Month: August 2010

3 years, 2 cameras, 1 new photobook

It’s hard to explain … I have big hard disks to store all the photos, and of course good software to manipulate / view / backup the photos. However, I still like to print the photos out, and then look at them, touch them, smell them … So here is it, my second photo book – Mirror with memory (this link works for iPad as well).

This photo book is a collection of my travel photos in the past 3 years with Olympus E-510 and E-P1.

Enjoy some samples below (for non-iPad browser only) !!

Which Kindle to buy ?

There are 6 models of Kindle you can buy now from Amazon.com, the Kindle DX (with white or graphite colors, in different prices), the Kindle with Free 3G + Wi-Fi, and the Kindle with Wi-Fi only (both with white or graphite colors). Each of these Kindles is good device to read, but which Kindle shall you buy ?

To answer this question, I draw up the following flowchart and hope you will find it useful.

Don’t miss all the other Kindle blog posts !!

Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional

I learnt this proverb for quite sometime, but not really appreciate the meaning behind it until three years ago … In year 2007 today I started the 49 days treatment of a serious heart disease, and every now and then I still ask myself whether it was just a dream or something really happened (for those who are fans of the movie Inception, you understand what I’m talking about).

Guess it will probably take me ages to accept such event really has taken place, even though I can see the 10-inches scar on my chest every day. And it will also take me a long time to complete the self-healing, in other words, to truely believe that I have recovered – such that I shall not treat myself as a patient / victim anymore.

The self-healing process has taken such a long time, I reckon, is probably because the six, seven weeks of treatment in the hospital was so painful, so disturbing and so discouraging that I wondered it would never end. However, with the support from family members, friends, colleagues and of course the doctors, nurses and staff in the hospital; I managed to complete the treatment in seven weeks.

Granted, it was painful, but I also learnt that suffering was optional – you need a positive mindset to go thru all the hurdles in life. So, be thankful to every sunrise, sunset and live your life to its fullest.

hospital

 

Why Kindle ?

I have my Kindle 2 for over a year now and since the launch of iPad in April, people keep asking me a boring question, that is – “Why Kindle ?”. And of course, the question always follow by another equally boring one, that is – “Why not iPad ?”. In most cases, I answer the two questions with another question – “How many books have you read in the past 12 months ?”.

“Errh … may be one or two.” is the typical answer. And I think they answer their own questions.

Late last month, Amazon launched the Kindle 3 and Jeff Bezos was interviewed by the acclaimed interviewer and broadcast journalist, Charlie Rose. And now I know, what’s the best answer to these questions.

Straight from Jeff Bezos:

“I would say something though like we’re trying to get out of the way.  We’re not trying to create an experience.  We want the author to create the experience.  You know, if you’re going to read Nabokov or Hemmingway or we want us creating the experience for.  That’s not our job.  Our job is to provide the convenience.  That you can get books in 60 seconds, that you can carry your whole library with you so that you don’t get hand strain, so the device doesn’t get hot in your hands, so that it doesn’t cause eye strain, so that the battery life lasts a month, so you never get battery anxiety …

Now people say why don’t you add a touch screen?  Well, the reason we don’t want a touch screen is if we’re going down that decision path, we say, okay, a touch screen and the current technology for touch screens — it’s called capacitive touch — it’s a layer that goes on top of that display.
 It adds glare.  The first thing that you do when you add a touch display is that you add a little extra layer of glass or plastic and a little bit of glare.  So it’s very easy from an engineering point of view to add a touch screen but it’s not the right thing if you’re making no compromises and that’s our point of view on this.  We want a device that’s for uncompromised reading and guess what?  Our approach is working.”

Yes, if you read lots of books a year, in long-form reading style, then you need Kindle. Period.

10 steps to migrate your iPhone 3G / 3GS to iPhone 4

So you have decided to go for the iPhone 4 after all the reviews of exciting features (if you are an Apple fanboy) and news / blogs about the antennagate (and you really don’t care). Here are the steps you need to do to migrate your trusty iPhone 3G / 3GS to the iPhone 4.

  1. Make sure your old iPhone has performed a complete backup via the iTunes
  2. If you’re using Kindle for iPhone, deregister the device (from within the application).
  3. Make sure you have Internet connection, such that iTunes can access iTunes store. Connect your new iPhone 4 to your PC running iTunes and register your new iPhone 4, with your Apple ID.
  4. Since your iPhone 4 come with iOS 4.0 only, download and install the iOS 4.0.1, thru the iTunes (so pretty much automatically)
  5. Restore the content / applications / setting from the iTunes backup image to your new phone
  6. Check all the settings to see things are in good order. Check all the email accounts / applications, by running each of the applications once and enter application-dependent password again (if neccessary).
  7. If your old phone has upgraded to iOS 4.x and you have created folders. Bad news, you have to organize the folders and applications in your new iPhone again. Somehow the restoration will migrate the folders but not moving the applications to the right folder as set up in your old phone.
  8. Install the iPhone case program (program ended) application to your iPhone. Run the application with appropriate Apple ID password, and pick the case you like. For review and photos of the cases, here is a good resource.
  9. Erase the iPhone 3G content via Settings / General / Reset / “Erase all content and settings”, confirm two times and it’s done (it will take long time to finish the erase, however). Now you can pass the phone to your friends or family members.
  10. Very last step, install some good looking wallpapers like I did in the new iPhone 4: