KOH KHO KING

Do you need another push for D3?

Posted on October 30th, 2007 by KhoKing.
Categories: Photography.

Do you need another push for Nikon D3?

If so, just click the link below:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/d3.shtml

Disclaimer: KhoKing takes no responsibility for anyone who has been warned and still click on the link above…

0 comments.

made in Japan…BCG injection mark

Posted on October 30th, 2007 by KhoKing.
Categories: Family.

Those newborn baby in Japan, or even if not born in Japan, there is BCG injection in October for all newborn babies.

In Malaysia, BCG injection was given on the same birthdate, same as Taiwan. However, in Japan they have a fixed date for BCG injection carried out by the city office. So, some babies can be 1 month old, some can be 3 months old…different age. There are few different sessions of BCG injection a year, ours was in Oct for Megumi. City office will send a letter to inform you the date to go for injection in the city office health care center nearby.

(more…)

3 comments.

家诺四个月半大了

Posted on October 29th, 2007 by foong.
Categories: Family.

时间过的真快, 家诺四个月半大了!

在这四个月半里, 家诺学会了很多东西…

(more…)

6 comments.

Catch the Leopard?

Posted on October 27th, 2007 by KhoKing.
Categories: Computer / IT.

Are you ready to catch the Leopard? Just launched yesterday…

Am I upgrading? Nah…though I have a macBook with Dual Core Processor and 2GB RAM, I am not going to upgrade from Tiger to Leopard. I don’t use my macBook that much. The money spent isn’t worth for me.

Price? (USD)

• Single User $129.00
• Family Pack $199.00 (license of 5 for those who lived under the same roof)

There is no upgrade price. So, even if you have Tiger now and want to upgrade to Leopard, you are as if buying a new OS and get the Tiger scrapped. According to Apple website, there are over 300 new features on Leopard. I watched the Tour Guides (for PC, you need to install Quick Time), it does looks impressive.

You can order online directly at Apple online store:

http://www.apple.com

0 comments.

Internet banking user growing…

Posted on October 26th, 2007 by KhoKing.
Categories: Computer / IT, Rojak.

Internet banking user is growing furiously nowadays. With more and more people going online, people tend to love settle things online rather than having to queue in the counter.

Yeah…the first and most popular internet banking site is “too busy” today…

It is quite frustrated when you want to get something done but couldn’t due to the site busy message. They should have upgrade their system always before it reaches its limit (eg. Ebay is one of the company that consistently upgrade their hardware making sure that there is no time-out or can’t keep up with demand failure).

Tried and tried the site above…after half an hour still the same. In fact, I find maybank2u.com.my is very slow nowadays…but the good thing is that Bank Negara has stated the rules that there must be no charge for internet banking service. You can transfer money to others without having to pay any service fee. This is good. However, with the increase popularity of internet banking, it is only a matter of time before the free service will be charged.

The success of internet banking is also mainly due to the wider coverage of internet and the “slightly faster” internet connection nowadays in Malaysia (highest is 2MB for household users but many still complaint that the speed of 2MB/s package is no different than the slower package…). Though still consider as “snail speed” when compare to oversea neighbours (Japan is using 100MB fibre optic now and the basic/slowest is 8MB/s Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) broadband, while Singapore is offering 10MB ADSL line now), at least we are growing and it is good that some companies (Maxis, Digi…etc.) are now offering wireless broadband internet service. Landline service is monopoly by TMNET/Streamyx, so hopefully there are some more players in the wireless ISPs so that we as consumers can benefit more and also encourage healthy competition among providers to facilitates the internet technology grow and coverage in Malaysia.

With this…I hope more people will shop online at ShaShinKi.com too!

2 comments.

Sample photos using Lambency Flash Diffuser

Posted on October 26th, 2007 by KhoKing.
Categories: Family, Photography.

Here are some photos of my wife and baby using Lambency flash diffuser.

