People used to say SLR, but that's really outdated...Why? Have you ever heard of DSLR? Have you ever search for the meaning of SLR? SLR means "single-lens reflex camera". DSLR? Digital single-lens reflex camera. Of course it's digital, almost everything is digital now. Photos taken will immediately store inside memory card instead of film.

I'm a Canon DSLR user, I own a 350D which is very old. That doesn't really matter anyway, lens are always more valueable than the body.



If you are not really into photography, you probably ask,
Why choose DSLR? Why so troublesome? Is that necessary? Must it end up like picture below?


Skip the following paragraph if you are not interested in my opinion
Well, I actually had answered all these questions and managed to convince my parents to buy me one.
My opinion is, it allows me to fully control a result of an image, I can control its brightness, blurness, colors, and so much more. Even though it's troublesome, but I tell them, no pain no gain. With ordinary automatic digital camera, just one click and it does everything, and that is so....simple....(people are getting lazy nowadays huh?)....However, with DSLR, I get to learn many things, for example, ISO Speed, Shutter speed, Aperture, Exposure, White balance, Lenses, filters, lighting and many more. Is that necessary at all? Why not? Learning new things aren't good? Taking photographs can earn a lot though, you can't really study these sort of things in school. I learn it through exploring, trial and error which is quite risky, therefore, do more research through internet, I also buy magazines and some references from MPH.

Okay....those are just simple reasons to convince my parents since they wouldn't understand if I go any further.
Now, comes the true advantage of Digital SLR. Oh wait, before that, I should say, the disadvantage of Compact Digital Camera which frustrates you immensely. Let me reminds you.

• You're attending a big event and want to grab a shot of a fleeting moment
• For some reason your compact digital camera just won't focus
• FINALLY it locks the focus and you're ready - you press the button
• But there's a DELAY - the camera pauses for a second, then it takes the shot

At last, you've missed the best moment. ARGH!!! Darn it!! That's it, go for DSLR!!!
Haha.

Now, I shall begin my talk on advantage of DSLR. So obviously, it's FAST! How come? Hmmm....it's like electronics VS mechanics. Here comes the Shutter which you can't find it in compact digital camera. What so good about Shutter? Well, Shutter is instantaneous, which means, you click the shoot button, it instantly closes *chick* and opens *chak*. Whereas in compact cameras, the sensor is electronically activated every time you take a photo, after all these processes, theres delay, which means SLOW........

Also, wtih DSLR you can have a lens for every occasion. For landscape shots, I will use wide angle lens. For close up potraits, I'll use telephoto lens. For plants and insects, I'll use macro lens. Theres no such thing as 3-in-1 or All-in-1. Be specific, be professional. Maybe you would say, compact digital camera only has 1 lens and it does everything. Lens in compact digital camera has built in mega zooms, x10, x20....but it takes time to zoom plus the quality of the picture will decrease as you zoom in. Unlike DSLR, the zoom is driven by a motor, plus you can control it manually either fast or slow, close, or far.

Thirdly, DSLR can shoot anywhere, anytime, no matter how bad the weather is. You see...I'm sure you noticed, you will face problem when shooting night scenes, a slight movement will makes the image look blur, so difficult. With DSLR, you are allow to manually control the ISO speed which controls the sensitivity to light. At night, there will be less light, so you need high ISO Speed so that your camera detects more light and your image will look fine. Whereas, a compact digital camera needs flash to shoot a proper night scene.

Again, this is same as my own opinion, you can fully control the result of an image. Most importantly, you can do it manually instead of letting the camera do all the job.

Currently, I have 3 lens:
A standard lens comes with the camera, 18-55mm
Wide angle lens (L-series), 17-40mm
Zoom lens, 70-300mm

You might ask, how far is 300mm? Well, I can tell you that your eye is 80mm wide angle lens. You should have learnt this in science, human eyes are stereoscopic, which similar to wide angle lens. Why wide angle? It's because our eyes is convex shape. Agree? You probably learned this in Physics. Another words, image produce by wide angle lens will have slight distortion at the corner. Bascially, almost all lenses will have slight distortion just that we can't really see it.

