Little Mac

Finally we added another member to our Apple's family, a small Macbook Pro for Jin :)

Magic Trackpad

Today I got an Apple magic trackpad to go with the OS X Lion. I know it will probably never replace the good old rodent especially precision is your main concern, but it does work seamlessly with the Apple new OS. The trackpad, through the new operating system enables you to bring the full "touchscreen" ability of an iPad into your regular desktop. The gestures work perfectly and it makes navigating between programs a breeze, especially flipping through multiple active desktops. However, the most impressive thing to me is not the trackpad itself, it is how fast Apple actually delivered the product to me. I placed the order through Apple online store yesterday afternoon and it was delivered late in the morning today from Sydney. Now that is what I call fast service!

Roomba 577

iRobot Roomba 577 is an automatic vacuum robot which can be programed to run on its own according to a set schedule of up to 7 times a week. I bought this for Jin as her birthday present but in fact, it's probably a present for both of us. Vacuuming has never been this fun since we adopted this little baby! It comes with a self-docking station for recharging and 2 "lighthouse/virtual wall" units which can be placed strategically around house to direct the Roomba where to vacuum and where not to. The units are crucial for the Roomba to find its way back to the docking station once it finishes vacuuming. The unit comes equipped with multiple sensors at the front to detect obstacles such as walls and furniture and to help it navigate around them. It is also clever enough to detect a ledge so it will not fall down a flight of stairs.

I have tested Roomba on carpet, rug and hard floor and it passes favourably. Because Roomba can adjust its height automatically, it has no problems going from one surface to another, and also unlikely to get bogged down by wires or uneven surfaces. I am absolutely amazed at how effective this little gadget is at the job and the sheer amount of dusts and hair it is capable of picking up.

More info can be found here. If you are sick of regular vacuuming, give this iRobot a go and you will not be disappointed!

The Athlete's Foot

No...not the fungus or tinea infested foot, I am talking about The Athlete's Foot shoes company in general. My pair of New Balance runners were long overdue for replacement, so I took advantage of the new year sale and got myself a new pairs at The Athlete's Foot in Belmont. I have never shopped in any of the stores before and to my surprise, it was a truly enjoyable experience indeed. Not only they measured and recommended a pair perfect fitting shoes, the girl that was servicing us even told me I am an "overpronator" and required shoes that minimize pronation on the medial side of my feet. She recommended a pair of Wave Nirvana 6 by Mizuno, which is a superseded model and that meant good bargain. Jin got a pair new Nike runners too at the same time. We were there for more than 40mins from start to finish and not at any stage that we felt rushed by the girl, even though half of that time was passed their normal store closing time! Being in retail for a fair while myself, I know how annoying it is for customers to come in just before closing time, but to The Athelete's Foot, this is obviously not the case. That's what I call service! We know where we will go next time when we need new sport shoes, do you? :)

Something for the kitchen

Despite needing regular sharpening, I love my big and cheap Chinese cleaver which I probably have been using for more than a decade now. While the cleaver is great for cutting through bones and making mince out of steak, it is sometime too big and clumsy for other purposes.

We have been looking for a good cooks knife for quite sometime now and today, we finally bite the bullet and bought not just one, but a full block set of knives! As you can see from the following photos, each Ran knife is beautifully crafted and forged from 69 layers of damascus steel and sharpened to perfection. While using the newly sharpened meat cleaver is great, cutting using these Ran knives is something else! They are so sharp that they are in fact, a bit scary to use.

X-Mini

X-mini Max 2 to be precise, is a piece of rather impressive capsule-shaped gadget I must say. I have never even heard of these miniature speakers until Wayne showed me his X-mini 2. These stereo pairs cost around $60 is definitely a steal and would be a great gift idea for this festive season.

The two modules can be joined and held together at their magnetized bases for the ease of transport and the built quality is very impressive. The one I have here is black with elegant matted finish, which is far better than the cheap shiny plastic that you get with most, well, cheap stuff nowadays. Audio connection is via a 3.5mm headphone jack which is compatible with most portable audio devices and each of these speaker can be daisy chained together by as many X-mini speakers as you can afford to produce HUGE sound! Each speaker has a "Base Xpansion System" which can add extra volume to the speaker for better lower frequency performance.

