Oh, and about Macs

Inner geek is speaking again. I have friends who swear by the PC and some by the Mac. I guess we all know about Windows problems but I have had friends who swore that Macs are nuclear proof. Sad news is that Macs are also prone to software, hardware and other types of failure. Here are some links of the latest MacBooks. Engadget.com also has all the stories but the site seems to be having loading problems.

White MacBooks showing premature discoloration

MacBooks becoming crackbooks

Apple acknowledges random shutdown problem (aka blue-screen-of-death?)

People are complaining coz Macs are not computers. In the owner's heart and mind, they are Ferraris. And if you get a Ferrari, you wouldn't want your Ferrari to have a casing crack or expect the car to stop working, because you paid a Ferrari price.

I love both Macs and PCs. I also had the experience of dealing with the Apple Service Centre in Singapore. I had a 17incher that came with a airport card failure on arrival. In fact, the Powerbook was giving me electric shocks when AC powered. I had to ask Jo's dad for help coz he was really good at negotiating with stonewallers in Apple Yio Chu Kang. I ended up with an exchanged AC adaptor. :-)

So why were Macs worshipped from the 80s? I played Rescue Raiders on my buddy's Pineapple and wanted to buy an original Apple IIe. I saw a Mac in '83 in a display store (Sime Darby I think) in Centrepoint and I fell in love with it. When I went to Jo's company in 99, I saw an original Mac with B&W screen still chugging along doing wordprocessing. I was sold. Macs were invincible.

I got a G3 Powerbook in '99 and it died in '02 after days and days of overnight RAW processing. Back then, I read that Macs weren't produced in Singapore and Ireland (and the US?) anymore, the production had shifted to Taiwan. So how now? If you are on Final Cut Pro (like Jo) or Mac specific software, then get a Mac. Be prepared, pray and hope you get a good set.

That said, I like the iLife software that comes bundled with the new Macs. Really excellent, does about everything for media for most folks.

Wes

Merville, Juno, Pegasus Bridge

We were at a nice retreat center in Merville, Normandy. This was view from our room, first morning. The retreat was great for us, learnt a few important things and got to know some really great folks.

We were free to go wherever we wanted for reflection time. I went down to the beach twice, it was colder in the morning with the strong sea breeze coming in. The dog here was running around waiting for its master who is trawling for mussels (?) in the background.

There was a free afternoon where we could go and do our stuff. Some folks wanted to visit one of the D-Day landing sites and we drove for about 1.5 hours and ended up in Le Bessin, site of the Juno landing sector. It was pretty amazing, coz parts of the Mulberry Harbor concrete caissons were still visible even till this day. British construction is solid man. Circled in red is our location, in green is our retreat center in Merville.

This illustration shows the movement of the concrete caissons from England.

This is the view from the hill overlooking the town at Juno beach.

We rested at Pegasus Bridge drawbridge. When we reached this place, I found it strangely familiar, though I've visited before. After reading the signboard, I realized that I had played on this bridge in COD! woah.... it was surreal man. The details in the game were so faithful to real life, was pretty amazed at the similarities.

Another view of the bridge.

This is the Pegasus Bridge Cafe. No photography were allowed inside but it was filled with British Airborne memorabilia.

Close up of the cafe signboard.

Some of the church folks climbed up the tank for a picture.

Wes

Bo-liao post

We took a picture of the chio Skynews TV presenter that we talked about in previous posts. Then we googled Wikipedia and found her name. Julie Etchingham. Really bo-liao man.



Wes & Jo

Photography: 10 essentials I can't do without

The inner-photo-geek needs to blog about photography. Gotta blog about some essential software and other stuff that made work easier in the last few years. Note: I re-edited this post coz there was another item I wanted to include.

1. GretagMacbeth EyeOne Photo

I was struggling to get rid of a reddish-magenta cast for 3 years on my printer when I finally succumbed and bought a GretageMacbeth color calibration device for my monitor AND printer. This thing saved the day. When the 99.9% accurate color print rolled out of the printer, I was close to shedding tears.

