The Ithaca Journal from Ithaca, New York • 6

Business 6A The Ithaca Journal Monday, August 7, 2000 www.theithacajournal.com Moving On Up Focusing oiu cameras' future i HSBC Bank USA has appointed Wayne Cook to assistant vice president and branch manager of HSBCs downtown Ithaca office located at 300 N. Tioga St. Before joining HSBC, Cook served as manager of Charter One Bank in Vestal. Prior to that, he was regional vice president of Primamerica Financial Services, a division of Citicorp. Cook lives in Greene.

DEB itU MILLER VX'i gains ground, sales increase One-time-use cameras snapping market share Sales (to non-professional photographers) of one-time-use cameras have increased each year since 1 988, while sales of all other film cameras remained stagnant In 1999, 140 million one-time-use cameras were sold. No data available on others. Cameras sold (in millions) One-time use a All others '92 '93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 Kodak Steve Durbin, The (Louisville) Courier-Journal and GNS J3. 88 '89 '90 '91 Source: PMA Marketing Research, Camera testing Gannett News Service Some highlights from our Photos were generally first-rate in our experiences trying out a half-dozen different single-use cameras as long as light was good. In shade, even with a Hash, they tended to be disappointing bright Gary Gordon joined WetStone Technologies as vice president of Cyber Forensics Technology, heading the Cyber Forensics Technology Division.

Gordon will direct all cyber forensic and economic crime related efforts at WetStone. At Utica College of Syracuse University, Gordon developed the curriculum for the unique and innovative economic crime programs, the undergraduate degree in economic crime investigation and the master's degree in economic crime management. Since 1988 he has taught undergraduate courses in information security, economic crime investigation, senior seminar in economic crime, computer security, cybercrime and computer forensics, and network security, and will continue to teach three courses a year in the economic crime management graduate program. Gordon is also the co-founder of the economic crime investigation institute (ECU) at Utica College. He is currently the director of the computer forensics research development center (CFRDC) of Utica College, and in the last two years, has been a subcontractor on several WetStone efforts in the computer forensics area.

Gordon holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Clark University, a master's degree in criminal justice from the University of New Haven, and a doctorate in counseling psychology from Boston University. Dr. T. Richard Houpt (V'50), was presented the Alumni Award of Merit by the Veterinary Medical Alumni Society of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. Houpt, prolessor of veterinary physiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University, was honored May 21, for his many Houpt contributions to veterinary medicine.

Kathy Clark of Montour Falls has completed her master of science degree in education from Elmira College. She currently served as a vocation- the rear. Another limitation: You can take pictures closer than three or four feet away. Most appealing were models offering the APS film format, Advanced Photo System. They offer the option of panoramic shots, which most traditional cameras don't, plus indexed prints for easier reordering and negatives that remain stored in the canister.

If you like the results, you will have real experience to help you decide whether to invest in a regular APS camera that has such additional features as zoom lens, can't-miss film loading and the ability to change film in mid-roll. The single-use instant-photo Polaroid camera produced the most disappointing results: costly ($1.50 per shot), small (less than 3 inches square) and in washed-out color. Single-use cameras often are marketed in themed cardboard liners for weddings, birthdays, black-tie affairs and the like, suggesting they're different. The cameras are the same: Either they have a flash or they don't, they're 35 mm or APS, they're waterproof or they're not. Your biggest mistake is likely to be grabbing one that doesn't have a flash when you need one for some shots.

One company spokesman suggests you'll get better pictures using a flash on almost every occasion, inside and out. Don't forget that the price of a single-use camera doesn't include developing and printing photos. What you pay for photofinishing will vary. Expect 27 prints of 35 mm film to cost APS film will probably cost more per roll. Discount offers may trim those prices considerably.

While digital one-time-use By RICHARD DES RU6SEALK Gannett News Service Ever forgotten your camera in a restaurant or airplane? Had it stolen from your car? Lent it to your teen-ager, who ruined it at the beach? Had it poop out on your vacation? Dropped it into a swimming pool? Left it home because it seemed too much trouble or too risky to tote? Almost everyone has had such forgettable Kodak moments, and that's precisely what's driving sales of onetime-use cameras. For 15, you get a simple, lightweight, point-and-shoot camera, with or without flash. You don't have to load or unload film, and you certainly won't lose any sleep if you get home and remember you left it on a picnic table in Yellowstone National Park. You can buy a bunch for guests to enjoy at a wedding reception or reunion. You can find models that work 15 to 20 feet underwater and float if you drop them and ones that can provide panoramic shots of the Grand Canyon or your daughter's softball team.

