the drive based on this post and the comments made on it by others, believing they could get it working over the network with their Mac. The kicker is that they thought they could connect it directly to their machine and get it working that way. 😐 I don’t know how they got that idea, but let me set the record straight. This is a NETWORK drive. It needs a network in order to work. There’s a chance you might get it working by using a crossed ethernet cable or connecting it directly to your machine, but it probably has to be a crossed ethernet cable.

The best way to get it working is to use a hub or a switch, or best of all, your home router, which can assign IP addresses. The drive ships configured for DHCP. That means it has no IP address to start with, and it’s looking for a place to get them. If you don’t have such a place, you’re going to have a lot of headaches. Get such a place (router) or go buy a USB/Firewire drive. Most people who’ve commented already made it plainly clear that’s what they needed, but they still insisted on using this drive. I don’t know why they enjoy the stress of doing that. I didn’t. As I already said in my post, I returned it and got a WD My Book Pro Edition II.

Last but not least, please do me a big favor. Read through the existing comments before you write one. There are so many already, and there’s a very good chance someone’s already asked your question, and I or someone else has already answered it. Thanks!

❗ Updated 12/11/07: I found out today that Western Digital is going to disallow the sharing of all media files through the Mionet software. In other words, if you’re going to use Mionet to share the files on your drive and make them accessible remotely, you will not be able to see or use any of your media files. I think this is a pretty stupid move on WD’s part, and it’s going to come back to bite them. Until they decide to do away with this boneheaded downgrade, keep it in mind if you’re looking to purchase a My Book World Edition. Do NOT use Mionet. Install the drive without it, and if you’ve got to make the files accessible remotely, find other ways to do it, like through a custom config of your firewall.

❗ Updated 12/18/07: Christian, one of the commenters, has left two very useful comments that are worth mentioning here in the post. The first shows you how to access the drive remotely (when you’re away from home) without using the Mionet software. The second tells you why you don’t need to worry about defragging the drive, and how to troubleshoot its performance if you think it’s not as fast as it should be. Thanks Christian!

❗ Updated 4/5/10: Andrew Bindon has posted an easy-to-follow tutorial on how to remove Mionet completely from your computer and the My Book World Edition drive. If you, like me and many others, think Mionet is an annoyance that would best be removed, then follow his advice.

More information

Western Digital 1 TB My Book World Edition II External Hard Drive listing at Amazon
Western Digital 1 TB My Book Pro II External Hard Drive with Triple Interface listing at Amazon

Reviews

Beware of GISOL

➡ Updated 11/4/2008: See FOX News expose GISOL for the crooks they really are, and watch the two people behind the scam literally run from the camera. Watch the video on YouTube or below, and make sure to read through my original post about them, as well as the over 300 comments posted by other people who were each scammed by GISOL. My thanks go to Mike of Report-Gisol.com for doing the legwork to get these criminals on TV.

These same crooks have been calling me from private phone numbers, harassing me, and trying to intimidate me into letting them post responses on my website. They’ve tried repeatedly to post comments on this post and on my other post about them, and I refuse to let their lies go through to the live site. They need to be in jail.

I wrote a post over a year ago detailing my nightmare experience with GISOL, a supposed web hosting company whose performance was missing in action and whose promises were stuffed so full of lies they were busting at the seams. I encourage you to read about what I had to say, but more than that, to also read the comments. You see, my story struck a chord with other users who were lied to and swindled out of their money by the thieves at GISOL, and they left poignant comments detailing their plight.

Today, another poor soul left a long comment explaining what happened to her, and I was so incensed I needed to do something more. I dugg my own post, and if you have a Digg account, I encourage you to digg it as well. Also, forward the link to my post to your friends and other folks who you know. Let’s get the word out about that rotten apple called GISOL. They should NOT be in business. They’ve got an F rating from the Better Business Bureau, tons of complaints have been filed against them, yet they’re still around. It’s just not right. Let’s tar and feather them, and let’s run them out of town.

Raoul Pop

One man's life

Category Archives: Reviews

L.L.Bean gets it right