Somewhere on the streets of Penang, a column of light falls nicely on the closed doors.
Shot with the Fuji Xpro-1.
Archive for August, 2012
I used to dislike the color red. I don’t wear red. I don’t buy anything with the color red. I don’t really like collecting red packets. And I hate nose bleeds (the last being an overdose of durians). After moving into my current place, I gradually grew fond of the color red. I have a fire hose reel right in the middle of the living room which cannot be removed. So I ‘designed’ the house with a few splashes of red instead. A red couch, a red clock and a red stool. Maybe it’s 日久深情, I’m beginning to like the color red. Here’s a change in watermark as well.
This is random, but my desktop is full. Time to do some housekeeping.
It can probably save your wrists. For that, I meant Trackballs.
I know some readers here are fellow photographers who, like me, tend to spend hours in front of the computers, pulling sliders. There are afew input tools that we generally use to get our job done. The most common ones being the mouse and the tablet. While the mouse has been my weapon of choice for the last decade, prolonged usage gave me an aching wrist. That usually meant that I have to stop work just to give it some time to relax. I have a Wacom tablet and it’s great, especially when used with Photoshop, the precision is unmatched. But it suffers the same problems as the mouse when it comes to extended use. Just imagine writing for 3 hours… kinda like writing an essay during an exam, maybe easier… but still a pain for folks like me.
While doing my regular geek rounds at Challenger, I saw this Logitech Trackball and was immediately drawn to it. Partly because I thought, “wow… people still sell this crap!”. I used to own a trackball some 15 years ago and I remembered I hardly used it because I had no idea how to control it. Being the typical online shopper, I googled “trackball reviews” right there and read a couple of positive reviews (with regards to using with Photoshop and Lightroom). So I made the 79 dollar purchase and it’s turning out to be one of my best buy this year (good fight between this and the Xootr).
Like what’s mentioned in the Logitech website, it has a rather small footprint (note: it’s NOT small, but unlike the mouse, you don’t need any real estate to move, saving space) and a really comfortable grip. It took me less than 10 mins to get used to it and within a day, I was using it like it was a mouse. Cleaning only involves popping the ball and removing whatever dirt that’s stuck in there. The simplicity of this device makes me think it will probably outlive the software driver support, if the wireless transmitter doesn’t fail.
That’s all for my geek minute 
Even though I’ve been documenting weddings for years, I have very little knowledge on diamonds and rings. I’m sure Mrs Chia (JP) must’ve seen her fair share too. It was still an eye opener.
Sometimes I think too much, somtimes, I just go with the flow. Sometimes, I just feel extremely hardworking. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that I changed the setup of my work space. Having a ‘new environment’ does wonders to the mind (me thinks). I spent an hour yesterday raising the height of my destop to about 34.5 inches. With my chair in maximum recline, I can now push half my body under the desk in beach chair tanning position:D The desk is also high enough for me to stand up to do my work when sitting gets too boring or the butt feels too hot. If I need a drink when I work, the bar stool fits in perfectly. In addition to that, my full tower PC now have more ‘breathing space’. The only small issue is I have to get used to the new keyboard position, which probably is going to take a couple of days. For now, I’m just loving this new setup.
Here’s a picture I really like while editing the current set of images.
