Wednesday 28 December 2011

Manually Shifting to Automatic Transmission

Huuuuuh? Did I read this correctly? From May 2012, there will be two types of driving licenses... a manual transmission one and an automatic transmission one... If I'm not careful, I might think that if I have a manual transmission driving license, I can't drive a car with auto transmission... and will there be a summon if a person with an auto transmission license is caught driving a car with manual transmission?

Automatically confused. Both ingenious and insane.

via The Star Online

Saturday 24 December 2011

Almost All New Ringgit Notes while RM20 Makes a Comeback

According to The Star Online, Bank Negara will issue new bank notes for all denominations save for RM50 in mid-2012. The RM20 which was long been removed from circulation will be returning.

Tuesday 6 December 2011

La Nina and Monsoon Tag Team

Be careful out there, fellow Malaysians living in the Klang Valley! The monsoon and La Nina are about to unleash their forces upon us, bringing strong winds and severe thunderstorms. Take care and be safe!

via Star Online.

Tuesday 29 November 2011

21 Jump Street the Movie

What? I was shocked while checking out apple.com/trailers! After the immediate shock, I was hoping there would be Johnny Depp in it... a quick check at IMdB proved that he is in it... but only as a cameo. :( After going through the trailer, I was sort of disappointed... it's more like a comedy than the cool and sombre TV series. Check it out for yourselves here:

Monday 28 November 2011

Cabs Driven by Women for Women

Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Senator Datuk Heng Seai Kie (phew, what a mouthful!) launched the new initiative where designated female-driven cabs will be picking up ONLY women or women with children and senior citizens. This appears to come in time of increased crime rates and I would say a welcome move. This is a call-in service with three companies taking part: Destination Transport, Zalnas Sdn Bhd and Koperasi Pengangkutan Putrajaya dan Cyberjaya.

At the moment there are 50 women taxi drivers. Heng encouraged more women to take part, particularly single mothers, housewives and retirees. She expected at least 400 women taxi drivers in Klang Valley eventually. Interested parties could call 03-8024 0507, 03-2692 6000 and 03-88884020, though I'm not sure if these lines are for those interested in being taxi drivers or the numbers to book these special cabs.


via The Star Online.

Thursday 17 November 2011

Clouds above the Malaysian sky...

Was driving down South for a meeting yesterday and noticed that the clouds were rather interesting, so I took a photo with my HTC Desire mobile phone. After putting the photo through picplz's new editing features of cropping and rotating, here's the original:
If these clouds were in Russia*, they would look like this:
*assuming the Russian Toy Camera filter in picplz turns a photo Russian. ;)

Tuesday 8 November 2011

The Unwelcome Guest

Ever so subtle, your host may drop a hint here and there when you have over spent your welcome...

Monday 7 November 2011

Mission: Alfred Hitchcock Presents

I was a huge fan of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents series even when I was way too underage to watch these intense psychological thrillers. Today I was in the mood to look for the theme song in Youtube and here it is:

While I was at it, I saw the Mission: Impossible theme there as well, another series that I'm a huge fan of:

In The Cool Blue of Anger

Snapped this in Berjaya Times Square last night... cool, blue Smurfs sandwiched between Angry Birds:

Saturday 29 October 2011

Reverting Science and Mathematics to Sains dan Matematik

I started my schooling life as a Malaysian having all my subjects taught in Malay except for English. Many years after leaving school, I heard that Sains dan Matematik had been revised to be taught in English. Today, browsing through my news feeds, I found out that it's back to Malay for these subjects again. I'm at a lost as to why our leaders could shift from one language over another just like that? Education is really important.

Lately, I've noticed that many important Malay words were forgotten and simply replaced by Malay-ed English. One such recent one was our annual Bajet. I was taught that it really was Belanjawan during my school days. Sigh...

Sunday 23 October 2011

How Lightbox filters enhanced the dull grey sky...

When it comes to social photo sharing apps like Lightbox and picplz (the only two that I use interchangeably these days), it's plenty easy to enhance the sky. The original picture featured a dull grey sky...

