Monthly Archives: May 2009

05/31/09

Sentosa on 120509

Okay this is a really ‘expired’ blog post but my girl wants me to talk about it.  Its been quite some time ever since we went sentosa together for a swim/tan so we took an ‘off’ day just for it; there are lesser people on weekdays and the beach won’t be as congested or crowded what..

And ofcourse, phototaking is my girl’s forte; she’s more than a narcisstis.  I used to be like that too until I became over-aware of gaining public’s unwanted attention.

So here’s the photos:

Alright.  The pic above looks edited?  Ofcourse!  I won’t show people my belly BUT my gf didn’t consult me when she uploading my ‘big-beer-belly’ photo.

Another photo that went through my tedious photoshopping:

And the below is me without photoshop (from my dear’s blog)

And the following is how we’ve enjoyed our weekday =)

Then we went to Teoheng for our KTV session, just for the both of us and reached back home late and tired but it was definitely an unusual outdoor day!

05/29/09

Why web developers cannot design

Im been forcing on my brains for the very little bits of juices for web design for the past few days and realised that web design is totally different from web development.  Being proficient in web programming doesn’t make me a pro web designer.  I’ve got 3 freelance projects on hand and I wld rather code php/mysql than html/css/psd.  Allow me to share this:

  1. PHP/MYSQL is straightforward.  If you don’t get the results from the database, just keep troubleshoot
  2. Its design-less.  I dont need to do color charts or layout design.  Its just the output.
  3. Javascript is a bonus, not a must (to me).  Some users might disable their javascript and cripple the functions, thus it will defeat my backend purpose (although the real-time update is really cool)

Now, as a part-time web designer:

  1. Colors are important.  It brings the users attention!
  2. Typography.  Font family, size and emphasis!
  3. Layout to place your contents and navigation.  It must be as user friendly and intuitive as possible!
  4. Navigations are crucial too.  They define the user’s experience.
  5. Pictures speak a thousand words.  Get the pictures right!
  6. Gradiency with web2.0!  Layout graphics tend to look more cooler in gradient.

Web developer usually dont look at the front-end side.  They don’t work much with graphics and layout and may not design as better as designers but at least they’re well-versed in codings!

This article is written as of my experience as a free-lance web designer in a cosmetic company.  Many web enthusiasts may disagree with what I had say but its really what I felt.  Time to get back to brainstorm for better designs!

05/25/09

A day with the cast of Ultimatum

If you’re a Singaporean and the word Ultimatum sounds unfamiliar to you, perhaps you should try to watch some local dramas some time. Yes, I agree there isn’t much nice shows by the locals BUT, this show is different. Remember ‘the unbeatables’ decades back when you were still having your pacifier or still swimming around, then you wouldn’t really recall it. That kind of drama is what we always want and something not always delivered to us. The ‘golden path’ was another drama that can make me go home just to watch that 1 hour every weekday.

Thanks to I-Weekly, I went with my dearest baby girl to queue at the front of the stage so that we can capture good shots of the casts. start drooling girls!

random3
Random event before the ultimatum cast

random2
Introduction to the ultimatum!

PINGHUI smirks. lol!

TAY PING HUI with his smirks. 

 TAY PING HUI!
Another collage of Tay Ping Hui (he sure loves to smirk!)

FELICIA <3
FELICIA CHIN. so cute!

FELICIA sweet smile
FELICIA! sweet.

ELVIN!
ELVIN! cute and handsome..

And we managed to have a hand-shaking session with the casts which was totally not in our plans initially.  my girl wanted to shake fann’s hand so badly and I can’t resist Felicia either. Hahaha.. 

PS: it is indeed my lucky day today. Imagine after wasted $10 on the UFO catcher, today I managed to recuperate my losses by winning 2 softtoys with just $4 at the UFO catches. I love these machines, at times.

05/22/09

SINGAPORE HDR


Took this picture of Singapore’s cityscape on Singapore Flyer with 3 different exposures and combined with photomatix (no manual editing) I like the clouds and city line. the floating platform can be seen as well..

05/14/09

Customer Service in M1 should IMPROVE

I called up the Customer Service on Sunday with hope that the customer service personnel who entertained me could provide me with reasonable ‘promotion’ to prevent me from terminating my line in the coming August. Frankly, I don’t really like the provider. I dont understand why sometimes the SMS gets delay when I had already sent out (my gf had once received a sms from me only 10hours later!) and the 2 different blackberry mobile plans stated in their website. Its either you subscribe to 1GB or unlimited and looking at the trend now, people uses blackberry for many bandwidth consuming purposes such as IM and twittering. Theres nothing in between for me to choose from and the customer service officer (ok I didnt care about his name, all I cared was telling them how I felt as a 9year old loyal customer), I think best thing he has ever done in his entire life is to ruin the chance of me staying put as their loyal customer. In a fit of anger, I even told him to ask him to get his SALES department people to contact me (which I think he would have ignored because I shouted at him but HEY, this is customer service, customer shouts and screams all the time).

After telling him how the other providers like StarHub and Singtel had offered me whenever I could renew, he told me he would give me $50 discount for the next bill. For a 9year old customer, at such an economy and critical situation where subscribers are all hopping around, they didn’t hold to put the regular customer infront of anybody else. Time has changed. Last year when I tried to terminate my line, the customer service officer (which I believed was from the sales department) dried up her saliva just to make me retain my another line and now this mofo officer ruin it.

Despite reflecting on their POOR customer service via their online feedback form AND via SMS (because they would ask you to grade the service everytime after you call the customer service line), M1 DID NOT get back to me and ask for suggestion. Are they lacking of customer service officers or are they ignoring a 9year old regular?

Think about it.

05/1/09

Nothing is safe.

I bought this Western Digital Harddrive, barely 2months ago at the ITShow and the last time I used it was 2days ago, leaving it with my PC and I thought that nothing will go wrong AS LONG AS I don’t do anything funny to it.  I backed up all my family photos, DSLR, friends and school event photos, all in that piece of shit and I deleted the actual copy in my computer; thats whats a backup’s for you see; I don’t need the files now, so I dont want it to clog on to my system resources and until I need it, then I retrieve it out.

Great job.   The harddisk failed on me.  TODAY. FUCK. SO IN A FIT OF ANGER, I LITERALLY DISMANTLE THAT SHIT INTO PIECES:

 

And thats when the actual troubleshooting begin.  Everything was working fine EXCEPT for the harddisk.  ITS NOT SPINNING.  Im not even sure if the power has been supplied to the harddisk anot.  Gees.  To desperate attempts, I even went online to look for data recovery solutions and I know its gona cost a really huge BOMB and my photos, I don’t think its that worthy.  Im still alive, I can still continue to take photos BUT some photos ARE nice and HARD to snap.  Once its gone, its gone!  Theres no 2nd chance for a good shot, and thats a rule every photographer knows.  Once you had that shot, its yours.  If you lose it, trust me, you’ll never ever get the same thing again even with the same angle.  It just looks different.

Im really upset about the loss of data, and my beloved earphone, after 2years of tedious blasting with me through army and public transports, broke into pieces too.

If you’ve asked me when was the lousiest moment of my life, I assure you this is the THIRD.