As you may have heard on the news or read in one of our press releases, Child Trader is now the nations 4th largest child exchange network and as such, has brought happiness to more than 1623 American households who otherwise had very few options in creating a more loving family and home life when realizing their child wasn’t the right fit for them.

Child Trader Child Exchange Network isn’t about not loving childing. Its about finding a family that can love them more. Get started today with this exciting new way to love your children.

Child Trader Home Page.

Here's a series of photos I shot in May of '08 with a Canon EOS 40D and an image stabilized, ultra-sonic telescopic zoom lens (EF-S 17-85mm f/4.0-5.6 IS USM). For the indoor shots, I used a Canon Speedlite 580EX mounted on a Stroboframe Pro-T bracket mounted to a Canon BG-E2 battery grip with a custom-fabricated anti-twist bracket. For the wildlife shots, I used a a Canon L-Series image stabilized, ultra-sonic telescopic zoom lens (EF 100-400mm f/4.0-5.6 IS USM) with a 77mm circular polarizing filter and an ET-83C hood.

I've posted 56 shots as a 16 Meg (4:13) Adobe Flash slideshow(natural.swf) that you should be able to open and view with any browser. Image post-processing was done in Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended. The slideshow was created using Imagematics Stillmotion Pro, which I highly recommend.

Click here to view the other slideshows.

The soundtrack is Natural Blues by Moby. Lyrics in extended entry.

oh lordy, trouble so hard
oh lordy, trouble so hard,
don't nobody know my troubles but God
don't nobody know my troubles but God

went down the hill, the other day
my soul got happy and stayed all day

oh lordy...

went in the room, didn't stay long,
looked on the bed and brother was dead

oh lordy...

I love this video from Moby. It came out in 2000, but I don't think I'd heard it before.

Swiss man soars above Alps with jet-powered wing:

"BEX, Switzerland - A Swiss pilot strapped on a jet-powered wing and leaped from a plane Wednesday for the first public demonstration of the homemade device, turning figure eights and soaring high above the Alps.

Yves Rossy's performance in front of the world press capped five years of training and many more years of dreaming.

"This flight was absolutely excellent," the former fighter pilot and extreme sports enthusiast said after touching down on an airfield near the eastern shore of Lake Geneva.

Rossy, 48, had stepped out of the Swiss-built Pilatus Porter aircraft at 7,500 feet and unfolded the rigid eight-foot wings strapped to his back before jumping.

Passing from free fall to a gentle glide, Rossy then triggered four jet turbines and accelerated to 186 miles per hour, about 65 miles per hour faster than the typical falling skydiver. A plane that flew at some distance beside him measured his speed."

Run msconfig to open up the system configuration utility and de-select apdproxy.exe or Adobe Photo Downloader 3.0 in the Startup menu.

Now it wants me to restart. A small price to pray for getting rid of this virus.

So, the best solution IMHO is to change the port that RDP listens to on each of the computers.

1. On the XP computer that you want to access via Remote Desktop, open your favorite registry editor.

2. Navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\TerminalServer\WinStations\RDP-Tcp

3. Double click the PortNumber subkey, click the Edit menu and select Modify.

4. Click Decimal.

5. In the value field, type the number of the port that you want to use instead of 3389.

6. Click OK.

7. Close the registry editor.

Now you'll need to configure the RDC client to use the new port. Here's how:

1. On the client computer, click Start | All Programs | Accessories | Communications | Remote Desktop Connection.

2. In the Computer field, type the name or IP address of the XP computer you configured above, then type a colon and the port number (for example, MyComputer:3390.

3. Click Connect.

After all of this, you still have to go into Start - Settings - Control Panel - Windows Firewall - Exceptions - And add the new port to allow TCP traffic. Otherwise, you'll never get through the firewall.

But now that Jennifer has a computer, I'm starting to change my way of thinking. For the first time in my life, I want to set up a computer so that two different people can use it, and have a somewhat different experience.

For starters, when she launches a browser, I want her to have a different home page than I have. And I want her to have a different filter on her Google search results as well. And, although I don't mind if she wants to run software on the PC, probably only I should be doing any full-on software installs/upgrades.

So I'm going to try to get two user accounts set up on this computer where I am the administrator and she has only user priveleges.

