Since the kitchen reno’s been done the walls have been pretty empty. I was thinking what to put on there to fill up the space. A painting would do but that would be a waste of space. So I went to Ikea to check out some shelvings. There was a silver, rack-like one with horizontal beams (for drainage?), it’s more practical since it holds wider/bigger things but it’s kind of too obstructive. I chose a white one and bought four of them, they were SO CHEAP it’s like $5(mdf) + $4(anchor) = $9 each. Installation wasn’t too straight forward, as I didn’t even have a ruler with leveling bubble, nor a super long ruler. Utilizing my highschool art skills, I mapped out the position of where the screws will go, and started drilling. I got two of them installed yesterday, next to the fridge, and got the other two of them installed today. I bought special dry wall screw-in anchors today as the ones I was using yesterday didn’t seem to be too secure. These screw-in ones are really cool, not only they are white (which matches the color of the wall) and they are super snug. I think these shelves look really good on the walls, and they’re useful too, saving up a lot of counter top space.

I’ve also gotten an “internet radio” yesterday at Costco. I wanted to get a couple of Apple’s Airport Express to stream iTune music throughout my place, then I saw this internet radio made by Sanyo and it claims that it can wirelessly stream 1000’s of stations throughout the world and it also streams mp3s shared from PC wirelessly. Out of curiousity I bought it and wow, it’s such a sweet little device! Sound quality was not the best but it does have ported speakers so the bass isn’t bad, the where it shines is that it was able to connect to my home wi-fi in about a minute and I literally am able to see hundreds if not thoudsands of radio stations in a couple clicks. I can listen to stations from Hong Kong and Japan, or browse by genre like Ambient and Classical, and it works! It looks cool too since it has brushed aluminum faceplate and black piano finishing casing, and it takes up very little space. It’ll be sitting in my kitchen for the next little while and it’ll be switched on 24/7 playing ambient/lounge stuff!

I google-mapped Iona Beach last night and decided to check out this place that I’ve never been to even though it’s super close to where I live. I wanted to take pictures of birds, with my Zuiko 50-200mm telephoto lens combined with my 2x tele-converter. Went there quite early around 9:30AM and there were already crowds of cyclists gathered around the parking - apparently a really popular place for cycling. I saw on the map that there’s this really long/narrow pathway but I ended up not checking it out since I spent so much time in the wasteland area. After I parked I wandered into some grassy area with super narrow paths (less than a feet). It was quite challenging to walk around since not only the paths were narrow but there were thorny branches that stuck out from everywhere. I didn’t see too many birds probably due to the strong winds, but I did saw a huge amount of blue tailed damselfly and I think they are fairly common in Vancouver. I took quite a few shots of them (had to lay on the ground to get close) with my Sigma 105mm macro lens. The lens was so sharp… Anyway that place was like a maze. I got lost and had to use the GPS navigation on my Blackberry to locate myself….

In the afternoon I went to the Home Depot to check out some mosquito repellent/lantern that I could use in the patio. Ended up getting this lantern made by “Cutter”, that has an oil-filled tank and all I have to do is to light up the wick and let it burn. It says one bottle of oil lasts 12 hours.. we’ll see. I also bought a set of six patio lights (come with the power supply as well). They were quite pricey but suited my needs.. I thought they were easy to install (really should have been easy) but due to the fact that I had to make sure all wires are hidden inside the fence (where I set them up) plus there were plants around some of the places where I set them up, I got super tired (and dirty). I think I spent around two hours screwing / nailing them in place, plus wiring them up so that I could control the lights from inside the house. Now it’s all done and they look AWESOME. Pretty happy with the result

Got this set from a home decor store on Granville (Farmhouse Collections) during the weekend with Wendy. I first noticed the set when I was driving by few days ago and I was already thinking that it would perfectly fit in my patio, and I liked the lines. They weren’t cheap, $35X including tax, but they turned out to be a nice additional to my tiny patio space :D. I’ve also gotten a steel chain and two locks to lock them up in case people think that it’s too nice and decide to tuck them home.

Have been super busy this week and of course it was due to the project that I’ve been working on. I’m feeling pretty uneasy as the launch date gets closer…. I’m working my ass off in order to hopefully finish everything quicker so that people can start testing it.

