Rambling on…

DIYPhotography.net has a great tip on how to protect a strobe on a stand / tripod. Use a frisbee! I actually had a tripod permanently disabled when my son toppled it over. This tip could probably protect your tripod as well. Hit the link for details.

I’ve been using the Nokia E71 for about 7 months now. It took me a while to get used to the QWERTY keypad and its relatively small keys, but now that I’m used to it, I think it’s great. It’s equipped with a 369MHz ARM11 Freescale processor so it handles most Symbian apps with ease. Below are my favourites (in no particular order):

1. eBuddy
If you’ve used eBuddy’s unified messaging system for the web browser, you’ll know what it’s capable of. With this app, you get an all-in-one solution to your messaging needs. eBuddy connects to MSN, Yahoo, AIM, GoogleTalk, Facebook, ICQ and MySpace. Perfect for those who maintain more than 2 of these accounts. I prefer this to Fring, but you may want to try Fring out if you use Skype as well. Only drawback about eBuddy is that it doesn’t fully recognise the E71’s QWERTY keypad so if you press the function key to key in numerics, it will think that your ‘T’, is the ‘2′ on a regular 9-key phone, so, 4 presses on ‘T’ to get ‘2′. It doesn’t recognise long presses either.

2. Gmail
Sure, the E71 has native support for Gmail via IMAP, but I still prefer the mobile app from Google. The interface is similar to the web version and (to me anyway), it’s quicker than using an IMAP protocol.

3. Nokia Energy Profiler
Not long after I got my E71, I started having problems with the power consumption. The phone would typically last 5 days when I first got it. Suddenly, it could only last 2 days… and that was with very light usage. I sent it back to Nokia twice to get it checked out, but the technicians were saying that there wasn’t anything wrong with the phone. It turned out that one of the apps I installed had a process running in the background that kept the CPU more or less at 100%. Whenever the phone was sent for diagnostics, the technicians would do a hard reset and format, so obviously they were not seeing the same problem I was. The Energy Profiler was very useful in helping me pinpoint the problem by showing me that my E71 abnormal power usage.

4. JBakTaskMan
While the Energy Profiler helped with showing the power usage, JBak Task Manager helped with displaying all background processes and allowing me to terminate the offending process. Surprisingly, the Symbian OS has more background processes than you’d expect. Although I don’t have the power usage issue anymore, I keep both Energy Profiler and JBak Task Manager on just in case.

5. Autolock
Nokia’s keypad autolock is seriously useless. It only works when you’re on the homescreen and nowhere else. Installing Autolock allows me to lock the phone anywhere and anytime, even from within an active app. So, no butt-dialling from my phone.. er, butt.

6. Y Profile Scheduler
If you’re like me and you have a few profiles, ie: office, home, outdoor… then chances are, you’ll have used the wrong profile for the wrong situation before. Nothing’s worse than having your phone ring at max volume whilst in a meeting.  Y Profile Scheduler allows you to define a schedule for your profiles. So my ‘Office’ profile activates at 8am in the morning and by 6:30pm, the ‘general’ profile is activated. At 10:30pm, it automatically activates the ’sleep’ profile. Useful stuff!

7. Nokia Sports Tracker
I love this app, I like to think of it as something like the shadow mode in Gran Turismo. It’s most useful when used with a GPS equipped phone. It tracks your exercise routine (ie: walking, running, cycling, etc) by logging your coordinates and it also gives you real time information such as speed, altitude, distance covered and so on. After a routine, it stores the information. You can then define a map or path using that information. If you regularly use that path, then you can compare past performances against your current form. You can even share these paths with an online community using the standard .kmz format or see your path in more detail by importing it into Google Earth.

Photographing portraits isn’t the easiest thing to do. Foremost in my mind when doing a portrait shot is mostly technical things. Stuff like:

• Did I get the lighting right?
• Am I using flattering angles?
• Am I being creative with the subject and background?
• How do I avoid the reflection in the glasses?
• Do I need a gold/silver/white reflector?
• DAMN! I need another flash!

But that’s the easy part. The most difficult bit (for me anyway) is always the interaction. Depending on the subject, this can be easy.. or HELL. My first few tries at portrait photography were disasters.. I went in feeling all tense and intimidated, which naturally resulted in crappy shots. But I’ve realised a couple of things that has made more recent attempts at portraiture easier to handle.
(continue reading…)

When I started writing this entry, I was thinking of yet another “BOOO!” to the Malaysian government. But I think there’s more than enough of that on the Internet.. my adding to it won’t help matters.

