The Matrix: Revelations

My entire life I have been curious about how things work. I used to take things apart (if I could figure out how without breaking them) just to see what was inside - even if I didn't know what all those whozamajiggers did. At the time, I was just curious to see what the whozamajiggers looked like. Once, when I was 5 or so, my curiosity even figured out how to erase part of a pre-recorded cassette tape with the tabs broken out. I am the guy who will pay attention to - or at least look for - the man behind the curtain.

Today, I still have that same curiosity. I want to know how it works. I need to know how some small piece fits into a larger picture. When I send an email and it doesn't get to its destination, I want to know where it's been and why it came back or where it got stuck. That's why I learned to read message headers (hint: you read them from bottom to top). In networking your computer sends a signal down a wire, it goes to a box, some magic happens, then it ends up where it's supposed to be. I want to know what magic goes on inside the box.

But my curiosity goes beyond signal flow and systemic thinking. For instance, I have had cameras at my disposal since I was a child. I have taken many thousands of pictures in my life. Yet, many of my pictures are simply snapshots, not photographs. I understand a lot of the technical aspects of photography - aperture, shutter speed, ISO, depth-of-field, etc. - but somehow I haven't quite gotten the hang of composition. My eye sees a beautiful scene but somehow, when I click the shutter, I don't ever quite capture the emotion and excitement that comes with good composition.

It's like I'm seeing the Matrix code and it's just a bunch of random characters streaming down my screen. I recognize bits and pieces of code but I know it all means something. I want to see the matrix. I want to have a deep understanding.

Now, I know I can't know everything so there will always be parts of it streaming by that I don't understand - like quantum mechanics - but I want to be able to see the blonde, the brunette, the redhead, etc. (it's a movie reference for those who don't know) I feel like if I concentrate on one or two lines I'll begin to see it but there are so many many lines falling down the screen I keep losing track of the one I'm watching and getting distracted by others. Going back the my photography I want to see, in my mind, what the photograph will look like before I snap the shutter so that, when I see the captured scene, even if it's a little off it's not a surprise that it didn't come out or holds no interest.

Until then, I keep staring at the screen watching the pretty shapes falling down.

The Changing Face Of Photography

My very first digital camera was a Sony Mavica FD-88. It was 1.3 megapixels and recorded the images onto floppy disk. In its day it was a fancy damn camera and cost me a pretty penny.

When using my Mavica, if I wanted someone to take a picture of me the first thing they would do would be to put it up to their face to look through the viewfinder. The camera never quite made it to their eye because they would get a look of confusion then push it away from them again so they could pinpoint the precise location of the viewfinder. This was followed by a look of increased bewilderment because they couldn't find it. Because there wasn't one.

The Mavica used the LCD screen as its viewfinder. You held it away from your face, lined everything up using the LCD (you actually viewed through the lens), and snapped the picture. This may sound familiar because it is the way most pocket digital cameras today work.

I eventually upgraded my Mavica to a Nikon D70 DSLR and went back to having a viewfinder on my camera. I still find it mildly humorous when I hand someone my camera. Because of the increasing popularity of those pocket digital cameras, people are used to using the LCD as their viewfinder. They will stare in confusion at the LCD trying to figure out how to activate it (some even check the lens cap) only to realize moments later that this one has a viewfinder.

Photo Phail

So I'm up early, as I usually am, and go to let the dog back inside. I spy him lying out on the deck with his nose stuck between two of the balusters, his muzzle resting on the bottom rail and his eyes closed.

"Oh, I have got to get a picture of this." I pop into the other room and grab my DSLR out of my bag. When I come back, something has alerted him and he has his head up. I stay out of range, figuring he's going to settle back down, and I wait.

While I'm waiting, I look through the camera to see something that's out in the pond and realize that this lens is not going to get the shot I want. I'm waiting anyway and go back into the other room to get my longer lens.

When I return, Teddy is back into position. Perfect. I slowly, ever so slowly, step-by-step make my way carefully across the living room to the french doors that lead out to the deck. His eyes look closed but you never know. I raise my camera to my eye, set the zoom, frame the shot and press down gently on the shutter to set the focus.

For some stupid, software-related reason, the built-in flash pops open, making a nice, solid clicking noise as it stops. I have just enough time to think, "No! He'll see the flash and I want more than one shot," before the sound of the flash opening registers in his little brain and he pops his head up to look straight at me as if to say, "Did you hear that? What was that?"

