Cut Your Cords!

It seems everything is going wireless these days. From data transfer to Internet connectivity, all have seen major advancements to remove unsightly cables from trailing all over the place. On top of that, I have heard confirmed rumors about engineers who have found out a way to charge your mobile devices wirelessly. Though i am not entirely sure how it works, i know that devices has to be in a 1 meter radius of a central platform to be successfully charged. You may say that this defeats the purpose, but it's a start.

I also came across news where an American firm has developed a wireless HDMI connection. Moreover, it complies with the current HDCP specification, allowing users to stream protected HD content to their television sets wirelessly. This awe-aspiring feature has seen impressive test results too.

More on this when it becomes available.
T'ang


The problem with wireless charging is the power wastage. The RF (Radio Frequency) signals are not directional enough, they're too omni-directional, all the energy gets dissipated into the surrounding area, little actually reaches the device. While it may be good for low power devices, I don't see it becoming useful for computers and laptops soon. The technology still isn't there. Wireless is an inefficient way to transfer energy.

Bryan

School's starting soon...

The past three days days have been extremely hectic. On Thursday I had bowling, on Friday I went for Felix's farewell and just today I went for a movie. Finally I have some time to sit back and relax to type a post. Yay! Oh yeah, I bought some nice anime collectibles today, 2 Solar powered keychains. My senior Victoria gave me a gift, a Iriya figurine. Btw, Iriya is from the show Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu. In English, that translates literally to Iriya of the Sky, UFO of the Summer. Lols. Yesterday, during Felix's farewell outing, we watched a movie, I am Legend.

I felt that the movie was quite good, however certain parts were quite slow and to a certain extent boring. Nevertheless, the movie as a whole was good. I especially like the plot, I'm a sucker for stories featuring the theme 'one Man against the world'. An example is, errr, The Bourne Trilogy. I can't imagine how lonely it must be to be 'the last person on this planet', I bet anyone would go crazy under those conditions.

As for today's movie, I watched, Elizabeth, the Golden Age, nice movie lols. Though Eugene Cheah was constantly complaining that the camera angles were off. Lols. I'm not sure they were off, it might just be that he didn't like the way the director angled the shots. I think the most important thing when watching a movie is not to look at these minor details, its to immerse yourself in the scenario which the director has created, to so called put yourself in centre of the action.

Everytime i watch a movie, I look out for the way the director arranges the scenes and incorporates Special Effects shots, to achieve the final product, the audience's enjoyment. Anyways, I hope that all of you have enjoyed the holidays, cuz I have. Okiez. I gtg now. Bryan OUT!

Live Long and Prosper, I sound like a Vulcan (a race from Star Trek) don't I :)
Bryan

Iriya Figurine

Christmas, YAY!

Osu! I'm back! Lols, although my christmas post is albeit late, at least i bothered to have one, hahaha. I spent the past few hours practising the piano, forgot how to play some of my songs due to the Big Os.

Come to think of it, the holidays are coming to an end realreal soon! Feel like crying :( I know, all good things must come to an end but, i still feel sad. Lols. Ok on to the good news. For the next few days, I'll be going out. Tomorrow, I'll be going back to the lab to do some video work, the day after that I'll be going for bowling, and the day after that i'll be going for Felix's farewell party at some restaurant.

It's really sad that Felix will be emmigrating next year, after being 3 years of classmates, I can't imagine him emmigrating. Nvm, let's wish him all the best in his future endeavours in Canada. We'll still be able to keep in touch anyways, using the latest in comunication technology, i.e Skype, Msn, maybe this blog.

Okie dokie, I gtg now, but before i go, I'd like to leave u with this song. This's the season to be jolly shalalalalala.....

Have a berry very happy christmas! Tata!
Bryan

Notes From the Lab

I took a photograph of a candle during my Christmas eve dinner. This is my first try in shallow depth-of-field candle photography, so don't expect anything fancy. I tried as much to keep my shot as steady as possible. But due to the heavyweight lens (it weighs 800+ grams), the dark environment, and the 100 plus focal length, camera shake blur was imminent without the use of a tripod. And yes, i do not have a tripod yet. I had to drive the ISO speed all the way up to 1600 to get a relatively still shot. Still, i am quite satisfied with my first attempt albeit some greenish reflection anomalies above the candle in the background.

Here is the image, not edited in any form.


Love the creamy bokeh (out of focus blur) though...

Merry Christmas
T'ang

my very first post...

Hey!!! This is officially my first post on this website. The first few posts have been solely by Felix, cuz I’ve been busy with the design of the website. Really, making this blog is like a totally new endeavour for me. Although I’m quite used to making websites, due largely to the fact that i am in the computer club of my school, making a blog is still relatively new to me. Making a blog requires dealing more much with HTML code than i would like. Oh yeah, my name is Bryan, almost forgot to introduce myself.

More about myself, I’m currently 16 years old, preparing to receive my O level results. Unlike Felix, I’m less into high end gaming than I am into producing multimedia content. So if any of you need tips on how to make videos or anything of that sort, I might be able to help.

One of my current passions is anime. You might not believe it but I have a 500GB portable HDD full of anime. Lols. Anyways for you anime fans, next year’s gonna be a big year. Why? Haruhi-sama from ‘The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi’ is coming back for a second season. So, be sure to your check out your favourite fansub.

Anyways, this concludes my first post. Stay tuned for my next post!

Bryan

A Simple Photoshop Tryout

I was inspired by Mark Ho when he created various Star Wars pictures featuring himself. According to him, the best place to learn more about Photoshop is through online tutorials. He was right. In approximately 1 hour (i'm new to it), i created a picture of myself grabbing a Sith Lightsaber, and i was impressed at what photoshop is capable of achieving.

My compliments to Mark Ho, who motivated me to give Photoshop a shot. Just visit his blog to take a glance at his wonderful web design creations, modern art and others. Here's a link.

Regards
T'ang

I-Touched - A Personal Review of the iPod Touch

I have been using my ipod touch for almost a month already. Honestly, i must say that I'm impressed with it. Even though others might say the ipod touch is simply a stripped down version of the iPhone, and that people are better off getting an iPhone instead. I still feel that some are in need for the innovative features and the stunning interface, but do not need the phone itself. Furthermore, not all countries have cellphone carriers that support it. And that's exactly the case for me.

With that said, i am utterly disappointed that Apple did not pass on some of the iPhone's key features down onto its brother model. I'll get to that later.

Straight out of the box, the ipod touch is undoubtedly chic and elegant with its classy packaging. With smooth curves, a shiny back casing, and an astoundingly huge screen, the touch is simply a joy to look at. For a player that packs so many features, it seems almost unbelievably thin at less than 8mm.


The multi touch glass display is flawless and is a perfect compliment to browsing my music in cover flow. Sound quality is above average but soft hissing sound can be heard with a good pair of headphones. Video quality is also quite good when displayed on the device's wide-screen. There has been complaints on the touch's screen being low quality, due to dead pixels and inverted blacks. However, I did not find any of those on mine. The Safari web browser on the touch presents users with the most PC-like surfing experience on a mobile device. Pinching effectively zooms in on a page, letting me view texts comfortably.

Nevertheless, the touch failed to include hardware volume controls and external speakers that were present in its progenitor. Additionally, the touch has no "enable disk use" feature, preventing users from storing other data on to its flash memory. This issue may be overlooked when one considers the measly 16GB that it maximizes at.

Still, if you give a closer look at its slick interface, Wi-Fi capabilities, gorgeous display and near-perfect web browser, the iPod touch could be the music player everybody has been waiting for.

Please feel free to drop by your comments.
T'ang

Lo and Behold the Se7enth Heaven

Just as i anticipated, the Nvidia 7 series chipset has now been released. Like the series before it, the models includes the 750i and the enthusiast 780i. So what's new? That's the question everyone wants answered. Well, the motherboard is now ready for real time DirectX10 gaming, and is thus optimized for it. Furthermore, the PCI Express x16 slots on the board are now PCI Express 2.0 compliant, paving the way for unmatched bandwidth to feed the most demanding games and 3D applications.

And here comes the finale... the 780i chipset now supports 3-way SLI technology. Think about raw power! Just when we have dream t about having 2 graphic cards running in parallel, Nvidia pushes forward and introduces three PCI Express slots. Allowing extreme gamers to configure three graphic cards and play the next generation applications at incredible details and mind-blowing frame rates. But performance does not come freely. It'll cost you a bomb. So for those whose money is flowing like water in the house, feel free to get your hands on this über cool tech.


3riple vision...

For those who would like more information, click here.

Oh and by the way, I'm getting it (i hope).

Thanks for reading
T'ang

(image from http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_780i_sli.html)

The Start of Something New

Phew... We have finally created a blog at long last. We have been considering it for about 4 months now (yes, you've read that correctly, four). This was due to several constraints, such as the O Levels and the post O Level gaming spree. For starters, let me post something that has been written when we first came up with the idea and started a draft. Here you go...

It has been a while since AMD has shown up with something worthy of consideration in the microprocessor industry. In its latest addition to its FX and X2 family tree, AMD has announced its codenamed, Phenom, line of microprocessors. This is probably AMD’s last ditch attempt to regain its market lead. Intel, its main rival, has been topping the charts for the past one year with its Core 2 line of processors. AMD has boasted that their new line of processors has beaten Intel in various benchmarks, presumably claiming superiority over its rival. Hopefully for AMD fans and AMD itself, they will be right and the market sales will swing in their favour. On the contrary, Intel is already readying their update to their Conroe line of processors, codenamed ‘Penryn’. This is a ‘tick’ though. In other words, this is not a revolutionary change in their processor architecture, but rather a facelift with a smaller manufacturing process of 45nm. So will AMD manage to get back up on its feet? Or will Intel continue to slaughter them like they did during past one year? Only time will tell.

Plus, we have something more informal for a change...

Screw EA Games for messing with their patches for CNC3. In the latest patch 1.09, numerous ‘game balances’ (if you call it so) have been added. One if the worst updates include a change that makes the Mammoth tank turret’s rate of rotation slower by at least 50%. The big o’ Mammoth tank is already slow and un-maneuverable enough already for crying out loud! Adding these changes will only make the Mammoth tank an even more non-sensual purchase. Then, there is the new delay to the mothership. We all know that the mothership is used for a ‘blitzkrieg’ sort of game: we simply plant a signal transmitter at the enemy’s base and your opponent will be eating dust in no time. That’s provided you manage plant the transmitter there in the first place. However, there will now be an 8 second delay before the mothership gets deployed. In addition to the 10 second charge-up time before firing, the signal transmitter will be long gone with that 18 second window. So I guess the mother of all ships will just have to fire on the ground and cause no cataclysmic damage then. To make matters worse, the no-defense-production-for -cranes update has not been rectified. Urrggghh!!! Perhaps it’s still best to remain at v1.60.

And viola! There you have it, the very stepping stones for the rise of our blog. Stay tunned for more!

Cheers
T'ang