With flash, I was able to shoot at lower ISO and higher shutter speed, hence getting sharper images. You probably won’t notice much different from my previous other photos posted here, as 99% of the previous photos that I have posted are without flash (hence natural feel) at high ISO and are not very sharp (still looks good for online presentation, but not so sharp when you do bigger prints).

Some may asked:”what is a good flash photo?”

My answer:

• Not having harsh bright spots/contrast on the subject.
• Not screaming to viewer “THIS PHOTO SHOT USING FLASH!!!”
• Very soft or no shadow at all.
• Illuminate the subject evenly, including the background.
• Not blinding the subject (direct flash is often too powerful that blinded and angered the subject).

Below are some photos taken using Nikon D200 + SB-800 + Lambency with flash head vertical upward (without dome):

(more…)

5 comments.

在日本一生悬命割树胶的日子

Posted on October 24th, 2007 by foong.
Categories: Family.

至从我家婆帮我陪完月子回马后, 我在日本割树胶的日子就开始了.

没有割过树胶的人大概不懂得割树胶的人是如何的伟大!!!!

(more…)

5 comments.

Lambency Flash Diffuser

Posted on October 23rd, 2007 by KhoKing.
Categories: Photography.

I just received my Lambency Flash Diffuser last week. Tried it last night and I am totally blown away by the results!

Lambency Flash Diffuser

The shots look so natural that you can hardly notice flash was used! I shoot in portrait mode, with flash pointing directly upward to the ceiling. Lambency is without the dome.

The results? I will post it later tonight.

Built?

Lambency is made of soft rubber material. It has translucent effect, allowing light to pass through it. Inside surface is textured, my guess is to allow better light transmission from inside to outside. Yes, did I mention that the material is soft? You can bend and crumpled it to your bag and there will be no crack on it. The rubber looks and feels soft and durable in hand. Quite thick and heavy. Yes, quite heavy. If you set your flash at 45 degree or 60 degree angle, a slight movement will have the head goes down again, due to the heavy weight of the Lambency.

Fitting?

I ordered one for my SB-800. I must say that my first thought when trying to fit the Lambency to the SB-800 is that my staff must have sent me a WRONG model! Width will fit onto the SB-800 nicely, but height doesn’t fit so well. It seems that the SB-800 is a bit too thick or the Lambency is a bit too small in height. My staff checked and confirmed with me that she did send me the right model for SB-800.

So, but using some brute force, I can fit Lambency to my SB-800. First try is difficult, subsequent tries make it easier and easier. I guess the rubber needs some exercise to get it soft and expand a bit. Yeah…I later brutally pull the Lambency in several directions and it seems to be able to slot onto the SB-800 easier (but still not so easy) now. On the plus side you can be sure that the Lambency will not drop off your flash even with a big knock here and there once you slot it in (tightly). (my SB-800 life might get shorten due to the frequent brute force applied onto it).

Copyright?

Lambency is apparently copy of Gary Fong Lightsphere, with some “improvements” made. Due to the general design of the diffuser, I am not sure if the product is patented or not, as Gary Fong seems not able to stop the China maker from fabricating and selling it all over the world! Yes, you can now find Lightsphere in USA, UK, Europe, Asia, etc.! If the product was indeed patented, Gary Fong would have made a fortune by just suing every single shop/company that sell Lambency. Just a wild guess…this might be the reason why Gary now turn to WhaleTail and promote whaletail as a better product than Lightsphere. WhaleTail seems to have more obvious design variant, easier to patent I guess…

Last word…

Nevermind about the design or patent issue, if you haven’t got a Lightsphere or Lambency, go get one and your flash photography will never be the same again!

Related reading:

• http://shashinki.com/blog/?s=lambency

2 comments.

KWSP (Kumpulan Wang Simpanan Pekerja) Malaysia

Posted on October 23rd, 2007 by KhoKing.
Categories: Rojak.

