These series of 5 baby monster speakers were recently brought in and they are really so cute! Powered by lithum battery, charged through USB port, they are said to be able to last 4 hours of playing.
Each baby monster is only 7 cm tall, but comparatively quite loud in sound projection. I simply cannot resist but have to take photos of all of them.
Enjoy.
Start Recycling today
These thoughts have been looming through my mind ever since I came across this thread at Cozycot forum some weeks back. While I have been practicing some of the ways listed in the thread, I realize there are still so many ways which I can do more to help with the ever ongoing reuse, reduce and recycling efforts (the 3Rs). In the process, it can also help to save some money along the way too.
Though the thread in Cozycot focuses more on frugal living, I have incorporated some of the useful tips here under this post for your reference due to relevance. In a way its all related, the 3Rs does eventually lead to less costs in a long run.
If you want to read the thread started at Cozycot on frugal living, you may go to: http://forums.cozycot.com/cafe-talks/28092-cheapest-ways-to-live-in-singapore.html
By the way, Cozy cot forum (http://forums.cozycot.com/) is a local forum, which mainly focus on women issues such as fashion, makeup etc, among other day to day things in Singapore.
Pop by, and join as a member if you are keen to participate in this local community. That is, if you are not already a member. Laughs.
Well, below is just a small list to let you have an idea of what people are doing locally here at Singapore in daily lives in 3 R efforts. Some of the tips and pointers are picked up from articles at other sites, while many of the pointers below are what I am already practicing.
(1) Bring your own bag , cut down on plastic bags.
A lot of supermarkets and retailers in Singapore have launched onto this effort. To encourage shoppers to bring their own bags. In fact, household furniture, IKEA do not even issue plastic bags for free and shoppers will have to pay 10 cents to get their items in plastic bags. There are now on retail many designs of recycling bags, some with even designs that are very unique and pretty. Something that people will not mind bringing them out on the streets.
(2) Separate the trash.
Paper and dry products can be consolidated into one big trash together with the daily rubbish which needs to be cleared everyday. Use also plastic bags to line dustbins to cut down on need to buy trash bags. Clear the waste paper basket (with dried items) only when it is full to reduce useof plastic bags.
(3)Use cloths/ small kitchen towels for general wiping around the house and cut down the use of tissue.
(4)Buy refill packs for detergents and shower gels and cut down the need of repeat buys for full pack with plastic bottles.
(5) Recycle plastic containers for other purposes.
For instance the plastic for holding take-away food can be used as container to hold other types of food. Discard after few uses as these plastics are not made for multiple usage especially if you are using it to hold wet type of food.
(6) Start a water bottle habit.
Take along a water bottle when you are outside. This can help to cut down on the need to buy bottled water. Good for environment, save money and its definitely healthier than the sugared drinks.
(7) Wash laundry at full load only.
This will help to conserve electricity and water as compared to washing multiple times at half load or less. For clothing which require separate washing, I will usually wash them by hand since these are usually lesser in quantity.
(8) Retain the water used for washing rice and use it for watering the plants at home.
(9) Use fuel saving practices to help improve the mileage achieved per tank.
Some examples include driving at consistent speed for long distances, avoid pushing for fast car acceleration, try not to use your car boot as “storeroom” ; anything that need not be transported in the trip should not be carried around as it will drag the car down. Also check your car tire pressure regularly to ensure unnecessary drag brought to the car due to insufficient air in the tires. You can know how well the car performed each time by tallying your odometer on per trip basis against the quantity of petrol used when you top up your car.
(10) Switch off the lights and fans when you are not using that part of the house.
I have seen many cases of people neglecting to do that when they step out of the area. Well, use not, waste not. And it helps to cut down the electricity bills too!
(11)Turn to use Fan, instead of aircon.
This has actually been mentioned in many household tip for saving energy. In Singapore, I know it can be done, even on hot part of the year. The body actually does not need to be soaked in aircon all the time, especially for those of us who spend majority of our time in offices or schools. It is actually good for our health to do away with the aircon.
