Sleep Cycle

I came across this software in Apps Store and also heard people talking about it in twitter. Initially, I don't bother about it because I don't think it can really works until my friend started to use it and recommended it to me. I was telling myself why not give it a try and see how it works.

I will briefly tell you how it works here.

It act as a natural alarm clock to wake you up when you are in the lightest sleep phase so that you won't feel reluctant or tired after getting up.

It is also relying or utilizing the accelerometer in the iPhone to detect your movement while you are sleeping. Therefore in order for it to work, you must put it on the bed and the closer to your body the better so that it can detect movement and record your sleeping pattern.

One more point that I like about this apps is it will record what time you gone to bed, what time you wake up, total hours of sleep and also average how many hours you slept thru out the nights.

Let me also share with you my personal experience on this apps.

 
From the graph showing above, you might think that I was sleeping very well whole night long? And I only had one big movement (turning) at around 4am? Actually you are wrong because I wasn't placing my iPhone at the correct position and it can't detect my movement properly.

So I tried again the 2nd night and the graph is showing ups and downs. According to sleep cycle's research, this is a more ideal situation that we should achieve.

3rd night, I was not having a good night sleep, I remembered I was having a dream but I couldn't remember what was that. Anyway, what I was trying to say is the graph is quite accurate, most of the time I was dreaming instead of having deep sleep.

4th night, I couldn't remember why there were big movements from 1am onwards until 4am. From 4am to 6am, I don't think I am having such a sound and deep sleep, it might detected wrongly because I have kicked my iPhone to no where. At around 7.30am, I wasn't at deep sleep, I remember that.

5th night, I need to wake up early on Saturday very early in the morning and I had the shortest sleep among so many days, it was only 5 hours 42 min. Although the graph is showing that I was having a dream (or nightmare), I woke up during deep sleep and sleep cycle's research was true, I was so tired and felt so reluctant to wake up.

6th night, I don't have to work the next day and of course I don't have to wake up early. Sleep all I can until wake up naturally. The sleeping pattern showed below was quite accurate, I don't remember I had any dream at all, it was a sound, sweet and very deep sleep.

7th night, I was feeling so tired the night before I slept but I just don't understand why I couldn't fall in sleep. Even I managed to fall in sleep but the whole night I just feel like I was not sleeping and half awake. I believe that created so many movement and resulted in this pattern.

After a week of testing, my average total time is 7h 09m for 7 nights. I have set the target to increase it to at least 8 hours. Looks like I need to put in more "effort" to sleep earlier to bring the average up. :D

Conclusion, this software is good to have to analyse your sleeping pattern and improve on the sleeping hour. It is interesting to look at your sleeping pattern every morning. If you are iPhone or iPod user, why not give it a try? And then share with me your experience / comments / feedback ya. ;)

OK, the time is getting late, I should sleep now else I wouldn't be able to make the average goes up. Haha...

Want to know more about this apps? Click here.

Downgrading from Win7 to XP

I bought this desktop from HP last year and the main purpose of me buying this desktop is to play one of my favorite games, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 and X with PMDG plug-in. 

When the desktop arrive at my door step, I was so happy because I could start to have a better flying experience with such a high performance desktop and even thinking of upgrading the the machine to support 2 monitors to widen my view in the game.

OK, the first thing I will do is to install the simulator and I didn't encounter any problem during the installation nor the game but the most "exciting" part came from PMDG plug-in. I can't install it! What? Then defeat the purpose my purpose of buying this machine. The first thing came to my mind was to downgrade my PC from Vista to XP because it was running fine in my old PC which is using XP.

I proceeded to visit HP website to look for the whole set of drivers for my Win XP. The best thing happen now, HP doesn't support Win XP!

OK, I gave up and I told myself I might need to wait for the next release of Windows that might help in solving my problem. I waited until Win 7 came into the market and get it installed in my machine. The first thing I did immediately after the installation was to try PMDG again and it failed again. Oh gosh, I was so sad and really really sad. I am not going to wait for the next release of Windows again because I can foresee that Microsoft is not going to help me to give me the flying experience that I am expected. I have decided to look for alternative solution.