One Polaroid version offers instant photos. While sales of more sophis ticated 35 mm cameras have been flat for a decade, single-use-camera sales in the United States have soared from 3 million in 1988 to 54.1 million in 1995 and 140 million last year. At the other end of the market, digital cameras also are putting the squeeze on single-lens reflex and other 35 mm cameras. Sales of digital cameras in the United States have risen from 300,000 in 1996 to 2.1 million last year, despite an average price of nearly $600, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. Industry analysts predict that digitals will pretty much annihilate film cameras in five years except for single-use cameras.

"Since the one-time-use category was introduced in the late '80s, it's been growing in double digits every year, and we don't see growth stopping," said Rob Fischman, manager of worldwide recycling of one-time-use cameras for Eastman Kodak Co. "There are a couple of things that attract the core users. No. 1, 'I don't want to risk my good camera, so if I'm going to give it to my kids or going hiking, I might not want to bring my expensive So you find that people will try one, and once they do they get such good results it hooks them into using more of them." He added, "This is a pretty cost-effective way of getting into photography if you don't want to buy a camera." Convenience, cost Tom Shay, a spokesman for Fuji Film USA, said: "The key benefit is cost. You haven't lost much if you leave one of these cameras on a al rehabilitation counselor for New York state VESID Services in Steuben County.

She is also involved in the Career Linking Project which creates smooth transitions for students with disabilities into the vocational rehabilitation program. Dinah Bingham of Trumansburg has been hired as a vocational rehabilitation counselor for the Chemung County area of the Elmira VESID Office. Bingham has a bachelor of science degree in social work from Rochester Institute of Technology. She has been employed with the North Carolina Department of Human Resources as a counselor with Vocational Rehabilitation and as a program manager with Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. She recently was employed as a Case Services Worker for Challenge Industries in Ithaca.

Robert M. Fisher, executive vice president of Tioga State Bank, graduated June 24 from the American Bankers Association's Stonier Graduate School of Banking. A Tioga County native, Fisher is a graduate of University of Notre Dame, and Fisher has completed courses at the New York Bankers Association Management School for Career Development, New York Bankers Association Consumer Credit School, Robert Morris Associates Commercial Lending School, Leadership Development Program at the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, N.C. and Leadership Tioga sponsored by Tioga LDC. He is a past board member of the Owego Rotary Club.

Currently, Fisher is a member of the Tioga County Planning Board and Spencer-Van Etten Central School District Improvement Planning. He lives in Spencer with his wife Beth and children, Joshua and Kate. Moving On Up profiles residents who have received promotions in their companies or honors from professional organizations or employers. The column appears each Monday. Submit information to Deb Miller dmillerimaca.

gannett.com or by fax 272-4248 or mail 123 W. State Ithaca, N.Y. 14850 city Aviation Department spokeswoman Momque Bond. United spokesman Chris Brathwaite said many of the airline's pilots had already worked all their allotted week ly hours trying to make up for flights canceled Thursday and Friday because of bad weather in the East. The weekend cancellations involved flights to and from locations all over the country.

Since spring, United has had cancel or delay scores of flights because of pilot shortages. fact that we got over 300 guns off the street, people got $50, and it didn't cost the city a dime, Backman said. The proeram was so sue cessful that police had to mail vouchers to a few people after twice running out of them Backman said. "We thought people would rather sell the gun outright for money," said Sgt. Joe Sweeny, city police spokesman.

For a lot of people, this was a great way to get rid of it, so no one else will ever use the eun again." Residents turned in the guns with no questions asked The guns will be melted down this fall at Crucible Specialty Metals in suburban Syracuse. Police have to make sure the weapons have no criminal history before they are melted, Sweeny said. Police havent discovered anv stolen suns so far among the ones they've checked. "Every gun we get off trie streets is one less incident we have to deal with," Sweeny said. Compiled from news service reports.

ride at Disney World. It's a worry-free thing. It offers convenience and value, and it fits in with today's more active lifestyle. "Plus, people don't expect quality with these cameras, and they are surprised at how good they are. So they become repeat customers." Shay's summarized, "We don't see the market leveling off any time soon." Who's on top Kodak and Fuji are the giants in the single-use-camera market, but there are plenty of other players, including Agfa, Argus, Konica and Tura.