You can choose your own path as a DSLR user, choose your lens:

Wide Angle lenses View the world with a wide perspective. • Standard lenses What you see is what you get. • Telephoto lenses Get into the excitement of action. • Zoom lenses Produce innovative photographs with a variety of angles of view and perspective. • Macro lenses Discover the beauty of the small things in life. • Tilt & Shift lenses Tilt and shift the perspective anyway you like it.

Pictures and links will be added when I'm free.

This is a great news to all apple fans, I'm included. Macbook and Macbook Pro are fully furnished, new design, new features, new technologies, all engineered to standards that don't even exist yet.

Most importantly, the new Macbook family is the greenest laptop ever. They are highly recyclable and even more energy efficient. And plus the following features to reduce its environmental impact:

• Arsenic-free glass (Wow!)
  
• Brominated flame retardant-free (This is madness!!)
  
• Mercury-free (O.M.G!!!)
  
• PVC-free (ROFLOL!!!!)
  
• 41% smaller packaging (HOLY!!!!!)
  
• Highly recyclable aluminium and glass enclosures (LOL....)

These features make me feel like trade-in my current macbook for a newer one.

Regarding tech specs, there isn't any big change in processor. But the Memory (RAM) is crazy, Apple is now using DDR3 and it supports up to 1066MHz which is freaking awesome. Before, it was DDR2 and only 667MHz. This is really worth buying it.
The new Macbook is now equiped with stunning graphic card, NVIDIA 9400M graphics processor with 256 of DDR3 SDRAM. So basically, with this graphic card, it can support up to 2560X1600 resolution if you have a bigger screen.


Bad news

• The new Macbook does not have a firewire port, which means, movies will not be able to import in best transfer rate from DV to macbook.
• The new Macbook Pro does not have anti-glare screen, which means, your screen might have glare if you are under the sun and you will not be able to see clearly what is on your screen. Bad for video production. Good for watching video.

Only 2 disavantages I found so far.....

Well, make up your mind, Buy or Not Buy? Get from school! Educational prices are cheaper!!

For more informations, go to http://www.apple.com/

To all Form 4s, welcome back from your final examination! These are what I've done during Final Examination period.

During Final Exam Week 1 (Before Hari Raya holiday), we've got the most unexpected breaking C-News brought to you by the broadcast network. Unfortunately, the form 4s missed it that day, so, its no longer "News", its "Olds"....lol
Don't feel sad, the movie is just right below.



During Final Exam Week 2 (After Hari Raya holiday), we've got the most scary movie brought to you by Vince and Voon Fei (not representing any clubs). This movie is made for the event called "Wear with Pride" which is also in collaboration with the Fashion and Design Club. This "Wear with Pride" event also includes the Breast Cancer Awareness which I've already mentioned on the previous post. The video is in somewhere around the world.

Good morning, afternoon, night everybody! I've been working on this "BCA" project....Argh...Give me a break!

Let me just introduce it a little.
Basically, Breast Cancer is cancer in a breast. This includes men and women, no joke. 2nd most common type of cancer after lung cancer. A person who is affected will look like you, they will have a tumour around breast area which you cannot see usually, but can feel it by examining it. Breast cancer kills by spreading and humans' pretty cells will die! Argh!

That's enough! I'm not a doctor. I'm doing graphics for this project, Vince animate it.
I'm sharing the title page with you guys! I hope you will like it....not the cancer...but the graphics.

Here you go:


It is available for download. I did a Standard size 1280X1024 and a Wide Screen size 1280X800.
Click on the picture and you will be redirect to my deviant page for download.

The previous Hip Hop Dancer on Fantastic Contraption was a failure. However, I did not give up making more random stuff.