I came across a suggestion on how to downgrade my machine to Win XP although it is not supported in the official website (HP).

First, find out the technical specification from HP about my machine. I don't want to open the cover, I believe even if I did, it won't help me in identifying the chipset and lots of technical details.

The most important thing that you need to know are as below:
1. Mainboard model and manufacturer.
2. Chipset that came with the board.
3. Display model and manufacturer / brand name.
4. Sound model and manufacturer / brand name.
5. LAN card model and manufacturer / brand name.
6. WiFi card model and manufacturer / brand name.

Second, go to the manufacturer website and look for the driver. Usually they will support from Win2000 – Win 7.

Third, download the drivers. Make sure you are downloading the correct one.

You are done, go ahead with the downgrade process.

And I am happily using my machine with Win XP Service Pack 3, MS Flight Sim 2004 with PMDG plug-in now.

Putrajaya Hot Air Balloon 2009

My feeling was mixed whenever I see people posted those hot ass balloons photos into online media be it blog or FB. The feeling was envy, jealous, sad and you name it... You want to know why? Please look at my previous post.

So in order to balance up my emotion on this. I have decided to post some photos that I have taken last year. Hopefully you all will like it.

I was waited for an hour then only I saw them start to setup the balloon.

They were quite fast, you can see from the picture below, the balloons were started to "stand" up already.

The balloons were flying high into the sky. How I wish I got the chance to sit in it and fly together.

Look at this clown face balloon. Initially I thought it was a sad clown but when the balloon started to turn, my view started to change.

Look at the photo below, the balloon actually got 2 faces, one sad one happy. They were so cute.

 

If you were given the chance, would you dare to take the challenge to take this ride? Remember there wasn't anything below your leg!

  

They even have an elephant head and Nestle cup.

 

Last but not least, this peacock balloon was setup for photography only because until we left the place it was still standing at the same place. Anyway, I like this very much as the color of the dusk and the fire in the balloon made this photo so dramatic.

OK, as usual some photos before the sunset and I like all these as well.

All the photos above were not taken with my newly bought Nikon D90 but with Nikon Coolpix P5000.

Hot Air Balloon at Putrajaya

Last year I went to this hot air balloon event in Putrajaya before and it was a great one although I have to stand under the sun for a few hours to take photos and thanks GOD because it was an evening sun and I didn't get any sunburn (even without sun block).

Thanks to our government they organize it again at the same place and this time I wanted to go and snap some nice photos again with my newly bought camera and furthermore I saw those who went to the event came back with very colorful and cute balloons photos such as Levis Jeans, Darth Vader, Orange, Lion Face and some cute faces.

When I reach the place, the weather didn't seem to be welcoming me and my friend. The sky is very dark and we heard thunder too. Don't tell me it's going to rain where me and my friend had taken so much effort to reach here.

As you can see from the photo below, you just can't imagine how's the weather look like and I keep praying and hope that wind could blow the dark cloud away.

But my prayer doesn't seem to be working or heard by God.

Oh ya, if you notice, there was this rela (volunteer) army standing there, I found him as an idiot or maybe he is just STRICTLY following the instructions given by his leader? He was just blocking the nice view from all the photographers here. Everyone just don't understand why he need to stand there. As if the crew is going to have a big fight during the balloon setup? Although there were people yelling at him, asking him to stand aside but he pretended for not hearing it, a great pretender. There were few times, those trucks were coming to his way and he just remain standing there as a statue. Why la, die die must be there?

Finally, a balloon successfully stood up but it wasn't there for long and collapsed due to strong wind.

The sky is getting darker and I feel few drops of rain. And I am yet to see what I was expecting (as what I mentioned above).

They continued to setup the balloons and test the fire.

But too bad, before I have the chance to see all those cute balloons the rain is getting heavier and all the crowds were running away and I was one of them who ran like mad to go back to the car which parked quite a distance away. I supposed to go for jogging this evening but I cancelled that for this balloon thingy and now I was forced to run because of rain. So I did a short distance run instead of the usual jog that I had. WTF...

I really feel disappointed and pissed off but what to do? I can't control the weather and furthermore today is the last day of the event. So lesson learned was don't come at the last day, if anything happened that preventing me to do what I've expected, at least I still have another chance for it.