Plunk it through the Redscale filter and I got a burning evening sky:

Put it through the Ansel filter and the outcome a better contrast B&W image:

Saturday 15 October 2011

picplz "Quickie" Smartphone Unsharp Mask Takes The Lead Over Lightbox

I've been comparing both picplz and Lightbox for quite awhile now and am still at it albeit a little slower these days as the novelty began to wear off. Make no mistake, I still love to snap a thing or two here and there but due to busy work schedule, the interest waned a little.

Today, I stumbled upon this "Enhanced Definition" filter in picplz and would like to share it with everyone here. The photo was first processed with another great app called Pixlr-o-matic from Autodesk before I put it through picplz. The one below was untouched by any picplz filter while the one at the bottom got its definition enhanced. You be the judge:



As far as I'm concerned, picplz helped sharpen my blurry photo. Have not encountered any other app with such a sharpening tool. Hence picplz 2, Lightbox 1.

Monday 10 October 2011

The Moon Ring

Saw this earlier just now... apparently bringer of bad weather but at this moment, it remains a sight to behold:
Moon #4 - The Moon Ring

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Cloaking Device Unveiled

While the iPhone 5 rumour has been flushed down the toilet, something hiding underwater was discovered before the Klingons found us! Scientists have unveiled a cloaking device that works only underwater at the moment utilising the mirage principle with aid from nanotubes. Figure that out!? O.o



via Engadget.

Saturday 24 September 2011

Lightbox draws with picplz - In-App Cropping

As Lightbox gets updated, a few features had been added and cropping within the app is one of them. Was meaning to post this for quite some time now but when I had the time, Blogger did not. So today is the day for this. :)
There is 1:1, 4:3, 3:4, 16:9 and unrestricted cropping.

Besides that, you can also rotate and flip the photos.

Lightbox 1 picplz 1.

Sunday 18 September 2011

Philosophy Buck

Invented this phrase while trying to convince my friend that a supposedly ugly photo is indeed pleasant looking:

Sometimes, the ugliest photo brings the happiest moments.

Maybe not grammatically correct but oooh, I like it! XD

Monday 5 September 2011

Is it legal to snap a photo of the cinema before the show starts?

picplz 1 Lightbox 0 - Photo uploads from desktop

I know picplz and Lightbox are both mobile photo sharing apps where their primary task is to share photos taken by mobile phones but I like to upload photos taken with my digital camera, too. I would prefer to upload to flickr but I'm stuck with the 200 photo limit because I'm just too stingy to go for the pro account. Then there's Picasa but that one's got a 1GB limit... or something like that and yup, too stingy to pay for more space.

picplz and Lightbox are the only ones at this moment where I can upload photos and hot link to this blog (because if I upload photos to this blog directly, it also eats into the 1GB limit that it shares with Picasa) with no visible space limitation.

Oh yeah, previously I also upload to twitpic but then there was some controversial stuff there so I stopped that. Then there was yfrog but both twitpic and yfrog don't got no filters to play with. :P

Now comes to the point of this post - I can't find any options in Lightbox for me to upload photos from my desktop. I can only upload through the Android app. picplz allows me to upload through its desktop web page so it wins this round over Lightbox. picplz 1, Lightbox 0.

Here's my latest upload to picplz (enhanced with my favourite Russian Toy Camera filter), mistakenly taken with my non-mobile phone camera:

Saturday 3 September 2011

Big Eyes Panda and Monkey

Here's a rather eerie photo taken almost midnight through the transparent roller shutter of a shop in Mid Valley:
Put the photo through the filters of both Lightbox and picplz. Ended up using Lightbox's Testino filter.

Thursday 1 September 2011

Light up my pic boxes, please

I'm in a dilemma now. I've got both Lightbox and picplz apps in my Android phone and don't know where to share my photos! At the moment, both have some unique filters that the other doesn't have. I like Lightbox's Lomo, Ansel and the new Testino filters, and picplz's Russian Toy Camera and C-41 filters. picplz also has a Enhanced Definition filter that seems to sharpen the photo to greater detail.

I'm going to use both for now and here is the same photo using Lightbox's Ansel filter and picplz's Russian Toy Camera, respectively:

Tuesday 30 August 2011

Selamat Hari Raya!

Have a great Hari Raya celebration, my Muslim friends!

