Published: Microsoft Partners In Learning Brunei Darussalam

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In 2008 I had the pleasure of working with then Country Manager of Microsoft Brunei, Mr Chan Wan Kong and several government schools to produce a library of images for the Learning Styles and Powerpoint assignment. Came December 2011, the new team at Microsoft Brunei got in touch with me on a new Microsoft assignment: A report that summarizes Microsoft Brunei’s “current investment and milestones in the execution of the ‘Partners in Learning’ MOU in supporting the Ministry of Education’s vision of quality education towards a developed peaceful and prosperous nation.” The picture below featuring students from Chung Ching Middle School was chosen at the cover image including a monochrome version inside.

Microsoft Vision: Anytime, Anywhere Learning for All
Microsoft Mission: Helping Students & Educators throughout the World Realise their Full Potential

Microsoft Partners in Learning is a 10-year, almost 500 million dollar global initiative aimed at improving teaching and learning. Since 2003, we have partnered with more than 8 million teachers, reaching more than 190 million students in 114 countries in our first 7 years alone.

Every child has a right to an excellent education, and that education is critical to the social and economic development of every nation. Our vision of anytime, anywhere learning for all comes to life through Partners in Learning - a programme that works with educators, education leaders, and governments around the world at national, state, and local levels to deliver a portfolio of professional development, curricula, tools, and resources to help advance student outcomes through digital inclusion and innovative teaching and learning practices.

WHEN BIRDS GET TERRITORIAL

If you’re a regular visitor here, you’ll have known the sort of breathtaking mornings I get to enjoy  from my kitchen balcony everyday. But no two mornings are the same and even though the big bright light rises in the same direction each day, the combination of cloud formation, objects in the sky which are usually identifiable ones at this time of the day such as migratory birds flying in unpredictable formation are what makes certain mornings more interesting. If you’ve never been to this area before (Latitude: N4.6132º Longitude: E114.3614º) and have formed an impression from looking at these pictures, I’ll have you know that I don’t wake up with a French window that overlooks a National Geographic horizon nor do I wake up to the smell of freshly ground double-shot Cappuccino either—but if you do, you’ve probably watched too many movies.

Would you believe if I told you I shot these with my 5DII and 70-200mm lens? Yup, there were this near and in fact hover over the roof tops repeatedly and on many occasions made abrupt swoops in the nearby forest. Why they do this I have no idea but they seem to do so in an orchestrated manner and it isn’t as though one of them has a whistle or that they actually indicate to the other egrets—really interesting to watch. I’ve also come to the conclusion that the 5DII’s AI SERVO has one amazing continuous tracking ability that rivals the accuracy of its EOS 1 series sibling.

What excited me this morning wasn’t the egrets flying over my house but rather something I’ve waited for a long while and hence the appropriateness of the title. The last time this happened, it was several months ago when I  saw it for the first time here. There is a particular species of bird that do not like the hornbills at all and in spite of their much smaller size, they are not afraid to get territorial and defend their air space.

As the hornbill took off looking for food, the fearless one decided to keep an eye …

… and did everything it could to get noticed but to no avail. The hornbill was looking for food and its determination remained unperturbed by what’s going on in the nearby TV antenna.

The little one kept its wings spread out the whole time in protest and disapproval (is this a double negative?) of the enemy.

↓ I don’t know if you would consider this a money shot but it’s hard to imagine the risks I took to get this. I’ve had to out stretch the body off the balcony (my mom who was watering her plants looked up and was really concerned when she reminded me that I wasn’t born with gymnastic abilities).

The female hornbill at the nest would be pleased with this catch. It’s never a good idea to catch a flight overseas and return home empty handed if you know what I mean. Here, a male hornbill seen with a wasabi-coloured Cicada (I could have said green coloured but I guess you get the hint, I’ve not had Japanese food for a while now).

The pursuit continued … until it was out of sight. It has been an interesting 30 minutes or so of my morning.

