Kat's Notebook » techno gadgets

Macbook on sale?

Katkat — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:05:39 +0000

If you’re waiting for Apple products to go on sale, you’ll be waiting for a very long time. Apple doesn’t go on sale ever. Their products just get upgraded. But from June to Sept 20, you can get a really good deal on Macbooks from the Apple.com store. With its education pricing program, the Macbook gets slashed off a hundred bucks (Macbook air only 50 bucks). If you buy a printer along with it, then another hundred dollars rebate for the printer. Some printers are only 99 bucks so that’s free printer for you! And with this program they also give out Back to School card worth a hundred dollars eligible for spending on the Apple store, itunes and apple.com. Tip: you can spend it on their softwares like iWork, Microsoft office, etc.

That’s 300USD in savings!!! Hurry this promo will end on Sept 20.

How did my DICAPAC go?

Katkat — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 09:52:00 +0000

2 years ago, I bought an underwater housing for my Canon ELPH camera in preparation for my trip to Coron. Well we knew how that went. This year my Coron trip was successful. My sister and I were greeted with gorgeous weather and fantastic warm water. A lot of people who had gone to Coron advised to bring underwater camera because much of the itinerary involved snorkeling, swimming, and swimming. So I brought the DICAPAC with me excited to do some amateur underwater photography.

To get a gist of DICAPAC, here’s a link to the product.

For me, the DICAPAC was very effective as an underwater digital camera housing. Because of certain limitations (eg. it can only go down less than 5 meters), I was really careful of using it. However there were a lot of things I didn’t like about it:

1. It wasn’t a snug fit for my camera even though it was the model specified
for my camera. My camera kept moving around making it difficult to shoot.

2. Because the fit wasn’t good, many of my pictures have shot of the black rim that encloses the lens.

3. It fogged sometimes. In order to release the moist air, I needed to open the lens cap which was dangerous to do when I’m in the water.

4. It sometimes blocked my camera lens from releasing which scared me because it might damage the camera lens like what happened to me from my previous digital camera.

Overall I had fun shooting underwater especially shooting with the fishes. Here’s how my amateur underwater photography turned out:

Which Lenovo Ideapad laptop are you?

Katkat — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 05:09:59 +0000

In my sojourn to the Philippines, I didn’t bring a laptop with me. I wished for a Macbook unfortunately I didn’t raise enough funds to buy one. And there were still a lot of hesitating because Macbook softwares were expensive. My brother kindly lent me his wife’s laptop. It’s the Lenovo Ideapad S10-3. I like the feel of this laptop. It perfectly suits my needs. I only surf, blog, facebook, chat, sometimes write a document, upload pictures, download stuffs – which this laptop can do. It’s light, compact and very easy to carry around. I have toted this laptop to school several times without breaking my back. It’s 10.1 inch LCD screen surprisingly doesn’t strain my 20/20. It has an acceptable sound system, 3 usb ports, a firewire port, and other plugs which I’m not really sure what they are but maybe helpful. It also comes in 4 colors which red would fit my personality!

If you’re thinking of buying one, you may get one for free. Enter your raffle entry in this link for a chance to win your own Lenovo Ideapad laptop. This is my official entry to the Lenovo-PTB Great Laptop Giveaway. I hope I win!

The new aluminum unibody macbook – is it worth it?

Blackbird Fly Camera

Katkat — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:47:37 +0000

My much awaited camera has finally arrived! I’ve been drooling over this camera for months. I’m an amateur lomographer. I got into film photography when my friends posted their interesting pictures using their toy cameras. At present, I only have 2 toy cameras – the Vivitar ultra wide slim and this new acquisition, blackbird fly camera. I would like to buy the Supersampler too but my friends would always advise me to maximize my latest camera first before I buy a new one. I guess that way the novelty of the camera won’t fade quickly.

Why Blackbird Fly? It took me some long decision-making before I chose BBF. I’ve debated over Diana, Holga, BBF, and Fisheye. I don’t know much about the mechanics of a camera. I’m more of a simple point-and-shoot photographer. So what decided me was the pictures that lomographers took with these cameras. Holga is interesting but it’s hard to process 120 format films. Diana I thought function just like my Vivitar while Fisheye can become boring after some time. Although BBF is way expensive, I decided on this camera because I think I can do much with it. Furthermore, it looks cool!