I left the place sadly and hopefully next year our beloved government will organize this boring and yet colorful event again and I tell you this time round I am not gonna miss it like this time anymore and will equipped myself with a zoom lens . :(

Hennessy Artistry (Preview)

I get invited as an official photographer for H-Artistry event in Opera Club in Sunway. The event was starting at 9pm but I was there around 8pm and there weren't many people yet, I think part of the reason was the starting time and people won't club so early right? :P

I remembered there was one H-Artistry event last year but I couldn't make it due to a very last minute arrangement. I thought it was an annual event and I gonna wait for a year before I can join it again but surprisingly it came again just so soon.

The good things being an official photographer is that I can walk around like nobody business, in and out, the security and bouncer will just leave me alone. I can ask anyone to pose for me to take photos and most of the time people are very happy to do so.

The only bad things about it was I can't post the photos on to any online media such as FB and blog the soonest possible and I need to wait for at least 2-3 weeks time. Why? Because the photos are for the organizing committee and I got to wait for them to release it to the public first such as in newspaper, magazine or any online websites.

While waiting for the 2-3 weeks time to lapse I will keep my blog updated with some other posts. So remember to keep coming back to my blog.

Jeff and Me

Usually after photographed my model, I will take some shots to keep it as a record and these are the moments that I treasure with my friends.I don’t mean that I don’t enjoy while taking his photos ya.

Do you know every single moment that happened around you is unique and it won’t come back again? Therefore camera is the best invention to freeze and capture all these.

Haha...we have started with a serious shot and normally this is what people do or started with.

After the “warm up” shots, this is one of the creative shots. But please don’t get me wrong, I am not doing advertisement for the sport shoes. :P

 

We have serious and proper shots, then followed by funny ones. What else we can think of? Tried to act cool huh? LOL…

I felt that this photo looks like some album’s cover shot but of course need to put more effort for the editing. :P

Trying to make a bad boy look but I think the effect turned out to be funny again. Sigh… It showed that we are not a good actor.

Portrait Photography - Jeff

This is the first time I took portrait photos for my friends in Singapore and this is one of my most satisfied album.

OK, I think this time I am not going to write much and let the photos speak for themselves. :)

My photo being selected

Finally one of the photo that I took in my company's event was being selected and pasted at one of the notice board. Felt happy about it, at least it showed that my hard work wasn’t wasted and this is a kind of recognition for me? Hmmm….

The original photos were posted here.

Fo Guang Shan 东禅寺 (Dong Zen Temple)

I always go to this temple during CNY because it will be nicely light up only during the 15 days of CNY. Since I have missed the chance to go to Kek Lok Si in Penang, I must make this trip come true. And the reason for me not going to Kek Lok Si was because of the traffic, super jam on the first week on CNY. I heard that it might due to school holiday and first year the Guan Yin statue’s construction was completed and the lights are nicer than last year’s. Anyway, I have missed it and gonna wait for next year.

I was there quite early on Friday due to the reason I wished to capture the sunlight before it sets. I have been told that this is the golden hour to take photos. When I reached there, lights are not up yet because the day is still bright but no matter how, I have started to take photos too.

Friday was a public holiday the crowd in the temple is superb, I have never ever seen so many people before. The best thing was we have decided to take dinner there. My friends and I have to waste so much time and effort to find a table that can accommodate all of us. Then what’s next? Queue up to buy foods! This is another headache.

The biggest problem has yet to come. After having dinner at the temple, the sky turned dark and lights are up. The most beautiful and long waited moment has started. After 30 mins of happily loitering around and took photos, it started to rain and getting more and more heavier. Usually the rain in this season will not last long, so I have decided to wait for it to stop. After waited for half an hour, there was no sign of stopping because it was getting heavier. Then I decided to go back with a heavy heart too. I didn’t complete my mission here, it was a failure trip and I was so disappointed.

Luckily, I have another group of friend planned to go there again at the last day of CNY. I have joined them and I have never ever regret for going back at the same place again in just 2 days time.

These are the photos taken during first day:

Here are the photos taken 2 days later: