Speed Test of TEKQ Professional CF 8GB 233X + Buffalo MCR-A30H Card Reader/ Writer

Posted on May 30th, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Computer / IT, Photography.

Since I have both products in hand, so instead of asking others how is the speed of both (main interest in TEKQ speed), so I did a simple read and write test to the memory card.

TEKQ Professional 233X Ultra Pro CompactFlash (CF) 8GB Memory Card (Lifetime Warranty)

Buffalo MCR-A30H/U2 30 in 1 USB 2.0 High Speed Memory Card Reader Writer

The Buffalo MCR-A30H/U2 30 in 1 USB 2.0 High Speed Memory Card Reader Writer is among the fastest USB reader/writer in the market nowadays, so this should eliminates the bottleneck of the writing or reading speed of the memory card withhold by the card reader/writer.

Test Files

• Total File = 472 Jpeg files
• Total File Size = 2.01GB or 2,164,224,000 bytes
• Computer = Fast USB port (latest PC with 3GB memory and over 250GB free hdd space
• Time measured using online stop watch, hand/human accuracy = +-2 seconds

Results

• Read time (copy files from memory card to PC) = 108 seconds (18.61MB/s)
• Write time (copy same files from PC to memory card) = 371 seconds (5.42MB/s)

4 comments.

Osaka Castle, Japan (Family photos)

Posted on May 30th, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Family.

Ok, now family photos…I promised you there will be more than just 3 photos…

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3 comments.

Osaka Castle, Japan

Posted on May 30th, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Family.

These are my photos…not family photos…but my photos…

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0 comments.

22 sites, blogs investigated by MCMC - face dead end for oversea blogs

Posted on May 29th, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Blog.

Read this news at The Star:

22 sites, blogs investigated by MCMC

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp…

Quote:

Deputy Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Joseph Salang Gandum told Senator Sharifah Azizah Syed Zain in Dewan Rakyat on Monday that out of those blogs investigated, the commission had also forwarded three investigation papers to the Attorney-General’s Chambers.

“Most of the blogs and websites are being operated using platforms from overseas and efforts to obtain evidence necessary for action often come to a dead end.

“Therefore, it’s very hard to take legal action against these blogs,”he said.

Since my blog is just a personal blog, I guess I won’t be in that 22 sites list (there are hundreds thousands of blogs out there), but they have raised an interesting issue of blogs hosted oversea are very hard to take action against. I believe this includes those using bloggers.com, blogspot.com, wordpress.com or personal hosting using oversea server/hosting company.

Beside the high price of local hosting, this is a good excuse/reason to host your blog or website oversea.

0 comments.

Megumi at 11 months 14 days

Posted on May 28th, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Family.

Time really flies…Megumi is 11 months and 14 days as of yesterday. Took her photo below…she has really grew up! Thank God for the protection!

Haha…looks like a boy in the above photo? Nevermind…wait till hair longer later…then more girly look.

A closer look…

Megumi is always curious about my lens…yes, she touched it all the time…

I love closeup wide angle for my baby shots.

1 comment.

Proof to have visited Hiroshima University (Hirodai)

Posted on May 28th, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Family.

If you were here…you must take this symbolic photo…

The pole at the back looks very much like a lighted cigarette at night.

0 comments.

Sample Photos from Carl Zeiss 50mm F/2 Macro ZF Lens

Posted on May 28th, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Photography.

I got this lens few days ago for one of my customer. With his permission, I tested the lens to check for focus accuracy.

I must say that I really like short macro lens. You can go so close to your subject yet still be able to focus.

Depth of field from macro lens at such close distance in macro mode is very very shallow. This creates a very interesting effect especially if you are shooting some “interesting” subjects. For macro, most would have choose to shoot at F11 or more. For portrait or children photography, you can try shoot at the widest aperture, you will love it!

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2 comments.

BlogMalaysia Links…768 Blogs Now!

Posted on May 26th, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Blog.

Last month, I blogged about BlogMalaysia registering over 500 blogs and target to reach 800 blogs before 1st June 2008 at:

http://shashinki.com/blog/2008/05/01/blogmalaysia-over-500-blogs-now/

No, it has not been achieved but we still have 5 more days to go. There are currently 768 registered blogs at BlogMalaysia.com now (we have actually removed quite a number of blogs which we do not think qualified to be listed, eg. spams), 32 more blogs to go before hitting our 800 target.