One of those wonderful, rare, Kodak moments... gone in a flash.

Unexpected Gifts

There is a store here in Stillwater called Wall's Bargain Center that sells closeout merchandise at discount prices. It's a little like Big Lots but they tend to buy stock from stores that are closing, going out of business, had fires, etc. more than "the manufacturer changed the box design" type stuff.

I got word from one of the students at work that Wall's had recently acquired a large batch of inventory from a Best Buy that had experienced an extreme heat incident with rapid incandescent oxidation and gaseous residue followed by liquid deterrent application (a fire). Said student had picked up a new Dell computer and a flat screen monitor for under $500. It wasn't a fantastic discount but it was a good price nonetheless.

I decided Friday night that I wanted to go see what they had and just how good the discounts might be. I entered the section where they had concentrated the stock and began to drool look around. I saw many shiny things and lots of blinking black boxes but they were all beyond my price range. Wall's was only offering a 25% discount (which ain't bad, really) but was using the original Best Buy pricing as a baseline which is inflated anyway (i.e. a weather radio you can buy @ WM for $29.99 marked at $39.99). Many of the objects were originally over $200 so I stuck my hands in my pockets and continued to drool profusely "window shop."

The wife, who has been wanting a digital SLR for a couple of years now, wandered over to the display case filled with cameras and camcorders. She had spied some Canon Digital Rebel models but even with the discount they would end up over $500 (except for one but we ruled it out since it didn't have a box). As I was scanning the various camcorders available I saw a Sony Digital Alpha tucked unobtrusively in the back of the case. If you didn't know what it was, it would be easy to overlook. Heck, I knew what it was and almost overlooked it myself.

It was a Sony Alpha DSLR-230L with an 18-55mm zoom lens. The price written on the side was $549.99. With discount and after tax, we figured it would cost about $450.00. The wife asked to see it and looked at the specs on the side of the box. She took the body out of the package to see how it felt and to examine all the buttons and ports. She was suitably enamoured with it and we considered buying it since her birthday is a week from Tuesday. In the end, we decided to sleep on it. First, we didn't know much about the camera itself (the best I could come up with via my smartphone was that it was released last May). Second, we didn't know where the money was going to come from. We could fudge $450 but it wouldn't be a wise thing to do.

After dinner, we both retired to our respective computers and began researching the Alpha 230. The first thing I figured out was that current selling price is $499.99 (via Best Buy, Amazon and Sony). The wife read the reviews on Amazon and felt the camera would be a good fit for her. At that point, I put into action a plan I had hatched on the way home from the store.

First, I called my mother. I explained the situation to her and asked if she would be willing to contribute $100 (or more if she wanted to) toward the Wife's birthday gift. She thought that was a splendid idea. [Side note: Mom informed me that my brother had won $2,200 at the riverboat casino... on a penny slot machine. Of course, he was playing a dollar a spin (the bonus came up all wild). I never win that much because I never risk that much.]

Next, I called her mother. I again explained the situation and she agreed to contribute $150 to the cause. We were now going to be responsible for less than half the cost of the camera (an amount we could justify without too much guilt) and had current cash on hand to float what was being covered by The Moms. Because of the nature of the business and there being only one on hand, I told the wife about the contributions, said "happy birthday" and we agreed to go to the store as they opened on Saturday to give the camera a final inspection and purchase it if it passed muster.

We got to the store and went straight to the display case with the cameras. The same lady who had helped us at closing time on Friday was in the general vicinity and came around to greet us, "You came back for the Sony, didn't you?"

The wife opened the box and removed all of the contents to take inventory. Everything was present except for the battery which we quickly located as being installed in the camera. We agreed to purchase it and the attendant filled out some paperwork for the 30-day store return warranty. We then found a suitable bag (that we later discovered was too small for more than one reason) and checked out. The camera came out to $449 and some change. With the bag, we walked out about $468.00 lighter and one camera heavier than when we walked in.

But wait, there's more.

The wife charged the battery and fiddled with the camera some to get a feel for it. I had been wanting to go to the fair in Oklahoma City all day so I struck out on my own. After visiting the ATM and grabbing a bottle of water at the gas station it was almost 3pm. I was driving toward the highway when a prominently displayed garage sale sign caught my eye. The street it pointed to only has 3 or 4 houses so if it was still going on it would be obvious. although it had been picked over quite well, they were still open for business so I dropped by.

