Category: Services & Products

Mini review – Olympus Micro Four Third M.Zuiko 9-18 Zoom lens

I knew the M.Zuiko 9-18 zoom lens is small, lightweight. But not until I held it in my hand, I didn’t realize how freakingly small and lightweight it is. Once I mounted it in my Olympus PEN E-P1 and I immediately recognized that it’s the perfect lens I would use all the time … for landscape and travel photos as well as for snapshots. The focusing is fast, zooming is smooth and it is a very quiet zooms lens.

Will certainly take many more pictures in the days to come, but for now some sample snapshots.

Upgrade Thesis 1.7

DIY Themes released the latest version of Thesis and it is certainly a great upgrade. The latest generation is version 1.7 and the upgrade process is rather easy:

  1. Backup the /custom folder of your current Thesis installation to your PC;
  2. Download the new theme to your PC and unzip it, it will be a subfolder with name /thesis_17;
  3. Upload /thesis_17 to your /wp-content/themes folder, via your favorite FTP client;
  4. In that new uploaded directory, rename the /custom-sample subfolder to /custom;
  5. [Important] Copy the contents from the folder you backed up in step 1 above, to the new /custom folder – folder by folder, file by file;
  6. Set the permission of /cache folder to 775;
  7. Set the permission of layout.css file to 666;
  8. [Optional] Remove the WordPress Admin link in the footer. Please refer to Update 4 of how to enhance the Thesis theme;
  9. Inside WordPress dashboard, Appearance -> Themes, activate Thesis 1.7. You shall see the new Thesis links on the left of the dashboard;
  10. Visit the Design options page, and save all the updates once.

That is it !! As smooth as silk …

Thesis 1.7

User Experience – Tell me the desired result

It’s weekend again and it’s gym exercise time again (the real reason is I cannot get a ticket to the Hong Kong Rubgy Sevens this year … damn). This club house gym around my home is a pretty good one, and there are about 30 exercise machines like treadmills, gym systems, weights, benches, bikes, rowers etc. etc..

One thing puzzles me all along is there is a set of machines (with brand X) attracts a lot of people, and there is another set of machines (with brand Y) always get idled. And indeed, I exercise with the brand X machines only.

As far as I can tell, both brands offer similar exercise machines and all of them are good … probably except one thing – their instruction notices. Following you can find the notices of Brand Y first, and then Brand X.

Which one you will spend time on ? And I think the answer is quite obvious.

Brand Y instruction notice

Brand X instruction notice

Lessons Learnt : If you want me to try your product, please tell me the desired result first.

Kindle Apps for Tablet Computer (including iPad)

Ah, the Amazon development team is really efficient, just after a week from the release of Kindle for Mac they have another new product ready to roll out. Somehow the news is broken not from their official press release, but from a report in New York Times. This is the Kindle Apps for Tablet Computer, and it works on table computers including the iPad as well (obviously, they want people to know about this application, before the official launch date of iPad in early April).

Kindle Apps for Tablet Computers

Unlike other Kindle applications (iPhone, PC, BlackBerry, Mac), there are some new fancy features like:

  • Tailored to the size, look, and feel of your tablet computer
  • Adjust screen brightness from within the app to make reading easier
  • Page turn animation replicates the look of turning a page in a book. Or choose Basic Reading Mode for a simpler and unadorned reading experience

In the case of iPad version (assuming Apple will approve it …), the New York Times reports that:

“… large images of book covers are set against a backdrop of a silhouetted figure reading under a tree. The sun’s position in that image varies with the time of day.”

I know you want it, don’t you ? Check out the pictures and have a feel of this new application.

Kindle for Mac, now available

Yap, just one month after the beta version of Kindle for BlackBerry, today Amazon rolls out the Kindle for Mac. The features are similar to other free downloads like Kindle for PC and Kindle for iPhone. However, according to the press release …

Several features will be added to the Kindle for Mac app in the near future, including full text search and the ability to create and edit notes and highlights. Kindle for Mac is available to customers around the world as a free download.

So I guess, we need to keep an eye on the future upgrade as well. You can download the free application from www.amazon.com/kindleformac. Will install it tonight to try it out …

Kindle for Mac