I would like to thank bloggers who have submitted their Blogs to BlogMalaysia.com, especially those who have put a link back to BlogMalaysia to promote the site. What is a link back? See logo/link below:

Some bloggers have this logo/link in their blog. This is how they help to promote BlogMalaysia.com. You can see I have this at the lower right column in my blog as well.

With BlogMalaysia getting busier and busier nowadays, it is beyond my ability to go through each and every blogs before approval. Still, I do not want to approve blogs without checking every one of them (I still missed one or two from time to time). So, in order to serve more effectively, I have assigned A.P.P.L.E, a very responsible and knowledgeable blogger to be the administrator of BlogMalaysia.com for the blog directory approval. Yes, she is helping me with the approval of blogs, sharing the burden or should I say taking away much of the burden from my shoulder in BlogMalaysia.com.

Thank you A.P.P.L.E! [ http://www.xiaoyenzi.com ]

4 comments.

Project Petaling Street - being SPAMED!

Posted on May 25th, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Blog, Computer / IT.

Project Petaling Street website (http://www.petalingstreet.org) has been filled with SPAMS today (as of now…there are just way too many spam posts to distinguish the real blog post.

I guess spammers have found out the trackbacks URL of petalingstreet.org newsfeeder, hence sending lots of spam post to that site.

We shall see the site admin cleaning up the spam posts soon, and ban that spammer site from posting again. Hopefully there will be no change of the trackback URL.

3 comments.

Google Analytics - Free Statistic Software!

Posted on May 25th, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Blog, Computer / IT.

Google Analytics is a free statistic software provided by Google. Yes, it is free, it is from Google (anything from Google you can expect it to be really good!

I have been using Google Analytics for quite some time, more than a year or two if I am not mistaken. It gives a lot of details information about my website, which are actually more accurate than AWSTATS software in my own server cPanel. Eg. the visitors of my website should be from Malaysia majority, but AWSTATS shows that majority are from USA whereby Google Analytics shows that the majority are from Malaysia (which should be correct).

However, I have heard from others that Analytics does not give accurate tracking of your site statistic. For example, say your site has actual 5000 visitors in a month, Analytics might only tracked and showed you 3000 visitors in that month. I am not sure how true this is, but I do see some difference in number of visitors at Analytics and AWSTATS.

Besides the number, what I find really useful from Google Analytics is the [b]Traffic Sources[/b]. This shows you where your visitors are from (links). So you can take a look of which website gives you the most visitors or refer people to your site. In all of my sites, Google search is always the main source of my visitors. (Don’t under estimate the power of Google search engine). Yahoo search only brings me less than 10% of what Google search brought me.

So, how to use or activate Google Analytics to start taking information or statistic of your site? First you need to register an account at Google (if you already have an Google account, eg. gmail, then you can sign in to Analytic page directly using the same username and password):

[b]http://www.google.com/analytics/[/b]

After sign in, you need to add your website to Analytics. After adding your website, Analytics will give you a simple code that you need copy and paste to the page or website that you want to trace/keep statistics record. Take note that Google will only trace pages that have that codes in, so you have to place the codes wisely.

For blog, the best place to put the codes is in your header or footer. Personally I prefer footer to header, as it does not interrupt with the speed or loading time of my site. Details of how to put the codes is explained by Google in the Analytics page, so I will not elaborate long here.

Try it, you will love it!

1 comment.

Tamron AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di LD Aspherical (IF) Lens (A09N II with built in motor for Nikon F)

Posted on May 25th, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Photography.

Tamron has recently announced an update version of their very popular 28-75mm F2.8 lens to incorporate built in motor to the lens for the Nikon mount version. This means that the new lens will now be compatible with Nikon D40, D40X and D60 DSLR cameras. Of course, this new version is also fully compatible with all other Nikon DSLRs including the latest D3 and D300. This is a full frame lens, so yes it is fully compatible with Nikon D3…but who on earth that can afford a D3 will want a third party lens on their camera?

The lens is now available at ShaShinKi.com:

RM1,295.00

Lens is directly import from Japan and will be checked/tested before sending to customer.

0 comments.

eBook: Portraiture Post Processing for Beginners by Banhup Teh

Posted on May 23rd, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Photography.

I am very proud and please to announce that Dr. Teh (dtbh) very first ebook on “Portraiture Post Processing for Beginners” is now available at ShaShinKi.com!

Portraiture Post Processing for Beginners
by Banhup TehPrice = RM89.70 or US$29.90

Banhup’s ebook on Portraiture Post-processing for Beginners helps you understand and master the way he processes most of his images. With detailed information on the steps he takes during the workflow, you’ll find the steps very easy to follow. It is like leading you by the hand throughout the process!About the Author / Photographer
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0 comments.