There really wasn't much left. What they had most of was bundles and pieces of fabric they had bought for their sewing business but ended up with too much inventory and not enough time. I wandered into the garage itself and spied upon a box for a Minolta Maxxum film camera. The Sony takes the same lens mount as the Minolta. The kit had a 35-80mm zoom lens with it. It was a cheap lens. It even felt cheap. Almost every bit of it was plastic except for the optics. But it was a different lens than the one that came with the camera.

"How much?" I asked. "We were asking $40 but we're trying to get everything gone so we're doing half price. $20"

I texted the wife: Do you want a 35-80mm Maxxum kit lens for $20?

Without hesitation, the answer came back a simple "yes." I bought it but it meant that the camera bag which barely fit the camera if she took the lens off was no longer suitable.

So, in the span of a day, we had managed to get the wife a new camera with a kit lens, a bag that was now too small, and a second lens for a very reasonable price. It was a happy early birthday for her.

Shot(s) In The Dark

"Pssst... Joe!"

"Huh?..."

"Joe!!"

"Who is that?"

"It's me, your camera."

"Uh huh. What do you want?"

"I want to come out and play."

"But it's almost dark out. You need light to work, don't you?"

"Ah, but there's the challenge. Let's go out and see what happens..."

When people think of night shots in photography, this is probably similar to the image that comes to mind.


I took up the challenge and came up with some pretty good shots, I think. (click any image to bigify)

This is my house.

Oh, alright, here are some obligatory time exposure traffic shots.

My NAS* Is Acting Up

I WANT ONE!! Unfortunately, it's about $120 more than I paid for the one I already have. I can't afford it but it would be SO much easier to use.

(*NAS = Nikon Acquisition Syndrome)

I Love It When That Happens

I'm off the clock and logged out of my PC. I'm waiting for my carpool buddy to get off a call. The boss walks by on his way out the door and spies the wallpaper on my screen.

"That's a nice picture."

"Thanks, I took that picture."

He stops, steps back, takes a second look, "You took that picture?"

"Yeah. It's in Colorado. Somewhere around Vale."

Power Corrupts

I have confirmed that my hard drive woes are due to power issues. I used the power supply from the IDE/SATA to USB interface cable I bought to power the 250GB drive and connected it to the MoBo data channel. I then set to copying a large amount of data to it last night and it was still running just fine when I got up this morning.

I also downloaded and installed Vista SP1 yesterday. It's not available through Windows Update at the moment but I have access to it through resources at work. I had heard there were some performance improvements but nothing spectacular. I don't know if I'm fooling myself or not but it does seem to be responding a bit better. So far, it hasn't broken anything.

I am in the midst of editing the photos from my niece's wedding. I hope I'll have them up soon.

You will also notice stars at the bottom of each post. I had to log on to my Haloscan account (Haloscan runs my commenting) and they now have ratings. I enabled them an viola. Please feel free to rate any post - past, present, or future - by simply clicking on the stars.

Wedding Pics

I'm not supposed to blog at work so I'm sneakin' one in. If you want to see some of the pics from the wedding, check them out here.

It's just a raw dump. I haven't edited anything yet so the color and lighting is highly variable.

Hey Ron, Is This Better?

This post has nothing to do with the title except that Ron told me I needed to tweak my RSS settings then told me how to do it.

I am getting ready to head up to Kansas City for my niece's wedding. I was originally slated to be the photographer but after some investigation into what that involved, both de-niece and I agreed they should probably hire someone. My ability was not in question. I knew I could pull it off but we discovered that I could either enjoy the event or be the photographer... but not both. Oh, my camera WILL be there and I WILL take many pictures. But if I miss one of those shots the official photographer is expected to capture - no big deal.

Family Time

My niece is getting married on March 15. Shortly after they set the date, she called me and asked me to be her photographer. I was flattered, intrigued by the challenge, and a little nervous. And I said yes.

I don't do portrait photography. I don't generally photograph people. The largest body of my work is animals, landscapes and a little bit of abstract thrown in for good measure. But my niece asked me because she knew I liked photography, thought I would enjoy it, and saw a few advantages in having a family member shoot the wedding.

The first thing I did was join a few photography forums on Yahoo and start scouring the internet for tips and information. I posted my questions to the forums and downloaded information and shot lists from the web sites. I received a variety of information telling me I would enjoy it, I would hate it, it shouldn't be a problem, I didn't need any fancy equipment, it's too much work, and one who told me to do myself a favor and hire a professional for them as a wedding gift. While this last was a good thought, it was out of my price range.