2. CaptureOne Pro

Back in the good old days of 2002 with *only* Canon DPP released for RAW conversion. Using it was a big pain, even the local Canon rep was apologetic for the software. So when CaptureOne was released, we had no choice but to jump right into the software. It worked like a charm though the learning curve was a little steep. The generic 1Ds profile that came with it worked well too. Best other thing was that C1 Pro was geared towards portrait skin texture and it was speedy on a PC.

3. NoiseNinja

This cheap noise reduction software basically extended the life of the 1Ds camera with > iso200 images.

4. Renamer

Best renaming software I have tried, and it's totally FREE! I have tried to get something like this for the Mac Powerbook but they were either kludgy or not free.

5. WinACD

I am using an Apple 20inch Cinema Display with Windows XP (Yes, I use a PC) and it's only equipped with a brightness control. That's it, no other functions except for built in hub with 2x USB2.0 and 2x Firewire ports. Also, Windows XP does not recognize the hub nor the monitor. It's also easy to accidently touch the brightness button. With this nifty control panel software, I can control brightness via keyboard (like a Mac! :-) and correct the ! icon in the hardware device window.

That said, the Apple Display rocks, not only coz of color BUT the sharpening algorithm makes everything looks more natural. Not all LCDs are the same, no kidding, I have seen some with bad hardware sharpening.

6. Wacom Intuos Graphic Tablet

I got one 4 to 5 years back it's still working, tactile feel for the latest version is even better. Photoshop control with clone, healing brush is a breeze with the pen. This 4x5 pad uses absolute positioning, meaning that I'm not pushing the cursor around. Great with RTS like Warcraft and there's no carpal tunnel syndrome damage with super long usage.

7. Nero

Bestest CD-R and DVD recording software in the world. Back when I was on Toast on the Mac OS, it was coaster heaven whenever the burning process was slightly interrupted. This baby can still burn a perfect CD-R when I have CaptureOne processing, CS2 batching and Firefox browsing. I got a legit copy of Nero Express when I bought a Plextor DVD writer from Storage Studio in Sim Lim. Btw, Verbatim DVD-Rs and CD-Rs are teh r0xx0rs.

8. Photoshop - Liquify

One of the most powerful thing Adobe ever invented for Photoshop. Puffy cheeks begone!

9. Jodie Koh

Xacto sharp critiques of my images that I've been producing. Painful. Now, I still prep to cringe when she comments on my stuff. But bitter truth is better a sweet compliment.

10. Plantronics Headset with Mic

Honestly, this is not related to photography. I forgot to mention this coz it's totally comfortable for hours and I have taken it for granted. On some other more expensive headsets, I could feel the weight/discomfort after an hour or 2 but with this, I don't remember wearing it. The headset is rugged, the mic boom is rugged and clear, and it's built to last. I've had it for a year and it's still sturdy, no signs to wear and tear and the speaker-leather-sponge isn't melting unlike the Sennheiser HD457 that I used.

That's about it.

Wes

Débit 7,06 Mbit/s (903,63 ko/s)

Yep. That's about the fastest I got from the up-to-28Mbps connection at 1pm in Paris, we must be pretty far from the exchange. No complaints about that though. Can VOIP through normal phone while watching 200channel TV with PC and Mac on with wifi. Slowest tranx was 4plus Mbps. But when I BF2, the VOIP breaks up a bit on other line, upload is slower after all.

Update 18Oct: Freebox supports MIMO in the Wifi box. Checked it out on Wikipedia and it looks great. Except that my Powerbook doesn't support it. Heh.

Jo and I have settled down to watching Sky News quite a bit. Of the 2 blondes and 1 brunette, we agree that the prettiest one is on the late afternoon time slot. Superduperbabe. At the end of the day, since all the news channels have roughly the same content, it's unfortunate that it's down to getting the best looking dude (or dudess) to keep our eyes on the same channel.

We are staying lots more at home, Jo's practising her new dance steps and I am doing my processing stuff on the PC. Also, I don't have to travel 4 stations to check the internet at 1.30€/hr and Metro tix at 15€/week, we are saving a lot more money. Weather is a lot cooler now, 6°C early in the morning to 18°C. So walking is to the supermarket is great!

