Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens was introduced back in May 2006. It is the best EF-S lens that Canon makes so far. And it is the most expensive EF-S lens too. It is sharp, fast, fixed f/2.8 aperture and come with 3-stop Image Stabilizer (IS). It is the best general/multi purpose lens. It mounts at my Canon EOS 400D Digital body most of the time.

Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens

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Everybody will be wondering… Can HP Compaq Presario C749TU Notebook PC run Windows Vista? Can it run with Intel Celeron 540 1.86GHz, 512MB RAM, 80GB HDD? I am using Windows Vista Home Premium to do the test. In short, Windows Vista cannot run on this system with 512MB RAM or less. 1GB RAM and above is highly recommended. Windows Vista uses up around 600MB RAM after boot up. Some memory was used as Video memory. It uses up to 800 RAM when play movie with Media Player. It does eat a lot of memory in Windows Vista.

Processing power is another factor we have to look into. Intel Celeron 540 1.86GHz which is single core processor will not run smoothly in Windows Vista on some applications. Dual core and higher frequency CPU is highly recommended. However, it still can run most of the office application, entertainment and web browsing. No 3D gaming with Intel Graphics Media Accelerator x3100. It is way too slow to run any popular 3D games. A dedicated powerful 3D card is required.

Here are the Windows Vista base score that HP Compaq Presario C749TU Notebook PC gets…
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A crazy photographer like me must have this gear – DigiMate III – digital photo storage. You can have any type of digital photo storage you like. It will be a great tool when you travel as you might not have enough memory cards to store all your photographs. However, you can store up to 160GB of photograph by using it.

DigiMate III – digital photo storage

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Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM Lens was introduced back in June 1993. It is an old lens but many photographers still like it included me. It is sharp, light, and fast. It contains two high-refraction lens elements and one Gaussian optics. It becomes 80mm equivalent with attach to 1.6x crop SLR camera with APS-C sensor like Canon EOS 400D Digital or his brother Canon EOS 40D Digital. It is a wonderful portrait lens.

Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM Lens

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Continued from Shangri-La Hotel, Suzhou 2 Single Beds Deluxe Room

Finally, I got a king bed deluxe room at Pudong Shangri-La, Shanghai. Deluxe rooms are located at River Wing. All the Executive, Premier and Grand Premier rooms are in Grand Tower. River Wing’s rooms are older than Grand Tower. However, it is not cheap for deluxe room. It costs me around 1300 RMB for that room with corporate rate. It is 2450 RMB for normal rate. Wow… That is very expensive room. However, I prefer the room at Suzhou.

King bed deluxe room at Pudong Shangri-La, Shanghai

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