Once I had gathered this mass of data, life got in the way - as it often will - and I had to put it aside for a while. This weekend I bought a book on posing techniques (my real weak spot in portrait photography) and started reading it. As I got into the book, I started gaining confidence that I would be able to actually pull this off. Mind you, posing is one of those talents that takes a short time to learn and a long time to master - I had no illusions about that - but with my current level of photographic knowledge, I could probably do a right fair job of it.

Then I started looking at the shot lists. Some were simple, others were detailed. I began work on combining them all into my own list with the basics (i.e. the kiss, bride and mother, groom and father, etc.) and the cool-but-not-on-everyone's-list shots (i.e. bride looking out window). As I got to the ceremony shots, I realized something quite profound. Two somethings, really. First, there are a LOT of pictures that get taken at a wedding - this was going to be real work. Second, in order to get some of the shots, I would either have to be two places at once, moving around a lot (a potential distraction), relying on the good graces of one of my photographically inclined friends to assist me, or having to decide between one shot or the other. That's when I decided to call my niece.

You see, I realized that if I were going to do the photography portion of the wedding any justice at all, I was going to have to recuse myself from being an attendee. That meant that I would be missing out on time with my family, meeting the groom's family, actually enjoying the ceremony itself, and quite possibly wedding cake (which concerned me most). So this evening I called my niece and discussed the situation with her. It turns out, she had been talking with her dad, my brother, about the situation and had come to some of the same conclusions as well as a realization I now shared - If I'm taking all of the pictures, I'm not going to be IN any of the pictures.

With that, we agreed that it would be better for me to attend the wedding rather than work the wedding. Given that the ceremony is exactly two months away, I intend to keep studying technique (if for nothing else so that I can understand what the photographer is doing and take some mental notes) and I told my niece that if it was too short notice for her to find a photographer or something else went completely pear shaped, I would still be ready and willing.

Wore Out

Had things to say. Thought of things to say. Can't remember any of them. Too tired. Wore out.

Had a post idea for "Why I Abandoned Vista." Don't feel like writing it. Thought about "Cool Stuff I've Been Learning About Photography." Nope, not that either. Even considered "Coolest Thing I've Heard About So Far From CES." Nah. Could tell you about mundane stuff I've been doing lately... too lame.

My weekend has been consumed with sleep, trying unsuccessfully to sleep, nasal congestion, coughing, laundry, grocery shopping, and doing/learning things to prepare for the niece's wedding in March (I'm the photographer).

There, I posted. Is everybody happy? I'm not dead.

Why Windows Vista Media Center Sucks (or Blows - Whichever)

I bit the bullet and upgraded to Windows Vista about a month ago. The move orphaned a couple of my devices and required me to do some fancy footwork to get drivers loaded for my Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! and, amazingly enough, my brand new Sony-Ericsson W810i cell phone but overall it was a relatively painless upgrade.

The GUI is the most visible change. It now has this really cool contrasty color scheme. Lots of things glow when you mouse over them and there are lots of neato visual effects when you actually click somewhere. The Windows-Tab flippy-twisty-ooh-ah-wow task switcher is cool to watch and to use to impress your friends but it's just an extension of alt-tab switching, which now includes thumbnail views of your active screens and is a whole bunch more efficient. The thumbnail view when mousing over a task bar button is actually useful (think seven IE buttons with obscure addresses) and it includes the friend-impressing cool factor, too.

I'm told there is more and better security in Vista. That lulls me into a wonderfully euphoric sense of false assurance that me and my data are safe but mostly it's a pain in the ass. For almost anything you want to do, Windows will cheerfully ask you if you are sure you want to take that action... sometimes, it does it twice. "Are you sure you want to open the control panel?" [yes] "Hey! Someone is trying to open the control panel. Cancel or Allow?" [Allow]. They might as well have put Clippy, the office assistant from MS Office 97 up there. (insert voice of Gilbert Gottfried here) "It looks like you're trying to change some settings on your computer. I can help you with that because you can't possibly be trusted to do this on your own or you might irrevocably change something (you do know what that means, don't you? It means you can't change it back), then we'd all be screwed and you'll have to actually pay someone to fix your computer. Are you sure you want to do that?" What you were trying to do in the first place was to turn off Clippy.