We are going to Merville, Normandy for a church retreat this weekend. Must thank God for the kind soul who offered to pay for us (coz our budget is super tight when we came back). Jo was so happy she cried. I wanted to attend the retreat also coz I've always wanted to visit Normandy, D-Day landings and all, especially after watching Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. Just did a check on Merville, it was the site for ze German 100mm guns, so it's quite far from the Gold, Juno and Sword landing areas. Wahj, will take some shots for you, might just turn out to be shots of a pretty ordinary looking beach. lol! Btw, my personal wish list for the next place I REALLY want to visit is Bastogne in Belgium where the 101st E Company dug against the German offensive. Maybe in winter? ;-)

Anyways, the speaker Jane Wolf will speak on "Finding your sense of value in God" at the retreat. Thought it sounded like a general retreat-ish topic until the pastor talked about it yesterday. Turns out that the topic covers the issue of identity, how we are validated by our work, boss, spouse, parents & friends. I have been asking what it means to be validated by God, I know that I am a child of God, but what else after that? And how does this connect with how I see the world? Which then leads to "How does it affect my visual interpretation in photography" question. I have been chewing on this for a while now, think this topic might be connected also my "not-rooted" state.

On GodTV, we saw Rick Warren preaching at the Hillsongs Conference in Oz. 2 points that gave some insights into a question that's been bouncing in my head for while. What does a Christian do with wealth and fame? With wealth: To give to the poor. Rick says that he started with 10% then increased by 1% everyear. He's been doing that since the 80s. Like John Wesley who 'earned as much as he could and gave as much as he could'. With fame: To speak up for the weak, those who have no voice (Psalm 72). Not complete answers for me but it's pointing somewhere right, feel it in my gut. Do bear in mind that we are not in 100% with GodTV on some of the stuff that's broadcast, so have to weigh lah.

Lastly, my brother Isaac sent me this link. Totally hilarious, comes in 3 parts and don't mind the language hor. For you, all World of Warcraft fans.

South Park and WoW

Till next week,
Wes

Aye Laddie

We went up north to Glasgow last Thursday for a some work, came back 2 nights ago. Was my 2nd visit since 2001. The city has changed quite a bit, lots of buzz, felt like a wee London. Went up to Loch Fyne with our rep and friend, Yvonne and her family for seafood and yummy stuff. Also tried some Harry Ramdens super-battered-fish and super-soggy-fries, it's extreme man, oil to the max. Jo also picked up a scottish twang from her kids. Was great fun. Have done up some pictures, they are a bit big this time round but gotta show the scale of the place. Ask Yvonne's husband about haggis and he said that he liked it, maybe I will gather the guts to try it next time.

Square in center of town.

Had some fries at BK. Not soggy.

Shopping. Looks a bit like Sydney doesn't it? Shopping was nicer than Paris for the simpler type of clothes we wear. Strange but true.

Memorial stone for the Korean War.

The Necropolis is in the back, really looks a city with the tower and all.

Bridge to the Necropolis. Jo's practising her dance steps while waiting for me.

Drive to Loch Fyne, Braveheart-class mountains in the back.

On our 2nd last day here, heard this guy playing from 100 meters away. Sounded great. Love his little purse.

Wes

200 Channels

WE GOT ZE INTERNET!!!

We came back from the Effiel walk, had dinner and realized we were connected when I went to inspect the freebox. 200 digital channels + HD capability, 24mpbs and VOIP. 3 months of waiting and now it's here. :-)



erm... anyone for COD or BF2?

Update: Out of the 200 channels, there's only BBC, Sky News and GodTV in English. That's it, no other English stuff besides the French MTV channel with English songs. But honestly, I am grateful even for 1 English channel.

Wes

Home again

We took a walk to the Eiffel today, spent about 1/2 hour sitting down on the grass and did nothing but chatted. This time round, we were jetlagged and pretty much groggy since we landed in Paris on Thursday morning. Almost slept the 2 days away. Feels good to be home at our apartment after 3.5 weeks of siaoness in Spore.

Btw, turns out internet is not installed yet... but it's coming... soon... almost.

Took a walk down Commerce street.

Shoes were on sale we think. Kat, this one's for you.

Sunny day at the Eiffel today.