The fact is, petrol prices have gone up. And we have to do something about it. No, not by complaining.. but by changing how we do things. Here I’ll present to you what I’ve been doing to save petrol.

1. Avoid taking unnecessary trips.
2. If possible, do your driving in the morning or evening. Cooler temperatures mean denser air which is easier on the engine. Plus, cranking up the air-conditioning in the afternoons just adds to your petrol consumption.
3. Similarly, top up on your petrol when it is cooler. The cooler temperatures mean denser petrol.
4. Don’t drive aggressively. Curb that right foot! The harder you accelerate, the more petrol you burn.
5. Plan your trips to avoid jams and heavy traffic.
6. Let your car coast in neutral. Of course, you have to make sure the situation is safe as a neutral engine means a lack of engine braking.
7. Don’t leave your engine idling. When waiting for someone, turn your engine off. Too hot? Get out of the car and in the shade.
8. A friend of mine does this in Australia, he turns off his engine when waiting at a long traffic light. Of course, you need to be familiar with the lights and anticipate when the lights will turn green so you don’t bring any unnecessary attention on yourself.
9. Don’t drive with your windows down or your sunroof open. These create drag. The more drag you have, the more your engine has to work. Remove that bicycle rack when you’re not using it! Thinking of adding some cool rear spoilers? Think twice… those spoilers may look cool, but they also add drag. Besides, how fast do you think you’ll be going that you’ll need to add more rear downforce??
10. Ensure your tyres are properly inflated. An underinflated tyre creates more rolling resistance. It also wears your tyres out. Oh, and remember.. a tyre’s pressure goes up after some driving due to heat build-up. So, if you drove 10 minutes to the petrol station and then inflated your tyre to the recommended pressure, chances are, it’s still underinflated. The recommended tyre pressures are for COLD tyres. So, overinflate your tyres at the station, get a pressure gauge and measure the pressure in the morning when they’re cold and adjust the pressures down accordingly. Need I mention not to overinflate your tyres past their recommended limits?
11. Make sure your car is in tip-top condition. If your spark-plugs aren’t working as they should it means your petrol isn’t burning as completely as it should. Keep your air filter clean… a dirty filter means an inefficient engine.
12. Polish your car! A clean car means less drag.
13. Carpool! Yeah.. the added weight makes your car less efficient, but it sure beats driving two or three cars to work or to that mamak.
14. Reduce weight! Stop carrying that bag of golf clubs in the boot!
15. Do you leave your car to warm up in the mornings? Don’t! Just drive gingerly and you’ll be fine. Leaving the car on idle for 10 minutes is a sure fire way to increase your petrol consumption.

I’ve been practising some of these tips for the past 3 months. And it does affect my petrol consumption. My car’s trip computer calculates an average distance (km) per litre of petrol (L)consumed, or km/L. I used to get about 9.8 – 10.1 km/L. Now, I’m averaging 10.8 – 11km/L. At the maximum, it’s a 1.2km/L increase which means I can go 50.4km further on my full tank (42L) of petrol.

Give it a shot… and see what kind of improvements you get!

I was over at Bukit Jalil doing some photography (okay, okay… it was more like drooling) for the Xtreme Nights car show. As it was night event, the lighting conditions weren’t ideal. At one point, it was even threatening to rain, but thankfully, it stayed dry while I was there (apart from the puddles of saliva). Anyway, back to the point of this post, I realised a couple of things about the behaviour of my Nikon D70s while taking the pictures. Two things are particularly interesting for me:

1. Exposure Bias (EV) does affect Manual (M) mode

I always thought EV doesn’t affect the manual meter, afterall, you’re in FULL control. You decide what you want the camera to do, and you look at the exposure meter to decide how you want to expose the image. But actually, it does. Setting an exposure of -0.7EV and dialling in the controls for shutter speed (assuming the aperture is not changed), the shutter speed will be higher if you’re bringing the exposure meter to 0EV. This is confirmed in page 86 of the user manual.

2. Slow/Rear Flash Sync doesn’t limit your shutter speed

I always had the problem of the D70s hitting the 1/60s shutter limit set in the menu (in Aperture priority mode) when lighting conditions were difficult and a flash had to be used. This meant that the flash was always going to be the sole light source and that the resulting image wouldn’t be natural in its lighting. Setting the flash to either Slow sync or Rear sync solves this problem. Although now you’re faced with a longer shutter speed and steady hands (or a tripod) would be required.

Although I’ve used this camera for almost 2 years now, I’m still getting to grips with it. And I still love it to bits!

p/s: Yeah.. the pics will be coming soon.. once I get round to processing them. I went with tango, so go here for his shots…