The Big Gold Box

OK, here comes a change in attitude.
For years, I have deservedly so, ragged on my home town's major player Kodak.

There are just so many things to bitch about pollution and environmental policies that makes you think that Sherman's March to the sea or the cratering of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were GreenPeace events. Or their decline due to managements arrogance thinking that making film that was better than any other on the market made a flip worth of difference to the consumer when it was priced 25% higher than say FUJI. Or how the company, that was the hands down image leader in the WORLD, whiffed when the digital revolution wave crested over the Rochester NY HQ.  I got more bitches about Kodak than one can imagine but and here folks, here is the "change in attitude" mentioned above, they may have "Gotten it" at last.




I know nothing more than the consumer "look" at this product. I don't know who makes, it where it is made or what the profit margins are. What I know is that this, possibly last gasp before going belly up, well it hits it right on the head. This product is awesome, as good as a new instamatic  for the digital age. The product is the Kodak Easy Share C1450 camera and it is awesome, not groundbreaking but awesome none the less.  We have an all white (Avail in Red Black and Blue as well) kind of sexy looking palm sized camera with 5x optical zoom. With a very large LCD screen on the back that is bright. It is powered by two AA batteries which eliminates the plug in charger or forces the purchase of an extra battery for about $40. Nope, need power just stop in any roadside store and you can pick up power for your camera, heck go to the dollar store and you get 5 recharges for a $1.



Ease of operation is built in. Plug it in to your computer with the USB cable supplied (OK they lose a point or two for making it a proprietary USB connection) and it walks you through how to share your photos with all the social network sites, with all the big e-mail sites and makes custom connections something my 91 year old Mother could probably figure out.  Flash, Red eye, facial recognition, good low light, Self timer and all the yaddda yadda's you would expect and oh did I mention that it is a 14 MP camera.  14 FREAKIN Mega Pixel, 5x optical zoom camera with bells and whistles. One button share function. This is a beautiful competent camera.



AND ITS JUST FORTY NINE DOLLARS AT YOU LOCAL WAL-MART. 
$49 $49 $49 $49 $49 $49 $49 $49 $49 $49 $49 $49 $49 $49 $49 $49 $49 $49 $49 $49 $49 $49 $49

Go get your Casio, Sony, Canon, Panasonic, or what-evers and stack them up to this camera.
(Full disclosure here demands that I tell you that it will handle any capacity SD card you want to plug in but it does not come with one. It comes with a set of Batteries, The Camera, a carry strap and the USB cord and that is all.) If hope that the Kodak batteries are from UltraLife, another Rochester area company but probably not. They sell, on the same POS display, a nice case for $5.



Image quality is superb. One button transfer to my computer and one button upload to Face Book or anywhere else in the social network maze. However you need to custom step up to Google Plus and this causes them lose another point from me.


WHY on earth it took this long for this great company to come to the party I don't know.

Most of the other Easy Share line is just "me too" marketing. Flip a coin and you would probably not go wrong no matter which brand you choose. But I saw no other offers within $50 of this cameras price point in Wally World. As a matter of fact I passed up the display once simply because I thought it was a disposable, One time use, digital camera. It is, in a sense, because at $49 you really are OK with using the camera in risky environments like water sports, amusement parks, hiking, biking etc. Its almost affordable enough to throw one in the glove box, and one in the back pack, bike bag, gym bag etc.



Also one button set up to throw your images to a print maker of your choice Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Walgreens etc. All set up for one button transfer and ordering prints (where Kodak hopes to make their money I'm sure). This is the old Gillette: give them the razors and make money on the blades marketing. Why it took this company to be on its deathbed to employ the same method that they pioneered with the Instamatic and the disposable 35mm cameras, I don't know.



I'm just glad that somewhere in that big, almost empty State St. Rochester NY HeadQuarters building that brought such wealth to the area and quality products to the masses, somewhere in there, well there is still someone with some marketing hutzpah to get this product done. I salute you whoever you are, now I recommend that you go send your resume to Canon NA or Nikon NA cause the ship is sinking fast.



NOTE: I now see that it was a Black Friday "while supply lasts" sale at WalMart. In fact both Sanyo and Fuji have similar products at the $59 price point.  And this camera is $69 while the same camera with a SD card but 3X Zoom is at $59 with the two other competitors. So it turns out my optimism for the Gold Box company turns out to be just another "me too" deal.  Please go ahead and sink the ship and stop torturing us.



I just thought of something else.  Kodak HQ Building has a visitor every year to its tower, its a Perigrine Falcon named  "Unity" who should be the mascot of the company cause like its tower owner Unity lays a bunch of eggs every year.

http://rfalconcam.com/rfc-main




On another note check this out, I want one badly
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/11255/cornelius-comanns-bufalino.html

Reading Material

My recommendations

If you are caught up in the George R.R. Martin Song of Ice and Fire series which is real good and you are longing for more Dragon intense fiction you are in luck:

A Game of thrones
Clash of Kings
Storm of Swords
A Feast of Crows
A Dance with Dragons

Then pick up Naomi Novik's six book series Temeraires good as Martins series maybe better



 

His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire, Book 1)

Throne of Jade

Black Powder War

Empire of Ivory

Victory of Eagles

Tongues of Serpents

Who knew there is a book 7:  Crucible of Gold

Need more:  child prodigy, Christopher Paolini:  Eragon, Eldest and newly released Brisingr are awesome

AND then if you still are not sated go back to the Dragons of Pern series by Ann McAfferny
But on to other genres

SCI-FI:

Robert Charles Wilson's Hugo winner: SPIN and AXIS are top notch.