At last, I've invented this: http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2920180

With only 2 clockwise wheels, 2 wooden rods to join the object together, 6 water sticks to increase the mass.
The 2 wooden rods and 6 water sticks are too heavy for 2 wheels to move them, however, the wheel is still spinning, at the same time, generates potential energy. When the potential energy reaches a level, it automatically converts to kinetic energy and it gives an amazing spring-like effect. You must watch it. Here I give you again: http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2920180

I call this transportation "Butterfly", it has 2 wings, a head, and some patterns, most importantly, it flies.

I started using Final Cut Pro yesterday and it was really powerful....salute Apple!
Final Cut Pro is an advanced, strong, powerful, incredible, awesome, insane, professional video editing software for Macintosh user. It is similar to Adobe Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas, and other professional video editing software.

Its original icon doesn't suit my desktop theme, therefore, I purposely made an icon just to make my desktop looks nicer. Here it is:
You are free to download now, here, it is in PNG format. Soon, I'm going to upload this to deviantart for download. Probably, I might release Final Cut Studio icons which includes Final Cut Pro, Compressor, Soundtrack Pro, Motion, Color, and more.....

Made a very cool hip hop style transport in "Fantastic Contraption"...the way it moves is seriously...very crazy.

Here it is: http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2829896

2 clockwise wheels. And many wood rods and water rods.

It freaks me out but also amazed me at the same time. I'm the inventor :)

I've introduced you the physics puzzle game, Fantastic Contraption on my previous post. If you are stuck at the map, you can check out my build. I'll post all solutions here. From map 1 to map 21.

1. Rolling Away - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2781809

2. Reach Up - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2782093

3. Mind The Gap - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2782155

4. Junkyard - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2787161

5. The Wall - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2787414

6. On A Roll - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2789065

7. Full-Up - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2789353

8. Higher - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2789571

9. Around The Bend - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2789703

10. Up The Hump - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2791181

11. Mission To Mars - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2829280

12. Up The Stairs - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2792502

13. Big Ball - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2792877

14. Four Balls - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2794762

15.Down Under - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2735334

16. Awash - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2740869

17. Handling - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2743168

18. Tube - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2746459

19. Back and Forth - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2769549

20. Unpossible - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2795978

21. U-Turn - http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=2768886



These are my solutions....of course...it is not necessary to follow these...you can come up with a better idea which I couldn't think of.
By the way, you can view other solutions by Vince Cheong.

My first thought of this game was some children puzzle game....but after I tried it. It totally amazed me and it is truly fantastic.

This game is created by Colin Northway, music by James Mark, art by Sarah Collins.

In this game, you will have to make sure the given object go into the goal, just touching the goal is not considered victory, you must make sure the object is totally....fully...completely...went deep inside the goal.

To do that, you have to make a transport with these items:
Clockwise wheel, anti-clockwise wheel, water rod, wood rod, wheel (immobile, unless pushed).

Using knowledge of physics, build a suitable transportation to transport the object to the goal.

Is a very fun game, I'm already addicted to it. Try it HERE!

You know...good people love to share photos, music, video with their friends. But sometimes the file is just way too big to be sent through email.
Moreover, your email account might have limited capacity.

So, why not give it a try on free file hosting service? It is totally F.O.C.

TRY THEM:


































You can upload stuff to those sites. It is 99.9% safe, virus free. Once the file is uploaded, you will receive a download link. You just have to give the link to whoever is interested in getting the stuff you uploaded.

My personal's favourite is RapidShare because it sounds good, its Rapid, fast, quick. It is up to you. All of them are not same, each of them has its own advantages and disavantages.

Here is the comparison table of those services: >>>CLICK ME<<<

No tutorial for this unless you beg for one. I bet no one will beg for a tutorial.

I shall repeat my post title....How much do you know about "File format"?

Learning file formats is very fun....
You can determine one's file by looking at its file format....

For example: Don't Stop Me Now.mp3
I can already tell that it is a compressed audio file. Its full name is "MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3", commonly referred as MP3.

Cool right? You must learn some too!

Alright. First you have to know a few common file formats.