Each powered by a built-in rechargeable battery, according to the manufacturer will give you more 10 hours of continuous use from a 2.5-hours charge via USB. The sound produces by these speakers is loud and crisp with noticeable distortion only at the upper limit of the volume. Overall, a very impressive ultra portable audio system and would make a great travel companion for both music lovers and gamers.

Good Bye Crumpler

Hello Billingham! It's hard to envisage how the idea of such a beautifully crafted camera bag was originated from humble fishing bags. I have always wanted the Billingham 307 since "Kai" from DigitalRev TV introduced their range on their website. At first look at the bag, you know that it is not just "another" camera bag, it is something special that you would like to have as part of your camera accessories, just like a good "L" lens from Canon! You know that its sturdy construction and heavy padding will help to shield your expensive camera equipments from damage and drops, heaven forbid!

I don't think I need to say much about this awesome bag; if you want to know more about Martin Billingham's wonderful range of bags, please check them out here. Camera Electronics, Perth sells them if you want one :)

Thank you my dear for this wonderful birthday present!

Perfect Stand

We were looking for an ipad folder/holder which will not only provide it with some protection but also be able to support the pad in both vertical and landscape orientations. "Cloak" by Quirky was the closest and the best Jin has found that will fit the purpose until we saw the stand by Griffin in DJ. Although the stand does not offer any physical protections, it does provide rigid support to ipad in all 3 orientations; vertical, landscape and typing positions. The stand itself is made of quality brushed aluminium that will definitely compliment the look of the ipad. The biggest minus is in fact the cost, at $79.95rrp, it is definitely not cheap!

Another New Toy

Oh...I mean "tool" :) On Sunday, we went to Myer in city to take another look at those iPads because Jin was very interested in getting one. However, we both agreed at the end that and an iMac would make better sense and more useful than an iPad, although the price difference between them was rather astronomical in comparison. So we ended up with a 27" iMac i5 2.8Ghz but the problem was, we parked all the way back at the far end of Northbridge and the sky was starting to spit. It thorough explains why my whole upper body was aching like no tomorrow the next day!

Setting up the iMac was a breeze and pleasantly surprised since this is the first Apple I have ever owned. I must say powering up the iMac was eerily silence in comparison to my PC, which sounds like a rocket ship is about to take off every time I press the power up button. However, I was having a few issues while trying to connect to my 802.11n home network at full speed. Apparently it is a fairly common problem but nevertheless, it was fixed now with a simple tweak on my Netgear router.

Looking at the screen, it is definitely worth every single penny that we paid! The color reproduction and the 2560x1440 resolution are light years ahead of my current PC display. It's simply awesome! And yes Wayne, you are right, photos do look way better on iMac, even lousy photos lol!

FlexTT5 x2

I couldn't believe how fast this shipment actually arrived from Hong Kong, thumbs up to those guys at DigitalRev, they are indeed the best in the game!

At the moment, I can't really write anything about these PocketWizards because I haven't got a chance to try them out yet. But at first glance, these are indeed serious toys (tools) that are very well constructed. I can't wait to try them out soon!

Welcoming the Little Brother

Finally, this little brother of Canon has joined our ever growing Canon family. At first glance, the G11 definitely does not look like a typical point-and-shoot (pns) camera. With metal and composite construction, it is also much heavier than most typical 5x compact cameras out there, and the built quality is excellent. There are plenty of controls on top of the camera and I think the most useful one being the ISO dial. Comparing to G10, G11 still sports the same sensor size but with reduced resolution in order to improve image noise control. As this is the very first G-series compact I have ever own, I am unable to provide you with any comparison between them but from what I read online, it certainly works in favor of G11. Jin will bring this little baby for a test drive later and hopefully able to come back with some sample images to post.

From my brief experience with it last night, the only fault that I can find with the G11 is the tiny little viewfinder at the top. The VF is too small for my liking and I find it really hard to compose images through it.

Epson Stylus R2880

I have been looking at larger format photo printers for sometime now. Honestly speaking, the inkjet printer technology has advanced tremendously since I bought my last Canon S750, which was about, well.....8 years ago :) But I can vaguely remember that it was not a cheap A4 size printer and considering how much I paid for it, the print quality was a bit disappointing even at the time. Nowadays, you can grab a better one from Harvey Norman for as little as the price you pay for a large pizza down at your local pizzeria.