Viva's Arabian Nights (?) decor with Lightbox Testino filter:

KLCC decor (again!) with picplz Cross Process filter:

Monday 29 August 2011

Star Trek Raya

Selamat Hari Raya from the engineering team of starship KLCC-01...

Ground Force Buck

At last, folks! The time has come for me to reveal to you all...
THE BUCK MOBILE! ;)
SWOOOOOOOOOOooooossshhhhh!!!

Sunday 21 August 2011

The Public Phone

When was the last time you took notice of a public phone? I wouldn't have if I had not actually saw a lady putting coins into one and used it to call someone!

Do you think it's a good thing that these still exist? I personally think so! Never knew when your mobile will run out of batteries right? Or it could be one of those unfortunate days...

Raya is COMING!!!

Two shopping complexes with their Hari Raya decors:
Unique Hari Raya Decor @ 1 Utama
1 Utama (via Flickr)

Pavilion (via Pool Party)

Monday 1 August 2011

New Leading Man For CSI

Gil Grissom remains as my favourite lead in CSI (arguably my favourite among all 3 of the CSI franchise) and I was totally disappointed that William Petersen decided to leave the series. However, I was optimistic that Laurence Fishburne's new character Dr. Raymond Langston would be a great successor but that didn't turn out so well. I still prefer Gil. And now I read that a new leading man will replace Doc Ray.

I'm a little amused that Ted Danson will be the chosen one. To me, he is still that funny bar tender from Cheers. Hahaha... hope he will help to bring up the series again!

Besides that, Marg Helgenberger will also be leaving the long running series towards the end of the upcoming season.

via CSI Files.

Sunday 31 July 2011

2012 Movies to Look Forward to...

The very fast reboot of Spider-Man, The Amazing:
Disney Pixar's Brave:
The Avengers. Just saw the sneak preview after Captain America but can't find it here on Youtube to embed yet. Will make do with the earlier teaser that doesn't show much at all:
The Dark Knight Rises:

Shadowy Green Tea

Good day, folks! The reason I took this photo was I kind of like the cup and the shadows at the bottom... unfortunately, I don't know how to take the photo to further emphasise them. :( Anyway, here you go!
Posted via Lightbox for Android.

Tuesday 26 July 2011

Discovering Lightbox Photos

Was doing one of my routine browsing on Android Market when I came across one of the featured apps called Lightbox Photos. Things related to photography gets me interested easily so I just went ahead and checked out the app. Some where in the description there lies an excerpt from a review saying this may be an Instagram killer. That peaked my interest since I have a bud that's been sharing great photos using Instagram via his iPhone. Naturally, I've installed that quickly and went about trying the filters the next day. Here is the first one with the Dotty filter:
Here's a second one which I tried applying the Retro filter. May not be very appropriate for dim sum. Hahaha...
I like the Ansel filter which turns the photo B&W and further enhanced to the style of legendary Ansel Adams. This Ferris wheel photo turned out quite well with the filter:
My personal favourite since using Lightbox for such a short time is this photo of a shrub shaped like a Y. Applied the XPro filter here:
The app allows sharing over just Lightbox's own website itself and also to four other social media sites, namely Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare. I've connected myself to the former two. Lightbox also downloads photos shared by my Facebook friends and the people I follow in Twitter. Besides that, it does download photos of news and popular photos.

A couple of gripes that I have so far:
  1. I want more filters
  2. Please enable the option to save the original photo taken by the app's default camera application and not just the photo with the filter applied.
Other than that, this proves to be a simple app that offers simple sharing capabilities... and would probably be something I will keep installed until Instagram comes to Android. Then we shall see! ;)

Monday 11 July 2011

I need a new LCD monitor!

Because my faithful 17" CRT had been acting up for a few months now!
Any recommendations? I would prefer a high resolution one... at least 1080 pixels in height. :P

Monday 4 July 2011

I Love Mission: Impossible!

And the trailer for the fourth movie Ghost Protocol was out a few days ago but I only found out late last night. How good or bad the movie will be... I've just got to watch this one!
This Tom Cruise seems to have a thing for heights! Another one scaling to great heights at Dubai!