(12) Use compatible printer ink cartridge for home use printers if colour accurateness is not critical in the print jobs.
There is a catch to this though, there are certain printers these days which has printer chips attached to the cartridge itself and after certain time will not allow the same cartridge to be used anymore. That is, if you are using the ink refill option. For those printer using cartridges without printer chip, this is not a problem at all. I am referring to the option of refilling the ink manually into the cartridges. If you are buying compatible ink cartridges in the market, then that is just direct costs saving and not helping to cut down the need for cartridges.
(13) Consider keeping data in softcopy instead of having to print out hard copies all the time.
Save soft copies of data into hard disk and also consider the option of printing them in Pdf formats.
This will help to cut down the need to buy and use paper and also look for a place to store them. In a world where computers are so readily available in many households, this is one option that is easily achievable.
Print only photos or documents which you really need, rest of the items can be stored in soft copy, to be readily reproduced in times of need. You can also opt for the option of displaying photos through DVD players these days and show them over the television when sharing photos with friends over gathering.
(14) Try to use both sides of the papers.
For test printing. I also try to recycle A4 size mailers received in letter box, printed only on one side.
(15) Use rechargeable batteries.
For devices such as MP3 player which uses batteries, switch to option of using recycle batteries. But do try to buy those with slow discharge option such as Sanyo “ Eneloop” series as these will hold charge longer and reduce the need for repeat recharging cycles.
(16) Cut down use of paper cups and paper plates if you are having small gatherings at homes.
Opt for option of using regular plates and cups if possible. In office, when using the beverage dispenser, to use own cup instead of taking the Styrofoam and paper cups.
(17) Swop items which you do not use
There is also the option to swop items through websites such as: www.youswop.com where you can swop for items you no longer need against things that you would like to have.
(18)Buy second hand items
Buy good condition second hand items such as laptops and computers. This can help to give these items a second lease of life and also help to save some money too.
These are some of the tips which I think can get all of us started to on recycling and reduce wastage. Do share with me if you too have tips in this area too!
Was at Orchard Road yesterday evening and at this particular shopping centre called “The Med”. It has been a long time since I have been in the area and I am awfully fascinated by this tall lady sculpture found at that place. Pity it was raining in the evening most of the time which we kind of missed out on some of the street Christmas lightings up along the road. Next time perhaps.
bottom to up tall lady2
tall lady close up
This is one of the pictures taken quite some time ago at Labrador Park during late afternoons. Did some post digital work to the sign…. Now you know. No dogs allowed in the Nature Reserve.
No_dogs_allowed
For past one year, I have been furiously learning and reading up on how to use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Nothing beats reading, learning and trying out the new techniques learned each time through the variety of books.
If you reside in Singapore, the National Libraries are great places to start as there are huge resources of such books found there. Of course, if you liked any of these books, you can also choose to buy them off the shelves of local bookshops and not to mention online too.
I would like to take this opportunity to share some of the authors and experts which I personally like and still love to read their books on tips and how to improve my skills in these areas.
These are the books which I personally love to own for reference as these authors shared skills on using Photoshop and Illustrator which proved to be timeless even for later versions of these softwares released years later.
Once again, do let me know if you have any authors to share on this topic so that I can go read up on them as well.
Anyway, allow me to bring out the list for you:
1) Bert Monroy
I like the way Bert Monray presents his instructions and tips in his books. They are generally easy to follow even as a beginner.
If you are interested in digital painting that emulates photographs, you should take a look at several books which have been penned by him.
His books is really one of those which I have enjoyed reading and learning very much and I have picked up many skills in Photoshop and Illustrator through reading his books.
The book which I am currently reading is: “Photoshop Studio with Bert Monray: Digital Painting
Photoshop Studio
Other books which I have also read, and I feel are also very good: “Commercial Photoshop with Bert Monroy” and “Photoshop Studio with Bert Monroy”
So if you also like to learn about painting digitally using Photoshop in a photo-realistic manner, do check out Bert Monray’s books.