Osaka Kansai Airport on 20th May 2008

Posted on May 22nd, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Family.

Sending my sister in law family to Kansai Airport in Osaka returning to Malaysia after a 10 days holiday in Japan…

There are lots of photos that I took…as now having a TEKQ Professional Series 8GB CF memory card in my Nikon D200….can take over 700 photos in fine Jpeg without the need to find for external backup storage. One Nikon original battery can’t even last to finish the memory card, so I have a backup battery with me also. Still did not manage to fill the card full. Shot around 4GB of photos, but in the total 10 days there are over 800 photos that I took. I will try to process the photos as soon as possible…

Here’s the Kansai airport series…

Arriving at the airport

Yu Yang and Megumi

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0 comments.

Very famous character in Japan…”Tao Tai Lang”

Posted on May 22nd, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Family.

Saw this banner in one of the highway stop from Okayama, Japan. Just have to put Megumi to behind it to snap the photo…

Every Japanese knows the story of Tao Tai Lang, a little boy who was born from peach…details story I am not sure…need to ask my children friend next time…

0 comments.

Japanese Food - Set Meals

Posted on May 22nd, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Family.

My sister in law visited me in Japan. Here were our lunch, some nice Japanese set meal.

From left to right: My wife, My elder sister in law, my 2nd sister in law, my 2nd sister in law’s elder son.

Each set costs around JPY900, which is around RM30.

Yummy meal of course…

0 comments.

Let’s talk about design…

Posted on May 21st, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Photography.

In the busiest shopping street in Osaka, Japan…when night fall…these people will just sit by the side and rest there…no, they are not begging for money…

Noisy version

Clean version

Which one do you prefer?

2 comments.

Megumi:”Where I went today…”

Posted on May 15th, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Family.

Hiroshima Castle…with this gang…(papa is the photographer…)

Hondori street in Hiroshima City…

Peace Memorial Park, Hiroshima City

Atomic Dome (previous city hall of Hiroshima City)

Papa very tired now…eyes cannot open already…must rest now…goodnight…

(Megumi is already in the sarung…sleeping soundly…)

Thank God for the guidance and protection today, in Jesus name I thanked, Amen.

3 comments.

Hiroshima Atomic Dome at Sunset

Posted on May 15th, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Photography.

Took this photo today…

I want to emphasis on the golden sunlight on the dome…so I purposely underexposed the shot by 3 stops, and then enhanced it further in PC.

What do you think?

0 comments.

A 3 minutes play with Nikon D3 at ISO 6400

Posted on May 15th, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Family, Photography.

Went to an electronic store today (in Japan) and got the chance to test and play play with a Nikon D3. I got my new TEKQ Professional 233X Ultra Pro CompactFlash (CF) 8GB Memory Card (Lifetime Warranty) with me, so was able to slot it in and do some test shots and bring them home.

My best model, Megumi was just beside me. Her mum was shopping in a store nearby.

The camera was set to ISO6400 by the previous user or store owner, I did not check the initial setting before taking shots of Megumi…but I think it is great that it is set that way and I can see how good the D3 performed at such ISO! Lens used is Nikon AFD 50mm F1.4.

All photos below are none edited or sharpen in my computer. Only resized and cropped for web sharing purpose.

Here’s a shot that I took (resized for web purpose):

Below are 100% crop (click to view in full):

I must say that I am very very impressed! Not only details are still pertained, but colours are very well and no shift to weird colour matching at this high ISO! (which is always a problem in my Nikon D200)

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2 comments.

Windows XP Service Pack 3

Posted on May 13th, 2008 by KhoKing.
Categories: Computer / IT.

Some of you might have already know…some maybe not yet…

Microsoft has released the final and latest update for Windows XP, Service Pack 3 for all original Windows XP users.

Highlights:

1. Your Windows XP must be original in order to update and upgrade to SP3. There will be a verification performed prior to the update.
2. Update is done by connect via internet to Microsoft website, using the Windows Update feature in your Startup. I am not sure if there is any other way to update or not…probably yes…but not sure.
3. This is the last update from Microsoft for Windows XP, which is considered as the most successful and popular Windows system at the moment. Many are reluctant to go over to Windows Vista…my new PC is still installed with Windows XP and is running smooth and fast.

I did the upgrade just now and took around 30 mins to finish. Must restart computer after updating. I did not notice any changes in my Windows…maybe need to head over to Microsoft to see what are the update is all about.

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0 comments.

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