One new and improved feature I actually like (but isn't necessarily worth the price of the upgrade) is the Windows Photo Gallery. This handy little program pops up whenever you double-click an image file such as a .gif or .jpg file. There's one built in to Windows XP, too, but Microsoft took the concept and actually made many useful improvements. At first glance, it doesn't look much different. It has a couple of extra controls at the bottom and there's a toolbar at the top. Now, however, as you're clicking through your photo collection and stumble across a .mpg or.avi movie, it actually plays in the Photo Gallery instead of putting up the useless message of "preview not available." The part I like, though, is a button at the top left which says "go to gallery."

When you click Go To Gallery, the program switches and you end up with what looks like, at first glance, a Windows Explorer window showing thumbnails of all the pictures in your particular folder. Upon closer examination, however, you notice that, rather than a folder browser, the left side of the screen has different categories such as tags (yes, you can add metadata to your pictures), date, ratings, and folders. Plus, when you mouse over one of the thumbnails, you'll be treated to a slightly larger pop-out version of the image. All very handy.

Now, to the main subject of my post: Windows Media Center.

Windows media center has been available since Windows XP (if you bought the right version) and is available in the Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Vista. The first thing you notice when activating this monstrosity is that it completely switches your environment. Your screen goes black and up comes the MC interface as if you've switched off your computer and turned on your television set. Don't worry, you can still do that Windows-Tab flippy-twisty-ooh-ah-wow task switch thing and get back to your solitaire game if you really want to.

So now you sit in front of the calming blue screen which defaults to "TV + Movies." I don't have a tuner card since I haven't had cable in five years (I use satellite) so the best this segment can offer me is "play DVD" for which I have dedicated programs that work much better.

I decided to see how well it would do with my music collection. I mean, it's here, it's included, it's my "entire digital entertainment library in full glory," what could be better? Pretty much anything.

After deciding which folders to have it scan, I was treated to a view allowing me to browse my music by cover art. Very neat and cool but the thumbnails load a little slow and, honestly, I don't really know which albums what songs came from (nor do I much care most of the time) so I switched to the artists view. I was slapped in the face by an interface that could only have been designed by some perverse reject from Playskool. The font used to list artists was so huge that I was only able to view ten artists at a time. I looked in the settings, but there's no way to change the font size or change the configuration of the list. When I tried to scroll through the list...

I'm going to pause my rant here so that I can give you an assessment of the capability of my computer. I have a 3.06 gigaHertz Intel Celeron processor and a gigabyte of RAM. This configuration is more than adequate for Vista's basic requirements but is far from optimal. Most functions work pretty well but I occasionally run into a little sluggishness. Oddly enough, I put this computer together with the purpose of playing Doom 3 in mind. Doom 3 requires a 1.5 gHz processor and 384 MB of RAM with a Radeon 8500 graphics card or better (I have a Radeon 9600). I should be solid, right? True enough under XP - I could run Doom 3 in 1024 x 768 resolution with a decent frame rate but Vista sucks up so much resources that Doom 3 will now barely run on my machine in its lowest resolution.

As you move your mouse to the right (or left), handy little arrow heads appear in the list to inform you that there is more to see. When using this behemoth that is Windows Media Center, my poor, paltry 3 gHz processor and gig of RAM make me click and wait as windows scrolls through my list of hundreds of artists. I don't even want to think about scrolling through my thousands of songs by title. Never mind the fact that all of this requires that your ID3 tags be accurate and there is no way to browse by file name. I'll stick with Media Monkey, thank you.

All in all, Vista isn't too bad. If it hadn't been a gift, however, I would probably be pissed at how much I spent on it. If you absolutely must have the latest and greatest or just want to be ready when your employer asks you about Vista, dive right in. If Windows XP is working for you (and all of your devices), stick with it at least a few more months until hardware manufacturers and software publishers actually post Vista versions of their drivers and products. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD WINDOWS VISTA BE INTRODUCED TO A BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT AT THIS TIME. The lagging hardware and software support could cause way too many headaches.

Pictures of Boise

For those of you who have been waiting, I've finally posted some pictures of downtown Boise. I took some time yesterday to wander around and see what I could see.

Yep, Still Alive

First, let me apologize for the extended hiatus. I've been concentrating on a few other projects and, while I keep saying to myself, "I should blog this," it has just taken a back seat lately.

