Recently in Compooper Stuff Category

Just finished subjecting myself to webhosted grief...

Upgraded to Movable Type 4.2. Got template issues (but strangely enough, the back end seems to be working fine). That's why the site looks like crap.

Am working on it, but the lack of responsiveness from the MT boards is making me seriously look at jumping to Word Press...!

I went to a seminar tonight about digital photography.

GOING DIGITAL: THE ABCS OF DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

More than 3 million U.S. consumers will buy digital cameras this year. Whether you are an absolute beginner, a photography enthusiast or a professional photographer, join us as our panel of experts leads us through the latest trends, techniques and innovations in this digital field.

Sounds interesting, right? Wrong. The event's description sounded a lot more interesting than the actual event which had the co-founder of Flickr, a broadcast "journalist" and a baby boomer photographer whining about the injustice of how people without computer skills will lose out on sharing photos that are on computers, yadda yadda. About a third of the audience walked out after the first 20 minutes (the under 40 crowd). What was left was the over-40 crowd. Fun! *rolls eyes*

The event was held at the Computer History Museum that had a lot of (guess!) old computers inside. Very retro!

The computer that started an empire, the US$666.66 (in 1974 US$) Apple 1!

I think this is a very old ATC system...

Here's an almost as old IBM mainframe (ask your grandparents what this is)

This is a Cray-1 Supercomputer, circa 1976. I think it's a neat piece of furniture!

Modern day high end PC processors, like the ones in your lappy or desktop are 100 times faster than the Cray-1. Amazing lah.

Here's some other "amazing" stuff. Although it's more of the "wah lau" kind of amazing. While eating dinner, I saw people in polo shirts with their collars turned up. A lot. Is it the 80s' again?? When I was in the PRC, I saw a lot of this. Maybe the techies that go there to manufacture computers goods brought back this style??

Geez...

One of my friends drank the kool-aid and picked an iPhone up.

Lucky!

I helped him set it up to sync between two computers; the Mac (yeay!) for music, videos, photos and the pee cee (groan) for email, scheduling and contacts. I also configured the email client on iPhone so it could send and receive using EDGE.

That's my 838 Pro (AKA HTC Hermes) on the right and the iPhone on the left. Look how slim lah!

I repeat, look how slim!

iTunes on both Mac and pee cee controls the sync functions with the iPhone, much like ActiveSync does on the pee cee side. The main difference is that iTunes is a LOT easier to set up, simpler to understand and gives you more control over the process.

And after playing with it for several hours, I can't convey how impressive this piece of hardware is. Cannot. You should go to an Apple Store and playwiddit for yourself!

If it were only unlocked....!

To start off, these are probably the most crappiest photos you will ever see on this blog. It's the fabled iPhone in my grubby mitts...

Pictures were taken with my Dopod 838 Pro (AKA HTC Hermes). Good PDA phone, not so good camera.

I shoulda brought my K800 instead...

The iPhone really is a marvel. It's hella thin, looks like it belongs in the permanent collection at the MOMA and the screen navigation is really just like you see on TV. And that gorgeous screen! It makes YouTube videos and everything else look great!

So am I going to drink the kool-aid? Maybe...but my only concern is if I can get the damn thing unlocked. You see, here in the ewe ess of aaay, cell phone providers simlock their phones so only their SIM cards work on them. They justify this by their "subsidy", a discount of the overly inflated MSRP of the phone that they provide to you so you can be indentured with a two year contract.

However, the iPhone is NOT subsidized. You're paying full boat for it and it's STILL SIM locked? That's very wrong...and the only thing that's holding me back from taking the plunge.

So after my Friday night plans fell through (grrrr), I decided to do the San Francisco thing and geek out on the computer.

Walking Ixus has had the same look for three years; I figured it was time to freshen it up. Still working out some of the kinks, but the new sitemap goes something like this:

Archives and Categories are on the left.
Fun Stuff is on the right.

Kinda matches up with your left/right side of the brain thing, huh? Here's something else for your left/right side of the brain thing...

Me?? Calming?? Who writes these silly quizzes I wind up taking???

Your Blog Should Be Blue

Your blog is a peaceful, calming force in the blogosphere. You tend to avoid conflict - you're more likely to share than rant. From your social causes to cute pet photos, your life is a (mostly) open book.

They dun know me vewwwwy well do dey?? WHAHAHAHAH

You Are 76% Capitalist, 24% Socialist

In general, you support a free economy and business interests. You tend to think people should fend for themselves, even when times get tough. However, do think the government should help those who are truly in need.

Now this one is a bit more accurate. Just a bit.

I realized recently that if you removed all the photoblogs off the net, it would be hella boring out there! Much of the blogging revolution is due to the creation and evolution of the humble digital camera. Of cors even before digicams, there were pictures up on the net. But it was not as accessible!

Back in the day, you had to 1) Take pictures with film (?), 2) Develop aforementioned film and 3) Scan and resize into computer for uploading with 14.4 modem. Very slow process and hella expensive! Film ain't cheap and you pay for all the shots on the roll, good and bad. My last film camera was a Yashica T4. Then I realized that I've been digital since 2001 and blogging the following year. Wow!

I started, like practically everyone in the US did, with a Kodak. I purchased a used DC210 back in 2000.

