It always surprises people that despite being a creative-inclined person, I have never owned a single Apple product. Not the iPods, not the macbooks or iMacs. In fact as I’ve never even touched Mac OS until I got my current job, which was only 4 months ago.

I’m not so much against Apple per se (though I really question their company personality sometimes), but you can definitely see that I’m not a huge fan either. I’ve always admired their minimalistic design, but the love stops there. the barrage of restrictions imposed upon usage of their products drove me away from ever taking the plunge and giving them a chunk of my hard-earned money.

That is, until the iPhone 4 came out. The two-side camera and retina display sold me over. I’ve always loved taking pictures on the go and being able to upload them straight to wherever I want (twitter, dailybooth, facebook) without having to wait until I get home in front of my laptop. iPhone 4 does just that, and at the quality of a point and shoot digital camera instead of the grainy mobile phone pictures we usually see.

Besides making iPhone apps is somewhat relevant to my job :P so I better be familiar with the user interface / experience of an iPhone app!

Sample of pics I took using the awesome camera on iPhone 4, processed by this awesome app called “Phototreat”

Thankfully with Google maps and my blackberry I can pretty much map up my route from and to anywhere in the island. Of course this is doable in other smartphones as well that supports Google maps, including but not limited to iPhones and any phone with android OS.

without you my life would be so much harder…

Anyway, it surprises me how so many people are not aware of google maps for their phones yet. So I took a few screenshots the other day when I was bored. Mapping your way is very easy with the map application, just like their web Google maps.

Use their “get direction” option and fill in a start point and end point like usual. Don’t forget to change your “travel by” option to Public transit.

Google will then give you a few options to choose from and estimated travel time. keep in mind they will also take into account rush hour traffic so you can change the date and time option to get the closest travel time estimate.

It will also give you a step by step guide on how to get to your destination. They are ridiculously accurate most of the time, but of course take their walking direction with a grain of salt. don’t be like that woman who got hit by a car because she listened to google’s suggestion to cross the road without proper crossing place.

If you click “show on maps”, it will draw you the route. Singaporeans can probably guess where this is =P

One of the feature i LOVE the most is their real time GPS, which again is ridiculously accurate most of the time (unless your network is messing up and you get slow connection). From there you could see where you are and the direction you are traveling to. I find this useful when I travel to a place I’ve never been to and I don’t know when to get off the bus! It also works when you’re walking, so I never get lost!

Also if you hover any bus stop icon on the map…

A little pop up will come up and tell you the name of that stop. You can then click on it to view more info and select transits that are available in that stop:

Like so! It will even tell you the approximate time each line will get to that very stop. HOW AMAZING IS THAT!

THANK YOU for making my life so much easier, Google!!

Here is my current home screen

The wallpaper i’m using is Bokeh, which I had to resize to fit my blackberry screen. I love this wallpaper lots =)

Unexpected visit from my relatives.
Took them around Singapore, felt like I was a local!
Watched them win $950 at the casino.
Convinced them to cash out and bail.
They did!
At the end of the day, they took ME somewhere I’ve never been to.
So much for feeling like a “local”, right?
Was spoiled silly by them, a rather nice feeling I’m not quite used to.

Dyed my hair to a light coppery brown color last weekend.
It was an impulsive decision.
Was horrified that the color was a lot lighter than expected.
However, a week later I’m loving my new hair color.
They’ve turned to be a warmer brown since then.

Lots of farewells at work this month.
Sometimes I complain, but
I’m convinced I’m very lucky to be a part of this place.

Spent a lot more time on skype ever since we discovered the special effects.
Which never fail to make us laugh and laugh and laugh.

It’s been over a year since I’ve been back in Asia.
While I still miss Los Angeles a lot, every single day
I think I’m slowly accepting this place to be my new home.

So, as a result of this a good portion of Jakarta basically up and left the city for a full week. Yes, a week! works put on hold, malls closed, streets empty… and for the first time in my eight months stay here in Jakarta, I can honestly say I enjoyed the city very much.

I reconnected with two of my friends from middle school year. I’m so very blessed with great people in life who doesn’t change even after 10 years have passed. We explored the city (and whatever was still open) for two days in a row, from afternoon to midnight. It’s amazing how much easier things are without the heavy traffic and crowd that usually plagues this city… I felt at peace.

Unfortunately it didn’t last very long. Everyone came back from their respective home towns on Thursday, and along with it… comes everything that I hated about Jakarta – traffic jam, crowds, smog and all. all good things comes to end, i guess.

oh yea, I finally ditched my stupid Nokia phone (don’t ever get Nokia 5310. It’s cute but reception is pretty much non-existent). So after much contemplation, I upgraded to a Blackberry! Blackberry Bold, to be exact, and I love love love LOVE it. the design is so sleek and keyboard is very easy to use. I can actually type a full-on email without misspelling words. oh, and having internet in the palm of your hands isn’t so bad either… i don’t have to wait until i get home to check emails or google stuff.

so in short, smartphones rock. you should consider getting one if you haven’t :)

so! i have plans of turning this blog into a photolog instead (and maybe occassional stories if there is one worth sharing accompanying the photo). I recently got a DSLR, finally, after years of drooling over it and years of trying to make the best out of point and shoot cameras. I got a Canon Rebel XTi camera with Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens. it’s my baby…

anyway, turning this place into a photolog would mean that i need a new layout. and possibly a better host since i don’t have enough space to upload high quality images. though, realistically, i probably would just upload pictures to flickr anyway…

here are some pics I took yesterday after getting my lens in the mail. this lens is HEAVEN (and so cheap at $86)

the photos above have blue tint in them because i’m a noob and had the fluorescent setting on the white balance.. -_-

(for anyone who doesn’t know, Apollo is my white Sony VAIO CR laptop)

turns out it was super easy. i just opened the base of my laptop, located the memory slots right away and popped one of the sticks out. i did have a bit of a trouble popping the new memory stick in. i didn’t read the manual because, as i mentioned, i was very excited. i booted up the laptop and noticed that i only had 512mb (vista runs extremely slow on 512mb by the way) which means the 2GB stick was not properly installed. so i opened Apollo up again, read the manual and installed it correctly this time. turns out i had to insert the memory at an angle and then push it back until it snaps in with a “click” sound. then i booted up the laptop for the second time, and it worked wonderfully without any more trouble. my baby detected the new memory right away :D

currently have 2.5GB cause i’m greedy and didn’t wanna take out the other 512mb stick i already have in there :) the difference is crazy! Apollo boots up in under a minute now :D :D i love my baby even more :D

anyway.. here’s some random pics i forgot to upload from a couple weeks back

me getting very very excited to eat salmon :P it wasn’t very good actually

YUMMY margarita from chili’s!! :D omg it was so good. it’s the tropical one (i forgot the actual real name). pricey even at happy hour though

camera’s a bit sucky, but i like everything else!! :D

(yes, i was wearing my Kangta 27 shirt. i forgot i have this)

anyway! took some pics the other day. here’s me doing what i do best:

i had no idea my hair is that light! that’s my new DS, which looks like regular pink DS but is actually the metallic rose one… and i was playing FF tactics A2. that game is so unbelievably slow!! :(

and this is at dinner. yumm miso soup :)

i took pictures of my dinner, but i accidentally deleted it. rarrr!!