When I attempted to connect to my new computer over a RDP session, it wouldn't work. So I went to the "remote" computer, righ clicked on "My Computer", selected "Properties" and "Remote" and then clicked "Select Remote Users", I noticed that it says: "The users listed below can connect to this computer, and any members of the Administrators group can connect even if they are not listed." Then it says "Admin" already has access. (My account really isn't named "Admin", I'm just calling it that so I don't get hacked.) And I'm thinking...who the h3ll is "Admin"? This isn't a user that I see when I sign on.

So, I began to believe that there is a full-on built-in administrator account, but you can't see it when you sign in. At least, that's what I began to suspect, as crazy as it seems. So, tonight it bothered me enough that I decided to figure out what was going on and I found this:

The built-in Administrator account is hidden from Welcome Screen when a user account with Administrator privileges exists and enabled. In Windows XP Home Edition, you can login as built-in Administrator in Safe Mode only. For XP Professional, press CTRL + ALT + DEL twice at the Welcome Screen and input your Administrator password in the classic logon window that appears.

Since I already had the Microsoft Tweak UI Powertoy 2.10.0.0 installed, I just did the following:

Open TweakUI and click "Logon" option in the left pane. Put a checkmark against the option "Show Administrator on Welcome Screen". Click OK to close TweakUI.

I go around to each one of my computers, in turn and repeat the Tweak UI change to show the Administrator account and I see that, without exception, each computer now shows me the true "Administrator" account. I'm not really sure what I've accomplished in doing this, but I have to start somewhere to unravel the mystery of XP security. I feel like I have the short end of the wedge in now.

But then, I signed off and switched over and signed on as "Administrator" and....wow. I mean...what can I say? I have a new desktop...the XP idiot version of the Start Menu...then it asks me if I want to take a tour of Windows XP an then right away, AVG boots up from scratch and asks me if I want to check for updates like it's doing some initial run and I'm thinking....this is exactly what I wanted to avoid.

What I really want to do is clone her setup and make my account exactly like hers. That's what I really want to do.

What's really confusing to me is that on my new web server, there seem to be two different names for the same account. For instance, my account seems to be alternately referred to as "Robert" and "XP". Why is this? I have no idea.

OK. Now, I've dug around some and this is what I've come up with. In XP, when you create a new account, the account can be a "Computer Administrator" or a "Limited" account. You must give the account a name - let's assume you call the account "Bubba". At the time that the account is created, an "Object" with an "Object Type" of "User" is created with a "Name(RDN)" of "Bubba" in the "Location" of your Computer Name. The reason for all the quotes is that, apparently, all of this means something to XP. (It means nothing to me.)

But here's the tricky part. Now, let's say that you want to rename the user account. You can. But the Object that was created is never renamed. So, you'll still see the old object name occasionally, like when the computer shows you what accounts already have access to use RDP, you'll see the old Object name. Perfect.

So, what it looks like to me is that XP Pro does sort of a half-@ssed job of renaming user accounts and, in order to never see the old user name again, I'm going to have to delete my account and re-add it. Great. Good job, Microsoft. Argh!

OK. Let's leave that for now. First, I want to create a new user account for me on Jennifer's computer, but I want it to be an exact copy of her account. At least that gives me a decent starting point, instead of being prompted to "Take a Tour of Windows XP."

So this web page seems to describe a process for copying user profiles in XP Pro, so I followed their directions:

To copy a user profile in XP do the following:

Open System applet in Control Panel (or right-click My Computer and choose Properties).
Click the Advanced tab.
In the User Profiles section click Settings.
Highlight the user profile you want to copy. Press Copy To.

Now, this was interesting, because this is stuff I've never played with, for whatever reason. There are a lot of caveats on the page, about what profiles you can copy and where you can copy them, etc., but this is the general gist of it. So, I did this --- I copied a Profile, but it didn't create a new user account. I want to create a new user account. I want to rename the stupid Object. It shouldn't be this hard.

OK. After poking around some more, it looks like this is half of the solution. According to this site, you have to create a new account and then copy your profile from the old account to the new one.

However, I tried this and it did something funky to me. Something I haven't seen since I was working out in Tennessee. What it did was to create a new profile/folder for me under documents and settings named "Robert.Dell1700mhz", as in "user.computername". When, what I wanted it to do was to use the profile/folder that I had created when I copied the profile. Argh!

OK. I didn't follow the directions closely enough. I started over and followed these directions by the letter and it worked fine. I swear to God that Microsoft sucks, and it certainly shouldn't be this hard to copy a user, but this does work if you're patient and diligent.

Update: After much tinkering and swearing, I've come to the following conclusion. If you need to copy a User, you can't. There's just no point in even trying. It's too hard, and Microsoft is too fucked up to realize this. Just create a new user and copy over whatever you need using Windows Explorer. Just muddle through it the best you can, because there is no slick way to do it.