I'm sitting here enjoying a really good cup of cappuccino or machiatto or one of those espresso and steamed milk drinks... and I made it!

I have a Mr. Coffee single-cup coffee maker. I don't do caffeine and I don't drink more than one or two cups a day so I bought it to have coffee at work when I want it.

We went out to brunch this weekend and I got a cup of coffee. The wife was so shocked when I asked for a cup to go that she asked what kind of coffee they served. Long story short, we bought a tin of Illy decaf coffee pods.

I tried the pods in my coffee maker but, being espresso pods, they're too small and too tightly packed to work. The coffee comes out looking like very weak tea.

Fast forward to our grocery outing. We went to Target and headed down the small appliances aisle where we found two different coffee makers. I've wanted the flexibility to use either pods or loose ground coffee so the first one we looked at was a Black & Decker that will do one or two cups. The intel I have says it will use pods or loose coffee. For $10 more, though, I found a Mr. Coffee espresso machine.

I had to do some experimentation to get it to come out right (hint: if you're using pods, take the filter basket out) but once I did... wow! I even got the milk frothing right on the first try. This is the best cup of coffee I've brewed at home in years.

One of the projects I'm working on is to revamp my celebrity photo site. I wanted to add some pictures but I upgraded my operating system and haven't been able to locate my FrontPage disc. Rather than dig through boxes, I decided to shift gears and use Coppermine Photo Gallery (the same I use on my photo site). Before I do that, though, I want to sort through the pictures and make sure they're all good pictures, I don't have seventeen similar photos/poses of one celebrity, and they're all color/contrast adjusted. I'm close to finishing that phase of the project so I hope to get back to blogging more soon.

A Plea for Assistance

Friends, I'm not usually one to ask for money but we've been looking over the cost of relocating to Boise and it's going to be EXPENSIVE. Shipping our stuff is going to cost $3,000-$5,000 and that's if we load and unload it, boxes are going to be $300 or more, it's at least a two day trip so we have to cover fuel, meals and lodging, and we'll have rent and utility deposits once we get there. We are getting relocation money from Boise State but it will only cover a small portion of the expenses. The problem is that since my wife has been out of work for over a year, all of our resources are tapped out.

There are two ways you can help. One way is to click the button on the right side of the page and make a donation of any amount and you will receive my eternal gratitude. If you want something material in return, check out my eBay auction and I will send you a DVD of photographs in return for your donation.

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Added 3-18-07

I've felt guilty about this since posting it. I can't just take money. If you donate, I will send you a photo disc just like the auction. And it doesn't matter how much or how little you give, I'll send you BOTH discs. Just be sure to provide your shipping address.

Soliciting Opinions

I am considering updating my photo site(s) using a content management system. I am already using one on my photo site but am considering changing my celebrity site and possibly using a different system on my photo site.

My photo site is at http://photos.unclebubby.com
My celebrity site is at http://starstruck.unclebubby.com
I have a test site up for the system I am thinking of using at http://unclebubby.dnsalias.org/gallery2

Here's what I need your help with. I'd like you to tell me what you like and what you don't like about each of the sites and how they compare to each other. Or, you could just tell me which of the three you like best (and the reason why would be helpful, too). Feel free to solicit the opinions of others. You can either leave a comment here or send them to me via email (jfusco at gmail.com).

Thanks!

I Can't Stop Drooling!!!

I just found out Nikon announced the D80 3 days ago. I've skimmed the specs and I so want to replace my D70. No, that's not true, I want to keep my D70... and get a D80, too.

The first differences I noticed were a 10.2 megapixel sensor (the D70 has a 6 MP sensor) and an 11-area auto-focus (The D70 has 5). It appears to have some new metering and imaging processing technologies, too. Plus it uses SD cards instead of Compact Flash* and it has an actual USB 2.0 port. Steve's Digicams doesn't have a review up on it yet so I don't know if they've kept any of the conveniences they left out of the D70 and put into the D70s (such as a wired remote connection) or if they've added any features users feel were lacking on the D70 and D70s (such as bottom contacts for a vertical grip) but I'm anxiously awaiting it.

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*I actually think switching to the SD card format limits the capabilities. Although the capacity of flash memory cards has increased quite a bit recently, I would still prefer the option of using a microdrive. Besides, I have a bit of an investment in CF cards already. I've seen cameras that can take either the CF or SD cards and think that's a good idea.