Friday, October 15, 2010

Fujifilm Finepix X100

The camera that caught my attention during the recent Photokina product announcements was the Fujifilm Finepix X100.

Everytime I use my Pentax K100D for street photography, I find it difficult to stay discreet, which is one of the key conditions required for producing quality candid shots.

With so many developments on the mirrorless interchangeable lens-format front, I was looking intently at the Panasonic GF1 and the Samsung NX100 (also announced at Photokina).

But the Fujifilm X100 showed that there was still space for a new category in digital photography. Granted, Sigma already had a line of APS-C fixed focal length cameras, but reviews of the DP1 & DP2 weren't encouraging.

Also, the X100 had an extra trick up its sleeve, which was a hybrid optical/electronic viewfinder.

One of the minus points that held me back from buying a micro Four-Thirds camera was the lack of a optical viewfinder.

Now, I can only hope that the X100 isn't too expensive. Of course, I would still need to check its quality. Last but not least, I hope it will be available in an all-black paintjob (not a fan of the silver/black retro look).

Amazon Kindle 3 WebKit Browser Review

Boy am I tempted to buy the Kindle after watching this video. Trendsmobile is selling at S$369...

Monday, October 11, 2010

Why I deleted my Facebook & Twitter accounts

My standard answer to friends and colleagues... "They were taking up too much of my time".

But maybe another reason is more technical. I was using both as advocacy tools. I was putting up various human rights related content.

But it wasn't working. Both systems were "closed"; postings were not searchable via internet search engines. The search functions in both systems didn't do any better. I was constantly trying to find "that post" which I had highlighted something important.

For a while, I tried a hybrid solution. Post on Blogger, and a plugin allowed those posts to appear in Facebook. But it still wasn't an elegant system...

Hence the decision to remove myself from Facebook and Twitter. 2 months on, and I must say that I enjoy time away from them.

Star Wars The Clone Wars 3x05 - Corruption


The latest episode of the Clone Wars was weird. And I was not the only one who felt it.
Posted by: Son of a Bith | October 9, 2010 12:28 PM
Did anybody else besides me get what this episode is really saying? It has a hidden message: DON'T DRINK THE TEA!Ponder that phrase for a second.
The reference to the current socio-political situation in the US wasn't just limited to the Tea Party. There were quite a few comments on big corporations, and their harm on common folk.

Monday, October 04, 2010

The Pitfall of Productivity Porn

Lifehacker
Great to see Lifehacker being conscious of the dark side of seeking better productivity. Quite a few of the apps that I uninstalled (see here) were productivity apps that I never really got to try out. Ouch!

X10 Mini Pro - App culling

My X10 Mini Pro has been getting slower by the day. So I decided to bite the bullet and cull some apps. As I am still hesitant about rooting the handphone, I could only uninstall the apps that I had installed myself. Full list below. Hopefully, this massive extermination will help my phone run a little faster.

evernote
goggles
google translate
actioncomplete
blogger-droid
bugme! lite
easytether
gdocs
gtasks
handcent
mapdroyd
mnote
note everything
seepu
shuffle
skyfire
wordpress

BTW, I just encountered another problem. After a reboot, the phone seems to think that it is new, and asks me to confirm my language and also complete setup & importing of contacts. I have to cancel the process, and all is ok again. It's quite annoying.

Saturday, October 02, 2010

Star Wars to the rescue

I was just writing in my diary that I was tired of writing about the same stuff all the time, mostly negative stuff like the lack of time, insufficient sleep, feeling alone, etc.

Then I suddenly remembered that Clone Wars was back (Season 3). Managed to view episode 1, which featured an apt theme; teamwork.

Maybe that is the key to breaking the cycle of negativity & despair. :)

Friday, October 01, 2010

Mood altering songs

Was criticising the musical taste of a DJ, but all was forgotten when Duran Duran's Come Undone came on.

That was one of the first english pop songs I heard when I was a teenager.