From weeks of reading reviews, I have narrowed down my choices to only 3 printers; Canon PIXMA Pro9500 MarkII, Epson Stylus 1410 and Epson R2880. Epson Stylus 1410 is an dye-ink based printer whereas the other two use pigment-ink, and also is the cheapest among them. At the end, I settled for the Epson R2880 as it is the only printer that takes roll paper for panoramic printing. This is also the main reason why I chose the Epson over Canon, even though Canon is a newer model for the same price.

After picking up the printer and a 9.8m roll of A3+ glacier photo satin 300gsm paper from PRA Imaging in Northbridge this afternoon, I spent the rest of the day playing with it and managed couple of prints along the way. The print quality is astonishing and is almost as perfect as those from your local photo lab! The biggest problem with this printer the capacity of the cartridges, sadly, the printer has grown in size but the cartridges are smaller than those in my S750 :) Well, with nine of those bleeding, I got a feeling we will definitely end up spending much more in ink cartridges than the $1325 initially paid for this printer!

Big Brother is here!

Yesterday I got my long awaited Canon 580exii, the Canon flagship flash accessory. Compared to my old 430ex, the biggest noticeable difference is its size and weight, and of course, the build quality. Do doubt this is a Canon professional flash unit built for tough life ahead. It has a metal footing at the bottom and all the switches, buttons and covers are water sealed. Of course, the only part that is not water-sealed when fitted onto my current cameras is the hot-shoe footing, which is only available on Canon 1d Mark III or newer. Well, not that I am going to shoot in the shower or anything like that, but I suppose it is nice to know :)

It is also a lot more quieter than 430ex and in my brief experiment last night, a hell lot stronger and faster. Not that 430ex is inadequate my any mean, I love my 430ex for its compact size but when you have flash modifier fitted on, such as a diffuser; or bouncing off higher roof, 430ex in some situations, could be a little under-powered.

Second "L" glass

I have most of my focal range covered now that I have got my long awaited general purpose lens, the Canon EF 24-70mm f2.8L. For a while, I was torn between the 24-70 and 24-105 but at the end, I decided to go for the slightly bigger brother. This lens has been around for for sometime now and is probably one of the most used general purpose "L" glass on the market despite weighing close to 1 kg. I have never tried the 24-105 before but from what I read online, these two are fairly similar, optically however, most people agree 24-70 has the edge and also not forgetting, it's a full-stop quicker. Going down from f4 to f2.8 means doubling the amount of light hitting camera sensor at any particular shutter speed. This coupled with high ISO could mean getting sharp images of moving objects, for example humans in low light, or blurred mess/ghosts unless that's your intention :) There is another difference between the 2 though, the 24-70 is unfortunately lack of image stabilizer (IS) but I guess if there is one, it will only land bigger blow to my hip pocket lol!

I did a rough test and the images shot are very good, sharpness and contrast are definitely better compare to those of EFS 17-85mm IS. However, it still doesn't beat my favourite prime, the mighty Canon 50mm f1.4 stopping down to f2.8!

If you need more info about this marvelous lens, click here!

Kaiser Baas USB HDTV

As we don't watch a lot of TV shows, I tend not to spend (waste) too much on a digital set top box and yes, we still use analog tvs :) We bought a $99 DGTEC hd tv tuner about couple years ago for our bedroom and it lasted just that. So I decided to try something different (and even cheaper) this time round, a USB tv tuner for my bedroom pc. It was an amazing piece of technology I think for the price I paid for it at Harvey Norman. It is made by an OZ company who makes digital photo frames :) This USB stick is capable 1080i display and it allows typical PVR features such as schedule recording with EPG and time-shift for those emergency toilet breaks. It comes with a copy of PowerCinema 5 by Cyberlink which is rather pleasant to use. Setting up the device is a no-brainer, fully plug and play on XP and Vista. However, I was a little disappointed with the remote controller provided, the remote only works at direct line-of-sight only and I mean direct!! So if you plug this thingy at the back of your computer, the remote will have no use at all. Luckily my Logitech diNovo Mini never let me down :)

Logitech VX Nano Mouse

Got this little mouse today for my netbook. Well, the mouse is not really of nano size but the receiver is so remarkably small that you soon will forget that it is even there! Some might say that most of the new notebooks nowadays are equiped with bluetooth technology, wouldn't a BT mouse make more sense? The answer is yes of course but there is a big downside to it, BT mouse is usually less responsive and often lag behind. Logitech claims that the 2xAAA batteries inside can last up to one year (only if you remember to hit the tiny "off" button underneath the mouse when not in use I guess). Overall, the mouse feels solid and it even comes with a carrying pouch!

