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Highlands Today

Digital future has its weaknesses

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By Raleigh Whiteman | Highlands Today

Published: May 21, 2009

As I said last week, of all my old digital cameras that sit on my camera shelf, there is not one that works anymore. They are not fixable, at least here in Highlands County or anywhere else close by. It's easier and a lot cheaper to go on to eBay and find another to buy at less than one-third to one-quarter of the new price.

There are 10 other older film cameras, one of which may be almost 100 years old, that at least operate almost as they did when first purchased except there is not film available for most of them.

I began collecting the antiques years ago and had many more until I found out that there are so many other collectors doing the same so the prices do not go up as prices on other antiques do. All they do is collect dust in hopes that visitors will be impressed with my collection.

I am recently running into problems with the digital quality holding up for long lengths of time, especially the digital printing. For the most part it is hard to tell a digital print from a processed print unless examined with a strong magnifier. I am supposing that there are others of you who have found the pictures you have are starting to turn color or getting mysterious spots and/or fading.

I have in the past used refilled color printing inks in an effort to save some of the costs of processing large batches of prints or large enlargements. Unbeknownst to me, these reprocessed ink cartridges may not have been of the archival (long lasting) quality that major brand photo suppliers are required to have. I hardily suggest using only major brand inks in your printers. Also, it will pay off in the long run if you purchase the paper you use for prints be of a major brand.

Remember the much used phrase "You get what you pay for."

Ups and downs of Wall Street
The ripple effect of the incompetency of Wall Street managers and the massive loss of income caused by the many crooks on Wall Street is affecting almost every one of us in ways that were unexpected a few months ago. The stock market traders are still trying to figure out what happened and many are continuing to project a slow recovery somewhere down the road.

I believe the stock market is nothing more than a huge legal place to gamble with massive amounts of money. Only those who are privy to inside information regarding the values of big companies are likely to make any money. Many banks and other money managers are holding on but it is thought they will eventually collapse, making their stock prices tumble to nothing so they are still trading in the tens of thousands every day with buyers buying short or hoping for big increases.

There may be a glimmer of hope of things eventually going back to something more normal than a complete meltdown. Two months ago I began watching what AIG, Bank of America and Citigroup were trading at. I had envisioned buying some 10,000 shares of AIG when they were trading at 93 cents. Had I been a gambler and put up $9,300 I would be able to sell today for more than $18,400. The other two of these have increased about 30-50 percent in the last two months.

But remember the bottom can still fall out.

Raleigh Whiteman of Lake Placid is a contributing writer to Highlands Today. You can reach him on the Internet at rwwhiteman@comcast.net;

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