Monday 27 June 2011

Laddaland

Watched the Thai language horror movie Laddaland recently. Before the movie, I went to check out the trailer on YouTube, which you can find embedded below:
The trailer left much to be desired and I was not going to watch the movie. Then my cousin went to watch and recommended it to me so I went with a friend whom is a fan of this genre. I was pleasantly surprised by the movie.

It (to use my cousin's words) "builds up the tension" quite well. Started off slow, really slow with a long scene of happiness in slow mo. Everything was about happiness... until a maid was found dead, tortured and stored in a fridge. Things for Laddaland (which is a village) started to tense up and everything builds up from there. The use of music at the right moment and how the errr... ghosts appear are nothing new but damn, I still got frightened in a couple of scenes. This is one movie with minimal special effects and still was rather effective.

Recommended for horror fans! I actually like this better than Hollywood's Insidious and Drag Me To Hell.

Sunday 26 June 2011

Runaway Teddy

A teddy bear was found to be hitching a ride on a garbage truck with the letters WTF on its license plate! O.o

Sunday 5 June 2011

Li Na Becomes First Chinese Singles to Win Grand Slam Title

After reaching her first grand slam final at the Australian Open earlier this year, Chinese player Li Na managed to win her first grand slam at the French Open on Saturday, the first ever Chinese singles tennis player to do so at any grand slam!

She beat  last year's champion Francesca Schiavone (who incidentally was the first Italian to win a women's singles grand slam title) 6-4, 7-6.

via The New York Times.

Sunday 22 May 2011

Movie Weapons of all Time!

LIFE's got a gallery of the coolest movie weapons of all time and I kind of agree with most of them! ;)

Sunday 15 May 2011

This Summer... The Movies I Wanna Watch...

Hello folks! Summer is here and these are some of the movies that I got to watch!

Ryan Reynolds as The Green Lantern!

Optimus Prime and his Autobots with their most difficult task yet!

Before he was Professor X, he was Charles... before he was Magneto, he was Erik...

Captain America!!!

The Final Destination franchise might be getting old and boring but I'm a fan so I got to watch the fifth movie!

Saturday 14 May 2011

Singapore Then and Now

An interesting look at our favourite neighbour between now and a not too long ago past!

Wednesday 23 March 2011

Nikon to Manufacture in Malaysia?

Due to the tragic incident in Japan, one Nikon employee was dead and several missing. One of the manufacturing plants was badly damaged. Rumour has it that Nikon may move part of their lens manufacturing facility to here in Malaysia. A camera barrel parts supplier called Notion VTEC Bhd. appears to be a strong candidate.

via nikonians.org.

Wednesday 16 March 2011

Sleepy Cat II

Sleepy cat at Machap R&R. on Twitpic
Snapped at the Machap R&R, Johor along the North-South Highway.

Previous Sleepy Cat here.

Tuesday 15 March 2011

Blue Blue Silhouette

Did I spell silhouette correctly? Love this photo taken with my HTC Desire. Somehow, it appeared nicer on the phone. The AMOLED screen may be nice but it sure is faking the colours - making photos pop out but when you transfer it to a laptop and look at it on the LCD... errr... it becomes less exciting.
Silhouette
Anyways, this is now my Android's wallpaper and it looks great being one.

My blog posts have been getting lesser and lesser over the years. Maybe I'm getting older and older. Hence less crap. Also, work-life balance has been tilting the wrong way... so, anti-IonBuck Blog readers REJOICE!

Saturday 5 March 2011

Malaysian Economic Growth to Drop Slightly in 2012

The World Bank has issued a projection that the total world trade will drop from 12% in 2010 to 7.1% and 6.8% in 2011 and 2012, respectively. Following this, our country has issued a projection of 5.2% growth in 2012 compared to 5.3% this year. The construction and agriculture industry is expected to spearhead Malaysia's economic growth this year.

via The Star Online.

Wednesday 2 March 2011

Super Bowl 8

Has everyone already seen the Super 8 teaser from last year? If you had not, then you will find a crazy driver driving on to a railroad, going against a train head on, causing a huge train crash and what appears to be something huge and scary trying to get out of one of the carriages. The teaser can be found here: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/paramount/super8/

Recently, there was an update to that teaser - a super bowl trailer - and someone had put it up on Youtube:
Doesn't look as thrilling as the teaser, though, but at least it doesn't look like the camera is shaking the whole length of the film!