Celebrated Jo's mom 60th at home in Spore.

Jo and her almost-one-year-old nephew.

Diaspora

Just came back from a full dress rehearsal of Diaspora at the Esplanade. It's good, dono exactly how I can classify the performance, it's not a drama thing... it's got a full chinese orchestra, indonesian musicians, multi-video projections plus some really good performers.

However this show was relevant to me, coz after staying in Paris for the last few months, I have been thinking and reflecting about my identity as a Chinese Christian Singaporean. Parts of the show spoke volumes to me, the feeling of displacement, a sense of isolation and the need to connect to the past. It's hard for me to put it in words, but the show has given me hope, that I am not going through this phase alone.

Two nights ago, I was on the way home in the last bus from Marina, I talked to one of the actors from the show. I told her that in spite of being part of the majority race here, I felt not-rooted. She was surprised since she was in a minority group but I told her that in spite of that, I didn't really know who I am culturally. I went on to explain, I am a Cantonese and I was raised in a environment where my dad spoke only English to me. I grew up with American sitcoms and TV series in the 80s and 90s so I am more familiar with Western icons than Eastern ones. At that time, China was branded as the bad guy by the media so I don't feel linked to China as a Chinese Chinese. I told her that even now, my past is being wiped because the places where I lived and studied are gone, I can't even show my kids the classroom where I studied, or the field where I played, or the canteen where I loved the chicken wings fried by the malay uncle.

I told her that one of the most bizzare things that happened to my school was that they replaced the old clock tower with a replica. And with that, my memories were taken away. Some people might argue that memories live only in our heads, I disagree. I think that old clock tower held part of my memories and a replica cannot replicate memories. Anyways, I think that this process I am going through will take time. Dono if it's going to be useful but not everything has to be useful, does it?

On another note, we feel that something fundamental is changing in Singapore, Jo and I were discussing about it when we came back 2 weeks ago but can't still we can't put a finger to it... but it feels as if the whole island is in a new big rush to head off to somewhere.

Jo's dad had to go for a lung operation this week and she was very tied up for a while, but thank God he has cleared the op and will be heading home soon.

We are heading back to Paris on Wednesday. Got a piece of good news, the Internet connection has finally been installed in our apartment. Woohoo!! :-)

Wes

Copyright

Got this from a Bill Waterson (Calvin & Hobbes) site. Just couldn't resist this one.

Wes

Wedding Photography

so funny it hurts.

Wes

Learnt at few things:

- That the Eiffel Tower is only 15 minutes away on foot. Seems so silly we discovered this after more than 6 months in Paris. So once or twice a week we take a stroll to the Eiffel to walk off our dinner.

- That not only is a Tefal frying pan better than a house brand pan, the food tastes better too. I bought a Tefal pan yesterday after trying out cheap Monoprix pans for about 6 months. After Jo fried the fish on the new pan, I thought it tasted different and asked her. She said it wasn’t a psychological thing, the fish actually tasted better. Wow.

- That pancakes are called ‘blinis’ here. And they come in mini, medium and large blinis. The large are the size of MacDonald pancakes and the mini is the diameter of 2x S$1 coins.

- That Tabasco is a good substitute for chili sauce when I don’t want to travel halfway across the city to Chinatown. Better for the stomach too coz it doesn’t make my stomach go woozy like some other chili sauces.

- That mint leaves go well with fried rice and butter prawns.

- That Honey Nougat Magnum ice-cream is da bomb.

Siao liao. Jo and I are putting on weights.

Wes

Phantom Food

2 days ago at home, I was sitting down reading downloaded stuff from the internet cafe (nope, we still don't have a connection) when for no reason at all, I missed the taste of a laksa tao pok. More accurately, I miss that squirt of laksa on the first bite of the tao pok. Then I realized that memory was from eating my mom’s laksa… man, even the Katong laksas don’t have that piece of tao pok.

And just yesterday, when we were walking in the metro, I remembered the texture of mee hoon kueh. This was the mee hoon kueh from an industrial area in Marsiling Drive where I used to work as an IT guy in Woodland in ‘94. And this was the best mee hoon kueh I have ever tasted. Missed it a lot back in Spore when I left the job.