You may read more about him at his website: http://www.bertmonroy.com
2) Scott Kelby
If you are into learning about how to manipulate photos using Photoshop, you should not miss out the range of Photoshop and photography books written by Scott Kelby.
My favorite book of all times, even though it has been written years ago is “ The Photoshop Channels Book”. This is really one book that dwells all about channels and readers can really learn about how to manipulate photo editing using channels. I have learned much about channel masking and storing selections under channels from this book.
Photoshop Channels Book
Among his books, I have also read
“Photoshop Down & Dirty Tricks”, “Photoshop Classic Effects”, which proved to be very good for beginners starting to pick up Photoshop too.
You can also refer to:
http://www.kelbytraining.com/books/
3) Martin Evening
Martin Evening’s series of books “Adobe Photoshop CS for photographers” series under Focal press is one of the best introductory books on how to apply Photoshop to photographers. It has since moved on to CS4 version, to be in line with the current CS4 suite which has been released last year.
What I really liked about this series is that Martin Evening makes it a point to explain all aspects of Photoshop to the reader and it’s a book that is good for beginners and beyond as the book itself covers theory as well as practical tips on how to work on photos using Photoshop.
Another one of the books which I truly enjoyed reading and learning about Photoshop.
Adobe CS4 for Photographers
That’s it for now. If want to share any good books with me, drop me a comment here. I will be glad to incorporate them into a follow up blog post for this.
Beads Project
This article was written some months ago and was somehow not posted up then. It was done at a time when I had a little more time at hand to surf on the internet for beads designs and project.
For this article, I shall cover series of blog sites or useful websites devoted to teaching folks out there on how to create handmade Jewellery. This is something which I have much interests and have been trying out on this from time to time.
I have placed these sites into few major categories below for easy referencing
(A) Tutorials teaching Jewellery making
http://www.beadjewelrymaking.com/
-Singaporean lady called Christine Lim posting up tutorials for beads for free. Click on the free bead project link found on the home page. Flip site of the site is that its too clustered with sponsored ads which runs at three quarters of the home page.
(B) General Jewellery making write ups
http://www.howtojewellery.co.uk
-Actually this blog is written by a lady called Kate and though there are a few posts devoted to teaching the basic steps in jewellery, most of the posts are directed to either displaying the pieces of works which she has done or introducing other jewelers’s works. Its quite interesting to read through her works, though it seemed her last posts seemed to be couple of months ago, in March 09
General write ups about beading which gives introduction to different websites offering tutorials etc. Interesting read but the last post was Aug last year.
(C) Blogs on beads design
http://thebeaddreamer.wordpress.com/
http://louisehilldesignsblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.beadlinks.com/170_Bead_Blogs.shtml
These sites offer designs to spark off your inspirations into handmade jewellery designs.
Hope above website references can get you started on handmade jewellery. If you know of any good sites to share, dolet me know too.
Cheers.
Has been a little packed over the last month due to various things that cropped up one time or another, September seemed to fly by before I even have chance to really blink my eyes.
Anyway, 1st week of October has ended and I would like to introduce a blogsite which I accidentally stumble upon during my search to look for inspiration on banners and namecard yesterday.
Take a look at this website/ blog managed by a 21 year old guy by the name of Jacob Cass from Sydney, Australia. To be frank, I have to admit I am a little impressed with the things he wrote on his blog as well as his portfolio, especially for someone at such a young age.
His blog is rather interesting to read and some of the tips which he wrote, though simple, is quite useful for me. His focus, even though he does various types of design, ranged between Website designing to print materials, seemed to lie in logo design. And the tips from the blog also seemed to suggest similar focus as well.
Overall a good read, would recommend it to people who are interested in logo and namecard designs.