Wednesday 16 February 2011

The Amazing Spider-Man!

Just as the whole world had seen this amazing photo of the new Spider-Man reboot (targeted release in 3 July 2012), I received the so-called "exclusive" e-mail from Sony Pictures' Spider-Man Movie Network:
One of my bud had already shared the Google Reader item from some entertainment website since yesterday afternoon. For those who are more outdated than Sony Pictures' e-mail, the title of this new reboot is called The Amazing Spider-Man.

From the looks of the picture, this Spider-Man doesn't seem to have natural web coming out of his wrists like the trilogy directed by Sam Raimi. More like the normal comics we were used to where web fluids is involved. But of course, this is just my speculation.

By the way, here is the official website... which is nothing much at the moment: http://www.theamazingspiderman.com/

Tuesday 15 February 2011

I have had zombies as pets but they went invisible on me...

Sorry folks, looks like you are stuck with my Plants vs. Zombies obsession. I've got a whole aquarium full of snorkeling zombies complete with life vests (hmmm... but they still don't float which I suspect could be due to their brains diet). Meanwhile, I still have to keep my Stinky snail awake so, if I feed my pet zombies a little slow, they will turn green, flip over and die.
I've got a new aquarium filled with these pet zombies. on Twitpic
These dead zombies will eventually come back to haunt me as invisible apparitions, I guess. Thankfully, I have quite an arsenal of intelligent plants in my lawn as defence.
In my lawn, my plants shoot at invisible zombies. on Twitpic
I wonder when will... or ever will there be Plants vs. Zombies merchandising... such as zombie soft toys?! Or cute cabbage catapult plush? Now that will be amazing having a collection of them and having them mingle with my still yet to be found Android.

Saturday 12 February 2011

The Zombies Ate My Brains

And so that's why my blog posts get lesser and lesser over the years. I have evidence to proof that there are zombies and that they ate my brains...
The zombies ate my brains! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo!!! on Twitpic
By the way, I have a pet snail called Stinky who sleeps most of the time instead of collecting coins and diamonds for me unless I feed it chocolate bars.
I got me self a lazy snail!  on Twitpic
Screenshots taken from the "amazingly addictive yet cute while at the same time, violent because of the brains eating theme" game Plants vs. Zombies. Try out the free web version here. I'm still addicted after almost owning the game for over 2 months!

Friday 11 February 2011

Why Do People Still Spam?

That's the question I've been asking for quite some time, now. Spam filters are really great these days - all my online accounts Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo! Mail are doing a great job! I'm just so darn bored of frequently visiting the Spam or Junk folders to click on the buttons to empty these folders. Initially, I do still browse through the e-mails in these folders to confirm if they were all spam but these days, I would just go on in and quickly empty the folders. I'm assuming the majority of the population would do this... or just leave these folders unattended so that they will be automatically emptied every 7 days or so.

So you crazy spammers, give it up! Oh, and don't bother to spam through SMSes either. I delete them as fast as they appear.

Monday 7 February 2011

Pete Eckert Blind Photographer

Diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa, Pete Eckert was working as a carpenter but eventually picked up photography after he lost his sight. He pictured the scene in his mind through his other senses and also does double exposures.
| Artists Wanted | In Focus : Pete Eckert (Lo-Speed) from Artists Wanted on Vimeo.
We hear miracles now and then and here's one. Life goes on for Pete and his wife, Amy and guide dog Clancy.

Realistic 3D Goes Deeper Than Skin

3D software has evolved one step further! Even after you digitally slice a fruit or whatever objects, the cross-section will appear realistically real!

Saturday 5 February 2011

2011 Chinese New Year Movie Rankings

Just my own list of movies that I've watched during this festive season here in Malaysia:

Funny factor:
1. I Love Hong Kong - contains the most funny scenes among all.
2. Mr. and Mrs. Incredible - sustainable funnies.
3. Yogi Bear - bumbling Yogi.
4. All's Well Ends Well 2011 - it's a dragggggg... with some rare funny scenes.
5. Shaolin - cute little wushu monks. Update!