Got my car insurance renewed today…$12xx…gone. Even though it’s something that every car owner expects to happen but I’m still feeling ripped. Same thing with all the rest of the yearly payment like property tax, utility bill….etc.. They just have to rip me every year.

At least I did something that made my day which was to goto the foodcourt to get my favorite milk tea and to-go dinner =D I got a fish fillet with rice and mango sauce, Chinese soup, and milk tea. I love eating things that are cheap and tasty =D

There were these local people with their kids having dinner in the foodcourt, I was surprised since they all knew how to use the chopsticks and as far as I could see they were quite good at it (even the kid was using them). It’s really nice to see local people that appreciate the Chinese culture…

I came across this little utility called CHDK today, which claimed to be able to add extra functionalities to most if not all of the Canon point-and-shoot cameras. One of the super cool feature was to enable optical zoom in video recording mode. I couldn’t wait but grabbed my trusty Canon SD1000 camera, followed the online instructions (which involved loading some files onto the SD card, and then loading a software up in the camera, pretty straight forward), and it WORKED…! I was able to do optical zoom in video recording mode in addition to the standard digital zoom! The drawback was that the built-in mic picked up huge noise from the zoom motor, which I found was super annoying on playback. Well the optical zoom capability was invaluable though, I thought I would keep it set as the default. CHDK also added lots of other cool options to the camera, like saving files in RAW format (I was in shock pretty much when I got to know this), adjusting video file compression rate on-the-fly, displaying an icon that showed the level of remaining battery (super useful)….etc.

A list of CHDK’s cool features:

• RAW - CHDK can record raw files, giving you access to every bit of data the sensor saw, without compression or processing. Raw files can be manipulated on the camera, or processed on your PC. CHDK also has experimental support for the open DNG raw standard.
• Override Camera parameters - Exposures from 64s to 1/60.000s with flash sync. Full manual or priority control over exposure, aperture, ISO and focus.
• Bracketing - Bracketing is supported for exposure, aperture, ISO, and even focus.
• Video Overrides - Control the quality or bitrate of video, or change it on the fly.
• Scripting - Control CHDK and camera features using ubasic and Lua scripts. Enables time lapse, motion detection, advanced bracketing, and much more. Many user-written scripts are available on the forum and wiki.
• Motion detection - Trigger exposure in response to motion, fast enough to catch lightning.
• Edge overlay - Detect the edges in a scene, and display them later. Ideal for timelapses, stop-motion, stereography and much more.
• Live Histogram - CHDK includes a customizable, live histogram display, like those typically found on more expensive cameras.
• Zebra-Mode - Displays under and overexposure areas live on the screen.
• GRIDS - Create custom grids and display whichever one suits your shooting conditions.
• Multi-Lingual Interface - CHDK supports about 13 languages, and adding more languages is simple.
• DOF Calculator - Display detailed DOF information on the screen.
• Customizable OSD - Improved display of battery status, free space, camera parameters, and much more. Fully customizable with an on-screen editor.
• Filebrowser - Manage files without a PC.
• Textreader - Display text files on your camera.
• Games - Play Reversi, Sokoban, Mastermind or 4-in-a-Row on your camera.
• USB remote - Simple DIY remote allows you to control your camera remotely.
• Benchmark - Compare the performance of your SD cards.
• User Menu - Edit your own customizable User-Menu for fast access to often used features.

I came up with an idea to set up a projector screen in my living room yesterday so that I can make some good use of my 4-years old projector (covered with dust). I thought I could make one with some white pieces of paper instead of actually going out to buy one (which costs around $150-$300). Today I put my thoughts into action and actually tried and see if I can make one up.

The idea was simple: 6 pieces of dollar store craft paper ($3 total), tape them all up, hang it up on the wall…that was pretty much it. I went out to get some paper today and spent about an hour and half to put everything together. It ended up pretty nice and sturdy (kind of exceeded my expectation) I was even able to install a “holder” for my Wii sensor bar near the bottom of the “screen” with two paper clips, pretty cool IMO. Anyway here are some progress pictures, they are pretty self-explainatory.