I had an opportunity to give the PowerShot G1 X a test drive before jumping into a store with my credit card.

Details of the camera and its features can be found on Canon website and no I’m not going to repeat them here. Just a very quick sharing of what I like about the camera.

• Big and bulky
  Yes! You heard me right. I like it big and bulky because it feels great in my hands. With my S95, I am constantly reminded of how small it is and having to hold it properly so it will not slipped of my hand. With the solid body of the G1 X, I feel like I am shooting with a compact DSLR and can hold it with two hands without having to look like a “circus bear on a tiny bike”, if you know what I mean.
• Swivel LCD display
  Need I say more? Its great for self-portrait!
• Shoots well in low-light condition
  Love this especially now I shoot almost everyday in my room with very little light.
• Fast
  I can just hold down the shutter and let it roll! Love the clarity of all the images shot.
• Love the colors…

Great colors with high-sensitivity 1.5” CMOS sensor

If I didn’t have that much to-buy and to-pay items in my list, the PowerShot G1 X would have been my immediate purchase. I’ve a month to consider or save for it. May just get it before my family trip to HongKong in mid June. Hmmm…

Front view of the Targus Slim Case

Back view of the Targus Slim Case (With Jot Pro stylus attached)

Targus Slim Case fully opened with iPad inside

Hands free viewing angle

Ergonomic typing angle

So far, the Targus Slim Case looks pretty good right? Slim and compact, nice color and the texture of the skin feels good too. It allows the iPad to stand at the two most needed angles. And even has a elastic holder for stylus at back of the case. The only problem I have with this case is that it doesn’t allow me to hold my iPad at a proper ‘holdable’ position with case opened and folded.

Problem: It doesn't go flat when cover is fully opened and pushed to back of iPad

With the bulge like that, how to hold the iPad and use it while on the move? Its neither ergonomic nor useful to have the case folded and looking like that.

The cover will go flat with the case looking like this (image below). Again, how does one hold the iPad, writes or types on it when on the move?

Flats with one-third of cover folded

Am very disappointed that this Targus slim case has such bad design. Wasted $79.90 on it. Am considering cutting off the cover, leave the back cover and buy the original iPad magnetic cover for it. Should I?

I’ll get one once it ships worldwide!

This Christmas, if given the time and opportunity to, I would love to AMP (amplify) someone’s Christmas with a personal session of photo shoot with me! I promise to capture great shots of him/her or a lovely couple and they’ll get to keep the photos in digital and view them in a lovely album made just for them from me. Yap! That’s how I would like to AMP my Christmas. Who’s up to get AMP-ed by me? :P

What’s Hot! =)

Bookmarking of Promotions and Privileges

I’m quite a KS customer when come to milking the most out of my credit cards. When paying for bill at restaurant, I’ll ask if there are any discounts for credit cards. Then I’ll whip out that to enjoy the perks. Even if its just 5%!

Thanks to the wonderful iPhone and all the apps banks are creating to inform their customers, I can now plan my day out with as much “credit card milking” as possible.

Search via SMRT Station

This is useful when I’m going out with friends since most of us don’t drive. Deciding where to go for meal can be tricky. Now we can find good deal nearby before we decide where to meet.

For those who gets lost like 99.9% of the time, there’s map to help you locate the place too.

What’s Not! =(

• Mobile Treats- This is a great feature! But I hope there are more treats at anyone time!
• Lacks information – Accessing citibank.com.sg on my iPhone or iPad leads me to the mobile site. Would like to have access or a link to view the main website too.

WAIT!

“Why no mention of banking features? Are they hot or not?”

Firstly, I don’t have a saving account with Citibank so I don’t use their banking features. Secondly, it does what most banking app does, checks balance, pay bills and transfer money. Oh! And it let’s you check the latest FX rates too.

PLUG alert! Today’s the LAST day to submit your photos to win a trip to anywhere in the world! Don’t miss the chance!

Disclaimer: 24seven is the appointed agency for Citibank social media campaigns. All reviews, thoughts and comments written in this post are personal and do not represent the positions, strategies or opinions of 24seven, or my clients.

For the past 4 years, all my photos were saved in the order I wanted. By year, month, date and name of event. This makes backing up and finding photos pretty easily and I was very used to it. Backing up these photos was just a simple drag and drop. In my backup harddisk, all these files are neatly viewable and organised.

Since I got the new iPhoto, where I’m able to group my photos by ‘Events’, I was delighted and ignored all naming conventions which I followed by so faithfully for the past 4 years. So now, this is what I get! *facepalm*

I cannot backup my photos like these man! Not sure how long its going to take for me to sort through 6 months worth of photos! Oh my!! Anyone got solution for this?

How do you handle your photos?

In this issue of Claud talks Gadgets, I’m going to share a set of very unique and special technology gadgets. These you will most probably not see in your usual stores. These gadgets are so special that one will need special skill to use it.

Let’s first take a look at these unique keyboards…

Can you touch type with this?

When I first touched a keyboard, I had difficulty looking for the alphabets. I’m sure kids who just started learning A-B-C will find this keyboard much easier to use. But these aren’t the standard keyboard one can get off the shelve.