KWSP stands for Kumpulan Wang Simpanan Pekerja. Which is the government body that managed the money for workers that can only be withdrew after retired (age of 55). Certain part of the KWSP saving can be withdraw before the age of 55 (eg. for house loan, computer purchase (no longer available), medical expenses…etc.).

Do you know how much your KWSP is?

Quite a lot actually. Every month, both employee and employer have to pay a good amount of money from the basic salary to KWSP. It is illegal if your boss did not do that.

Monthly 

• Employee  = 11%
• Employer = 12%
• Total = 23%

This means that every month you are saving at 23% from your basic salary with KWSP. If your basic salary is RM2000, you are saving RM460 monthly. Every year, you are saving RM5520. With 5% annual interest (most of the time is higher, vary depends on KWSP investment performance) given by KWSP, you have around RM5796 saving per year. Work for 10 years, you have RM57960 at least in your KWSP account.

Say if you started working at the age of 25 (university graduate), average RM3000 salary, retired at age 55, total working period = 30 years, you then got RM260k at least with KWSP. You can take out the money in one big lump sum and enjoy your life…but do remember…RM100 nowadays is probably only worth like RM10 after 30 years, so spend wisely.

11 comments.

ASKA Tripper V Firmware V1.23

Posted on October 23rd, 2007 by KhoKing.
Categories: Computer / IT, Photography.

ASKA has just announced a new firmware for their Tripper V portable storage device - version 1.23.

Changes:

• A part of mis-display of Exif information generated by the image of which it took a picture with the camera was corrected.
• The mis-display of the update time of the file was corrected.
• Trouble concerning the voice output was corrected.

Download:

http://www.aska-corp.co.jp/support/download/dl-trv03.htm

I have emailed ASKA about a month ago, suggesting some update via firmware to their Tripper V, I am curious if they do listen to customers feedback and change the Tripper V functionality based on that or not.

DO NOT TRY TO SHUT DOWN THE TRIPPER V YOURSELF! Tripper V takes around 10 mins to update the firmware. Be patient

(more…)

1 comment.

Got a new toy today!

Posted on October 21st, 2007 by KhoKing.
Categories: Photography.

Just received a new toy today from Malaysia…

Yeah! Crumpler the Seven Million Dollar Home!

(more…)

1 comment.

GMAIL space…ever increasing!

Posted on October 20th, 2007 by KhoKing.
Categories: Computer / IT.

I just noticed this at the bottom of my Gmail account:

You are currently using 2027 MB (51%) of your 3964 MB.

If you log out of Gmail and went to the front page of Gmail, you will see a LIVE counter with Gmail space increasing every second!

Gmail, it is my “currently” favorite email client! I even prefer using it than my own POP3 account! Why?

1. Search is extremely fast!

2. “Unlimited” or very BIG storage!

3. Access anywhere when you have internet connection.

4. Intuitive and very user friendly interface! I like the way they group every related messages/emails into one email. You can just expand the emails and see every related email in one page! First in the world to introduce this…and I really love it!

5. Multi-language support (my Outlook Express is sometimes weird…)

etc.

Try it! You will LOVE and HOOK onto it!

0 comments.

Ricoh GR Digital Discontinued

Posted on October 20th, 2007 by KhoKing.
Categories: Photography.

Ricoh has just announced that their GR Digital Camera has been discontinued, after it first hits the market in Oct 2005.

Stock is running out fast in the market after the announcement. If you still want a digital compact P&S with 8.1MP, Jpeg + RAW (DNG) format, 28mm F/2.4 fixed lens…etc., do grab it fast!

0 comments.

我拿什么报答耶和华向我所赐的一切厚恩

Posted on October 19th, 2007 by foong.
Categories: Family.

今天带诺诺去教会参加了姐妹小组聚会. 有些感触…

查经前牧师请大家分享一周间要向神感恩的事. 大家都很踊跃的发表. 我心里开始很挣扎,要不要说呢? 我当然知道神在我们身上所行奇妙的事, 但是要不要说出来呢. 各位一定不明白有什么那么神秘还要挣扎一番…

(more…)