Add to that plenty of house-branded cameras, such as Km art's Focal, and generics galore. Often cardboard wrappers are used over the camera body to promote a company or product. One example is a red-and-white Coca-Cola camera distributed by Ansco. All you'll find out in the fine print on the package is that the film is made in Japan and the camera in Thailand. There are even cameras aimed at dog and cat lovers that will put relevant messages on the photos.

Our tests with half a dozen of these cameras found that they all operate about the same and produce photographs that are similar in quality and, for the most part, remarkably good. They produced the best photos in good lighting, worst in the shade. Typically, the cameras give you 25-27 exposures, but you can find some with fewer and some with up to 39. Some of the cameras have faster film than others and can capture images in less light. Polaroid's PopShots, an instant single-use camera, is a different breed, and you get only 10 shots.

What's more, the photos measure just 2 12 by 2 12 inches. And strike three is that you'll pay a hefty price for the camera: at a discount store. The company's I-Zone Instant Pocket camera, which is reloadable but produces the same dinky photos (which have stickum on the back), became the nation's top-selling camera in December. You can switch the PopShots' flash on or off. Then aim, press the button and yank a pull-ring.

Out comes the film, which develops in a minute or two. The photos are adequate, but lousy at the price, and like most single-use cameras, the PopShots is a poor performer in the shade, even with the flash. The 35 mm varieties work this way: There's a plastic thumbwheel on the upper-right portion of the camera, and you spin it a couple of times to get the film ready to shoot. Then you aim through the viewfinder, push the button and turn the thumbwheel to advance the film. It stops automatically.

If the camera is equipped with a flash, there's a simple switch to turn it on or off. Flash models usually cost about $1 more than Small Business RHONDA ABRAMS you waiver, thinking "Oh my gosh, I don't want to go straight down," then you might stop turning and actually end up facing downhill just what you wanted to avoid. Business, too, is all about making turns. When you start a company, you have an idea of where you want to go, -but you quickly find you have to change your plan sometimes slightly, sometimes a great deal. As you continue in business, you discover there are times that call for you to make dramatic turns: perhaps new competition enters the market, your profit margins erode, or new technologies create vast differences in how you 1 -1 ii ii 100 80 60 40 20 "-i 1 A 1 jl! will flash on every picture.

Both cameras take excel-; lent photos, and the panoramic shots are a delight. It's a bit disconcerting on both cameras when you've switched to panoramic mode and look through the viewfinder. The corners are blurry. But the photos come out crisp. Because of their versatility, we preferred the APS cameras over the standard 35 mm point-and-shooters.

They cost a couple bucks more, but the investment in a single-use camera is so small to begin with that the slightly higher price is hardly worth considering. Keep in mind that single-use cameras have two other drawbacks besides problematic photos in shade: no close-ups and no zoom. Because of the fixed-focus lens, you cannot get closer to your subject than 3 or 4 feet. And none of these cameras comes with a zoom lens at the moment. "The joke is that pretty soon we'll have a one-time-use camera that has motor-wind, automatic zoom, redeye reduction and everything else," said Fuji Film's Shay.

But it may not be so farfetched, Fischman said. "Let me put it this way: We're not done yet." business every direction is the right direction. The issue is "Did you try? Did you commit?" I don't ski anymore. The turns stopped feeling right. Who knows? One day I may start skiing again.

It's just not right for me right now. The same thing applies in business, sometimes it's just not the right time to be making a certain turn. It's not failure. It's choice. As you make a change in your business life, indeed in any part of your life, follow through with it sufficiently to give it a chance to succeed give it enough energy and push to create the momentum to carry through the inevitable rough spots.

Commit yourself to the turn. Rhonda Abrams is the author of "The Successful Business Plan: Secrets and Strategies." Contact her at rhondabest.com or 555 Bryant Street, Palo Alto, 94301. Her column is published alternating Mondays. Briefly in Business Shortage leads to United cancellations camera testing: in the toreground, very dark in less prone to damage than strips of negatives and you get a coded index of your photographs, which makes reordering easier. And the film is, in a sense, smart, so that it can convey information to the photofinishing equipment and with higher-end APS cameras.