Observation Number 1: You can never really "rename" a user. You can change the name that you see in some places in XP, but behind the scenes, XP never forgets what the object's name was when it was created. It never forgets and it never forgives. XP carries the old object name around forever like herpes. The only way to truly make the old user "object" go away is to delete the user and start over.

Observation Number 2: You should never use Microsoft's little God-forsaken tool to copy user profiles. They have a clever little utility to copy user profiles - to access it, you right-click on My Computer and select Advanced and then under User Profiles click Settings. It's hidden for a reason. Because it doesn't work. Or, at the very best, it does very little of what you'd like it to do and a great deal that you don't want it to do. What you'd like it to do that it doesn't do:
a) It doesn't copy forward all of your customized little settings - like the fact that you use Windows classic taskbar and folder views and your desktop wallpaper and that you don't want automatic Word selection turned on in MS Word and that you never never never want to see that fucking dog or that paperclip again. My vision of hell is me working on a computer for the rest of my life with that dog and that paperclip popping up six times a minute with a Billy Mays commercial blaring in the background and some psychotic bitch ringing my doorbell as fast as humanly possible.
b) It does copy the files from one user to another, but it doesn't do it very well. By this, I mean that it's exceedingly slow and agonizingly temperamental. I got multiple errors while it attempted to copy profiles.
c) When it did finally successfully copy the profile, it kept vestigial remnants of the original user name that I've been trying all night to delete. Like, somehow, XP knows that the "My Documents" folder was originally created for a user named "Jennifer Kiser". I believe this has something to do with Active Directory Structure, but I don't know and I don't care. Just want this old user ID to die and I can't kill it. Argh!
d) When I delete a user on this computer, it asks me if I want to keep the user's files and I say "No". So, you'd think that the profile is deleted. It isn't. When I go into their horrible little Profile tool, I see it is still listed there as "Account Unknown". Nice job, Microsoft. Well played. I have to delete it manually, but you have to reboot before you're allowed to do even this.

So, at the end of the day, what has this miserable little User Profile utility actually done for us? Not much. It's created as many problems as it's solved. Each application you go into will act like it's never been run before, whether it's MS Word or Firefox or even Windows Explorer. True, your files are there, but any Computer Administrator can see at a glance that the files were copied from another user.

My suggestion is just to create a new user. Copy over the files you want using Windows Explorer. And then delete the old user.

I despise photographic printers for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it's practically impossible to keep an inkjet printer operating successfully in your home. I mean, sure, in theory, you think it's no big deal. I'll just walk into a Best Buy or a Circuit City and I'll buy one and put it on my credit card and take it home and set it up and voila!

Well, that's true. You can do that. I've done that, more than once. I'm no smarter than the next guy. I fell for that trap also. But then, you have to take care of it. Inkjet printers are more like pets than home electronics

You have to print a page out of that printer every single day you're alive or your jets will get clogged and then you're screwed, screwed, screwed.

You have to feed the printer wildly expensive glossy paper and priceless ink and if the printer is worth more than a plugged nickel, then it has six different color ink cartridges like mine and it's always running out of ink. That's how you know it's alive is that it's screaming for ink day and night and eating expensive paper and you have to buy the ink from the printer manufacturer or the color on your photos won't look right and each ink cartridge costs $20 and holds about a thimble full of ink - just enough ink to allow you time to replace it and go on to replace all of the cartridges before it runs out again. And so it goes.

And then, before too long, the printer tells the computer to tell you that it's out of ink. My printer is a bi-directional printer, which means that not only does the computer tell the printer what to print, but the printer talks back to the computer and whines when one of the 47 ink tanks runs low.

Once the printer says he's out of ink, the computer commands you to replace the ink and refuses to print until you do so. Everything stops. So you go to replace the ink.

Printer ink is not cheap. This guy calculates that, in some cases, the ink costs $90/fl oz. That would put the price of inkjet printer ink at $483,840 a barrel.*

And you know good-and-damned-well that the cartridge isn't out of $90/fl oz ink because, at least on my printer, the cartridges are clear. You can see that they're still half full of ink. But it makes no difference. You can't argue with HAL. The computer commands you to replace it so you do it. And no sooner do you replace the Cyan cartridge then the computer tells you the Magenta cartridge is empty. And so it goes.

