Things that work

A colleague had installed some software on his Mac: “…and it worked, just out of the box. And the most disgusting part is that I was totally unprepared for that!”

Honeybuns and I had long discussed upgrading to a proper system camera. So, being an aware consumer I went to the Råd & Rön website and looked up their test of system cameras. Now, this is one of the tests behind the paywall, so I was requested to send a text message containing a code to a given number. I did so, and within seconds the browser magically updated and brought me to the test spreadsheet. The best-performing camera was easy to pick out: The Panasonic Lumix DMC-G2. Clicking on it I was brought to Pricerunner, where I got a list of suppliers and the prices they charged. Amazon UK turned out to be the cheapest by a wide margin, so I clicked on that link, was brought to the Amazon page for the camera, added it to the basket and checked it out. A couple of days later I had a package to retrieve at the nearest Coop and there was the new camera. I noted that it had been cheaper than the compact camera I bought seven years ago.

First obstacle: the battery charger was supplied with a British-style plug, but the charger itself had a standard two-pole connector, so half a minute of rummaging in my cable drawer brought out the right kind of cable.
Second obstacle: the camera was delivered without any memory card at all. That I thought was pretty stupid. So I had to buy a separate card. A life of experience strongly suggested one should always buy as much memory as can be fit into the device—it will soon be used up. So, a 64 GiB card should be the thing. Back to Amazon. After a bit of back and forth I came to the conclusion that no supplier will deliver 64 GiB cards to Sweden. Weird. So, let’s try a 32 GiB card then. Here I found a supplier, but as I am checking it out the price is suddenly doubled. What? Hm, they’ve slapped on 99 quid in postage & packing! OK, no sale for them. Finally I found a supplier who sells cheap, delivers to Sweden, and doesn’t charge ridiculous amounts for the postage and then I had a new package a couple of days later. Camera complete!