Caesar Is Home

The year of 2011 has finally come to an end. After all the ups and downs, here comes the time for us to renew our resolutions, reset our take on life in 2012 and let the bygones be bygones for the things happened that did not go in our favour. 

Many happy occasions came and passed by in 2011 for me. I have upgraded my status with my darling, or rather we have both upgraded our status to each other hahahaha Guess that I am now officially off the market :p We are currently awaiting the grand event in the year of the Dragon :)

Not to mention also the 3 trips that I had in 2011, definitely the most active that I had ever experienced :) Although 2 of them were business trips, but I still enjoyed them nevertheless. 

My resolutions for the new year: To stay alive, to stay healthy, and to be a better person overall. Really gotta work on this bad temper of mine :p Most importantly, I am gonna cherish the loved ones who have always been there to support and to care for me :)

As for the title of my post above, well, I personally feel that "Rise of The Planet of The Apes" was definitely THE best movie in 2011, with MI4 following closely behind in 2nd place. Moral of the story: Never play the role of God. You'll never know when you are killing your own kind. Just go with the flow and let things happen naturally. Heck, that was what the Feng Shui master advised me to do earlier this year :p

Till then, Auld Lang Syne :)

Cheers to a good year that has been and to a better year that is going to be :)

The Missing Ghost of BlackBerry Future

Something that I happened to bump into on the net. Quite funny but no pun intended :)

Cheers

Bliss Amongst The Thorns

iMourn

I guess I don't have to elaborate any further. My feeling today is exactly the same thing that I felt when MJ passed away in 2009. Today we lost a great man with great vision and wisdom. He was a charismatic keynote speaker. He was the Thomas Edison of our time. A true legend indeed. A friend who taught us to "Think different".

image from apple.com

Goodbye, The Crazy One. You'll be deeply missed.

En Route To iPhone 5 - Current Analysis

I was browsing around after getting to know that Apple is gonna let  the new iPhone5 out of the bag....finally yeah I know. It's happening on Oct 4th and the tech journalists in the USA have been issued official invites to the event at the Apple Campus.

*Image courtesy of www.loopinsight.com

So what I found was actually quite interesting. Although the data applies to the USA market but in general, I don't expect it to change that much for the rest of the world. 

First of all, I've never expected that close to 4% of the total iPhones running about nowadays in the USA are the iPhone 2G!! Yeah, the original one with the aluminum back. I was thinking that they can't even top the 1% scale. And most surprising of all, close to 90% of all iPhones are not jailbroken!! Although the USA government has legalized jailbreaking of the iPhone in the country, but it seems like most people are still sticking to the stock good 'ol system rather than swaying to the Dark Side. 

As for the rest of the data, you can get them from the infographic by paidviewpoint.com below. 

Cheers

Mid-Autumn Is Here!!

Yet another Mid-Autumn Festival. But somehow I feel that things are not the same anymore. During my younger days, we kids looked forward to this festival as it was one of those days where we could play with fire :p, the other one being CNY. 

I used to stay in a government flat and we kids (cousins, neighbors' kids and some adults too) would light up the whole corridor with loads of candles such that if one would look down from the higher levels, it was a sight to behold. But nowadays, smartphones and tablets represent a new age of candles and lanterns. No more fish or Ultraman lanterns to play with. Heck, kids nowadays don't even know how to operate a torchlight!! They just know how to turn on that LED at the back of their phones. 

Sigh... times are changing. People don't value family ties that much anymore. Money and technologies are their new families now. I find that people now are more connected with those from other parts of the world via Facebook or Twitter than the very people who are living under the same roof with them. After all, Mid-Autumn Festival is about togetherness and kindred spirit and fate which binds us together, especially our family members and great friends. 

The haze has already covered the moon tonight. Let not technologies and our inner 'haze' blind us from the very human touch that keep us together.

月亮圆，月亮圆，月亮照在我的家...... 

Cheers

Hi! He's an Android, I'm an iOS and They're The Others

Just for the fun of it. Click image to view full size.

*Infographics courtesy of Hunch Blog

Cheers

Down South To Malacca

Went back to Malacca the other day. Apparently, my ancestors (few generations ago) were Babas and Nyonyas and that they lived in Malacca. It was only during my grandfather's time that they decided to come up to KL and settled here. So obviously, I didn't know the address of my ancestors' home nor did I know that if it still exists :-/ Anyhow, I've always liked going to Malacca for the food, the cleanliness and the historical heritage of it. It feels like... I'm going home :p

Cheers

Remote Control Car Using iPhone/iPod

Cheers,


Mark

IMO Delicious Claypot Chicken Rice in KL

Location: Taman Connaught, Cheras (click here for Google Map link)

Food: Claypot chicken rice, double-boiled soups, and frog legs porridge (the stall beside it)

Rating: 9/10

The ooo-la-la Claypot Chicken Rice

Chicken feet with groundnuts double-boiled soup

Salted vege with tauhu double-boiled soup

The tauke himself :)

Cheers and Happy Eating :)

Funny Gandalf

Now this is a funny wizard to look at :p 

"You shall watch in 3D!!!!!"