Of course, you always figured that the computer and the printer were lying to you, but Epson finally commissioned a study to prove it. They measured the amount of ink left in the cartridge when the printer indicated it had to be replaced and found that over half of inkjet printer ink is thrown away.

So the printer was lying all along. The printer told the computer to tell you that the ink cartridge was empty, when it wasn't. Together, the printer and the computer convinced you to throw away your ink old cartridge and put in a new one when the old one was still half-full of ink.

The printer conspires with the computer to trick you into wasting ink. God as my witness, I am not making this up. Think about that. Two machines conspiring to deceive the human "master" makes for a impressive start on the road to passing the Turing test.

After this goes on for some time, eventually the waste ink reservoir fills up and the printer shuts down and refuses to proceed. Or you take a vacation and don't print a page out of that printer for a few days, the jets get clogged and your "nozzle check" looks like h3ll and once the jets get clogged and you're royally screwed and disassembling the printer and soaking the jets in Isopropyl alcohol and blowing them out with 100 psi of compressed air won't change that. Trust me. I know. I've played this game. I've had lots of printers. Right now, I have a Canon S9000 and I'm already on my 2nd print head and when I try to print anything it looks like Jennifer drew it with crayons with her eyes closed. That printer is absolutely worthless and just knowing that it's sitting there makes me so mad I want to start killing strangers.

Well, there are all sorts of options for outsourcing the printing out your images. Everyone from Walmart to CostCo to Snapfish will print them for you. No problem. But which one? Which service should I use?

I've seen images come out of Walmart that looked like...well...that they were printed at Walmart.

This website recommends using Snapfish. I have no clue. No clue.

As if this weren't enough, now you have to decide what size you will print. And, don't forget, the standard size prints and the standard size frames are all different aspect ratios. I mean, seriously. What idiot came up with this?

My camera shoots a 3:2 aspect ratio. The only reason for this is that a 35mm camera has a 3:2 aspect ratio and this was because the film camera was originally designed to shoot a single frame of 35mm movie film, but I digress.

In theory, a 3:2 aspect ratio file would print nicely on a 4x6 print. Now, I don't believe for a second that a 4x6 print is 4" by 6" any more than a 2x4 piece of lumber is 2" by 4". Those are just convenient round numbers that help identify a particular standard size of print (or lumber). But I seriously doubt that the measurements are exact in either case. But we'll leave that for now.

Unfortunately, when you go to a 5x7 or 8x10, your image gets cropped. Why, well it's all explained here in tedious detail with nice little graphics. Their recommended solution is to leave plenty of space around your subject., so presumably, your RAW digital image in Adobe Photoshop CS3 will be like a bad "where's waldo" game trying to find the subject. Brilliant. Excellent solution.

So, what? I join Snapfish and send them some files and see what I get? I guess that's the plan, is it? OK. Fair enough. Then that's what I'll do.

To Be Continued...

* A barrel of oil is 42 US gallons. 1 US gallon is 128 US fluid ounces. Therefore, if the printer ink costs $90/fl oz, then 90 * 128 * 42 = $483,840 a barrel. I say we send troops to Silicon Valley.

Update: Mitch suggested I consider a Continuous Ink System.

Low levels of humidity can contribute to respiratory infections, allergic and asthmatic symptoms and an increase in airborne dust and allergens. As the chart demonstrates, there is a recommended humidity range of 40% to 60% that is optimal for indoor air quality. If the humidity level is too low, Bacteria, Viruses, Respiratory Infections and Allergic Asthma will increase. If the humidity level is too high, Dust Mites and Fungi/Mold will proliferate and Allergic Asthma will also increase.

After losing a video card to electrostatic discharge recently, I decided to get more serious about controlling the temperature and relative humidity in my my personal data center. I ordered a digital hygrometer/thermometer and mounted it on the wall. It showed the room to be 72° F, with a relative humidity of 29%.

The recommended ambient temperature range for a computer room is 68° to 75°F . So, the temperature seems fine. But the recommended ambient relative humidity range is between 45% and 55%. So, this is pretty much what I expected to find.

I drug my humidifier into the computer room, positioned it on the floor under one of the desks, and filled it with water. In theory, the water shouldn't be a hazard as all computers are positioned on elevated desks to mitigate hard drive bearing degradation due to dust particles.

I set the humidifier on "High" and closed the office door. Now, I feel like Michael Jackson in his hyperbaric chamber. I think I'll go buy some giraffes.