His website/ Blog can be found at: http://justcreativedesign.com/
You may also want to check out his other site: http://logodesignerblog.com/
Jacob Cass Website
Just coloured this a little while back using photoshop.
Almost Perfect Strangers
Digital Character Design & Painting
I have been reading an old book by Don Seegmiller called “Digital Character design and painting – The photoshop CS Edition” for these two weeks. Actually this is a book I borrowed off the shelves of National Library several weeks ago.
For all of you out there who are interested to paint digitally through Photoshop, I highly recommend this book because the instructions found in the book is really quite easy to follow and the principal behind how to paint digitally has also been explained step by step throughout the chapters. If you follow through the chapters, it will be easy to pick up the principles behind painting digitally. Of course, having said that, the actual results is entirely up to the individual to try and lots of training is still required to achieve the results.
In a way, this book helps to give me some pointers when trying out digital painting through Photoshop and some new tips to explore.
Though the Photoshop version used in the book is CS and by now, CS4 has already been released into the market quite a few months already, this book is by no means “outdated” as there are many techniques explained through the book which are quite timeless. If you are familiar with the features of the software, there is no reason why anyone should not be able to follow the lessons, and still benefit from his guidance.
I will recommend this book to people who are already familiar with the existing features in Photoshop and tend to agree with the back of the book which states that its meant more for “intermediate” level users. It can be a little confusing for beginners to try to locate the features mentioned in the book if you are using a different CS version as the interface for each can be quite different.
Upon going through the book, realized that the book does comes with an accompanying CD which has all the brushes and files for users interested to go through the Tutorial chapters with instructions.
I did a further check for more books by Don Seemiller and realized that he later did a revised version of the same title for CS3 called “Digital Character Painting Using Photoshop Cs3”. Also, for those of you out there who uses Corel Paint, there are also several books by him on digital painting done through this software as well.
To view his works online, take a look at his websites below. There are also some write-ups of this artist found in the links below should you like to read further.
http://seegmillerart.blogspot.com/
http://don-seegmiller-interview.blogspot.com/
http://www.digitalimagemagazine.com/blog/featured/don-seegmiller/
Start Shooting!
Have been a little busy these few weeks, so have not been posting as regularly as I would like to.
In anycase, to kick start the topic for this week, I would like to start with series of website links which provide helpful photography tips.
(A) Digital Photography School
http://digital-photography-school.com/
As the name rightly suggest, it’s a place where you can find online tips all about digital photography though I would think its more applicable for beginners. The various tutorials found on the website are more skewed towards that direction. I find the instructions explained through the tutorials easy to follow through and understand.
There are three main sections on the website. One is tied to Photography tips and Tutorial, one is about photography equiptment and last one is devoted to post production.
Each of the section has tips and write up is submitted different contributors, which explains the variety of tips and advises found here. At the bottom of each tutorial, there will be a brief introduction of the author and website, for interested viewers to find out more.
Overall, I find this site useful to pick up small tips, be it tied to techniques, equiptment or post processing.
(B) DP Review
One of my favorite sites for review of camera equiptments; particularly when I am interested in a particular model of camera body or lens.
What I like best about the site is the comparison tables of the models placed side by side based on user’s selection criteria. This allows the user to compare the feature sof the different models in the market and to make a informed choice based on this.
The other feature which I like is the reviews done on the huge variety of cameras and lens. The details of the review found on this site is really a good place to start whenever you are looking for information online about any camera and lens.
(C) robgalbraith.com
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/index.asp
This website contains many updates on topics related to pictures/photography as well. This place makes a interesting read if you are interested in the whole of photography.
(D) Beyond megapixels.com
http://www.beyondmegapixels.com/
This site functions more like a blog with once again various contributors with a lot of information and guide on photography. Another good site to pick up photography tips apart from Digital photography school. All the articles found at the site make easy read and it’s also quite easy to navigate to the topic of interest too.
Once again, do drop by these sites if you can and let me know what you think. I would also like to hear from you if you have any site which you would like to share too.
