Peggy Olson

Mad Men's genius at its best has always been its ability to create whole episodes out of smaller pieces that could be episodes in and of themselves. It's enormously hard to do (no other show that's attempted it has fully pulled it off), and even Mad Men struggles with it from time to time.

avclub.com

How to make an iTunes ringtone

My friend could never got his favorite song onto his iPhone as a ringtone. It turns out that he has trouble changing the file extension from m4a to m4r. His computer does not show it, at all.

Imagine trying to teach him over the phone to do so, on Windows 7.

Curses.

I went the easy route - let's install logmein. I wanted to remote control and show this visually. Five minutes later, I got him to download the software, but the install failed after many clicks of "next next next". Apparently access was denied somewhere.

That show file extensions option must be somewhere in the damn Control Panel.

My Museum

Panasonic GF1 20mm ISO100 f5.6 1/800s

Panasonic GF1 20mm

Computing woes update

My PC went dead in August, exactly one and a half years since I bought it. The desktop refuses to turn on: it repeatedly turns on for 2 seconds, and goes off in cycles. The prognosis by my experts is either a dead motherboard or a dead power supply.

My first generation MacBook, meanwhile, is still running strong and efficient. I installed Snow Leopard without any issues. Apple replaced the keyboard and its cover at no cost earlier. I gave it away to Saya for her school projects, and it should run for another two years.

Should I bring my PC for a check up and replace the faulty parts? Should I fork over another 6k and just buy a new PC? The reality is, fuck that. The old PC would probably run into another problem in six months, and the maintenance cost is just not worth the pain. I am leaving the PC platform for good.

Monitors

The quailty of the display makes a significant difference in colors. I run the latest Apple Macbook Pro at home, the screen's large color space (technically called galmut) is much to be appreciated. The details and colors are accurately reproduced, the contrast is maintained, and the viewer could better evaluate and appreciate the art.

At work I run two monitors: the EIZO flexscan, and the HP. The later plainly sucks at color reproduction. Avoid at all costs.

Photographer at Work

Canon 5D ISO4000 1/100s f2.8 50mm

Helen Fisher on TED

Love is romance, lust and attachment. They are not separable.

Nothing is logical in love. There are no calculations. Everything is unconditional. Don't fall in the trap, like I did many times ago.

Helen Fisher tells us why we love and cheat.

Tom and Julia

Lovely wedding

Blue skies again!

A few miserable days later, we are finally greeted by a sunny sky today. It is just gorgeous.

It's Friday

Enjoy.  Have a good one.

The RGB color wheel

Similar to the mixer's color wheel, the above RGB color wheel arranges colors in a fashion that opposing pairs create strong impacts.

Stuff

I digress: 

1. Yes, I love my profile picture.  I rarely find a half-decent picture of myself, but in this one, I was genuinely happy and the occasion was memorable.  She's gorgeous, and she's a great mutual friend of mine; but we never spoke since we met in New York that day, and she was not my girlfriend, though I'd loved to be hers. 
2. I was reviewing my blog album, and was half amazed by the differences in colors in the processed version versus the original one.  I am dazzled by the creative freedom in modern photo processing.  I post a thumbnail below of the original output.

Colors

I am a color freak.

Red - black, green, may be yellow, white. Red & green works the best.
Blue - orange, may be green, and small stripes of yellow works as well, orange pairs beautifully.
Violet - follow the blue trail.
Yellow - not my favorite color. Yellow is like spam, just a bit and everyone is fed up.
White & black fits all bright colors, naturally.
Brown - green! Just look at the trees.

Red is my favorite color, what is yours?

Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival

(REUTERS/Sheng Li)

From The Big Picture series, highly recommended.

Beijing Love Story

Canon 5D 50mm 1/80s f4 ISO1600

We hold our hands before we depart, our minds were filled with question marks. We weren't brave enough to start, and let our feelings fall apart. You sent me letters and pictures, and I took them with heart. Now that I am alone on the street, our scenery remains vivid like a postcard.

Last Hong Kong Gold Medal, 2008

I enjoyed the Equestrian competition. We had the perfect storm, it didn't land until after the closing ceremony. What a wonderful evening.

Untitled.

Interlude

A couple of rainy weekends passed by. We were hit by thunderstorms, typhoons and floods. I was on slippers to work, and only changed them back to shoes at my desk. It was a total mess in June here.

An extension to the story is that I didn't do much photography past month. I still have some photos I made in May which I could publish, but they aren't of stellar quality. I was also a bit lazy in getting my Lightroom to work again, given how many times I reformatted my computer past month. I am very much looking forward to buying an iPhone and pairing it up with my Vista... drifting back to the main story: been busy, bad weather, not much done on my 5D recently.

Now, on to something totally not photography related, and thus moving this note into the direction of "personal blog entry". A couple of clicks earlier, I founded one of my most beloved's blog site. I met her on my first day on the campus for my first degree, during my first tutorial session. It was my love of first sight: she was my best friend at school. We studied together, and supported each other on family, friendship and school. I stayed at her place, and she made dinner and breakfast for us and our friends. She introduced and supported my work at Salomon, and she made my first scarf.

I took responsibility in the failure of our relationship: I took things for granted, and I wasn't an understanding person in her feelings when she wanted to break up with me. I allowed myself to drift off and unknowingly hurt her feelings, and I was stupid enough not to know that she cared so much for me during our broke up.

I think she will give birth to her child this summer. Congratulations. Much love and care.

You suck at Photoshop?  Watch this.  

You & Us with the Government next time.