White Beauty

Got this from Harvey Norman last week, a vaio P series netbook (VGN P13GHW). It was their last display model and hence, we got a fairly good discount from them. It looks like a sport car on steroid, it is "beautiful"!

Yes...look without essence some might say, well, frankly I don't give a rat about what others said. The look alone is enough to justify the premium price although it has slower atom cpu, smaller hd and running on Vista, which slows it down further :)

Well, after all I am not intend to play game on it. The main reason I bought it is to travel with it so I can have occassional internet access and a place to save all my photos, and for that, this baby fits my criteria perfectly....and it can even fit into my pocket! All I need now is some spare batteries to go with it lol!

Update 26/7/9: This amazing netbook is great for watching movies/trailers in real HD on the go (720p/1080p) provided you use the correct software and codecs. For smooth HD playback, the best software to use is the Cyerlink PowerDVD 8 or Windows Media Classic HC (open source) with PowerDVD's playback filter. Playback using WMP is choppy and virtually unwatchable. I am also able to overclock this tiny Atom Z520 using setFSB from 1.33Ghz to 1.6Ghz without any problem, although I am struggling to find any real world improvement with it :)

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

As I mentioned in my previous post, I brought this lens to Lisa & Tim's wedding for a test drive. I was very worried because firstly, this is a new lens that I have no experience using it with and secondly, Lisa slammed the title of their wedding photographer on me!

Well, I shot roughly 80% of my photos on the day with this lens and the results were stunning to say the least. It is a fairly fast lens and coupled with 2nd generation image stabilizer from Canon, it has made indoor/available light photography a breeze and a joy to use. I manage to get decent images even at shutter speed of around 1/10th of a second at 200mm and that's amazing. It definitely blew the conventional shutter speed rule of 1/focal length to pieces! The zoom ring is easy to use and very well dampened. During zooming and focusing, the length of the lens does not change, in fact, nothing physically changes outside the lens and it is also impossible to get lens creep.

There is already so much great thing being said about this lens on the net, I don't think there is anything left for me to add. There are only 2 things left on my wish list, Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L (waiting for IS version) and Canon 5D MarkIII(?) :)

At 10mm, things starting to look rather amazing!

Actually I was more interesting in getting the Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS but Jin was trying to convince me into buying an ultra wide-angle lens first before our Europe trip this coming Spring. After reading what Ken Rockwell has said about the Sigma 10-20mm, I was a bit skeptical at first but after handling and trying on the lens at the Cameraland, I bought it without a second thought! It was indeed a very well-built lens with decent optic and quite a lot cheaper to my original choice, the Canon 10-22mm. What's more, the lens came with a free hood and a well-padded carrying bag for starter! The lens is fairly sharp at 10mm even wide open, CA is very minimal and barrel distortion is well controlled, something that I really hate at the widest end of my Canon 17-85mm. It uses standard 77mm filter.

As for the Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS, well that will have to wait a little longer, may be just before we go to Europe (duty-free)...just may be... :)

Harmony 785

With 5 remote controllers littered around our coffee table, I think it's about time I do something about it. Using multiple remotes is not only cumbersome, but also a little frustrating if you happen to misplace one of them.

Well, not anymore with this clever product from Logitech. The Harmony 785 comes with a docking station which charges the remote when it's not in use. Setting up the remote controller was a breeze with the software package enclosed. All I need to do was list out all the model numbers of devices that I wanted to be controlled by it and the software did the rest by downloading the neccesary codes onto the remote. It also has the ability to "learn" new IR funtions from existing remotes via the software. The harmony 785 has a built-in motion sensor which activate the screen and all the buttons whenever the remote is picked up.

The remote has a small colour LCD screen that will help you navigate through different devices and "activities" installed on the remote. Devices are grouped under various "activities" and by selecting the particular activity, it will turn on all neccessary devices needed to launch the activity while turning off other components that are not needed. For instance, by selecting "Watch DVD" on the menu, the remote will turn on the TV, AV receiver and DVD player with the push of a button. Because it has the ability to "learn", it can be set to control virtually everything that has remote in the house, including the air-conditioning unit, heating as well as my media PC!