High contrast keyboard

The buttons on this keyboard is bigger than usual and colored in very bright yellow and very dark black characters. This high contrast keyboard helps the visual impaired users to better identify the keys and buttons. There are also magnifying screens to magnify computer screen and text for the visually impaired to be able to consume content with their available sight.

Ever thought of typing without needing your fingers and instead just by staring hard at it to type, click or navigate? If you think that is easy, then you should give this gadget a try. I tell you, its no simple trick alright!

Using a reflective point to activate keys via webcam

With our abled-body, it is hard for us to focus at one single spot for more than a split second. This gadget requires 100% precision and steadiness in order to click, double-click or entering a single alphabet from the keyboard. I tried it myself, just wanting to click on spacebar took me more than 3 tries and almost a minute.

Having experienced this, I realized how much I have taken for granted the things I can do with my abled-body.

Now picture yourself with all your fingers bundled up in a bandage and you try to capture an image of a scene with your camera. Can you use your bandaged hands to press/release the shutter?

So how can those with no fingers use these common gadgets? Or are they not able to use a camera at all? Well, with some modifications and customisation, anyone should be able to do anything they want no matter their physical limitation.

This is what this green frog and this camera is modified to do…

The “shutter” release

The camera

With the power combined

With this modification and attachment to the camera, now with your bandaged hands, you can still press and release the shutter with the attached big button. This is just one of the many modifications I saw at Infocomm Accessibility Centre while I was there for a visit.

The visit I went is just a small effort on my side to understand better how the disabled individuals are learning and using technology. There are a whole lot more that we saw and learned at this visit. I am fortunate to be able to experience this and being able to be assisting the dedicated group of folks working at IAC and those who are evangelizing this essential cause where we help reduce the gap of technology for the disabled.

And to drive even more awareness to the public, IAC is organising an event on 26 June 2010. This even is called the Tweet Meet and aims to connect more people with disabilities to the online world and encourage them to take up IT skills through this civic movement.

Sign up for Tweet Meet *here*

I will be there on 26 June for this meaningful event. I hope you will join me too. You can RSVP for this event here. Or if you are interested to visit IAC and see for yourself this unique place specially setup to educate and help the disabled to advance with technology, you can sign-up for these special arranged visits happening on Wednesdays leading to the week of the TweetMeet.

Disclaimer: This is not an advertorial and I am personally not paid to visit nor write about this. However, 24seven is part of the digital campaign team for IAC TweetMeet.

In June last year, I discovered the pretty and functional Sony Walkman NWZ-W202. And this year, they released an improved version of it with the NWZ-W252!

To me, the most amazing thing is the fact that this MP3 player is water-resistant. The folks at Sony actually dipped the Walkman into a bowl of water to proof that to us. This means you can now wash your MP3 player after a sweaty run! And please for goodness sake, don’t go throw the Walkman into your washing machine or bucket with detergent! It’s only water-resistant not water-proof! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Having used the first gen of this wearable Walkman, I’m happy that this now not just give me full freedom of movement, I can safely run under the rain if I have to with my music still playing. Feel like doing a “Singing in the rain”? You can now! :P

Other cool features of the Sony Walkman NWZ-W252 includes:

• Easy transfer with Windows Media Player or iTunes
• 3 Minutes quick charge for 90 minutes of music on the go
• Fully charged it for one and half hour and get up to 11 hours of playback! You can do marathon with this you know! (I think Kris should get one!
• The improved ZAPPIN! This lets your preview the chorus of the next track for 4 seconds and when you got what you want, ZAP out and it’ll play the music from the start.
• Jog lever control gives you easy access to your music in their folders. Previously we’ve to scan through music individually, but now we can skip through folders! Time to organise my music for my run!

Retailing at S$129 at a SONY Style store near you.

Now I need to go get the carrying case for my Lime Green Sony Walkman!

Spot me jogging with my Lime Green Sony Walkman! I’ll gladly lend you for a spin as long as you remember to wash it before returning! And you got to promise you’ll return after trying! :P

On 29 April, Diana and I took a day off and soaked ourselves wet (Yes! Wet!!) at the most exciting attractions to date in Singapore. We captured fun memories at Universal Studio Singapore with Canon digital cameras. Thanks to Canon of course!

Castle Far Far Away

On adventures like such, you wouldn’t want to carry big bulky DSLR with you right? So we were given the challenge to try out Canon latest cameras and the oh-so-fun new shooting modes! Personally I had more fun playing with these shooting modes than the rides at USS! (I’m serious!)

So what are the fun and new shooting modes I used? Check these photos out and you’ll be able to guess! Okay, no need to guess, its tag below the photos!

Fish-eye (Low) on Castle Far Far Away

Fish-eye (Med) on Castle Far Far Away

Fish-eye (High) on Castle Far Far Away

Can you see the differences in the above three photos taken with the new mode, Fish-eye Effect? On the latest Canon cameras, you’ll be able to capture such shots easily and you get to decide how much “fishy” of your photo by setting the intensity of the effect.

Next, this is one of my favorite! This one can get a little tricky, but if you have the right scene waiting for you to capture, its real cool! You see the photos first and I’ll tell you more after…

Do these look like miniature buildings to you?