CANON HOTSHOE MICRO SWITCH FIX

It’s been a while since I made a DIY repair or modification post as I thought I had seen the last of the problems that can sometimes plague us. I’ve had my share of problems from annoying issues to camera failure at the worse possible moments. Yet no matter how careful and forward thinking you may be, Murphy’s Law follows us everywhere. I know this because the number of photographers who have encountered flash-related problems are more than a handful. Just check out the number of forum posts that link to my Speedlite 580EX-II Hotshoe Fix post including a new threads that I discovered this morning on Fred Miranda and also Canon Board.

It all began two nights ago when I fitted the now notorious Speedlite 580EX-II on the EOS 20D and it wouldn’t fire. My first reaction, Oh, here we go again. The hot shoe screws on the camera probably needed tightening.”  Careless me, after removing the whole metal assembly, I fiddled with the plastic micro-switch and the whole piece fell inside. There is no way to recover it and since it’s plastic I am not at all concerned about the possibility of shorting the circuits. While the idea of using something so readily available such as a paper clip sounds so inviting and practical, I’m concerned about it getting lost (again) so I looked around the house and found a hairbrush bristle made of strong plastic and it fitted perfectly as a replacement to the original item.

How about that eh, an American solution (USA made hair brush) to fix a stupid Japanese design flaw that’s caused by the carelessness of a Chinese owner? I say stupid because there has got to be a better way to design a micro switch that isn’t a piece of unsecured 0.5 cm plastic. Incidentally, professional SLR bodies such as the EOS 5d and 1 series do not have this switch as they don’t come with a pop-up flash. This micro-switch tells the camera if an external flash is being used so that the pop-up flash isn’t activated either automatically or intentionally.

I have done a number of tests while I was looking at fixing this. In the camera’s confused state (should the micro-switch trigger is missing like mine), pressing the pop-up flash button while an external flash is being used, the camera attempts to pop the onboard flash up but after 3 failed clicks on the actuator, you’ll see ERR 05 on the LCD. This is designed to prevent damage to the mechanism (the person behind this logic was smarter than the one  responsible for the 0.5 cm plastic idea)

So here we have one of the freshly snipped bristle (my wife has not noticed her brush’s newly acquired defect and she doesn’t have to either). Note that it should be precisely 0.5 cm and no longer. Not even a wee bit longer as I discovered that it didn’t work so I had to have it filed down to the exact length. According to Conrad’s article, 0.4 cm worked too. ** To avoid any confusion as a reader pointed out, 0.5 cm is how long the bristle needs to be cut, not the thickness of it.

Note the stub that appears through the metal bracket. This picture was taken before I filed it shorter. In my tests, this is what I noticed. If this micro-switch trigger or stub goes missing, power to the hot shoe contacts is cut off. ie the Speedlites do not fire at all. I tried the 580EX and 580EXII and they consistently failed to fire. I think in most cases users may have a stuck stub in which case the pop-up flash would not pop because camera thinking an external flash is present.

Now, these four screws tighten the entire hot shoe and hold the flash in place. Over time, they work themselves loose and you’ll notice the bracket has a tendency to wobble. Of course, you don’t normally see the screws as they’re covered by a metal shim (picture below). You can refer to Conrad’s article on how to get the shim off.

If you have a Canon EOS 300D, 350D, 400D … 20D, 30D, 40D, 50D and future  four, three and two digits models, this post applies to you although I sincerely hope you never have to fix yours this way. There is a saying that creativity is born out of isolation and where I live, I’m fairly isolated from where I might get this DIY mess fixed. However, I would be happy to hear from non Canon owners to post their finding as to whether their camera’s hotshoe has the same brilliant design.

Trivia: The Goody hair brush has (yes I counted) 60 bristles. Each bristle is good for two fixes so one brush (quite possibly an obsolete model too) gives you a solution for 120 micro-switch replacement. Hahaha—keep your woman’s hair brush away from me—when I run out of spares, I might have to go look elsewhere! 🙂