Chet’s Chatter

When a cameraphone’s the only camera at hand

Posted on 11 February 2009 @ 23:46 in Tech Stuff

My friend Judy visited the Westminster Dog Show at Madison Square Garden yesterday. She wrote to say she had a great time but she didn’t bring her camera. “I wasn’t sure if they were allowed and didn’t remember from the past….didn’t want to take the chance since they check your bags before you enter MSG and confiscate stuff. Anyway, I was probably the only person there without one.”

I replied to say that she needed to get a cameraphone. “Then, at least, you will have some sort of camera with you all the time.”

I know my photographer friends are rolling their eyes right now. A cameraphone?

Yes, a cameraphone. At least you’ll have something to capture the moment. The picture may not be award-winning, but when you look at it weeks, months or years later, you will be reminded of that particular moment. More than just the image within the frame, the picture taken by a cameraphone will bring back the sounds and the smells from that particular day when you’d snapped that picture. When you look at that cameraphone image, you will not think how wonderful the lighting was, or how striking the angle; instead, you will be reminded of how your handphone¹ has a camera so that you managed to capture a picture of the Best in Show winner lifting his leg to pee on the cup.

Or maybe like me, the pictures remind you of how the battery in your regular camera died at the wrong moment but the camera in your handphone saved the day.

Yes, it happened to me. I was visiting the giant pandas at the San Diego Zoo in November 2006. While riding the Skyfari, I aimed my camera at the giant panda exhibit below, all ready to take an aerial shot when I saw the low battery warning on the display screen. Next thing I knew, the shutter button froze and the camera went blank on me.

That was it, I thought to myself. No pictures of mama Bai Yun and her cub Su Lin, which I hadn’t taken as they weren’t together when I visited earlier that day. I wandered around the other exhibits. At the polar bear exhibit, I saw someone hold up a phone, and I almost exclaimed out loud.

My handphone, my handphone has a camera! I thought as I took it² out, turned it on its side, slid open the lens cover and and aimed at one of the polar bears.

And so that was how I managed to capture some mother-and-daughter moments that late November afternoon at the San Diego Zoo. I know the quality’s not great, but they are precious reminders that I was there and saw my giant panda family.

¹handphone – that’s what we call it in Malaysia; elsewhere in the world, I think it’s also called a mobile or a cellphone
²it – my handphone is the Sony Ericsson K750i, not the latest, but it works for me

My travelling pencil case

Posted on 24 December 2008 @ 13:54 in Tech Stuff

A regular (looking) pencil case …

… unzips and folds down to become a pen caddy!

Made in Japan. Yes, only the Japanese can think of this. But I like it. It means I don’t have to rummage in the case to look for a particular pen to use. And it’s a travelling pencil case because I plan to take it with me when I travel.

Bought from Isetan, Suria KLCC.

Getting Organised

Posted on 19 December 2008 @ 16:42 in Tech Stuff

One of the features I like about the Firefox browser is the tab function. Of course, Internet Explorer now has it, too, but at the time I started using FF, IE didn’t.

I enjoyed being able to see all the different sites in the same browser window instead of having to Alt+Tab from window to window (something similar to channel surfing on TV). But the way I surf the Net, I would usually end with way too many tabs which made it hard to quickly go to a particular site on one of the tabs. The width of the screen can only accommodate a certain number of tabs so that eventually, a right arrow would appear which I would have to click on to see the tabs beyond the right edge of the screen.

So my Internet surfing was getting out of hand. I found myself thinking about it the other day and decided to try and get organised in this area of my life.

What I’ve done is to group my surfing and have browser windows open for similar sites. So, all my favourites go in one browser window, each in its own tab. All the blogs I frequent go in another browser window, each in its own tab. Even the two websites I manage get their own windows when I am updating their content, with one tab for the updating work, and another tab to preview.

Now, I’m feeling a little more in control of my Internet surfing. Instead of having one browser window with way too many tabs, I have at least three browser windows with those tabs spread among them.

Oh, I’m now using Google Chrome which has a cleaner interface and offers the tab function, too.

Managing by Colours

Posted on 30 November 2008 @ 16:35 in Family, Health, Tech Stuff

My lupus meds are quite boring. They’re the same colour, white. Well, except for the Rocaltro which is white and orange, but it’s not really a lupus med, but a supplement. And it’s in a white foil pack until I pop two to take every other day.

In contrast, mother’s various meds include two whites that come in foil packs in their own branded boxes (so there’s no worry about getting them mixed up), as well as two other meds that are refilled loose from a bulk supply from a medical centre – Lasix, which is white, and Digoxin, which is blue. To help me differentiate the two so I don’t refill the wrong med in the wrong transparent bottle at the nursing home, I use a blue tablet container for the Digoxin (same colour) and a yellow for the Lasix (cuz there’s no white container in the set, only pink, blue, green and yellow). To make doubly sure I don’t mix up the two meds, I used my Brother labeller to make name labels to put on the containers. Like this …

It’s one of my tasks to liaise with the nursing home regarding mother’s medications. Whenever they run low, they would give me a call to bring a refill the next time I visit mother. I used to give them the full refill but the person previously in charge of medication would call to let me know only when there were very few tablets left. Some of mother’s meds require special orders, and there was at least one instance when we nearly couldn’t refill on time to make sure there was no interruption in the supply. Now, what I do is keep about two weeks’ supply on standby at home, so that when it’s time to refill, I give the nursing home the standby meds and then call the pharmacy to refill the prescription. As for the Lasix and Digoxin, I would get a three-month refill from the medical centre but give the nursing home a month’s supply at a time, so as to keep track of the meds; it’s more for my own peace of mind.

Meds are not the only area I use colours to help me manage. I also use different coloured inks for my handwritten notes. This is so that when I flip through my notes to look for something, the different ink colours help me find what I’m looking for faster. I use blue for my work notes, purple for personal notes, brown for family notes, and red for expenses.

But instead of having individual pens for each colour, I have found a multiple pen that contains three different coloured inks, and have two, the first one containing red, blue and black inks, adn the second containing purple, brown and green inks. Such pens have been available for a long time – as far back as when I was still in school – but recently, I found one with gel inks that I prefer over fountain pen or regular ballpoint pen inks.

The pen, a Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto, is quite environmentally friendly as it uses refills and has a flip top that allows for the refills to be changed quite easily.

Best of all, the pen barrels and refills are available locally; I’ve seen them in two bookshops, Popular in IKANO and my preferred supplier, Cziplee in Bangsar.