And this! Looks like a model placable in your living room!

Cool right? I love it! This is the Miniature effect, new in the latest Canon digital cameras! This ultra cool effect is done by gradually blurring the top and bottom to emphasize perspective so as to make the main object in your shot stand out. Sounds complex right? But thanks to Canon technology, this is made possible with just press and turn of the button/dial! It works in both landscape and portrait mode. And you get to set how wide you want the emphasize area to be! So fun can! Abang saw my shots and he’s loving it! Hoho!! New camera to play soon? Hmm…

Besides testing these two new shooting mode, we revisited some of the existing ones too! Not my first time playing with it, but I’ve to admit, having owned quite a number of Canon digital cameras before, these modes were rarely used. But then, after that day at USS with Diana, I found a new and fun way for them!

Let me show you some magic!

This is us in our bright blue and green top that day…

Me and Babe Molemole!

I got tired of wearing my green t-shirt that day, so I decided to turn it blue like Molemole’s!

Ohhh… magic!! LOL!

And then, there’s this super cute yellow taxi along Hollywood so I decided to turn my t-shirt color to yellow too!

Waaaaa!! So cool right! It’s magic! LOL!

Hang on… I don’t like the yellow on me! Still prefers my original green! So let’s turn the taxi green! Ho! Ho! Ho!

Yeah! Matching me and Taxi!

So fun right? LOL! With the Color Swap shooting mode, you can change most of the things around you to whatever color you wish! An idea came to mind that day, the next time I bring out my Canon camera, I’m going to bring along a color wheel too! Wahahahahaha! Then I can change almost everything to whatever color I want! Without touching Photoshop!

Lastly, this one is great for “emo” shots imo.

This is done with the Color Accent mode. You pick a color from an object in the shot, and when you capture the shot, all the other non-choosen color will turn to grey tone while the picked color will be shown. You’ll often see this kind of photos in wedding albums right? Where the ring lah, roses lah or red packets are highlighted. Now you can shoot like a pro too!

Alright, so you can take very fun and cool and pro-like photos with these cameras, what about HD videos? I shall let this short montage I created speak for itself… *coughs*

Watch HD version at WaterWorld with Canon PowerShot SX210 IS from claudia on Vimeo. CORRECTION! This video is shot on the SX 210 IS! The titles in the video has got major typo! It’ll take another 2 hours for the video to be rendered and uploaded and processed. So… :(

We had so much fun shooting with the Canon PowerShot SX210 IS and Canon Digital IXUS 130, Diana and I only managed to get onto three rides. All the rest were boring to us. LOL! So my take on USS? Don’t go now! Wait till all the rides are operational first! Else you’ll be wasting your money on that very expensive piece of paper (the entrance ticket lah!).

Ending this post off with more photos from that day…

So many warnings yet we took the ride!

Diana at start of ride (shot taken at risk of camera falling into water!)

Diana at end of ride – *soaked* LOL!

Turning the Mummy castle blue!

Fish-eye on Canon PowerShot SX210 IS with the IXUS 130

Rounder Noel! (LOL!) aka August Man A-Listers

That’s all folk! If you like these cool features, go check out the latest range of Canon cameras yio!

I’ve always wanted a flip cam. But haven’t quite found a need to get one. One day someone came along and asked if I would like to loan me the Sony Bloggie a try, I thought it’ll be good to see if I really need one compact video camera.

SONY Bloggie

Tried shooting it in different environment and my conclusion as follow…

• Shoots well in daylight (most cameras does)
• Doesn’t handle macro (close-up) well
• Face detection works even in low-light recording
  
• Doesn’t handle low-light or shooting a night as well as I hope
• Likes the 270-degree swivel lens, I can do self-video/cam whoring better
  

Here’s a short clip of random compilation of videos I took with the Sony Bloggie. (Its really very random! Don’t say I didn’t tell you!)

As for the camera as a whole, here are some pointers noted:

• Took me (and many of us) awhile to figure out how to shoot/ record! We were trying to find a shutter button. But in fact just need to press and hold the camera/video button! (Perhaps we’re just too used to the DSLR cameras)
  
• Media from the memory stick doesn’t get detected when I tried plugging the Bloggie (via the USB arm) into my MBP. Not sure if it’ll work on PC though. So a card reader is used to get the media out.
  
• Limited features to play with. (Seriously, I’ve more fun shooting with my iPhone.)
• Camera though in 5MP, I failed snapping non-shaky shots! Perhaps its just me again?
  
  

Couple of test shots with the SONY Bloggie…

Blur Ice Mint Tea (Not I’m not drank when taking this)

Blur Sotong (No pun intended)

Shot with the 360-degree lens attachment (Ermm…)

If you’re keen to see more of this bloggie, play this video…

At least their TVC is true, it works good in daylight. Try find one official TVC for this that’s done in the night or at low-light.

And here’s how the 360-degree video recording works… you’ll need to convert the video after recording to see it!

Before Converting

After Converting

Pretty cool doing this 360-degree thing. But with price tag of $399, I’ll give this a miss.

Sorry Bloggie.