As is Greg Bears: Hull Zero Three

Mystery/Cop genre, Well my favorite author ever James Lee Burke has got: Three relatively new books:
Rain Gods, and its sequel A Feast Day for Fools both Billy Bob Holland novels
and
Glass Rainbow, A Dave Robicheaux

In non fiction:

Walter Isaacsons Steve Jobs is very good, Hey my fingers were crossed before, no pic needed.

There is Michio Kaku - Physics of the Impossible for the other person in the universe that cares.

I've gone back and reread two Seth Godins Books: Purple Cow and Tribes because they are important to understand marketing and people.



And I recommend Malcolm Gladwells Outliers which I went back and re read the Beatles chapters and the Hockey chapters. Great book if you want to know what made the Beatles, Wayne Gretsky and others great as well as why most NHL players are born in just three different months. It wouldn't hurt at all to check out Tipping Point and Blink for great Biz incites

OK Then, Beware I also listen to a lot of obscure Music and that's coming soon.

Just a little more

Since my last post, a requiem for Steve Jobs, I have read the amazing biography of Jobs by Isaacson. Unlike everything else in his life, Jobs ceded total control of te book to Isaacson.  I don't think Jobs ever even got to read it. The resulting work is a compelling, human view of Jobs warts and all.  Its a great read and gives you a good insiders view of the Valley and its players over the last 30 years.  I highly recommend it.

There is no doubt that Jobs was an asswipe at times. That his ego was huge. That he was a maniac at times, ruthless to those he did not respect.  But, I don't think that he could have got his vision produced any other way. He got more out of people than they thought they were capable of doing. He bullied entire industries to his focus.

When he came back to Apple and introduced the iMac, still in CEO of Pixar he was a little more mellow. How much he influenced and changed is immense.

I know that many think he was the great Satan for his methods and the way he stymied competition and strapped everyone to his products and your feelings are entirely valid, however, He was the one guy out there that was focused on the customer experience as first priority. The rest were out to make money, Jobs was out to change the world. Money found him.

Some things I didn't know or didn't realize:

Bill Gates investment in Apple when Jobs came back helped keep Apple in business. The word was that Gates was protecting his very profitable Microsoft Office for the Mac business. Nope that wasn't it.  Jobs found that MS had infringed on a number of patents, blatantly. He called Gates (Gates acknowledges this deal) and told him they could resolve this in a couple of ways. A lengthy court battle where Apple would eventually prevail or Gates could take a 500 Million dollar equity position in Apple and the infringement would get licensed. Gates agreed and received 500 Million in Preferred NON voting stock.

At Pixar and at Apple he was constantly taught the lesson tat you need to control the entire process production to consumption otherwise someone is going to upset the whole thing.  Michael Eisner of Disney almost screwed up Pixar/Disney deal. Motorola-OSX, Adobe refused to port Premier for the Mac, which led to Apple making Final Cut and later refusing Flash.  The record industry refused to do Apples FairPlay digital rights system, instead Sony, Universal, EMI and others splintered into several different incompatible systems.  Jobs went to the artists. He showed them how they would get paid something instead of losing everything to piracy. He brought the whole thing together as a system player/digital hub/itunes/and the itunes store. 99¢ a song with digital rights. Gates was in awe that no one else had done anything similar ad in fact was even close.

Gorilla Glass was invented by Corning in the 90's but there was no market for it and they weren't producing any at all. Jobs found out about the product and ordered as much as they could produce in the next 7 months for the iPhone. Luckily Weeks, Cornings "Can Do" CEO saw the opportunity and got his best and brightest to figure out how to change gears and produce G.Glass that fast.

I guess this is what it boils down to:  If we didn't do it Steve Jobs way, we probably would not have it today.  And that applies to everything touching the computer segment and a lot out side of it. Did this stomp on competitive ideas. Sure. Did this stifle innovation. Ya but it poured gas on innovation along the lines of Jobs thinking.

His being put up for adoption certainly screwed him up. Just as his dropping acid, his Buddism his minimalists, his hippie college years, Bob Dillon, Joan Baez changed his life's direction.

Things I though Unique about Jobs

He hated PowerPoint presentations and kept telling people "If you need slides you don't know your material or shit about the subject" and KeyNote does it better anyway.

He micromanaged his passions. The ads right down to knowing when the agency had eliminated 3 frames out of an iPod ad. He stopped the roll out of the iPhone because he and Johnny Ives  decided that the back of the iPhone was to elegant and took away from the display.
Jobs thought it had to be right from the start. No introduce it and fix it later. You only had one shot to get it right and that was the first.

He felt he was an artist. He was in tune with his materials. A great quote is the "Michelangelo was not just a great sculptor but he knew how to quarry stone"


 I wish he were a nicer guy but I wonder if Michelangelo, Thomas Edison or Mr Vertically integrated himself George Eastman weren't a bit of an asshole as well.

 OK, No more about Mr. Jobs, I promise (fingers crossed behind his back)