Wireless Scanning and Printing Using Canon Pixma MG6370 All-in-One Printer

Have you ever wanted to scan a document be it a photograph or a page off a magazine and have it transferred to your  iPad immediately (or an iPhone if you prefer working with small devices)? No? Well, neither have I — at least not something that I have a need for very much. If on the other hand you had wanted to print from your iOS device you can with one of a number of Canon’s wireless AirPrint compatible photo printers. I recently upgraded from the already amazing photo lab quality PIXMA iP6700D to a PIXMA MG6370 you see here.

I installed Canon’s mobile printing app on my second generation iPad and wireless AirPrint communication is established within seconds. Because I work with very large image files, I have the printer connected to my desktop PC (or laptop) via USB for speedy transfers and leave wireless turned on for the two iPads in the house. The upside of this is that either my family can now easily scan documents when I (their go-to tech guy at home) am not around. Never thought wireless scanning can be this cool.

The above image from Photographing Muffins & Co at The Souq

Enchanted Sungai Liang Forest

On days when I am not sweating buckets at badminton, I’m doing the same here inside the humid Sungai Liang forest reserve, though not nearly as much. The club where I play is a 10 minutes drive while the green outdoors sets me back 20-25 minutes depending on traffic — I once considered driving half an hour to spend another half an hour in the forest a silly thing to do. This photo, captured with the Galaxy S3, is the beginning of a rather steep climb that pumps the heart good by the time you get up there. Make this spot the beginning of the trek and the journey gets easier as you finish on concrete steps rather than the other way round.

Brunei Darussalam National Day Run 2013

Some years back my daughter Jewel ran her first long distance event — a 6 km run starting from and finishing at the Hassanal Bolkiah National Stadium in the Brunei capital, an event she was neither trained nor had much preparation for other than the occasional school practice. Back then I wasn’t very much involved with her running as I am today in her athletic training and competition. Cut a long story short, she completed the event and was among the top 30-something students out of what appeared to be a large number of participants from all schools in the country.

Last Sunday, Jewel participated in her second run this time a kilometer shorter which was held right in our home town, Seria. The difference this time she has had eleven months of athletic coaching, having earned several medals in 400m, 200m and 4x100m events, she’s in way better shape than she ever was. The transformation from the weak, migraine-prone asthmatic little girl to the determined athlete she is today, is nothing short of amazing. She is 13, and finished 5th in the Under 17 category.

See more images on Facebook
July 25, 2011: Overcoming all odds to triumph: Jewel’s first 400m event.
Feb 23, 2009: Growing Up With Asthma and Allergies

Jewel stretching before her 5 km run.

All images: Canon PowerShot G11

Calibrating the Dell U2711 Wide Gamut LCD with a Spyder 4 Pro

If you have just bought a Dell wide gamut U2711 LCD and have tried calibrating it over and over with a Spyder4Pro but you’re just not getting the results you had hoped — white doesn’t look quite white — try the method that works for me. I have found the factory tuned sRGB to be slightly cool (a tinge of blue). I have read through a dozen web sites  to get a better understanding of what Gamma, White Point and the rest of the jargon mean.

Straight to the point, if you have a Spyder4Pro and you’re not seeing proper white, try setting White Point to Native and do a Full Cal. I leave the monitor in AdobeRGB mode and Brightness at 20, Contrast at 50 (factory default). Using Datacolor’s recommended White Point of 6500K just doesn’t turn out right for me, and because white isn’t right, grays appeared with a very slight greenish tinge.

I’m overwhelmed by the wealth of information available on colour management and in particularly, calibrating with the  Sypder3 hardware. I’m particularly interested to hear from owners of Spyder4Pro who have successfully calibrated their U2711 in a Microsoft Windows 7 environment, and the settings used.

The View From My Kitchen Balcony

My kitchen balcony has all the elements of good feng shui. How do I know this? Quite simply, the term feng shui literally translates as “wind-water” in English and in that respect, the balcony gets plenty of wind, and rain water, sometimes both :). I’m an early riser, a habit that has followed me since school days and on more than a few occasions I had been blessed with picturesque sunrises especially when you factor in addition of the seasonal flock of white egrets flying in formation over my house.

Pay attention to where the sun is at the bottom of the picture in between the roofs and you’ll see where the following photo was photographed. I donated this framed and mounted piece to help raise money for the earthquake victims of Haiti and Chile.

Photographing Muffins & Co. at The Souq

“The Souq provides a perfect opportunity for any entrepreneur to start and own a retail business. Since a majority of the renovation costs have been covered and prepared in the Souq, business owners just need to spend on a very minimal set up cost. The Souq provides its tenants with ready-to-move-in shop units equipped with all the necessities from power supply, individual airconditioning, phone line and up-to-the-business signage. Tenants will only need to set up proper display units or furniture and a very low renovation cost if necessary, then bring in the products and their shop is ready for operation.” — The Brunei Times

A photography assignment at Muffins & Co. took me to Level One of the Airport Mall where it’s located at the Main Street Unit right next door to The Souq’s management office. Muffins & Co. is owned by the same team behind established bakery, Mr Baker’s Bakershop at Batu Besurat and Mr Baker’s Cafe at Gadong Central.

Very first order of the afternoon — selecting a face for Muffins & Co. — positioning and lighting Jong wasn’t the easiest and straightforward of task considering the space constraint and constant battle with tungsten bias ambient lighting, with the shadow behind subject intentionally left untouched.

10 varieties of freshly baked muffins from the kitchen of Mr Baker’s Bakeshop were brought here for the shoot and for the lucky few to sample. Check out Muffins & Co. on Facebook

Postagram Turns Instagram Photos into Real Postcards

A reader in Canada who stumbled upon my blog post a couple of years back responded with a postcard photo of Canada’s deadliest rockslide — Frank Slide. Of all the senders who have taken the trouble to mail me a postcard, some a series, this sender is the only one who said she would like one from Brunei too. After looking around for a nice postcard and failing to find one I really like, I decided to create one online via Postagram service. Excited at creating my first digital postcard, I overlooked a typo prinstine when it should be pristine (to mean ‘in its original state’).

Please Send Me A Postcard