Asus support

Getting another firmware update for my Asus tablet as of now... awesome! And the new waiting android is so cool! The irony of updates... fixing a flaw or putting in new features? Go for vanilla or a popular device which will have support due to a huge user base?

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New toys for Photography

Was using a Manfrotto 486RC1 which was lightweight enough for travel but it was slipping especially during moon shots. It was getting very frustrating trying to adjust the moon which was a constantly moving object.

As you know the moon orbits around the Earth and though it is about 400k km away, it moves at 1km/s thus a moving subject at a few angles per hour. So here we go, a search for a suitable replacement. There were many choices but I decided to go with Arca-Swiss style, because of another new toy purchase of the Capture Clip system by Peak Design.

I decided to go with something affordable and suited to my current camera gear. When I was in Hong Kong, Man Shing Camera shop folks let me try out many different ballheads from Gizmo to more expensive Manfrotto, but this Swiss made FOBA brand caught my eyes with the suitable price range and weight of the ball head.

Testing at home finally after a month, the FOBA Superball M-1 is an absolute delight. At 405g, it is lighter than my 486RC1 (460g) and the ball has awesome friction.

Here's it absolutely holding up my configuration of full Canon 7D with battery grip and 70-200mm F2.8L lens. This was easily at least 3kg worth of load. To test it, I did not bother to move the plate to the lens which I did previously with my Manfrotto set up. With Live View enabled and 10x zoom, I tried many different angles, and the model in frame is still with no vibrations or slipping detected.

My tripod is an Induro AT013 tripod which only handles about 6kg worth of load making this cheap magnesium alloy a delight for travel at only 1.1kg. So now my setup is about 1.5kg and suitable for my moon shots.

My earlier in the year shot -  "tough" Lunar Eclipse capture with a slipping Manfrotto ball head.

Big Bang!

My wife and I enjoy watching Big Bang Theory on our lazy nights. Already finished season 4 and still wanting more. Our favorite character? Sheldon of course!

Sheldon: That's no reason to cry. One cries because one is sad. For example, I cry because others are stupid and it makes me sad. - From the episode "The Gorilla Experiment"

New Gadgets for 2012?

Just watched Asus's Chairman Shih released the 2012 line of products for Asus at ASUS press conference on February 28th during MWC 2012 in Barcelona. Having bought 2 of their 2011 cool products last year, one being Transformer TFT101 tablet and the other is the Zenbook ultrabook. They have been rather great with support and rather well made devices. After watching the below videos, it does get one more excited about what is to come but yet I am hesitant to jump into getting more gadgets till the house is done. Wanted to get the new slimmer Transformer Prime but got my colleague to get it instead, just to play with it. Wondering who else I can convince to get the PadFone!

Go watch the crazy Asus chairman...though he does seem a bit cool and passionate but he ain't Steve Jobs, the marketing guru in delivering product announcments.

LINsane

This is just LINsanity.

My picks for this NBA season to watch for both eastern and western conferences was Knicks and Clippers.
Because I love Billups and Melo. But with injuries plaguing both but Clippers still have Chris Paul whereas Knicks was suffering from no leadership. They now have a new Hero and in just a week, he has made headline news everywhere. Jeremy Lin RAWKS!