Crazy cute factor:
1. Yogi Bear - Yogi Bear and Boo Boo, of course!
2. Mr. and Mrs. Incredible - mmm... that cute and lovely hero couple!
3. I Love Hong Kong - Tony Leung and Sandra Ng are more funny than cute.
4. Shaolin - cute wushu proficient little monks. Update!
5. (4) All's Well Ends Well 2011 - errr... Louis Koo exploring his feminine side.

Storyline factor:
1. Shaolin - some serious stuff here when the bad guys see the bright light side. Update!
2. (1) I Love Hong Kong - with such a big cast, I was surprised it wasn't mumbo jumbo and there's a touch of humanity!
3. (2) Yogi Bear - the usual save the 'world' and a touch of romance kind of fare.
4. (3) Mr. and Mrs. Incredible - expected retired heroes missing their heroic days.
5. (4) All's Well Ends Well 2011 - terrible continuity.

Action factor:
1. Shaolin - the name "Shaolin" says it all. Update!
2. (1) Mr. and Mrs. Incredible - what do you expect? We're talking about a hero couple here!
3. (2) Yogi Bear - Yogi's bumbling ideas at play!
4. (3) All's Well Ends Well 2011 - make-up whiplash.
5. (4) I Love Hong Kong - Anita Yuen's amazing acupuncture skills!

Horny factor:
1. I Love Hong Kong - the Tony Leung-Anita Yuen acupuncture scene!
2. Mr. and Mrs. Incredible - the hero couple trying to have a baby scenes.
3. Shaolin - yucky Nicholas Tse licking Fan Bing Bing. Update!
4. (3) All's Well Ends Well 2011 - Louis Koo exploring his masculine side.
5. (4) Yogi Bear - Tom Cavanagh talking about his lonely condo.

Wednesday 2 February 2011

Angry! Very Angry! More Angry Birds Coming!

More Angry Birds coming in March and this time, based on the trailer below, it might not involve green pigs... This time, the birds got angry because a lot of other birds are caged in... probably endangered birds. Looks like it's a battle of the birds! Bad birds and angry birds!
And this new Angry Birds game is called Angry Birds Rio which brings them to Rio de Janeiro and is based on their upcoming movie in April.

Now I'm a little confused. Will there be a movie AND also an animated series? Or was this movie the animated thing that we were all talking about?

via MobileBurn.com

ps... I was already obsessed with the Angry Birds theme and now this new trailer features a more upbeat remix of the theme. Woohoo!!!

Sunday 30 January 2011

Rain, Rain, Cool Day on Earth

It's been raining the whole day! A great winterly 
feel. ... on Twitpic
It's been continuously raining at about the same rate (slightly heavier than a drizzle, but not quite cats and dogs... watcha call it?) most of the day. Enough to get you soaked if you stand outside for a couple of minutes. Weather's been obviously cool... According to my phone's weather app, it's 25ºC out there. The kind of temperature I set the air-conditioner to on a hot day.

Is it going to be a cool Chinese New Year? Is the Rabbit going to bring the cool to cover off years of fire? While we are enjoying a sleepy and cooling Sunday, I hope this rain is not causing any flooding elsewhere.

Friday 21 January 2011

Angry Birds TV?

I'm actually reading up a Nikon D3100 review in our local Lowyat.NET forum but got sidetrack a little when I came across a tweet from @CNNshowbiz reporting that Angry Birds are not only stopping at being a PC game (its latest platform after iPhone, Maemo, Android, iPad and whatever other mobile platforms). It is going to be a very angry animated series, too! As much as I like the game (I'm stuck at Level 3-5, by the way), I couldn't imagine it being a full 30-minute cartoon (including plenty of angry commercials), though. Maybe as shorts like those Pixar ones before their feature film but 30 minutes every week? Hmmm...
On a side note, I'm surprised that the Angry Birds plush toys appear to be more popular than the very cute Android plush toy that I love but could not find. Hmph!