Image courtesy of McKellen's Flickr

Childhood

Childhood...

where Dreams once filled my life

where Everyday was as worry-less as ever

where we were promised many "Happily Ever After"-s

where everyone is everyone's Neighbour

where there were no shades of gray in between Black and White

where Mom and Dad were still young and wrinkle-less

O' Childhood...

where I... could not go back again...

About Respect and Loyalty

Respect and loyalty,

Just like communications, 

They take 2 to tango. 

And They are not demanded or forced upon, 

They are earned.

        

*Picture courtesy of jemima.files.wordpress.com

QuickCam on The iPhone: A Personal Review

Yo people! What's up? :)

Today I'm gonna blog about this new app that has just arrived on to the App Store. It's called QuickCam, written by those guys who did the ClearCam, another great camera app for the iPhone of which I have also reviewed here.  

I've been testing it for a week now and I find myself using QuickCam more than the stock Camera app by Apple. One thing that you'll notice when you first open this app is the speed. While it takes a couple of seconds for the stock Camera to fire up, QuickCam only needs 1 to 2 seconds on my iPhone 3GS. 

Once the app has started, you'll be greeted by this user-friendly interface: 

Well, I admit that this is not the best looking GUI for a camera app, but hey it's fast! How many times have you found yourself missing on some quality shots just because you were waiting for your camera app to start? I've been through a few myself.

Besides, the GUI is very self-explanatory too. And that is the reason I think that the developer didn't include a Help/Info button on QuickCam :)

The button on the right is used to take still shots. Tapping it once takes a single shot where you'll see a white flash on the screen together with the shutter sound. If you would like to take multiple shots, just hold your tap onto the button and voila, multiple shots without even lifting your fingers!

The button on the left is for taking videos. Tapping the button once automates the recording process, of which the button will turn red. Tap the button again, its colour turns back to blue and the recording stops. 

I think the biggest selling point of this app is that you can take video and still shots at the same time. Yes, you read that right! While video taking, tapping the camera button takes still shots of that particular moment without stopping the video recording! And I think that at this point of time, this is the only app which is capable of doing this.

The magnifying glass slider in the middle, needless to say is the zoom button. Alternatively, you can also zoom in and out via the pinching 'viewfinder'. While the slider has a limit on how much you can zoom in, the pinching action doesn't. This means that you can zoom in all that you want to while taking videos or photos, albeit compromising on the quality once you zoom in too much.

Since I was only testing it on a 3GS, some of the features included such as flash, switch-to-front-camera and video light could not be tested. However, they should be able to work on the iPhone 4. 

Overall, this is a pretty solid app if you need to take videos and pictures in a jiffy with its fast start up time. However, features wise, I think ClearCam still stands out. But then again, these 2 apps are targeting different users and of course, different operating conditions. For speed, QuickCam is the way to go.

The app is now available on the App Store at a special launching price of $0.99. 

Cheers,

Mark

忍

忍得一时风平浪尽, 

退得一步海阔天空…

但是忍无可忍就无许再忍 

Hong Kong & Macau Trip

After so many years and after so many discussions on the intention to go to HK, I somehow managed to go there in the end, last month :)

A very nice 5 days and 4 nights trip with very pleasant places to stay in. Most notable was the stay at Butterfly On The Prat at Tsim Sha Tsui. It's very near to the MTR station and is within walking distance to Temple Street as well as Ladies Street. I managed to visit most of the places on the map and it was a very great trip indeed. Do note that Disneyland is a MUST GO! It's very much worth your money and do allocate 1 full day just to visit Disneyland. You won't regret it for sure :D

Pictures time :p Clicking on the pictures will take you to my Flickr page.

Room 5 on the 9th floor :)

No, I'm not staying here :p

Silence is golden :p

Hong Kong street. Familiar sight for those who watch TVB dramas :)

The tortoise building :p

Avenue of Stars

Taken from Central, after coming down from The Peak.

You see Mandarin Oriental there, that's where Leslie Cheung took his own life in 2003.

I think this is the best pic that I've taken during this trip. And the best pano that I've done too :)



Can't wait for the animated movie that's coming out this year :)

Part of the puppets at the It's A Small Small World ride.

Street parade in conjunction with the 5th Anniversary of Disneyland

They really do spend loads of money on costumes and colourful floats! These were for Winnie The Pooh.

The Lion King troupe.

No, those weren't skins. They're skin-coloured fabrics with painted on tattoos :)

Look closer and see what you find around her legs :)



Lilo and Stitch troupe.






Bokeh!! It would be a perfect pic if not for the hand that blocked the man's face :-/



The Lion King stage play. Absolutely fabulous.



It's the circle of life....






...and there's wireworks as well.









You see those deco lines on the floor? Those are actually rails for these floats to go around! Great engineering design! 









The quite empty Main Street at night.






The Sleeping Beauty Castle :)



The nightly fireworks on display hehehe :p



They coordinated that when the pink fireworks went up, the castle would be adorned with pink spotlights as well :)



The fireworks shots would be perfect if the exposure time was longer. But with no tripod and handheld, they are passable la :p



Some fountain in front of some hotel in Macau.



Stanley Ho's legacy.



En route to get my almond cookies.



Simply awesome crystals!!

I think that's all for now. All in all, I took 1000+ photos. So I chose the best few to be put up here. The next time I go HK, I'll visit the Giant Buddha for sure :) One of the very few places that I've missed out this time round.

Cheers