The Blackbird Fly Camera is a twin-lens reflex camera: one lens is used to expose the film, while the other is used like a viewfinder. It’s a famous style of camera whose history stretches back to the 1920s. The Blackbird fly uses 35mm film. There are two ways to take a picture with the Blackbird fly. For quiet and reflective framing, you can hold the camera at waist level and look down, to compose your shot using the finder lens. For a quicker style of shot, you can use the sportsfinder, which approximates a viewfinder through a notch in the top of the camera. The Blackbird fly can take pictures in standard 35mm film format (24×36), but using a different (provided) mask, it can also produce square format pictures (24×24). You can even remove the mask entirely and make a larger square format image (36×36), which fills up the entire width of the 35mm film, including the side sprocket holes. For shooting during the day, you can alternate between apertures f/7 and f/11, with a shutter speed of 1/125. At night, you can switch the shutter to B-mode to let in as much light as you might need, or you can also attach a flash for even more possibilities. Variable focusing, from 0.8 meters, makes for a sharp subject. The Blackbird fly uses a wide-angle 33mm lens and also allows you to take multiple exposures on the same frame.

Detractors for this camera would always comment that it’s a very expensive toy camera when it is only made of plastic. As one photographer has said, it is what you can do with the camera not what kind your camera is, that’s important. For me since I’m not much of a technical photographer, I would really enjoy using this camera. Vivitar works great with slide films but I’m expecting that BBF will take great shots on both slide and negative films. I can’t wait to go on an excursion and take my BBF with me!

Ebay and amazon are the more popular stores that sell the BBF. They have lowered prices than the other retail stores. I bought mine at Amazon.com because buying is easier and I don’t have to wait for bidding and shopping is more secured.

To learn more about lomography, click here. To learn more about BBF, click here. I’ll be posting my BBF shots in the future. For my Vivitar album, you can view them here.

The Ipad Hype

Katkat — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 03:08:47 +0000

Apple has unveiled its latest and most revolutionary technology yet – the Ipad. So what is the Ipad? To put it in my perspective it’s just a bigger screen version of the Iphone. I own an Ipod touch and I love what it can do. Sometimes I wish I have an Iphone because it helps when there’s no wifi signal and you need information asap. But for 60-70USD bill a month, I passed.

According to Steve Jobs, the IPAD is the “most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device." He said the iPad bridges the divide between laptops and smart phones, giving people an experience that those other devices can’t provide.” Ok let’s look at the features of the Ipad:

What it has…

1. Size – 1.5 inch thick and 1.5 pounds – called a tablet size.

2. 9.7-inch high-definition, LED-backlit screen and a 10-hour battery life

3. Has additional accessory: a dock with built-in keyboard

4. Wi-fi and blue-tooth enabled

5. Starts with a 16GB memory

6. 3G models will be soon available

7. User touch-interface

What it doesn’t have…

1. Built-in Camera

2. No flash support – still no video streaming

3. No user-replaceable battery

4. No TV subscriptions

5. No application multitasking – can only open 1 app at a time.

6. No network sharing and no phone calling

The Ipad starting price is $499 at 16GB, $599 at 32GB, and $699 at 64GB. So what’s special about the Ipad? Back to my statement, it’s just a bigger version of the Ipod Touch/Iphone. Less an Iphone but more than an Ipod touch!

The big question now is: Is it worth buying?

For me the answer is NO. First, if you have an iphone or ipod touch, a laptop, and a game console, then you’ve got everything you needed to entertained. The Ipad would just be redundant. I’d rather buy myself a macbook and be able to do more than what I can do with an Ipad. Second, the biggest drawback for me about the ipod/iphone/ipad is the lack or restrictions in file sharing. You can’t just view videos/photos or listen to music unless it’s through Itunes. Third, this is just the 1st generation, let’s wait and see what improvements Apple can do with its Ipad.

So I guess I’ll just stick with my ipod touch for now.

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box: DS game review

Katkat — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:41:16 +0000

I was astonished when I saw the advertisement of the sequel to Professor Layton and The Curious Village DS game appeared on TV. I completely forgot that the next installment is out in September! I was a fan of the first game and Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box was in my must-have DS game. I’ve finished the game last week and this was what I think of the game:

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box tells about the search for the mysterious Elysian Box. It has been said that anyone who opens the box will meet instant death. That was what happened to Professor Layton’s teacher, Doctor Schroeder, which prompted Professor Layton and his apprentice Luke to investigate further about the missing Elysian box and its mystery. This time the adventure took them to a ritzy train, stopping by the enchanting Dropstone village, and finally halting at the dark and mysterious Folsense village.