This was high tech once. And it was THAT expensive new!

It was a big camera, 1 whole megapixel and gobbled AA batteries 4 at a time. I learned the phrase "rechargeable batteries" very quickly. The picture quality was marginal because of its fixed focus lens (which Kodak claimed was a "feature") but the ability to instantly view your snaps and delete the ones that didn't pass muster was a novelty back in the day...

And after seeing my cousin's Canon S10, I promptly picked up a used S20 and began my long run with Canon hardware. After that camera, I picked up an S300 and while in Hong Kong one trip, I picked up an Ixus S400 to replace that. My most recent Powershot/Ixus/Ixy camera was the SD400, very compact and took good pix. A great camwhoring camera! In fact, I have an SD800is enroute that has two things that my other cameras never had: wide angle 28mm lens setting and image stabilization. Makes it easier for that big dramatic night shot...

Now, what's with the blog name? Well...

When I decided to create a blog a few years ago (mostly to stop people from asking for personalized emails and pix from the road when I started travelling), I had to think of a name. I figured it would be things as I saw them, and by extension, how my camera saw them. At the time, I had a Canon Powershot (in the US, they're called Powershots, in the rest of the world they're called Ixus except in Japan where they're called Ixy) and I decided to name the blog based on what my camera saw.

And the name "walking-powershot" sounded stupid.

Walking-ixus, OTOH, was different. It sounded "not as stupid" plus none of my frens in the US would know what it meant. Because of that, I've had to explain that many times. And after three years of asking "what does your blog name mean?", I've finally posted the answer here.

Yippee.

I made it out to Macworld today to check out the hype about the iPhone, Apple's latest kick-ass cool gadget. And, yes, it is hella cool, slick and seksi. And i want one! When I can actually see and touch and playwidit...

When I finally made it onto the showfloor and made a beeline for the Apple exhibit, I was greeted with the iPhone rotating in its own case and being guarded by a "apple security guard". Still, it is a beeyoutiful piece of industrial design and a technical tour de force.

That's how the iPod component looks like

Here's a closeup (sorta) of the back. The little dot in the corner is the 2MP camera that strangely, isn't mentioned much...

The Star of the Show...

Timbuk2 wasn't here this year (so no 28.75% off deal this year) but Crumpler was! They were serving beverages on request! Yeay! Buuurp...

It's almost closing time!

Apologies for the lack o' posts. My poor MacBook was diagnosed with RSD. That's Random Shut Down for you non Apple types. The good thing is that Apple has acknowledged this as a problemo and is fixing it. My MacBook was sent in last Monday. It came back this Monday. So far so good.

So I found this meme on Xuan's blog. Here we go....

01) What is the phone brand?
Dopod S300 (AKA Cingular 3150)

02) What are the last 3 digits of your mobile number?
918

03) What does the 2nd message in your inbox say?
Hey! Have a great flight back! Was glad to meet up with ya...

04) Who’s the first person who comes up under the letter M?
Ma (HP sorts by last name)

05) Who’s the last person you rang?
Returned Lee's missed call. He wanted advice about the upcoming Election

06) Who was your last missed call from?
Lee

07) Who’s the 2nd person who comes up under D?
Depalma

08) What does the last message in your inbox say?
It's Sat in SF? It's Tues am here! Thanks for the joke!

09)Who comes up under J?
Jen (again, last name)

10) Go to your Sent Items - what does the 10th message say?
Saw some of the Indo haze over SIN. Yuck. Like a really bad in HKG. Weather (here) cleared up so nights were nice.

11) Who’s the 4th person who comes up under S?
Shu (still last names!)

12) Who’s your network provider?
Cingular in US, StarHub in SIN

13) How many messages are currently in your inbox?
I dunno. Maybe about 25?

14) What do you have as your background?
Big D for "Dopod". I dun have too much imagination when it comes to backgrounds.

15) Who’s the 2nd person who comes up under R?
Roper (you guessed it, a surname!)

16) Who do you have on speed dial 3?
I don’t use speed dial

17) If you’re on Pay as you Go, how much credit do you have?
Postpaid here. Prepaid in Singapore. Got about S$18.35

18) Who’s the first person who comes up under C?
Callahan

19) How many bars of signal do you currently have?
Full

20) What do you have as your main ringtone?
Some techno ditty that came with the phone. Am looking for "Heavy Action" ringtone to replace that.

Now get to it!

No, I 've not gotten one yet. But I have slammed the lid and kicked the tires on one.

First. they come in a shiny white, like the previous iBook and a matte black which looks really cool but shows greasy fingerprints easily.

In "innocent" white...

Yearrgh! It's da dread pirate Roberts! I mean BlackMacBook!

It's noticibly bigger than the 12" PB, as seen here.

That's Bender on top and the thus unnamed MacBook on da bottom. Despite this, my bags can carry up to a 15" laptop so that's all good.

The screen is shiny and bright and very vivid. The keyboard is, erm, different. Instead of a traditional keyboard, it looks like a bunch of chiclets. There's also space between the keys so remembering your touch typing is a must!

I'm leaning toward the white one because as you can see here, the matte coating can wear off, leaving a shiny spot. Click on picture for bigger one.

You can see it from a distance

This could be an issue as time goes by

Will probably be upgrading soon. Bender's 3.5 years old!