However, since I closed the door, and I have all these computers running in here (4 at the moment), the ambient room temperature has risen from 72°F to 78°F, and it's snowing outside. So, now I've got to figure out how to lower the room temperature in the computer room. I'll start by turning off some of the computers, but this seems somehow like a less than optimal solution.

That was when I learned that the Yakuza controlled all of the prostitution in Hawaii and I was like, "What's the Yakuza?" Turns out, it's the Japanese mob. Who knew? In any event, you can go down there and see for yourself. At sunset, walk down Kalakaua, the main drag in Waikiki and you'll see the working girls come out as thick as Formosan termites.

Now, every city has drugs and prostitutes. It's supply and demand. As Adam Smith said, if the demand is there, the invisible hand will rise up to satisfy the demand. In my experience, however, rarely though does this all occur in front of the police station. The police in Waikiki are not interested in enforcing the law. There's a term for failure to enforce the law. It's called malfeasance. I wonder what their agreement is with the Yakuza?

I can see the Raw thumbnails in Adobe Bridge CS3, but I can't open the files in Photoshop CS3. In Photoshop CS3, I selected Help - About Plug-In - Camera Raw. It says I'm using Adobe Camera Raw Plug-In Version 4.0, so I'm going to install the Adobe Camera Raw 4.4.1 Plug-In update.

To install with Adobe Creative Suite 3 or Photoshop CS3:
1. Exit Photoshop CS3.
2. Open My Computer.
3. Double-click Local Disk (C:).
4. Navigate to: c:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Plug-Ins\CS3\File Formats
5. Move the existing Camera Raw.8bi plug-in to another location (for example, a new folder on your desktop). Ensure you keep this version in case you need to revert back.
6. Copy the Camera Raw plug-in, Camera Raw.8bi, from the download into the same folder as in step 4.
7. Launch Photoshop CS3 or Adobe Bridge.

Note: If generic camera thumbnails appear in Adobe Bridge, follow these steps:

1. Check to make sure the plug-in was installed in the correct directory in step 4 above.
2. Start Bridge.
3. Choose Tools > Cache > Purge Central Cache.

OK. Now, I can open the .CR2 Raw files in Adobe Photoshop CS3. Why do I have the feeling that this is just the beginning of a long and painful learning curve?

I found these tutorials somewhat useful:
Processing Raw images in the Bridge
Sharpening with Camera Raw

I tried to run in the install, but I got two error messages:

Apparently, I'm not the only one having problems installing CS3. I tried uninstalling Adobe Photoshop CS and then repairing the Adobe Photoshop CS3 installation, but got the same error messages. This sucks.

I searched my Adobe Installer log at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Installers\Adobe Photoshop CS3 10.0.log for
"FATAL, DEBUG, ERROR and Return Value 3 (Windows only)". I didn't find anything like this.

I looked in my Windows Event Viewer, but I didn't see anything really ominous in there. The worst message I saw was something about a "Bonjour Service". Turns out, Bonjour Service is something that Adobe is installing. I'm not 100% sure what it is, but it's trying to communicate back to Adobe and I think my firewall is blocking it. Too bad. Suck it Bonjour Service.

I'm going to try to run Adobe's Clean Scripts. First, though, I had to install Windows Installer CleanUp Utility. Then, I ran Adobe's Clean Scripts at Level 2 (full-on, double-throw-down). Then, I turned off my AVG Anti-Virus software and ran their Photoshop CS3 Install again (started at 10:52).

Oh Lord God it finally worked!

So, the steps I followed on my next computer were:
1) Install Windows Installer CleanUp Utility.
2) Run Adobe's Clean Scripts at Level 2.
3) Restart computer.
4) Turn off anti-virus software.
5) Run Adobe Photoshop CS3 install.

Good evening my fellow Americans. As we all know this has already been a long, hard fought campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. But tonight, with my recent victory in Indiana, and Senator Obama's in North Carolina, we remain exactly where we were four months ago. hopelessly deadlocked.

Therefore this nomination is going to be be decided, as it should be, by the superdelegates; Based not on primary results or caucauses or delegate counts or popular vote. But on their sober assessment of which candidate will be the strongest against Senator McCain in November. Tonight, I'm here to tell you why I am that candidate.

First - I am a sore loser...[snip]...Unlike my opponent, I'm just not going to lose gracefully.
Second - My supporters are racist.
Third - I have no ethical standards.

Earlier this week, Brian told me that, with his new camera, he noticed that the Raw images appeared to pixelate more quickly as he zoomed in, than did the associated .jpg files. I admitted that I haven't been shooting Raw images.

The last time I shot Raw images, I gave it up because 1) I couldn't see thumbnails in Windows Explorer and 2) I couldn't edit the files in Photoshop. But now, I'm looking back at shooting in the Raw for a variety of reasons.

But that was a long time ago, and I've developed a lot as a photographer in the last few years, and I couldn't really come up with a good reason why I didn't go back and revisit the decision to shoot Raw images, so I decided to see if I could reproduce Brian's test in the field.

At the Butterfly Pavillion today, I set the EOS 40D to shoot dual images - Raw and the high-resolution .jpg (3888 x 2592). Then, when I got home, I set about to process the Raw (.CR2) images.

This guy recommends using ArcSoft Raw Thumbnail Viewer. This isn't working either, though - plus, it has the worst regisration nag ever.

Now, I'm trying to follow these directions. OMG. I finally got it working. It was a royal pain, but it works now - I can see thumbnails of the .CR2 images in Windows Explorer.

Then, I went downstairs and got all of my EOS 40D installation disks and threw them into my laptop and installed every piece of software on them, as my old EOS 20D verion of Canon's ZoomBrowser didn't seem to work with the 40D. But, the new install wasn't stable, so I went to Canon's website and downloaded the latest version ZoomBrowser EX 6.0.1.

I successfully opened the image with ZoomBrowser EX 6.0.1 and then clicked on "Display Original Image" which converts the .CR2 image into a .TIF image. I then zoomed in on the tip of one of the Orchid's petals as far as possible.

Then, I opened the .jpg version of the same identical image in Windows Picture and Fax viewer and zoomed in to the same level.

Finally, I was able to view the two identical images side-by-side and I was surprised to see that, as Brian had discovered, when you zoom in as close as possible on the .CR2 file, it does indeed appear to pixelate more quickly.

I found this discussion on Raw vs. JPG:

Part of the conversion to JPEG are sharpening algorithms and as a result, the unprocessed Raw file is less sharp. Two things can affect this, one is the brand of camera (Nikon cameras are generally considered sharper, but this is not true across all models) and the other factor is the user settings for sharpening in the camera. Loading a Raw file in a program such as Adobe Photoshop CS2 will automatically apply white balance, sharpening, constrast, brightness, etc… and can even batch process Raw files.

So, this appears to explain the observed results. The Raw unprocessed file will appear less sharp because a JPG sharpening algorithm has never been applied to the file, although this could be remedied by opening the file in Photoshop.

So now, the real question is what are the pros and cons of shooting in the Raw? And should I start shooting Raw?

The pros of shooting .JPG files are numerous:
1) JPG files are easier to view. You can see thumbnails in Windows Explorer. You can view them with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. You can share them with others. Anyone can open and view a .jpg file.
2) JPG files are smaller. You can hold more images in your camera. You can store more photos on your computer's hard drive.
3) JPG files are faster. You can shoot more images in rapid succession because the slowest part of most cameras is actually writing the images to the memory card. If the files are larger, it takes longer to write the files to the memory card.
4) There is no true standard Raw file format. Each camera manufacturer has one (or more) of their own proprietary file formats They do this on purpose. It's not by accident. The camera companies want to lock people into using their camera and their software. They don't want some open-source non-proprietary Raw lossless file-format, or we'd have it. So, processing the Raw files is that much harder if you don't use the software supplied with your camera. For instance, I know that, if I try to go play with my Raw images in Adobe Photoshop, I'm going to be cussing and swearing and searching for plugins just to be able to load Canon's .CR2 files into Adobe Photoshop and view them, much less change them.

The reported pros of shooting in Raw format appear to be:
1) "Shooting in Raw will give you much more control over how your image looks and even be able to correct several sins you may have committed when you took the photograph, such as the exposure."
2) When you process the Raw file using Adobe Photoshop's Camera Raw, you can "change the white balance, exposure, contrast, saturation, and even calibration of the red, green, and blue guns or correct for lens abberation - all lossless".
3) Color is better - Raw stores 12 bits of color per location, instead of 8 bits of color in .jpg. If you shoot in Jpg, some color is lost as is some of the resolution (and on some cameras there is slightly more noise in a JPEG than its Raw version).
4) Resolution is better - If you shoot in Jpg, some of the resolution is lost.
5) There may be less noise - On some cameras there is slightly more noise in a JPEG than its Raw version.

Ugh. Well, as much as I hate it, I think I'm going to have to start shooting some Raw images and playing around with them in Adobe Photoshop.