But that's technical stuff you probably don't care much about. What's nice with the single-use APS cameras is the ability to shoot panoramic photos great if you have to shoot, for example, a tall monument close up or a group of 20 people. You won't have to jam them together or move farther away if they're in a line. Kodak's Advantix Switchable camera (around $9) lets you choose between a 4-by-7 wide-angle and a 4-by-12 panoramic format; Fujifilm's Quick-Snap Multi-View (about $8) one-ups its rival, offering aU three APS formats. With a switch at the bottom of the lens, you can choose a standard 4-by-6 format, wider-angle 4-by-7 or panoramic.

Both cameras give you 25 exposures, and both are equipped with a flash. The Kodak model, in fact, requires turning the flash on to start the camera, and it turn' in will feel uncertain about their future and will hesitate to make the necessary changes and sacrifices to help insure success. You have to believe. You have to stay the course. That doesn't mean you can't examine and readjust the details of the choices you've made.

You can and should. But be careful: I've seen so many companies, especially large corporations, that either pull the plug on a project too soon, or more often, only commit half-heartedly to new undertakings. Both approaches lead to failure: ending a project too soon means you haven't given it enough time to prove whether or not it could succeed; half-hearted choices lead to cynicism. When you don't "commit yourself to the turn," you're going to end up facing straight downhill. When you do commit and you give it your whole-hearted determination, and then the project doesn't work, then go ahead and stop turning.

Not CHICAGO United Airlines canceled at least 120 flights at O'Hare International Airport on Sunday, and the company blamed the cancellations on pilots who have refused to worked overtime since their contract expired in April. On Saturday, 150 flights at O'Hare, more than 15 percent of the total, were scrapped for the same reason. A line of thunderstorms in the central United States Sunday evening also created delays of up to two hours said those without. Unless you're sure you'll have good light for every shot, we'd advise paying the extra dollar and getting one with a flash. There's another reason to do so, Kodak's Fischman said.

"One thing most consumers don't understand is that in order to get the best picture you want to use the flash in almost all instances, even outdoors. In an outdoor setting where you might have a lot of background light, the flash is going to fill in your subject and you're going to get better definition." Photo system Variety can make your photos more interesting, too. There are now single-use cameras that use APS Advanced Photo System, which gives users more versatility on photo size. Professional photographers tend to dislike APS because, with the 24 mm film, the negatives are less than half the size of 35 mm photographs. Consequently, when APS photos are greatly enlarged, they are quite grainy.

But for standard photos, you're not going to notice any difference. Your film returns in a cartridge easier to store and conduct business. You have to go in a new direction. You may be a little timid as you set off on a new course, or you may rush quickly into it. Whatever your confidence level at the beginning, as you get into your turn as you start to face and deal with the consequences of the choices you've made, realizing this is going to be.

harder than it looked that's when you get scared. And that's when you have to "commit yourself to the turn." When you are trying to develop a new direction for your company a new project, an expansion, new technologies you have to follow through on your decision with enough support, resources, and especially time, to give it a reasonable chance to succeed. If you are working with others, especially employees, it's particularly important that you stay committed. Employees take their lead from you, the leader. If you waiver in your resolution to your new project, employees Commit yourself to the Gun buyback exceeds expections When I was first learning to ski many years ago, I remember an instructor repeatedly telling me, "Commit yourself to the turn." I've never forgotten those words because I find that in business, as in skiing, whenever you want to go in a new direction, you have to follow the same advice.

Skiing is all about making turns. As a beginner, you make big, wide turns across the entire width of the ski run. You don't really go downhill; you go side-to-side. If you're like me a little cautious and timid in a new sport you go fairly slowly as you make these turns. As a result, there's a moment in each turn in which you realize you're facing straight down hill.

That's when you get scared. Now here's the interesting part: if you stay committed if you don't let your fear get the best of you your body should move you around, safely completing the turn. If SYRACUSE When a local grocery store chain offered to fund a gun buyback program, everybody was optimistic. Not this optimistic, though: the 12-day program" netted 316 weapons. "You never put a number on an expectation, but I had it in my mind that 150 to 200 guns was kind of what I'd like to have," said Mike Backman, Syracuse's director of public affairs.

"Certainly, when we passed 200, then we passed 250, and then 300, we were all surprised." By comparison, a program last year in New York City netted 659 weapons in four weeks. Under that buyback program, anyone who turned in an operable weapon at a police station house received amnesty and a $100 voucher redeemable at the district attorney's office. In return for the guns in the Syracuse program, police handed out $15,800 in grocery vouchers donated by Foods. "You can't beat the.