Anyways, good news! Temperature has dropped to 18 to 26°C after a huge thunderstorm about a week or 2 back. In fact it’s so cool now that it gets a bit chilly when the wind blows, like autumn’s just trying to hurry up. It’s a really huge difference from those 35-37°C days… was really scary for a while coz there were folks who died of heat related reasons.

And Jo’s doing good, she’s been busy chugging away at her powerbook with video work since our stuff arrived.

Wes

Our stuff's here finally!!

The delivery guy came early yesterday at 7am to deliver 13 boxes worth of stuff that was packed in early March when we left our Rose Garden apartment. And due to complications with French import/export companies we had it shipped out only in late June. And even so, it reached France 22Aug even though we expected it to hit our house on the week of the 17Aug. I counted it’s been nearly 4.5 months since the electronic stuff like the dvd player, external hard disks, etc have been switched on. Anyways, I fixed up the heat sink in the desktop and voila!

THE BENG PC LIVES!

(hmm-chi-hmm-chi-hmm-chi-hmm-chi-hmm-chi-hmm-chi)

I’m sooooo happy. :-)

---

Jo felt great coz her cooking books, cutlery, books, tambourine stuff and clothes were here. I feel the same coz of the pc & accessories and dvds. It felt that a bit of our life in our old apartment had been restored… Honestly, it was extremely comforting. But at the same time I couldn’t help but feel that in getting all of our stuff, this was the final cutoff from Spore.

Wes

TV's here

w00t!! :-)

Business of Photography

The subject of business in photography has been in my heart and mind for quite a while. I was doing photography as a hobby for the longest time before turning it into a business. I have also learnt some important lessons through blood, sweat and tears. And from time to time, I have had friend and acquainstances who have joined the photography profession. I have also seen the 'old birds' in the industry who are not doing photography anymore, it has been hard breaking coz I knew them as 'chien peis' from the early 90s. They are out because the market got worse a few years ago... but I digress, that's another story altogether.

I never had the chance to pen those thoughts about the business. This person Alan Briot has nicely summed up some really important points in his articles on http://www.luminous-landscape.com.
It's a series of articles in 3 parts and it's a really good read, even for non-photographers.

Wes

37°C day : 33°C night

It’s been blazing hot this week. And the temp hit super high about 2 days ago. We didn’t know this of course since our TV was down since day on the world cup final match. Jo and I have been using the bathtub for cold soaks once a day, keeps us cool for about 3 hours before feeling hot again. Have been guzzling tonnes of water, oringina and the occasional big bottle of 97cents Perrier.

Heard that it’s hot in Spore too, and coupled with high humidity, I know what it feels like, perspiration sets in 5 minutes after a shower. Over here it’s takes 10 minutes. Kekeke.

Our stuff from Spore was suppose to reach France at Le Harve on Monday but it has been delayed till Sat, so it looks like we are going to have to wait for everything to come into Paris on Friday or Sat next week. Can’t wait for my beng pc. Woohoo!

We applied for Internet on 15 June but still haven’t got it yet. Ne’emind just wait, ‘c’est la vie en France’.

So we waits… :-)

Wes

Our Apartment

Took this shot from the window position last night after coming back from the Bastille Day fireworks at the Eiffel. Thought I better shoot before the house gets messy again. :-)

The bed on the right can be flipped up in the morning to get more space. And the bright spot in the middle is the kitchen for one person.

Wes

Coupe du Monde

Sunday night, we finally went to a pub near our metro station. It was a small-ish crowd, quite fun. Cheered when a goal went in and of course we went “BARTHEZ! BARTHEZ! BARTHEZ!” during the penalty kicks.

small crowd

sianz...

Anyways, we were pretty stunned by Zidane’s head butt. Can anybody tell us why he did that? Commentary was in French and with the TV still kaput, we can’t get any info. :-(

Paris has been very quiet for the last 2 days.

Wes

Dead TV

Our TV died this morning, on the eve of the World Cup finals. It has a yellow power light instead of green. Since we moved in the microwave died and a couple of bulbs blew up. We had to change the mattress also. Dono what the landlord is going to say…

Dead TV is a sign we thinkz.

Wes