Compressed/Archive
zip, dmg, rar

Graphics
jpeg, jpg, png, bmp, psd, gif

PSD and GIF are quite special, they both can be in video and graphics categories. People used to make short animation with pictures and they save it as GIF.
PSD is Adobe Photoshop Drawing, usually 2D graphics or non motion picture. Nowadays, people can even make a video using Photoshop, therefore, PSD can be in Video category as well.

Video
mov, wmv, avi, rmvb, rm, mpeg, mpg, mkv, ogg, flv, dv, swf

I've been working on video stuff recently, so I'm quite familiar with these formats. These formats are quite widely used. You came to that when you start video editing. But for now you just need to get a right video player that plays those video formats.

Sound
mp3, wav, wma, aac, aiff, m4a

I'm sure most of you know MP3. Nothing special already. When you came accross recording, you will have to use WAV, it is "Microsoft Wave", an uncompressed lossless audio, extremely high quality.

Web
html, xhtml, htm, xml, php

I'm a web designer in school, these are formats that we used. Currently, our school Cheras LimeLight is also using HTML for home page. The HTML loads all necessary contents such as SWF, SWF is a video format but I'm using it for web as well, that's why you can see many motions in the LimeLight. Those SWF files are controlled by fully coded XML which is also linked by HTML. So basically, you open the webpage, load HTML>find XML>load SWF.

**Learn its full name as well, it might help you in EST**

For slightly detailed informations: >>>CLICK ME<<<

Recently I watched this movie called "Eagle Eye". Before the movie, I have no idea what's the movie content, can't even guess one. 

Did you notice that the songs in CD and the songs that you have imported from the CD to your computer are different in quality?
My sensitive ears could tell me the difference very clearly.
Therefore, I did some research regarding this....music quality.....

Music quality is being differentiate by its "bit rate". Higher quality music has higher bit rate of course.
Songs or music in "CD" have bit rate of "1411 kbit/s". This is really high.

Who's low then?
Songs that are played by "FM", hitz FM, MY FM, Whatever FM, Anything FM.....They all have a same quality which is "96 kbit/s".

What's the standard quality in bit rate?
I would say "128 kbit/s" because that's the default import settings for iTunes.

Whenever you import songs from CD to your iTunes library, you are actually converting the CD quality which is 1411 kbit/s to 128 kbit/s.
Of course, you can always customise the settings to 320 kbit/s. (That's considered high quality)

What's the advantage of using 128 kbit/s?
In terms of quality, no. However, low quality audio saves you more spaces for your hardisk.
In short, the higher the quality, the more spaces you need.

If you are not so into the quality type, I suggest you use 128 kbit/s.

What if I want high quality but small file size?
If that's the case, I suggest you go for "Variable Bit Rate" (VBR).
While this setting is enabled, your computer will decide a song's bit rate.
As you know, some songs are not necessary to have high bit rate or you will end up having limited disk space.

IMPORT SETTINGS
As I mentioned before, you can customise your import settings, not just bit rate but also file extension (mp3, aac, aif......)
I guess you only knew mp3.
MP3 do gives you a very high quality if you chose the right "encoder".

Encoder is just like your "workers", setting is just a "plan" and you are the "Boss".
You shall decide which workers to use, which plan to apply, and how's the product should look like.

No more worries, I found you the best plan and the best worker!

He is LAME
*Let's give him a round of applause!*

You can download LAME for free!
With LAME, your imported or ripped songs will be in mp3 format. Also, it automatically import your selected songs with VBR settings.
All you got to do is, decide the output folder, select your desire songs to be imported or ripped, and click on the "import" button.

Simple and Clean. Just like ABC, easy as 123, and sing DO-RE-MI.

This is a continuous version of my previous post. The colours of the photo is not accurate because it has been compressed for web usage.

Here is the link to the online flipbook >>>CLICK HERE<<< It will take some time to be loaded.
This is just like a real book, therefore you have to drag the corner of the page to flip. Try it.



I couldn't upload it here because that book is quite big for my blog. The book size is 800X600. Enjoy!