Just like the previous game, this sequel is a series of answering questions to puzzles that Professor Layton and Luke pick up along the way. In my opinion, the puzzles are relatively easier to solve maybe because my solving skills were honed already from the previous game. The player needs to click on all characters and items to reveal the puzzles. Sometimes you need to go back to all the characters and click on them again because new puzzles will pop out. The difference this time around is that the adventure is not contained in one place. Professor Layton and Luke travel to different places to unravel the mystery of the Elysian box. I find myself addicted and hooked into the suspense of all the mystery enveloping the story. There are also additional mini-games in this sequel: the tea set, camera part, and hamster mini-game. It’s fun to collect all the necessary items to complete these games and after completing it will unlock bonus puzzles.

The graphics are still entertaining and well-drawn. The movie animation is well-played and colorful although a bit long if you ask me (because I’m always excited to learn what will happen next asap!) There are characters from the previous game appearing in this story and their inclusion is one of the mysteries the Professor and Luke need to figure out. Even though I have said that the puzzles here are pretty easy, I still have to rely on walkthroughs and cheats to solve those frustrating puzzles and I got them from this site.

So fans of Professor Layton, gear up for this installment and prepare to re-challenge your puzzle solving skills! I give this game 4.5 out of 5.

PROFESSOR LAYTON AND THE CURIOUS VILLAGE: DS game review

Katkat — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 11:42:09 +0000

Yesterday I picked up my sorely-neglected nintendo DS and on a whim chose to play Professor Layton game. I played this before but I stopped at puzzle 100plus because I’m stumped with this sliding puzzle I can’t solve. I played the game again this weekend and I’m so happy to have finished it. Of course I wouldn’t have been successful with the game if not for some cheating on the side. Hehehehe. I hate math problems so I always rely on this site if I can’t discover the solution.

Professor Layton is an adventure game where the 2 main characters Layton and his sidekick Luke were commissioned to travel to St. Mystere Village to search for the Golden Apple. During the entire search, the characters are tested with puzzles by the villagers. Some puzzles will reward an item that will complete another puzzle and unlock additional bonus puzzles in the game. If you think you need to rehash your geometry equations, pythagorean theorem, and other mathematical equations, think again. The puzzles are tricky and often the answers are simple and usually found right there in the questions. I advice that one should ask all the villagers and tap the stylus on all the images in order to find and complete all the puzzles. Not only are the puzzles well-written, the animation and graphic images are well-drawn. A movie scene is played whenever the professor is slowly figuring out the mystery of the village. The animators made those scenes visually entertaining. This game is really engaging, interesting, challenging, and mind-stimulating. I feel very frustrated when I can’t solve the problems but when I do, I feel like I’m the smartest person in the world! I must say Professor Layton is the best puzzle game I’ve played so far. I tried looking for similar games but nothing compares. For those who wants to solve more puzzles, you can download additional games through its wifi option. They’re just puzzles for amusement with no bearing on the story. However, there’s news that a sequel will be out this August 2009. It’s titled Professor Layton and the Devil’s Box. It seems that Japan, where the game is originally from has already 2 sequels out. Unfortunately it’s in Japanese language. Anyway whenever and whatever I can get, I can’t wait to play more of Professor Layton!

Tweaking my Ipod Touch

Katkat — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 01:39:29 +0000

I super HEART my jailbroken Ipod touch. With the new apps that come with the jailbreak, particularly Cydia which in turn produces Installous, I am non-stop tweaking my ipod. It started with the Winterboard app. I keep on looking for a nice winterboard/springboard theme for my ipod. I have Hello Kitty theme for the past week. And now I switch back to a simple wallpaper background (I got nauseaus of the pink) using the Background app. I’m still looking for a Naruto theme.

Then there’s Installous where it downloads cracked apps from appulo.us. My brother introduce it to me. This is such a cool app! I have now tons of full version games in my ipod touch. I’m addicted to Bejeweled, Crossword, Scrabble, Lemonade 2. I haven’t tried the other games yet. Thank you to the makers of appulo.us!