Thursday 20 January 2011

Pirates of the Caribbean - On Stranger Tides Trailer

It is difficult not to love Captain Jack Sparrow and I'm just glad that he's coming to the big screen again in May. However, the trailer below doesn't look too interesting, though... but looks can be deceiving. :D

Monday 17 January 2011

The Ingenious Fuzzy Wuzzy Camera Case

Who would have thought that Fuzzy Wuzzy was a camera case!
Fuzzy Wuzzy (wow, what a name) holds certain compact cameras:
And Fuzzy Wuzzy may be tasked with holding other stuff such as crayons (but so does any other camera pouches, I guess :P)!
This is all beginning to be something like an advertisement for Photojojo. Nope, this isn't. I'm just somehow fascinated by Fuzzy Wuzzy. ;)

Sunday 16 January 2011

Is life anything like a box of Famous Amos cookies?

Had a very scary encounter with my newly purchased box of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies today. Upon opening it and transferring the contents into an air-tight container for storage and occasional invasion, the bottom part of the contents were in smithereens! Ended up eating all of 'em with a spoon.
My heart was shattered by Famous Amos. :'( on Twitpic

Sunday 9 January 2011

The HTC Android Phone Battery That Saved The Day

There are many movies where miracles happen in such a way that the hero gets shot but didn't die because the bullet hit a coin or a medallion or something in his pocket. Not in real life we don't hear much of those but today's different.

Two men were kicked out of a nightclub in Atlanta so they opened fire at the club but one of it strayed and hit a valet. The bullet went through the valet's jacket and through the HTC phone (nope, no details of what model it is), then stopped at the battery, a very red battery:
via Android Community.

Sunday 2 January 2011

The Idiot with a Tripod and Simon's Cat

I'm never a person that shoots video because I totally lack composition skills. The only video I had shot so far and posted to YouTube was this one - I was amused with the amount of birds flying around. This was taken with my ancient Canon A400 digital camera. So I never had much of a thing about digital cameras' ability to take videos nor digital video cameras. Needless to say, the recent crop of DSLRs that could video, 1080p or not, do not impress me.

However, after watching this video taken with a Canon 7D professional DSLR, I became quite impressed with the video capabilities of these single lens reflex digital cameras. Here's the video:
And here are comments from the guy that did it.

After the video, I noticed a totally unrelated featured video on YouTube that had over 20 million views. Without hesitating, I clicked on it:

Hmmm... interesting. I have subscribed to the channel. For those lucky iPhone or iPod or iPad owners, Simon's Cat has its own app for you.

Saturday 1 January 2011

The First Blog Post of a New Decade: The Red Slippers, The Zombie and The Android Bug

First off, let me wish everyone a Happy New Year and an all new decade. Lets all start fresh, be good and most importantly, be HAPPY! Here's a photo with plenty of red tint which normally represents prosperity and everything good:
Happy New Year! First photo to share this year. on Twitpic
Up next, let me introduce this very cool zombie to you:
Brainssssss... on Twitpic
Designed using the Plants vs. Zombies in-game avatar designer. The official name for a zombie avatar is Zombatar. Cool. As cool as the game. Highly addictive of the tower defense kind of thing. Not quite TD but that's what it reminds me of.

And to end this post, I would like to warn fellow Android users of a bug that Engadget brought up in their post. Incidentally, I wouldn't have read about this had it not for the Engadget Android app that I just installed a few hours ago. There exists this Android messaging bug where SMSes might be mistakenly sent to someone else other than the intended one.

I had a first hand experience a few weeks ago. Oh no! Looking back into the past are we? Anyways, earlier on that day I sent out a group SMS to inform of a meeting schedule. After that, I declined a friend's invitation to go to Pulau Ketam for a photography session. I had set my phone to inform me when a SMS is delivered. To my amusement, I received multiple replies telling me that my SMS to my friend was delivered. Some time passed when one of the people whom I had sent an SMS about the meeting schedule called and asked me what's this meeting at Pulau Ketam!

Gosh! Only then I realised that I might have made a mistake! Panic stricken, I went to check but in the default message app indicated that the recipient was my friend! At that time, I thought it might be a bug with the HTC Desire but only now, after reading Engadget's post did I realise it was actually an Android bug. Gasp! You have been warned!