Because I’ve so many apps already, I accumulated lots of pages in my ipod. It gets annoying to slide lots of pages before I can get to the app I wanted. So I download Springjump. It creates shortcut for the pages.

To get these apps I’m raving about:

1. First jailbreak your ipod touch.

2. Go to Cydia and get the hackulous source to get the games. For more info, click here.

3. Download Winterboard app in Cydia.

4. Browse thru the apps and download to your heart’s content!

With all these free downloads, is it possible to get a virus and infect my ipod touch?

JAILBREAKING MY IPOD TOUCH

Katkat — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:16:48 +0000

My brother enlightened me why my Ipod Touch is always having problem with syncing withItunes whenever a new software update is available. It’s because my 1st gen ipod touch is jailbroken. Currently it has version 2.2.

When I tried updating it by simply clicking on the “update” button on itunes, it didn’t work. All my music files got lost…again for the 5th time! I’m stuck with no music for the past many days.

So I googled “how to jailbreak ipod touch 2.2.1″ and I got the following:

Download the ipod firmware 2.2.1 here
Download the software quickpwn 2.2.5 here
Unzip quickpwn.
Run quickpwn. Follow instructions and be patient while waiting for it to set up.

The next steps are the tricky ones. I will just narrate to you how I surprisingly successfully jailbroke my ipod touch:

1. After running quickpwn, I synced my ipod touch to itunes. A dialog box appeared alerting me of a new update – the 2.2.1 software. So I click on the update button and hit download.

2. After 3 hours of downloading the huge file, a dialog box appeared again and said that there was an error with my itouch. I need to restore my ipod. By now, my ipod touch displays the itunes logo with the usb cable under it. So I click “restore”

I thought I would revert to the 1.1 software and all my applications will be lost. But after the restore, I was surprised that my ipod touch has the 2.2.1 version. My songs again got lost (for the 6th time and counting), but all the applications I’ve downloaded from itunes were saved. Coolness!…But for those of you who loves downloading 3rd-party apps, another thing that happened after the restore was, the “installer” app was removed.

That’s it. It’s so easy. I thought I would have a hard time figuring this out. Thanks to the people who develop this jailbreaking method.

Digital Cameras: what do you look for?

Katkat — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 12:22:05 +0000

I just bought myself a Canon Powershot 790IS. I initially said that I love it. But when my friend showed me hers, a Panasonic Lumix, I had second-thoughts with mine. My friend’s camera has this multiple/continuous shots feature. And I love how her picture turned out. I tried doing that with my camera but Canon has a really slow loading time after a shot. Furthermore, my other friend revealed to me that Panasonic has good camera lens as it was manufactured by Leica. I don’t know who manufactured Canon’s but after my mishap with our old canon camera (the lens won’t close), I think Canon is really fragile.

These are some of the things that I’m hating about my canon SD790IS: mannish look, heavy, not touchscreen, slow to shoot after a shot, poor continuous shoot mode, and fragile lens. So now I’m at a crossroad if I should buy a new camera or not.

Earlier I went to an electronic store and had first-hand experience using Sony Cybershot DSC T700. I fell in love with it! I love it’s stylish look. It’s very sleek and has a big touchscreen function. It is so fast to shoot and it has a high shutter speed shooting mode when shooting very fast movements. It has Carl-Zeiss lens which I believe is a renowned lens maker. My other brother has one and he said it shoots really fast. It also has a built in 4GB memory and it can be expanded with a memory stick.

I was ready to sell off my canon camera when my brother said that Canon produces really good image quality. I agree with him. Because when I read the reviews about Sony Cybershot, all reviewers agreed that the image quality is not that perfect especially under low lighting. He also said that it’s too expensive. My canon cost me just USD200 but this particular sony cybershot model is at around USD280.

Why do I want to change my camera anyway? What am I looking for in a digital camera? If ever I will buy a new camera, it should satisfy these factors:

looks – should have a stylish design and compact and light
good lens manufacturer
good battery lifespan and it should be lithium-ion (no debate on this one)
high MP – 10MP is really really good.
lots of camera functions – different shooting modes
fast shooting speed – fast to take another shot
very good image quality
with SD card slot for memory expansion
reasonable price –

Do you have a digital camera with these attributes to suggest?